poet cetera

 poet cetera

am i a real poet 

or a pretend poet

and

if i am a pretend poet 

how do i become a real poet

and 

if i am a real poet 

then why am i pretending

i remind myself to ask myself

on looking at gareth’s tenby

 on looking at gareth’s tenby 

the easterly wind waves 

curling into the harbour with

no thoughts of snow now

that the westerlies wait

to enter stage right under 

the noses of the coloureds houses 

galleried as his photographs

hanging the nightlight lowering

the blue-black lanyard-rattling masts

of the town’s ships

log to the base men

 log to the base men

            i run away from me

            into my arms

it’s all in my book

kids we were

sitting on our favourite rocks

  on the hillside

    above the river

when the log floated down

and 

someone jumped in

and 

someone did the trying

and 

the crying never stopped

where is she now

his mother

dead i suppose

like that boy

in the river

now

where was i 

early one morning i closed my eyes

 early one morning i closed my eyes

my mind is blank

infinitely blank

except for that door 

infinity small

and moving

here one minute and gone the next

virtual in its being

except for the tapping

the pressing

when the eye flap opens

a lance of light

attests the sugar

and then the wren thoughts

in the corkscrew

there one minute and gone the next

unlocatable 

in the hedgerows of my mind

beneath the shroud

stoned and ghosted

hand on brow falling

forward sitting back 

my breaths a picket fence

deciding how far one should dare

cross the snowfields 

the thin ice of the wearing

yes

the hushed voices hushing the voices

on the other side of listening

another mind in the wings

waiting

the prompt waiting

on the stage a new backdrop 

the audience hang

upon a soliloquy 

that has its hand upon the door

but It is in the non-looking that we find

that the door is locked 

is in fact not a door

but a blankness 

oxymoronic in its depth

deaf to knocking

open to a turning away

here one minute and gone the next

the hand 

on falling upon it

will never grasp it

will never grasp that the blankness

is 

as a matter of fact

it

is 

as a matter of fact

not a fact at all

not at all

all

and then upon reflection

 and then  upon reflection 

write a poem on a pebble

and put that pebble on a seat

on the seaside promenade 

when ‘they’

‘they’ know who they are

want to sit they have to 

move it

and when they pick it up

to move it

they read it

and it moves them

so they put it down

and look out to sea

and then  upon reflection

they see

and there

 and there

where the innerings of the fields converge 

by long the falling of your way’s desire

rest you now from all the toils of day

around the hearth of nighttime’s lonely fire

lay your heart to rest its winter’s load 

and simply sit and longingly wait content 

until the bulbs of spring emerge

although deep they lay below this snowy sward 

where many a hope in earnest overstayed 

never again to open up upon another time 

but lay forgotten and forgotten lay

and long forgotten there they stay

what and who

what and who

what language does a tear speak

what nationality a kiss

the upturn of a smile

can my arms embrace the whole earth

what girth does tomorrow’s baby make 

and who will correct the final mistake

the sighs of hollow laugh

who is big enough 

to be small enough

to ride the moon away

whisper it to me

my