Lesson from a cider orchard

Early morning. Felt like autumn.
August, still revving her engines
But the air was nipping and
Something like frost coated the grass
Between the careless brook
And ripening trees.
The dawn sun rose to contradict
The air. My shoulders wore warm.

Trees held in orchard rows
Unaware of the benevolence
Ruling their lives;
Even their sensation of breezes
Of dark nights, and scorching days
Of thunder, and gentle rain
Of the inner strain,
The compulsion to swell

Twinkling eyes cast
To their neighbours
Luxuriating in the
On-rush of beauty
Green bullets learning to
Blush and sway in the wind
Looking down with
Scorn on the fallen

Grounded in degrees of decay
Telltale brown, soft
With a fermented scent
Rising with the dew-frost.
Here, not up there,
Is rapture, dark seeds
Falling to the ground
To die, to escape

They say

They say a poem should
Spit like fat on a red-hot pan
Etna’s secrets outpoured

They say a poet
Sinks into hell and
Flies with the angels

Is as weighed down
With endless joy
As with sorrow, they say

But they mistake fire
For a hand on the latch
Opening the heart

Unseen moments
When all you can say
Is, ‘The door’s open’

Two Cats, Deux Chats

En franҫais, je m’appelle Bleu, but
In England, I do what only a cat can do
Contort my limbs, forever cleansing
Foreigners to our feline world
Cannot distinguish between the
Beginning and the end of things
I am Blue

By an ancient telepathy,
A domesticated feral spirit
I commune with
An inscrutable snow-white
Handful of pure sophistication
Whose role in life - life in the Ardèche -
Is to stretch, yawn, and wait for food

Though separated, we are one.
If mere sons of Adam
Unburden their hearts in words
We self-carers transmit
Do Not Disturb messages
By extending a claw, yawning
Or…slowly…walking away…

English Blue, purring, curls into
A circle of bliss…in a pram
Whilst the French sophisticat,
Commandeering a plot
Under the green bamboo shoots
Of a café planter, laps up
The attention of the midday Sun

Their eyes, if open, speak
Of a wisdom lost to the ages
Of contentment. Of trust.
Or bringing tokens
To remind the world:
Behind their languid exterior
Lies a classy night hunter

Annoyed by a fence

It’s early, dew lies on the grass
My pores are aptly named
Perspiration from a heightened
Post-run euphoria falls freely,
I’m en route to the welcome
Deluge of a fiery shower
And, across the road,
Shouting, I’d say, stands proud
A new featureless fence

Evoking an unexpected
Rage, a vomit of distaste
I am propelled, it seems
In microseconds
Tunnelling in time
Back to the life of a distant tree
Of distinction
Listening to an intermittent
Chainsaw drawing near

The tree’s soul withdrawing
To its roots and the soil
Resigning its fate
Into the hands
Of a woodsman with
Sweet and salty
Sweat on his brow
We are unlikely twins
He and I

And who lives behind this
Perfectly panelled, knotless
Interlocking  
Guantanamo-orange prison?
Dead cells of a former forest
Standing at eternal attention
Upright, yearning for weather
To crease the horror of its
Nailed-in uniformity

Do I hear a low moan?
A prayer pleading to rot
Into the soil? Another
To shatter in a sudden blast
Of Arctic or Atlantic wind?
Or for seeds to germinate
Climbers, or weeds
To grow up and cover the
Dreadful flat nakedness?

I can think of only
One course of action:
Evisceration
Deep calling to deep
But I am tempted
To catalyse its panels’
Slothful return to nature,
And call down lightning
The Guy Fawkes in me smirks

Seeing Voices

One day, perhaps soon
Our blinkers, our cataracts
Will be slid away
And we shall see
The glorious normality

The air trembling
With speech unknown
Audible echoes of
Thoughts unheard
Shudders of spirit

Whispers
Taking the shape
Of Niagara, or Angel Falls
A deluge and thunder
Of Shhhh

Or the weeping
Of the Son of Man
Falling like torrents
Tongues of
Inexpressible sorrow

And as the sky dims,
Dark with purples
And a multitude of the
Heavenly host dissolves
Speech into song

