This darling boy

Watching Jake - 

This darling boy - 

Sit here he says, play with me -

Salisbury

December 2024 

Watching clouds

We ate Dorset Apple Cake - 

Talked about foxed volumes - 

We wore our worn tweed - 

Watched clouds fill the December sky - 

The Boat House

Lulworth Cove

December 2024

The sea was calm, an icy turquoise - 

Small waves broke upon the white shore - 

Two young women had been swimming - 

Salt water still pearled their bodies - 

Pale, slender, they picked up their clothes - 

Two selkines, about to put on their skins - 

Lulworth Cove

December 2024

I'm reading A Stain in the Blood -

I enter the bagnios in Algiers -

Watch horrors in Saint Paul's Churchyard - 

I captain the Eagle -

Cross the ancient sea - 

December 2024

 I see next year's summer - 

The warm greenery hidden in the tree - 

Sunshine from those dark buds - 

Blue sky behind those clouds - 

Shipstal Point

Arne

December 2024

Wallace looks up -

Quick and nimble as a squirrel - 

Light as air -

Hull 

December 2024

 Noble barbarians -

Triremes - 

A crazed emperor - 

The cruel joy of the arena - 

The Rex

Wareham 

December 2024

Wild air - 

Shaking the leafless trees - 

Rain stinging our faces -

Remembering the stony field - 

The wind from the sea - 

The poor fire -

Our younger selves - 

Binnegar

December 2024

 Jake holds his colouring pens like magic wands - 

Gazes downwards - 

He conjures a gaudy triceratops - 

 A primeval world in Macklin Road

Salisbury

December 2024

 These mazy channels - 

Reed beds - 

Tide stealing in -

Memory touching all I see -

Shipstal Point

Arne

December 2024

 Neill wore his Sherbourne coat - 

Turned up his collar - 

Walked as thuogh on his way to a hit - 

Like Alain Delon in some beautiful merciless film -

Blandford Forum

December 2024

That moment by the dark river -

The silence - 

The line being cast - 

Wareham Town Quay

December 2024

We had words we could not say aloud - 

You held me close -

Your heart against mine - 

Harman's Cross

November 2024

 I hear them - 

The yew trees - 

Whispering my name - 

Corfe Castle

November 2024

 They play hot jazz - 

Sultry riff - 

Behind glass, on a corkscrew stair

Dorset Bookshop 

Blandford Forum

November 2024

Watching Blade

Long leather coat sheathing his whiplash body - 

Wearing his shades -

Laconic, ultra cool -

Gazing at the smoking ashes of his foes -

November 2024

Amongst the books with their waiting pages - 

Their poignant histories -

An Air India boarding pass left as a bookmark - 

A scrawled name on a speckled page - 

This long case clock - 

Hand still, clasping time - 

A bird snared in a leafless tree - 

Blandford 

November 2024

 

