Friday 30 August 2019

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 

Thursday 22 August 2019

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 

Tuesday 20 August 2019

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

Sunday 18 August 2019

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 

Friday 16 August 2019

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




Tuesday 13 August 2019

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


Monday 12 August 2019

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 

Thursday 8 August 2019

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 

Monday 5 August 2019

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