Create multiple lines. Blood lines, tear lines, love lines. Multiple directions that multiply upon the world more blood, tears and love.
As a child grows, lines unfurl in borrowed darkness until they reach their own light which grows and grows until the time of their own
darkness, when new lines multiply over theirs and then grow away, as they did, towards light, towards darkness.
What is there to fill this grey day?
Is there someone for whom
It is not grey, is there someone
Who switches on the lights with
Every blink? Is there a place
In this grey city where life flows
Strong and people are enjoying
Their work and loving themselves
And seeing light in every eye even
Though the sun’s switched off?
Oh I wish they
Wouldn’t sing at
Night, the birds,
When my chest
Is tight and the
Road to Day is
Spiked with dreams
That cannot be
Seen in light of bird
Noise, rogue
Dawn speech strayed
Off the sun.
Please sit quiet
On your branch
And wait, if sleep
Is too heavy for the
Light state of a
January that knows
No snow but isn’t
Spring.
Blossom is already
Breaking the tired grey,
Confused from lack
Of sleep because
Autumn forgot to turn
All the lights off and
Let the heating run all
Night.
Yes, I will
Rekindle
Slowly, with smoke
And sticks. Life’s
Bark will stratch,
Then rub then spark
Then flare
Then flame
Up and
Scorch bright –
A taper, scarlet
Through the
Night of sceptic haze,
Burning tinder
To black carbon,
Putrid rot
To clean dust.
(23rd November)
Rod of silver
Wand struck
Soft on my head
Of thoughts laced
With sweet, dripping
Nectar beads
Sweet, dripping
Nectar drop.
The Sun shines
Nourishment on
Me on the bedclothes
And my day dawns
Thick, cool, clear
And tinged with
Autumn, crusts
Of the year, left to crumble, crunch
And pile their juices into compost
Fodder for the Spring.
I rise to meet
These orange-browns,
Lights dangling,
Lights drifting, drunken
Twirling through
The gusts,
Traffic wardens flick them off.
(26th November 2009)
Dew drops came
Thick, sticky
Things in the mist,
Gone as soon as
Seen, washed
In the morning rain.
Inside,
His sorrow bled his
Soul and gauged
The pupils deeper
Through his eyes,
Bored through brain.
Pain pools welled
Round these holes,
And bounced
The light back, blue,
Ungrateful at the
Interrupted shade.
Thoughts welled up
Inside his head,
Of loved ones
Crudely detached,
Cords severed,
Mid-flight.
The restaurant
Dimmed, she,
Opposite, receded
Into Silence, as
The Past caved
In, confining him
To Memory’s passages,
Flickering, beckoning,
Grim.
Occasionally, sounds,
From above,
Outside the cave,
Her voice, something
Trivial, no guidance
Through these tunnels,
Only proof of Present
Beyond his prison,
Past.
Softly
Prizing away
Sinews
Like a surgeon,
Through to
The Sun’s
Fleshy core.
Leaves glow yellow
In the gloaming.
Sunny reds
Fleck the endless
Floor.
No chestnuts rust
The grass,
Not yet. But
Squirrels forage
For crumbs and
Tit-bits huddled
Under-leaf, left,
Last morsels
Of the Brightness
Lost to Day.
The trees and lights
Fold out electric
Strips across
The Lake,
No thought for sleep.
The birds, in trees,
In lake, must
Hood their
Eyes,
Hide lids in down
Twin step
Full on the
Broad mist
Of hope
Sometimes round
Always fast
Bent a day
Spent somehow
Awestruck by Life,
The rhythm sing
Of light through
Breath
Save me a tune when the light
Is gone
Make my mind sweet with
That thick sound,
A compliment, well sent,
Swelling up from the tender
Root of a heart entwined
With mine
In knots, the wynd and bind,
Again and again.
Cut me a rope I can use
To climb down, down to
A place where I can sit
And eat lunch in peace, thoughtful
For the morning, eager for the
Afternoon, but happy on the bench, whatever’s in
The box.
Still, sitting by his side,
The sage who knew all
And spoke it freely
With tea and rich tea,
One leg here, the other
In Italy, 1945.
(23rd August 2009)
Being Every Day 