Evervescence

Quite by surprise

I find myself

In the presence

Of God, or if not

God, Youth.

Not my own,

Nor do I have

Any place in it.

Yet here I am,

Effervescing,

A bottle poised

To pop its cork.

Summer heat

Refusing to fade.

Restive night -

That old foe -

Sour-faced

And anguished,

Walking tonight

In this street

Under lamplight,

Back to a time

When we drank

In dark alleys

Slipped a key

In a lock

And took

What wasn’t ours.

Raised sweet wine

To hungry lips,

Felt the ocean swell

Deep in our lungs,

Dipped the waves

And danced

Late into the night

Together, apart.

Once I thought

I would see

This world

Dreamt of voyages

By river,

Land and sea

Adventures

In the fevered

Grip of love.

And now I see

The impossibility,

The impossible sea

Between the dream

And the reality

Of what is

And what cannot be.

All the places

I have not seen

And never will.

The way of all

Who yearn to sail.

I have nothing

To give,

But these lines

And myself,

Wholly, to you.

Words rising up,

Fizzing briefly

Becoming still.

Tranquillo.

I want to dwell

In the realm

Of you,

Breathe you in

Like a bouquet.

Walk in step

And tarry, hold

And be held

As a child,

Feel the world

Through your

Fingertips.

Just to be

In the presence

Of God.

Your beauty.

Your youth.

Your love.

A Window

Now I am not I,

Nor is my house now my house

‘Romance Sonambulo’, Garcia Lorca

He was sitting at a window

Watching the hour resolve itself

From the night’s black scrawl

To a muted green of dawn,

Listening

To the house

Coming back to life

In the morning’s pale cold.

The morning greeting him

With a stilled garden

Caught in the lure

Of autumn’s chill air.

Overnight, rain fell like lead,

Silvering the thatched lawn.

The beech hedge threaded

and interwoven by roiling coils

Of bramble. In the beds,

Apologetic poppies

Shaking sorry bonnets.

In the earth, worms ooze.

His eyes lit upon an apple tree

Planted by an unknown hand

Barely capable of bearing fruit

Its branches chafe

As if for warmth, like two hands

Over a hearth. Its neighbour

With one or two still clinging on:

Rotting baubles pecked by rooks,

Carcasses littering the grass,

Eviscerated carrion

And turning brown,

Left to spoil and seed.

He was sitting at a window

Looking upon a world

That was not his to know

A world being reformed

By the sun’s steady hand.

A garden which was like

A room of the mind

In a house returned to life.

Portrait of my grandparents

They’re an unusual pair.

Him gangly and goofy, a string-bean Swede,

In jacket and trousers that don’t match.

Her diminutive and compact, blonde curls.

The farm-girl glamour she never lost.

Smartly dressed in Sunday best,

They might be off to church,

Or his father’s coaching inn, or else

Pushing the boat out a bit,

Taking a trip in a borrowed car

Or her father’s horse and trap,

On a road to who-knows-where,

Past milking fields, hedgerows

of hawthorn and ash, spring

Uncoiling into a hint of summer.

 Or perhaps no further than this garden.

The evergreen lawn this portrait depicts

In varying shades of sepia grey -

Slight stain marring the print -

As something vague resolves itself

Into something indelibly real,

Like the familiar becoming loved. 

All that a camera cannot capture:

Sun essaying from behind the clouds,

What words passed between them

As they held their smiling pose,

The footprints left in the deep grass

As they walked toward the house

In cahoots, closer than close.

View fullsize

The Horses

rediscovered

in my

grandparents’ loft

rusted

canisters

of cine film

we go over

for dinner

and to watch

old selves

in celluloid

me

my brother

my mother

and father

uncle

and partner

grandparents

curtains drawn

lights dimmed

the

projector

beams

a fine

blade

of light

into

the room

an image

of a garden

forms

flowerbeds

pink

with roses

then unfamiliar

faces

long-gone

aunts

and

uncles

great

grand

parents

resurrected

in Sixties

suburban

utopia

Brasso-faces

in suits

and skirts

nursing

cup and saucer

Potteries

china

reserved

for best

horn-rimmed

and ruddy

a young woman

laughs

and shakes

russet tresses

a tall man

pomaded

in shirt

and slacks 

pings

with

rubber band

a glider

skyward

for two

small

brown-haired

children

a girl

in summer

frock

a boy

in short

trousers

run in circles

on the lawn

the plane falls

and is caught

by the roses

it is summer

high summer

flaming

june

my mother’s

birthday

the penny

drops

a jump cut

we are

next to

a field

my mother

throws

breadcrumbs

to a horse

at grass

a brown mare

just out

of shot

her foal

my mother

turns

a breeze

brushes

a strand

of her hair

she asks for

something

her small

mouth

pleading

can we have

more bread?

my mother says

from her spot

on the floor

in the film

someone

hands her

more

but when

she turns

the mare

bolts

and runs

across

the

paddock

with

her foal

the first

and last

and only

time

I saw

my mother

as a child

The Stone Age

Our eldest brings stones

And sticks home from the park.

Bits of grit, lumps of gravel,

Marbled pebbles, tiny rocks;

Indiscriminately selected twigs;

Branches, feathers; lichen, bark.

What will grow from this stony rubbish?

He cannot know or say, though each

For him is as a curate’s egg,

Growing the small, neglected stack

In the corner of our porch

Where leaves and cobwebs collect.

A broken nest. A disturbed cairn.

A stone age ruin. Signifiers

Of his untroubled realm:

A time without rules, or doubt,

Cruelty, or loss - where things,

Like names, do no harm

And all his days voyages of discovery

Through those secret places close to home.

Deeside

Fourteen years. Faster than an eye could flick.

Sweet little Ballater, this regal town

With its quaint cornershop confectioner,

Beeching-ed station, Balmoral Tavern,

Lochnagar Indian, two Co-ops, one Queen.

Still the same. Still different. Still home.

No flag atop the Balmoral pole this week,

Just a smattering of snow to help to keep

The skiers and lifties up at Glenshee.

Fourteen years ago you scrambled up

A hillside, young poet with an old soul,

Average mind, lungs full of hash smoke,

Trying to write, trying to know something

Of life: “the river shivers like a silver shoal,

A strip of foil unravelled.” The little distance

You’ve travelled. Returning with two sons,

A wife, your parents: older, slower, more

Mortal. Their bequest, this regal town,

These sterile fields, ancient woods,

Mountains and valleys echoing with

The sound of their unspoken thoughts.