Endings

Everybody off, it's the end of the line,
366 from door to door.
A year's gone by in record time
(Yes, a leap year, my choice was poor)

I hope you all enjoyed the ride
But all good things come to an end.
I tried to provide a smile or a thought
And hope that I did not offend

Now step blinking into the sun,
We've reached our final destination
It's your time to write or be inspired,
And my time to go into hibernation.

We are all

Solid as a ring of stones and older still,
Resolute and remarkable.
Evergreen and tough as ivy's living roots fixed in rock,
We are all connected, we are all free.

Joy and sadness bind us both,
The hooks and loops that keep us close
As any sett or warren warm
With bodies, beating hearts and blood.

Each of us is all of us,
Souls cemented brick by brick.
Home is where we stand or scatter
Elastic yet with iron bounds.

And carved upon a homespun niche
In pride of place lest others doubt
The import and the honesty
Of that one word, one ideal.
Family.

Winter's March

Dawn breaks with pale light pushing angry shadows,
Herding them under wardrobes, behind closed drawers
Where they deepen, dark minds desirous of night.

I rise and sway to the floorboards' creak
Cross to the window, there to see the downs
White in their winter coat of crystal, fresh and phosphorescent.

The morning audience ring the roofs
Starlings, magpies, seagulls preen and greet the light's return.
A short-sighted pigeon puffs and struts at a nervous crow.

Out on the track, the winter plates the puddles with glass
As I trek higher, blowing clouds into the air.
No spirits here, too cold for ghosts without the warmth of blood.

Sheep still crack the frozen grass with yellow teeth
And clear the path as I pass through on mud like rock.
The noon sun lifts and lowers its head, too tired to rage.

Still as a mirror, the patient air awaits a breeze that never comes,
And silent as the cloistered secrets far below, the peregrine
Hangs like a photograph, focused and heavy.

Peaks are reached and paths are crossed as lunar features near again,
Clouds part in reverent awe of that silver disc; great cratered eye,
And I swear I can see it racing across the darkening sky.

Days are short as memories now.
Light leaches away, taking what colour was left of that bleached demesne
Eyes and instincts open wide, amplifying every shadow's breath.

Sometimes you must let go past and prejudice to feel music or art,
So I let myself go to the night, naked and willing,
Exultant, expectant, open and free.

The blood

Out playing at a friend's house when we hear the thwack.
The shocked pause.
The yell, slowly building to crescendo.
It's different, more acute, something's wrong.

She comes in slowly, sobbing, wailing, clutching her nose.
But you don't even see her.
All you can see is the blood.
It's everywhere, dripping, pumping, unbelievably bright,
Soaking into her clothes, her hair, the floorboards.

You grab the super-absorbent kitchen roll,
But it has no chance of staunching the flow.
With every sob a fresh gush of blood, spit and tears.
Wad after wad of wet crimson tissue piles up.
You try to calm her, but all she can see is the blood.

Finally, it starts to slow.
The flow of fresh tissues thins
Until you're left holding one mottled rag,
Dabbing at her lips and nose.

Her breathing calms.
She clutches a teddy, miraculously unsullied.
It's time to go home.

No Snow

The snow it fell thick and fast
If only for a minute.
The weatherman said it would last all night
But I think it reached its limit.

Not much call for sledging now
Unless your sledge has wheels.
No soft crunch when treading snow
Just slush slipping under your heels.

No snowmen built, no snowballs thrown,
Not really that much fun.
No canceled school or work, except
You can bet the trains won't run.

The battle for a quiet night

I cannot know the fear that binds you
Every evening without fail
Instead, I close the door and whisper
As they multiply, sealed inside.

A thousand times around the sun
These nightmares come as darkness sets
You close your eyes and call my name
And I ignore you nonetheless.

It takes a story to defeat them
Unlocking self belief, empowering
Change in dreams of knights
And mangonels, your treasured sleep
Protected.

Possessives

Name me.
Siphon my essence with your ego.
Define my self by your own terms.
Your words are my pages,
Hands on my clay,
Drawing me, forcing me, filling me up.

But words are just ink to be washed from my skin,
Clay can be thrown and smoothed.
My terms are my own,
Rejecting formality,
My personal chaos swirls round my name.
My name.

Lapse of Time

Thinking back to first schools and friendships
Lives left behind.
First crushes that seemed so important,
Now barely remembered.
Still images, moments,
Voices but no words.
Impressions frozen, faces never growing older.
Mine is the only mirror in the attic,
Monstrously aging while my mind plays at youth.

Those friends are out there somewhere,
With families, careers, sad lives and happy lives,
Every one invisible to me
But forever bound by the thread of shared experience
And fading memories.

A winter walk

The mud is thick, it grips
And slurps as feet go in
And feet come out, heavier.

You wash yours in a puddle
Until we say we saw a crocodile
Cruising in the murk and you
Leap out with a squeal.

The sun sinks and with it light
And heat depart. We turn and head
For home, singing erratically worded
Songs, dragging sticks behind us
Like tails to confuse pursuing monsters.

Lights guide us home, and a
Trail of earthen clods betray our
Passing, steps and spirits lighten
As we walk, until finally kicking off
Boots and coats (and in some cases
Trousers) and piling into the warm.

