The Storm Came Knocking

the storm came knocking quietish, just

fingernails on windows, just

the creak of dry eyes rolling, just

exasperated outbreaths, and

feathers plucked from bird-breasts, and

seed heads snapped out empty from

the fists of ancient summers, as

cloud-drummers playing rimshots got to

testing out the timpani, but the

thunder bred a litany, and the

wind blew up a mutiny, while the

orchestra were tuning, up

scuppering the teacups, the

candle wicks extinguished, the

squeaking of the catflaps, birds

caught in reckless hedges, on

ledges pigeons hunkered, on

the roofs the ridge tiles riddled, and

the churchyard railings rattled, down

the street the refuse slithered, and

the rain came down like penny drops, hit

the tarmac like a cannon, flooded

gutters, bollocked drainpipes, swept

the rubbish from the bus-stops, sent the

people running homeward, to their

kettles and their blankets.

Those was written in response to the #FromOneLine prompt on various social media platforms (Twitter, Bluesky) 

The prompt gives a phrase which must be used as the first line of the piece.

Nonsense Descends Into Madness

Aurora said the gun dog was able to obliterate the weak-minded lawlessly

Auspices said the gunfight was able to obscure the weakness laxly

Austerity said the gunfire was able to obsecrate the weal lazily

Austin said the gunge was able to observe the weald leadenly

Australes said the gunite was able to obsess the wealthy learnedly

Auteurs said the gunk was able to obsolesce the weaner lecherously

Authors said the gunlock was able to obstruct the weanling leeringly

Authorities said the gunman was able to obtain the weapon legally

A poem for Uvalde and all the victims of mass shootings in the United States

Let Me Die In The Morning-time

Let me die in the morning-time
before the day has complicated things
and let it be now, in early spring
while the soil is warming
and the sun has hinted
at the colour in its cheeks

then plant me shallow
among sudden snowdrops
and crocuses

with the grass still wet
from the morning's crisp rain
with dark earth clinging to the spade

let roots creep between my ribs
and green shoots sprout

from my finger tips

there is a suggestion of warm bees
and sparrows can sing eulogies
perhaps blackbirds will chortle calls
among the first green flush of leaves

and then next day
when you have washed your hands and face
make a flask of tea
wrap sugared doughnuts in a bag
or lardy cake
and climb the high top of Melbury Hill

look back across the valley
to the places we spilled our childhood
Badger's Wood and Seymour's Bottom
the tadpole pond down Frenchmill Lane
with pointing fingers
trace maps across the landscape
to find Cann Mill amongst the thickening trees
spot the Higher Blandford Road
and the Lower
and search out the roof of the house where we once lived

mine has been a cluttered life
confused and spattered across times and place
and you may imagine patterns that never were

but this –
this was the chase beneath the skin
the quickening
the valley floor
the early store of buttery days
that has fed me always
that has kept me fat while I was thin

Fly

In dreams I can fly

it is simple enough
a tightening of muscle
a shortening of sinew
a concentration of blood

there is
no frantic flapping of limbs
no wild leap into the air

No

I simply close eyes

tighten the core
breathe
flute my exhalation
through whistling lips
until I float
up, up into air
suspended

from the bubble

in my skull

in dreams I am free
from the poison of gravity

I tried it again today
in gusty hope
tried it as I walked home
in the belly of the wind

how certain I was
remembering the ease of dreams
feeling the fillip
beneath my arm pits
as my father
standing behind me
would grip his fingers
under these skinny pockets
and gift me moments
of fumbling flight
feet flailing free

laughing to dizziness

but today I was wakeful
and it is too hard
to tense each muscle

around the liver
summon blood

from distant corners

of a corpse

my will is oh so soft
while I am awake
and my father

is long dead

but one day
when my bones
are hollow as birds
and left sky-bleached
under gracious clouds
the ludicrous air will
whisper through them
of how I once could fly

Lamp light

Outside the day holds out its hands

invites the night

a dog barks
on the mantle the clock ticks

The room dissolves from its corners
rug, armchair, wallpaper
weeping into darkness

