On Catching Sight of Autumn
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...
Monday 28th December 2015 1:22 am
Sonnet to 1680
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
Tuesday 22nd December 2015 1:48 am
privilege
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 ...
Saturday 1st August 2015 1:30 am
the republican mantra
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
Wednesday 29th July 2015 12:48 am
oubliette
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
Tuesday 28th July 2015 12:15 am
pendle
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and sold hot dogs out of date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...
Saturday 25th July 2015 11:45 am
a quiet revolt
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
Friday 24th July 2015 12:48 am
the tea party
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...
Thursday 23rd July 2015 2:06 am
psalm 23
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
Tuesday 21st July 2015 7:38 pm
yellow
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...
Monday 20th July 2015 3:39 am
nina simone
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...
Sunday 19th July 2015 2:43 am
entropy
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...
Thursday 16th July 2015 1:38 am
seep
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
...
Tuesday 14th July 2015 1:18 pm
tanning
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
Sunday 12th July 2015 5:29 pm
agape
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
Sunday 12th July 2015 2:41 am
anarchist
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 ...
Friday 10th July 2015 12:55 am
media
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
...
Thursday 9th July 2015 4:02 am
francis harvey
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...
Wednesday 8th July 2015 3:55 am
you
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...
Wednesday 1st July 2015 1:18 am
canto 11
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...
Tuesday 23rd June 2015 2:58 pm
the education of norma
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...
Saturday 20th June 2015 12:47 am
canto 8
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...
Wednesday 17th June 2015 8:50 pm
canto 3
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...
Tuesday 16th June 2015 2:21 am
meeting a nazi
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...
Saturday 13th June 2015 12:05 am
back eye
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
...
Tuesday 9th June 2015 11:38 am
then
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...
Monday 8th June 2015 12:15 am
school field
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
Monday 25th May 2015 4:12 am
birth of a nation
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...
Friday 22nd May 2015 9:51 pm
alive
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...
Thursday 21st May 2015 12:18 am
cinders
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...
Tuesday 19th May 2015 11:57 pm
you have to be fair
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...
Monday 18th May 2015 1:35 am
father forgive me
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 -
...
Friday 15th May 2015 10:50 pm
6.10
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...
Friday 15th May 2015 1:02 am
roots
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 ...
Wednesday 13th May 2015 11:41 pm
lunch on the go
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 ...
Wednesday 13th May 2015 12:02 pm
thirty years
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 ...
Tuesday 12th May 2015 1:16 pm
56
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
Monday 11th May 2015 11:45 am
posing
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...
Monday 11th May 2015 12:02 am
ists
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...
Saturday 9th May 2015 11:47 pm
sketch
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 ...
Saturday 9th May 2015 1:22 am
waiting for bombs
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 ...
Friday 8th May 2015 12:30 am
thug racists
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 ...
Thursday 7th May 2015 12:39 am
bedsit
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 ...
Tuesday 5th May 2015 12:40 pm
english carnival
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...
Monday 4th May 2015 8:33 pm
after an early supper
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...
Monday 4th May 2015 1:52 am
on the royal birth
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...
Sunday 3rd May 2015 12:58 am
may
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...
Saturday 2nd May 2015 10:18 pm
the dying wish of the shaman
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...
Friday 1st May 2015 11:53 pm
twitter poems
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...
Friday 1st May 2015 10:54 am
magic
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...
Thursday 30th April 2015 11:46 pm
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