I lied to you,
it wasn’t quite how you imagine.
time-twisted shapes easily shift, as you know,
and I don’t mind at all
that weeks washed colour from your vivid pain.
It was that evening
when you combed my hair so gently
and your flaccid tongue in my mouth was as cold and dead as
a slug-fed fledgling.
you made my flesh crawl.

I’m still writing, but I’m quiet online.  I am enjoying the peace and quiet of being mainly cut off from the outside world, no internet, no television. 

I am writing more, if anything.

Much love.     Bee.

.

. 

looming gloomily through mist drifts,
here, in the moonlit land of hollow women;
bouldering enormity~shadows rule the ruinous remnants.
The ghosts, the ghosts

.

.
Scattered like a swift.tipped sewing box,
sulkily skulking behind button rocks.
Pin pierced starlight - a measure of days
blindly winding away.

.

. 

We stumble, tearing at our hair,
our lips are as chapped and dry as the skeletal’bracken
we pace upon, night after night.
Like Sisyphus we heave our guilt.weight

 .

.

to an invisible summit, a terrible truth
as colossal as the bone-cold granite we climb,
Basalt’s bride crying
~where is love?~ to the deaf, deaf fog.

there’s a blackbird in the ghost~tree.
ghost.heart at my core.

drive your tinycar
so far away with promises stapled to your reflection in the rear view mirror.
see what good it does.

.

.

.

we woke to seasounds
wrapped in eachothers scent and smiles
and the possibility of
The Most Perfect Day Ever.
Neither your silent promises or your trainers could grip the slanted rocks
as you sideways ploughed down to a foot-wet laughter pool.

.

I entered the kilns with romantic ideas in my head,
the heat and the fires of the past dampened by the smell of
urine and stale beer.
You lept light~legged through the stream, sand-spread across
the beach, laughing back at me
as I carried my shoes and splashed.
I taught you the difference between Herring gulls and Kittiwakes.

.

We sprawled on the dunes, climbed steps,
collected those skeletal tree-bones,
polished to satin by storms of salt.
we walked to a view of eternal beauty and you told me how sand-dunes were formed.
I loved you so much that I didn’t tell you I already knew.

.

We explored the ruin and spoke of the best place for a kitchen.
We had a running race.
You told me of how you felt like a true man
that summer when you laboured for your father,
rough hands and a well earned beer, aching shoulders and satisfied sleep.

.

.

Later, as the day let the tide slip away,
we ran pell-mell down silver sand dunes, arms out,
laughing, full of such a pure happiness that the world turned inside us.
That was the moment that tattooed my heart.

.

.

I told you that I loved the sea
and you

.

.

now you are in Bath, that city of sandstone and wide pavements.
You will pay for your black coffee, two sugars or hot chocolate if
your hands are cold.
I do not know what she will have, but you.
The Most Perfect Day swirled into your drink with a silver spoon
and your dreams of a family balanced precariously on her eye lashes.

.

.

.

so we played scrabble in the dimpsy room
with spinning towers of books and chit-chat.

while you placed words like ’so’ and ‘if’ and ‘cat’,
and Molly counted your scores on her fingers,

i saw your world and your sandwich-mayonnaise
fight for a space on your blue~blazer sleeve.

‘crunch’ placed piece by piece by smile by piece
-that’s a big word, crunch, like pasta crunches-

_Does pasta crunch?_ i ask her

-Yes, look_

the blue topped plastic pot pulled from her bag
surprises me with it’s secret of dried pasta bows.

We crunch the wooden bows in solemn silence
and she watches me, nodding encouragingly, then

-you don’t really like that, do you?- she asks

_how can you tell?_

-your eyes are trying not to say things that
might make me feel sad about liking crunchy pasta.-

_I prefer it when the pasta has been cooked_ i say

-oh- 
‘no’ and ‘hat’ are placed in the pause while she thinks
-thats ok, I won’t come for tea. Then we can still be friends-

her lunchy fingers rub my hand, friendly despite my flaws.

.

.

SHoooommmmm.  ClUNNNGGGGG.
.
.

doors slide so smoothly in oiled runners
to boom in iced-up hollow~heart places
to ehco
to echo in those hallowed spaces

.

.

but my heart still tUggs at the lead
‘come on come oohn, hurry now
before the snow sets smoothly
and
you set smoothly
and
there are things to be
sniffed and barked at
and you are missing it all’

.

.

It’s boisterousness pounds
s i l e n t l y,
testing the doors for a chink
and beyond expectation,
I say:    

.

.                                                     that would be nice

.

.

.

.

Morpheus:  Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real?

Neo:  This can’t be…

Morpheus:  Be what?  Be real?

The strands thin like rubber cement as he pulls away, until the fragile wisps of mirror thread break.

Morpheus:  What if you were unable to wake from that dream, Neo?  How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?…

(From the screenplay of the film The Matrix (1997) by Larry and Andy Wachowski.)

.

.

.

Loralie (extract)

Speedily scurry
bird flurry wing-tips, my mind dips cause heart flips
I ease myself gently
so
gently
through cliff thrift;

.

eDge

.

scree-shift

.

Fright me, delight me, I tread now so lightly
clasp couchgrass, whistle maker
fingerthread

.

Below me, sea, tempestuously,
echoes siren_song
won’t be long
tumble_dash, bodysplash
oh such a messy gash
GullMew
crestSpew
look what I have done.

(2007)

just a’keeps on goin
a bit like you, you jus keep on goin on
goin’on about your poor broken heart an
your poor ole legs and your dead cold heart.

Mine’s fine
it keeps on goin strong
when the sun falls low behind the yew
and you say sorry sorry sorry

I cried in the peas just earlier
an’ I cried in ma childrens hair
but ma heart keeps a thumpin
an no amount of scrapes an cracks gonna get me

You can go on ya blind date
with that girl in the tiny picture
and you can go knowing that I’m singing still
when my children an I play by the fallen tree

cos we are all tangled together so happy
and if you can’t tangle then be sure you cant tango neither.

.

.

.

.

(unedited improvisation)

This is a piece I wrote nearly two years ago, whilst I explored sound.  I’m posting it here because I want to.

Wrapped delicately in sun
we run windward
through whip-grass leg stinging fields.
We, youandme mud-thick slickshoe slide
downhill.

Rainscented hedges guide us

to the river edge

Cobble-bottomed rush-Gush torrent

C h I l L s our-nakedtoes squeeling
(heron stiltwalk watches)
from boulder……….to rock………. to bank……….to boulder and
…..back to bank…..

wet-skirted skin sticking wrappedcotton legs.

Dolorous darkCLOUDS
tumble over and over-each-other
fatly

granite
tipped from the heavens in a booming
hill-echo:

thunderrumble

(how many miles, how many? oneelephant twoelephant threeel…)

lightning – we-gasp

minnow silver-darting Quicksilver-Quick
to shadowbottom
riverbed.

Limbache of longing – our childhood Dartmoor
deluge me

I sweep myself away in this downpour

wry eye~smiles
glide from your inherited throne

‘t’s
start at the bottom and l o o p  over themselves;
a dry-wipe lid
on exciting excesses unseen.

you digress

followed by lazy meerkats
down brush-shielded ramble.paths
dusty new thinking

and i amble behind
admiringly inspired