Barley moon glows so

Sagebrush smudges blot flutter 

butter stained paper wings winding

a barley full moonslide, pinballing the crescent

through to inky countryside retreats.                  

The fast track hard tarmac negative white

and black slip to slip-road soft grey gives way

to earth path potent country lanes, moonwashed

blues ultra to indigo, felt tip. Feather quill scratch-breaks

breaking a charcoal softening wave like river mercy

cradling the bends to sea. Turns headlight a hammock

across fruit grove trees daylighting the night drive

with colour and summer, my grain moon

longing a full green corn August glare

to golden, when this sturgeon moon glows so.

candela

hermit shell brilliance

stones throw plankton lumen ring

sarongs the calcium

bio-luminescence

plastic pollution

Bakelite shell star anise pools 

plankton to starfish

Sarongs to 08- sea blue crystal, sling, if the dress, Japan sun, Dreamers Graffiti Special, Daisy, Maya

to add to...

sea blue crystal

aquamarine sea blue crystal
white light crests roaring air rolling sound
snaking rocks rocking long harmonic breath
tones spilling waves sluicing waterfalls
sweeping volcanic plateau rock pool shore bound surf stretches
leaning impressions traversing stone sarong skin pore cliff

tidal-pull-wash beckoning back to sea jagged shell
rock pool waking life white lightening fireworks sea blue
crystal dreams confetti-ing flowering word shoals
aquamarine to indigo darkening depths
opening violet fathoms peddling stretch runners longing
an azure horizon

arching curves returning light-lapis cloud lines sun tints pink
sunset flamingo golden amber flare lavas wet sand dry

rose golden embers white bubbles inhale
turquoise to malachite


sarong sling

sarong sling on the beach tattoos from the wrist draped around a shoulder silk enough for a kite against the sky...calm breeze blows ribbon frays silky wing fluttering the feathery palm tree menagerie of birds - no cat except half-a-tail snoozing on the tin roof of The Beach Shack - yawning yoga hot noon Madam Sangria glasses and sun-wrinkles polishes a silver tray, flashes the napping parrots, dazzles eyes inhaling sea bubbles wets lips and the golden nectar beads rolling the icy glass of a nice cold beer soon reflect sarong tattoos draping the painted haiku of shells quietly reading stones at the bar.



if the dress

The busy tailor, and the hardworking seamstress, too hot for May, whispers ‘…hear your woman is wearing her sarong? say they saw her dance flamenco in the square, say she was a diamond kite in the night sky too…seen your woman rough diamond the clouds?…say she laughs in the streets every day a painting – and say it’s scandalous; there were photographs, flash photographs..’

The tailor looks up and smiles, ‘I hear my woman is wearing her sarong like a kite, dancing at the beach in the moonlight while I am working on the ribbons and frays’ and the seamstress blushes by the window embroidering the sash with petals, ‘yes…yes…I’m listening out for her too…’ laying her template on the cloth, no straight lines to cut - ‘if the dress’ she said, the afternoon she wore her sarong to the beach.



Japanese under the sun

It is red, this sun, and any other word
would be glaringly ostentatious, when
this poem ought reflect the Zen-like quality
of a pretty plate of dead sliced fish
on palm rolled balls of rice.

In which case - the waiter, waits,
the chopsticks lift lips of fish,
the bamboo knocks to point out stillness,
the bubbles lean on ice-cubes in the glass,

while the sun
.................... bleeds
................................ecstatic
..........................................colours to the sky.


Dreamer’s tin of Graffiti Special

“You are a Dreamer!” she says
slightly exasperated to say the very least
the popped Champagne cork
the souvenir magnum smoking the sarong
so I simply take a ladder to the horizon line
lean it against the sky
climb each rung as high as I can
take out my tin of Graffiti Special
write ‘I LOVE YOU’ in huge
rounded letters on the blue
slide down the ladder
becoming a canoe and paddle
my heart out heading for the sarong
now a haiku of shells quietly reading
and if a cloud goes by and the sarong
becomes a Japanese scarf on the washing line
it may be of interest to note a bird in a haiku
calls just before I open the Champagne.


Daisy,

The other day, a complete stranger
ran up to me and said, ‘Let’s
get married! Let’s get married!
and hopped on to my tandem.
Naturally I replied, ‘Miss,
we’ve only just met. Please -
remove yourself from my bicycle,
that seat is reserved for Daisy.”
Mercifully, she obliged and wandered off,
just before Daisy appeared
carrying a shopping bag for her dad,
“Alright Ducks?” she said, “I’m knackered”
and placed her belongings into the basket,
hopped on board, buffed the chrome with her hanky,
and looked just fine, “You take it easy, my love,
I’m as fit as a fiddle to peddle the metal.
You freewheel a starfish.” and peddled off,
hard up the hill; easy-sailing all the way home.”




Maya, the dragonfly’s wife.

'Radical Forgiveness?' asked the dragonfly, 'Is that what forgiving the self is before becoming?'

