The Raising Of The Trickster
The Raising Of The Trickster
When the western sky turns slowly into the colour of an old bruise
And the last orange streaks of daylight bleed from the setting sun
A cold white vapour swirls through the fields of corn its fingers prising apart the stalks
As the lands of Albion darken and strange noises start to crawl from the mist.
At the edge of the fields there sprawls a ...
Monday 14th December 2020 4:47 pm
Ghost Towns
Ghost Towns
Somewhere off the data highway
Quite close to router sixty-six
There lies a ghost town of splintered glass
A graveyard of useless stones and bricks
This is where the glitterati lived
They used to come in rumbling hoards
Stumbling through automatic doors
they walked the aisles of shiny floors
Nothing there now but skeletal racks
Dust settled ...
Thursday 3rd December 2020 2:10 pm
We Get It!
We Get It!
We get it
It’s dangerous
Lethal, I think they said
We hide indoors
Obey the laws
It’s better than being dead
We get it
But it won’t harm
Getting a hug or two
It’s Christmas after all
And deserved
After what we’ve all been through
We get it
The vaccine’s near
So we’ll all end up being alright
A kiss
Under the mistletoe
...
Wednesday 25th November 2020 2:33 pm
A November Haunting
A November Haunting
Halloween
Has come and gone
Leaving us with its
Vicious little demons
The howling wind
Screaming down the chimney
Like a banshee
Brittle twigs
Whipping along the windows
tiny scratching claws
of desperation
A wolf howl
Through the eaves
The cloying damp touch
Of dead leaves
Ice cold drizzle
Down th...
Wednesday 18th November 2020 2:50 pm
The Unknown Soldier's Prayer
The Unknown Soldier’s Prayer
I could be your husband, father, son.
The lost bones of another pointless war.
A flag to drape across my resting place,
transported from a distant, hostile shore.
I could have been a tinker, tailor, thief ,
lying here for a century and more,
those passing trades mean little to me - now
the angry guns have relinquished their roar.
...
Wednesday 11th November 2020 3:49 pm
Wraith
Wraith
We all reach that point in life
Where Halloween holds no magic
The ragged clothes and haggard looks
The pale of face and wrinkled mask
The wild unkempt hair of cobwebs
The brittle touch of ancient hand
The racing heartbeat
Pounding out its horror rhythm
The nervous look into dark corners
Death waiting across the grey veil
A cold sweat and night chi...
Friday 6th November 2020 2:08 pm
Spirits
Spirits
The first
Showed me how it had been
The laughter and the tears
Sliced turkey
Rich juices flowing
Lights and tinsel
Greens and reds and silvers
The smell of pine
Needles on the carpet
Arguments and recriminations
Old wounds opened
New wounds pierced
This was how it was
The second
Showed me how it is
Lonely day holy night
The only ...
Sunday 1st November 2020 12:52 pm
Damnation Trail
Damnation Trail
Through forests dark and shadowed vale
He follows the damnation trail
Along the river’s twisted course
Through bracken thick and clutching gorse
The ancient path cut through the land
He walks with devil’s hand in hand
And where his steps flatten the crops
No more will grow the wheat and hops
For he has footsteps cast in death
He steals the fa...
Wednesday 28th October 2020 12:25 pm
Corruption
Corruption
Here in the verdant meadows
All on a summer’s day
The dreaded army of the dark
Met with the noble fey
They fought until the long sundown
And the lost blood of the dead
Soaked into the sacred ground
And turned the roses red
When the fight was over
And the legion of the flies
Had swarmed across the corpses
Stealing hope from sightless eyes
...
Thursday 22nd October 2020 11:05 am
CrowLore
Crow Lore
We sit and watch the world go by
On fences long and oak trees high
The waxing moon the setting sun
We are the crows of Albion
We chronicle the human ways
Their restless nights and confused days
Mother, daughter, father, son
We are the crows of Albion
Our stories written down in books
Guarded well by crows and rooks
And no one knows what we ...
