I CANNOT WALK ALONE 

I cannot walk alone
many ghosts have harbored me
pushed the storm
far from me
too many left me safe at sea
and swept it like mere detritus
kept it clean 
kept it fighting
in my corner not the norm
danced like boxers
still unformed
find your path

my Leicester friend
I cannot walk without that horn
there’s a dancing crowd to join
at the other unknown end
some write books, 
make amends
some more brilliant no less than
the music that transcends
mothers, true, of truer friends
forever big band
I hold his hand
because of you
because I cannot 
walk alone
it’s true
would I change my course
would you?

 

For my Leicester Friend DS

nyc 11.27.13

PHOTO: Tim Tapling Squall over Hoyle Bank : Dovepoint : Meols : Wirral : 22:Apr:2025.

 

it’s the miraculous

in the normal, he said

she glanced up from 

her reading

what she did before bed

like the darkness

in prisons she said

like gold in decay

when night becomes

the hard light of day

keep it simple, he said

straight forward

at home or abroad

take time for the tea

wear good shoes for the road

 

It’s the miraculous

in the normal, he said

gently insistent

she glanced up from 

her reading

what she did before bed

I know what you mean,

she whispered

it lives in my head

7.7.17 nyc

Photo:  TIM TAPLING Melloncroft Drive access to Cubbins Green : West Kirby: Wirral : 06:Feb:2025.

After a couple of overcast days of 'flat light', I start to hanker after colour 

 

BONES

 

too often the late night

lonely sinner

reckons a life

in a brooding simmer

the wine recalls 

what sorrow befalls

a plate piled with universal hurt 

she won’t have to pick at 

these sad bones alone

he pulls up a seat

scans the menu she’s been served 

he looks for substance

in a present course

puts aside bittersweet

and says what’s for dessert?

 

2.1.12 nyc

photo: UES 3.8.2025 1:26am

 

MARIO’S STUDY

 

Angry centuries on the bookshelves.

Electric sharpener filled to its grisly

death teeth with skin and bones.

 

He belonged to the second group; he

says he believes in the Silence of the Light.

It goes with the dust here, she says.

 

She flies erratically on the back of her

thoughts of waiting women to

the velvet tongue across turned wood,

 

to settle like wine on the evening

shadows, to relieve a bloodless

tension, to say why care?

 

When an aching distant throat jumped

into her goblet and cried, as tiny as

a stillborn diamond.

 

Listen, it said

silence is not yet a dead subject.

 

3.5.76 nyc

Painting: the author 

Extinct

oil on prepared linen 4'x5'

 

AFTER THE STORM

 

we make mistakes

we heal those breaks

or leave them to die naturally

a limb falls under

a tree torn asunder

pressed close to the 

wet clean earth

nature has warned

nature transforms

our offering, our friendships, our worth

the cat runs for cover

no lover of thunder

you watch and you wait

until dark dissipates

in an hour or a day 

there are many false starts

a light then a downpour

you wait

concentrate

for the song in the roar

clouds roll back on a 

storm wearied night

what’s clear is an absence 

of rage of fright

awake in the sunlight

on a still sodden lawn

you cross a ball field

bravado long gone

you seek grandeur from

trees that you’ve learned

from a friend 

have something to

tell you

and so you pretend

the bigger the better

you think and you’re pleased

until you see in the distance

resilient young trees

they’ve weathered the storm

as your friend could not

once the map was drawn

she leaves unlocked

but she still has a word

to bring you to age 

and you will hold dear

that hard fought wisdom

trust the trees she tells you

come when they call 

be alive while you’re here

 

you still have to grow some.

 

For Bel

I will miss you every day of my life.

11.16.12

Photo: nyc DUMBO 

 THE SPELL

 

before I knew it I’m roped

tied to a heart you call dope

until the wheels fall apart

on that nail driven road and

I shatter the mirror that

fails your rear view

before I know it shit happens

hot as the blast from my secret weapon

when the clues break away

from the you meant to stay

under spells I’ve forgiven

who I am to rattle your mission

before you know it’s that rope

tightens years on those lies

hands me a wasteland too heavy to fly

nothing to do but drive on

through a firestorm of redemption

from the me meant to stay

it’s going and coming from under the spell

it’s me with the age of the tarot that tells

it’s me in a crown of the victory wreath

it’s you who’s to grieve

the race never won

nothing gained in those lies

nothing to do now but salute

that road we’ve been on

paved with dying allude

nothing to do but delete and drive on

from you

 

For Carole with reservations

10.11.17

 

ROTH

 

tonight I cried

prepared as I was with 

a pinot noir

and a pipe truth be told

so that I could drift afar

from a smoke-filled brain

to a wine-dressed heart

remembering what grew me

what words overthrew me

a writer had died

was he all that, I thought

or more like a builder

a plumber, a doctor,

a runner, a cyclist, a teacher,

a mobster

who raps the truth

with poetic restraint

tonight I cried like I did for Lennon

and Janis not Ian but Joplin the saint

I cried like a child who can’t

find its toy

poured a glass had a toke

with such risible joy

tonight I cried

for all I was worth

hereafter indulging in heroes

now gone

still gnawing at nerves

still proving their worth.

