Once I had a languid dream,

of days spent easy as a shilling,

inventing a thousand different ways

to avoid working for a living.

How can I now realise

the pleasure that dream described,

or recoup chances unsubscribed

that the past alone has memorised?

For Time will turn to mock

and change conceit to compromise

as will facts without finance

conspire against an idle dream.

Yet as I saunter unabashed,

best foot forward, hair slicked back,

am I not just the sort of chap

that Fortune often favours?

And Spring will

and needs must fascinate.

Gone is the dull Winter hour,

moody and intemperate.

Hers is the power to surprise,

hers the pouting kiss

that sets my heart upon the spiral.

May time never deny me

the pleasure of her variety,

nor the wet green acre fail to thicken,

nor the sappy bough to blossom

as on sweet air the cuckoo calls

as if in fond memory.

And Spring will

and needs must consummate.

Gone is the good night’s sleep

as tomcat desire awakes.

The blood sugar levels quickly rise

to promote sensation

and irreverent hymns fill my head.

May time never disconnect me,

nor retard my heart from feeling

that Spring has sprung me

as if just for fun,

leaving me in pawn to the Summer,

counting the days one by one.

Once I was innocent,

as the tree in leaf,

as the shape and size of stone.

Like wild honeysuckle I flowered

just for the hell of it.

No longer that natural arrogance

or sense of devil may care.

Lost also that easy enthusiasm,

all victims of despair.

Now I am adult,

as fickle as frost,

as smart and sharp as a radish.

I care to amuse only myself

but think little of it.

It’s not just a question of appearances,

for within a frame of gilt varnish

we all play a dishonest game.

In order to win we avoid sentiment,

striking hard where it hurts most.

We change the meaning to suit the stratagem

and wave goodbye to shame.

Too weak with myself, too easy on others,

I too have indulged in snobbery

and thought myself better than most.

When in fact I’ve turned to fat,

gone to seed, fallen for false luxury.

Without the courage of my conviction

I have no cause to boast.

It’s just a simple matter of awareness,

to accept Truth and acknowledge Reality.

We are individual, we live and die alone.

Innermost feelings we cannot communicate.

We must take the blame for our behaviour

as there is no higher supreme authority

with the power to condone.

It’s asking too much,

to live in a room without a view.

There should be a prospect of trees,

twin lines of pollarded limes,

gravel paths and clipped yew

and pagodas in the distance

fronted by herbaceous avenues.

I should find this formality no restriction.

In fact it would free my thoughts,

the same way as drink liberates my diction

and be an ideal for muse and contemplation.

How could one refuse such elegance its due

and not while away the drowsy hour

as butterflies flirt over pillar and urn

and shrub roses scent a shrouded bower.

Last night the wind blew,

to dismay the darkened hour

like corrugated iron cracked

or sandpaper rubbed on glass.

High-pitched, unscrupulous, unkind,

inevitably a melancholic refrain,

it repeats to play upon my mind,

just as the darling scent of you

might keep the lonely from their sleep.

Day brings no relief

except the wind worn out of sound,

a subtle tune without the temper,

almost tender it recedes,

to just a rhythm of the heart

and the breath that feeds the brain,

as I lie pressed upon the sheet

like petals are upon the page,

their juice, my sweat, to stain.

Neither too soon nor too late,

still I must awake to memory,

to salute the moment passing

and to love with energy enough

to fashion one thing lasting.

For we are cursed with belief

yet hungry only for achievement

and dominated by our desires,

are unable to withstand bereavement.

With a superb campaign Nature will conquer

every ditch and bank, every wall and hedgerow.

With ease she will glorify the living,

for no financial gain she fruits and flowers.

With an elemental surge she responds

to fuses timed and set ready to ignite.

Without fail her green passion strikes

and now its crazed activity must substitute

for the love that Man has long since lost.

How could we catalogue and record such abundance

yet miss the meaning of its rare variety?

Without policy we would still think to profit

as regardless of the future we continue

to corrode our singular world with clever poisons.

Eager for complete control we heed no warning.

From this Earth we take without discrimination,

delighting in greed, waste and exploitation

as if just to prove a scientific domination.

