Cinderella

I limp every step to my room,

find a familiar bed;

lose guitar and piano and drum,

all that was said;

turn back towards adolescence

like now I’m an expert in love

but to face ugly sisters and silence!

Was he having a laugh?

Bright Snow

Light is bright outside Peterborough station, high

above a fey half-moon leads my eye up to air:

inside, we face each other – chatter differently

and this cafe bubbles, burns, declares

‘the snow fell as big as footballs’, ice

and hubbub lay a thick carpet, nobody reads

because snowfall centres talking. Minutes pass

and we don’t know if there’ll be a train to Leeds;

‘snow in our drive’, ‘skidding cars’, vroom-vroom.

Outside, sun and moon still burn. How

isolated each face is,

connected by breath, steaming coffee, talk of home;

exiled by flakes, by white stuff and brought into now

by a billion little changes. Longing for our villages.

Hot Blood

A bluebottle flies around our bedroom,

even though it’s winter outside – sub zero

and central heating turns and soon clicks off

tonight; you wouldn’t want to be that creature

buzzing in a slowly freezing world

now, would you, when there’s no help to offer?

Tomorrow we’ll arise unlike our insect-friend,

unfeeling sheets and duvet, balmy blood;

that’s the difference – inner warmth

we share with others, keeping humans soft,

un-insect like:

and hot.

Answer

If I could construct

a spiritual pathway

it would revolve

and lift a spiral

beyond any roof.

We’d walk in water

with both feet on earth,

because of the steepness

gasping for air.

To get into truth

we would poke at a bonfire

and yell at the moon

letting out light.

Hope

Hope feels. Take here and now. Hope lifts,

transforms comfort and discomfort, goes

beyond them both – higher - not bereft

of potential, a spiral away to

ascend through fear but without theft;

transcending, transmuting whatever it started as

tremulously up to how things could be;

beyond entropy, decay or how it was:

look at the sun rising again and again, day after day;

listen to the radio, a boiling kettle's energy, voice.

Cold Snow

We went sledging - boys do,

raking powder snow

turning, laughing, lugging back up

speckled white with neck drips, back drips.

Andrew hot enough to go first;

split-second tipping on an edge

then singing, giggling down the slope

to stop and to hold a statuesque pose

but now I have to send boys back:

no more sport but a hard kick

into my soul ‘til next time we meet;

a decision I made years ago

to end these moments - separate hearts -

my core melts down; I am a man of snow.

Stranger

On a Supermarket run,

I drive a little faster than

considered legal, find

a few black cars pootling along

so I start to overtake them

chasing fast with my radio on

until I get the idea– like a sudden dawn –

it’s a loss to race a funeral procession!

In the end I slow down the outside lane,

drive at 20 – respect their long line

until all falls away, even sound,

with my lumpy throat and tears running down

for a life that is flowing and a life that has flown;

a heart that is thudding, a heart that has gone.