Call of Home

Across Tees and Tyne and Tweed I hear you call
Across seas of green and urbanscapes built on coal and steel

Goback, goback, I hear you call
to bridge of blue and riverside roar

Goback, goback, I hear you call
to stone walled dale and purple moor

Where we talked of youth and years apart
and dreamt of love and shooting stars

Transporter blue and Ayresome roar
we spent our youth by river and shore

Until we grew and fled the nest
and left our roots for pastures new

Goback, go back, I hear you call
to bridge of blue and riverside roar

Goback, go back, I hear you call
to stone walled dale and purple moor

Where we loved and lost but we never forgot
Our love of home and our Boro red

Bride of Woods

From a rocky knoll amidst waves of russet fronds,
crisp to the touch, washed in autumnal sun,
I spied a fleet of silvery masts,
still amongst a purple mist, that oh so softly clung,
Like fleece jettisoned by flocks of passing sheep,
who roamed the fells and vales beneath my feet.

The ghostly galleons upon which I gazed,
once sailed forth on an October day,
In their millions they'd drifted there,
wave upon wave, borne on autumnal air,
To colonise an ice scoured sculpted land,
where masts of oak and ash would fail to stand.

I marvelled at the patchwork scene,
the undervalued birch bequeathed,
A pale skinned beauty, Bride of woods,
with silver robe and purple feathered hood,
She came and broke the Cailleach's spell,
to tame the bleak and barren fells,
Now where many had feared to go,
a multitude of species grow.

Autumn Robes

Robed in russets, mauves and greens,
carved stone jewels scattered across a once verdant scene,
Your autumnal wardrobe has finally arrived,
with rich warm colours that slowly, gradually, subside,
Maybe later ermine will again be in vogue,
as days shorten and darkness brings the winter rogue,
Stealing colour, light and heat,
a pure white palette as colours to the earthy depths retreat.

Bad Diet

I lay awake in the dark and something stirs,
It chatters, it positively purrs,
This story is good my monkeys spin,
My negative thoughts are set to win,
The diet I feed really does not appease,
It wounds my soul and creates dis-ease.

Clear Water

The water swirls, murky, churning,
I cannot see, I trawl,
I dredge but my hands are empty,
I cannot see, I cannot find,
I'm empty, barren,
No seed lies within me,

I sit in my despair,
Lost, lost for words,
I'm blind, nothing to find,
But as I sit there is a clearing, a settling,
The silted waters so long swirling still,
They clear, the well begins to fill,
Up it rises, higher, higher,
It laps the brim,
No bucket needed to dredge the murky depths,
There is an outpouring, a richness from within,
My wild woman is manifest.

Selkie

Now and then that gentle lulling rhythmic roar,
of waves breaking upon the shore,
would waken me from my daytime sleep,
And as I paused and sensed those shifting sands beneath my feet,
the sirens would begin to sing,
An ancient almost forgotten song,
calling pleading from deep within,
I dreamt a thousand ways to escape,
this net long cast that held me fast within my living fate,
For I longed to swim and dive those depths,
and feel the salt, wet, refreshed, upon my selkie skin.

Home

Across Tees and Tyne and Tweed I hear you call,
Across seas of green and urbanscapes built on coal and steel,
Goback, goback, I hear you call,
And I feel the pull of stone walled dales and purple moors,
Where we talked of youth and years apart,
And dreamt of love and shooting stars.