COLLECTIONS
‘BETWEEN TIME’
. . .
Rust so bright
So brilliant and bright
That now
A superior state evades, erased
And in the even beams they bask
'Til dusk deep red light blurs all known lines
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Stature’ ]
. . .
Let the goblins of sleep
Take me deep, deep, deep
Let them carry me, creep
Round my slumber
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Call To The Goblins’ ]
. . .
You are, my darling, safe from all your fears
Apart from in the time between
The spheres of consciousness
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘The Time In Between’ ]
‘HEARTFELT’
Love and support: the light touch of deep affection
. . .
If you only knew
How you alter the world around you
Subtly, incrementally, gently
With unknowing humility
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Finding You’ ]
. . .
Travel light now
Unburdened
Return home
Into my arms
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Knowing True’ ]
. . .
As I felt loved
And valued in his last
He handed me a shadow clutch of stems
. . .
[excerpt from ‘From Where He Lay’ ]
. . .
From the instant of existence
In then huge eyes
As all and your adored mother
Recovered from full fear on echoing wards
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Before We Knew So Much More’ ]
. . .
Drying off with you
In a warm pokey room
Cursing one pair of shoes
And other people's views
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Filling Canvas’ ]
‘QUILLED’
. . .
Too long dead to bury that will
to be graciously battered, to swallow that pill
just to medicate daily to bed
Too few die trying - too many die dead
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Too Long Dead’ ]
. . .
Settled in this place of your comfort
As you collectively define poetry
In this room
Full of popping, clapping cans
You rest those in-crowd hands
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Doomed Debut’ ]
. . .
Crippled temporarily
Hanging by a quill
Clinging on to severed threads
Lines determined to exist
. . .
[excerpt from ‘Printing Penless’ ]
‘ABOVE AND BELOW’
Shaped by environment: connections to skyscapes and landscapes
. . .
We mere mortals
mastering skies
Now as gods
in wave we fly
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Mastering Skies’ ]
. . .
Near far fire glows
in slow branched glimpses
as beast tractor glares
swirl strange on the floating slope
disco lighting the field across
from their hilltop silent circuits
like a moment of farmed free party
. . .
[ excerpt ‘Night Lights & Dog Fights’ ]
. . .
Now, from batlike close
attention, I know your trick
Why some arrivals
sound spat
from the ground
and gone as moor mist
behind you
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Tracks From A Hillside Window’]
. . .
Sun spiked hills roll down old lines
Parting laines that ploughs defined
Lichens thrive and mosses cover
Hedge so high it shields another
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Here In The Cloud’ ]
. . .
A last few grip tight
To the rootripped ground
Remains of another day
Soon to be stripped away
And the lifeblood will leach
Will not go softly, but weep
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Stone’s Edge’ ]
. . .
And yearly now, the mass grin
puckered ducklings drop
as carnival crowd
from picnic benched beach
watch with cheer of child
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Out For A Duck’ ]
. . .
In the disregarded gap behind
a tangle of jaunted fans, loose wires
curled in darkened twisted colours
cart the jarring cables’ currency
through uncropped ripples of rare growth
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Beyond Black Valley’ ]
. . .
Catch the clouds’ long approach
and from the peak
hear the whispers, not the speech
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Clifftops’ ]
. . .
Pretty prancer
In a glade
Fanciful
In shafted shade
Flickers of your bold display
Catch the catcher’s finder fixed of purpose
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘On Parade’ ]
‘LOOSELY DEFINED’
. . .
Crippling shivers down my neck
When I think of you
Turning up anywhere
Turning around
Turning toward me
Turning your face in my hand with your lips apart a little
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Ever Undone’ ]
. . .
No protest slights
How silence fatally strikes
Contempt belies the claws of loss
What humour holds the truth would drop
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘In Contemplation’ ]
. . .
Viewing every peak beside you
Resting, rested
Unprotected
Let it be unknown, undirected
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Knowing Nothing’ ]
‘SOUNDSCAPES’
. . .
emerging in the ceasefire of the light
peace dawns by star cover
. . .
rest captive captors
sink now with the sun
back down on a temporal breath
beneath your productions
Be still
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Emerge’ ]
. . .
Phone rings, bird sings, hammer bangs a peg in
On the lean-to the raindrops spattering
Each drop splits on the corrugated echo tin
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘No Place Like Home’ ]
. . .
Don't sleep
If it isn't there
Be silent
Breathless
Even if it's hiding
. . .
[excerpt from ‘Creep’ ]
. . .
The best sounds go about their rhythms
The quilted movements
Yet admired
Still untouched
By existence
. . .
[excerpt from ‘See Hear’ ]
‘GONE’
Shock and sympathies: the absurdities of grief and obscurity of death
. . .
Her strange landed shape
Horribly hauled
And grimly draped
In sea-stained light linen
And all felt afloat
Morbidly close
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘While You Were Snorkeling’ ]
. . .
Each unforgiven mess
Bereft
No space to sit
On powdered page
Framed and headed
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘untitled’ ]
. . .
A terminal whirring
The glare of Bangkok
Tannoys, turbines, turbulent drops
Bright, black and red raw
To cold white rock
And murmuring shores
. . .
[ excerpt only from ‘To Own The Lost’ ]
‘I’M NOT’
A collection for the uncollected
. . .
It’s the eyes unsettling shift
A single form
Dares sentient drift
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘If Only’ ]
. . .
I wonder what was read by those
Who don't do poetry
Impenetrable prose no doubt
Beyond the young and the free
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Don’t Do Poetry’ ]
. . .
To tempt a daring heart
To depart the sense trod path
instead of stead to skip
so close to end games
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘The Not Skipper’ ]
. . .
Types a b and c
A Schrodinger’s human
All ‘other’ for me
No tick within reason
Oh binary off
With your boredom of forms
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘A Boredom Of Forms’ ]
. . .
Hush now young’un, don’t dissent
Deviate none from the lines here bent
Question not the art revered
Speak no truth, nor waters clear
. . .
[excerpt from ‘Fine Thanks’ ]
‘LOOK AWAY’
Denial, dissonance and distraction: archaic norms in contemporary culture
. . .
Anchor the tide, the cloud, the spin
strike at the current you can't ride in
burn up the oxygen
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Dosed On A Fix Of Denial’ ]
. . .
As an exit is made
A hand quietly raised
Cupped, curled
Fagin with pearls
Feeling a mark left for days
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘Object’ ]
. . .
enable the predator
mock the attack
a culture contrived
on the turn of your back
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘We Are The Predator’ ]
. . .
“Avenge all ovums,
string 'er up
For blooded tampons, towels and cups!”
. . .
[ excerpt from ‘The Propots’ ]