Sunday 18th October 2020 6:33 pm
Prophecy
Prophecy
The crows tell of the walking man
Who travels fields by day and night
The walking man who’s not a man
Who strides between the dark and light
Soulless, cursed to stumble through
The endless hedgerows of the land
He wished for life but walks in death
He is the sweet prince of the damned
The hares and rabbits run from him
The fox and wolf walk by ...
Thursday 15th October 2020 5:39 pm
Lazarus Curse
Lazarus Curse
I trudge across these ancient lands
Where crops are reared by human hands
And all I leave are footsteps deep
a crop the scythe will never reap
I see the changing seasons turn
The new shoots grow, bonfires burn
From the soil the world will grow
I track the sacred rivers flow
These things of beauty pass me by
I have no soul I cannot die
F...
Monday 12th October 2020 11:24 am
Resurrected
Resurrected
Down here where the beetles crawl
Where the leaves of autumn fall
A spider’s web of veins uncoil
To animate the resurrected
Sap permeates the ancient heart
A life’s blood for another start
Coursing through the body
Of the newly resurrected
Orbs of light spark into eyes
The keening of a newborn’s cries
Escapes the brittle twisted lips
T...
Friday 9th October 2020 11:18 pm
Apothecary
Apothecary
Beneath the ancient gallows tree
There sits an old apothecary
Where deep within its ancient rooms
Resides an old man selling ‘shrooms
That he has harvested from soil
Of graveyards where the serpents coil
And if the ache screams in your joints
Just follow where the way-marker points.
The place smells of dust and moist mildew
And the foul dark liqui...
Tuesday 6th October 2020 11:36 am
White Witch Of Winter
White Witch Of Winter
Corvus the white witch
Once flew the sky on crow’s wings
And fed on battlefield dead
She ate the hearts of serfs and kings
But soon she lost the taste for flesh
And transformed into what winter brings
Her skin is cold to human touch
She feasts on other-worldly things
She turns snowflakes into blizzards
Freezes your blood and tears
Sh...
Saturday 3rd October 2020 11:47 am
The Pumpkin Queen
The Pumpkin Queen
The pumpkin queen is orange
Like the colour of her fruits
She wears a giant apron
And polished hob-nailed boots
She has a heart as big as Oceans
And helps others when it suits
The pumpkin queen is deeper than
An oak tree’s ancient roots
She sits in regal glory
On a throne of wood and leaves
And will animate her chosen one
As long as i...
Thursday 1st October 2020 12:38 am
Messiah Of The Fields
Messiah Of The Fields
They left me hanging on a cross
The saviour of the summer crops
Just rag and straw so no great loss
My blood is in the wheat and hops
I faced the black and vicious hoard
Their coal cruel eyes and sharpened beaks
I am the ragged overlord
Who scares the crow yet never speaks
They pray to me to save their soils
From dark boned devils ...
Sunday 27th September 2020 11:21 am
Britannia Waives The Rules
Britannia Waives The Rules
Rule Britannia?
Britannia waives the rules
Encourages returning to the pubs
Puts students back in schools
One rule for the inebriated
One to avoid uneducated fools
The slavering wolf of commerce
Rolls its bloodshot eyes and drools
Britain’s never, never, never
Shall be slaves?
Burying its vulnerable
In Covid-shallow graves
...Friday 11th September 2020 2:56 pm
Aching All Over
Aching All Over
My back aches and my head aches
And my eyes ache in bright light
My arms ache and my hands ache
When I go to bed at night
But when anybody asks me
I just say that ‘I’m alright’
Aching All Over
My ears ache when I listen
To those heavy metal hits
My stomach aches after a curry
My arse aches after the shits
My toes and fingers ache
As ...
