Tales from the edge of the morning sky

Walking MayWalking the flower garden, this opening of spring, listening to birdsong,the wind and treesthat sing, for the sky is so blue a blessingthis May,for June is approaching and summerwill be hereFor ever and more.For Today.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Spring in the Garden of May.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Even if I…Even if the sun,I feel were blind, I would like to hold your face in the quiet of my hands, and trace just once,my fingers uponthe tributaries and streams, of the life that has becomethe beautiful you, to feel a thousand stories,journeys and emotions,joining a stream,a flow,of stars,to a riverof journeys, that I cherishin wonderthat I feel,in the musicof livingand life,that isborn in mewith you.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

For ifthere is,truly,a Spring in winter let me drink then,deeply of your beautiful eyes to see the dawn of morning blue,for laughter is the sunlightof Marchthat rises,beautifully in the blossomof lifethat issimply beingand walking,the pathwith you.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

TheyHe pulled. Felt her hand in his. Remembering her taste. Her smell. The way her body cleaved into his. His into hers.Mustiness. Earth. Wonder. Urgency.The earth crumbled around him. It matted his arms, legs and lower back. His hair. His beard. He sat up. Felt the dull ache, the throb of life to be given fill his awakening being with her. To her.She could see him now. Lifting himself out of sleep. His own dream wrapped around him. She released his hand, reached over and kneeled beside him. She cleared the soil, earth, pebbles and stones from his  feet, his legs. Saw his rising. Spread her warming hands and cleared away the earth and winter from his torso, his arms. His eyes were still closed. She caressed his face. His beard. And combed his hair with her fingertips. His breathing, before, once shallow in intervals of time, slow and season, deepened as he trembled with the beginnings of power that infused him.His eyes filled her soul with his form. Half known. Half remembered. A sense of knowing and possession filled her heart and senses.They joined as the sky lifted.He the earth. She its Spring.They pushed and pulled and bound and knotted the spaces born in life and time between them. A circle of birds arose. Like leaves re born from yesteryear. They too combined in runes and patterns remembered long and hard, instinctively opening, outside, inside, and up and to the light above them.And in memories, coupling and murmurations, she and he, the two,  entwined again and again, the great pulse of life, Again and again, they lifted seas and sons; the cycles born of time and place between them.It began to rain.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

February AfternoonThe sun setslong shadows,cast the distance upon the broken garden wallBut amongst the cracks,the silence,beneath the settlingdusk of late afternoon A blackbirdsings, his voicecatching my tears one by oneas softly, gently the rain beginsto fall.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

S(he)He was awakening. The stiffness of sleep held him tight within its arms. The winter stars were wrapped in sheathes of time about his legs and lower body. From somewhere outside of himself he could feel a growing sense of urgency. A warmth. A remembering. He needed to remember. Wanted to remember. But a great fog of darkness still held him. Whispered to him. Wanted him to remain within it.Somewhere. Somewhere.‘Here.Here.' He could sense his own voice outside of himself. A movement beyond his own vision. A feeling. No more. Shapes formed around him. He felt a tightening within him. A gnarled, knotted network of strength that rooted him down began to pull up from deep beneath him. Answering a deeper call from the pressing darkness around him.There it was again. And again. A pulse. A throb. A release of heat into what he could feel awakening above him.‘I must move,' the thought, if that was what it was, an impulse, a command, came into his consciousness. He felt the pull upwards. Strong. Ancient. Remembering. He knew he lay between roots, trunk, branch, leaves to be and the great emptiness of sky.Something was tracing upon his still bound hands. Patterns. Repeated. And again.‘Runes,' the shapes, became sounds. The sounds, familiar, became repeated, and grew into words. The darkness around him began to thin. Began to dissipate. Light, for that was what he remembered, slipped between the stars and spread in warmth around him.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

She (1)She was not sure when it started. A cold day perhaps. Long shadows. Early evening. She could feel in her memories the wind blow cool from the mountains around the valley. A shiver of possibilities across the lengthening dusk.Maybe it was then. When the first stars blinked across the skies, the first street lights flickered and then failed.‘Yes. Perhaps it was then,' she thought to herself.She closed her eyes. Lay still and quiet. Felt once again, the first time it touched her.Fingertips across her face. A breath through her untangled, uncombed hair. Two hands like ripples along each side of her spine.She felt naked. Known. Not wanted. Needed. Essential to something outside of herself. It was not a violation. More a justification of her being there at that moment and now.A now that seemed to stretch from then until the now. The here where she lay under the freshly mown grass,the open blue sky and the rim of trees that nodded and whispered in the late spring breeze.‘Yes,' she admitted quietly to herself once again, ‘this, what is now was born from then.'She reached out with her hand and blindly sought his own. She felt through each new blade of grass, felt the soil crumble, warm and fecund through her fingers, smelled him close to her, his breathing, his mustiness and then found his. She caressed the palm of his hand. Followed the lines and marks, the calloused knots and branches of experiences that were written in his outstretched fingers.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

