Wednesday, June 30, 2010

between lines

between lines

 * between lines *
We between the lines are
Neither black nor white
Moral dilemmas shaded
Between what is best and right
The principles of many for one
Or one for many
A question wavering in the heat
Taking form and escaping
My keen young eyes could once place those lines
Define with a judgemental certainty
Exactly where those libes would lie
No gaps between could be seen
Only black and white
Two sides of a micron thick coin
On whose edge even angels could not dance
Now seems there is a rainbow of diversity
Between what is right and wrong
What is best and right
The lines I fear have not moved
It is my maturity ongoing
The development of myself
I can no longer be such a fanatic
About what is right for others
What is best for us all
Indeed for what is best and right for me
I find I lean and make exceptions
Have developed a heart which truly cares
Understand all life's problems are not self made
Nor their solutions always cleancut
We all possess hearts of different grades
And mine maybe as errant as any other
And if I aim to free myself from constant blame
Then I must allow others the same latitude
Find a peace between the lines
I once thought so closely drawn
Live my life trying to encompass
A diversity of views and rights
Choose what is better nit always best
Choose what once I might think was wrong
For in fact it is right.

A letter a day

A letter a day

 * a letter a day *
I will send you a letter
Every day of my life
Electronic mail sure is fun
Does not possess handwritten romance
Cannot pin pixels to the fridge
The fonts are all so harsh
I will send you a daily letter
Asking how you are
Is your husband treating you well
Has gainful employment met your dreams
Are you feeling fulfilled
Had a family yet
For email are memos of the soul
To brief to be of weight
They do not express as well
As pen on paper on which I write
Every day I will send another letter
To whichever address in which you dwell
Ensuring the man with whom you live
Makes your life paradise not hell
Still loves you as deeply as he should
In my letters I will chart
The maturing and sensibility of my heart
Warm letters you can fold and carry
Close to your own heart
Reread until they fade
The bits where my loving is so brave
These letters I will send
Everyday we are married
To ensure the love we have
Does not grow stale or harried
For we have married now
For ourselves and no others
We have married for our love
And let my letters daily chart its course.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Kirsty thoughts

Kirsty thoughts

 ** Kirsty thoughts **
Kirsty words running in my head
Her thoughts as lyrics tight
An empty seat in Soho Square
No escaping the seat is always there
Kirsty's place on her birthday be bare
And yet still she serenades me
With her thoughts and words melodious
Infecting my day from dawn to dusk
With beauty not with despair
Even when seeing cynicism in us all
She caught a whisper of hope
No matter how small the hope might be
In Kirsty's music its forever free.

Black Blood

Black Blood

 * black blood *
Try and find the darkness
Black blood in men's souls
The thoughts horrorific
The terrible things unsaid
Words of hate and fear and anger
Twisted sense of madness rising
Rants on streets and sense of hatred made
Jagged bottle or fist or club laid
Molotov cocktails bedrooms burning bright
Assaults on the vulnerable at night
The gangs attacking because they bloody can
The mad insane and crazy are all the same
Soldiers of skulls and spears
The strangers with looks so queer
All those dangers deep in night
Existing in the human heart
Jealousy envy and spite
Flare of petrol bomb or fists raised to fight
Savage kicks upon someone down
The horrors outside the home
And the horrors hidden within
The dangerous family friend sincere
Abusive father or mother dearest
Twisted parenting of alcohol or drugs
Living life through a paranoid fog
Taking out every imagined slight
Against those to young to fight back
These monsters domestic of homes suburban
Destorying lives and spirit uncertain
All these shadows dark
Lie across the human heart
A stain coarse and indelible
Reminding us kindness and reason can be fallible
When the human dark appears
And our nightmares become our fears.

Smilicity

Smilicity

 * smilicity *
The simple things can pleasure
The ways the complex can fail
Perhaps it is the simpleness of us
Which such pleasures last
A kiss at night before you sleep
A warm embrace on arriving home
A word of thanks for a job well done
The simple things can power us
Feed us sustenance amazing
A belief in God unseen
Awaking from a refreshing dream
A blade of grass tipped with a drop of dew
The thought of sitting for a coffee
Or walking on a lonely pier
With someone you care about near
These simple things inspiring
Provide us with daily strength
A smile in a crowd unexpected
A stranger's offer of an umbrella
Someone asking how you are
Is not about the strange and bizarre
Not about how wealthy or tall you are
Happiness cannot be measured in fathoms or gallons
Refuses to be bottled or hygenically packed
Is a natural product found
Wherever your heart turns in joy
Releases pleasure so profound
A thousand million bibles
Freightloads of the Koran
All the words of wise and true
Are far too many to express
The simple pleasure which suffuses
A smile with warmth and body with soul
Pleasures found in rich scent of coffee
Perhaps retrieving a speck of chocolate
The sight of a swan in sight
Meeting your dog at the gate
A crackling fire on Winter night
The simple pleasures profound and immeasurable
Pleasures private and personal
Which light our life and lighten the journey
Make all the journeying worthwhile
The simple pleasure of your smile.

