Her insides
Were worn out
Like a tattered flag flown
If only for the birds
And snapping crabs
So that if ever
Her colours made their shore again
They would know the shape
Of her lasting grace
And smile
Postcards From The Edge
My Own Words In My Own Way
The Dice
The great dice
Rhineheart sized
Click and skid across the baize
Everything staked
Against the unknown
Mortality at its most intimate
Which on quieter days
Haunts my periphery
Velvert edges
As much to do with me
As the weather
My Reach
I reach out across the sea
My heart
Grasping after
Our divided youth
Bracken and iron
Defining our bars
Else we made sand
Second nature
Tired thighs
And cheaply purchased breath
Painting clouds of respite
On our frown drawn
Clown faces
The Cold
I know you're out there
Still, brooding
Bound to a bleaker way of things
Making the wind sing
Before it bite the wallers hands
Eager in your cruel intimacy
But kept from overrunning
The smallest burrows by fur
Gritters chase you down
With their errie amber glow
I imagine you sulking
Wretched in your unrest
Until a veering winf releases you
The Visiting Tide
You impinge upon
Every part of me
Like the tide washing in
Still I can't succumb
Fighting instead
With each breath
Bailing out you, who
Would overwhelm me
Without a second thought
Still You
You came back
All woman
I more divided
Still inhabiting
Both camps
Still waiting
Yet moved
Still captive
By thay faultless spell
I still know
So well
Give Me That
How much longer
Before I can drop
The pretence
That hangs like a leaf
Long after summer is over
And for which even autumn
Has no use
Bring me the bare cold
The kind that strips trees
In a single night
Give me that
The Night Shift
Your novel cry
More shriek
Calls the night closed
Your shift, probably
All talons and beak,
Black yet still
Eyes haunted
The factory floor
For any small part
Not paying attention
Felt
I felt flushed,
stabbed, bereft,
unguarded,
isolated, indolent,
effervescent and outstretched.
Undone, incapacitated,
unconsolable, unhurried,
hidden and poor.
The Middle Distance
My eyes came to rest
As they usually do
On the middle distance
On the not quite anywhere
As one might casually
Bear witnesses (as one usually does)
With fascinated second sight
To the play of children
Or eyes cast out
To sea
In search of maybe yet a
Ship to come in
From some less
Slightly remembered visit
Hackles
I can feel their residue
Late hackles
In the small hairs
Of a missed feeling
In the small discovered
Islands of sweetness
In the lavender, left
Like a promise
In the silence, left
Waiting to be filled again
Cold Water
In. In! Disbelieving, to that
Great grey furnace
Where our faces burned
Iced ached hot heads
Raging against the slapping waves.
We marvelled at our ash grey then
Unblushing blue toes,
The way our hands
Slowly closed, like scorching
Wrinkled paper.
So we swam instead
Sometimes with fists
Laughing as if we,
Minuscule, could rage
Against the icey bitter smoke
In which we floated.
Half Light
What is it
About the half light
The dim yield
Of candle flame
That shows life as life.
The wrapped lamp, bound
To shield and not show
What is, but to leave us
Guessing at the edges.
Forever intriguing
Counterfeit twilight
The could be the
Beginning or end
Of something new
The Heat
I imagine the heat
All silent remiss
Its authority creeping
Between houses
Muzzling the breeze
A blanket search
Arresting even the slightest
Stirring curtain
No quarter given
To the restless
Thick in the air
Making the skin stick
Of even the slightest
Lovers
Gathered Praise
I'm sorry for the
Gathered praise
That comes my way
For the impression
That I'm a success
When really I see me
For what I am
To you, and us
A total mess
People choir, adamant
In their song
That what we do
Is worthy of
Their voice
Their voice
When really I see me
For what I am
To you, and us
A total loss
Getting By
I get by on
Barely remembered sun cream
Occasional crayons
Sometimes hugs
Buttoned down
Laundry delivered wrinkled
Neat and tidy
Lies, served frozen
Ice cream half melted
Surface deep
Twice a day white
Stainless Smiles
No trace of
Cavities guilt deep
I imagine myself
Toy tiny
In her marble eyes
Forgettable
No Hurry
I wake to his
Bristling attention
All senses
The sound of lips
Ripping Yorkshire mist
No hurry
A distant yaffle
This could be home
Quiet Breakfast Reverie
I can hear you
Upstairs, happy
We each intertwined
In our ritual
Morning bliss
Secret worlds
Later shared
With smiles
In quiet
Breakfast reverie
Gulls
The shrill incessant bawl
Forever perched on your lips
Makes your lazy swim
Through the mist
Seem impossibly purposeful
As if you couldn’t care less
That the vast body of home
