Life not a precedent

Long filaments
Fungiglide for years

For miles

Among leaf-
Littered remains.

Your dead father
(His love for you
Was not pure)

Unfurls
Phantasmogoric
In red orange
Gold

Singing formulae

Mushroomed
Sporing

Claiming the
Cosmos

Saying
Nothing

Clouding the
Old horizon
Of pernicious
And incurable



Hope.



Rot well
Daddy

Rot well
And return

Not.

The day John died
I was drunk

He, no alcoholic
Yes he
Who had some.

No he did not feel that February 2017

They pummelled his chest,
Their job,
They did,

I begged let him go-too long to pump

Grubbing up shrubs
Make a safe path-

This one who
Crosses ravines
On invisible tightropes

And falls
Cartoon
To puffs of dust
And then
Resumes

I went into the darkness

I did

Where sensible people leave
Alone

And felt the ultimate blackness

I did

It was so cold so sure so

Strong.

Black yang

Not bad

White yin

Not good

No emotion

Good bad
Indifferent

No notion who am
Within

Longer now,
Thickened and
Harder to trim;

Toenails turning to
Horn

Re-turning to animal
With age.

Head surrounded by
Stars;
Containing their rocks
And revolutions,

But feet merging with
Mud,
Cracked skin in
Moist balm,
Rooting.

This, then,
Age advancing;
Goodbye to love,
To youth and
Longing.

Stars and clay,

Destination

And all around
The elderly,

Sleeping

Railway sleeper
For a bed
With hollowed
Back buttocks
Heel and head:-

We like to think
Life precedes death

Why?

Does sleep precede
Awakening

Dream the real

Reality the ideal?

Before existence,
Prior
Existence a blow,
And afterthought
Of universal flow:-

Freight train coming

Lift torso from
Timber chamber
And move

Move on

Move
Sleep over
Exists first light

Then dawn

Home again
Home at last
The picture hangs

The man cut down

Rub soreness
From the neck

(Baby
Umbilus strangled
Slips the
Noose,
Scream slimy relief)

And born
Yet again
To express

Poppy remembers
Grandpas old coat
And the silk
Cravat and the
Pen that defines
Without shame
The lover of beauty

Awakening
New dawn

And all
Pretentions

Drop away

Full
The moon

Full to aurora
Bursting

The small i
Dormant this
Decade and
More

Leaf in order
I

Shall flower
And fruit
In order

Spreading
Benificence

At last

Across the land

magpie black, white
etched on blue grey steel
sky

tree bare,
buds in relief

over sloping roof.

now magpies,
fluttering to rest,
white and black,
mate.

never believed in
perspective,
history nor
evolution,

the game of birds
coupling,
pigeon dances
I had seen, yet
still
without belief.

on my man-couch,
reclining,

western cave in
the east,
facing south-

am I at last so
wrong? about
everything?

tomorrow I burst
like the bud

then we shall see
order or
chaos.

will this doubt become
flower
fruit
or leaf?

Rotting corpse
Chained around the neck

Has fallen
Finally from
Nostril zone.

Bad deeds
Undone

All is left

And come
To right

The sweetest

Smell

Of freedom

Spikes fix above the
Dance shop
Pink

With frills tutus and
Little girls shepherded
By disappointed mums.

North-west
A dark flock massed
Swooping at dusk

Coating the pink in white
Black-spotted
Guano.

Birds.

If they connect
Those tiny
Brains...

Moon keeps moving

Why not stay still?

Aha

Moving

Movement

Life

Crows
Pruning
Sleeping lime

Take dead stalks
Only

To build
Home

In the first frost before
Dawn
With the addled mind

Befuddled by last night
Late wine

There

I say there

In the parched
Throat

Grinning for
Eggs poached

There is I say there

In that muffled moment

Of awakening

Lies

(Half choked
Half laughing)

The truth.

I do not wish

To disguise

The tears-

They furrowed

Who I am

Drink all day

Do not

Be afraid

Of death

When knife

Slices

There is

Now

No-one

There

So full of emptiness

Each miniscule fibre

Vibrates with

Intensity of far off star-

What are orbs but eyes

Perceiving cold blankness

Of space

Hurtling ever out

Never to return?

What this mouth but

Screeching creation-

May hole be made

From black despair?

Rips in fabric

Reveal scarlet lining of

Life-

And way beyond all

Understanding a

Solidity of

Unremarkable

Faith-

What can possibly go

Wrong?

Why everything of

Course

And yet

Yet

Lies not with bacteria
Nor death
Nor the
Remorseless march
Of time.

The problem with decay
Is the whole cycle of
Seasons to
Decompose.

Impatient

Throw me on a fire-
A big one-
And hasten the
Lovely oblivion

To laughing life

Surely a sludge
Of knowledge
Lodged
Somewhere

In remnant brain

If not

The wall-stare
Did better
Than even
Master knew

In deepest shaft
Of coal-black
Consciousness
I lay

Dormant these millenia

Until in time existence flow

Unabstracted by thought

God blew life
Through nostril beard and mouth.

Shimmering in carbon
Granules I rose
To green sod and walked

Somehow creatured

Some way
Man

She came she went

She came she went

She came she went

Having no-mind
To make up

I simply witness
This event

Your mystery deepens

Diamond of a
Thousand facets

Irridescent you
Sparkle

My eye to blindness
Dazzled by
Loveliness.

When you walk
Your sway sinks
Ships in the south
China sea,
Far away

When you sit
Space rockets
Accelerate to
Galaxies unknown

And when you lie
Down...

Well

By your ***.

In moonlight your
Rhythms upset and
Entice in
Equal measure.

