(Catherine the Great’s statue is removed from its place in Odesa following an on-line poll)

To pacify our much-bombarded town,

Catherine’s statue has been taken down:

A nod to the invader’s former might,

Now banished from the population’s sight.

Some will object – ‘let history remain’,

But others think of violence and pain,

With all that this construction represents,

R...

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If you cry out loud that you favour peace,

A lot of people look at you and smile

And mark you as naïve and pat your head.

Yet surely peace should be the normal way;

Backers of war should justify their stance,

The four-star pundits, dealing arms of death,

Indoctrinating young (and mostly) men

To jump to commands and to kill each other

And all who block their path. The road t...

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I fight your battles when you want,

Patrolling the darkness of your mind.

I perform dirty deeds that you shun

And expect my recompense in kind.

I fire your guns and launch grenades;

I land your missiles on the spot.

I lay out bodies in neat rows

To leave in unnumbered holes to rot.

Though I’m rough-edged and cynical,

I carry out the work you ask.

I tidy...

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You spit on my floor,

But I shall forgive.

You spit in my face,

But I turn my cheek.

You spit on my soul,

But I don’t react.

You spit on my mind,

But I shall still dream.

You spit on my heart,

But I walk away.

You spit on my friend;

For this, you shall pay.

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So many lives, so many hopes and dreams,

They all finish loaded on the scrapheap,

Piled high into one moist organic hump,

Where, some decades later, the needy poor

Will hollow out hovels to dodge the cold,

And some bright spark will soon call it recycling

And trumpet this sham as sustainable.

Then celebrities will come, and sleep out,

In self-pleasuring solidarity,

And c...

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It used to be the highlight of our year;

Big dipper rides plunged down into a void,

For just one moment blanking out the world,

With all its boredom and unuttered cares.

Among the larks and games and candy floss,

The funfair has a feeling of escape.

At first, war seemed the same: a chance to swap

The daily skin for something bright and new.

So here we are, but no one wants ...

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My dad had quite a weather-beaten face.

For what it’s worth, he was considered white,

But sun and sand had scorched his countenance

(North Africa was where he served his war).

Once an outraged lady asked my mum:

‘You all right, dear? I feel sorry for you,

What with your husband being, well, you know.

Where does he come from?’ My mum replied ‘Bow.’

The lady pursed her lips. ...

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In pre-fabs, Nissen Huts and terraced slums,

Exhausted marriages plodded along.

Intrigues of passion would sometimes burst forth,

Though not with the new-wave cool of the North.

‘I don’t understand what she sees in him;

He couldn’t get the padlock off his bike.’

Bomb damage gnawed into the local pubs

And trysts took place behind working men’s clubs.

Couples stole ...

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As you may know, I have just published a collection of poems on the war in Ukraine, entitled 'The Shape of Ukraine'. There are forty poems in the book, many of which have been shared with WOL readers, and WOL was kind enough to feature a news item on the collection.

https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=126470

In many ways it was sad to have to write these poems, but ...

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The generals fry in their fat,

The spokesman spouts his usual junk;

The sergeant’s barking will fall flat,

The new recruit has trashed his bunk.

The rumpus at the front is still;

Noise of mortal combat ceases.

Exhausted soldiers, trained to kill,

Break their weapons into pieces.

They hug their foes and swap their hopes

Of lives soon filled with joy and art;

...

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In a way, it reminds me of my brother,

Who lived for seven days in nineteen forty-eight.

A young life was snuffed out, barely begun,

And Mum and Dad’s heartbreak never really healed.

George. I still have his birth certificate.

Medicine was less advanced back then

But everyone involved did their level best

To keep him in this world. No one was to blame.

Unlike in today’s new...

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The city numbs our sense of right and wrong.

Hurrying past, there is a temptation

To disregard his presence in our midst.

And, let’s face it, shocked at the exposure,

Most of us, averting eyes, do just that.

What would we see there, if we stopped to look

Beyond the torn sleeping bag, with a head

Propped up on folded rugs, squeezed yet still damp?

Would we see a life, a past...

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A missile fell on to this Polish place;

The media rushed to report the case.

We screamed: ‘Help! Article Five! We are doomed!’

The end of our selfish existence loomed.

But this has turned out as a false alarm,

And none of us this end will come to harm,

Unlike two poor devils who are no more;

The latest victims of this evil war.

Collateral damage their final lot,

They pai...

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It’s a luxury if you can say:

‘I’m not in the mood right now.

