A summer eulogy

In a leaning barn

Charred hands grasp a brush

That sweeps the floor

Tinderbox days run together

Through swaying heat above the road

Sweep the floor

Dust across the sun

Betrayed leaves 

Hang

Rejected folios

Ink barely dry

They drop

Ally with the dust

Settle still again

Miles down a deadbeat track

Corn sways beyond the road

Armies tied fast

One with charcoal earth

Die in perfect unison

Chaffy memories join 

Dust and scattered leaves

In a leaning barn

Moist yeast foams

Sunk deep and dark

Effervescent thoughts sparkle awhile

Through heavy sediment

Silent are the vats

Settle still thick water

Settle still

Ordure

Dog snuffles out
Roots

Finds

Eats
Steaming shit

Back home enthroned

Important beanbag

Affairs of state arise
Children pull tail
Paws, ears dog
Teaches patience

Older members praise
Wisdom due her canine race
Find no conflict

In those lazy orbs
Brown eyes
Deep with

With something

To such praise she
Runs oblivious
Water off a duck
She scampers
Plays unwitting
Roots

Finds

Eats
Steaming shit

Elegy

Three days unfound
Like treasure
Morbid treasure
Ashen faced officer
Finds no pleasure
Rank ordure
Catalyses age
Lines crows
Feet he grows
Youthfully old

We all fall
Romantic notions
Innocence, Grace
Cannot compare
Officer paces nervously
The eggshell head
Wetly corrupt
Impressionistic red
Porcelain sink reserves
Right to remain
Silent

Wasgij

This was a tease

Retrospect be damned

Down fragrant aisles

Heady velveteen

You drew me on

This thicket cuts

Aha!

Yet no clue
Audience see black

Red

Audience see black

To goad the theme

A little bird tells

Rabbits show disbelief that

Precious

Second

Time lingers

Skull smashed by tyre

Carrion epitaph

Curtain softly falls

Half muffled bells

Awake from syrup

Peter-rabbit dream

Hold six beats

Scratched record

Rolls out dusty blues

Nervous applause

Burn silken

Ember

Drag deep loyal friends

For this is life

Dear God

Fetch me a coffee

Ambition beware

He showed joy back then
When teeth are not yet long
Or even full fallen out
A gap-toothed grinning imp
Of flagrant possibility
Reality unbound
Eyes bright

A fire glints

Through academic rites
Nicotine stained passage
Pub snug conversation
Whiling till the birds pipe up
Such simple music

Unsatisfied yet
He signs his name 
By guttering flames

Savile Row clad
Emperors new wardrobe
Weaved of bursting pride
How soon a razor loses edge

The strop is strangely lost
A glowing ember
Wends smoky
Tendrils skyward

A grand house
Crammed with grander tat
Fust of Sunday-morning kipper
Providing antique audience
He battles broadsheets
Fights marmalade on toast
To sticky conclusions

At close of day
Reclined in leather solitude
A mantel clock marked time
He half remembers
Then forgets
At six his trembling hand
Spills the sherry

Gleaming priceless stone
Enwrought with golden type
Defies the verdant grass
His house still stands
Treasures gather dust
Pharoah lies entombed
And no-one comes

For Grandpa

When young in shadowing years
Shocked fragments of stark broken toys
Had power to choke up stinging loss
Lent hot form in human tears
Cherubic youths accustomed not to truth
As oft erupt in bitter rage
Lifted faces creased as seeming justice
Snatches back unpromised gifts

Gazing on your deep lined face
Familiar sounds a haunting note
Fading in a minor key
To lull the twilight of your years
Though once the sandstone cloisters
Echoed out your purposed step
Beneath that furrowed, weary brow
There is a wilder, stranger music yet

Had I never felt your sagely look
And trusted unconditional your words
Lent gravitas beyond what scores
Of men could hope to wield
What I know of love would be
So ragged, incomplete
My debt is to a symphony
Dischordant yet recalled with joy

The toys of old are gone
Fast fades the poignant sting
Their loss once birthed in me
They seem as passing trifles now
Your final lesson I will remember ever
Oblivious though you were who taught
No man may enter that kingdom
Save as a little child

Children, never grow old

At last we find me

Deal not in pleasantries I

But gaze upon the void

You wetly mortal coil

Fallen boneful sack

Spoiled fat on promise

/

Creation offered

Judge me not who takes

/

Half-glimpsed delights are found

Up close to be but plywood sham

A groom lifts the veil

Finds an unknown haggard face

Redolent of someone

Something loved

Yet not

/

From arduous toil I half expected

Opening before such weary eyes

Vistas green and pleasant

To justify the trudge.

Even children know horizons are

Constant as birth and death

These children trick me with their truth

May they be seen not heard

Lest I

Hearing

See and hear

Know I am less than this outward

Bluff colossus choked with rust

All that could have been

That could have been

Is dust

/

Among these silent groves

Tranquility of nothing

Mocks the bombast swell of pride

My flings with Eve and idle play

At fair Pandora’s side Paid meagre

/

Still I count the cost of wasted toil

Cuts borne from all this being

Seem as lead beside those radiant scars

I would have sold it all

To know it had a meaning

Caring not one iota what

It was