
Shopping for flowers
I choose these pink carnations
for the living room
Copyright Francis 2021
Shopping for flowers
I choose these pink carnations
for the living room
Copyright Francis 2021
Flat line of the sea,
firm footing on the shore — breath
of wind on my face
Copyright Francis 2021
Winds batter the shore;
gulls, ever my companions.
Sand between my toes
Copyright Francis 2021
There is much talk of sea level right now,
and of levels of the sea; as a boy I would stand,
stare and dream on that far horizon
where all pondered distance was gone.
The boy’s right brain carried more wisdom
than the later indoctrinated left side ever could.
And what drove the world? How did eons
of tides turn hard rock to smooth sand?
For that boy’s curiosity ever remains;
half buried windows along old streets,
the monochrome pictures of grandeur, destroyed
and replaced by boxes of brick, or cold steel and glass.
Sea levels rise and fall, as is nature’s prerogative.
It is not in anyone’s remit to falsify, or destroy.
Copyright Francis 2021
The wind blows a gale;
I must fetch a sweeping brush.
Fresh air in the room
Copyright Francis 2021
Sheltered in the church
I lit a votive candle
in the silent space
Copyright Francis 2021
Delicate beauty
Sweet fragrance filling the room
In welcome silence
Copyright Francis 2021
Walking on the ice
My short measured steps back home,
In all conditions
Copyright Francis 2021
In life as in death,
alone, my inward journey —
amongst all seasons
Copyright Francis 2021
I first encountered you in ceilings,
in wallpaper patterns, their imagined shapes;
lying on beds with open books, with time,
with The Planets Suite as background.
You, who watched erstwhile friends
playing and laughing, cycling madly
along lanes of cow parsley and smoke,
through an old peeling window frame.
You are the same person still — alone;
free, yet unheard and misunderstood,
unwilling to think, or bend like the rest,
still staring but from double glazed glass,
thoughts blowing among trees,
within the space of this room
Copyright Francis 2021
Quiet reflection.
A gnat touching
water’s sheen —
ripples in the mind
Copyright Francis 2021