Free man heroic family title

A story written light years before he was conceived

A man of his word He stands by his wife

And through pain came the light this man received

He grieved

He grieved for his boy

His beautiful Son named worthy of praise

His troubled son so handsome

Once a child so pure

He suffers no more

Besides him God like lady Joan

Together they mourn

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Suspected of attack
On fascist Graziani
He was in house arrest
As the case was with
Suspects the rest.

A prisoner of war
Then  via Somalia
He was sent to Rome
Found a black lion
If left at home.


Together with
A prison inmate
From Yugoslavia
Called Julio
He made a rope
Out of a blanket
The reason
To descend down
And escape
From a tower prison.

In a show of contempt
...

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Tank Man

Here is a tank

Rumbling across a vast expanse

A square

Here is a man

White shirt

Black trousers

A shopping bag in each hand

He steps before the tank

Raises his hand

Palm out

Stop!

And the tank stops

Manoeuvres

The man alters his position

Manoeuvres

The man climbs onto the tank

Talks to those in the tank

He...

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Turn not a blind eye 

to the homeless heroes 

among us. 

Give a voice to the 

desperate and downtrodden. 

Acknowledge their somber silence,

lend a helping hand.

Stand up, be counted. 

It’s about more than solos 

in the end. 

https://youtu.be/fgKxVx67VRU

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The Keeper

Unlike many in his position

He was never the last to be picked

Because he was one of the best

Not for him the fast quick feet

Or the well timed volley

Or the crunching tackle

Safe hands

That night

In the cold

With his team mates

Where bravery

was an afterthought

It was his greatest save

Not a shot from the edge of the area

Not ...

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Long ago and far away

Are the worlds of yesterday.

We stand upon the brink of time

Where shadows rule and blind leads blind.

Nations quake, the seas they rage,

What help now our yesterdays.

Cosy dreams and pageant's show

Since far away and long ago

Have brought us to the brink of time

Where clown and prince play pantomime.

We cheer, we boo, we clap our hands,

...

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Snob!
That's what my parents always called me with a smirk
But I wasn't
I was just different

The highlight of my week wasn't watching Knight Rider like the other boys
It was Wonder Woman
Imagining myself wearing her gold tiara and bracelets
Her lasso of truth
Spinning round and saving the world
Then going back to being normal Diana Prince

My older brother bought me Action Man
And ...

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My hands are patterned by ambitions,

these lines on my skin are wishes,

palms marked like the sky after a shooting star

and shining when they interlace with your fingers,

your skin's wrinkles and crinkles.

The crevices of our skin do not match or meet

the way coloured paths on a map synchronise and intercross,

reaching destinations.

We are separate pieces of meat

but

...

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O! Tell me again my teacher
hungrily, I listen to your story
ravenous, by candlelight 
call it out in a sooty street

Make your incisions with deep insight
the surgeon stillness of those deft hands
wisdoms draped in laurel leaves
infinite movement, sweet inertia

Shower me, my master
my naivety gladly surrenders
in the wake of your delivery
O Len, sing for me
some story I can dismant...

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Honourable

If you wrote his speeches

If you contributed to the farce

If you drove him here and there

If you kissed his arse

If you supplied his porcine pleasure

If you shone his shoes

If you offered him your soul

If all your reds were blues

If you served his table

If you served his drink

If you closed your mind

If you tried hard not to think

If you sorte...

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The Bayonet In The Shed

He put it there in forty nine,

in a woodworm riddled drawer,

wrapped it in a greasy rag.

A remnant from the war.

On top of it he laid his medals,

nothing more was said

until the day my father

took the bayonet from the shed.

We had pestered many times

and he had said ‘perhaps’

when we asked him if he’d killed

any Krauts or any Ja...

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I'm not a hero

Want a simple quiet life

No hero lives here

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O sun tanned youth

Who fired my heart,

Never meant to meet or part,

How many times you'd pass me by,

And leave me wishing I could die.

O brown faced lad

Were you aware

Of this admirer's silent stare?

Were there times when you were near

To saying something I might hear?

O golden boy

Now old like me,

Do you perhaps look back and see

...

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En elderly lady is in the police station

For the identification.

He wrung my hands

And gave commands

To the one on the right.

I couldn’t fight.

He kept my legs apart meaning…

Something dirty to start.

But…that one in the middle…

Sorry for my giggle …

Was like a beautiful fiddle.

He was the finest fellow.

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Heroism has always intrigued me.  But I often wonder whether it is but "one side of the coin".

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

Hero and coward,

Two sides of a coin;

How hard you may look,

You won't see the join.

A flick of the fingers -

The hero's in...

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Once-upon-a-time, a barman worshipped the Sun.

Worked nights so didn’t see much of it

but in his head he’d got stories of

the Fire God supreme,

Blaze Lord,

vanquishing monsters who'd eat out your dreams.

He called the Sun ‘Hero’,

believed it had six pairs of arms,

giant wings of flame

and the handsomest nose in the galaxy.

Made moons blush

and g...

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Not much rain that month they say - May of nineteen-forty-six;

the ache of war, still in the bones, where Cregagh boys kicked tries

down at Malone and dodged the sixes from the next-door cricket pitch. 

Wednesday, the twenty-second, an ordinary Belfast day,

but some alignment of the spheres, some sorcery, conspiracy of Gods,

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Punk's Not Dead!

Times were hard

it's 1976,

Labour's Britain

smashed to bits,

what no jobs?

my hopes are sunk,

I know mum

I'll become a punk!

Hippies are out

we need something new,

garagebands

and sniffin' glue,

no Elvis, Beatles

or the Rolling Stones,

so long boys

here's the Ramones!

One, two, three, four

...

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