The map of my everyday ...

I glance over my shoulder, half glimpsing something - 

The map of my every day has lost its familiar names - 

I half hear voices - 

I follow them, yet never find them - 

Saturday 26 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Lost Decembers ...

Today I watched the Christmas Spartacus -

The noble gladiator was crucified once more -

 

It was as though I saw all my Christmases again -

All those times I'd watched the sad sword play -

Those different tellies -

Those lost Decembers - 

Friday 25 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Young as the morning ...

I remember my dad making horses necks -

He'd poured out the brandy as though he was on The Bermuda -

The sun over the yard arm -

His shipmates handing out the Senior Service -

Larry, Bud, Charlie - 

The four of them - 

Fresh as new apples -

Young as the morning - 

December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorsetb

St Lucy's Day ...

I think of the poet when I see this solstice sky - 

He walks with me in the empty wood - 

He breathes the same darkening air - 

Watches with me as the pine tree snares the moon - 

December 2020

Moreton 

Dorset 

Those that wish to be clean ...

I'm reading The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again -

It's strange and beautiful and mysterious - 

It's raining whilst I'm reading - 

Alder trees are mirrored in shining pools - 

Tomorrow, I'll walk through the water meadows- 

I'll hear a voice close by -

Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be -

Tuesday 22 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Being Thomas de Quincey ...

I sipped the whisky toddy as if I were Thomas de Quincey -

A black drop in my glass -

A pen to write of marvels - 

Monday 21 December 2020 

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Yellow feathers in my hair ...

I saw the moon above the pines -

It was as though I were walking in a dream -

The same strangeness and forgetting of self - 

The sky about to dissolve -

Yellow feathers in my hair -

Sunday 20 December 2020

Moreton 

Dorset

Waiting for angels ...

I thought of John Martin -

This was an end of the world sky for his prophetic canvas - 

Those clouds - 

That ancient light - 

I stood here, on the chill sand, waiting for angels -

Saturday 19 December 2020

Bramble Bay 

Studland 

Dorset

Wind shaken trees ...

We walked between windshaken trees -

Sighing ghosts were entangled in dark greenery - 

The two pines were like gate posts - 

I felt two worlds touch - 

One I saw - 

One brushed against me as I breathed the twilight air - 

Friday 18 December 2020

Binnegar 

Dorset 

Or nearly young ...

We walked past vaping parlours to the Arcade -

The youth sipped cappuccinos in Boscanova -

Soon Ivwas hanging 1980s vinyl - 

I remembered a party in a smoky room -

The Alarm -

Sold Me Down The River -

Being young again - 

Or nearly young - 

Thursday 18 December 2020

Boscombe 

Bournemouth 

Fireflies ...

I turned again these pages - 

Each one I read was tender with memory - 

I wanted to hold my dad's eager pen -

To know him more - 

Sunday Divisions -

Rifle drill - 

The short entries were like fireflies in the dark - 

Wednesday 16 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Lost time ...

I gleefully turned the pages of a conspiracy shocker -

A magazine for ufonauts and delvers into strange times - 

There, between these lurid covers - 

Roswell - 

Churchward's Children of Mu -

The Hyperboreans -

Nikola Tesla -

Moon Mysteries -

The landing lights of Magonia -

Lost time -

Dark skies beyond the window -

Tuesday 15 December 2020

Dorchester 

Dorset 

The flowers that were my skin ...

I  dreamed I saw a green man in a summer's wood -

Ivy spilled from his opened mouth - 

I heard a bird sing in a shining tree -

I looked down to see bright stems wrapped round my waist -

I could smell the flowers that were my skin - 

Monday 14 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Raindrops pearled the window ...

I found the small photograph this dark afternoon -

Raindrops pearled the window -

There I am, thirteen years old -

Leggy and artless -

My hair in my eyes - 

Caught by the Brownie on a rocky shore -

Sunday 13 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

The calliope ...

When I heard the calliope, I thought of Mr Dark  - 

The boy with pale ancient eyes -

The prancing horses - 

The years flickering past - 

Saturday 12 December 2020

Salisbury 

Wiltshire 

Our proud island nation ...