Sing sweet thoughts

Sing sweet thoughts

 * sing sweet thoughts *
A thousand songs need singing
A million hearts to open
A billion smiles winning
And still more to be done
We seem to be getting feeling
For the way to live this world
Alternative energy growing
Cutting back our demands
For the resources finite
Which we once burned without a care

Catch the essence fresh
Delight upon the air
Poverty can be retracted
For all the world we can care
Lift the suffering of our fellows
Bring light into darkness
Remove the shuttered views
Of medievalism in our midst
This is not driven by fear
By terror of the blind
Only through fairmindedness
Kindness not weakness expressed
Can we escape the cycle
Of useless and worthlessness.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Perfect Day

Perfect Day

 * Perfect day *

Perfect days come along
When love and time is right
Sun rises bright and high
Night air is warm and free
A whole world just us
Symphony of Nature in tune
Even a traffic jam
Moves us in rhythm of song
Conversation so easy now
All the walls have come down
Radio plays our new favourite song
We slow dance along
Your smile refreshes me
See the same in your eyes
All pretence abandoned here
Heart sees what the heart sees
A simple meal a banquet
This drink nectar of gods
Your lips in world's most perfect kiss

A very perfect day
A day of love and bliss
I'll always recall
The summer dress you have on
Sunbeam high-lights in your hair
Smell of freshly cut grass
Where we had this picnic fair
Dandelions are our bed
Birds heavenly chorus overhead
Such a totally perfect day
When all is smooth sailing ahead
Such a soaring leap
Joy bubbling to rise
Wings in heart fold out wide
Ready to lift off and fly
Someone seems to have stopped time
These kisses so long and deep
Reach beyond my heart to my soul
We hold each other so close
Never want to ever let you go

Such a simply perfect day
The first of many I'm sure
Brush aside your dancing hair
Chase your sweet lips with mine
Such fever have we today
Melded our breathes and our lives
This is love finally discovered
This is that look in your eyes
Holding me and smiling bright
More Sun in you than the sky
All world dressed in love
Rainbows sparkle cross soul

Such a timeless perfect day
Wish would never end
On our day in the park
When lunch ended at dusk
And we talked and talked
Kiss and kissed and walked
And friends discovered love

On such a perfect day
The perfection for then was us.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

comfort light

comfort light

 *  comfort light *
Light comes on when door opens
Rectangular block of welcoming light
Revealing nestled cool within
A cornucorpia of edible things
No Weight-Watchers approved unit this
Instead a place of culinary bliss
Cream and butter and farm cured hams
Yogurt and chocolate and lashings of lemonade
This fridge a time traveller
To shores less calorie conscious
When you ate as seasons provided
Fresh picked berries in summer
Submerged beneath ice cream slabs
Or deep rich soups bright and thick
Winter broths to warm you quick
Inside this rectangle of light
Is mother's love to be applied
When world does not work out right
To bring reward or succour credible
In every bite of cakes so edible
And no fear within that light
All is clean and preserved just right
Milk if drunk by use by date
Foods do not sour or quickly stale
Cheeses retain their shape and taste
No mold infects to create waste
The fridge contents purrs like a cat
A feline refridgerator fancy that
White good preening self in corner
Always happy for you to pat
Reach out and stroke handle slim
Lightly tug and look within
An Aladdin's cave of incredible edible things
When light comes on how joyous stomach sings.

Monday, June 21, 2010

the Beneath

the Beneath

 ++ the Beneath ++
Beneath our feet life
A thousand graves deep
Under dwellers digging and scraping
Civilizations of worms
Realms of badger and wombat
Kingdoms of weasel mole and fox
Beyond our upper gaze exist
Living fighting dying birthing
We know none of this
Beneath our face the war
The living fighting roof and floor
To keep both above and under whole
To survive the blind day beneath
Before escape to upper land at night
Find the cooler open airs above
Sing their songs to silver stars
Honour bright crescent Moon regal
Hunt and briefly share our world
Before to burrows snug return
Nocturnal visiting hour rung
When first glimpse dawn of Sun
Scurry away to rooms beneath
And settle down to deep refreshing sleep.

* and yet *

* and yet *

 * and yet *
All the words and imagery
All paint and ink of world
Cannot forgive or convey
Why a girl might love a boy
Why the love might start
How far it might extend
Nor pick a time or place
Where such love might end
Crunch all the numbers
Statistics grow chart and label
None of them are truly able
To say why a girl loves a boy
How long how deeply
How truthfully nor how ably
Nor the same for a boy loves a girl
And yet they do.

fog

fog

 * fog *

You're wondering the sunshine gone
A heavy fog enclosing all landmarks known
A chill in your blood and bones
Suffocated uneasiness plays upon your thoughts
In a day like any other day
Far from the bed and out on the road
Rain hasn't reached you yet
The fog still clings terror's surrogate
Who knows what breeds within
In the darkness and cold
Return of superstitions old
Tapping on your spinal bones
An eerie echo of the tomb
Hollow and escaping even as vibrating
Through your body poor and raw
An acolyte at the altar
Brought forth for holy slaughter
In the dark unyielding fogs
Far from home and safe warm bed.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Breakfast science

Breakfast science

 * breakfast science *
Sonar sounding on my toast
Reveal a sea of jam and crusty coast
All the breakfast world revealed this hour
Explorations gastronomic after a morning shower
Depth sounding the margarine tub
Ignoring the butter with an arrogrant snub
Would tear apart toast savanna
Counting in my cereal the sultanas
Wondering if Niagara of milk will flow
Unimpeded and well directed go
Always a fear Milk will leap
Plunge into a bowl insufficiently deep
Lap up sides and escape in a gush
Soak the kitchen bench and make cereal mush
Such a scientific event every morn
The ingredients fresh as is the dawn
As day begins to lighten up outside
Aim to fill with morning comfort my insides.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

A melancholic's prayer

A melancholic's prayer

 ** A melancholic's prayer **

Feeling a wave of melancholy deep
Nothing to mark as the cause
Perhaps just a lack of sleep
A feeling so dense and real as the Sun
Holding me here in a bell jar for one
Under examination of my own thoughts critique
Pulling at sores and scratching them raw
The thoughts are sharp
and black and not sweet
This wave of despair
This black dog on heat
Finding me flawed and not what I thought
A human so tired and caught
Sometimes its lies and sometimes there's truth
Both of those blades are knives so shiny keen
Plunge through my thoughts into body obscene
Wake me at night and shatter my sleep
No Morpheus sea sufficiently deep
No answers here easy to find
Days of sunlight and joy become grind
Loves and loved feel as if no longer mine
So abrupt and disconnected from my true mind
Divorced from the merriment of self
Hidden away on some unreachable shelf
Wish I could come down to play
Share in the joy and sunlight so gay
Yet here I am caught in beartrap so tight
Immersed in melancholy deep as Winter long night
Seems to extend further than I can see
Hoping my life will be there when I am free
From this king tide of depression  Surrounding and drowning melancholy me.

Fair times and hard times

Fair times and hard times

 * fair times and hard times *
Fair times and hard times
Doing your time
Living your life
Loving and living and crying so sweet
The laughter so loud sweeps you from your feet
Nothing to hold onto
Nothing to lose
Warm in the arms of the love you choose
So many fine suitors
Such a rich choice
Single or married or recently divorced
These suitors are falling at your feet by choice
Honey for voices
And always so sweet
They bring you their gifts
Like a cat catching birds
Bringing them in to show what their done
Successful and bright with most of their hair
Pampered and clothed with straightened teeth
The best of the flock
From these you can pick
So take your choice and make it the best
There is a use by date
On them and on you I confess
A ticking clock that changes its face
From beautiful to ordinary with a swift shift of hands
So if you are for choosing
Make now your choice
And set in place all of your plans
For their are fair times and hard times
Doing your time
Or living your life
Loving and living and crying so sweet
Take your own life and make it complete.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

After the falls

After the falls

+ after the falls +
I saw the bodies
Both of them fall
Beneath a wall of water
None could survive such a drop
And if they did
The freezing cold waters
Freshly thawed from alpine snow
Would stop the heart
When plunge into the maelstorm
And if he survived that
Then the maelstorm would finish him
Tossed and turned beneath the water
Perhaps body to never surface
And if it did be lifeless pale blue
As the last drops from a writer's nib
Yet he is back
Whippet body flush with rude health
His violin playing as discordant as ever it was
Intellect sharp and thoughts rapid
Yet I know it cannot be him
What was it he used to say
When all other reasons are removed
The impossible is the truth
So now I know
With all deductions concluded
Sherlock Holmes is an alien.

always there

always there

 * always there *
Half bricks and spitting flares
Sharpened fifty pence
Winging their way onto playing surface
Another heartless gutless loss
Foreign player on 20 thou a week
Bloody tentative and bloody meek
Couldn't pass and wouldn't tackle
Coach couldn't organise piss-up in a brewery
Our defence defines chaos
Attack more toothless than a chicken
Wingers young and inexperienced
Fodder for the hardened opposition
General of our midfield
Has creative artistry of an office memo
All our pluses add to less than one
Our goalkeeper couldn't catch a cold
Referees never see our frees
Linesmen always keep their flags down
Half goals scored against us are offside
Burn down the terraces
Lynch the management
Tear up my member's ticket
Would do it now except
Got to get home to bills and Beth
See you here again next week
Pausing as leaving clubroom door
A passing thought I want to share
Perhaps they will improve
Find their form and a samba groove
Heard the opposition's best player might be injured
After winning five they're due a loss
Maybe the captain can win the toss
A bit of luck and a goal-keeping error
We could easily go one up
Some stout defending
A well weighted throw
Release our winger
And away we go
A cross in deep onto the head
Of that well paid foreigner we call Fred
A bullet flying into the net
Two nil up and what the heck
All our players grown in size
Showing more skill than other side
Coach has this all worked out
Our goalkeeper tall and resolute
No getting pass him in this game
Another glorious charge up the field
A long shot dividend does yield
Three nil up and is half time
Even the referee's calls are sublime
Whistling every unfringement
To our team's benefit
Second half is much the same
Four more goals
At final whistle opposition slink out
Heads hung low in shame
This is how I project
We will improve in our next game
The faithful supporters always here
Nod their heads and sip their beer
As I head out going home
Always next week in the stands
To support the team
Of blue or red or white or green.

