Look at us now
Your body, my body
I'm glad we met
Got to spend some time
In this world of abundance
With all its moving mountains
And flowing rivers
And hopefully we did take
Something of them back
Into our souls,
And of all things
Bumping into you today
Beneath a glorious sky
For a cup of tea
And a walk
As we had done
A hundred times before
Or was it a thousand,
Look at us now,
My body, your body.

For everything we have to put up with
Get along with or move on from
Regardless of injury, hurt and pain
For keeping believing in something
Greater than ourselves
With only prayers to offer up a clue,
And settling for any crumb of comfort
And for not losing our human spirit
If there isn't a God
We definitely deserve one.

Black as the sea at night
Your hair flows through my fingers
Away from this dry river bed.
What kind of naked flame is this
That longs to be doused?
Naughty angel you lead me astray.
You will need all your training for this.
What lengths must you go to
To save me?

I thought we would always
be ...
Like ham and cheese
Sausage and mash for peas
A double somersault on the trapeze
A warm snap after the freeze
A thank you after a please
A soothing cream for scuffed knees
A handkerchief for a sneeze
A cure for a disease
A pocket for loose keys
Honeysuckle and foxglove for bees
Shelter and shade for trees
A lace curtain for the breeze
...together.

She summons me
To her side
Entices me to embrace
The morning shadows
And dance in the sunshine
She evokes
All along her tide.
She beckons me
To reach down
To be unafraid,
Unashamed of my
Own mortality.
She anoints my feet,
My ankles and knees
Then my chest, my neck
And head.
She envelopes me
In her deeper self
She drinks me up,
Laps me up
I am awash with movement,
Drowning in her love,
Then her scream
Masks my cry
I am lucid again
I am creation.

I was in town
When a busker
Gave the blind guy
A go on his keyboard.
He made sure he was seated
The right way round
Then wandered off
To get a coffee.
When he returned
To check on the guy
He saw people staring
But everything was fine.
So he went
For a sandwich
And when he came back
He pushed to the front
Of the crowd.
The music was good
No, it was not good
It was an outpouring
Of love and joy
From some other universe.
I didn't recognize
A single tune or song
Or chord structure
Or riff,
Where did he get
All this stuff from?
And the people looked
At each other
And silently mouthed
The same three words,
Oh my God.

Whiny and moany
Selfish and ungrateful
Needy and snooty
And loving.

Who was it who said
People are problems
So the less people you know
The less problems you'll have?

Surely that can't be right?
And who was it who said
There is some truth in everything?

The day before we get the bad news
Is like any other
Drifting away from us
Like the boats that are starting
To appear on the river again.
And no matter how fast we swim
We can never catch them up
And no matter how many times the cold water
Brings us back to life
It is as if we never quite recover
From first jumping in.

Still here, another year older
A little closer to being
Another year colder
In that place we don't talk about.
And here you are
Heaven sent, right on time
Ah marvelous time
Don't want to waste it
With the pre *** meal
As if the world needs
More food and water
Or the pre *** chat
Couldn't we get straight
Down to it?
Why do I have to spell out my dreams
In words small enough
For the child in us to understand?
Ah there's a thought, as if
The world needs more young dreamers,
Come to think of it
Let's skip ***
I want to love you
As if the world needs more love.

Mary, mind that man in the old coat
He's limping, there could be something wrong with him.
Peter, come on we're crossing over now
I don't like the look of that woman with the pushchair,
Come on before she blows smoke over us as well.
Brenden, come here please, quickly, that girl just sneezed,
You've got to learn to stay close when we're in town.
Sue, watch out for those teenagers, taking up the whole pavement,
They won't move, let's get in the road for a minute,
Let them come past.
Jim, did you hear that? Oh it's that man over there coughing,
He should be at home,
What's wrong with everybody?

Quiet winter evenings
Spent by the fireside with you.
Gentle moments of love
With the loudness of the day
Suddenly somewhere beneath us
And the coldness of the rain
Far above.

