Knife

(Gub, 24th of February, 2024)

Life's a knife

Sharp as tatara steel,

Indifferent to time,

shredding;

years 

It's slicing motion turns 

calendars to 

Tick-a-tape

Un blunted, 

But for the dreams 

That escape 

The shining blade

and arise 

Uncut, 

As bold as any daisy 

That escape the scythe's

Toil... 

Juggler

(6th of July 2024, Sandler's Wells)

you perform your best stunts

the woman in the front row 

withholds smiles

close enough to see your fingers curling 

on the edge of that next straw hat 

you briefly caught and released

not close enough to smell the sweat 

streaming underneath the shimmering leotard

contortionists sinew 

with a pirouette, the acrobats

conceal that moment 

when they have stepped into the wings 

and the masks come off 

arms relax

they don't owe us their true faces or their slumped torsos

this is not a ticket to their souls 

later I see you at the edge of the stalls

folded under a metal ladder 

in your black cloak of anonymity 

to your audience

you exist only in a pool of light 

crossing the fourth wall 

my eyes search out yours 

I want you to know that 

I have spotted you

my watchfulness separates me from 

those who look but cannot see

in my world, I move like a film

but my audience only sees in snapshots

they want to see you teeter

but they don't want to see you fall - they say

sometimes I make a gesture

as if I am laying down a sharp sword

like I could fight with my bare hands 

or not fight at all

when you stepped out of the limelight 

you gave up on the applause

has the audience left 

or will there be another curtain call 

in this auditorium and at funerals 

I am always sat on the last pew 

they sing

lord of hopefulness, lord of joy 

but I'm outside, following a child 

amongst the graves

Sleep

By Gub, the Whimble, New Radnor 

October 2023

On a damp peat

Path  

Cresting the green rich brow and 

Flanked by heather and gorse,

You picked that

moment and 

Said don't look back 

And 

Don't look forward,  

Let time

Stand still

And so it did 

As it has done before 

And after, and will

Again

For those walks exist 

In a lateral form,

And linear time has 

No place there.

They are for us 

An eternal stepping

A place to dream

To touch a heaven

Of sleeping giants dressed

In green felt cassocks 

And watch miniature versions

Of ourselves trip 

Lightly forward,again,  

Down the sheep 

Stepped Path…

And view a world which has 

No object, no subject but itself and know that 

Time is a liar and well rounded lives 

Are little more than practiced 

Wakings in all the morrows 

Of the universe.

When we returned home

You understood all this, 

And answered that 

Call - as you should;

with  sleep.

And then there were none...

By Gub (Last week in Felmin, Nov 2023)

Where body and mind meet

There are no days or nights

To remind us of what has past

Of what is to become...

Only what is.

Clouds drift above and stars

Fill the sky

The mountains' peaks,

Are dials signalling; compass points

In a slow passing infinity.

And yet we do count

the years -

We rest in time - Jurassic; ages

Dawn.

For without man

There is no measure

Of the universe or it's might

Or god's sight -

Our weak, frail, humanity;

Like a blink, a water droplet

Sliding down the hourglass

From here to oblivion.

Meaning yields to meaning

Only because without causality

Everything is dust

Belief

Is disbelief

So the carp rises to the surface of the pond,

To experience the buoyancy of water in the air, and in that moment masters the acrobatic dominion of two elements.

Velcro souls

to the naked girl toddling on the beach

your're out of sight and out of mind

as momentary 

as the footprints she leaves in the sand 

new dawn, new dog on the leash 

she surrenders in the arms of the present 

to me 'now' is a stranger whose grip-like embrace  

I'd like to refuse 

I close my eyes against 'now' and lock onto 'yesterday' 

when I could still run my fingers through your knotted fur

I want to burrow in that memory like wild thistle tangled in your hair

With claw-like grip

You and I, lock-and-key

Velcro souls 

Punctured

we're going through daily rituals

but life has been punctured

we're not whole

and we're silent on the matter of shape and size of the hole

I look at the same sun- bleached peaks

all is as it was and yet none feels like a present I can own

I want your soft underbelly on the courtyard stone 

soaking up rays 

I want you lapping at the water bowl

Another car, another black dog

the universe has fractured

I can hear the radio signal of 

'my life that should be' 

as if it were a patient 

only a wafer thin hospital curtain away 

I am waking up

with you 

pushing my palm up with your wet nose 

when I walk downstairs you bite my ankle  

and in the middle of the night your claws scratch the wood 

as you can't decide where to stettle

you never stop stalking the dinner table 

all tangled up between our legs

we shout 'get off, Isla', 'get down, Isla' and 'go away, Isla'

but nobody ever expects you to follow commands

your high-pitch bark 

is meant for rallying sheep and completely incongruous in a town house 

and it's always my job to tease out the tangles in your hair 

I'm the one you follow around

as if pulled by an invisible thread  

in this world you always find me

and never collapse at the bottom of the stairs

and I don't have to lift your hips, flaccid like snow

or remember that death smells like rust

another car, another black dog.