Enemy
The metal’s falling
From the sky, like rain.
A warped ambition
Terrifies Ukraine,
As someone, somewhere,
Swells up with disdain,
While his practised sneer
Dishes out the pain.
And the world knows well
That he won’t explain,
But that, sure as hell,
He’ll be back again.
Thursday 24th April 2025 7:14 am
Full Electric
Not long ago, you’d be thought eccentric,
If you chose to buy a full electric,
But internal combustion’s had its day;
That’s what the men in the showrooms now say.
It cruises at speed, with no CO2,
For years after purchase it runs like new;
And plugging it in is no longer naff,
As you relax in the motorway caff.
Green credentials are part of its appeal;
You’re an eco-war...
Saturday 19th April 2025 9:03 am
Angry Man
‘Savoury stuff. That’s the ticket,’
Said my friend in the canteen queue.
Naturally more circumspect,
I asked ‘Is that potato real?’
‘You’re joking,’ quipped Young Doris
(Old Doris was doing desserts),
And piled the slop up on my plate.
Those lunches hit you where it hurts.
Finding a table, we sat down,
With colleagues in old overalls,
Who talked of hangings and o...
Friday 11th April 2025 7:45 am
Performance (Kryvyi Rih 5.4.25)
Twenty dead so far……..
I wonder if they get an extra mark
For killing kids or snuffing babies out?
On their twisted scale of staff incentives,
Perhaps their bonus swells at all such scalps;
Perhaps their backs are slapped at each week’s end.
They say that talks for peace are well on track,
But we see little sign of it round here.
We feel the foul, malignant breath of b...
Monday 7th April 2025 9:27 am
Jack's Fancy
Jack’s fancy was a bungalow,
Nestled quietly near the woods;
A garden and a patio,
A place to store his worldly goods.
A haven close to nature’s heart,
Where he could ponder and could rest;
A spot for music and for art,
And all the things he liked the best.
But pleasure soon began to wane,
As viral traffic pounded past,
And noise from each approaching plane
...Tuesday 1st April 2025 9:09 am
Detritus
The odd small child has copped it,
A writer here, a pensioner,
And, just around the corner,
An engineer.
It’s the same old detritus of war;
Keep moving now,
There’s nothing to see,
Nothing to fear.
The single mum with stumps for legs
Has made somebody’s day,
Just like the school and hospital,
Each with rooves blown away.
More detritus, but life goes on...
Friday 28th March 2025 9:33 am
Dotted Line
‘Your country needs you!’
Came the breathless whine,
As we put our names
On the dotted line.
Everyone went;
We all joined the queue.
No questions were asked.
None of us knew
About proper war;
We weren’t playing games:
Grenades in an ambush,
A tank crew in flames.
Although we were told
That problems were shared,
It soon became clear
That ...
Sunday 23rd March 2025 8:50 am
The Player
By day he played the markets;
At night he played the fool.
In youth he would play truant,
To get away from school.
In common with those round him,
In life he played a part:
A tragic, gilded aesthete
Who suffered for his art,
The tough, self-made financier,
Who played for all they’re worth
The hapless types endowed with
A silver spoon from birth,
...
Thursday 20th March 2025 6:41 am
Fawn, Lick and Grovel
Fawn, Lick and Grovel’s advice has come in:
Turn the other cheek, take it on the chin.
It’s should be simple to sit there and grin,
While he spills all his gibberish and bile
(In other circumstances, you might smile).
You have to be his stooge and feel his smack,
And grit your teeth as you’re stabbed in the back.
A handshake with the king, or fulsome praise,
May push humili...
Saturday 15th March 2025 5:09 pm
Upside Down
While standing on my hands,
Or balanced on my head,
I’m looking at the world from upside down.
I’m cartwheeling at play,
In my inverted way;
A raving king addicted to his crown.
I’m hanging from the ceiling –
A strangely bracing feeling –
Suspended in the void just like a bat.
Revolving through one-eighty –
My bottom end quite weighty –
My view of Ea...
Tuesday 11th March 2025 5:03 pm
Kryvyi Rih
Civilians lie, annoyingly dead,
Innocent prey of the enemy’s sport,
While wannabe gods in Washington cry:
‘You losers! We told you. It's all your fault.’
Others in Ukraine, spared till now, await
A shabby, hardly necessary fate,
And wriggle in the web where they are caught.
Friday 7th March 2025 6:04 am
The Vineyard
A cemetery, you may think, but
No bodies lie beneath, just roots;
No unattested arms remain,
No pairs of sweaty, unclaimed boots.
Quite soon there will be vines and grapes,
And then the succulence of wine;
No trace of blown-off body parts,
Detached by shell shot or by mine.
The volunteers who tend the place
Sense no souls planted underground;
They prune and ...