No doubt we shall attempt to harness the Sun,

to provide an alternative to the nuclear bomb.

We’ll populate the stars with programmed robots

and grow rice under glass in the Gobi desert.

But first we’re entitled to have some fun,

to hunt the barnacled Humped-back and her young

with computerised sonar and the harpoon-gun,

even though their screams must seem to play

the last post for our own endangered species.

Dark clouds, appropriately purple,

dominate the palace and dull the symmetry

of brick and glass behind which once

Mary was matron and William was orange.

Their Italian garden, ornate but empty,

now reproaches this more dreary age

as disconnected fountains no longer play

and muted pigeons in solemn queues

take shelter from polluted statues.

Yet elsewhere the willows bud and burst.

Upon the banks their saffron shoots hang

to drape and float the torpid Serpentine.

While the saucy crocus prostitutes herself,

snowdrops chime below the vaulted chestnuts

and a busy nuthatch haunts a dripping lime.

This then must surely be my favourite time

for inconvenient rain has stalled the crowd

and left the park alone to me and mine.

Let’s set a match to the magnolia buds

as they kneel upon the branches

like saints saying prayers.

Bent in supplication and adoration

they will suffer in good taste,

so catholic, I do not wonder.

But then I’ve seen Jesus too,

on top of a hill above a harbour.

I’ve been to the seaside

though the tide was out and the crabs gone.

I’ve slept out in the open,

struck dumb by the speech of trees.

Let’s count cherry stones

or play sardines perhaps,

throw our arms around imaginary objects,

stomp, hop and burn our regrets.

Let’s take a one way ticket to your bed,

to giggle and tell fairy stories.

Remind me that this is just a mood,

a way to bypass other memories,

to hold madness by the stem,

turning it to catch the light.

It’s all a matter of timing,

shout for the Devil and he will come.

Don’t mention love or say you understand

that would be much too underhand.

It’s too late to accept a slap on the back

or a first eleven cricket cap

for we are the Cold War children,

born into a world without a future.

All that’s been written is riddled and scribbled

and I am reminded of strange inconsistencies.

How misshapen and unattended some of us are,

as lonely as lepers we’re beset by complexities.

We are made vulnerable to love’s sweet stupor

and the threat of losing or failing to impress,

but even fear has a limit like water has a level

and pain is the preparation that tests our mettle.

Strong in wind and limb, yet still unbalanced

I, a local hero, live in human imperfection.

I drink and smoke without due restraint

and will often indulge in uncouth conversation.

In discontent I deride the dreary week’s routine

as devoid of charts I drift on a raft of dreams.

So please think kindly if ever you consider me

for isn’t compassion the finest of the arts?

Here the Oleanders flourish

and their pink tongues flatter.

Could it be a dream, these simple facts,

the pinkness and the energy of passion

when all else is defeated?

Olive trees quicken with the year.

They hold the tilled ground

and support the sacred Mystery.

Panayotis sits astride his white horse.

Gaily he tips a straw hat,

his greeting fills the valley.

Dogs bark freely without concern,

only to upset the silence.

As evening, mauve, descends,

swallows collect as to a magnet.

On the red rock shore,

an agony of waves washed up

underlines my small sadness

as the moon reminds

that Love is but a mirror

to a climate of senses,

far beyond haphazard thought.

Shooting-stars are not unusual.

In luminous flight they fall,

to splinter on the mountainside

as I, listening, lie,

my mind absorbs the Milkyway.

I took the road to Yerakas,

a dirt road both brutish and insistent

which clings at first to the coast,

enticed no doubt by rumours

of nymphs awash in caves.

There upon the gargoyle lava shore,

Sun and Sea meet in explosion

to shatter and spark,

as the smelling flock chimes past

to break the myrtle and mount the rocky path.

The road then falls between dry stone walls,

in pewter shadows thrown,

where prickly pears stand and crowd,

fruiting and rotting, crucified by spines.

A greenfinch calls from a carob tree.

Too soon perhaps the road reveals

houses trimmed in blue and white,

a bravado that does not impress

the mountains, who have no interest

in petty dealings or the trivia of men.

