Wednesday 28 July 2021

still standing there

 still standing there 


sitting in a moon’s field light 

the trees steeped in a day’s meaning

of tomorrow’s same old beginning

same old ways of becoming 

that it might be so

  but never did the epistle predict that

what was predicated on a falsehood

what was promised in perpetuity 

came not from berating ad hominem 

but in what the scroll in velum 

the parchment by a withered hand decreed

stop

you just stop there 

now think


and we are still standing there

as the sun sets and dawning clouds

alternate pink and black and blue 

and thinking becomes thinking

about thinking 

and we are still standing there

Tuesday 27 July 2021

that’s the trouble with bubbles

that’s the trouble with bubbles 


that’s the trouble with bubbles

         when their rainbows collide

when the shards of their sunshine

plop right in your eye

 and in tears you’ll wince 

    from a childhood evinced

       of a falsehood convinced

                 but   hey

   blow me 

       another 

              one do 

Monday 26 July 2021

who will call it a poem

 who will call it a poem



what will be the poem

the poem for the final days

the harping back to the good old days

when tomorrow was a possibility 

or a poem for no tomorrow 

colouring the today’s between


who will write the poem

the poem for the final days

the fool or the penitent of no avail

lost  with the past  back to the wall

burning  tomorrow’s door falling

inwards  all the words choked 


who will say  who is that singing

the poem for the final days

not me  not you  not anybody i vouch

save on top of the climbing upon

the piled bodies  politics intestate 

of the electorate’s claws


who is falling in last with me 

not the poem for the final days

for it is written in the rock of our hearts

in the iron leeched from our dried blood

burnt the spectrum of time

of all living stopped


the poem of the final days

alone in space where no space is perceived

for no perception is

until another self-replicator says

not in any language we know

i have discovered this  and i will call it 


a poem for the early days







we called the dog metronome

 we called the dog metronome


like a hammer hitting a nail

like the pips of the time signal

over and over and over

metronome 

its cadence my nerves


it’s not the dog’s fault

she said

it is the owner’s fault

she said

over and over and over

metronome

its cadence my nerves


it’s not my fault i said 

over and over and over

you are getting on my nerves

she said

you are saying it 

over and over and over

metronome

the nerves of my cadence 


the dog

what of it

we said

barking mad 

we both said 

Sunday 25 July 2021

 I have created a Facebook group called HaikuEye with the hope of sharing haiku and senryu - I am a Facebook novice and I believe the following is a link to the group - please join if interested - Jim


https://www.facebook.com/groups/219477083277513/permalink/219477999944088/

see

 see 


sometimes a flower

sometimes a leaf

the beauty of imagination 

is beyond belief


yesterday suspend

for a moment today

that concrete thought

and just a dream a way


to love and laughter at

all your worldly needs 

and what aught to be

just come here and look 

and see and see

Saturday 24 July 2021

 no


then one day

no hand will reach

and take the tome

no hand will write

the last epitaph

for that hand will be

lifeless ~ lifeless

think about it

no more hands to lift

that hand or that a pen

or lift a book or raise a smile

no

no

no hand will

no more will be

not even me

half of a half

 half of a half 


bodily functions

hush ~ you know the ones

built by borrowed genes

you don’t know ~ hush ~ it’s

half of a half of half of the future

from twice of the past 

all of the future 

in both of the halves 

evolution my giddy aunt

still has her eighth to add

to the time of my looking 

in fast forward the past

that’s the trouble with bubbles

 that’s the trouble with bubbles 


that’s the trouble with bubbles

when rainbows collide

when those shards of sunshine

plop right in your eye

tears wince of a childhood

evinced in a falsehood

but blow me 

       another 

               one do

Monday 19 July 2021

 there

~

  is 

~

  a

~

dog

~

  barking

~

non

~

  stop

~

he’s locked in poor sod

because his humans aren’t


Sunday 18 July 2021

in july

 in july 

in july

in a garden 

in a hammock

from snoozing hands 

the colour supplements slip

from snoozing hands 

in a hammock

in a garden

in july

picture this

 picture this


an early july morning 

double doors breezed open

two gardens front and back 

thoughts flowing slowly over

the flowers and the flowers

and the bees and the bees

decided where the cat is not 

for the cool shade is moving 

and the sea is on that breeze

and the plan is to swim without a plan

to walk the wish path 

the blue hurting so much that we shade

from the enormity of the small things

the beauty of a blossom’s turning

a ‘the’ that ends just there upon a thought 

so pure that it is dropped like a hot pebble 

leaving only the ripples in eyes turning inward 

afraid to touch this beautiful edifice 

suffice to simply say 

it is a hushed morning 

down july way

oh my i

 oh my i 



take the i out of my eye

take the me out of my poetry

my oh my 

take my my

and set me free

to write pure puretry

Saturday 17 July 2021

shards & the ampersand

         shards & the ampersand 


smashing my warm poem with an ampersand 

sending shards flying all over the place

thoughts once hard-ordered now disorder 

& after all the time it took in no time broken

upping the entropy of the whole bloody genre

                                      like

an iridescence of butterfly wings settling glitch 

on an oriental tray of doubtful provenance

or rattling across a frozen lake to thaw one day

& mix the metaphors on an evolutionary shore

waned in mores & more besides what was

never intended to recombine in nude profundity

                                        like

you cannot mean what was meant by all that is

settled here and anthologised in aspic-stained tomes

ringing in the changes ringed in pencil edited

ad infinitum they say over and over edit the shards

slew them here & let me (they say) sort it for you

i know the meaning (they say) sort of (they say)

