Lorraine's praise ...

Lorraine put down her instruments -

Marked improvement she said -

Radio 2 chirruped somewhere -

She turned towards me, laughing -

See, you don't always get boxes on your ears - 


Wednesday 30 October 2019


740 Dental
Bournemouth 

Twilight walk ...

Dark birds in the sky -

The wind in the trees -

The London train crossing the silent fields -

The gentle weight of memory -

A yellow window in the widow's house -


Tuesday 29 October 2019

East Stoke
Dorset 

On being Alain Delon ...

Last night I watched The Sicilian Clan -

The red auditorium was filled with gentle cinephiles -

We watched, awestruck, as Alain Delon hijacked a Super DC8 -

We were no longer National Trust cafe goers -

We were ice cold killers -

Lords of crime -

We wore sunglasses -

We were hyper cool -


Monday 27 October 2019

The Rex
Wareham
Dorset 

Shingles ...

I'm getting over Shingles -

I first felt its stinging touch whilst listening to melancholy banjos -

I remember when I wore my body like a careless shirt -

Finely stitched -

Light as air -


Sunday 27 October 2019

Salisbury
Wiltshire 

Listening to Charles Trenet ...

I'm listening to Charles Trenet -

La Mer -

I'm looking out at the rain -


Those bright afternoons -

The warm waves holding us -

The blue sky above the pine trees -


Avec les anges si purs -

What sweet sadness caught in the nets of his song -


Saturday 26 October 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

Three riders ...

The bay was lit by sudden October sunlight -

Three riders in the shallows -

Their horses mirrored in the still shining water -


Silence falling from the sky -

The words of a song in my head -

Que reste-t-il de nos amours ? - 


Tuesday 22 October 2019

Portland Bay
Dorset

The last apples ...

There were still some apples on the leafless tree -

Each one a memory of summer -


Pearled now with raindrops -

Falling from the lichened branch -


Woodsmoke in the air -

Sweetness on my tongue -


Thursday 24 October 2019

The garden
The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

Watching Ash is the purest white ...

I saw pale mountains -

A colourless sky -

An ancient land steeped in tears -

A light from beyond the world crossing the sky -

Cigarette smoke hid my face -

Sorrow choked me -


Monday 21 October 2019

The Rex
Wareham
Dorset 

Nabakov's butterflies ...

I'm reading a foxed Nabakov -

I remember buying it, one hungover Southsea morning -

I'd just eaten scrambled egg and tinned tomatoes with Richard in The Country Pantry -

We'd heard passionate guitars the night before -

Aquacars lingered in the louche street -

Inside the disordered bookshop I imagined I saw butterflies -

Each one carrying a fragile word on its wings -


Tuesday 22 October 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

Listening to A Whiter Shade of Pale ...

I'm listening to A Whiter Shade of Pale -

Another madeleine -

I'm fifteen years old -

I weigh as much as a yellow feather -

I float over the pavements of my small town -

I know, even then, that this dreamy strangeness will mark my life -

I'll be a shadow passing through my houses -

Those whose arms would hold me touching only air -


Monday 21 October 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset

Anointed with salt and oil ...

Beyond the dunes, the jet skis zig zagged over the dark blue icy swell -

Their swaggering riders were half hidden by the wild dazzling spray -

For a while, they were like young lords of creation -

Heedless of the moment -

Anointed with salt and oil -


Sunday 20 October 2019

Middle Beach
Studland
Dorset 

Never go north of the M4 ...

I never go north of the M4 Paul said -

He turned to look at the framed photograph of Sean Connery -

The radio was playing a song by Cate le Bon -

Never he said -

It's too cold -

He picked up the frightening scissors -

I was in Essex once he said -

When I got out the car my jaw dropped -

It was freezing - my face was frozen - 

I turned to Liz - 

We're going I said -

We got straight back in the car -

I pictured the scene -

The grey promenade, the icy sea, the shuttered beach huts -

Paul and Liz, inside the big Passat, turning the heater on -


Friday 18 October 2019

Paul's
Wareham
Dorset

Bring small ...