I don’t feel like it.

I don’t really fancy it today.’

It’s the luxury of comfort,

Of the well- appointed,

The index-linked,

The flexible sort.

It’s not an option

For the poor or unfulfilled,

Nor for those hunting for scraps

Or queueing the pouring rain;

Nor for the worker who drops his sandw...

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Species from all around the globe:

An elephant, a polar bear,

And here, an unexploded bomb.

Hang about, what’s that doing there?

A tranquil spot during the week;

The animals make not a sound.

But the tail end of a rocket,

Protruding coldly from the ground,

Reveals the darker side to truth,

As people pass with bike and pram.

An enemy would like us dead;

Tr...

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I wanted to write a song for Ukraine,

But I gave up almost straight away.

An expert was required, ideally

Someone who would burrow into corners;

Go beneath the surface to smell the soil,

Who would press wounded flesh and procreate

And clasp lost strangers to their belly’s bulge.

But how could I find a person like this?

Advertising? Perhaps. But in real life,

I knew I had...

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There was a misunderstanding.

Some words were exchanged,

Translation errors, perhaps;

And then it happened.

A mistake, I suppose.

A pity really, we were doing all right.

A few problems, of course,

But nothing terminal.

Until now.

Just before it landed,

The man next door reminded me

That tomorrow is his birthday.

Looking out, not much going on;

...

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That’s what I thought, arriving in Kyiv.

It was December and minus fifteen.

‘This is nothing,’ said the driver. It felt

Like something. Hat, gloves and scarf were no use.

The hotel was marvellously porous,

Rooms glacial, the restaurant shivered

Behind flapping Perspex windows. The wind

Reached all protected parts. The next morning,

To the lecture. Everyone double-wrapped,

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Just like the bodies, plucked and sacrificed

In dirty factories and down in mines,

Like frightened masses, banished to the dark,

Or the timebound terror of the trenches,

Here come the foot soldiers, their destinies

Already marked. Convenient agents

In the hands of the men who know better.

It was ever thus. Some are dead, others

Beyond hope, the rest numbered and dated.

...

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Once in Aldeburgh for the festival,

I checked out all the hotels. The White Hart

Was full up. (I knew I should have reserved).

So I decided to try Saxmundham,

Where my mum was stationed during the war

And often spoke of its bucolic charm.

Resplendent in ATS uniform,

She stares at me out of that photograph.

The room in the local pub seemed quiet,

But, returning from ...

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Day after day we watch Ukraine,

And feel the anger and the pain;

We feel the pity and the sorrow,

The fear of what may come tomorrow.

We wonder what the next months hold,

As people fight the winter cold;

We wish that we could end by magic

This wretched mess, insane and tragic,

And turn to silence every gun,

Which shoots beneath the chilly sun,

Wipe off the b...

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The mountain people speak in quiet tones;

Their language is concise, their speech is brief.

Beneath the precipice, in ice-thinned air,

Their words are chosen carefully. No slack

Is tolerated; any long-winded,

Fancy prattle is a stranger to them.

Visitors will be welcomed and advised

To take the shortest route, while the light lasts;

If not, hospitality is arranged,

With ...

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It’s strange how we view war from far away.

Distance lends itself to rage and anger,

To dollops of easy indignation,

Fuelled by being powerless, I suppose.

For those on the spot, it’s the practical,

The workaday, which occupies the mind:

Filling in the forms, feeding survivors,

Visiting hospital, booking the hearse.

The task of clearing out dead neighbours’ homes

Damps d...

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I didn’t deserve the love that you gave:

I didn’t deserve your extinguished heart.

I wish I had been the one to behave

That last time before fate tore us apart.

As one young child is pulled from the rubble,

I realise that you were crushed beneath.

Another search is not worth the trouble;

I’ll find a still spot to lay down my wreath.

I hear the sirens and look to t...

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On those days when the news was slow,

Editors of a bygone age

Would hold the paper’s front page till

A tasty story reared its head.

You needed nerves of steel to bet

On beating deadlines with a splash:

A murder or a bank held up,

A bishop, caught in flagrante.

It was what the public wanted:

Big pictures, tearful confessions,

Have-a-go heroes, raffish cads,

Embitter...

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There is no rubble in my street,

No bombs, no shells and no rockets.

The people have their fill to eat,

Cash is bulging in their pockets.

Down our way the lights are shining

And the windows remain unsmashed.

Our access to fun’s not declining;

No hopes for the future are dashed.

