CLUSTER OF LOVE.

The components
Of a supernova
Coalesced
And blessed my life with him,

And as he
Passes
Days and weeks
His disparate features

Gather closer
And toast
The chemistry
That brings him to me;

The process
That sifts the best
From the mess of man
And jams it together,

So that a fragment
From here,
And a phrase from there
Slowly grow

Into a whole soul,
Whose reason
Continues to be seasoned
By time

So that when next year
Arrives
There’ll be an even keener
Being.

FOR HE WHO IS THREE TODAY.

History is set along a line of sight;
A string of wisdom’s finest gems
Or oldest coal dust stones;
A cord of recollected order occasionally supported
By an assortment of captured ephemera:

Whether written bits from witnesses
Or photographs mapping back roads;
Pictures framed by failing eyesight
Or recordings sounding nothing like the pilot,

And on these twines and wires,
These threads of frozen verities,
We attach our memories to
So that they fit the facts,
Which then dose back the fictions given,

Allowing our little throats to wear them well
And sell them better
To those who don’t believe
Or make mischief out of matters.

But sometimes in the beading of reason
There’s a blurred occurrence,
A smudge of dusty grease upon the scene,
And then it’s our recollections that
Come to the rescue of the piece,

And I know that without the mistakes I have made,
With all their intensive consequences,
And muddying of time’s puddles,
That I wouldn’t have my son here now to love.

ATMOSPHERIC.

Those pretty,

Pin thin
People;

Steeple tall;

Reflecting all society
Expects from them;

Who are looked at
But not listened to,
Lusted after
But not laughed with,

And left swiftly
When the next new
Thing to be sponsored

Comes along,

Should be pitied
Not fed plaudits
And orbited,

Then maybe
They’ll be able to
Land gracefully,

One day,

Instead of getting
Lost in space.

PRECIOUS.

Over the course of an average week
I amass a fine collection
Of rocks in my pocket,
Thanks to Harry’s habit
Of picking them up wherever we walk,
And having me carry them
Once I’ve told him for the nineteenth time
Not to chime them together,
Or tap the tops of walls,
Or dig vigorously for them;

As he generates enough kinetic energy
Simply by enlivening
The surfaces he slides along
Without striking sparks
From the shards of earth he feels worthy
Of his attention,
Not to mention the fact that he attracts
The magnificent gaze of the sun
Wherever he runs,
And doesn’t need to breed more.

And so I safeguard these random stones
Until we get home
Then forget I’ve got them
Until loose change
Is fished for the next day in the superstore,
And I find more than I bargained for,
And I have to remember to release them
Once again
So there will be enough sweet gems
For him to find before our morning walk.

LIKE MISSOURI IN MARCH.

You wouldn’t like it today
Baby
As it’s hotter
Than Joplin
Was,
And it’s not
Even April,
And

Although I was grateful
For
That weather
It was altogether
Odd
For spring streets
To feel such fire
But

Now it’s even higher
Up
The temperature’s
Unchangeable scale
And
I’m in England’s
Provincial clutches
So

Who knows how much
Those
Central heat island cities
Will be wilting in it
Or
If the folks back in JoMo
Realise how rich they
Are.

I MISS YOU AS MUCH AS THE DISTANCE.

Most things are measured
By how much we care,
And as much I don’t like
Being corrected on a
Technicality,
I must confess
That you have me there,

For although my concern
Is most urgently spent
Determining the situation
I suppose I’m blinded
By my inability
To see entirely
How far we come since we met,

And how much it meant to me
Once you went
Back to the land of laughter
That you left a year ago,
And have made your home
Once more
With your daughter.

So even though my sightless
Nights with you
Have been corroded further
By my acid reactions,
I still love as much as I did
When I first realised I’d lived
So long without you.

DIGGING INTO MYTHS.

