Two Haiku

no ghosts, save spirits, 

rising and falling, 

ad infinitum

all poltergeists

are gravity

misunderstood

Two Seasons and Part of a Third

I know a summer
when I see one
slinking out the
back door
a few-days-a-year
lover
not wishing this
walk of shame
witnessed by any of
my more elderly
neighbours.

I know an autumn
when I see one
too
an angry artist
an old soak
messing in a way beyond
playfulness with miserable
colours and letting dry
ice stage a coup
in the studio
fogging everywhere
mussing whatever
view
there might have been.

Through that fog
I can't see winter

yet.
So I don't know

Placeholding

The day/night
border,
porous, supple,
placeholding twixt
the lazy dusk
and time you swear
you'll swing the hammer fresh
in unrelenting chase of
energy
for dreams.

The Sleeper

A slow-me-down rush
of being knackered
assails him
and clams up
the gift o' his gab

becomes like a prize
fighter caught cold
in the ring
too dazed to
throw so much as a jab

and collapses to canvas
soft-focus, so arty
so derelict but
delicate too

like an angel gone
awry at that old
Christmas party
heavenly hobo right
out of the blue

and after his
mind mounts
the pillowcase
and gallops off
after adventure and
dreaming

above the covers is
left a stand-in
bust of his face
living marble
stilled
but still breathing.

Five-minute love poem for people wherever

Left to my own devices I

will watch the earth

as though it’s sky

and scan its mass quite

dreamily

searching for a place

to be

a new frontier

a hallowed land

where I need follow

no commands

where I need not

worry about sinning

where what’s seen

as loss today

turns into winning

where I need claim

no national pride

nor, lacking such,

duck head and hide

where I could tend

the ground around me

without stock markets

to confound me

and complicate my

sense of wealth

putting numbers

up above good health

and simple luxuries

like books and pens

where I could write

and not pretend

with honesty

that where I am

I feel, at last, a

well-off man

and, feeling so,

communicate

to those I love

and those I hate

that there is a place

where both might live

if all of us

could just forgive.