The whole of creation
Quivering
With all its words restrung
Into symphonies
We kneel, undone

Heavy with mist

In the garden
In the cool of the day
The Lord God came
Looking for those who
Struggled to hide

Untruths from the heat
Of the day, exposed
In the twilight, man:
Born in the morning
Undesigned for the night

That long imminent night
Of flaming swords
Of banishment. An exile
Kneading its strange magic:
A longing to return

In King’s Wood
In the cool of after-dawn
Boots on the hillside, up
To the flaking plaster
Triangulation point

I climbed and gazed East
Into the face of the sun
Or would have
But the air was heavy
Blurred with humidity

Birdsong, muffled in
A wall of water hanging
Just above the ground
Clinging to the sky
Saturating the world

Obscuring the sunrise
Until the heavy mist
Burned clear
And I,
With eyes open, saw

What was always there
The grass beneath my feet
A lone mushroom
A startled rabbit
A languid cow

And disinterested sheep
Mowing the hillside
Sung to by skylarks
And ancient warblers.
For a moment

I was no longer here
But home
In the farm tracks
And dry-stone walls
Of Eden

Tragedy in Eden

Thursday.

The glory of the Lord appeared today
In the form of forked lightning
And thunder
Coconuts fell all morning
Rebounding from the ground
All our creatures hid in places
I have never found

As evening fell, flashes of light
Lit everything up
In purples and white light
Wisdom spoke warning us
Of taking canoes out
On the river
But courage spoke also

It was Havilah that we paddled
To see the gold
Illuminated from inside and out
Soon, bathed in a yellow hue
Absorbing and filling us with strength
Eve scooped up the river water
And drank its light

Friday Morning

Eve returned early from
A morning stroll, eyes wide open
Rain fell, drenching her hair
The clouds, closer than normal
Looked disturbed
In her hand, a red peach
Dripping with juice and rain
I took the second bite

Friday Evening

Everything was familiar and yet
Distorted, the soil dustier
Eve’s forehead creased, and mine
A strange fear knotted
And knit us closer
It wasn’t love, knowing we could
Never re-attach the peach

The glory of the Lord appeared
Not as before, but
With tears and strange words
He walked away
Pulling our wooden canoe
For safe storage ‘Until…’
But we couldn’t hear the words

Not just a walk

Gills and a gaping jaw
Caught in a fishing line
The creature’s freedoms
Consigned to memory

Impaired, struggling to rise
Oxygen-depleted blood
Baptised in despair,
Will, sapped to the core

Suspended between
The depths and the sun
Turning and twisting
On an axis it didn’t choose

And so it was as I trudged
Up Sidcot’s shaded gullies
To the nettle-bound radio mast,
Distractions, undoing and

Dulling the beauty of the
Horizon-wide, sun-soaked
Somerset Levels and St
James’s spire seeking heaven

Half a flock of sheep
For company in the shade
Looking on helpless to
Unthread the tangled line

Later, within a hymn
In a deluge of Spirit
My heart sings songs
Of untethered joy

Now I remember
The moss-covered walls
The poor arthritic ewe
A golden field of barley

And the soothing crunch of
Of gravel underfoot
On the final leg
Home

Outsourced Love?

At each dawn chorus
Lewis Gwyn Knowle’s will stirred
Stiffening muscles and sinews
Grimacing against the strain
Of his unstilled bones.
Lewis, expressionless
Stood under a steaming shower
Devoid of thought
By sheer habit,
To wash the night away

It is always thus: cleansing
The pure emerge, brighter,
Hair and eyes sparkling
And if not so,
Then steady at least
Ready for the day’s toil
Whilst the memories
Of but a day ago are rinsed
Away to another world
Outsourced so we can be clean

In this green and pleasant land
Rid now of satanic mills and
Plumes of foul-smelling smog
A land of coal mines in cold storage
En route to carbon zero,
Environmental eyes sparkle
And if not, conscience quelled,
Guilt is outsourced
To another world
So we can be clean

And if we behave so
Does not God but wilder?
That Will forged in eternity past

That heavenly corporation
A nuclear fire of spirit
Outsourcing the spotless Son
Sluiced somewhere
Outside a city wall
Beyond the satanic mills
Of synagogue and temple
Like some blackened commando
Baptized in our grime
So we can be clean

So, Lewis Gwyn Knowle,
I wonder if imprinted
In some recess of mind
Whether you, imago dei
Whatever satanic foulness
Clings to you, hear a voice
Commanding your eyes
To look upon your clean
Transfigured self,
Made of the sunrise?

