Water brings nourishment to all life. 

Water flows freely and moves willingly 
with the changing world around it, 
humbly finding its own way 
to settle at the lowest point. 

Water will bond with everything it meets.

Under extreme pressure or heat water quietly rises 
up to the heavens to drift by above everything, 
falling back to earth when it is ready.

In the unbearable cold, water stands firm 
waiting for warmth to return.

When there seems like there is nowhere for water to go, 
when there are massive blockages 
and immovable barriers wherever it turns, 
water waits patiently - gathering, building, 
swelling - until it bursts out or floods over;
or it seeps secretly below,

tripping lightly through the underworld 

before it springs up again elsewhere 
fresh, bright and clear. 
And when it finds itself unleashed - 
rolling wind whipped crashing 
dancing wild tumbling beautiful -  
water can wear down anything. 

It is the weirdest liquid in the world.
It breaks all the rules. 

Consistent & variable, simple &
unfathomable, gentle & powerful,
clear & dark, vital & deadly.

Neutral, balanced, pure - and corrosive.

Never reducing or increasing,
only changing state.
Water will fit in anywhere
but will never be constrained. 

Be water.

Influences: Tao Te Ching | Weird Water

Listen to it as a song!

Maybe you can help all around you remain mindful,
while keeping yourself mindful also;
Maybe you can trust all beings and yourself,
and help all beings build trust together too; 

Maybe you have patience and integrity,
and lead with love, compassion and honesty;
Maybe your soft self-confidence
sets an example for all to follow;

Maybe you have vision imagination ideas creativity; 
Maybe you are incisive, objective and rational;
Maybe you thrive in both fact and fantasy,
and you know we can’t lose if we aren’t trying to win;

Maybe you can learn The Truth from all perspectives
and still remember that it is never absolute,
or smelt your bias and pride in the furnace of hell 
to forge your tools for a humble life;

Maybe you passionately defend what you love 
but would happily discard or lose it all 
to save one being or the whole world,
and you would persuade others to do the same;

Maybe you have such good mental and physical health
that you are secure, resilient and content, 
you are able to continue when you need to,
and you can guide others when they need you to;

Maybe you commune with all beings on their level,
while staying true to your identity;
Maybe self-awareness balances your responses;
Maybe all beings are equal in your thoughts and deeds.

And maybe, like me, 
you sometimes do some of this
(and sometimes 
you try to do more) —

but if you can calmly exist in just this moment
and know for sure you’re doing your best,
you’re an asset to everything in this world my friend
and don’t you ever think you’re anything less.

I have always thought that If, by Rudyard Kipling is stiff-upper-lippingly unforgiving, so I thought I’d give it a re-write.

You have permission to rest.
You do not need to change.
You are perfect as you are.
There is nothing else you need.

You have permission to take it easy
or do lots and lots and lots and lots.
To thrive in comfort and relaxation,
or in wild dance and song.

You have permission to know
disorder and inconsistency
are the free expressions
of natural beauty, and love it all

just as it is.

You do not need to grow
beyond your comfort zone,
and you do not need to heal.
You are wonderful as you are.

You have permission to thrive out loud
or to disappear.
You have permission to receive love,
simply because you're here.

There is nothing more you need.
You have permission just to be.
To be completely free.
Right here, in The NoW, with me.

I used to come here 
or here abouts
and just over there 
quite often,
just in case…

I still come here 
fairly often,
but not quite as much
and when I do
it’s despite the fact…

(it’s in fear of the fact…
it’s trying to ignore the fact…
it’s accepting the fact…
yeh, ok, perhaps it is still hoping…)
…I might cross paths 

stars 
worlds 
hearts 
words 
lines 

- it can all happen 
in 
a 
moment 
with us - with you.

She cannot bare to tell me
so instead she has me feel
the pain she hides inside.

I send her my heart

when she asks me to.
I cry her tears so she can survive
every darkness she faces.

She likes to feel that we are free

but she calls to me
 – tugs and pulls at me from afar – 
when she needs me.

And that’s all she ever asks.

Strength if she has none.
And in return? Nothing
but the knowledge 

that she knows,

I know, 
we know – 
we can never be apart.

Last year I lay here wondering 
how to move with the water cooling, 
cooling, cooled around me; staring, staring,
staring at those curling, curling twists and turns 

set in the windowpane. There for vanity, 
to hinder prying eyes. Yet still, glaring down at me,
an immutable relief of Hell. Tortured spectres
and aching faces caught in their deepest gloom. 

(Munch, Dali and Caravaggio were in the room!)

