Long Armfuls Poems

IN THE BLUEBELL WOODS AT SHOTLEY BRIDGE

Shotley Bridge woods must  no longer exist
Though I looked for them often as an adult.

Eventually  I stopped looking fior the woods.
However, I often recalled them in my...

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I must think fast. My house is on fire and I'll have 16 minutes at the most
to decide what I will save!

For sure, I will rescue the computer, or the flash drive at the very...

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They taught us what to do if there's a bomb.
A big bomb.
A bomb they removed in a biopsy on a God
A big God
Scooped it out in armfuls from the body of a God
My God the...

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I saw the swifts again today,
High on the wing and weaving the crags to the clouds.

I watched them last from my Fall lawn,
Flickering between fantasy and truth,
And whistling their secrets to the wind.  

They’d...

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ALONG THE ROAD OF LIFE  I  CARRY WITH ME  MEMORIES


Recollected childhood trips seem an intensely hot affair.
We took a bus, tight-filled with sweaty people’s feet
For hours;  but then at the end,...

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For years I have fought
And battled with weight
Now disabled and in pain
I fear it's too late 

I can't eat this
I can't eat that
Diets are fads
They make me fat

I've tried the patches
They've taken my money
No magical...

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TWO   KIDS   REMEMBERING


There we were

Next to the railtracks in the middle of the industrial heartland of 1950s Tyneside

Martin and me 

Summer’s day and no money and no place to go except...

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All the good in me unlaced I pull what I own across the floor,
books devoured to the spine, impressions the knees of my jeans
have made of kneeling, my ghosts of ghosts, the saint who is...

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Scorned coquette
perched so solemnly
upon your death stool,
claw deep the fresh flesh of victors
bearing armfuls of decaying flowers
stolen from your mother’s grave.

A diverse parade -
clairvoyants and gigolos
tyrants and schizophrenics
junkies and Jesus freaks;
you seem to attract
an unending...

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On that fateful day in August arriving late, so unusual for me
For I am always early; did I know deep down what the verdict would be
As soon as I walked through that door, the neurologist...

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Off us two went, beneath the trees,
that crackled and snappled
in Autumn’s crisp breeze,
our wellies slish-sloshing through the pelting rain,
plip-plopping, plip-plopping
again and again.

The thunder it rumbled,
and the wind it blew
but on and on,
the adventurers, two,
rustled through...

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She called them her blue years
Tinsel and streamers hanging in ballrooms
she never saw the inside of because of her fears
Cobwebs and dreamers of laughter instead
Didn’t go out for fear she’d be dead
Floods like Niagara of...

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Imagine me, a fish in the sea.
Such a sensitive soul with waves of compassion.
A water baby through and through.
Dreaming away while looking up at planets and stars.
I see Neptune ruling the skies in the dark.
A...

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...the way flight begins in the heart
                            ...

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Together we each
walked the forests
of our interiors...
Collecting armfuls,
chestfulls of
broken bits.
A bundle of sorrow,
a fag of frustrations.
The combustible shrapnel 
of having been hopeful.

We carried these to
a secret public place.
Public, for all could
see.
Secret, for few would
know.

There, together,
we...

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You brought armfuls of dream
Want to parse the stream
They say you are made of cream
Bright and leading my tongue scream

What else was so sweet
This is your cross street
Always stand on its own feet
No matter how...

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No lavish gifts have I today,
To try and coax your heart to sway,
No chocolate treats, or blood red rose,
No gentle kiss to curl your toes,
But I thought of you and penned a poem,
With dreams of...

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Crunching the frozen ground beneath my feet,
I wade through snow, soft and white, endlessly deep.
The golden sun reflects on this snowy embrace,
And armfuls of joy fill my gaze with grace.

The blue sky, the sun's light,...

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UDELNAYA   MARKET   6:30 PM

6 30 and not yet all gone -
Shadows lengthening,
Suns light in eyes, still 
Difficult to see the  end . 
Flowers of the day now dried petals,
Empty boxes,...

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