Starting small

Coming at you

Fireworks crashing through the night

Floating seeds

Flocks of birds like

Bursts of arrows in a spray

Motorway bridges

Bloody midges

Kids on bikes or roller blades

Cambered roads

Racing drivers

Crowds that walk the other way

Shower heads

Letterboxes

Coming at you, bills to pay

Spiky rain

Avalanches

Objects on the carriageway

Gusty wind

Flashing mirrors

Motorbikes on sunny days

Sparky fire

Stinging rain

Coming at you, blinding rays

Words of Strangers

(Yada Yada Yada)

‘How are you today?’ they say

‘It’s you I’m talking to’ they say.

And, oh, the sweetness in a softened bed,

the pulse of sleep, deep sleep and half asleep;

a dream is coming at you, coming in you,

along the spindle of a gyroscope

and, in a drowthy half-light of a sleep,

golden threads of dreams come swirling through

coming at you, here’s one you made earlier;

preposterous, astonishing: right at you.

So, listen, in a crack between two worlds

where busy half-lid dreamers do their stuff,

coming at you, morning eyes are flickering

and, coming at you, birds fly out from turrets

and, coming at you, moonlit objects knocking.

Knock knock. The water pipes are warming up.

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imagine he’s sitting at a table

in a kitchen with hams hanging on hooks

and eggs a-frying (garlic and fennel)

- in a time before time - with a small sun

burgeoning outside - lifting the sky

(and a vigilant hare) into listening heart.

Around that scrubbed table sit three people;

the son of my second son’s unborn son,

an old man who’s been here before â€" and a

tweed bedecked lady, lipsticked and twinkling,

holding a cigarette and whiskey glass.

‘What will it be?’ says the old man, earnest

as an owl. ‘Performer.’ says the lady

‘Stand-up or West End â€" he might make it big!’

“A hero,’ says the boy ‘master or leader!’

Andrew’s head drops and the man simply smiles.

‘They need me’ says Andrew ‘my cross will be

heavy. Down’s Syndrome for me, mate, let’s go.’

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‘Musical please!’ says Andrew

‘What will it be? Maybe Cats,

Chitty, Chitty Bang, Bang or

Joseph â€" a good one, please - a favourite!’

We sit eating breakfast,

porridge, like Bears in a story.

Loudly, he soars into ‘Les Mis’

‘He’s like the son I might have known!’

Sudden tears pour volcanoes of water

as my throat drops on-down into wells;

‘the son I might have known’ sees much further

than any old heartless ambition

and an angel carousing beside me

smiles from his face like the sun.

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Flicking on a little switch - electricity

surges somehow out of darkness into light â€" !kapow!

my room ignites in sunshine, even

throwing shadow out from ghostly pillows.

How I trust that switch - and how I’d love a key,

or gizmo, shocking realization;

illuminating (simply by touching a button)

personal power, light and clarity!

The bugger is - it’s not like that;

I can’t locate a switch for insight

or a tool transforming sense.

Give me, O give me, awareness

so that irises flex and my waggling tongue

is led by a heartbeat thudding through chambers of truth.

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In a brown hotel room my heart still beats.

I flushed a small black fly down the loo;

it swirled and gurgled, floats like a dot.

(I may flick it out from predictable spin

recover it pointlessly) like memories

laid kicking and insect-like, slowly turning.

Years ago I saw a huge bug battle for life;

a bluebottle whizzed on its back interminably.

But for now I recycle time, rotating words,

on reclaimed paper with recycled ink.

Outside, cars hum; remaking a buzzing

of insects as life-blood - now fuel, and oil.

Everything rotates (except while tears blub

or eyes flash or sweat breaks:) when I smile at a truth.

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An old mate called Al
studied intently
the Gurdjieff movements
for one and a half decades:

intricate dancing
clear little head-turns
dervishes’ fingers,
hands, feet and eyeballs.

At Christmas time he suggested
carving silence on his inside,
tiny and sweet like a still-point
(in the eye of a tornado)’s
the most amazing thing he learned:
hollowed be thy name.

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Roaring hot and hard today;
heart of orange, lumber, flame
fed by hand and fed by draught,
breathe and splutter, have a laugh.

See through my window
bellowing shadow,
feel my face shining,
hear my voice singing;

guffaw a minute,
take without effort,
always adore me,
eagerly gaze at me:
red-hot I’m bolder,
blue and I’m colder.

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Inexorable logic on logic
plotting formulae into my spreadsheet
with cause-effect, sine-wave, a particle,
pi - on and on â€" such an effort

but I’m born of melody, mixed
out of salt into soup, grown of sunlight;
a writhing, a forcing, a molecule
grabbing for first breath at midnight.

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson,
a Daemon stands beside me,
an anchor, idealising, destiny

and that is surely how I’ll know
a good friend from a sour one,
the dark side of the moon or balmy sun.

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Outta oil, our tank ran empty
through the coldest winter in a century;
snow’s about and a shortage of oil,
t’wagons can’t get through at all!

I had to sweet-talk big Mr Bigshot,
told ‘im tank were empty, we were out,
and only when he heard my missus hullabaloo
did he say he’d ‘see what he could do’.

Next day, there t’was â€" a big lorry
and he half-filled our tank, bless his trousers,
though yet there’s no spark, there’s no heat here.

But, when I crack the tightest nut in all of history,
the oil bleeds a tear, has a weep, flames away
and our hands warm together â€" blessed be.

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Today â€" hooray - my diary has gaps,
I’m trusting it’s an easy day,
tittle-tattle with some chaps,
I’ve time to spare and rest and, even, play;

when Dave steps in the room,
miserable loon
‘I got news for you!’
handshake, troubles, dear, oh dear

and Stevie had a crisis,
I thought that we had cracked it
but Mark sat down
with spreadsheet, frown;
all in all, I’ve gotta shrug and laugh:
this is this - (and this and me and they) - move this to that.

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The crazy trees decide to feel inside joy outside dancing stars rotate love now
crazy trees decide to feel inside joy outside dancing stars rotate love now
crazy trees decide to feel inside joy outside dancing stars rotate love
trees decide to feel inside joy outside dancing stars rotate love
trees decide to feel inside joy outside dancing stars rotate
decide to feel inside joy outside dancing stars rotate
decide to feel inside joy outside dancing stars
to feel inside joy outside dancing stars
to feel inside joy outside dancing
feel inside joy outside dancing
feel inside joy outside
inside joy outside
inside joy
joy

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Forgetting how to pray
we rabbit-on instead, lifting
mobile phones in praise
- a modern way of living.

Projecting words as kind-of-truth,
wagging tongues flap on - and on again;
speaking sometimes softly, sometimes rough,
with every song from worry, sorry, joy or sadness, pain.

Praying now I see
cold snow reach out so far
along England’s dusk. It’s Winter and a train
guard calls ‘I apologise’ again, again.

Broken promises! I’m only half aware he’s hoping for
a nod, a yes, responding to a tiny hope, his prayer.

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