Keepers of the Trees

Deep in the green sward
No need for the broadsword
Tall trees breathe a restless peace
Into our scattered souls
Sequoia stand taller than tall
Muir woods and darker
Soft unsettling ferns wrap
Around the fallen
Walk tall and walk on through
The rain, golden dawn awaits

lawn

click on the white rectangle to see the image

The Side Pond

Thunder Road

On Thunder Road
See dangerous men
And make-believe queans
Dance the fandango
On the make

After sunset starlets strip
Waiting (at table) for better parts
They twinkle between the clouds
Avoiding the moon
With uncharacteristic shyness

Dark dancers sashay sidewalk jives
Low life make high fives
Hooded in the shadows
of car-park meadows

Smiling lovers feel for roots
Spicy steaks smear suits
Old friends gossip for want of news
And new friends choose
To sing the blues
Disguise their lust in dancing shoes

Hiding their hopes and fears
Behind the house
The hungry slake their thirsts
And shake their busts
Into the dusts
Of Thunder Road

Oh to be in Africa, Now the French are here

In the darkness
Far from light
No longer frightened
Of the fight
The boy crouched hard
Beneath the ferns
Listening for the rain that burns
He feared the jungle rumble
Of the murderous choppers
The vandal shoppers

Tis quiet now,
A night away
From the smouldering village
Friendly faces
Now nailed to fenceposts
The rooting corn
Untended
The rotting unwanted limbs
Uneaten
By the dead dogs

LA-LA Land

In La-La land
The poet said
The men sell snow
And then they're dead
The Women laugh and cry and bleed
And live the image not the deed
The passions flow, the leopards fight
The girls sell favours in the night

Madelaine, young and vain
Was blinded by the acid rain
Ennobled Jack, the dealers card
Was cut down on the track
Tears of warm, wet, wasted blood,
Fell from her empty eyes
On to his mottled back

A Lamboughini roars
As mad dogs bark
In the hovels of the dispossessed

Atlas, too tired to shrug
Stumbles, and nearly drops the world
Setting off tsunami, snuffing
Out meagre peasant fires
And the songs of the bathers
Even the Silver Surfer slips
Beneath the waves

Moving down to the country

No trails cross
The sadded sky
Sympathetic pilots
Pass us by

Here not the call
Of stage or screen
No starlets glitter
On the green

We hide our fashion
Dull our wares
Feint our passion
Deny our cares

Sleep slowly
In the rural calm
The dogs are restless
In the barn

Angel Song

And so, dear Angelo
How has it come to this?
Our flight cannot complete
Before dusk
When our souls must rest

We aimed our arrows
At the sky
Fearing a lower aim
Would leave us
Dust dry and footless

Now we will never
Complete our dreams
Set secret scenes
Find fame
Nor fortune

Too late, we tarried
Turning our ways
With the confidence
Of youth
Long forgotten

And so, dear Angelo
How can we learn from this?
Our sight cannot increase
In the dark
When our souls must rest

The Slow Toad

He sits
Morose
Malcontent
Muttering malice
Re-picking teeth

In his gut
The poison finds
Comfort
With the poisson
Of April

The smooth wine burns
The comfort course
Acid house blend
Bringing balance
To the bear

Red-faced and full
He lingers
Tapping idle fingers
Filling idle thoughts
With weasel words

If you see him
Take pity
His lotus leaf cannot hold
Too much
Reality

Painful Negotiation

She made it clear
Rending his weapon impotent
Was an essential pre-condition
Of re-entering negotiations
Regarding resumption
Of relations

Driven by desire
He arranged to have his gun
Surgically restricted
To firing blanks
Once weaponless
She lost interest

Slow Sashay

Slow burn slow sashay
We find the unremembered way
We move across unvaulted floors
And find the yet concealed doors

As time begins to play its song
We then recall the right and wrong
Attempt to learn
the hidden trace
And find at last
The gift of grace

2001 a space tragedy

2001.a New York

Hard-nose the high way
The hard from the sky way
Delivering death
On the breakfast table
The Eagle has landed
In the eyrie of mammon
Scattering the eggs
Of the golden goose
Holy books
Rain from the dust clouds
Still clutched
In the over-heated hands
Of the book-keepers

2001.b Westchester

In another county
Small daughters
Start school
Looking forward
To their mothers’
Last lunchbox
Unaware of the emptiness
Of the coming eve
Their present screams
Of school-girl delight
Will have no echo
In tomorrow’s screams
Of despair


