Thank you Dad.

Thank you for your deep deep love.

For always making me feel so special and loved.

For teaching me to pass on that love to my own children.

I could not have felt more loved.

Thank you Dad.

Thank you for sharing with me your love of music and poetry.

For reading to me at bedtime and encouraging my love of books.

For instilling in me the love of words and ...

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in my soul she dances on,

tuned to a polka her feet,

swish of expensive velvet

big teeth white and neat

dance band chords echo

wind and brass combine

but can't erase the stink

of spilt burnt turpentine

smoke up my nostrils

provoked by her deeds

loung lizards basking

careless of my needs

tunes one after another

standards she'd adored

at her f...

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Cover the mirrors 

Open the windows

Let the mourners in

Through the front door.

Gather around a wooden box

To witness an act

Played by a dead corpse

A tear here and a tear there

Enough to fill a bowl

To water the parched air.

Life is just a circular affair

Never eternal 

But not the end.

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When I saw your wayward ways

My heart switched into reverse

This was far from what I wanted

An outcome so plainly perverse

Yours was a heart with no history

We were strangers, noon till night

The one I married was a mystery

A mirror that reflected no light

Tales you told me of your past

Turned out to be little but fiction

I stood next to a stranger when

T...

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Mabel Jubb was a mystic, a deep thinker

She read philosophy, was often miles away

Her house was stacked with learned tomes

That she cherished and revelled in every day

Poor Mabel she was full of good intentions

She signed petitions and gave to the poor

But the lockdown became too much for her

The coastguard found her clothes along the shore

She'd never married tha...

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In a cold cream brick chapel,

That should've never been built,

Was buried a man who was ill understood.

Redeemed in the minutes just before he had died

Look away now, this is not where he lies.

The truth can be found deep in the woods,

Beyond the dampest and darkest of familial 'shoulds'

It's sound slithers, and wrenches and wriggles so fine,

To open the door to this s...

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There they were beyond the

Railings in broad daylight, flouting

The rules, hundreds of them

Socialising cheek by jowl while

Above ground, as if

Condoning the breach

Sat an older couple on a

Bench having a

Picnic by the looks of it

Sandwiches flask the lot, I

Wondered if they'd been barred from a

Funeral and had come to

Say a deferred farewell before taking

Ea...

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Auntie Fanny's funeral day oh my god what a to do 
They had all thirty stone of her, all dead for all to view 
I never knew she had a mustache little billy said 
at that his dad took off his cap and slapped him on his head 

When the cortege started off, the back tired on car went pop 
forcing all the traffic in Liverpool to come to a stop 
Then as if it could not get no worse it and well t...

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Player piano in the empty funeral parlor foyer cranks

out old standards with a Dixieland flourish. The old

wooden cross. How great thou art. Take my hand precious

Lord. No one hears it. No one is here to discuss pre-planning.

No one peruses coffins for his aunt who has been sick so long

the family forgot she would die. No one is scooped out

by grief at the accidental death o...

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It has been so many years

since that moment of truth

when finally you were truly alone

It has been so many years

since you flew with the flames

as the organ played

something

and I looked out at the distant horizon

seeing you there drifting away

into finality

It has been so many years

since I made you a promise

I could not keep

You said

Do no...

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As the rains came we followed

As the rains fell we listened

And walked towards the minister,

Passing by the dark grave wherein she lies,

To drop another daffodil, a final kiss from life,

On the pale box below.

And on, to cluster round beneath the trees

Circling the family, rooted by some strange harmony

Of communion: a drifting mass lost in loss.

On the hillside, as the ...

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I was there that bitter cold day

When Winston Churchill passed my way;

Keeping watch beneath Admiralty Arch,

I breathed to the beat of the funeral march.

About the man no more need be said

Long since called to arms by The Glorious Dead;

But I was there that memorable day

When Winston Churchill passed my way.

................................................................

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funeral days

funeral days
should always be like this

early mourning dew
in the eyes of those gathered
under a slate grey sky
(not blasphemous blue)
whose heavy tears
will splash
the golden Judas kiss
of leaves crackling
beneath disrobed trees
betraying the sadness
with their joyful colour

the heavy damp sods of earth
clinging close to the coffin
like the grief
that surrounds...

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Roses are red

Maggie was blue

now she is dead

they're having a do.

They're airbrushing history

re-writing the past

Big Ben's falling silent

the flag's at half mast.

In a time of austerity

they've money to burn

for the pomp of her funeral

but the lesson we've learned

is they secretly know

she's not loved by the nation

...

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