If you stumbled

If you stumbled over a diamond
What would you do?

I’d try not to jump up and down
I’d hide it in a shoe

A shoe! I’d sell it, be rich
Uncork the Champagne!

Oh! No! I’d rather keep it
And gaze on its light

Could I see it, my friend?

Only if you bend down
From such a great height

That I could not do
It’s beneath me to kneel

Such a shame, my friend
To the humbled, it’s revealed

Echoes of II Corinthians 4 v6-10

Hangover…don’t shout

My head doesn’t belong
It’s an object
On top of me
Full of low-level pain

Somewhere underneath
Like a child behind a sofa
I’m in the room
But not fully

Up before dawn
Sleep is the language
Of a foreign land
Parts of me are dormant

Black coffee
With brown sugar…
…I can’t see colours
My eyes are closed

Speech is on hold
Thought is slowed
In my subterranean self
All is calm

No prison walls

Sat there
On a cold grey
Flagstone floor
Alive, silent, safe
Insulated from…
A retreat of sorts

A cell, yet not
An anchorite’s
Barred domain
But reduced to
A seed state,
Waiting then

From outside
A softening aria
Breaches the
Solid defensive wall
Broken open by
Just a few notes

The seed
Beyond control
Discarding
Husk and flesh
Growing like a river
Towards the song

Stands up
Green and unsure
To open the door
To what lies beyond
There are
No prison walls

Illusions of a Quiet Life

Not disappearing into a
3D-painted-non-hole
So convincing

Things not as they seem

A river, graceful and inviting
Tips over its end
And falls somersaulting

Lost in a desert
Fooled by a shimmering
Oasis, a mirage only

One day follows another, but
Not for God’s sleeping agent
Licensed to heal

The call, tearing a hole
In the liminal
Living from the other side

On earth as it is in heaven
There’s a noise
Some say it thundered

MG – The End

My 1997 MG. Sold. 8.20 a.m.
Resplendent in racing green
Apart from the peeling lacquer
And the electrical faults
And the worn tyres. Selling
Took more from me than I
Knew I had

It is not the carburettor
Or the mid-engine warmth
Or its throaty roar
Nor is it the lack of suspension
Or inability to take on fuel
Except at dribble-pace
After all is said and done

It was a chariot of the gods
A carrier of persons
Of a bride, of long friends
Of Sir Gaffa to Calais
It is like us
A material courier
Of immaterial riches

Of inestimable worth
And so the ache
I unexpectedly felt
Is as real as the wind
As truly solid
And impervious
As a sigh

My bank balance of joy
Felt diminished, and yet
In its depletion
There is no emptying
No, our losses leave us
As intact as the equator
Joined to all who lose

The Stones Cry Out

It’s early May
Apples are the size
Of a small toenail
And Beer beach
In the baking hot sun
Beckons the unwary
Into its bone-cold water

Beer Beach

Three boys, liberated
From their school desks
Two on a paddle board
Just out of reach from
The pebble-launching third
Summer heat making sense
Of male madness

Older ladies,
Impervious to the cold
Slipping in and out of the
Incoming tide
Perhaps unlike mermaids
And yet…
Perception is so deceiving

We’re butterflies on an oak
Raindrops on a hotplate
Temporary distillations
Imprinted on priestly stones
Hearing our confessions
Seemingly unmoved
Their tears fall as autumn rain

Can Opener

Like other domestica:
Ink-filled pens
Sharpeners, staplers,
And can openers
You can travel for years
Before you meet The One

Then, in a moment,
The metal lid yields
A smooth easy incision
And what was beneath
Is open to the blue sky

