I returned to Paris 

Soon after the end of the war

To find the last remains of barricades 

Bullet holes and shortages 

Windows still smashed, doors blown open 

The Grandes Avenues in a state of disarray

The corps of the city was still intact

Its spirit humbled but resurgent 

Its writers busy on their version of history

Everyone sure they had played their part 

In liberation, in survival, in resistance 

We could not all be heros

I went back to our old haunt

The stairs to our floor still creaking 

The rooms empty in a blanket of dust

Your blue and white ceramic urns

Long gone from the shelf over the fireplace

The curtains you chose disappeared

Our bed also gone - how could that be?

It had taken such effort to install

You’ll remember how we once argued 

Over how it went together

Well, someone knew

And now it has fled, as we did

The view over the Seine remains

If you look hard between the rooftops

You loved that and the noise 

From the courtyard below 

Every resident knew us and our story

How we met, how we loved

It’s quiet now apart from the echoes

That bubble up from memory

The way you sat on the edge of that bed

To dress, to turn to look at me

Your last smile as you made the best of it

Your promise we’d make it back

We never believed it of course 

We knew that our life as we knew it then

Was over 

It matters less than we thought 

Our love did not survive

You went South, I North

Safer to split up you said

But what about us I said

When this war is over

We’ll be back, you said

You kissed me, told me you loved me

And bicycled hard away from the guns.

You ask me what Love is like

So I will tell you

Although you really should know

But if I do

If I reveal to you the nature of Love

Its essence, its depth, its submersive quality

You must allow yourself 

The chance, any chance you can find

To be even the tiniest bit happy

And to try and find love and then give it away

For that is its consequence 

Its price, if you prefer,

The closer to it you allow yourself to be

The more it demands that you let it go

Give it away and it returns

Keep it, guard it and it withers

Hesitate and the sun will still set

But it will set on you.

Come with me to the river’s edge

Where the willows weep

And the rushes sleep in wavy innocence

For meadows of wild red flower

Where courting songbirds sing

Of England’s Past a disappearing thing

See thick olive water seep its way

O’erlooked by God’s own church 

With arrowed spire built so long ago

Flanked by splendour and display

The Great House with its sloping tended lawns

Its cracked and mossy terrace 

Lined by noble columns of some creeping rose

Still sentinel proud for its curtsied village

Unchanged for a thousand years and more

Does your heart not yearn for this 

For its beauty or its shadow

For temperance and fair gentleness 

The quiet word

That knew its place for duty’s sake

With stiff unyielding lip across a generation

And then another

No fuss allowed just calm endurance

And another’s kiss perhaps 

Such fruits we eat until they are no more

Stolen in the orchards of such times 

We call them memories 

But now are judged as passing crimes.

We were cocooned for a day and more

The rain had left us

Its legacy of lush green banks 

Rising steep along the valleys

Of weeping willow, ash and oak

Each a waypoint and a monument 

Amidst the fields of wheat

Whose ears soft whispers in our sight

Moved gently in the evening air

First this way, then that

All stalwarts of an English Landscape

To hold their own with ancient church and Norman arch

The village green, deserted pub and idle store

O’er seen by eyes behind the flint

That till their ground towards 

A hope, some call it bliss,

Where dogs cannot complain 

As stiles and fences 

Are opened for their pleasure

By those who walk together now

For a time

To take their turn as friends and lovers

Not to resurrect the past but to build anew

A Paradise built beyond the earth, the leaves, the cobalt sky

Let not the Tam O’shanter dim

That pleasure and the peace we felt

Striding to return to spoons of stilton

Sealed in a memory of glorious West Milton.

Shutter up your heart

Close down your aching soul

Forget past loves, lost fancies fled

For these are not companions to grow old

Hold on to shortened breath 

And dreams that wait still more

A life of one score years and four

Knows not the lasting scars

Of many years d’amour

No need for early morning pearly bright

Or evening sunk to a blood red pool

I am Master here

To set the rhythm and the beat

I choose a descant score 

Drink deep, love long

Before the Angels come 

To meddle in this earthly gore

No I’ll none of that 

I’ll rise again, I’ll thrust in deep

To die alone a furlong short

In shallows veiled upon a vaporous shore.

