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