La Ventana
Imbibing from the mountain
A fountain of strength.
Clouds break and form
On the torn canvas of the sky
And a butterfly floats by
My reassuringly barred window
On the world in which first I walked.
Gutter Love
Two pigeons canoodling in a gutter
Make me utter the word God.
Their fine feathers are ruffled by the breeze
But they’re at ease outside the window
Keeping a beady eye on me
As I retrieve my Birkenstock’s and tiptoe out
To shout His name from the laptop’s.
Kinda
Long distant voices, long distance ‘phones,
silence is not golden,
life is more deadly and immediate than drones.
Don’t insulate from love but embolden
yourself to go all in
on the chance of a royal flush,
chips exist to be consumed.
Like the phoenix rising from the flames
you can fashion beauty from your pains,
by embracing those you cherish
and being gentle in your parish.
Happy Heels
It took a bit of building but it’s beautiful to see
my new duck-egg blue shoe shelf storage unit,
which only on the fourth attempt made it to me.
And the difference that she makes to my bedroom,
creating space and order, gone the heaps of clothes,
which before her advent were everywhere festooned.
Now my night-time furniture runs in cheerful rows,
but I’ll have to keep it tidy to earn my sweet repose.
Touching the Tajo
Returning to the rock bosom of my homeland and being reracinated,
in a phantasmagoric bath full of hot bubbles which fascinate the senses;
immersed in retrievable shapes and colours from another time
when one was distantly taking life’s first tender steps sublime.
A melting away of tight-knit troubles and long-lost growing pains.
A host of immediate connections with family and friends
and managing to avoid the decompression bends of love’s prevailing march
into the new times out of my misbegotten and bewildered past.
Fresh landscapes born out of enterprise and toil
rooting me afresh in the rich Andalusian soil.
But now home beckons in the vast metropolis an aeroplane away.
And I am ready to take my seat at the Jerusalem play,
(In the full knowledge that, despite Brexit,
I already have eVouchers for the exit).
The Balcony
This balcony is all I need
to germinate my inner seed.
Fields and woods provide the view,
sun shades the grass with darkling hues;
birds hop and whirl in dreamy skies
where windless clouds spread ‘fore my eyes.
Apples ripen by the fence, geraniums crowd my senses
of sight and smell which overwhelm
me as I sit and type these lines,
seeking thus to redefine
my place in time and space
in the North Riding by God’s grace.