She switches on the lamp where she sits
custard light spools out across the table

her lap and her open book

He rises stiffly
lifts his sciatic walking stick
guides the edges of the curtains 

to meet across the thickening evening

The girl down the corridor

I have never told you
have I
about the girl
whose name I never knew
with angular features
a long sharp nose
and shaped eyebrows
skilfully shadowed eyes
with hair
cut short
and gelled up
into a fine comb

who had a room
down the corridor
from you in halls

I never told you
did I
how she and I
caught each other's eye
from time to time
how she would smile at me
even while you held my hand
and how
while we were studying in your room
you and I
I would listen for footsteps in the corridor
Fancy a coffee?
I would say
and you always would
and I would dutifully trip along
to the kitchen
in the hope that she might be there too

and sometimes she would be
and while the kettle boiled
we would courteously
dance
a light flirtatious gavotte
between sink and cupboard
kettle and coffee jar

and I would fail to say
all the things to her
that I had planned to
because of you

and she would ask about you
because that was a respectful
and a safe
thing to do

Night visitor

Those are not
the sheets you feel
slip sliding over
your sleeping skin,
but these, my hands,
come wandering
across a thousand seas

my silken palms
have sailed the wind

seeking a golden smoothness
on your thigh
sweeping the sweet bowl
of your belly flesh
the subtlest softest

pillow of your breast
and now 

with phantom fingertips
I trace your velvet nipples
trace your lips
I taste your tongue
I kiss your neck

your back

your hips

I rove among the stars
and find you
shed bone and blood and skin
to race the sky
and find you

I become the breeze
and wind these spirit arms
around you
in an astral cloud's embrace
I bind you

maps

will we be skin to skin again

will blood be hot

will bones awake

and subtle muscular ripples strum

and judder breaths

as we strip the fret

from stressful days

in naked exploration

will we find my finger

running the curve

of your cheek again,

tracing the arc

of your back

the valley of your belly

strolling the soft velvet

of your inner thigh

and the domains

that here adjacent lie

like snuggled rabbits

our bodies fitted once

leg coiled round leg

hand round breast

buttock seamed to thigh

have we forgotten

the maps

we drew of each other's desire

the songlines we sang

and danced

and dawdled down

can we redraw

before it is too late

the paths of pleasure we once knew

lovesong

Night has come

like a bus stalled

outside the window

spewing mud grey clouds

I think of you

I think only of you

I only ever think of you

owls are keening

on Upper Albert Road

in treetops

slick-leaved with rain

and somewhere

some fool is playing

the cello

out there

in the rainy street

bleeding his heart into the grey rainy street

like some sort of fool

blood in the gutters

blood and tears of rain in the gutters

he doesn't even know you

          but me

I think of you

I only ever think of you

I think only of you

ever

I have reached for your arms

many times

          I have

but you live

in the book of another world

in the crook of another arm

and will not hear the

thump, thump, thump

of this stupid heart

this stupid raging heart

and so all I can do

is think of you

while the night bus

chugs choking clouds outside the window

with the owls

and the fool

and the cello

blood and tears of rain

and the thump, thump, thump

          yes

I'm thinking of you again

I only ever think of you

I think only of you

ever

blackberries, 2019

     we have come out early

this year and

before the heat of the day

have stretched legs up the hill

to Carr Wood

     the blackberries

in thick clusters

hang from vines, still cradled away

in bush tops

hoist in bindweed canopies

behind barbed brambles

and stealthy nettles

smirking beneath a green palace 

an angry salad of leaves

     for we are the first

this year

to assault this harvest

to marvel at the crop

the dropping wealth

of sunblessed flesh that

slips between fingers

and into our mouths

a flood of perfumed berry blood

as our tongues

press to mash

these precious clots

     and we pick

in silence

mostly

the girl and I

cast in memories and thoughts

of other years

and when we speak

we talk again

of hedgewitch

of rosehip, sloe and haw

of lost recipes

folklore

and ancestors

and on the brambles' thorns

we swear a tacit blood pact

that should we never again

do this together

we will always have done it

today

     but you

have stayed behind

despite our invitation

because it was not in your plan

for the morning

or you found some other hesitation

that held you home

     we are disappointed

and relieved

for this harvesting

has become our thing

we forage for links that bind us

and we find them

in the gathering

of this rich fruit

something in that room

disregard the dirt

the windows, clouded

draped with cobwebbed curtains

I have lived here

and hear the echoes of your laughter

silver cords

bind my heart's bones

to each object

resonant in the afternoon sun

playing the melody of memories

as from each something

in that room

a note vibrates

I had hair then

and skin-soft hands

and we were afloat

in the womb of the moment

and still are here

a fading harmonic

despite the cobwebs

clouded windows

and the dust

7^th May, 2019

Birthday Poems for a Brother

John's Poem

When John

stopped going to Mrs Moore’s

he went to

Our Lady Of Lords

and he learned how to

have friends

Marcel

and Tina

and Michael Popplearse

and how to have a drawing book.