Fishing boats with painted eyes

bob and sway upon the inner bay,

where late in Summer’s season

flamingos sieve the wild sea grass

and preen on pink enamel legs.

I, another visitor in foreign plumage,

lounge and ape in local posture

and careless of time I am content

with my idle custom to patronise

and frequent the famous tinted wine.

Demetrios is a philosopher,

a part of all he surveys.

His hand fits the glove.

His heart is as large as a watermelon.

He works and walks and gives,

as simple as sweat.

Without cause for artifice

his face denies deceit.

His heart is concentrated

with an ease of mind.

Purple figs burst in a plastic bag.

Tomatoes are a weight in his pocket.

These are gifts to be given,

the fruit of his labour,

the practice of his philosophy.

Upon leaving he waves.

As he climbs the mountain road,

the sun recreates his shadow

and his heart is as light as a fennel seed.

Along the scattered tide line are definite signs

that confirm the inscrutable sea omnipotent.

Contorted driftwood piled in disregard,

curious lumps of cork sucked and shaped,

peach stones, spiny urchin shells and glass

that sparks in suitable shades or aquamarine.

A Spanish fruit box smashed, a fisherman’s cap,

branches in full leaf bent and snapped,

knotted rope, nylon net and curls of melon skin,

a doll’s arm, severed, still waves a tiny hand,

a broomhead, a bow-tie, an orange sandal strap,

all these thrown strange and awkward on the sand.

While on the pebble shore, beneath prehistoric cliffs,

yellow poppies presume to gaily flirt and bloom,

loose coils of purple oily weed collect

and the tireless tide repeats and foaming breaks

on fossiled rocks where naked and amazed I sit,

to ache for the loss of such a world unspoilt.

Confuse me not the Cypress.

for neither am I straight nor tall

and mine is not a rigid position.

I cannot confirm the landscape

or lay claim to the Classics.

I wear no clever pointed hat.

Surely there can be comparison,

for I achieve no desired effect

nor conform to a formal design?

I cannot complement the ancient ruin

or stand strictly to attention

for time upon time.

Trees do yearn no doubt and feel.

Indeed often they will sigh

and the willow can, without reason, cry.

These talents then to some,

a likeness might suggest to me, perhaps,

but certainly not the Cypress.

From this wicker chair I watch

the sea transform and vary

from silk to metal and meringue

ss sudden as the breeze

that rubs the bamboo poles,

to fan their braided plumes.

The sky, a roll of cloth unfurled,

a vast blue flag,

stretched tight from side to side,

is now compressed.

The mountain’s mood and the cloud

confirm a changing season.

The donkey, dumb before,

now trumpets from the arid hill.

Thus invoked, the aching valley echoes

as flights of finches scatter and swerve

as fast as fish to catch the light,

to taste the air that I do.

Panayotis stops work.

Lifting up his head he prays for rain

as from the burnt grass cicadas sing

and twisted olive trees complain.

Theodoras sleeps in a turquoise room.

Magazine pictures of Audrey Hepburn

and views of snow-capped Switzerland

are pinned above his metal bed.

He waits for the cool of evening

and trident and mask must also wait,

for the wind to change, the dea to calm.

Awake, he pulls on a purple shirt.

An optimistic colour to suit a mood.

Without rush or worry he will walk

the rutted road behind the church,

down to the taverna’s lazy welcome,

there to reclaim his accustomed place

in the shade of the leaning mulberry tree.

Once seated Theodoras will not move.

His position is a trusted landmark.

An allegiance to Neptune confirmed

by the peaked cap, the walrus moustache.

Inwardly he applauds the passing day

as smells of garlic and onions simmer

and the dying sun discards its glamour.

In this same valley of the lemons

which fruit as firm as soap,

to hang bitter from the branch,

some say that Ritsos, the poet, once lived.

Not in this house but that forgotten farm

set back below the hill, shuttered and still

except for two bullocks tethered in the stall,

restless from the heat they stamp.

In the yard goats and chickens move.

Aimless and unsurprised they take no notice

as in the shade of the carob tree,

a child’s swing creaks, empty.

Rolled in dust a sow sleeps

as the rampant fig, outstretched,

without conscience drops its honeyed pods

to burst and lie flyblown.