Tuesday 4th March 2025 8:47 am
Oval Office
There are no allies any more,
No friends, no foes,
No right, no wrong,
No good, no bad;
Just bully boys who'll take you
For everything you had.
Saturday 1st March 2025 9:00 am
Time Lapse
A soothing spectacle on screen:
A desertscape in lapsing time,
Where scenery - cactus, rocks, sand -
Never changes. The clocks tick on.
Though days flash by, time seems to freeze;
Sunrise repeats like gunfire.
Life seems eternal, unchanging,
The only obstacle being
Our usual human wear and tear.
Beyond, stormy seas of nonsense
Batter the crippled innocence
Of ...
Thursday 27th February 2025 4:36 pm
Spare Change
They no longer carry coins.
They have wads of notes to spare,
But their instinct is to throw crumbs,
Or bits of half-eaten sandwiches.
They tell you to perform
One of those cute local dances,
Or to sing ‘Streets of London’,
Or playing a tune on the violin.
Or better still, sit up and beg,
Say how goddam grateful you are,
And hand over anything you’ve got,
Explainin...
Sunday 23rd February 2025 7:39 am
Neat
Sitting on the train,
Neat houses flash by.
But life is not neat,
Though houses may be.
Behind those neat walls
Lurk furious hearts,
Unleashed as soon as
The train disappears.
These airtight dramas
Lie far from our minds.
We keep our heads down.
Our neat lives go on.
Tuesday 18th February 2025 6:31 pm
The Sunshine Boys
The Sunshine Boys are chatting on the phone;
They claim that they are both concerned with peace.
But one of them is raining down his bombs,
While body counts on both sides still increase.
The other one appears not to remember
Who started this barbaric slice of hell;
He treats the culprit as a valued partner
And seems to have been captured by his spell.
The victims...
Friday 14th February 2025 5:25 pm
The Day They Came
A tingling, a taste of the past.
Before it started. Before time.
Such memories would have been nice.
Though winter packed a punch that year,
Us two, wrapped up in desire,
Barely remarked the snow and ice.
For we, young and unbreakable,
Took slippery falls in our stride
And bought up love at any price.
Until the day they came.
Monday 10th February 2025 9:28 am
Forgive, Not Forget
A time will come when we forgive,
Though that time is not yet;
But even when forgiveness comes,
None of us will forget.
We won’t forget the agony,
The sadness and the waste;
We won’t forget the insults hurled
With puerile lack of taste.
We won’t forget our cities wrecked,
Our soldiers blown to bits;
We won’t forget the fearful nights,
The lethal missile h...
Thursday 6th February 2025 9:40 pm
Growth Agenda
Let bulldozers rip,
Get spades in the ground,
Turn on the taps
In city and town.
Rules on the bonfire,
Planes in the air,
Bricked-up banality,
The fun of the fair.
And, all of a sudden,
The climate’s nowhere.
Sunday 2nd February 2025 8:55 am
Single Speed
Now that the weeks and days and months fly by,
Propelling us still faster to our end,
The needed action is to hold up time,
To slacken off, or better still, suspend
Its uncouth march into the wild beyond
And celebrate its capture as its bond.
But if time should comply, what must we do?
Display ourselves and prance around a pole,
Or willingly obey a quiet void?
Time,...
Wednesday 29th January 2025 9:45 pm
Somewhere
Simon Grimes
Sought warmer climes
To cover up
Outrageous crimes.
Meanwhile, the wondrous wunderkind
Cooked a rabbit that he had skinned,
And then used daring to escape
By running flat out like the wind.
As the bise chilled the strollers by the lake,
A cheating couple rose up from their bed,
And pushed their way through carnivals of crowds
Towards the snow...
Saturday 25th January 2025 9:27 am
2028
The march of time has done for one good man;
America has opted for a fool,
But once they suffer four years at his school,
They’ll spit out their disgust, because they can.
Societies will dabble with the dark
Until the day the scales fall from their eyes,
When, faced with routine bigotry and lies,
They understand this is no campaign lark.
Then honesty and decency p...
Sunday 19th January 2025 5:18 pm
Climate Emergency!
It’s been the hottest ever year;
The one point five is broken.
But in society round here,
These words are never spoken.
There’s still time for a reset,
Through measures tough or token;
The greenhouse levels climb, and yet,
These words are never spoken.
The glaciers will melt away,
And fires taunt the ocean,
But in the workplace or at play,
These words are...
Tuesday 14th January 2025 7:40 am
Le Grisou
On winter days, with frosted breath,
We wander to the warm, great hall
To see this sacred scene once more.
A mother mourns her perished son,
As mothers do across the world,
While washed-up men, most often old,
Pick off the innocent for sport.
Grouped women, tethered in their grief,
Mop up the personal effects,
Doused in their humid, sodden tears.
