On Safflower nights

Shadows could be silent,
yet they lived where the valley broke,
temporary darkened windows of the marsh.
An abandoned colony, weightless
in its human absence.

As a boy, I flew kites there, felt the tug
on the line as it pulled my arm taut.
Stumbled in the heather, chasing
the whims of the overhead drafts,
releasing reams of cheap string for distance.

Half twisted my ankle as I ran, imagining
myself aflight, knees grazed
against spindly bracken. Gripped the impulse,
my ability to soar effortless, unsought
amongst the village ruins.

It’s an apparition, my dear Watson

Gas lights all night
play lowly tricks
oer the weary eyed,
some flicker right here,
a shadowing there.

And begad! You’re seeing ghosts.

Reflections in a mirror
glimpsed from creaking chair,
and when you prod there,
tis gone, sir, gone.

A library ghost you’ll never find,
non belief its first hiding nook,
and clues, no, don’t be mistook.

Nor will it come forth,
pose in a photographic plate,
did you think that might be the case.

Take a first edition book,
but then please don’t look
at the ones left untouched behind,
for they’ll all tell tales on you.

Best dear sir, to sit by the fire
and simply acquire
that in our comfortable zones,
we will never understand
unelementary homes.

As a receiver

This slight whisper of a tune echoed,
a manuscript that plays the notes of us
in recollected chords across relaxed arms.
A music disuades, the bed is almost settled,
and I’m at the middle-eight, a night musician
sitting on covers with a lump in my throat,
feet smoothing the invasion of crumbs,
trying to listen for an understanding;

to peer out of the window and imagine you.

So wistful the catch of a moon in your hands,
an opening quench of memories in the darkness
that feeds freshness in life’s deficiency. Maybe
a tonic that lives in my warmimg heart’s larder.
Other food I know will bring me as close to you,
but this is a squeezed drink of my circled self.

A mixture of confidences in told truths, jars
of smiles and humour, spiced reality reaching out
that rings changes stored in glassy containers,
boy-ish laughs that wipe away the years

and a child is all that remains

in the connection before the thought is sent,
known long after the seals have been broken wax.

Beside the window in the silence of the dawn
that reaches a self, the hours become past
knowing that the day will still burn as usual,
the pressure will be bearable to the clock’s end,
for it always has been an adventure sousse,
as sure as I can sense your embrace tonight
and in uneven phases of tomorrow.

 

*sousse is German for “dear one”.

Fox fluff

I’m a quiet, red fox,
on rooted twists of a tree,
conceal we do, happily.

Are you? Well, I’m trampled
moss haiku, dry, that’s me,
please, Mr fox, tread carefully.

Moss, you may complain,
but you’re good comfort
in a Japanese terrain.

Oh, Mr fox, while we’re at it,
you dislodged my blossom,
though an old tree, I still feel it.

Blossom, I followed my nose,
and moss, you aren’t quite haiku,
of that the wind knows.

Another’s garden

At the meeting of three rivers
stood a concealing gate,
of what could be expected beyond
it was impossible to discern.
Ivy knots trained the eye
over a wall to centurie’s labour,
a garden of tranquility in form.

I stepped up to the keeper,
inquired as to how to visit,
the scent airborne was a balm
as he pointed to courseways.

The first water healed my body,
aqua vitre the essence,
memories of dashing into the sea;
a child to warm towels bound,
all embracing arms.

The second released my mind,
stress fled in the surfacing shimmer.
Recollections of kindred thoughts
returned blue and cloudless;
lain on my back, tree’s shade
framing a limitness sky fascination.

The third water gave strength,
my spirit contained burned brighter,
abilities of kindness, good nurture
coursed a well being outside self.

When returning later to the gates,
I found I was on the other side.

So near, so far

Would that the night
wasn’t between us,
the pitch of dreamed seas
were walkable rope bridges
and we could rest easier again.

I will climb to my crow’s nest
rung by unsteady rung,
and wait for the eventual lull,
for earth’s dawn curvature
to be as your very own.

The measure of a latitude
no sullen wave can ever engulf
or will conceal in time’s rifts,
we only need wait
for the sand’s revealment
of a causeway,
the connection of two lands.

Walk swift across
and I’ll embrace you there
halfway in the daybreak,
once again my ocean.

Ignition from the blues

 

For the instance
I was a cool green car,
polished to reflect
in its hub caps
routes of small town roads;
painted yellow homes.

Verges on either side.
Their small garden breezes
combed our hair,
they rolled down car windows,
rested elbows for you and I.

And we knew where we were,
but not exactly the destination,
yet it was a fine way
to get there, familiarity
with colours energized.

Bees outside fell into trails,
buzzing old radio tunes
of optimism. They sped alongside
black and yellow stripes,
this track out of the blues.

A hard day’s night

“A hard day’s night”

makes some sense
lyrically, need that
sometimes,

“and I’ve been Working
like a dog”
is something to really relate to,
tail wagging for the next
monthly paycheck.

Only to shrink
in cold weather,
with thoughts
of its size, damn!

Glass sunflowers

It’s difficult to imagine
a time before that afternoon,
the rain laden sortie into here,
flung pebbles off the kerb;
chess pawns pushed upstream
to land within this cathedral.

Strange, the weather changed
while shaking out the deluge,
stone floors outlined our passing
from the outside to sanctum in,
presence of a cloistered garden.

Following plain columns I felt sure
a withered vine climbed the ceiling,
only to resurface near the vaults,
where unexpected, it lit up, bloomed

sunflowers for an atheist to believe.

Of flammable stars

Twinkle twinkle little star,
how I wonder where you are.

How I wonder where you were,
before you settled by that fir.

I know you’re just a blob of gas,
still, you swirl the future, the past.

Above my campfire, one bright sight,
a moon could be a star, but isn’t quite.

Please don’t come down too close,
you know what might happen I suppose.

My fire would make you combust,
and this you have to trust,

I’m far too young to ignite.