Morning has broken

Today, fresh air
frees up a tweet of birds
from their shadows
on trees and roof and wire.
No cage but rain
and sun. My face turns
to unsolvable
puzzles - using brain
or a kiss
or small hands seemingly frail
and alive,
reaching, soaking, sunlit.

In love,

I’m as rushed as a rabbit
with a blindspot because
an automatic door
won’t open before
it bangs on my nose.

7 ages of man

-Birth
first breath
breath
breathing
breath
final breath
Death-

Hairs

All my hairs advise ‘it’s easy innit,
growing up and slowly changing color?’
never the same, although it does appear so.


Never the same in all their fine particulars;
length and shade or light and oil or texture,
sometimes slimy wet and often straw dry.


When they’re bright and shiny, new and silky,
everything seems easy when we’re younger:
pushing atoms ruthlessly away
and up, and on, and on and up to grey.

Humility

Humility – it wants
to split open your head
and plant a seed
behind both eyes.


Humble – the plant
sprouting, because it could
find water, food
and bumble bees.

3.15 am:

ridiculous to contemplate
a bird twi-tweeting outside
or that half-lit hotel ceiling.
I need to sleep, I’m not lying
when I say I should be flat out.
Instead I’m writing a poem, unbidden,
trying to get into heart, any heart, my heart.


The sun rises in spite of everything
and fierce birdsong’s there, twittering bright.
I wait for harder sunlight,
knowing inevitable daybreak, another day flying,
reckoning a day is up and, lucky dip, it’ll be all right.

Andrew's Intensity

After all
you do need
to visit a Musical,
sing and clap and bounce,
leading a crowd in their approbation
of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang;
every fibre tuned into
the harmony
of it all.

Inaudible

Breath gives
movement
in the chest
a lifelong zest
in every instant
a new breath test
first gift at birth
last gift of all
a breathing space
between the hush
a breathing spell
ephemeral
ushering out
ushering in
breathtaking
breathable now.

Double

One day, when not myself, I might just split;
not so I could turn into someone else
but to evolve into a new myself.


No joke, no time for tiny giggling fits:
oh no, one day I might well have the balls
to make a stand and stand beside myself.

Care Home

I drink a glass of water,
pick up orange juice
and a box of jaffa cakes.
Resolved, I take breath
and walk towards that room where she lays
- my auntie, half asleep, with window
open and twisting fan, on slow.


I push open the door to see
her arm reach for invisibility,
lifting white skin and outside veins
up to her mouth with a clawlike hand;
mouthing a vacant biscuit,
toothless. Gazing up at the ceiling
she says ‘I went in a straight line’,
grasps the air-as-biscuit again - and eats.


A moment in suspension, calm, I sit.
She’s hungry. Now I feed her cake
and juice-from-a straw while she stares at a distant place;
describes animals, owls and
monkeys, parrots, lions on the prowl,
indifferent to my blind looking
and, as the sweetness falls, she closes eyes,
adores the chocolate biscuit sinking down.
Frail as a white stick, she still
can feel
its love.

Dream

It’s a night-time discovery
after a day fetching and grabbing
I turn in and lie - a body
un-prepossessed, an animal.


Amongst it all, daytime’s a stomp
picking flowers from meadows
and plastic bags from ditches.


At night I lay more still
(mechanical machinery stops)
and let-go, start to know
the slow art of no-doing and, so it seems, to dream.

Haiku

I found a bucket

spilled it into the river

before I filled it.

Remark

It’s important to warm the teapot

so at least it knows what it’s in for

and, one among many,

a leaflet of tea

travels an arc, worldly,

bounces and bobs in, hopefully,

the sound of boiling water, adding a smidgen,

diffusing its flavour

into the water, refreshing the mouth of a human

like Love.

How to preserve a poet

Let’s wrap TS Eliot in fog,

hear William Shakespeare speak out from the Globe,

focus on Wordsworth yomping the fells,

appreciate Dickinson’s bonnet.

Set Blake in a jungle, Rosetti a market,

put Yates in a tower, Frost in a field

Keats in a bedroom, give Byron a bottle,

and Rumi, yes Rumi, ah Rumi!

Rumi in the sky - with diamonds.

Blavatsky

Do I ever think that words will last forever?

- Pass us another can it’s time to gargle

Or that a word, even Shakespeare’s words,

- Bloody Hell I had to pay excess on my ticket

will ever survive more than a few thousand years

- Who dropped that one, not me, it’s a corker

on paper, analogue, digital, a spoken human voice

- Don’t tell me to be quiet mate, you listen to me

because they’re temporal, of their time, flying, lost

- Just for t’pleasure I tell ya, talk to me, I’m sorry

like satellites heading to oblivion, a rocket zooming

- I’ve been out in five wars, matey, Afghanistan,

which seem important at the time, at their time of launch,

- Bloody idiot, there’s no need for that, pass me another, alright mate

and never decay but fly intact, soon buzzing far, far away.

- Psst, arhhh, slurp, gurgle, let’s ha another, I’m smashed, zzzzzzz.

You bet I do.

To mingle with the universe and feel (Byron)

All that I can ever do

is feel, believe and speak and move.

Although I do believe

I can perceive, I do perceive

what I believe - and then I speak and do

what I believe is true!

All that I can ever do

is feel and hold beliefs; although belief’s

a crowd of ancient nutters waving flags called ‘influence’.

So, maybe after all, what’s only possible for me

to Be

is Real:

to Feel.

Competition

Of the many people I have touched

it’s Andrew –

strange and unusual

even now, nearly 21 years on – who holds

my face to his own, forehead to forehead:

a chubby face, clear godlike eyes,

soft and strong muscles like living elastic.

I can look into the starburst

of an iris and see twinkle, concern, mischief,

truth, old age, and, much, much more

-a wisdom-

as he pushes against me pressing

head to head, heart to heart and saying

‘Come on Dad, you can do it, you can do it!’

Ironing Life

Stand on two legs

like a stork, a hunter;

spindly but stable

and ready to be stroked

with a buzz of electric heat.

Earth supports fire,

fire spurts steam and hot air

up until the time we are flat.

Breath

I took a breath one day, began

to breathe in 1953

(after the war and victory)

a little man

unable to see.

Since then I’ve breathed a lot,

managed to shout,

escaped my cot,

run about

and used my lungs in cold and hot.

My chest has risen, sunk.

I’ve walked and swum and loved and slept

and all the while I’ve kept

on breathing in and talking junk

- on my out-breath - words inept.

But now I’ve started to yawn

en route to 2033

worrying (only occasionally)

about just when a little man

will take a final in-breath-out. We’ll see.

White Lines

Keeping on side

is a good trick of memory

is an excellent habit.

A chap uncontained

by white lines while traveling

by now would be sleeping

so best stay on over

far away from your burial

for as long as is possible

but sometimes the devil

rants ‘what the hell matey!’

and I can be spotted

taking a corner

with wheels all a-straddle,

laughing and getting away.