February flickers

last trace of winter fingers

a half moon flies from

pink ringed sky.

 

Snowdrops push through

water laden meadow

& the mud goes on & on

thick, sticky, like blood.

 

I wake to grey mornings

where sleep lingers

& the duvet thickens

drawing me back into the dark

 

unconscious warmth of sleep:

where we walk the sun baked sand

to the rocky fort & stand staring

at the thin rimmed lip of sea

 

just the way we used to be.

 

Milk on the turn

midnight history muffles

owl’s cry: narcissus pulsing

through dull earth to release

birthday colour.

 

I’ve become muted: afraid

of the shine shine glitter

hidden here as time

brushes messages

on parched skin.

 

Pacing corridor

always waiting for

sun – skim star-burn

impatient of humdrum

yearning magnificence.

 

Milk on the turn

garden hovers  to unfurl

blossom of spring: new joy

pulsates at the click click clunk

of the white sea gate.

 

 

A pulse of light

an Angel’s breath

I lay between now & nothing:

 

Yesterday the sea the sky

the touch of skin on skin

a whispering wind

 

but now night time fever

reminds me:

 

I miss your step

upon the stair

the touch of hair

 

on cheek.

 

A pulse of light

a brush with death

speed the last thought

 

in my head

the wind is gossamer

& then nothing.

( This is one of my favourite of my poems ……….)

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 .

 

 

These days are short,

a chill descends around my  neck

sky is pigeon blue at  waking hour

when surfacing from tousled sleep

I live my poignant dreams of you .

 

We’re kissing in a violet haze

warmed by a burning inner sun

too white to touch too red to hold

the white and the red couple in my bed

till I’m moist with the alchemist’s molten gold .

 

The sky is pigeon blue,

it’s been a solar year since you left me here

while leonine you stalked your prey

uncharted regions you possess

with the powerful eye of your passionate lens,

 

I haven’t lived a single day

without wanting to be that elusive prey;

concentrate your roving eye on strong white lines of a yielding thigh

travel the contours of my face

with all the intensity you waste on inanimate sand.

 

The chill invades my skin

blood red berries mark the arc

of ascending winter. The sky is  paper thin

punctuated by sluggish snow, I am pigeon blue

removed from such fascination ;

 

but my bed still holds your heat of old

the white with the red the molten gold,

poured through my dreams

in poignant anticipation .

 

 

 

Dropped into heaven

wind soft sea aqua

body breathes for the first time

 

in years.

 

Pretty girl passes

tattoos varied

& the men cry out

 

like bats.

 

Midnight thunder came

& rain battered the tin roof

I didn’t think of you,

 

instead slept through

till sunrise

 

( ”For love of a Medici” to buy click here )

 

Sun & fresco

searching the impossible

always….

 

Palazzo Medici rings empty

remembers your footfall

love floating from your steps…….

 

Are echoes translatable?

no reflection in the mirrors

 

your brothers fat from glory

hands slaked with your blood.

 

Listen for the tears of your children

weeping for your absence…….

 

Now tourists flood your palace

thunder in the afternoon

 

waiting for your ghost

memory in etched stone ………

 

Out there the hills roll into night

olive groves, vineyards that you grew.

 

I creep beneath your skin

gather the fallen pearls

 

peeling back the point

where light snuffed out

 

darkness fell………

 

Immortality a meaningless word:

I say you saw an Angel once

 

crossing the room; held in light

like swallow’s song

 

shattering the silence

& for a moment out of time

 

I saw you too.

 

 

 

Shush sush of sea

aqua in see through out

 

beyond the reef

banana boat ply

 

tourist trade.

 

Alone in the zone

company beckons:

 

dark dark skin

cinnamon  lips.

 

Today came suddenly

oleander heavy perfume

 

deadly juice.

 

White nights

beneath the palm

 

I sleep & dream

of strangers.

Walk with me again

over sunlight speckled streams

through the tart nettles & the

sharp tooth brambles to the

smooth green sward of an upland field

where the sheep scatter crazily at our feet

& the cuckoo spits her tuneless song.

 

Walk with me once more

arm in arm through the breathless hordes

of the rush hour crowd,

to turn aside at an open bar, rest in silence

while the traffic roars & the ferryboat plies

her starlight trail, across the harbour.

 

Sit & hold my hand

round an open fire, just to tell me

how you are & why you’ve been

so far away when you promised me

you’d be here to stay. Why you left

in that awful rush with those bustling nurses

the sweat of the incense, the rich red mass.

 

Walk with me again

along our small curved shore

with the fishermen mending nets

the harvest moon blazing

turning to solitude, for there is only ”I”

& the essence of ”you”.

 

 

Deaf with night’s hollow whispers

silk shawl cast aside

bare flesh masking muslin pillow

love untying caution’s ribbon

 

as we let it slide

like young girl’s curls

masking asking faces.

 

You rest in oblivion

stroking candied women

delicate filigree phantoms

breathless in their brilliance

 

while I  try to tame the tiger

hush the rush of sweetness

turn aside from logical explanations

 

see you as you want me to,

 

a summer sorbet

fresh with sun kissed satisfaction

that crisp wisp of magnificence

tipped to fly away:

 

& I plug these riptide words

the cries that raise me from my sleep

why’s and how’s dulled with ice cold wine

follow your unmapped route

 

to a mute and foreign destination

where nothing is given away

but time.