Then he learned writing

and he drew pictures of his friends

and underneath he wrote

I like Tina in my tea

and

Marcel is poosticks and a bum.

So this is John’s poem really

I don’t think he knew how to spell

Popplearse.

Lessons in Lego

Jess was born

upstairs

with the door shut

and Cousin Wyn

came to look after us

downstairs.

And when she had come

Cousin Wyn told us

we could tiptoe like mice

up the stairs and see

our new baby sister.

And Mum was there

and Dad

and there was this baby

in a black carry cot

and Mum said the baby

had brought us things,

and if we put our hands

in the bottom end

of the carry cot

we would find the things

she had brought.

I didn’t know

how a baby

could get to the shops

but Mum said

I didn't need

to worry about that.

And there were things -

I got a little box of lego,

blue lego

roof pieces.

It was all right.

Then John opened his box -

when I saw what he got

fireworks went off in my head

John got

little yellow curved bits of lego

that made a fantastic round tower

if you put them all together.

Yellow bits

not blue.

Curved bits

not roof bits.

And they said the baby

was called Jessica Mary

and that she was the baby now

and I had to be her big brother

and teach her things.

I thought I should better teach her about

lego.

I expect Kate got something too

but she was six

and I didn’t want it

it was probably a wet yourself dolly

or something.

Only a game

John and I

dug Jess a grave

in the garden.

Dad had been doing some digging

and we asked if we could.

He did not know

why we were digging,

but we dug a trench

then mounded

up the soil

as if we had buried Jess there.

Then we made a cross

out of two bamboo poles

and made a paper sign

with

Jessica Baldwin

RIP

written on it.

When we told Mum

she thought we were mean.

So did Jess.

The Russells

were coming for tea

and she said

don’t let Ann Russell

see our grave

she might get upset

and cry.

Ann was seven

and it was only a game.

So John and me

we went and

jumped up and down

on Jess’s grave.

Blue Misses

A wraggle of lads

push out of the Supabar

words lost in mouthed vowels and chips

while on the corner by the street lamp

four girls

in minis and blouses

huddle around one of their phones

blue screen lighting up their faces

as they rate

whoever's featured

with oo's or boo's

they don't look up

as the lads come over

just turn as a group

as the boys sweep past

caught in the wake

of the evening bow-wave

20.11.2018

No waiting

I will no longer wait
for this bus
because buses slow down
if you are waiting for them
and it makes no odds
if I see the very first moment
of its bumper
rounding the corner
at the end of the road

It will either come
or it will not come
whether I wait 

or not

No
I will no longer wait
but I will stand here
because this bus-stop
is as good a place to stand
as anywhere else

and I will watch the sun
creep in and out of the clouds

and I will watch children
running near the kerb

and I will hear their parents
scolding them

and I will watch
a starling
on the gutter of a house
preening itself

and I will breathe
the bus-stop air
rather than the air by the crossing

and that will make a change

and perhaps
while I stand here
watching and breathing and listening
I will count the chips of paint
on the bus-shelter
and fancy that I can see a face
forming in the dry stud
of chewing gum
that someone has posted
on the glass

and I will imagine 

the sweetness of the gum

on my tongue

But I am not waiting for the bus
because it takes too much energy
and I don't have that kind of wealth

No
No waiting
for the bus
even though
you said
you might be on it

Leonard Cohen

A poem written in an Electric Tomatoes session just after the death of Leonard Cohen.

Suzanne took me down

She had a place by the river

She put on her old turntable

As I flicked through her vinyl

But all I found to listen to

While the storm outside was raging

Was an album by The Beastie Boys

And Revolver by The Beatles

Then she looked up and noticed

While the boats rocked by outside

That the evening was descending

And that I really should be leaving

So I went and called an Űber

22^nd May 2018

Are you all right?

Are you all right?

How I hate the question...
What do you want me to say?