Waking to a sky I'd forgotten -

Astonished by its blueness -

The bright air above the shining fields - 

A new world after the rain - 

East Stoke

November 2024 

I'm watching The Mirror and the Light -

I wear a calm face -

Fur cloaked lords stalk tapestried ante-chambers - 

Candles gutter as they pass -

I bow before a burning gaze - 

I hold my cap in my hands -

November 2024

 Watching the snow fall - 

Whiteness from the sky - 

Putting a log on the fragrant fire - 

Remembering the bright sun -

Being with you in the wildwood -

Flowers in your hair -

November 2024

 Roger will set out the cards - 

He has tattoos - 

He saw a wild sea in a scrying glass - 

A deep bay - 

He gave me a book about the moon - 

Her many faces - 

Hisvoice is gentle - 

Go on a pilgrimage he says - 

Beehive Cafe

Portland 

November 2024

 I've just read Moorcock's Book of Martyrs -

I was fifteen again when I turned the yellowed pages - 

Lord of a beautiful doomed city - 

Cast up on the shores of time -

East Stoke

November 2024

A bright path on the water

Pale moon in the sky - 

Wine in my glass - 

A bright path on the water - 

Lycian coast

September 2024

Like a fragment of a dream - 

That haunted space - 

Those empty chairs -

The Spa

Scarborough

Septembe 2024

Looking out the high window - 

The late autumn trees - 

The pale November sky - 

My heart in its fragile nest - 

The memory of summer in the garden - 

Woodend

Scarborough

November 2024

The young lovers there for the day - 

The girl with her blonde beehive - 

The boy with his blue eyes - 

Woodend

Scarborough

September 2024

Wallace loves the beautiful game -

The touch of the ball -

The young gods with their bodies made of air - 

Scarborough

November 2024

I ate Indian street food in Spark -

Around us, the youth wore their wild hair -

With each fiery spoonful, I remembered Marco's house -

The sunlight on dark wood - 

The Frenchwoman reading in the sultry garden - 

York 

November 2024

Ghosts came with him - 

The ancestors - 

We would weep if we saw inside that house - 

Dorchester

November 2024

A darkening reef of bedrooms -

Old dreams -

Nearby, the still sea - 

South Cliff

Scarborough

September 2024

Playing Bananagram with Wallace -

The tricksy tiles -

His smile - 

My heart filled with love - 

Scarborough

November 2024

The hour will come - 

Tony singing Suspicious Minds - 

Las Vegas come to northern skies - 

Scarborough

September 2024

Our eyes were drawn to the sky -

We were beguild by the wild magic of fireworks -

By the furious beauty of the air - 

Scarborough

November 2024

Mallard -

Like a dangerous animal sleeping - 

Awakening any moment - 

Railway Museum 

York

November 2024

He wore his tweed like a magician's robe - 

Led us by green words into the wildwood - 

Reawakened wonder in our hearts -

Dorset COP

Bournemouth University

September 2024

They stay invisible -

Never given their names - 

They have no need of my tears - 

They have so many of their own - 

Weymouth

September 2024

They peck at pastels de Natas -

Wearing their beards and plaid shirts -

They open their moleskines - 

Sip flat whites -

Woodend

Scarborough

September 2024

We sang watched by  angels -

Sorrowful grandmothers - 

Brothers, sisters - 

We walked with prophets - 

There were tongues of fire in Whitehall - 

London

October 2024

He peered at me over half moon glasses - 

Looked up from his obscure page - 

Black Pug Books was open only by chance - 

I heard the Minster clock tell the hour -

Wimborne

November 2024

I remembered sad churches

I remembered sad churches - 

Forgotten valleys - 

Pale flowers - 

Names of boys - 

This was where they were taken -

Where their eyes were blinded - 

Where the beautiful were disfigured - 

Where their hearts were torn - 

Mayflower Theatre

Southampton 

November 2024

Summer ghosts

The glistening shore reflected the sky - 

I saw our summer ghosts - 

Each footprint we'd left upon the sands - 

South Beach

Studland

September 2024

I watched the Albanians -

They remembered betrayals whilst they jet washed BMWs - 

The diner was empty -

I picked up a curdled magazine - 

September 2024

There were still apples on the tree - 

Windfalls on the bright grass - 

A memory of wood smoke - 

A blackbird's song

East Stoke

September 2024

Eating figs

We ate figs at Tlos - 

Sweetness on our tongues -

Olive trees had shaded us -

We'd walked amongst the ruins of a noble city - 

Seen birds dart from shattered column to column - 

Touched the stone beds of Lycian kings -

Tlos 

September 2024

We wait to board the jet - 

When we land, I'll wear tweed - 

In my dreams, I'll walk barefoot - 

Swim in a turquoise sea - 

Dalaman

September 2024 

This moment -

Holding it close - 

The feathery clouds across the sky - 

The smooth limbs of the Eucalyptus tree - 

The brighr air - 

The salt on my skin - 

Akyaka

Sptember 2024

The two sisters -

How they look at each other - 

As though they were in a painting - 

Caught in each other's gaze - 

Akyaka

September 2024

Gentle hours - 

Shade of palm tress -

Bright fish in a quiet sea - 

Akyaka

September 2024

The fish restaurants spilled their light upon the water - 

In Bar Street, girls clasped their boys - 

There was cool jazz in Euphoria -

Marmaris

September 2024

Before each shop window, a languid bravo - 

Gazing at his phone, or at his pristine faux Nikes -

The patron with his tea - 

The Mbappe football shirt - 

Marmaris Bazaar

September 2024

 Sitting in Finca -

A Dorchester sky -

Rain - 

Flat white in a glass -

In my head, a memory of palm trees - 

Dream shapes - 

The night cafe - 

The sound of a saxaphone -

Dorchester - Marmaris

September/October 2024

We came here, as we would last year - 

Towels still wet, asking for chai - 

 

Nothing had changed - 

The warm salty wind - 

The blueness of the sky and sea -

The gossiping gendarmes - 

 

