We will call ourselves different names ...

We walked along the shining edge of the sea - 

We took off our shoes -

Each bright wave swept away our footprints -

We said we swim here, one last time - 

Before the year turns, we will run naked into the waves -

We will call ourselves different names, hear the voices of our younger selves -

30 October 2021

Knoll Beach

Studland 

Dorset 

Being Charles Arrowby or Max Lejour ...

I'll fix myself an Iris Murdoch supper -

I'll have a shining cap of hair - 

Anne will call me by a subtle name - 

Charles Arrowby or Max Lejour -

I'll drink Famous Grouse and eat chill windfalls -

29 October 2021

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Scott Bakula wears different skins ...

I'm watching Quantum Leap -

Cool Scott Bakula's wearing the skin of a punch drunk boxer -

My dad loved this programme - 

He'd have his glass - 

The louche Admiral would pass on  Ziggy's warning - 

He's great that Al my dad would say - 

Dean Stockwell would gleam with snaky charm - 

27 October 2021.

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

A Grand guignol foxed Arrow ...

I'm reading a grand guignol foxed Arrow - 

It's like drinking a vicious cocktail  - 

Lady Arabella wears a necklace of emeralds -

Edgar has a gaze of Beserker fury - 

27 October 2021

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorsrtv

Thinking about Jean Rhys ...

I'm thinking about Jean Rhys -

How she said sadness was part of her - 

I knew that warm island where she was born - 

I knew how bright its air was - 

I crossed that sea - 

I never knew it could be so cold - 

26 October 2021

I would seek the company of antiquarians ...

Sunlight fell through the oriel window - 

I turned the pages of a volume of Notes and Queries - 

I would return here -

I would seek the company of antiquarians - 

This library would be my winter solace -

There would be comfort wearing tweed - 

25 October 2021

Dorset Museum Library 

Dorchester 

Under The Volcano ...

I'm listening to Jack Bruce singing The Consul at Sunset - 

I'm lost in a cruel drunken tango -

I see a fiesta under a reeling sky - 

Sicarios ride past the church - 

Lizards watch me - 

I hold a fiery glass - 

Jack Bruce is singing - 

Won't be so many days -

Isn't much time and its gathering darkness, my friend -

24 October 2021

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

I remembered the field ...

I remembered the field - 

We'd found wonder in its damp grass - 

This was the time of the year to bare my head - 

To see myself again - 

To walk past horses dreaming - 

To see trees walking - 

To pull back the curtain - 

To be filled with silence - 

23 October 2021

Moreton 

Dorset 

I saw the falling tower ...

We were talking about Jung and the Tarot - 

Roger held up the Ace of Wands -

I breathed the air of the invisible world -

I remembered my dreams - 

I saw the falling tower -

Waking from my sleep I heard a voice -

Be silent and listen -

I am the servant of a child -

22 October 2021

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset 

Birds sing in the cold garden ...

The clouds are still red from the dawn - 

I'm dizzy with dreams, only half awake - 

I'm standing at the opened window -

Birds sing in the cold garden -

21 October 2021

The Old School House

East Stoke 

Dorset 

My wounds will be healed ...

I'm reading Avilion -

I see heroes stride across the lawn - 

A wounded king rests under the apple tree - 

I see treasures under the green hill -

I wait for the barge which will take me across the water -

My wounds will be healed - 

I'll drink from a golden cup -

20 October 2021

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Something about to happen ...

There was a painting by Christopher Wood in the pristine space - 

Flowers in a vase -

I felt the spell cast by the painting -  

The almost drawn curtains behind the vase - 

The strange light in the room - 

The stillness - 

The broken stem placed upon the green table - 

The waiting - 

Something about to happen - 

18 October 2021

Dorset County Museum 

Dorchester 

.

The flowers placed next to the sleeping wife ...

I pictured the hands which had shaped this stone - 

Their strength and gentleness - 

The heart beating inside a house of bone - 

The deep set eyes under the dream haunted brow - 

The fire casting light in the dark - 

The flowers placed next to a sleeping wife - 

18 October 2021

Dorset County Museum 

Dorchester 

Police watched us with their tight smiles ...

They wore their green like dwellers in the wildwood -

These gentle protestors - 

They allowed me to take their photograph - 

Near them were plague doctors - 

Comrades wearing ardent t shirts - 

Orators with brave words - 

We waited to march - 

Police watched us with their tight smiles - 

16 October 2021

Isle of Portland 

Wearing the uniforms of young ghosts ...

We marched past The Sailors Return -

I pictured the sailors drinking there -

Still haunted by memories of convoys -

They would have walked from the sea up this narrow street - 

Returning home, knowing the grey ships waited - 

Boys wearing the uniforms of young ghosts -

16 October 2021

Castletown

Isle of Portland 

The battenberg cake is left untouched ...

