I love you though now you’re just skin and bone to me

you’re flesh and blood too someone else I’m sure.

I picked through the debris of this and that and what I saw

was a shadow handcuffed too testimony and twenty years.

Or more and more.  A piece of grief tied to the floor, or hope, caught

in the breeze, desensitised and humanised and torn on the wind

and made into nothing more. Than a picture, lost in space,

pinned to the fridge, in an album, a journal, a draw,

of something that was, but now it is nothing more.

An old one

Sennen Cove

My home is real but in my head

it is golden hair, the beaches

stretch for miles and the waves

slip gently or stand up to be ridden.

The girls are part of the seascape

They are beautiful. And their laughter

Tickles, warm sun and light hearts

Make long summers fun

And golden thighs part.

Sea breeze, captures light, flows,

Responds coyly to gentle touch.

I smell the sea and see her,

The warm air brings a summer again,

First night. The smell of a warm day

The sweet gorse-covered cliffs, un-trodden

paths leading into a valley of golden sand,

and an inviting sea. The smell of the first morning’s

warm bed, a golden girl and me,

entrapped with summer, land, home and the sea.

Just for fun

Kernow

Y leveral e tavasow e an tyryow lef,

 gans gwyns Y clewes, ha gweles yn an newl a mor.

 Yn hyr keow awartha segh meyn fosow, yn glyp

 esedha aspya an devedhyans

 ha gasa a gulla hanas crya, cren nyja

 ha Y codha dre tybys.

War esedha alsyow ughel awartha mor,

 poblow dos ha mos, crenna yn carrygy

 pollow, orth ow treys may an grpwynek junnya howl tewas

esedha tyr gwyns an may, blas

del mor herdhya avonsya lamma an codha

Squattya an tyryow yn dhe wherthyn . [1]

Cornwall

I speak in tongues in the lands voice,

with winds ear I hear, and watch in the spray of sea.

In long grass above the dry stone walls, in dampness

haunched I observe the arrivals

and departures of seagulls whispered cries, circling flight

and I slip through thought.

On haunched cliffs high above sea,

people coming and going, ripple in rock

pools, at my feet where the granite meets sun sand.

Haunched land wind and sand, smells

as sea surges forward rolls then relaxes,

crashing the land into laughing.

---

This translation is a literal one, relying primarily on online resources, the nature of these resources mean that some words may have been changed and the grammatical arrangement of the lines is undoubtedly not that of the Cornish language. However I have attempted to arrange it to the best of my ability.

Last One out

Cancel that, the myths over run

the deities shake off their auras
sigh and slink sadly away.
This then, is it, the end of days
No explosion of light, No last judgement
No singing choirs, No brimstone, No fire,
just turn off the lights, last one out
Shut the door. We came to a garden
And in our childish greed all we saw
Was wasted space and weeds, all we left
was crumbling concrete, cancer, rusting steel
toxic waste, spent oil, sludge and despair.
It’s not a religious thing, its not a matter of faith
look what we had, see what we’ve done
It’s over finnito, fin, leave ‘em to it. Shut the door.

trace

All I was and all I wanted to be

was washed away by a darkening sea.

In the dust, where I once scratched

Lies crawl. Summers cracked.

I can’t tell where this once swelled

In the sea breeze, in the air, in deep wells

But once before there was a word

For the thoughts we guessed but never heard.

I’m not down, I’m just not free

I open my eyes but never see.

I love you.

A few weeks ago I got drunk and lost a years worth of poems.

Shit.

New

In the sap of life, that seeps in the air,
there's a taste of a lady by the name of despair.
The name of the moment caught in my throat
as I started to stare I started to choke.
The cost of my thoughts slipped through my hands,
In the clatter of change I thought Laughter rang.
The face of things changed they charged
through the door, they raced past the statues,
& pushed through the hall with a clatter
and rattle a thunder & crow,
forcing my fingers to crack through the snow
We beat our chests and fought life to slow
and crack and beat and beat and close.