Coombe Keynes ...

I looked at old names in the lichened church - 

I felt upon my face the breath of invisible people - 

Windows pictured the September sky - 

In summer, swallows circled the weathervane - 

I'd left my bike in the churchyard - 

I'd cycled along a white path - 

I saw two horses in a distant field - 

Beyond the heath were the dark hills, the hidden sea - 

Very near the church was the lane that always reminded me of Edward Thomas - 

The dry fragrant grass, the rutted earth - 

I'd visit this place on long afternoons -

I'd feel, without fear or complaint, the weight of the green coat I'd one day wear - 

11.07

Sunday 30 September 2018

Coombe Keynes 

Dorset 

Berlin Alexanderplatz ...

I'm reading Berlin Alexanderplatz - 

The boozy savage words still strike home - 

Franz would recognise these chancers -

Their oily smiles - 

Their lies - 

He'd recognise the brutish faces of these patriots - 

The armbands in their pockets - 

He'd scorn these entrepreneurs - 

Those who posses silky fleshy jowls - 

I'll sell newspapers in the street, I think - 

I'll think what the hell - 

The way leads to freedom, to freedom it goes - 

The old world must crumble - 

Awake, wind of dawn ! -  

19.36

Saturday 29 September 2018

The Old School House 

East Stoke

Dorset 

Wings of smoke ...

 

Where we stood, hermit friars once walked in prayer - 

Deep forest hid the sun -

The years flew over our heads on their wings of smoke - 

13.55

Friday 28 September 2018

St Mary's Church

Hermitage 

Dorset 

The smell of petrol ...

The smell of petrol was my madeleine - 

My dad's first car, a Vauxhall Viva - 

His car coat - 

His driving gloves - 

The number plate, 377D - 

His briefcase with the initials, JHB - 

The Ordnance Survey map - 

Later, the Radio Times opened before the Ferguson - 

All these things - 

There, in the driveway, under the pines, my eyes filled with tears - 

09.30

Thursday 27 September 2018

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

The second day of the Inquiry ...

That director's a barrow boy Anne said - 

Looks more like a Gazprom executive I thought - 

Abuse of process cried out a courtly silverback - 

All we can see are the backs of two sheets of paper sighed a Councillor - 

It's a secret application complained another silverback - 

The director pursed his piranha mouth - 

He stopped glowering and shot his cuffs - 

They wrote those numbers on the back of a fag packet in their hotel room said Anne - 

15.45

Tuesday 26 September 2018

Studland Village Hall

Studland 

Dorset 

At the Inquiry ...

The accountant shot his cuffs - 

He wore the dark suit of an apparatchik -

He cast his net of numbers - 

He smiled his professional smile - 

10.00

Tuesday 25 September 2018

Studland Village Hall

Studland 

Dorset 

Low tide at Middle Beach ...

It was low tide at Middle Beach - 

Rook pools reflected the pale September sky - 

Anne left her footprints in the sand - 

She marked the beach with memories of summer - 

16.22

Monday 25 September 2018

Middle Beach 

Studland 

Dorset

As blue as a Tennessee sky ...

I've seen the piano Jerry Lee played - 

I hitched my way through the southern states - 

The silverback wore a young cowboy's shirt - 

His eyes were as blue as a Tennessee sky -

It was as though he were still listening to a lonesome radio - 

The night turned into day by shooting stars -

21.30

Friday 21 September 2018

The Square and Compass 

Worth Matravers

Dorset 

Dancing like hillbillies ...

 

We met the band in the fossil museum - 

They stood before the cases of pliosaur bones -

They smiled their Appalachian smiles -

We heard their music in the room with the driftwood chair - 

The singer tipped back her Stetson - 

The bow slid crazily over her fiddle's strings - 

Cowboy boots beat out the measure - 

We put down our glasses of dangerous cider - 

We danced like hillbillies in a forsaken town - 

22.00

Saturday 22 September 2018

Square and Compass

Worth Matravers

Dorset 

The blue eyed hero at Moreton ...

The bier was now a cake stand -

We'd just come from the grave with its pristine stone - 

There was a photograph of the Brough Superior on the wall - 

We remembered seeing the film - 

The Arabs on the swift camels - 

The blue eyed hero - 

15.16

Friday 21 September 2018

Moreton Tea Rooms

Moreton 

Dorset 

New words ...

I watched The Great Beauty with Caspar and Diane - 

Flamingos took flight over the dawn city -

Four princesses played cards in a midnight palazzo - 

Caspar put down a life of Pushkin - 

He and Diane had travelled across continents - 

I felt the lure of jets - 

New words fell upon my tongue - 

22.00

Thursday 20 September 2018

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset 

The roads to France ...

I've just finished reading The Ghost Road -

I'm still in France - 

I follow those who dance on the road, returning -

I walk with Rivers to the Skull House - 

I think of my mum's dad, my grandad - 

Crossing the cold ocean with the horses - 

Enlisting in Liverpool - 

When I knew him still haunted by what he'd seen - 

Drinking in The Curlew - 

Tellng me the stories by the smoking fire -

The darkness, the calling out - 

Wasser - Wasser - 

All roads led to France -

If I opened my door at night, I'd see the road which knows me -

There it is, the colour of bone - 

14.30

Wednesday 19 September 2018

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset

Sad viols ...

