In desolate dark
churchyards
lichen laden
headstones
mark your place

Could find you on
a map of orderly
death rows
plotted and paid for
with your Co-op
plan

Very good at organising
your final resting
weren't you?

Pity you didn't
work out the cost
to the family's
funeral debt

Every time I walk
the dog
he repays the
interest in piss

The skeletal
limbs of laylandii
grab down as if
to pitch us down
to join you

Nights spent working
lost in thoughts
Distraught and lonely.

Never any ambitions
Longing for you
Hiding all emotion.

Forgotten by friends
Invisible wounds bleed
Drowning by isolation.

Congestion of heart
Distinction of solitude
Tears flowing downward.

INVERSNAID (GREAT POETRY WORKSHOP)

Gerard manley Hopkins

 
THIS darksome burn, horseback brown,

His rollrock highroad roaring down,

In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam

Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

 
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
        
Turns and twindles over the broth

Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,

It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

 
Degged with dew, dappled with dew

the worlds a fast moving away
towards eternity ….
moms and pops
play hide and seek equally
in the far folds of the universe
one has yet to traverse

an outstanding poet like you
as I stand out too

but you are exquisite
what am I
you alone can say
a legend will I become like you one day,
someday
only heavens can portray
let me not my wisdom betray
as I stand out in the garden all alone
Seeing the clouds go bye
in search of the ones since gone

man…
a ticket to space for me

my love has dried up
like bags of old tea
stale and tasteless
it offends the senses

I sit within circles of glass
knowing it all will shatter
because the time has come
to close the windows on our love

once your touch excited my mind
once we lived on the edge of reason
and now we dodge each other
ignoring the truth as it bites

I try to reignite the flames
I feed the fire with love
but it refuses to catch
I am extinguished

SHORT POEM INSPIRED BY A COMMENT FROM
A FELLOW POET NAMED, LOVED

Your words are prophecy
and strike electric
fierce and bold
fire
searing the soul
finding me hidden
in dark places
where no one
knows the way
uncovering my fears
and yours= own….

“mom’s in her grave
And someone is on
the next train”

Blossomed daffodils
gracing windowsills
bluebells bloom
lighting the gloom
fields of green
lush and serene
silver birch trees
whistling in the breeze
natures glory
never-ending story

On multi-coloured cliffs
comedic seagulls
escape the intruders
in shifts

Playing a Seagull game
of chess
they nest and make
use of cliff condominiums
hide and seek

Alice a nordic beauty
(If there was a contest)
a winner if I ever saw one

Reaching for the Seagulls'
eggs
the birds suddenly
attack

"put down our young!"
"put down our young!"
they screech
all Alice can do
is reach for the ledge

draw
an outline
and form it

my strong smooth hands
along the thighs
the hips
the stomach the ribs

up to cup the perfection
the delicate blades of
shoulder
the strong limber neck
and throat arched just
right

and tresses
that catch the light
and smell of summer
days and fresh winter
mornings

put a glitter in the eye
and a pull of a smile
at the corners of
a dimpled mouth

all I need is the heart
but this is the key
that breaks all others