PIXELLATED

In memory of Mark McManus...

A man strolling beside the Clyde,
alone and insular.
The cameras rolling.
It's all an illusion.

He pauses to gaze across to the far bank
as if in a dream,
so deep in thought
he's oblivious to the pouring rain.

Reason and insanity collide in my head.
He just turned and glanced in my direction
and then turned back. Ah, such exquisite moment -
just he and I, here, in my living room!

And my mouth goes dry
as hungry eyes devour their Idol
(heedless of knowing looks all around me!)
while he gradually edges into my life.

And in that drab concrete jungle
the delusion grows out of all proportion.
He's still here now! The experience, increasingly substantive,
refutes the very concepts of time and reality.

Slipping into the eternal now
where our lifetimes converge,
I reach out for something more solid to cling to
as if out of depth in a boundless ocean.

And I see in this freezing rain,
beneath banks of cloud in the cordoned off street,
the shadowy idolized form - so near
I can actually feel his aura.

And I follow and follow his every step
yet can't quite catch up.
My heart is racing, pounding -
oh to be this near but still unable to touch!

Hell, what can I do? Stepping outside my head,
I'm reaching further and further into his.
Mark, I ask so little of you
and yet so much: proof that you never really died.

Fixated upon the TV screen, mentally squeezing between it's pixels.
Transfixed between crazy hope and fearful melancholy,
I finally reach him...
in Glasgow, nineteen-eighty-nine

just a moment ago.


Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! xxx

GREETINGS...

from the land of the living dead!!! Lol

Will now attempt to visit everyone...please forgive any typos, my brain is quite foggy!! xxx

SELFIE

One rainy Thursday she bought a lycra catsuit
just like the one Seven of Nine wore
in Star Trek Voyager. She had scoured
the whole of Winchester and then Basingstoke
among hoards of Christmas shoppers,
who jostled and elbowed her, until she found it,
tried it on, bought it and took it home.
The Friday was spent searching online
for a Borg costume. The choice was endless,
but costly. The one she eventually decided upon
was an exact copy of Seven's. When it arrived next morning
she was delighted. She lightened her hair too,
a rich golden blonde - well, she did want to perfect every detail!
Next, she carefully applied her makeup while streaming an episode
and studying a close-up of Seven's face.
Getting in character then, she stood in front of her mirror
and practiced Seven's superior upright stance
and powerful but expressionless gaze. Finally satisfied,
she slipped on her killer heels. Perfect! If anything
could win back her Trekkie ex, this was it!
She really looked the part - and was, hopefully,
the closest match to his idol he would ever find.
Then she carefully took a full length selfie
and posted it on social media.

DIAGRAM

He drew a diagram of future me.
A disfigured thing, hard to accept.
I'm scared you'll find me loathsome - or even worse
an object of ridicule: a lopsided woman,
in fact no longer quite woman at all
but some freak show exhibit, a gimmick
to make women feel more attractive in comparison
and think thank God that isn't me!

I imagine you frowning then, diagram
on the table in front of you, as recollections
of the whole, symmetrical me give way
to an image of revulsion - a gore fest:
desired lover, carved up by sharp steel
as if a rump steak. Surely this cannot be me!
But my denial is your conviction: you'll have to accept
that we will be changed forever.

And you'll peruse the diagram again.
A simple sketch - just squiggles of ink
casually drawn like so many times before,
only this time it's my breast, my life
laid bare. Then a blob of ink - like blood -
spreading out, obliterating the nipple
as if some shocking omen of things to come.
Then you'll see within it my fading image

eclipsed by the shadow of the Reaper...

GRIMES GRAVES

The echoes of long dead miners fill these chambers:
hollow, clanking sounds
coupled with an eerie distant murmuring.

The tunnels run for miles below ground,
like the digestive system of some giant beast
meandering down into the bowels of the earth

where, if you touch the walls,
you can feel the core's heat.
But none of this is in the guide book

you've been reading since descending the ladder.

Suddenly claustrophobic, you could swear you glimpse
shadows drifting through the silent gloom...

BRACKLESHAM BAY

For Billie...

I sit, in faded jeans and leather jacket, on a groyne.
I listen to the continual crashing of waves -
and beyond them another sound. Electrifying. I stand
and train my eyes along the shoreline...and wait
among the pebble banks and dried seaweed
for the appearance of stallion and rider.
But no one comes.

I think of last century and of you
riding madly, recklessly, before the groynes or I were here.
I scramble up the beach
as the tide turns, and head for Stocks Lane
and Perley's Marsh your old home,
and your riding stables.
Both are now replaced by modern buildings
jarringly out of place - and I feel
suddenly so alone...

ICE GIRL

People out walking in the frost
wrap themselves in coats, scarves, hats, gloves;
believing that without all this paraphernalia
they will freeze to death.
Well, perhaps they're right.
But I walk through it completely unclothed
because I am made of ice. They still tell
of the hoar frost that clung to tree and mountain
at the time my mother expelled me from her body
amid a pool of blood that instantly froze,
and how the midwife had to rub some life
into my tiny pure white body.
I am daughter of the Ice Queen -
born in north Iceland, raised in coldness,
and six month nights were all I understood.
I had to stay one jump ahead of the summer
because I knew it's alien nature would thaw my body
and burn out my pale eyes.
So I hid beneath the snow drifts
like a white vampire.
But it's harder now I've reached womanhood,
as I'm driven to flirt with the sun
and be caressed by his deadly rays
like all the other women I see around me.
He is like no other lover - dangerous
and therefore irresistibly alluring.
What happens when fire and ice combine?
The Aurora Borealis tells my story.
I think I'm inviting chaos. My reflection
is up there in that northern evening sky -
all the colours of coldness, remoteness,
a reminder of what I am...

