at half past four
   the farthest moor
ran blood red
   with sinking sun

early gathered guttered leaves
   catching hint of winters breath
   decorously quiver
in the lingered still of dusk

while in one hundred kitchens
   baked beans simmer
beneath the steam-whistle of transition
   from the polarities of the classroom
   to the less defined contests of the home

this samian spl...

Read and leave comments (0)

before the vagina was the mop

beneath the merkin of the cropped

the sheath or scabbard took lusty knife

or plump the grain of the trusty wife

thus passed the girdle to the hips

never more to shape the lips

   of the fabled vase

the cover torn to make a rip

was rooted by the wag - to break or bite

the hollow root of wood so tight

Read and leave comments (1)

I still remember the meagre collection
- shirley bassey tihuana brass neil diamond's greatest hits -
and a couple of 45s
- one of which - tommy steele's confession - we never played -

but we would stack the rest
and dance until they dropped
- then dance some more

flared trousers swinging
- the green patterned pile carpet -
and my sisters osmond lp

later I asked my mother
what she ...

Read and leave comments (2)

from meduaern come bees
fresh as yon hard-back beck :
lufteme pulled
by the petrichor of spring :

drenc on thunder : drenc on cloud :
aelmesgeorn in verge well give :

them stamp the snaeb 
and drink the tear :
full fat their collared necks :
aswellan as swine in gor

Read and leave comments (0)

the fond view now remains
not the keep of then

not the face by numbers forged
each a windowed glance

just the flare of struck matches

Read and leave comments (0)

for years she called them parkies
- darkies - and mister to their face
and grew a wart upon her chin

don't come that - she stuck the door
made pot-noodles out of straw
and sold hot dogs out of date

don't bother your head with that
it's a bit of tat from butlins
I picked it up on the fair

she keeps it for a keepsake
forgot it was even there
a memento of the jubilee

her kid was t...

Read and leave comments (0)

the hush fell absolute
   mid-flow he had been tripped
she sipped the half drunk wine
and we all watched for response

come on she said answer me
   and he laughed in that way
that non-smokers cough - phlegmatic -
dismissive and surprised

so she sipped the wine once more
   - privately we clapped -
then she in good grace excused herself
and moved to another table

Read and leave comments (1)

I've been counting the winds of history
   that which blows through a window cracked
       and noticing the turks in the hills

measuring the length of the camel hair
    the grind of teeth bringing oranges -

or the longship slipping out of the fjord
   and spotting the lapis among the amber

the slaver with glistening teeth
   wrapped tight to the sandstorm wind

it does not blow t...

Read and leave comments (1)

the angel was not large
not church window size
yet it's illumination dazzled
at my frightened sense
in the choir of coming
it reached to me
and gave in what it took

Read and leave comments (0)

summer is the dead time

all winter - when dripping rain
within the bounds of a pulled in coat
- I have dreamed of this

but now it comes
   and like birthdays
   it does not satisfy

the flowers lack the brightness of spring
and the long evenings
- well they just lack
and can't compare -
to the darkness of winter teatimes

but give it a month
and the august heat

give it the ha...

Read and leave comments (4)

you want to know the blues

freedom
freedom

I see your hollow eyes
you stand as shocked as mine
at the trolling script scrolling text of now

freedom
freedom

those words never crossed a track
nor found the spirit of bach's fingers

they only tippy tap
for the pennies that linger
in the butter fingers of accidental fame
and the false gods
in the three coloured triangle
of forc...

Read and leave comments (0)

he said he was waiting for death
   eyes watchful over the sea
and on his knee - neatly wrapped -
   a triangle wax-papered parcel
      tied with string

winching at the badly kept beer
   my eye is caught by a picture
      of the house now hanging -
      captured then - with a paddock
         between it and the cliff

on the wall - more pictures -
nostalgic for a time - when peop...

