I have walked the bitter road

Where tangled briar romps

It is a place for dying

The twisted path for twisted thought

Minds bent out of shape beneath hanging branches

A narrow lonely place, built for one to travel

Uneven ground beneath unsteady feet

Landing is hard, rising harder still

Some fall, some follow the sign to lighter daysWhen you leave the bitter road

A little dry earth will cling to your feet

Because It never leaves you

A soft warm wall

Keeps reality at bay

When cold winds blow

Wrap yourself away

Stop the breeze on your thoughts

Bringing new ideas

To much comfort contorts

We all need a little pain

A shower of rain

It makes  us reflective

Sweeps out dead leaves

And gives true perspective

No matter what deeds are done

No matter what words are said

Blood that flows in a gutter

Is always the same colour red!

Go

Leave me no taste

A sample of you would be a waste

If I cannot dine on more

Then what is love for?

No one asked for this year

For universal fear

Or tears for those lost

There is no division

When every home becomes a prison

We are all scared

By what we have shared

We were in it together

Whatever the weather

Now we need a jump start

A shock to the heart

To get the world turning,

New life and learning after the burning

Fresh seed from the ashes of clashes

Will grow

If we want it to be so

Frustrated angry people

Pushed to the brink

Cease to think

They act

It's a fact!

A stew

That just about describes our human zoo

We are all mixed up and bubbling in the ***

Don't much matter if you like it or not

No never minds, what if's or what ever

Everyone eats if we all swim together

So bring up your bowl, eat as much as you wish

A lot of different vegetables will make a better dish!

Fiction causes friction

An untruth uttered and whispered, gets muttered

It grows until it throws  a shadow on the truth

Fake news screws and skews what we see

In a deception of perception

A false perfection

Losing reality

In a flood of banality!

You cannot possess a soul

Force it into chains

Crush a spirit and take what
remains

Make a slave

Own it from the cradle to the grave

You can use cruel ties

But you cannot bind

Freedom of the mind

Original thought

Cannot be bought

The world is all connected

And now we are infected

Years ago it started small

With a phone in the hall

And it grew-who knew?

Through telegraph, telex, fax

They sharpened the axe, and fed the fire

The flames of our destruction

Grew ever higher

And of course we made the plane

Do I need to explain

How miles of copper wire

Has caused us to expire!

Larks don't need parks

They need ploughed fields and waving grain

If they are to remain

They soar and sing of joy unbound

But they are rarely found

Advice not taken, words not heeded

The sharing of wisdom

Not wanted or needed

Now I am older and I know

Seeds on poor ground

Take some time to grow

Creatures of the mind

Searching for freedom

In  the misty space between dreams

They don't hunt

They farm

Sewing fear

Harvesting panic

Do not fret the climbing shadows on your wall

There are darker shadows in your head

And they are real

Peony sweet and smoky Jasmine calm

Foxglove fresh among the hedgerows

Clouds of summer colour

Splashy sweetness spice and sugar

Honey for the bees to sip and kiss the lips of flowers

Gently passing through the scented hours

Toughened glass

Women like me

Still around

You just can't see

We pick up names

As we go through life

Daughter Mother Sister Wife

Our role is often mapped and clear

Then we get to fifty and disappear

We want to shout I'm over here

We're not glam, we're not glum

Just somebody's mum

A little bit shopworn

But we did our bit

We brought up the kids

Took a whole load of sh*t

So please don't ignore us

We matter too

Just you wait till it happens to you

And it will!

Expectation leads to realisation

You think you climbed the wall

To discover that your pond is very small

Not a big fish after all

Hear my gentle song when the wind blows

The lyrics of faded memory are my words

The score was written long ago

Upon my heart

So let  our music start

A reminder around every breezy corner

In the tops of the trees and the waving branches as they shake their fingers at the moon

Follow the notes as they stir cobwebs spanning windows with hollowed eyes

In the dry space behind faded yellow curtains

Everywhere you tread my tune will follow

You will never be alone I promise

Listen to the band playing in your head if you need company

I will be there for you

Always

I won't forget

You caused my end

On that you can depend

Hear my song

A rare and rather precious bloom

The shining light in a darkened room

Someone special

Now and then

Gets closest to a perfect ten

The rest of us live in their shade

They never last

All flowers fade

Phenomenons are born not made

Time is water

An endless flooding tide

Which regulates our lives

It has no form

No shape

Beyond the ones that we give it

All are streams in a river

Which flows to a sea

When oceans dry

And weeks and months are gone

Time will carry on

What do you do when you get to the top?

