Remembering Peter Lorre ...

I thought, for a moment, that I was on the set of M -

Peter Lorre could be skulking in this alley - 

His sneaking shadow might at any moment be cast upon these steps -

Above the rooftops was the white all seeing moon - 

I thought I heard an anguished voice - 

Who knows what it's like to be me ? - 

19.00

Monday 30 October 2017

Swanage 

Dorset 

Portland ...

Penelope and I stood earthbound under the

cloudless sky - 

Above us, a kestrel haunted the blueness   - 

Cliffs rose up from the turquoise sea - 

Noiseless wings scythed the air - 

11.15

Monday 30 October 2017

Isle of Portland 

Dorset

Remembering Whitby at Halloween ...

There were Halloween spiders in Sainsburys - 

Silky webs veiled the windows - 

Inside there were pumpkins and werewolf masks - 

I considered buying a vampire's cloak - 

I remembered the goths I'd seen in Whitby, the black dresses, the steampunk goggles - 

The abbey had overlooked the darkening sea - 

Sleepwalkers climbed the moonlit steps - 

A stone pier waited for a stricken ship - 

The sky was as black as jet - 

Sainsburys

Wareham 

16.16

Sunday 29 October 2017

For a while my dad had been a firebrand -

For a while my dad had been a firebrand - 

He'd door knocked in Tory streets - 

He'd berated the languid MP - 

We found the letters he'd written to the Portsmouth Evening News -  

The yellowed cuttings were hidden under a scree of dusty shoes - 

Reading the letters, it was as though he were standing before me - 

He was still young, with a poet's fury - 

He stood, looking at me, across a sad space of years - 

20.51

Saturday 28 October 2017

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset 

The world is bounded by those four pale walls ...

We're driving back home from my parents -

The M27 is a dangerous necklace of brake lights - 

Part of me is still inside the lounge of memory -

There's my mum, refusing to drink her Cosmocol - 

There's my dad, bemused by Pointless - 

The world is bounded by those four pale walls - 

18.52

Friday 27 October 2017

Staunton Road 

Havant 

Changing my mum ...

I want my dad - 

Oh - you're hurting me - 

Stop it - 

I want my dad - 

You're hurting me - 

I was changing my mum - 

I knew she was still my mum despite her moaning and her wild hair - 

16.30

Thursday 26 October 2017

Staunton Road

Havant

Shouting in the street ...

I saw my dad in the street, shouting at the social worker - 

They only come here once every six weeks I heard him shouting - 

What have you told her ? - 

Tell me !

Tell me !

Don't wave your stick at me sir Sarah said - 

It's my stick - I'm using it he said - 

Don't you touch me he hissed when I held his arm - 

We're finished !

Yet at the end of afternoon, he sleepily asked me you're not going home are you ?

13.30

Wednesday 25 October 2017

Staunton Road 

Havant 

Shouting in the street ...

I saw my dad in the street, shouting at the social worker - 

They only come here once every six weeks he shouted - 

What have you told her ? - 

Tell me !

Tell me !

Don't wave your stick at me sir Sarah said - 

It's my stick - I'm using it he said - 

Don't you touch me he hissed when I held his arm - 

We're finished !

Yet at the end of afternoon, he sleepily asked me you're not going home are you ?

13.30

Wednesday 25 October 2017

Staunton Road 

Havant 

The Central Lobby ...

The Central Lobby was a nest of murmuring words - 

I waited with the comrades - 

We saw Vince Cable - 

A bit of a swagger there Lisa said - 

Like a gunslinger I said - 

15.16

Tuesday 24 October 2017

The Central Lobby

The Palace of Westminster

Reading Javier Marias' Written Lives ...

I'm reading Javier Marias' Written Lives - 

It's like reading Aubrey's Brief Lives - 

Quirky aperçus divert me - 

I picture Malcolm Lowry playing the ukulele, Turgenev dancing the can can - 

Rilke's waiting to hear God start talking to him again - 

 Conrad's got a cigarette clamped between his fingers - 

James Joyce is wringing his hands when he hears thunder - 

I wonder what quirky minutiae will illumine my life - 

Perhaps it will be my belief in UFOs - 

Perhaps it will be the way I park the car - 

All I ask for is no more than three pages - 

20.53

Monday 23 October 2017

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset 

Walking on Middle Beach ...

I'm at Middle Beach - 

National Trust cafe patrons are looking at their I phones - 

Cappuccinos are sipped at silent tables -

A courtly prophet mans the till - 

I admire his beard - 

A sign says on the beach we forget to count the days - 

I've unwound my green keffiyeh- 

A soft rain is falling from a pale grey sky -

Rich pelts of seaweed cover the sand - 

I think of my parents - 

There's no need for a watch in the lounge of memory- 

Each long day is the same - 

Yet each moment is instantly forgotten -

The two people I loved, and still love, are like shells upon this beach - 

They are washed clean, scoured empty by the waves - 

14.35

Sunday 22 October 2017

Middle Beach

Studland

Dorset 

The wind from the sea ...

The wind from the sea shook the trees - 

Old gods rioted in the sky - 

The familiar lane ran through an invisible country - 

Darkness fell from the lawless air - 

16.33

Saturday 21 October 2017

Highwood

East Stoke

Dorset 

Klezmer music ...

We danced in circles to the music of yearning violins - 

A young man with dark eyes fell in love - 

We flew above rooftops whilst comets lit up the sky - 

For an hour or so we tasted the sweetness of a vanished world - 

Our souls were ravished by its melancholy - 

We heard outside the wind which would blow away whole cities - 

We danced with those who rose heavenwards as smoke - 

20.30

Thursday 19 October 2017

Durlston Castle

Dorset 

Little Bindon ...

