Home Is Not A Place

for suffering. Be it house, hut or tent

turn down the volume of the outside

world and rest. Replenish.

Home a refuge, the room you return to

and if there’s no return, home the dream.

Home a blessed space, a glowing heath

from which seraphim hold in their hand

offerings of bright orange embers.

Home a space of solace

for the bones in your skin to relax.

Perhaps there’ll be space to grow,

where weary minds can bloom.

And the spirit of a room? The spirit

of all rooms are degrees of warmth,

and people, and talk; so too the spirit

of a home, love.

The Cliff’s Edge

These white cliffs

a screen to the churning sea;

how the salt-crested waves

are intent on washing its feet.

How the scything birds float

past trying to nest in its sheer surface.

How the green grass only goes so far

to the edge, dizzied by the distance down.

And men in boards newly arriving

project on the white cliffs letters

they must soon write home,

in their looped and crossed script

announcing their safe arrival.

But the White Cliffs of Dover

keep looking out to the sea,

with their blank expression,

with their chest pushed out.

Giving not welcome.

Giving no quarter.

Both of the above poems are reproduced from Roger's recent book, in collaboration with photographer, Johny PItts, Home is Not a Place.