~ Loubes-Bernac

to the west a mile or so distant
across the emergent vines
a dumbed cracked chapel bell 
calls out across the valley
regularly two minutes late, 
a dull clang more a vain cry 
for help than solemn call to prayer,
it’s early and will be hot today
so we wake before the sun is 
fully risen to enjoy the sweet 
heady scents of dawn,
newly harvested grass rolls
stand like inert cattle, silently
facing the sunrise atop a short 
regrowth of wild flowers
rustic barns half-built or 
half falling down, 
old stone houses, paint
peeling, shuttered firmly 
against the torpid midday heat,
there is industry here, unseen
commerce that quietly tumbles
through the day, arresting only
for the sanctity of midday and 
a long fulfilling lunch,
ancient tractors abandoned
standing idly, hidden amongst 
tall grasses, play hide and 
seek with the passing years,
this petit-village sleeps in the
daytime, its young fledged
to brighter lights
by early evening all is quiet, 
the stifling quietude that 
smothered the land, accepts
a vanquished, surrender and
once more people quietly stir
within the cooling blaze, as the 
sizzling cacophony of crickets
ushers in the twilight

~ Le Chat

first to greet me, early 

before the rest wake

always in French of course, 

a long accented miaow, 

she’s undoubtedly a local 

but of no fixed abode

sleeps under the olive

or dozes on the giant

rolled grass bales in the 

field next door grazing 

on the foolhardy mice,

on occasion she struts 

around the pool posing as

a young Brigitte Bardot, dark

mascara splashes beneath

each wary feline eye, long

exaggerated languid strides,

yesterday quite by mistake

she almost caught a tiny lizard

that escaped without its tail,

whilst it amused her for a time

she’s far more proficient 

with field mice

~ Being Here

an evening sun pale marmalade

burnishes the hooped terracotta

roof tiles with a heavily laden brush,

it’s taken a week to stop thinking 

what the time is back in England

now I can’t remember the day,

my life has slowed, has become one

with this languorous pastorale, I

have changed, eased, become calm,

in the field, wild flower heads

hover like tiny white parachutes

over the grasses as insects do,

nudged gently by the warming breeze, 

I consider life, family, some of whom

are here with me and wonder

why we didn’t move here when

they were merely babes,

it is of course a heady spell, cast

bewitched by the gift of time, a

soporific imbalanced hex that

mesmerizes my emotions,

I can breathe here, think here

write here, be me here!

~

I’m a Tuesday’s child, born

the 289th day of that year,

the sign of the rabbit marks me 

as balanced, fair-minded, 

the books, if they are to be

believed, list me as perceptive

kind and self-assured,

was I built from day-one

character traits already set?

did I not have a say, or

an option in how I would

navigate through my own life? 

do invisible strings control me, 

resisting the speculative slash 

of a rebellious knife?

what if I could construct

my ideal self, could I really 

embody such a grand title 

one that my own mind’s eye 

considers perfect?

*

© GRS 7/24

~

twixt solstice and equinox 

we break bread to give thanks 

and bless the harvest’s fruit,

another Lammas Sabbat turns 

the yearly wheel full-circle

as days cool, colours turn

light fades earlier to become 

an infrequently timid visitor,

it’s time to take stock, 

renew and revalue life’s 

important things, prepare to 

light the darkness, 

dance with the young 

talk with the old, plan

for the future, record our past

*

GRS 7/24

~

there are worlds within 

worlds within other worlds,

 there are distances 

in space, in deep space

so incomprehensibly far 

they are measured in 

numbers that man finds

unfathomable,

as man stands in wonder

to look at the majesty of 

the heavens,

beneath his feet, myriad

colonies of minuscule 

creatures inhabit the tiny 

patch of soil under his shoes,

we are in parallel, both 

small and insignificant

man relates to the enormity

of the cosmos as if standing

alone in the universe,

worlds within worlds

unimaginable distances

the earth a speck of dust and

mankind’s irrelevant presence 

hardly worth computing

*

GRS 7/24

~

words wake me,

some striding purposefully

across my reverie while 

others take a stealthier tread with 

the practised guile of a thief

all demand my attention,

a few, a small hearty band

jostle me with the impatience 

of children who will not be pacified 

prompting me to step carefully

through their infantile alphabet

some are slippery fish I cannot catch

or enemies I choose not to fight

they paint crosses on my door

a plague that isolates me 

in the torpidity of endless hours,

others come to stay like friends

asking for gentle discourse, mutating to 

become curious tourists with colourful

questions from within the dark

if I am careless some might shun my hand 

and slip away without a care whilst

others cling on to me as if drowning

these myriad words alone

understand the tenure of my loneliness 

my word blindness, fractured viral

broken, I owe these words 

everything and nothing

as do they to me

*

© GRS 7/24

~

it is often said that

for a ten-year-old

a decade is a lifetime,

three hundred million

inquisitive heartbeats 

of hope wonder and 

aspiration,

*

© GRS 7/24

~

I’m not an old warrior

or a displaced refugee, 

nor a jilted lover

a politician, prophet 

or a parson,

I have no angst 

I’m not addled nor addicted, 

not allergic or awash

with argumentative rhetoric,

I am shrivelled, desiccated 

and cracked, parched so bare 

that nothing will grow within,

all my inspiration hampered 

by banality, that dilute substance 

devoid of taste, the burnt-out 

residue of overwhelm

I am diseased with the vague

limp of tawdry blasphemy 

I am ordinary, a voiceless 

wordless cadaver

hankering glumly over

this empty page

*

© GRS 7/24

~

dreamers see a dream

as a story, a tableau that

might include themselves

in which they never

appear in person,

~

in a dream, the cast of

characters may differ

in age, juxtaposed across

generations, illogically set 

next to those of another

time and place,

~

a dreamer may enjoy

supernatural powers and

abilities outside his 

normal ken, or else feel 

disabled or slowed by 

the invisible torpor of the

unconscious realm,

~

dreams are a gamble that

the dreamer cannot refuse 

to take, thrust nightly into an 

environment that may be 

either hostile or friendly,

a dream being the perfect

mirror to our true psyche

*

© GRS 7/24

~

four AM again

it’s very still, no birds, strange,

the cityscape silhouetted in

a pale salmon pink and 

thinly washed-out grey dawn

imperceptibly lifts to the 

translucent pale blue, of a 

thin person’s skin in cold weather,

from behind the cherry

a wet sun starts to bleed

through the dormant branches

ushering out the pastels,

I’m hungry but it’s too early

yet for food, so I potter

through the vegetable patch

that’s become a mini jungle

overnight, the pollinators have

been working overtime to

catch up as it’s almost July,

it’s the aromas that take me

by surprise, overt freshness 

that I can almost chew

my grumbling stomach signals

its acquiescence

*

© GRS 06/24

~

who are you? 

you who seek to tell 

me what to write, how

it should sound to make

my words take flight,

poetry is a magic garden 

in which many species 

bud and grow, and what 

soil is best for one, others 

cannot hope to know,

feel free to walk amongst 

the multicoloured shrubs

breathe in their heady bouquet,

even a thorny ragged thistle

has to have its day,

enter, stay, think, breathe 

take your troubled ease,

rest quietly, don’t explain

inhale the hypnotic essence

of this rare poetic breeze,

but if graffiti is your wont

and cultured beds and 

borders are what you hate,

take the long path, past the

nettles beds and compost

and leave by the secret

hidden gate

*

© GRS 6/24