On listening to Dr Gill ...

I thought of the yoga ladies -

Those innocents -

What would they make of these terrifying words ? -

This bitter fruit -

This work of a shame-making cabal -

These lies spoken by smiling men ? -


20.00
Friday 8 February 2019

Poole

Whispering a secret into a hollow tree ...

Birders warmed themselves before the wood burning stove -

An RSPB warden wore a waxed jacket -

Tiny skulls were arranged upon a table -

We would walk to Shipstal Point -

Icy rain would sweep across the harbour -

The tide would swallow saltings and sand bar -

I would whisper a secret into a hollow tree -


10.50
Friday 8 February 2019

Arne
Dorset

Sky Larking ...

I'm listening to Sky Larking -

I've thrown away my dark shirts -

I'm dancing to sly guitars -


16.00
Thursday 7 February 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset

The Kill ...

I'm reading The Kill - 

Zola is the man for these times -

I remember climbing a glass tower -

There was a roof garden -

Exquisite jazz -

Silk suits walking -

A rain fell -

I was unable to feel or see it -

Aristide was surely there -

He'd changed his name once more -

He and his brother held sway over this city -

They haunted its pristine canyons -

Instead of twenty franc pieces, fifty pound notes fell from the sky -


14.34
Wednesday 6 February 2019

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset

A dark jewel ...

I'm looking at one of Don McCullin's photographs -

How did he capture that gaze which so moves me ? -


I see the stiff savage hair -

The bearded weathered face -

The dark clothes -


Yet that gaze -

That sadness -

The remote place from which that gaze is directed -


It stays with me -

A dark jewel placed in my heart -


18.45
Tuesday 5 February 2019


The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

Zinging on the M 23 ...

I felt it -

That faint first zing of airport electricity -

That fascination -

The power of that spell from the air -

The white jets above the motorway -

The allure of shining travelators -

Laphroaig in Duty Free -

Cappuccinos in the departure lounge -

The joy and terror of take off -

The curve of the world below the clouds -

The blue emptiness above -


10.15
Monday 4 February 2019

M 23
Gatwick 

Imagining being a magician's nephew ..

I'm eating crumpets at four in the afternoon -

The icy world is beyond the window -


I imagine being in a Victorian parlour -

A high town house not far from the river -


There are hansom cabs in the sooty street -

Lamp posts as yet unlit -


An uncle upstairs with his secret books -

A dying world and one newly made -


16.00
Sunday 3 February 2019


The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset