They’re shutting our shops in the High Streets

Through losses and lack of new orders

But saddest to date I have to relate

Was the closure of Davygate Borders.

 

I used to pop in and delve through the shelves

Then leisurely lounge in the chairs,

Pick a novel or three to accompany tea

Which you read in the Starbuck’s upstairs.

 

I’ve done Bernard Cornwell and Bryson, of...

Read and leave comments (4)

Sometimes.

 

Sometimes daylight doesn’t kill the moon.

 

A splash of hotness crosses skin

Quicksilver cools and

trickles from hip to sheets.

 

Guilt hangs like the moon.

Read and leave comments (3)

The Blessed Virgin Mary’s Church – Torun Poland

I had marvelled at this church the day before, and today noticed the door slightly ajar
I hesitated for a moment, and then knew that if I was ever to see it’s inside, that it would have to be now.

Inside, a couple of people moving towards me, several people around the altar area and a small congregation of about 20 people to the right.
...

Read and leave comments (2)

We vow to shield but splatter
the soldiers in Afghan
with pretty propaganda
about what we need of man
to even out democracy
without arguments but arms
and use placebo platitudes.
a fooling no-one charm.

Signing up at sixteen
had always been his dream
he could have been
he would have been
a grown man in time.

At eighteen with his maker
and not his loving mother;
...

Read and leave comments (2)

 

I can walk.

In winter

before dawn.

I can walk.

Allowing me to sleep.

To sleep.

To sleep before the sun.

 

Nights.

Nights are so very long.

But if I wake.

I wake and walk

before the dawn.

Then life.

Then life it will be over soon.

 

 

Read and leave comments (5)

 

...

Read and leave comments (2)

clinging tenaciously by its needle toe

the dry golden leaf

trembles and twists

a tortured dance in the chill wind

and refuses to let go -

afraid to die

the breeze reconnoiters

draws back and whips again

wheezing up the trunk

rifling the raggedy branches

into a twitching frenzy

but the little leaf holds on

the shifty ...

Read and leave comments (6)

 

Someone left luggage

in a pile on the floor,

I lifted it up

to a hook by the door.

When I came back

to my lasting surprise

A crowd had now gathered-

it won the first prize.

Read and leave comments (5)

Read and leave comments (2)

Hello Stirred relaunches at the lovely Sandbar on this Monday 1st November!

 

 http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=101746943228315

 

 

Read and leave comments (0)

Government announced

They’re cutting jobs, increasing

Our unemployment.

Folks on benefits

Must go on out and get jobs.

What jobs exactly?

In pain or work-shy,

Who will want to employ them?

When there’s so much choice?

Wonder what planet

Our prime minister is on,

It sure ain’t this one!  

Read and leave comments (6)

Can you hear the nothing to nowhere wind?

 

Measuring a moment

 

Somewhere lost in the far away

The never to come or go again

 

Sunset

Red strokes of night slash bleeding to the edge

 

White sands stinging

 

Crystal kissing

 

Brownest eyes and tumbling hair

 

Pretty toes and yellow shells

 

Measuring a moment

 

Step...

Read and leave comments (2)

You are the Summer breeze

that ruffles my hair

your kiss

rippling the length of my spine

leaving me, breathless

falling

falling

falling

 

You are the tornado

that rips up the roots of sapling trees'

then flings them up in the air

among devastated towns and cities

 

Charity will follow in your wake

but you will not see me there

for...

Read and leave comments (7)

Somewhere during the car journey

I lost my love for you.

I’m sure I had it with me

when I left.

M1, M25, M4,

it’s on one of them, I’m sure,

 

but I lost it on the way.

And when I turn into your street

and I spot you waving,

I drive my car fast,

straight, headlong,

into your smile.

Read and leave comments (5)

I drank in the Original Oak today,

reflecting on how a lifetime slips away,

along with a bowling green, a hall of residence

and Jack Fulltons

(the cheapest frozen food stall in the whole of Leeds).

 

The pub was empty,

but in my mind I saw a crowd,

the bold and the beautiful,

strutting their stuff,

whilst I watched on,

the younger me,

all acne and...

Read and leave comments (13)

 

Spring! Spring! Spring!

The bells ring, ring, ring!

I am in the park under the tree.

I am free, free, free!

The crows are sitting on the tree,

They are also free, free, free.

Nothing clever comes into my head,

Only foolish things instead.

More than that!

Those critters which are on the tree

They have more freedom than me.

Their litters they thro...

Read and leave comments (3)

In Myanmar a young man paused
He thought the junta should go
He thought young monks were brave
He would thank them
But he daren’t speak
He might not grow old
His thoughts live
In the prison of fear

In Tehran a girls passes a college
With her chaperone
She wished she could attend
She would thrive there
But she daren’t speak
She might be beaten
Her thoughts dwell
...

Read and leave comments (3)

Read and leave comments (0)

Today, Mum, I thank you
For sticking by me like glue,
Putting up with me when I was glum.
You truly are the best, Mum.

I know I put you through hell,
I was young, but I remember well.
Back then, all I did was fight.
I wish I'd listened cause I know you were right.

Mum, I was emotionally ill
But still, I hold the guilt.
But you never gave up on me,
Though at the time, I...

Read and leave comments (4)

She struggled, fought against her will

She crashed against its tide....

Relentless though those waves were still....

Exposed there was to hide....



....

She knew, as once again she came....

And drew open the drawer....

Her feelings would then be the same....

As were each time before....

....



The blade it smiled, it's knowing glint....
...

Read and leave comments (0)

I wish we could have met

under different circumstances.

I could have given you more,

returned your advances

with tenderness;

Perhaps on a summer night

with a round refulgent moon,

I know you would have loved that.

Our brief encounter

And that intimate time

we spent together,

the closeness of our bodies,

the whisperings,

the frenzy,

Soon to...

Read and leave comments (4)

Invisible

Reflections on old age.

I have eventually accepted that I am invisible.

Not only am I invisible, no one can hear me.

Some people have begun to look through me,

Over me and around me.

My opinions are rarely sought,

My interest hardly ever engaged,

And my conversation simply ignored.

You would never know I was there

In time I also began to disapp...

Read and leave comments (16)

 Tuck Shop

 

 

What is it humans do,

When the box of chocolates sours in their hearts,

What is it humans want,

When the jelly babies perish

Like the grasp upon excitement,

When the tuck shop finally shuts;

What is it that we do???

 

Why the feeling fantasies of children

Care to live this world at all,

When numbed against the wind of change

...

Read and leave comments (2)

a girl in a black jumper
covers her face with her arms
seemingless attempt to mask herself
either from the october cold
or the empty seats inside the restaurant

an empty medicine strip lays on the floor
next to a mercedes
stripped of its hood ornament
like a bald lion...

***

descending down the stone stairs
its impossible
not to spot three asian stoners
perfor...

Read and leave comments (4)

Push on...
push on...
the tide of our lives rolls on

The solid stone of now is weathering
the familiar flow
is gone

All change...
all change...
each position is rearranged

The only rock I've ever clung to
washes away
in the fierce blinking of my eye
it washes away
washes away

(Sept 2010)

Read and leave comments (0)

This is my first experiment with haiku - it was a bit clumsy so thanks to Winston for his comment :)

 

 

Her scars are itching

The anniversary looms

No celebration

 

 

Read and leave comments (12)

Until I met and later married Jacqueline I had never considered monogamy as an option nor had I shown any inclination toward anything but predatory behaviour in respect of the women in my circle.

However: and that is a very big word, I suppose if you finally fall in love, then you must love to the exclusion of others.

But like the memory the following are symptamatic of experience

O...

Read and leave comments (0)

Uncertain what to write on a Halloween theme?

Torn between a bleat on the trick or treat scene

and a moan at movies on the sequel screen?

Don't look back lamenting what once had been!

Get yourself a copy of Witch! magazine.

Not Which? magazine as if you're asking a question,

but Witch! magazine like you've taken possession.

Not the journal advising the modern consume...

Read and leave comments (1)

Born into the notions that defined your family for years,

You keep a diary, the only one with whom you share your doubts,

For you dare not raise your hand to say,

How, so according, the line

Between love and hate seems so fine, 

For it is what would result of that, which you fear

 

You search all books for the answers for your heart,

But each answer poses another...

Read and leave comments (0)

for Conscientious Objectors’ Day

 

 

‘Ez for war I calls it murder

put under close arrest entered

this place for the word No

is a long sentence six months

hard labour dark as the night

 

that covers me Did not wear khaki

until forced refusing to be made

into a soldier dragged to the French

coast to make example of Owe

no man anything ente...

Read and leave comments (5)

Of course the dead walk

They stroll through realms of splendour

Why bother with here?

Read and leave comments (4)

After Doris Salcedo ‘Untitled’

In the piece 'Atrabiliarios', meaning defiant, old shoes, in pairs and singles, are encased in a row of wall alcoves, behind sheets of translucent animal skin which are crudely stitched to the wall. Below on the floor are small boxes, like living caskets, made from the same animal membrane. The shoes which bear the marks of wear, all belonged to women who wer...

Read and leave comments (2)

I've just started uni (how grown up is that?!) and my weekly essay deadline is 6 O'clock every Thursday. This is what I was thinking at about 2pm last Thursday but in Haiku form ...

 

Five hundred words done

Twenty Five hundred to go

For 6pm. Shit!

Read and leave comments (4)

Read and leave comments (2)

I saw her heart break yesterday

the watchful face of late

eyes upturned

smile that had only known sunshine

and said in words

careful and rounded

the news that he would not be coming home

and saw

the instant

stop-release claymation

trembling of the tiny chin

the mouth turned square and agonised

in an eternal instant of distress

I heard the clic...

Read and leave comments (12)

Carrying your Oscar Wilde smile,

at first you seem distant from the merchandise

 

but really

the talk is cheap, bloated up with artistic soliloquies,

rendering itself archaic and, hmm, can I take another cigarette?

kind of dull.

 

I tried to write down the quote that you just said on my napkin,

so I could read it without your affections,

and it seems a ...

Read and leave comments (3)

Hot breath, cold bus glass, finger.

Eyes, a nose, a mouth.

Wide and blue-eyed you were

Got lost in them most times.

Sausage, bacon, two eggs.

Mum says 'don't'.

I'm caught up making faces

At the table, like most places,

When I ought not to be.

Kisses always sweetest with you,

Tasted like sugar and nicotine,

Bad for me, highly addicitive.

I'm cravin...

Read and leave comments (1)

  easy roommate

 

that winter she mainly looked at rooms

the thumbnail pictures

of beds still in their plastic wrappings

gleaming kitchens

granite veneer uncluttered

she read descriptions of gardens

and single quiet dogs

winced at misspellings in descriptions

free of grammar

and although she could not remember

showing interest

in Docklands, Le...

Read and leave comments (5)

I'm knackered and slightly mentally scarred from certain experiences but I had a truly wonderful time this weekend and I'd like to say a massive thank you to Sean and everyone else who made it happen. I got 5 new poems out of it and here they are:

 

 

We Watched It Live

 

We watched it live on Al Jazeera

It came free with the news mix on Sky

They said he’d been hid ...

Read and leave comments (3)

 

SPIDER

 

I have a friendly spider,

Living in my beard,

It's been in there a fortnight,

I hope it stays a year,

It's made itself quite cosy,

To evict it would be mean,

We have a symbiotic relationship,

Which keeps my whiskers clean.

 

Biscuit crumbs, dried gravy,

The occasional bit of snot,

Everything that drops there,

That spider eat...

Read and leave comments (0)

Wonders of the world

Wonders of the world

Look around you once, see the wonders of the world

 

The Pyramids in Egypt

Stonehenge in Salisbury

The Great Wall of China

Impressive in their very very

Unique ancient quality

The Vatican in Italy

Berlin Wall in Germany

Torn down by strength and unity…

 

Roman Coliseum,

Indian Golden Temple

Peo...

Read and leave comments (0)

Read and leave comments (1)

The traffic marches loudly on the roads
And groans by below me
But the cool darkness lays a finger
Gently on the traffics lips
And hushes it away.
Kiss me moonlight down from the sky
Beckon me the laughter of the stars
I will lie here contentedly
Half asleep.
Hush you many night lorries
Too busy to be thoughtful for my sanded eyes.
Leave my ears to peacefulness
My mind t...

Read and leave comments (2)

No more do i lay blame inward
for your crimes, i am absolved
I no longer wake in the night,
chilled by the hue of your
crawling touch and rasping breath.
I stand tall, the weight of prejudiced
guilt lifted from my shoulders,
and see you,
unhinged and foul.

Insignificant.

I am released.

 
 

Read and leave comments (3)

On National Poetry Day Jo Bell tasked me to write a poem about being on a train and travelling from London to Manchester and *not* being able to go to poetry events.  I'd just done my first day at the Barbican and was commuting back home.  This is what came out.

 

Across England there are homes.
In pubs and streets and library waiting 
rooms.
Places I could turn up, call my home
...

Read and leave comments (0)

Now it’s not that extreme violence,

Extreme scorn,

Extreme bigotry,

Extreme hate…

Aren’t extreme, they’re just mainstream.

People spit and sip from this poisoned chalice with malice.

On both sides,

Of the equation.

 

But what of the old people who smile, act happy,

Yet calmly state “I won’t go to a shop that’s run by a Paki”?

Blame TESCO for destroyin...

Read and leave comments (1)

http://www.bowwowshop.org.uk/page15.htm

Regards,

A.E.

Read and leave comments (4)

Haikus on various themes written for Bank Street Writers 6th October 2010
 

 

Playground puddles splashed

into a million jewels

by our royalty

 

 

Wooden rulers slap

good children into heaven:

I won’t toe the line

 

 

Some crocodile tears

through town on a sunny day:

it’s full of children!

 

 

Teacher read to us

Black Bea...

Read and leave comments (1)

..if it ain't one of my fights..

'You're kidding, you're not my shadow!'

stories and lullabies

please let's rush it, it's good that we met

 

This feeling you broke my spine

said sorry and dropped my shadow

seemingly amplified

we keep nothing, all has been said

 

Feel free to go nowhere, nowhere so soon

we got a brotherhood but we said we had a tune

...

Read and leave comments (0)

I am due to have two Poems published in Issue 1 of Burning Houses Magazine (ooohhhh ....  errrrr ...... missus). However, this is not the point. The point is that it is a new magazine with a radical outlook and  needs YOUR support. Extracts from Issue 1 of the magazine will be available online but please check the website and try to get hold of a real copy when it's out ... Ta very muchly!

...

Read and leave comments (0)

As if aware of death,

nature threw a shroud over things

best forgotten. Like the time,

sunk on Plymouth Gin,

you opened your lungs to the moon

and dashed a tumbler on the rockery.

Or when, with nerves splayed,

you flung some unloved vase

at next-door’s cat; missing,

they said, by a whisker.

 

Aware only of ourselves,

we arrived with shears and tro...

Read and leave comments (4)

  you just took too many pills

not even for highs or thrills

nor for a sense of light relief

you just lost all belief

-

a cry for help gone wrong

a yearn for attention you’ve wanted for so long

and instead of asking your friends for an answer

you thought to create a solution

-

you wake up to see us by the hospital bed

with paramedics worrying that you...

Read and leave comments (0)

The quiet room becomes loneliness

Walls, distance between me and you

But the real distance between us is in our hearts and minds

Lines drawn, boundaries made

You say numbness is your friend and you can’t trust.

Trust in our friendship or all is dust

Rusting tears and drawn out fears

I have to come to about your well being

But your only seeing lies right now

a...

Read and leave comments (1)

"There's sharks out there !"......

the woman warned.....which was madness,

as we were in a ordinary, busy high street,

on a sunny afternoon.

 

She was just some woman brushing past,

breath full of sour whisky-

a chilling rattle of cough and spit.

 

In desperate clinging fashion-

her gaze worn,

she gripped my arm, then with agile sprint leapt out into ...

Read and leave comments (11)

Read more …