A Sleepy Summer AfternoonIt's a lazy, sleepy afternoon, the villages are empty, flowers,in colours of summer, curtsy and nod in the baking sunlight, radiating off walls and shimmering rooftops, and, as if uplifted, a single buzzard flies and swoops overhead. It's so warm, the distance is translated, from far and away, to the here and now: a band of light above the winding road, the asphalt, soft, under the lens of light, a magnifying glass to places and oases beyond the peel of church bells, that mark, in a sudden silence, the slipping of hours. And it is here that I stop, and step off the path, lean over the fence, across the summer gardens, the flowerbeds, the well kept lawns, abandoned lawnmowers, the hiss of water sprinklers, the hurried slam of descending sun blinds, and here it is that I stop, and look at the world from the side.And beyond the crumbling brick wall, the crooked apple tree, bending like time, over the broken gap, the open doorway, where butterflies dance and tarry, I see further than myself, the slow patterns of the wind and seasons, the trembling shadow hands of leaves, and deeper, further into the folds and valleys of the distances that await me.But of course,I am blind. I can see no further than the fingers of my left hand, the hand that feels the breeze flow thorough and across it. The memories and whispers of former times gather and press around me, shaping, waiting, listening to my breathing, hearing the dance of my heart as I slowly feel myself slipping, stretching and falling through.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

She could see their forms shiver and shimmy. She stepped closer. Her self belief was not unsurprised by what she was seeing: two people bound together by time, place-and not a little love.The wind whispered again, hushing her doubts aside  as she stepped closer towards them. She could see through their opaqueness: the edge of the lagoon, and the grey-blue waters still and quiet under a fresh western sky. Beyond, and stretching behind them, was the beach itself, like a great arm separating sky and sea, past and present, now and then.They turned as if they could see her, he beckoned her towards them both. His eyes full with belonging, his hand waving, almost urgently.She walked again, closer, and yet closer, leaving Cassie whimpering further and further behind.She walked past them, they flickered and faded as she went by, and as she looked at the gravestone, standing and yet tilted, deep in long grass and covered with tears of moss, lichen and split into a mosaic of cracks and fissures. She reached out and touched the cold, wet, damp stone and rubbed the green fur of centuries, away from the inscriptions and read:‘Mohune, Emily, b. 1746 d. 1796. Mohune, John, b. Unknown,d.1796.'She read further, and in doing so, dared not to look at the two figures standing behind her, but feeling them step closer, she read on:‘Life giveth and taketh, returning all who live to the beckoning sea, waste not your days, and heed the wind, for your chime of hours, is what is left to be.'She felt a mere whisper, a breath of wind behind her back. She turned slowly fearing what she might not be able to see.John and Emily stepped back from the gravestone. They had walked from the wreck, left the wounded and broken, the bloated dead that lay strewn across the beach, their bones shattered, their organs pummelled, their bodies abandoned beneath the unforgiving skies, across the  breached and storm -battered berm.It was too much, knowing they had each other, but others had lost their own  lives, slipping through the storm that had separated what was alive to that which never would be. One to the past, the other to a future neither would remember.They walked up the beach, to the edge of the marram grass, across their spiky crests, to the dunes that rippled and fell until they came into the lee of the wind, and the pathway that led them through the silver birches and bristles of Scot's pine, through sheltered oases of silence  towards the nestling church.‘I'd not remembered this,' she said,'Our names must be here, unless this is finally the now where we both belong.'He held her tightly, he couldn't let her go again. He pointed at the figure still peering at the gravestone. Fading now, she was a mere grey smudge upon the stone, a shadow or pall that seemed to collapse into the gathering darkness.‘She might,' he nodded as if only talking to himself, ‘I mean she might remember us before she too turns upon this way again.'Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

She turned and walked back from the beach. Everyone had long since gone. The storm had passed, the skies were  clear once again, and the wind had settled into restful sighs across the silver birches. The trees were still and yet crooked, bent and twisted with their boughs and branches in repose after surviving another bout with the seasonal storms that raced up this battered coast.The path was small, she had not taken the tourist one, the direct route, instead  she followed the sunken one, the one that meandered through the wheat fields, along the high hedges that edged the rippling folds and furrows of fields, copse and sky.Cassie ran ahead, turning, pausing, sniffing, following an invisible pattern of smells and traces that bound her instincts to territories of the hidden world around her.She could just see the church, the original one, the one that had been flooded, wrecked and mauled by the storm of 1776. Only the nave remained, now a chapel surrounded by tilted and ancient gravestones that stood like sentinels against all that time could offer. Belief in life beyond the tide.She followed the sandy path, the rabbit clipped grass either side, the droppings marking the places where they danced in the late evening sun. She passed the silver birches, their leaves shimmering in myriads of silver shadows upon the old red bricked wall. It leaned to one side, roots and subsidence having dislodged bricks that had galled into the sandy loam.The gate to the back of the churchyard was ajar. Broken and battered, it swung lightly upon ancient hinges, with soft sigh and whispers of the empty wind.They were standing together over the double grave stone. He was leaning his head on her shoulder, she had her arm around his waist. He was  bent and traced his hands over the letters hidden behind centuries of weathering, moss and incalculable seasons of cycles of summer and winter.Cassie whimpered and lay down not wanting to go closer.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