The fundamentalist
Lives off the belief that there is something central
To their faith,
Something basic,
Pure,
Some underlying truth,
But in searching for the proof
They may find that it’s foundations
Are rootless;

Like trying to look for the house where
Your grandparents
Were born
And discovering it torn down
And built over by a hybrid design of a property
That offers little information of the original place,

Or kids seeking the streets where fog begins
And realising
For the first time
That it’s everywhere at once
And generated not from the earth
But birthed from a combination of all things.

Or mortals
Caught between the east and west
Of birth and death,
Unable to bridge the difference
Because they live with the sense
That there is something greater than themselves,
When,
Really,
There is nothing more important
Than the individual day
That makes itself available
For each soul to find.

AN AFTERNOON STROLL ON THE LAST DAY OF WINTER.

Took a walk to the park,
A short walk,
To the bank park,
Where the slides and swings and see-saw things live,
And other little kiddies skip by,
And although it isn’t far,
It is for my boy,
Who enjoys the journey
Nonetheless,
And makes the best of his time there
Even if he sometimes climbs sideways
Whilst checking out his surroundings,
And doesn’t concentrate enough
On his own stuff
As he’s way too curious.

And when we’d exhausted
All the playground’s possibilities
We decided not to ascend the river bank’s hill
As the serious mist,
That greeted us this morning,
And hadn’t really lifted all day,
Was rolling back in slowly over
The dull disk of the sun,
And we still had to pop along
To the nearest newsagent
To pick up a lottery ticket,
So as dusk begun
We slipped across the road
To head back home
And he still had his chin on his shoulder.

HAVE FUN WHILE YOU CAN.

There’s crazy warm weather all over the world
At the moment
And some see it as an omen screaming ‘End of days’
As the rays fall,
Whilst others remain prostrated
Beneath the weight of it.

And in Wisconsin noises echo in the evening
And early morning
As warning sounds mount from the ever ready crowd
Announcing Armageddon
Whilst prepping as eagerly as possible
For the loss of it all.

There are culture hunters bemoaning the lack
Of modern attractions
Even as they knock back the last book of the bible
With a bottle of vodka
And joke about the disclosures
It proposes,

And scientific dicks mix their metaphors as they
Discover more,
Even though their theories are weirder than Ragnarok
And its aftershocks,
And continue to smash atoms as if
Nothing mattered;

Yes today there’s a long list of applicable disasters
Awaiting a cast of characters
To attribute significance to and announce a cataclysmic
Piss is about to hit us
Even as most of us go about the business
Of insisting it isn’t.

DRY LAND AHEAD.

I see it’s warming up nicely outside,
And there’s a further week of early spring sunshine due,
But however melodious
The tone
Of the weatherman appears to be,
And appeals to my pale ears,
It no doubt
Adds fuel to the fears
Of a deeper
Drought
In the south,
And the rout
This would reap,
As what fallen water has seeped
From the ground
Quicker than the sound
Of the forecaster’s
Last
Vowel,
Which,
Trowel like,
Has dug such a ditch
In the wishes
Of the farmers and twitchers,
As to drain
The last rations of rain
They’d collected
For a sunny day,
Which just goes to show
That you shouldn’t second guess
The weather
In England,
Which pours
More
Scorn
Than rain.

PASSING TIME AGAIN.

In slow motion
I go
Through the gestures
Of the day,
And answer,
As best I can,
The questions
That come my way,
And when
The end
Sends sleep to greet me
I welcome it
Gratefully,
And determine to make from it
A better
Beginning tomorrow.
But I don’t
Always honour that promise,
Especially when
I have a day off
From responsibility’s millstone,
And find
Myself alone
With the extra time I usually loathe,
And cannot decide
How best to spend its length,
Until,
That is,
I’ve wasted so much of it
Debating
What to do
That I find I’ve flown right through
Its waiting frame
And am facing sleep
Once again.

WAITING FOR DINNER.

I show him
A chicken wrapped up
In a bacon blanket,
Stockaded by potatoes and lance shaped parsnips,
And he shouts at it
“Get Cooked!”