Do you take a breath and stop and frown

Pause and look at the long way down

Do you wonder how long

You can keep your crown

Before someone else

With their eye on the prize

Starts their climb

And begins to rise

It’s tough at the top

So enjoy the view

Before someone else

Gets up there too

Staking their claim

And removing you!

I want to burn the page

Use my pen to fuel the ash of memory

Let my words take flight and lift your weary heart

Set the world alight in syllables of flame

To bring you written beauty in my name

Feed the hunger raw within

Satisfy the ache inside the skin

But that is where my rhymes begin

I cannot give what I desire

And write to set your soul on fire

Something deep inside of me

Demands a certain symmetry!

I wait for a bit

Watching my legs as they dangle

Bare feet

Not cold

I wonder

Try to talk myself out of it

Should I

Shouldn't I

My head is cloudy

I need to think

What's to lose?

Not much

What's to gain?

Brief pain

And then release

Peace

Hey that's a rhyme

It tickles me a final time

Should I try again

Be braver

Go back in and make it work

Sirens cut my thoughts into a thousand pieces

A smashed bottle on the sidewalk

They cluster below me

Ants around the leavings of a picnic

I'm here I call

But nobody is looking up

Because I already jumped

My glass is shattered

What's left is here

Roosting with the windswept pigeons

And the tiny plants that grow in the settlement cracks

Filling the voids in the building

And the one in me!

To let our wildest thoughts take flight

On gentle feathered wings of night

To break the bonds of earth and find

We leave our human chains behind

To soar and dip and skim the oceans roar

Released from all we were before

To feel the light and taste the air

Is not a gift that we can share

Still shackled to the ground it seems

We must content ourselves with dreams

Leaving birds to own the sky

While we look up and long to fly

For those who rise to seek the morning

Joyous airy sprits sing without words

A lyric tune so old

It tells of trees and the endless shifting sky

Warm earth and the clean dry whisper of grasses in the wind

Long before the restless hum of man

Drowned out the forever-song

And the rushing world forgot to listen

Sunrise on a fat contented morning

Yawning

Melted colours brushed across a waking sky

The place where rainbows come to die

Recycled as a new day dawning

A tide of doubt has swept my words

And covered them with sand

A cold and lonely beach

In some forgotten land

Smoke which drifts and curls
Feeding the senses
Frosty beginnings
Bacon on the hob
Snow in the air
Crackled brown leaves on warm wood fires
Frozen Pine and tar on the door
A needle sharp morning
Crisp as a whisper
Brim full
With the scent of a mountain winter
Essence of bottled sometime
A perfume of the past

When the wind blows chill

Withering fruit on the vine

It takes the music

From a poets soul

Snuffs out the lighted candle

Silencing notes that only you can hear

Rhymes in your head dry and cracked like forgotten paint

In an alley leading nowhere

The skull beneath the skin

The emptiness within

The meaning

Is gone

But the frost lives on

Winters song

You hope will bring

New hope of spring

Green shoots that bind

And heal within your fragile poets mind

Early morning

In the cool calm of a Sunday

Before the world has got its boots on


Flat and calm with possibility

Grey water

For a sleepless wanderer


Listening

To the roar of silence

Both deafening and beautiful

Salty old river

Flowing gently

Downwards

In space

Running off

The waterfall

That is my face

I'm tired

I'm not inspired

Poetic lease expired

None of us are sleeping

Fear is what is keeping

Half the world awake

Until we stagger up and take

Another step through another day

Six feet away

If the sky should fall

And leave the brittle bones of our living

Shattered

Like teeth in the blackened angry mouth

Of a hag

What then?

Do we weep salt tears

For that which is lost and cannot be found

Raise a fist in anger to a savage God

Who will not hear our cries

As we wander through our ruined lives

Looking for salvation.

Do we bend our backs?

Put stone on stone on stone and build a wall

Make it strong

To foil the ravening wolves

Of fear and cruel self doubt

A solid moat to keep them out

And us within

While we begin

Again!

