I love you

like spring flowers love the rain

raise their tousled heads
to drink water from the Gods.

Grass sprouts imperceptibly
day by day and the lilies

play their swinging tune
beneath wind’s breath.

I love you

like the sun returns each day
to give us light to see

and I love you just the way
a dog will turn his head to hear beloved feet.

I love you

when I ‘m angry I love you
when I’m sad, here or across infinity

you’re the rhythm in my feet
the waves that stroke the beach

each and all of these.

I love you

in the thunder , the stinging of ice’d hail
I loved you before I knew you,

between the curtains of dark sleep
your name echoes to remind me

that I love you

each and every night.

The woods are Ophelia green today
the way Millais saw her..
Great globs of rain
tumbling through the brown fern
even the rabbits refuse to play
no walkers stagger the steep path.
The lime trees stand majestic
dreaming of yesterday:
tomorrow’s bare branches
strain towards the light
like starving children
begging for more.

High skies
swallow flies
field stripped bare
summer faltered at the gate
when my lover left.

We came with spring’s
ephemeral leap
we rolled in July’s sweat
as leaves fall crisp in crumpled heap
you’re floating free of me.

I can’t remember how you felt
the way you held me to your heart
it wasn’t that we ever split
but as the light began to fade
you simply disappeared.

Sky is high
swallow’s fled
fields are sad with age
all creatures turn to winter sleep
and you are lost to me.

Sludge water trees linger
linger on the edge of time
far from the here, now bright water
cascades from the weir.

A lone walker ruffles the silence,
carpet of reeds poppy’s storm
a flash of colour, lipstick on the verge
carmine clashing.

Dead weed billows
across the surface, decomposition
smells like sleep, oily edged
creeping green clawed to stick

dis – ease dogs scatter leaving
muddy footprints over twilight
a lonely owl calls.

You came from beyond this:
photo in an album, hunch in my gut,
fire in the belly.

You brought sadness and strength,
all summer we waited for dawn
yet woke to darkness.

You asked only for everything
squeezed from my soul
splattered on the pavement.

I might have imagined you
a fiction of what night needs
sweet water mingled with

a sprinkle of hope to cling to.

I must have blinked and missed the twist
from summer into autumn;
last time I looked the poppies ravaged red
but now I’m left with stubble fields and empty nests
prickly like an old man’s beard:
such hush has fallen on the land
as if it’s all in waiting.

I must have blinked for you were gone:
last night I held you in my bed
but somewhere close to dawn you left
and here I am with anxious breath
till you remember how we laugh,
yes how we love,
till you remember and return to me.

I surely blinked for time has bled
the years rolled by and it’s long ago
we wandered through those open fields
turned to watch the lightning fork: when I was yet a child:
now every year as summer’s left
I turn my head and you’re there again
when autumn throws her golden net

just for me.

When the rain came
washing away summer’s dust
I hoped it would take you too
disperse that urgency of touch
down gushing leaf strewn gully.

When the rain came
I hoped we’d brave it hand in hand
hearing children’s voices
smelling again soaked walnut trees
re-integrate our memories
from semblance of disorder.

When the rain came
I knew it was you
crying at my window
repeating again and again my name
with soundless accusation:

that night I flew through florid dreams
meeting your face at every intersection
burning images from the deep
we played our game of hide and seek
retribution was the key
though the lock was lost and tarnished.

When the rain came
I prayed once more for peace
not expecting any answer .

You’re at the corner of my night screams
drifting from ephemeral sleep
spun sugar tongue cherishes
easing into bedroom murmurs.

Years pass like confetti, whimsical uncountable,
fading in the after wedding rain
words curse, enrapture dignify dilemma
meaning forgotten in the aftermath

Fractures fractal into coloured mirror
deflect a moving face, once known now bemoaned
and materialism sticks like dirt in vacant pocket
grubby under bitten nails.

Where are you in the sticky sleep of silent mornings
just out of sight of body’s cravings, sublime uncreated
a throbbing amputated limb forsaken in the jostling of necessity.

Reality creates it’s own eggshell
we paint with Easter colours
blood hues contused with children’s gold
solid till it cracks exposing sapient tissue.

I’m hypnotised in Universe’s cradle
where the inevitable climaxes with unforgiving waves
corroding inner strata, carving tumuli to smoothed brow.

Are you ready for tomorrow’s brand of humour?
Harsh apple light illuminating characters confusion
till the “Whole” is formed from hidden fragments:

we turn the last time and in that blinding flashlight
dissolve, dismember, yes face to face with one forever
in that luminescent moment we will at last forget to yearn .

There you were
as if you’d always been
smiling up through years of unbelief;
You took my hand
no questions why,
as natural as the night the clouds
the river strolling by.
We didn’t kiss nor did we lose sight:
it was eye to eye and hip to hip
it bit so deep it bit so wide
that I remembered how to smile.
Our bodies swayed together then apart
our rhythm known though
never tried or tested till this night.
The world unwound gave up a sigh
I didn’t say a word but knew I’d found:
a wisdom tree, a splash of light, a silver sound
it whispered that we stood unfettered now

on sacred ground..

A hint of autumn
taste of falling leaves,
unsung tears
nature’s fashion show of the year
has just begun.

A tint of yellow
on the trees: dawn is crisp
and dusk comes swiftly
like a clearing on the throat
of early August.

The feathers ruffle on the geese
baby swallow’s swoop
across the wires
dreaming of open African skies
deserts we won’t ever see.

A hint of melancholy
comes to me remembering
the beginning of the year
all we were to do before time
like the swallows

stole away the light.