Arctic Tern

So, this is an oldie, probably from well before 2007 (my immediate archives only go back so far) but sometimes it's good to revisit. Thinking of writing a new set of poems and, in going through my garden photos from 2015, found some of bizarre frost patterns which caught my imagination again. Don't ask me how I connected it to this poem, who knows how those synapses fire. New set will be under the working title, 'Summer Road'.

Arctic Tern

Dry creek runs in my veins

And the drumming blood

Beats in my brain

Can't escape this passing place

If we chance to meet

Offer me grace

Silver grit and oil sticks in the crepe tread

Of my sandals again

Must be a summer road

Can't promise much

But my boat sails

On those oceans we sing

Like the stickers on the orange string

We'll throw our nets and sing

Strange lands unfolding

Scooped up in the wings

Of this Arctic tern

Feathers smooth in the skin

Flying over the ice cradles

Is how she begins

Dry creek runs in my veins

And the dust I bring

Will inflame

And your eyes will cry

With the beat

Flying across the seas

Until only the shadow of my wings

Is the structure of the tide

And I'm singing in your eyes

Eyes and a Smile

He said stay for a while

With his eyes and his smile

But I couldn't bear to stay

So I walked away

Don't judge a hopeless heart

When it was broken in the past

It takes so long to mend

Believe me my friend

Just when I thought I could fly

It turned out all I did was fall

When I thought I was free

Love wouldn't let go of me at all

So don't judge a hopeless heart

When it was broken in the past

Stay for a while

Eyes and a smile

With every falling flake of snow

A perfect pattern repeats and so

It seems, do I

This endless winter night

Flames flicker in the hearth

But still my heart

Can't let go

He said stay for a while

With his eyes and his smile

And I couldn't bear to walk away

So I turned back to say

Don't judge a hopeless heart

When it was broken in the past

Just when I thought I could fly

It turned out all I did was fall

For eyes and a smile

New set of poems soon...

At the side of this blog, I have added a couple of links to Lulu Publishing where you can buy my poems in booklet or pdf form. I am working on a new set of poems under the title 'Rain Tomorrow'.

So far the running order is as follows:

I would walk again a Dorset year

Unlike Anything

Unravelling Knots

Inside the Shell

The Window

Falling in all Directions

At the Top of the Hill

The Dragon Pool (Glastonbury)

Crocodilian

The Field Tree

While Away in Wordchester

The Garden Party (On the Rochester Literature Festival, July 2013)

Reculver Beach

Trick of the Light

Lantern Hearts

Lilac and Sweet Clover

Summer Solstice 2012

Winter Solstice 2013

Inside The Shell

In opalescent light I sit inside

A wall around me of my own making

If I put my ear to the shell

I hear an ocean outside

A strange current on the surface

Washing over words and dreams

Photo flotsam, memory jettison

Passing ephemera of a life

Pearly surface reflecting

All superficiality spiraling away

Here, in this quiet amphitheatre

I am unshackled

From the tides of pandemonium

Quietly sustained

Within the cathedral shapes

Inside the shell

Falling in all Directions

Each iota

Not more than a jot

A dust mote

Suspended

Falling in all directions

The timeless drift

A space jellyfish

On the currents

Of photons

Sailing the air

Of a sunlit room

While the room

Spins on the earth's axis

A volta waltz

Around the sun

Bright star

Chandelier bauble

In a galactic ballroom

Dancing out across

The universe

Falling in all directions

Expanding frequencies

Vibrating out to a slow red glow

Or high pitched blues

Quick, quick, slow

Is how it goes

Each retinal flash

A synaptic gasp of realization

And in its brilliance

Life plays out

Refracted through an invisible prism

Of quantum rhythms

In the corner of my eye

Light, falling in all directions

Catches a dust mote

Dreaming in the late, lazy sun

Of an autumn room

Gladiator Girl

This is an old poem (circa 2007) I was thinking about for no particular reason today. I was never sure about the title but nothing else seems to fit. 

And the battle we fight

Is the battle we choose

You can’t win

And I can’t lose

So where do we go from here

I don’t know but baby

It’s more of the same

The games I’ve played

Only conclude

Love never learns

Ballad on the moors

Purple heather

Growing by the door

Sweeping winds

Across the stones

Of monuments and

The ruins are written

In the bones

Of those long past

Battles I’ve worn

And I’m sorry for the scars

When I turned it into a fight

But baby, it’s my right.

And the battle we fight

Is the battle we choose

You can’t win

And I can’t lose

So where do we go from here

I don’t know but baby

It’s more of the same

The games I’ve played

Only conclude

Love never learns

Stretch the ropes

To sail

And swing the hopes

Of sweeping winds

Across the skies

Oars to the shore

I’ll be washed up at your door

Bearing fruits from other lands

Salt water stains on my hands

And I know the name

Given to me by right

So why do we fight?

Love never learns

Can only make it rhyme

The keyboard

Is the place and time

And the words are still

True today

Story unfolding like a fight

Drawing up my battle lines

Darling, it’s my right

And the battle we fight

Is the battle we choose

You can’t win

And I can’t lose

So where do we go from here

I don’t know but baby

It’s more of the same

The games I’ve played

Only conclude

Love never learns

While Away in Wordchester

I think what I would like to see

Is poetry recited under trees

And in the dark gloom of a shady crypt

A reworking of a Gothic script

Upon the lawns where prams roll

A tall tale or two while we stroll

And by the cannons a dramatic pause

To spark a volley of applause

I'd let my mind wander free

In a citadel full of poesy

Mind games

In hidden lanes

To trip you up

And spells on knolls

Wishing ink wells

And wooden walls

A train of thought

To bridge the gap

Between fantasy

And prose's precise map

Engineered to fit the bill

While perched on a favourite windowsill

A bird's eye view to another town

And all along and down

These streets

I'd let my mind wander free

In a citadel full of poesy

But most of all, what I'd like to see

Is poetry recited under trees

A couple of old poems for a summery weekend...