Today, as I got out before the water chilled me 
through and through, I glimpsed a view
of those same swirls. Softer now. A happy cat. 
Some smiling eyes with lips unfurled up to the skies.

A candle like a calligraphed I 
ignited by the sun outside, its windless flame 
sweeping full and high. The bathroom window 
never, never changes. As must I. 

Colours with proximities 
phase in and out of each other 
in the right and wrong light. 
I enjoy sunsets for myself. 

People talk of peaches and deep reds,
of purples and greens sometimes.
I only see beauty I cannot name.

A love I love without knowing it.
Silence I can ask no truth of.

Uhtil the twilight rubs the horizon away,
right down to the blacks and blues, 
and every grey
- where we all become the same.

The dark bird caws an aching creak, jarring 
high in the branches of my twisted hazel. 

Light drips thickly - like warm blood or hot metal -  
from the anvil angles of its beak, cuts short 
breeze, divides still water, and settles
deep in the silence of the little pond beneath.

It is not the tawdry light of the mind, 
where still limbs, still torso, still breath pull close -
become justified - where truth is vulnerable to age.

Nor is it the light of secret gardens, of mists 
unsettling and godless clarity eclipsing everything.

An illusive bat mapping shady new worlds 
by shriek and wail. The old owl’s careful murders.
These fears swoop in the cool of night.

But this raven comes with the light. Hopping and strutting.
Gently tip tap tapping. Its black glint encumbering
ornamental cherry trees, beech and oaks with ease. 

And it brings the white-hot light of fear. The clarity of danger.
The fat weight of doubt that lingers near.
The crack in peace. The spark of both death and change.

Listen to it as a song!

I need to feel the wind sometimes.
How it could uproot me, 
snap 

and splinter me, 
disperse me, shape me, slowly 
wear me down or take me.

A breeze is never enough.

I need to be reminded.
I need to feel how things are sculpted.
I need to touch it to believe it. 

To run my fingertips along edges 
and press or slap my palm on surfaces.
To know the form and how it works the light. 

A look is never enough. 

We need to be connected. 
We need to feel each other.

Listen to it as a song!

For a moment there, 
I wondered what could be. 
It was a nice moment. 
It’s gone now. 
And I am still me.

I thought, felt, hoped,
believed you were. 
But, 

when I came close 
I realised – 
you are not.

I’m sorry. 
I spoke too soon.
Please forgive me 

for naming you 
Eternity 
before I knew your emptiness.

Hefty, ‘spansive, heavens-shifter
your form is graceful white,
sweeping lines seamless in flight,
clumsy touchdown to easy drifter,

slender throat bowing lofty head.
Majestic bird ringed for royalty
noted for honour and loyalty
sifting, panhandling, for sacrificial bread.

Strategically you advance ashore
steadily with superior aggressive poise 
and vicious guttural white noise
arching those two shattering lores;

rearguards of your tiny vision
and weakling legs. But bolder feet
stand and step up, and you retreat.
Your raid humbled to recision.

Come clean. 

Let the sun’s rule smelt you.

Let the mind and the stomach pulse,
swallow, strip each other whole.

Let the rain’s rhythm lead you.

Let all the fetters – a joke of empty, 
empty suspicion – fall brittle, 
ruined by the heat of your heart.

Let the wind-rage lift you.

There is no other moment to 
let this instinct of freedom 
vindicate your twitching muscles. 

Relinquish! 

Relinquish to the surge, 
swell, give over, give in, fall
for the drip, drip, dri
                          p 
                              urge.

She is dressed for another time.
For black and white. Clear and bright.
Unlike my chipped tea mug cupped roughly
in one hand or the other, her jaw rests gently
in both her palms - Hepburn. Briefly,

her spine straightens and slim forearms press together.
Corinthian Columns stood quiet 
beneath the soft scroll of her open hands.
And then her fingertips – unfurled leaves
offering up her wide eyes and painted lips –

twitch. She breaks the pose, sips her drink, 
and starts to pencil sketch. Naturally, quietly, 
all the while she chats about beauty with her friends.
Curious peacocks. Vivid hydrangeas.
Tiny daisies. Prints on vintage dresses.

You know I remember still
the Lonely Tree you took me to see,
but the fatigue from climbing its hill
I note much more from the day.
 
You were
so proud of its isolation, 
in some romantic kind of way;
how it was
poised so calmly above everything. 
But I don’t remember you and me.
 
I don’t remember if I was really
all that exhausting and defiant,
if I raised your good nature unfairly,
or if that meant I was undermining you
 
somehow.
You were always so easy to get along with, 
so strong and true,
so controlled
and even. To put it another way; 
so fucking, goddamned distant.
 