Down by the dried-up riverbed,

rows of okra and red peppers flower

while melons squat and swell,

a lizard basks, emerald, on the hot stones.

When now his eyes half close,

Yannis Ritsos can perhaps still see

and from dear memory describe like me

the spirit of this particular country.

For here the Muse draws breath,

to excite with ease the poet’s heart.

She enters through an open mind

to provoke and prompt the Poet’s art.

This morning forgives all ugly reflection,

the inarticulate fear of night forgotten

and no bruises mark the waking mind.

For my memory is now calm, becalmed

like a sargasso of magenta and green weed,

only stirring in slow motion

as the sun provides a shining example

of how to be, just simply be.

The light here is so different.

It completes a vivid landscape

and when the sea and sky converge

to transfuse and leave us no horizon,

it inspires to heighten the emotion.

It incites the dull brain to thought,

to contemplate a life without conditions,

a life without limits for the living.

Innocence might be the gift of angels

but we too if wished could fly

in the dreamworld that most deny

where the gods will talk to men,

to influence and direct our imagination.

Thus to liberate the lonely spirit

as it waits in hunger for release

from these two feet on the ground.

I stand at the window and stare.

Traffic roars impatient down Ladbroke Grove,

kicking up the rain that never stops.

For this is the middle of May and now

the sullen promise of Summer cannot excite

us who have no faith in Merry England.

But then with the flick of a switch

the ready mind returns to inhabit

another climate where memory can reproduce.

The clink of glasses, Retsina’s cheap salute,

those filthy cigarettes smoked compulsively.

Red mullet rolled in flour and fried.

Black olives that sweat on a cracked plate.

Bright blue tables stand askew.

Geraniums flower profusely in disused tins.

Bazouki music moans from a radio.

Costas shouts from a dark interior,

pointing at the sea’s enchanted view.

Octopus hang scarlet to drip from a line.

A dog lies chained to a Tamarisk tree.

A bus shakes past blaring its brazen horn,

throwing up dust from earth and dung.

The sun like a hammer cracks the ground.

Pomegranates fruit and fall forgotten.

Pigs root loose beside the open road.

Lula plants onions down below the house,

as she squats, cockerels run between her legs.

The telephone then rings a tactless tone.

My mind recoils, its inner landscape lost.

A siren threatens violence on the street

or just some suburban drama to resolve.

Ordinary people pass by unconcerned.

Cherry blossom drops sodden to the pavement.

Concrete lamp posts, rigid in the rain,

stand deliberately so devoid of style.

Somehow they make a very British statement.

If I was to say could I

put my hand up your ripple-silk skirts,

would I be called cheeky?

Must I first throw stones and serenade

before I climb to your midnight window?

Must I stutter prayers of love

and wrap you in a cloak of praise?

Or play the silly courting game,

to walk always two steps behind

and drool when you call my name?

No way if that’s the price to pay

for riding the Rocking-horse.

Let the Devil take my Lady

laced tight in her frills and finery

for she won’t get even an inch of me.

I shall not savour love’s spilt milk

nor sift the fragments for missing clues,

for in this case I need no evidence

to prove beyond doubt we both shall lose.

And though the heart still will beat

and the calculating mind compile

neither will be tempted to repeat

the cross-examination or the trial.

Time cannot reverse the facts nor foretell

the price to pay for loving so well

and though memory has a habit of retaining

only what’s best while erasing the rest,

I shall remember forever your face fallen,

under the damp blue wing of evening

like a dead bird, stiff and frozen,

once you knew our goodbye was final.

In our case it seems,

love holds pace regardless of distance,

holds faith without fear of consequence,

it is the rope that binds us.

Time cannot diminish this fact

though Fate inevitable shuffles the pack

and deals us different chances.

In your case it seems,

age only hardens love’s foundation,

firm already in purpose and design

while practice has brought to you a patience

that no petty doubt shall undermine

and through the process of propagation,

the bulb shall flourish and its flowers entwine.

Yet in my case it seems,

love’s condition reconfirms the dream,

only through surrender does it allow

my mind to find the reason why

love demands much more than it supposes

as I still on the ladder climb,

upward to love’s bed of roses.

