Winter's dog days

Winter’s dog days

Suspended, a fly in amber
Trapped in the curve, the camber
Swung in a hammock’s u
Immobilised by glue
I am a water-beetle caught
In time’s meniscus, floating, nought
Here as the world stands still
Vanished the wish the will
Enchantment in a fairy tale
Replicating shackles, gaol
Has woven a spell, a silk cocoon
Cryogenic witching moon

With what relief the brightness comes
Liquefying frozen numb
At last with heart and head held high
Ready to whirl, unfurl to fly
Whither the song the air the dance
Fare forward voyager, fate and chance

28th December 2010, Brighton

Christmas 2010

Christmas 2010

Anxious for ice
For slip and slide
For accidental crack and smack
For ringing tills
And monumental unpaid bills
For how the hell to beat the sleet
And now the tympani of hail
Sudden as stones against the panes
For best-laid
Confidently made
Plans for gathering kith and kin
Trains motorways and planes
Taken as read, google-mapped
The many miles, no problem
Swift as Santa spanned
As we the festive folk
Christmas getters and spenders
Assume assume consume
The world to be turned
Justice spurned
For this is our will and our way

I seem to recall
A baby born, simple
Unadorned
Something stated stark
A star illuminates the dark
Meaning and message long long lost
As eyes in the gutter
Anxious for ice
The loveliness shines unseen

December 18th 2010, Brighton, for my faithful followers, Pam, Jude, Gill and Jenny, with love

Lily's snow

Lily’s snow

She wished and wished
And watched, praying for flakes
First flutter goose down
Pillow burst flock and flurry
Merry the fall the dance
Silent from starless sky
A spell a spell
A secret spread
Blanket to muffle the land
Then sheen and shine
As diamonds dazzled
Scattered shards
Splintering and crack
Jack Frost with ice at his fingertips
Turning the world to white
Winter night
When the Queen of the Snow flew by

2nd December 2010, Brighton, for Lily with love

Once beloved

Once beloved

A poem from a grandchild
Letters to condole
Small jewellery with love bequeathed
Sand slipping out of hand
The photographs that fade and curl
Clothes to a charity shop
Tears and years
Blurred, forgotten
Who still can hear the laughter echo
Feels the absence, presence
Essence
Someone missing
Once beloved?
What became of all the loving
Such a force could light the world
Once the candle was extinguished
Only smoke in circles rising
In the air the scent of loss

26th November 2010, Brighton, I.M Joyce Mc Donald 1.11.1920-25.11.2007

So some of the words will sing

So some of the words will sing

So some of the words will sing
Solo, ring clear as cut glass
Not spun in a metaphor, craftily wrought
Just born to poetry
Crimson for one and cinnabar
Caramel, willow, cloud.
Swallow or swift, swoop and glide
The moon in all of its phases, sickle to
Full, luminescent
Crescent
Humming bird windhover kingfisher, dove
Indigo nacarat mullein
Dimple/ dapple/ skitter/ shatter
Freckle and speckle and shard
Dragonfly sheen, shimmer
Translucent gleam
Shingle shale cockleshell
Curlew sandpiper crane
Thrift in drifts, sea pink
Anemone
Weatherboard patina
Glimmer and glow

So lovely the words will lilt
Rinse and ring, golden shower
Pouring like skylark song

November 21st 2010, Brighton

All of the stitches dropped

All of the stitches dropped

Across the sky white lace
Would grace and trim a giant’s table
Swoops in filigree
But fragile as a spider’s web
How lovely the linking each to each
Spun together held as a whole
Cocooned, father to mother, brother sister
Circling hand in hand
Weaving the warp the weft the spell
An incantation
Let the magic hold
Spin together, whole, cocoon
Circling hand in hand
Not fractured and torn
Worn thin, infirmity and time
Unravelling
All of the stitches dropped

15th November 2010, Brighton, for J B, a stalwart daughter

Danse macabre

Danse macabre

In pouring rain
Poppies with pins
Remember remember
Eleventh November
Jaunty upon the lapel
A clash a splash of red
Among the sequins
See the dancers twirl
Sunday’s sombre-suited
March to muffled drums
Silent seconds, stop
A pause in the danse macabre
Then as you were, resume
Whatever comes to hand
Grenade or rifle, bomb or sword
Or failing all, bare fists
Bear arms
Prepare to lose your limbs your eyes
Your life
Dulce et decorum est
The bloody awful lie
Pro patria, appallingly
To die

