Spotlight on the leafy corner

He fell and crashed down there,

From the schizoid heights, poor soul

Anathema to the fields of silver and gold

Now blanketed under nightshade.

I see the black water, churn in half-light

Slipping - the mud combines

Through dense woodland, beyond

Light-years pass - the same old tests

The grip of the old evil

The tortured feel of metal ...

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Streaks of tepid sunshine

with magical golden spell

Provoke latent indolence

 for fresh fervor compel

Scatter of nomadic clouds

of varied  shape and form

Reflect strokes of artistry

  nature aiming to perform

Trees full with mangoes

heralding in joyous time

Cuckoo cooing in concord

 some singing choir sublime

Distant sight of g...

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photo credit: e.g. bailey 

Songs and Stories and Poems

The Chronic Blues Band was in rare form

That night

 As they tended to be at The Blue Dawg 

When they had an open bar tab and

The room was filled with second hand Cannabis   

Smoke and electricity

Aquanetta had poems in her hand

And more on a music stand

Words flowed through her mind

Like a thawing river running

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A Memory of Schooldays                                                                                                       

Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,                                                                                                                                          

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,                                    ...

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A continuous battle of life and death
has become a dance of integration,
stagnation is transformed into kinetic energy.

Polarities, vacuums and deep gaps
has brought forth mysterious meetings
and associations with numerous nuances

Separate parts melt together
so that enchanting colours arises,
where before there was only black or white.

New spaces and perspectives
where freedom doe...

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One of my favourite opening sentences in all the world is the opening line to Anthony Burgess’ novel Earthly Powers:

“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.”

Being not very well read, I haven’t actually read the book but I am sure it is rather good as the first sentence is stunning and mad...

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(not) painting a Carr’s water-biscuit box

George looked at me, in an all-knowing way, and said
“paint what you see”
as he handed me a Carr’s water-biscuit box

it’s blue, I thought, and boring,
but I took it away and set it on a table
in luke-warm autumn sunlight

after a while, I had a rough oil pastel sketch
that I thought was quite accomplished
I had caught the slight sheen from th...

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You do not have to be free.
You do not have to point yourself through sky, 
over rivers and mountains for your value to soar.
You only have to let plucked and frozen
flesh, naked and pimply, nestle
on a sterile white shelf. See
how much more is your worth.
Meanwhile the talk is of how long
to leave you and the climate that most
enhances your taste; we discuss and dissect
our favourite pa...

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Take this bill
And toss it
Into a river
Until it spins
To the bottom
Like a washing machine.

Put it on
A one way journey
To Australia
To watch Englan
Likely lose the
Ashes once again,

Or curl it up into
A little ball
And kick it
Underneath the table
So it rolls into
The gutter (hopefully).

Bite it in half
(or swallow it if you can)
And say some random dog
Came in off the...

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I want a new computer

But I'm getting all upset:

There are too many options

So I don't know what to get.

A laptop or a tablet,

An i-Pad or a Mac:

The choice, it seems, is endless

But there's something they all lack.

They're all so darned new-fangled

But clearly cannot cope

With my docs in older formats;

It really is no joke!

I just want a new comp...

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The night sky of the East Coast

With street light power cut

Then the bells rolling down Victoria Road out to sea

All of which was for me

The best poetry

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To Write a World

     I wish I had the power to write a world,

And if I did,

     It wouldn’t be like here,

We wouldn’t be suffering like

We are now,

Of course,

I would write the many

Wildlife’s and flora,

Of course I would write

The many features –

The mountains, the forests,

The jungles, the seas,

    And yes; peoples!

But where it would d...

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They say that some people can attain justice, but...

how can there be equity if justice is not blind, it has open eyes and points its finger?

without a clear alphabet , without free will, as so ordered by the commander of staggered dawns

False testimony multiply in front of their hands, to in...

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I was happy and never knew it,

Sad and knew it so well.

Love slipped by but I never noticed,

though love has marked me well.

Winter passed and summer came

yet I was living in the cold.

My love has turned and passed me by

and outside the world grows old.

Happiness is trapped for me

When love had cast its spell

I was happy and never knew it

Sad and knew it ...

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It becomes, shackles moulded by old hands fade

Risen for most to see yet, eyes create prisms of glass

Reflecting images that pass through rushing feet

Only for those who stand still will know being as a thought first thought and carried as a friend

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Dispatched to our recycle bins 
the memory of their suffering 
comes across as a 
thawing out window 
lost across the decades 
rather than perpetual 
 constant moaning,

An epitaph in the wind, 

sleeping in the distance 
with shell like heads 
and shaved eyes 
staring at the camera,

counting to ten

engulfed in silence

in front of a candle 
between emotions 
that lie betw...

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The recent posting of "Male Health Issues -No1" saw me digging out some lines I wrote for my late brother-in-law who suffered and had to endure an emergency hospital admission to enable him to pee properly.

This is a re-post from January 2012 - with sympathy offered to all those who know what it's about.

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

I ask you guys, isn't it gre...

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Running and Running

I’m running and running and running

Out of life

Soon to hit 50 not the 4 minute mile

Never got that cosy family

Simple routine

I chose to hit the bend legless

And run past anyone I loved

Running and running and running

Away from life

Words leapt up as saviours

Not my two wives

I chose to take the baton from

Strangers I saw s...

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riddle me this fatman

I must not grieve my silences
while choosing not to breathe lies into them

yet because you feel you are owed a poem
my education, which has only been borrowed,
must make the arguments promised of a bullet
more compelling than Neruda could even know

linked through bitterness, to
deluge the starving with the busy
decorum of disastrous diligence
you may, if ...

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(I'd be equally happy to take this bet with any of my left-wing friends on WOL, starting today)

I recall a conversation from 1968 with a fellow embryonic leftie.  It was the time of the Czech Uprising, and the Paris Student and Chicago Riots.

He argued these were the death throes of capitalism, heralding revolutionary socialism in the West.

I reckoned he wasn’t right in the head; tha...

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As we approached La Ronde,

I pondered the

revolutions of Time and

of my life housed

Therein.

Now lost,

with the departing

of my kin.

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Middle-aged prostate well-being
Depends on the candour of seeing
That one really must thank
The relief of a wank
From the Unbearable Tightness of Peeing

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Today's great undead poets,
awash in the internet sea,
seek to fill the void of sensible emptiness
of our cyberspace world.
Following the heroic tradition of Man,
these daring individuals look to gain acceptance
through the expression of concepts.
Mirroring the virility and vitality of Life,
in defiance of critical naysayers,
the blankness of virtual paper
is scribbled upon with hurt, ho...

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Love is killing me

It’s taken over my life

Love is killing me

And it cuts like a knife

My heart it aches and bleeds

I am more dead than alive

I can’t eat and I can’t sleep

No matter how hard I strive

Love is killing me

And I can’t breathe

Love is killing me

But I can’t leave

My eyes are wide open

But I am too blind to see

That this war of words

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An invisible band
Plays inaudible strains.
Enter two dancers;
They step, figure and twirl
To natural time.

Side by side or in tandem,
Now solo, now pairing,
They take it in turns
To lead and to follow
Exactly on cue.

Sure-footed and nimble,
And foil to each other,
They tread their design;
Their joy is their movement,
Their ballet their grace.

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Curtain Call Pt I

When the curtain goes down
For that very last time
I will pull on it’s string
Rather than bow politely
Bathing in the applause

Stand aside in the shadows
And walk into the rain
Leaving the words to speak
For themselves without me
Stealing any of their thunder

Shutting that door behind me
Like a chapter in a book
In rhythm to the cheers
Clutching my stoma...

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GHOST TRAINS ON THE MIDDLEWOOD WAY                                                   

the boundaries of          yakkity yak       

yakkity yak        yakkity yak        cities

ripped outlines      in the pub railway geeks

yakkity yak        a moment of insanity      yakkity

yak       umbelliferare umbrella lost platforms

yakkity      find yourself yakkity   ...

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today

the girl next door knows

that something good is going to happen

I can hear her singing 

through the bathroom wall

I just know that something good

is going to happen

today 

she isn’t tired

she isn’t angry

today bringing up a kid alone

is something she can do

she feels it sure and certain and pure and true

because today something good 

is goi...

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Spots. Blind.

Stage high.

Steps to side.

Remember that.

Mic low, must adjust.

Swivel up, screw, twist?

20 steps to public eyes.