I remembered the words I'd heard in pinched

gardens - 

The jowly patriots - 

The cherished Skoda on the drive- 

The Daily Mail -

This was the time for magical thinking -

Taking back control -

Freedom -

Sovereignty - 

Our proud island nation -

Friday 11 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset

A bright flag of light

The Granary was a bright flag of light - 

The river a dark mirror - 

The moon a sliver of bone -

Thursday 10 January 2020

Wareham 

Dorset

The lichened tree ...

Sawing up the fallen branches, I remembered George - 

The gentle strength of his hands -

His gaze across the final river - 

There was a bridge across that water - 

A trail of light in the darkness -

I never saw him cross that river - 

Yet sawing the wood, I hold him close, as he'd held Wallace - 

His grandson, too briefly held - 

When I hold Wallace, I hold George too -

He's with me now as it grows dark - 

Who I know somehow, though I don't know how -

Waiting, like me, for apples to grow on the lichened tree -

Wednesday 9 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

The strong names of their kingdom ...

Once men marked by weather and hard seasons had walked this way - 

They'd followed one of the old roads -

Felt the wind from the sea against their skin -

The flint and chalk beneath their feet - 

They knew the strong names of their kingdom - 

Burning Cliff - 

Split Rock -

Daggers Gate -

White Nothe -

They breathed its air - 

They knew its stars above coombe and barrow -

The smell of the smoke from their father's hearths -

Tuesday 8 December 2020

Whitenothe 

Ringstead 

Dorset 

Our breath touching nothingness ...

The yacht was almost hidden by the mist -

A chill shadow merging with air and water -

No voices, no birdsong - 

Only the bend in the river - 

Our breath touching nothingness - 

Monday 7 December 2020

River Frome

Ridge 

Dorset

Johnny, remember me ...

I'm listening to John Leyton sing Johnny, remember me - 

The girls with their spooky hair sing the chorus - 

I picture Johnny in The Stardust -

Joe Meek's eyes like pencil points - 

A gangster wearing a Turnbull & Asher shirt - 

The sheen of violence - 

The girls singing - 

Johnny, remember me - 

Sunday 6 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

A pterodactyl flew slowly across a northern lounge...

Dinosaurs roared again over Zoom -

On top of the chest of drawers there was now a primeval world - 

Swift predators sensed gentle long necked prey - 

In Scarborough, a volcano spouted fire - 

A pterodactyl flew slowly across a northern lounge - 

Saturday 5 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

The green of the field ..

We walked to the Walled Garden - 

Crows flew between leafless trees - 

Yesterday's chill rain had swollen streams and river - 

Brown withered ferns crumbled between my fingers - 

A dead tree was like bone - 

Yet the green of the field was still a memory of summer - 

Friday 4 December 2020

Like the hand of God ...

Light falls into the room where I'm reading - 

I look up to see the painting of the two boys with their cool cuts -

I see the weird plants Tito gave us -

The leather armchair -

A glimpse of the garden -

A pale sky - 

I'm reading  Shanghai Baby -

They burned this book in China -

Flames ate its debauched decadent pages -

Slave to a foreign culture -

I savored each of its aphorisms and wonderful sentences - 

That moment of common feeling -

Like the hand of God reaching down in an empty gesture to the world -

Thursday 3 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Gentle snuffler ...

The cheery warden had told us about the pig - 

I'd imagined we'd see a nervy boar - 

A tusked lord of the wildwood - 

We saw instead a gentle snuffler -

Glancing at us like an antiquarian - 

Bemused and scholarly - 

Lost in his arcane study of ferns and roots - 

Wednesday 2 December 2020

Arne 

Dorset 

A real pulp shocker ...

The logs wait for the flames -

Lichened twigs from chill hedgerows will warm this small room - 

I'll turn the pages of a foxed Panther - 

A real pulp shocker - 

I'll walk in my mind through the streets of Innsmouth -

See a figure wearing a crown of misshapen gold -

Tuesday 1 December 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Reading Capitalist Realism ...

I'm reading Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism -

I think of him listening to Kurt Cobain -

Watching Children of Men - 

Wandering in some brutalist mall -

He pulled back the curtain -

This slim volume is like a Molotov -

What a name for a chapter -

It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism -

Monday 30 November 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

A bird sang in a shining tree ...

