Biography

Retired from decades of own-business toil. Student of human nature (and personal failure). Stood for Parliament 2005 as agent provocateur. Aspiring world-saver.
Member of Newbury Poets’ Workshop. Hydroponic gardener.
Style: mimicry, pedantry, angry, allegory. Published! You are 'avin' a laugh. www.barriesingleton.co.uk

Samples

IMPURE WOOL
(With a nod to the Wool marketing Board)

There was once a noble king
Who had a naughty fling
With a nursemaid in her knitted night attire
It wasn’t very fetching
As the knitting kept on stretching
But some aspect of it set the king on fire.

The effect of their cavorting
On the woollen she was sporting
Was to make the nightie big enough for two
So came that fateful night
When their loving seemed so right
The king decreed: “I’ll stay in here with you.”

Now imagine the surprise
When the court was made to rise
For the king to do his daily “us and them”
In walked a monster nightie
One stern head and one more flighty
With four bare feet a-pattering at the hem.

Soon wool nighties were the fashion
In their wake a wave of passion
Caused a population boom like none before
And the wool shop at the corner
Slogan: “Wool’s a great adorner”
Changed the sign to: “Go on - knit yourself a whore!”

Now the moral of this tale
Is if you’re a lusty male
And feel the urge to go out on the pull
Cherch’ la femme who has a nightie
All come hither and invitie
But remember there’s no substitute for wool!


STEP CHANGE
(For Isobel and Suzy - a laugh.)

A princess strolling by a bog
Sat down upon a handy log
And cried aloud “Oh mercy me
Where can my prince - my true love - be?”

To her surprise a voice called back
"My princess dear, alas alack
You have to kiss a lot of frogs
To find a prince in fancy togs."

The princess leapt up to her feet
The owner of the voice to meet
But none stood there save she alone
“Oh no, she cried, he can’t have gone!”

At this the voice, now rather weak
Let out a sort of gurgling shriek
And out from underneath her shoe
A flattened frog slid into view.

"I am your prince" the flat frog wheezed
"But as you see I’m rather squeezed
A kiss brings forth the prince you’re seeking
But sadly you will find him leaking."

With that the mangled mass expired
The princess to her room retired
And ever pondered unkind fate
To be stood up on her first date.


INTERFACE

“Dead Blackbird?”
The thought half-formed.
My shopping-hung body rotated.
Sun-dimmed eyes probed sun-strong shadows.
Sleeping plant pot!
Black.
Set to sleep a thousand years;
Fashioned from oil that slept a million.
The Blackbird would not be so indolent.
In no time it would have flown -
seeped, mouldered, re-moulded,
returning in myriad life-forms.
But the black pot sleeps,
perhaps for ever,
removed from Nature’s slim sphere.
And Man, who took its life,
may never-more know of it.


LIFETIME LEG END
(Celebrating Carol Ann 'Comeuppance')

I scrape the ice from my windscreen
thin and flaky
cold
like an old lover.
I take the driving seat
my birthright
and turn the key
as I once turned
from an old lover.
The engine refuses to fire
groaning and jerking
denying, defying
like an old lover.
I get out and slam the door
a dog barks, mocking a wet tree;
I am that tree
only receiving warmth
when pissed on
by an old lover.


YOU SHOW ME YOURS

With hindsight it seems
Adam would have been diviner
If God had seen fit
To fit him a vagina.

In the Garden of Eden
With a bloke for a mate
He would not have found himself
Outside the gate.

And the fire and the brimstone
In Sodom and Gomorrah
Could have been deferred
To some far off tomorra.

No meddlesome female
No fruit-flavoured fall
With no-one begot -
No begetting at all

There’d be harmony yet
With just two there to share it
No fig-leaves required
Paradise - grin and bare it!