Walking to the gym, I had to walk past the boys' changing room -

A boy stood waiting in the corridor -

He was a scrap of sparrows' bones -

I could hear the hooting of the other boys inside the changing room -

It all came back to me -

The horror of the showers -

The bigger boys -

The dangling ropes and the wall bars -

The laughter -

Being thin -

Being small -


Friday 18 October 2019

Purbeck Sports Centre
Wareham
Dorset 

Waiting for the rain ...

It was early morning in the gentle town -

The cowboy road sweeper tipped his hat -

Paul unsheathed his scissors -

The river was a still silky road to the sea -

The fish waited for the line -

The fisherman for the rain -


Wednesday 17 October 2019

The Town Quay
Wareham
Dorset 

Magical light fell from the sky ...

Beyond the trees, I saw the reed beds -

A heron guarded one of the mazy channels -

Bright water reflected a vapour trail -

Deer moved silently through the bracken -

Overhead were lichened branches -

Anne waded out into the shining stream -

Magical light fell from the sky -


Wednesday 16 October 2019

Shipstal Point
Arne
Dorset 

Walking to Old Harry ...

Mist veiled the familiar path -

A crow waited beneath a dripping hawthorn tree -

The sea was hidden at the foot of the sudden cliffs -

I could have stepped out upon the chill air -

Below me the still water -

A cormorant diving for the dark fish -

No sound but the silent language of the grass -

The October sun lost in the blank sky -


Tuesday 15 October 2019

Old Harry
Ballard Down
Studland
Dorset

At the Caffe Tropea

The gentle mafioso crafted my cappuccino -

I gazed out, across the square -

The plane trees were still in leaf -

Sunlight fell upon the turrets of the opulent terracotta hotel -

The fountain in the middle of the square cast a wavering shadow -

Three beautiful Japanese girls wheeled their pristine suitcases along the path -

I remembered revising for my finals in this green square -

Reading, sitting cross legged, on the warm grass -

Wearing my body like a careless shirt -


Tuesday 8 October 2019

Caffe Tropea
Russell Square
London 

XR London ...

I should be there -

I've had this thought every day since I got back -

I should be there -

This afternoon, I felt ashamed -

I remembered the fearless voices -

The singing before the kindly barricades -

The importance of being there -

A tiny part of history -

There, in the forgiving streets -

I should be there - 


Sunday 13 October 2019


West Holme
Dorset

Breaking a butterfly on a wheel ...

I remembered the words from The Times -

Who breaks a butterfly on the wheel -

The words were just as true -

The young man lay next to the long black car -

I spoke to him as he lay there -

I saw his nervous smile -

How he rolled, nonetheless, a devil may care cigarette -

The police waiting nearby -

Blank faced, with grasping hands -


Monday 8 October 2019

Trafalgar Square
London XR 

Another city ...

There was music in the joyous square -

Dancing and truth telling -

Flags held by bronze hands -

Gentle rebels -

It was as though I walked in a different city -

No longer wounded -

No longer cruel -

Although it was Autumn, it felt like summer -


Monday October 7 2019

Trafalgar Square, London XR 

Gentle villages ...

I visited the gentle villages -

The wind blown tents under the plane trees -

I'd walked past the statues of dead generals -

Past the marble lairs of hirelings -

Mounted police had guarded the boulevards -

Here, truths were told in welcoming gazebos -

A banner set amongst greenery said courage -


Monday 7 October 2019

XR London
The Mall

I obey orders he said ...

In the park, in front of the severe palaces, by the river, were the police -

They waited in their sinister vehicles, their breath steaming the windows -

They walked in pairs across the joyous square -

I saw them approach the bridge -

Blank faces and whispering radios -

I spoke to one, not far from a gentle nana, cherishing her grandchildren -

I obey orders he said -


Monday 7 October 2029

Lambeth Bridge, The Faith Bridge
London

At Lambeth Bridge ...