I looked up through chill branches to see the blue - 

I forgot my sad thoughts -

A bird sang in a shining tree - 

Sunday 29 November 2020

Bowling Green Wood 

Lulworth 

Dorset 

A true born English lad ...

A boy in a G A Henty story would scramble down this path -

He'd be called Harry -

Blue eyed and tousle haired -

He'd see smugglers landing brandy in the cove -

He'd show his pluck -

Not a doubt in his head -

A true born English lad -

Tuesday 26 November 2020

Whitenothe

Dorset 

Laughter in the Close ...

I heard laughter in the Close -

School boys from the school where Golding taught -

They stood before the house with yellow windows -

Their laughter heard in the quiet rooms -

Any moment they might surely dance - 

Thin shadows casting off their clothes - 

Friday 28 November 2020

Cathedral Close

Salisbury 

Whitenothe Cottages ...

Llewellyn Powys lived here for a while, Neill said - 

I looked at row of coastguard cottages - 

Windshaken and facing the sea -

The smugglers path a zig zag of vertigo -

I pictured the gentle mage, standing before an attic window - 

Not yet putting on his green coat - 

But it hanging nearby in the echoing room - 

.

Thursday 26 November 2020

Whitenothe

Ringstead 

Dorset 

The leafless tree ...

The fingerpost was a like a leafless tree -

Penelope and I sat near it, tiny birds at our feet -

I remembered the warm ocean and bright flowers at the end of the world -

Here, on the November beach -

The pale sky above these wonderful names on the branches of the tree -

I remembered the beautiful wounded land -

The stars I could reach out and touch, just above my head - 

Lifting up my hand to hold them between my fingers -

Wednesday 25 November 2020

Middle Beach

Studland 

Dorset 

Coffee and Beryl Bainbridge ...

It was time for coffee and Beryl Bainbridge - 

Each sip like one of her wasp sting sentences -

Whilst I drink one bitter cup, Bunny burns a desperate letter - 

O'Hara says George, salt of the earth -

Dawn sobs in her dressing room - 

Stella nips out for cigarettes - 

She's strange and sexy in her munitions girl's

 overalls -

I know the words she says - 

But usually nobody likes the sound of them -

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Tuesday 24 November 2020

Each turning taking you deeper ...

.

I'm listening to The Lovecraft Investigations -

The Whisperer in Darkness -

It's like being in a disquieting maze - 

No thread to hold - 

Hearing words spoken in the language of angels- -

Each turning taking you deeper - 

Further and further from the light - 

Monday 23 November 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

The Green Child ...

I'm reading The Green Child -

It's like being in a dream - 

Walking with those green children - 

The November garden becoming strange and beautiful -

The anarchist poet weaving his story - 

The green girl's body like a slender reed - 

The river running backwards - 

The surface of the world hiding wonders -

Sunday 22 November 2020

The Old School House

East Stoke 

Dorset 

A yellow sun in the stone's sky ..

We walked past the birch trees, towards the reedy shore -

In summer, dragonflies lorded it here -

We found thevoebbke near a pool like a dark window - 

I saw the curling waves of a pale blue sea painted upon the stone - 

Three birds flying above the sea - 

A yellow sun in the stone's sky - 

Its bright rays painted like petals of a flower - 

Saturday 21 November 2020

Arne

Dorset 

The daddy dinosaur was washed away ...

Dinosaurs will now roam our kitchen -

Gentle long necked saurians will greet us whilst we fill the kettle - 

Wallace will cast his eye over our motley herd - 

He'll remember some awesome scenario - 

He'll hold up a bold triceratops - 

This one will protect the baby long neck he'll say -

The daddy dinosaur was washed away -

Friday 20 November 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Walking from Daggers Gate ...

From Daggers Gate we walked towards the sea - 

Gorse and blackthorn hid the smugglers path - 

All was bathed in light - 

Each wave, each blade of salt rimed grass - 

Touched by heaven - 

Friday 20 November 2020

The Warren 

Durdle Door 

Dorset 

The wind blew winter ...

The rain stung our faces on the high hill -

We'd followed the white path upwards -

The wind blew winter into our bones - 

Wednesday 18 November 2020

Challow Hill 

Corfe

Dorset 

Mr Sooty's stories ...

