Tracing summer in the clouds ...

Rain is falling on the gentle town - 

Visitors shiver in sad cagoules - 

Anne says this is now an English summer - 

Yet our bodies remember the warmth of languorous afternoons - 

Our tongues can taste the sea's salt - 

We can still trace summer in the clouds - 

Saturday 11 August 2018

Wareham 

Dorset

Watching Sicario 2: Soldado

The film was a shameless narco fest - 

Drug lordlings sneered - 

Helicopters flew low over the desert like vicious birds - 

Sicarios wore blood stained Rolexes -

An implacable Revenger never smiled - 

John Webster could have scripted this, I thought - 

20.00

Thursday 9 August 2018

The Rex

Wareham 

Dorset 

In the museum ...

The museum was full of gentle murmurs - 

I walked through the galleries like a shy antiquarian - 

I gazed at the swift merciless shape of a pliosaur - 

I saw a painting by Christopher Wood, a drawing by Augustus John -

A vice admiral glowered with his foxy beard - 

A naked woman gazed at the sea from a rooftop - 

She looked like a woman in a dream -

A gilt frame held a gentleman wearing a hanging wig - 

Underneath my feet were shards of Samian ware - 

Time was entangled here - 

I wore my future like clothes made out of mist - 

My past and present were braided in my hair - 

14.27

Thursday 9 August 2018

Dorset County Museum 

Dortchester 

The song of the world was yet to be sung ...

We swam in the twilight sea - 

The sky was a strange wonder of cloud - 

The warm water held us close - 

Sitting on the beach, I imagined the land to be empty of living things - 

In the sea were nameless creatures - 

The song of the world was yet unsung - 

19.30

Monday 6 August 2018

South Beach

Studland 

Dorset 

I half expected to see Mr Dark ...

Ray Bradbury should have visited Ponds, I thought - 

A deerhound sleeps behind the counter - 

Mannequins haunt the aisles -

I half expect to see Mr Dark - 

10.00

Tuesday 7 August 2018

Ponds 

Wareham

Dorset 

Other hands turning the key ...

The keys were left on the mantlepiece - 

Garage door, small key -

Front door, 2 keys - patio door -

My dad had written those words on the key tabs - 

I remembered how he'd dig in his pockets for the front door key - 

Back from the Day Centre, holding a James Patterson in his free hand - 

Glad to sink in his armchair and say oh my - 

Wearing his tweed jacket despite the sun - 

I've been in hotter places than this - 

I'd sit with him inside the lounge of memory - 

I saw all the long afternoons becoming this one - 

The house emptied - 

Closing the front door - 

Other hands turning the key - 

18.03

Monday 30 July 2018

Staunton Road

Havant 

I say goodbye in every room ...

The house in Staunton Road is empty now - 

Sunlight falls upon the new carpets in the bedrooms - 

The dining room furniture is on display in the hospice shop - 

I say goodbye in every room - 

14.00

Monday 30 July 2018

Havant