OK, OK, I'll come clean:
the above is all fantasy, you know!
In truth, I am an ice sculpture that adorns
a corridor in this year's Ice Hotel.
But I so want to be human.
You see, my beauty encloses no Soul.
There is only cold rigidity inside me.
I can only hope that one day global warming
will come and put an end to this half-life:
will reduce me to a pool of water
that cannot think, cannot feel,
and cannot yearn to be loved.


Just to let you know...I have been diagnosed with cancer, so have lots of X Rays, scans etc. coming up before I have surgery. 
I will visit you all as and when I can in between all that is going on...try keeping me away!! ;))

WAR NEUROSIS

Dedicated to all those who suffered...more than we can ever imagine...


Remembrance was your greatest tormentor -
perhaps even your torturer. Now, all
your possessions, your wife, your life,
no longer held any meaning for you.
All had been superseded by the horror,
the sickening retro-visions
that came nightly.
This horror took on the hue of your bedroom walls
and concealed itself in the undulating folds
of the matching curtains.
You could taste the blood in your whiskey,
hear shells exploding in each passing car engine.
Body parts and lost faces lurked in their myriad lairs:
your candlewick bedspread,
your latticed windows, your carpet, your wardrobe.
You stared at these. You perceived the presences.
They hid in your army uniform -

that was their favourite place to lie in ambush.
When you dressed, you would pause halfway
to closely scrutinize jacket or trousers,
absolutely terrified of what may be secreted in the seams.
Khaki: fear personified
there in your hands -
the rising neurosis that threatened to choke you,
suddenly erupting into the uncontrollable shakes.
Your entire being turning to jelly.
Your wife, your son, your body, your life -
all dissolving into the carnage of the battlefield.
You could see it all, there
in the faded bloodstains ingrained in your uniform.
You knew the horror would never leave you.

So you took your own life.

THE EMPTY ROOM

For Ayrton...

In this empty room now devoid
of your clutter and chaos, I'm lost.
The door and windows have stories to tell
of the boy who grew to manhood here
amid deafening music blaring out
and technology wall-to-wall.

Though silent now and stripped quite bare,
this will always remain your room.
It's filled with precious memories
that once acknowledged spring to life:
happy times shared between mother and son
that I'd thought would never end.

OUT OF DARKNESS

From bleak expanse of Bodmin Moor
to forbidding grey hulk of Jail,
the very air is infused with dread.
Uneasy stillness. No birds singing. This could be
the seventeen-seventies, eighteen-eighties - any century.
Time itself appears suspended within these sinister walls
that loom so menacingly over surrounding houses.
There is something rotten to the core here, you can feel it.

Crossing the threshold. Pitched into a twilight world
where vestiges of a gruesome past
still linger,
where the Souls of long-deceased prisoners
continue to wander in utter torment:
hazy faces glimpsed gazing from barred windows
and spine-tingling moans
that you hope and pray are mere trick of the wind.

Such collusion of mulish impressions,
emotionally draining to the point of exhaustion.
Two-hundred-and-forty years
and fifty-five executions - fifty-one of them public.
The intense anxiety
of the condemned convict's final walk to scaffold can barely be imagined,
neither can the macabre glee of the onlookers.
Ah, the rank inhumanity of en masse sadism!

No pathetic prisoner now within
this decaying cell where once Selina languished.
Just a faint echo of her desperate sobbing,
pathetic and guilt-ridden. What is it
that survives to grieve so
for a young son, murdered
to appease a false lover? The Soul's
harrowing lament infiltrates the emotions

until you're forced to close down awareness.
A child - a labour of love - and that love destroyed
for the likes of him. Oh unworthy one,
who abandoned her here in this sepulchre. She died
clutching a white handkerchief. Her final words,
"Lord deliver me from this miserable world."
Then the executioner pulled the lever
and sent her plummeting into eternity.

Oh Selina,
I can feel in this dank and claustrophobic cell
your suffering and your anguish, impregnated
within this restless darkness.
And through you naive innocence have learned,
and so finally understand with such empathy.
Poor Selina, how your abject terror of being alone
drove you to the unthinkable act of infanticide.
Mute, these walls are screaming "REMORSE! REMORSE!"

I WANT...

I want a little respect: beyond
this blonde hair is an absence of dumbness.
I am not a Barbie doll
to be played with and then
packed away in her box until required again.
I feel, sometimes more than is good for me.
Compassion can be Soul-destroying.

I want to be taken less for granted.
I am not an item of furniture,
or a puppet dancing to everyone else's tune.
I would love to be loved
for who I am, rather than
for what I can give.
An absence of maternal love
has cursed me with a vulnerability

that draws users to me like a magnet.
I want to cease being an emotional cripple:
want to learn to rely on me,
rather than hanging on for grim death
to tantalizing promises
that somehow never materialize.
Oh surely my life is worth more than this? Well,
maybe it will be...tomorrow.

HOLDING ON

This morning
I burnt all the old photos
of you and I. Catharsis:
I feel lighter now. The White Horse
is no longer out of bounds. I am free
to return there, only now without you.

Memories fighting for supremacy. Mentally
I'm shutting them out. I say no
to nostalgia - it is the ultimate torturer.

I can see the heaps of rubble from here
on the back road. It's like
your apartment block never existed. Yet it did.
At least they'll erect something new in it's place.
But every midsummer
my mind will dance there - a ghost out of time.
I feel like crying - and laughing: you and I
attending the Summer Ball in all our finery...



My ball gown, moldering in the closet:
decades of neglect.
I catch myself wishing
I could donate it to charity.
It is the last tangible connection.

I know I ought just to do it.
So why, oh why, can I not?

