Life’s backdrop

One day we set off

on a little trip,

oh Lord, to hike up

a middle eastern hilltop

in a madcap

attempt to find (on top)

a theatre of blocks

and yet no cairns of rocks

were there to guide or map

our way on up;

no arrows, dots

of paint - but on we stepped

(not at a trot)

without a single drop

of water in a cup

(to sip or sup)

and we didn’t stop

until we reached the top

where we three chaps

gave up

and stopped,

regrouped,

then clocked

we’re in the soup

and on that spot

we dropped

our cross.

Andrew will

dance through time like Peter Pan

and keep us dancing still;

freer than a sober man

or a girl who drank her fill.

Dancing’s like a spirit

that sober men endure

but drunken folk enjoy it

before they lie and snore.

Kick your feet and wave your hands,

feel the music’s wave;

drunk or sober, help us dance

like Elvis from the grave.

To my sons

I fear I did not give

enough attention, time,

and, when I look death in the face,

will my dreamed-of God forgive

a working father’s crime

not far beyond our last embrace?

For Emily Dickinson

I will not tally letters up

- or dots, apostrophes,

or add the words typed on a sheet

of prancing poetry.

Instead, I want to simply take

a feeling of the whole

enwrapped in music, rhythms – breaks -

and resonate a soul.

Fear and Melancholy

Through a perspex sheeting I can see

a massive ocean pushing out her strokes;

knowing, for a time, I won’t be caught

and pulled into her cold eternity.

With all the power sea invokes,

whitened by salt, let’s not fight!

Flight! This is no place for single human power

and not because I’m older, slow in years,

unerringly losing dignity.

No! Because, unending, hour by hour,

those waves push into solid stone with tears;

unlevelled water has no fear or pity.

Poet, move on! Feeling I will stand inevitably

one day and turn back towards the flow;

against those tumblers’ sure retreat, advance,

and so re-enter sweet eternity,

traveling fast but also, even, slow.

That day the waiting sea will take my sense.

Swimming

Today, relaxing, floating,

I’m lifted by a milky sea until

the sirens call and sing

and down I dive into a deeper chill.

That’s when I start to swim

up and on towards a golden rim

and stand again as I had once begun;

welcomed home into Byzantium.

Yeats could feel

a desire to be young,

greener than springtime trees,

and sing assembled songs

to sweetly hit top C’s,

and play like butterflies

(less caring how land lies)

ignore the path – so long

- that leads into Byzantium.