sometimes wishing
that God was real –
this temple to the spirit

(St Peter’s Colchester)

*
the light
through the arched window
green as the tree outside

*
digging deep
to find the roots
of summer bonfires

*
thrice starting to tell
his life story – three times
they return to theirs

*
four ceramic ducks
lined up on a window-sill –
my life museum

*
final words
under a canopy
of sunlit clematis

*
curtain in a breeze –
the long tide
flowing into night

*
speaking slowly
their daughter puts it
in words of one syllable

*
red leaves clattering
on the wall – seagull
crossing a silver sun

*
chair
in a sunlit hallway
just sitting there

*
old bus ticket
from a slim wooden holder –
eloquent book-mark

*
birthday sunset
ten years old –
then as now

*
a gardenful
of moonlight – trees
bent into shadow

*
at the mention
of a favourite film
she reaches out her hand

*
grey morning
spent putting
new words on paper

*
moon moving across
house fronts –
obscure secrets

*
across the flatlands
stretching the eye
to cloud-fields

*
carved wooden angels
nave-ceiling-high a butterfly
swoops in sunlight

(There are 118 wooden angels on the nave ceiling
in St Wendreda’s church in March, Cambridgeshire, England)

*
my reflection
in the midnight window
looks at me reflecting

*
hotel babble
in the next room
blue sky & small clouds

*
on the cliff-top
just long enough
to count the seventh wave

*
leafy sunlight shadow
on shelves of books
many years old

*
hawthorn
notated in sprightly fashion –
chaffinch

(for Heather)

*
canada geese
cloud-cackling all the way
to the ex-beet field

*
through waiting-room
windows the sound of
autumn trees

*
meeting on a pathway
laughing bird
& night owl

(for Janet Davey)

*
hotel breakfast
facing a person
happy to talk about Plato

*
the words
in my book
fade into midnight

*
about to share that
my friend’s son quit the world today
I find I can’t

*
into the dark this night –
each one of us
our own candle

*
beautiful woman –
maggot starting off
inside her

*
half-blind man
wearing my cap
doesn’t notice

*

Three Haiku based on words
found in Camus’ A Happy Death

she buys
an orange canoe
to skim over the blue sea

matching the heart
against the slow pulse
of the sky

sky pinned
without a wrinkle
one horizon to the other

*

Eleven Haiku based on words
found in Lawrence Durrell’s Justine 

idling arm in arm
by the afternoon sea –
the debris of our lives

by the lily-pond
shading a candle
in the palm of one hand

face famished
by the inward light
of her terror

under the railway bridge
the lover awaits her man
mess of maggots

rain hisses down
the long windows –
dark eyes cool & amused

painter sitting
under the withered pear tree
in a shabby garden

her portrait
about to say what so far
has only reached the eyes

separated from
a forgotten evening
by centuries

yellow curtains
breathing tenderly against
the afternoon light

both dressed
in robes carved heavily
of moonlight

winter rain
crackling straw
amongst rocks

*
two heron
floating & floating
above the misty dyke

*
moon pheasant
disturbs deep midnight’s
field-run

*
seagulls by the thousand
flying upriver at dawn
past the red cows

*
his portrait
speaks words
jumbled with colour

*
sudden gale –
blasting round Orion & back
through broken clouds

*
even the lady
walking about
upstairs

(For Allan Clews)

*
moon
gathering
round every room

*

Five Haiku based on words
found in Lawrence Durrell’s Balthazar 

clicking of palms;
hooting of invisible
sea-going liners

the sensation
of walking about all night
on your eyeballs

portrait
interrupted
by a kiss

deserted beach
searching for
fragments of regret

moon climbs houses
& minarets – the city
digs itself up from earth

*

Four Haiku based on words
found in Lawrence Durrell’s Mountolive

gnats
silver rain in the eye of
the dying sun

train rasps out
across desert to coast
– lightness of heart

feeling every word
of a book I suppose
I’ll never read again

surrendering
to every word – to the grain
of thought

*
the unaccustomed smile
contains her mother’s
lilting voice

*
opening the window
to late night moonwind
& lately vagrant souls

*

across the river
western autumn trees
in sunrise

*
midnight planet
sliding through space –
a just perceptible hiss

*
realisation!
dear dead friend – I no longer
send you my poems

(For James)

*
all those months
come and gone –
no bats in the evening now

*
yellow slip of a moon
just where the sun comes up –
owl in the copse

*
ancient couple
window-shopping
their dog looks too

*
calm river edge
seagull paddling with
a wobbly reflection

*
sounds of the great lake
ebbing in
from outer darkness

(Found in Lawrence Durrell’s Clea)

*
a street I knew well
in former times
quite empty now

*
lone punt
on a silver canal
lone fisherman

*
black fenland sod
newly turned –
the absence of summer

*
one sycamore leaf
falls in the public square
as if no one was there

*
behind the railings
a litter of leaves
& a tramp lighting up

*
midnight darkness
under the Plough
nothing much happening

*
twenty rooks move
to a taller tree
to get the sunrise

*
a babble
of bus-kids eager
for learning maybe

*
the orange & green
of sunset – mist rising
between dark trees

*
Five minutes & Three Haiku from
dipping randomly into 4 Quartets

from the deck
of the drumming liner
a widening furrow

repeating
a prayer at the shrine
on the promontory

another dawn
prepares for heat
and silence

*

in the other room
her wild gestures stop
when she notices my gaze

*
all that remains
of a warrior’s dreams –
the voice on a telephone

*
exactly midnight
opening the window
to let the moon’s owl in

*
on the bank a heron
stretching its neck – the day
dips towards evening

*
horizontal triptych:
blue evening sky fading
twiggy hedge blackness

*
mat cat rises to stretch
& becomes a tight ball again
– a log shifts

*

Six Haiku found in Arnold Bennett’s
Things that Have Interested Me

solitary fisherman
with a long rod on a dark rock
– seething waters

lighthouse keeper
tinkering at his house
like a suburban dweller

fisherman forlorn
in the rain with strange toes
sticking out of straw shoes

at the dance
fair simple creatures
in their best hotel frocks

ununiformed railway
officials unlock barriers
with magic keys

distant violin –
same tune over & over
secret city life

*
midnight again
slip of a moon
& loud purring

*
dream stairway
steeply up into cloud
nursing a live grenade

(On waking from a bit of a nightmare
19th December 2014)

*
a deskful
of unfinished business –
loud clocktick

*
the yellow armchair:
Respighi dancing anciently
in the next room