When I was young
I would play with my brothers
on the grass and my white socks
would turn green
We would be outside
until the windows
were yellow with light
and the sky was black
You couldn’t see the ball
until it hit you
in the mouth
and you needed mum
In the evening and night
you couldn’t see her flowers
so there was no damage
and that was just as well
If we stay out
I will keep on throwing
and my hand will hurt
but I won’t mind
The city is my life support
But I am not from here, perfectly plucked
Placed in this bed of flowers
I am a resident, not a citizen
My growth, exists to make others
Busy doing the important work
Happy to see the green things
Are still here holding on
They came and in the name of God
Took my home whilst I slept
Your holy city, not mine
I no longer belong
Now I watch my cause
Stolen by others
Burn, turn to rubble
All around me
Why did fate lead me here
With no place
To love or
Return?
As if trapped
In a bed of flowers
Dislocated
From home
To be made
the day must break
only light can cut the dark.
Left behind,
splinters of white haze
blanket the cool ground,
hovering debris
the only sign
something else was here.
Seconds pass
and the sun sees
that it ends.
The gifts of this half way
between night and day
vanish,
the low orbit
air of night
replaced.
I wish
it would return
I know it won’t.
People come
from their houses
into the dawn;
one, two, three
now all at
once
school, work
cars, bikes
moving
I hear a train
in the distance
doing things
sweeping up bodies
as it
goes.
We begin,
anew
in the light of day
that pierced
the sky
of it’s dark
The edges of your yellow
brown from the autumn
disembark, one by one
floating with indecision
one way then the next
I know you want to stay
next to all you have known
to be right
and safe
your place
It is here now
in the beauty of this
perish,
in the elegant sway of
decent
Your only choice
surrender
forget your
pride
let go
hand yourself
to greater things
and be lost
in the echo
beneath
Beaten by what we know but don’t see
swirls of air
somehow over years of standing
still
gave you that rubbery face
Rich red, cracking
chunks breaking, running
up and down
wrapping what’s hidden
inside your cloak
A wink. You’ve watched me
follow these tracks before
my young face, swift gait,
fast pace
driven
So was he. My mothers dad, tall
with a downward gaze
skin like rubber that told
stories of good and bad
of things never spoken now seen
He once had a chest
experience harder fought than mine
his badge, that with age, withdrew
replaced by kindness to a world
he’d forced his way through
You remind me of him,
perhaps hidden inside of you
he is there, watching me
as I pass on by
and the sun drifts across the sky
Roots tumble
From the brown
Bathing her feet
Into finer health
Now she’s up
Climbing above the eyeline
Roots born
From the brown
Revealed by a tide gone now
To the distant lake
Further than can be reached
Or returned
Roots work
Preparing her with
What she needs
Against the forces
Of wither and
Weather
Roots break
And bow
Their fragility known
Only to those
Raising their toes
From the dirt
Roots cave
When their grip has been
Lost
Fingers powerless to hold
The coming and going
Endless holding
Roots stretch
Under sodden silt
For wealth
We are blind to
Singing
Under us
Roots search
For answers that go
Years forgotten
Now upturned
Bereft
To the air
I see you now
Twisting and turning in your bed
A green felt, that in the light of day
Savours the Sun’s breath
The moment breaks and your foilage
Still, until caught by wind
Bellows the sound of waves
Crashing upon the shore
I remember life before, the small house
Sandwiched between forest and sea
I was too young to know you then
Too old to embrace you care free
A boy full of lust and longing
Spikey hair and new shoes
If we’d met then as we do now
I would not have been any less lost
Though I sense you will escape me
Off into the glittering sky
When for a moment
It was only us
Your gentle arms
Onto care for another
Who when they were younger
Forgot to look up
Nothing glides upon thinly cut water sheet
Not a young bird washing their fresh belly
Or hovering flies at its fickle edge
Or the timid fox nervous at night
Some rest for those under the surface at last
The slice that keeps two worlds apart
Secrets now shut under deepening ice
—
The day limbers from its early rise
Shoots stay clenched in their fist
Twigs hang onto their aching branch
It isn’t long
What’s hidden will soon flirt
With the coming of sun
Of hope
—
Now it rushes with undivided mite
Into a new blue, light
White ice, gone, now the sound of
Circling wings sing and the crisping air
Reveals truth
Song
The coming of life
Your orange eyes are all
I see when I think of
Firm ice holding
Your shape
For it will end
To melt is to know
How it was to play
In the winter cold
Surely it is better
To have sticks for arms
Than to have lived
Without them
Though your time is brief
It must be worth
Joy
Made
You will topple and tumble
To a puddle
Regular and
Ordinary
But you will have lived
Come and gone
Your swift
Gift
It arrived under cover of night
A blanket of white as if to hide
With a layer of gentle ice
Misgivings from the day gone
Washed away by a sea of bright
Eyes blink and squint with light
Better suited to summer days
Of sun and fun and yellow
Layers of sun kissed snow
Hold events passed beneath
For a brief time I will forget and play
As the sound of children wake me
A new world for morning
As the sun rises and begins to chip
And the chilly snow drips
From the day
Not before long or delay
White turns to grey to black
And back to its state of
Wet cold and frozen air
As if by magic this day
Returns to its usual way
Without snow or play
We will wait