We embraced

and gazed down

on the Abbey

ideally made for Sundays.



Hayfever on hold

with hair

braided purely for the hell;

coloured beads on the end

competing with holes

in her jeans.

They reserved my seat

and set up a famous entrance

where trueness

sprang out to dazzle.

The most I’d ever eaten

at a single sitting

but the real bursting delight

was me not changing

during the meandering course

of it

- unlike being unable

to change ones relatives

Ticker tape

wrapped around the bulbous trunk

of an Oak

hints of Anglo Saxon trove:

a libation of last nights dregs

soaking the already sodden

and sprawling earth

followed by salutes

to the passing hippies

from her car

Strong conversations upward

like blood sugar

going berserk.

Bandana’d airmen stood on the airfield

drinking sake

and singing their anthem together

before their final, fatal mission



I feel susceptible

in my blue coat

losing face

and then later, a place

when my friend

recovered from meningitis

in the same house

Not wishing to risk a tenth

on the dropped kerb,

me click-finger synchronicity

with a journalist

amazingly led to nothin

scouring the gutters for applecores.

The highways had had their days,

with passe bye laws closing in fast behind.

I don`t know what got in to us;

it was so obvious

we saw it coming

and managed to get it signposted.

Do you have memories

right up until we became reliable?

With hatches all battened

old lags had their reasons

when we turned up there twice in a row

to see if lightning

would do its traditional double take.

You know, I was far too clever for childhood

but sheeeshh……..miss it horribly now.

was given a prana healing pummelling,

whilst a piano played nextdoor.

I burst a balloon in the scullery

and saw her pain

as she blew bubbles.

Her eyes spoke soft but hefty volumes

and when darker love was demanded

I mislaid the words

that looked for me.

The forests were felled to supply the paper

to print the wit and wisdom

of our guest essayist.

She offered a proud rationale

as to why she didn`t return

causing me to squint

when she killed the switch

to diffuse all gathering voltage.

Shuffling off home

past where the faculty met for chapel,

Komodo dragons fought

over moonlight morsels,

stripping clean the Yucca leaves

and inspiring the Vale

to chortle with mirth.

Your communique was way too precise
to be beyond suspicion
then exquisitely painful when it stopped.

Your brother had swung from the clothes line
which snapped
and left him to bounce hard
on the flagstones,
earning a walloping from your mum
who dragged him by his britches
from the hedgerow bottom he`d crawled to whimpering
and leaving him sorely grounded for the day.

It magnificently cleared the way
for us
to be taken
for a Saturday afternoon treat
to the car wash
where we gleefully sat tight
and slowly entered
those rubber brush rollers.

I looked quite different, they said.
Not meaning my clothes.

- rather like holding a Passionflower
with knuckledusters.