Sunday 6th September 2020 5:25 pm
The Mound
The Mound
It started way back when I was a child
One cold November night in sixty-four
Old furniture and windfall from the trees
Piled high into a mound of combustibles
Each year new kindling was added to ashes
That had smudged the verdant back garden lawn
Layer upon layer added to the blackened hill
That was gradually growing towards the sky
One year I lo...
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 2:41 pm
To The Saint Of Lost Causes
To The Saint Of Lost Causes
Melancholy Monday
Brown sugar blues
In the same vein
As your father
But you never made it
Across the river
To the other side
When you combine
The names of flawed giants
Who have fallen by the wayside
More than once
There is a grim
Divination
You leave us
Those sweet moments
From the Tennessee sun
To ...
Tuesday 25th August 2020 2:36 pm
Turning Mirrors
Turning Mirrors
Roll up, Roll Up
For the job swap circus
Where the occupations
Of minor celebrities
Drawn to the power
Of politics
Are filled by the learned
Men they depose
Hanz Folckhart the physicist
Walks on a tightrope
Whilst juggling the balls
Of the theory of gravity
Bernard Bochelli a notable chemist
Throws great custard pies
At the blo...
Wednesday 19th August 2020 12:41 pm
The Bayonet In The Shed [REPOST with audio]
I'm reposting this poem with the audio I recorded of it (as a song) to commemorate my father and the other soldiers who fought during WW2 in Asia - The Forgotten Army of Burma - for the 75th Anniversary of VJ Day
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 h...
Friday 14th August 2020 4:14 pm
Dog Day
Dog Day
The day was hot
Hot and humid
Stretching out
Into a dog day afternoon
The boy was young
Young and stupid
Stretching out
Beneath the furnace sun
The tarn was cold
Cold and ruthless
Stretching out
Along the sunny banks
The swim was exhilarating
Exhilarating and cooling
Stretching out
And heading for the shore
The tar...
Wednesday 12th August 2020 12:36 pm
Otherness
Otherness
We all know they’re riddled with Otherness
And they’re bringing it over here
I don’t care if they have the same body parts
It’s their Otherness that I fear
They’ll only have to look at you
And you’ll catch their Otherness too
They’ll be lazy, scrounging, Otherness spreading
Heathens – not like me and you
I bet they had lives of champaign and caviar
...Saturday 8th August 2020 3:29 pm
Covid Mary
Covid Mary
This world is made of razorblades and bile
Where every step is dangerous to tread
Bloody footprints stretch out mile after mile
Leading to the bone mansions of the dead
They chew on rotting meat and bitter wine
And breath the fetid air of charnel house
The graveyards filled with beggars is a sign
Of every corrupt moral they espouse
In darkened rooms they ...
Tuesday 4th August 2020 2:21 pm
Curfew
Curfew
Leave the light on – lock the door
This ritual plays out each Friday
A barrier to the debauched reveller
Who slips behind the clock returning home
A curfew for the beer vampire
Who will only find a soothing bed
If father specifically invites him in
After knocking twice and shouting through the letterbox
This ancient tribal face off
Between uprigh...
Friday 31st July 2020 2:33 pm
The Turning Of The Tide
The Turning Of The Tide
Walking along the beach at sunset
A romantic moment at holiday’s end
The sand and condoms slip between our toes
The dying red rays reflecting in rock pools of piss
And glinting off discarded coco-cola bottles
Children collecting the shell-like husks of food cartons
And skimming smooth flat plastic plates into the sea
Surf lapping gently against ...
Tuesday 21st July 2020 11:41 am
Amputation & Education
Amputation & Education
Some wounds won’t scab over
As some wounds never heal
They are infected by colonial blades
That hot irons won’t seal
Puss filled abominations
tainted by avarice and greed
you cannot absolve the guilty knife
whilst open wounds still bleed
You say ‘history was not written in pencil,
You cannot rub it out’
It’s not what it was written ...