Warrior code

Warrior code

* WARRIOR CODE *
Give me fresh ale and roasted beef
let me gorge myself
This body warring been
Seen friends die
Heroic acts and slaughter
Fill my cup and drown
All memories of my deeds
Terror in faces glimpsed
Places pillaged for half a crown
Loaded with cattle and sheep
Longship slowed by weight
Creaks across atlantic swells
Carries us home again
Far from the hell created
By our battles proud.

patterns

patterns

 *+*+* patterns *+*+*
Drive to find patterns
Human brain astute
Gathering flecks of information
Trying to be over cute
An overcoat in summer
A car turns to follow you
Sunglasses worn inside
A strange bulge in a pocket
They are spying on you
Following your every move
How she stands and flicks her hair
Colour of her eyes
The sentences she loses track of
Length of skirt she wears
Seductress seducing you
Showing interest in just you
The brain makes patterns clear
Even if brain might be wrong
Some great benefits may appear
Break the ice with conversation
Outline who you are
See if she can find a hook
To hang an attraction from
Then perhaps might confirm
As fingers slip over bra
Yes we got it right
Wonder how far can take it
Just one night or a week
A month perhaps a year
How far out should brain project
To protect you from your fear
Reading patterns into actions
Who is sitting where
Her toothbrush in your bathroom
Bathplug blocked with hair
How she makes you coffee
Watching television she likes
Seeing her consider your friends
Sharing a wardrobe crowded
Her hair dryer has appeared
After a while her lease runs out
Now seems you are sharing
A small bank account
Just for food bills and the rent
Each evening she is there
You meet at door and kiss
Such domesticity did appear
Brain makes patterns form
Longer walks on the beach
Comfort at home
Talking of parents with knowledge
Friends no longer epicentre
Of the life you lead
Dividing recent life
Into now she's here and then
Examining the finances
Looking much further ahead
How would it be to always wake
With this closest friend in your bed
The brain does patterns conjure
Projects what you have seen
Married couples in ruts suffocating
Warring parents inflammatory
The rates of divorce
How long a mortgage lasts
Staring at children in the street
Could you deal with them
Do you want a life of toil
Hammered down to one place
Choosing schools for disinterested kids
Trying to earn enough
To pay for holidays and the rates
Car now almost a relic
Wonder where the money went
All those patterns seething
Just below the surface
Do you examine them closely
Or close your eyes and blindly trust
Or is that just enough pattern
Forming in your life
Discrete parts joining together
In life's patterns infinite
Is it happy ever after
So many patterns to de-encrypt.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

City blah

City blah

*+ city blah *+
Pressing out from streetscapes
Residing suffocating between
Generic boxes of steel and class
Older classical buildings reside
Made up to be from ancient times
Facades of curves pillars and dimensions
Not flat botoxed appearance
Devoid of character or grace
Not a Bauhaus relic
Where function conquers form
Where streetscape dumbed down
By architects with sliderules
Who in any other century
Would be gluing together matchboxes
In a factory full of sulphur
A role safely suited to their lack of spark
Repetitive and without beauty
As the designs they propagate
Along our city streets and roads
A sterile unnatural angular affront
To our human sense of perspective
To the world in which we live.

Arctic Blues

Arctic Blues

* Arctic Blues *
Lost walruses
Out past the Arctic blue
The paralysis of cold
Chill fingers of forget
Here in white wastelands
Where seasons merge
As a great fog of ice
Here where calving bergs
Show no milk of kindness
Stoving in hulls of wooden ships
The boats they try and sail
Out beyond the shore
Towards the Winter dream
Which is where they once were
Cosy with family and friends
This land a tortured prison
For Franklin and his starving men
The NorthWest passage lies not here
Only snow and ice and polar bear.

The western knife

The western knife

* the "western" knife *
Trials and tribulations
Eddies of our modern life
In a modern country
With our modern debts
Modern family and modern wife
We have enough to feed us
Dwelling secure and clothes warm
The rule of Law tamed our streets
Politics an electoral bore
There is the most likely fact
Die in beds of old age
Yet then we ask for more
To solve our issues of the spirit
Raised by such a comfortable life
Our cultural achievements measured
By going from 8 track to iPod
No longer working to produce
Anything of substance and value
Earning money by making money
Perform unnatural acts of procreation
Our farms are worked by so few
Manufacturing jobs are offshore
We are the truly comfortable
Beset with so many plights
We diligently seek to ignore
How our people are disconnected
Cities full of hate and bile
The unsteady realisation
At some time a reality check
Revaluation of what we hold dear
A need to fight for some greater good
Not the ability to place on every corner
Purveyours of fast food
We enjoy our lives without want
Pressing forward to discover
Some greater truth in this matter
To define our mortal lives
We have meaning and all we do
Is not fruitless and non-achieving
Instead we are part of
Some greater challenging journey
We are as yet incapable to define.

Eureka

Eureka

 * eureka steadily *
Easily said
Never done
Surges inspiration
Useless without
Perspiration glowing
All great ideas
Achievements
Even ordeals
Require the work
The breakthrough
Sudden quirky knowing
Based on the foothills
Build by others deeds
Hours of toil and grit
Though they never achieved it
Satisfaction of knowing
The atom which is glowing
Heat supplied to provide power
Warm homes and factories
Allow industry to thrive
Would not be reached
Without steps multudious
Building the ladder up
So the final leap of intellect
Merely a significant step.