Read and leave comments (0)

in the gap between the tarmac
a pink opium poppy
                 - tattered - blooms

and she walks with splayed feet
- in pastel clothes - half dyed -
washed up from the toes
past the turned in knees
to the polka-dot double pram'd shoulders
- gurgling lullabies in plodding tune

they say she had to choose a number
                     - one two three -
and whichever she picked
    ...

Read and leave comments (2)

now is the fallow seeding time
   of grasses bending
children with counted ribs
   dash random as swifts
   their fun frantic as butterfly wings
foxglove proud they stand
   laughter punctuates
   like the yellow primrose
      rising through the tawning grass

Read and leave comments (3)

in displacement you plait my hair
as we share that moment of imagining
lyric in extreme - you fall as I have before

it is admiration in our jealousy
of that we feel but cannot express
with any of the capacity

Read and leave comments (0)

the wild cotton dots the brush
as if a flock of sheep was chased
by giant bouldered feet in hunger
which rose in wanton violence
beneath the flash of thunder

and what sheep remain are thin in the haunch
they graze with waggled ear
lazy roll a bulge'd eye
at the backpacked tramp of feet
on rain softened tussocky grass

as I crest them out of view
I hear the conversation
the wind and ...

Read and leave comments (0)

this isn't widely known
whisper it
build up the suspense
wipe the memory of the young
push the mammary to their lips

hate your parents
hate them
hate them

this isn't widely known
whisper it
build the suspense
wipe the memory from their past
implant the falseness of the present

sieg apple
sieg bbc

this isn't widely known
whisper it

whisper it

history doesn't have lines
...

Read and leave comments (0)

this stone
   more dense than diamond
   smooth as a bird's egg
   cold in my palm
      like a forearmed sheet beneath the pillow in summer

this stone
I hold indecisive
between the dismissive toss for the common-place
   and the pocket

that stone whet
   knew that I would hear the call of birds
   and taste the butter
and laugh at the off-hand description
   of apple orchards and...

Read and leave comments (0)

you
for whom everything is certain
brush through the late spring
with the eager disinterest of a spaniel
stealing sandwiches from a stranger's picnic

you
do not notice these ferns
curled around in turning cartwheel
fingers held in buddhist contemplation
of shared energy of the body

you
want to know why I am interested
in these plants immemorial
that have not been mentioned
in thi...

Read and leave comments (1)

below the decked black clouds
the upper reaching moor shines emerald now
lit by the slashing sun
between the rain soaked rungs
of the ladder bent above
without rainbow or climbing feet

the raw bouldered hanging cliff
yellow in the evening state
stripped to demerara soft
to mock their hardness and their weight

as all melt away at night
to their beds again they go
but those of us uns...

Read and leave comments (1)

she's too brass tacks banged into the head
but there's something else
seen over coffee
a stifled creative thrust
which if allowed to fly free
would shatter the basis of everything

you see it peel the curtain aside
in stories of school mistresses
redolent with tapioca topped with jam
and cold backsides
in coal-tarred outhouses

she just wants to be heard
wants that fire
   instilled...

Read and leave comments (2)

locked in a room
hearing lives roll around
in braying cries
the lacking pound of doom

head in hands
the dreams revisit
this time more honest
of my faults

in each offered passage
between the life evolved
in the shadows and the diverts
a pearl bearing clam
prized open now
by prison dirty fingers

now that name I spat with ire
sticking to me disgrace drooling
of all superiority i...

Read and leave comments (0)

we walk together through the fields
hand in hand touching souls
our eyes aglow like falling rain
when moonlight seeps through the clouds
droplets illuminate the flowers

it is then I note
the brightest day
three sons ablaze
in cloudless sky

one shines brighter than the rest
serene the fire and so blue
and one so faint not for the eye
it's light shines from deep within
the third a c...

Read and leave comments (0)

he was like any other nasty old man
- smug - his waistline at his breasts -
a wife skittering at his pleasure

but there was something nastier -
a certain glint in his eye - an arrogance -
glistening like the whiskers briskly shaven

'they made me build roads' he laments -
chewing on a kaiser roll - tongue lapping-
moist bread churning on his gums

'ten years they worked me like a slav...