And when the moaning wind
Became caught in the curtains
Blew the candle across the room
I would sit in the corner
Writing long letters
To not so old friends,
Wondering what they were doing
If they meant the love
Their letter sends.

Peaceful nights
By the fireside with you
Feeling love, all the warmth I used to
Yet a strange emptiness
Waiting for that sad glow,
Only recalled by whispering ...
Memories.

Oh the joy of walking
With people keeping distance
And no joggers
Or cyclists
Brushing past
Our shoulders.

She warned me
Not to fall in love
With her,
If she left me
I'd be on my own again.
She said love is
Something in the wind,
It could never
Be a person,
So if I must
Fall in love
I must fall in love
With love.

When I forget I ever had a body
Will you still make love to me?
When I become a dot in the distance
A speck of dust on your glasses
And I'm flying free
In another dimension
Not knowing who or where I am
And if it's heaven
Not caring
And if it's hell
Still worrying about everything,
Will you find me
Jolt me back to you,
In my drowning
My gasping for breath,
Though there is no water
Or atmosphere,
Will you still make love to me
Anyway you can?

Angel, did death come between us?
It's been so long since you wrapped me in your wings
Pulled me to you, to the centre of your universe
For amazingly, I have known your love,
The mystery of you
I've seen how, despite the storm
Raging around you, inside you,
You can pull fear and excitement
Out of me
And turn it into peace and safety,
And more than that,
Childlike wonder.

Went to bed at 6am
So I've ruined the day
Made myself feel ill
Unsettled, a bit panicky.
Will I never learn
That sleep is for sleeping
Waking is for waking,
How can I confuse the two?
It's just that lately
With the days so uncertain
Sometimes I like to make the nights
Last as long as I can.

I eye death nervously
Choose a life sentence instead
A padded room, windows
Without bars make it harder
To jump.
I listen to my heart
And sometimes hear
Another's beating
That's it
I only dreamt you
I was always alone.

I see a flashing white hearse
A cavalcade of mourners
Unable to keep up.
Strangers setting down
Their shopping
To give little cheers
As if there is no separation
And death was a celebration
Of life
Could be celebrated
In life,
And in the space
We make for it
Another comes.

Running too fast
With wobbly legs
And icy cheeks
And tiny frozen feet
I'm falling
Tripping into pain.
Helping hands
With kind voices laughing
Picking me up,
Masking concern,
Not like the laughing
Soulless wolf.
Then I go again
Tricking pain
Keeping it at bay
Before I learned how to pray,
Learning too slowly
I'm falling
Hands down this time
On all fours
And behind me as always
The wolf again,
Blood shot eyes
Scouring for stragglers
Teeth stained with blood
In anticipation.
Helping hands
Picking me up
With kind voices laughing.

There is a chill in the air
Time to dust off
My battered old coat
The one I wore when I saw
You, really saw you
In all your majesty
In all your finery
In all the regal splendour
Of your soul
When you walked with me for a while
And that was just the start of it
Through rain and sleet and snow
You name it, we walked through it
No ****.
Those were the golden miles.
And in the pocket when you first
Held my hand on a frosty evening
I found some loose change
And a sweet wrapper
And a scrap of hope
Rolled up in a scrap of love
In a scrap of paper
A note to self
It reads something like this
It wasn't meant to end like this.

Too close
Step back
Refocus
Blink twice
Wipe away
A tear
All the love
You'll ever need
Is staring
You right
In the face.

People are stealing poetry books
To cut up
To use as toilet paper.

She hugs the life out of me,
Not in that second of passion
Before the moment of death
When an animal is chased
And grasped in lioness embrace.

She kisses the life out of me,
Not with mid-day sun lips
Which smoulder dangerously
Like a dampened forest fire
Lying in wait for that first shallow breath.

She loves the life out of me
Not with the garment of childlike innocence
Lasciviously cast aside by a woman in earnest.

And with all the emotion of someone
Glancing up at the station clock
Then turning a magazine page
On a deserted railway platform,
She scares the life out of me
When she says quite simply,
It is time for me to go.