I'm watching Father Brown -

There are dodgy gents with trilbys - 

A murderous bee keeper -

A scowling DI -

Father Brown cycles round the pristine village -

Bunty Windemere charms a gawky boy - 

The battenberg cake is left untouched - 

15 October 2021

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Shipton Bellinger ...

Shipton Bellinger was my Mandalay - 

I remembered the blue car -

The night full of smoke - 

A bronze bracelet - 

A wicked mouth - 

14 October 2021

Shipton Bellinger

Hamoshire

Reading The Slaves of Solitude ...

I'm reading The Slaves of Solitude -

If I close my eyes, then open them, I'm in a bitter snug -

I've bought a girl a Gin and French -

Flying bombs are falling on pinched streets - 

Light bulbs flicker in the lounge of boarding houses -

A man wearing a blazer dreams of a fascist wedding - 

The hearts of the drinkers are like withered flowers -

13 October 2021

Another secret ...

Not far from the lurid tattoo parlour, Bogdan said we have sourdough -

We sat in the sunlit yard of the Gallery - 

I'd thought once more about getting a tattoo -

I remembered Martin saying how he'd seen dragons on the chests of Canary Wharf bravos - 

I could have a tattoo like another secret -

I would wear it on my skin, over my heart - 

12 October 2021

Fisherton Street

Salisbury 

I drank a little Brandy and water ...

I imagined living in Sailmakers -

I'd walk down St John's Hill to the river -

I'd be a breezy gaffer in a Harris Tweed jacket -

I'd wear a shirt decorated with dandelion clocks -

There'd be a treasured volume in one of my pockets -

I'd read it on the Town Quay -

I'd watch the clouds -

I'd remember being a nervy tipsy willow wand of a boy -

When the moon was full, the mist from the river would come up St John's Hill - 

I'd throw more logs upon the fire - 

The mist would come in through the crack under the door -

I'd turn the page and read William and Coleridge repeated verses -

I drank Brandy and water, and was in Heaven -

11 October 2021

St John's Hill

Wareham

Dorset 

October swimming ...

I dried Anne's back with a salty towel - 

We had swum in the bright choppy sea - 

My heart had danced in its narrow nest 

The October sky had remembered summer - 

10 October 2021

Studland 

Dorset 

I gazed at the coins I'd found ...

I gazed at the coins I'd found - 

They'd been slipped my way in Sunday parlours - 

I found them amongst old photographs - 

I'd seen my two grandads wearing their wedding suits - 

An uncle at my mum and dad's wedding - 

I held the coins in my hand - 

I felt the touch of their hands on mine - 

They slipped the coins my way again - 

9 October 2021 

Stone paper ...

I'm writing my days on stone paper -

Ben gave me the note book - 

We were sitting in the garden by the sea - 

Ken was watching a Grand Prix - 

Beautiful machines mastered tricksy curves - 

I envied Ben his life on Caspar -

The moon caught by an alder tree -

Ben dreaming on a bed of water - 

8 October 2021

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset

Placing my hands in the water ...

We walked towards the fountain - 

I had seen the seasons pass through the garden - 

I had rested on the summer grass -

I had watched swallows above the warm fields - 

Now I would place my hands in the water - 

Hear voices under dark trees - 

7 October 2021

The Walled Garden 

Moreton 

Dorset 

Here is my kingdom ...

The tree casts its shadow on the lawn - 

I hear the trains go by - 

Here is my kingdom - 

Continents stretch out before me on the grass - 

6 October 2021

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

A shirt made of feathers ...

I'm reading Terry Street - 

October sunlight fills the room - 

Someone's marked the cover with coffee rings - 

I picture a boozy reader - 

A bed sit in a pinched street - 

American Pie is on the radio - 

I'm twenty years old - 

I've yet to drive the blue car - 

I wear my years like a shirt made of feathers -

5 October 2021 

Watching Vigil ...

I'm watching Vigil -

Missiles dream in their silos - 

The deep ocean is the haunt of leviathans -

When they surface, they will be destroyers of worlds - 

4 October 2021

The last apples ...

I saw the last apples -  

Tipsy wasps had feasted on windfalls - 

Through the bright leaves I could see the sky - 

I lost myself in the blueness - 

I saw myself as a young tree becoming old - 

I stood in a twilight garden - 

Beautiful naked ghosts lay at my feet -

3 October 2021

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Reading Dead Souls ...

Rain falls all day - 

I'm reading Dead Souls - 

I would be a thin man at the Governor's ball - 

My hair worn in the devil take it manner -

I would be called Porfiry - 

A Collegiate Councillor - 

I'd play whist with the Public Prosecutor - 

My servant would brush my swallow tail coat -

I'd ride in my carriage - 

I'd be asked so you want dead souls ?

2 October 2021

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Waiting for autumn ...

I saw the sky reflected in the water -

We were walking across the beach -

There were no footprints save our own -

We were waiting for autumn - 

The leaves would fall - 

Then there would be the coming of the moon - 

The pale jewels of winter would be tangled in our hair - 

1 October 2021

Shipstal Point

Arne 

Dorset