various poems

Never Look Back.


The hamlet was quiet, dogs asleep,
on this rainy afternoon’s spring day
when I said adieu.

Ten years I dad spent here, good
sad and lonely days, whitewashed
walls and green weed in sunlight

An abundance of flowers in pain
pots and rusty buckets by doorways
their beauty…a sad heartache.

I lingered, so did the day, hoped
someone would come out and say
no one did, the silence dripped.

I drove through the dreamy vale’s
Scented air and reached the coast
as night fell the sea was calm.


The Otherness.

Piss hued sea, Newcastle
is a haze and we‘ll dock at five.
Go ashore drink brown ale and kiss
white faces with lipstick on

We will leave early in the morning,
plough through polluted waters and
a foggy channel and be tossed about
by a restless Bay of Biscay.

Up the Tagus and dock in Lisbon,
go ashore and drink red wine and
kiss night faces, with lipstick on,
and believe in fairy tales.

Tomorrow we are heading for
Tripoli a Moslem city that is alien
and there is unease in the air; and
let’s hope God is merciful.
.....