I like this living room you speak of
it reminds me of my own hippy upbringing.
Sundays, when the musicians came by
experimentation was on a grand scale.
and once, there was even a famous Dutchman
jamming with my dad grinning like a valley.
I was the young one who knew all the names -
cited influence of Harvest and Charisma artistes,
old heads seemed cool with the youngly wise.
That’s how it felt back then, in his music room
trying to stay in tune with Beardsley wallpaper
waiting by the paintings for his blue-smoke jazz.
I snuck the breath of adulthood before my time,
and now I send it back.

I remember Jack
he ruled my teenage years
and how I craved the highways
rolled out like three-week teletype
stretched to bedroom youth.

Next to Vonnegut he strode
offering a neckerchief
wailing on with Shearing
pulsing like a bright one
in Jazz firmament.

One minute I was a boy
then I learned of men
exploding like spiders
across stars.

At least he saw dolphins
spooling like silver thread
and they were blue reel wound
like circles of remembering
and this was the thing of things
amongst the coronation waves
patient souls hailed them
each moment pouring into one
an urgent gasp of flickers on
with granted rush to saltslap roar
with curve and arc of open heart
we saw dolphins and he saw them too
now diving down our spirits meet the bow
then play upon the wake.

No-one knew what was
beneath the sediment
bubbling something
like old grief under skin
Moonraker’s booty perhaps
or rusting truths
now wrestling with reeds
like matadors in mud
like foot trodden fate
like drakes and strutting loons
all telling secrets too.
They fished and fiddle-shook
slid on pondweed toes and turned -
lost waterboatmen,
now scuttling home.

Wisened smirks in tan and spur
on drifting plains where gauchos ride
with measured words of old-world burr
in parchment air the cow-punch calls
to stars and satellites .
Weather shirks and tin men blur,
on nowhere trains in race to find
the long gone herd of ways that were,
descent no more than new-born’s fall
on drifting plains the gauchos ride.
Please, don’t switch your T.V on
tonight.

What a perfect lawn.
Bottle green nourished and sparkling
In the dawn like a King’s blanket,
Carefully thrown across the ground below.
It was here, she thought of him.
Here, where she let children loop their hearts,
Watched ambling lovers rest and sip red wine
Where nervous souls unwound the day
And owls embraced their quiet time.
This barefoot salve for tired steps
A million tiny hands that stroked,
That told of newness in the day
But always reminding her of him.
And she, amidst this memory,
so proud of tender green.
He’d just laid down.

There’s a stone in my shoe
under gavel of tread and stride.
A remembrance that coincides
with stomach-knot reminders
and memento sighs returning
with every step away from days
before today.

Then, we walked barefoot,
it seemed a thousand miles.
Over hot rocks like peppercorn steaks,
Over warm, soft dunes like sifted nutmeg,
Over rutted shale towards seaweed dance.
And there, with grazed ankles, toes and heel,
that was when you taught me how to feel -
to let the soothful waves just brush away
all unkind gravel, stone and sand.

And now, there’s a stone in my shoe.
And it annoys and bothers me so,
I wonder what I should do -
that’s why, I think of you.

All blue in the old Beehive
We’re hearing full moon wail
Wall to wall with twitching men
Holding pints and keys on chains
Their nodding purse of wisened lips
And naive balls of leisured feet
Crane in spectacle of him -
In Sunday’s best and gravel voice;
All hailed might of Watermelon Slim.

I know
you miss the rhythm tree,
remembering too the seahorse sway
play and mystery through comb of song
writing itself in the pocket of time,
touching, feeling the roots -
in soil of sacred ground.
This is the beat
only entwined souls know -
the rustle of unification,
catching groove and flow.
Let me ask;
have you forgotten
the joyous seeds
memories can sow?

Dad
once kicked a ball
so high - I swear,
it disappeared
into the clouds
higher than the stunt kites
he taught us how to fly.
That’s how it seemed,
and I remember
the green of the park.
This was the day
when we found a weir
(the one I lost my shoe in)
teeming with flashing trout,
and I was just so proud
when he cast his line
and reeled them in.
Speaking of water,
we sometimes stayed
on his cabin boat.
Named after us kids it was.
We didn’t see him much,
so these were special times
that always ended with
wind-tinkling masts
and exciting next day plans.
He was a captain,
with an adoring crew.
And, he had THAT look too!
His jazz look.
It would embarrass me so -
all beatnik crazy.
Nodding, finger-popping,
shouting “yeah”,
with starey eyes
and big band styled
hep cat smiles.
Ah, If only
I’d realised then.
I’d want to write
a thousand lines,
a million words or more -
about him, about laughter
about amazement - about growing up.
But that’s selfish,
so I won’t.

Don’t look at me with naïve eyes,
like big splashed pebbles before sun
awaiting the kiss of eternal sea
and laughing curl of children’s toes.
Don’t look to me for all I can defy,
my vanity feigns to hold these years -
for you, who grows, whilst I stay old.
Don’t look back, don’t look ahead,
Don’t look now, don’t look, don’t look!
You’ll know when the moment comes
to race alone cross coarser sand,
towards the tide for running’s sake,
across the marks of necklaced time.
Then, you’ll look at me to say goodbye,
you’ll turn and wave, to face the spray
and I’ll throw away your little shoes.

