Blue Plaque

a man of note
lived in this house
in nineteen hundred
and sixteen
he was born
and then he died
but did some stuff
inbetween.

I had never
heard of him
or knew about
his feats
but still it’s nice
to be informed
he once lived
on this street.

Waking

the stranger
came again at dawn
his arrival
heralded by waking reverie
and as his hand
reached out for mine
a cold unearthly
stole all memory
of the dream
which had foretold
how our brief society
would end.

to be…

as they did in the Ardèche
a thousand lives ago
we leave that we are now
as shadowed footprints
of what we’ll be
when we just were.

Corroded

passioned gesture,
this memorial
weather worn,
an iron heart
upon it carved
their love eternal
the padlock falls
and breaks apart.

5-7-5 (take five-hundred-and-nineteen : the legacy)

a butterfly’s scream
lost to all eternity
is our legacy

Reflection

he caught his own reflection
thrown from a passing train
yet wouldn’t recognise it
if he saw it once again
this ghost of who he had become
just didn’t look quite right
his former self the shadow now
forever out of sight.

A Street Cat at the Aurelian Walls.

she sits atop stones
broken fifteen centuries
and purrs in the morning sun
as she cares not
for history
nor indeed
for days to come.

Westward

westward flies the heron bird
westward to the sea
above the treelined rivers
away from you and me
beyond the dark horizon
beyond this storm drawn sky
he wings his way to sundown
to where each old day dies
belonging now to legend
to seldom reveries
he lives a dream upon the wing
to my earthbound memory.

Adrift

a single red leaf
adrift in verdant oceans
a thought is forming

The Virgin Path

he had not walked this way before
nor set foot upon the trail
which his ancestors travailed
a million nights ago or more
when man’s footsteps were as small
as those of beast or bird or game
without the will this wild to tame
and to make from summer, fall
so this forest waits for him
afeared of what his presence brings
for the ending does begin
when man looks on everything.