Spout

Spout

Don't tell me
it's a mental pursuit,
all in my head, when
the word spout
was right there, in the bed
with me this morning.
sibilant, sensuous S, sine wave,uncoiling energy into the soft pot bellied P
that held it tenuously.
before the slow spilling au sounding OU
which holds the all of everything in its holy sound,
and the energy flicked, ticked T.
my body 
drew the shape of it
I felt it in the pout of my lips
not the 'outpour' phrase that they use in the news,
that I hate,
but the fountain sprout from our mouths
that destroys or creates
everything before us.

Allotment

Allotment : ( uh-lot-muh-nt )
definitions
: a share granted
: a plot of land rented to a gardener


penny poor and joy
expectant, stumbling
into your arms I greet
thumb thick tangled brambles
two metres high.
undug, undone, undunged
weed smothered, covered with unwanted
crouching grass holding on whatever, through
wild conversations with unforgiving nature.

drunk slump shed
like me, weathered into
just about functional submission
windows missing, leaking life
I will breathe you back
into some shabby sheltering,
quirkly attractive.

sighing salvation comes
in many mysterious ways
but I have gloves and secateurs
and a deep adoring love of rust.
left for rotten
corner hidden
sunlight slanted like a hint,
what gnarled knuckle hand
held and delved for another kind of victory
with this ancient fork I hold aloft
with a laughing treasure-found shout.

From a meadowsweet mouth...

From a meadowsweet mouth a spill of promises…

Old soldiers are mustering at my borders,
muttering fork tongued manoeuvres, brandishing
their certainties in my direction.
But I tell you now,
there will be no war on my land.
No frowning lines will mark my soil,
the only horizontals here will be the laying down
of deep earthy browns into winter's waiting arms.
No shining steel will dare to slice
the nestling nematodes that nurture
any tiny web of roots to growth.

Instead, there will be promises of blue, a lush of layered greens, a kiss of red.
White frothing sweeps of lacewing petticoats, and tangy garlanding of herbs.
Here there will be, for a soft eye,
only gentle, sweeping curves.
A graceful willowing for the sweet and the green, an open invitation
to any wing and generous leavings for the carapace ones.
From here, we will understand the patience of rain, smell the sighing mist,
find the languorous, full bellied fruition of a September Sunday.
Summer shouts, as loud as sunflowers, will rise above the dreary, daily bending,
for I will practise the soft art of fruiting fresh breezes and billowing beds
and I will stitch myself a capacious apron for the gathering in,
after
I spit the seeds from the mouth of Eve
and sow a song of heaven right here,
in this garden of a life.

Driftwood

Driftwood

Peppered earth and wood smoke

herald your presence

behind me,

so slight the turn

 and tilt of my head.

 An invitation.

 An offering.

Your hair redolent

 with sea salt tang

touches my cheek.

Clover stroke .

Raspberry down lips

 dry brush my throat,

your bent head

a tender blessing,

 blossom  bruised by air.

With the smell

of damson still sweet

on your breath,

you whisper,

and cinnamon scented echoes

fill my head.

A Sigh and a Feather

A Sigh and a Feather

A long time ago, in a faraway place

an angel fell to earth
                                   and

                                               as

                                                                   she

                                               fell

she learned
that there is only silence
when angels fall, there is no sound,
no
Explosion of Anger
no Shout
of Explanation
only falling
silence

she learned that disappointment
can be a Cruelly Mute
thing
and that sometimes,
stillness
carries disapproval
ln it's
Terrible Hush.

All she had
was the soft rush
of the wind that she took for a sigh
and one
single

sorry
                              feather

                                                                                     floating

                 to

            her

feet.