Incomplete Escape,

Steel away

To the two-seater, two-sided chair

Steal away

To yesterday’s day’s awakenings

Doors opening, doors closing

Footsteps up and down the stairs

No more than an idea

Soft voices, distant voices, uncomplicated voices

Soft grass, dry grass, non-too difficult verges

Sit awhile

Sit a while longer

Take out your paper and pencil

Write of the imagination

How, nowadays

You can’t quite complete the picture

The sketch then has to be left half-undone

As, if you recall, was your way of doing

In most things which you tackled

Raindrops Light Stops

Raindrops slide down the window pain

Strains on the silence

Between the droplets dropping from the leaves

If the sleepy mind should find shelter

Heater-skelter to and from the quiet

Hanging on to the light of early night

Why and what again to ask why

And why those erstwhile distant memories

Amount to such a significant part of life

It is a long light

This night-light of the north

It brings a stillness still to delight

To an insight, with which

Steadily to go forth

It is a quiet light

This light of late evening

It brings shadow to shade the fight

The will’s right, with which

To continue the grieving

Existential Exterior

The eyes wonder

That is, the back of the eyes wonder

The feet plod

That is, the moccasin shod feet plod

In this way

I have my own out of body experience

Just as yesterday, in the car

Crossing the bridge over the River Trent

The rain falls

Raindrops splash up six inches or so

From the automobile’s shiny black roof

A water and tin symphony, in Lincolnshire

In Yorkshire, Headingley to be precise

The cricket test match is in progress

I sit here, listening

Witnessing my ears ringing, my blood flowing

Soon it will be 4:30

I have backed a one-hundred-to-one outsider

In the Derby; I picked it because of its name

Zabriskie, which reminded me of Pink Floyd

Road Rage

A black Americano

Of the Insomnia blend

On the way to the dentist

To see a dear old friend

Who wrote poems climbing bridges

And poems climbing trees

Now she is a mother

Who lives her life on the breeze

Or so it seems from a distance

To be distant can be a relief

Also to see my daughter

For whom work is her daily thief

The career is what careers you

Takes time when time is all you have

Working to someone others programme

Oh to be at home, soaking in the bath

Interior

Pebbles, in the flower bowl

Grey ones, pink ones

Rounded from stone

Do they talk

From top to bottom 

From inside to out

Do they walk

From left to right

From dark to light

Pebbles, in the flower bowl

Plain ones, speckled ones

Separate, together, alone

Do they drink

Alcohol, or alcohol-free

Ice cold from the fridge

Do they smoke

Regular, or a cannabis mix

As inhaled on Bluestone Ridge