every lamppost begets a graveyard

a thick bottomed slice of burnt offerings

to the insect gods

upon seeing this the blackened birds drop

eating, now,

from a sugared spoon

the wind comes from nowhere and just holds me

a manly duality, with a laissez faire sexuality

and when it drops those birds settle on my

fingers and cough for my attention

far too ...

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The warmth of closing Maytime sun

Flicks through the breezy blind

As jagged, fractured, lightening thoughts

Attack my drifting mind

I lie, reclining held secure

A nest of wickered foam

Just glaze and stare, motionless there

Subconsciousness to roam

Unexpected warmth surrounds

With this the moment’s shaped

Languid limbs and slackened mouth

A body barel...

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Here is the latest news on our contribution to the Heatons Arts Trail: -

Since our primary role will be to translate artistic products into words of poetry, I think our general theme should be ‘synaesthesia’ – that is, the translation of one artistic medium into another. This would work in two ways:

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This is the first poem in my new e-book On The Verge, which I am selling to raise money for a Black Rhino conservation project in Africa.  You can buy the book for under £2 here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/317217  and it can then be downloaded onto just about any computer, smart-phone, tablet or e-reader.

The Spirit of the Road.

Everything’s got a soul you know.

The...

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Standing on the wide grey hill

The noontide skyscape hangs heavily

Like fog crafted from artists’ hands

Cities of unease hang invisible in the air.

They pour scorn on every hope in his heart

Picturing clouds unfurling with time

And shades of black rolling in on him.

A binocular gazer, from a high window

In the distance

Watches and waits, careful a...

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Following the loss of her husband of many years, my sister received the following poem by Robert Browning

Hamiliton in a message of condolence from a friend.  I post this with acknowledgements to its author as a

prime example of how "less can be more".

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

I walked a mile with Pleasure.

She chatted all...

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Dostoyevski’s Chicken

Ladies and Gentlemen

Boys and girls

In this space and around the world

Raise your hands

Let flags unfurl

For Dostoyevski’s Chicken

She can sing – she can dance

She’s signed up for a comedy romance

A billion web views – not by chance

For Dostoyevski’s Chicken

Here’s a fowl you all can rate

She’ll never end up...

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I have an eidetic memory which is similar to a photographic memory.

Apparently useful if you work for MI5 !

I can remember all the kind positive comments left on my poems left previously and I appreciated every single one of them.

Eidetic memory remembers the spoken word, I also remember all situations, places I have been and can also bring an almost identical picture to my mind.

...

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One More Baby Means One More Tomb

Vast, swelling, productive wealth

Cheaper goods imported

The shoes on my feet

The app on my phone

That monitors my menstrual cycle

Power in my hand.

In China

A Womans fertility

Is under surveillance

Checked by family planning officers

If you fall pregnant

The state knows

On a surgical table

...

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I sit on the rustic park bench          

that gives me splinters                    

to watch the world go by.                

Families pass, as do couples         

many hand in hand                           

oblivious to my sigh.                       

The only solitary figure                     

am I on this spring day                   

I know that's how it ...

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The Sparkle

The Sparkle,

silver starlight in your eyes,

a soft touch

before we say goodbye.

It’s over too fast,

I hope this feeling will last

until the morning

The Sparkle

of teardrops on your cheek.

All my tears,

the happiness I seek

was over so fast,

I hope this pain won’t last

until the morning

The Sparkle,

our...

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ten past nine

i wait by the smell of the oils drying

and look at my fingers

think how the paint patterns of accident

look better 

than the offering on the board.

look at the lines drawn

in colour

on the fat side of my thumb.

The mount of venus

where all ideas of love begun.

they are still young, just weary

my fingers can easy bend 

and b...

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Two Seagulls Flying 

Two seagulls flying, flew down to the beach

They ate fish and chips from the chippy

Then after that, they tried some ice cream

A choc-ice and some Mr Whippy

They flew down again the very next day

This time they ate Pizza and Pastie

They were too stuffed to fly so they both hitched a ride 

On the roof of a slow passing taxi

All...

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Hello WOL chums - long time no hear from Fifi. Apologies for that - making a living got in the way of having a life. But I had to share this with you: Ian McMillan (yes, the Ian McMillan) re-tweeted a poem of mine, so I'm as happy as a cat with two tails! The poem was inspired by watching Karen Alderson knitting during a get-together at an Arvon course run by WOL's very own Julian Jordon with F...

