Smoke sniffs up and out    
A deep inhale of mist for my longing lungs 
I pull and release 
Justified by the young gay souls
Smoking near 
In a bar I will visit only once  

It bellows from soft lips between thoughts  
Rises under me, from students
Who sip wine and spray black breath
What is my wish, if not these clouds  
To hug, to ground me
Here   

Who would I be without this yearn
To soak the air of its spell
By a waking mind ready to kneel 
To my vice of choice
And it’s wish to vanish 
Down my hollowing throat 

I pick life from the blackened earth 
A one pop pull and through 
With spikes green and an orange tube 
Now ascending, from the blue 

Her dry skin of ordinary touch 
And soft hands yet to feel 
Now clasp food the rain makes 
She intuitively knows its real 

But time will tell it’s story 
Slowly and begrudgingly so 
For the truth will bare it’s naked fact 
That food, it cannot grow 

Drugs and pills litter fields
In every square but this 
It’s rare to find your food grown 
From nature’s natural lips 

Maybe she’ll live to a greater age 
That knows not of this place 
Where only the elements of god bathe 
The ground with nourishing grace 

Yet she’ll have been here now, today
Just the once in her early youth 
To pick her dinner from sturdy ground  
Lived it’s glorious truth

Climbing the stairs 
Finding your seat 
I’m here  
A home for the evening 
The theatre of Lords 
Under floodlights 
The white ball swings 
And the clock ticks 
And the wind slips 
Between cracks in the seats 

The chase is on 
70 from 50 
To be out there 
Bearing the pressure 
Rising to expectation 
What if 
Those hopes of youth 
Had become truths 
What then?
Who then?

Dreams are just that 
Dreams.
Necessary 
Moments 
Of hope
My envy 
Recedes into gratitude 
For lost ambition 
Making way for love
And company 

As we scatter out of the ground 
Along the road 
Through the station 
And into the tube 
I pause 
My camera snaps 
And I am overcome   
Thankful the stars 
Aligned themselves 
Without my doing 

I find water in spring 
Beneath sands of the desert 
Where dry golden caps 
Protect rivers below 

Through the summer I plant 
Without care for the sun 
Seeds beneath the snow 
Hiding sparks yet to come   

In the autumn I find  
Silence in the city
Where songs of sirens
Rain through the streets
   
Under darkness in winter  
I live for the night  
And stroll with the foxes  
Until the rise of the day

And when I searched for hope 
She was everywhere 
And I smiled 
I could stop looking now

A thousand leaves 
Bristling in a bounty of air 
Gave outstretched shade
To a stranger 

Like fingers those thousand pieces clenched 
Became the familiar shape of her birth
A Fern 
My shelter from today 

Did she know   
Her destiny was not limited to her   
Solitary 
Self  

A search for the sun 
Once daunting, now complete
She was never really
Alone

Invisible to me 
It repeats
An endless cycle
My careless eye
Catches detail 
Without context 
Systems of humans 
Appear self made 
Will I care to notice 
They are not 

This strawberry leaf 
Droops like her sisters fruit 
Lightly weighing 
On her mothers arm 
Lipstick petals 
With pale green rims 
Enclose her jewel 
Now protected 
Like a child 
Held

This tree of birth 
Short and stocky 
Firm to the floor 
Pyramid shaped 
Celebrates hierarchy 
It’s top down approach 
By creating beauty 
From its order 
Strength 
From its system 

My ignorance 
Rarely connects 
What binds life here 
The beauty I notice 
Created by systems I miss   
Like strawberry's 
Made from leaves 
On a tree
I wander
By

The night-side of life is the kingdom of the sick 
I have fallen into your darkness  

My throat is sore
Unwelcome growth is infecting me

Flourishing inside of me
Id love some of that Calpol stuff from the spoon 

Today I was a 
Shrivel  

A presented face. All else lay wilting
I am on the bad side

Where health is a distant sun 
Setting away from here  

I want your warmth little yellow thing
Find me 

Senses soaked by salt permit my rest
Hills crunch into stretched out shores peering out to sea 
And as yellow spreads in the fields, people of the land meet 
In pubs like front rooms, where the pull of pace 
Has lost its grip, and dreams of equal importance 
Remain in the minds of honest folk 
Who without cause for concern go about their way 
With hope for the day  
Trusting it will come

I walk, without thought, upon the past beneath 
Grey brick cobbled for foot and wood
Now rubber and road lay siege
To Montmatre

I think, without care, of the chattering minds 
Swapping tales of today 
Some stick in the mind 
Others float with the wind 

I care, without worry, for these people   
The kindness and beauty of their place 
I rest knowing it will repeat
This love has been here before

Bells ring
In-between the regular silence 
That deafens this place 
And heals it 

Bong
Bong 
Bong 
Bong

And now the 4pm breeze 
Slips it’s joyous cold hands 
Down my waiting neck
Just in time 

Patience  
Rewarded 
As we reach the crescendo  
Of a day well spent 

Now an evening well earned  
To sip 
On these heavenly bells 
Silence after silence