And when I think of it like that
it is precious easy to recall how
you, I and the afternoon sat
where the Lonely Tree took root.

Blind since she was two.
A deeply religious family.
Eye contact is being listened to.
Through her I learned the holiness of words.
And then the distant Sky taught me, 
words don’t always need to be

Spring made me want to write you a poem
that tries to suggest you’re pretty like a flower. 
But I can’t compare you to their beauty
and I won’t exhaust my precious hours 
picking posies of poor imitation.

Their gentle, little, wide-open petals 
are simply coy, sluttish, snaring submissions;  
eager ploys easily overpowered 
by my corrosive mind’s recollection
of your gleaming heart and polished mettles. 

I’ve been pretending I’m glad 
since I turned you/you turned me away.
But if I’m honest I’ve been quite sad 
(in a familiar kind of way)
and I’ve blocked it out by asking if you’re okay.
 
And now we’re acting at being friends again
and I’ve been round all these bends before
and they stopped making sense before,
so I’m sure they’ll be round 
to plough at my solid ground - again.
 
They’ll twist my spine 
until its voice can be heard again
and make my ribs crack out 
all too similar words again.
 
Again and again and again, until I remember…

You are the lingering smell around all cesspits,
you are the worst and the best bits of hell.
With your hate twisted face and your rancid grace
you are the rotten part of my heart
- the way gentle things fall apart.
 
Don’t get this wrong, don’t misunderstand it.
You are the demon brand and I’ve been branded.
And now this poem’s taken your place 
because it’s also a fucking disgrace.
 
But please remember, I’m always around.
I’m a grave with a dream 
of my wooden-corseted queen
and her very own burial mound. 
 
D’ya still wanna be friends?

Kisses…

We trickle down the cobbles to the beach and pool around
 
In the summer, all through the village right down to the sea,
the road is swollen with cars and coaches edging along,
full of fair-weather hikers who prefer the settee and shrug it off
when their 80s slip-ons slip on 80 million years of limestone and chalk.
 
a rudderless fishing boat while the early evening light reaches out
 
Some come to imagine the duck pond and rivulet bursting
with meltwater, sculpting the valley, the cove and Stair Hole.
Some come to cheer-on the Castle, Church and B&Bs as they fix
capitalism to the slate and thatch of the place. Others do water sports.
 
sprinkling strokes of Impressionism over everything; but you
 
Some buy local crafts, fresh fish, ice cream, fudge, and some go
over Bindon Hill (England’s best butterfly spot) to Worbarrow Bay,
Tyneham (the ghost village where time stopped in 1943) or
the Fossilised Forest below. But most climb west to Durdle Door.
 
like sequins that cast puddles and straight forward city glitter.

Last month you told me you were going
to get back in touch with him;
the one you wept for while
I didn’t say a thing.
 
You said it would make you properly happy
to make him want you, just
so you could turn him down
with one flourish of your sharp tongue.
 
I thought you were wrong
and it was a waste of your time,
so I told you as much.
I don’t think you liked that, but
 
I can tell you this for sure;
I’d love it if she came back to me.
I really want the opportunity to tell her
I would never do anything again
 
that could make her want to stay.
That she absolutely, definitely
never really meant anything to me.
Then I’d smile and walk away.
 
So tell me, have you done it yet?
How did it go? What did you say?
Did it feel good? I really hope so!
And did he care as much as you hoped he would?

I didn’t see her face at first, her wise eyes nor furrowed brow. The grace and glint of knitting needles and brightly painted nails caught my eye.

Headphones in, she focussed in. Each stitch, each click, synced in with rocking-rolling head and shoulders – and not quite whispered lyrics on her lips. 

Eyes closed, she knit and knit and knit until her music ended and she took a look. Eyes popped, cheeks puffed, head shook; mistake! But she blew away frustration with a smile and swift fingers tripped over each other to unravel everything. 

Then twisting wrist shoved hunting hand through all the stuff stuffed in a bag with Be Creative stitched upon it; un-entwining, dragging forth tiny, shiny, scissors for a hasty snip. 

Her headphone wire almost bought it!

But with a smirk and arch of tattooed brow, she dropped the scissors. Then loop-and-knot and she was off again. Deft. She knit and knit and knit and knit and knit and knit and stood. Her stop had crept up on her.

DMs (18 holers with embroidered flowers), navy leggings, orange printed blouse and brown trench coat rushed down the aisle, towards a slouch of stagnant teens engrossed in their smart world.

Eyes down, they liked and shared and commented but wouldn’t budge. 