And a blue enamel tin
Full of cubed carrots and peas,
And silver slivers of onions,
Centred by six sausages covered with herbs
And he’s heard to say
“Get cooked!!”

Or a leg of lamb
About to dance in the sizzle
Of its own drizzled juices,
And infused with garlic and rosemary sprigs,
And he hisses
“get cooked!!!”

Or a full blown
Slow cooker filled to the lid
With seared bits of beef,
And diced vegetables wedged in-between
And he’s seen screaming
“GET COOKED!!!”

And after the last
Lick of fire has applied
Its final strike and alighted,
I plate the great feast and present it neatly
But unfortunately sleep
Has cooked him.

GERMINATING.

It’s October down there,
He said,
As we passed the end of a lane,
Although why that particular snickle way
Took his attention I’ll never know,
Similarly why he told me to take a wall off,
Or asked after an arbitrary item
That we passed
Remain obscure too,

But he’s sleeping in a bed now,
And learning letters,
And getting better with wetness,
So I guess it’s all part of the man plan,
And eventually every vector will settle
Into a random pattern of attraction
That none of us
Will recognise tomorrow,
Or remember from yesterday,

And as long as I can still fit
These shifting procedures
Into an average week’s framework,
And make some sense of them,
Then I won’t gripe about his ripening,
And take heart
From the fact that his inquisitiveness,
And imagination
Are framing mine.

NOT ALTOGETHER WRETCHED.

All in all,
As far as happiness goes,
I’m cheerful when the day went well,
Or to put it another way,
If nothing goes awry
Then I’m fine;
Not exactly full blown golden,
Or sold on the soliliquoy
Of the season,
But otherwise not sad,
And this applies
To the opperating systems of my existence
As well as the end products;
My duties
And caprices,
My treaties.

And recently
I’ve been thinking
That where my love is concerned
Maybe I should listen more,
As she tends to feel the same way I do,
As in not joyless
But simply pinched a bit by anguish,
And that’s probably down to me,
So if I choose to hear her
Then at least
She’ll be pleased,
And,
You know,
In turn,
Ironically,
So might I be.

SILENCE IS NEVER ENOUGH.

Occasionally
I make certain to lock the doors,
And check them twice,
To keep the world outside,
And other times
I open them
To allow people
To flee from me.

Often I’m accosted
On the inside of my hideout
By a salient bout
Of opinions
And similarly I’m not averse
To wording my own
In tones tender souls
Might find offensive.

Then again I’m more likely
To clap my hands about my ears
In fear of picking up
The buzzing of others
Whilst cycling them over my mouth
In order to board up
The exit of my next
Profound announcement.

And very rarely the peace
Is complete,
And I can meditate without
The need to clear a space,
Until that is I get sick
Of the ticking clock
Attached to my mind’s
Internal time bomb.

DESTINY'S RIDE.

My job is to get him through the trials of childhood
Whilst his job is to stop me as habitually as possible,
And although there will only ever be one winner
It’s unlikely to be either one of us,

As fate can be a tricky supporter of all things irrational,
Even as the cast of characters it comes across changes
And ranges from the priceless to the paltry,
And is assaulted by chance’s red-handed dice;

Still my son and I have twice the opportunity to rewrite
The records whilst fighting this fickle business,
Consolidating our playable powers so that between
My experience and his tabula rasa we can win

Or maybe begin the process of wresting confidence
From the salty stinginess of probability’s fingers
And book our own slot on luck’s manifest
In time to lean keener over the thrower’s mat,

Or at least scream louder than the ladders
That smash glass every time they’re leant against
The windows of the pent house poker rooms
That have bloomed in the rooms where we once lived

And gave of our gifts to each other instead of having
Them snatched prematurely from us by fortune’s mood,
That has suddenly troubled him with a fever
That neither of us even saw coming.

BATTING ABOVE MY AVERAGE.

Most of the things you’ve earned are worthless,
Bought on a whim
Or another’s indulgence,
Or forced upon you
Due to the weakness of a previous model,
And once imported,
And unloaded to the home,
They prove themselves so
By honouring the history of their condition.

