I’m much older than I think I am: certainly old enough to know better, while being too old to worry about it.  Born and grew up in Nottingham, started to write creatively as soon as I could string a coherent sentence together: and was hooked when at 7 years old, my teacher had one of my stories typed up and made into a book to be added to the story corner. I’ve been trying to attain that level of achievement ever since… repeatedly inflicted myself on the poetry performance scene until the mid 90’s: Moved to Lincoln in 2000 and have been a nuisance ever since Please excuse the picture: I’m afraid that is my face.

SHE IS

She is a short dream in 
the long, dark night; 
a small brown bird huddled
in a hedgerow.

What she is, carries
no weight; her existence hovers
over deeper significances. She does not
know how to matter, 
only how to be:

and in the cold, expansive winter
of your despair, what she could be
is a single, warm ember;

a welcome home.

SIREN

I bring you closer, keening like
the wind. Keel and yaw, rigging dragged and
sodden: the gale screams defiance. Still
I sing.  Eyes closed against bitter spray, 
I call my need; my hunger.

Slick with salt, and weed, and scattered spume, rocks
turn beneath my feet: I stumble to the farthest reach
and watch you founder, spars screeching above
the squalling of the storm. I cannot watch you drown: my voice 
falters: the waves do not.

I found a pebble once where you lie, now. Slick
and silvered as a fish-scale: I kept it
like a secret against my heart. 

Your hair is wet: you score the sand with
tired fingers... still, I sing, and still your eyes
search for me against a skyline starker
than Hell’s Plain. You call for someone...
Mother? Sister? Some distant fragrant lover yet untouched? My
song surrounds, demands that you forget: your smile returns
with your last breath. I watch the colour

sink from your cold cheek; you cease to hear.

There is no place, here, for your kind.
I take your hand: examine the short lines, the
whorls and arcs that tell your name: your age
but not of you. I wonder for a moment, if you saw, before
the waters took you, my patient pacing at the water’s edge,
my outstretched arms....

It is done. Your hand falls, empty, at my feet
and clouds break, releasing the cool sun. I see
its brightness caught on every rising wave, and all
is good. My song ends, and I, I can go home.

The sands are silent: 
soon gulls come, and rob you of your eyes.

The Sea, The Sea, The Sea.

I leave you sleeping, and make
the three-pace pilgrimage
to a window still dark
and filled with stars.

I can hear the sea. Your every
sigh and murmur
brings the waves inside; makes
an ocean of tangled sheets and pillows: 
scattered like rocks, your arms, and legs
and feet break surface in the cotton surf.
You reach out, mumbling, and clutch
the covers in hungry starfish hands.

I watch you, and I ache: I turn away; 
let the salt dryness burn the threatening tears
before they fall.

Suddenly, I need to be 
outside. I must feel the night breeze
on my face; endure the chill to feel
soft sand shifting around each footstep.
I flee the room; the house; and you,
and walk barefoot
through the dunes and grassy scrub.

The beach below is blue
and blue on blue on blue... the
water’s edge, the breakwater, the tethered boats
all limned with moonlight. I breathe in silver
and shadows; taste 
the changing tides. I dream 
in waves.

II
The silences connecting us have grown: they 
bloom and roll, pushing between us; 
soundless storms that weather and erode – 
I am raw from them and scarred, 
sculpted and soft-edged like
sea-glass, opaque and secret 
against your gaze.

I walk the miles of sand; the coarse
scattering of sea-shells, flotsam, kelp,
unseeing of all.
I have been windswept by our life: all the clear, sharp 
dazzle of me has been worn
to dullness, blandness, by
the tides and surges that have dragged
and driven us.

I should go back. I see
the crumbling footprints
mooring me to 
that one lit window; the turbulent bed,
to you. Sometimes it’s hard
to be so still; to risk
the shallows, sandbanks, sounds
to find safe passage:

you can often be
the reef that strands me;
tears me; leaves me broken.

You sigh: I turn for home. My gritty feet
too harsh against soft carpet, I close the door;
turn out the lamp. Its cold, but you sleep on,
your breathing a soft reflection
of the swell outside.

III
I wonder at us. Your anger
stirs strange currents; throws me
far from shore and safety. I cannot
run against those winds: I’m swamped – 
crouched and sodden, gasping
breaths between deluging
breakers, send to crush.
I have no defences: you overtop, 
and breach, and batter down; a 
relentless storm-surge, bitter and 
inevitable against which
I cannot hold, crumbling
in confusion and distress.

I wait, in the comfortable dark
for you to rouse, and seek me out, 
reaching across cool sheets for my tired heat
and I will drift back to you
as surely as the rising
of the tide.

I ache with every breath; your scent, 
the memory of your shape; your hands
on mine. I sit
beside you; watch the dreams
chase like clouds across your
frowning brows. You’re too intense; your
every moment fraught
with dangers yet unknown
and still
the shadows and the moonlight
call me back. The hot tears swell
and spill in silence:
inside, the ocean draws and pulls;
each slow return
still breaks my heart.

I am a fossil, 
lost among a million
pebbles at the sea’s end...
scraped and pitted
cased in old chalk; all secrets buried deep.

I let you drift, rudderless in sleep.
Across the bay the rocks tear shreds of spume where
sea meets land. I see
the rhythmic blades of light: the
automatic beam of mindless caution
from a keeperless tower. Each glowing
pulse cuts a distant gulls-wing scream
of unease - 
“keep away.....
	keep away...
		keep away...”

I watch until my eyes, grown heavy with 
the weight of water, of darkness, of salt and grief
fall closed: I welcome the drowning,
the sinking into depths of sleep:
and still, outside the waves echo
your resting heart: the far, lost light: 
the warning.