I pick my way through a battered box,
Full of old ideas and notebooks.
Finding none of the spiders I feared
But two ladybirds, dusty and dead,
Were buried beneath the old books.
They didn’t fly away home.
Amongst all the papers are poignant pages
I made for a lover long years ago.
I had borrowed it back.
It was never returned,
It wasn’t requested or missed.
It was full of small painting
Done with great care
But the poems I’d written weren’t there.
The last thing I found
Was two stained serviettes
I’d scribbled my thoughts on one day in a pub
As my friend slumped asleep in a chair
Escaping his life through an emptying glass.
It made no difference whatever I said.
He was drinking his life away.
Soon he’ll be dead, I am sure.
There are worn travel journals,
India, Morocco and Poland all carefully stored,
Some interesting stuff, full of days I forgot
And pictures, quite beautiful,
Carefully hand drawn in Wales.
It shocks me, as always,
When I find my statement
Made to police, one traumatic day.
I wish I could throw it away.
The terrors described are wiped from my head
Like words from a novel I’m unable to write.
It’s humid now.
I feel stifled for air.
Sick of dusty old boxes
I look out of the window.
The leaves outside flutter and tremble
As they always do, before a big storm.
They aren’t sure which way the wind blows.
Neither am I, today.
air
A Poets Gift (written when I was told to advertise)
I offer air and dust
a gift not lightly given
sealed tight inside a beating heart
and gathered by my eyes
dust is dust of mother earth
the ground you stand upon
with the very air you breathe
that bears an angels wings
disguised against the sky
this gift I bring
has never cost me anything
but a wandering mind
that haunts my nightly dreams
to find sweet beauty in the dark
and plays at hide and seek
through real, unreal and in-between
to find a spark divine
the words are never mine
they’ve all been used before
that’s how a poet lives
our store is hand to mouth
like beggars on the street
whose worth comes with no price
we search to find our sight
the work is not complete
Buttercups
There is a beautiful meadow of buttercups.
They catch the light of the sun.
I want to lay down amongst them
and strip right down to the skin
to feel the breeze and the air
and feel a full flood of life.
There is no-one around to care.
But when i draw closer to them
I see the electric fence.
The buttercups need defence
from a barbarian soul like mine.
From a Window
the rooks nest in the Linden
a long established colony
the trees stand out, bare of leaves
flat grey clouds and stillness
nothing enters this empty street
it’s a quiet Sunday
the bins await the refuse men
collection Monday
beside the houses whitewashed bricks
weeping willow, drooping, static
May is slowly budding
daffodils split the earth in triumph
the garden now is overgrown
a lone child kicks a stone
the empty table and six chairs
of weathered wood awaiting summer
i open wide this window
to listen for a sound
i hear a bird call, the creak of wings
as two wild geese circle to the river
no other sounds reach my ear
nothing moves in gentle air
there is nothing more to hear
this quiet Sunday
The Dreaming Path 