A grey shade in the cottage shadows

a paw lick of sinuous silence

a tail flick of smoke

a pounce on time's toll

Like a smoke devil escaped the chimney

she inhabits the lounge at night

never settling

she drifts across the hearth

Like the umbral weight of her past

she settles beyond my sight

I sense only the leak

of light left by her passing

Like th...

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1
A story about
                an old poet
    and his cottage

2
A dream of an old mariner
                lost in Wales
    adrift on his words

3
A memory of
                a young boy
    on his maiden voyage

4
A memory of
                innocence
    lost at sea

5
A line on a chart
                between a girl
    and loneliness

6
A communion
               ...

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memories taste

like snowflakes on my tongue

and melt in my soul

love remains

like ice on the garden pond

in the memory of water

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Where once her warm and sanguine heart

fell ashen grey to rest in cold base dirt

high over the familiar bush and shrub

proud crimson blooms pine for love  

Where their sacred beauty sings to my heart

they call forth the lovely nightingale

high in their cloudless summer sky

to sweetly sing their longing song

There, I too confess a secret yearning

silent hidden d...

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The trees still sentinel stood

their green leaves whispering

rustling gently in the wood

in the same soft breeze

and I know some summer birds

sang in their canopy

a requiem without words

'neath the same blue sky

that through every passing year

quietly watched over me

safe within Ceredig's sphere

It has been too long a time

since our firs...

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I rejoice to see that old wood five-bar gate

that still stands guard beneath the ancient beech

to a field sloping gently down the hill.

The gate from an old farm track - now lost to time -

has seen so many seasons, so many harvests pass

and must have known an age of scythes and stooks

of horse drawn harrows, ploughs and wooden carts.

What could it tell of the village...

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"Heavy Snow in Wales": 30th January 2019

A sheet of pure white covers her face: that land I thought I knew

frozen beneath its covering, buried ever deeper in its icy tomb

the contours I know so well:

every dip and valley; hill and gully

smoothed by this mantling shroud that descended

as time slipped slowly away, locking us in its white eternity

One last frozen tear d...

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Glorious was that day:

Star rich the summer sky

Amongst the sun warm hay

We stole a sack on which to lie

Warm was that night:

Grass framed the starry gems

Below the hov'ring kite

We kissed amongst the tall grass stems

Heavenly was that tryst:

Grass rough the bed we made

Below a dusky mist

We took our love as grasses swayed

Fierce was that lust:

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Because I can no longer kiss you

no longer feel your skin

beneath my fingers

or hear you in the night

Because I can no longer call you

no longer sound your name

beneath my breath

or hear you whisper soft

Because I could not stop time passing

could not return time's sand

beneath its glass

or heal the wounds of time

Because I could not hold you here

could yet y...

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In silence

She stole his soul

In love

He gave his heart

What took him from his course

What gentle zephyr force

What brought him to the isle

What beauty did beguile

In silence

She sought his mind

In sorrow

He felt her tears

What held him to his aim

What subtle noble flame

What kept him on his deck

What held his lust in check

In silence

She tempted ...

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The withy cross now gold!

An interlace of old,

That endless pleter braid

Beautifully arrayed:

An ornate gem to show

That love will always grow

His token glows through time

An endless poignant chime.

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It was all in her eyes

When he said

I

He saw the tear

When he breathed

L

O

V

E

He knew her mind

When he stopped

Outside the mist rolled in

As ropes slipped off bollards

When he left

He heard her say

M

Y

When the door slammed

He hoped she said

L

O

V

E

When he heard

It was all in his mind

Outside the engine sta...

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I weep for his skills:

                the perfect crafting

                of the calligraphy

She sighed, "Forge me the seal of our love"

She sighed, "Render yourself to me"

She sighed, "I am your vellum"

I weep for her artistry

He saw the curves, the loops, the cursive strokes:

                flow smoothly from his nib

                harmoniously

  ...

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To wake lit by that lunar light

Toiling from the depth of dreams

Misty minded from the night

So the distant land below the window seems

Illusory

To see beyond the shaded hedge

Hear again the whisper soft

As bedewed we walked, that ghostly pledge

Those lovely echoes of a distant past yet waft

Silently

To sense again her presence there

Knowing how we walked at ease

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It has been so many years

since that moment of truth

when finally you were truly alone

It has been so many years

since you flew with the flames

as the organ played

something

and I looked out at the distant horizon

seeing you there drifting away

into finality

It has been so many years

since I made you a promise

I could not keep

You said

Do no...