Will they listen will they like will they heckle will I die?

Will I fly fall trip cry choke spit cough?

Stammer stutter wobble sweat tic burp boff?

Extraordinarily urinarily anxious.                        

A pint to pass th...

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I don't write them like I used to
now they're not carved out of my bones
like they used to be

I don't bleed all over the carpets 
in some mouldy rented bathroom
like I used to

They used to say it was the angst that drove me
some mild flair for painting what had pained me
but you have to make peace eventually
and I don't know what is driving this anymore

At the end of the line ...

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red rage rising

dead black falling

skin scraped clean and

scant bones crawling

eyes are bleeding

ears not hearing

mouth sewn shut and

fingers pleading

dripping life-drops

broken limbs flop

love it when the

beating heart stops.

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Can there but a moment be
when regret and lapsed opportunity
                                               cease;
let them meld into Magellanic folds
the haze of yesteryearning set in dewy fog
and permit this sweet agony of bliss to arise,
soft tendrils that caress a once fond recollection.

__________
 

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I come home in the morning boat
With mud in my wellies and a waterproof coat
Oh mother dear, your house is covered in mud
And Staines just wanna have floods

And in the streets wherever I’ve been
Detergent won’t help if you wanna get clean
This muddy water isn’t mixing with suds
And Staines just wanna have floods.

Conservatives wading, and pointing Lib Dems
Don’t help if your High Stre...

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Where butter melts

and honey drips

and parting comes

from parted lips;

with my fingers 

I smear the dew-

my enquiring tongue 

enquires of you;

your fragrance stole

from your folded clutch

yet offered warm

and wet to touch.

words and foto T Carroll

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The sun is slow tonight, she moves towards
the horizon with care, an uncertain path
because someone is missing.

The sunset will hesitate again, she moves
unsteadily, knowing the colours will be faint
because someone is missing.

The horizon reflects the sorrow in a lake,
my lake, where drowning she takes away our
hurt, because someone is missing.

We nail our friend to a cross, i...

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ThePoetry Spoke -

Thursday the 20th of February - 8pm!  
This time around it’s Open Mic
&  Guest Poetry from  - Just Poets 

Gallaghers Pub & Barbers - 20 Chester Street

Birkenhead - Wirral - CH41 5DQ

Of our Guests;

http://www.wirralpoetry.com/news/event-special-notice/

Just Poets are Catherine Coward and Norman Warwick.  Norm is co-host at folk ‘n poetry nights at The Ba...

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In the flood canoe rescue,

Great Britain take the lead,

In the pilfering of houses,

We get gold for the greed,

In the skeleton were top, 

As the food runs out to quick,

For children and the aged,

The poor and the sick,

Sandbag filling quickness,

We have that one to,

The army lads champion that,

The royals helped with a few,

Evacuation sprint, Won by counties, fi...

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Lily going by

Hers was a beauty sheer and clear and clean

…………….A beauty born to break

Across the placid sight of placid men,

Leaving such lovely turbulence in its wake

That they be never – ever –the same again

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If you don’t believe in love at first sight
Look at me once more
From another side, on the light.
This you'll surely love and adore.

Larisa Rzhepishevska (Odessa, Ukraine)
February 14th, 2014

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He stands like Atlas,

my world upon his shoulders,

observing distant nebulae.

Some say they see the creation of stars

But we see children of the greater helix.

Suns and moons pull the tides

 up and down the shores,

 Bringing time to our days and nights.

Some say there are multitudes of invisible galaxies

But we call it being on the same wavelength.

He is my ...

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you what i go up mountains for this

100 miles per hour winds

'Aving it ,

Flipping trees Falling

puddles the size of fields

filling metal cabins with stones

the moon got hurt

in cycles of  7 years

i was dead at 21 and born again when i was 28

these things that came from the heart

erosion of the mind

i never thought of not being wanted

i watched woodworm at work

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Come to me my lover,

come to me with blind eyes,

with helpless cause and hopeful mind...

bring to me your all, that which has never be known to another.

Kneel your world, your everything before me,

lay before me as you lay yourself bare.

Though all my bidding is forbidden.

Though your calling must be silent,

hidden from any save our entwined souls.

A heady brew, that tas...