Mysterious goddess
Of earth
Of soul
Of soil

What to do with
Such fabulous
Witching power?

She moves like
A whisper

I feel her flush
My ear with a
Tickle brush
Of calligraphic pleasure.

You cannot exactly
See her

She moves like a
Breeze or
Jasmine scent

And then,
Gone,

Only the sweetened
Fragrance

Of a pure heart

In being

You cannot remake a day
Cannot remodel it
In clay

Goodbye
It is gone

Wake up
Still breath
Steams

Today

The only
The best day
Of your life

The inconvenience
Of death
Is suddenness.

Sun rose late

Mid-winter

Yet rose she did
And bloom into breath

Once again
Did we

O these
Cherry blossom
Words

Flutter from
The page

As shall I

Unthumbed by new
Generation
Language

Algorthymic

Who? What
Who? What
Am I?

Walked 10,000 miles

100 years

Who what
Carried canvas sack

Shed tears
Who what-

Now sit and ponder
Who? What
Who? What
Am I

Yes
I laid you
Egg words
Soft round
Full of paternal
Love
*****
Yolk

Yes
I scooped out
Sand and
Covered you
Turtles
On the beach

And now I roam
The sea
And your words
Shell your little
Webbed legs

Alone

So tired
So sleepy
And curled
Your *******
And my arms
All around.

Too tired for
Thought
And only the
Whisp of hair
Curled
Mirror whorl to
Ear

Match to fierce
Tornado
Passion

And so tired
So sleepy-
Disarmed

Only the moon
Defines our day
With orbit

Only sunshine
Allows our life

Only our ***
Creates our people

Only your love
Made me whole

New moon drifts away
3.87 cenimetres
Each year

The night shall stretch
And die

You left
All at once

Only I cry
I cry
I cry

2
Not one iota
Of support
From birth to
Gray day-

How does the impulse
Live on?

The wondrous joy
Of being
Of creating

With the great impediment
Of family
Friend
Discouragement.

If I look east
I Walk west

Down
Up
And
Around
All
Is

Perfect
Especially

Failure

1
London road lights
Blind intensity
And the loved oblivion

Of starless
Blackness is
Lost-

Lost souls
Seek succour
In neon

And the only
Sun
Lies sullen
And disengaged-

Moon too
Disinclined to
Shine

On the
Unbelieving.

The need for love
(What that may
Be)
Unremitting-

Lightness and
Absence
Unsure-

Heart flutters
Questing for pace-

Centenerian haul of long
Long

Overdue
Survival

Too many

The ways

Of this world

The next

Too much

To be known

In one mind

Or seed

To

Be

Sown

Top hat
Tails

Military men

Have that
Bearing

Scarlet waistcoat

Long hours
On parade

London hotel doorman

Age grew a hat,
Youth wore none,

Sun touched
Madness.

Snow peaked roof
Now rain snow sun

My age
Grew a hat

Away in the world,
So hard those years.

Back through gateless
Gate

Where waters meet

And fifty monks
All fallen in
The river

Laugh.

And some fool said
10,000 words a day

And this one
Reply
Is all-

What?

And take the
Plunging love
Of language

And turn it
Into job.

Nothing to say

Say it

Ok
Go dig coal

I await the
Diamond

Did you see
My portrait?

Tiny figure in a corner of
Mountains and lakes

This is who I am

Small

Not

Insignificant

Jade tree cuttings
In window sill tray

Pictures on walls

Panama hat
Hooked

Not a stick of
Furniture
To soften the bones

Home sweet home

Crescent moon
Through
Undraped window

Old silk gown
Neglected these
Many years.

How good to slip
Arms into wide sleeves

To pull the silken cord
Tight
Around
*** belly.

Black side in,
Dragon subdued

Green side outer,
Phoenix
And blossoms.

O to rise from
Ashen life
Lost

Anew

Renewed

(With tear on cheek
Writing love poems
To her)

And so
Fog

Descends.

Fields from train
Disappeared

And luxurious
Time

Lost,
Sacrificed

Which creator whistled
Lines
Mapping outback
Lands

Who sang the rings
Of saturn into being

Which one danced
The spinning orbital
Rocks

Yet forgot to paint
The blue
The green

Forgot to breathe life
Into these
Desolate stones

Cold as hell frozen
Over
Or
Bubbling
Hot
But
Rock
?

From your end of
Telescope

Thirty years scans
Infinity

From my end merest
Blink of eye.

When slightest wink
Of billion mile
Star

Outlasts every planet
In the sky

In the beginning
Was the poem

What god made
Better than this sad
Universe only
I and you can make
With words

Sullied by overuse-

I love this world this poem

This notion that only
I and you may
Understand

This darkest night

Where do seagulls
Sleep

On the swell swell
Swell
With undertow deep
Deep deep

In town on house or
Factory
Surely not branched
In birch

(Moving to cities
Huddled for warmth)

And when switch
Cuts
You stay with pain
The pain pain

Take the strain strain
Strain
When deep undertow

Holds you down down
Down

This may be where
Seagulls sleep

In the brain brain
Brain

Tiny bit of rock
Hung
Unsupported,
Caressed by
Morning star

Small light given free

O how i love the early pre-dawn

And you
Reading
Nothing else

How your reading has
Helped this two year
Bad dream
Pass.

You do not know
How you
Kept this old soul
Alive.

Thank you
And from this
Miraculous sliver
Of moon

Accept the silver spoon of love

I would sing
To you
My love

Could I sing

I would dance
With you

Could I dance

I would take
You fly
My love

Could I fly

But cannot

So
Please
My love

Accept this
Metronomic
Beating heart

In lieu