The bed I was born in holds few memories

except when muscled down the avenue of palms.

Spilt from the sack and forced out into the storm

I was aware only of your flank of flesh and light,

bright upon my inarticulate form and Summer,

nailed like planks boarding up the window.

Looking back later down the telescope of Time,

without mistake I can retrace the fine line

you sailed through a maze of chintz rooms.

With the scent of French perfume on the stair

and a strawberry kiss framed by blonde hair

you stopped to rearrange some lilac blooms.

I would tag you with a deliberate pace

and my eyes would never leave your face

nor my hand let loose the apron-string.

Linked by an invisible umbilical

thus involved we were inseparable

for my first love was a desperate thing.

Among the late-night faces I sit

and play the sorry Romantic.

Within a passing cloud of wine fumes,

I burn like a cheap cigarette.

Knee-deep in withered petals,

I dine on a simple diet of memories

thrust like slithers of sharp glass

into the flesh of my bitter aloneness.

How I wish love could be non-toxic

for then when next my heart short-circuits

I need not feel quite so lovesick.

But I am determined to seek some redress

to compensate for such unhappiness.

Perhaps I should hire the Three Musketeers

and send them round to make you confess

to the crime of unattainable loveliness.

How can mere blood and bone contrive

to house such characteristics,

the silken flesh, the sweet-pea breath,

clean shapes of face and form,

a vital charm of changing features?

Add to this the brain and its secret work,

the control of thought and action.

Also a sense of colour, dream and dance

and an inherited complexity of moods,

all this in one small person.

I never cease to wonder and reflect

for mine she is, I claim her,

the consequence of love and longing.

Forgive the foulness of this conceit

but how could I have wished for more?

From a rock-a-bye cocoon of quilted sleep

she wakes surprised to meet the morning.

She opens a window to hear the rain

and waits undressed except in flesh

until last night’s dreams disperse

and the female senses are refreshed.

On tiptoe she steps into seamed stockings,

a peardrop bottom swung on a sway of hips.

She bends down to slip on her shoes

and her tilted tits tense and tighten

as they push against the printed blouse,

silk upon silk yet beyond comparison.

Without premeditation she can provoke

my eager heart to convulse in spasm,

as desire like a chemical injected

travels direct through a system of veins.

Quite without warning it can strike

even in car parks, lifts and trains.

What has all the skills political,

to confront the mind in debate

yet still remain physical?

What without candour outwits all opposition

or without morals will sabotage the heart?

Love would seem a perfect answer

as among tumbled sheets I lie,

the stranger by your side,

unable to resist your lava kiss

like a blister burnt on to my lips.

But instinct surely should suggest

small profit from love’s rapacious process

as I, inflamed, am torn in two,

a victim of the heart’s barometer changes,

wanting and not wanting you.

So please notice this poor Romeo,

how with his reason undermined,

no attempt at freedom makes.

He cannot help but play love’s game

yet fears not that his heart might break.

Here I stand on two legs bent

beneath a weight of bad blood,

revealing a ragged life,

concealing the disease of death.

Here I stand betrayed by the mind,

ransomed for a wealth of dreams,

tied in a sack and thrown far out

into an empty space.

Retrieve, restore, revive me.

Let me suck the syrup of your kiss.

Let me lie inside your scented flesh.

With your touch unbind these straps

that keep the darkness in me

and with your love redecorate

these walls that surround me.

I sleep alone at night and pause,

suspended, somewhere below Heaven,

loose at last from this Earth.

Yet in the early hours I startle,

lying flat my body concentrates,

electric and alert from fear.

Still I reach out a needing hand

though I know you are not near.

I wake to find resolution undermined

for in the dark, doubts conspire

to cancel hope and not encourage

the love my tender heart would nourish.

Ordinary sounds somehow magnify loss.

a door slams on the stairs above

and voices laugh in the lamp-lit street.

They disturb the abstract pattern of my dream.

There in longing you lounge

like a bright silk curtain

drawn across the window of my mind

while little memories like broken china

fit together, cleverly glued

with a mixture of misery and desire

and the smell of your sweat returns

like cut Dahlias to scent the room.