Retreats with each
Casual swipe
Centre Stage
I blinked and
You came in
Centre stage
Smiled, with
That cat and
With your light
Did humbly brighten
The darkest corners
Of my despair
Rain
I heard you
When I woke
Drumming out
Your leaving note
From sleeps tomb
I crept awake
Only to see
I was too late
Maybe next time
You'll stay a while
Long enough
To see me smile
Escape
I miss your steady rhythm
Your frequent visits
The way you make
My windows cry
The battle to keep out
Even your most tender touch
Consumes most
From door to door
But my feet
But my feet
Damn me, when
I try to escape
Your press upon me
So I wait
Surrendering to your
Gradual embrace
Your press upon me
So I wait
Surrendering to your
Gradual embrace
A Victors Wit
She drew her eyes
Heavy
Like charging ships
Those Greek eyes
Hooded
Yet sharp with a victors wit
At her temple
He knelt
As worship law dictates
Then with drawn sword
Like blood her wet hair
Made damp his bristling cheeks
BEAT
You beat me
With your last breath
You defeat me
Unseat me
From my throne
Take my legs out
From beneath me
Leave my arms waving
No one left
To complete me
Instead I’m left unstable
The ground gone
I’m completely unable
To defend myself
No seats left at the table
The game over
My hand turned
A frayed but not yet
Quite snapped cable
No hero at the end of this story
Just another bum
Lost without glory
Just turned 40
No wait I lied
I can’t even write straight
My lines all jaunty
Casting dispersion amongst
My foes that saw me
Slip when I left
The stage
Into black
No page
To turn back
And free
Me
Pressed
At least I felt
For a small moment
Pressed
All space and time
Stretched out
Only your weight
And it’s significant touch
Baring down on me
All else, if only
Briefly, banished
So I could become
Whole again
The Storm
Imagine that
When the wind blew
It blew not for everyone
But Only for you
Not gentle or weak
This shapely breeze
But a storm that which
Your soul it did seize
A raging
Shaping
Changing
Typhoon
That mingled
With sunshine
And rained a
Yellow monsoon
Imagine then
That the wind it did cease
No more did you feel
It touch on your cheek
How quiet
The nights and days
Now that storm
Has subsided
Left only
With the trees
Their leaves
Unrequited
Easy Recluse
I miss the easy recluse
You made me
Your carefully constructed lines
Swept aside
Under dim lights
I serently bathe
Awash with the wing beats
Those ravens made
.
Had me
She would have
Had me dead
Had I had
A way
To kill
Instead of dead
She had me
Make her mine
And now she
Has me still
Flight
I see now that
Before we'd even met
I'd left
With the nod
To consenting escape
I'd fled
Our melding only
A matter of arbitration
Another guilty stab
From which I
Woke sweating
Scattered Me
My throat closes in horror
When I think of you
My blood
Scattered to the four corners
Then, no less furher
Out of reach, the fifth
Left only concerning
What my senses claim
Or serves to witness
My day to day
Embered Embrace
He tugged and squeezed
As if he meant to rinse
The very life out of her
As if that part of himself
Buried deep within her
Was all that kept her alive
And with each thrust
The promise of new life
Was bestowed upon himA Swim
She waits
Ready to sound me out
A board to show me back
As I sink into her
Give myself over
So that I might see
Myself in her arms
Her embrace
The shape that I make
The ripples of our collision
Yet as I remove myself
Returning entranced
I miss the depth
That I found
From floating
On her surface
Fishing
How eerily those islands vanish
Beneath the quickening silver
Yet still they stand
In hopeful watch
Upon that glistening mirror
In sudden gust, most depart
To seek a higher pasture
Leaving the less timid
Souls, who brave
The rising water
Until a solitary remains
A puzzle cross his beak
No friends remain
To mark his side
Or with him help him seek
Far Too Far
I should be out
Living but instead
I feel out-lived
My soul too old
To be added too
Again and again
And again and
Too much new and
Not enough end
Far too far from
The start now
To say when
Remember Gently
Amidst the noise
the battles hue
where once encumbered
thine enemies slew
I hastened from
my measured tomb
and sort a path
whom no one knew
Re-body
(And) in time, and after a time,
they grew to remembering
each others bodies.
And their bodies remembered each other.
And warmth grew and from it and
fond memories were made
for both bodies to cherish.
Wolfie
My life
T wit I have lived
Without shoulds
Of would'ves
Has reached
An impass
A boarder with
With could'ves
So I fair
Unbound to untie
My house built
Of twigs
And instead
Only require
An abode fair safe
Fit for pigs
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