Leave not undone

Leave not undone

 * leave not undone *
For the very best fictions
Are those we tell ourselves
In the quiet hours
When our hearts are troubled
Of all that we truly are
Knight shining upon a horse
A creature of such virtue
A paragon of truth and understanding
Is some surprise we are not a Unicorn
Crowned with a single spiralled horn
Rather than a human being
Who on two legs does struggle
Since very day was born
To equate life which is lead
To that to which should have led
As if Fate had singled us out
To catch our coat tails and hold us back
When in truth the observer sees
The only one holding us back
Is ourselves and how world perceive
This world of wonder we make so dark
Starvation of soul our only mark
Through the manner in which we live
Denying opportunities presented
As a river might choose easiest paths
Cut through oozing sliding mud
Rather than risk the rocky course
So much harder to accomplish
All the things you truly wish
Even harder if you do not start out
To do your best without a doubt
Unharnessed and untethered live
The best life you can give
For nothing surer in this world
That if you aim to not succeed
The world will not pause or care
For your life to one only truly matters
And when all is said and done
And upon your deathbed lie
Would you prefer to recall what you did not
Rather than all you have lived and done.

Best fiction

Best fiction

 * best fiction *
What truths in fiction held
A mirror unrecognised to the face
We look and learn close to nothing
Of those fallible persons in that other universe
Not seeing who they are is us
Nor in their foibles our own
Their lack of understanding of their actions
So forlorn and pitiful in extreme
From which we make comedy
Is only if a moment so aligns
To contain a feeling we can recall
Feel memory's core shaken
Is there any acknowledgement
The best fiction is reality
Told by someone cleverer than ourselves
Who can pick apart every trait of characters
Have the narrator present with empathy
The trials universal we face
Even if no Ring to Mordor need be taken
We must decide if we will carry our own values
Even unto the gates of pain or death
And only through fellowship of friends
Gifts of love and understanding
Such magic often beyond our reach
Can we survive and be our best.

Kristy

Kristy

 * Kristy *
Music in my head
Tunes and refrains of Kristy
I only really found her music
When she was already dead
The strange thing is how
I had already liked two songs she did
Before I ever got close to her music
As if looking across a cafe
And seeing a girl you usually see
And admire on the morning train
And the conversation continues
Except with me and Kristy
The conversation is all one way
She is dead so I can say what I like
And she cannot acknowledge it
Yet she speaks through her songs
Little pieces of multi-faceted Kristy
Which I interpret and cling to
An unrequited love of sound
It was Free World which first caught my attention
An anti-consumerism song
About empowerment and money
The clash of ideologues
I did not know then
She did a version of New England
I had always admired
Unusual for a songwriter
To allow another artist to add another verse
Yet Billy Bragg did for Kristy
Perhaps he and she were an item
Or just good friends
I am jealous of Billy for that
Then there is a fairytale of new york
Sung by the Pogues
Given balance and life by Kristy
Her husband was producing the Pogues
And Kristy was going through a period of stage fright
So they taped her singing to a taped section
Of the Pogues main singer
A chameleon of influences
Kristy gets the tone rhythm and tenor just right
If you ever hear other female singers
Trying to sing the part
You can hear them trying to be Kristy-lite
The song the role she made her own
And blah blah blah
Facts and dates and opinions
Songs she sang and wrote
A three disc master-set of her songs
All do little justice to the fact
I love her music
And wonder what music she would be doing
If she were not dead.

times long ago

times long ago


** times long ago **

All of the dancers
In hand-me-down dresses
Darned and sewn
slightly worn and frayed at the edges
Spinning so slowly cross the hall floor
All of their smiles
So tired and faded
As are the posters at the door
All of them looking so jaded
Wasn't like this in times long ago.

Knights in their armour
No longer stand so straight and so tall
Backs are so bent
And vision is dulled
Armours not shining
Battered and torn
Swords are old ploughshares
Left rusting and forlorn
Wasn't like this in times long ago.

The old schoolground's cold
Lines for playing games are faded
Cigarette butts nest in a corner
So classrooms are bare
The laughter of children
No longer here to share
Look at your hands
see their so grey
Wasn't like this in times long ago.

The heartbeat is slower
Enjoyment is lower
Passion has almost ebbed away
The dreams of tomorrows
Forged in the yesterday
Still haven't arrived
And today is not what
You hoped it might be
In those times so long ago.

You made all the promises
Fulfilled all your bargains
Made compromises needing to be done
Still doesn't seem
You captured the dream
You once beheld so clearly
When you were so much younger
Eyes were bright
Your conscience was clear
In those times so long ago.

Had so much to tell
Now journey is shortening
Tale's almost ended
And you can still recall
How precious and fresh
How rich burned the life
How real and important it felt
When you lived the story bright
In those times long ago.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Regal signs

Regal signs

 * Regal signs *

Lines on the record
Scratched and broken
Coronation fanfare sounds like
an out of tune harpsichord

Jubilee celebration newsprint
Smudged and disjointed
Can no longer read
Story that was there

Computer screen
Pixels are frozen
Image glorious is lost
No remaining communication

Flags at half mast
This message is olden
No needs for words
The king is dead.