FAECAL ATTRACTION

The slug on the pavement
Is eating dog shit.
I have never seen slug-shit
But the slug had seen
An advertisement.
Apparently it’s nutritious
Pre-prepared with no
Artificial ingredients
Or colorant.
John Bull; entrepreneur
Of the year
Noticed a
Tidy Britain Group stat
That, 900 tonnes falls
On the UK
Every day.
Seeking cogency, John
Contacted an agency
Who advertised in ‘Slime’
The most widely devoured
Slug mag;
Especially when disposed
In hedgerows.
‘Eat John Bull Dog Shit’
It proclaimed
‘You’re worth it’.
Soon
All across Britain
Gullible slugs were
Tasting turd.
John Bull was knighted:
‘Services to cleaner pavements’.
The publishers of ‘Slime’
Won a prestigious award
For bullshit.
And the pathetic slugs of Britain
Are still swallowing it.
John is leaving for America.
Their tally is 3.6 billion
Pounds per annum;
Less, of course
Per anus.


GOLD STANDARD
(Blackbird)

Perched, protestant of music mastery
Hob-hued, your golden beak points up the lie.
As every Spring your liquid notes pour forth
to gild the world, from rightful throne on high.

As Satan’s bone-chill darkness creeps the Earth
complacently he trusts your black façade
but comes the double gold of Spring and song
that shadow balks; by beam and stave disbarred.

Now: lustre burnished brightly to impress;
beak butter-bright to catch a lady’s eye;
your lusty lilting song, quite by default
confers on all men’s hearts, nobility.




RAGE AGAINST THE PRYING OF THE LIGHT
(All due respect to Dylan Thomas)

Do not go easy into that cruel plight,
The unsought life should in negation stay;
Rage, rage against the prying of the light.

Though cells at their beginning claim no right;
That right usurped, un-bid, demands that they
Do not go easy into that cruel plight.

Wild sperm who caught and shot the ovum’s flight,
And learned too late; now grieving on your way,
Rage, rage against the prying of the light.

Bad dream: ‘gainst self divided; quickening’s blight;
How fares Bliss, traded for some tragic play?
Do not go gently into that cruel plight.

Bland form, near birth, as yet insensible to sight;
The languid eye seeks not the glare of day.
Rage, rage against the prying of the light.

So! Artless foetus, soon without respite;
Cursed none accounted latent tears; I pray:
Do not go easy into that cruel plight.
Rage! Rage against the prying of the light!



PAIN THRESHOLD

As food of aesthetes - anguish-blind;
is Art the Foie Gras of the mind?


NOT NO-HOW

Clever, clever man;
more clever, even, than clever woman;
in spite of all your nihilistic drives
yet you advance, in unrestrained know-how.
Wretched, wretched man!
You created your gods, freed your women
but never, ever, discovered ‘wise-how’!
Now interred – body and mind
in a grave of your own digging
where the corpse of The Feminine
hourly tramples on your head
you lie, pondering your lack, for all eternity
while Woman, free from base attention
and the drone of your pheromones
cleverer by the day
usurps your plot.



‘THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY’
(‘Coinage’ of President Barack H Obama.)

Crusader Bush saw his towers ‘knocked down’
said: “You’re either with us or the tourists”.
Then he built a resort in Guantanamo Bay
where there weren’t any judges or jurists.
With Rummy’s ‘unknowns’ and Cheney’s ‘don’t care’
US justice was all but a mystery.
In Dubya’s detention you’re outside the law
and perhaps - on the wrong side of history.

But blessed with Barack, throwing off Dubya’s taint
Washed whiter than white we advance.
Historic Obama has hailed the New Age
but one still might look slightly askance.
The Native American got quite short shrift
when toiling invaders – ‘hands blistery’
without reservation – (well, maybe a few)
judged them on the wrong side of history.

Barack says that love is no use without power
so he’s bought a huge chunk to assist him;
with oratory, rhetoric, charisma – and cash
no right-minded soul can resist him.
He read ‘em a speech like the great Dr King
it told Muslims: “Shake hands – no clench fistery”;
don’t resist us (the way those dumb ‘Indians’ did)
you’ll end up on the wrong side of history.”

