The thin grey fog

Red on the pavement outside the pizzeria.
That's an obscenity!

What minds so decadent,
So depraved,
They choose to paint in blood?

What crazy bitterness.

I will not hate.
I will stay numb.
I will not acknowledge the feeling inside me.
Instead, I choose
The thin grey fog
And a shared misery.

For Friday13th November 2015

In Awe of Ted Hughes

I'm not a white goddess.

And for a long time

I wondered if,

Not being Northern,

Nor working class.

Nor Cambridge educated,

I had any place in "Poetry."

Still, I'm not sure.

Does age give license?

I suspect not.

It's just another barrier.

So, I guess I'll stay

An outsider.

And not follow you into the darkness.

I'll remain a poet out of season.

Dead, but not yet still

I love to see ivy on dead trees.
Sublime, insinuating.
Covering, to become other.
Slender tendrils probing forward;
Like fingers of an evil spiite
On long scrawny hands.
Trying to raise the dead?
What hope of succeeding?
While the bitter churchyard birds
Peer with bright eyes
From sinister leafy places.

Rag Remnants

And now the leaves will go,

Already frost-damaged in January.

Here are those sly, black birds

Gliding nearby.

They’ll peek and peck

Until the shivering stalks of branches,

Quivering cold,

Lose all their early buds.

And what’s to come?

Rag remnants, perhaps,

All torn to lace.

The ducks are flying over Deptford.

Their quacks blend in with traffic noise,

Small shadows

In an amber sky.

The city skyscapes

Show distant crags in an endless sea.

All is grey and sinister
Just on the edge of churning.

Black Notebooks Given In A York Hotel December 2006

They gave me black notebooks.
A present for my birthday,
The ivory pages were soft
And ready to receive.
The pen in my hand was insistent.
Black notebooks
To record a time of change.
And those who gave them
Would not meet again.
They knew it then for the first time.
And the covers of those black notebooks
Became a mourning coat
For opportunities not taken.

I’ll keep my songs

The house of green leaves
Is tumbling now.
The breeze
And time
Turn all to dust.
Then comes the broom
To sweep away
Even a whispered memory.

But, I am hollow
Like the oak.
My murmured echoes
Deep inside.
No besom touches
Such a spot.

I’ll keep my songs
For my remembering.

Hear Wendy read the poem; Link to the MP3 file 

Bird on a cliff

On the ledge, a small bird totters
Then steadies itself with newly feathered wings.

Will it know when it's ready for flight?

Somewhere in my brain, a word forms
Slips out between half opened lips, not fully fledged.

Down drops the bird into an echoing silence.

Will you be there to catch us, that bird and me?

You asked me what makes a relationship?

I said I didn't know.
A peck of time perhaps, mixed with a little liking
And a very large pinch of salt.

And what of love?

How should I know?
I'm plunging down this cliff and hoping you'll be there to catch me.

The Wind Moans

The wind moans
And the dragon flies.
His breath is all consuming.
It sears the throat
And her soft flesh.
Till she is lost.
Forged into something else.
Fused by the heat.
Not old, not new,
Not here, not there.
Suspended.
Till time and the dragon
Put her down.
Leaving her chilled,
All ashes and alone;
Long to remember.

January Day

A greasy afternoon;
Grey and dirty,
With grimy shadow-clouds,
Like unwashed sheets,
Monotonous in monotone.

A phlegmy cough
Of a day.
Unclean and uninspiring.
All grainy smudges
And things rubbed out!