Poems and Jottings

I saw a picture of a wood at night

With trees outlined in bright moonlight

The stars like baubles in a black silk sky

The shadows whispering to the night fox eye

I remembered walking with you, hand in hand

And it seemed like a story from a foreign land

You loved the night, I loved the day

We loved each other in our strange twisted way

The words that morph into twists and lies

Were just the colours of different skies

Love could make each difference taste the same

Could make a pleasure from falling rain

My love, like day I walk in night

Your memory clear, like the sweet moonlight

The Time For Longing is passed

and all the words have all been said

The warmth of summer turned cold rain

Loves' sweet promises shelved, unread 

Your ship has plowed the silver seas

Smiles and laughter safely stowed

In words and rhymes and memories

And double-entendres left unsaid

Your treasures are packed in in dark wood holds

Her laughter locked in polished stones

Her fleeting touch bundled in China silks

All now journeying swift to memory's home 

A smiling laugh and a knowing wink

Bringing your cargo home to port

A summer load of pleasure's warmth

To keep the chill from winter's bed

Now, let me tell you of a Winter’s afternoon

When the light was grey in the window’s eye

When the fire burnt miser with a gaslight glow

And the touch of her hand was clumsy and slow

Like two blind men searching for gods know whatever

We kissed and we cuddled as the radio hissed

Trying to work out where we were going

And what was a hit and what was a miss

The giggles, the kisses, the hands futile searching

The feeling of something slow growing within

The route cross a river, a journey to something

My very first training in how love begins

Like water flowing crystal in the sun

The parting shadows of the afternoon

Knowing in my heart you were the one

Wondering if, in your heart, I had my room

The picnic ending, the chorus gone

Dying to a murmur in the breeze

The endless voices, summer song

Reduced to just a whispering in the trees

I watched you sitting, glass in hand

Gazing into nothing, far away

just a stranger from a another land

Come hereto visit for the day

I stood beside you, breathed your scent

But nowhere in my throat could find the words

To make a promise, make you stay

Like summer whispering in its leaves

I stood and watched you walk away

Last night, when all

was the darkness

and the clocks rich ticking,

you reached across the bed

to hold my hand.

I don't know why.

Perhaps a dream disturbed you

waking you from shuttered sleep

for a swift moment.

A moment for comfort,

for certainty

Perhaps a touch for warmth,

to know that I was still there.

Sometimes I wake to hear you breathe

and turn into your warmth

The clock ticking the hours.

till morning.

One day the clock will stop

And I will lie here, 

In an empty room

I remember the quiet times

The times when a cup of tea

Repaired the fabric of the world

There was a simplicity there

That we have lost with time

Spooned tea, fought over tea cards, 

Castles on the stairs

I remember those times as fragments

Of a long lost, vanished past.

The radio, the open fire, the laughter

Ghosts in the room

Memories of another day

Always searching, needing, 

reaching for the one

Seeking, losing, gaining

pretending that its fun

Swallowing the ache

when the arrow goes astray

Yearning for that moment

The flailing hopeful play

Wanting just the comfort

Of another hand in yours

Her warmth beside you, sleeping

Love, with all its flaws

Perhaps there is no answer

no reason to the game

But still we go on searching

For hearts that beat the same

A summer storm swept over the afternoon

From nowhere the rain scattered crowds

across the park, seeking shelter.

I stood, hearing the surprised cries

This was England where weather

was an acknowledged religion

where rain brought laughter

And umbrella huddles on river paths

I stood beneath a dripping oak 

Listening and watching

Glad to be alive

England in summer

It was the morning after the rain.

When the massed clouds still roamed the sky

and the world was mirrored in puddles

The wind took the breath from you

bending you to a new shape,

twisting you to its wild dance.

The sun was a fugitive friend

smiling fitfully, hiding its face, 

like an old woman at a window.

Walking in wellingtons,

wrapped in a warm coat

I wandered through a new land

The sudden creation of a capricious god

Worshipping its beauty.

It snowed today, suddenly the rain

turned effortlessly to white snow,

soundless, falling like a pale sheet

over the old pain of winter, still dreaming

of summer, hoping for spring.

I live in moments, like a old film

stuttering, thoughts delayed  like

morse from an ancient key.

Perhaps the world should

fade to black and white, reruns

of Christmas past when all

was simpler, open to

meaning, laughter in

corners, pictures in windows.

I breathe with ghosts, smile

with shadows, echo like rain

from a broken pipe. Perhaps

like a shadow I only live in

sunlight, perhaps not?

