Furies with a search warrant ...

We forgot the dark pavement once inside the welcoming house - 

We'd driven through the wounded city - 

We'd seen jewelled towers and beggars, night buses and stretch limousines - 

Now we sat in a warm high ceilinged room - 

Bridget bought in a tray of bottled beers -

Jay sipped a decorous bumper of Fitou -

Bookcases were nests of words -

A literary review caught my eye - 

In the hall, a trilby decorated a newel post - 

I remembered how Bridget had spent a year in Tashkent - 

I imagined living in a fearful city - 

I'd memorise precious poems having read them - 

I could leave no scraps of paper for Furies with a search warrant - 

18.56

Sunday 28 February 2017

Clapton 

London

 

Lee Miller's bookplate ...

In Two Temple Place, I imagined dancing with Lee Miller - 

I saw her, lithe, fearless, as in a Man Ray photograph - 

She washes her back in a tyrant's bath - 

There's her bookplate, stars, a sky just before sunset, a giant stepping out of legend - 

She's here, invisible, in this opulent lair - 

I can hear her, turning pages - 

14.00

Saturday 25 February 

Two Temple Place

London

News from Nowhere ...

We walked past barbershops where Asian boys had their hair sculpted into strange shapes - 

Youths ordered chicken wings in sleepless eateries - 

All around us was Walthamstow - 

Diners ate Sunday roasts inside The Bell - 

Late night convenience stores sold lottery tickets - 

We were walking towards the William Morris Gallery - 

Soon we would see beautiful fabrics, beguiling images, sumptuous books - 

The visionary artist would inspire us with his works and words - 

More than ever, I thought, there was a need for News from Nowhere - 

13.41

Sunday 26 February 2017

William Morris Gallery

Walthamstow

Rye Churchyard by Edward Burra

There, in the churchyard, the gravestones are like teeth - 

Dark naked figures crouch upon the drunken grass - 

A cloaked figure is shadowed by her double - 

Above the trees, the clouds roll across the sky like smoke - 

14.00

Saturday 25 February 2017

Two Temple Place 

London 

Walking from Tarrant Gunville to Chettle ...

We walked this morning from Tarrant Gunville to Chettle - 

We saw a red kite fly in sinister circles above tall trees - 

A skylark touched heaven -

A car rusted in an unkempt pasture - 

We skirted an avenue of shining beeches - 

At the far side of the park was a silent house with high grey walls -   

Clouds moved across the sky - 

A pheasant ran away from us, scurrying across the grass - 

Penelope pointed out the course of a Roman road - 

There was a hollow yew tree in a sad churchyard - 

The golden hands of the church clock were frozen - 

Flints lay upon the fields like pieces of bone - 

12.13

Friday 24 February 2017

Tarrant Gunville 

Chettle

Dorset 

Soft voices on the narrow stairs ...

I sat before the fire, reading by torchlight - 

There'd been a power cut - 

Suddenly the house remembered its past, the harmonium, the teacher's black dress, an anthology of sermons, a collections box for the African Missions - 

 

Six tea lights cast wavering light from the mantelpiece - 

Darkness filled the rest of the house - 

I heard soft voices on the narrow stairs - 

22.30

Wednesday 22 February 2017

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset 

Driving from Salisbury ...

We drove through villages with comfortable names, Coombe Bisset, Woodyates, Tarrant Hinton - 

Daffodils bloomed in well kept churchyards - 

A sign in a field advertised a Point to Point - 

Men in subtle tweed walked labradors - 

A stream flowed past a gracious house - 

Beyond the safe gardens was the ancient landscape - 

Tumuli rose from the delved earth - 

At night the stars shone upon processional ways - 

Each hill gave up its treasure -

Each valley shared its secret history -

11.00

Wednesday 22 February 2017

Wiltshire 

Listening to Stravinsky ...

