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