each poetic venture
a brief light
shooting star
across a silent sky.

Man invented the corner
and has been cutting them ever since
ever since he was in a manufactured hurry
timing himself each step of the day
and night is counted in hours of sleep
not getting your share is common complaint
I have hidden around many corners
towns and cities are full of them.

A matched pair of ROARING DRAGONS
flew low over our Hamlet
Bristling with weapons of FIRE
Breathing Out Fire
trailing exhaust smoke

The Presence of The Holy Ghost
A cold October sky  
Geese make their way;
and Celtic Ancestors rejoice.

A land without streetlamps
gets black dark; we walk
the roads with torches ,
when winter rages for months.

All a sudden Summer Lights Up
and you need no streetlamps after all
or torches to see where you are walking;
how I miss the black dark of winter

with legs that can only take you so far
the mind traveller going places
I hitched a lift and read poetry aloud
to earn a crust on the way I sell fake stars
to unsuspecting billionaires
you know the types, too much money and no realistic way to spend it all before they die, so I help them along
the mind traveller is becoming my best friend
and I share some poetry to pass the time
just until we reach a destination that you wont find on any map.

Answers can come unexpected
when no question seemingly has been asked
the deep recesses of the heart
hold a language and discourse the mind can only wonder at

plucking poems like plucking flowers
could be misunderstood
plucking poems like plucking chickens
can be a hell of a job, when your hungry
and for your poems-
you will not even make the minimum wage.

sea monster opens its mouth
wide enough to regurgitate
vans lorries cars and people

A woman wearing perfect gums holding in place rows of perfect white teeth driving a shiny red sports car down a black smooth tarmac street
smiling as she sped past little houses surrounded by white picket fences
the hood down hair flowing singing alleluia, alleluia , alleluia , I use a toothpaste recommended by the dentists who are being paid for appearing in this advert and saying exactly what you expected them to.

I hear your voice
singing through the waters

Embraced by sea creatures
and carried reverently here

There are many fathoms
depth to your song

We must be standing
on opposite shores

There many fathoms
depth to your heart

Embraced by sea creatures
and carried reverently here

I hear your voice
Singing through the waters

if you think you have reached the heights
think again
summits are often cloudy

joined up thinking is so much hard work
none of it makes any sense
in the end

someone had courage
to write truthfully
this is enrichment

I pull on fashion
not my own

the small time
I let naked

stay naked
im free

its the wisp and the wasp of it all
dreaming to be stung awake
a new realisation , dawns
And it is lovely, beyond imagining

Beauty, truth, love
everything else
is just a sideshow.

Poetry has always been handed out,
paid for, gifted, free gratis,
here by an invisible benefactor,
who for the most part goes humbly, unnoticed.

my life as a medic was cut short
but the medic of my heart
lives on

I belong to the mountain shrine

HOLLYWOOD

wearing red berry
earrings
a crown of holly

pale makeup
covering

my white corpse
once living

in the average
normal

Bacteria, yes my Dracula friend
white and red blood cells
infested with so much thickening
Red made history
man made up stories
Still stories on the moor call
and here fangs wait, wait
to **** the marrow
**** the blood from every heart

brought to this moment on your wings of love
to let all your glory through;
this is no idle task-
indeed its a work forever in progress, forever new
forever the longest time imagined
to see you in the shine of an eye
hear you where silence reigns
and touch you at the waters edge.

Calm though seas are mountainous
That is the kind of peace to aim for

the record player is stacked with 45s
and the listeners are 40 years older
still whenever heard we give a little
boogie with our memories intact

you have to give beauty a chance
to break down your walls
that so you may take up the dance
and sing, poet, sing, once more.