Read and leave comments (1)

today my youngest son climbed a tree
using all his might balance and strength
standing amid the highest boughs
he reached out his arms
               crying 'look at me'

a girl in his class told him to 'stop showing off'
for he had climbed higher than she

and I thought of pentheus
- that most stupid of men -
who failed to see
that aside from tampons
and wiping their arse backwards
...

Read and leave comments (1)

just before we parted
in the space between the final word

just before a blackbird sang

evening rose with a sour milk moon
the countryside beyond
stood but a single broad bounded step

just before that final word

in that time
when our as yet unremembered day
trailed out to the low grassland

a shrouded whiteness fell
as cobwebs on happiness
threaded by the hope of love

that...

Read and leave comments (2)

in a world of false opposites
where very little has meaning
I pick at the word angst

first in the german
- then in translation
and back to the root cause

the necrotic neurons of neurosis
and dally in denial
at the prettiness of daisy chains

bitten lipped slit and threaded
and threaded by girls in summer dresses
cross legged
   they show the V of their knickers

http://blue...

Read and leave comments (1)

I always did what charlie said
never played in disused fridges
always looked both ways because tufty told me
and ate birds-eye burgers to be like ben

- yes I was a good boy
who believed the cavalry would save the day -

so it was a shock
- when dipping half a fish-finger
in the residue of bean juice -
to learn from john craven
   that saigon had fallen
   and america had lost

ther...

Read and leave comments (4)

I'm not looking at the bloody business end
just talking for the sake of hope
and holding the squeezing hand
all emotion pushed deep down
                            or I'll drown

the spring light is bright upon the pimpled wall
as I slide light-headed to the floor
noting the dust on the skirting board
all emotion is pushed deep down
as I gasp for the air or be drowned

between the suc...

Read and leave comments (4)

I'm all bustle - all action and I get goals -
box to box through mud and rain - filling holes
on the break away

the local paper loves me for my commitment
to the cause - for the last ditch tackle
that won the game

for my always staying late to train -
of course they don't report the whiskey bottles
now containing urine

that huddle round the x-box
beside the single chair - all the b...

Read and leave comments (1)

you forget - in those stories in which you were the hero -
how much of childhood is spent following and not leading -
how often it was you standing by the drinking fountain
watching others run laughing - in a time out

or the wasted time spent trying to be friends
with your friends - and the compromises -
that as an adult are unacceptable - because -
well just because you've got better thi...

Read and leave comments (1)

it's in that bedtime kiss
we miss out - at our peril -
that our worth as a parent lies

or listening when we cannot
   to the whirl of chatter -
and from it picking strands
of past conduct to chastise

and finding words beyond
the three simple words of love
to express that deep - deep -
expression of our hope

but none of this makes any sense
to our children grinning in our face -
...

Read and leave comments (4)

echoing footsteps of leather soled shoes
nails slightly caught
in that stillness of the rush hour

the day has not lost it's greyness
and the watery air
enhances that clipping plod

as men in light raincoats and kagools
slope shoulders
toward respective garden gates

one can almost hear the ticking
of hand wound watches
in this hour of silence as shops close

their lights dark behi...

Read and leave comments (0)

only when one stops to consider the meaning of trees
can one grasp the deeper meaning of history -
of the branches - the broken hollowed eyes
which but for a cold spring may have been -
                            but shriveled scorched on frosty wind

nothing comes from nothing or so they say -
that false trunk - now over-shadowed -
which in vainful passion carries a pen-knifed heart
of ...

Read and leave comments (2)

compared to my drooping sweating sandwich
   the noodles of mouse tugged by the kestrel
appear much sweeter - certainly he fears I want some -
    for with each greedy gulping beakful
    the pierrot painted eyes accusingly look my way -

despite the speed with which he eats
no gravy is spilled on his black buttoned dolman
   which perfectly suits the cherry brown strata
of his rock cafe ...

