The art of Zest

Take time to eat,

Andrew says, chew slow:

close your eyes

focus taste and tang and tingle fat

in glorious food-time:

even when bandits are about,

take time.

The Plank

A lady

in a meditation group,

her long hair plaited like rope,

with a cabin boy smile and

40 year old pirate’s eyes

said ’The one trouble with

meditation is I fall

fast asleep’.

 

She produced a stale air-bed,

puffed it loudly, added a

sheet, a pillow, polka dot

duvet, plumped her cloudy craft,

yawned, de-robed, boarded up and

pulled away.

Canute

I bawled at the sea

‘Does everyone suppress you

or is it just me?'

Father

I don’t know about you but

I’ve avoided writing poems

about Dad

turning working hands, at David Browns’,

on pinion, spur and helical gear

 

although, cogitating now by a winding river,

distant cars are meshing male and female parts;

gearbox dreams of speed and torque.

 

He worked on every Aston Martin

James Bond drove

so he saved the world

and he loved, he loved,

a beer and chat.

 

I don’t know about you.

Hoot for Life

A friend is scanning HEAT magazine

on a beach where a passionate sun belts him

so he takes off his hat and flourishes sweat.

 

Boiled, we take a steaming walk and clock

an older woman  sporting HOT

on a T-shirt over her large chest  - cup D;

 

so we lick ice cream and out from a beach hut

struts an aging man, neoprene black;

a sea-lion performer, a drama king,

ready to otter the waves on a surfboard,

buttocks trembling in rubber technology.

 

The sea is cold - and waves inevitably hit him,

hit him

and hit him again.

Dream

Sleep, Andrew, sleep:

when climbers inch walls,

we scramble, reach, and act as if

there is no way to fall.

 

But your smile and strangeness

makes timid people creep

and slide away from heaven

back to a cave of sleep.

 

You gaze out from windows

wave again, again,

seeking for an answer;

not why or where – but when?!

 

Crack the boring bubble,

take a dancing bow;

dancing in this moment,

in this now, for now.

 

Asleep, but never forget

we’re dancing at a Ball:

awake, asleep, you do know

the glory of it all.

 

Camping,

a tractor turns and its mechanical racket,

indescribable vibration,

up itself, makes no sense

while my three sons, asleep in a nearby tent,

celebrate

learning, feeling, singing, whispering, dancing.

 

Most clatter is hollow; spiraling labyrinthine ears

and once I sat in an empty cave and heard – Nothing.

Instinctively, I made up noises to cheer

my brain – sounds of people –

like these boys breathing and dreaming in a tent’s stocking;

yearning for the centre of a small warm circle.