When at school, nowhere else but the space that was given
And those tighter moments, when the neurosis of the time
Made no more sense than the 70s were supposed to…

Three lines, two times, and once we had become
The glide of a hawk, the times when we captured
All the dreams that had been spinning around outside

And put them in a small leather bag, pressed in tight
So that we could save them for later
Hang on until it all felt right

Dreams are alive in my head now
Good and bad, sad and mad
Wanting to be regrets, urgent needs to do things now

And so I jump out of the plane, ask rather than waiting
Sing rather than whisper, let go rather than clutch
And think that it is all too much, too particular…

Tags: Poetry

you see, when I was young and writing for all I could find
I read somewhere that it was wrong to use too many words
that end in –ing, so avoided it, wanting to get it right

how stupid though, how the rules that we get are really all
there to be ignored, to be recreated. When word writing
is like sound making, a kingdom where you can become your own king

and king can sing like the ings that are all waiting to be worshipped
or the swings that I sat on and went as high as I could
kicking my feet to the clouds, and feeling the rush of my stomach

whatever direction you take – no, wait – it’s me I’m writing about
take the you away, drift into the inner world of my mind
imaginations that are special, filled with quiet secrets

surely the inner signals that we fill the landscape with, are no
more than the rich resonance of colours and sounds, the
one meaning that fits with a spectacle of memories

now – the kingfisher, the colour blue, the word ‘just’
little ticks that litter these constructions, and the breath
the inward and outward signs of life, of purpose.

Tags: Poetry

Here is one of the poems which I wrote back in March. I’m about to start writing again. This one stirred me to the page again, and it brought to mind the golden eagles I wrote about in the last post to the blog. The birds in this poem were flying in a massive flock around a railway station as I stood on the platform waiting for a train to arrive:

Whenever she says she does she does
But the light never shines above her head
The way it should – like a veil

Like fingers beating on a microphone as a test –
Pulling patterns together that would be meaningless
Sense, connections, lines between – where the ends meet the means.

Tags: Poetry

The cowboys have gone out of business or
Pretend to be self-made commercial heroes,
The fantasy of TV is a bore,
His town and home barely exist in prose.

Scribbles underfoot were rare, too discrete
They left him to his own devices.
He looked for lovers, quiet town, no-one to meet.
Only sources of pleasure were vices.

Salt water on his skin, so the sun burns
Like breaths of healthy old he diverges,
Takes a girl out and watches as she turns
From beauty of which splendour emerges.

His town and home barely exist in prose,
In poetry oft’ times anything goes.

Tags: Poetry

Three are the ways that I have seen you
Gliding across the sky like Jove awakening
Wondering why there are honeyed spaces between
Every field of your vision, every space kept unseen

Remember the secrets you told me, kept separate
Not available for decipher
Un-placed now, re-arranged as though you want
Some bespoke arrangement that only I will understand

Never have I left such distance between as the moments of now
And the time is moving fast and slow all at once
How strange! Take a madman and put him on show
Make him a leader and watch the world glow

Tags: Poetry

Coming out of winter hibernation, I have begun a project for the month of March. 31 poems in 31 days. I’m also carrying a camera and capturing images as the month progresses which I may use to complement the poems. Here is the second poem – unedited or worked, just in its raw form:

Whenever she says she does she does
But the light never shines above her head
The way it should – like a veil

I watch the birds, 1028 of them, fly overhead
Like one organism, flexing and changing shape
Creating a mass of darkness in a blue sky surround

The sense of menace is as real as
The sense of plenty that sometimes comes through
Just when I worry about things too much

When the light shines above my own head
I can sometimes pull it down and through
Then the warmth of it all is palpable

Here comes the birds organism again, fifth time around
With each circle of the town, I can feel a little more sense
Understand the way 2056 wings can make a unified sound

Like fingers beating on a microphone as a test –
Pulling patterns together that would be meaningless
Sense, connections, lines between – where the ends meet the means.

Tags: Poetry

you’re at that age when
everything’s moving faster,
but you can’t play god.

Tags: Poetry

I keep a regular track of the visitors to the series of weblogs which I host using sitemeter. This helps me to see how many visitors are looking at the site, how they get there, and a rough idea of where they are located.

Yesterday someone did a search on MSN Search looking for ‘poems on earthquake‘ and found my weblog for the poetry press which I run. There is a book of poetry which I wrote a few years ago called ‘Umbrian Images’ which includes a poem about the earthquake in Assisi in 1997. The site visitor was in Pakistan and was therefore presumably looking for poetry about the Pakistan earthquake.

Well, as a response to this, I thought I should do two things. First, post the poem about Assisi – I think it brings into focus the difference between these two disasters. This year has been filled with disasters of immense scale and suffering. It is easy to become numb to it all. But I think we just need to keep responding, doing what we can. The world of global media is a two-edged sword which offers us information on an unprecedented scale and immediacy – but it does give an armageddon quality to all of this. Our reaction and support is vital. (There’s a useful post about the impact of the internet on our view of disasters by Seth Godin here.) Which brings me to the second thing I can do as a response. Follow the link to the Disasters Emergency Committee to donate to the Appeal for the Asian Earthquake. Please help.

Assisi Earthquake
(some words taken from a Daily Telegraph article)

On the western edge of town
firemen fear the roof of the upper basilica
might not withstand
heavy rainfall.

The magnificent campanile’s bells
which sound when St Francis’s birds flock
have been eerily silenced as if
their tolling might be enough
to bring the tower crashing down.

The restorer says
“I know the fresco which included this detail.
I’ve restored it twice before,
to see it like this makes my heart sink.”

One local says of the monks,
“I don’t see any of them
rolling up their sleeves
and getting to work with a spade.”

Meantime,
twenty five thousand people
have no homes.

And
we look at moments of time
without the context of history
and emphasis becomes distorted.

3·10·97
13·47

Tags: Poetry