Torchlight Heart

When did your torchlight heart

Stop burning so bright

And when did your eyes stop finding

Wrong from right

Chequerboard love

One jump ahead

Of my every move

And every moment

I wonder

If you

Can even see

Why you're trying to defeat me

Clouds on the mountain

And rivers flowing full

Ice on the window melting

Where you traced

Your next move

To stay

One jump ahead

And every moment

I wonder

If you

Can even see

Why you're trying to defeat me

When I was always still shining bright

When I was always still shining bright

When did your torchlight heart

Stop burning so bright

And when did your eyes stop finding

Wrong from right

The stars in the sky

Are aligning with me

And I wonder

If you

Can even see

My torchlight heart

Tonight

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