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The morning you crept

from the bed,

barely aware, I heard

the rattle and thrum

of a diesel at the curb,

click of the lock,

crunch of gravel,

thud of the door.

The cooled depression,

the ridge of duvet

along my back,

the false impression

you're there. Already out

of the cul-de-sac.

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January has gone, thank fuck.

Now this sorry month, is bereft of cold too.

All we have is a sister's unwanted birthday

and this day, set aside for love.

I accept there's something about snow,

be it a softening that makes worlds new,

or an awakening that kindles something in you.

An ancestral memory of a Nordic flow, maybe.

So I hope that between now and ...

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Encased in steal black cats flee the rain

Before my eyes so drench the streets

And give black Bins to colour usual

Cigarette ash hue of perfume piss and

Excrement a new unholy beginning

Bitter its end only clear skies away

Till once again its inanimate fuckin

Ugly life is once again exposed

A syphilitic old man’s cock for beauty

But still it pours and pours and pour...

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Bardic warriors in the worn tartan

of Christie Cleek declaim

their savage lines:

It's never too late to be early

and catch the wind

Taxed to death

Heaven-sent

the mirror whispers a thousand words

we seldom notice

Stuffy, smoky stifling atmosphere

of shouting people:

What do they put in our beer?

Stop killing our world -

and don't be late!

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Remember the guy

November the fifth, bonfire night, to celebrate guy and set him alight
Fireworks shooting, up in the night sky, kids watching them going, ever so high
Flashing and banging, exploding in light, giving the kids, a most wonderful sight
The wood is stacked, and been set to flame, for the Children that gathered, 
The children that came,
The flames go up licking his feet, burnin...

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Once in land far away
Was a woman 
she knelt to pray
She prayed for a child who could be
The key to a new dawn of ages

The baby was conceived
Naturally of course
By union of bodies 
By lustful souls
The scrolls foretold the child would grow to be
A pawn in the game of prophecy

A peacemaker
A son of the goddess 
Most high
Her diamond ,glowing  bright in the sky
But there would be...

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Some Advice From Edwina Currie, Former MP

Don’t give thanks
for local food banks
they encourage
the feckless
the greedy
the emotionally needy
the reckless
the addicts
the idle-by-habits
the drunkards
the hopeless
the gormless
the homeless
the wasters
the smokers
the cheaters
the faceless
the indigent
the immigrants
the lazy
the crazy
the tattooed dog owners
the debtors
th...

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A seagull cries above

I look up to see it soaring

its stark outline against the blue sky

seems out of place above terraced streets

singing songs of the sea

it takes me home,

to where...

I'm on the strand line

eyes half closed against the glare

cast by the sun's rays on the incoming surf

echoes of the shifting shore reverberate through me

I am the waves, I am the se...

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Into the night

The night was dark, just like any other, hiding dark secrets and shrouded in cover
Lights reflecting a phosphorus glow, waiting for day and darkness to go
Shadows dancing down every street, taking head on, every surface they meet
The wind started to blow, howling with speed, looking to ravage with savagery and greed 
The night was alive with creatures unknown, waiting in shad...

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It was the model spitfire in your front room window

That separated you from that tribe,

We call ‘the old’.

I saw you sometimes at the shops, your movements slow, deliberate,

Arthritic, I thought, I was wrong.

You carried a basket, the old-fashioned clumpy kind.

And you were always looking behind you. I thought it was the traffic

You feared, but  it was the Messerschmit ME 262 ...

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Oh Michael Gove
please come to Hove
and stick your head
in a gas stove
On second thoughts
I just don't care:
feel free to do
it anywhere

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TOO LATE

Too late now to strike sparks with words on poetry’s anvil

Too lengthy a journey of diversion and distraction

Now weariness forces me to pause

Beside this twisted trail

My wrinkled hand trembling as I write;

Inspirations of a lifetime compete for attention

Triumph and disappointment fight to be immortalised

But the sands fall steadily

In a glass that w...

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A month’s trial…

Attempting to butch up your girly home,

you consign Marilyn cushions to the spare room,

replace boudoir duvets with dark covers.

Underwear entwining in ‘a big wash’,

your vegetarian trolley re-discovers

the meat counter at Tesco’s.

His’ You’re trying too hard’

is drowned out by the vacuum cleaner.

But after years of solitary living,

you long...

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