And the truth bruises,
As much as it uses
Your vanity to shore up
The awful reality of avarice and its practices
And the mediocrity
Of your statutory rights,
When highlighted against
The fences of fortune and it’s burst certainties,
Whose length is everywhere
Between the options
You’ve been offered,

Except with her, who admires you from a distance,
And plies the wisdom
She’s been seeped in
To better greet
Your atmosphere of median self-confidence,
And once you know
The tale she’s told,
And closely hold its verity,
You’ll never merit an ordinary thought again.

MY LOVES.

There is a blue
So beautiful
In his eyes
And his lips
Are kissed
And tender,

And when he leans to reach me I surrender.

There is a look
Of such delight
About her
And she speaks
Of love
And longing

And when she breathes beneath me I am stronger.

There is a world
Of turning views
Around us
And its sounds
Are full
Of wonder

And when its bigger picture glows we’re younger.

There is a life
Of highs and lows
To cherish
And it knows
Our very
Wishes

And when we strive to fill our lives we’re richer.

HEAVY DUTIES.

She’d fallen asleep
In the untoward heat
Of a genail mid week day,
Having heaved
A mass of meat
And other treats
Down the occidental streets
Cleaved
From Pilsen’s beaten
Features,

And dreamed of mists
And whispers
Of distant
Times and trysts
In heavy fed systems
That she wished
Finished
As waking was hissing
And missing
Simplicity,

But once back
She thanked
Her God for the hand
He leant her landing
And she managed
To brandish
A little candour
When discussing plans
To shop and bank
More standardly.

TRAILING BEHIND.

Following his feet
As they make their way along the growth chart
Has always been tricky,
As I’ve never really known
What size they’ve grown into,
And hence his footprints
Have always been
Misinterpreted;

From the first moments
He trod the boards of the living room floor
The stage was set,
As he went from floppy,
And badly concocted booties,
To a more resolute
And foot worthy
Version;

Interpreted to take
Him further and hold him sturdier in his step,
But still cunningly
Built when determining
The correct size to apply,
Although more likely
To last until his
Feet fit well,

And right up to now,
When no sooner have I had his feet measured,
And collected
The correct sneakers,
Than his toes have begun to peak
Out of the ends
And I’ve got to
Begin again.

WE WILL BE HEARD.

Another phase
Of our relationship
Begins;
A further stage
Raises its head into
The wind,

And wanders out
To where the clouds
Leak thickness,
And the needy sounds
Of adults crowd
The mist

That settles on the sidewalk,
And ties the talk
Together,
As if the world and all
It’s clamour called
The weather,

But we will rise up
Higher than
The bustle
Even as the skies
Above have tried
To crush us

Because our love
Is loud enough
To reach
The two of us
Over the
Planet’s speech.

HERE AND BACK AGAIN.

A year ago
Our hopes were high
As she arrived
From out the sky
And landed
With the grandest
Entrance,

But the dance
Was handled
Less than well
And neglected
And unxpected
Circumstances
Damned us,

And their tremours
Sent a shiver
That delivered
Us a message,
And pages
Meant to be addressed
Were left empty;

So six months ago
She took her pillow
Home
And bade me wait
Until the day
She brings it to my bed
Again.

THE WORLD IS HOLLOWER THAN IT WAS.

One minute
We were laughing
And passing comments;

Some of them lasted,
Others flashed like comets,

And then
We briefly lost contact,
As Jim’s laptop packed up,

But one awakening
Soon became longer hair

And we were
Back at it night and day,
Saving grace from herself

Whilst helping
Defend her eternal virtues.

And this I knew:
He picked me up
When my cup runneth over

Too much
And as such refilled my will.

And this I know:
The wired void is still
Without his noise and filled

With less
Of me than before we met.

THIS EVE.