Read and leave comments (0)

I am reminded of why I take pictures of flowers
with each intrusive click of the camera

the sky has a hungry air - ribbed white clouds -
above an unusual stillness in centenary square

there are professionals circling
looking for the money shot of a woman crying

and one man consciously edges out of my pictures
despite my consciously not edging him in

what looks exchange are thin as ...

Read and leave comments (2)

one hears stories of the day the fifty six died
whispered tales over a whiskey at closing
the words coming more from the eyes than the lips

Read and leave comments (1)

the other day I noticed this woman -
chin cocked - hip handed - hair swept -
tits up and out - and this bloke
with a camera held like burning paper -

in the time it took me to walk from
                           oxfam to wh-smith
    they still hadn't taken the bloody photograph

but then there was no point
   she had her clothes on -
and posed as she was
there nothing about her to s...

Read and leave comments (1)

I've never understood the england you paint for me -
everything corrupt and black - and everywhere else
is better - though somehow you are never included
in this hell of venal sinners - seemingly because -
- well - you're an internationalist - or some other ist -
and being an ist exempts reason and decency and ist truth -

bluebells I am told are a sign of ancient woodland -
not unlike the...

Read and leave comments (2)

when last I sat here the sky was azure blue
but now it swirls as if a watercolourist
grew tired of painting sky and cleaned her brush

passing lazy sunlight shafts the greening hills
and now one clearly sees the flocked sheep of lambing
graze in fields around the slowly dressing trees

the grandeur of the khaki stone manor stands proud
no longer matching it's surround
   as the moorland ...

Read and leave comments (1)

I keep checking if otley manor is aflame - again -
under attack from hordes of marauding scots
   yet the sunset appears just like any other

but then nichola the bruce will burn the scots
more - and perhaps before - she burns us -
for that is the history of scotland writ small -

still I'm sure there is a general monck
to rise from the civil war predicted
- all these covenants in stone ...

Read and leave comments (0)

I can't recall the last time I measured a nose
with calipers - or compared brains in a weighing pan -
but apparently I have to check my privileged
position of constantly being branded a racist

last week I learned that now it is racist
to call people thugs - but not if you are black -
as if you are black - it is a term of endearment -
oh those ruffians are such fun to be around -

which ...

Read and leave comments (0)

the room lay up three flights of stairs
the telephone three flights down again
and those below never climbed
   when it rang
- which suited me just fine -

for in my simple life of luxury
- of foldout bed - I sipped my tea
from the finest china tea cup I have owned -

when the door closed behind me I was alone -
free to view from chimney height
   the backs of houses opposite
and the ...

Read and leave comments (1)

there's something splendidly naff about an english carnival
those smiling children in costumes plucked from the dressing up trunk
and the town crier ringing his bell - crying 'god save the queen'

boxes with holes cut for the head and for the arms
   on which are sketched big ben or books or playing cards

the brass band - marching to the beat of big bass drum -
playing colonel bogey and d...

Read and leave comments (0)

grey night shrinking without sunset settles
in like a moth on paper - as rainclouds
swaying full gutted and black scut tittle
the moon in malicious jest - for night
knows best - knows the hidden corners
of our shadow - collects our shrouded
self in sleep and pours in those things
often misforgotten - often slight -
but grey as this shrinking into night

when we look again through the win...

Read and leave comments (0)

I shan't buy a mug nor wave a flag
or run excited naked through the streets
my life won't change - rearrange -
in fact nothing about it will have the slightest effect
                                                                         on me

but I am glad that a child has been born
and I'll not succumb to the fascist wittering
of those dullards who hate the royals
and complain
oh ho...