She didn’t tut, excuse herself or unsheathe her pointed elbows - though she could’ve - she just stood, four thin gold chains around her neck, and stood, pumpkin earrings caught in bleach-blonde hair, and stood, bright blue liner round her eyes, resolute, until those youngsters sensed her strength and moved.
 

My little girl,
aged nine,
once spent an hour
in the loo.
 
When she came down
she said,
“I just had
a really memorable poo.”

As long as you can see
the kitchen window
you’ll be safe. Just
don’t go out of my sight.
 
As soon as I get
a drone with a camera
and laser cannons,
you can go anywhere you like.
 

Every now and then
(just for her amusement of course)
I jump up, press my flat hand on my bum
and, grimacing daft and OTT
in faux pain and urgency,
I say;
“I’ve got to drop it like it’s hot!”
Then I leg it to the toilet for a shit.
 

The night we met you swept me off my feet,
made me feel so wanted and special.
Why aren’t you romantic anymore?
 
*
 
Some fucking standard bar. Bright lights,
shit music. Jeans and shirts, and heels
and mini-skirts. Cheap
 
bourbon on crushed ice in warm glasses.
He walks up to her (next). She’s amazing,
there’s no one in the whole place like her.
 
Her eyes enticed him. He goes to the gym.
She loves her family, he his dog (if he had one).
He touches her arm, looks at her tits a lot.
 
They dance. They order shots...a lot.
For hours they do their thing lip smacking
hips thrusting writhing. He jokes about
 
pornography. He gets her coat. He knows
the taxi driver so there’s no charge and anything goes.
There’s no time for chat inside her house.
 
*

Don’t you remember? We were young
back then. Everything seemed amazing.
Oh, and you were easy too. Weren’t you!

I sit and wait. Taking up space with my cold emptiness.
The universe or a bad memory. You ignore me
most of the time. Preferring her waist-high purity
(sometimes even dipping Yourself in her, a porcelain quickie
for a whore) and his debauched tastes.
 
When you do finally turn to me
for your relaxation, you wash me out before
you use me. How am I the dirtiest of the three?
You fill me and you fill me, until I almost
overflow. You make me so dam hot I almost
 
scald you when you drown your lifetime’s weight
within me. The dirt you always accumulate
unintentionally, a roughly soaped slough of skin,
and sometimes your tears are all you bring
to nourish me.
 
When you are done you groan as you hulk
your lazy, reddened, sweaty bulk out of me,
stand there naked with your back to me, wipe yourself down
and leave me alone to drain myself away
as nothingness sighs into me again.

It was a stony eye, constant in its cry
from pin-point pupil all awry
with dirty, cooked-up, vacant water
that it did apply to its stagnated iris.
 
Cordoned in its bliss – from brown grass,
thistle, wilting flower in blood
and others up to their necks in mud,
and that cave with its wild stench
of tramps and piss – by naked
geometric tarmac, cracked like my throat.
 
But now the place has changed
and when I go back I feel dead
 
strange. I suppose I could complain. I could
hate the care it’s had just because I ache.
Or, again, again, again, I could woefully
lament the loss of half-remembered history.
 
Even though it’s so much nicer now
than it used to be.

Listen to it as a song!

I see it posted – stand up, stand out –
I hear it said – be irresistible –
every-bloody-where, in so many
different ways. Be unique.
Apparently, it’s aspirational –
stand out from the crowd –
it’s wisdom – be irreplaceable –
it gives you something to strive for.
Strive?? Wow! How tiring…
But the words seem so right, right?
Written there in black and white,
or spoken kindly by a friend or mum –
be unique – um;
what?
Like an antique watch you mean?
Or maybe a Van Gogh? 
How desolate, how oppressive, 
for a human to be so treasured.
Or, when you say “unique”,
is there any chance you mean
the way that each of us is made
different just by being
given different genes, shown
different loves, felt different
circumstance, seen different,
feared different, learned different,
(re)acted different.
Different, different, different.
Different, not unique.
One is your identity; the other,
it’s nothing new.

Listen to it as a song!

When trying to make the ugliest of ugly - 
to help identify the evil amongst us - Darwin’s half-cousin*
was surprised to find that a composite of criminals’ faces
created a visage quite attractive, and understood.
 
 
Beauty surfaces by removing all the
(ugly) alterations. In faces at least,
beauty is the absence of variation.
Beauty is basic structure, average.
 
 
And this is why we must always lie to beauty. 
So it doesn’t hang its head, hunch its shoulders,
and drag its feet until it tucks, folds, wears itself away.
Beauty is delicate and rare; it cannot take the truth.
 

