Untitled (Jan 86)

A laughing infant like a bubble bouncing off your knee
will wrap you in its arms protectively
and you will oversee its adolescent struggles
whilst with each teenage writhing
It will shatter your illusions
Protesteth not!
For time inevitably, brings its own conclusions

With wizened face, peering back to the gloom dead past
Savouring flickering memories lovingly
Your wrinkled hand snatches out to grasp
Yet - they're quick and trickle through your fingers
and add to your confusions
But weep ye not!
The march of time will being its own conclusions

The lips that touch; the arms, the hot embrace
The present passion of loves closest face
are scattered in the swirl of dying leaves
and with Love's passing fancies
problems gather in profusion
Do not despair!
For time, the great provider, brings its own conclusion

"All who knew Him" Jan 1986

"All who knew Him
liked and respected him and
we will miss him deeply"

My God! The baby's crying again
Shut it up! Shut it up!
He's driving me mad
Lord! Pass me a Valium

His shoes are scuffed and dirty
How many times, how many?
Have I told him
My God! He'll be the same at thirty

Get up! Get up will you?
You've a job now
Quick. you going to be late
Is THAT your wage? Here's my I.O.U

Her! He must be joking
She's common. A trollop!
She's far too young
Marry a lass that's an investment

I was proud to see him with his brother
standing there
and him the best man as well
a fine woman; she'll make me a grandmother

Look at him! Going on forty
what a useless lump
Why did I ever marry such a man?
Who would have ever thought?

He says he's ill - he can't be!
Its an excuse to shirk
off work - what about the kids?
He's very quite and still
Speak to me!!!

"All who new Him
liked and respected him and
we will miss him deeply"

Early Days

Early Days

Weeps yet a new brave world
for foul tomorrow?
Nay, greets each bright new morn
and shields it's sorrow

Barks the new brand man
and brays his triumph
little thoughts of distant
coming dyings

Holds aloft his arms
and grasps the Sun's beam
future light is stilled
in darkened dreams

Rattles hard his spears
and stalks the stalker
all future hunts will turn
upon the Walker

Let me awake into a dream...

Let me awake into a dream

Let me awake into a dream
that does not hold
the dripping,clinging problems of the day
Let my eyes open
on a field of yellow golden corn
mingled with poppies
and a softly wafted
line of rape
Let me sleep then
let me awake
into a dream
- that I might escape...

Conclusions

Conclusions

A laughing infant like a bubble bouncing off your knee
will wrap you in it's arms protectively
and you will oversee it's adolescent struggles
whilst with each teenage writhing
It will shatter your illusions
Protesteth not!
For time inevitabily brings its own conclusions

With wizened face, peering back to the gloom-dead past
Savouring flickering memories lovingly
Your wrinkled hand snatches out to grasp
Yet- they're quick and trickle through your fingers
and add to you confusions
But weep ye not!
The march of time will bring it's own conlcusions

The lips that touch,the arms,the hot embrace
the present passion of loves closest face
are scattered in the swirl like dying leaves
and with Love's passing fancies
problems gather in profusion
Do not despair!
For time, the great provider, brings it's conclusion

The Party

The Party

Harry was there in his own private hell
small Lucy won't make it - she can't reach the bell

Julie, red-headed, red-eyed and red
and poor silly Cecil just got out of bed

A fat man who sat there and smiled smug with gin
a bald man, small sherry, not once known to grin

Cold Colin, all golfer laughed at some joke
Dave, an old hippy, no drink just a smoke

Chill Moira once pretty sat stuck in the glass
and Maria her sister a much dimmer lass

Cathy so banal with good living yearns
will she meet a Prince Charming that earns?

Tall Tony a con man who smiled to himself
and swift silent Michael foredoomed for the shelf

Dear Vernie all mixed-up complete and confused
and Boney, her husband, once funny now used

The Party fell silent as you go to bed
the night and the its sounds and the Party are dead

The Vampire

The Vampire (1987)

Midst towering peaks, its lofty spires soar
and casts long shadow son the Valley floor
below, the village lights are bright
reflected not above in darkened windowed night

and travellers past that place fast sped
they keep the road and will not turn a head
to cast one look at that demanding place
less moonlight's beam lights blue a face

yet you 'neath flitting clouds still walk
where others would not breath a word or talk
about that which for which you quest so fast
where shadows move from unknown ages past

down cobwebbed halls, your footsteps lightly move
down stairways stoned you quick yourself remove
to darkened vaults the ill-lit passage bends
you're there at last, to meet your living end

The Stricken Land

The Stricken Land

They came form the North
howling like a gale
wrapped in the shawls of wolves
berserk and bloody
cold and full of steel
they raped
burned black all
ruinous devestation
was their mark
they have passed on
into the South
we have passed on
into the Dark

