what great battles bloodied thee
spirit of the broken briar
do you from campaigns flit and flee
as sparks escape the dying fire
I fancy thee as kindred heart
alone among the mass and fold
a soul that solitude imparts
your counsel to yourself paroled.
short poems
Real Monsters
what monsters of my own design
reside within this fractured mind
to feed upon all hopefulness
so that my torn soul acquiesces
to their claws that tear and shred
and jaws of self doubt bleeding red
that no white knight of dreams or thought
can slay the fierce emotions wrought,
by these unseen beasts empowered,
that would all sanity devour.
The Night
a lion’s eye had opened
and gazed within my very heart
hungry for emotions
that my soul imparted
within this dream I made
menageries of terrors wait
from the forest I had laid
their appetites for dreams to sate
a bloodlust of my reveries
did my sleeping soul a fright
and upon my heart’s unease
did they smile lustful delights
thus did my sleeping thoughts then pray
for salvation in the light
of the singing breaking day
to rescue me from beasts of night.
Smiling Stone
On a beach I once had known
she gave to me a smiling stone
of bloody red and palest gold
that an ancient story told
a tale of when there were no seas
no foaming sprays upon the breeze
where only mountains moved and sighed
in epochs drawn before the tides
were rife with small and bristling things
‘fore the silence began to sing
of life that ran, and swam, and flew
before the first trees ever grew
at pace unknown to rocks as these
yet still this slow earth in its ease
makes all this life at end its own
so hence the knowing smiling stone.
Play For Today
These candle-lit vignettes
which form my memories
flicker and flare
in dancing footlight flame
casting shadows upon
the truths
which time,
as wont of its vague nature,
adulterates and adapts
to fit the script
for the play for today.
Sparrows
and so I stop
to watch the hidden
sparrows play
a reminder
that they too
are weighted by the days
yet small they be,
their troubles
outweigh mine
though even so
do not allow
them to define
their feathered souls
Great Rivers
one morning in late spring
woken by a westerly wind
singing on the early tide
he lamented the fact
that there were places
in this world
through which
no great rivers flowed
Express
no steamy brief encounters
nor mysterious strangers
embroiled in skulduggery
just essential maintenance work
on the line
outside of Chorley
Prose Piece
He tempered his poetry to his heart
words metered to his life’s blood
but as he thought upon her
all sense of the iambic
(or dactylic for that matter)
was lost in a pulse
no sense of breath could control
and all scansion disappeared
from his attempted verse
Les astres sont plus purs
that my nights are filled with thee
the darkness holds no fears for me
for I can dream of two bright stars
set together in infinity.