He paused, scratched his head with his pen, as if to recall something he had forgotten ‘…and,' he stuttered,‘something has turned up at the church, over the last few months, we've had reports of moving lights at night. Youths probably, come down from the caravan park, drinking, playing ghosts, larking around.'She turned fully and looked him directly in the face. ‘He is young, almost too young to keep the law, never mind enforce it,' she thought to herself‘Is there a connection? Between that and…,' She paused, hesitated, sighing at the release of the stress over the past hours- not least from the interviews and cameras that had poked her privacy, as well as asking her the same questions about what she had discovered until there were no more answers any different than the one she repeatedly gave.‘You know the smuggling history along this coastline, the shipwrecks, the beach and the flooded church…'Her voice trailed off. The mystery of it all sounded too real, too familiar somehow, almost like a predictable television after nine show.‘ I don't know. But we do have a missing person, an abandoned car, and a wreck of bones dragged from who knows where,' he paused himself, then added,‘and when.'Behind them, the waves had lessened in their intensity, the roar and rage of the shingle had shifted to a hiss and rattle. The crowd of people had thinned. The tideline was mostly of broken wood, seaweed and fragments of casings, caskets and long thin bends of binding metal.Twisted and rusted they pointed, wildly, madly, at shattered bottles, brown glass and thin arms of a myriad of twigs and branches that had piled in heaps from the retreating tide.‘How do you trace a missing person who you know has abandoned his life, his time, and probably drowned in the sea?' He asked.‘Time will tell,' she mumbled almost to herself.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

KentThe cherry blossom fell, along the garden paths, and  upon others, that lay, still, quiet and hidden, among the thickening shadows, beneath the stretching hands of trees. For he walked, slowly now, remembering footsteps of those who walked with him, upon evenings,like this one, warmth in the heart of sunlight, his treasure of life this time,and memoriesFeel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

A fist of leavesFor is not time dawn itself?Having shaken the stars from a now empty sky, she now races to catch the night before the call of day, dancing, skipping, gathering the shadows fleeing before her catch, her catch gathered in a bag, in fists of leaves and abandoned trees, the rooftops reflect and mirror the first touch of sunlight, the slow rise of breakfast fires, the first call and echo of the last of black and birds, singing loud and brightly, the night reclining to a lulling sleep, Dawn dances to the last, a flood of gold, red and passing, a mourning empty of cloud, clutching her bag of stars and shadows, she lifts the lid of morning, and slides beneath the rising light of day, to other side of dreams, life and the twilight hush of dark before a smiling, familiar moon.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

The helicopter flew low, hovering above the breaking tide. The ship was a bleached skeleton of former seaworthiness. Fragments of sail and broken masts, collapsed and shattered, lay at broken angles and forgotten shapes, upon the seaweed and barnacle encrusted former deck.The press had long since left. Leaving a sense of puzzlement and cheapness amongst the temporary beach combers. They grouped and haggled along the retreating tide, looking for meaning and hidden discoveries in the centuries old flotsam and jetsam that bobbed and begged with the incoming waves. The ship was not large, but looked more so as it lay like a collapsed and  broken dragon across the raised pebble beach.Cassie and her owner stood over the abandoned clothes, heads down pawing and shuffling sand, still wondering at what had happened, she spoke again to the bewildered officer, himself looking as if he alone had survived the storm.‘Is that it? They take their pictures, broadcast their videos and leave us here, abandoned? What about the missing man? His car?'She shook her head, as if shaking it for answers thinking alone couldn't find.‘No ma'am, it'll be an ongoing investigation now: missing person or suspected suicide. We just don't know.'He paused and looked at Cassie digging and sniffing around and under the clothes, growling in low murmurs of canine dissatisfaction.‘We can't trace the car to an owner apart from it was hired from AVIS and never returned. The key belongs to the church, although the warden has what he thought was the only one- the original from 1772. The village family emblem, shaped like a ‘Y' and the date are inscribed on each side.The key left in the car is the same key, but without the rust and dents of age. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

The WaspIt's colder now, wings heavy, skies too grey for warmth life, and blossom, and still the wasp moves, struggling in spluttering steps across the broken stones. The fruits have fallen, time and leaf lie together, upon the frozen, naked ground.And though summer has passed away, and the dark is growing, through the clouded broken glass, I can still see the garden, the empty hands of abandoned trees, the colours of spring, piled amongst rope, recognition and roots. The broken fence has slipped further, underneath the fading stubs of bricks, the shattered  remains of a summer house from yesteryear, overgrown now, with bramble, brier and blackberry bushes.And still the wasp crawls closer. Can it see me, my face peering, beyond my reflection, deeper into the fall and beyond to the frosted moon and glass?Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

War is and coming,a thunder-scratchacross humanity's eyeEvil rises, the black hooded horror of blindness an endless serpent swallowing, screaming deathno moreRavens circle, life.ravenously Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

The MeadowA meadow full of memories, the faded colours of summer, rest upon the skeletal hands and leaves, for summer whispers to autumn:‘For now is here,take this,my time away,for I wish not yet for Spring, for fall and sleepI must,to dream againcome May.'Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