12th November 2010, The Drive, Brighton

A metaphor to pack a punch

A metaphor to pack a punch

'Twas Lear the king
And not his wiser fool
Who truly showed no wit no skill
At reading people
Discernment, good from ill
The daughters with names like diseases
Favoured, whilst the meek and the mild
Youngest child
Not wishing to self-promote
Not able to fawn or to dote
Cordelia, he cast into darkness
Till too late and dead, the dread
Never never never, lost forever
Not possible to be more wrong
Judgement call and choice
Too gentle, soft her voice
But still his words- self-pitying
Too late his error seen
The hopeless dad, out of touch
Giving too little, demanding too much -
Still his words ring true
And resonate, four centuries late
The gasp the wince the worse than any pain
It's plain, ever will remain
How sharper than a serpent's tooth
It is
To have a thankless child
The bard as ever timeless, wise
To push and pull, fierce/ pierce
Of anguished family ties
A metaphor to pack a punch
Glove to solar plexus
Well said, hammer hit
Fit, nail's head

8th November 2010, The Drive, Brighton

Maybe a fledgling magical

Maybe a fledgling magical

After the seashore footprints are gone

Vanished under the tide

Or vee of geese is dwindled out of sight

Sound of the honk and beating wings

When merely an indigo arc remains

There where the rainbow fades

Only a trace a vapour trail

Drab where the dew diamonds shone

All gone the serendipity and dance

When wind shook shivering

And silent as a dream in red

Leaves fell through autumn skies

There in an echo of memory

Longing for beauty lost

At the end of the trail invisible

Haunted by beating wings

Maybe a fledgling magical

Maybe a poem takes flight

29th October 2010, Brighton, for Julie who gave me the book

Slow train treat

Slow train treat

Slow train treat alone

Window seat

Travelling west to south

Line layed across the landscape

Edged with embankment trees

Certainly set by an artist

Lover of colour ardent for

Scarlet, all the reds

Circling tone by tone

Claret to burgundy

Cinnabar, sienna

Orange to melon

Peach pear lemon

Yellow to gold, bold, compliment/ clash

Hot slice of the rainbow

Glorious in edible oils

Re-load the brush, dip

Daub for the copper beech

The chestnuts, birch and oak

Ablaze in a wood or copse

Fields far as the eye can see

Echoes again in umber

Of aubergine damson plum

Furrowed in winter earth

Gorgeous the glittering gift

Under a luminous sky

Eye to heart, heart in mouth

Breath-taken

Travelling west to south

25th October 2010, train Bristol to Brighton

Driving westward

Driving westward

Stark trees are inked along the hills
At sinking of the sun
And in its wake the dusk is pink
A blush upon the land
Where vines in lines stretch far and wide
Notation on the staves
Singing of cinnabar songs
A vapour trail all molten gold
Is seamed across the blue
And rising now the chalky moon
At sinking of the sun

20th October 2010, Hounoux, for Gill and for Susan, who opened my eyes

Setting the world on fire

Setting the world on fire

And how is it this season, reason
Lifts then breaks the heart?
Claret and burgundy splash and spill
Virginia creeper, lace-maker
Dressed, Sunday best, is all across the hill
Too much the autumn palette
Set against the blue
Hips and berries mad profuse
Abundance run amok
Firethorn ignites the burning bush
The landscape’s lit, ablaze
Here leaves are falling, sparking embers
Red and gold they dance
Setting the world on fire
So spins the colour wheel
At tilt and turning of the year
Glad brimming swim and dropping tears
Too beautiful the mellow months
That lift then break the heart

16th October 2010, at Julie and Martin's in the Ariege

Chateau Guilhem

Chateau Guilhem

Grapes blue-black ,globes in trailing clusters
Easy-pickings sticky squirt
Or twined and twisted clingy round the vine
Hiding, for merlot leaves are large

Up this line in steady progress we the extras edge
Scissor snips with care, ‘Allez allez!’
The patron calls the pace. Fill the bucket
Then the hod, till the rows are stripped
And in the truck piled pyramid, will-be one day wine

Now he whistles shocking, tells the toilers ‘Stop!’
Sunday sun is hot and climbing. We temporary peasants
Amble haphazard, eddy through the vines
Bidden to the chateau, lawns, ancient trees
We sit and sip, shaded, loving the rural life
Today’s role. For wages here’s a country feast,
Ad lib the wine

