Wednesday's Rain

Listening to the Commotions

Looking at the laundry

Wondering if it'll ever be done

Outside it's raining

Really need a little sun

Flowers in the rising tide

Words in the wind

While you read between the lines

Again

Radio plays louder than the rain

Songs I've remembered wrong

And words that stayed the same

Windscreen wiper rhythms

Punctuate the morning run

Lights stop, stop, go

Crazy people on their credit phones

Swerving across the road

As they dodge and jive

Waiting in the fast lane

For that extra mile

Home

Wednesday's rain got me feeling blue

Hoping for Thursday soon

For a dry day and summer June

Coffee and a bag of crisps

While we all couldn't care less

Those tears are little more than

Water running down the drain

Everyone connects but no one ever sees

The future is out there

Already on its knees

Flowers in the rising tide

Again

Radio plays louder than the rain

Songs I've remembered wrong

And words that stayed the same

Wednesday's rain got me feeling blue

Hoping for Thursday soon

For a dry day and summer June

From Your Valentine (14th February 2016)

A letter sent from a prison cell

Where even hope darkness quells

Such a bright, divine light, this love

As swift and sweet as any dove

Emperors, dictators and warlords fall

While Love, that universal call

Burns on, despite brutality and fear

And we remember every year

Not the hatred

Nor the pain

Not the tyrant

But the name

Signed and sealed, the heart's final line
With love, from your Valentine

The Way

A torch held

Beacon in the night

A promise kept

Shine your searchlight

And map this heart

A course set

Compass stone

You think you want to fly

The way of the angels

Reaching down to you

While you burn a message

With your smoky eyes

Guiding light

Compass set

Under midsummer skies

Carved in stone

Words said

Long ago

Like a beacon in the night

I know

The way of the angels

Return

I've listened to your song too many times

Worn a groove in my heart

Where your needles have stung

How do I start

To move on

One day we'll return

One day we'll all learn

To get along

But for now

How do I start

To move on

Road seems to never end

Did I take a wrong turn my friend

Left too much far behind

Returning home isn't on my mind

But then one day we'll return

One day we'll all learn

To get along

And I hear you are becalmed

On an ocean of storms

The labyrinth amazement won

Over the reason to run

From it all

Can we ever return

Can we learn to get along

I've listened to your song too many times

Worn a groove in my heart

Where your needles have stung

How do I start

To move on

One day we'll return

One day we'll all learn

To get along

But for now

How do I start

To move on

Summer Roads

Whispering your secrets to me

As though I can turn the clock

To a new time

Where your hands have worn

The surface smooth

To a blank page

Summer roads

Wind down to the sea

Summer roads

Set us free

All I can do

Is make you see

Summer roads

Find a pebble on the beach

Worn smooth by oceans of time

Grains of sand running

And remember what you ask

When you whisper

For me to change it all in an instant

As though I can delve into the universe

And peel away the geometry

Holding you here

Holding out for a

Blank page

Summer roads

Wind down to the sea

Summer roads

Set us free

All I can do

Is make you see
Summer roads

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