Driving back from Dortchester, I turned on the radio - 

Wild unnerving rythmns thrilled my ears - 

I listened, heart pounding, to The Rite of Spring - 

The quiet fields I drove past were transformed -

The sky touched the heaving earth - 

The chosen one danced under the leafless trees - 

16.00

Tuesday 21 February 2017

Dorset 

 

Becoming champions ...

I'm zinging with nervous energy before the meeting - 

I can see, even now, the Victorian space, the motto, Fear God, honour the King - 

We'll meet in The Red Lion before we climb the stairs to the Council Chamber - 

We'll stand tall like champions - 

Our passionate words will quiver upon our tongues - 

16.40

Monday 20 February 2017

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

The lost dental plate ...

Where did you find it ? my dad asked - where was it Anne ?

He'd lost his dental plate - 

Your mum's probably wrapped it up in kitchen roll Anne said - 

My mum would now go round the house, wrapping things up - 

Anne had given my dad the spare plate - 

Jane, the carer, kept one safe, just in case - 

We wondered how many more plates would be lost - 

Old Lippet the dentist might have to frogmarch my dad to the chair again - 

Have we got any Pujalet ? my dad then asked - 

He picked up The Sunday Times - 

C'est la vie he sighed - 

He'll settle down once he's got his beer Anne said - 

11.41

Sunday 19 February 2017

Staunton Road 

Havant

Signatures ...

I zipped up my jacket, eager to meet the comrades - 

A few visitors were exploring Funland -  

The night's mist still lay upon the water - 

Soon I would speak to gentle people - 

I would hear their heartfelt stories - 

Each of their signatures would be written with the sad ink of memory - 

10.04

Saturday 18 February 2017

Swanage

Dorset

Richard shapes his words in midnight rooms ...

Richard told me he read The Barber of Goreme to tipsy litterateurs in Cafe Aurora - 

I can picture the louche venue, the bumpers of dizzying red, the lean guitars - 

Richard shapes his words in midnight rooms - 

Each image marks a precious memory - 

Each poem maps a secret continent - 

21.41

Friday 17 February 2017

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset 

Scrawling aperçus ...

I've just finished scrawling aperçus in my diary - 

Ever since my bowel cancer diagnosis, I write up my days in smallish black notebooks -

The pages are covered with lolloping lines of prose - 

I'm careless of punctuation - 

I abhor a prissy semicolon - 

I'm with Clare here - 

Awkward squad of pointings called commas colons semicolons - 

I stick in postcards and train tickets - 

I recall the menus for boozy feasts - 

Sometimes I place a leaf between the pages, or the thin guide for an ancient church - 

Waiting for the results of scans, my words would be like rope bridges over terrible voids - 

Richard found one of his notebooks a few days ago - 

There he was, Peter Storm in the Quartier Pigalle - 

His pages, too, covered with a web of words - 

21.09

Thursday 16 February 2017

The Old School a House

East Stoke

Dorset 

The poet will put on his coat made of all his poems ...

I've just put down The Quickening Maze - 

I think of the poet waking before dawn in High Beach Asylum - 

The gypsies are still sleeping under the unfettered trees - 

Soon the doctor will stroke his shining beard - 

Leaves will quiver in the new made sunlight - 

The poet will put on his coat made of all his poems - 

Before him lies his journey on darkening roads - 

Each loved face will be strange - 

Each longed for voice unheard - 

17.25

Wednesday 15 February 2017

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset 

The gardeners of the lost garden ...

Rooks flew above the leafless Sycamore trees - 

Our way led downwards towards the sea - 

The narrow valley was sheltered from the wind -

Fallen leaves were memories of green summers - 

Tree stumps were covered with bright pelts of moss - 

Clusters of snowdrops marked the path - 

Daffodils were coming into flower near the stream - 

Victorian gardeners, now ghosts in corduroy, had tended this lost garden -

I looked out for them through the trees - 

They might show themselves at any moment, whistling for their golden days - 

10.43

Tuesday 14 February 2017

The abandoned aboretum

Ringstead

Dorset 

Early morning snowdrops ...