All sick and injured are treated,

Not shot and abandoned for dead.

Our wealth is ...

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Low-lit suburbia,

With its boxed excitement,

Suited her mood right now.

She lived a silent life

Of genteel disaster

And spent her afternoons

In cafés with her cups,

Deep in the corridor

Of her mind’s memories.

A kiss in a car park,

Which could have changed her life

(But which changed someone else’s),

Still haunted her at nights,

When darkness stole her dreams...

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There’s no point in denying

Our cherished world is dying.

We’re choking it to death

With ill-considered breath

From factories and cars;

Soon sympathetic stars

Will weep at our demise

And curse our leaders’ lies.

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It was once in some far-off place

That the old would feather their nests,

And the young screamed in frustration,

Rattling the shackles of their cage,

While the middle-aged could afford

To lie back, safe in the knowledge

That their routine would get no worse.

A child, turning its twitchy gaze,

Is certain, in its innocence,

That its life will mine some marvels.

The unbo...

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It’s the rifle-butt nature of all this:

Sit down, shut up, sign here, do as you’re told.

We talk about land grabs, but this is, well,

An extortion, of dignity and heart.

There’s a bash for the scammers in the North,

And jobs for the boys. Lot’s of them, no doubt.

Imagine this: ‘Yes, I’d love to be ruled

By the people who blew this place to bits

And killed or maimed our frie...

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What should be a simple counting of heads

Is here a pratfall buried with the bones

Dumped near the fenced-off railway sheds.

For freedom’s optimistic tidings

Are out of fashion in these parts,

Their wagons mothballed in the sidings.

In place of a future based on trust,

The polished tracks will soon become

A instrument of power’s grasping lust.

This will no...

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A sweary man goes by;

Young Pauline and her brood

Buy more unhealthy food,

As usual.

No trains run this weekend,

Replacement bus is late,

Street’s in a shoddy state,

As usual.

The sports shop has closed down;

New nail bars and the ‘caff’

Look positively naff,

As usual.

There, where the bank once was,

An empty carcass stands,

But no one dirt...

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The statement was made for comic effect;

That was the intention, one must presume,

Although the humour is a little sick

When millions are fearing winter’s doom.

‘Difficult decisions’ should be thought through,

Not simply be the sweep of some new broom,

And they should address a real dilemma;

Like whether or not to heat up your room,

Or sell your pets, economise on lunch,

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I knew this one. In different times

She could have led so many lives:

Doctor, artist, mother, teacher,

One of a band of merry wives.

A guess, of course. She was so young,

And now is hauled out of this pit.

Laid out for ever in a shroud;

Deprived of all her charm and wit.

This place concealed a tragic tale;

A savage tumult oozing waste.

Like her, each one had...

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They’ve done a runner; thank goodness they’re gone.

Let’s face it, they were a pain, all summer:

Every morning, their ugly mugs on view.

We remembered their sort from holidays:

Stripped to the waist, with their lobster tans,

Letting off steam until the small hours

And dumping all their rubbish when they left.

They puffed on stinking fags and terrorised

The local girls, wher...

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Some say time is an illusion,

But I believe this not to be;

For time is present everywhere,

And waits to swallow you and me.

Replacement is the key to time;

Others step in as it rolls by:

Our school, our work, our love, our home –

These possessions appear to fly

Into the lap of someone else,

Who takes your desk and house and bed,

While you have seen the year...

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When the Queen shook hands with Bobby Moore,

He wiped his in awkward reverence,

(Just in the way that Larkin reacted

By taking off his cycle clips in Church).

Such acts of unrehearsed respect,

Like the embarrassing curtsies

And those tongue-tied conversations,

May be the closest that we come,

Quite unwittingly, to sampling

A world of habits which endures

As years and ...

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The Big Men limber up for war,

Showing off their guns and rockets;

The Big Men strut around the town,

Looted cash stuffed in their pockets.

The Big Men are toning their muscles,

To beat their captives into shape;

The Big Men snigger at reports

Of instances of wartime rape.

The Big Men hide behind the lines,

To dodge the other side’s attack;

The Big Men’...

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The King entered swinging

And guzzled down a beer,

Before he picked a fight

With someone at the bar.

Humbled, he retreated

To his official car.

The King felt like some food;

The queue was far too long.

Impatiently, he waited,

Then pushed in at the front.

‘Do you know who I am?’

He often pulled this stunt.

The King had too much wealth;

He would give ...

