was it so grave

was it so grave

mammy

had a scar like a crocodile 

from the tin works

before the war

now

on which arm

which arm was it on

i cannot remember

but i remember the slaps

and the legs they landed on

and the tears

laughing leads to crying

she said ??

times were hard

the scar never went

it wasn’t peter pan’s crocodile

it was from two clips either side of a gash

she told me of the leather aprons 
in the pickling shop where men died 
in the tin works 
they turned green

told of the bombers 

and the air raid shelter under the furnace

for they were not crocodile tears

that she shared in the slaps

spare the rod 

and spoil the child

play was so hard we laughed until we cried

when the blood dried on our knees 

that the snuffled tears had smeared

we laugh at the scars now

the hurts were life in the making

when the scars heal they bury them

they bury them deep

six feet deep

Acorn I can’t

‪Sometimes I write.‬
‪Sometimes I don’t.‬
‪If it never came back - so what?‬
‪I’ll read what I have already written, ‬
‪and maybe I’ll write about that,‬
‪maybe not.‬
‪Who cares?‬
‪There are many acorns but‬
‪not many trees.‬
‪From a chopped tree make a coffin‬
‪and fill it with acorns.‬

‪

a start in life

a start in life

you’ll never be half the man your father is

covered in oil 

make strokes for the lifeboat

when the ship went down 

you were all alone with the life belt of marriage

exchanged the float for 

the trawl net of the growing harvest of time

how the surface glitters

from below keeping it just in sight - just 

as the bell curve blows 

it is downhill all the way now

how strange it is that

downhill bursts the surface on the way to the stars

look down

see the undulating landscape of the past

the mists in the sunshine 

the dark hallows where the dew on the mirror runs black 

is this it then

is it all over now that it has just begun

mist christmas

the forecast says mist

much missed from christmas past 

nothing worse than mist

she said

i went off for a sea swim

screaming cold cold

and returned happy

no one forecast that

and that’s my point

they mist it 

Do you mind - it’s raining

Do you mind - it’s raining

The rain’s collar turned up, boring

into the boy’s holiday day. What,

what, what to do, to do?

All along the long platform shining,

wet-handed pencil hovering,

waiting, waiting, waiting, for

the next green steam train to arrive.

Puffed in a boredom redrawn upon the lines

under the names of golden numbers.

Spot the red clunking hulk that took

a penny and bang! the machine wrote

your name on an aluminium strip. Such

unhappiness the foot-soldier of childhood;

turning on the heels of time, undecided

if enough had occurred to stop.

Platform ticket, wet chewed wetter.

Bus ticket, wet chewed wetter.

A soggy memory pricking the eye

of an unhappy dotage. Sitting bored, 

counting on trains of thought to drift away

to that day ~ that day ~ that day.

my word

my word

in the beginning was the word

and the word was dog

and the dog brought the stick

that beat the wailings

all the way back

to my childhood

the shadows on the wall

where the dog was sick

on christmas 

heave

sonja’’s engine shed

time crumbles
no power in the world
can stop it 
even the engine sheds 
that dominate the skies
abominate at their demise

a poem for Leonard Cohen

a poem

   for    Leonard Cohen

a space for a poem

in a space that a woman

has left here this morning

in a dawning that is yearning 

for the night to be returning

your love back to me here 
where do we belong

Marianne 

why do you still love me

why do you still love me

  why do you still love me

i ask myself when the mood

takes me back to those days

that were drawn as thin as longing

when your music wrapped me in 

an ivory tower that the 

nursery books led me to believe in the

orchard of my secret garden

  why do you still love me

when the solstice days of winter

lie pale on the countenance of

life’s frosted fields over-awed in

the patina of the final cauldrons

at the invocation of life’s spell-bound

diminuendo

  why do you still love me 

when our closeness knows no distance

no fences abound the frost fields 

or fly down the golden fields of summer

a-whizz with the insect days

fluttering in the butterfly belly of youth 

see now how

the stream of our life from dawn’s lake

runs down to the sea’s demise

  why do you still love me

this i will never know
or why the river runs 
into the sea and disappears 

age 12

age 12‬

‪when my nanna died ‬

‪on my mother’s side‬

‪i ran barefoot to the pub‬

‪to tell my dad‬

‪he carried me home‬

‪for sixty years‬

the scruffy words

comb the scruffy words‬

‪the ugly ducking words‬

‪gather them into the pen‬

‪of a beautiful poesy‬

‪give them a life of their own‬

‪watch them dance the maypole ‬

‪and flower with ribbons of laughter‬

‪of a love long requited ‬

clouds

looking for the wind’s

running with the clouds 

of a wolf’s concern

for the doors and windows

rattling all night

  hush pregnant moon

let the vastness bear witness

that the owl was silent 

on the night of your fullness

when the children fled the 

invasion of their imaginations

running riot down night’s valleys

night’s dead ends 

night’s lost cause

because

  because 

the field

the field 

‪lying there‬

‪feet to the stream‬

‪fingers touching‬

‪under the blue‬

‪kissing grasses‬

‪forever

nothing

nothing

is it big

or 

is it small

or

is it simply

nothing at all

Jim’s World

At the end of December - 15 years of daily photographs - Jim’s World

http://jimyoung14.blogspot.com/

drawn in

drawn in

dawn over the wind farm

beating the clouds 

beyond the solar panels

the sea 

generates a sigh

will they awaken before the big sleep

will they ever see the light

again

every scream is carbon dioxide

innocent 

gas from the cycle of life

much maligned and overpopulated 

in our lament

for us

dare i say

dare i say

the failure took courage 

to get out of there

where what was an escape

was in fact a prison

breaking chains is hard

bloody hard

at the time there were chains everywhere

buried by rusty chains

wet rust cold rust

panic buried under a mountain of chains

forever it seems

climbing those chains with the spider racing

then there was the ‘fuck you’ side

of the fool’s gold 

in the way of the child kicking back 

against the man

the open open openness 

that they kicked against in fear of the lightness

of touch that they thought concealed a fist

the river that slowly bore the raft of time

over cataracts to the fall

a river that ran uphill - for god’s sake

to make the fall the tallest of them all

and on and on and up and up

the gold tarnished as gold should not

the rings turned into chains

the fool’s gold said fool

the box had no windows

the sides closed in

drowning in tears 

banging against the sides with fists of wool

smothering in the blindness of others

screaming at the deaf

running down the up escalator 

into the valley of the mountain

STOP!

the crash to the core of a world

of indifference in their ignorance

suspended animation 

catatonic panting low

the milestones on the mountain road

are counted in wretched breaths

the blind nails of the climb

hand over bloody fist over bloody time

and now

the view from the summit over the clouds

the joy to be above the fear

oh yes yes

and yet the long thin thread leads

back there

for there is no further up

is there

only down

and yet the sunshine is as bright as life

quiet now

i’ll wait here for

ever to arrive

after dawn

after dawn

of all the genes and memes in the 

goldfish bowl that is this world

how extraordinary the infinity of mind

given life by the atoms of the universe

the limit of which we cannot see

while imagination’s candles are

crying in every corner of my mind

and then the sun shines

upon my countenance 

and i think

well ...

how silly

how silly

looking for

precious time

on the barometer 

i found 

time’s pressure

on the clock

of depression

red it

red it 

the book opened like a vagina,

page mark sliding to the floor;

and thoughts turned hard

upon on the spine, and the 

stain that said much more.

soon

soon

single footsteps in the snow

cold kissed by the honey moon

and falling over the horizon 

called - come home 

come home soon