Read and leave comments (0)

the rain so light is
so light it hardly noticed be
tickles the ransom
   and the bluebell
to fill this world of wood
   budding leaf pale green
with all the powers of the earth

no birds sing today
clustering within themself
taking shelter where they may

and in this silence footsteps
   against this thickening
   wall of summer
coming drown from the hills
    in the drying drainin...

Read and leave comments (0)

footprints in the bacon fat
the pin-tin upset of it's contents
   red-head green-head blue-head
   settle where they will
for angels rise on point
                                    but not to scare
the sheep of the field - now in the garden -
    and barely disturb the flapping red curtain
    at the cracked window pane -
       for black roses and lilies taste too good

but not as go...

Read and leave comments (0)

for what it is to forget
to live bereft of regret
and watch the sun gently set
thus to wait morning come

..

 there is always that moment
when you say you are a poet
the wings sprout
and your fey nature is revealed

..

 one day manchester will be built
the cranes will take wing
without girders in their beaks

...

 across the valley rain hangs like ghosts
phantom shafted rai...

Read and leave comments (2)

twice nightly
   - three time at weekends -
   they die
in pealing laughter
   - bow to the paltry applause -
in seaside cabaret

it doesn't help
that the false bottom of the cage
   gets stuck
so he never knows if the dove is gone
   when he pulls the cape

nor that wanda
   - real name beryl -
has got ideas of spring in rhyl
and fallen in love with a bouncer
called errol
who do...

Read and leave comments (0)

he's more real than when he was there
those wisps of his scent in the chair
the cold bed

the things that didn't need to be said
in the unspoken mirror of feelings
half the peelings

half the portion and all the bed
in sickness and in health you said
his chair

now moved for the sake of change
and the ornaments rearranged
he's more real

when you shut the door and call
'I'm home' ...

Read and leave comments (4)

how curious we should meet again
   this girl who rode the morning train
and read out loud her horoscope
   hers and that of her bloke
but now she is alone and reads -
   - a paper-back fulfills her need -
   where once she looked to her future
   now light romance seems to suit her
of more surprise to me at least
   her make up appears increased
and this morning she parted to the left
...

Read and leave comments (0)

amid the scrunch and phut
and patter and putt
and the squeak of my right boot
complaining at it's over use

I limp through the rain
and think of all the reasons
I love poetry

but they are the scrunch and phut
and patter and putt
of limping through the rain
in an anorak hood
with my left boot
laughing at the rights over use

http://bluemedia68.blogspot.co.uk/

Read and leave comments (1)

fuck I hate yeats -
every molecule and electron
within me - despises him -

he's a priest of cheap tricks
   shoving his mitre
   in a choirboys mouth -

nothing he says has merit -
and everything is divisive
and dull - and dulled
because he says it -

put him beside a real poet -
like rilke - who peels you apart
like lsd - or emily dickinson -
with her subtle honesty -

yeats is...

Read and leave comments (0)

compassion is not a virtue but a vice
just as nice isn't pleasant but an amalgam of
                                            neat and precise
and they exactly make a perfect pair
for the empathic to feel superior

oh I know I am heartless
    for daring to say
that I am greatly saddened
    by the knowledge
      most african university graduates
      dream of working for an NGO
  ...

Read and leave comments (0)

only he who has lived in shadow
can know the truth of the light
or the joylessness of the lightdwellers
in their constant fear of darkness

only he who has drunk his tears
and been drunk on those tears
and felt his guts in his mouth
can know happiness of freedom

for all else is plastic of design
no matter how roughened the surface

and only we who have lived
in appreciation of our l...

Read and leave comments (3)

he lives in the house on the corner
                               behind the hedge
and something has happened
   of which nothing is said
and he sits in the verge
   and dangles his legs
   at the oncoming traffic
     making them swerve

at school he's in trouble
              detention again
he copies lab rules
   ignoring the pain
   of that thing left unsaid
which happened
   i...