I saw them walk towards the bridge -

The crowd drew back to let them pass -

Awestruck perhaps, as I was -

It was as though I saw angels -

Each angel bearing witness -

Wearing their silence as they wore their robes -

With beauty and strangeness -

Bringing legend into the wounded city -

Leaving their mark in the dreams of all who saw them -


Monday 7 October 2019

Lambeth Bridge, The Faith Bridge
London

The monumental misremembering ...

I looked down from the pristine gallery -

There, far below in the Turbine Hall, was the fountain -

Sharks swam in its white basin -

The sable Venus -

The anguish of the ships -

The slave's head like a pearl in the opened shell -

It was as though I looked down upon all the cruel kingdoms of the world -

Fons Americanus -

The monumental misremembering -


Monday 7 October 2019

Tate Modern
London

The same gift ...

I saw a half moon above the quiet valley -

A pale gift in the beautiful sky -

Tomorrow, above glass towers, I'll see the same sky -

The same moon, the same gift -

To speak truth to power -

To be unafraid -


Sunday 6 October 2019

East Stoke
Dorset 

Folding chairs ...

We're in the Village Hall -

I'm soothed by murmuring voices -

Gentle gossip overheard -

Carefully cut slivers of coffee cake -

Folding chairs -


I think about my parents -

My mum's feathery white hair -

Kissing her hands those last days -

And how I saw my dad in a dream -

Knowing he was dead -

Yet hearing his voice -

Following him in the rainy dark -


Saturday 5 October 2019

Wareham
Dorset

Focaccia ...

I sipped my coffee, looking out at the gentle town -

The thin road sweeper with his wide brimmed hat -

The trout laid glistening upon a bed of ice -

The river at the end of the street -

The artisan bakery with its exquisite focaccia -

All this reassured me -

This was where I'd sip my coffee -

Snare the words which were like birds in a tree -


Friday October 4 2019


The Italian Bakery
Wareham
Dorset 

The word for this time ...

I'm reading Zola -

The Debacle -

The yellowed pages, unread for years -

They were waiting for this time -

They were like fuses, slowly burning -


And that word -

Debacle -

So apt -

So made for this time -


I murmur it whilst reading -

It's like ash upon my tongue -

Debacle - 


Friday October 4 2019


The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

Almovadar ...

Soon I'll be watching Almovadar's Dolor y Gloria -

I'll drink a plummy Merlot -

I'll forget, for a while, those appalling talking heads -

The lights in the auditorium will dim -

I'll lose myself in film -

The auteur will shape memory with tender hands -

Later, I'll walk down the quiet street -

I'll see my own life as if it were a movie -

Each early scene the sweeter for the showing -


Wednesday 2 October 2019

The Rex
Wareham
Dorset 

The same moon ...

I glimpsed the church through a frieze of umbels -

Our house was hidden by a screen of trees -

I bought of the teachers who had once lived there -

Playing the harmonium under the apple tree -

The children from the cold cottages dancing ancient measures -


The last teacher lies in her green bed behind the trees -

I think of her, climbing our narrow stairs -

Once her stairs -

Our fire place, too, once hers -

I pictured her, heaping up the smoking coals -

Perhaps reading the book of a prophet by the light of three candles -

The same moon caught by the branches of the tree -


Tuesday 1 October 2019

East Stoke 

Moonfleet ..

Murphy was undaunted by the tiger skin -

Logs still smouldered in the fireplace -

I gazed for a moment at the head of the polar bear -

We sat on sofas under the high pale ceiling -

There was a painting of four naked women in a garden -

Underfoot was a carpet from a rajah's palace -

I remembered walking to this house in summer -

Following the path along the shore of the Fleet -

The pines casting their long lived shadows -

Swallows flying above the yellow fields -


Monday September 30 2019

Moonfleet Manor Hotel
Dorset