My soul is a bird that is flying free

Soaring high

Swooping low

It takes me to places where I can't go

A joyous

Ragged

Wind blown

Crow

It sits and watches

From the memory tree

The one that grows

At the heart

Of me

If I could

I would write you a poem that speaks of midnight

And fill my pen with inky darkness and the bright cold light of stars

If I could

I would sing of the rolling moving sea that is never stilled

Cool grey and aquamarine would fill my palette as I brush the words

If I could

I would bring you lush hills and deep shady valleys in between

Pine green and Ochre are the threads in my rhyming tapestry

If I could

I would speak of dawns and sunsets bathed in infinite beauty

Hot pink and vivid tangerine silks gathered into a cloth of sound

If I could

I would write you a living landscape of colour to keep you warm on winter days

If only I could...

The past is a ribbon

Threaded with shiny beads

A curled string of memories

That once belonged to someone else

A blessed wine

Which stains  the richest lips

Plump fruit to kiss

To taste

To sip

In search of love divine

A room full of dark

    Hungry crows of worry peck at sleep

        Morpheus it seems is grounded

A leap into darkness

Where dragons may reside

A step into the infinite

Is for you to decide

Float free on the air

Before you crash and burn

Chaff on the winds of fortune

Embers falling to the rocks below

Washed by cruel waves

Ashes returned to earth

Grey and trodden underfoot

The crunch of cold dead hopes

On weary shoes

But fortune favours those

Who dare to test their newly feathered wings

The bird of freedom only sings

For ones that risk a fall, to reach a greater height

Only those who take a chance in flight

Will ever know if they were right!

Tread lightly

Hardly make a sound

Bow your heads

A gentle soul is leaving

No footsteps ring out

As he walks

He went as he lived

Without grand gesture

Or ringing bells

Just the whispered shadow

Of a good man passing

A thousand fallen souls

They leave no footprint

Make no sound

Walking silently

On dusty ground

Following the road

That leads to nowhere and beyond

Wool gathering

Not writing

Fear has taken my words

A lone and hungry wolf

Hiding in the fold of my mind

I cannot think

My thoughts drift

Like smoke through a window

Out into the air and the light

Where I dare not follow

When I was young

I always wanted to ride on a Unicycle

Quirky

Eccentric

Slightly odd

A bit like me I thought

I never did it

I was too scared

Now I am old

I want to ride on a Unicycle

Quirky

Eccentric

Slightly odd

A bit like me

But braver

I think I'll do it!

I need you

Like a summer wind that needs the rain

I need you

Like the breath of life for pleasure and for pain

I need you

Like a ticking clock that marks the hours

I need you

Like a humming bird among the flowers

I am your slave

We are chequers from the same box

Sailing in the same leaky boat

We all bail

We get to stay afloat

We don't bail

Then we fail

So think

Do you really wanna sink?

Listen to the silence

As the world holds its breath

And waits in hiding

Grass grows in the streets

Parking lots entwine with ivy

Around the rusty carts

And the spaces in-between

Yellow boxes faded by sun through empty windows

No breeze stirs the pavement cracks

Due for mending long ago

Thin cats lick their dusty paws

Stretching out on the hot trunks of cars

Sleeping peacefully

Until the bold rats come out to  play in the moonlight

Skipping down the hoardings

Unafraid

And what of the thousands

Their pale and haunted eyes

Looking from behind every curtain

Radios tuned

Listening

As the world holds its breath

And waits for life to begin again

The winds of change

Are blowing

We need to hear them sing

Open up and listen

To alarm bells as they ring

Learn from this experience

Like we never did before

This virus isn't kidding

It's already gone to war

Casualties are many

No-one wants a million more!

Leaving is not hard

Staying is hard

Tonight when all the fight is gone

I have no strength to carry on

Leaving is not hard

Goodbye is hard

Your life has years to run

But I am almost done

Leave me

Let me sleep

But take a memory to keep

Children play

Mouths open in silent wonder

Purple waves

Begin to roll

Lovers love

Holding hands

A final time

Together

Drowning

Faces lit with

Jasmine yellow

And fuchsia fire

Reflect the falling embers

Burning sky and haunted beauty

Sunset at the end of the world

Grief is a sea

A lonely place

First comes the shock

That slap in the face

It tells your brain

You can't take the pace

Leave the pain for a while

Drop out of the race

Sit on the side

Watch the world go by

Numb and chilled

Too stunned to cry

It will be too much

When Reality hits

Let's take it slow

Face the news in bits!

Twirl and sidestep

Sidestep twirl

A solemn dance

Over the abyss

Among the tins

And the discount bread

Partners weave

From afar

Marking endless time

In measured silence

A six feet waltz

Of the newly ******