We walked back that evening
My brother and me
Moonlit, along a thin tarmacked strip
A shadowed road, barely wider than
My outstretched arms
Or two paces in my muddied boots
High walls these; hedges atop walls
A compost of dead flowers atop hedges
A jumbling of flowering brambles
And the jazzy funnels of bindweed
But barely wide enough
To let in the briny air
Funneling through from the distant
Headland’s breach;
Barely wide enough
For the outstretched wings of the owl
That dropped down on us from above
Thinking my hat a leaping vole?
Or my brother’s nose a tasty mouse?
But it dropped in front of us all the same
Then opened up its broad wings wide
Speeding away from us, down the road
An unmarked police car
Pursuing the crook
In a doppler-effect of portent silence
Before returning to the distant shadows
Around a crook in the road
Category: Poetry
Transitions
At the edge of this island; it seems
So permanent; a full stop, but no
It is a transition, that is all
Of cliff and sand, of tussock and scree
To sea, to waves and another world.
At the edge of the moor; the stone circle
Napped by flintsmen, it seems so ancient, inexplicable,
It is a transition, that is all
A launching pad to another plane
A liminal zone between here and where?
At the edge of waking, the dreams
Are vivid, intense, so real I can touch them
It is a transition, that is all
To my waking rituals; a stretch, a flex
Facial scrub, ear-wax cleansed.
At the edge of my tether, it seems
As if all I am told is true
It is a transition, that is all
To a new chapter; a future
In my hands, shimmering.
Mistletoe
Like spiky pom-poms
The mistletoe starkly hangs
In the old trees now
Gothic, like a morning star
Or flailing mace
Its lancet barbs threaten
While below, its syringe root
Blood-taps the living essence
From the tree, its host
In a deathly dance, yet
Before the festive chocolates
Have been snaffled from the tree
And the decorations, limp and languid
Are cramped away in their dusty closet
Once more
The mistletoe is ready
Visible, revealed, set
For its foray into the world of man
The Druid’s cure for any ill
To calm heart, or head or hand
To settle the cattle or bring on death
Or more likely, for the one excuse
One reason, one chance
To steal a kiss
And steal a heart perhaps
Long lanes
These long lanes bewitch me, reaching out
Stretching like a dog after twitching slumber
Or the fingers of a wizard, grizzled by centuries
On a diet of wine and Philosopher’s Stone
My finger tracks them across the maps
As they in turn track through time
On Penwith, high walls, hedge-topped
Shaped by the salty vicious winds, blinking with
Broome and the bright taillights of gorse
Narrow, their only crown is of grass
Snaking round blind bends of horse muck
Falling Stars and surprised joggers
In the Peaks, the long lanes are cut by man
Pushing across the landscape, they constrict the eye
At the rumble of a cattle grid, all hell lets loose
Broad vistas, precipitous valleys ripped from the plateau
The great slashes of our roman roots are plain to see
Scarred today with tarmac and the furniture of the road
But here, in my humble home, unremarkable
Hills and unremarkable fields
With unremarkable villages
They are at their glorious best
They curl and twist and flow; they follow the land
Like a diaphanous silk dress drifts
And drapes round a tantalising leg
Our lanes, my lanes, are as sinews
Or veins, they give life, move me
Droves and drives, as time alone has dictated
And they move me still
Ex Isca
Who would have thought
That the views of the city
Are best found just below
The birds’ eye line
Up here, where the pollen flecks
Waft breezily
Where the dandelion seeds hover
Like canopyless umbrellas
Is a mountain top, with views unparalleled
An enceinte of low wooded hills
Thick greens of oil paint daubed in ribbons
Moss, mint, bright limes, laurel
Trees and shadows sketch their lines
Ex Isca, across the distant Haldons
And Blackdowns and the gloomy Moor
Yet in the foreground, all around
Beauties of a man-made kind
The gothic arches of the museum
Spreckled sandstone, daisy quatrefoils
Flying buttresses of the cathedral soar
And bend convexly like a giraffe’s legs
The river, a metallic snake, winds sideways
The distant sea peeps in through a cruck
In the wall the Romans’ built
Who would have thought
that the views of the city
Are best found up here
On a rooftop car park
Or vertiginously balanced
On a Department Store toilet seat
Stories of our land six storeys up
Up here, where the pollen flecks
Waft breezily
And where the dandelion seeds hover
Like canopyless umbrellas
I am me
Who are you, behind your veil?