HereHe somehow felt the woman sag aside him. Heard a sigh of incredulity and the dull low growl of the two dogs, as he himself turned and looked for himself in the direction of the storm.Then‘It is done,' Emily whispered, exhausted into his ear. Her voice as far away as the time he'd left behind.'The rest will come back upon the next tide- and then all will be counted upon the last of waves.'She lowered her head still further and sobbed against his chest.HereThere was a ship. With battered sails, broken masts: it was grey, and shattered and somehow out of place. Somehow there was a localised storm around it: a fist of wild wind and heavy rain that knotted in clenches of broken sky about it.She looked across the lagoon, heard the wind roar and the deep rumble of the stones slip against each other as the waves and tides lifted the battered vessel up and onto the bank.There were gasps and cries of disbelief as the lens of storm and weather seemed to fold in on itself, like an eye blinking in disbelief against the coming of night.Then‘John! John!Look!' He caught the sudden urgency in her voice, the loss of intimacy that had for a brief moment brought them, at last, together.She pulled his hand and moved away from him. Incredulously, he saw what she himself doubted, the storm was abating and with it the ship was somehow fading. Losing shape and form, colour and structure, it was simply dissipating, becoming thinner until it fell back into the mist and fog of tides and time out of view. ‘What on earth..' John ran after her and stood amongst the flotsam and jetsam, the barrels and boxes, the sodden caskets abandoned jars and containers. A few survivors struggled to get up, their clothes heavy, countenances shocked, pale and exhausted turned to look at where they were running, stumbling sliding down the pebbles, down to the edge of the receding tide.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

This is a place of slow time, with a sky that reaches above a sudden, empty wind, with the hidden stars, turning beacons of light upon eons of eternity, above the pointing fingers of an ancient forest, and below, amongst the leaves and acorns, amongst the lengthening shadows of the last emptiness of summer days, there lies a small cup of life and this time, this now, is placed upon the cut branches of a broken tree. The cup is made out of wood, and yet it is transparent somehow, and through the gentle waves of moments that rock from side to side. And upon the surface, is a picture of the Sun flickering and fading flickering and fading across its face, rippling two pairs of wings lift up and pull the sky open, push back the stars below the trees to make the very earth bend and twist, and there, standing in the heart of things, between the here and now, there lies the simple truth.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Six bellsIt was upon the six bells tolling across the darkness that opened the day with a yawn, October stretched, shook, and chased the light rain off his skin.It was cooler now. He passed his invisible hands through the pools of shimmering stars, sprinkling their light across his earth stained face, rubbed their promises of frost and early snow through his branches and wrinkles that creased the fields in lines and furrows, under the lightening dawn. The sun was late. He blew into his hands, cupped and folded in wings and songs of the earliest birds, and released a breath of wind and singing, that tickled the trees, whispered across deserted gardens, the abandoned flower beds and murmured across the flattened rooftops that glistened in  slates and steps against the forest edges.The sun blinked, lifting herself up from blankets of fogs, forgotten faces of reflections, the puddles of tears, the mournful memories of a passing summer, washed in colours, clouds and drifts of leaves against the tall stretching oaks at the edge of the world itself, and blinking again, she flooded the earth in pools of gold and  light, her sisters in constellations and singing silence, hushed the night beyond the stillness and shadows to a passing dreaming of night.And so October arose, reluctant and reduced, for November, he saw, was awaiting. He lifted his collars around his thinning neck, slipped into his shoes of mud, stone and earth, wrapped his cloak a little tighter about himself and walked towards the spilling light of the sun. He stumbled twice, as he stepped over the twinkling lights of homes and towns, the streets and roads, with their blinking buttons of moving lights. And heard the bells no more.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

FallingWith warm winds that bring each autumn, summer's last breath falls across the fields,October lies, fallow,beneath the stars as gently, slowly, the season turns and bids farewell,with winter's call to yield.For above and beyond the empty hands,the crowning grace of trees,a pale moon full, across the hidden the skies,pulls the shadows behind the last of daylight,turning life to greys and the changingcolours,of forgotten summer leaves Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Suddenly (Autumn)All of a sudden, summer, picked up his bags of sun and flowers, and left along the garden path, beneath the blustery shadows of a billowing emptying, racing sky.He turned to the hidden brook and glanced sadly at the rushing memories of what was, to what might have been.And in the places between the two, he smiled to himself, and knowing far better, he shrugged at his reflection, pulled his cloak of low autumnal light tightly around him, and left the earth to shadows and sleep.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