There are many nights
Like this,
Hung out along the year’s washing line,
Drying out in the calm
Of the grave black space
That settles before the dawn’s jaws rattle their cage
And grab the hands of yesterday’s clock face
For themselves,
Devouring the hours shed there
As if they had not existed;

But we know what lived here,
What spilt its shrill on the day’s cloth,
What bombs dropped,
And gobs were stopped by leaden words;
What curses were returned
And earned permanent status
Or just a restless wait;
We know because we were there
Amidst the bits of missing sense
That bent time to their will.

So be still my love
On the eve of this weekend’s anniversaries
That commemorate leaving,
And leaving again,
And hold yourself close
For me,
As I will for thee,
And together we
Will see tomorrow remembered well
One day.

THE INEVITABLE SUM OF PARTS.

Since when did a window
Mend itself,
Or a memory help to
Defend
The length of your life,
As opposed to driving it’s mystery
Further from you.

And whose health ever
Rendered them
Immune to the feral
Agenda
And wealth of the future,
Whose rooms are hung with
The hymns of others.

And how can the two sides
Of a man’s
Completed and yet greeted
Span
Be bridged adequately
And grandly enough to be worth
Setting off for crossing,

When the grand glass panes
You’re handed,
As your soft padded feet
First land,
Have been made
From the aggregate sands that
Your forefathers cast.

CAPTURING STREET SECRETS.

She’s out on the street clicking scenes for her keeping;
Making a carrousel collection of the sketches
She comes across whilst getting lost down 18th street,
And when she meets a memorable face,
With manners to match,
She makes another mental note of Pilsen’s gentleness
And continues on her way,
With camera in hand,
And hand to the skyline,
And eyes on the prizes that wait there:
Windows in the wake of great architecture,
And a wealth of walls adorned with frescoes
Or less well known doorways framing thresholds
That lead to the unknown studios
Of artists yet met,
Or when she sees an ordinary underpass,
That is otherwise avoided,
She toys with the angles and stanchions
And branches made from them,
Where what’s left of the light fights with the darkest parts
Of shadows
And exposes tones
That others just wouldn’t be able to see,
And then she goes home,
Having exposed herself to the mighty winds
Of a Chicago spring,
And downloads her treasure
To better measure the worth of it,
And if,
On the odd occasion she’s missed a bit,
Then tomorrow’s only one night away.

PRIME TIME.

In the rush
To hustle the clock
Out of a few extra minutes
I’m beginning to forget what happens next,

Even if I’m
Still able to connect
The improbable dots of
The immediate present to its adjacent crest.

This improbable
Contradiction creates
More friction than is apparent
As the carrot on tommorow’s stick is stuck

By the fluxes
Blown slowing down
Times flow in order to know
Just what the hell is causing this affliction.

Suffice to say
The pavement I make
Through the future’s temporal cortex
Is more short lived than the past’s ashphalt

Which changes
In accordance to the
Distance I observe it from,
Which itself is determined by where I am.

So as you can see
My viewpoint is switching
Between now and then and when
And as I was saying....what was I saying...???

LA BELLA LUNA.

I have the moon to thank
For reminding us of our connections
To people in the west,
As it’s hypnotic beauty looms
Whilst moving across an aristocratic sky
And smiling on my child.

And as the air dries
From watercolour blues to oil rich pigments
The lunar light brightens,
And we say our good nights
As it sails beyond the sea and remains a horizon’s
Length ahead of the dark.

And across Boston’s hearth
It charts it’s never changing course;
Sending eyes and lenses skywards
To seize a glance of its familiar face
Or freeze it in time as it shifts from a cinder
To a sparkling glitter ball.

Then on to Philadelphia,
And the wealth that awaits there,
The debates that have been held there,
And the sweetness of its people
And the heat of early springtime which once
Greeted my arrival.

And finally it is blown
Over Chicago by the fierce breath
Of that city’s best dressed weather,
Where it tethers itself
For longer than intended to shine and send its
Starlight into my lover’s heart.

STOCKING UP AFTER LUNCH.