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1: An Old Transformation

Her body

cold

as sea ice

lay before me

broken

by life’s swell.

I remembered

the pull of her currents and tides,

her surging waves and deeps

And I knew

I could no longer navigate

the course

we had set

so long before

As she lay before me

still, pale, cold

I wept:

for ever

becalmed

2: Lovers

Naked

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Those words we share

                and those we don't

The ones you use

                what do they mean?

So much is lost between the lines.

That inflexion or joy I might have heard

is mute

Those words we share

                and those we don't

The anger I feel in you

                what do your eyes show?

I can never know as I read the lines.

The thoug...

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A series of 11 short poems

End of a Galaxy

A blink

In the silent depth of night

As the last leaf of the beech tree

As the silent tear of my love

End of Harmony

I see her dancing on the sands

I see her                                     as she sees me

and in that moment

sand, sea, sun, surf

vanish in the vortex

until

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In that first perfect summer, that summer of love

when rifles bloomed and we turned on

and so nearly dropped out

in that year we met

and in the sun

we loved

despite clouds

that threatened us

and sought to break our love

a sad weight of parental love turned on

our first perfect summer, our first summer of love

In that first perfect summer, that summer of love

whe...

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It is so many years

since I felt some part of me wane:

all those thousands of days

since we spoke of nothing -

could find no words;

and even many more

since there were whispers

as we lay naked in the night

or in the cottage garden

beneath the harvest sun

It is so many years

that I have known that dark void:

deep within my very soul

and in all those long ...

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Wandering through the sunlit trees

on grassy bluebell banks, brackened

by the unfurling of softly sensual shoots;

strolling in the tide turn rippling sea

as toes sift soft sea sand, silted

and lost to the advancing wave weft;

striding across bare barren felltop

on sheep shorn Spring sprung sod, surrounded 

by haze horizoned hills and hills and hills;

standing by the quie...

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In my mind

buried deep

                a golden grain

                of  Welsh

                beach

In my mind

our impressions

                in the hot sand

                where we

                lay

It is there

buried deep

                that single second

                that moment

                in which our

                minds

        ...

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In my mind

buried deep

                a golden grain

                of  Welsh

                beach

In my mind

shallow dips

                in the hot sand

                where we

                lay

It is there

buried deep

                that single second

                that moment

                in which our

                minds

           ...

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Their voices harshly clash

and will not lie calmly

or rest in our ears

in peace

They rise loud over all else

and do not fall to our key

but strike out at us

in dissonance

Our song is raised joyously

and the harmonies sing

of the love we know

in concert

We have our air so their words

smash and fall to the ground

they do not stay in sight

o...

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Once I plotted my course

on nautical charts -

I used the sun and stars

to fix

                my position in the world

Once my ship sailed the seas

by my compass course -

I drew lines on a map

to guide

                me through far off seas to port

Once I was the pilot

steering from the bridge -

But she altered my course

loving

                m...

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As I leave my home behind

To walk the far farm fields

The spirit of the land enfolds me

Its silence becomes my mantle

While I alone hear

Those wafted word

As the wind caresses the treetops

Whispering englynion

To lure me on

Through woodland and moor

Beyond fences, ever deeper into a land

Clothed in swirls of radiant mist

Rising from plashy pools and tarns

Amo...

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I step out

Into that mystic choir

That holds my heart

Where time, standing still,

Moves with the seasons

Quietly changing my world

With its elemental tune

While my song is barely heard:

A contrapuntal whisper

Struggling for harmony

For my land is my chancel

Hymns hum soft on its breezes

And prayer rises in its stillness

In this quiet place of remembrance

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For Gwen, Anne and Eryl

In that happy heady grass-green Spring of my years

A time of lambent lamb slow lamb full days around a whited cottage

Lent us space and ease beneath the sun long sky

Golden glorious hours together in a single thought

With close chicken scrape and distant herd

When the swallows dipped to the fly buzz

When the kite climbed to a gliding speck

     ...