Yes, I'm all right
I'm still breathing
Is that what it takes
to 'be all right'?

I won't mention the inner turmoil...
I love you, so
I won't inflict upon you
the twisting and turning
of my burning heart
the hatred and scorn I feel
for my own
self-destructive tendencies

I won't tell you
about how I dream
of slashing the flesh of my arms
with a razor blade
because then you would worry
that the breathing bit
of being all right
might be compromised

You would wonder
who the creature is
that you thought you knew
that you had
compartmentalised

I don't WANT to slash my arm
it just feels as if
that would be some form of release
for the uncomfortable energy
that's churning around in here

Feel the flesh separating from itself
see blood bubbling from within
carrying the toxin perhaps
dropping
onto the painstaking earth
and dissipating

I WON'T slash my arm
Because then you would see...
You could no longer ignore the truth of me

And if you can't ignore it then neither can I

So don't ask
if I am all right
because the truest answer
is impossible to formulate
and even a close approximation
is likely to obliterate
the true complexity

Just accept I'm travelling
and sometimes
the road is filled with rubble
so if you see me stumble
just reach out and
take my hand
for a moment

You take yourself to the mountain top
and sit amongst the clouds
you trek down to the sea's edge
and feel the rhythm of the turning earth
you press your hands
into the sand of the desert
feel the heat upon your skin
seek the place
the heart's honest landscape
where you the earthling
seeking heaven
best fit in

My journey
is a different one
it takes place while I sit here
seeing the thoughts flash by
with the eye of my mind
as if on a train
but the train is motionless
and it is the world that moves
I find doorways in my thoughts
secret passages
tunnels and traps
cloudless skies
red eyes
bloated cheeks
blistered skin

It happens while I sit -
feeling the internal bleeding
counting purple bruises -
but I am confident
that at some point
I will straighten the fibres
twine them together
and draw the thread
across the loom
and all the colours
I have found
will lie in harmony
against each other
and the fabric
will at last
make sense

Dead Pigeon

Walking home the other day I came upon a dead pigeon in the street.  The way it lay and the colour of the carcass led me to imagine that rather than being crushed into the pavement it was actually emerging out of it...

I snapped a photo of it and my talented friend Adry Ruiz (@xxxadryxxx) translated it into a pencil drawing to accompany this poem

From the ash of the asphalt I am born

fledged from flagstone streets

I will dance for you through broken air

for you will I thrill in flight

I am the chill of the wild in the town

I am a child in the still of the sky

settle my soul in the spirit world

fashion me feathers and fly

as a shaman's cape will I shelter you

although I am crushed and torn

for though my entrails grace the ground

no harm to me now can come

I'll dance once more through the greasy air

dance once more by the bridge

dance once more on the frosty street

where you creatures of the city live

come, dance with me as the day begins

dance with me as it ends

feed me scraps from the morsels bag

feed me love from your lips

I have the courage of an iron bear

the grace of a violin

I have the strut of an ancient mare

that drinks by the river's brim

for though I am crushed and split apart

though I am shattered and crazed

I live with you in the city's heart

wherever a city is raised

The Elephant That Has Fallen Over

The elephant that has fallen over

is the last of the family of elephants

that Great Uncle Cyril

brought back

from Jaipur

in 1937.

We can see

how the ivory tusk has snapped

clean away from the ebony body

and

no

there is no glue

that can invisibly repair it.

We can note

how the ear has cracked

upon impacting the stones of the hearth

and the piece that has fallen away

has disappeared

somewhere

beneath the gas fire

in the fireplace.

We are aware

that this

the last elephant

in the family of six elephants

that Great Uncle Cedric

brought back

from Jodhpur

in 1939

is of course,

merely a thing

an object

an object of little intrinsic value

a mere and momentary

collaboration of molecules

formally arranged

in time

and space.

We will not cry

nor yet will we weep

for the object

we will simply

ponder upon it

think upon the time

it has been amongst us

We will cheerfully

cherish the memory

of our lost friend

and consign

his broken and battered

remains

to the all-consuming fire.

But...

may I just say that...

this

the largest of the eight elephants

in the family of elephants

that Great Uncle Collins

brought back from Pondicherry

in 1947

has successfully survived

seventy years

upon this shelf

even while its family have perished

until you

you

my dear boy

until you turned up

with you

infernal

Wii.

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