'Before becoming, what? asked the rabbit, very confused.

'Less Radical. Or more. Depends which way you look at it..’ said the dragonfly barely moving a muscle.

‘Sometimes I think you are being deliberately superficial!’ said Maya, the dragonfly’s wife, stepping onto her bicycle. The rabbit looked this way, and that, and didn’t say a word, except 'Fisherman!'

‘You want to go somewhere?’ asked the dragonfly, keeping perfectly still.

‘Yes. Of course dear,’ she replied, remarking on the splendid neatness of line, of a nearby damselfly’s dress, so steady against the breeze.

'Fisherman! Fisherman!' said the rabbit, sneezing loud enough for the damselfly to feel a slight chill of wing muscle, and stretch, in all directions..

'Splendid!' said the dragonfly's wife.




to 08
abctales

Points of View

The slats, scenic backdrops a plenty
will lift or slide each moving panorama of moments
marking instants or occasion with importance.
The enormous artistry fixed in views, minute portions
of the transcendent, setting the scene.

These sublime slices will flick-book partial moments of eternity
whether outside on the pavement, treading the boards
or sat alone in a comfortable chair. (She deviated,
a random variable to their fixed value,
and they thought she was mean.)

When the momentum of absence is felt in each scene
and you cannot find that moment there or anywhere,
forget all other points of view;
who is running down colonnades, falling through squares,
smashing immense slats warped enough to want you,

sat, reading on a park bench, panning into insignificance,
the September rose garden, dappled fireworks on blue sky.



06
edit

dawn to day

Liquid sliver rolling still

in flowered cups, champagne flutes

of stained glass, droplets globe topping

the bell cluster comfrey. Cold moon glow. 
When all should roll, all statues.

A dawn blue mist slow rising

to rays of warmth - a morning kiss

to roll a splash of beads in the birdsong,

an awakening to all sky bound

and breaking fast for butterfly and bee.

How the night sky changes,

How the night sky changes
when there is so much fixed in movement.
People fall by the wayside of a heart,
free-fall from a sphere of influence,
each a star, the centre of their universe, seeds
on a map - vanishing.

The other side of the moon is still there, of course,
as are we, here on the circumference of this sphere
where giants race to peer long lashes over the never-ending hill
like it were a rainbow, thinking gold would be to see you,
hold your small hands to say thank you,

when light is already there and here,
sensing what is missing and what is missed
by the brushes of blinking
when giants have stretched,
yawned and slept.




Heavens
whimsy
abc 2013

Spring to summer,

Spring to summer is a glass bubbling births 
of chalk stream baptism and wood fires warming 

slow motion, extending over silver stumbling stones 
stretching a dance through cobblestones, weaving

the trees with cats-eye star imprints; sarongs,

or in a beaded chain of Whitstable iced pearls.

In the melt of what is new and what is old
Dover nets fill with the cliffs and the fisher's soul.

As we sort wheat from chaff like the next farmer along,

Love always brings in a harvest more than golden auburn.

The history of labour and loving is as undocumented

as ever, except for the note-taker maker-shakers, there 
would be no history written for love’s unpaid labourers.

With the harvest lurks searching horizons 
for weather; clocks and vanes. Love rests 
in a bouquet fed to the deer. It resuscitates
in wildflower wild-fire colour hypnosis 
with no scent at all, and yet it blooms. Synesthetic 

Love is...always in the heartwood hay and leaves 

when seasons dictate work routines, just like

clockwork; twenty-four, seven.




25/07/20

sea blue crystal

aquamarine sea blue crystal
white light crests roaring air rolling sound
snaking rocks rocking long harmonic breath
tones spilling waves sluicing waterfalls
sweeping volcanic plateau rock pool shore bound surf stretches
leaning impressions traversing stone sarong skin pore cliff

tidal-pull-wash beckoning back to sea jagged shell
rock pool waking life white lightening fireworks sea blue
crystal dreams confetti-ing flowering word shoals
aquamarine to indigo darkening depths
opening violet fathoms peddling stretch runners longing
an azure horizon

arching curves returning light-lapis cloud lines sun tints pink
sunset flamingo golden amber flare lavas wet sand dry

rose golden embers white bubbles inhale
turquoise to malachite





2008
edit
abc
breathing under water exercises

a poem about soup and lettuce

On the black volcanic sand it rained,
on the Sahara white, the sky fell down,
yet not one grain soaked, no muddy ground
to tell of footprints under a nomad's moon
swept by a roaring lions breath
arranged the landscape, valley and dune.

Snake tracks vanishing letters spun,
lizard feet wisped quick as a slithering tongue.

