Poetry

Monday 22 April 2024

That's why mum's gone to iceland

 Yes mum's gone to iceland

She's left the neon lights behind

The adverts and the hard won

Victories of being kind


Yes mum's gone to iceland

I see her in the shelves

In the frozen freezers

With the salmon en croute


I should have gone there with her

Should have tailed her like a hound

But I couldn't bring myself to be there

I was a vain and angry child


I thought she was weak for being left behind

I was ashamed of the sadness that I felt in her eyes

For it all is still in iceland,  in the frozen isles

In the exploding geysers, in the shipwrecked paradise


Yes mum's gone to iceland, and it's the end of the world

But only the beginning of tomorrow for another boy or girl

Born in spring like the swallow

Born to cross desert or sea

Yes the bird has flown to iceland

Now she's as free as free can be

Gone fishing

 Don't confuse an angel with the hand of God

Though they may tread lightly not on my dreams have trod

The cusps and the auspices of a fragile frigid key

That rings out in the silences of a murdered tranquility


I charge you with the licenses to kill given us to obey as law

With the private alliances that sell the homes of the poor

With all your wretched violences and a crop of quarters more

Torn by bubonic balances and fought out in religious war


The sweet terror of death laps longingly at the shore

The risible visible fire shows, spark the darkest core

The shadows of ambulances raging down the street

Heavy in the night violations of the keepers' peace


Make me blind in boldness, bolt shut the door on sin

And Cast out the devil's kindness into the hole within

The Frames of the window leave a pain in me

For my see-through soul is grinning at the animal sea


And charging like a rhino or extended like a giraffe

The tectonic plates of day crash like storm-blown telegraph

Fly me off to the end, make an end, now what would that be?

To see all heaven in a rage at a little fish caught out at sea

Sunday 21 April 2024

I see you

 I saw you in the forest grove

Where the vine hangs down

In green treasure troves


I see you in the robin egg shells

And the path that swells

Under heavy rain

Where our feet trudge

And we are changed

forever like the seasons


I see you in the thronging mist

That lays in the valley curdling

Like milk that seeps from teats kissed

To the mountains clinging


Like brothers of the holy way

Like sisters of the habit

I see you on the stile say

I think I've seen a rabbit


I see you in your true blue

Like a gown of royal splendour

And I call you a friend of mine

As the swinging of the pendulum

Tuesday 16 April 2024

Eats chocolate flies

I learnt something new about bats the other day

Oh yes Harold, what was that?

Well apparently they eat chocolate

No, they don't do they?

Yeah not half, they can't get enough of it

They ea' chocolate in the air

And even when they are trying to avoid crashing into an

Object, 

Why would they crash Harold?

Well, they've got very bad eyesight , you never

heard the expression blind as a bat Maureen?

Oh yes I have come to think of it

Well anyway by way of seeing better

and thinking cleverer they have a nibble

on a bounty perhaps or a flake

A flake!

What kind of a bat carries a flake with them?

Well something anyway in one of their pouches

and then they can avoid the object


....Doesn't it strike you kind of funny

How they suddenly see like a blurry image and 

then somehow have time grab a bite of chocolate

And then that gives them the boost of eyesight

and quick manoeuvring power they need just in time

Harold?

MMm

Not to mention, if you try storing a flake in your trouser

pocket, you're soon just going to end up

With chocolate down your trousers!

Perhaps Maureen..

Let me see that article Harold

That there word is echolocates not eats chocolate

They haven't got time for that Harold

It's sonor you know like on the submarine

And it isn't an excuse for you to eat any more bounty bars

You've have two today already.

When you can echocolate and fly around

catching flies in the dark

Then maybe you would deserve another bounty

But until that time, the cupboard stays shut!

Monday 15 April 2024

Khaki moods

 I mean if you want it 

Let it go

Like the fig tree

It covers

And is revealing 

In the desire to cover

Creates a temptation

The fruit was already there

But not ripe


If you want it let it grow

He digs in the garden of Gethsemane

The sure shrugs of the bombs 

As they fall, let go

Upon a corrugated iron roof

The shrugs of the shoulders of soldiers

As they walk into the proof of life let go

War proof, death proof, black as black can be


If you want it

Let it show

The Khaki trousers on the tree

Where did I leave my car keys?

My ID, my sanity?

It's hanging on a branch over there


With each loss the tree grows stronger

As it takes back what we need no longer

She in her dementia husk

and the Oak cries don't forget about us

Every tree is a mother

Every leaf is a lover

Once loved in lust

Now green is grown from dust

And shattered shadows invade the horizon

And I know you have your eyes on

Me, and I have mine on you

But we cannot do it for it's all so see through


And plain to see like the tragi-comedy of love

Always a swallows and amazons affair

Except this time it means a porno and not going anywhere

Ordering in and Ho Chi Minh, chow mein

And Luis Lane

Because tiananmen square was a bloody battle ground

And taken teeth of sailors

The tongues of mermaids

And their longing tails

Cut off before they can 

Post them in the mail

By an Amazon messenger Hermes

Hermaphrodite snail

Who loves both ways

To give and to receive

As do we all with our

Khaki armies up our sleeves


Wednesday 10 April 2024

Time's illusion

 And time was so locked away

And time was all we had to say

Time to say good day, 

Good bye

Time has flown away

Time's a bird in the sky

And Time's a magnate

Ready to attract the hangmate

Hanging in the Square


He died, So did she

It was only yesterday

Or was it tomorrow,

Or will it be

Oh dementia has time to borrow

Nothing lost and nothing's gained?

Hey nothing will ever be the same

But nothing is

Or Everything can change

And it will do

Or has done

Or simply time is a ransom

For a king

For Gold or Green

Or life or profit

Or nothing gained like change in pocket

Or holes in cheese

And why oh please Time is

An illusion to me

Monday 8 April 2024

Thor the post modern

 And we hit the posts in and we made them sing

And the rubber hammer was like a tuning fork thing

It tuned into all the Gods in the clouds above

And Thor came down to hit the posts in for us


With each thunderbolt

He electrified the fences

And then he swore at all the posts

But they never once took offences


Thor was a most willing volunteer that day

When the rain came down on the Strawberry Line

And we all began to pray


"Thor just get us out of here!"

"Thor just finish the job!"

And Thor came down and brought his tools

For Thor's that kind of God


I wish I'd known him better

Maybe asked for his autograph perhaps

But hey I'm just a man of letters

And he's a man of action 'n' thunderclaps


There stands another post driven into the ground

Hark you can hear the hammer ring another pound


I lost sight of him just around 4 o'clock in the afternoon

The rain was falling heavily, total eclipse of sun and moon

But then I saw him going down over the hill like the sun

He sure was a son of Shepton Mallet

And if he wasn't, then I'd be a son of a gun