cheers
looking at the empty chair
wondering what it would be like
if she were not there
ever again
wondering what i would be wondering
if i were still here
and she were not there
ever again
in that chair just
an impression in her cushion
slowly healing
ever so slowly
i think
oh god no
cellular
the dead orchestrate our lives
their atoms are in all our cells
talk of the devil
here come god
to defend his answers
mitosis started in the debris
from the supernova of thought
the cat is eating yesterday
for tomorrow i may be
where
exactly
walk it
even if it is not public
walk it
they might be your last steps in this world
sod them with their enclosure
expose your mind to other clover
the fields of wrath might scorch
the corn
but ash is a great fertiliser
a great leveller
be that intrepid traveller
walk it
the inbetween days
the inbetween days
when turning is a mist
an opportunity
when not often
is a feeling
a thought that comes
but never remains
when going forward
or going back
is not spoken but is
an inbetween where to
hold the beholden
for a moment is
the sea’s breath
upon a cold last rock
in the nursery of dreams
i thought (about her) that
i thought (about her) that
i could not write like that
even if i she gave me an extra word or two
even if i placed them thus
i thought
how does she weave those golden threads
when they are some un-shrivelled
in the whole with its darned holes
how does the life blood of a poem
run down from an ever-filling pen
surely behind some bloody eyelid
there is a smile of welcome
when a thought comes home again
i thought
then i could write like that
and why is it not
and why is turnover
such an integral part of life
the massive cellular wastage
in so many of life’s systems
is this boiling of time
a manifestation of loss
leaching from a matrix of
the living and the dying
does it give life to the transient
as an integral part of an
eternal algorithm for replication
by a pool
reflecting upon a reflection
in a pool
reflecting upon a reflection
looking back on myself going forward
from all that is behind me
there is no going back
is there no going back
unless i go into my reflection
and send myself away
past caring
alone again
as a child he always thought
he wanted to be a lighthouse keeper
when the candle for a shepherd piffed out
when the fish were no longer taking the bait
and the rabbit gun no longer the company it was
across the heathland in the sun above the mist
time was he thought he had time to decide when
suddenly the answer no longer fitted the question
although the wild places were still calling
the misty way still beckoning far away
the tiny pebble with a kiss inside
warm fumbling in his pocket
somewhere
down the back of his neck
way down behind his heart
there was an unopened room
the key at the end of a paper chase
of pay slips and mortgage statements
now in the shallowing breaths of time
as his arms stretched his fingers could
could could almost reach that key
but no one cheered him on
not even his desperate tears
could percolate into that room
not one sunbeam escaped
at no time was time alone
allowed to be just
alone
when the lost sheep bleated
the lighthouse still flashed
baleful baleful baleful
were the words
to his mind
if only one moment
inside that room
were allowed
then maybe he
could make sense of this finality
when finally was finally allowed to be
all alone
as he was meant to be
something’s bloody heave
modern christmas
the advert calendar
i just don’t buy it
whose blood is it anyway
on the holly and the ivy
no idea why
the bees that make the honey
sting the sore surely quickly
suck your finger fast and
taste the sweet blood of tradition
as it always was
so it always will be
unless you blow out the candle
until then it will remain forever
something on someone else’s eve
i’ll leave it there
under the christmas tree
for thee