I drown in moments

The touch of your hand

sliding down my arm

as you pass.

Lips, soft on cheek

smiles, like broken promises

Laughter in a perfect afternoon

I still remember

the colour of your hair

your warmth in bed

The corner of your smile

your face when you left

Moonlight, like a turn

to black and white

Memories, curses

in a silent afternoon

that day, it snowed

Inside, I remember.

Do you remember the day

we climbed Beacon Hill together.

We made a den in the long grass,

stamping it down in a circle

and watched the blue sky above us,

That day I said that I was a foundling,

and you told me, in secret,

that you were a fairy princess.

In truth, I was just a skinny kid with

Round pebble glasses, no good at games and

You, a gangly girl with blue eyes

and mousy hair and no friends.

But we had our stories and our mysteries.

Together we watched the bright  blue sky

and wove our tales of towers and dragons, together.

But time passes and people change.

You became a beautiful fairy princess

but I remained the same.

Princesses marry princes,

live in palaces and have no need

of stories.

I met you recently, by chance.

Your prince had swapped you for a younger princess

and your eyes were somehow empty

and lonely.

You told me how you still remembered

Beacon Hill,

that you were so happy then.

You asked me if I was still a wizard

and I replied, only part time nowadays.

Most of the time I just write bad poetry.

You laughed and held my shoulder, tight.

Perhaps fairy tales can still have happy endings?

With Dido’s pain filled cries still echoing in our ears

Her distant pyre smoke climbing to the sky

We washed our blackened faces in the wine red endless sea

And filled the purple sail full blown with Carthage summer wind

In death, we turned our backs on Asia’s rocky shore.

Carrying hard within our thoughts the burden of our history

The Troad’s ancient flames still burning in our hearts

Our pain still fathered in our dreams and memory

Through sea tossed days we looked to find a place to cease our wanderings

To end the tale begun with Paris bound in love and jealousy

To dull the pain of Priam’s sons, each dying in the tumbled dust.

To silence woman’s eternal cries of pain and misery

So, we came to pin our hopes on Latin shores

A place to cease our endless wanderings

A time to plant our spears on each of seven hills

To mark our sons with Tiber’s blue light christening

This was a land to crown with warm stone walls

To mark each hill with temples gleaming in the sun

 A city fit to house the endless thundering crowds

Who sang the their songs of glory to the chosen ones

And so, in pride, where but to Carthage should we return

With sharp prowed ships, iron spears and hearts of stone

To break the walls where wives and mothers bathed in fire

And to make a waste where salt was ploughed to poison loam

Then, at last, our song was great in majesty and pride

With files of marching soldiers beneath a Roman sky

With poets poised to praise our endless victories

And slaves to whisper humbly: “why?”

With pride we reigned, with pride we fell

Till Rome was simply memories, just a name

Where once across the world we stood as gods

But Carthage always was our endless shame

Now the stone lies tumbled in the ground

The poets sing a different song

To cities raised like eagles to the sky

And there are no slaves to whisper “why?”

 But all songs will have their endings

A moment when the notes are heard no more

When stone has tumbled into dust

And the singers quit the darkened floor

promises like grains of dust

that tremble in the sunlight

drift like angels across the room

I raise my hands to touch

the the twisting shoals of birds above

I will be one with you

Soon

Wind and wave combine to form the day

A world defined by sun and clouds

And swirling birds that scrape the water's spray

Memories surround me like a shroud

In summer sun and shadowed ways

The path is soft with windblown sand

The sun is chased by eager clouds

and bird song, but you have gone away

far beyond my reach and love

And summer is now more empty

than the bird cry overhead

I'm taking flowers to the headland

To cast upon the sea

An offering to your memory

Summer's eternity

Sometimes I've written things and never come back to them. Less than a face on a train or a thought in the streat Or a love in retreat

You see I lose them

And these one-hand clapping thoughts

that the madman never saw

by the oasis of dreams

speak no more

ah like a button of incompetence

Doug pedalled

Sat back in disbelief

And clicked in futile grinding of teeth.

I set against this house of cards

The cumulative song

More than the sandy waves

Where love comes from.

I am nothing if not cumulative

The torch flash must be a message

Her hands a longing to inspire

The mad cacophony - a choir

If I, like Odysseus blown now thirty years from home From Ithaca's sandy shores forced far to roam To take a knife to cut these tangled threads wove by the fates Find suitors, in hosts like summer wasps, gathered round your city gates? Even now, I still remember your sweet soft sighs The haunting beauty of your eyes As I wander far in foreign seas And sleep, curled tight 'neath foreign trees