Your façade, your carapace, your pretense of being
Who they say you should be
Of being somebody, anybody… nobody
“Feedback” they said, will help you find
Your “authentic self”
But it’s a game, don’t you see?
They are no more authentic, no more true
Than a Georgian front on a Medieval truss
Or a beautiful face, hidden behind the slap
No, theirs is a shifting form, a phantom,
Bending with the wind, morphing to resemble
Who they believe they need to be
But it’s never themselves; the truth there
Lies hidden under deep strata, truth told
They may no longer know the truth
Resist: resist the beguiling vortex
Of lies, quarter-truths, the ‘game’
Walk forward securely through life
Let your reflection be of you
And your soul remain intact
Five Pubs
In our village there still survive
Five pubs; one’s gone ‘gastro’, tantamount
To selling out, with ‘sharing dishes’ and ‘mezze plates’
So you must conclude, it doesn’t count
Another, popular in waves
Has changed its décor, a last-ditch attempt
To go up-market, gentrify
But now’s regarded with sheer contempt
The third, you need to be committed
It’s a good way hence, a half-mile yomp
All right going out, but after Three
It seems like Five, a wearisome, beer-fuelled klomp
The fourth is currently the most favoured
One side, low-beamed cozy locals’ den
The other, smartly daubed in ‘Linen White’
Reclaimed oak and wood-fired hen
But the fifth, well, it’s a drinkers’ pub
Worn old flooring, knotty pine
Scratchings, pints, pies and muzzie,
And a chillingly creaky old pub sign
The front advances
South-westerlies comb the ridge
An ancient ridge, wiry-haired with Scot’s Pine
Hornbeam and scale-skinned horse chestnuts
They act as a break
Before a break in the trees lets the storm
Seep in, be channeled
Along the holloway of sorts
A muddy cleft, worn low by countless feet
And the countless hooves of ox and beast
Over countless years
And there in my look-out, my crow’s nest
I see the rain approaching
Like waves billowing before the break
Like the milk diffusing through my tea
Like the rippling curtains of the Northern Lights
I see the front advancing
The change in the air, all dryness seen off
The pressure drop, lifts me
The disquiet amongst the angsty birds
Then the first dribs, at first I can count them
One drop, it leaves a crater
A second, third, then the thunder of the guns
The front’s artillery unleashes its power
Softening the enemy
Before the fine mist, the rain’s rapid rattle
Horizontal, spatters me
Finishes me off
Whipping winds
The God of Wind is on the throne today
The air confused, chaotic, a cacophony
Of trees stripped back to bark-bare
Fields rummaged and raked roughly through
Leaves wildly whipping in the wind
Thrashing in the thermals, like a comet’s tail
Or the glinting stars on a sorcerer’s shawl
Lifting, looping, landing
Like a Harrier jump-jet
A contredanse between bract and blade
Flat-footedly falling at my feet
Blocking up the brook’s banks
Crumbling crescents, dune-like drifts
Gluey, gooey, gummy
The fruits of the Summer season
Now the till for tomorrow
Neon islands
Aridly I stride through the plashy pools
Of leaves and rivulets of riffling rain
Dancing, to avoid a slip
Twixt bruised hip and the sheep dip
Of swellingly sodden socks
From the puddle puthering over the lip
Of my desert boot
Squeaking, the soft pad of my soles
Beat a melody to the soulful tap tap
Of my dog’s soft pads, a light drum beat
We traverse the stormy seas this night
Between one island and another
The billowing waves, blown leaf-fall
Browns, russets, reds, ochres
My boots a burnt umber, fading to black
Where the water seeps in
To my soul and down my neck
Cresting, breaking on the shores
Of each island, a blustery haven
Beneath the neon burr
Of unholy orange, lighting below
But not between, there lies nothing
Just the deepest shadows
And the wettest waves
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