Read and leave comments (0)

where shall I take these ashes
  my urge is to the sea
  to the wide norfolk sands
  and trudge across the flatness
     on a receding tide
  so that I might have excuse
  to keep you

I will keep you close
  to my beating heart
     lay down on the wetness
     of drying sand
push my head
  backwards onto mussel shells
     so that I might have excuse
     to keep you

and when t...

Read and leave comments (1)

it's not litter - per se - that annoys me
   rather the thoughtless impulse behind it

she busks on saturdays
   with a friend on guitar
and I always send my son
   to drop fifty pence in the case
and sometimes he dances
   to show his affection
      for the music
      for the sunshine
      for being alive

and I always say hello
   to the african with the oud
who gets free tea
...

Read and leave comments (0)

it's a party to which you were never invited
to which you would never have gone
with cheap white wine - you bought red -
and small talk so dull it goes over your head

though you like to look in through the window
and image you are one of the crowd
with fashionable clothes - and poise and with pose -
there's no point regretting it now

for what use is joining a party
to which you would ...

Read and leave comments (0)

over lunch - it was that kind of place -
she asked me which poets I admired

so I reeled off the names - but she shook her head -
apparently versifiers on t'internet don't count -

so I said blake - as he was the most likely
to pen an elegant poem in 140 characters

but then pope was also a genius at that sort of thing
- and he could be mucky - which is always a plus

with the reddit c...

Read and leave comments (1)

you sit there among the insurance salesmen
the assistant manager of dorothy perkins
a vivisectionist with an interest in eyes
roadsweepers dinner-ladies ex-cons
night club singers lots of hairdressers
and other detritus
    as they do the small talk
of holidays kids houses house prices

and you think
here's another american import
they should have kept to 'emself

 in she walks
 of c...

Read and leave comments (0)

it's the constant edginess that wears you down
that tight band around the ribs
a sickness that never wretches
but stretches
all muscles to tautness
until the only escape is trapped in the head

it's those thoughts that cannot be expressed
that leak out inconvenient
they terrify in their calmness
not raving
just the simple stating of tabboo

it's the urges to end it
to prove yourself ...

Read and leave comments (0)

let's go on a march for the mentally ill
up at the front are those of good will
and them with a badge and minor symptoms- but still -
waving their banners and demanding of pills

while back in the tenements behind the sofas
are the frightened neurotics the papers call loafers
'pity them pity them' the crowd call in slur
reinforcing the stigma - that is for sure

we're winning the war for...

Read and leave comments (0)

http://bluemedia68.blogspot.co.uk/

Read and leave comments (0)

it's art day up on the ward
some are bored most are ignored
but look at the work of david lord
doesn't he capture it well

the way he tugs at emotion frayed
exposing the frailties of which we are made
of course it helps he trained at the slade
but doesn't he capture it well

never mind ahmed who drools in the paint
the pinhead so backward he thinks he's a saint
a jin to his family of w...

Read and leave comments (2)

more spoken word than poetry - but no matter...

hope you enjoy...

part 2 - https://t.co/zqSLeepxZj

part 3 - https://t.co/ZWlgoxaJiH

http://bluemedia68.blogspot.co.uk/

Read and leave comments (0)

4

he's not speaking today
a pad of post-its and a fountain pen with itallic nib
is his preferred medium of communication
despite everything
he has standards

I don't apologise
my explanation gets a little rambled

rambles a little further

a four by four rams into the window of the jewellers
machete wielding attackers fill their boots
a police helicopter hovers
shoppers wrestle wi...

Read and leave comments (0)

1

we meet for coffee on wednesdays
and discuss his problems with ts elliott
his legs are thin and he does want to eat peaches
but more than that he cannot find the energy
to switch from long stanzas
to short

I'm tired of writing about myself
he says without quotation marks

clearly we have a barista
a law school drop out
for our coffee is patterned in honour
of something or anothe...

Read and leave comments (3)

pink morning rises laced with tongues of birds
   calling 'eli eli why do you so awake me' -
as it is now - so shall it be and always it was
- the trees know this - and so I say love -

and so in ripe summer will I lick the flesh
   of the peach you offer - for love - for love
is that passive moment of first tasting
   when only now is and is always or ever will -

   and all is new and ...