The New Age begins and it starts with Barack
at least, so he says, so it must be.
Like Tony before him announcing ‘New Day’
he says: “I am Barack – you can trust me”
“The old ways are gone, we won’t trade our ideals
my law decree: ‘cease and desistory’.
But to mess with Barack H Obama – be warned:
that puts YOU on the wrong side of history.”

America is friendly unless you do wrong
or show disrespect for the flag
they’ve trounced every foe (designated by Right)
and have God-given freedom to brag.
But the sages make plain; down the ages its writ
only winners scribe ‘truth’ – and their sophistry
never fails to ensure, on that page, they’re good men
and the rest - on the wrong side of history.






VALOUR
An ekphrastic exercise in collaboration with 'Ihsan' (heroic artist).

Great Ages die un-mourned; no stone proclaims
their aims and ethos cycled to a close.
But those who populate a later time
Divine, in ancient myth, a haunting trace
of grace and chivalry: pure, unalloyed.

Majestic argent clouds no more hold back
the black that follows hard on Sol’s defeat;
his seat usurped; cut off, brought low, outfought
by water’s vaporous bullion-billowing
to bring a paradoxic, pressing pall.

Though Valour won the day, all standards fall
with all that is contended lost to Man.
Since time began no greater price was paid;
no biding maiden bathed his wounds in smile;
the extra mile was gone to no reward.

The Abbey looms through time, its shadow long
and song – sung out – invests that heavy beam.
This scene attracts the Raven’s evil eye.
His rosary of one black-hearted bead
takes heed and prays to please, anon, his Lord.

Love’s oaken cell lies, this knight’s stature deep
there keeping sunlit memories pure-bound
‘neath hallowed ground until the day he’d kneel
to feel, through plated breast, soft heart denied
that died of excess sensibility.

As woman weeps, so man is born to war.
Though she deplore the going down of sons
the ones with wit to win stir life and loin;
victors conjoin, to Nature’s lusty lore
ensuring more are born, set in Her way.

The broken sun breaks on a broken sword;
all but his word was broken in that field.
No shield can swerve the thrust of pointed truth
denied to youth, yet vitally intent.
With tabard timely rent - its blade strikes deep.

Time broods on all: time lost - time not to be;
to Gravity, time’s drip and grain succumb.
Now numbed in stark futility’s embrace
all grace denied to valorous essay;
delay enfolds the world and dreams abort.

Whither Valour now; what purpose served?
His enervated being stands perplexed
all purpose vexed by abject Fate’s charade;
façade in ruin, like to that relict pile
as vile Raven flaps his bounty home.



NO REFUGE

So many gifts are heaven sent
to humble souls who close-the-ground dwell.
That bounty owned, I still ask why
Charisma’s gifted to the scoundrel.

In Stateside joust the hopefuls bring
great cogency and erudition.
But then Charisma mounts the stage
and wins the country’s top position.

Poor Gordon followed Tony’s stint
felt sure that any fool could juggle.
Charisma’s gilt is jester-gold;
he’s lost without it and must struggle.

All’s right and fair in love and war
and politicians’ quest for power.
Charisma tips injustice’s scales;
the wrong man comes – cometh the hour.

Mind is no match for instinct’s urge;
a fundamental to confound all.
Mankind is doomed, like Hamelin’s rats
to scamper to the piping scoundrel.



'POETIC' LAUREATE JUSTICE

As the post is a Poisonous Chalice
I would give this advice to the Palace:
"Give McMillan the job
With his motorised gob
And watch him get lumbered with Alice."


RESOLUTION

Never mind your ecstasy - feel my anguish!
I am newly expelled from Heaven.
Rescue me.

Barely formed; a humanoid beast;
control elusive; malfunctioning;
succour me.

