Thursday, 22 January 2026

#2215 -- on foot to clear a head

 


2215

7.22

22.i.26

on foot to clear a head

 

by an ongoing series of views

by moment to moment on

and being in

past rise

and all along

by way of habitation, whose?

 

could call it a waltz

a whirl

running around

chase where tail was

 

only to wonder

 

look up and

watch where you go

 

there are the bones of earth

in my bounce

 

there’s gravity brings us along

 

not another voice in sight

but keep to my own

but listen

 

always further from myself

by woof away

forgetting fences

 

learning to be far










Wednesday, 21 January 2026

#2214 - how flux we

 



2214

7.21

21.i.26

how flux we

 

close plonk as sculpt

and visceral

 

to be just in the words

refer or not

can’t help

no elbows pointing out

 

however

(funny beast

a horn each way)

 

choose to

everyone better when

 

that’s my must

 

and gawk

 

garden of flames grown all around  

 

onto the always next

 

random foster

 

a tinkle grief

the flourish up

 

keep on, won’t you?

 

it’s so we sign the days




Tuesday, 20 January 2026

#2214 -- the blinking, golden and gone

 


2214

7.21

21.i.26

the blinking, golden and gone

ekphrastic for George Heming Mason’s 1870 ‘Staffordshire Landscape’

 

what stolidity, the past!

 

as if it were for burial

and this the sacred ground

 

a day of ages!

golden as long since

 

the close flight of the goose

the blinkers and the saddle and none

 

one’s head is bent

and one forthright

one stoops

 

one is as an angel

to a puddle’s throw of sky

 

the sunblessed shepherd, wielding crook

wispy as this light

looks out

 

last of the day so put to use

 

trees, ghosts of themselves

alight with the sun’s last

 

we see

craggy fells for far

 

not a chimney smokes

the houses silent as if emptied for this

 

one end of this sky now dusk

 

it’s just what’s there’s a poem

 

I can never look far enough in 




Monday, 19 January 2026

#2213 - empty hands

 


2213

7.20

20.i.26

empty hands

ekphrastic for Danila Vassilieff’s ‘Man, Woman and Mother-in-law in the street’

 

a moment from duty

for a judgement we cannot accept

 

I think there’s a story here

we are a moment for the wall

 

apron sag, shapeless

 

these expressions are of elsewhere

 

what’s behind them is a mirror

 

someone said shit

 

they don’t sink

they don’t float

it’s lucky just to be here 




Sunday, 18 January 2026

#2212 -- in the weather comes

 


2212

7.19

19.i.26

in the weather comes

Gore Cove Track Series

 

an all embrace

and hastening home

 

the kind of music takes my hat

blows me along

leaves the ears exposed

 

it’s a sort of song

 

it’s every tree crazy

all dancing

way up high

with a fling and a flail

and there’s your leaf flown

 

find a hollow

shelter in

 

we ourselves are weather

 

sometimes I’ll stop for it

or I’m passenger

bent half to this whim

 

otherwise lurks

 

have you felt how the stream has its breeze?

 

weather’s here and it’s coming

been with us all along

 

just a touch of sky

 

in the clamber vine

in the leaf still spring

in the bay laid to its tide

 

after the weather’s gone

of course it’s still in the tree

 

and here’s a sun beside

just to show us all 





Saturday, 17 January 2026

#2211 -- self esteem

 



2211

7.18

18.i.26

self-esteem

a little solipsism

 

sometimes jealous of myself

sometimes take a cheap shot

full of admiration too

 

I am my own tyrant dictator king

 

get ahead of

slip behind

 

turn tail in case of a rout

 

there are days I clean up after

mostly just pile

 

have turned myself inside out

because the world is upside down

 

sometimes forget a self as well

I do it for the memories

 

take a deep breath

hold my own hand

get a grip

 

can you imagine?

there’s no need

 

sometimes I’m just here for me

that’s to reassure


Friday, 16 January 2026

#2210 -- joy of the track, that it’s never the same


 

2210

7.17

17.i.26

joy of the track, that it’s never the same

Gore Cove Track Series

 

some days, the sideways eye to have me

sometimes just the weather

 

it’s every conversation’s an elsewhere

like the harbour – how a sea comes in

 

wings are, shall we say, arriving

frond is to unfurl

 

everything of Earth has fallen

everyone rose up

 

there’s how a creek’s come down

a breeze presides it all

 

and the rubbing – let’s call that time

we’re abandoned here

 

even to the last leaf’s light

even far in treetop

 

what creature will not ask

what sky is up today