Read and leave comments (0)

on days when the blues play unwished for
I stroll out beyond - wish for more -
to blue remembered driftwood shore

light a fire among the dunes
and in the mists beneath the moon
give full voice to sadness - my croon -

if croon it be - laments across the faithless sea
and echoes - so it seems to me -
in verses neatly - three by three

Read and leave comments (0)

laying here - stroking your back - as you sprawl snoozing
it strikes me how much you have grown

though you are still small enough to ride mahout on my shoulders
and tug reluctant on my arm when shopping

your face when sleeping carries those babyish curves
   you pull the heart at the smallness of perfect

      but you are definitely growing

just as I get used to the slim child
   y...

Read and leave comments (2)

portion in hand she returns to the village
   for garlands and green dancing and cakes
   to the man she made promise whilst churning the butter
in whom she was true spurning all rakes

at the pinfold she sees him turning the lock
   now older unchange'd handsome and fair
dropping the carpet' that carried her working
   she runs to his arms without a care

by the fire she sits rocking he...

Read and leave comments (0)

I see them now -
in the garden
eating oranges

she cracks them
relishing the tearing
licking his palms

and he
   catches bees
   in the juice

Read and leave comments (1)

when you are eleven, or perhaps twelve,
   it might even have been thirteen
      one can never quite recall with exactness
      for some reason I was reading dickens at four
   so we shall have to assume I had gone through the ball ache
   and into the sheet stiffening world

   when you are of an age
and a relative gives you a microscope
it is a little unfair of them to be shocked
- w...

Read and leave comments (3)

:  muddened finger nails   we prize
path trodden stones for the cairn
   shoeless pattering feet    fresh
  
their voices echo forlorn
curlew cries    a'ringing rocks
   flying out over brown heather

   knuckle bones will not do
only pelvis and cheek
to smack down    crunch
   powder    for we are building

wishes - wishes are not free

Read and leave comments (0)

warham fort

fresh morning blossom hangs lush over rusted fence
   boots upward crunch northward - cooling sea -
a scraggled hedgrow wearing meadow flowers
   obscures the ordered furrows of white shooted potato

     and you rise rubber treaded
for now your shoulders' grown accustom to the weight
    relish bouncing underslung tent
your feet keep time to the piccolo sporks
    plastere...

Read and leave comments (5)

the farms - plump cottage rolls
   biscuit walled,  oven blackened
   slate tapped  -
                sidle through
                the valleys
in search of seclusion

stone floored
    dumb - pretending - but tight
like farmer's unwethered grip
pulling the lamb and the land
into the fold

     pushing the hills
with the balls of the hand
rolling them
   and squeezing up
      sto...

Read and leave comments (0)

between the end of bits and bobs
   tanners and shillings
and the shaving of corners from lanes and roads

michael holding paces out his run up
   bare chested
      sunglasses
          red shorts
              big arsed rolling shouldered gait
                   whiff of a brylcreem
                        brothel creeper bounce
                             a pint of beer in each hand
...

Read and leave comments (0)

the dead will feel happy here
two tone walls canvas chairs
oh yes we nod but don't declare
the dead will feel at comfort here

he's world reknowned the posters said
he can channel maisy dick or fred
to catch his eye fills you with dread
of world reknown the poster said

I long to see the ectoplasm
snaking lights of any fashion
this mouse-like man convulsed with spasm
I'm desperate for...

Read and leave comments (0)

back behind the conifers
   sap scented creosoted fence
splintered excitement tingles
to be alone

she shows me hers
and I show mine

thumb hooked market stall cheapness
   with cute cartoons stretch
we crane necks to inspect
   the unexpected

      as clothes rise and fall
   her face the size of the sun
our den becomes the world

Read and leave comments (3)

suffer little children

it is always the slightly gritty scrape of clarkes shoes on stone
    mixed with the lingered perfume of candle wax and brasso
    and a subtle hint of incense from the high church vicar
         long departed
         to tend richer flocks in greener pastures
which strikes me upon return

at school christmas service we would squeeze into dark wooden pews
    nudg...

