Delighted to have 3 of my poems published in The Poet Magazine, Summer 2020 Anthology: On The Road Volume 2. My thanks to editor Robin Barratt and congratulations to all the other fine poets featured in this excellent anthology.

THE POET – Our Anthologies

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VISIGOTH ROVER

i went on the bus to Cordoba,
and tried to find the Moor’s
left over
in their excavated floors
and mosaic courtyards,
with hanging flowers brightly chamelion
against whitewashed walls
carrying calls
behind gated iron barsbut they were gone
leaving mosque arches
and carved stories
to God’s doors.
in those ancient streets
where everybody meets;
i saw the old successful men
with their younger women again,
sat in chrome slat chairs,
drinking coffee to cover
their vain love affairsand every breast,
was like the crest
of a soft ridge
as i peeped over
the castle wall and Roman bridge
like a Visigoth rover.
soft hand tapping on shoulder,
heavy hair
and beauty older,
the gypsy lady gave her clover
to borrowed breath,
embroidering it for death,
adding more to less
like the colours fading in her dress.
time and tune are too planned
to understand
her Trevi fountain of prediction,
or the dirty Bernini hand
shaping its description.

BOOTS OF HARLEY

this universe has no centre
and you’re not there.
this sun is only sunny on the hood –
its light can’t bend more benter
to be fair
as time stops running rings in wood.
the floorboards creak
and pictures speak
when I stand in empty corners making room,
for ghosts that want to have my seat
when they come in from the street
after riding like Valhalla under sun and moon.
summer shoes,
with beards of barley
in their soley grooves –
still think they’re boots of Harley
on electro glide down highway avenues –
with a woman’s arms around my waist
singing Bob Marley
and promising me her taste.
foot down. legs braced –
rocking back the headboard on the bed and base
in the hanging of her breasts
where my head would rest,
her lips a vanished beauty of the past –
explode
unload
to this contrast –
that turns its empty pages in my head
unlit, as I lie in bed,
running out of Kerouac road –
i feel the beat
and go to sleep
with some more story told.

WORDING WITH A WISE OLD SHAMAN

i danced around the monolith
on the dark side of the moon –
and waited for the face to speak on Mars:
there was no one in on earth to share it with
in the gloomthey were going round in circles in their cars.
hiking out in Arizona.
sleeping underneath the stars;
got wording with a wise old shaman in a bar –
and he said: ‘we have lost who we are.’
who we are, and where we come from.
what to do, and where to go –
unite the crystal skulls of wisdom
for knowledge that we used to know.
back inside my human body,
all things here are still the same –
time to smoke and drink some coffee,
then a walk in the rain –
before I glide the astral plaine.