THE ARTIST

Painting is an enigma to me. But Austin, all serious,
stands back frowning and mumbling to himself
as though he equates each finished piece with self-worth.
He is fully immersed in his latest endeavour, brush
flitting from palette to canvas, canvas to palette;
perfecting highlight, shading, skintone, eyes.
Anticipation of the final hanging
spurs him on - but not too quickly
for the pleasure of the completed masterpiece,
all beauty and sensuality, is well worth waiting for
with it's vibrant life in every brush stroke.

Where does the compulsion originate I wonder -
to be so fanatical a perfectionist
instead of just a regular man? He is a visionary,
a colour blender, a master craftsman,
an illusion maker and so on and so on.
From handmade frame to position on wall
he is sole creator, my multi talented
other half, my constantly distracted Soul Mate.

The brush moves in patterns I can't quite fathom:
long strokes, short strokes, feathering, blending,
faster than the eye can follow, leaving me breathless.
He's oblivious to everything around him. I could be
a million miles away, or not even exist at all.

His present inspiration is abstract: the product
of an incredibly fertile mind - and an insular lifestyle
of missed assignations and unopened mail.
It never ceases to amaze me
how the original barely there sketch
grows moment-by-moment into something
infinitely greater than the sum total
of it's components. Every atom of his being
is poured into each individual labour of love.

I can't get my head around artistic talent,
but it is undoubtedly a form of genius
when you think about it - creative imagination
transformed into something so visually arresting.
I guess the real beauty is in the translation:
the individual significance, depending upon each beholder's
interpretation of lines, spaces, patterns and symmetry.

Strange to observe those weathered hands
with their rough patches and pronounced veins
as they perform their delicate and precise motions
over hours, over days, over weeks and months.
It is asking too much, I know,
to hold his attention for any longer
than five minutes in a day.
Ah...such is the life of an Artist's wife!

A HEARTBEAT LOST

For Peter Benson...in memoriam

My heart sank when I heard
of your sudden passing. This was
something too final, too hopeless to bear -
the certainty I'd never, ever, see you again.
I was (and am) grieving even more
than your adoring public, a grief
unexpressed yet so profoundly felt.
Still, I can smile at the recollections, though,
of your wicked sense of humour
and such touching vanity - in which
year did you claim you were born??
But smiles are soon ousted by bitter tears.

There is only your alter ego to cling to now:
Bernie Scripps, frozen in time
within a treasured collection of videos
resting on a special shelf. And those post cards
you sent from Goathland and New York
have taken on new significance.
Their images and words are stuck in my skull
where they evoke so vividly
each separate memory of you in life.
But your future was obliterated by the thunderbolt:
our distant friendship, your stardom - all
are consigned now to memory's sombre tomb
and I, at this moment in time, am nowhere.

Oh how I wish I could become as stone,
unable to feel,
for this agony of loss
catches so in my throat... 

TRANSMUTATION

Sometimes, the observer can become the observed:
my head encircled by scarlet petals,
leaves in place of fingers, tongue a mute stamen.
And all those characteristics

that hitherto defined me as human
are unrecognizable now.
Unbelievable sense of liberation!
Time, finally,

to just be,
to flirt with the insect kingdom.
Day rolls into night,
that mosaic of shimmering orbs.

Fireflies.
Their entrancing patterns
messing with my awareness:
is that truly the Flower Queen I sense before me?

Incredulous, basking in the morning sun
I'm suddenly whole,
at one with all of my kind.
And in the glittering ethereal

sprinkling of summer dew,
where my roots reach deep
into the soft moist soil,
I draw nourishment for my green cells.

Two bees
competing to make me reproduce,
their legs heavy with yellow pollen.
My sap rising,

now flooding in anticipation.
Ah, such blissful metamorphosis:
in this sun drenched meadow
I have found paradise!

I smile inwardly. Beautiful butterflies dancing on my petals.
I am everything
I have ever dreamed of being -
how astonishing is dehumanization!

The nucleus of the scarlet poppy,
intoxicated by it's own essence,
exists in a state of utter bliss.


I am taking a break for a couple of weeks, so will "see" you again soon.
Happy Blogging! :))

THE SURFER

The rich glow of sunset rides the restless waves.
He glides high on a crest, sure of his balance
and then soars like a gull. And landing is just as graceful.
He slides into the beach. Soaking, dripping wet.

He tells me it's California next year, as the *Strand
no longer challenges. But he's said it many times before,
always at summer's end when the lengthening nights
begin to deflate him. Touching the deep battle scar
on his thigh: "The Strand can be lethal!"

When he kisses me it's like drowning at sea.
But I find I'm developing gills.
It's daunting though, such fanatical enthusiasm,
and my slightest hesitation infuriates him.
Huge decision. He's asking me to sacrifice so much.
I am no groupie...but those gorgeous golden curls!

I plug in the Beach Boys. He drives the Volkswagen
into the night. The entire Universe is us,
sunshine and surf - and a peculiar kind of togetherness
that depends on lots of time apart and no firm commitments.
Approaching headlights pick out the blonde in his curls

and a picture-perfect bone structure.
Here, is my life.

*Trebarwith Strand, Cornwall, England.

PIPEDREAMS

You were a diminutive form among the sprawling ferns
between Peggy's house and the tennis courts
that aren't there now, all aglow with puppy love.

The Down has altered drastically: our woods replaced by houses
and Wilson's store is now a private dwelling. Painful nostalgia
yanks me back to '69, with exquisite delusions

of being thirteen again and us being together
and carefree: me choking on a stolen cigarette
while you fumble in vain with the catch on my bra.

Oh how grown-up we felt then, our adventure just beginning.
Hard smack back to earth. Reality check:
a drugs overdose claimed your life in spring nineteen-eighty.