I think of the stories Mr Sooty told us -

The jackdaw's hoard - 

The trapped owls -

The witches bottles -

The glimpses of yellow feathers - 

Then of Tom, and Mister Grimes -

The hellish roofscape of smoking chimneys -

Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby -

Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid -

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Tuesday 17 November 2029

Reading In Patagonia ...

I'm reading In Patagonia -

It brings back a memory of apple orchards -

Anne wearing a green dress - 

The Oast House - 

The small church on the hill - 

The  bright grass we lay on -

Monday November 16 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Lost crowns ...

Walking through the dunes, I remembered the story about three lost crowns - 

Grey waves broke upon the shore - 

A cold wind blew through the marram grass - 

There were dark clouds in the sky -

Mounds of sand and thin soil hiding flint and bone -

Any moment I might see a thin shape cross the path - 

I remembered the name of the story -

A Warning To The Curious -

The icy guile of the man who wrote it - 

How I'd put the book down, and looked round the room for shadows -

Sunday 15 November 2020

Middle Beach 

Studland 

Dorset 

Annick's question ...

I've just read The Outsider -

I was taken by the photograph I saw of Camus -

Cigarette in his tight mouth, like a tec in a LA noir -

I remember Annick -

I think of the question she should have asked me -

Christophe, is the sun in your eyes ? - 

Saturday 14 November 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Lights above Gulf Breeze ...

I'm watching a programme about UFOs on Blaze -

There's a craggy jawed sky watcher -

I'm watching him now -

There are weird lights above Gulf Breeze -

Glimpses of redacted USAF documents -

Bearded chins of shark fishermen -

A green glow lighting up the sea -

This is just the tip of the iceberg the sky watcher says -

Friday 13 November 2020

The Old School House 

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Lords of the Wildwood ..

Whilst we walked, the darkness thickened -

Alders cast their last twisted shadows -

Stags roared monstrously in the tangled wood -

I pictured men baying in a wild dance - 

Some with antlers growing fast from their spellbound heads 

Tongues too large for their gaping mouths -

Their bodies painted - 

Hearts pounding in their glistening chests -

Roaring with the stags -

Leaping over smoking fires - 

Lords of the Wildwood -

Their blood given to the trees -

Thursday 12 November 2020

Highwood 

Dorset 

Golden leaves ...

Leaves fell on the summer shore - 

We'd sunbathed here, under these shapely trees - 

Lay on the warm sand, not feeling the touch of invisible golden leaves - 

Our skin still salty, our clothes still cast to one side - 

Not seeing or feeling the leaves - 

Falling one by one from a flawless sky -

Wednesday 11 November 2020

Shipstal Point 

Arne 

Dorset 

Bright star ..

The autumn leaves reminded Anne of Bloomsbury squares - 

The pale statues under golden trees - 

The stilled fountains -

The scholars nearby, in dimly lit libraries -

The museum filling with darkness -

I remembered my younger self -

Walking across Russell Square -

The windows opened to the night -

The feeling of wonderful loneliness -

I wore a leather jacket -

I carried my heart like a bright star in my pocket -

Wednesday 11 November 2020

Arne

Dorset

End times sky ...

I gazed at the clouds above the dove grey sea - 

Two boys were swimming in the still bay -

An end times sky touched Ballard Down - 

Tuesday 10 November 2020

Swanage 

Dorset 

The cruel radio ...

We walked past The Masala -

I remembered the election night dhal -

The fiery chutney - 

The chilled Cobra -

The gentle waiters' smiles -

We shared stories of brave door knocking in Brexit streets -

Staffies straining in narrow hallways -

Waiting for the cruel radio - 

Our hearts racing as the moments passed - 

Tuesday 10 November 2020

The Masala

Swanage 

Dorset 

They left these quiet fields ...

They left these quiet fields -

They left the memory of their young beauty in the water meadows - 

I can read their names - 

Walter Cobb -

Richard Cobb -

Ralph Twisden Butler -

Amar Somerset Twisden -

Twelve other names - 

They'd walked where I walk - 

Their shadows touch mine - 

They watch the minnows in the shallows of the river - 

Buttercups are wreathed around their bones - 

Monday 9 November 2020

East Stoke 

Dorset