 

5.23.18

nyc

LISTS

 

people come

people go

lists remain

our blind farrago

 

algorithms

inner cracking sound system

bleed me

bleed my

love or defeat me

I have met that person

I don’t do autographs

but I am up for the duration

 

people come

people go

lists remain

our blind farrago

 

patriotism

secret weapon stashed within

free me

free the

horse underneath me

riding wild to reason

to a place unaware

of the knee-buckling seasons we share

 

people come

people go

lists remain

our blind farrago

 

somnambulism

eyelids lowered to the scrim

teach me

teach the

heart that belies a

beating past of war cries

in the thin underneath

of the root killing history we know

 

people come

people go

lists remain

our blind farrago

 

4.29.17 NYC

Photo: 4.5.25 Hands Off March Bryant Park 

  

the cat laid her head in the palm of my hand

I was nervous and undecided

sirens had been sailing for days

in the street below my window

manholes exploded

across a sea of fucking humanity

and I stopped to reflect

and moped like a sad drunk

in an ocean of insanity

what makes us, I wailed

what takes us far and afield

what owns us, I wept

this gravestone and how is it sealed

I am lonely sometimes

I whispered to the cat

her head on my open palm

I am lonely and glad to be in this dark cave

her head in the palm of my hand

my step on the ocean

my step on the wave

my eye on the carnival

my heart gone to seed

I write like a farmer

up ending the bones

I write for a cat

in my upturned palm

 

6.25.16

  

your face your face

your amazing grace

under fire

to the barricades

leaving accolades

in a pile of requited desire

your face your face

between ire

and sweet candidates

for songs and knowing

how awful we allow this

world to be

your face your face

on those dawn morning raids

when you give me the time

when you give me the space

to fan unseen fire 

simmer catastrophe

make a song

cool the lava

rake an angry tongue

with saliva undone

you guess where I’m going

nearly always wrong

you pack my bag

like I had a star ship

you are the captain

of my murderous lisp

chin out

fuck the pundits

those gnarly keepers of

what they think they knew

I am yours you are mine

your face your face

is my dangerous mine

here’s the gold

in my hand

here’s the diamond still banned

no children were harmed in

our rainbow romance

no animals slaughtered

to get at the answer

you live like the gentle answer you are

I give the confusion

a name to the star

your face your face 

your amazing grace

make it last

make it real

with rainbow potential

I love you

and then some

diabolic eventual

I love you

I love you

make some sense

of this won’t you?

 

2.25.16

Photo: UES 3.25.25

 

Where do we go from nowhere

when the last cowbell clangs its lonesome cheer

when seven o’clock is abandoned

when protest is manhandled

where do we go when the bees disappear

traffic below returns like a shark

eat enough junk food they say

you’ll embrace green asparagus

retire to your room

read more Karl Marx

who has the moral authority

who wears the real mask

this is the question to

ask and then ask again

look to the gods who are complex humans

the ones who stumble

the ones who die grinning

clasping dream gyros

and leave us spinning

drop that summons that insult to freedom

charge from the lighthouse

attack the doldrums

we have always shuddered in darker places

it’s a game, it’s a scrabble

get down with the races

love and war

hunger and Zen

you can’t be declawed again and again

there is never a time when

a flower lacks beauty

children are born free

this certainty’s no illusion

disaster becomes us

grows our heart and our minds

in the moss of invention

we are people in charge

we are people enlarged

we are people learning to look closely

all visas before are rendered unworthy

passports are useless

we are travelers free of the night

put on a raft and set alight

push us off to the sea

fight the rage of the sharks

haul those oars

depend on the larks

morning comes as it always does

righteous anger awakens

what was interrupted

we will no longer be diverted

can I survive, beauty asks

normal was wounded

unorthodox tainted

heartbroken heals what was always intended

6.13.20 nyc

Photo: Tim Tapling 

Detectorist. Gunfire Beach Wallasay: Wirral25 Feb.2025