But in my inner Headley, you've never really left me. We
are still together. The old houses and dirt roads
surround us like a comforting blanket

wrapped around us in childhood: that precious,
precious sense of safety and nurture
that prompts joyous laughter on sunny days,

while idling on Ludshott Common and watching
the bees collecting pollen, as we peruse our joint future:
our wedding, a home, four children...

aah, such rapturous pipedreams!

6 a.m. on DINAS EMRYS

Something is moving in the bracken,
it's presence is betrayed by a rustling
in the dew-drenched ferns nearby.

You can see for miles from here,
majestic sunrise and silver river winding through the valley.
The mountains of Snowdonia

reach up into a boundless sky
enshrouded in morning mist, and the magic
of myth and legend emanates

from the very ground beneath your feet.
Half-disbelieving, did you really just see
Merlin emerge from that hawthorn tree?

THE TROUBLES

Oh go on then - be a sacrifice,
throw your life away on your futile cause!
But first, let the hypocrisy go:
burn your Bible...
Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill.
Catholic Angels must be covering their eyes.

Following blindly in Father's footsteps:
ah, such bitter contempt for Protestant mores
and flouting the other Commandments nine -
for what are these
if not deliberate concoctions to keep you subdued?
Oh never underestimate enemy tactics.

Disregard the Holy Days next, and kill the Vicars
in cold blood beside the British soldiers
who came here to steal your territory.
You see only red...
the fury, the blood running in rivers
that carve up the heart of your beloved Belfast.

Blow the pubs to smithereens.
Shoot them all in their own homes.
How does it feel to wield such power -
to be able to choose who lives and who dies?
But what do you think you're teaching your children?
Only yesterday, little Johnny lost a hand while making a bomb.

Now graveyards overflow with the innocent dead
who meant you no harm, only got in the way
of your frenzied fanatical doctrine.
And then distorted perceptions of nationalism
became an obsession that turned within
to create a this vengeful Angel of Death.

In the burning wreck of a fire-bombed car
lurk shocking images of the holocaust.
Oh what's it all for -
this hatred, this bloodshed born of intolerance?
You're human, for God's sake.
We all are.
So let's work together to end these troubles.
It's within our power.

Oh please,  please...? 


Lines written in 1974, after I narrowly escaped being blown to bits in the Guildford pub bombings.

SUMMER OAKS

Summer oaks dressed in vibrant green.
In their meadow of wild poppies, these trees
could be Van Gogh creations:
beauty composed of Nature's own hues,
a series of exquisite masterpieces.

They have no capacity for greed or hate -
unlike the ego of man,
and they live in harmony with all Creation:
filtering the air and generating oxygen
so we can live and thrive.

These beings are noble, utterly vital,
so where is our reciprocal respect?
What do we do but cut them down
just because they block our view...
the earth's lungs carelessly excised.

Soon
we'll all be extinct.

LIFE ON MARS

Trespassing beyond the barrier
in a stately home. I'd long been hankering
to touch, to experience the savoir vivre
of life for the privileged few.

A solid oak door before me.
It's four snarling lion head carvings,
with their spiteful-looking elongated fangs,
seemed to issue a dire warning to the uninvited.

So did I take heed? Red rag to proverbial bull!
Sudden rush of childlike audacity. I gripped the handle,
while convincing myself of a clear conscience. Well,
I had parted with a small fortune for the entry ticket, hadn't I?

The door creaked open and I was enveloped in the sweet fragrance of pot-pourri,
while exquisite objets d'art and intricate tapestries delighted the eye.
I argued that these hidden treasures my phone was recording
would be a wondrous revelation for all my fellow commoners.

However, the eyes that stared out of old portraits on the walls
were distinctly hostile at this unauthorized intrusion
into their descendants' lives. Approaching footsteps,
quick and light, from the other side of far door.

Then two girls burst in, engrossed in their hushed conversation.
They half-danced, half-skipped across the room
in their pink and cerise silk dresses, giggling
and discussing a foreign Prince they'd danced with the night before.

Fortunately, they failed to notice the interloper concealed among the marble statues,
where she stood stock-still in sheer terror of discovery.
Rooted to the spot and with pounding heart, I hardly dared breathe.
By the time they left, I practically collapsed with relief.

I honestly can't remember how I escaped from that room.
But I still wince at the memory of how unwelcome and inferior I felt
amid such opulence. It was as if I'd strayed into another world...
a lot like living on Mars.

BEING PRESENT

A video clip of Checo:
a  glimpse into another world
wholly out of reach.

A face idolized: more than mere recording
and not just wishful thinking
or imagination playing tricks.

But, eyes closed, listening to the voice
of an intimate stranger I've come to know -

I'm no longer here at all, but there,
where distance and ocean have ceased to exist.

And it feels like coming home.

GUINEVERE

A Villanelle..

Guinevere are you for real, or just pure invention?
For time obscures origin and poets embellish lore,
so now we cannot know the truth of your ascension.

Were you Camelot's bone of contention
in those bygone days of yore,
when along with dashing Lancelot you divided Arthur's nation?

Fairest face and golden hair made you centre of attention -
and lifelong obsession of Cornwall's noble Boar.
But still we do not know the truth of your ascension.

Draco Standard flying in great ostentation,
while many secretly denounced you as whore.
Guinevere are you for real, or just pure invention?

Loud the clash of steel at Camlan's invasion.
Your infidelity sparked that fateful bloody war.
Yet still we do not know the truth of your ascension.

Do historians labour under misapprehension,
or did passion destabilize Camelot's core?
Guinevere are you for real, or just pure invention?
For we'll probably never know the truth of your ascension.

TOP WITHINS

Absence has not erased

the rugged beauty of brooding moorland.

But what else did I expect?

