Vigil

I count the funerals

One by one,

Waiting for time to end.

The guest list

Shrinks,

While longevity brings

The advantage of repentence.

If you beat me to

The Promised Land,

Save some manna for me.

I loved you,

But you couldn’t stay.

Morituri te salutant

Spoof CV

Graduated from the school of misery;

Flunked hard knocks;

Took a stab at whingeing;

Ended up on the rocks.

Life Lines

Great Ormond Street, 1987

You don’t recall, being so young,

The spectre of each cot:

Wires straggling up to screens

That told some secret story;

The hurried smiles,

Eyes grim with care,

In your first moments;

Willing science to mend

What nature had left unfinished.

Technology can’t heal

The hours

That fear for breath.

Pacing that ward,

We listened for the note

Of lives so small,

Now amplified

To fill a room:

The message of each heart

Defining a universe. 

Final Vision

A prophet on his off-day

Has few friends:

Visions tumble,

Believers run,

Even the wind deserts him.

That Ark you built

Rots in the backyard

Unnoticed,

As the earth burns.

Your miracles have come adrift;

Your prayers returned

Unopened.

Now, on the highest mountain,

You try to make amends:

Opening your arms to the

Clouds

In search of rain. 

Weather Girl

The weather girl

Has a way with warm fronts

And isobars.

Her tropical gaze

Makes storms seem tame

As she tells you it looks like rain.

Oceans rise

And villages are swept away,

While you’re off making tea.

Her thermal smile

Betrays no irony.

Her image reigns

long after the programme fades,

Leaving no choice

But to trust each new forecast.

Night and Day

Dark fills the pews,

The graveyard’s quiet too;

Down at the ‘Horseshoes’, fiddles stampede

To the sound of the annual cheildh.

There’s a gold harvest moon,

The pints are in tune;

And all’s fine in God’s country.

The hills of West Dorset

Stretch down to the sea

Past sheep and caravans,

And fields which keep watch

On who we once were and how we should be;

While here on the beach,

Clouds crane for a view,

And the waves look

Almost innocent

Today. 

Untold

I saw seven magpies

On a walk

By the ruins of an old fort.

That means luck, I thought.

The fort stares out to sea,

Waiting for invaders who never came.

The birds didn’t stir,

As if they belonged there.

They took off finally, three, then four.

Like omens, I felt.

No five for silver

Or six for gold.

Two should bring joy,

The old rhyme says;

Not sorrow, like one;

But seven’s a secret untold.

Smoke and Mirrors

It’s often like that, don’t you think?
Things don’t turn out as planned,
Unless they’re not:


Those mist-filled moments

Where everything’s clear.

Take your name:
I forgot it the moment you said it,
But still remember.

With dreams,
You don’t need a map.

I’ll meet you here,
At the café
With the faded mirrors,
Wherever you are.