We’ve played our parts in the pageant
Enacted an ageless scene
Soil to vine to fruit to wine
Produce of the land
Gathered, good work, today

4th October 2010, Hounoux (4 in the sleepless morning)

Wolf wind

Wolf wind

Wolf wind is raging
Pent within the stack
Blow blow buffeting relentless
To be in, roar and rampage
But here’s another element
Primitive
Will keep the wolf at bay
Oak and pine ignited, crack and pop
Retort
Orange purple lick and flicker
Flaming, wins the day
October’s first fire, glamorous
Gladdening the hearth

2rd October 2010, Hounoux, for Clare my fellow fire-watcher

Imms

The honest man, Immanuel

Is dead

Spare message all we have

We foreign friends far flung

No photograph, no funeral

No family to console

But yet for all our distance

How terribly we grieve

The gentle giant we loved

For us the quiet centre

Heart of all our work

Ever there to listen then advise

Optimist and fixer

'Yes sure, why not?' he' d say

Where we saw stress and problems

Conflicts and dismay

He'd find a careful path

Possibilities, a way

His daily life was spartan

His needs were soon supplied

How sad, unjust, he faced so many foes

Who failed to value what he did

But seeking first their own advancement

Quite overlooked his goodness

His big heart

And trampled on his dreams

Always a tightrope, diplomatic

To be walked

Merely to survive

I close my eyes and hear him laugh

Bright joy is in his eyes

And now forever in our hearts, held dear

Our much beloved friend

Our 'Imms'

David Immanuel

September 20th 2010, en route to England, for those of us who loved him

September's song

September’s song

Crisp and brown, heads down
No more responsive to the hours
The sunflowers sorry stand
Where once they shocked
Battalions dazzling yellow
The early autumn fruits
Reds russets plums
Are ready for the jar, preserving pan
And soon the lanes and fields will fill
As grapes are harvested,
Heaped in trucks and trundled to the vats
Overhead in flocks bee-eaters noisy churr
The swifts black scythes the swallows
Streaming swoop, more homely martins
Criss-cross in aerobatic show
All readying for off
For flying further south
Summer’s heat is tempered
The year’s in dying fall

farewell

fugue

September's plangent song

13th September 2010, Hounoux

Occasion of friendship

Occasion of friendship

Fresh as a daisy you stand there
Ready to take the plunge
Occasion of friendship, join me?
An offer not lightly spurned

But me I’m an evening person
Not known for an early start
For perky and bold
For go-for-it chaps
More gradual creep than gung-ho

Still, offer of friendship I’ll take it
Gingerly hand in hand
We’ll gasp and we’ll groan
At ice in the pool
Then afterwards grin and be glad
Declare it a treat
Feel proud of our feat
And breakfast with virtuous glow

11th September 2010, Hounoux, for Lyn

St Remy

St Rémy

So sad you said
To see his cell
Asylum, St Rémy
Though tranquil in the cornfields
Cypress, southern landscape
Inspiration for his art
So sad the ferment, turmoil
Could not be endured
Brimmed bursting spilled
His lovely vision
Inner eye
His broken human heart

August 11th 2010, Hounoux, for Pam R

There's not so very much I know

There’s not so very much I know

There’s not so very much I know
Hard facts I could parade
For gasps of admiration
Almost no dates, bar birthdays
Not how electricity works (though frequently explained)
About a dozen telephone numbers
There’s not so very much I know
Not enough to defend beliefs
Dawkins, locate Jupiter
With her moons
Or turn a green pool blue
But this summer clamorous
I learned to hear the churr-churr calls
Then spot Bee-eaters’ swoop
Flash of yellow, blue and green
Remembered the Scarce Swallowtail
Black and white
Felt the dry stick shock
Of Praying Mantis accidental in my hair
Fell in love with coreopsis
Orange orange orange
Saw how to free a hornet with a jar
To paint the sky and fields
In water colour, pen and ink
Eye-balled sunflowers, face to face
Took first steps in photography
Aperture and shutter speed
In sweet Italian tongue

No matter that it’s not enough
To hold my own, to trump your words
With mine
I’ll wrap my lovely learning
Fragile facts
With tender loving care
Protect them in a poem
Glass bubbles, beautiful and rare

