If death is thought the ultimate

what price a part or two?

To be left as a mindless torpid trunk

the Elephant in the room.

And a limb’s not a limb – it’s a piece of shit

when blown into a muddy pit.

The scalpel only adds subtraction

in that theatre; sealing disconnection.

If death yields a hero – is life shame?

Return, with only self to blame?

Nobody t...

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(This poem was born of a Newsnight blogger's comment in 2008. Serendipity in 'spades'.)

The arms of the world reach up in despair

A desperate child, with no mother there;

As the armaments industry fashions war-ware

There is not much call for ploughshares.

The artisan’s hand cupped Britain’s prowess

When the smith made and mended the tools of success;

His arms now hav...

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As war’s abrasion strips his fine veneer

man’s inhumanity his ilk defines.

Bi-pedal dog, scent-primed, unleashed, packed off

he brings a licking to some wrong-tongued foe.

While back in civvy-street, his leaders rise

short-slept from tasting civilized excess

this day newborn in sinless rectitude

to move their boarded pawns with gifted guess.

In blinkered ignorance of C...

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But it’s prose! I tell you. Prose in short lines!

Running randomly like untrained vines

That cling to a garden’s formality

Reducing all to banality.

It’s prose! In case you did not spot;

There’s no artifice no syntactical knot.

No structure, no dalliance with rhyme

No touch ambrosial – sublime.

Yes its Prose!  It has no form beyond

That which robs meaning,...

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Miss Corfield, Miss Corfield, we’re destined as one

You a wood nymph, I a woodworkers son.

We both vibrate airwaves of Radio 4

You live and vivacious! I dead as a door.

With nasal enhancement and vamp-throated quirk

You take mundane news and you set it to work

Stirring old men, from straw hat to galoshes

Till backward and forth, my sawdust-blood slo...

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I know why violent crime’s going down.

Lads are totally drained, before they hit the town.

What with interactive porn and video blasting

They’ve got nothing left, their manhood is resting.

If the foe’s not eight foot, and moving like lightning

Not one synapse fires – he isn’t worth fighting.

And unless a girl’s shaped like 3D French Curves

She isn’t a trophy – ...

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This IS a poem. Just add line-breaks.

The sweet-wrappers of a bitter childhood still blow after me, with the tinkling sound of Angel wings; not trying to catch up, bringing tidings of great joy, but curious to see what my enduring negativity will yet do to me. Rage puzzles Angels; born, angelic and loved - to Angel mothers (did you not know?) they need no father, save He that, by definition...

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“In the midst of life we are in death.”

The angels wonder why

mankind hangs on to pointless breath

refusing just to die.

Three score and ten, is but hors d’oeuvre

we take another bite.

Spare parts fitted with such verve

fend off that final night.

The reaper stamps a tapered toe

his whetstone rasps an oath.

Sickly, and senile, came when d...

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I should have seen this coming – oh the guilt!

I nurtured each of evolution’s steps.

But now I beat my breast – the milk is spilt!

Till this Great Age shall close, I am regret!

I see it now; without the animal

no cerebral extension manifests.

But male potency hears just one call:

the one that I, upon the fool, impressed!

I thought I might slip w...

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                        (On seeing: “Pelican Daycare - six weeks to five years”)

If you can watch the life in you expanding, to land upon this sphere scarce half complete

If just a few weeks later you are ousting that unconsulted mite on Childcare Street

If you can strain your heart and mind and sinew, to earn a sum scarce meeting with the bill

Suppress the tearing, scream...

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What irony that women try

To emulate the world of “Y”

Where man’s degraded chromosome

Decrees he be a sickly drone.

Perhaps now that we know the truth

Shall women shun lies learned in youth

and power-dressed execu-dames

Espouse romance and changing names.

Yes, lets restore that status quo

That kept us stable long ago

When woman had warmt...

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(With great respect to William McGonagall)

“Conservatives must win here to stop 5 more years of Gordon Brown”

This was the flyer - approved and printed – subsequently distributed round suburbs and town.

And the people of Newbury – as is their wont – largely ignored its gaudy flaunt.

Though it might well be assumed its intent was - the more Brownophobic citizens - to daunt.

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MMMM

Mattress

Mistress

Bed test

Bliss rest

Hand felt

Heartfelt

Hand dealt

Heart melt.

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It is the Thunderbolt that steers the universe. (Heraclitus)

Feeble force of Gravity

Ill founded-university.

NB! Electricity

Overriding energy.

Universal current flow

Filaments may faintly glow.

Shorting yields an arc-light show

In short: all stars are “touch and go!”

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A sock lies still, alone and crumpled

Her husband left for partners-new

Tumbling midst myriad socky others

Occasionally coming into view.

Front-loader’s rumble whirr and hum

More versatile than Drake’s old drum.

Detergency now far outweighs

Matelot filth of far off days.

As Mr Sock has...

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The Moon feels naught in futile circling

far off in bland acceptance of our plight;

while in that feeble light we half-blind stray

to situations shunned in light of day.

Her beams afford us sight attenuate

allowing indiscretions - thought and deed

and poets then, that cold dead orb invest

with subtle attributes no whit possessed.

As folly nightl...

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Consider all the unconceived, they neither toil nor spin

Till called upon by selfish act of grossly unoriginal sin.

You read those lines and smile, perhaps, at whimsy’s gentle play

But Human Rights’ first law should be: ALL life may life gainsay.

By inference those who have reached cognized fertility

Should bow before the unconceived – the being yet to be.

An...

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Do not go easy into that cruel plight,

Life-latency should, combination, stay;

Rage, rage against the prying of the light.

Though cells, prior to conjoin, accrue no right,

Un-right usurped un-bid, entreats that they

Do not go easy into that cruel plight.

Wild sperm who caught and shot the ovum’s flight,

And learned too late, now grieving on your ...

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(To be read in Heaney’s ‘reading voice’.)

My chisel’s cold appraisal

Blunt as an English Master’s stare

Probes the poem for its pith.

Non sequiturs stacked neatly

Drying in a metaphoric sun

Supported by a splay of beams.

Redundancy is everywhere

Making the poet poorer than Midas

Who dare not spend a penny

Lest the golden flow shoul...

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