Loneliness is simply love
With nowhere to go
Lost
Reply
Senseless time
Stillness comes as last leaf drops
Though not for long
Cupboard bare like grievance aired
Empty thoughts, silence comes
Like jester and thief
Stolen precious time
Mock those who weep.
Do not wait for wind to change
For your face remains asleep
Clumsy hands and feet
Lose bits and pieces of me
Spill the drink over the one
Who tried to sell me to the street
I rise above
Beating sense into skins
Laid taut by grief
Smoothing tallow fashionably
Over fine lines and wrinkles of time
Spare moments spent watching
Antique shards and bottles
Plucked from the bank of the Thames
Or the bottom of someone's yard
The hand once clutching it
Long since retired
Now that old hand is mine
Passenger
In all my sweet thoughts
Of riding shotgun
Words caught on tongue
Music at your fingertips
Where shall we go from here?
To the coast, surely?
The mountains, sublime
Some cabin where we can hide
Gather imaginary adventures
Cast them on the wind
Like a flock of shorebirds
Headed to the North Pole
The only passenger, am I
Is one of time
We have journeyed years
Apart, words odometer of miles
B flat blues
Birthday blues
comes after you
The coldest day
with longest night
Soft blue sky
won't clear the air
of sullen gloom
When loved ones are
so far and few
To those so close
A silent toast
Poignant message
Like a ghost
The fault to bear
Is mine to groan
For, I'd rather spend
This day alone
But when I do
A quiet knock
Of heart does wonder
Where all went?
Then, blink of eye
The day is spent!
Milk Fever
A mother's breast turns
Feeding the only release
Lest she weep in tune with child
How long will it last?
Interminable desire
To hold fast the nest
In contrast to view ahead
So wild sea eagles
Soar solo surveying over
Rocky shores, pebbles trickle
Vast dolomite column cliffs
Veering skyward - eyeing one another
Young ones too large for nest
I run errands to tick of time
Care package a respite
For a friend whom I like
Caring for other than bloodline
Though I forgot the soy milk
Now it's all I can drink
The taste of it like a chance meeting
Next time I will say the words
Until then, thoughts brew
Like a heady spiced chai
While tea turns tepid
At least, the sun and I.
Nut butter
The days march onwards - like Grieg - with a drumroll at every turn.
Tears sit on my windowsill each evening before I close the blinds.
Journeying dreams collect like dust at my feet as I step into a new day.
Hands reach for yours, held softly, no mincing words.
Lips kiss yours fully, completely, until the toast pops and jug boils.
Take a bite into peanut buttered reality, the grist of it is chewy.
Blue space
We are enamoured by
Ever changing aspects and moods
Of mysterious face of the sea
While vast deep is changeless
Storm, wind and tide hurry
With advancing seasons
Turbulence magically awakens
New life on shores, wet and highlands
Nothing is wasted
Rich minerals freighted upon rivers
Every particle useful, deeply stirred
Ready for new forms of life
The stark problem of survival
A problem of keeping alive
The spark of life, a matter of existing
No demands made, a dormant state
Take these blue fathoms and pair with blue space above
A steady cure-all, surely, for human race
Yet, do not deny need for one blue pill daily.
Poem derived from the text of ‘The Sea Around Us‘ by Rachel Carson, Oxford, 2021, pp. 32-33: Chapter title ‘The Changing Year.’
In the quiet hours
In the quiet hours
Relieved, I reminisce
The times when silence
Were sparse and few
In the quiet hours
Clarity falls like dew
Eyes open, dreams renew
Wishes cast seeds afar
In the quiet hours
Words echo in chambers
Of heart, once a stranger
Now mine to choose love
In the quiet hours
Fears are laid waste
Happy endings hesitate
In favour of new beginning
Descent
We descend upon oval of scattered sunlight
As if fistfuls of diamonds strewn onto bay
Blinking back at us
Squinting into perpetual horizon
Butterfly shells lain on trail along shoreline
Lapping frothy edge of greedy sea, clutching
Tumbling ripples moulded in sand
Careless gums shed layers
Strewn about like discarded dresses on stage
Leafy mops nodding heady on ocean air
Glittery path meets tentative toes
Kelp gulls call
As a muse, eye of longing
To tread naked and wanting, swallowed whole
Bodacious curves held alight by restless tide
Fondle of chill sting, burn, then numbness sets in
Retreat up winding course a captive to comforts
Imprint of this place
Jetty Beach, held more deeply in thick skin than acetone on paper print
Seeds of dreams planted deep inside
Named will to come alive
Unwritten
Months measured in countdowns
Deadlines, edits, launch
What life might be as an author
All novel ideas float
On whimsical breeze
Over my head
Into another's ears
Genre's, titles and characters
Dance in my dreams
Yet, eternally poised pen
Drips ink of lament
A few mere chapters in
Our life narrative
The story of us remains
Unwritten
Count the stars of heaven 