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A quiet little man,

Lurking in the corner;

Keeps all his powder dry,

Looks no one in the eye.

A quiet little man,

Is pacing up and down,

Dying to go public

On the next big subject.

A quiet little man,

Projects his tiny voice;

Points his jabbing finger

At victims of his choice.

A quiet little man

Deals from his wily pack.

He smiles upon his f...

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Late one evening, not doing much,

I glimpse the latest news on screen.

Soldiers from Ukraine, dismembered

At the front, battle to insert

The cold stumps of their missing legs

Into new replacement hollows:

Each faltering step agony,

Their cries the rage of raw courage.

All hanker to re-join the fight

And kick the cheap destroyer out.

Anger swells, somewhere. They shoul...

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We strolled down the streets of Kyiv

One balmy August afternoon,

Past burned-out skeletons of tanks,

Which might as well live on the moon.

We understand this rough display,

To boost a noble people’s mood,

But battles rage not far away,

Where wrecks like this are caked in blood.

Conflict is a harsh performance;

You enemy is marked as bad.

But truth, uncomfort...

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Dawn is another day, we say;

It has to be a time of hope,

The vanquishing of night,

The promise of the new,

The turning of a page,

An exit from our dreams.

But is that really what it means?

The start of the day, in some way,

Does nothing but confirm our fears.

It is proof that nothing changes,

That night cannot be chased away,

That dread and cunning stalk our...

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It is a brutal game, this war,

But certain lines you do not cross.

Conventions have to be maintained;

It’s difficult to say much more.

When you see this, when you see this –

You know damned well of what I speak –

No human souls should be hung out

Unclaimed and near to the abyss.

Someone will try to wriggle out

Of these evil exhibitions,

Claim force majeure o...

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I am, on most counts, as guilty as hell;

I deserve to be taken out and shot.

But those who take aim are guilty as well;

So I'm not.

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(Towards the end of his life, Philip Larkin wrote very little poetry. 'They don't come any more', he said.)

In a small way, I understand the man.

As he grew older, verses would not come;

His delicious palette had been stowed away.

The ideas were there, aplenty, for sure -

Let’s face it, we have ideas all the time -

And words, waiting coyly to be favoured;

But his poems re...

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I know that the truth about war

Is limbs blown off and bodies burned,

Though someone working for the law

May bang his polished desk and say

That he will leave no stone unturned,

And generals will bleat and pray

That ‘certain’ lessons must be learned.

The soldier, gasping with relief,

Will weep in buckets for his mates

And dream, discreetly, in his grief,

Of planting ...

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Facts are very boring; this much is true.

It’s hard to face them by the light of day;

Much easier to make the truth become

What you or someone else would like to say.

You will deny you dropped that bomb or shell;

You say the other side attacked its own.

You muddy waters, sow some seeds of doubt.

And cast the bleeding obvious as unknown.

You say you’re sceptical of...

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Through the spectral quiet

Of this deserted place,

The tanks go rolling by

In their odd little race.

It’s hardly a surprise

That they proceed so fast;

There’s nothing here to see,

Since that almighty blast.

So as they disappear

Along the dusty road,

The silence will renew

Its dark, despondent load.

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‘Come see my new blockbuster’,

The film director smiled.

‘It’s about a sinner

And all those he defiled.

It’s about the cities,

Reduced to smithereens;

It’s about the soldiers,

Cut down in their teens.

It’s about the people,

Running for their lives;

It’s about an exodus

Of children and of wives.

It’s about the cowards

Who fire long range shells;

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Ceremony, like death, is all around.

Ceremony is life’s material;

Omnipresent but always elusive.

For some it never happens. We spectate

And drool, and press our face against the glass.

Hop on a bus. Look out of the window.

Somebody is dressing up or dancing,

Saluting an old war memorial,

Or chasing a ball in their sweat-soaked whites;

French kissing, or cracking so...

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(On 21 July 2022, it was reported that 15,000 Russians have died in Ukraine and 45,000 have been wounded).

Fifteen thousand Russians dead in Ukraine;

Innocents, for the most part, made guilty

By the vicious vanity of old men,

Using the war like a wild young lover,

To prove they can do it, still get it up.

In their pointless, far-off rumpus, blood spills

As one hundre...

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She loved the pizza delivery boy;

She loved his cheery, optimistic ways.

She loved the feel of his muscular arms,

But not his endless sixteen-hour days.

That evening, he went out on the night shift;

He was so short of savings for his age.