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Please don’t film me I don’t wish to be

Connected infected much rather rejected

than play any part in your puerile

so called immediacy or Art.

YouTube generation, god give them detention

for anything goes from delivering weak prose

to dispatching old souls

Taboo we may as well strip and replace it with sick

that’s what they say the youth of today

when d...

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I am the thought

I am the instant

I am the fleeting moment

I am deep inside the feeling

The feeling of you

I am the air

I am the breath

I am the swelling of your lungs

I am the sweet sensation on your lips

The words you speak for me

I am the deed

I am the action

I am the motion of your body

I am the drive that makes you go

Come...

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(I'd never heard the saying until a recent visit there)

The chanting in the cloister

The pealing of the bell,

As sure as God’s in Gloucester

So all with Gloucester’s well.

It’s said that God in Heaven

Benignly chose this place

This city by the Severn

To domicile his grace.

So many towers skywards tilt

As to the clouds they’ve clawed

...

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Love is many things,

But not an extract or a selection.

Love is complete.

Love is belief and trust,

Not demanding and expecting.

Love is total.

Love is making people happy,

Not seeking happiness.

Love is consuming.

Love is compassion and forgiveness,

Not deference, submission and duty.

Love is unconditional.

Love is benevol...

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Everybody needs a birra' space .... don't they ???? .......

MY PLACE.

I’m going to find me a place

A place with space.

A place with space

Where I can face

My demons.

On my own.

All on my own.

On my own

I know

But I won’t be lonely.

Because

I’ll have grown.

Grown, shown,

I can manage

On my own.

And exorcise

My gh...

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photo credit: AEI 

Walk Loosely To The Light

Biography and biology unfold and we

Find us bound in habit

Tied to identity

Herstory

Their story

Acculturated

Assimilated    

What turns us inside

What makes us crazy

Makes us remember

Forget

Walk loosely

A tall elegant griot advised

Let it hang

Push meaning

Fire is needed more than light

So orange l...

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It's not the days

it's the minutes.

The days can be managed

to have shape, content

interest

emotion.

But the minutes can be hell.

The wolf howls at the moon

circled by Command Module pilots

so far from humanity.

Six lonely men, enduring their forty seven dark minutes.

But even they were loved.

Their lives had flavour,

they knew the intimacy...

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Love
Spent

Leave your mark under my skin

Oh my

how strong you are

and

feast your eyes on my disdain

And hope this one won't scar



I will never belong to you, again

I will never belong to you,

Push

if you still need my pain

Cause I will never tell

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Leaving

I don’t doubt,

I don’t doubt at all that

Atrocities are carried out by

All who claim to know,

For they feed it –

To each and every-one – still,

When you see the big picture,

The real story behind the gore,

You’ll not want for war,

You’ll not want the macabre images

Hollywood cries for,

I saw once upon many moons ago,

The re...

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The orchestra of wind blowing

Through lush green trees

Builds from a whisper

To a forte with ease.

Lightning casts a blinding light

In white dangerous rhythm

Thunder drums quietly, then boom

In crescendo to the anthem.

Maestro of land, sea and sky

Of many living sounds and sights

Living, breathing symphonie's

Singing lullabies at nights.

And then ...

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She rides in the dark of the night,

on her newly broken steed,

lines on her face so deep,

tracing every life she'd ever lived.

With a heart of gold

and soul of an angel,

she's never been cornerned,

being alone,

is her destiny.

Her heart racing,

her steeds hooves pounding,

galloping along a darkened beach,

waves crashing on the shore,

whi...

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Following

In the gloom of dell

Command and repeat the spell

That held the blaze

Of you and me

Why did I jump so bold into your arms?

Pining

In the forest of grief

Tear and scatter the leaf

That held the hope

Of you and me

What made you torment both our souls?

Floating

In the river of vigour

Fade and smote the figure

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when im looking into the mirror pointing and saying YOUR MORE PATHETIC THAN ME !

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At the beat of a drum,
The world changed,
Blamed on many,
Caused by few.

At the still of a heart,
The world stopped,
Spun by many,
Ceased by two.

At the loss of a soul,
The world cried,
Tears of many,
All for you.

Dedicated to the family and memory of Drummer Lee Rigby, born July 1987, senslessly taken from the world, 22nd May 2013

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I entered the cage instead of a wild beast,

Burned out my term and moniker by nail in barrack,

lived by the sea side and played the roulette,

had dinner, hell knows with whom, in a frock coat.