Thirty years between myself and the summit

has intensified obsession, yet eroded boundary walls

and doubled the height of the tree

that now casts a much broader shadow

over imagination's idyll. House walls are crumbling away.

It's no longer as the Earnshaws knew it,

is even more inimical now. The old farmhouse 

in which we once took refuge has fallen victim

to vandals' idle hands

and the Elements' tumultuous battering.

The cries of skylarks seem fainter

than I remember, like an old recording

time-worn and gradually fading into silence.

Buzzards circle prey beneath the summer sky,

and isolation closes in.

Unless a dedicated Bronte fanatic,

you would never venture this far into wilderness

in search of the myth,

nor curse Emily for your aching legs

and the sombre emptiness that envelopes you

with a churlish welcome

that needs no spoken word or printed page

but, instead, appears to issue

straight from Heathcliff's tormented Soul...

TOP WITHINS

I am heading out into the Cornish wilderness tomorrow, so will be taking a few weeks off (as I know from experience that internet connection there is patchy at best)!

So, have a great time until I "see" you all again...:))

THE GREENWOOD MUSES

Through thicket and forest clearing
I sought the Greenwood Muses
in an effort to ignite creative fuses.
But all I perceived were trees whispering
and in the westerly breeze swaying.

Shafts of sunlight dappled the way:
a winding path between bushes of gorse,
deeply indented with hoof prints of horse.
And the sweetest song of robin and jay
over my senses that day held sway.

Brightness of noon-sun striking
enhanced my subtler senses:
could've sworn I glimpsed through boundary fences
tiny Elves in the tall grass prancing
and rainbow-coloured Faeries dancing.

Was it trick of the light, or second sight?
Either way I was fully transfixed
and suddenly found myself caught betwixt
two worlds and feeling like Snow White
in her elusive realm of fanciful delight.

Well half of me couldn't believe it at all,
while the other half couldn't dismiss
the possibility I'd unwittingly crossed the Abyss
and discovered that place where after all
the Muses held me in utter thrall.

LAST SUNDAY AT THRUXTON

In search of Aiden Moffat

This man eclipses the Greek Gods
and doesn't even have to try.

His voice over the car radio (aah, that accent!)
transmitted to the hyped-up spectators.

His foot to floor, speed increasing,
Mercedes engine screaming in pain.

From where I'm standing, a blue blur -
increasingly surreal, it seems.

Projecting consciousness into those wheels:
a mental passenger, undetectable.

Wow, the exhilaration -
and not from mere speed alone!

His heartbeat merging with my own,
synchronizing with another plane.

Adrenaline pumping, pumping;
stimulating depths wholly unknown.

Now race is finished, all too soon.
But, pumped up, I'm hypnotically driven:

dodging mad crowds and scouring the pits
for Scottish flag - it's blue and white

symbolic of  Laser Tools Racing.
Fighting, fighting, I get to the front -

and here's the proof I'm telling the truth:

And was he there? Oh yes, but I
never got to meet him. Why?

I froze and stood there, overawed
like dumbstruck teen - how sad am I? Lol


PS/
     I did, however, manage to take this photo! ;))

A WITCH'S BALLAD

She's stolen my man
just because she can.
For me he was the only one,
for her simply a bit of fun.
Turning from pink to green - now red:
a shape-shifting Dragon who'll fill her with dread.
I want to burn her quite to death
with my devouring fiery breath.
But, alas, she hides well out of reach
behind high gates I cannot breach,
while lording it over her willing slaves
in a mansion built on my Ancestor's graves.
Oh yes,
she's the one who has ruined my life.
Now it's her turn to suffer dark strife.

Watching her everywhere she goes.
Gosh how she's keeping me on my toes!
A new lover here, a fresh beau there,
all soon discarded without a care
once they've served their purpose for her -
endless supplies of diamonds and fur.
Oh what a thoroughly self-centred bitch
whose life runs smoothly without a hitch.
Well I vow here and now I'll be the last one.
Soon she'll find her power undone.

So returning to my cave beneath Cheddar Gorge,
I begin a silver amulet to forge.
A five-pointed star within a band,
engraved with a language she won't understand.
I pass it through Earth, Air and Water
and then through Fire for this devil's daughter.
Now while gazing deep into darkened mirror,
I bring her image nearer and clearer
until that supercilious face
is fully defined in this magical space.
And with potent herbs I bind her here
until the consequences are clear
of who she's become and what she's done.
The mirror ripples. It has begun...



A week later she passes me by
as if in a trance, her clothes all awry.
Her boys, I hear, have run for the hills
and the only things keeping her sane are pills.
Her beauty has faded in record time
so none now desire her: oh such a crime
that this should happen to a babe like me!
is all she can think. Still she cannot see
that Universal Laws can never be cheated
and all those who try will be defeated.

So unconditional love I send.
Oh it's hard to do, but I have to bend,
or else I'll become as sad as she
then neither of our Souls will ever be free.
So forgiving all the pain she's inflicted,
I probe her mind - she's been addicted
to ego's dictates that she couldn't resist:
unless centre of attention, she couldn't exist.
So I cast a spell to clarify her mind
and help her to deep within herself find
a better path to true self-worth
without having to other's weaknesses unearth.
All those husbands and lovers she's stolen away,
well it's come back to haunt her upon this day.
She's been living in fear of single males -
oh horror of horrors, what if it fails
and she be discarded for someone else...
is this beginning to ring any bells?
Well isn't this what she's inflicted on us?
Such hypocrisy is preposterous!