There are always pressures
And temptations
When we traipse
To the store,
But even more so in the afternoon,
Once we’ve captured a nap
And used it
For refuelling:

He’s heightened and wiser
And twice as likely
To strike
At the bright things
Dwelling on the bottom shelves,
Twinkling in that mortal manner
That would corrupt an adult
Let alone a toddler;

Whilst I have to scour the aisles
For latent traps,
And tip-toe us
Around them
Should I lead us into
Toy town ambushes
Or stocks of candy
Stacked where they weren’t this morning,

And generally overcome
My desire
For Root beer,
And other seasonal treats
Designed to lure into ruin
The truck and trailer
Combination
Of parent and child.

STREET SCENE.

Rain,
Cold rain,
Heavy cold rain,

And again,

And loud,

And out the window
It’s ever present,
From one end of the terraced panorama
To the other,
Covering all there is,
Bleaching further the working-class aspect,

And it’s coming down in
Crowds
Of thousands,
Earthbound with an intensity
Unlike any
Industrial event

And strengthened by a lack of
Showery action
In the south,

And I hope it’s enough
To quench the Earth’s thirst,
Otherwise they’ll have us on rations
By the end of March

And wishing for more water
Than there is today,
Which is everywhere,
Except inside,

Or maybe I spoke too soon...

BUSTING A GUT TO GET OUT OF A RUT.

Just give me
An unstructured day
Once a week
And I’ll speak of it
Till the next one
Comes along;

With it’s snipped strings
And drifting
Live rafts cast against
The lullaby waves
Of great
Stretches of time;

Miming labour’s day
Whilst biding its
Own business
And hiding
My schedule
Until school starts again,

And I’ll pen it a tune
From my folk singer’s
Loom,
And a yarn
Of the harm
Lived without it.

But the baby’s got ants
In his pants,
And he hasn’t
Any pants on,
So I guess
This is as good as it gets.

A DISTURBING INCIDENT.

Hope I didn’t wake you too much
This morning
When my phone
Took the opportunity
To call you from
The relative harbour of my garments
Without my knowledge,
Or authority,
And quite frankly against the explicit
Wishes
I’d imparted to it
After the last time
It had the temerity to break
Its moorings
And roam,
Unaccompanied,
Across the vast divides
Of space and time,
And disturb you in the middle of the night,
Whilst I,
Innocently
Wandered in the winter
Of my mind,
As I strolled around the town
On baby business,
Jostling my pockets as I went;
But I guess at least it wasn’t
The toddler who called,
Unlike last time....

DRESSING IT UP.

Apparently it’s book day today,
National Book Day,
As opposed to those local events
Where the tenants
Send sections
Of their personal collections
For consideration,
And invariably
Feel disappointment’s ointment
Coursing over their prose;

And who knows
What treasures will be unearthed today,
Or who’ll be the best dressed
At nursery
As the purpose’s occurrence
Insists
The kids
Dress up
As their favourite
Puppet
Or character
Dragged from the clutches
Of such books
That move them;

Alternatively they could always
Turn up at school
Dressed as themselves,
As who else
Could better wet their
Appetites.

ANOTHER BLIND LEAP.

So an extra day came
And went,
And where did it take us
Other than
Into another,

But one
That’s hopped and skipped
Itself further along
The calendar
Than last year,

And so we have an extra
24 hours in the bank
To be thankful for
Or damn
Once more

For being wasted
In haste
When the need
Was for speed
To breeze us through it

In renewal
And hope
That the next
Would connect us
Again.

EVEN YOUR WORST IS BETTER.

Always remember to protect your faults
From those who would assault
You with their squalid flaws,

Because,
When it comes to demerits,
There’s no one who’s buried

More good deeds
Than thee,
And even after you’ve

Exhumed
Several of these ill perfumed
Executions

You’ve still managed to abuse them better
Than the rest
Who, even in fine fettle,

Settle
For less than intended,
And mention this

At every opportunity as if hell bent
On downplaying their strengths,
When you know these would fail to chart

On your report card,
Or even raise a remark
In your life’s margin.