Why make you physical assessment?
These scars I, even now, lay down:
mind lashes.

How will you fill my emptiness?
With the satiety of cleverness
or nutritious wisdom?

Remember you nothing of this state?
Then you are fools who should play no part
in my nurture.

Would you lead me blithely into error?
Then you are knaves whose ineptitude
disqualifies you.

* * * * *

Lucifer alone ennobles desolation.
In the fullness of my time, I shall turn
to Him.




FLAIR

Darkly shines the black flame of my word
illuming psyche’s deep interstices
where trick and treat of alter ego angst
perform a dance of wild capriciousness.
That tiny pilot light assumed at birth
draws to itself such fuel as life affords;
ingested bleak – metabolises black
bedimming further spirit’s bushelled light.
As life ascends, so deeper drives the well
with depth itself a bitter-sweet reward;
now mantra’s cant is caught in tarry pitch
and mind’s dark-lantern shades late tarrying.

Pitch-black can mirror sky if one has wit
thus I determine to make light if it.



OF BEDS

As the oyster yields a pearl
man invents.
Neither realises their fecundity
is rooted in irritation:
of one - the body
of the other - the mind.
Man kills the oyster
for its pearl.
And kills his own World
for that eureka moment of invention.


INCLUSIVITY.

“Intolerance” I can’t abide
anathema the name.
The same is true of “prejudice”
practitioners bring shame.
But “choice”: the most abhorrent
against cohesion runs
let choice be purged from daily life
by us - self-chosen ones.


INSTANT INSIGHT

So that’s why!
I thought it was reference to
grinding labour
fire and beans
originating from homage paid to a rapid-response bean-tree-God
Brazilian branch.
But NO! That’s why!
No inkling till I knocked the jar;
gravity and Sod’s Law;
the lot spread across a tiled floor.
Instantly I swept it to a heap.
Instantly I panned it up.
Judiciously I bunged it on the compost;
confusing nosey passers-by;
reprieving my waste-bin
from the phrase: “worse than death”.
Then I knew – that’s why!
Click-click; stick-stick.
In the twinkling of an eye, twinkle-free, unseen nano-dust
instantly regained the moisture of life
sucked from it in some Guantanamous coffee-Hell;
instantly became slipper-adhesive.
So that’s why!

CHALLENGE CUP
(Posted as a thank you to all the rhymers here.)

Beware, beware, the bogus bard
dressed in the Emperor’s clothes;
all hung about with accolades
cheap chandelier with wonky shades
who: the very soul of verse degrades
and every true muse loathes.

Beware the ragged, un-tag-ged, line
iambic counterfeit
that tread on deft directed toes;
uncontrolled thrashing of Baby-Grows;
putting out of joint every knowing nose
with the smell of nappied deceit.

Beware lest you fall in that cash-baited trap!
Pledge your tongue to the sweet savoured line.
Though an unstructured poem with little to say
bamboozles the judges (as none will gainsay)
who dares, wins reward - that the Gods alone pay;
done right – it’s as water to wine.



DARKNESS UNSEEN (My plagiarism - for Nicola)

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

He has a sense of pride in damage done
to Earth’s true balance and ecology;
an arable delight in battle won
with what - but for his art - grows naturally.

All summer, subtle strata sang their song;
a savouring of moisture, light and air
and Nature’s balanced order lingered long
until the ploughman’s slice took back “man’s share”.

The smell of earth spoke that primeval nose;
the truth of every furrow pleased the man
but culture’s creeping creeper, overgrows
concealing that fell step when this began.

Yet in that weary plod still honour lurks
in honest work, provision and respect;
God smiles on men who toil in all their works
and seems unheeding that Creation’s wrecked.

The shadowed field lies striped in muted pain
in hope of time’s caress and healing balm
but no horizon cloud brings respite rain;
ere long, a harrowing will break that calm.