She had called the emergency services. ‘A drowning,‘ she had explained when the ambulances arrived. This after the police car and officers arrived along the narrow one-sided lane, that led past the sunken church to the meadows, and then along the narrow pathway to the stretching curve of  beach.She had explained the clothes, the abandoned shoes, the splash that had rippled in a sudden tearing of waves across what had now become an uneasy silence.They had brought a sniffer dog that had taken the scent from the garments and then followed the wind blown footsteps to the very edge of the lagoon.Officers had discovered the abandoned car parked in front of the churchyard and were puzzled by the pile of driftwood on the rear seat, a neatly carved wooden key ring, with the keys still left in the ignition.‘So love, you heard the splash, found the clothes and heard a scraping noise on the beach?'She had acknowledged this statement and was left wondering if he had heard her at all. It had happened. Her voice was still shaking, her stomach turning, Cassie was now running around confused and bewildered by all the commotion.A small crowd of locals, hikers  and campers from the nearby site had gathered behind the constable who stood blocking the access to the edge of the water. His arms stretched as if he was saving them from an indelicate truth.‘Yes, I thought I saw, I did see, a glimpse of something else above the tide, beyond the beach…' she was certain, but doubted he would believe her. He scratched his ear, leaned forward and called into his Walkie-Talkie.‘Call the ‘copter, we might need to look along the bar, across the beach…' There was a muffled, cackled reply. He released the call button and looked over her shoulder at where the search dog was pointing.Forepaw lifted, alert and frozen, the sniffer dog was clearly indicating something was awry. The officer again scratched his head, puzzled, uncertain and turned himself to look back at the car park, beyond the church.‘It won't be long,'he thought to himself,'until the whole world is watchin' us again!'Just then he heard a murmur from the growing crowd of onlookers, then a cry. He turned towards them all. He saw a huddle of shocked and surprised faces, mouths open, hands aloft, staring eyes and his constable turning his back to them all. Hands forgotten, arms akimbo, he gaped at what he saw. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

October fields before the fall, ploughed deep and long ‘afore winters call, for the skies are wrapped in a thousand stars, of spring and time soon to be,and remembered, in the stillness and passing of hurrying hoursbeside the silent waves and restless sea. And so to leave this month of days, the door, the windows open, the trees afire, in this dawn, the first, of winter to become, and wander the lanes alone and silent beside the moon, reflecting shadows of daylight, that fall too soon and matter to none. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Barrels and kegs, bobbed in a dispersed crowd of debris. The winds howled and raged, the sky stripped and torn, as the rising moon seemed to race across the beaches like ships overhead. They were knee deep in the waters that frothed and foamed around them. There were fewer cries of help now, the rocks just off shore, jagged and razor like, had done their worst. Men lay on the beach, dead or exhausted, bedraggled and bundled, like sacks of stones, flesh and sand.Some lived, some were dead, eyes open, seeing nothing, faces frozen in masks of terror and oddly, he thought,  submission: the boundaries between life and death, broken.They pulled sailors onto the shore, a few were strong enough to help them. The crates and bobbing casks of contraband they avoided, knowing their weight, worth and danger, even this close to the shore.‘The last?' He asked of Emily. She looked exhausted, her skin as pale as the ribbons of moonlight, her hair in waves and tangles of salt and seaweed. Her clothes pressed unseemly against her body, revealing every curve flattened and forgotten: her beauty crushed by the tide. He pushed his thoughts aside and asked again,'Emily, surely, the last, come let us sit, rest awhile and see, if who and any, are still alive.'Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

The dog pulled on her line, her owner called her back, but she pulled insistently towards the pile of clothes on the narrow footpath. She walked along the edge of the fields most days, enjoying the changing weather, the patterned skies, the whisper of distant waves and the shining light of the sea.‘What is it? What is it?' She implored Cassie, as she pulled harder this time, her lead as taught and tense as her tail.The dog whined. Then she saw the clothes. A distant, dull splash caught her attention as they both moved rapidly towards the unkempt and abandoned shirt, trousers and shoes.Cassie sniffed and whined again, this time with her nose pointing through the still, moist air, over the lagoon, and the footsteps imprinted across the empty beach.She looked over towards where she heard the broken waters, the splash that had ruffled her attention and concern earlier.She screamed. Dropped the lead. Cassie immediately ran to the edge of the lagoon barking and then began whining: her ears flat, nose pointed and slowly began to growl in a low rumble of fear and concern.‘What… did you see..Cassie come here at once!'Cassie ignored her as they both heard the crack and scrape of something landing.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

She turned and for what seemed like an eternity she looked through him, the ghost of himself, back to the other place and time from where he thought he was from.He could feel her bringing him into focus. He gaze like a lens bringing firmness and purpose to his own. Slowly, so slowly it seemed, her eyes recognised him. The distance of place and time fell away.He was with her.At last by her side.She beckoned to him. Her face turning from recognition, to hope, then madness, just as the storm itself. He lifted his eyes with hers, followed her pointing arm, beyond the thrashing waves and the wild frothing mouths of horses and out to the torn and broken sea.With a great lurch and crash of timbers, a ripping and tearing of what seemed the very fabric of place and time, the ship crashed, rolled and roared, resting amongst the gales and scream of tide and wind upon the ragged rocks.They held each other as the sailors jumped into the teeth of drowning waves and turmoil.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

