TIME,GRANDFATHERED

My grand father was a tall clock in our long wooden corridor
booming hours like Big Ben
my father was a wrist watch
he wound by hand
and i note the absence of public time-
the lack of sharing in a digital world
where we do not have the time
to share.

you cannot stop breathing

nor do you desire to-
this will to live is paramount
and can be shared with all who share this air
the waters surrounding us,the land we dance upon.
Speech is silver,listening golden
Exchange rates are conversation/the dialogue of civilisations
asks only that we hear and continue/knowing less than before
wanting more.The rain outside will not listen/
nor each day return to burn again.All we have is creation and continuance
this is the WHY.You have the HOW-noe the next step is...

speakspelling sparks

for fire from hearts is ignited
when the winds sing through
the grains of truth we hold in our hands
Breathe of life animates when
we circulate like seasons
find sails that fill like sheets
spill these seeds into the willing earth of air
watch !as harvests of interest arise
bright,green,new-to find those shapes and forms
consonant with our growth
\Life begins like this-it has long before us
and will long afterwards
We are surfers on a series of waves
The wind carries us away

POETRY AS COMMUNITY

we once used to speak with each other
now a virtual flashmob has occupied space
to make it both hyper and virtual
we cannot go back
but we still wish to link to human beamings
so we write and read and listen and respond
by any means necessary
distance sets in-time stretches
we are still at ground zero
with a black page and an open stage\every where we glow
now is the moment to reach out
this is all we know

THUMBS UP!

It is Max's second day at his new school
We dub him SUPERMAX-and(by request)
Dad Dave accompanied him on the bus
all the way to school.Max is nervous-gentle
Change is hard.He likes his friends and would prefer
things continue the way they always were.They cannot.
The best we can do is give THUMBS UP! to the inevitable-
pain,learning,suffering-the education of innocents
takes whole lifetimes/and,if we fail,we are kept here
until we learn the language of change
is a hands-on experience!

IT IS RAINING IN ENGLAND

as it has always rained\and will always rain
Jayne Eye rain,Wuthering Heights rain
Charles Dickens rain,not so different
to W B Yeats Irish melancholic rain
nor Dylan Thomas' Welsh village rain
more Thomas Hardy southern England light rain
Victorian graveyard rain.Trainline rain
hilltop rain.Rain that has swept and isolated us
for millenia,and will continue with us and despite us
as long as we are here and the BBC opines predictions
of the fires next time..

MODERN POETRY

Terry Pratchett called the M25'world's biggest parking lot'
so i drive under security camera signs,with speed camera lines
etched upon the circular circus,aware of my rental car speed
and the speed of every other car flashing fast past me.
At Heathrow,Disney lines fivefold deep held hundreds of us
in temporary detention awaiting inquisition via a veiled thin Muslim woman
and a smorgasbord of world nationalities.Bye,bye BNP!
The turbanned Sikh who took my toll fee on the Guildford Tunnel
smiled when assured how lost i was driving in circles in a small country
The cameras tracking every vehicle on every major highway
will not stop collisions,nor riots-only define victims via TV
At the Services,i cannot find reverse-so wait out the parked car in front of me
until freedom meant a direct conversation ,pleading the sandwich munching coke drinking driver
to release me.Roadworks are forever in a stalled economy.
VARIABLE SPEED LIMITS are policed via security
POLICE vehicles with bright yellow signs watch vigilantly,milking motorists
the last tax on meaning and motion in a classical verse society
I am home again,temporarily.I enjoy English hospitality.
Have another cup of tea and smile for the cameras...

HALF A THOUGHT

i have half a mind to lapse in to nostalgia-
about the Golden Age of poetry
when everyone shared their words and thoughts and dreams and songs
and met at every available opport/unity
to make/create/renew associations older than time
This is you.Now.Yes!and we compound and spin eccentric orbits
like privately funded space projects.We subsidize ourselves
If there is a way to add to and make new this moment
find us polishing our space capsules in preparation for launch
Flow goes with us @all times
We are in process,in orbit and in flight
There is no point repeating choruses of past lies
The gift of present intention makes all right
(we will be here all night folks!-
this is only half a thought-the rest you get
once you express your response
to the possibility that we have only begun to sing
and dreams enter new/ each and every evening...