5th September 2010, Hounoux, for all of us women

Unsung

Unsung

Fill your house with people
Friends, family, dropping by
Or staying for a while
Three bathrooms occupied
Dishwasher, every bed,
The kitchen sink
Permanently full
A push and pull
A tussling round the pool
Dining table, test match
Television
Which conversation will prevail
Topic win the hour
Bird song, identification
How the French do it
Say it, moot grammatical point
The impossibility of God
Or homeopathy
Our children’s choices
Partners, baby names
Red or white, or being summer
Rosé perhaps

Fill your house with people
Day and night
For weeks on end,
Note the moon cycling
Silently, no fuss
Just what it does, eternally
And listen, if you’ve but a mindful minute
The sound of the unwritten words
Beads scattered from the string
Unstrung
In the dust and darkness, not shining
Only the gist of a poem
Fractured
Only the gist, unsung

31st August 2010, Hounoux

Silence

Silence

Soft rain falling
Soundless
Small drops on every leaf
Upon the earth
The sky
A slip in silk
Smooth strokes across the pool
So the silence
Unpeopled
Just high and sweet the serin’s song
Rinses rings
Diamond shine and shower
Bright solace for the soul

August 27th 2010, Hounoux

A dream of the day

A dream of the day

Dear god it’s hot in this house tonight
You’d wish for the clack of a fan
Ceiling mounted, full tilt in India
For a breeze from the Goan shore
No air, no breath, a dark and star-filled
Navy night
Moon gorgeous glamour
Three days short of, very nearly full
We’ve spread ourselves, upstairs and down
And flung all windows wide
Barely a sheet for cover
Two babies, damp curls
In a dream of the day
And a girl who is sad for the hornets
Destroyed by the man with a can
Poisoned, she’s sobbed for the deaths
She thinks wanton, no need, she’s railed
Wailed, fretted to sleep
And me with the pen to write it
To pin down the butterfly night
How the green tree frog, quacking
Hopped in for coolness
And the shock as the stick creature jumped
Praying mantis, bicycling in air
As we took tea
Then always of course, the cricket chorus
Loud as tinnitus
The geckos slinky on the walls
Three fierce hornets, dealt a deathly blow
Just the one world
Hot star-filled navy night
Just the one world
To share

22nd August 2010, Hounoux, for Lily

The pilgrim soul

The pilgrim soul

But one man loved, he said
The pilgrim soul in you
Soul that soared
Dipped
Dived
Swifts and swallows, summer
On the wing
Or gazed on beauty
Drank it in as evening sky
Bled pink to turquoise
Strands, gold bands
Pilgrim seeker, what is truth?
Soul that stood upon its points
Breathed the air, beheld the plain
Spun and whirled, up up
Took flight
Clear of eye and stout of heart
Pilgrim soul itinerant
Ever onward ever seeking
Through the world, far far beyond

18th August 2010, Hounoux, inspired by a line from W B Yeats, 'When you are old'

A caravan came walking

A caravan came walking

A caravan came walking
Hooves clip-clop multiple the first we heard
One July day, into our village
Which, though no-one nowadays is passing through
Yet does straddle, straggly, unkempt
The Grande Randonnée, ancient footpath
St Iago’s, St Jacques’ shell-marked
All the way to Compostela
A man his wife their small child (strapped to his back)
Four horses and a dog
All of them dusty, over-heated, worn in the blaze
Too many days slow progress in midsummer heat
By natural selection ( Tibetan prayer flags, tinkling wind-chimes, clearly there were signs)
They chose our neighbour Guy
Then by extension, us
Who answered in affirmative
When she asked ( German/English/French)
Clear-eyed direct
To share our garden, playground, pool
A taste of strawberry?
At night we heard the horses whicker
And the moon transmogrified
All July they spent with us
Then suddenly the caravan, refreshed
Was champing to be gone
Horses clip-clop multiple, disappearing
Along the shell-marked way

7th August 2010, Hounoux

Tomorrow I will paint a rose

Tomorrow I will paint a rose

Tomorrow I will paint a rose
In the garden where it grows
But first I’ll breathe its perfume sweet
Heady in the August heat
I’ll sit and look and look and sit
And contemplate the shape of it
The petals in concentric folds
Enveloping its lovely soul
My brain will switch from left to right
Like meditation, taking flight
Awe and wonder layer by layer
A quiet solitary prayer
Whose destination, heaven knows
But I’m resolved, you may suppose
Tomorrow I will paint a rose