She was on her knees now as he swam the last yards to the shore. He was exhausted, heavy and felt as much a part of the elements as he was within himself.‘Perhaps,' he thought out loud, ‘I was always here. Always now,' he swallowed water, choked, the brackish salty water tasted like the metallic skies that raced over head.Emily's screaming pulled him from his introspection, and his focus wavered as the remaining waters pulled him towards the berm.‘No! No!' She screamed as the ship towered above her, a great, fragile skeleton, it's sails torn, it's masts broken like matchsticks. He could see it clearly, in every detail,  as he clambered, bedraggled up the slope, the leaning, rolling ship magnified by the lens of roaring air above the shifting shingle.‘No! No! No!' She cried out again, flinging her arms like branches of an abandoned tree in the gale, bereft of leaves and hope as she looked out to the anonymous storm and the raging sea.He slipped and fell as he struggled towards her.‘Emily! Emily!' He shouted, fiercely against the rapture of the wind.‘Emily! Emily!'The stones were like heavy plates of inertia as her overcame his own and weight and seemingly the weight of the world he lifted himself into the full force of the storm. The raindrop were like stinging bullets, the wind raged against his very being, pushing, pressing, pummelling his body, his hope, his soul, as he stumbled towards her.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Again, he had the choice. And this time he stepped over himself. Flicking off his shoes, tearing his shirt off, releasing his trousers to the sand at his feet he ran and plunged deep into the beckoning waters.The water was surprisingly warm, but heavy and still. The thickness of it made him struggle at first until he stopped fighting. A crowd of birds had flown into the sky as his dive had cut the sky reflected waters into ribbons and ripples of storm and cloud.Overhead the wind whipped and whistled as the birds wheeled, arched and fell in the unpredictability of the tattered and torn streams of air. The rain hissed off the surface, the sky darkened still further, in gales and blasts of thunder.He could see her clamber up the bank, a bedraggled figure as ragged as the ship and sails that towered over her as it came ever closer to the shingle beach.He was nearly upon the other side. The pull and tug of the waters, heavy, as he balanced his need to get to her as swiftly as possible and yet preserve enough energy for the beaching when it inevitably came.He chanced a look behind him. He could just see the church in the meadow, so close, so very close to the shore. The sky seemed to press down upon the roof, the island of trees planted to protect both the church and the thinning congregations, flailed in every direction, tossing wildly in a kind of frenzy that made his steady swim into the past even more unreal.He felt her calling and turned back towards the bar and Emily.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

The mizzen, main and foremasts pointed like crooked fingers to a moon that had risen in bouts of blindness, high ahead, in the rush of clouds, ragged and broken, tearing in blinks of shadow, darkness, and fleeting moments of broken light.The roar of sea and sky flung the silence that they shared into the beaten grass beneath their feet. They were standing now. Supporting each other, leaning almost horizontally into the blast.It was happening again. He couldn't hold her. She slipped out of his grasp as her corporeal form seemed to dissipate into the heavy suddenness of rain that thundered into the lagoon, with a thousand heartbeats of silence upon the marram topped dunes.She ran. He could see her still. Kicking off her coat, shawl, and shoes, she plunged into the fleet and started to swim, struggling against the pull of the wind and the hidden grasp of the waters.She was strong. Again he saw her. And again he questioned himself. It always ended here. The explosive breach of the bar, the immense crash and collapse of the schooner as it lurched high on a monstrous wave, then hit, scraped and shattered against the screaming pebbles and the seething backwash of the flood.He could see the men jump from horizontal masts, broken like matchsticks, jump from the vertical gunwales. See them all slip, fall and struggle, as the ship lurched against the breach, trapped.She reached the berm, the crescent of shingle, and crawled heavily up the incline, drenched and exhausted. She stopped. Turned. Waved at him. Beckoned for him to follow. He saw beyond the bar, further out to sea, a second crescendo of waves coming in. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

‘John, John,' she whispered again, ‘Are we there yet?'He turned and looked out across the fleet, beyond the skies and to the edge of his world. Quietly he whispered back‘Almost my love, almost, take me back, take me back to the storm once again. And all at once, the sky seemed to seethe and  darken.As if the world had been shaken, held in the grasp of ferocious hands, the view shattered into thunderous rain. There was no difference between the clash and roar of the bar of rounded stones and the hardness of pebbles, as the sea mightily pounded in gusts of grey and steel against the broken beach.He held her tight. Gasping for breath as she tried to free herself from him, break free and run. Run madly, crazily, into the wind that threatened to hurl them both like rag dolls into the open jaws of a screaming sky.They could both see it. Against the horizon.Like a splattered fly against the glass. A ship leaning over. Sails torn and flapping. Figures like ants struggling to right the ship that was threatening to capsize as it rolled down and along great walls of waves and sinking reflections of a raging, simmering, sky. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

He felt her hand press his own. Reassurance. Affirmation. He never really knew.Each time anew.The grass was over grown again. Few people came here. Even fewer knew the place as he did. The immense skies, a constant theatre of changing clouds, above the great moving silence of the sea. And behind the great berm, the haven for all with wings and calling, the lagoon of calm and unruffled waters that mirrored the beauty of the place.They stepped over the low, now dry, run of the spring, the damselflies darting busily, scooping a myriad of nats, clouds of activity,in the late afternoon warmth and sun.The kissing gate led further, as the pathway edged the mud and marram grasses at the edge of the unkempt abandoned fields.She held his hand tighter. They were coming to their place, a refuge from the winds that twisted the trees in knots and branches, all bent and wrapped in invisible hands from the westerlies that had pushed ship and sail along the channel behind the Isle of Portland, for generations.The path was mostly overgrown here. The fence rotten and fallen, a few sheep grazed upon the borders, seagulls cried overhead and the wind sighed and fell, sighed and fell, ripening across the rippling wheatgrass.‘Here,' he heard her whisper, ‘here will do just fine.' Emily's voice was as light as the breeze. He could feel her summer dress ripple against his bare legs, almost smell her perfume as they sat down together on the rug he had brought with him from the car.‘John,' she whispered, softly into his ear, ‘John, can you see me again, am I still real for you?'Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

