And through the cold coat of
Winter wear, a greener bud
begins on branch that dares
to hope for warmth and better light.
Here, here and here
there lifts a brave blade of
grass, defies threats of frost
and skies overcast by monochrome bright
Sun shaded from sight.

Then tumbles flake into warm drip
of life and wakens and washes
the dust from daffodil eyes
who poke a cautious tip through
earthy blankets
first one there, then there, now
here and here and here and here.

And then a yellow strikes upon the
V of beating wings, and kisses
the sleeping bark awake on trees
who unwrap their groggy arms
and stretch towards the rays
with greening finger leaves
and catkins and stickybuds
and squirrels who agitate
and chatter
and bees who sing a welcome again
to tulips who rush to the surface
to greet them
and rabbits and foxes who chase
and soon we two join too like lost peoples
returned from long dark adventures, emerged,
to add to the business bustlings of
Spring.

We all starin’ at the fender we followin’
lip bit focus from the fella who drives.
Davey ‘im a snooze and he sweatin’ up a storm
the others shift position like they on hot rocks.

Five guys packed in and all packin’,
colors on our backs, full-on inked and all that.
Five guys settin’ on a mission
teach a guy a lesson he’s really gonna get.
Five guys flexing up their muscles;
tonight: click-click bang-bang respect.

So we reach a shady corner
and see ‘im slouchin’ like a drunk.
Waistbands ripple as we pull our metal out
flashes of munitions and pop pop pop;
sloucher hits the deck and his baby-momma drops.
There’s a screamin’ and a wailing’ as we screech away fast
this lesson is a lesson that’s really gonna last.

We whoopin’ and a yellin’ coz we done our bit o biznizz,
9 mil teachers smokin’ up the car.
We’re slappin’ and fist bumpin’ and biggin’ up ourselves
whilst the driver stamps the pedal and he turn his knuckles white.

Five guys start the path to penitentiary
where the tats are tears in the corners of your eyes
but five guys only got one focus
coz five guys happy with their retribution night.

If you cross or transgress her she’ll smash you to bits
this girl is a tigress with a pole-dancer’s hips.
She’s learnt to be fearsome , she’s learnt to be curt
this way is far better, she’s harder to hurt.

She spits at the people who’re full of conceit
and she loathes the liars, those full of deceit.
See, once you’ve been bitten when expecting a kiss
the lesson you learn is: give love a miss.

But this hardness is wrapped in the green of an angel
that strides towards doors of the sick and unable
where she washes the needy, unseen by our eyes
and caresses the hands of the ready to die.

The mad, the unwanted, the babbling few,
the burdensome, the quarrelsome, the too sick to move.
She bites on her lip to snip off her feelings
as she doles out compassion and makes life have meaning.

Then slips into darkness with the turn of her key
and returns to her gremlin and slumps for TV
where, lulled by the warmth and fatigue of long days
she drifts off to sleep, it’s better that way.

Boy meets girl. Using Maya Angelou
We’re crushes, we’re candy, we’re muscle for hire.
The ripple of pecs, six pack of desire.
Our suntans and biceps, our white-glinting grins.
we star in your dreams full of lascivious sins.

Bug-killing, hole-digging beer-swilling fun
the rubbers of cream to protect you from sun.
The flash of smiles in the dark of the bar,
the press of our hips, the brush against bra.

As much as you hate us, in truth it’s a game
you flicker with passion when we say your name
and fingertips stretch on a sunset beach
to lock intertwined so each caress each.

For the faults and the failings we endlessly list
drop from our thoughts as our lips meet to kiss,
since the truth is, despite what we say to each other
the world would be wasted without you, my lover.

It melts you, this acid love.
Dissolves the bits that you were and leaves
nothing but the framework of you, bawling.
From whole to gone in one easy splash
of liquid misfortune;
just to pour on you, on you, on you.

These long-trodden ruts, with mud like pitch
by farming day and ankle-snapping wallows by
wartime night sucked at your boots and swallowed
the uncapped cigarettes of the part-time tommys
who perched, bayonets ready, over the vents of the
train tunnels. This Summer they bake stone-dry
undisturbed by you.