I listened to John Dowland's In Darkness let me dwell - 

Sad viols stole my heart - 

The music of lost hours filled the garden - 

I remembered all those who now were air - 

Photographs, names half rubbed out - 

Lost names - 

They came to me, their faces - 

Fallen leaves - 

Carried away by the wind -

15.30

Tuesday 18 September 2018

The Old School House

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Eating apples ...

There are still apples on the tree - 

Tipsy wasps circle windfalls - 

The last swallows fly over golden fields - 

I take an apple from the bowl - 

Each mouthful is a sweet memory of summer - 

Swimming in a wine dark sea - 

Hearing music in a marble house - 

Touching sunburnt skin - 

Walking high paths under a northern sky - 

Hearing a love song under different stars - 

There - 

I eat my apple, fallen from the tree - 

15.00

Monday 17 September 2018

The Old Schol House

East Stoke 

Dorset 

A dancer in a net of bone ...

I rode the Halfords Apollo like a lean limbed gaucho - 

Fields, woods, marvellous flowers passed by my fearless wheels - 

I cycled past the abandoned farm - 

Invisible cows brushed against my legs - 

I was overtaken by a long legged woman riding her sleek machine - 

She flew past in a whisper of air and thigh - 

Ripe blackberries glistened amongst bramble and hawthorn - 

The wind sighed in the trees - 

I smelled the poignant fragrance of Autumn - 

I felt my heart dancing in my chest - 

A dancer in a net of bone - 

11.00

Sunday 16 September 2018

Wood Street 

Dorset 

Winged by ancient story ...

The small plane circled the cricket field - 

We watched the parachutists falling one by one from the September sky - 

Down they fell, mastering the rushing air - 

Each one as he fell had an ancient name - 

Each one a hero - 

Each one winged by ancient story - 

15.36

Saturday 15 September 2018

Steeple Langford

Wiltshire 

The hermitage ...

We never found the hermitage - 

We lost our way in a green labyrinth of paths - 

A winding track led us between thorny hedgerows - 

A small stream ran over shining stones - 

We walked through silent woods - 

We saw sad words carved in marble - 

We climbed stiles to cross fields of fragrant grass - 

Lichened finger posts pointed the way to forgotten places - 

Sheep grazed on a final hilltop -

We saw a far off country - 

It lay before us like a dream - 

13.45

Friday 14 2018

Minterne Magna

Dorset 

A little Red ...

I suddenly thought of Allende and Victor Jara - 

I forgot where I was - 

I was no longer in the gentle town - 

I thought of the stadium, the cruel jets in the sky - 

I thought of the men far away from the blood - 

They wore exquisite suits - 

I thought of the welcome given to the murderer - 

I thought that I, too, would have been in that stadium - 

I would have been guilty of the crime of being a little Red - uno rojito - 

I can hear the scornful voice - 

Uno rojito - 

I would have looked up at the sky above the burning city - 

I would have been killed - 

Casually and quickly - 

A few words, perhaps not even a few words - 

Such killers are still here, even here - 

They are amongst us - 

They are human, but they are monsters - 

Or they become monsters - 

I know it - 

They wear the same suits - 

They give the same welcome - 

They have the same crocodile smiles - 

The same ageless grinding cruelty - 

17.36

Thursday 13 September 2018

The Old School House 

East Stoke

Dorset 

The twilight house ...

I stood under the elder tree, looking at the twilight house - 

Behind each window, some lit, some dark, were the invisible people - 

Some I knew, some were strange to me - 

They sat with me in each of the rooms - 

They climbed the stairs and lay down with me in my bed - 

19.50

Wednesday 12 September 2018

The Old School House 

East Stoke

Dorset 

Free wheeling from Highwood ...

Free wheeling from Highwood, the wind was in my hair - 

I was the Lone Ranger again, riding my Raleigh - 

San Diego Road was a limitless prairie - 

Apaches scalped riders in Chantry Road - 

Saint Ann's Hill would take me to Monument Valley - 

In Palmyra Road, my mum would be waiting -

There'd be a loving smile of welcome - 

I didn't know then that time with her would never come again - 

11.:0

Tuesday September 11 

Highwood 

Dorset 

Inside the Palace of Westminster ...

We climbed stone stairs - 

Dead grandees wore their cold marble - 

The river flowed past the faux Gothic facade - 

One of our number had seen David Davis - 

I just caught a glimpse of shining hair - 

I thought of mobility scooters, pinched streets, tinned soup donated to food banks - 

Inside the Palace I heard the song of the forgotten towns - 

13.00

Monday 11 September 2018

Palace of Westminster 

Low tide ...

The tide was the furthest out I'd seen it - 

We swam in the still warm sea - 

A beached catamaran was a strange treasure left upon the sand - 

16.24

Sunday 9 September 2018

South Beach

Studland 

Dorset 

The festival ...

Dancers clothed in strange rags danced through the seaside town - 

Dreadlocked boys leapt high into the salty air - 

Men wore hats decorated with bright feathers - 

Women wore bells upon their shoes - 

Rain fell upon painted faces - 

A procession wound its way through the narrow street - 

Long memory was woken - 

Ancient voices were heard in the music - 

15.30

Saturday 8 September 2018

Swanage 

Dorset