Soon, beyond anger, b...
Saturday 11th January 2025 9:34 am
Men and Boys
The kiddie-giggling boy-men types,
Who shape our tastes and fuel our gripes,
Are like a zebra with no stripes.
Their views today are painted on;
Those of the past are long, long gone.
They rule the culture like machines,
And serve up, bite-sized, on our screens,
An option menu for our dreams.
The bad ones will be swept away;
Nice shall prevail day after day.
...
Monday 6th January 2025 8:47 am
God's Grace
There but for the grace of God, I thought,
As he rose from his place on the pavement
And stumbled to the shelter for some soup.
Fifty, probably, but looked ten years more.
Unshaven, stinks, frankly, but still too proud
To ask for a bath. How did he get here?
Not long ago, he had a job, a spouse;
Then both disappeared and his home with them.
‘Bloody fool,’ he mumbled, ‘no di...
Thursday 2nd January 2025 8:52 am
Pinpoint
In sleep I see the nail
Pass through the yielding flesh;
Jesus knew about that.
But we are skin and bone,
Already. No reserves
Of fat or of muscle.
Bare bones. No resistance.
Every strike and rumble
A nail, hammered, pinpoint,
Into the joints and cracks.
The torment forcing us
Towards strange submission.
Soon we could be up there,
On the cross, con...
Sunday 29th December 2024 9:05 am
Moon over Ukraine
The moon shines up above:
New, crescent, half, gibbous, full,
Waxing, waning,
Dodging behind a scudding cloud.
Its complete repertory,
Its whole thing.
At least they’ll never get the moon.
Monday 23rd December 2024 9:14 am
Edifice
‘Put a brick in the edifice,’
Said the man climbing up the wall.
‘It will reach so high,
It will touch the sky,
Till the day it begins to fall.’
‘But what’s the point?’ I enquired,
‘If it ends up being destroyed?’
‘From out of the rubble
We’ll build back the double,
To make sure that we stay employed.’
‘That strikes me as strange,’ I replied.
‘Because it ...
Thursday 19th December 2024 9:04 am
Degradations
The putty on the antique frame
Is crumbling in my dreams;
The richly patterned tablecloth
Comes free at all its seams.
The neatly-tended flowerbed
Turns wild and overgrown;
Once-pristine grassy spreads of lawn
Are patchy and unmown.
The wondrous spectrum of our world,
Its subtle, shifting slants,
Gives way to cheapskate slogans
And simple-minded chan...
Saturday 14th December 2024 8:37 am
No One's Fault
This used to be my street,
This used to be my home,
This used to be my land.
I do not understand
And cannot fathom why
Things got so out of hand,
So much has been destroyed,
So many had to die.
These simple-minded times
Have carved the perfect tool
To camouflage the truth
And take us for a fool.
It turns out that this war
Is no one’s fault at all.
Tuesday 10th December 2024 8:47 am
Life Blood
The life blood of the being of our world
Is thinking, creativity and art;
These bourgeon through our minds and through our veins
And make us feel uplifted in our heart.
Their practice may produce art few will like,
And writings with which many won’t agree,
But comfort’s not the point of inspiration,
At least not when society is free.
But those in power, of whateve...
Friday 6th December 2024 8:46 am
End of Shift (A Christmas Tragedy)
Tears
Trickled
Down her cheeks
At the sight of
The empty stocking,
The house, unvisited.
While, next door, Father Christmas
Looked at his watch, zipped up his bag
And roared home for breakfast in his Jag.
Friday 29th November 2024 8:48 am
Reporters
It’s quite the fashion now to bash
Those journalists who seek the truth;
As years flow by, more are cut down,
Or languish, silenced, in their youth.
As humans they are fallible
And are rebuked for their mistakes,
But hard men seek to shut them up
When they play for the highest stakes,
And can’t afford to be faced with
Exposure through detailed research,
To ...
Sunday 24th November 2024 9:38 am
1000 days
The fractured walls of wickedness in war
Are on display each day at any time.
The morning tittle tattles rise and fall
And poets churn out verses in sweet rhyme,
But somewhere, here or not so far away,
A child is killed by missiles from above,
A mother grieves for her departed son
And husbands weep for what they think was love,
While no one makes the evil men account
For...
Monday 18th November 2024 8:26 am
Allowance or 'Dim Don Junior'
You don’t need much brains to share a tweet
(Tech Bros will help you if you can’t).
Just flash up vile messages on your screen
And give them a big MAGA slant.
Insult a battered country and its chief,
Say that his time is almost up,
And inform him that all future funding
Will be dropped in a paper cup.
Here’s what the tweet said, in more precise terms:
Ukraine’s...
