Take me home

I don't belong here on these streets
High rise blocks of ochre and cream
No jacket in November and a sky so blue.
I don't belong amongst these women
In their widows tubes and wedge heeled shoes
Juggling their rosaries and mobile phones.
I don't belong where puppies are thrown in the refuse
And kittens are kicked to death for fun.
I don't want donkey stew.
Take me to some british suburb
Red brick houses, victorian semi's
Where men in aprons are lighting bbq's
And washing cars and drinking pints.
Show me gravel drives and much loved house cats,
Leafy places where  the dead sleep under flowers
And children play in gardens and neighbours say hello.
Let me hear a welsh choir singing and the theme from Dr Who.
Then I'll kiss you in Sainsbury's car park
And there'll be sausage, egg and chips for tea.

your voice 

your eyes

make of me a poem

My husband tells of other days

My husband tells of other days

Of hunting octopus
With a white hankie
Thrust in water
To imitate light
And if there was no hankie
A pale leg would do as well.
Boys, pushing each other,
Lanky armed, laughing
Trickery and triumph
Riches in poverty

Of great salads of lettuce
Freshly pulled with the earth still clinging.
Whole onions
Tomatoes from the vine.
Wrinkly olives black as night
Random addition of herbs
All drowning in oil
Thick, sharp, green
Riches in poverty


Of his mother's bread and pasta
Made at dawn every day
And every year a child born
And children dying every year
Two dead once
In one day
Her grief for every loss
Her love for each who stayed

Of the simple riches in great poverty.
Of laughter, food
And love.

peelings

And peeling the potatoes
I found myself thinking of  layers mash
And remembering all  those chickens
And the  bantams
And the game bird
Blue and green eggs
And someone telling me not go in the coop
Wearing red toe paint.
The fox that killed them all
The giant goat mad with grief
The black kitten dragging in a rabbit
Twice his size.
The welsh settle,
Riddling the aga.
The enormous fireplace that we could all stand in and look up at the moon.
Mike's joke about the shovel.
Your joke about my mince pies.
The pink front bedroom
The sloping bathroom floor
The pub sign I painted
Your yellow van
Your blue green eyes
Your dark celt heart.
A tarnished wedding band
That I no longer wear
And a welsh last name
That I no longer bear.

Colour Me Gone

Force of habit brought me here
Back to where we started
The point from which all directions take form
And rivers and skies
Each bridge a story that encompasses another day
A second, a lifetime.
A map which delineates the changes
Made by us and for us by each other
And those others that we knew and didn't know
Our emotional footprint
We share a silence that speaks for us
For we ourselves have nothing more to say
That hasn't already been wept
Or laughed or burned or lived
Our dictionary in every language has been exhausted
The binding undone, the pages lost.
Force of habit turns my steps south
To the light, to the sun
To another place far from this darkness

Another Place; Tender is the Night

Tangled in the sheets and one another,
Drenched in the cool clean air of early morning,
Listening to the ringing of the sail boat masts
And the seagull laughter carried on the water.

We lay now silent, now talking, resting,
Fingers tracing skin by touch connected.
The greater seperation of our bodies
Reminds us of the need to not let go.
Silently we engrave one upon the other
The memory of ourselves.
You make some coffee, we share a cigarette.
This 4.00 am madness.

And in the end
True intimacy is not measured by the sweated thrusts,
Our  straining bodies, the convulsing cries,
Nor by the passion spent
Or the quality and quantity of pleasure gained.
 No.
It  is your hand
Resting on my arm,
The way our breathing moves and fits,
Your lips against my shoulder,
The comfort of our silence,
The knowing when to cease, to sleep.
It is in these things that we are us,
Where we finally come to rest
And where we know the real intimacy of love

Another Place; Other People's Parties

No, don't move
Stay just there, right there where you are
At the bottom of the stairs
Caught in the laughing light
Radiantly alive, shining, golden.
Stay right there
And let me stand here watching
From a half opened door
Lost in quiet shadows
And a trembling personal dusk,
Falling, falling, drowning.
Please, no please, don't go
Don't leave and leaving 
Take the very breath, the essence of life with you.
But if you go, before you go, turn
Remember me for a moment
And bequeath me the memory of your smile.

Another Place; The Square Box

You stood before me in the haze and light,
Already mellowing soft, an afternoon.
I, on a bench of wood, long grass, tall daisies,
A warm wall nearby, russet earth.
A window open, deep silled, a red geranium in a terracotta pot.
Perhaps I held a book, Maugham or Henry James.
You seemed to be all white cotton and khaki
And in your hands you cradled a collection, objects,
Your elegant fingers the graceful custodians of precious things.

I cannot see them now; I no longer know.
But I did know that you needed a box to put them in
And that this was something, yes, that I could do for you,
Because in my mind I saw it.
Squared, shallow, soft dove grey cardboard
But strong, perfect in its symmetry, its close fitting lid, its worthiness.
And imagined this way, so it became and  it was here.

We must have spoken. At least, I recall some words
Your mouth, your lips moving,
Your lips. That crumpled shirt.
The hairs on your bare arm standing, backlit,
You seemed all golden and stillness and I spoke your name.
Oh cherished remembrance of the warmth of us,
The grass scented, rich and fertile air, a sudden singing bird,
The drifting of a spent dandelion's clock..
What was the time, when we sat
Gazing, side by side, into the box between us?
I wonder still.

And I wonder still, what was it that we saw?

Another Place; Lilac Wine

I will take refuge in you here
And we will be quiet together.
There will be a gently ticking clock,
The breathy sigh of pages turning
And the tinkling ring of spoons
Against lustrous roseate china.
We will be held in the loving embrace
Of the old chintzed and shabby sofa
With its secret nesting corners
And its glorious overblown cushions.

And through the open windows
French , wooden, eau de nil,
A drifting sky will ruffle curtains
And gift the aching heady scent of lilacs.

We will not speak, we need no words
But when at last the end of day
Sees light slip stealthily to another place
You will catch the book as it closes and falls,
Press your cool fingers against my flushed and beating brow, my wearied eyes.

And I will cast myself adrift
On your strength, your life, your youth,
Rapt to the end with the aching heady scent of lilacs.