Oh awareness just dawned - I feel it all.
So now her future is solely her call...😉😉

FROG DROPPED BY A HAWK

On R.V. roof with sun and rain
worked into the dulling aluminium,
a black frog lay in the groove

motionless as a rubber toy; deceased
and stiff as wood, one leg
broken and half missing. Remaining

tiny toes tear-jerking somehow.
Into my heart I took him.
His little sunken eyes

no longer moist and darting
absorbed instead of reflecting light;
a piece of paper I burnt once

looked a lot like that.
Pollen dulled his back to ochre
the way mold encrusts a stale cheese.

Yet his belly retained it's luminosity
away from U.V. rays;
the life once dwelling there

in each silvery body scale: like
candle flame observed through a moonstone.
And I saw thread-like rents there

in the swollen dark bruise
where beak or talon had sliced
painfully into tender flesh.

So sad. It hurt to look.
Slaughtered for what? Not even
sustenance for the marauding hawk.

REVELATION

Because the text absconded
somewhere between phone and mast,
because you had no way of knowing
I'd been held up at the meeting,
you waited in vain. The train from King's Cross
arrived and departed and I wasn't on it.
I can clearly picture the scenario:
your altercation with the porter - probably loud,
describing me in detail and insisting
that he must have seen me leaving the platform
(amongst all those thousands of faces a day??).
It was ten o'clock on a Friday evening
and I appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth.
In denial of having no control over the situation -
a position wholly alien to you - you stood quite still,
stifling the urge to race off up the high street, where
you were certain I must be wandering, lost and bewildered
as I had no knowledge of Guildford whatsoever.
But you wouldn't have found me there.
I was sitting quietly, deeply immersed in a novel,
in my comfortable seat on the later train
that was just pulling into the station.
Someone had suggested I may have caught a later train. So
when I finally alighted, expecting to find you
still there waiting for me, I  was confronted instead
by a frantic whirl of activity from the far end if the station,
followed by a figure swiftly zig-zagging his way
through the flow of oncoming passengers.
Then your livid face, your furious eyes
and your harsh recriminations, "What the hell are you playing at?"
Followed by your crushing embrace,
as if I had been resurrected from the grave
when all hope, all possibility, had been lost.
Then suddenly you were laughing, tears welling up in your eyes -
although you were quick to explain them away as particles of dust.
It was so surreal.
And just behind you stood your saviour,
smiling like a small Leprechaun
to see an Englishman being so un-English:
a mass of frenzied anxiety - and you had
opened your heart to him, asking him what to do
and to help you find me -
and then to succeed in your quest, thanks to his advice.
What a revelation!!
I, who had always firmly believed
that "macho" men like you only faked love
in order to find sex, now presented
with a different truth altogether -
a truth I'd always hoped for.
Your deep concern.
Your across Guildford, fear of having lost me, dash.
And then your relief engulfing me
like a soft warm fluffy blanket;
like a mother hen's protectiveness
of her newly hatched chicks.
Such totally unexpected tenderness.
So I must mean something to you after all.
Could this really be love?
Yes, I am loved.

BIG BROTHER

My tormentor,  greedy pig,
for my feelings don't give a fig.
You stole my Easter egg and candy too.
You think the world revolves around you.
By telling tales to get me grounded,
you make me feel so dreadfully hounded.
Still Mother's favourite you'll always be,
whatever you do she'll blame me -
like when you scoffed her just-baked bread
and I was punished in your stead;
and that time you crashed your bike
into Papa's rose bed - oh what a sight!
I laughed and laughed until I cried -
but I was the one who Papa fried
because you swore that it was me
who pushed you in there - and no one could see
through devious wiles the way I could,
and I knew right then they never would.
And remember Auntie Mollie's hat,
and the big fat bottom that upon it sat?
Well how come everyone shouted at me
until I considered it best to flee?
Six months' pocket money I recall it cost -
oh all those matinees and ice creams lost!
But did you show the slightest remorse?
Oh no not Mother's blue-eyed boy, of course!
And who broke Papa's telescope lens?
How could you blame that on my friends?
They were swimming with me in the pool.
Oh sometimes you're unbelievably cruel.
Well now I have to play alone
and for all your misdemeanors atone.
It's so unfair when the way you are
still everyone treats you like a star.
So do I despise you? I wish I could,
but somewhere within you I know there's good.
And anyway, your sister I am
and so I love you. Damn, damn, damn!! ;)

PERVERSION

Digesting the Vita Merlini
and obsessed with the world between,
I sought and sought and sought in vain
and so finally sat and scrutinized an Oak
that for all it's rough and age-cracked bark
rapidly possessed my Soul.

Without appetite or thirst I sat
fixated, all-absorbed,
to discover that mystical place within
that worldly eyes can never reach,
for so deep it lies in solid wood
not even the woodlouse has found.

But before any shift in consciousness
toward seeing with Spiritual eye,
every crack, every wart so enraptured me;
each knot, it shone more beautiful
than countenance of a super hero
by idolatry embellished.

Struggle however I would
to penetrate that towering maze
of leaves chattering in Otherworldly tongue
and landscape of mottled and tawny bark,
still no flash of enlightenment
breached my primitive skull.

Instead a capricious sleep-starved brain
cleaved my stupefied senses apart,
saturating sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.
Now transfixed by this wondrous art
I ride exhaustion's tidal wave
all day, all night.

And such perversion corrupts my vision:
I must watch the wanton wood nymphs emerge
and seduce this sacred Grove,
until not a chaste tree is left untouched
by flux of Nature's darker drives -
the Prophet's human side.

PULSE

Soft brown sofa - genuine leather -
not for the faint hearted
(animal rights and the contemplation of barbarity,
the rights of all life).
And they creamed, polished and preened it
and draped themselves all over it
while watching TV and consuming popcorn,
and caressed it's neatly buttoned folds.

One Wednesday, a coffee morning.
Upholding it's burden of large ladies,
long-suffering sofa, a big obedient servant.
Then sudden spill,
a splattering of hot coffee over delicate membrane.
Instant panic: damp cloth and deodorizing cleanser,
scrubbing away all traces of beverage, cream and odour.