If such a thing could happen
A common man
Should probably look for a woman
Not a princess
For although she will be
Infinitely more beautiful
And he will love her truly,
And love even more
Being caught up
In the magic and romance
Of a wonderful fairy story,
He will always have to live
With her disappointment
For she will only ever
Get glimpses of a prince
And it could break her heart.

A hundred and forty
Happy birthday me!
Funny thing is I don't feel
A day over a hundred and ten.
So I'm going to spoil myself rotten
Bacon, sausage and egg
Flavour crisps for breakfast
Five cheese pizza
Flavour crisps for lunch
And asparagus in wine and steak
Flavour crisps for dinner.
Crisps! I love them
They changed my life,
But personally, for me
There is never enough salt.
I always carry some with me
So I can have a little sprinkle.
And Maddy is over the Avian flu now
So we can meet up.
She was quite ill for ...
Oh, a good few hours
I told her not to feed the swans
But that is her all over, reckless
And she's funny about her age,
As if it's some great secret or mystery,
She always tells me she's ten years
Younger than me
But she's got to be at least a hundred
And fifty, if she's a day.

This morning it matters slightly less
If we part unkissed
(In the end it was all remarkably unspectacular)
Or love's empty hand goes unmissed
(I needn't have worried)
For a siren soon reminds others
(There was no conscious decision)
That this is not heaven
(There was no great awakening)
As I turn the corner
(No dawning of truth)
And fail to dodge the ring road cars
(No sudden realization)
I simply ran out of time.

After all this time
You wouldn't love me now anyway
I've put on a few years
And a few pounds
And I've got a spot,
This time it would have to be
Our souls coming together
If you did
If you could.

I catch sight of a few words
Their scales shimmering
Just beneath the surface
Before they dart away
To hide in reflections
Of trees and sky
So, where do I start ... or end?
I've always liked green and purple
Other colours seem to come and go
Like the mood I have to be in
To eat healthily.
There are a lot of things I can't do now
Mostly things I couldn't do well when I could do them
So that's no great loss,
And don't get me started on dreams,
Which leaves only one constant in my life
Something I couldn't change if I wanted to
Something I can only forget,
Something only a handful of people know about
And might remember,
Which makes it special anyway,
After all, I am only one day older
Than I was yesterday
Where is the harm in that?
So, happy birthday to me.

This beautiful rugged
Timeless land, still exists
Between the slow ticking seconds.
Clouds sweep the valley floor
As they have done for centuries
And week old lambs
Cease their chasings
As the shadows loom
For in that instant
They see their destiny.

A ewe has a twisted leg,
A dislodged roof slate
A breached wall, and a *****
Lent last year to a neighbor
All need attention
So this morning we will do what we can
And later we will know ours.

Clever monkeys have learned to talk
And write and sing and dance.
Most of them are not very good
But it makes them happy.

Other clever monkeys have built roads and houses
And schools and hospitals and offices and factories,

And cars and trains and planes
So they can get there and back quicker.

And other clever monkeys have left
The rainforests alone.

My cup overflows
Yet nothing
Is spilt or lost
In the precious mystery
Of your love.

Today He is at your side
Looking after you
In my stead
As He did before me
And will again
When I am gone
And I'm not afraid
If I can feel
This way about you
After the short time
We shared
How much greater
Will His love be
Seeing you as
He does
With your capacity
For infinite love?

Me and my sandwich
Are going driving today
Just the two of us
Getting away from it all
Up into the hills
For a bit of cheese meditation.
It's on the passenger seat
Looking depressed.
Cheer up I say
It might never happen.
It's not like there is a virus sweeping the planet killing thousands.
It's not like they have another ten lined up until everyone in the free world is dead or subjugated. That's conspiracy *******.
It's not like they are trying to destabilize the world and make it vulnerable for a nuclear attack. The sandwich still looks glum. It might be looking out of the window. It's hard to tell.
I mean on any given day 150,000 people die around the world anyway. And that's a good day. There have always been wars, poverty and disease. It's the way it's supposed to be. There are more people dead than alive. We are the survivors. It's not like people can't see doctors or operations are being cancelled is it? Its not like people are losing their jobs and going homeless. Or we can't go on holiday or see loved ones and if you do it's not like you can't touch them.
Nothing I say will cheer the sandwich up.
Finally it gets a word in.
I'm depressed because
You're just about to eat me, it says.
No I'm not, I say.

