painted flowers to die for
outside the flowers
inside a vase of flowers
beside the painting
of the flowers
that grew outside
in the sunshine
that flows through the window
onto the wilting flowers
beside the painting
drying on the easel
look my petal
look
the sea
rough justice
if you survive
all hypochondria be drowned
in the elasticity of time
and again draws me back
it is a strange bastard
with no mother or father or child
but a thirst for cold blood
for that sinking feeling
where panic is numbed
and acceptance
wrote this
poetry? poetry?
this term ‘poetry’
this preoccupation with being ‘a poet’
every emoji
every text every tweet
is a poem
let’s call it word emoji
the poet a word nerd
the reader a word nerd
a better term?
what about …
an emoter
the poem an emotive
i am an emoter
and this my emotive
greensleeves
they played greensleeves for me
and the whole of england blew about me
it was march when the hares were seen
and the skylarks were higher than could be seen
when the castle walls warmed higher and higher
and the nettles budded impudently in the briar
and there the wold unfolded untold days
away to the seas that fill our bays
swell swell swell the hills and dells
and the oceans of the world that spell
home to me upon this playful isle
music in thee english style
they played greensleeves for me
again and again
and again
right
the plan is
walk to the beach
write some pebble poems
take my daily swim
when the tide is
off the rocks
then lunch
snooze
perhaps
only a perhaps mind you
it’s like swimming in the sea in winter
the secret is …
there is no secret
it is brrruddy cold
you have to accept it
for you know what the sea doesn’t …
you don’t care
so the biggest
coldest
iciest most vicious wave
that it can throw at you
is a laugh
onshore
as gentler falls the lanyard wind as
landward waves this morning’s light
as darkling clouds grow slowly as
the dark night slowly turns to light
as scrunch the sandy gravel growls as
the foot loose way the dogs bright lead
as there it seems the way is chosen as
the dog eared beach as the venerable bede
was telling how the sea’s mystery was
recorded with all the past walkers were
as feathered as the quills that wrote as
it turned the pages of such minded years
as if that is not enough of shady tales as
the sailor wind pummelled my wayward hair
as wild as any thought that has
run the pulled beach way out there
as daybreak has as every day has
turned the dark nights of thought
as sunny breezes turn the eternal was
horrid as night thoughts brought to nought
as now the onshore setting of the sun as
brought the dire thoughts home to roost
as restless as the boathouses have
rattle-coughed the salted assaulting ghost
as gentler rises the same lanyard wind as
seaward waved out the evening light
as darkling clouds dark slowly as
the lightless day falls finally to night
liberty bodice
"liberty bodice" she recalled
with misty eyes
humming some tune
or another
i did not recognise
ME?
when you point to yourself
as in "i’m coming with you"
your retroflexed fingers point where?
not your head or your heart
your gut or your toes
but somewhere behind the top of your sternum
well i do
and then my perception of ‘being’ oscillates
somewhere between the tips of my fingers
and the back of my head
and is projected through my eyes at you
this loop continues looping until
either you are no longer there
or my insistence on ‘me’ loses pertinence
everything else about one’s character
is a superficial construct
i said
the planting
words
transplanted as seedlings
to see what grows
cotyledons
now there’s a nice word to open with
and taproot such a deep thought
rhizome an anthology
for the spreading of the
word
manure another word
where the doggerels roll
smells a bit
but not all words are clean
in the winnowing
husk upon the breeze
kernels to the mills of mind
papyrus
now there’s an old word
a beginning to end with
a harvest in seed
and finally
the world is in terminal care
the hospice unmanned
palliative care self-medicated
delusion the therapy
the blood of the prophets
the mountebank’s potion
eternal life the chant
white noise the gainsayer’s ploy
boy oh boy you had better not
believe it
funny isn’t it
it’s funny isn’t it
polar bears will kill us
yet we weep at their demise
probably because it signifies our demise
ice floes of such thoughts
break away like iceberg days
when there is more below the surface
than the news euphemism enthuse
blanket wrapped in daily chores
and pecuniary convolutions
we digress at evolution’s lessons
the drive of biochemistry’s short-term ism
words fail me ~ be gone
extant
there is an ant
in long hole cove
who i think
if he could think
would think
the universe was in the next cove
the big bang background radiation
are the waves of the sea
upon extrapolation a realisation
we might all be living in
someone’s giant supra-galactic
microbiome
visiting a dead poet’s home
open
to the public
booking recommended
where the poet lived
dead now of course
so doesn’t live here any more
nothing here wrote his words
but but but
did it form him
does it say who she was
place your bets
at the door of no more
do not touch
keep behind the rope
why
not
buy
the book now you’re here
have you left something behind
no
then why do you think the poet did
it sure looks old now
perhaps that was it
olden times made the modern poet
post modernly old
shadows
shadows
switch off the light when you leave
no need to lock the door
there’s nothing here
now now
devil may care
i’ve done it all
up against the cemetery wall
all the dead verses
the yew berries
dry words red
that worry no dead
in the abandoned nest
where are the fresh mints
the zest
the wormholes to another’s mind
jump on
off we go
devil may care
eh?
daily swims
i have a collection
warm ones for winter viewing
cold ones for summer viewing
equinox ones for knocking knees
the ebb and flow of life’s turning
has me dancing like a marionette
on the strings of a sun shower
cat
look here pussy cat
i’m sitting here
this is me
can’t you see me
this big body sitting here is me
you’ll have to wait
see
me
later
weeping at pink time
the weeping of the blossom trees
where the pagoda reaches sky
silence asks insistence please
in the rise of every why
does time’s wait
at the passing gate
of spring’s insistent ware
for there we are again it seems
at joys unfilled dreams
as promise promises once more
a spring of flowers galore
an old face
you can try to add to black
but all you get is un-blacker
let the stubble of a light wheat
creep beneath the fenced countenance
of time’s erudition
and you get a ripple
a plink from time’s well
across a held gaze
oh yes
time is of the essence
at a pupil’s unblinking
for the next moment
may never come
a bit of fluff
a violin plays
the storm rages
a bit of fluff in this secondhand book
will not be blown away
like a gull amongst the gulls
a question drops
who left the fluff
this one thought upon the mind’s wind
is but a subplot
yet in unfocussed eyes
it is not
the past has opened up
enthral is all
cake by fire
a slowly seat
after a long swim
friends to meet
friends of the sea
that swim with me
dread stories told
that all behold
the push
the pull
we’ve felt it all
warm cup in hand
enthral is all
taking the thespian’s michael
eyes on the other side of my being
seeing what is behind me and all
that made my world in front of his
the thespian with the apostle’s name
it follows does it not that frown
is half smile half fear of the wraith
that in my wake his mind has trod
a boy’s pretence and yet in this man
has age grown aged before its time
a hair trigger away from an uproarious laugh
of all the bloody poets of his land
that laid everyone of us to tears of joy
even at deaths black painted rocks
well i don’t know do i
he’s the actor boy
and it is not i wot wrote his lines
other than to feel what he sees through me
around me his hands a bear’s embrace
and turning paths me over the hills
and down the vales his wales
rumours of gales
the sea in mourning
in the morning storm
no harm no harm
but of course the flow
never slackens
whatever our defences
the blown tears flow
step after step
our only defence
bowed in grandiloquence
here where our land ends
fears take flight
like gulls in the night
some return
oh i don’t know why
they dance in the street
for they know not the destination
or if the road ahead has an end at all
weeds uproot the sidewalk
for underneath this urbanity
are the roots of darwin
pray
we last the course