Read and leave comments (2)

To Tenby

that moment at the end of bleary chivvying
summer special on my lap sweets already half eaten
in that moment when with a thunk
unclunked or clicked we were sealed into our holiday

brown vinyl burning legs below my snake belted shorts
father's cigarettes virginian sweet ashen flicked midges
caught on the wind sucked back through the window
sugaring minnie the minx or ginger and...

Read and leave comments (5)

Triangular Trade

occasionally I will shake my tambourine
crying sisters and brothers repent
repent the day of judgement
was last tuesday
and now we are all damned

but mainly I avoid angels except on utube
and live a quiet life of contented
drunken joy

sometimes I help others and sometimes
when asked directions
I deliberately send them in a circle
so they can shake their fist
thr...

Read and leave comments (1)

Trombone Voluntary

On blue days, when the sun breaks the clouds,
I like to take my lunch by the courthouse.
You might call it a fetish. I crunch crisps
and criminally profile the coming and going.

What really draws me though, is the statue
at the centre of the square to Delius.
Every time I promise to listen to his music
and every time I never do. Instead, having eaten,

I circle the...

Read and leave comments (4)

Still in Motion

reflected in the water the tree remains a tree
beneath the white cloak of insulating spring

phantom as mice not seen peripherally
the fawn comes to drink walking on ground
so heated so heated hot horse shoe hot
hoof on hoof burn slushed snow hoof

crackle bracken crumble break

tonight I will sleep in a barn converted
a bunkhouse on white sheets
my caked boots nappi...

Read and leave comments (0)

Third Party

Please ignore my age, my receding hair,
beneath these teeth I'm debonair;
take my hand and I'll take you there
on a dirty weekend in Brighton

Across this partition my love has grown
whilst settling insurance claims by phone:
if not Brighton - Nice or Rome
would be the place for us.

 You really are the sweetest thing
 I'll rent an MG, wear threads and bling
 and if the ...

Read and leave comments (1)

Fishing a' Dusk

phutter phutter phutter phutter

John follow the ribble o' the swan ascenden
from his vantage by the willer
rose dusk encolours the midden grey lake

the swan circle once
forlorn tha' call
afore
beaten a path to the other pit

the pouring o' tea is deafnen
a groan in his stomach echo
plop plip plop bob the float
as the sun's descend afire

on the moon the London...

Read and leave comments (2)

White Field Green Sheep

he's gone wandering again yon down by the river
she think fear knows when the dog come back
with lead and red collar but no four fingered hand

the special is up calming her down nodding
whilst them as nosey agree to casually look 'afar
as they brave twice daily rain on the school run

he's gone yon again wandering lost int' a river
of landmarks and place names ...

Read and leave comments (2)

greck wort fyden worl
legs parting rain wet
fyrtte quenp dominay
stippled fingered bronze

Read and leave comments (0)

 eating cakes in coffee shops

this is not
 cicero
or yates
or the turn
down the open mic
glottalstopped
or frightened
this is not
drifting into rap
 this is not

 eating cakes in coffee shops

 this is not
red bricked boredom
in provincial northern towns
 nor
back stitched
scissor cut
dressing
 this is not
shadows in shade

  eating cakes in coffee shops

 this is not
...

Read and leave comments (1)

Circus School

They had a unicyclist at school;
'made a hell of a mess of the skirting.

Lorraine's avoiding their Sandy;
on account of the Next sweatshirt.
'Don't make out you didn't see me.'
is passed in Chinese whispers,
up and back among the herd
moving daily to the nursery gate.

Love's young dream, he's not
right in the head - and no one
forgets her threat to show her kids
o...

Read and leave comments (1)