Thursday 14th November 2024 8:36 pm
Courtesy
I’ll show to him the courtesy
He never showed to me;
I’ll meet him at the White House
With no conspiracy.
I’ll help with the transition
In ways he never did,
And will not throw my toys about
Like some spoiled teenage kid.
And won’t pretend we won the vote
Or claim to have been cheated
And will not start a riot
Because I was defeated.
I’ll shake hi...
Monday 11th November 2024 9:13 am
Time of Swine
With their grunting and their oinking,
They parade around the pen.
For all their affectations,
They’re the angriest of men.
Their litany of grievances
Spawns shrill dishonest whine;
We’re living in the conman’s age,
This is the time of swine.
They soil your information
To camouflage their faults;
All traces of wrongdoing
Are locked deep down in vaults.
They...
Wednesday 6th November 2024 9:55 pm
Green Crap
Let’s ease up on the green crap,
The climate’s not too bad;
Some summer heat in winter
Should make us feel quite glad.
Ditch all the regulations
That pessimists adore;
Give people what they dream of:
More flights, more stuff, more, more.
Rev up your petrol guzzlers
And roar down country roads;
Let’s motorise the planet
Through trucks with monster loads.
...Friday 1st November 2024 8:43 am
Disruptors
They call them the disruptors,
Trump and Musk and Co.
But what do they disrupt?
Not themselves, oh no!
Not their balance in the bank,
Or property portfolio.
Monday 28th October 2024 8:07 am
Cheeky Chap
Never mind the wounded,
Never mind the dead;
Shake hands with the cheeky chap
And pat his shiny head.
Never mind the blood
That’s dripping from his hands;
Kneel right down and grovel
In front of where he stands.
The cheeky chap is on a roll;
The BRICs are dancing to his tune.
A warrant waits for his arrest,
But might as well be on the moon:
For t...
Thursday 24th October 2024 7:12 am
Loser
He does not wear life
As life should be worn,
And seems not to think
That we should be kind,
That people need hope,
And not resentment,
That honesty wins
Over packs of lies.
If he gets the nod,
We are all losers.
Sunday 20th October 2024 5:22 pm
Renew
The trees begin to wilt and fade;
Another year is on the fall.
Though autumn can defy the odds,
The winter’s cold is bound to call.
The daytime’s relegated role
Is limited to minor parts;
Discarded leaves drift down to earth
In patterns of the purest arts.
In nights replete with cloudless chill,
We shiver at the crisp-cut moon;
The powdered snow beneath our ...
Wednesday 16th October 2024 6:21 am
God
At every corner of the world I turn,
I come across the stink and shape of death
And dodge the battered buildings to keep safe.
Yet still I hear the noisy men of war
Talk euphemistically of grades and gain,
Assuring us that all they want is peace.
Sad to relate, that treasured bird has flown;
From this time on, our God is on his own.
Saturday 12th October 2024 9:12 am
The Luck of the Draw
You may have the misfortune to
Live upstairs from or right next door
To somebody they want to kill.
It’s not your choice; you have no voice
In whose blood they would like to spill.
And, being close, it could be you,
Who sees the bomb fall through their floor.
No one's fault. The luck of the draw.
Sunday 6th October 2024 9:39 pm
The Last Supper
They munch at scraps of bread
And gulp their meagre drink;
They borrow someone’s phone
To make one final call,
Then scrape up what he asks
To squeeze into the boat
And shiver as the sea
Sets out its fearsome stall.
Wednesday 2nd October 2024 5:19 pm
Hitting the Buffers
We don’t have much time; sooner or later
This planet of ours will hit the buffers.
By then weak excuses or fake facts won’t work,
Nor saying: ‘well, it’s always been like this.’
Hot air is no defence against the heat;
The war, unfought, starts to flex its muscles.
It seemed so different the last time round,
As smiling faces sauntered on the bridge,
Seeking the usual gl...
Friday 27th September 2024 5:22 pm
Langue de Bois
In the language of communiqués, we say:
‘We will do whatever it takes’,
But in Kyiv, Kharkiv or Kramatorsk,
As nighttime falls and warheads once again
Wend their way between wide-open cracks,
The heart of one more mother breaks.
And our reply? ‘Look at the big picture;
This sort of thing is anecdotal.
A tiny fraction of the total.’
Pah!
From inside each plus...
Tuesday 24th September 2024 8:30 am
Meanwhile, in Ukraine
What are we fighting for?
Ukraine will win this war.
By gambit or caprice,
Ukraine will live in peace.
Though enemies have tried
To dent a nation’s pride,
Their onslaught is defied.
Ukraine will win this war.
Though cities crash and burn,
The displaced will return,
And conflict will adjourn.
Ukraine will live in peace.
For freedom will prevail
...
Tuesday 17th September 2024 8:59 pm
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