From the height of a glacier I watched half of the world,

three times was drowning and twice was ripped.

Left the country in which I was nursed.

A city can be made out of...

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So why do I write?

I am not a poet,

but I write a

lot of poetry.

So why do I write?

I write to

show my

point of view.

So why do I write?

Sometimes it's to

feel like I have

a small amount

of control.

So why do I write?

I write what

I feel.

...

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Was I the only one now on the beach?

She had stood behind me,

we had both waited- awkwardly.

She decided then to go,

I surmised- by the sound that

the soft tread of departure makes

on sand...

Sunsets care nothing for dimming shadows

nor waves sigh, that they must lap and fill

the printed pools left by feet.

How hard to turn and not look

back to ...

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Mean and moody,

myterious and handsome,

so they call you Black Jack,

do you fancy a game ?

Cool as a cucumber,

disinterest in your look,

yet,

I know what you're thinking,

do you fancy some lust ?

Think you'll break my heart in two,

in you,

I can not trust,

yet,

the passion you've stirred in me,

electricity running through my ve...

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Gull Beach

The three of gulls have flapped it southwards.

With eyes that see fairly and clearly

Only now and again

I look upon the seas cold castle and gallery.

It’s beginning to rain.

A cavalcade of slack-skinned cattle

Surprise me coming down the grey platform,

Sand spreading beneath their hooves,

Shaggy burgundy and white,

These...

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Upside Down in the Sink

Once again this week, I espied a wonderful notice,

this time in a Stockport café

which was an absolute delight to read….

It was along these lines (more or less as it was written):

“All staff to rinse out tea pots

and stand upside-down in the sink”

Well! A poem begging to be written

and here it is:

W...

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I rarely do preamble but feel the need here.  

Our poetry night moved venue a month back, and in so doing we moved to a function room that the pub owners had named and decorated as 'the spectacle'.  

So what I hear you ask?

I wanted to write something with that title in mind.  In so doing I came up wth the idea of a poet in the audience - as yet unheard, becoming the greatest perfor...

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I don't intend to die, for I have much to finish first.
But if you plan my funeral, if worst should come to worst,
I want some decent hymns, some "Love Divine"s, and "Guide me, O"s.
Say masses for my soul (for I shall need them, heaven knows),
And ring a muffled quarter-peal, and preach a sermon next
(“Behold, that dreamer cometh” should be given as the text),
Then draw a splendid h...

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Shhh……

The silence of the snow as it,

Carries the winter across the land,

It is unnerving,

Each flake, a spirit waiting to be reborn,

Its new, its concealing, its inviting,

A white mask descends onto the face of mother earth,

It covers her history of wrinkles,

Her centuries of faults and all her impurities,

She becomes new once again,

Clean…...

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The poem fails

It cannot render traction

Or the queer zero,

Rehearse location

Or mine gravity.

Panic & lapse

Immune to weak forces

Arise on threads of absence

In mechanical waves,

Muted by observation

& uncertain rules

In the chamber of bias.

An adumbration transpires.

Wanton longing. Dimension

Flattened & tamped.

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Gary

never known for his subtlety

three pints in at The Anchor

half an eye still on the game

orders another lager

swigs 

stands tall at the bar

and tells us all 

this changes nothing

he wouldn’t kick her out of bed

hilarity

he’s no oil painting himself

never has been never will

shouts of he should be so lucky

in another l...

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You're in the middle of the piece
You're really on a roll
You've mastered every syllable
And built it to a whole

Every intonation,
Every stress is well rehearsed
You know it inside out and back-to-front
Each chorus and each verse

You even know it side-ways
You've swum through every part
Can add to it your character
Your voice, your mind, your heart

Any lazy alli...

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Mister Popinjay, up on his branch

Considers all the angles

Before committing;

Head on one side,

Matching the slant of light through branches

Jaunty but wary

Like a young lad, out upon the town,

Entering an unfamiliar bar.

Mister Popinjay

Brought me the summer

- a gift for which I’m grateful -

By decking his house with green

And wearing gaudy...

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Commonality 

I had this conversation with the mother of my spouse,

And viewed the garden that she tends to gentrify the house,

We came to the conclusion that we never would agree,

About the brave and various forms that nature gives for free.  

There’s glory in the chaos of the wild and wanton things,

The greenfinch in the hedgerow the buzzing wasp that stin...

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