The Perfect Day
Star Tips 135/2020-01
If I said it was the perfect wedding,
with all the family gathered round
smart-dressed and polished, looking like they'd rather
not attend, or move the clocks on forward:
then you'd not understand.
If I said it was the perfect couple,
no feuding relatives on either side,
the service quite surprisingly well-attended,
each song and hymn known well enough to strain
beliefs; and then some more.
If I said the vibrancy of Autumn
fell on those sun-drenched petals gathered round,
until the heavens opened like loud music
and cameras/bodies/brollies dashed for cars,
then you would see, perhaps
The day with me like no other, gifts like angels,
writ in the clouds undressing white to grey.
Strangers greeted friends - aged recognitions
grimaced right to smiles and gestured shadows
then as now; forgotten.
If I say perfection dies with living:
the priest conjoins in blessings of Goodbye.
Winter chills the mound of fresh-faced flowers
none wake to raise the heavens as night falls.
Oh, then you'd understand.
Bluest Skies of Grief
Angels’ Wings and Stars/Obooko/eBook online
The air is golden in its morning light;
grief fails to grab me daily by the throat.
Too soon enough storms brood a skein’s despair
and morning, morning rising brightens hope.
And now, today the bluest skies of grief,
that lighten 19 candles into church.
To cut this cake to pieces. Share me out!
Consumed in death. snuffed out in one hour’s lurch
from 9am; the bank. The old shout loud,
in grumbling pensions; prices; how the young...
spend, spend and spend; or, pushing, rush too fast ---
as I breathe slow; heart strained; infused and wrung.
Heart strained, infused and wrung in loud noise-bright,
too soon.... enough.... storms brood a skein’s despair.
The air is golden in its morning light
where bluest skies of grief are everywhere.
Draining (Palindromedary)
Tips 74/2007-11
I drain the dregs of strong dark tea,
touching no civilisation into breath.
Still sick with last night’s curry, my bowels hang
over the empty glass of flyblown wine;
strain-wish the leaves were floating, green with sun,
as my steamed face soaks flat with dull blood sap.
Cocooned in iPod, wired for sound, assured
of timelessness of soothing noise;
vibrating to the gentle rock of train,
a crackling loudmouth of the tanoy's waves.
I womb a view of warmth and sweat,
and soak the pastoral landscape into flesh.
In cruising absence, where toy cars shoot straight
as arrows to a landscape pausing past.
As arrows, to a landscape pausing past
in cruising absence, where toy cars shoot straight,
and soak the pastoral landscape into flesh.
I womb a view of warmth and sweat,
a crackling loudmouth of the tanoy's waves.
Vibrating to the gentle rock of train,
of timelessness of soothing noise.
Cocooned in iPod, wired for sound, assured,
as my steamed face soaks flat with dull blood sap.
Strain-wish the leaves were floating, green with sun,
over the empty glass of flyblown wine.
Still sick with last night’s curry, my bowels hang,
touching no civilisation into breath.
I drain the dregs of strong dark tea.
Love’s Constant Sea (Palindromedary)
Poetry Cornwall/Issue 31/Summer 2011
The constant see of love’s a holy flame
that flickers darkest in the dingiest night
and toys and plays are trashy as a name
that’s plainly lost in flight, if not held lightly.
Love’s read, inbred in years, while petals fall
through seasons born into a winter’s tale,
if it survives at all. No lovers calling
beyond the grave, or heard, when skin’s grown pale.
Can it be love, snuffed out in fiercesome park?
Love grieves, anonymous, beneath the moon.
Love rages in the bedroom, skims the dark;
red veins diseased, if love resists too soon.
Primifluous love; is fire; is ice;
what dies in Paradise, for so not nice.
What dies in Paradise, force so not nice;
primifluous love is fire; is ice.
Red veins deceased, if love desists too soon.
Love rages in the bedroom, skims the dark.
Love grieves, anonymous, beneath the moon.
Can it be love? Snuffed out in fearsome park
beyond the grave; for heard when skin’s grown pale.
If it survives at all, no lovers calling
through seasons born into a winter’s tale.
Love’s red, a red, red rose -while petals fall.
What’s plainly lost in flight is not held lightly,
and toys and plays as trashy as a name
that flickers darkest in the dingiest night.
The constant sea of love’s a holy flame.
Dartmoor in Winter
Littoral Magazine/2022-11/ONLINE
Bing’s White Christmas plays on Radio 2
starring the route from Tavistock to Princetown,
across that Western desert, Dartmoor’s wild
winding route that climbs into the clouds
as morning sun dips heaven’s rosy sky.
Turquoise-marked sheep, ponies, wild humans roam
terrain of coarse grass, gorse and bracken-bare
to barren chill of winter without frost.
No hounding howls of canine’s darkest breath,
reminding blistering heath of rise and fall
to tumbledown of lichened walls and rocks.
Sheep-dropping tarmac; a pair of chestnut mares.
Fir-tips/white-washed pubs raise distant horizons,
clustered around Two Bridges; pastel homes,
that rim the glistering ghost, a stark church tower,
Christmas trees for sale; a Visitors’ Centre;
for peace on earth in morning’s golden sun,
that darts across the roofs and bricks to jail.
Terry/Aled sing of a drummer boy,
competing for a Christmas number one,
as three white ponies rise on moorland mound,
to trek the East-rise star of Bethlehem.
Both bridges sigh their crossing flow of Dart.
We should be glad for fresh snow, back at home
where birth and death are close as our sons rise
through adolescent comets and black holes.
We midwife to a Christmas breach; to gifts
of gold and sweetest incense: this year’s love
and hope the long hard agonies to adulthood
pass, like this Christmas punch, in angel dark.
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