Awake

(Written in response to Labour's election campaign May/June 2017)

When we wake up

the sun that now trickles shyly through the

gap in the curtains, blushing at its boldness, will

beam through bright, solid and oozing liquid light,

a golden lightsaber and we'll wield it

for The Good Side.

When we are born

from our crusty dull cocoons which are already

splitting and cracking and begging to be

cast off, flakes of shell will burst like bullets 

from our fleshy colourful bodies with

butterfly wings of steel.

When we march

we will swarm out of every house

ants joining the ranks, morphing and multiplying

throughout the land, we will occupy every corner,

peninsulas to rocky shores, city fogs to mountaintops

the earth drumming along.

When we scream

the sound will combine the screech of all the animals,

the fox's squeal, the robin's melody, the dog's rumble

and the sound will leak out of our skin like sweat

dripping and shining with our collective cry

we will be heard.

This is the time.

this selfie-taking, dab-dancing, tweet-trolling time,

We can rise like a flood of humanity, we can

Drown the doubters, surf atop a wave of empathy so 

Clamp your eyelids open, kick off your shell, boot your feet 

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

Clendish Wood

I have caught a moment

I am lifted in the gravity of time

In Clendish Wood.

The trees here breathe in the wind

Right deep into their diaphragms.

A symphony of birds chatting, having a barny,

Whistling sweet nothings through the trees.

A wood and a motorway, parallel,

And though there’s no drowning out

The drones – human and machine –

I chose where I place my focus.

Their sounds will not diminish you.

The wood keeps me here like a womb

And the trees close behind me like Harry

When he enters the maze - the fear,

Yes, but also the possibility, the drive.

The brances swirl in the breeze like

Perfect paintstrokes designing the sky

And two walls of bright white blossom

Steer my way, caging me in like

The sweetest of kidnaps.

Sticky weed, remember that?

I wonder why Nature makes me cry.

It’s relief, it’s remembrance, it’s engrained

In our cells since the beginning. This

Is where we’re meant to be. This

Is who we are. Well –

I will water the wildness.

The sunlight through the moving trees

Flashes like a mirrorball all around,

While leaves parachute their way to the ground

With speed and courage and the wood

Catch them gracefully and gratefully.

And there’s always a rustle without a being,

No matter how hard you look. The holly has

Turned brown and crisp and lost

Any prickly status, clinging to it’s mother

For dear life, positively soft. There’s the

Path, I have to go. I can't stay here forever.

So with a sodden leaf-laden heart, I go on,
Until the next time, and start the day.

Vacuum

Sometimes when I stand waiting for the tube, 

I throw my fuzzy gaze around me, and focus;

I watch the huge beast of a train leave the platform,

And the minute it's gone, the very second,

I wonder how something so vast was ever

Right in front of my eyes. Did I dream it?

Now it's just a rusty grey chasm of space 

Seemingly small, old, effortless empty,

Burden removed, groaning and stretching.

Like when you evaporated from my heart.

I wondered how, and why, you ever

Blew up the capacity of my insides. 

But you left there like the speed of the train,

And now all that space, all that space...

I breathe growth. I dance in it. I fly in it. 

Doris Day

(After storm Doris - 23rd February 2017)

Doris axed the branches from the trees,

Brutally cut them down, blew them

With fierce precision onto

The battle field. The park.

And there she laid them down,

Rows and rows and rows,

Spreading and spreading,

Like soldiers laid out after the war -

A cemetery of cindered sprigs.

And there she left them in peace.

I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.

Hard to - see the truth,

Hard to - create beauty.

Contentment not ever being

Known for its strength as

An emotion. Through the ages.

No one ever sat and wrote 

Soaring operas, heart-punching poems,

Stomach-ocean tragedies, hand-shaking plays

By being fine. By being OK.

I breathed in a bit of Doris

Through my left nostril, let her

Swirl around my soul and settle there.

I have a storm inside me.

It is simmering now, it is weak, barely

Lifting the lazy leaves off their laurels

Now. But wait. Wait. Wait.

I have a storm inside me,

And Lord, one day she'll blow.