This is my last match
And my last candle.
I will light it
To keep this love alive
Before it becomes
Embedded into my heart
And when that gives up
Into my soul.

In the bookshop, the museum and cathedral
She is looking for you
And does not know it.

In the dress she has just bought
The new hairstyle she is unsure of
In the something different she might cook tonight
She is getting ready for you
And does not know it.
In her thoughts and actions
Which have led her here
To this city today
To the doorway now where she waits
For the rain to stop
She is waiting for you
And does not know it.

In her turning to go
Her change of mind and footsteps towards you,
In the carrier bag spilled at your feet
And her voice saying thank you
As you hand her life back to her,
In her walking away
She is looking for you
And does not know it.

I could go left at the end of the road
Straight over the roundabout
Then through the town,
Or if it's too busy
I could go right at the traffic lights
And pick up the motorway that way.
It makes no difference
Whatever I decide
Whichever way I go
My thoughts always turn back to you.

The ballerina in a
Dying piruette
Signals the end
Of her show,
Black putrid, billowing
Twisting and devious
As any smoke engaged
In this work
Must go.

But those who
Would not remain
Are as loathed to
Turn around
As were their bullets
Reluctant to maime
Or ****,
Afraid of breaking
The spell
And being dragged back
Into screaming hell
Instead of gently
Led away through
The buttercups on the
Side of the hill.

A solitary line
Of shuffling feet
Retreating bodies,
Some ghosts
Belatedly anointed
By fine summer rain
Coming too late
To dampen the pain,
Inside the bullet burns
And intermingled
With cries, birdsong returns
Conjuring up
Farmyard smells
Capturing boyhood laughter,
A cosy bedroom
Like a stabbing
In the side
Starts the tears again,
So soon
As when my gallant
Friends and I
With unbeknown
Sadness, rode out
One sunny afternoon
Down to the fields
Of shame
And straight into
Certain madness.

Comfortable at last
Our love
Easy on
Like a pair of old slippers
I would walk a thousand miles in
To sit by the fireside with you.

Geoff, it is midsummer now
And your paradise garden
Takes our breath away.
The honeysuckle, orchids,
Geraniums, yellow iris,
Blood red roses and
Apricot foxgloves
You tended
So lovingly
Are all here as they
Would have been
In medieval times when
You say even the monks
Needed the sanctuary
Of flowering meads
And shady orchards
To lift their spirits
And refresh their minds.
And now your twin brother
Is finishing off the commentary
You wrote before
Your heart attack,
Telling us if you
Could choose your piece
Of heaven
It would look
Just like this.

The summer is all hey
I'm hot, check me out,
Look at me,
But the winter
Is otherworldly.
With its cold and rain
And sleet and snow
And ice and fog
And frozen mornings
And long dark nights
It's always trying to tell us something more,
That's where the story is.

There should be a word count
After all we only get so many chances,
So many prayers in every life.
Only God knows all those I did and didn't use.
Poor words, they never get any credit,
We can't even decide on
A universal language for them.

They should build monuments,
In Honour Of Unread Words.
Still, who would visit?
Instead we have shopping lists
Stuck to the wheels of supermarket trolleys.

Abused, misused, misspelt
Misunderstood, misquoted
If they put in a complaint, who would read it?
Take the most overused ones, those usually said
years too soon; 'I love you.'
And that one always said a few minutes too late; 'Sorry.'
Words must be exhausted and confused.
It's obvious to them what the next one should be, but not to us.
We stare at a blank page
Expecting them to pop out.
They would if we would let them.
Poets make it worse.
Their luminous portal is my door.
Still art thrives on confusion.