Am I enough to take her hand 

When the soft sands of the dunes 

Give up their secrets and concede

To beach flats empty and marooned

Save only for the breaking tensile foams

That roll relentless from a gimlet sea 

Each formed beneath a Summer’s sky of blue

To calm the mind for stolen moments few

Am I enough to hold her to my breath 

As the gentle breeze breaks across our view

An ocean’s palette deep mirrored in her eyes 

Her lips as moulded as a Norseman’s prow

That came upon this very scene so long ago

She too is strong and quick in thought

Untouched by any mortal hand

So must I with Apollo stand.

The villa sits on a headland 

Overlooking the Mediterranean 

The span of the bay

Half hidden by palm trees 

And bougainvillea on every flank

Red, white, yellow against dark green

The house no more than

Faded pink slashes of colour

In the undergrowth

That separates the hives of terracotta

Spread out along the coast from the port

Camouflaged from the road by pine trees 

That stand sentinel over the tennis court

And the sun baked terrace broken by steps 

That lead to the pool

A brighter blue against the sky and sea

Flower pots filled with lemon trees

Tobacco plants and hibiscus

Roses and the scent of lavender

The sound of slow jazz from within

The air heavy with heat

The hammock a gentle sway and creak

In the early evening drafts 

It is here, in this place, that my soul sighs

Turning the deep red drink in its glass

Until the ice cubes clink

And I can think of dinner

And the woman I love 

Planning another day 

In the cafes and markets of the Littoral

Before guests arrive

And it is too late to hold on to peace

This happiness, this calm, such beautiful

Harmony

Call it what you will

But I have the memory still.

You don’t love in a conventional way

You say little and do less

Inscrutable

Introverted is inadequate

Almost disinterested i’d say

Shyness masquerading as reticence 

Maybe

You risk being cut off 

From feeling and connection

Perhaps not for you

But for me

This is what I fear

That this is really you

Uncommunicative, silent, isolated

These things reflect badly on you, on me

I am trying to love you 

To break through to a pool of souls

As well as mind and convenience 

A private world that we alone inhabit

A place of trust and unbidden reciprocity 

That is the foundation of Love

If not its guarantee 

So come with me because 

If we are meant to be together 

I cannot live like this, as we are

Or, if it is not to be,

If this distance is defence

Or worse a deliberate barrier

Let me go to chase my dream with another

Conventionally.

Kostas jumped from the brow of the boat 

To land on the quayside

The rope’s hoop secured in one movement

As his outstretched hand 

Helped her step out

Holding the parasol and hauling

The folds of her voluminous dress

That weighed heavy in the morning’s sun

Without a backward glance 

She crossed to the café across the street

Watched by the villagers, young and old,

With mounting interest but without judgement 

As she found a place at an outside table

And began to rearrange her clothing 

With the faintest air of irritation 

Only to look up and call

Are you coming? 

Or do I have to sit here all day?

So I gathered our luggage and summoned help

Found a few coins in gratitude

And left Kostas and his growing crew 

To join her just as a waiter arrived

The sweat had begun to show on her blouse

And her makeup had started to run

Drinks ordered I took out the Baedeker 

And began to read a summary

Of the island’s ancient history

Only to be interrupted 

Halfway through the story of three mermaids

Said to be resident in the very bay before us

“This was a mistake” she said

“This is not my sort of place at all”.

I am alone and very far from home

Time has stayed its endless beat

To feel the new born morning warmth

Crawl remorseless journey

To a Noon day heavy heat

The air of these Moroccan climes

Sucked dry by God’s emboldened fire

Full scented in the riyad’s lemon groves 

Where wild abandoned roses offer up

Their rich beguiling perfumed lures

To pluck the weak into bewitching spells 

Each a well worked magic mist

That uses every limpid flow 

As sweet enchantment to seduce

Such is the power of exotic foreign smells 

They act as catalyst for sense recalled 

Deep buried memories of love enjoyed

Returned again alive and fresh

Your smell, your skin, your flesh

Your gentle eye so pure and true

It makes my manhood rush 

To make its mark upon the world

To earn the right to call you mine

Though if such union 

Is to stand the test of time

It must kneel before the Lord Divine

To battle out the truth I know

To love thee in my purest heart

So come to me and never part.