• on time

    what is going on?I have got all night, all day.how long have you got? ~ CLP 06/04/2022

  • Elmer Sands

    Vastness of skyI float, a star on the shallow bayEvening spreads; a deepening bruiseNothing hurts for nowTomorrow? Do not think of morningOf wakingDarkness incoherent, bright folliclesEmergence of coloursLights. There, the red of Mars!Eventually this fadesSea changes; follows the wind. I riseTomorrow will come, for better or worseEven for us, my love~n.b. This provoked by the

  • Aphrodite at the Convenience Store

    Stepping out of froth from crashing seaHer severe beautyProclaimed by men Goddess of LoveWho compared mortal women to her lustreTied them to their lust, and unsustainable aspirationsTo excuse male infidelitiesProstitutes sought her blessingHer austere manner lending prideto their profession dressed for anything but LoveWhen pandemic hit the ParthanonAll weddings and wars postponedAphrodite stepped off the

  • on romance

    best left unspokencompany, comfort, laughtermore precious than gold ~ n.b. There is too much said, too often. We all risk becoming amateur psychologists. Is it not better to go with the flow? I am a slow learner, I fear, but keen to learn. n.n.b. I just realised my picture contains two flotation rings…try not to

  • Poetry Prompt #6 “The Over”

    For each of the six lines in this poem begin as follows: 1. Walk thirteen paces away from a white line painted, with others, on an immaculately mown grass field. 2. Wait for a red leather ball with hand-made seam, to be lobbed gently toward you. 3. Reach up with one hand and pluck the

  • Smile Returned

    There is a Smile of Love And there is a Smile of Deceit And there is a Smile of Smiles In which these Smiles meet ~ The opening lines of The Smile by William Blake c.1803 Smile Returned i. sun-break pulls in shadows from Vathi’s quaypelican’s ankle bracelet roped to cleatbitter glykos, breakfast cake, crumb sparrowsfisherman puttering back

  • Raspberries

    Late June to late September it read, Scotlandyou showed me the advert and said, Let’s go!We caught the train northone ticket between us and two cheese rollsInto July in white-washed block accommodationa decent shower, where sometimes you left me to wash aloneWarm Westerlies and long-lit evenings brought out your frecklesturned my skin the colour of

  • Limbs

    It wasn’t a difficult mystery to solve; “Where did you get your long legs?” she had asked. His grandfather on one side was a good height, the other Scandinavian in origin, was the tallest, so he imagined. His own father was just a fraction short of six feet, a height he noticeably outgrew. The women

  • Absent Witch Constant Spell

    within and withoutabout and aboveon water in airheld by limbs of dark woodsspun out in high cloudsin setting sun and rising starsbroken moon on the lakedancing through Alpine mistsunk in thermal poolsstrung out by pylonswith their infinite linescaught in corners of roomsby fine webs I’ll be boundwhile her butterfly wings no more can be found

  • on gaslighting

    I wrote to youwith my concerns and fearsfor our collective future(the children’s too)waited for your reply I waited for youto phone or call byfor a discussionon how we might work itthrough I got your responsewoven through my linesexplainingyou’d done everythingyou could I was grateful to be toldeverything possiblewas possible and was goodif everyone else does