Temporary Truce

TEMPORARY TRUCE

Over the thin pallid, pock-marked wintered landscape of the Somme,
shiver broken men with broken hearts
and broken bones and guns

Over that same pallid, misty chilly place
of death and gore and blood
of eyeless skulls and uniforms; of wire and mud
over the tops of a slimy trench
a trembling hand grips- then heaves

and unsteadily, it's owner stumbles forward
slowly forward, towards the piles of fallen leaves
(that once were both comrades and his enemies)

Over the thin pallid landscape - pock marked
snowy landscape of the Somme
a different hand and figure slowly rises
staggers on....
...on to meet the stumbling other

then in No Man's Land they meet
ah! then strangely brother greets his brother
cold hands clasp in breathless wonder
then another and another
join together....

It is Christmas on the Somme
and that long remembered (much remembered) football playing
truce is on
(On Boxing Day - the machine gun's chatter will break the cold air)
the machine guns chattered and seperate boon companions of yesterday

So remember my beloved
when we fight and rend and tear
man and wife are we - and lovers
Fall out, yes bu then repair

Sixty years have come and gone now
Christmas truce has passed away
so next time we fall out beloved
remember that poor Christmas Day

Neanderthal

Neanderthal (2001)

Flat nosed we eyed the mammoth herds
cold comfort from the glaciers
we knew of fire; knew of skins
but mammoth still was king of kings

To slat a mammoth - more than food
but hide and shelter and a mood
whicj made us think of our small tribe
Headman, headwomen and our scribe

These things were tried and tested true
and through millenia they grew
of tooth and axe and killing fields
we knew no other way to be

One day, it came, when THEY appeared
no scrawny hair - no raucous beard
with scrawfish in their long blond hair
they rattled spears and fed our fears

we left our caves; our dead; our paint
and trekked far North - our fate was clear
Cro-magnon man took o'er our homes
and left us reaked - mere skin and bones

so Futureman, so full of zeal
to find out what was our last meal
please spare a thought for final fall
- and say "That was Neaderthal"

The Last Lover

The Last Lover

The land is dead
from this tree to the far horizon
the land is white
snowy white
picked clean
like a vultured corpse

the villages are empty
the towns gaunt and still
the only full place is the the graveyard

the winds sweeps moaningly
and all around is emptiness

Yet one thing moves
yet one thing still loves, and loves
and tenderly touches
with its hot embrace
- Plague

Knightspawn

Knightspawn

Queen to Bishop Four and check!
(I am Black and you are white)
Queen moves to block the Queen in bed
A castle circles overhead

"Bang, bang - the enemy is down"
proudly says a Pawn-at-arms
Then crashing to the ground alas
The castle burns up all the grass

Though I was smoking as we played
my next move was - effect delayed
for on the Board of Nevermore
Bishops, Queens and Castles swore

"If I had know your reasons clear
then Checkmate - less than you might think"
But Checkmate waits in other places
Grim and grimy, oily faces

Screaming loud as you arrive
a loser from some onetime crowd
and fear the little blacks and whites
for they know not wrong from right

I would not move that pawn again
Remember things you once taught them

In Gardens Dark

In Garden's Dark (1988)

In Garden's Dark where moving shadows flourish
and sins about yet lonely flowers perish
I sit yet, still 'neath some untended bower
and hope, still hope, to glimpse just one last flower

Chosen Sheep

The Chosen Sheep

Spewing forth lies
Like vipers, with eyes
like sheep, cunning
frighful and dreadful
They are meek
and this is their earth
the one they have made
to inherit

Aids (1988)

AIDS

Once we cowered in the shadow of the Big Sea
we were frightened to be drowned by its bore
Now we shiver in the shadow of the Great Hay Fever
and the Big Sea is left stranded on the shore

Kikusui (May 1987)

Kikusui
Floating chrysanthemums
dropping stone like from
that bluest of blues
The Divine Wind hurtles down
One final cup of rice wine
A headband for an Emperor
Kikusui! Kamikaze!
The Divine Wind disperses
Mothers shuffle, downhead folding
Sons in little laquered boxes

Unity

Unity

Can Winter walk where Summer's beam is lying?

Can frail worn hands a baby's cradle rock?
Can ancient clays support a sapling's struggle?
Can youthful smiles meet midnight's deadly knock?

Can cold star light on lovers find reflection?
Can colder stones support the wriggling worm?
Can even grimmer hours find new minutes?
Can daisied be the windless garden found?

