There was a girl ...

I heard this song -

Beautiful and heart breaking -


All my lonely afternoons -

The sting of lost kisses -


All in the song -

Fallen from heaven -


Thursday 22 August 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset  

Looking through Creech Arch ..,

On the high hill, we looked through the Arch -

The gentle fields held their long memory close -

The candlelight in the house -

The rooks returning to their nets in the dark wood -.

The carriage by the lake -


Wednesday 21 August 2019

Creech Arch
Purbeck Hills
Dorset 

Fjaka ...

I found a word -

I held it in my hands -

I knew its shape -

I must have held it many times, unknowing -

Fjaka - 

I lay back on the warm sand -

It was enough -

The four pine trees -

The clear sea -

The waves -

The salt in my hair -

My wrist unmarked by a watch -

Fjaka -


Tuesday 20 August 2019

South Beach
Studland
Dorset 

The slow river meeting the sea ....

We're drinking the last of the Ghost Ships in the evening garden -

Birds are singing amongst the ripening apples -

Clouds are just a memory -

Here, there are no deceitful voices -

Only the soft wind amongst the leaves -

The smell of cut grass -

The slow river meeting the sea -


Monday 19 August 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset

Remembering the laconic angel ...

Driving back from the museum, I heard Ecstasy of Gold on Radio 6 -

I turned up the volume -

I remembered the film, and those I watched it with -

Mike, tall as a young tree -

Another Mike, the first of us to lose his dad -

We'd smoked Dunhill International as though we were gun fighters -

The film, with its laconic angel -

The vast graveyard under the witnessing sky -

The angel's narrowed blue eyes -

The coffin maker -

The beautiful trumpets -

The cicadas singing -


Sunday 18 August

Upton bypass, between Poole and Wareham 

Year of Woodstock ...

That year there were flowers in my hair -

Songs in my pockets -

My shirt was the colour of the sky -

I heard voices in the air -

I walked with angels -

There was dancing in the joyous house -

All the windows were wide open -

The blue car had wings -

There were jewelled birds in the branches of the summer trees -

Happiness on my tongue -


Saturday 17 August 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

Walking off last night's Lightning Bolts ...

Rain fell whilst I walked off last night's Lightning Bolts -

Yellow pedalos faced the sea -

Gulls had left their footprints in the sand -

We paused to look at salt stained books -

Two boys shivered in the waves -


Friday 16 August 2919

Middle Beach
Studland
Dorset

The Shoguns ...

The Shoguns have come to the gentle town -

They wait outside quiet doors -

Their swollen bodies reflect the sun -


Thursday 15 August 2019

Wareham
Dorset 

Wardrobe delving ...

Richard talks of attic mining -

This afternoon, Anne and I delved into my wardrobe -

Apparatchik shirts I'd worn at meetings -

Shoes with soles worn thin through pacing conference halls -

T shirts holed on stony beaches -

Piteous gaudy ties -

Years cast out -

A preview of the final clearing -

New clothes in the wardrobe -

New voices in the room -


Wednesday 14 August 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset

Windfalls on the grass ...

Gathering windfalls, I thought of Richard's words -

They had been like birds, flying through a wood -

Each one almost caught by branches, or nets of ivy -

Each bird with its own song, heard by Richard when the moon was a yellow eye in the sky -

He'd caught those birds, one by one -

Arranged their songs into one song -

There they were before me, those songs -

Like windfalls from a tree -

The house made young -

The dark places light -


Tuesday 13 August 2019


The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset

Waiting for scampi and chips ...

I'm waiting for my scampi and chips in The Chipperies -

The boys dart about like powder monkeys -


That's three large cod then -

Haddock ? -

Mushy peas -

Chips - two steak and kidney pie and chips -

What ? -

Three plaice and five pickled onion -

There you are -

Five jumbo battered sausages -

Fish cakes -


The visitors wait, too -

Barrel chests and flip flops -

Vaping on the pavement -

Sunburnt arms -

Shorts -

Monstrous Shoguns waiting in the car park -


Monday 13 August 2019


The Chipperies
Wareham
Dorset

Judgement ...

The train on time -

The moment for leaving -

The door closing like a judgement -


Sunday 11 August 2019

Wareham Railway Station
Dorset

Bonnie Prince Charlie 1948

I watched David Niven on Channel 81 -

David smiled his weird dazzling smile -

He played Bonnie Prince Charlie -

John Laurie played Blind Jimmy -

Charlie's tailcoat was a kingfisher blue -

Blind Jimmy crooned a lament through his tangled beard -

Sneering milords chased the always charming Prince -

A glassy tear flowed down Flora MacDonald's perfect cheek -

Late afternoon TV cast its tacky spell -


Saturday 10 August 2019

Talking Pictures
The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset

Desert stars ...

I danced under the low ceiling with my eyes closed -

The musicians wove their sinuous spell -

A wind blew in from the sea -

The dark sky touched the ancient roof -

The music was like smoke, filling my head with dreams of desert stars -


Friday 9 August 2029

The Gnawa Blues All Stars
The Square and Compass
Worth Matravers 

After the haircut ...

After Paul had cut my hair, I spent some time in Not Just Sundaes -

Paul had told me a brutally sad story -

His razor sharp scissors had danced above my head - 

I had felt the need for soothing stone - 

There, in that kindly ancient space, I sipped my cappuccino - 

I pictured the Cathar castle - 

The hospital - 

A birth prefaced by a death - 

A story told whilst a cheery radio played - 

Banter followed by a silence - 

Thursday 8 August 2019

Not Just Sundaes 

Wareham 

The stars are already falling from the sky ...

I drove past ripe fields towards the sunset -

The Blue Nile were on the radio -

John Buchanan sang can this be all we will desire ? -


It was as though I were driving to the edge of the world -

Every shadow reaching out -

The stars already falling from the sky -


Evening
Wednesday 7 August 2019

Between Salisbury and Blandford Forum 

Making a warm memory ...

This is what grandads do, I thought -

They put up deck chairs -

They worry about thermos flasks -

They make sand castles -

They upend toy buckets -

Put down toy spades -

They smile at their grandchildren -

They make a warm memory for a cold time -


Tuesday 6 August 2019

South Beach
Studland
Dorset 

Gone ...

We waited for the London train with Wallace -

Choo choo he said -

The barriers went down -

The alarms yodelled -

The train flew past in a rush of air and wonder -

Gone sighed Wallace -


Monday 5 August 2019

East Stoke
Dorset 

His smile fills the room with summer ...

Wallace makes the house we live in young again -

His eyes are the bluest blue -

His smile fills the room with summer - ..


Sunday 4 August 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

The King of Sausages ...

All of it the best -

Sausages ! -

There he sat, resting his leather lungs -

Snuffing the air -

The King of Sausages - 


Saturday 3 August 2019

Wareham Market
Town Quay

Passing clouds ...

We walked across the ribbed sand towards the sea -

The sun was low in the early evening sky -

Deck chairs cast long shadows -

We swam amongst the summer yachts -

The warm shallows reflected the passing clouds -


Friday 2 August 2019

South Beach
Studland
Dorset  

Reading Murakami again ...

I'm reading Murakami again -

Owls haunt my dreams -


I'll look at the portrait that Hans never finished -

He'll suddenly appear, like the Commendatore -

The invisible world will become visible -


Thursday 1 August 2019


The Old School House
East Stoke