sort of a cut finger on a bloody shard the genre

exsanguinates into a glass of chardonnay

                                         like






Wednesday 14 July 2021

is the end so bad

 is the end so bad


after all 

all it never was

will never be again

that’s how it all started 

a black thought turning white aside

taking the white from the darkness

leaving nothing but perfect darkness

to put the light 

where 

where can it be hidden

where 

will it not be found

not even questioned 

even as a quest

deep in the darkness

that’s where

label the beginning as the end

that will confuse no one

who does not exist

who never existed

in this one thought

     is it 

such a bad thought

that nothing was

before nothing that is

will never be again

anything 

but nought 



Monday 12 July 2021

remember you are …

 remember you are …


the aural incense ~ of the bell

turns sound memory ~ into smell

voice once hidden ~ chimes in air

wherever we are ~ we are there

Sunday 11 July 2021

down harvest way

 down harvest way


dawn’s gold awash on this canvas grey

on a hillside turning down harvest way

grasses grasses of a golden hue

passing out of time and time to rue the

seeds of tomorrow the drying sun 

of today’s tomorrow of just begun

to call down in tears and all the more

o corn dolly we do implore you 

chase the rats the hares afoot for

the old terrier is rejuvenated to boot

the butterflies the dust the clouds the day

when everything is turning down harvest way

and yes that is …

and yes that is …

yes they will kiss you

behind your back when you turn around

they are behind your back

the grey waves spitting out

white teeth no more be snarled

than these skin lapped poles


yes they beguile you

with stories of their sunny shores

they are under where you stood

bottomless sand between your toes

flowing where no legs stand firm

petulant in their caught looks at times


and yes the gone 

the sometimes back sometimes 

and sometimes sometimes sometimes

palmed off rocks the slidden grey

undressed the corpses lost the way the sea

has clothed ripped rags of sky unripped by sea

lost in the ungrowing of wooden groynes

every dry skulled tear runs away this way


yes and that is 

the yearning here 

and yes that is 

the gnawing knowing that out there somewhere 

are the real bones sunken away

far below the seaweeds soft caress

bereft hag stone wanderers of shores and mind

all mankind toppleless and beached 

considering the drowned once dryad winds

not one ambivalent kiss rescinds


and yes that is …





Tuesday 6 July 2021

the poets flora and fauna

 the poets flora and fauna 


the poet fish 

swimming up stream

snatching at leaf words

floating past 

on the reeded flow


the poet lark

rising above this world

higher and higher blue sky thoughts

singing trilling thrilling

down it drops

silence


the poet worm

between the damp brown leaves 

leaves in the book of time 

in perfect putrefaction 

the lobbed and wet

words


the poet bacterium

film upon my iPad fingered

with thoughts of words that might

clear my mind of the thoughts

that smear me


the poet flower

springtime has arrived

budding words

falling like petals

that cover everything 


the poet wind

every word blown away

the lips spittle backwards 

puffing our cheeks

with mouthing


the poet poet

left alone with detritus words

sweeps them in the wind

as they fall so shall they say

this is what i said



night nurse

 night nurse


end of a shift

floating in the tiredness 

of cared hands that soothed

or could not soothe the some times 

when

time had taken the intellect away 

in ways that intellects could dissect in the pages

of books devoted to the subject 

and yet 

this tiredness is not to be found in

the pages of any book 

it is to be found in the muscles 

of a mind exercised with thoughts 

of the left behind that were once 

the foremost but are now

simply pity in your hands

the

empathy of a washed goodnight

in the glory of walking away

just one more time

until

is such an implosive word

in reply to an ekphrastic poem

 in reply to an ekphrastic poem 

 

and you see

there in the teapot

no selfie of me and my phone

i reflected on that

i poured over it

it’s like a painting

your poem

a real selfie of me

looking in

at you looking out

i die

 the child says

              

am never going to die

              

am going keep my eyes open

     see

so there you are then

Monday 5 July 2021

around and around

 placenta to placenta 

around and around 

the helter skelter 

life at the top 

death at the bottom

enjoy the drop

you’ll soon be forgotten 

Sunday 4 July 2021

Twitter

Twitter

I followed her

I asked her to follow me

so

we followed each other 

in different directions 

we arrived at the same

realisation that we

had the same differences

as everyone else


or perhaps

 or perhaps

in the knowing of all our faults 

 ~ and that even this is not without fault ~

we allow the neutrinos of criticism to pass through us

leaving even our strangest thoughts un-mutated

the epitaph already self published

"oh yes, he knew alright

he knew"

And there is that point in time,

 And there is that point in time,

near the end, when the beginning

is lost from sight. The middle

becomes as meaningless as the start

was a mystery, so the end is. When

any question screams silence.

When a father says I am my son.

When a son says I am my father. 

When the unborn remain silent, waiting

for their turn to say something,

anything will do.

Saturday 3 July 2021

pine ends

 pine ends


snapping the pine needles

i am back in my christmases 

arm deep in seeking the zest 

of the illusive golden tangerine 

deep below the nuts in my stocking

honey you know the rest

chocolate money

a memory bought in

the snapped pine needles

of a long ago thought