Alot to be said for naked existence.
Alot to be unsaid, for the same.
I consume the moment. Ravenous
Beyond all appetite. Beyond all time.
Beginner's mind to the end

I am new to this, and will always be.

Do you know the words that tell, can hit
The apple with a thin and twisting bolt
Of truth? The Gessler'd page - a sneer
Of whiteness waiting for the fall, the fail
Of wish that aims too low too high.  

You have no choice. Breath cannot hold for long.
Release release release the words
Are flying - not yours now. To **** or save
The wide-eyed boy. Your own
And William's son. The world,
The only one.

I can feel me rushing forwards into night.
Not just a phrase - a horror truth.
The choices made, decades buried now
Exhume themselves with bony fingers, dirt
Under the nails.
And crawl towards my life.

I loved you then, I love you now. But now
The days are speaking consequence of lust,
That no amount of dulling wine can lay.
No thoughtful poems exorcise from night to light.
The shadows of the wrong are on
The windows of my house.

I asked the cat if it had a muzzle.
It gave me a look. Got off my lap.
Came back and sat
In profile.

Just staring. Gazing. And waggling
A foot. It's what I do. And what I'm
Supposed to do Is just this. Now.
Sometimes I sing.

You can hear me.

Sometimes.

Watching the rain. Is it for the first time in my life?
Little squalls across the road.
A patch of time.
A single note
Before the glass doors open,
And in to buy.  But now, what do I need?

Bubbles of talk and understanding laughter rise and fall -
A warmth of people in the orange light.
Some places lend themselves to parables,
As here - in Severn-circled Shrewsbury by night.

Present friends make links to older times;
The words that are your living to make live
Trace the sinews of their journeys to a
Younger name of where we live and love -

An Alder Hill- Place of meeting and of meaning
Under sheltering green where words and lives
Were shared. We inherit now in human glow
Of present conversation, a river's-depth of memories flowing here.

The Alder trees live on. Their ghostly roots
And branches now the passages and shuts
That tell the light-dark-light of life,
With newer voices echoing their questions, truths and fears.

And some to find a way together, whatever
Distances prevail, to meet upon a day – your day.
While still the opal swans glide silent, knowing,
On the night time shadows of the Severn.

Seeing, saying all, if only we could hear.