Friday, June 11, 2010

What makes a Writer

What makes a Writer

 * What makes a Writer *

The words do not make the writer
Nor a character affable
A writer Is not the result of binding
All life's experience into a tome
Is not the long late nights
The trips to locations find
Is not every wry or silly crack
Is not monsters in the dark
Nor a publishing agent dear
None of these make a writer
Though all of them might help

Writers are not born
Nor manufactured in a workshop
Cannot absorb the skill by osmosis
From books sitting in a library
The finest pen not needed to write
Best paper or computer not assist
To make a writer true
Though all of them might help

Is not the story gaily told
Planned out on cards or toilet roll
Is not the support from others
Those who praise you eagerly
And their criticisms withhold
Is not the other ones
Who every word or phrase denounce
Surviving them does not a writer make
Though all of them might help

The writer to be made
A writer to be claimed
Is to write the words
From one beyond the twenty thousand
To complete a story ample
Which someone would read
Is to believe the book so written
Is worthy of their time
This is what makes a writer
Though all the rest might help.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Or words to that effect by John Connolly.

Against shotgun weddings

Against shotgun weddings

** against shotgun weddings **
Shotgun weddings
So much out of style
Single mothers now make do
Parents let sleeping dogs lie
Instead of shotgun weddings
Likely to end sadly and badly
A bride joined to the unwilling
Never likely to survive
Rigours and bumps of weddinghood
Days beyond cake used by date
After the honeymoon
After every shred of momentum shed
When the vows become a harness
A chore to which your wed
No sleep as young one crying
Mortgage or rent to be paid
So many tasks to attend to
The path is longer if badly laid
If lead to path's start
With a heavy unresponsive heart
Shotgun barrels all motivation you possess
Shall not last that long
At some point the tension crack
And wedded pair disintegrate.

*+ uncensored woodland spoken +*

*+ uncensored woodland spoken +*

*+ uncensored woodland spoken +*

The bloody birds are too loud
Their squawking a raucous chorus
More football fans than delight doves
No sweet cooing in their terms
Hedgerow obscenities they scream
And this in Autumn with air cold
Not as if they defend a nest
Or some light blue eggs precious
The language extreme they use
Is just disgusting avarian abuse
Discolouring air I breath
Waiting for a train which will not come
I am in an unpleasant mood indeed
Sun is closeted behind drab clouds
Ground is wet and wind chill high
Fingers so numb could not open my fly
An unhappy camper am I
And then these bloody birds start
A screeching crying foul mouthed shout
From limbs on trees and bushes
Such rantings loud and obscene
Bring forth woodland blushes
The blackbirds always seemed so nice
Thrushes in conversation fair
The pigeons never been heard to say
The kind of words they all now share
Perhaps been hanging with seagulls to much
With their salty exclamations rough
For everything now in conversation
Verb or noun or adjective
Is a proclamation filthy
Air is crowded with sh*t and bloody
Words that rhyme with duck
The nightingale of sweet voice
Is acting as if has no choice
Delivers a monologue singular
Of the qualities lacking in the plover
Translated for nicer ears
Implies the plover is no lover
Sticks its beak where it should not
And if the plover had any sense
Would go forth and be fruitful
Before nightingale sees it off
So the tweeting insults fly
Carried forth by verbal assaults
Upon the ears of those who wait
For a train now 20 minutes late.

Resources tax

Resources tax

+resources tax+
The resources tax is all go
Or will be after consultation
The usual industry to and fro
Is not unreasonable to expect
That if they mine it the should pay
Yet is 40% to much to project
Is not a tax you'd find not fine
Considering everything else is taxed
Unless you have ownership of a mine.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Upwardly Mobile No More

Upwardly Mobile No More

 * upwardly mobile no more *
You always think
Be bigger better brighter
As you move forward
Ever upward and successful
Then you encounter the bumps
Of lesser never darker
Achievements have been sidelined
Rising cost of living ate
Benefits you had been accruing
Paying for the family things
Consumes the excesses you once knew
Ate not only fat now into also muscle
You become keener and leaner
Not as profiligate as before
Still not enough as ship lists
Seems sprung a fiscal leak
Debt is pouring in
The pumps of earnings inadequate
To the task presented
All hands are going down
This ship soon will sink
All dreams of yesteryear
Mired in stinking bog of debt
Long work days grow longer
Inspiration's flame has guttered
Another could have been somebody
Defeated by simple reality.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

After the fire

After the fire

* after the fire *
Because there is a semblance of
Your smile in the smoke
An allusion hinting to
Your form and presence slight
In a column of heated air
A fluttering nothingness rising up
A political promise in your vows
If all is well so are we
No storm walls or defences
No stamina in face of dark or fear
You are only what you bring in this moment now
The wind may change and blow you away
Your mind could turn away
A different season find a different self
How long you are here you cannot say
For a moment year or day
A column of rising smoke
A plume distinct and strong
Changeable by wind or rain
Who you are is inconsistent
Your heart a worthless compass spins
No true love North attain
To no direction commit
Merely ashes and burnt air
Remains of fire fierce
Blown by winds of change
We never truly stood a chance.

