Chronicle

The cathedral’s silent space
The blacksmith’s forging flame
The British bed and breakfast
Walk across the reservoir ramparts
Canal boat over the sky-high viaduct
Coach trip to the seaside
Scared that it could all be lost
Scared that there could be even more
Scared by the shifting sands of minds
Time is the ethereal enemy
Understanding the hours

The minutes, the days
Missing by a mile the years

The generation, the life

The railway platform at mid-day
Apples and oranges on the market stall
Alehouse and alfresco foraging
Cars boarding the over-night ferry
Fishermen landing their catch on the quay
Cricket whites and willow battered ball
Scared of not meeting the cost
Scared that there could be even more
Scared by the fluidity of inflation
Money is the surrealist enemy
Understanding the pound in our pocket

Missing by a mile

The millions flowing through a lifetime

The works Christmas party
Bingo at the club
Dominoes in the pub
The aeroplane

Going from ground to cloud
The ice cream on the promenade
The surfboard cutting spray
Scared of being somewhere different
Scared there might be even more
Scared by a changing space
Place is the straight-jacket enemy
Understanding the room

The yard, the town
Missing by a mile the city

The county in the country
The cinema screen imagery
The theatrical actor’s observations
The brass band playing eulogies
Mountains of misunderstood meetings
Thousands of insincere greetings
Waiting for Murphy's law
Scared of not saying
Scared that there could be even more
Scared of listening and feeling
Communication is the free-world enemy
Understanding hello, goodbye, yes and no
Missing by a mile everything in between

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Wind Band

It is, is it just a room, just like many other
A simple carpet, bedspread, eiderdown cover
Carved tabled embraced with lace
Drawers for dressing, with lathe-turned legs
Listening to the Ironmonger’s Ball
Over the rolling, calling, windswept wall
It is, is it, just another room
Like, alike, alike many another
A space, stark, dark, dark turned light
Sounds escaping into a classical night
It’s a living, breathing, developing art

Fighting, fighting for its very future
In this room, towards Nirvana
A wind band, a wind band orchestra
Colours combining, harvesting in my mind
In this room, unlike that night

Unlike any other

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Untitled 1

I laugh on my own

But I am not alone
No, you are here
You do not disappear
Is this the same
For lovers in grief
The disbelief
Shown by friends and family
Who do not
Will not understand
You have not gone
Not away
Just to

Another peaceful place
Where I join you
Everyday
In my own way

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Temeraire

Horizon, sunset on the horizon
Light scattered, falling from the sky
Reflections of ships on the water
Shorelines and cityscapes

Fade, fade, and fade away
Orange, yellow, ochre, rust and blue
Flames flare from her chimney
As she tugs the majestic sailing ship
Underneath a sky with both sun and moon
Did he ponder on the galley
Wondering why not a soul in sight
Could the sea have been so many colours
Would that the imaginations

Might beam so bright
From across the oceans sailors gather
Line the decks as they reach the shore
Yesterday was flags and bunting
Today is calm; good men quietly go
Storm clouds behind the night
Bring brightness to the fore
Light, a likeness to your imagination
Your sun-drenched early evening sky
Mandolin wind, you have the weight
Strings whispering, you are nearly being

Drum skins smoothed

Your brushstroke wavers
The bass guitar plays

You gently weep and cry

Promenader's right behind you
Waiting and watching your vision unfold
Your story, you gave thus on the canvas
Eight score years and more ago
Red, grey, silver, white and golden
The flickering flag atop the mast
Ropes and rigging tidier than nature
Close up close, I spy a crew
A sea of two reflections
Mirror sun and mirror moon
Painting thousands of projections
For the nation to consume
Did you say you were going nowhere
No more the sea to be a roving
The last voyage has been
And gone
We should have seen the sadness
The colour was without your joy
The smokestack racks our guilt
Cracks upon, our mistaken preconceptions

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Praxitella

Praxitella, ample fella, dynamist
Kissed by your own imagination
Kissed as a mistress
Kissed by your monumental sculptor
Beyond existence, enlisted
All fingers and fisted
Your picture is a writer
Your writer is a picture
No wonder that you missed her
Kissed her like a sister
Realism, on society’s cubist blister
But the lines they would not

And could not go away
The lipstick, the saddened eyes
The emphasised thighs and steely wrists
Enlisted gestures

And so so suddenly to be kissed

How much you must have missed her

Hair cropped and shaped
From some pyramid picture
No joy portrayed
Whoever the lear that kissed her
Tapping of the finger
Splinter in the Wyndham
My he almost missed her
Looking for her sister
Now you sit
Between the Dance Club
And Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem
Praxitella
Were you invaded, persuaded

Even confiscated
On Jacob Kramer’s Day

‘The Day of Atonement’

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