Death-wish figures on skis
lurch from side to side
blown like winter leaves
Twentyonesixty, seventwenty, sixthirty

Accidental figures fall 
through the sky
plunge to the edge
gather speed
sixthirty, seventhirty, midnight

Back full double full full
numbers reach for the stars
leap upwards …
Teneighty, fiveforty, fifteenfifty
… fail to come down

High on the pale white cliffs of Étretat
beyond the heavenly bridge
you walk the narrow paths, strung
like ropes from rock to rock:
you perch on the pinnacles, unaware 
of the emptiness beneath you,
reaching for the sky

I take pictures: secretly
I want to be out there, 
on the edge,
mystical, threadbare
in the game

but I cannot help looking down
and out: I see the abyss
I feel the urge to fly
like an angel

and my angelic ambition
prevents me reaching
the thin, high ground where you stand:
keeps me from touching God

You scramble across the gap:
a hawk hovers
pinned to sacred air
above the abyss
sun drifting along his easy wings

written 15 years ago after a visit to the magnificent cliffs of Étretat in France

Now in this distant winter landscape
those various positions
come back to me
smooth like the trees
and the angels
music in the sky:
break-dancing and singing
hallelujah
one way or another

how could you have rejected him
the great and the good
seeing nothing
mist rising
until the laughter became too loud
and you became haunted 
by ghosts of words spoken too soon
coming back to you
back to you
back to you
over and over

Branches of long-suffering oak
spiral down, nudging 
damp winter earth
like streamers frozen in the twilight
of some forgotten party,

and the year edges 
towards its end
shedding a few last-minute misty tears, not noticing
that no-one is interested.

Even you, who return as always – 
cries of distress at this repeated change in your routine –
same difference, 
accusations into the empty air
of this familiar place where 

half a century ago
my first car stuck in the mud, wheels spinning,
and I wondered how I would get my girlfriend home 
clean, without embarrassment.

Now I watch my brother stand,
wheels spinning,
brain in another time
homing like a bird to this private spot.

By the old church
a thin, sharp shoot of holly 
is growing from a sterile stump.

written almost exactly ten years ago

I bought some flowers for dead people.
I saw them dancing in the winter breeze:
the sunlight shone through cold and naked trees
and showed them shining
in strange, exciting colours.
They moved gracefully, in ways
I had not seen before.
They seemed perfect, and I
could not stop smiling.
The flowers were nice too.

I am like a watchman 
waiting for the morning:
I stand on the hills, and in the darkness
the night is empty
formless and cold

I look for the light of all mankind
and look again
knowing that the people who walk here
are children of the light

waiting for those first sky signs
of promised dawn

It is my privilege
to lift their eyes upwards
so that they can see more clearly

Life is light,
drawing people
up and away from shadowy valleys
where they do not belong

Steep stone steps climb
through the trees 
above the empty theatre –
giving it wings

Exit stage left,
leaving the naked woman on the lawn
to answer questions about the plot

Her lips are sealed
but on the clifftop
another figure stands
whispering in the wind,
and her story is full of holes

She is stripped to the sun
maybe her last act
an unexpected twist 
giving it all away

For a change, this is a poem not written by me. It is a short one by Raymond Carver (1938-88).

And did you get what
You wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

The river, pushed by the tide,
smudges the edges here, 
pulls back to leave a footpath in the sand
quickly printed, away 
from the electric fence

The magic goes:
swordsmen emerge from the mist
and the church hovers in the distance
always just out of reach

On a tiny island, unmarked on any maps,
a thousand birds
try to leave their nests
but fall back, fading into silence

This is the way back:
our legs ache and
there is nowhere to rest:
no random logs, no majesty
just a shorn green empty field 

on which to collapse
beneath the skeleton trees
unable to rise again
until the third day,

which is too long:
the water is alive
and coming towards us

Her cage empty
the parrot has flown away,
grey in the sun,
prizing freedom above security
risk above lockdowns

She leaves Chwilog behind
disdains the narrow lanes and
crosses forbidden fields
dodging the farmer’s guns

Heading for Pwllheli,
she has booked in
for a holiday at Hafan y Mor,
not knowing the game is over

Posters appear
offering a reward for her recapture:
she has nothing to say –
not on this occasion

Reception is closed,
and as the nights creep in
the silence becomes deeper:
the door is open,
but too far away