Reflections fading

You give your diseased shiver
Each tic a moment closer
The starlings at your window
Fly away, fly away.

The mirror shows a stranger's skin
As lights flash off, electricity
Slows its busy hum
Eyes close as ones turn to zeroes.

Voices crack around your tonic immobility
Your inner strength has failed and words
That once were fanciful and wild
Grow dull as echoes fade.

The jam sponge

The shop is shut again today,
A little sign reads, "out to lunch,"
But I think something sinister's afoot.
I can't be sure, it's just a hunch.
Who has meals that last two days?
Who shuts for lunch in this modern age?
I promise that I am concerned,
It's not just misplaced shopper's rage.
I sneak around the rear and see
That the back door is ajar
And the sight that greets my footsteps
Is not what you'd find in a normal Spar.
Cards and boxes everywhere,
Rubbish strewn across the floor.
A body slumped beside the tills...
And there is what I came here for!
Behind a shelf of honeyed glass,
A single jar of raspberry jam.
I tiptoe through the carnage there
Cursing what a fool I am.
I didn't bring my purse this time
And only have ten pounds with me,
I vow to pay in full next time
And leave by the back door quietly.
On my way home I wonder if
I should inform the constabulary,
But decide the news can wait
For a slice of sponge and a cup of tea.

Exhaling Hercules

The cough at the end of the breath
Health and happiness exhaled and shivered
With a scratching hessian contact raw
His Prussian eyes are blue no more.

The telephone is the cat's best friend
Each life a number dialled and rung
The answering bark of fear and thrill
The chase is on the windowsill.

The anthem sung and chorus lost
He finds his scarlet voice to call
Out Hercules and bid him come,
This dying man is no god's son.

Cold outside and in

There's little light this time of year
Frost creeps thick in the sun's domain
Harder still the crystal nights
When the moonbeams fall like rain.

Outside this door is wasteland
The hills a blank white hole
Beyond the house lies heaven and hell
Beyond love lies my frozen soul.

I focus on your sallow skin
What little warmth remains
Run fingers through your flaxen hair
To which snowflakes cling like chains.

I rise and lay the fire to rest
The embers quickly fade
I kiss you one last time, my love
And kiss my wrists with the blade.

There's little light this time of year
And my eyes grow darker still
I'll find you in that dark, my love
I promise that I will.

The last biscuit

The last biscuit in the tin
Glows with an inner light
Only one of us is going to win
This life or death fight.

I snatch my hand to the left
It dodges to the right
I give the tin a heft
But it's disappeared from sight.

I spot a trail of crumbs
Across the kitchen floor
I trace it with my thumbs
Leading to the bathroom door.

I follow it inside
Eyes scanning up and down
But that custard cream can hide
And the bathroom floor is brown.

I crouch and sweep the carpet clean
Searching for tiny biscuit bits
It launched on me like from a trampoline
And on the back of my head it hits.

When I wake the biscuit's gone
And with it all my wishes flee
I curl up like a dying swan
And weep into my cup of tea.

Nightclubbing

Vibrations thrill as sweat and heat
Engulf your senses, leaping beats
Reaching out with fingertips
Am I here? Is God in me?

Feet predict and counterpoise
The body's shifting silhouette
Words fall short of thumping noise
And yet you scream your throat's raw joy.

Friends and friendly faces swim
In circles, hearts and limbs set free
Music, the master, whirling faster
The impending disaster of reality.

Home with friends or home alone
Or option 3, not home at all
As liquids lift your floating form
Euphoria, impetuosity.

A hand, a smile, the cool embrace
Of night, the warmth of company
Guilt free until the morning
Free until reality,

Sickness

She wakes up and watches her weight
Wipes away a dream of what she ate
Crosses the floor on padded feet
Opens the cupboard for something to eat
And immediately screams and slams it shut
Cannot allow herself to think what
She would eat if she had her way
Crusty bread, cheddar, slathered in Grey
Poupon, three minutes under the grill
Browned and bubbling - instead, a pill
A placebo, of that she's sure
Dextrose, cornstarch, nothing more
A doctor's smile in tablet form
Am arm round the shoulder for her storm
In a teacup hysterical pain
Thank you, please don't come again.
These experts think it isn't real
She alone knows how it feels.

The spider's moon

I caught the hanging web of the moon
Wound the silk around my thumb
Twelve times around my head I circled
Silent in my cold cocoon.

In meditation lost the afternoon
Sought the dream that would not come
Physical form collapsed and shriveled
Caught sight of the gods too soon.

Puzzles

There is a puzzle box
A bated horn
Time's performance
Called to order
When future selves pour scorn
The wheel spins for every number.
Grains expand
Dowsers call the earth to drink
Canter down
Canter through the paeonies
White and pink.
When echoes fade
Silence falls on space
Mothers' proud
Of a son's haunted face.

First taste

A taste of the new.
First drop hits and sizzles
As batter slips from spoon to pan.
Brown to black the outliers crisp and crack
As oil draws a marbled web
A map of islands, gold and glistening.
Then flip and down
With the hack and bite of boiling specks,
Skin hastily withdrawn.
The smell is on the attack,
Great gasps of hot flavour
Rushing to envelop and choke,
And it's done.
Anticipation builds as it cools.