 We sat by the empty pool - 

The stroppy Geordie baited his long legged girlfriend - 

A gentle nana smoked a breakfast cigarette -

The Fidan

Marmaris

September 2024

 When I saw the yacht, I thought of the Irish girl -

How we flew before the Bora -

The necklessof islands -

The starlight on the sea - 

Lycian coast

September 2024 

 The two sisters looked at carpets- 

The patron cast his silken net -

Smiled his courtier's smile 

 The pirate boats were mute - 

No tawny girls on their garish decks - 

No daring boys - 

Only their crews smoking Camels. drinking Efes - 

Looking up to see Davy Jones - 

 In a moment, Jane would ask for tavuk durum - 

She would take off her hat - 

Let loose her splendid hair - 

We picked our way through seared thron - 

Saw the ruins from the bare hillside - 

The mausolea on the hillside - 

We felt he sorrow of lost names - 

The gentle weight of children's bones - 

The river, looping and curling through the man high reeds - 

The bright boats - 

The shallows where the river meets the sea - 

The lake - 

The groves of pomegranate trees  -

The rock tombs - 

Those dak palaces - 

Those forgotten names - 

Dalyan river

Setpember 2024

Menekse Sokak -

Twilight - 

Air secented by jasmine flowers - 

Akyaka

September 2024

 

