Promoted to glory

You'd say God bless when you gave me a War Cry -

Sitting outside Natwest on a folding chair -

You never had any doubt -

There were no shadows in your house -

Every room was filled with light -

Every window open to the sky -

Wareham

January 2026

Remembering smoking Gitanes

I remember smoking Gitanes -.

Being nineteen and wearing a leather jacket -

Russell Square in the July sunlight -

The fountains, the shade beneath the plane trees -

The sexy smoke in my mouth -

My long hair -

Being unaware of my beauty -

Having no wounds in my heart -

January 2026

No moonlight, only rain

The Dacia's headlamps glimmering in the rainy dark -

The twisty lanes running with water -

Glimpsing swollen rivers -

The vague hills, the heavy sky -

Driving through the flooded villages -

Winterborne Kingston, Tarrant Hinton, Milburn Saint Andrew -

Names for people in a story - 

No moonlight, only rain -

January 2026

After the rain

After the rain, the water meadows reflected the sky -

The river had spilled over ancient hedgerows -

Clouds floated over the winter's grass -

Dark alders cast their tangled shadows on the water -

The moon shone on a sunken land -

East Stoke

Dorset 

January 2026

The moment of her leaving

Julia told me how she'd watched her mother leave this world - 

How she'd read to her - 

Sat with her during the long night -

Seen the moment of her leaving - 

Awful and wonderful - 

January 2026

Each day is summer

The white car moving slowly away -

Jake waving -

Smiling through his tears Anne says -

The rain starting to fall -

My heart tied to his heart -

My eyes filled with his tears -

Smiling, his brightness makes me light as air -

Each day is summer -

January 2026

All the turnings of my heart

I remember the moment she was born - 

Sophie, the first of my two daughters -

Uncannily wise from her earliest years -

Her calm gaze knowing all the turnings of my heart -

January 2026

Jake plays Brio amongst my books

Jake plays Brio amongst my books - 

I'm reading The Kingdom of The Wicked -

Simon Peter has just said rise up girl -

Caligula has been pierced by thirty daggers -

Jake puts down the Hotwheels Jaguar -

He asks me to read him The Tiger Who Came to Tea -

January 2026

The first car

Dizzy with new chrome -

Remembering my first car -

Smoking Gitanes in the Sunbeam Rapier -

The glimmering dash -

The blue fins -

The snarling gears - 

Driving through the New Forest -

The radio on -

Midnight roads -

The headlights on full beam -

Annick taking me to a hotel amongst the trees -

The bikers, the music, the jukebox of souls -

January 2026

Raw Glasgow

Raw Glasgow on your tongue - 

Your ragged beard -

Your eyes as cold and grey as the Clyde -

Focus Centre 

Swanage

January 2026

Waiting in Chapel Lane

Rain falling on Chapel Lane -

Marie with her canny smile -

A gull flying over salty rooftops -

Nigel's eyes like bright blue beads -

Chapel Lane

Swanage 

January 2026

Savage scarecrows

They sit outside the library -

These savage scarecrows -

They terrify me -

Their voices -

Their desolation -

Salisbury Library

January 2026

Test driving the Dacia

A beautiful temple of glass and dreams -

Test driving the Dacia -

Imagining sunlit roads, Chet Baker's swooning trumpet on the radio -

Penton

Poole 

January 2026

This is where I live

Voices in the salty air -

Banners dripping with dark humour -

Marching to the port -

Past police cars, ghost pubs still echoing with sailors' laughter -

Small houses straggling up the hillside -

Songs at the gates -

Paul showing his mighty heart -

Gentle truth teller -

His few words still with me -

This is where I live -

Isle of Portland 

Dorset

January 2026

Like a ray of light

Marylyn smiled when you spoke -

Remembering you in your classroom; like a kindly god -

Your charm like a ray of light, sweeping across our faces -

The Bear

Wareham 

January 2026

At the Boston Tea Party

Knotted beams held up uneven ceilings -

Jake marvelled at a picture of the Gruffalo -

Baristas crafted exquisite cappuccinos -

Rain fell on the ancient roof -

Boston Tea Party 

Salisbury 

January 2026

Each shelf filled with wonders

The quiet rooms were filled with books -

A youth with silver bangles and torn jeans sashshayed past the Memoires de Casanova -

I was beguiled by orange Penguins -

There were mazy corridors of Percy Westermans -

Tiger Standish getting his man -

Biggles with his manly gaze -

A grandfather clock with stilled hands -.

Each shelf filled with wonders -

Puddletown Bookshop 

January 2026

You think of what you should have said

Mel said you think you'll go on forever -

We were in Java -

Outside it was raining -

The sea and the sky touched the edge of the world -

Here we were warm, brought coffee by a slender girl -

I saw her thin dark wrists, how she wore her young beauty, like a dress made of cobwebs -

You think of what you should have said Mel said -

But then it's too late -

Java, Swanage 

January 2026

When you smile

Thinking of you walking here -

Next to this pale sea -

How you bring colour into the world when you smile -

Swanage

January 2026

Fevered with love

I took these photographs of you when I was fevered with love -

You lay naked on your summer's bed -

Your lovely body healing all my wounds - 

January 2026

Each day now

All I saw was bathed in light - 

Made wonderful and strange - 

The calm water touched the empty shore -

There was one leaf on a bare tree -

The pale blue sky was cloudless -

Stillness fell from heaven -

I saw all my years in the clear icy air -

My name written in scattered shells -

Each day now the edge of the world came nearer - 

The stillness deeper, the light more radiant - 

Shipstal Point

Arne

January 2026