But she was restless and her eyes would drift

Towards announcements on the singles page.

Soon after, he finished work exhausted...

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Though every nation’s shape must be unique,

The outline of Ukraine attracts our gaze.

A sense of the vulnerable protrudes

From this quiet space, once so short on hate.

This is where fear comes in; borders store

Culture, landscape, language and traditions,

Encircling the rich plains of history.

More than that, they preserve our memories,

Of sunny dreams, glistening on water.

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Let’s consider this, just for a moment:

Hundreds are slaughtered in attacks on schools,

On apartment blocks, or shopping centres.

Yet still we call it this fancy name: War.

We hand out medals, salute the stupid,

And march up and down wearing silly clothes.

If I sent bombs towards civilians,

I should go down as a mass murderer;

But in this mad world, I am a hero,

Doused w...

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It’s strange how we remember certain things;

The nineteen-seventies, that was a time.

David Frost interviewed Tricky Dicky.

Years before, we ran into him at Lord’s:

‘You’ve dropped your coat,’ he motioned to my dad.

Stunned by the presence of celebrity,

We didn’t even get his autograph.

Screaming Lord Sutch was still screaming all day;

At the local primary school Georg...

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We know the climate is changing;

We know that the atmosphere roasts.

We know too soon many places

Will be fit for no one but ghosts.

Yet we demand our holidays

And haggle for more and more stuff;

With regard to our consumption,

Excesses are never enough.

We all profess to love nature

And take the environment’s slant,

But we are pursuing lifestyles

Wh...

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They’re dying every minute in Ukraine.

They die up at the front and in the towns,

Cheered on by generals and circus clowns,

Who push the envelope to entertain

With their own brand of tragedy and pain.

They’re dying every minute in Ukraine.

Lives may be swapped for twenty feet of land,

Transactions nobody can understand,

Fought out in summer heat or pouring rain.

It ...

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Sometimes, in villages, you hear old men

Who tut that things are not how they should be.

They knew the boy. It had been a close call.

A few months before, he was still at school,

A cheeky sort, though decent in the round,

But one morning, flaunting teenage stubble,

He joined the beards and testosterone.

The bullet was not long coming. Alex,

Known as ‘tree trunk’, once the l...

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The war does not discriminate;

Fists clenched, it grits decaying teeth

And laughs its cocky, cackling laugh

Before the tanks and missiles strike.

Onlookers trawl chunks of horror

From the ocean of public grief,

Where treasured souvenirs are crushed

And no one can identify

The charred remains in plastic bags.

Yet those round here whisper a name:

A woman, a teacher by t...

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I curse the bloody things sometimes.

Last Monday at the Shopping Mall

I grabbed one but a wheel was jammed.

The next one veered off to the right

And the last trolley in the row

Simply collapsed before my eyes.

I went outside to the car park

And spotted a shiny model

In the far corner. Just the job,

I thought, and marched off to claim it.

Light and mobile, it was perfe...

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We idolised Orson Welles and Lennie,

Walt Whitman and the Louisville Lip,

And got quite fond of little fat guys,

Perspiring and shooting from the hip,

Who yelled, in badly fitting shorts:

‘Honey, I gotta get a picture of that’.

Now, egged on by demented courts,

They seem to favour different sports:

The mean of mind and loud of voice

Would take away a woman’s ch...

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They climbed up on the hill and saw

A view they had not known before.

The land was green, the sky was blue;

The waves lapped gently on the shore.

But then a darkened cloud approached

And from it boomed the thunder’s roar.

The rain poured down, the lightning flashed,

The storm’s infernal uproar crashed.

All neighbourhood was washed away;

By dawn, their best-laid plan...

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A pint at the National Gallery,

A vodka and lime at the Tate,

A large single malt at Parsifal,

In the interval while you wait.

Then off to a poetry reading,

Where you gulp down large helpings of booze;

Before ending up at a jazz club,

With slateloads of cocktails to choose.

Next morning there's consolation

That you know you've improved your mind,

Although yo...

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They sat on a park bench,

Routinely bored:

He unadventurous,

She unexplored.

‘Are we an item?’

She enquired, with some urgency.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said.

He was aimless, now retired.

‘Well, do you want to be?’

She asked, as if in an emergency.

‘If you like,” he replied.

But, by then, both had died.

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Close now. I think. It’s hard to tell sometimes.

War takes away perspective with its taste

Of danger, its relentless jabs of fear.

