24 Thursday Apr 2014
Posted in Poetry
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For Cath Kidston and Becky
Cath Kidston
Kept her mitts on
To pluck rose petals
To stick on kettles.
She knew her chicks
Would love a mix
Of something borrowed,
Something blue,
Something old and something new.
Modern Vintage
Or cozy printage?
Real fashion hints
Or death by chintz?
O, Cath Kidston
You made real quids on
How you’re smuggage
By flogging luggage!
Oh ya…..
23 Wednesday Apr 2014
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Your words just failed to rally me,
(though I admit it was a near thing)
The rain just dissolved them
But such things happen
When flatterers meet
Your tricks have stopped amusing me
Though it’s true you do try hard
I can’t compete with flattery
Lest you catch me
Off my guard
You’re far too smart
For your own good
Thought I suppose
You’d disagree
To fight the world is easy
But you try fighting me
New Inn Hall Street
Hilary, 1976
16 Wednesday Apr 2014
Posted in Poetry
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Farewell the summer did you say?
So factually? Without a thought for they
Who love you?
Tell me you don’t mean to lose
All we all enjoyed.
Farewell to gown and books today,
Put pen and ink and me away?
No more
The life of learning’s passion that
All we all enjoyed
Should the things that were us two
Fall into some void,
Abandoned empty skins of former lives?
I know a terminal urge grows
Within you now.
I must not need you
Till I don’t know how.
Farewell the vanguard of the day
My hand stumbles nervously on its way
Upon your brow,
Tell me you did not mean to lose
All we all enjoyed?
07 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Poetry
A warm hand to a cold, cold face
Awakes that eerie, weary trace,
That strain so familiar to hear,
So painful and yet so clear.
And what shall your critique be of me?
A bass line without a melody?
Or that strain so familiar to hear
Cold, cold cheeks and a falling tear?
For how can you say that you know me?
Have you trespassed in my dreams?
Has this erring led you to believe?
This man is not what he seems?
New Inn Hall Street
Michaelmas 1975
19 Wednesday Mar 2014
Posted in Poetry
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Her eyes rose at out prolix entrance,
She muttered her sentence of welcome
And was gone,
Her fingers pulled us on.
A wine cup she filled till brimming
Installed it with silken hand
And was gone,
Her fingers pulled us on
But there’s no need here of abandoned wine
Or the ash- polluted surplus of deserted ale
To thrash our senses:
Her soft talk, velvet walk, beckoned me
To follow her silently up the stairs
She was gone
Her fingers pulled me on
The rain is falling now –
And the passion’s cooled like a summer’s night
And that’s romantically the unexpected denouement.
She has gone
Her memory lingers on…
18 Tuesday Mar 2014
Posted in Poetry
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I wondered what you wore
Beneath that neutral frown?
I hesitated for a second,
My guard was briefly down
You smiled for a moment
So what could this mean?
You were bored, amused, insulted
Or in some state between?
You countered all my questions
With chic frivolity,
Maintaining your distance
With deft brutality,
You danced, you charmed, you moved,
So invitingly,
But left me wondering
Were you inviting me?
13 Thursday Mar 2014
Posted in Poetry
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The chance gifts of friendship are like milestones
Of content in life’s fleeting walkabout;
And all the more welcome to tired bones,
When they give warmth and never cause for doubt
Such is to me that darling Flicky Mead,
The elegantly cheerful mother earth,
Whose gentle smile and optimistic creed
Touched all -and me- with happiness and worth
The Dame of Prospect with the common touch
Had one last gift to share with all she knew,
In how to leave the one’s you love so much
By facing up to what’s in front of you
So why could we yet think her time has run?
In us live all the genes of what she’s done!
04 Tuesday Mar 2014
Posted in Poetry
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The brand’s the thing: prime ministers and pies, hospitals and hair-care, counties and count lines.
The panhandlers of models have done a roaring trade to define differences and carve insights from the darkest data mines,
The epic journey to the brand’s core a stimulating crossword puzzle for clever minds to play,
Like the management of look and feel, of font and palette, or adjusting tone of voice and watching what you say
Across the multi channeled platforms of the landscape .
Except for me, the striped architect of idents, who on a brief inspection of his own domain found an empty room called essence.
27 Thursday Feb 2014
Posted in Poetry
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Will You Be Long?
The edge of morning passed,
Awake, but scarcely,
I close the door on sleep
And you.
Words tip toe on your tongue
“Will you be long”?
The day’s rigours still arrayed,
Careless, yet besieged,
Through fibres stretched
We talk,
You send a signal clear and strong:
“Will you be long”?
Now night’s mid point breached
The conjugated I, you and we
Are six Autumns old
Or twelve,
My answer’s then both right and wrong
“Will you be long”?
“I always will belong”
26 Wednesday Feb 2014
Posted in Poetry
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Angle Rue Hoche, Cannes
Rue Hoche will not play second violin to the Antibes.
As an autumn sun’s first glance touches your brow,
I see that even street cleaners wear Aviators here,
And smart women emerge, tottering on heels,
With shopping bags as red as lips, as big as mogul credit-limits
And head for splattered zincs to drink Bellini’s and smoke cigarettes,
Their iPhones prostrate now waiting for the throb of action
Soon there’s the clatter and laughter that comes from food,
Prosciutto and burrata with berries red and dark,
The sizzle and the smell of vongole steaming in garlic,
The comedy of giant pepper pots wielded like wands before you,
Arriving lovers raise sunglasses, kiss and sit,
You sip and tongue the rosé,
I taste the same philosophy.
Laura is not here today, except in spirit,
Her multi-coloured presence conjuring pleasure
To all who come upon this pavement heaven.
In full content, I note
The sun has charmed your freckles.
Flotsam and Jetsam 