Month: November 2015

A point of focus. There. The dog’s eye, fixed. She crouches, belly on grass. Not to kill; to bewitch. A foreleg forward. Then the rear – slowly. The chin lowers and the quarry recoils, fear in her yellow eyes. This is not a dog, it is a forebear – wolf’s mind imparting terror; what might…

       fraught written of a dusk the black ship black hull white cabin a small freighter anchored on the lull the accordion of sky in ripple and wave in an inner harbour seeing its name, in straight up letters the ‘Ulysses’* what fool would name a craft after a flagrant wanderer a man who could…

Morning Dew                                                   5 September 2015   You’re the girl on the swing I still think about.   I have lain among the clustered flowers on the lawn   winter-long, for the soft fall of little feet.   The Master Fled                              …

Now he is almost out of sight, a hat pulled down and bent at the wheel; eyes on the crop as the curving steel forms little mountains of soil; an old man with strong hands guides the little orange tractor. Here he is again, spanner on the tines, tightened just so, and they flex in…

A lace curtain dancing on an oak window, drawn up for the air. I want you to be there, in a bent-cane chair, a beret – perhaps, a book on a knee, cotton dress and the scent of wild roses lifted and swirled; for the chapter on love. Close your eyes, now. Listen for the…

Counterpane   The Sailor flung his bag upon his shoulder to ease the dark day that weighed upon his soul.   You have flown the coast  to be his sole companion; laid   beneath the counterpane, struck high Atlantic  waves.   You have found beast and man magnificent; and   confronted by this, lost eloquence….

Just the wind, silted grey stone, the gangly tree, tracks of animals moving east and west, and time has stood still. The birds – shrill and clear, across the wandering braids. A home to lupin, pink and yellow, glazed by teardrop rain, falling to the blown rippled sand. Plantain, rabbits’ feet, press the earth: imprinted….

     ice-block crossing summer at the pedestrian crossing the girl could feel the cold of that iceblock down to the soles of her feet crossing the hot asphalt on the way back from the shops licking her way along with a bag of prosaic groceries in her other burdened hand ellerslie highway january 2015

The slender boughs dip low flush with deep-green fruit. In a month – maybe two the plums will swell,  brighten and birds will play in shadows, dip beaks into red flesh, beat the fallen globes on flat rock in this silent threading path. Tap tap. Split. Red flesh exposed. Then they retreat, plump and preened….

But this is just a phase we pass through, the moonlit by-way, heavenly Way to the sunfields of heaven; fraught, as it is, with filmic visions, dream-corridors that cut the mind: the idea/and the realization   of the idea. I am the way, means to an end and the end wherever that is, and whatever…

I’m black and I’m beautiful   The shadow cast upon my heart remains, an indelible mark.   Alone, I stroke it in the dark, a stolen treasure in my heart.   Christ in every man   Francis saw Christ in every man. I can’t see Christ in every man.   Like shadow cast upon my…

Milky tea and fudge, warm hands and hearts in this cold little hall; shiny buttons on tired navy sports coat sleeves, handed in with cardies and heavy belts. Those with least gave most; always do, and crave no recognition. A garden, too. This is where they dispense love: it comes in a cup, on a…