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.

Play

Sons, alive in my mind’s eye,

wear guitar and tee-shirts, lyrical ones

strum and (in sing-song) blue notes fly;

faces aglow like hot stones.

Strings are shimmering side-by-side

and faces stand eager in the bar-room door;

enjoying the craick, along for the ride

of brothers and magical music once more.

Maybe

The first word of any new day

could maybe be yes or maybe no;

both words seem equally valid

reactions to onrushing light.

Maybe look romantically back to yesterday’s love

or glance for tomorrow and hyena laugh:

inexorable fate is pushing through now;

growing from substances, maybes and dreams.

Maybe laughter is tearful and ugly's a beauty

- something is nothing – and maybe we’re falling

conscripted by newness, up, into destiny;

hello and, well, thank you, maybe today.