New Poem - Unseasonal Memory

Unseasonal memory

I cannot remember

my last merry Christmas

alive as my grandmother

before I was outcast

as the door swung with visitors

dodging decorations

all our griefs set aside

and indoors smelled of oranges

I was probably a child

immature as my memories

which had yet to arrive

to haunt me in my forties

I cannot remember

not forcing a smile

at the sight of the revelry

concealed twelve months of tragedies

the glow of the churches

and the glare of the windows

the high stakes decisions

refined goose fat and turkeys

reduced to a bare flat

overflowing with empties

as chilled as my bones

and transparent as memories

    

Severn I-VIII attempt

    

Collected poems promotion, two poems

For the book

Now that I have built you

brought you half-formed out

of the atmosphere

now that I can hold you or at least

have some version of you

available to someone

when I die

I am very proud of you

you didn't know what you were doing but

you meant to get out

sometimes to take me out with you

you are clear and honest

except where you overly strive to be

too clear and honest

you notice

you have confessed to so many things

you have borne witness

and tried to be true

you couldn't fail to be you

I am in awe of you

the things you remember

the times

the hours you worked with my hands

you stayed with me through my betrayals

when I would cut things and lines

only now I've built you

I can see what I almost destroyed

a moving thing of beauty

a piece of work

a lifetime

fashioned from cardboard and twine

Unseen seabird

there is a coastal bird of some description

perched up nearby I cannot see it

its call is a precision needle

compared to the town's rough traffic

and the stark gulls' panic

it is lancet thin and piercing the evening sky

in its skin of orange

but I cannot see the bird

only a lone chimneystack can although

we can all hear it

we can feel it like the the porpoise feels the sea

crying mee-e mee-e mee-e

    

Brittannia: Phil Collaboration

Brittannia

The hills and mountains of Wales are but a drum beat

calling the faithful home

down through the valleys and cwms keeping the culture

this is merely the blood of the saying, the speaking

that courses down rivers and exits the mouth

beating the breast of the round of shields

held aloft, the warrior spears raised

and up ahead lo! the endlessly moving and oncoming 

hordes invade old Brittannia

now our friends from Rome have left for their troubled clime

for we Britons will stand and defend what they left behind

PR Williams

    

On any other day

On any other day

Other days we are fine

firing together like four legs of a dog

pursuing nothing

and recognizing nothing except the right to run

and to express in circles

what type of desirous thing we are

we may find company

on those days

we may find cheer at a bar with chirpy strangers

who know very clearly who they are

we may walk the churchyard

and read the contented

dead

we may marvel at the sunset and its seeping

the sky a shining bruise of gold and red

from an admiring hilltop

knowing we too

must go down

on those days we are fine

the world is as well put together as we can be

the grass grows

as the soil beckons

the cliffs collapse as the sea dances

and we are as much plastic

as of stardust

these days

these other days these days we do not mind

these days when we are fine

we are forgiveness

itself

of each other and of the world we make we

summon in our image

on those days

we are as close as lovers and inseparable

as the tides

the heart skips and the eyes stop wide

and we are raised aloft in ancient awe

of the one reflection

most days we do not appear

in harmony

most days we are torn between night and pain

sometimes we go looking for the vision

the great unspoken peace

most times we fail

some days we go grieving after beauty

some days its emergence makes us cry

sometimes we feel sorry

for that sad side

of ourselves

sometimes we feel the calling of self-murder

isn't suicide

some days we aren't ourselves

other days we’re fine

    

Whatever remains & To the Silence

Whatever Remains “I should leave it alone but you’re not around” The National - I Should Live in Salt Whatever you care to say or not as the night grows cold Whatever thought you've turned away regarding me, or that you didn't have Whatever flickering of old feeling was blown out along the way Whatever was lost in Cardigan Bay and never recovered. Whatever stays quietly shut down beneath the waves Whatever carved-in-stone priority that you must never name Whatever love that goes unspoken using whatever words you may Whatever heartbeat refuses to happen against the battered windowpane Whatever matters. Whatever the wounded Want. Or just wish they could say That is my truth today To the Silence You are here but you are not here you are there but you are not there you who can threaten to land anywhere fall on anyone after the blast you are the sound rising from nowhere struck like a child hovering like a cloud enveloping everyone and speaking for none you who give voice to everything that isn’t

    

Dolls Haiku

More Crude English Hijacking of the Honourable Haiku Form: Dolls

Itinerant Toy Story

Patchwork and Dim, were

bought in a boot-sale but

sold on for a song.

Jack

Always a wind-up;

mad for terrible music

and out of his box.

Russian dolls

All of them pretty

and, except for the small one,

well-rounded and stacked.

Russian Doll

Opening in two,

gathering my daughters to

my pear-shaped belly.

Not that kind of Action Man

Eagle-eyed seargent,

but not green-beret enough

to take off his pants.

Porcelain Pam

Delicate features

but just the extremities.

Body like a sponge.

Dummy

Ventriloquist’s prop

destroying the illusion

bleeding from the ass.

Laid in Wales

Yellow daffodils

will always remind him of

antibiotics

    

Trying to float

Trying to float

You just got to try

you’ve just got to set your heart to stun

and hope you sail away

a lone craft setting off into the setting sun

you must forego your way

and cast yourself adrift into the world

the sea

the parapsychic ocean

you’ve just got to own each passing day

as though it was the last

that anyone on earth was going to ever see

you must hit the brake

you must put your foot down

it’s like a particularly tough

computer game

the controls won’t respond to you at first

living is non-intuitive

but you persevere like Percival into

the forest at night

you burn what fuel you have to

you drive

and take each turn as it comes

as you learn your craft

as you float away

    

On setting down

On setting them down

Why do I live

what do I live for

it is not for the dream of the day

the cold hand of night

brushing away

what little I have achieved or have turned

out of light

to be expressed in a new way

protein of course

and water I need

I need to urinate slightly more often than I bleed

but to much the same psychic purpose

do I live for sleep

and the truth of its dreams

properly spoken

interpreted

in the unwashed tomb that will be my bed

is it to finally rest my head

is that all I live for

at dawn

I am wide awake to the seagulls rattling

I do not know what brought forth

this sigh this living light

this sign on the bay

electricity crackling

I merely endure the sounds

that descend and surround

sensations I just recall

and with a soft heart

set down