E-human

By Gub (15th of July) 

We can’t trade  happiness 

Nor purchase time 

Love is the only measure of  

Sanity 

Yet to define it

You need a sharp quill

To  draw something so soft, 

From such an abstract 

Mire of ego, need, 

And counterfeit reasoning

Love isn’t pure, 

It’s complex.

A molecular chemistry

That can poison, or save, 

Like a serpents venom. 

unique in its efficacy, 

On each one

Of us 

What we gift

What we take 

Is distinct.

This  precision in DNA 

Ensures 

No duplication in distribution 

Nor exchange 

Rilke’s sharing of 

‘Protected solitude’ 

Or Keats’ ‘selfish love

Which cannot breath’ 

IS the difference 

 

The echo of my call

In the darkness

The owl’s cant, or is it a

Nightingale or a jay?

What you reply in song

And what notes you choose 

Divides and unites

No love is the same

 

It is forever so

No single day 

comes again.

Beach snapshot of the apocalypse

By Sil (Hereford, 3rd of July)

the waves will polish

boulders into pebbles, pebbles into sand

then backyards, deckchairs, mould-strewn walls

will be sucked into the grinder 

the Holy Spirit will descend 

and you'll speak in tongues 

all human languages 

and the language of seagulls 

dogs 

and fish too

but on each day

God will erase what he hath created the night before 

He'll take Adam first, then all the animals

so you'll have no one to talk to 

And you, Eve, 

will lie naked on the wooden deck of the beach pub in Borth

watching the last sunset alone

What you get

By Gub (Borth, 29th of June)

What you get …

On an beach in June in Wales 

Is a mosaic of stories 

Laid out 

wide 

Against an opaque 

Slate Sky 

Of Green and blue

marine

The sand leaks

shimmers of light

That mirror the skin

Of an Atlantic seal

And elsewhere 

Miniature feet mark

Steps that fade

With each

Hop forward; 

Seconds in life lines

That run hap hazard

In abandonment 

Of worry

Time’s face has no dial

On a beach in June in Wales.

The curve of the dolphin’s

Back rising above the rollers

Matches the zeppelin boards of a  school of surfers 

The sea swells with cries 

Of Terns, undistinguished from the yelps 

Of children’s rompings

 

The gyre and gimble

Of evolution’s tug,

back and forth 

Between land’s beckoning 

purpose

And the ineluctable 

And Eternal

Draft of the sea ….

Our flight

(By Gub, 21st of January 2024, Hereford)

The inner journey 

Is just that -

So rumination is best left

To its own inertia

Progress

Lies in the outer worlds 

Of falling leaves 

and russet trees

No passage 

Sailed is entirely solo,

Even the wind that haunts

A friendless crossing 

Once Blew through populated seas

Hauntings

happen

when

Memories and souls

Reunite

The haunter's power

lies in evoking 

What the haunted has

Lost..

What tarnish

Can be lifted 

By a light

Rub of the lamp

The luminesce 

Of a past love

Aroused - 

And flames 

Reignited

Around 

The shared  story -

Recall with 

Vigour and all imaginative might

That great surging forth

The height of the waves,

The thrill of those white crested

Beacons,

The energy of the seas ocean

Hurling us up towards 

The shimmering 

Sun

And above the endless cycling of the tides,

Our flight 

From grief...

Like Christmas Morning

(By Sil, 24th of January, 2024, Hereford)

a candle in the autumn sea

love is a child clasping a leaf 

under flaming sycamore trees

at home, she peels off every garment

sleeps naked, curled up on the kitchen floor

exuding the sensuality of 

a summer day at the beach

her skin has the appeal

of fresh snow on a hill


a canvas for the gentle brushstrokes of your fingers

she will pucker up to receive your kisses

and wipe them off

love knows the rule of return and re-entry

that snowdrops

will eventually break through icy ground


that a poem is not just for Christmas,

when you arrive, defeated,

an old hound

that lost the fox's trail

she’ll make you feel 

like Christmas morning

and when you’ve made your bed in the guest room

love will always call your name

for she knows that 

although you hide

you always want 

to be found 

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