 An exquisite cheesecake handed me by a silky bravo - 

Anne wearing her blue linen dress - 

Her long brown legs - 

The taste of lemon on my tongue - 

La Boheme

Dalyan

September 2024

 Waking up under the carved wooden ceiling - 

Throwing back the thin sheet - 

Cool air from the garden through the opened windows - 

Moonlight on fragrant greenery - 

Akyaka

September 2024

 We followed an ancient path to the deep bay - 

Behind us were the mausolea - 

Holly pakscast scant shade on the white stones of the path - 

A seawind carried a gull high above the bay - 

Through the trees, we glimpsed turquoise - 

The tall masts of the gulet, Orhan waiting on the sharp prow - 

Lycian coast

September 2024

 I gazed at the sky after sunset - 

A yacht moored offshore - 

A boy and girl swimming in a spellbound sea - 

Akyaka 

September 2024

 I spread honey on my village bread - 

I remembered the beekeepers - 

The silence, the olive trees - 

How they'd stood, veiled, in a stony field - 

Lycia

September 2024

 The warm night wind against my skin - 

I saw the moon - 

A white fruit hanging from a dark tree - 

Lycian coast 

September 2024

 I bought figs -

I was beguiled by her gentle smile - 

There was no shade amongst the tombs - 

I climbed upwards, above the palaestra - 

I cast a noonday shadow - 

Cicadas sang - 

Kaunos

September 2024

 I remember Eyup Bey - 

Raising his stick in greeting - 

How he lay on his last bed - 

The village women with their voices - 

The photograph if a young man on the wall - 

His folded clothes

Karabortlen - Ferring

September 2024

 Early morning - 

looking up at the white hull - 

Swimming under the prow - 

Hardly stirring the water - 

Air fragrant with pine - 

Each moment as though I were still dreaming - 

Lycian coast

September 2024

 We walked past roofless houses - 

Cruel shadows of prickly pear - 

Cicadas sang amongst the ghosts - 

Kayakoy

September 2024

They swim towards the ladder - 

Grave matrons, calm patriarchs - 

Their clothes placed beneath the salty greenery - 

Kahvalti waiting on an elegant balcony - 

Chai in a delicate glass - 

Olives to melt on the tongue - 

Akyaka 

September 2024

 We felt the silence -

Its weight - 

Far below us, in the gorge, were quick footed goats -

We heard their bells, then the silence fell again -

Walls of rock touched the noon sjy - 

A lizard basked in the archaic light - 

Lycica

September 2024

 Cappuccinos and cherry cake - 

Spanish guitar - 

Lingering here each morning - 

Tall palm trees casting shade - 

The gravelly voice of the handsome bravo -

 Perhaps next year -

Akyaka

September 2024

 Before she swam, Anne sat on the yellow cushions -

Her slim body made my heart race - 

Later, I would see her naked - 

Moonlight tangled in her hair - 

Lycian coast

September 2024

 She kept her art secret - 

Ventured into places with terrible names - 

Saw poems fall from the sky - 

September 2024

 The young marinero looks at Abigail - 

He sleeps on deck, new to the sea - 

In his dreams, she calls to him -

Places her hands on his dark skin -

Lycian coast 

September 2024

 Standing barefoot on the deck - 

A glimmering necklace of lights on the shore - 

A dark silky sea - 

Fethiye

September 2024

Drinking sage tea

We came across a garden in a stony emptiness - 

Took shelter from the sun under kindly greenery - 

I drank sage tea form a glass teardrop - 

Lycia 

September 2024

Listening to Howling Wolf

I listened to Howling Wolf in Sinemateke -

I wore a blue shirt - 

A lean youth served us chai -

His ponytail reached his narrow waist - 

Akyaka

September 2024

Driving to Dalaman

Driving to Dalaman - 

I know these names - 

I know each dry river bed - 

Every bend of the road - 

The mountains - 

The glimpses of the sea - 

I hear your voice again - 

See your strong hands - 

The road turns - 

You are driving me once more to Dalaman - 

Turkey 

September 2024

Funny Valentine

Pat played My Funny Valentine - 

Silky notes before dark - 

I drank a glass of white - 

Walked back with Anne to the poet's house -

We lay naked on the wide bed - 

Dreamed our dreams - 

We were young again - 

Astonished by each other's beauty - 

Akyaka

September 2024

Eating balik ekmek

Eating balik ekmek -

The young waiters like scornful bravos - 

Fiery shards of green chillis to burn my tongue -

Efes to pour into an icy glass - 

Akyaka

September 2024

Each pure note

A cool wind from the sea - 

Lemon trees shading our secret garden - 

Listening to piano music - 

Each pure note from a waking dream - 

Akyaka

September 2024

Volkan's smile

An Americano - 

Eucalyptus trees - 

Volkan's smile - 

He'd danced with Sophie at a village wedding - 

A full moon in the sky - 

The white chairs in a circle - 

These memories - 

Returning like sly guests - 

Lycia

September 2024

Adil in Kirtil

Efes in Kirtil - 

Seeing Adil - 

 My chilled glass - 

The patron in his kingdom - 

Hearing a call to prayer - 

A slender girl wearing a Fenerbahce shirt - 

Kirtil

September 2024

Beguiling us with his stories

He leaned forward, his thin brown body like a twist of rope - 

Gesturing over the village bread - 

A gnarled siren - 

Beguiling us with his stories

Cleopatra's Bath 

September 2024

Gentle scholar

 

Mehmet Varol - 

Writing in your garden - 

Gentle scholar in the wilderness

Candir

September 2024

Nowness on a stony hill

We walked through the olive trees - 

Slender leaves like pale jewels - 

We'd climbed a twisting stair - 

Higher each turn above the bay - 

Finding silence - 

A woman's smile in a gentle garden - 

Nowness on a stony hill - 

Lycia 

September 2024

High above the turquoise bay

 

High above the turquoise bay -

Air scented with resin - 

Ancient sunight - 

Tall pines - 

Salt in my hair - 

Lycia

September 2024

Flying to the edge of the world

 High above the clouds in the white jet -

Half awake, half dreaming - 

Watching the sunset - 

Flying to the edge of the world - 

Above the clouds

September 2024

Leaving my heart

Shadow apples on the grass - 

The car waiting - 

Leaving my heart in the gentle house -

East Stoke

September 2024

Julia remembered the mountain

Julia remembered the mountain - 

How they'd sung carols to the wonderment of the sherpas - 

We were in The Moorland Cafe -

The rain still falling -

I thought of all her adventures - 

Being eighteen with a boy aged nineteen - 

Driving in a mini to Corfu - 

Walking in Corsica - 

The muleteers firing their pistols -

 The shooting stars in the fragrant sky - 

The Moorland Cafe

Longnor

September 2024

At the window

The Yorkshire Post - 

Flowers in a vase -

Rain falling on silent fields  -

Longnor 

September 2024

On the high hill

On the high hill I saw the world -

The sky above the bright fields - 

Swallows chasing joy - 

The light falling from heaven 

Bunster Hill

September 2024

Scriveners

I climbed the narrow stair - 

From cellar to attic -

Each room a nest of words -

Scrivener

Buxton

September 2024

Tongue tied with love

Glimpsing Sophie from the train - 

Her smile -

Each time I see her, being tongue tied with love - 

Leeds Railway Station 

September 2024

Soon they were dancing

Soon they were dancing -

Julia clapping -

Anne and Lindy - 

Circling one another, dancing -

Longnor

Saturday 7 September 2024

The first night

Glasses of red in The Horseshoe Inn -

Julia laughing -

The twisty stairs -

Low ceilings - 

The deep valleys and high hills - 

Falling into my welcome bed - 

Longnor

Peak District 

September 2024

Waiting for the Peugeot

Waiting for the Peugeot -

Rain falling on burnished chrome -

Beguiled by an Ioniq 5 - 

Howards 

Dorchester 

September 2024

My boyhood in the shop window

Next to a Buddha -

The Electric Cruiser -

The palm tree, the languid river -

I saw my boyhood in the shop window -

Swanage

September 4 2024