CORN,APPLES,YOUR LANGUAGES

Waters of wisdom need neither chlorine nor fluoride
The well is dry bone.Fracking cuts in funds.
We hold the myth of Babel-yet bombed Babylon
We watched as antiquities were plundered from Iraqi Museums
The Sahara used to be a rainforest(until those Romans
Nottingham Forest extended over half of England(Until Henry The Eight's navy
There used to be hundreds of varieties of corn,apples,trees
Now Kelloggs,Granny Smith,pine plantations
Diversity is @the core root of our culture
Our pirate language freebases and jackboots its verbal thievery
in a colonial expropriation of linguistic assets
yet we kill and ignore the source of their rainforest wonders-
indigenous elders have no young to speak mysteries with
We text message ,Tweet This is not haiku-it is cliche
Unless and until we find and fund librarians/etymologists,
we will be monosyllabic dinosaurs.Extinct.We lost the ability to reach
to each other.Teach more languages.Listen to the elders.

BERTRAND RUSSELLvs D H Lawrence

Rumi vs Hafiz/Kabir.Mind over matter.Is there a soul?
Spirit resides within-each sings whirlwinds
Spiral dancing Sufis on the head of a pin.Spin!
Las Vegas gambling wheels vs Medicine Wheels.
The Wheel Of Progress vs Chamber of Commerce
Your head and heart vs liver and kidneys and spleen
Why do we extract appendix when appendices make better writing?
There will always be enchanters,poets,lone wolves,fool moons,tides,waves,you
are more than molecules.Even atoms are theories.Elementary as particles
Energies to those Floating Worlds that welcome us when we attune to orbits fresh with optimisms-
to create anew within the blue skies of unique and only Earth.We visit here-
four score years and gone.Life is a song.We learn the words Zen forget again
Waken each new morning to the same birds.One sings HEAD!-another HEART!
One says we are primal ,animal,mammal,reptilian,primitive folk art
Another we are bright Renaissances of Unfolding Flower Gardens.Water both!
Weeds and flowers both need to grow.What happens next is always unknown..

MIRACLE OF THE MODERN

sometimes i am as village-pointing to the skies
when huge Behomeths rise on jet Icarus engines
(only Challengers burst into flamed failures...)
like meteors and Mars.I hunt for "cloud"and "internet"
hitch the "information superhighway"-missing metaphor
i am as literal as Plague.Fetid water Sudan/Somalia.
First World bursts into London flames
Heat burns down Texas.Whether warming is global or local-
i feel it in my misspelt melanomas/cancers of our chakras
Industrial disease making mongoloid/experimentation madnesses
i am as rainforest to bulldozer/throwing spear words@military helicopters
You do not leave space to breathe.This painting too modern-mess of squiggles Wall Street
where bull marketry is new Minotaur-and Theseus cannot slay this Myth of Marketing
"Jobs"when machines have replaced us in the factories of obscelescence?
Robots on assembly lines,offshored.! i wish to hunt,yet end up shopping
Bison sold on salmon farms,crocodile leather pants up waterfalls virtual
i am a child in the cloud,databanks recording every conversation
Security cameras track and trace my footsteps,but it is far too late
i am a nylon cloud.The rainforest is made of plastic

we are all one being

and every raindrop is rain,every snowflake still snow
pitter -patter of gentle massage more healing than thunder of criticism
lightning war upon those you love(they are you,too-in another skin
and when you water war,you drown.Frogs learn this-
each lifetime elementally bound.Every pond a reflection
"Mirror to a mirror stand,echoing infinities"
There is nothing that is outside us
that is not mirrored within.Every affirmation finds home
in your specific skin.Sing and the Uni-verse responds.
You are never alone.