*Sir Francis Galton

Once, sharp pain and cold shock made me drop my ice-cream and cry for peace in mum's arms like she was some kind of god; which, of course, I now know she is because she said I’d be fine and I was.
 
 
Next time it happened I was 20 years old, sat in a sunny garden with my mates. I jumped straight up when it stung me, smashed a glass and sent a chair flying.
 
 
"What are you doing, Chris?" (Not, Are you ok? His gods spoke the language of blame.) I didn't answer, I just scowled, darted into the house and ran up to the bathroom as quick as I could. Sting still stuck inside the wound.
 
 
I gathered my courage, Tea Tree and tweezers, from places where gods don’t need to exist. I took a deep breath and then;  I rubbed and I pressed and I squeezed. Pinching and twisting. Working it out.
 
 
I've got to admit there's always some pleasure in that pain where healing begins, but when it came out with a splatter of blood and an audible crunch it hurt more than the Original Sting.
 
 
I bit my lip to stifle a scream!
 
 
In the quiet moments after the pain subsided, I wiped myself down and licked the fresh mouth-wound clean with my tongue. It throbbed and it stung – like a lie – it tasted vital, earthy and metallic. 
 
 
Outside, rain had started pounding the earth, begging the gods to never come.

Listen to it as a song, too!

As a beginner, First came first. 
A ripe planet plucked 
from the Milky Way’s belly. 
Doomed.
 
Then it came to me 
as a gasping moon. 
Weakened by its dark journey 
into my Six Parameters.
 
Next as inescapable security. 
Dragging my tides.
Hung in my beautiful Sky 
as maturation. Finally, 
 
then, it arrived as The Third Law. 
Insecure – unstable – lust.
A super-massive solar flare 
in my solar plexus.
 
But each in their own way 
blew up when I existed
without their quiet galaxies; 
leaving empty space 
 
waiting to be over-filled 
with ripeness, need, 
stability, stormy glory 
and every wonderful explosion!

To tell you the truth,

First can only be first 
when it is also the last.

When I sing along and get the words wrong
I remember a friend from ages ago.
AC for those of you in the know.
 
Once, he mis-sung-along and quipped,
quick and confident as you like,
“Jim got it wrong!” (We had The Doors on.)
 
But he wasn’t always so light and slick.
His slightly pained laugh could chase away jokes,
he played fucking angry guitar, and
 
one night he took so much LSD
he cried because he’d lost his bottom!
After that though he’d go quiet, often, and
 
no one knew until the tracks had taken him.
So, when I sing along and get the words wrong,
he still exists. Perhaps. I kind of believe that.

Someone left an empty milk bottle
on the wall outside their house.
It was just like the ones we had when I was ten.
Ridged bottom, thick glass, impossible for me 
to smash when filled with frozen milk,
raised letters and a bit of Braille. 
I almost took it home.
 
I kept a few Nice Boxes from last Christmas.
I put them on a shelf above the dining table.
I bet I will just move them round and round 
the dusty-greasy tops of the kitchen cupboards,
never using them for anything at all.
 
I don’t really think I need those boxes
and I’m glad I left that bottle where it stood;
keeping things around just in case is a waste.
 
My dad used to do the same thing with food –
pots of grease and left-overs moulding in the fridge –
and with people – hanging on till they rotted away –
before he murdered three* men we all loved
and wound up locked up for five thousand days.

*an actual violent murder of his own father, and two metaphorical “murders”: 1. Of him/his person/character (from my PoV) and, 2. Of me (of the person I’d been till then ).

When the wind picks up a swift silent call
carves through the sweeps and deeps, crafting the land
into instruments to sound out its hand,
willing the willing into a response.
The light and the free are quick to be moved.
Dust and debris spin. Water rises up.
The flexible give. And they are first to
settle, unweathered, by the winds resolve.
But the firm and the poised make no reply.
These are The Eternals and they forget
such trifling decays which, even by
the smallest degrees, cast their future’s set.
When the wind lets loose – dark, vast and vicious 
– none laid between can halt the revisions.
 

She keeps her necklaces untidily
in a wooden box not meant for jewellery,
tossed in at the end of each day
one on top of the other and locked away.
Like thoughts that tangle overnight.
 
When she’s decent she picks one that feels right
to her rummaging fingertips,
her teeth and tongue that tell of plastic,
glass, metal, wood or bone, and
the weighing of her enduring hand.
 
She's learned all their imperfections
through constant, fiddling exploration
and, as though her touch can talk to yours,
she’ll tell you of her favourite flaws.
 
Books you read till they fall apart. Peaceful places.
Songs you play to anyone. Those few faces.
The contents of a heart. Her necklaces.