There was an ashtray too, on a side table,
of solid silver. It was always full -
not that the residents smoked, it was solely for guests.
One day, a guest was a little too animated
in his conversation.
He missed the ashtray, left a burn mark.
Permanent disfigurement.

But they said nothing. He was, after all,
a close family friend, a life-long one
that they could never risk offending: supportive
in all emergencies, funny - the archetypal clown
who lifted spirits: Life is to be enjoyed, not taken seriously!
He was always the centre of attention,
life and soul of every party. He said Never cry
over spilled coffee and What is a tiny burn mark between friends?
And the room erupted with laughter.

Does this sofa have a soul? A new friend asked.
Feel it. Here in the crease of the arm
there's a curious warmth.
Go on, feel it! It feels like your own skin.

There's been suffering here, you know.
And there is immunity. 
Override the latter.
Push your hand further down
until it's quite swallowed up. Reach past
the layers of stitching and stapling,
folding and gluing, with your sensitive fingertips.
FEEL IT!
The warm, pulsing dermis of the cow.

CAPEL GARMON, 1974

Our stop-off in Betws-y-Coed was the result of a wrong turn.
Mike had given us directions the previous Friday. We'd been
looking for Capel Garmon, but had ended up going round in circles -
well, I am a notoriously hopeless map reader!
I was just anxious for the journey to be over, and to be settled
comfortably in our beautiful, newly acquired stone cottage.

However, it was the open fire in the pub that lured us inside.
The wine, though, when we were finally served was warm and acidic,
and it was slammed down on the table so hard
that at least half of it spilled over
and it was a miracle that the glasses remained intact.
Excuse ME!
Whose parliament oversees this entire land mass?
And whose hefty contributions fund your NHS prescriptions?
The two painted dragons behind the bar continued to scowl at us
while gabbling something obviously derogatory
in what I took to be Welsh (but could just as easily have been Double Dutch).
We could feel the poison daggers in our backs - and tossed a few back -
until it became too uncomfortable to stay any longer.
The Roman Inquisition must have been a picnic compared to this!

So we drove around in more circles, until finally stumbling upon the tiny road sign.
On it was daubed, "English OUT!" in red paint.
With mounting unease, we drove slowly on in the gathering dusk
until...
the outline of our beautiful holiday home came into view.
Only as we drew closer did we see to our utter dismay
that it had been reduced to a burnt-out shell.
The acrid fumes from smoldering thatch
seriously irritated sinuses and throats,
making us cough and our eyes run.
On every remaining patch of whitewashed wall
were scrawled the words, "Welsh homes are for the Welsh -
NOT English holidaymakers!"

We were gutted.

But I guess they did have a point.

SNOWMAN

You caught me by the emotions today
as I glanced out through the window
and glimpsed your little forlorn form
while sipping my chilled Bordeau.

Your wistful eyes seemed to cry
"Oh please let me in.
It's cold out here and I'm all alone,
and it's so inviting within!"

Well I stared at you as though entranced
and felt the winter's freeze
touch me in a powerful way
that filled me with unease.

As you stood there looking in,
it seemed my heart would break.
Compelling desire to bring you in
overwhelmed me like an ache.

Oh how I longed to be your friend
and see you wined and dined.
But I knew I would be killing you,
so had to be cruel to be kind.

PSYCHEDELIA

Yesterday we touched the sky,
you and I flying high
in '76, hot July:
heavy metal lullaby
that faded into gentle sigh.

Riding the wings of Dragon flight
to rainbow castle of infinite height.
Colours, colours, blinding bright,
psychedelic fluttering kite.
Hanging on to string of light.

Finding the eye in the sky
that has the power to stupefy
and all our senses multiply.
We're phasing into lasuli
to it's azure core occupy.

Blue planet spinning fast.
There is no future and no past,
only moonbeams racing past.
Stepping onto one at last,
we're caught in cataclysmic blast.

Falling, falling, back to earth,
overwhelmed by sense of dearth:
craving something like rebirth
in fine white powder of great worth.
Relentless is addiction's curse.

THE PORTER

"OK if I ask you something?"
Hospital porter from behind my head.
"What is the meaning of human life?"
My post-op wheelchair rattled along.

"Unfulfilled dreams and then we're gone."
We stopped at the ward reception desk,
then man in grey with compassionate glance
handed me a hard back book, Give Happiness a Chance.

I skimmed over it's glossy back cover,
trying hard to focus anesthetized eyes.
I can't remember what it said.
His counselling was wasted on my befuddled mind,

but I hadn't the heart to tell him.
With the heavily-burdened countenance of a confession priest,
he wandered off to rescue another confused Soul...
in the direction of the hospital morgue. 

BLANCHE

"Blanche is here!" My mother's voice was harsh
with animosity (and secret envy!). I rushed to the front door.
"Love you, Auntie!" I enthused, and threw myself into her arms
while she hugged me back. Her exotic perfume
enveloped me as I stood back and admired her hourglass figure
in total awe. She wasn't just attractive, she was so beautiful:
long pale-gold hair and eyes the colour of a summer meadow.
She dressed, walked and spoke like a movie star
and smiled a lot and wore a stunning shade of pink lipstick.
But, most of all, she was so alive, so vibrant.
And she always gave me pocket money and chocolate
and something even more precious to a little girl -
the gift of aspiration. To grow up in her image
and be just like her was all I ever wanted.
But, oh how my mother resented it, that deep connection
between the two of us. It appeared to be an affront
to her conservative sensibilities that I should deeply love someone
so wild and free, so unlike anyone else I'd ever known.
"She is a bad influence," my mother would grumble disapprovingly,
"All those boyfriends, all that makeup!"