The secret corners of the meadows, like skirts unhitched
unbuttoned cloaks, let you pick, giggling,
your mushroom breakfast like that day we carried
them back triumphantly as victor’s trophies now
sit doleful and forgotten for wont of you.

And above the moor is the startled cry which
shrieks from the fluttering height of a hawk breed
called by a name none of us left can can bring to mind
yet it sprang to your smiling lips as easy as your
rambler’s stride outpaced us all; though you told me
and we rehearsed the right Somerset burr it passed
through my memory and out the other side.
I should have listened to you.

This Winter, when the hail fills the ditch
and the narrow snake lanes are drawn again
in pastel shades of frost and and the crows
shiver in the bare trees at the bite of a
bone-cutting wind, who will remember to crack ice
on the pond for the fishes if it’s not you?

When classes gather on rowdy trips,
chattering school days out poke at the
billhook and scythe on the hitch,
and with murmuring lips rehearse
the curls of a brogue tongue we’ve lost and
peer at the ruddy-faced sepia snaps of smocked men
crushed by the effort of lofting up those hand-built
hayricks, will they know one of the little boys was you?

Who is left to remember the willow switch
the strike of which peeled the smell
of the sweat steam from mud-dusty hide
to tear the plough through cake-crumb
soil with shrill pursed two-fingered whistles and
shouts of “here boys” and “walk on” to
plait the criss-cross pattern
of our farmland fit to burst later with Autumn
plenty if the who is not to be you?

How will we know the ways of every niche
to string the berry-bearing twine amongst
the nooks and crannys of glass or the bud
to tweak or root to lift and clumping ball
to split? The way to cast, broad and measured
in a cupped hand gnarled by ungloved labour
sleeps unwritten with you.

The joys of horse and rattling, rich
reward for boyhood toil, bucking cart,
riding high on the hay, your father pacing
at the rein; a tiny returning champion, skin
like leather; all now squared into an oil fairytale
to perch in maidenless parlours and picturesque
postcards who know nothing of you.

I knew you. I will remember.

I’ll reach for your hand without looking
to see if it’s there.

A slight movement,
light,
with a deliberate glide to a stillness.

We’ll turn to face each other on the
beach. Sunset fire in our hair.

Our moment,
together,
share an intimate look that makes time halt.

In our eyes is understanding, the fingers
that brush say it all.

Tidal current,
advancing,
we’re joined, inviolate, inseparable, betrothed.

The wash of the purest blue green sea
licks around our ankles, clear below an azure sky.

Vital moment,
fleeting,
cast off cares and make the bustle of life…stop.

I don’t know if I told you,
I love you loads,
large loads,
the sort that needs a sign
and a police escort on narrow roads,
train loads,
heavy duty container loads,
filled with hopes and dreams,
like a football field
full of fifteen amateur league teams,
more than an ant colony loves honey,
more than a greedy banker loves his money,
more than wasps love Coca Cola,
(and that’s a lot, especially in Summer),
oceans of love,
tons of love,
A rewritten plot where Bambi’s mum comes back from the dead love.
Like I said, I don’t know if I told you.

Slap our smile away, strike it from our face
and claw into those puckering cheeks and drag
them again towards the downturn, their
rightful place. He spits at us as we look
towards the sky from the window where he
keeps us under his pressing thumb.

Cruel, cruel master who tells us not to look
that way, not to think that way not to ripple
with the pleasures that he rejects.

He likes guilt. He approves of remorse. He
picks at confidence and, at the first taste
he grabs and carries handfuls of it
and throws them howling into his greedy
mouth. We are not allowed a pure sky,
it must be corrupted by plunging thoughts.
We are forbidden to succeed; even at
the point of success He will stick a
knife sharpened on introspection deep,
deep, deep into our backs and twist
it hard so we are irretrievably impaled
and our insides are spun about it like
spirals around a devil’s fork.

Shall we start to speak? He tells us we
may not. We slump into the shape He dictates
as He furls around us, tears and bites at the
skin of our hands to punish our protest, at
the signs that leak out. Compliance is required.
Compliance is expected.

Our tongues are pinched and forced back into
our heads and made to knot against our throats
where He will only let them sit behind the beginnings
of a poker face, dour with the lines of His
handiwork.

You are merciless, Master, merciless and
a cruel bully who has hidden us away.
Please, not for eternity.