SATC "average" man

SATC "average" man

*** s*x and the city "average" man ***

Allow my smile to reveal
The nature of my heart
Kindness resides within
There is no darkness here
No monsters of the Id do dwell
No fruedian mother complex deal
I am as well balanced
A model of a modern gentleman
Have no fear of nappies
Can discuss DeBeauvior philosophies
Fluently in five languages
Have traveled across the world
Worked for charities in third world
Marched to save the whale and stop war
While building up my private bank
Dealing in ethical stocks
Promoting alternative energies
I can use a knife and fork
Cook with a flair born of practice
Know the best wines
And fashion sense of a well bred prince
I no longer run triathlons every week
Every month is enough for my feet
My penthouse apartment is perfect and neat
I thought I had all I did need
But seeing your face made me believe
There is more for one life
When entwined with another
I'd give up all for a life spent with you
Impulsive and unusual but completely true
I wait for your response
The jet leaves at noon
We can be off to Paris or Rome
Cleared my work for the next four weeks
Believe in my smile
See into my heart
I was made for you
This love the real deal.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Maddening crowd

Maddening crowd

 *** maddening crowd ***
Such a maddening crowd
To find countryside to be free
But those selfsame humans pursue
Twist the silence you would use
Into natter natter of chat
The verbose howlings of crap
Devoid of own opinions
Parrot prattle others thoughts
Delinquent of intellect
Poor in posture and manner
I become a snob when find myself
Surrounded by crowd so maddening
You are fat sir because you are not fit
Stop shoving fast food down your maw
Then your clothes might more easily fit
Rather than walrus folds of blubber escaping
To make those of us sighted suffer
And we who have sense of smell
Wish you would learn basic hygiene
Maybe you need not wash every other day
But at least once a season would be fairer
On our poor assaulted nostrils
The manner in which you talk
Expressing thoughts tabloid deep
Truly make me physically sick
You only pause your racist diatribe
to sprout obscene misgynistic utterances
You are lower than the cattle
For though they have not half your brain
In chewing sleepily on the cud
They use twice as much brain as you
A passionate zealot for mediocrity
An upholder of the common idiot's right
To be both common and an idiot
To call you fool is to slander
Every fool who ever lived
Your mere existence calls into question
Forever upward evolution
Though I guess if we can evolve
Then Darwin might say fair enough
We can devolve as merrily
Uniformed in corporate wear
Threads formed from fossil fuels precious
Your face is forgettable
As a dying sheep
The best service you can perform your society
Is to die without a fuss
In the depths of your snoring farting sleep.

Spreading stains

Spreading stains

 *+ spreading stains +*
Tags and splashes of colour
Entire train journey a gallery
Suburban Visgoths using spray cans
Make their bids for immortality
On fences bridges and garage walls
Frentic frantic jarring daubings
Trying to communicate a sense of place
Claim recognition from the world
When most travelers as they look out
See the scribblings painted
Only think of visual pollution
These marks oil slicks of suburbia
Inescapable and unremovable
A foreign language ugly
As soon as passed dismissed from thoughts
Wish those self made artists would admit
Crayon class in kindergarten was their peak.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Karma

Karma

Karma

Probably better
As a pet
Being a red setter
Further up the food chain
Than a pygmy hamster
Or dead goldfish down the drain
Probably better to be
A giant rather than a weed
Something which goes stomping round
Rather than an annoyance in the ground
Not sure how or what karma is set
To decide what our soul will get
Bug or bee or bear
Fish or tree or platypus
How would you become rare
Is it easier to be a common animal
For most are chickens or pigs
Garden variety apples or figs
Not exotic rare orchids
Or last remaining polecats
How is it decided
Where our soul this life resided.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Heart Advice

Heart Advice

 ** Heart Advice **
Close your heart with padlocks
Seal your heart in clingwrap
Hide your heart in tupperware
Never let your heart out
How easy damaged is your heart
How quickly scar tissue grows
This fragile engine of the soul
The hurt inside no one knows
There are so few who you can trust
To safely hold your heart in their hands
So few who you can rely on
To protect your heart not maim
And if in trusting you discover
They are unworthy of your trust
That you have misplaced your heart
How swiftly your heart is hurt
Bruised and battered purple
Some such hearts never heal
Can never be shared again
Their owners are broken dolls
Their lives torn with despair
Such is life for those with hearts
Cracked hearts beyond repair
So wrap your heart in foambeads
Never let your heart out of your sight
Bind your heart in bubblewrap
Surround your heart with cushions
Never let your heart be injured
Never let your heart be broken
Be the perfect figurine on the shelf
To precious to be played with
Never moved or held or broken
An ornament to commonsense
Not a life lived in risk
A life lived with passion and love
Balancing laughter against the gulf
Of sadnesses encountered
So when they come to lay you down
Bury you in the earth
Consume your body with fire
Let them discover a heart well used
The seals all been broken
For this heart was brave and open
No warranty could preserve this heart
Yet this heart served purpose well
To let you feel your life
Experience terror and the pain
And in loving always gain
This heart outside the wrapping
Rubbed bright with use
Shopworn from day you were born
This heart of truth and love
This heart your heart
Which served with joy and love.