Yes, we can see them. Just across the field,

Behind the trees but not quite out range.

Easy prey for our telescopic sights.

They’ll probably never know what hit them;

Two of them are down, the rest run away.

Bloody cowards, just like we wou...

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That day, back in nineteen seventy-eight,

I had passed the exams. They did blood tests,

Heart monitor, followed by an X-ray.

I took the metro to get my eyes checked

In a leafy, windswept Brussels suburb,

Then queued in the grey, underground canteen

For lunch. For ever. The squat steaks oozed blood.

Afternoon: interview in broken French

With a bewildered man in Fisheries.

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The war is sucking up our splendid youth.

They’re racing to the front; they won’t come back.

Each town and village starts to empty out,

As friends and classmates go on the attack.

They’re fighting for our dignity and state

Of freedom and of happiness pursued,

But consequences, each one plainly knows,

Could be unmentionably vile and rude.

In these now quiet streets the ...

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I wonder if those who lay the mines down

Stay put and wait for victims to approach,

Or, with a surreptitious grin, retreat.

As for the victims, no imagining

The horror of their plight will bring them back.

The miner and mined have done their duty.

In moral terms, they seem so far apart:

One bad, one innocent. But consider.

They are both under orders not to think:

Playthi...

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She’s gone to meet her fancy man.

They lie beneath his ceiling fan,

Which cools them down if things turn warm,

As they whip up the coming storm.

A fancy man’s love knows no bounds,

When measured in enjoyment’s sounds.

Sophistication boost his charms,

As she dissolves into his arms.

She’s aching for her fancy man;

He told her that his name was Stan.

She hasn’...

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A hundred days have passed since it began.

So anyone who came of age since then

Will know of nothing but this raging war,

Impardonably thrust into our lives.

Are all attempts to look beyond such days,

Anonymously scribbled on the wall,

A futile antidote to these cruel ways?

Or something sinister which may recall

A game which every canny person plays:

To test how far the ...

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Strange feeling, standing next to this felled tree,

A victim of a violent assault.

Not long ago, these leaves were vigorous

In the reflection of a sparkling sun.

Green dominated, but entertainments

Of all shapes and styles delighted this Earth.

Now brown and shrivelled, they slip existence,

As they accompany their own decline.

We know that feeling too. The lynched bodies,

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The look on Mum’s face told its own story;

Our dad’s weekly letter had failed to arrive.

In its place, as sombre as a scarecrow,

Was a black-bordered missive from the state.

When we left, it seemed like an adventure:

Hugs and backslaps and putting on a smile.

Then the train rides, through cold nights and long days.

I don’t know where we are. They all seem nice

But they spea...

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They’re performing a foxtrot in Davos,

The great and the good are crossing the floor;

While deep in Ukraine, with little to gain,

The dance is wilder than ever before.

The movers and shakers are out in force,

They move their careers and their buyback bids;

While near to Kyiv, with little to give,

Old jackets are shaken to feed the kids.

Designer shoppers and vegan...

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Good afternoon, you’ve come from far and wide;

In Mariupol, I shall be your guide.

Do not believe the lying foreign press,

Who will pretend this place is one big mess.

Just look at the improvements we have made:

All that extra space, if a bit less shade.

(And any minor damage has been done

By outside agents who have cut and run).

You see that souvenir shop with its flags?

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A dead tree is sad, but it stands, present,

Benevolent, useful, still in the game.

It has nobility, even when charred

By flames, in the overheat of wartime.

Dead people though, perish in every sense;

Their limp remains plead for quick disposal.

All that’s left is once-removed: memories,

Letters, film of their pomp and garden games,

The sly maintenance of reputations.

Tre...

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'Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud',

Was a very famous song:

Sung by the great Michael Flanders

And played by Donald Swann.

Both, alas, are now long gone.

But Flanders' daughter Stephanie

Is frequently heard on the BBC,

So the heritage of mud

Lives on!

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Many here will go to heaven,

Though some of us will go to hell.

These places stand on worlds apart,

But who does badly? Who does well?

We think that sinners should be sent

To purgatory down below,

But in a war all lines are blurred;

Good people may not even know

That they deserve an afterlife

Of peace and comfort and of joy,

While devils rise in our esteem

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You wake again in dawn’s reluctant light;

The neighbour’s wife and youngster have both fled.

He shivers as he clings hold of his gun

And, unrefreshed, falls on his lonely bed.

War, looking back, can be a lucky break.