FleetAlmost hidden. Along the path, beside the cottages, parallel to the cobbled road, the sunken old church was hidden from view. The bend in the road took most drivers, walkers, and the occasional cyclist, past the new church to the camping and caravan park that huddled, straggling in knots along the thin strip of land that separated the folding waves of the fields from the lagoon, the shifting shingle of the bar, and beyond, the empty skies and further still, the sullen sea.They walked to the gate, lifted the latch and followed the footpath hand in hand, under the glistening thousands of silver green leaves that rustled drily in the late afternoon wind.The pathway was firm underfoot, the sand compacted, with a thin layer of grass, moss and clipped clover, that led them deeper into the dusk and the looming nave of the abandoned place of former worship.The flood of 1824 had breached the wall of shingle, the nine mile scimitar of moving stones that protected the lagoon from the channel. The weathered headstones pointed like blunted fingers at the low passing clouds. The wind blew again in great sighs, blustery whispers, moaning gently to the forgotten dead.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Tonight (Time and Distance)It's windy tonight. The telegraph wires rolling under the skies, skimming clouds, racing inland from the sunsetting west. And the road winds, grey in haste and evening black, a distant car growls and blinks, hurrying homeward before the hiss and blow of the last of showers. For above, there is a racing moon behind the skies, the silence of stars, the cusp of shattered hillsides, the end of summer, slipping into August.For the end of days still holds, and yet stands within the ancient oak,its leaves crisp, dry.Crumpled greens at the crossroads, where an empty lane from the twilight east runs, flows, into the last fires and glows of a fading west.And just here, here beside the red letter box, the abandoned footpath, the ancient sign blindly pointing into a trespassing dark, there are no footsteps.Just byways, the whispers of passing hours beneath the hidden churchyard.The bell tower chiming into the gloaming, calling, calling into the memories of a distance long since passed.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Six bellsSix bells,the first call to morning,I'd never believe it was so still and July, for the early morning is with mist and wreathes of hanging clouds, the summer heat has simply gone, slipped under the warning bark of crows, for the earth is wet, with furrows of running water, like afterthoughts, forgotten thoughts, empty thoughts, the runnels of memories, the collapsing dreaming of the lostand drowning of spring, and althoughthe balcony is empty, chairs glistening in the cool and dawning wind, facing blindly, the blank disc of silver grey, the hidden handsof a weakening sun.August…waits, behind the closing summer dark.As the  crows bark again, and againfollowing the six bells still chiming.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

StormIt's here, ominous, the sky deepening, the black duskin dark fists of clouds, thickening blindly, overhead. Everything is still, waiting, a great thirst covers the brittle, dry, and empty earth, even the birds have stopped singing, hidden in the forest,seemingly empty of life,and silent in the hushed quiet of a million voices closed,in the futile grasp of leaves, there's a pressing, a weight of heaviness, the sky pushing, down against a vanquished wind.And the first drops are heavy, a thousand thousand eyelids closing, suddenly, a great flood of summer tears, falling, releasing,fragrances thick and wonderful, until as unbounded as they started, falling, they stop.A split of sky, splinters of light. And rolling thunder,covers the earth with yielding gold.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

She walkedShe walked along the sidewalkin the early morningof December,beautifulthrough the dull, the dark and grey, her face a picture of springtime, the promise of summer who walkedbeside her,never having gone away.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Broken SkyLightning boltsthe rattle battle of thunder stormsspectacular castles, and cathedral clouds, Another day to end.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Blind Immaculate,fresh sneakers, perfectly shaved, slicked back hair, crisply ironed shirt- only the cane and the way he felt his way on board the now familiar 207 bus, made it clear to anyone who was watching.  His partner helped him: as he lightly touched her elbow she guided him up the steps, and to the outside front seat, slightly to the right but behind the driver. She sat next to him, by the window, talking about anything that passed as the bus weaved it's way through traffic, paused at bus stops and slowly collected passengers from and through the suburbs as they all headed for the station.Except this morning, he was on his own….Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Cobalt Moon.I stepped onto the terrace, the still and silent evening wrapped in grey echoing the church bells that chimed in steps and distances across the deepening  shadows thickening into the emptiness, the last breath of Spring, the falling memories and blossom of the passing month of May, And hidden in the hush, the green, the places where the wind left and went away, I saw the footsteps of morning, across the dew drops glistening upon the freshly mown garden lawn, I followed them with my eyes, and saw a figure, standing, wrapped in silver gossamer threads and moonlight pointing to the river, as it emptied in waves and ripples of conversations, reflecting the last running mirrors of daylight, deepening again the falling, the few evening stars once hidden, now turning above the fields and edges, along the last tendrils of day against the blackness, the cobalt moon arising,Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Sleepy Summer AfternoonIt's a lazy, sleepy afternoon, the villages are empty, flowers,in colours of summer, curtsy and nod in the baking sunlight, radiating off walls and shimmering rooftops,and, as if uplifted, a single buzzard flies and swoops overhead. It's so warm, the distance is translated, from far and away, to the here and now: a band of light above the winding road, the asphalt, soft, under the lens of light, a magnifying glass to places and oases beyond the peel of church bells, that mark, in a sudden silence, the slipping of hours. And it is here that I stop, and step off the path, lean over the fence, across the summer gardens, the flowerbeds, the well kept lawns, abandoned lawnmowers, the hiss of water sprinklers, the hurried slam of descending sun blinds, and here it is that I stop, and look at the world from the side.And beyond the crumbling brick wall, the crooked apple tree, bending like Father Time,over the broken gap, the open doorway, where butterflies dance and tarry, I see further than myself, the slow patterns of the wind and seasons, the trembling shadow hands of leaves, and deeper, further into the folds and valleys of the distances that await me.But of course,I am blind. I can see no further than the fingers of my left hand, the hand that feels the breeze flow thorough and across it. and the  memories and whispers of former times,they, that gather and press around me, shaping, waiting, listening to my breathing, hearing the dance of my heart as I slowly feel myself slipping, stretching and falling through.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