A blade, disguised
As a music chord
A Monet, a mime, a
Dancer’s move,
A line in a love song
And I’m sliced open
Spilling the light
You’ve been packing
Inside

Little did I know, I am
A suitcase for the Almighty
On His travels

Until he finds you

Missing the Changing Room? `

Hot feet leaving their memory
Sweated on the cool tiles
White towels discarded
Steam from the showers
Percolating through
To where silence
And speech own the floor

It is here that boys become men
The place of the pubescent
Two-finger cough
To check something unknown
Of early pubes and armpit odour
Voices cracking, showers
Avoided in the uncertainty

Pre-match rituals
Are conceived here
One hangs his knotted tie
On the lower hook
Another sits, unfocussed
As hopes and fears
Take him, like a dream

Older now, the Ralgex owner
Takes his position
Gumshield in
The huddle, the shout
Louder than the opponents
The knee drives
The clatter of hooves on the floor

Finally, the locker room
Can relax, for nigh on an hour
‘Til the animated, injured
Swearing horde
Returns, jubilant or jaded
Weary, but rejuvenated
With a joke or a fierce captain

Finally, the survivors
Of the second-half return
To the steam, to the undressing
To the exaggerated stories
To the towels, the crisp shirt
To the bar, with a black eye
And blooded manhood

The 5 states of consciousness…in one University lecture

Lecture Hall 2 at 5.15: d-d transitions: Complex Ions Lecturer: KK

It started Oh! So well
Chirpy and animated
Like a chimpanzee on heat
Crisp, narrow-lined A4 note pad
Primed, a new page,
Date written, pen poised
Front row

Thirty minutes in and
Handwriting is punctuated
And decorated with
Unlikely doodles, the margin
A play area for eyes in boxes
Looking back at me
Words on copper complexes
Missed

A stifled jaw-breaking
Face-contorting yawn hidden,
One hopes, from the lecturer,
A mere chalk-throwing distance away
I have dropped my pen, twice
Head propped in the palm
Of my left hand

My recording continues
Never deviating from the voice
All is well, except my eyes closed
Five minutes ago
My copious notes; a diagonal line,
Like an erratic urination
Falling, bottom right

Waking in an in-between state
Blissful in one
Embarrassed in the other
My heavy head collapsing
Into two worlds
I am surely, am I not
Schrödinger’s cat?

Late March

Outside
Where the soft, late afternoon light
Bathes the world in stillness
A stillness in which, crows perch
On road signs to clean their beaks
Ready for the next kill
Birds are few and small
Winged insects are waiting
For the cooler air an hour away
Stilled, I breathe the sweet Spring air
Inside

Inside
The house, all are sharp rectangles
Edges of boxes, packed
With a soul’s accumulations
Accretions that speak back to me
Needing reassurance perhaps
Of original love. Will you keep me?
The mug with the broken handle
My father’s sand wedge
Leaning against the shed door
Outside

Outside
The Sun is painting the sky
It is the end
Below the horizon
Out of sight, it does its best work
Like Julian of Norwich
Or Franz Kafka
When all its former glory
Is extinguished and
Stripped away, then I go
Inside

First Steps

Fish scales, Galilean glare
Soft feet, unused to walking
And the saline smell of a former life
Like their nets, left, discarded
And a pile of unused nails
A length of half-sawn cedar
The aroma lingering still

One, binding a broken oar, another
Hands black with caulk, and one
Brushing splinters and sawdust away
Mothers’ and fathers’ witness
A carpenter capturing sons
In his kingdom call, their sons,
Taking their first steps

And us? What did we discard,
Our feet now shod with
The gospel of peace?
The stripping began as the
Carpenter, saw and plane
In hand, fashioned us
With dove-tail joints to pilgrims

Walking, parable upon parable
Signs beyond sermons, the blind
Now seeing, seeing nothing
As the Son of Man,
Works his way to the place
Of his penultimate step, everything
Laid down, stripped, discarded

And then? Then
Sore feet planted
On the pressed soil and rock
Of a garden tomb before dawn,
He takes his first new steps,
One word forming in his eyes,
Mary! And, later, your name