But words can easily get their own back,
Our reasons and excuses look silly
When we re-read them
And our attempts to make ourselves look good,
Are fake.

Child: Mommy what was the pandemic like?
Mom: Not nice ... Not nice at all.
Child: But it went on so long.
Mom: Of course we didn't realize it was going to last
Fourteen years.
Child: How did you ...
Mom: Get through it? Well you know
What people say...
Child: A stitch in time saves nine?
Mom: Well ...
Child: If you can't say anything nice
Don't say anything at all.
Mom: That helps, but ...
Child: I know, live one day at a time?
Mom: That's it.
Child: So, the same as we live now.

This is my body
But you can't touch it.

We never die

These are my words
But you won't read them.

We never die

These are my thoughts
But you can't feel them.

I am consciousness.

And they wore streamers
And tinsel in their hair
And baubles on their belts
And angels around their necks
And gave their present money
To the dispossessed
And prayed for those they wouldn't see
And gave twice as much love to those they did
And forgot about Christmas that year.

It's out there
Or maybe it's in here already
Waiting on a door handle
In a hello
In the air I breathe
I breathe
That is my right
I will breathe if I want to.
Except it doesn't know patience
It doesn't know anything
It doesn't have anything
But the need to exist
And if it kills me
Or itself, it will just shrug.
The worst kind of enemy.
So I take it back to a room
With curtains and a bed
I am allowed that much
And bread and water
Left by someone ouside my door
I hear their feet hurrying away
The world is moving away from me.
And all night and the next day
For as long as it takes
My hands will be around its throat
And its around mine
As we stare into each others' bulging eyes
Me, remembering life
It, trying to imagine survival
And suddenly it does know something
That I am all it's got.
And in the morning
Shapes file quietly into the room
And I start to recognize faces.
They prise my fingers away
From around the rotting corpse's neck
Then kick it under the bed
You did it, they say.
You won.
This time.

I am an infant

With a big box of colouring crayons

Speechless, lost for words.

Throw caution to the wind
Cast off all misgivings
Set a course for the unknown,
Abandon fear, quieten worry
Dispel uncertainty, dive on in
Give yourself up, trust me, hurry
Dare me, hold me, hold me
Responsible for all your longings
With a kiss.

I saw you twice today!
I swear on my grave I did.
The first time
I called out your name,
The one before you changed it,
But you were just out
Of earshot
And later I almost touched your arm.
So close!
It's a shame, we could
Have gone down by the river,
Done a bit of shopping,
Bought you some new hair colourant,
Maybe gone back to my place.
I know!
"In my dreams!"
Oh yes I definitely saw you
As well as any trick of the light
Would let me.

Today I answered the call
For more commitment, more passion
And everything I did came off.

Today the wing belonged to me
I had it all, I really flew.
I was the danger man, the hot shot
Whose courage and vision
Rallied a late victory.

Trouble though when I arrived home
Full of it and still trying to score
As all of my best moves were ruled offside.
When I appealed I was warned, no more
And answering back resulted in a sending off
To the spare room
Where I was eventually given what for.

Thank you Lord
For stopping me dead
In my tracks
So now I have more time
For my prayers.
I'm sorry if there was a day or two
Somewhere in my life
When I wasn't in pain
Or didn't have anything major to sort out,
Can't think when that was though,
When I just enjoyed being alive
When I forgot to give thanks to you.
I will try to be more grateful.

From the damp dark recesses
Of cloistered bookshops
Into the blinking glare
And thronging crowds,
We are all unfocused
And unrecognised except
For our reflections
In shop windows.

Down newly cobbled streets
Walking at your speed now
Whistle, guitar and violin
Offer original renditions
To down and outs and drunks
Who dance where they slept
But quickly if you want
To hear some real music
For the Incas are in town.

Wheelchairs and children
Are politely ushered to the front
Gathering around
Standing next to me;
Until the shouting and screaming starts
His shots indiscriminate
Knocking me over.