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Saturday, August 05, 2006
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Thursday, September 01, 2005
choosing paths - contents
lace curtains - a response ot if - sometimes - the roots of english - st giles' cemetery - sandiacre - above the recycling centre - on watching cricket - hickings recreation ground - friday - 4.30pm - hemlock stone - first garden fire - prayer from an abstract painting - bright needles - spoken poem - nursery wine.
choosing paths - lace curtains
lace curtains
i wonder - could i borrow
a page of words?
i've just moved in
and i've run out of things
to say to you
- a couple of similes would do
(if you're hard up)
but i thought
by the look in your eyes
and the lace curtains in your heart
you'd have enough to spare
for both of us
choosing paths - a response to if
if you can twist yourself out of this mess
then pick up the pieces and form it to a frame
then fine
if you can learn where monsters dwell
then challenge them and win
then go ahead and try
if you can wipe the tears from all the eyes
within this world with a single phrase
then i'll hand you my dictionary on
on permanent loan
if you can put two and two together
and find contentment - then draw me the map
of where it lies
because i'm still looking
if you can wade on in when all have cowered
at chance of drowning - good luck to you
and bring me back a souvenir
choosing paths - sometimes
sometimes i wish my words
would give themselves a face
that i could point to
- colour in
they'd be a picture
to hang somewhere
the roots of english
choosing paths - the roots of english
i can't do language right in mother tongue
(i speak no thee's nor thou's) the dialect
that past knew how to twist hard by tis neck -
i now strain my thoughts then grace it wrong
the thoughts i speak are still my own - they're mixed
somewhat with dorset burr sometimes - ten years
down south has sprained my northern speak - where
once i freely opened up - i'm slow and fixed
i try to turn words to a shape
that the street accepts - i fix my aitches
(twist my vowels!) i'm a wealth of stitches
ready to be slipped - but my mouth's been draped
in swathes of time (i have to sort them out)
i find my voice like a cracking doubt -
a chock-full bag of shattered parts
that ever works a pile of stumbled starts
choosing paths - st giles' cemetery
this graveyard bench fits me - hugs my odd shape
as i to it - it's tiny- it keeps away the ones
who'd small talk - dare ask me what i do
(i'd say - i write poetry)
these slats of wood are like a hook
i am their meat that hangs soft - still in the cold
(mute - discrete)
these autumn times fit the self - they are me
i meld into its soul - my eyes are leaves
that fall to earth and give to drying up
i've a jacket that cups
me in its warming hands -
holds me so tight
fits me - like love's sleepless night
choosing paths - above the recycling centre
this cliff splits our world -
somewhere joins up with other rocks -
cleaves further still and so on to beyond
down below - air becoems a sound
of sliptide glass - old bikes - worn dreams
- dry cardboard bulked to skips
which breathe a kind of hungered thanks
up here - each finger of a gnarled up tree
gets locked around a hollow space
holds tight to shadow lent them by the sun
choosing paths -
on watching cricket
- hickings recreation ground
cricket's a game of clicking -
click - like a tongue against a dull mouth
click - and first the ball hits low
decides its own path
damps down - a waste of a click
more of a deep dead thud
along the turf
and then returned and out again
the ball becomes its leather-ness
pulls the air down with a tight fist
and a click - sharper this time
more distinct
(becomes an inflection)
becomes - click
a poem which knocks
against a wall
waits for a line
to follow through
choosing paths - friday - 4.30pm - hemlock stone
on an old brew of grassland
(awkwardly wrinkled - dishevelled)
the hemlock stone's an odd thought
that somehow on this day
turns the sun towards its eye
from across the way - and on this bench
(smooth arc'ed - council graded to fit to
more than comfortable) i watch
the stone for signs of movement - of
magic - speakings from within and without
we are an odd couple -
she - stone
with soft heart
me - the opposite
choosing paths - first garden fire
smoke's vision dream of flame
pushing ideas out
where i sit - some kind of moon
becomes a listener to the birds
first fire
clear sky - the night will drown us soon
its dead come drag us in -
i like the seat by the door
- this meandering pall becomes a solo friend
first fire
the flames start weeping through
first fire
the seed that grew these words
begins to resonate
first fire
choosing paths - prayer from an abstract painting
let us build with red and yellow bricks a darker sun
that we can call our own and rest upon
let us scratch ourselves into its gaps to find its page
and colour in the words we crave to speak
let us formulate the edge of shapes and sit and talk
of wounds that never tried to heal themselves
(inside dense holes we craft our space
into the stuff of visionaries)
let us make skyscrapers of blood and sand -
lay foundations that struggle on towards the up
let us scour the world for resting green
it is like the letter aitch -
the silences that hold our words intact
choosing paths - nursery wine
in and out the blackness
like a grizzly bear
one drop - two drop
look at me under there!
choosing paths - spoken poem
tonight - it is words i try to escape
the clumsy tak tak of the keyboard
yet even on this river-walk
(my breaths allowed the ins and outs
they constant crave for)
my language lies not dead
it is as though my mind's a paper thin
(a page to wrap this poem in)
i have a writer's soul
but my body yearns for rest
choosing paths - bright needles
let me be the word that fires you colourful
let friendship be the soul that makes us like the moon
let me be bright needles that work a tapestry
that wraps you into warmth and gives you gentle sleep
let me be the foolish joke that makes you smile
and in where deepest darkness sits -
i'll help you through the mire
let me
let me
let me
be there
how and when i can
Monday, January 10, 2005
Sunday, January 09, 2005
boon - autumn
night's totem carries the truth of a dead summer
autumn - like a bloodrush to the head
hurls a sullen grey sheet
and butts for its place in our tender moonstruck lives
(amid gold sprays
red confusions empty trees)
there are chocolates on the ground
out of habit - i pick one up
conkers are for kids i know
but smoothness comforts these casual fingers
and clumsy eyes
winter like a changeling at a dark door
taps impatiently
at the back of my head
Friday, December 31, 2004
boon - with a clumsy hand
you sold me the idea that this bush
(whatever you called it)
smelt of coconut
pulling my feet through wet earth
i leant forward and pinched the sun
with a clumsy hand
it does - it does smell of coconut!
the nest bush i tried had a weaker flavour
still coconut (still sweet)
but less the surprise
and more the wiser

