Window in a Storm

Like the drowning ghosts of

Altar candle flames, buds of rain

Seek, so desperate hard, to defy

Gravity,

Destiny.

Unseen cheeks and faces

Pressed against unforgiving,

Merciless pane;

Imagined mouths voicing

Silent screams as

Slip becomes recognition

Of ending:

The thunder that can never be heard,

The deeps that will not be denied

Are claiming their once-bright souls.

Heading for the Borders

If it wasn’t rain,

It will be;

Sooner than you know.

 

And if it hasn’t

Risen just yet,

Wait a while,

For it will …

Though it may not be visible

Even to those who have faith.

 

This is snow

Long before it was snow …

And the same snow

Long after it has fallen.

I am where my forebears dreamed

They would never be:

Above the land and looking down;

Heading for the borders of belief.

 

 

Before the Rain …

This is the rain

That isn’t really rain –

That comes before the rain

That will be –

But why the fuss?

Didn’t we always know the

Summer wouldn’t last forever?

If it wasn’t what you wanted

Surely there’s only your self

To blame for that?

December’s insanities,

Brewing in the still room

Begin to giggle, little

Secret red bubbles;

The dark that isn’t real darkness,

That comes before

The dark that is:

What’s next?

 Really?

You have to ask?

Surely that’s the question

Best left to answer itself?

Only The Innocent

Tomorrow’s dawn should find me

On the Yellow Card Road:

Framed, guiltless but shamed

Between the rising, rain-filtered sun

And what I already knew.

Of Us All

Unseen, but somewhere

Between sky and earth

The sound of a blind, heavy plane –

Born of one,

Belonging to neither –

Grumbles at both.

Murder’s Professor

Fierce-proud crow-piper am I

On Prospero’s good-wind, miller days,

Born of winter raven-burn,

Murder’s elegant professor,

Confessor to fictions.

Carrying Messages.

Scenery’s never been so vivid.

But rain is rain;

Diagonal rods,

The spaces between,

Carrying messages

On The Rain Roads

Back on the rain roads,

Stung by defeat –

Oh, how it hurts,

Life’s not fair.

Stuck on the off-ramp,

Little left in the tank,

Stuck in the grey masses

Without direction.

I Still Don’t Know

All-day long tiny percussive fists of

Persistent rain have pummelled, nagged,

Raised the best of marvellous memories:

Those that I thought I didn’t need,

…and we danced

Slowly at first, then with

Absolute joyous abandon,

We slid off our shoes;

Hurled them, but gently,

Onto the sparkling slope.

Watched the rain fill them,

Inhabit them, change them.