It rained one month the sky fell down,
yet not one grain soaked, no cactus cup
to catch one drop, condensed or not.
This silent irrigation, barefoot trod,
the red hot shifting map made dust
from lava turned to stone just for breathing air,

and there, a woman and baby, both so close to death,
cracked lips - how she longed for a taste of mud,

drained of every moisture bead, skin seamed,
rack of ribs, creaking bones, walked - one step,
one step, under a clear sky's fallen autograph.
Her baby held close by a fading scarf
made long ago by a Grandmother's hand,

knitted in the cemetery on the bench at Hoop Lane;
a grounds man by a wheelbarrow, smoking in the rain,
a memory plate of cut up fruit, eaten secretly at night
quietly in her tiny room surely kept them still alive,
walking through the blazing sun, so parched,
so close to death, not one more step to take: A mirage:

Visions of lettuce, sprouting from the sand
until unsure of truth or lie, oasis, sea or land,

one half coconut shell she did spy,
A few yards off in a shimmering heat of light.
A voice screamed from another land,
"Walk! I've cried every tear this desert lost
and have tried to stop the endless flood
for one half-filled shell of coconut.."

Then, like magic, there it was - soup in the sand,
and story told to children at a school:

A woman and baby so very close to death
are walking through desert isopleths
and find a coconut shell half filled up.
What should she do with this soup in a cup?
"Feed it all to the baby with her fingertips, Miss?"
is the innocent answer from a sweet child's lips.

So the woman takes the shell in her careful hand.
What would she do with the soup from the sand?



2008

Hunsdon Mead

Wildflower wildfire, the mead half
cut, intoxicant breeze weaves the oat,
wheat, and Lennie’s alfalfa – hay grass
for giraffe, sheep and llama, speckled
suffragette sarongs in far off skirts, bell
and buttercup swirls for butterfly, moth and bee.
Still, a golden buzz glows at sunset,
half the hay here cut but not yet baled.

A tractor trail, assassin’s work. To walk
like this, is to walk with the fallen,
no wild flowers for the vase on the table.
This loss is hay, a dusky husk underfoot.
The sky pouring a horizon of bees pondering 
low golden, a white owl hunting tatami flatlands.

One light threads the needles, a sunbeam all the way
through to a hay-auburn, at King George fields,
and this mead-gate in front.

Some days begin with a swim

Some days begin with a swim.
A man in a heavy coat, unties his shoes
on the back of a boat, places them
next to a handwritten note, jumps in.

Some days it's coffee, the dogs woof,
a flock of green parakeets...
an old heron on top of the roof.

There are swans gliding;
coots fight in the dreamy slumber of morning,
and a man slides into the soup
for the cold to take hold and take him under.

Some days cows and horses,
a bridge with faded flowers and tributes,
some days, love, affection,

and some, connection; some evenings
scarlet skies brewed from rainbows
makes golden

anyway.



2015
abc

Soft water, sweet

Soft water, sweet.

To leave a city

take a road a path a track

a river to where

softer water finds

calcium intentions

bathing octopus-inked

skin leather shell swirl fossil

flower and quill. She had carved a film

of salt line crease fold graffiti

circling an arm turning

in water, the dream

scape never seen whole.

To twist when an arm is soft

divides lines spread smudges 

mushroom to lightning strikes, 

our burnt toast heart swirls with legs!

Jumping beans! Turtle eggs. Blue egg 

breakfasts waving in blotches 

from a bandit’s nib. The painter, 

the pig's-ear carver artiste,

his bandit brush and her inky gun 

painting cathedrals. Our cerulean inks 

are melting drops of nostalgia...when 

nostalgia is sweet, soft, water.



7/2020

Petanque - Boom Boom Betty & Pot Shot Pointer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9tanque

Boom Boom Betty, 88; stops the game,

raises one wet finger, stills; checks the wind,

tips her hat, grins; swings her string,

and picks up her hot golden ball

on a dangling silver magnet; walks, limps a bit,

reins in the distance down the court,

steps into the loop, stoops, aims,

and Boom!!! Boom Boom Betty fires her shot:

“Tirez!” cheers the crowd, busy,

“Bravo Betty!” the spectators sport

as a galaxy of balls circling the Jack,

split, knocking the little wooden Cochonnet

into the pit. Snags a shell, hopscotches

the scorched path, yells, plops over

the cliff, and hits the shock of ice-cold sea.

“What a shot!” says the Cochonnet, stunned,

“What a blast” says the Crowd; all sound,

“What a shooter” frowns the Cochonnet;

winks, drinks tea in the underwater gallery,

drowns. Takes a deep breath, rebounds.

Impasse: The Game On the Ground.

All still, last shot, Pot Shot Pointer goes for

the roll; stands, tennis before the serve,

in a circle chalked; the boardwalks hush.

12 All - match point stuff – poised. All

surveyed, the game played, Pot Shot stands,

quiet and dazed; eyes trance, last chance,

to the left or to the right? Avoid the bounce,

trip the hum of the restless crowd; Quiet

now. Head bowed. No sound. Prays...

the middle way. Hush; come to my arms

"Two cheese and pickle and a cup of tea,

Please," Pot Shot Pointer gets the roll, tea

hot, hears the news, hears the shots. Loud.

The Crowd Falls. And from the Speaker:

"Pick up your belongings from the Lost and

Found." Impasse: The Game on the Ground.

2007