6th August 2010, Hounoux

Dolci with Dante

Dolci with Dante

Ciao bella, come sta?
In perfect heaps biscotti
Amaretti dolci baci
Sugar kisses, si
Va bene, piacere
All is well,
Honeyed almond treats
Italian, the poetry of Dante
His sweet tongue
Chosen for posterity
A language pouring golden, languid
Set to music, love’s song
Lilting
Just to pass the time of day-
Buongiorno, buona sera
Hear a melody released
And ringing in the air
Sweet as chocolate
Dark magic in the cup,
Cioccolata calda
On the tongue,
Italian, the poetry of Dante

5th August 2010, Hounoux

High with the tide

Only stand before this view
Look and look and look
Give your senses, all your self
Ride the tide
For beauty’s in full flood

There the mountains layering afloat
Right upon the edge
Surely chiffon?
Evening wear midnight smoky blue
Nearer the patches linen, drab
Coarse woven
Where the wheat is cut
Then here and here and here
Bright yellow dusters
Flamboyant magician flung
Fluttered to earth
Singing sunflower fields

Etch sketch pencil pen
Palette of paint
Watercolour oil gouache
Chalky in pastel blurring
Fine line, suggestion
Or strong, brasher, bold
Today, lovingly sewn, a patchwork
Hand-stitched
Embroidery, beading, silk thread

The artist responds, leaps up, it’s a must!
With a painting a poem a prayer
When the force the imperative sings
Of the beauty that’s rising
High with the tide, torrential
Quenching and soothing the soul

July 29th 2010, Hounoux

Hung in my head

After a day spent eye to eye
Intense in scrutiny, silent
In watch and learn, watch and learn
I lie down weary for sleep
And sudden my head is pulsing
Ripples that spread and grow
Nearest, the grey the blue the green
Stalk and leaf stalk and leaf
A mirage hung in the air
Closest the tall ones
Huge seed heads, curving in domes
Grope grope for the colour
The pattern the rise and the fall
Ochre sienna umber, pointillist dots
Swirling stippled and stripes
And as for the yellow, what is the yellow
Not lemon, sunshine or yolk
Petal and petal
Sprung from the base, curling and folding
Blown in the wind
Vibrant, glowing, surreal
Tripping exotic, essence of zing
They pulse and expand, ripples
Far as the mind can see
The thousands the millions, glorious
Hung in my head, for me

24th July 2010 Hounoux

Small storm at daybreak

Small storm at daybreak

So somebody cued the timpanist in
Up with the sticks now, ready to roll
Shake off the torpor, this be the hour
Time for a drum-roll, you at the back

With a clashing of symbols, bashety-bash
A chorus of raindrops, splashety-splash
Mahler, Tchaikovsky, we’re in full flood
Battles and dramas running with blood
Turn up the volume, let’s have a ball
Rattle the windows, the rafters, the walls

But hold now, be steady, ease it right down
Thank you for coming, for doing your bit
Enlivening us all with the best of your art
Back to the crossword, Sudoku, your book
Try not to slump or slacken the jaw
High summer we warned you, not much demand
The sun’s in ascendance, no cloud in the sky
Parching and baking, cracking the land
A promise of slaking rolled in your drums
Just pitter and patter, drops in the sand

21st July 2010, Hounoux

I stand before this view

I stand before this view

The only trips I ever take
No drug, no acid dropped
But let me stand before this view
Watch the light grow mellow
Kindness of evening tiptoeing over the fields
This patch sunflowers yellow yellow
Glowing as the spot lights
Fake modest, though they whisper
Loud in unison
Check us out, come on
Admit you’re stunned
We dazzle and outrage
Too gorgeous, queens
Preening, arrayed for carnival
Whilst others daily dress
Quakerly in buff, corn cut
Or dark cypress stood single
And sentinels in rows.
Sweep slowly sunlight highlight
Till colour’s all but gone
Then watch the moon
Just over half, a vodka lemon slice
Rise rise in lapis
Precious shining blue
Now feel my head take flight
The only trips I ever take
I stand before this view

20th July 2010, Hounoux

I think of peaches

I think of peaches

I think of peaches
Left too long, or pears
Gone thick and sleepy
Cotton wool, all density
And fuzziness, where
Once cool liquid shone
A cataract a milky caul
Has crept inside my head
And muddied clarity

But as with egg-box cress I grew
The small impatient me
I watch and listen now
And blessedly
A germ a seed of poetry
Will sprout and feel its tender way
Upwards to the sun
Spread and flourish, leaf and flower
A poem grown on cotton wool
That gropes for clarity