This house is just too small
For all these knick-knack memories
Stuffed in crevices and laid out
Like lingering refugees on the floor.
This junk we keep for old time’s sake,
This baggage piled but never sorted
Everywhere a story, everywhere a tale
And all those secrets never told.
It’s time we got this place
Cleared out, done up, and sold.
Let’s do it now, before
we grow too old.

He liked aubergines.
Not just for the taste -
but also for their look and shape
like silk bells stroked by moonlight
in extacious growth.
He loved their colour too
like the edges of neon in rain
or passion in the summer dusk.
Curved like a marble womb
in the palm of his hand.
Yes, he liked aubergines,
and so do I.

Where are you chickjesus?
Not washed away I hope
by flood of life
and death like dust
on surly breath
over unkind seas.
You once awakened me,
turned driftwood
into useful thoughts
took clay of you and I
and sculpted we.
I hope for you
in the swell
of the cosmos -
are you still looking
for butterfly wings
on the shore?

All he wants is
a sporting chance
for him to do
the big boy dance
the slippery pass
from youth to man
the yards to catch
and moves to plan
all markers that
he needs to pass,
beyond his awkward
backfield glance.

Sore thumbs
devoutly uncool
otherwise voiceless
radio ghost.
Who else
melts the years?
Ordinary bloke
voice of a lifetime
touchstoned
sound champion.
33 at 45rpm,
fluid grace and hope
for grumpy old.
I will miss you,
Uncle John.

(Dedicated to John Peel)

Once, there was a boy
with knotted hands,
unpicking twisted fishing line,
trying not to hear his father’s sigh.
Hard for him to figure out
the pattern in the tangle,
scunched-up in disbelief
in his puzzle weave.

Next, he was a youth,
stood no longer on the bank,
sorting awkward circumstance
and learning how to dance,
with stumbling feet against the laughing,
self-concious twist of age.
So tough, to follow steps involved,
the right and left of teenage told.

Then he became a man,
with laid out blueprint plans,
tracing wires to broken lights,
fumblimg grasps before the night.
Lumpen on the needlewire
with darkness rushing him,
dropping all in race to fix,
an urgent flame to candlesticks.

Now he is old.
Balanced on memories,
pinching out the kinks and fray
from threads binding final days.
Static limbs fail to sort the pins,
but still he prizes the matted ball of who is -
trying to unravel the reasons why,
he understands his father’s sigh.

When we found the bomb, it was rusted.
like an abandoned mower fallen down,
rotting amonsgt the roots and moss
a grey backed breakfast for worms
and insect insignias barely visible.
Under the lost brown over-run
of its shattered iron case.

I think it was you who first tripped
over this blunt cutter of men
lying for years unknown
in the peaceful forest green.
It was size of two strong arms -
reaching out to us through
the softbed verdant floor.

Before, we were young boys -
bored of the gravel track, wanting
wild trees and Action Men
and McQueen punched jaws -
anything but clipped old man’s roads.
Then, Dad told us; “Go on! Run off!
Find something really exciting to do!”

That’s exactly what we did.

A little girl sobs on the beach,
tears as inevitable as falling waves
whimpering, down the folded dune
of her soaked opal face - her treasure
lost and rolled in with the multitude.
Into the age of us of through winded grain
and then to stubborn rock - like a wayward cell
off a sand-beetle’s back. I try to explain;
Even the most beautiful pebble on the shore
is just a stone when you take it home.

We were like moonlit kites twisting wildly in chase of stars.
For a moment, escaping the tether and dangle of life -
untiying ourselves in the velvet smooth of night.

Windward held were we - on craving’s warm air.
Soaring vista birds, in follow and blissful rise;
High, above the spooled tail of humdrum days.

I recollect this thrill in flight. I remember us like this.
Lost in the circling entrancement of each other,
tissue-paper light in the eventide.

Go down near the pentagram scrawled
where young kids pause and slow-worms lie,
past a weathered concrete pillar box
built to stop the Germans many years ago.
See those Nettles further on, as high as your eyes?
They side the stern-bricked house where
the inventor and his witchy wife … experiment.
Look further across; a burned and derelict mill,
flooded now by the broken branches of summer play,
rising over dusty mounts towards curly bridge of motorway.
Beyond the chalk dip and green hollow hiding
from farmer’s burred curse and arms, on top
of steep verdant incline - pushed logs bramble and roll.
Falling on the bullies stood in flint stream below -
splashing the washpool of boyhood.

She said she would let him know,
when she got there, and he’s
still waiting for a sign.

Sunday, six o’clock; forever,
preparing to pounce on nuances
of a shadow calling - showing
that she made it through.

Prideful in the chore of whittled hours,
marking his bide. Onward, pressing -
noble packet and stamp waste of days.

So now, he eats strawberries
at midnight, smokes cigarettes again.
Catches the shuttered doze and whiskey grey,
of dusk’s vague promise.

Up late, getting dressed even later.
Re-reading the scattered bedside papers
still addressed to both of them.

It’s Ok. It’s Sunday, six o’clock.

First in honour, now in memory,
behind a wall and down a hill.
His secret garden grows.

Calm harbour, amidst bracken leaves,
kind to all and patient still.
A sacred place that knows.

Verdant wise and endless houred,
of life forestalled but yet, fulfilled.
Nature’s joy bestowed.