A year had passed since I stood here under the pines - 

I could trace the marks of the lost days upon my bones - 

There were the snowdrops before me, each one like a promise - 

The early morning welcomed me - 

The sun was dancing above the water meadows - 

The blue sky clothed wonder - 

08.00

Tuesday 7 February 2017

The churchyard 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Murmuration ...

Look Anne said - there, in the sky -

I looked up to see a flock of dark birds - 

They flew as one, a swirling mysterious airborne tribe - 

It's a murmuration of starlings I said - 

The word felt magical and strange to say - 

The birds formed new marvellous shapes in the sky every moment - 

A murmuration I repeated softly - a murmuration - 

16.57

Sunday 12 February 2016

Redcliffe

Wareham 

Dorset 

Had it come to this I thought ...

I had a haircut in Flash Harry's this afternoon - 

There were six chairs in the salon - 

In one chair, a gaffer was having his eyebrows trimmed, in another, a young bravo was having an undercut - 

There was discrete hip hop on the speakers - 

I gazed at my reflection in the mirror - 

I remembered when I'd worn flowers in my hair -

Dew had soaked through my coat - 

The young woman cutting my hair told me about her four year old nephew - 

Shall I trim your eyebrows she then asked - 

Had it come this I thought - 

15.50

Saturday 11 February 2017

Flash Harry's 

Poole

The wheat emerging golden from the earth ...

Pesvner says one visits the church for its 14th Century wall paintings -

Penelope followed me into the time hallowed nave - 

The church was far from hearth fires - 

Only shadows in the fields marked where houses had been - 

Lapwings flew above chalk and flint - 

Snowdrops softened the lonely churchyard - 

On the south wall of the church, a king, one of three, held high his proud hawk - 

Three skeletons stood tall with their long dark bones - 

Above the quick and the dead, Saint Margaret of Antioch was received into Paradise - 

Each side of the altar were stone coffin lids, worn smooth by prayer - 

I imagined gentle people, coming from the fields - 

The walls of the church, vivid with meaning, 

The wheat emerging golden from the earth - 

12.00

Friday 10 February 2017

St Mary the Virgin

Tarrant Crawford

Dorset 

Able Seaman Povey of HMS Hardy ...

I feel the calm indifferent power of his gaze, this able seaman on sentry duty -  

He stands tall and lean, upon the deck of his grey ship - 

He's felt the presence of stalking submarines, foreseen the course of torpedoes - 

He's given counsel to young boys just called up, homesick for their narrow alleys - 

He's boxed in draughty halls for his captain - 

He's downed his tot over uckers in the mess - 

There are three stripes on his arm, a wedding ring on his finger - 

He'll face the dark, feel the ice in his hair - 

Nothing will surprise him - 

Like Causley's Chief Petty Officer, his forehead has been ruffled by the Jutland wind - 

12.15

Wednesday 9 February 2017

Russell Cotes Gallery

Bournemouth 

Venus Verticordia ...

The Goddess has a halo of butterflies above her noble head - 

In one hand she holds a ripe apple, in the other an arrow with a twisting golden point - 

The lower half of her strong naked body is shielded by honeysuckle flowers - 

The thick red tresses of her hair cover her shoulders and upper arms - 

Her gaze is both unsettling and inscrutable - 

Rosetti found his first model in the street, a very large young woman, practically a giantess - 

I stood inside the sumptuous house - 

The Goddess looked out from her golden frame, reading the secrets of my heart - 

12.00

Wednesday 8 February 2017

Russell Cotes Gallery

Bournemouth

Benjamin's Crossing ...

I'm reading Benjamin's Crossing - 

Jay read this book one Dorset weekend - 

I've only just started reading it, yet already I'm filled with melancholy - 

I know where the story will end - 

I remember the small town, the heartless beauty of the sea - 

I imagine placing my suitcase beside a narrow bed - 

The Angel of History would watch me caught in the storm from paradise - 

I'd be swept away whilst a policeman smoked a contemptuous cigarette - 

15.58

Monday 7 February 2017

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset