I saw you at the gate

through summer rain

I watched you wave

 

& walk away.

 

No one else could see

you smile & fade

into the fading light.

 

Only a glimpse caught

in my mind,: & still I knew,

just you can love me

 

as you do.

 

I saw you at the church

across the green

where dead folk wait

 

no birds are singing

in that tree & still I know

you’ll wait for me.

 

I feel you oh so near

I don’t know why

the rain is summer rain

 

the leaves too green again

& whatever else I do, I know

I’m tired of living this

 

without you too.

 

To hold me sometimes

make it right, walk our silence

through the  night.

 

It seems like yesterday

I said goodbye; though

nearly twenty years

 

have burnt their glorious fizz

& left me here again the way

I’ve always been…….alone

 

when you weren’t  near .

 

Child on a bridge,

pooh sticks cling to

tumbling stream, ponies

snort at dusk, the lanes

tumble into tunnels.

 

Owl calls from oak

high above the house,

her frozen arms outhrown

for centuries, as man

comes and goes,.

 

Child on a bridge,

afternoon is close

and evening stretches

to ensnare us in its

arms of age.

 

Writing on a wall

love lain and lost,

scattered now

amongst  briars,

on solitary island.

 

You searched each

twisted path, but I

had disappeared, flung

away this flesh, melted

in the mist of finite tomorrow.

 

Always,

child on a bridge

leaning into stream

nothing held in mind

except movement.

 

 

 

 

 

From Ultramarine ……….click here to buy

June 16

We arranged to meet outside a bar, low toned phone voices: we talked of bus stops and caviar, your voice was an insistent whine of life flying broadside hitting you in the eye leaving you shadowed. You were exotic in your hue, proud of a lineage that spoke of wide spread beaches, sweated rum punches.  I was interested in your story, had time and space for another human suffragette; listened to your flight until the night faded with the lamplight and my blood ran cold.    You called and I was kind not wanting to further ignite a no go situation.

*

Obsession feeds the air

like arsenic

making it difficult to breathe

it tarts the tongue

leaving raw taste buds

beats heavy in the heart

jump sideways

corrodes bones.

 

I can get obsessed

by a lipstick colour

by a chocolate biscuit

by a pair of eyes.

 

 

*

 

You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I wanted to drown with you, so no one else would look through my eyes and see you.  I was terrified it was obscene I couldn’t breathe and the only way I was going to win was to teach you to be free like me.

*

 

Obsession seals lips

leads to murder

blood assuaging anger

the violet throws of longing.

I’m obsessed by your longing

have no finger to stick

in the dyke of escape

no deals to make.

 

 

 

 

You are empty void of light

hunger for  this life gnaws at your insides

picking you clean leaving you starving.

 

The mirror reflects an easy smile

painted permanently side to side

rosy red your eyes as dark as night

 

& there’s nothing to hold onto

no healing hand to lead

as you search the outside for an inside clue

 

to nothing.

 

The trees turn gold and weep for summers hope

& you are spinning, no control dizzy from

the burnt out cinders of a love that left.

 

You are empty like a broken doll

waiting for a sound to hold you up

waiting for it all to be

 

something.

 

You snatched the elements

twisted dust to golden sunlight

emptied rain into ripening apples:

 

now earth glimmers with new potencies.

 

They come to you, hands high eyes empty:

you spin them stories of their own intentions,

gossamer web woven, for tomorrow.

 

All that’s missing here are peacocks

a trompe l’oeil of peacocks,

a mystery man to palm the future

 

like a rose plucked from your garden.