2001.c Washington

Speaking from his favourite bunker
The President waved his wedge
Threatening all foreigners
With his full wrath
Long economic shadows
Fall from foreshortened hills
Rumours swirl across the mills
The people cry, the pastors scream
Who dared to strike
Our brittle dream
Must now be punished
Light the forge
Hone weaponry
For Harry
And our George

YafFA bEACH

Sun setting slowly
Over the jellyfish
Dhow drifting
Down wind

Plain women
Walk
Hand-in-hand
With their mothers

Muscled men
Ripple
For each other

Children play
War games
Sand steps away
From the bomb site

Dusk hustles
Uneasy truce
Between sun and moon

Into the Heir

Only son
Lies
Laughing away
His inheritance
With a shrug
His new-found friend
Comes
Into him
With a shudder
Bringing
Short moments
Of pleasure
Tiny agents
Of death

Leaving Edam

On my way
Back from A'dam
Into the hearthland
Cold damp outside
Like a dog's nose
Candleglow warm
Inside
Busy busyness
Finally relentlng
For the weekend

Blue Marks

She knew
Standing there
In the shadow, blue
Marks denoted
The pleasure wound-sites
The fading love-bites
Of the autumn
Of youth

She saw
Standing fair
In the flesh, raw
Mark, denuded
The waiting wound-sites
The target stab-sites
Of the dum-dum
Of death

Unclear Winter

July 2010
A father walks home
With Temerity
Temerity does not talk
But inspires fear

His heart falls
Ahead, horrid confrontation
Long foresaw’n
Children vandalising
His car

His children

He must strike-out
Inaction would show
Weakness and vulnerability
To the teenage hyenas
Haunting the homeland
Watching
From every derelict shadow

Appear weak
And they will feel obliged
To attack

Outnumbered
He would fall
Injured

Injured
He would fall
Prey

Pray
Mercy on me
Holy Father
For I must sin

His stick slashes
Towards his daughter
Who slides away
To his relief
His bellows counterpoint
Her shrieks
Of laughter

Another younger, wilder child
Spins broken glass
At his ass

His stick strikes
Shattered shards skyward

Crossing
The unswept stone-strewn paths
He reaches the steel door
Of his once-home
Now worthless
As he

Inside
Door slamming triggers light
Surging security
Electricity charged
Hourly
To his mobile phone

Inside
He pauses
And reflects

Before the recession
Of 2007
And the crash
Of 2008
This house
Was worth millions
Or more
Before the building societies
Collapsed bankrupt
By the score

Now there is no market value
No market
No values
No one can move
No one dare move

Empty speculations
Became secure shelter
For school-less children
Divine squatters rights

His wife waits
Fearfully
Beneath the sheets
Terrified of the future
And lack of future

No one can face
Fucking
For fear
Of procreation

Now only the children
Have children

The Third Voice

I knew it would be late coming,
But I KNEW
THAT IT WOULD COME
My third voice

We all have
Three voices
An early voice
A middle voice
And a late voice

The early voice s the voice of genius
The child prodigy
The uninhibited
The open, unprejudiced insight
The poet, the dreamer
The voice of hope and innocence

The middle voice is the voice of confidence
The voice of power
Still young enough to look
Old enough to know what we see

But now I shine
Not seeking the heights
My younger voice called for
Not projecting
The certainty
Of the middle voice, proud and strong and confident
But the restles peace of knowledge
Seeking more
Yet at peace, knowing
That not reaching it
Is not failure
But life

The early voice shrieks and clamours
Whoops for joy and yells
With frustration

The middle voice booms
With strident authority

The late voice whispers
With the uncertainty of experience
The third voice questions
With the surity
Of incertitude

The first voice has the sprite of fire
To illuminate and burn

The second voice has the solidity of earth
To be stone sure and well rooted

The third voice wells up like water
The quiet creshendo
Unfathomable as the ocean
Restless as the sea
Like the sea
We are never the same
Even if we appear
To be in the same place
The third voice sings softly
With the breeze
Yet hints darkly
Of the abyss
We no longer fear.

Singing in the Drain

So
This is it
Sat in the bath
Water lapping the top
Of my laptop
Bach aches
From the iPod
Having split the montbretia corms
From the iron hard earth
Happiness
Is a warm bum