Wheel

Wheel

* Wheel *
A wheel so simple
Goes round round round
An evolutionary jump
Innovation priceless
Made available the carrying
A new world of humanity
Allowed muscles to combine
Move great weights than alone
To tether animals to a cart
Have Nature do our work
Turn the world upon it head
As the wheel so simple
Goes turn turn turn
Circular in shape
Upon an axle place
Used by all the races
Once wheel firmly put in place
Now seems so commonplace
To see the wheel so simple
Providing energy for our world
Making all we know
Go round round round.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Clouded thoughts

Clouded thoughts

 * clouded thoughts *
Often clouds
Take other forms
Lying back
Staring up
Africian savanna
Not as full up
With galloping herds
Antelope and elephants
Regal giraffes swaying
As runway models on stilts
All serious expressions
Wearing another person's vision
Who tasted guided
In equal parts
By misgostonisc leanings
And crass lewd leerings
Such weird projections found
In those distant cloud confections
From this place upon the ground.

DIE LIH

DIE LIH

 *+ DIE LIH +*
Death is easy
Life is not
Quarrels and arrows of life
Stick uneasily and deep
When drawn out leave barbs
Scars the outer and inner flesh
Draws pain across heart
Sets tears to falling hard
Bitter blows on your cheek
Salty poison sliding to lips
A sign of loss and understanding
Such loss as you never knew
The trees no longer bend to wind
Gravity an abstraction
Entered now own world of hurt
The torture of love lost
Death is easy
Life is hard
Between the dunes and sea.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Wtf

Wtf

* what the fructose *
The modern culture
Popular culture
The rocks you can build with
Which are common knowledge
Through the culture in which
You exist and in which you communicate
Is there any universality of thought left
Some common baserock from which
A majority of Western civilization
Can be reached and opened
For all the talk of generic societies
We seem to be averting a communism of thought
A diluting of culture
When one culture or norm begins
To establish itself as dominate
Be it religion or trademark or activity
At the edges a great crumbling occurs
Which results in cracks across popular culture
A redefining of the spreading dominate norm
So the dominate norm projected
Only retains a significant greater minority of the whole
Rather than a definable majority
Is this an evolutionary skill
Humanity avoiding full commonaility of thought
Of activities or philosphies all the same
For such single specism would result
In a single flaw being targetted to overwhelm all
Instead by constant crumbling nonacceptance
By new cults and ideas outside the mainstream
Means any single threat based on a norm
Will have a significant impact but not total
If turns out tattoos kill then those non-tattooed live on
Or if ipods carry a poison transmitted by use
Not all shall cease to hear music
The human race avoid extinction
Because some listen to vinyl
Or cds or MP3 players
But not ipods
The diversification of humanity
Saves us from dead end of generic failures.

May dissolving

May dissolving

** May dissolving **
Last day of May
Enter like a lamb
Depart like a lion
In the southern climes
Our May harbringer of Winter
Sketches snow on distant peaks
Lays frosting on green grass
Trees shed leaves if they can
Others bent by weight
As dew or frost or rain clings
To every leaf or branch
Ground grown hard and cold
A frozen slice of earth
Somewhere deep animals sleep
In places snug and warm
While upon the surface we scurry
A land of flattened dulled light
Days shorter than your work
Darkness closes tighter earlier
Stars shine bright as specks of ice
In this world of Autumn sliding
Out of May and into Winter
Turn on heating and carry umbrellas
Chilly days of intemperate weather
Are here to stay.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Greek Blessings

Greek Blessings

 + Greek Blessings +
Tell me truths
Those kisses in your smile
Surely favoured by Gods
And the fire in your heart
Wrought by Prometheus
No mortal crucible could hold
Such molten passions as you contain

I linger on your skin
Feel warmness pulsing
Senses in my body
Duality of moments
Emotions conjuring feelings
Feelings caught by presence
Closest presence there can be

Entwining we dance
Set rhythms of our souls
Soaring ever higher
Trying to merely hover
Even as tempo escapes
Rhythm anarchaic reigns
Uncontrolled reaction takes place
Lost in dark
Supernova sparks cross mind

A fleeting moment of total oneness
Endorphins rush and wash
Bodies arching in pleasure
Caught on estacies hook
Collapse spent and sated
Embrace the rich silence

Olympus was reached and left
Aphrodities gift consumed
Fallen angels sprawled
Our hearts exhausted pound
Now mortals fixed to earth
Once more become.

Horizion high

Horizion high

 + horizion high +
Soaring blue as kisses
Unbound horizon high
Towards never ending distance
Of kisses almost asleep
Seeking sweet lips curve
The moist warm loving heat
Pressing gentle to confirm
An acknowledgment replied
Lips in lingering appreciation
Explore electricity of other
Tip of tongue enters
Silent conversation of mouths
A moments hesistancy as welcomed
Tip of flame to hearth of thoughts
Conflaguration always possible
Sharing sleepy kisses
So deep and safe and warm
Found the journey better
Since these lips been found.

Swirl on skin

Swirl on skin

** Swirl on Skin **
Swirl on skin
Tactile brush
Raises skin warm blush
Tendril feelings
Reach in deep
A point of swooning bliss
Skin to magnetic skin
Swooping caress
Lips to skin
Space between exhausted
Body letting you in
Immersing self in
Sensations trickling
Tickling liveliness
Of each touch and stroke
Lips or fingers or hands or body
My inflexibility becomes malleable
As against you lie
Bodies kissing to each other
Tactile union crosses
From physical to thoughts
All else crowded out
By focus glorious upon
Swirl on skin.