In my youth, I played at trains: Now all steam is gone
In my dreams, brief shelter from the rain
I try to catch the fireglow
With Dinky Toys, I thought that I was stirling
With cricket bat, I saw myself as Peter May

Now, with all these images returning
I wonder who I am

On Tuesdays, she used to do yoga,
while I'd sit and watch the box
in a vegetable way,
but always ready to say
to myself that I was an artist,
implying that she was not.
It's funny the way that self-pity
can take over from self-esteem -
well, I was the prin

As surely as the countdown begins our time is not our own
already there's the breath of the wind which bleaches bare the bones
of the deadlines we set, of the jokes we don't get
and forgetfulness that furrows the brow...
no I'll never find a better time
to be alive than

Yes, questions
coming up on the autocue
and I'm open to suggestion
but can I say the same for you?
So lost in the forest of pronouns
that I can't see the wood for the trees....
Got to face up to the showdown
between you, me and him, which is we?
Strange la

Passage assured
on the good ship Goodbye
dare I raise up my eyes
to stare into the rigging?
(Preparing to go/come home..)

All we could have done
we're at pains to explain
but all our might in the main
is only empty promise
unfulfilled at last
s

We make the beds in which we'll stretch
in unconscious pre-planning;
tending and hedging our bets
thinking we're thinking ahead.

Out of the blue comes the given life,
out of the window volition.
In small miracles, in constant reinvention
we make sense of each

The jury's out upon the matter
and they can barely bear to admit
that all the time we spend planning
in the end will matter not one whit.

Though I've certainly considered
every vital pro and con
I get no scent of an acquittal
I lose the drift..... the signs a

Signs serial
adrift in the air
immaterial
face up to the phosphor flare.

Ghost essence
fuels fire in the rig
incandescence
let's dance out the mystery jig.

Jig,
dance the dance of mystery light
dance the dance, jig,
dance the dance infer

It's only looking backwards
that you retrace your hand
it's only in a moment of reversal
that you can see where you stand
ease out, come through the film and through the mirror
welcome the backwards man.

Oh yes, the beach still stirs the ocean,
and soon the t

It's some relief
to find the possible in store
beyond belief
in overtime, I'm overboard
uncharted waters, full fathom five,
the future's rising, it's just arrived.

It's not the same
as I imagined it would be
but there's no blame
if every life's imag

I saw the future
or so I said.....
How strange they seem,
the lives I've never led,
thinking ahead.

(I'm ready to come home....)
So head on,
headlong,
headstrong.

(I'm ready to go....)

Your Tall Ship
Far, so far away, surely you remembe

Sometimes it's very scary here; sometimes it's very sad; sometimes I think I'll disappear; betimes I think I have. There's a line snaking down my mirror : splintered glass distorts my face, and th

Sometimes it's very scary here; sometimes it's very sad;
sometimes I think I'll disappear; betimes I think I have.
There's a line snaking down my mirror :
splintered glass distorts my face,
and though the light is strong and strange
it can't illuminate the musty corners

I stretch my hands, clutch vacant laughter
In silence and sweet, sweet pain
Without demand, but with a longing
For what will never come again

I smell your perfume on the sheets in the morning
It lingers like the patterns on the window after rain
A past that lives, if on

Been alone so long
That I've forgotten what it's like
To feel somebody next to me
And hear her breathing peacefully
When I wake up at night

Been alone so long
That I've forgotten what to say
If I meet somebody who might
Easily resemble you
I smile, but look

Look at the candle, as its life is bought
As the wick just rolls over and dies
Look at the wax-drops as they cease from their goal
And the game they were playing loses its joy
And the youth which they played in runs away
How long will you be gone?

Flame sucks at air now

I don't know quite what's happening
And my eyes don't see too clear
All I know is I need you here
If only to shield me from the mood of the world
And hold me and say it doesn't matter
But I'm like a child whose dreams are shattered

Crowding round me: Images of broken th

She likes to keep God out of church,
especially when she prays:
all in its place, all safely stored
for some rogation day....
the paradox is so apparent,
the sense absurd, but all too real;
the nonsense is arrant
but she just wants to feel comfortable.

A pound i

You turn out the lights and sit alone,
trying to pretend that it's anguish,
start at the ring of a telephone,
throw down all your food at the banquet,
keep a close eye on all you own,
while leaving it all to languish....
Is this what makes you happy?
Is this what brin

With my face drained of colour
And my brain of blood
Like Billy Budd
I'm lashed to the grating
With senses growing duller
And with quaking heart
I make a start
At temperature equating
And my lungs suck useless air

Like paraplegic dancers
In formation tea