Tuesday 14th July 2020 12:08 pm
One Hundred Days In Plague Town
One Hundred Days In Plague Town
I met a man in Plague Town
With bird’s beak and a long black coat
He carried a cane in his left hand
He spoke to me and I quote:
‘Don’t travel far from your fire son
Go runaway and hide
For Fear stalks the streets of Plague Town
Some are ill and others have died’
So I went back home as he told me
And I sat and counted the days
...Thursday 9th July 2020 5:06 pm
Insomniac
Insomniac
The floorboards above
Crack like rheumatic bones
Late at night
The house groans
And wind whispers
Through the open windows
The curtains open
The lights out
The darkness presses
Against the window
A streetlight drops
White light on the path
I can see a pale moon
Crawling through the trees
A cat sashays
Beneath the porch opposi...
Wednesday 8th July 2020 11:36 am
Six Grandfathers
Six Grandfathers
There is a mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota
Where the sculptor Gutzon Borglum chiselled rock
Into the shape of four gigantic heads
Symbolising birth, growth, development, preservation
Sixty foot high lies on the formation of a nation
Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln
You were not here at this great lands birth
You stole it and sha...
Tuesday 7th July 2020 12:55 pm
Marketplace
Marketplace
This space is like a ghost town
Trestle tables row on row
Echoing with the hustle bustle
Vendors cries of long ago
I held my mother’s hand
And listened to them shout
‘apples sixpence a pound
Come on get your money out!’
Comics stored in cardboard boxes
Toys stacked high on stands
Gleaming in the Friday sun
Just out of reach of sticky h...
Monday 6th July 2020 12:50 pm
Spells
Spells
She paints pebbles with rainbows
And places them on walls
Poetry on larger stones
For others to find
It is a small act of kindness
Of acknowledging our plight
She takes the paints and daubs
Her handprint on a slate
All over the footpaths and walks
Her art is left to the elements
A bright sun shining
through dark clouds
the people wh...
Sunday 5th July 2020 12:30 pm
Old Vic
Old Vic
Once these doors close
The lights are dimmed
They may never open again
The soft ghosts of actors
Fading in our memory
Leaving only distant echoes
The bright gaudy costumes
The greasepaint and powders
All left where they last fell
The empty seats collect dust
The stage becomes a mausoleum
Of tragedy and comedy
Pennies draining ...
Saturday 4th July 2020 1:59 pm
Needles & Thread
Needles & Thread
I remember her sat at an old Singer sewing machine
Turning the handle in the half-light of autumn
Making dresses and skirts for herself
So that precious pennies could be invested in children
She made me a Lone Ranger mask
From remnants of black cloth
She had left from one of her creations
I wore it with pride and a whoop and a holler
When ...
Friday 3rd July 2020 1:59 pm
We Never Suspected A Thing
We Never Suspected A Thing
Serial Killer
Feathers on the patio
Innocent soft eyes
Thursday 2nd July 2020 3:05 pm
You Could Own An Upright Piano
You Could Own An Upright Piano
You could own an upright piano
The newspaper advert said
And although I can’t play one
The words got messing with my head
We had one when I was a young boy
It stood in the front room, unused
Because no one in our house could play it
So it left all our visitors bemused
Well – actually – I could play ‘Chopsticks’
And my gran...
Wednesday 1st July 2020 2:38 pm
Hand Count
Hand Count
Sixty times a minute
I have travelled round this face
Three thousand six hundred times an hour
I have faithfully kept pace
Eighty six thousand four hundred times a day
I’ve ticked along
Six hundred and four thousand eight hundred times a week
Always right and never wrong
Eighteen million one hundred and forty four thousands times an average month
Relen...
Tuesday 30th June 2020 2:08 pm
Bull In A China Shop
Bull In A China Shop
‘all breakages must be paid for’
She told the bull in the china shop
As he stamped his hooves impatiently
And snorted through his ringed nostrils
So he tiptoed around glass cabinets
Admiring the fine white porcelain
The delicate hand painted vases
The plates and cup and saucers
Until he saw the red beating heart
Pumping rhythmically...