The candle blown, his ancient past returns
as spirits from the trees assail his dreams
and restless through the night, his old soul yearns
for enterprise that Everyman redeems.

The dream so deep, bat-like, full-fled by dawn
reprises archetypal roles enjoyed
when Nature’s game was played with naught but brawn
and Earth’s brow lay unfurrowed – unannoyed.

Respect for Nature then, was absolute
each kill a prize, not taken, but received;
Earth not bereaved when woman lifted root;
thus was mankind sustained with Earth not grieved.

Alas! That Golden Age, tarnished to brown
as man’s brute weight upset the balanced cup;
Eve’s daughters, once revered, he now put down
and Mother Nature’s garden he dug up.

His ingenuity – hallmarked fools gold
through revolution’s zeal turned sod and head;
he saw the earth as his, to have and hold
A chattel-spouse to dominate and bed.

Defiled, the Earth endures her ravaged state
put to the plough as vanquished to the sword.
The ploughman, long since, time has titled: “late”
but tractored free of time, the plough is lord.

Left to my world, where darkness closes in
and ploughman’s error multiplies apace;
confronted with GM’s unmeasured sin
I ponder yet: what loss, the human race?



SEAT OF MAJESTY
(Melvyn Bragg 'did' Metaphysical Poets this week.)

I’m a Metaphysical Poet
though there’s no way you might know it
as the concept simply cannot be defined!
Do I walk reality’s margin
and where Angels won’t tread, barge in
in verbosity eschew the daily grind?

As a Metaphysical Poet
Exposition: I o’erthrow it
it’s not my job to say just what I mean.
I spar without definin’
on obliquity reclinin’
goin’ arm-in-arm with Mr In-between.

Yes – the Metaphysical Poet
must make sure he doesn’t blow it
by writin’ clearly somethin’ quite concise.
With extensions allegoric
(and odd reference to poor Yorick)
he should go around the block, no less than thrice.

Join this Metaphysical Poet
bring indulgence, and bestow it
he is hungry for a validation-crumb.
It rides daily on his conscience
he is writing arrant nonsense;
and is really just a Metaphysical Bum.


DARK PLACE

The smart bomb flew – the pilot flew away.
Both unconcerned by what was done that day.
A side-swipe of collateral excess
brought down the house at some unsought address.
A rubbled life beneath the rubble drained
as those above all impotently strained
to beat the clock; forestall the Reaper’s watch;
the pilot sipped a Coke and scratched his crotch.
One power-shower’d – the other auto-soiled;
the victim wet – the pilot dried and oiled.
Blood ceased to flow; so little blood yet there
the pilot ate a steak; blood-macho – rare.
Death came at last as day fell into night.
What good was served may never come to light.


TIME EMBROIDERED

The time that once was ‘once upon’
has gone and I am through that portal
no mere mortal ever more regains
but slowly drains thereafter of life-force
on downward course to timelessness.

Time that was once additional with
fetes, traditional in embrace of growth;
now loath to find its tally yet advanced;
frame disenhanced as years take toll
and goal concedes to aimlessness.

Universal Time, with space entwined
your face unlined, eternal ingénue
by you, is all encompassed since the Word;
our mark: inferred ineffability.
And me: a petty point of pointlessness.


RE PROOF

Dead Mother, I still strive to prove my worth;
see-off the passing-dullness from your eyes.
Though three-score-ten, yet still I crave a smile
in recognition of this son grown wise.
Were wisdom truly mine, this quest I’d loose
to wander off and die of zeal-denied;
with striving for approval quite eschewed
at-home in my own judgement I’d abide.
But I am built on sand with faulted stone
your mother-masonry scarce first degree;
your temple ill-constructed bowed and propped
in bad grace, from its portal, issued me.
Now, in its turn, an ill-considered life
considers what’s achieved through all this strife.