We have travelled far since last Summer
Purple Crocuses peep upward, sunward
while buds are green tipping tree branches.
Our love is almost one year older, wiser,
hopefully we will take our chances, to love
this coming season a full cup, overflowing.
We have travelled far in our hearts, searching,
and found some comfort in the wild familiar.

go ahead and on your knees kiss the Earth
-make sure others see you and find you the object of their mirth

and you will rise to your feet having humbled yourself
- a whole lot lighter, and with a dance in your pilgrim step's

There is no sweat on my brow
no callouses on my hands
blood letting cuts or bruises.
That is all over for me now;
a past life of hard physical labour.
The question is am I working
to any kind of maximum
while all these things are absent.

cloaked in Winter night
we hibernate, once more,

remember the dead
their darkness, ours

this shared blackness
a painted mystery

long nights
shorter days.

everything boxed?

I am Captain Ahab
And this White Whale
I am its Master
or by Heaven and EARTH
You Whale lover
will die tied to me

poetry can be a theatrical escape
a puppet show
tweaked by a poets fingers

not by sight
do I believe

nor feelings
changeable as wind

emotions
so fickle

friends today
enemies tomorrow

faith living-
obscurity

memories come in layers
forgiveness too
forgiveness of others
and forgiveness of yourself.

tuning in
trying to
poetry

waves of turbulence
synchronized
to a heart beat

cut grass bird calls and the odd moo from the cattle
silver sea the smell of the cut green yellow daffodils
all framed in my window and completely free and
changing every continuous moment and I make up
the picture looking in from the other side outside
my window which is their window on me and mine

when you are all out of love songs
sing anyway

another ten thousand microwaved meals hit the sewer system
twice as fast as conventionally cooked food(this could be a fact)
poems the microwaved speech of poets hit the streets
ignored by the swirling masses catching trains and busses
on their way to somewhere else to escape what they cannot
fast food for fast lives fed on the go, forever on the go
wrapped in the verses of poets, disposable love songs
digesting molecules micro organisms to a shared sewer
running thick and stinking just beneath their feet.

The Library van has reversed into place
the same place it parks every month
It came over on the  9.30 am ferry
as it has done for at least twenty years.
Folk arrive like a small swarm of insects
all hurry out car doors laden with books.
This will increase come the dark winter
the time of Human slowed activity.
Come next spring, all will be a little wider read.

attention seeking
attention demanding
standing to attention
attention to place
attention at event
attention to anything
paying attention
lost attention
called to attention
full attention
attention deficit
attention denied
forfeited attention
losing attention
limited attention.

the only real way to live;
uniquely

The freedom of the night
trust you must sleep
go where you would rather not
a dream state to take you
deep, deep into your soul
deep inside your mind
deep inside helplessness
deep inside insecurity
deep inside your heart
deep inside your pain.

poetry eludes, hides where I cannot go
leaves me bereft, mourning in stale clothes
black as night unable to find my way
my mind closed up, a crab in its shell,
the tide washes in and the Sun rises
but no Sea or Sun touches my rag worn soul.

the face of a manikin
walks the city street

the face of a street
window shops

I have three cents
and hope they buy me a bed

As we gather round
crackling fire
All talk hushes
quietens
And finally dies.
In this world you say as little
as possible
While the doors of perception
are closed
opened wide
and deliberately
left
ajar....

the unruffled sea fills the bay with deep blue
flat calm as the pastel sky

all the seagulls have gathered at the shore
to chatter about their day

fishing must have been good out at sea
as they plunged from sky to sea to sky

from blue to blue and back again
to sing at end of day.

muscle memory fades
the mind still remembers
things it would forget-
a clean slate of recording
the simple things
not too repetitive
how to speak laugh cry
share the beauty and surprise

you took time to write down
your poetry
and within your poems
you seeded
a thousand generations

I took the afternoon boat from Oban to Mull
a bus to the far side of the Island
and pitched up my tent for three days.

The rain finally stopped on a Saturday morning.
I took the small ferry across the sound to Iona.

Here pilgrims feet for generations
have walked sunwise around the top a small hill
prayer and incantations, supplication.

St Columbus came over from Ireland
and preached the Good News all over Scotland
Iona where the veil is thin, his abbey stood.

Pilgrims ask the prayers of St Columba.
who pitched up his tent so many centuries ago
Iona, where the veil is thin.