Where Lady Summer Dwells

(A Dorset walk)

Where the ragged robin grows
And cow parsley sows
A garland of wild garlic
In the hedgerow
Down the green lane
Runs a silver stream
And in the clear wide sky
Ride dragonflies

Here’s a place I know well
It’s where lady summer dwells

Life is for living
And hearts are for giving
It’s a sweet song she sings
While she walks
Down the green lane

Old Bumble

I remember
The days
When you could fly
From wood to lea
Hedgerow
All the way

No fencing
No block paving
No endless acreage
Ploughed edge to edge
But room to dawdle
Among the foxgloves
And sunny honeysuckle...

Ah, by my furry knees
Times long gone
Lunch was at the Dog Rose
With warm lavender till tea
Then home
While long shadows overtook
The neat lawns
Cut too short for clover now

Home to snooze
A honeyed dream
Of summer days
With hedgerow
All the way

Nothing So Grand

You are the coldest star

Shining bright from afar

I am a gentler kind

Washed with rains of time

You are a cold, clear night

Ferocious and focused light

I am the warmer flame

Constant I will remain

Until the dawn

I'll find your face in a crowd

I'll reach out for your hand

I'll send you on your way

I will even stay

Until the dawn

Of another day

Nothing so grand in my plans as you

Nothing for the rest of the day to do

Find my smile, take my hand

And we could stay this way

Until the dawn

You are the coldest star

Shining bright from afar

I am a gentler kind

Washed with rains of time

You are a cold, clear night

Ferocious and focused light

I am the warmer flame

Constant I will remain

Until the dawn

I'll find your face in a crowd

I'll reach out for your hand

I'll send you on your way

I will even stay if you need me too

Until the dawn of another day

Ocean View

I was thunderstruck from the start

You were a hammer blow to my heart

You went and caught me off my guard

In a storm of emotion

You came rolling in

And I can't remember

Why or even when

But it was always

Wild like the wind

With you

It was always

Wild like the winter wind

The road is twisting round an ocean view

We've got the moonlight bathing us in blue

I see no future for us but I wanted too

I wanted wild like the wind with you

I was thunderstruck from the start

You were a hammer blow to my heart

You went and caught me off my guard

In a storm of emotion

You came rolling in

And I can't remember

Why or even when

But it was always

Wild like the wind

With you

It was always

Wild like the winter wind

The wheels are skidding cross an icy road

The metal grinding as sparks brightly glow

A river of our blood is drowning me

And my love is falling to a violent sea

My last words ever are a silent scream

I wanted wild like the wind with you

I was thunderstruck from the start

You were a hammer blow to my heart

You went and caught me off my guard

In a storm of emotion

You came rolling in

And I can't remember

Why or even when

But it was always

Wild like the wind

With you

It was always

Wild like the winter wind

rain tomorrow

Now seems like a good time to start a new set of poems/songs under the title 'rain tomorrow' taken from one of my poems, Reculver Beach. I took the cover picture at Minster Leas last year.

Reculver Beach

The rough leather of a dog fish skin

Spiry and age-spotted into dry seaweed

Scratching on the soles of our shoes

And a perfect crab shell, legs and all

Hollowed out by the tide

Soft parts long since departed

Now weeping scales of salt onto our palms

Bleached shells and smooth pebbles

Picked from a beach pocked with horned poppy

As we walk beyond the reach of the sea

And all along the Viking Way they cycle

Flat out, fast and free

Billowing their hair with a windy brine

From Wigmore and wherever

In serious pursuit of leisure

Here now, the old flint walls

Flinching under a blue sky

As starlings form a chorus line

High up on the rafters of the old towers

To entertain us with a song and dance

From some bawdy, birdy music hall

Reviewing the late summer sky

This weather cannot last

Rain tomorrow

And they will give one last bow

Then exit left for winter

And all along the Viking Way we walk

Dawdling at the view

Of giant windmills out to sea

And trains and tractors

Pulling the flat land taught

Below a winnowed sky

We reach the car park

Just time for a drink and a snack

This weather cannot last

They say it'll rain tomorrow

And we comment, again, on the cormorants

Fishing from the posts in pairs

And if they were young egrets we saw in that tree

And we give one last bow to the beach

While checking our shoes
Then exit left for the motorway

Lantern Light

My heart jumps

Needle on a record

At your name

And my eyes find you

Still the same

And despite myself

I light a flame

And set those

Lantern hearts dancing

Under the sudden summer rain

Lightning and thunder across the bay

Light up what was a heavy day

And all across the verandah

The hailstones play

A light in my heart

For you

A light in my life

Was you

A light in this world

Will do

We're all lantern hearts dancing

In the sudden summer rain

My heart jumps

Needle on a record

At your name

And my eyes find you

Still the same

And despite myself

I light a flame

And set those

Lantern hearts dancing
Under the sudden summer rain

cities and small towns

My heart is a box full of insoles

For shoes that never quite fit

And I've bunions and blisters

And stiletto disasters
Running after a love I can't keep

Cities and small towns

It's always the same

They'll burn out your hope

By the hard light of day

And letters in the river

Are blurring the lines

Between what was a future

And what's on my mind

My heart is a box full of letters

For love I forgot how to write

And I've lived with those words

That nobody heard

Running after a shoe leather life

Cities and small towns

It's always a game

A balance between fortune
And only fame