This hidden garden above the sea still haunts my dreams - 

It's been seven years since I came here - 

Then the gate had been left open -

We'd lingered amongst secret greenery -  

Roses had climbed up lichened stone - 

The ancient house had been flooded with summer light  - 

Arched windows gave up their secrets - 

I walked across a mossy lawn - 

Each footstep had hardly marked the grass - 

Beyond the warm wall was the edge of the world - 

Now, this morning in October, the gate is shut - 

A dull sky presses down upon the dripping trees - 

Yet the memory of that afternoon remains - 

I see once more the bright shadows -

I feel once more the beautiful fragility of my heart - 

11.57

Thursday 19 October 2017

Little Bindon

Lulworth Cove

Dorset 

After watching Mulholland Drive ...

Driving homewards in my car, I thought I was still in Mulholland Drive -

I saw the brake lights of a murderer's car glow red - 

Canyons led to an illuminated city -

Boulevards were filled with weirdness -  

Two beautiful women broke my heart - 

Telephones rang in strange rooms - 

A chanteuse wept on a darkening stage - 

A dwarf radiated terror - 

I held a blue key in my hand - 

I remembered David's words -

You don't try and understand this film he said - 

You just watch it - 

22.00

Wednesday 17 October 2017

Durlston Castle 

Dorset 

Moving through the fair ...

  

The birds ran riot in the sky - 

The day darkened - 

The sun was like a dull red wound - 

This is what it would be like, I thought,

The day my world ends,

The day I see her moving through the fair - 

11.00

Monday 16 October 2017

Wareham 

Dorset

The house will welcome winter ...

This year, Mr Sooty's son in law will sweep our chimney - 

Deft brushes will seek out the residue of last year's fires - 

Jackdaws will give up their hoards - 

The house will welcome winter - 

The world will turn -

There will be a white moon in an ancient sky - 

Days pale as bone will become green as summer - 

17.00

Monday 15 October 2017

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset

Sunday morning on West Street ...

We'd left Nat King Cole singing in the lounge of memory - 

My mum held onto my arm - 

The sky was grey above the small houses - 

We walked slowly up West Street - 

White vans were waiting for Monday -

The doors of the Catholic Church were closed - 

Later, the Sunday drinkers would gather outside The Prince of Wales - 

Nat King Cole would stop singing - 

My mum would ask when shall I go home ?

10.05

Sunday 15 October 2017

West Street

Havant

Boom for real ...

I read some pages from Basquiat's notebooks - 

What about yellow ? he asked - 

Then, on another page, he'd written shining shoes in St Louis - 

I wandered through the pristine white labyrinth -

There he was, the edgy wounded angel, dancing to strange bebop - 

There were his spray painted aperçus - 

There were his paintings, strange fruits of the chaotic city - 

Each one took me inside it - 

I saw his ancient gods, his hurts, the colours from which his crown was made - 

11.30

Friday 13 October 2017

Barbican 

London

At the all night garage ...

I imagined buying cigarettes at the all night garage - 

My car radio would be playing edgy jazz -

I'd be wearing a suit made for midnight -  

My shoes would be made of shadows - 

There'd be an elegy in my pocket 

19.13

Thursday 12 October 2017

Aldersbrook

London

Dark city ...

I'm in Paul's Plaice, listening to evening traffic - 

It's like sitting in a Hopper diner - 

I could be a night hawk, waiting for 2 am - 

The sky above me would be starless - 

The dark city would fill the world - 

19.24

Thursday 12 October 2017

Aldersbrook

London

Our passports were written on our skin ...

I remember the time I spent in the invisible country - 

Those with me this morning had also breathed its air - 

We still carried with us the memory of its light - 

We'd crossed the frontier at the end of a long windowless corridor - 

There were no maps for what lay beyond - 

Our passports were written on our skin - 

17.35

Wednesday 11 October 2017

Queensmead Hall

Swanage

Dorset 

Alice would reach out her hand ...

I thought of Alice when I saw the mushrooms - 

There they were, a spooky scarlet in the bright Autumn sunshine - 

The water in the creek was like a mirror - 

The air was still and strange - 

Any moment a door would open - 

Alice would reach out her hand - 

15.00

Sunday 8 October 2017

Arne 

Dorset

Seagulls plucked old regrets from out my jacket pockets ...

Hesitating, I stood on the chill white sand - 

Anne loped past me, plunging into the October sea - 

Shamed, I peeled off my clothes - 

I placed my jacket on a bed of shells - 

I followed Anne to swim in the glassy zinging shallows - 

I wore a torc of seaweed -

The waves washed away my melancholy - 

Gulls plucked old regrets from out my jacket pockets - 

16.00

Friday 6 October 2017

South Beach

Studland 

Lords of the singing roads ...

The riders, splendid in their leathers, strode past me - 

They carried motorcycle helmets in their gauntleted hands - 

Their powerful machines cooled in the Autumn air - 

Each rider was my age, or older - 

They were veterans, lords of the singing roads - 

They would enter the gentle town like heroes - 

11.22

Sunday 8 October 2017

Purbeck Sports Centre 

Wareham

Every single line means something ...

I drank tonic from the bottle in 16 / 53 -

I'd walked down a narrow street between buildings with sinister doors - 

I'd seen a sand sculpture of a pharoah's tomb - 

Yachts were moored in a black harbour - 

I sat in the louche space with the tonic - 

A black taxi stopped at the end of the street - 

I watched lamplight spill over the pavement - 

I thought about Basquiat - 

Every single line means something -

16 / 52

Weymouth 

20.00

Friday 6 October 2017