BOOM DOOM

Magic Obama - Rentagod
has taken up Tony’s staff and rod
to biblically wander the wilderness
where the simple folk crave his address
and yearn to feel his healing grace
as Obama succours (!) the Human Race.
Magic Obama comes nigh to implore ya:
make room in your hearts for this Barack-room lawyer.
Hail to the king who needs no crown
your sorrows in vacuous rhetoric drown!
His words ranging wide, cover every angle
but his trousers still have a recalcitrant dangle.
And what’s this I see – are those shoulders a-slope?
Don’t tell me Obama: our latest white hope
is as lost as the others who went before;
a boy, needing status – who’ll always want more?
Alas yes! He’s another whose childhood decreed
like Blair, there’s no status can sate such great need!
Thus the World goes on down to a welcoming doom
to the sound of Obama’s abominable boom.




IN PASSING

Two trains pass, and two men glance
caught up in that St Vitus’ Dance
of restless movement, nationwide
as over silver tracks they glide
like millions more who’s dumb commute
conforms to rigid iron-clad route.


Neither can know the other’s trade.
They woke at six and toast was made.
Each wears a suit that signals clearly
some minor status won quite dearly
and each accepts, devoid of fuss:
they’re headed for a terminus.


All down that train some traveller’s eye
half notices a train go by
but none then ponder its intent
to drop its load from whence they went;
a mix of workers – workaday;
just like went past the other way!


The trains arrive in unsung towns.
Two men possessed of time-etched frowns
arrive at work which – truth to tell
each other might do just as well.
They passed again that night - unstirred
and none felt what had passed: absurd.



WRONG WRITING

When Dubya reads another’s words
He does it rather well
Transposing type to spoken word.
We followed him to Hell.

The rhetoric is honed and clear
An actor with his lines
No word illuminates the man
No Freudian Slip defines.

We now know Kennedy’s: ‘Ask not’
Was written by another.
No one who heard asked: ‘Who wrote that’
Just hailed Jack as their brother.

Obama now shall rule the waves
That Britain once aspired to.
This man will speak the world anew
(Through someone he has hired to).

Or will McCain’s new running mate:
The Palin Stepford Wife
Through off-the-peg words cut to fit
Transfuse him with new life?

We lie content within the lie
Of Havel’s shrewd perceiving.
The Emperor’s clothes are woven words
Bespoke for our deceiving.




PROXY PLEADING (for Armistice Day)
(With unqualified respect for Rudyard Kipling.)

Have you news of my mother?
Not this strife.
But she will come back? She’ll surely bother?
Not while death is prized above life.

Has anyone had word of her?
Not this strife.
‘Killer’ is hardly a mother-metaphor
Even though death is prized above life.

Oh dear. To what, then, do I amount?
Nothing this strife.
As mere life
Best to take pride in being of little account
Now death is prized above life.

Then hold your head up all the more;
Embracing strife.
Your go, in time, will bring its grief
But you will live to succour war
As surely as today you suckle life.


NOT MUCH CALL FOR PLOUGHSHARES.

The arms of the world reach up in despair
A desperate child, with no mother there;
As the armaments industry demonstrates flair
There is not much call for ploughshares.

The artisan’s hand cupped Britain’s prowess
When the smith made and mended the tools of success;
His arms now have yielded to mayhem and mess
And there’s not much call for ploughshares.

Our industry hums as the arms take on life
Assembled by willing hands – daughter and wife;
Taken up in far lands to facilitate strife
Where there’s not much call for ploughshares.

To cry “Halt!” killing jobs, that would be suicide!
Altruism’s besmirch, politicians deride.
What? Lose the election – talk sense man – besides
There’s never much call for ploughshares.

The arms Britain sells: ‘strictly meant for defence’
But Terror’s defeat equates guilt’s recompense
Such that swathes of the world lie untended – whence,
There is not much call for ploughshares.

Mother Nature armed man and put fight in his head
That the strong might endure to plant seed in her bed
But Nature, herself, profane war leaves for dead
So there’s not much call for ploughshares.

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