18th July 2010, Hounoux

Chicken wishbone, star or clover

Chicken wishbone, star or clover

It’s so simple
Love and marriage
Make the vows
And forward march
Through the archway
Roses strewn
Here the signposts
Step together
Arm in arm
No stumbling

It’s so complex
Labyrinthine
Maze with dragons
Hard as hell
Few surviving
Sad statistics
Clearly not a fairytale

If one only
Knew the secrets
Recipes and google maps
Troubles shared
And doubled joys
Make a wish
Chicken wishbone, star or clover
Close your eyes and
Take the plunge
This one this time
Love and marriage
Make the vows
And forward march

18th July 2010, Hounoux

Moon hung

Moon hung

Moon hung
Incandescent
Corner of the casement
Pagan siren silent calling
Glory

Glory
Blue black thick black
After midnight dazzle
Queen serene Diana splendid
Breathless

Breathless
Pulsing softly
Distant frog persistent
Summer crickets early birdsong
Moon hung

28th June 2010, Hounoux, full moon

Love in the long-haul

Love in the long- haul

I married a man named kindness
Not flash erratic or mean
Not given to moods, fickle, with sulks
Just funny and constant and good
I’d dabbled a bit with sultry and Welsh
A writer of verse a singer of songs
With him it was up, the joy and the bliss
But then it was down to the vale
A man of his landscape, brooding
No danger of daily or dull
Yes I’ve dabbled a bit in the days of my youth
Seduced by the romance
Signed up for the ride
Still sometimes it calls me
Glimpsed in a book
Played out in a weepy on film
A sweep of Rachmaninov
Piano and strings
But faced with the daily the dull
To be done, teeth to be gritted
Bills to be paid
Rows to be hoed, lawns to be mowed
The digging and weeding
The laundry the dealing
With tiresome buffoons, the grist and the grind
I’m glad for the man named kindness
My port after too many storms
For the gift to see love in the long-haul
In funny and constant and good

7th July 2010, Hounoux, for A with love

A million starbursts

A million starbursts

Take the darkest sky at midnight
Cast me off without a guide
I will paint a million starbursts
Then a billion trillion more
Scattered diamonds incandescent
Roman candles meteor shower
Falling random like a blessing
Silver raindrops on the dust
I will tip my brush in shimmer
Iridescence glorious glow
Till the heavens shine and dazzle
Dizzy dazzle spinning light
Lovely luminous the glitter
Where a pattern is emerging
Landing strip or lighthouse beam
And I’ll follow follow follow
When I’ve found love’s pathway home

2nd July 2010, Hounoux, inspired by Justin

The poet's art

The poet’s art

Take a stone
And given the choice, pick one any one
It’s opal every time
Found buried without its sparkle
Subterranean Cinders
Pre-transformation scene
Hone it, this stone
Patience and TLC
Craftsman’s skill in lieu of magic wand
But same gasp!
See the rainbow
Catch kingfisher caught fire, blue
Blood orange, turquoise
Released in laser light show
Personally I think
I’ll never grow immune
Always the heart-lift
A perfect poem
A little low heaven
Beauty held within

27th June 2010, Hounoux

Mantra

Mantra

Om
Na-ma
Shi-va-ya
Om
Na-ma
Shi-va-ya
Seek the god within
Silent in the mountain
Ringing in the bowl
Still, still, quiet, still
Listen, god within
Hear it rising, lark song rising
Dropping, pooling, golden spooling
Liquid in the comb
Om
Na-ma
Shi-va-ya
Still, still, quiet, still
Bliss the god within

22nd June 2010, Hounoux

Dancing with Cohen

Dancing with Cohen

Dance me in a circle
Dizzy whirling round about
Dance me as the sun sets
By the moonlight, beyond doubt
Move me to the drum beat
By the thick black lake of stars
Pounding as the waves break
Feet of thousands from afar
Cohen crooning softly
Through the bloodstream, head to heart
Eternal in a circle
Matisse women, never part
Dance me in the darkness
Passion ringing hear him singing
Dance me, without ceasing
To the end of love

19th June 2010, Hounoux

Grace in a moment

Grace in a moment

And yet he said, the suffering man
In spite of hellish horror
Fleeting rare, but still I’ve known
Grace, just for a moment
When mercifully I have been held
In a life and in a landscape riven with rain
Breath-taking pain
Red rain running gutters despair
Thanks to the loving the kindness of friends
A windbreak in tempest
Peace in the blast
Grace in a moment, just for a moment
When mercifully
I have been held

