Uncommon Britons sire legend and play Spirit’s forbear
Feeding fortunes afar in a tenured holding small,
Or, as strong-built wader no boat can bear,
Cresting waves to the canvassed court of an imperial heart

Noble heads both host feast and merriment
With fay-brewed draughts from a poet’s inexhaustible cauldron
For one a ship’s-depth of quenching, the other sips of hope for a homestead

One briefly dwelled a palace pledged for spoils
Crown bent to prophesy, removed, now fending feud
With Gallic gaze ‘neath invader’s walls of white

Ours, proud protector, broad shoulder-borne and poised in honour still
Hod-bearing a hearth, built strong in bonds more familial than feudal
Drawing loyalty from blood not booty
To battle likeminds instead on fields of play

Twin countrymen’s voices raised sonorous in God’s-own booming pitch
‘gainst supernatural Dwarven-echo from mountains black
Both barding coal-fletched thought and memory on Tower-dweller’s wing

They are the best of men, both Uther Ben.

harbour

harbinger

herald

tugboat

Turn back and regard, that which has passed.
A time when the mind could be with the future yet, indignant,
it stays reliving a life apart.

The muslin‑haze of a doubt redundant is swept aside
to draw a sight unwavered,
and the heart unfurls with the rising sun
of Great Summer past, present, and still to come.

The evening beams as a journey continues;
the blue sky’d hope a foil to the decay that is the bequest of profit.
The sight of the graves beckons hope rather than grief,
chill stones as testament to the pilgrim’s faith,
rites on a journey never‑ending.

The cleansing of rainsting, a purge to shackled remembrance,
the lacklustre postures of a character too tempered.
The chapel light, a beacon in the New Town numbness
a single‑cell legacy of a, once encompassing, certainty.

Bud, like branch
as if small, or gone far,
to what might you bloom?
A rose prim, or buxom?
A spearing new-minted finial fine
in green iron cast, your tender tendril
to wind against wind
up railing, perhaps,
or soil-grounded for brick’s brace
in your bed, instead.

My reliable dancers
trot me from cobble to flag
nimble, now, from flinty heart
now purposeful to paved-in paths
and aside-stepping
in deferent courtesy – leave
histories’ halls behind
to melancholic ponder at seat
to crow-caw chorusing
closing
calm, now chilled

My mind skitters ripples on slumber
to a crescent clipped in moonlight’s manicure

Pitted
and placed
one with another
as one, now, with one another
to sum parts
in roles appointed
bonded
and pointed

Do you need to know I flagellate
or is the smart of grace‑seeking a vanity with solitude its salve?
Does suffering need witness
or does display diminish
the votive motive?
Pride and indulgence
shed dim light for the pilgrim whose reward is arrival.