Artist | Author | Poet | Illustrator
My Poetry
I began writing poetry in high school, and have written many poems over the years. Faithfully copied into one special book, they have remained exclusively mine.
A journey of thoughts, emotions and memories.
Now that I have published my first book, and to celebrate this beautiful new website, I have decided to launch my poems out into the world.
The first era is the 60’s and 70’s, followed by the 80’s and 90’s, and finally 2000 onwards.
Enjoy!
October Days
Autumn
And the earth is cold,
Much colder than the yellow warmth of summer told,
Colder even than the green-grey mist
Of morning hinted
Images
Golden, browny-red,
All have long since gone, and in their stead the blue wind stares
Autumn now no longer warm but harsh
And bleakly friendless
Sorrow
In the trees reflected
Leaves that point their jaundiced forms against an ice-grey sky,
Clouds that drift in fleeting hopes of finding
Spring, or tears to cry.
© 1968
Love Lies Bleeding
Nothing can move me now
I feel barren, yet churning with impulses
As yet unexpressed,
Causing only a slight trembling of the hand.
I cannot stand the silence.
Like the dark it thuds, and pricks my skin,
Pressing, oppressive, screaming for attention
Begging release.
Don’t interrupt, please don’t interrupt.
Why don’t you ever understand
I don’t need help, not that kind.
Not the kind made up of small derisive chat
And superficial comment.
I agree with your thoughts,
I am perhaps impossible, difficult,
Don’t say masochistic
Clinical term
Categorizing me
I will not be
Classified.
©1969
ALONE
You are my only reality.
You are constant.
But sad to think
You can never leave me
Only because
You were never
Totally
With me.
© 1968
Love Lost
Is it that I do not know you?
That drifting past my mind
Your thoughts evade me?
I cannot hope that you will ever lose your past indifference
Your self-concern
Your total lack of all responsibility.
And yet I want to reach you,
Need to help you find yourself,
The self that should have been.
If only one could change, before the end is realised,
Before the trembling tether snaps between confusion and reality.
Then, seen through self-complacent apathy
Life abandons hope, direction.
Aimless, through your blind aversion.
And now, through time, the gulf has widened.
Yes I would try, if I could hope to see but once
A flickering, but once, a merging of the ways
A sign, however slight, of sympathy for someone else
For someone else who needs you
More than you yourself.
©1969
Thoughts
Late the sunlight glances through my
window
And the white paint gleams in streams of
strange wetness.
The surrounding shapes once white, now
grey, form shafts of contrasts.
No black and white divisions, but soft
recessions,
Glimpses of the future.
©1969
Rain
Strange the sound of rain
When one lies low
in bed
listening
Like footsteps on dry leaves
When one walks fast
with feet
pattering
Like windy autumn nights
When gusts blow soft
the trees
rustling
© 1969
Kindred Spirit
It was as if I’d always known her
There she sat, alone on the edge of a rock
One of many that dropped in shelves
Towards a gently ebbing sea.
The rocks showed clefts an ridges,
Holes and breaks that told too clearly
Just how little permanence there is,
And how much change.
She seemed absorbed in barnacles and limpets,
Occasionally prodding with a plimsolled toe
As if to question their assumed security.
Once or twice she moved her head,
Not noticing me, but giving me the chance
To notice her.
And certainly I studied the small round features
Framed by straggling brown blonde curls,
The green eyes mournful, almost discontented
In themselves.
Her nose was one shade browner than the rest
Her mouth just slightly sad.
She sighed, and tried to pull her cardigan
More firmly round her shoulders,
Frowning slightly at its resistance,
Tiredly resigning herself to its preferred role
As a strange sleeved wrap, hanging off her shoulders.
Indeed it suited her shawl like, for although
I guessed her age to be not more than twelve
She had the look of someone older, understanding.
I only knew that of all the people lazing in that quiet bay
She alone would I have chosen as a companion,
And I ten years her senior.
