White frost has returned
sniffing through the rhinopath
red labyrinth chilled
Category: Poetry
January Small Stones # 11
January Small Stones # 9
Palest baby blue crumples
are starched flat to bleached grey
unravelled to a screen print
of scorched gold and flame red
then tie dyed to intense indigo
and deepest velvet purple.
January Small Stones # 8
Observing a neighbour sweeping leaves.
A powerful symbol the broom
swept away bad people from Tiv
from a fragile landscape
the dead leaves of society
and in Yorubaland the corrupt.
January Small Stones # 5
Lady of the wood,
torn and wounded in your youth,
broken hearted, scarred.
January Small Stones # 4
Small Stones # 4
I miss . . .
the shiny golden
shipshape weathervane
it’s a mile away
but not today
it’s hiding behind
the treetops
folded in grey
By Rail Through Somerset
country gulls flushed by the 10.53
arrow from fields with frosty periphery
like yuletide tinsel under threadbare trees
lamb filled ewes felted and jacketed
join blanketed ponies to nibble on nothing
awaiting a ride or a jar of mint sauce
depart the Levels undulating uphill
where railway huts stand derelict lonesome
the sizzle of pylons shoot towards ozone
old man’s beard helplessly clings to dense hide
of hedge where Roe stags lurk in dank
acres furrowed and ready for spring
spires crack the mist near burst banks
where Saturday shoals of angling young men
stand fishing
and wishing
The Daily Post: What Makes Someone Beautiful?
Loving with a love that has left behind
all thoughts of whether the packaging
is crumpled and faded.
Living on life’s see-saw, still smiling
when it jolts to the ground hard, not only
when you’re lifted to the sky.
Still finding a smile when your child
has woken every night for three years.
Pretending that the burnt round the edges
soggy in the middle meal, made
by a loved one, is nectar.
The open mind and heart of one
In the comfort in their own skin
accepting of who they are,
right here and now.
Loving kindness, that smile again,
when it meets the eyes of a soul
who rarely speaks to another,
never mind smiling together.
Gifts, Secrets, Heart
Gifts to cherish are the gifts of the heart
beauty, both hidden, and the effervescent,
that blooms then fizzles with time.
Treasure the gift of a child, of knowledge, of a God given talent.
The joy of a souls recognition, the prize of a love shared.
Gifts to cherish are the secrets of the heart, a secret shared to a love.
A story entrusted and kept to self, withheld. A breath and then release.
A secret diary of herstory, held for a generation, now whispered.
Next, shout it loud, a tunnelling to the future, an echo.
Gifts to cherish are the gifts of faith in the love
of a heart eased of pain. No longer bloody blood red,
not shattered, but reshaped by the song of a valentine.
A soul reaches, emerges from the diary of gifts,
for-giveness through towers of forgetfulness.
Gifts to cherish are hearts that hold secrets
deep beneath distant landscape they rest.
Shout loudly, resonate, herstory – history colliding
and healed for eternity, intact.
Lucid Gypsy 