At Cerne Abbas

Cut from Dorset Chalk,
he straddles green space,
free as we're not free.
Beside him, all mortal men
shrivel into dust.
His life responds to lust
whilst we shrink in shame.
To live again we first must
learn to love our one true face,
take God by the hand and walk.

Scar Tissue

Years have passed since the op but even now you'll catch him,
hands pressed to his side, doughy fingers tracing  the harsh line
of the surgeon's blade. Time has healed what was once a bloody eight inch rip,
now the faint remains of pain tracking across porcelain skin.
Sometimes, he'll forget it's there at all; forget a part of him was excised
where the thing had set up camp, raising threat levels to red.
Other times, however, when the dam groans under the weight
and it seems like he's overdone it, pushing his frame too hard,
the pain, or the memory of it, returns to the inner folds of muscle and flesh,
where the past adheres to now, ushering in remembrance of another wound,
beyond the reach of words, on another side of his life.

Growing Season

Hands as hard as tree roots,
you work the valley's acid soil
with tongueless wit and tools
ready for the scrapper.
Stalking the night to fish for slugs
in the sleeping lettuce beds,
you drop them into a cold steel pail
for secret deposition over the boundary wall.

There's much to learn from a life lived by the seasons.

Year by year, you turn your face
to the white wind as the ghost
of the moon winks over the hill
where foxes cry in the night.
You wear the dank suit of Autumn,
soured by the sweat of work.
Sweet blessings of abundance:
There'll be times the crops will fail.

A Lemon and Two Limes

Unable to sleep,
I arose at 3.44 am
to make myself
a cup of tea.

Entering the kitchen,
I was surprised
by a lemon and two limes
at rest upon the counter.

I thought to myself,
"Two limes and a lemon?"
and fetched a brown felt pen
to write it down.

I drank my tea
and went back to bed
where I slept
like a baby.

the thing is

these words can never mean to you
what they might mean to me
and tomorrow they'll not mean to me
what they may have meant today

but it hardly matters
as long as they grow wings and
find a place to hang their hat

and we remain on the rooftops
moth-watching
caressing the moon with our
tired pale hands and our lips slightly parted

tongue-tied
caught in the gap between
the softest sigh
and a scream