…the onward car and traveling train,
the earphones, ipods, bags and macs,
the shuddering seat and flying swans
and lady laughing at her screen
and so I stagger out of this box
and twitter with a taxi man:
about I face, twitter, taxi,
into a carriage and backwards car
reversing homeward, crazy, speeding
macs and bags and ipods, earphones,
the train traveling and car onwards.
I slowly open my front door,
yak and yak and lie and snore
and then re-dawn, return, and then…
Let’s step towards vibrating dawn
from gloom to light, quivering delight;
stroll on a path, turn time around
- any backward glances drain our future.
Feel for a fall in every movement:
ends and means don’t mean an end:
lust to act and drop every moment
into sunshine - away with shadow.
There He stands across a bridge
- sets no traps - so trip the trap,
reach for fingers, feel no edges;
smiling eyes and laugh out loud.
in a big house,
alone.
At dawn the central heating moans
a high whine;
wood and plaster kick, knock
and heat turns up a winter wick.
Is it loneliness?
Not really.
Disconnected head and heart?
Possibly.
Disconnected?
At a café in Kendal
where I drink coffee
Andrew chooses another table,
sits down,
smiles at strangers;
waits to see what happens next.
He loves them, you see.
Mostly, people love him back;
particularly old ones, Sages.
He makes them feel special,
and an encounter
warms the place.
At night, he sleeps
like an angel.
There is a love that’s only locked
inside my little trouser pocket
and covered by my fist and luck it
never peeps – a shipwreck
lies there snug in the warmth and dark
keeping ancient secrets
behind a leather wallet
quaking as I walk.
Once it did come out to play
in brightness of the daytime
but now not even in a sliver of moonshine
it’s certain, safer, to stay; to stay.
of the sea,
a wet crescent of aqua blue,
fizzes up to a pencil line
dropped from a cobalt sky.
In the marine,
streaks of white bubble
like a lady’s hair, floating - but really
air pushed up by moon and water, rock.
Behind, see angled land, grass and stone
and sand and green
corrugated weed and looking down to
boots and hanging ochre hands.
Everything made of water - levelled of course -
a Famous Artist’s watercolour.
In autumn, shall we walk?
You don’t feel like going, I can tell.
There’s much to do of consequence;
houses, youtube, twitter, email;
it’s warm here, you’re entranced
but Ithaca calls, there’s no choice!
Cut loose,
wave goodbye to neighbours;
say toodle-oo to a setsquare home
and head out onto a narrowing lane
past woods, puddles, rivers,
dappled shade and cows in clover.
No looking back.
Come on, leg it.
We’ll go for a way
along your special trail.
Put down pencil, paper, books
because very soon now, go you must.