AwakeningAwakeninghints of morning,the coming of heat through the thinning morning cloak of cloud, steel of sky, and springtime grey,abovehigh uponthe Maple singsthe blackbirdliftingthe dawnof lifeand light,this day.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Thunder RainI heard the thunder last night, deep growls, and dragonslike flames, hidden, inthe shattered darkness, splitting the sky into splinters of storm,and light, I looked out through the window, my face a shadow,facing myself outside of myself, and saw the silhouettes of rooftops, the shocks and silences of trees standing,in the deadof night.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Moon, Kite and WingsAnd there above the roof of heaven split, the scratch and travel of a different kind, aloft in modern times, with pencil wings, silver fuselage, streaking in white and across the evening sky, and behind the slow, silver dark of a passing summer moon, in phases removed and reflected, reaching behind the temporary the here and now, the turn of months like chapters,she rose magnificent her wings stretching, upon the last breath the heat invisible,spiralling an unseen handuplifting, her lastshadow flickeringacross the landscapebelow, fieldsand pathwaysrooftops and gardenschoking roads and building sitesshe passed and archedover alluntil…Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

For  the briefest of moments For the briefest of moments, the emerald green was lit,by an opening door, Spring walked from the west,bathed in silence, light and of summer gold, the trees, their leaves, each of the millions of blades and grass, lit in fires of incandescence, as she stepped from the edge of the evening sky, and walked through the shadows, the last retreat the gathering memories of winter, of dark and of dusk, in her hands she held the stars, at her breast  she wore the afterglow, a blossoming time of flowers, and behind her head, was the rising first of summer, the heady intoxicating days,of the fullness of time and life that are the weeks of high summer and of June,she walked and further, into the meadows and fields that were opening, as she passed ripening in seeds of birth, warmth and fecundity, for a while, the briefest of hushes, of moments and measures of eternity itself, the earth alone, stood still And sighed, her tears of loneliness,lost in the hollow,the emptiness, of a forgotten winter wind.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Sounds of…Sounds of cicadas, the soft gentle fall,of a summers day, the last blackbirds singing, closing the afterglow, a last tractor mowing the meadows, the flutter of swallows, the laughter of neighbours, the perfume of blossoms, the smell of hay, and above the clouds, incandescence, opalescence, the yellow smudge of an evening sun, the day ends where it begins, in invisibilitythe color of birdsong, the heavens in sunlight, and the winter, finally,undone.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

I only noticed, the grey of sky, the steel of cloud, the fractured light, in the hours that chimed and calledupon thecity rooftops, their echoesof time, the closing of yesterday, for the trees were silhouetted, the woodland,in knots and fists, of gales,of night and rages of wind,when she simply turnedturned to rainand fell upon the silence and softlysadly, just walkedaway.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

High RainSomething about the morning, rain from the west across the sullen skies, seems November has returned, summer's lost her way, hiding behind the clouds, blushing behind the dawn, hiding her modesty, closing her eyes.For below the fields stand empty, along the churning river, the trees weigh, heavily with raindrops, and tapestries of springtime in flourishes and waterfalls of green, the country lanes, long, turning blindly, distances to nowhere, May and June, hidden, empty of promises, left unseen.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

StatueSilver shadows, fleetingly in wings, lifting grey and morning across the sullen steel and silhouetted sky, And above the call of rooks, above the church and tower, block and stone, belief and faith, turning time, in hidden chimes and the passing moments of hurrying hours, there standsa figure, cast in gold and bronze, poised in grace, light and dawn, arms outspread, head and shoulders, westwards facing,a smile, a greeting to all who pass,motionless, blind to the skyliving life,and lost,deep in the hurry,far below.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com

Sign and ButterfliesI saw two teenagers, deaf to the rush of the city, and the hurrying world around them,smiling they were,and standingtogether as if sharing the early morning sky of summer and blue, they signed in poetries of sunlight, love, and friendship walking together,dawning air, freshand new,their hands and fingers,creating and speakingsilences invisible in blossoms and butterflies, dancing in patterns and wingspans,in colour imagined and life being born belongingtogether,and they knew.Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback!p1964km@googlemail.com