Your steps are light and I plod miles behind you behind,
beyond is all the same to see
For I am what you were and what you will be
In timeless world of dreadful Unity

The Iron Dream

The Iron Dream (October 1986)

Dark, sulphurous clouds hide the land
in shrouds, acrid and ominous
A red fog, glowing pours from the sewers
Dim forms are sighted moving stealthily
The touch of decay is on their fingers
The stench of the grave lingers
where their long shadows pass

I see it will not last
I see a new sun weakly seeping
at first, thin rays through a thick fog
I see the Sun's Son
strong and young as a new folded mountain
rise up like a Titan
from a shaken Earth
I see a wild, loose wind sweep
the stinking, clinging mist from the land
and, from this deep sleep of night -
I dream the Iron Dream

Untitled (April 1987)

Gone are the gays of black and white
A misty whirl of restless, dull
depressing grays, distressing
blurs our site
Form and symmetry are sacrificed
on the sud-soaped Altar at Noon
and so I'll leave you your Paradise
to live, love and leap
with the Mad Dog of the Moon

Memory of a Friend (June 1986)

Like a merry, dancing plague
his raucous, infectious laugh
infected all around
and one couldn't
help but smile
at the twinkle
of bonnie villainy that skipped
inside his eyes.

Then that dark hand;
that sudden swift surprise
reached down - too quick
oh far, far too quick!
and drove the dancing
from those bonnie eyes

Living in the Shadow of Big Ben

In the shadow of Big Ben
where time paces the day
When every four hours is a hill
At the top, monolith like
stands a pill

Take it
and it ends
and for one brief moment
you're not living in the Shadow of Big Ben

Fragments...

Eternal, bloated and toad-like
He squats across the World
As an ugly green colossus
Squashing and flattening all hope
and smothering happiness
He is Anti-Beauty
and His name is Materialism

Landscapes of the Mind - prose poetry

The countryside around here is forever a grim reminder of the events that took place - is it forty years ago now? How time flies when your are tangled in it.

Time is relative, said Einstein and took all mine - it litters the fields under broken crosses and stones one day to be bought.

I never visit any of them though I always mean to, and more often claim to, usually to cover up some lie or other.

The hours hang like blackened clouds over a flat troubled Earth, and the ticking of the World Clock is as the incessant pattering and dripping of a rain that never ends.

The fields are all unplanted whites and grays and fade into an uncertain horizon.

The circle's closed, and though I wish for nostalgic red poppies to people my thoughts, I would probably pass them by unnoticed.

Satin Caress

Satin Caress

Darkness cools in a
black satin embrace
enfolding your psyche
with a cold secret kiss

The long light's troubles fled
and the long night ahead
be still my Child and sleep
for you are home
...you are home

My thoughts turn away to the West

My thoughts turn away to the West
My dreams lie in the lost Western Lands
To the sun risen lands
that now lie so low
in the Ocean's hands

Where once the war bands roamed
Octopus tentacles search the crusted ruins
green fingering the crumbling bones
the great stones lie tumbled and thrown
for the City has sunk in the West

Hung on the Wire (Written June 1985)

Hung on the Wire
(to a casualty of the Somme - July 1916)

Can they understand you now Grandfather?
Can they ever understand a corpse that's dust?
How can they understand,
seven decades come and gone,
and you Grandfather - hanging on the rust?

Can they understand a life that's given?
Can they ever know what you'd become?
Of a battle nearly won
finished by a Mauser gun
In a crater, drawing shell-fire, on the Somme?

Did you play where I play dear Grandfather?
Did you kick a can out in the street?
Now the can's become a ball
I'm your Grandson growing tall
and you are dead and we will never meet...

Under the Raven's Banner

Under the Raven's Banner

before the Black Crows come
The shield wall stands immobile
and a grey mist flits the sun

Under the Raven's Banner

The Norseman stand afirm

and grim faced Northern warriors
gaze down at the coming swarm

Under the Raven's Banner
the slow chant then begins
and swords slap hard on firm held shields
As the Saxon fyrd draws in

Then from under the Raven's Banner
the shields are held up high
as a wind of rushing arrows
darkens a darkling sky

Under the Raven's Banner
sword arms sweep down on helms
and a line of Saxon warriors
presses in, then overwhelms

Fallen the Raven's Banner
Fallen the kindred of Thor
The Saxon banner flies aloft
and the Norsemen come no more

Generations

My feet stand deep
in my land
As did those of my forefathers
who now lie deep
in my land
as does the future
of my children...

Epitaph to Squashed Cat

Oh distant cousin of the Savage Beast
That once roamed jungles - eyes afire
Thou lie unnoticed
near turn-off Waltham Forest East
a victim
of a Modern monsters tyre

Small Wonders....

Small wonders
He looks up at his small wife
and thanks Heaven
for Small mercies....