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O, where roams your delicate soul

Does it yet travel the seas

                gliding afar with the Arctic tern

                or is its delight in quieter waters

                in dappled river pools or streams

Is it content to rest in the cool damp shade of the willow

watching minnows play

                diving among the nymphs

                and sacred lotus

...

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Those love letters from the seventies

I could not bear to read again

and could not bear to throw

Those airmail forms

those tortured lonely twelve page laments

that I read and read so many times

in my cabin off Cape Town,

in Melbourne and Sydney:

So many words

So  much love

But in the end

They were just ash

And I scattered them

Ashes to her ashe...

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Too much was lost in silence

too long the time that winds

between our words of love and passion

with communion only in our minds

Too much assumed in union

of our two souls' mute desires

but I did not see her inmost needs

or hear how quietly pain suspires

I should have peeped inside

while she nightly dreamed in peace

to glimpse her mind's apparel

as it dan...

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In the long small hours of dark                 Through the later time of darkness

I pause and gaze out at the stars              As we lay entwined beneath the moon

Somehow the frosted ground                    The nightly scene now sacred

Sharpens the air and the starlight             Welcomes the soft moonglow

Which lights my very soul:                        Entering both...

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What is that glint

                as the sod breaks and crumbles:

a sparkling hint

                of discovery

                as I dig the dusty summer soil?

This old garden has gained lost treasures

                of man, woman and child for centuries -

                What lies uncovered?

Teased from the clod

                I find a tiny glass heart and this ...

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i

Innocent

     he met a force

Untried

            it held him

... and wonder drained the world of substance

            re-arranged the pages of his book to give more radiant a reading.

The light of new possibilities

pressed down on time.

The girl sang to him "You can hear the boats go by". He

l...

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And then

            at my source

I was lost to your ocean.

Flowing... your endless bounty stole my direction

            your depths embraced

            your corals welcomed my load

I drowned in your currents.

My hands caressed

your waves

My body plumbed

your deepest sounds

Your pools

received

Your tides were constant

            I sw...

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Restless: my body is your ocean; my limbs the currents of the sea

You float on my waves - sink only a little

I hold your sacred vessel safe - we become one:

A perfect balance of forces

Your body runs its course through my being

I feel you cleave my waves

I know you as we sink

Black waters closing

And I know you as we rise

I hold you to float above the tide as we burst th...

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Ah! I loved you!

Lost to your soul,

            I bared my heart

Within your mind

            I held my heart...

            as if all hearts sang with mine

                        as if all lips knew

I felt your blood pulse

            and heat my soul

            as your hair scourged my body

                        (Ah! I loved your hair!)

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I find that I must live in a world

Where, between that desperate dusk and a new dawn,

And between many a dawn and its dusk,

The only reality lies in love.

To be in love in that first dawn

And in the dusk, was to feel the sun

Warm our very passion every minute of every hour,

Reality lay only in the other.

And beyond that dreadful dusk, nothing

but dawns and dusk and ...

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I find that I must live in a world

Where, between that desperate dusk and a new dawn,

And between many a dawn and its dusk,

The only reality lies in love.

To be in love in that first dawn

And in the dusk, was to feel the sun

Warm our very passion every minute of every hour,

Reality lay only in the other.

And beyond that dreadful dusk, nothing

but dawns and dusk and ...

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                                    After Ezra Pound and Giacomo Leopardi

And so you were

everything to me, that is now less than dust –

                        lost, captive of the soil

That surrounds and nourishes my soul.

And so now I –

still stranded, umbral shade of past desire – 

                        left, am guardian of sad recall

watching branch and blo...

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Cariad

A word of the heart

Born deep in the being,

            resonant with the land's love  

Cariad

A word for the soul

Harmonic with soft timbre,

            warmed on heart's ember

Cariad

A word from the deep

Breathed only in love -

            impossible to deny

Cariad

A word never of the brain

Soft spoke; heart's heat

            ea...

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There is no meaning

            and no sense,

            only clarity

I loved you and my heart began -

            past years unknown

            past pulse forgot

            Love created  

            our heart defined

            our lips sang

            our hands mapped

                        love

I loved you with my eyes          ...

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