And yet...
I am who I am because of her:
her Spirit lives on in the green of my eyes
and her poetry in the depths of my Soul.

POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Jolted, drenched, from recurring nightmare
I found you still there, your quiescent
slumbering form against my back.

Guilt-plagued by all I'd said and done
since your close call with death,
I turned and embraced you,

trembling, reliving the hell I'd just left:
the open grave, your coffinless corpse sliced open
with gaping hole where your heart should be

and me, naked, trying in vain to staunch the bleeding,
stuffing flowers into the wound, tons of them
that just kept vanishing into the bottomless red cavern.

Oh please enlighten me - is that horror reality
and this a dream? I am no longer sure, either,
where you and I fit into the mockery

of happy ever after...in sickness and in health
and unconditional love. I've loved you as best I can
through all these long years, through all the traumas

of infant mortality, then threat of widowhood,
to finally emerge in one piece...but only to find myself
now hounded by the sheer terror of terror itself.

WIND CHILL

In the fearsome gallery
of Emily's tortured imaginings
the exhibits reach out
and grind our entrails
between millstones of stark sadism.

Cathy's insane obsession,
Heathcliff's brutal vengeance:
so shocking - and yet,
something in us rebounds like an echo:
are those not just printed words,
but we the winds that drive the sails?

A VALENTINE'S APPEAL

Life is dull and empty now
and pointless are future years,
for I'm drowning in the self-made rapids
of bitter flowing tears.

It seems so long since you left, my love,
yet it's been no more than a week.
I'm all cried out, my heart is crippled
without the love I seek.

You were my Sun, my Moon, my Stars.
My Air, Fire and Stone -
but most of all, the shining Grail
I sought was you alone.

Yet I failed to see it at the time,
so was easily led astray
by a silver painted china cup
with whom I played away.

So please believe me when I say
I'm consumed by bitter regret
for being driven by hollow lust.
It's you I cannot forget.

I'm begging you, forgive me do -
I know it's a huge request,
but if I could win your heart again
I'd fulfill the most treacherous quest.

Oh if this agony were yours
of such longing day-by-day
just to feel my touch again,
you'd never stay away. ;))

MASOCHIST

You pour me another glass. The
champagne bubbles dance like fireflies
in the circle of candlelight that surrounds us.

The wind is howling outside, driving rain into the windows
as if anxious to be admitted into our private space.
This place, this moment, our intimacy, is all I can trust.

My mind is riding the bubbles: probing, analysing
who you really are. Trying to relax, I hold on to you,
sensing all your fantasies of the past twenty years.

A fusion of bodies - not just our two, but all
the ghosts between us: a cacophony of masochistic tauntings.
Afterwards, I drain my glass. You are still sleeping

when I leave by the back door
feeling betrayed.

CANNIBALISM

Inspired by my good friend, Lon Anderson...


Gold edged plate, lamb in mint sauce.
Belly full, appetite satisfied
by the skill of gourmet chef.

But I never dare contemplate
what it is I'm actually ingesting:
this succulent flesh -

muscle tissue of young mammal
that will nourish my cells
yet, paradoxically,

stunt my spiritual growth.
This processed grass
that once enclosed a Soul

so trusting of mankind
for the whole of its life - so short a life -
until farm track led to abattoir
and mass annihilation.



Pausing at the boundary of lush green field.
A solitary lamb approaches
inquisitively, without fear.

Our eyes meet across electric fence:
two identical,
yet differently manifested Spirits.

And my hands drip blood.

OF GODS AND QUEENS

The sun caressing grey slate roof tiles,
glimpsed through small gaps in frost adorned window.
And how the cold penetrates clean to the bone
like the icy probe of some alien biologist.
oh yes, winter has invaded with a vengeance.

But where is our snow?
"Too cold for snow," my mother would state,
believing the clouds to be frozen solid:
a skating rink for the Gods, no less,
whom I strained my eyes in vain to behold.

Our garden reclines in shadow now
that the sun skims exclusively the rear horizon,
and everything that lives in this gloomy hollow
defers to the Ice Queen, resplendent in white,
with a hushed and reverent stillness.

Nostalgia wallows in it's own recollections
of sun-trap garden on July days:
the Summer Queen all draped in red roses,
her heady scent lingering on the balmy air...
in skimpy bikini, I'm lying on the frosty lawn.

TEETH

For P...with much affection

He keeps his dentures spotlessly clean,
shining white, devoid of dullness
or even the odd coffee stain.

Lacking root or fixative, he risks
their temporary nature and smiles and whistles,
so proud of his perfect teeth.

They glow in the candlelight
and outshine snow in winter.
On New Year's Eve at a party

he drank and drank, far too much
and overate then danced a wild jig -
against his better judgement.

Then he needed some air so staggered outside
and the cold out there
impacted his stomach

and made him throw up.
Well, mortified, he snuck away home,
but halfway there - shock horror -

he realised his teeth were missing.
So his long-suffering wife
drove him back to the spot,

where he found his pearly whites
all shiny and bright
in the centre of a dollop of vomit! ;))

HMS VICTORY

So legendary, it tells with pride
of an era of courageous heroics.

But the shadowy forms on lower decks
embedded in rope, beam and sacking,

are the mute story tellers; the true heroes
of that bygone age, who linger still,

bound here by experience: a nation's sacrifices,
clinging to their flagship for all eternity.

Their organs once pierced by oaken splinters
still ache from wounds that cannot heal.

Oh these poor wretches, mere cannon fodder
for the hungry jaws of greed and war.

How easy for us now to stroll on deck,
here in Portsmouth's famed dry dock

and idolize Horatio as if a God,
without thought of his minions who saved the day.