Saturday 19 November 2016

Shapeshifting

Eyes in the darkness...
do you not see them glowing
beyond your camp-fire?

Wednesday 9 November 2016

On the beach

I lose my balance,
ferocious waves tip my world
just for a moment

Saturday 5 November 2016

Seventeen

First five syllables
then seven syllables more
then another five

And to my mind, each
line could stand alone, though these
obviously don't....

Thursday 3 November 2016

Aberystwyth

Heaven here today
acorns fall like pennies
blue autumnal sky

Tuesday 18 October 2016

Morning haiku for Ben

Southern Rail

Naming my blessings
i lie in the night awake
scrolling your options...

Thursday 6 October 2016

Red Admiral

A late butterfly
jewel-bright and full of hope
my grace encounter

Tuesday 27 September 2016

27 Sept 2016

Then we let you go -
silver dust in angels' flight
sing thee to thy rest

Mount Brandon Haiku

(for Alistair, who is climbing today and sent a picture from the top)

Heart sings with the view
the paint-splashed frenchman's trouser
fills my day with blue

Out, before bed...

Garden, dogs and me,
three gigantic creamy slugs
complete our company

Thursday 15 September 2016

Indian summer

Although the sun...
yellow leaves begin to drift
gently in the wood

Monday 12 September 2016

Lazy Monday thought

Amazing how far
in a random-ish descent
a blackberry will roll...

Thursday 11 August 2016

Moment (for Gail)

Pigeons startle up
bright against a dark'ning sky,
silver ripples spread

Sunday 7 August 2016

'The Library Suicides'


The structure, and the cinematography and the beauty was like a kalaidoscope -  image folded into dazzling image and then unfolded again into a darker and disturbing perspective...

Sunday 31 July 2016

100 words July 1966

July afternoon 1966

I was at girl-guide camp
(believe it or not!) and,
saturday being parents' visit day,
mum drove over to take me out
(rescue me!)

We went to the nearby village
where the cobblestones on the edge
of the street were plastic -
they were filming Dr Doolittle -
yes, the original!

I think we saw Rex Harrison -
him they called Sexy-Rexy -
talking to the animals and
one or two other actors
dressed to kill

And some of the shops had a TV
lurking in the back room...
A draw! ...Score!... no, wait!
'They think it's all over...it is now!'

100 words

The bluest sea and sky today
first meet my eye
and the joy of the dogs released
to run free
through meadows of green -
fern-scented its childhood memories,
bright yellow Ragwort, covered in the ladybird red-black cinnabar moths,
earliest sharp-sweet blackberries...

Down through the still-wet woodland
paths, sharp left at the small-holding
with its smell of chickens
and its optimistic morning
washing-line;
on to the edge of the holiday village
and the first walkers,
everyone of whom is greeted
as a long-lost friend
by 'Kitty'

And home over the hazy cliff
to coffee...

Saturday 16 July 2016

Misty wood walk

No sight of my hound
only the scuttling bunnies
tell a tell-tail tale

Saturday 9 July 2016

'there must be those...' (adrienne rich)

it's the little things -
let's meet at the horizon
where the lines intersect -

greet each other's tears
with a dance of sorrowing
as our smiles reconnect..

Wednesday 29 June 2016

Nailing my colours...


'Earthling.'  I will not
stand beneath your flag. Only
this. Love, truth, beauty...

Sunday 26 June 2016

Oh England

Channel-browsing last night, we came across Ralph McTell on a keyboard in that far-flung field at Glasto, where presenters hang out...as he began to sing I KNEW that the chorus would contain words which have haunted me all my adult life:
'and the echoes of the green hills run down the city streets' he sang, several times

So there we have it...that line must have come from the flip-side of Streets of London. I never owned anything else by McTell and my subconscious has retained the words all these years.
Now, what to do with them?

Tuesday 21 June 2016

Grace

Revisit with care
the rain-swept, fern-wet, shale-slipped
cliffs of memory

Thursday 2 June 2016

Kitty's Field

Musing in the sunshine, while Kitty runs, jumps and rolls in her favourite field, I imagine in some distant future, a neo-stone-age campfire conversation near the beach:
'And then you skirt Kitty's Field, you know, at the top of that ruined cliff railway. It's called Kitty's Field on all the old maps, but no-one remembers why...maybe there was a railway cat?'

Saturday 28 May 2016

That sort of morning

Refreshed by wood sorrel
and random conversations about dogs, the wonderment of small children
and turkish poetry in translation,
we take an even longer way home...

Friday 6 May 2016

4 May 2016

Past the eighteenth hole
salt-breezed scented sunshine flows
and bluebells greet us

Wednesday 20 April 2016

South Beach

Strung out along the beach
like beacons
of a 'don't give a shit'
generation
last night's abandoned barbecues

Saturday 19 March 2016

You and me

Silence and breath
the spaces in between
say more -
don't say more
breath and silence
in between the spaces

Friday 12 February 2016

untitled

and somedays it seems
i bleed hot tears and my heart
weeps unspeaking dreams

Sunday 24 January 2016

Feeling inspired

Wandering somewhat aimessly through dreamtime, I meet my long-dead maternal grandfather, looking spry and in his middle years.
We chat about my memory of him as a bowler-hatted city-gent when I was a child - 'ah, I was much older then' he explains.
We see, exhibited on the wall of a gallery, tiles (fridge-magnets?), inscribed with individual words. These few things are all that really matters we agree - truth, beauty, love...
I wake and spend a happy hour or two planning the artwork :-)

Wednesday 13 January 2016

My Wednesday

We walked the rope-labyrinth today
in the yellow-sun
needle-sharp rain

I was listening to 'Beloved'
on the radio
and mindfully litter-picking

Her tender paws were glad
of the sweet soft grass
as she ran
to and fro

And the world turned...