12th June 2010, Brighton, after ministry at Brighton Quaker Meeting about a man whose son was recently murdered

When days ahead were boundless

When days ahead were boundless

Look there, remember

First day, a party by the sea

Champagne and cake and laughter

Bondi blue sea view surf and sparkle then

First day, when those ahead were boundless

No need to count or dread their passing

Time slow running sand inexorable

Moon and turning tide

And so in shots, in photographs

( Reportage you say)

The sunny days recorded, these two smiling,

Or three, squinting in the glare the bright and cloudless

A glass a glint a ruby, rosé, cold white sauvignon

Sunset moonrise, sky suffused

Pink blush, reflected on the shore

The southern cross by night

A thousand snaps, the shutter's click

The day this place this hour

A small hand's trusting reach

A lilt and lift together, jump the waves

Freeze it in a photograph, hold it if you can

A memory of touching, breath and skin

The mischief in his eyes

Look there, remember

When days ahead were boundless

And we laughed into the sun

2nd June 2010, Bondi, for Dan and H and Z, with love

No word for home

No word for home

Consider this, she said

The sparky woman ( French)

We have no word for home

For house of course and homeland

Vive la patrie

So much is in the meaning

Unspoken, understood

Geography and climate, native tongue

A part, but not the whole

Intangible, invisible

Except in certain lights

Like bonfire gleam or eclipse-glow

It's held within the heart

The tug of roots

The call of love

A memory of source

A place you left a life ago

Or refuge newly found

With welcome mat and hearth

A hook to hang your hat

Or maybe just, at crowded airport gate

A smile, two arms

Flung wide to fold you in

24th May 2010, Quantas Armidale to Sydney

Read the Runes

Read the Runes

You- artists- etch on zinc

With bitumen, a winding river

Long, important in your land

Plus fish and water creatures

In struggle to survive

On sacred rocks in ochre

Millennia long gone, you

-First inhabitants-

Draw lizards, leave your mark

We are sorry we are sorry

For the ruin we have wrought

By miracle/ geography

This rainforest, not despoiled

A work of art exuberant

Creation ever new

Strangler figs and monster ferns

Left to run amok

Symbiotic systems not yet trampled

Not destroyed

Do we read the runes and spot the signs

Give credence, heed the words

Are we sorry, are we sorry

For the ruin we have wrought?

May 19th 2010, Port Douglas, Queensland, for Lesley Labram, artist

'We are so sorry for what we did to your people' - comment in visitors' book left by child, at Aboriginal peoples' sacred site.

Song of Ancients

Song of Ancients

When the wind the wild is howling

Wolfpack baying

No moon night

When the world's a whirlwind spinning

Chaos raging

All in flight

When it's tumult tumult pounding

Senses screaming

Boundless fright

In the midst and in the maelstrom

In the eye of hurricane

You may hear the song they're singing

Song of ancients

Hear them singing

All the multitude the many

They are singing they are singing

Those who went before

Song of ancients

Hear them singing

Bringing word

That Peace will come

May 6th 2010, Yackandandah, Victoria.

Pieta

Piéta

-

O Lord thou art hard on mothers

I understand the ying and yang

The one hand and the other

The double-edgéd sword

The cord that's cut but never

Severed, tie that binds

Forever fish-hooks in the heart

But lord thou art hard on mothers

I understand such ecstasy

The headlong dive and fall

Regardless, coup de foudre/ thunderclap

Will come with fearful price

With love the dread in equal part

The wordless watch the wish the want the will

From newborn bliss

To anguish cut in stone

Marble Mary, Piéta

Madonna come to this

O lord thou art hard on mothers

28th April, 2010, Bondi, after Padraic H Pearse 'The Mother', for us all, but most especially the newest, Tamsin, with love