Men who once cleaned up a factory floor,

When it is over, build a better life;

At present, it’s a terrifying chore

Of trembling hands, impending...

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I felt a numbness after the event:

A single shot, and this was just a boy,

Barely out of school. He lay, open-mouthed,

And I thought of his family and friends,

His teenage passions, posters on the wall,

His portrait of pride, hanging in the hall.

Suddenly, my mates were surrounding me -

We had blown a hole in enemy lines -

Slapping my back, but I was now alone.

One may a...

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We should not yield to anger,

Nor trespass upon kindness.

There are other ways to staunch the boiling blood.

The sight of yesterday’s Victory parade,

With its wind-up, flat-pack military,

Its gross salutes and guns and strut,

Its little man made out of wax,

Talking for ages through his nut,

Made me grimace at the waste

And at the tragic, pointless load

Of fresh-dead b...

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I thought he would be giving us a wave,

But no. An old gent, looking quite cheesed off.

As an individual, he had good points,

But I don’t want his statue in this town.

He has too much baggage; I’m short on tact.

Anyway, we do not need more clutter.

These damned edifices are everywhere:

Footballers, dogs, forgotten men in wigs.

In some spots you can hardly move for them.

...

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I once passed a little village

Where locals met and chatted in the square;

Some, most withdrawn, played cards and smoked.

The place was poor but free from fear or care.

When required, the work was done;

Winters were hard but held a certain charm.

Then all too soon the tanks rolled in;

There was no time to ring out the alarm.

Now, though the buildings are long gone...

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Stop. Go back to your make-believe,

For what is real is hard to bear.

In normal times we take a stroll

And look around and sniff the air,

But now imagination rules,

No entertainment lives out there.

Three heroes in their sailor suits

Dance to the tunes of ‘On the Town’,

While outside bombs and missiles land

And innocence comes crashing down.

The burned-out s...

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Not many shepherds live around these parts,

But down the road the buildings are ablaze.

In semi-darkness, citizens with pails

Run like hares towards the smoky haze.

I stop one in passing. ‘I’m Jan,’ he says.

His features throb with duty and despair;

His younger friend stands polishing a gun.

Our lives are here, but could be anywhere.

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I popped out to the shops to buy some bread;

When I returned my family were dead.

A missile had destroyed our neighbourhood;

From this time onwards, nothing will be good.

I cannot understand these men of war;

I cannot comprehend what this is for.

We had no quarrel with our former friends;

How can these means advance their twisted ends?

Were they at war, my children and my w...

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Spring sprung too soon this year,

And now has lost its puff.

Streams run dry; seaside views

Are not remotely rough.

On still midsummer calm

And spreads of withered pink,

The sun is beating down.

It’s April time, I think.

The damp has drained away;

The fields are like cement.

The skimpiest of rain

Is close to heaven-sent.

Tiles upon rooftops roast.

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Sir Harrison Birtwistle (1934-2022)

The Last Night, live on BBC One;

At the Proms, twenty-seven years ago,

‘Panic’ had them spitting out their gin.

They expected Land of Hope and Glory,

England’s green and pleasant land – all that.

What they got was daring, discordant brilliance.

‘Disgusted’ of Somewhere went into overdrive.

The switchboard (in those days) was jammed

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I want there to be a God.

I want there to be someone

I can pray to in hard times

And feel the warmth of family.

But when I see all this death,

All this doom and destruction

And reach out for some solace,

Who is there to answer me?

Religious leaders bang on

And pass round the piled-high plate,

But can they stop the nightmare

And bring back sons and daughte...

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Tears come too frequently with age.

The old accentuate despair

And store up their disappointments,

Accepting, with its bitter taste,

The enormity of failure.

They learn to love the shorter days

And seek comfort in the darkness.

They hanker for secure times,

Now just beyond their memory,

When tears they wept were pure joy.

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The caption caught my eye with morning tea;

Tearful in woe, she loomed large on the screen.

The opened plastic bag revealed her son;

Her heartbreak and distress was hard to bear.

The brother held her in a sad caress;

Distraught, they parried questions from the press.

And I was torn. Should this not be discreet,

This tragedy, and not for public view?

Then someone else, ...

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When the rain stops, and the clouds part,

We venture out to take a look,

And for one brief moment wallow

In some space of blessed respite.

A shower has freshened up this place;

The violent mist has melted

Into compost’s damp aroma,

Birdsong breaks the tuneless silence.