How I sat but yards away and did not speak
I’ll never know.
But when she turned at last and met my gaze
We smiled, as if
We knew each other’s problems,
And it helped to know.
© 1973
Broken
It lay there, on the cold tiles by the fireplace,
Well and truly smashed.
I stared; I felt cold, like those tiles
Frozen into the room’s interior.
Why did it have to be one of three?
Leaving two with no beginning,
No end.
I knew I should clear away the fragments
But I felt too much like crying.
No doubt the cat….but
Why think about the cause, sufficient that it fell.
My creation
Moulded to unite the lines and curves of my choosing
Creating, at least for me,
A meaningful form.
One transition was perfect,
This second change is cruel
I would rather have come in
To find
That original lump of clay.
© 1973
Cats
Cats know how to have
A good time
Doing nothing
Or very little
All of which
Is quite exhausting
And requires
A lot
Of sleep
© 1989
Memories (..in more ways than one)
When I try to remember
The important moments in my life
My mind is like a VCR
When the remote
Doesn’t work properly
And the tape fast forwards
Instead of re-winding
And you hit pause in all the wrong places.
© 1989
Cadboro Bay
Walking along the beach
Every morning.
Precious minutes
before the day begins,
Before the cries of gulls
And the soft crunch of
feet on pebbles
Gives way to telephones
Traffic, and terribly important tasks
that should have been done yesterday
Or sooner.
This is the only way
to start the day.
To breathe in the fresh damp air
To smell the salt waves
Rolling in with
reassuring repetition.
Yet always something different,
Some new discovery
A fleeting kingfisher
The splash of a distant seal
The strange bark
of an otter
The hollow call of a raven
Or the high pitched cry
of an eagle.
In ever changing patterns
The river plays with sand and rock
Presenting new challenges
For us
Early morning explorers.
This little world
of natural rhythms and unspoilt beauty
A daily reminder
Of how
The whole world
Should be.
© 1999
AUTUMN
Autumn leaves are falling,
Each little death
A hint of winter still to come.
Nature gently dying
In hues of gold and red,
A final splash of glory
Before the monochrome
Of black and white
Sets in.
Fruit lies rotting on the ground,
A feast for sleepy wasps
And angry buzzing flies
Who dance once more
Before the final curtain call.
The gathering birds
Sing restlessly in tree tops
Swayed by threatening winds,
And squirrels run to hide
Their store before the cold
Sets in.
The sun grows distant
The moon draws close.
She gleams through early darkness
And seems to welcome winter
As her season.
The fallen leaves swirl up
And dance through golden days
And morning mists,
Until the frost creeps in
To still those final stirrings
And send the silent earth
To sleep.
© 1999
Reality
Time
Is running out
Time
Is a luxury
We don’t have
And still
The people
Sit behind
Great desks
Of procrastination
Discussing
Debating
Deliberating
While the earth
Slowly
Chokes.
© 1999
Birth
If only I could capture
That moment of euphoria
When new life first begins
When finally we meet.
A miracle to see new life
Emerging from my body,
Incredible and overwhelming.
I thought I knew you
Through all those months
Of intimate connection,
Life felt through flesh
Limbs felt through skin
Growing and moving inside of me.
And then to meet your gaze
Brand new
Blinking in the light
Searching for me
Seeking comfort from my arms.
Out of my body, into my care.
These brief days
Of perfect happiness
I will remember
And treasure
For ever.
©2000
Questions
Why do tall men
always marry
short women?
Why do I
always push
when it says pull?
Why does toast
always fall
butter side down?
Why do teenagers
always know
so much more
than their parents
despite having lived
only one third as long?
Why does the person
in customer service
always look at you
as though you are
the last person in the world
she wants to be faced with
and she would have been
a brain surgeon but
somebody mean,
probably you,
got in her way.
I suppose
someone knows
why.
But it isn’t me.
©2000