Alice

Alice

Tamarama's turquoise today

Sea-green and aqua

Foaming bright white along the shore

Far out prussian blue

Thick and dark, directly from the tube

Today the followers in thrall to surf

The rise and roll adrenaline's rushing ride

A hundred years ago a roller-coaster

Pleasure park where Sydneysiders

Came numerous to play

And incidentally gaze and gasp

At foreign marvel tethered here

Reluctant immigrant

Forever exile

An elephant named Alice

24th April 2010, Bondi

Love's most beautiful

Love's most beautiful

His drawings first were monochrome

In pen and ink, etched or pencil sketch

The drab and watered winter land

Barren fields and figures

Strong and bent

Until one technicolour day

Like Dorothy on yellow road

The rainbow arc unfurled

Kaleidoscopic magic, colours on a wheel

From palette fiercely flung

Vibrant into life

His vision of eternity

Glimpsed in prussian cypress swirls

Against a turquoise sky

Two shiny orange crabs on green

Flowers of the field exuberantly crammed

Daisies poppies cornflowers

Crowding in a jug

And blousy blooming roses

White on green and pink

The hot south full summer

Corn in waves or stacked in sheaves

Workers ever toiling over scythes

Each day of his last seventy

From palette fiercely flung,

New begun,

A glorious canvas, soul of landscape captured

For posterity

The genius and the struggle

Too great for human heart,

Art transcending, elevating

Sunflower heads and starry nights

Left to us his vision blessed

From Vincent

Love's most beautiful bequest

19th April 2010, Bondi, for Pam, Jude and Rosie, happy memories

New England

New England

Not a face this morning-

deep blue dancing light upon the sea-

but wears a smile eyes crinkled in the sun

A multitude is moving on the prom

bare limbs full flow

New England Hopper painted

sharp shadow sunlight on a wall

White glare

Brighton rinsed renewed

dazzling in the sun

8th April 2010, Brighton seafront park

From the daffodil green

From the daffodil green

From the daffodil green we step

Into your life's space

Small and perfect jewel-red and gold

Mirror shine

Now the crowds of baby after baby

Smiling from the frames

Love made this home

Wielded the paintbrush

Hung the portraits

Landscapes hidden creatures, donkey cat or hare

Magical

Toys waiting, treasure trove

From the daffodil green we step

Where's flung a welcome wide

As love bids us home

11th April 2010, from Newnham to Bristol, for Lyn and Doug with love

The glorious glad

The glorious glad

After the age of ice

Snow and rain

Winds that blow

Hard chill and gnaw

Corrosive bitter time

After the dark days, dead days

Slow dragging

Disheartened

How sudden now the world returns to glad

In only just

The nick of time, first signs

Beneath the trees

The yellow sunshine carpet's out

Loud and proud, the season's shout

In brightest green uncurling leaves

Pink and white of blossom froth

Brave bobbing on the branch

Flags of hope

Signal sent at last

We are relieved, all will be well

The nothing-is-so-beautiful-as-Spring

The glorious, glad

Is come

5th April 2010, en route to Bristol, with thoughts of Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'Spring'

The very sweetest thing

The very sweetest thing

Love is, no doubt about it
The very sweetest thing
It's sun upon the planet
The day the Earth caught fire
Purpose, meaning, other half
Completion, family
It glues and bonds, it cherishes
Elastic teflon-tough
Omnipotent, eternal
One touch to change the world

Love is, no doubt about it
The very sweetest thing
So absence casts a shadow
Of bleak unending night
Dear hostages to fortune
The loved ones fly the nest
While love, enduring, waits for news
In hope and dread in equal part
For ties that bind can hobble
Confine and suffocate
And elastic stretch rebounding
Will deal a vicious blow

It is, no doubt about it
The hardest, sweetest thing
A love that lasts a lifetime
Hooked into the heart

26th March 2010, The Drove, Brighton, for me

Witch today?

Witch today?

Witch today or

Mother/ smother

Hug or shrug

Monkey grip and velcro tight

Or glue unstuck

Hanging dangerously dangling

Unattached

Which today the kiss

Or hiss, pinch and poke

Or josh and joke together mother

Joined and bonded each to other

Love not lost nor lone nor longing

Best beloved dote and dearest

Safe the circle of embrace

Or love conditional, meagre rations

Needing pleading all unheeded

Bonding glueing not adhering

Dropped and damaged

For a lifetime

Unattached

23rd March 2010, Kemp St, Brighton

Ever the message

Ever the message

Along the shore the pebbles shift

Unnerving under foot

The sea moves in the sea moves out

But dread is pulsing loud

As flotsam jetsam time and tide

In lunar circle turn

So salt to sea to shell to sand

The soothing rhythm pounds

Hiss and shush the pebbles shift

Tug and undertow

This is constant this will last

For all eternity

Ever the message in and out

But still no comfort found

18th March 2010, Tavistock