Monday 29th June 2020 2:44 pm
The Dig
The Dig
Thousands of years later
They found the sacred site
And used their soft sable brushes
To clear the earth from their finds
Here was what looked like a drinking vessel
Owned by a Covid-19 man called Persil
And look part of a plate with the lettering McDon
So possibly owned by someone from the Northern Zone
Inflation devices with logos of Asda and Lidl
Ancie...
Sunday 28th June 2020 6:17 pm
Eye Of The Storm
Eye Of The Storm
The black clouds gather
Heavy rain drops splat
There is iron on your tongue
The bitter taste of storm
Head thick with thunder
White light splits the sky
The trailing crack rattles windows
A cat cowers beneath a bush
Shivering in its fear
The deluge follows
Straight javelins of rain
You lift your head back
As the heavens empty
Water fi...
Saturday 27th June 2020 2:48 pm
Independence Day
Independence Day
At first they said ‘infect the herd’
but experts told us ‘that’s absurd,
you will cause deaths in the old.
What sort of shepherd risks the fold?’
So they put the cattle in the pen
only to be let out when
the time was right, or so they said,
they didn’t want their people dead.
The woolybacks baa’d and the daft cows moo’d
And farmer Boris calculate...
Friday 26th June 2020 1:52 pm
Lucky Coins
Lucky Coins
It would have been about nineteen seventy-seven
Outside The College pub at ‘Closing Time’
When I nearly stumbled over an old man
Lying by a slate stone wall.
He was dressed in dark clothes and had grey hair
That lay across his face
So that his features were obscured
And he was trying to pull himself up to his feet
I stepped towards him and help...
Thursday 25th June 2020 2:35 pm
Lockdown Birthday
Lockdown Birthday
We walked up from the river
Beneath a canopy of trees
The air was filled with birdsong
On a warm and gentle breeze
The sun was high in the June sky
The road stretched out ahead
We drank some wine together
shared cheese and new baked bread
After lunch we wandered home
The air was hot and hazy
Then we sat around and drunk beer
Refused t...
Wednesday 24th June 2020 12:55 pm
Mask
Mask
Mask
Covers face
Unknown eyes watching
Religious tolerance found wanting
Fear
Mask
Double standards
Stops the spread
Of disease and death
Secure
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 2:03 pm
Save The Planet & Your Heart
Save The Planet & Your Heart
The seed drill not the fracking drill
Will serve our country best
The vegetables not the beasts we kill
Will be humanities test
Plague is never spread
from the fruits of the earth
when we pay such a heavy price
what is a carcass worth?
From cattle, bird or bat
There spreads human disease
Letting the gristle and the fat
Brin...
Monday 22nd June 2020 2:14 pm
Mischievous Pedant
I wanted to wish him happy Fathers Day
But according to pedantic Facebook chatter
I’m not allowed to do that any more
Because hashtag ‘All Parents Matter’
Sunday 21st June 2020 3:28 pm
The Biff!
The Biff!
I’ve seen it happen anywhere
Rochdale on a pouring down Sunday afternoon
Melbourne on a baking hot Saturday
Featherstone on a cold midwinter Friday night
Sydney on a misty winter Wednesday
The Biff!
At the eruption of a scrumdown wrestle
The stiff arm of a bewitched fullback
As a dancing standoff sidesteps his frame
A punch that comes from the seco...
Saturday 20th June 2020 12:56 pm
Creation Myth
Creation Myth
If you were God
You would create a back story
On how you came to be
Something about a mother
And a father coming together
You would gradually create
The world around you
And the history of what went before
In order to keep you sane
You would form existence
to fit your needs
And each thing learned new
Would be to satisfy the r...
Friday 19th June 2020 2:07 pm
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