He saw his world
through frosted pantry windows
spiced as it was
with home made marmalade
and golden pickled onions
in jars dated before he could remember
painted in shadows
by a forty watt lightbulb
with a broken shade.
Occasionally he thought
he might like to get out more
and seek a wider truth
but here he had all he needed
here he felt safe
and after all was said and done
it was home.
a lost memory
soft perfume on a silk scarf
fading to nothing
such is the curse,
to remember every word
from each light smile,
or scolding too from scornful lips,
the scratching regret
of that left unsaid
cut too as memory,
as do the oft retold stories
behind old faded photographs
burn tears from eyes
that long to forget them.
was there then a red rainfall
my memory is not complete
the years have played with my recall
so lest my verse be obsolete
I can remember water though
black as blood streams everywhere
river crossing, gutters flow
to fountain’s crystals in the square,
there is no more that I may tell
nor will my story ever end
for recollection’s empty shell
allows what was with dreams to blend
this lighthouse long dark
guards a coast long forgotten
to all but my heart.
that all our sweetest moments
we could forever hold
perfection fixed unmarked by time
within an amber’s gold
that no passing days may fade
the beauty of their form
not just as fading memory
but clear as first they dawned.
in what was
the longest hour
I plucked a garden’s
perfect flower
and placed it smiling
in your hair
and what nature’s
craft did bear
my artifice
planted solace new
that bloomed as spring
from within you.
“Memory, hither come
and tune your merry notes”
William Blake
light reverie came upon me
in singing ayrs of that we were
and in those sweetest melodies
a lyric lost was hanging there,
and this forgotten memory
held music played so fair
of endless hopes and night less days
that did my troubles bear,
dark melancholy did away
and fled to futures far
the past held in this music’s sway
is such a light memoir.
carved love spoons
eisteddfod tunes
while feeding little ducks
mountain’s glow
and vertigo
atop an aqueduct
I miss the cows,
I miss the sheep
and the draughty chalet door
I may travel down
this road again
but like then never more.
tea shoppes
at the castle gates
swerving caravans
motorbikes
broken tapes
where’s the ice cream man
there’s a cow
there’s a goat
and there’s some wooly backs
wrong way round
the roundabout
past old railway tracks
the blighters rock 