The lives not lived, through their absence,

Remind us of the dry prelude,

Crackling in heat and nois...

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Paradise is a crust of bread

And a sip of running water.

Paradise is electric light,

A little warmth, an evening bath.

Paradise is to meet with friends,

To go outside, to sniff the air,

And smell no war, and see no dead,

No buildings razed, but peace instead.

This paradise is somewhere else.

It feels so near; it should be here.

For now, we plunge back in the fray...

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It wasn’t that complicated,

But it had to be authentic.

No point in actors playing dead.

Think about it! They’ll sneeze or twitch

As the cameras start rolling

And give the whole damn game away.

Luckily we had true patriots,

Prepared to sacrifice their lives,

Ready to jump in plastic bags

And take a bullet in the head.

Thousands were queueing round the block.

Cheere...

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An early morning flight from Vienna,

The plane stuffed with consultants in their suits;

Rugby scrums for visas on arrival.

Hotel post-Soviet, with quirky charm:

‘Three hundred dollars. You pay in cash. Now!’

On each floor women at desks dole out keys

And watch cartoons on cinema-sized screens.

No one can close the window in my room.

The metro staircase seems to reach Earth’...

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I didn’t have to do this job;

There were many things on offer,

But somehow I fell into it.

Most days it’s pretty routine:

Emptying the bins and the bags.

But yesterday, everything changed;

The cameras and microphones

Screamed indignation at the world,

While the crows and vultures circled

For a sniff of plastic-wrapped flesh.

Unfamiliar with our task,

We tidied up, ...

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In time of war, things fit to you tightly:

No bagginess, no slack, no loose surplus.

War exposes us as human beings,

And makes us face ourselves for what we are.

The carnival starts; you put on your mask

And chase the local girl. Later, waking,

You hear a distant cry from your old friend,

Pleading for your help through the gas and mud.

But you are too warm; she is beside yo...

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When my dad passed away,

I began to wish for

A number I could call,

To check he was all right.

‘All right’ is relative, of course,

But the purpose of this hot line

Would be to spread out and discuss,

To ask the unanswered questions,

To say the things we had not said,

And to speak to one that I knew,

Not the wizened, angry, lost soul

I had sat with that la...

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I have nowhere to go,

Yet so much I could say;

No one out there listens

As my words fly away.

I have nowhere to sleep,

To lie down undisturbed.

My nightmares will run deep;

My tender dreams are curbed.

I have nowhere to hide,

No place where I can run.

I’ll sit and contemplate

The cool, descending sun.

I have nowhere to grow;

To be the one ...

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Does anyone have something new to say,

Or have they spouted this same stuff before?

The pundit with the shoulder-shrugging way,

The smug contrarian, the golf club bore,

Seem to have drifted through the point of ripe:

A busted flush, well past their sell-by date.

So new kids brandish platitudes and tripe,

Passed on as humdrum tools of their estate.

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Each day will expire.

The sun will rise and set,

The midnight hour cross

A starless sky, and yet,

The stories will remain,

Embedded in the past,

Awaiting to be told,

Through memories which last.

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The President roared, The President roared:

‘I have so much power, yet I am bored.’

The President thought, The President thought:

‘What can I do for today’s bit of sport?’

The President said, The President said:

‘Bring me that man and I’ll chop off his head.’

The President cried, The President cried:

‘Now I shed tears for the man who just died.’

The Pres...

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The listeners, engrossed, swim with the tide,

The echoing of terror in their ears.

The ‘Stalin’ scherzo shudders to a halt,

As fast as its great surge of sound begins.

It seems to fall and plunge down a ravine

And disappears, with one last act of will,

To ignominy and oblivion,

Inside the padlocked box of history.

All this took place in nineteen fifty-three:

The Coronati...

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Timepieces weigh us down;

Each moment is the present day.

The future has lost its fashion;

The past has gone, they say.

‘We must live for the now’,

Insist some greater minds than mine.

What’s over is cheap currency,

Like corked, rejected wine.

Time should be worthwhile, though,

Comprising memories and fear,

And one small universe of smiles

Which stretch f...

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It’s hard to believe that Auden stood here

And stared while Europe teetered on the brink.

The tiny Icarus, unseen, ignored,

By locals who have better things to do,

Drops down beneath the weight of melted wings.

But this and other paintings have survived,

Unchanged through times of short-lived conflicts, plagues,

Achievements and disasters, rattling past

Beyond these walls. ...

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‘Sharpie’ Wilson

Liked his pint and his fag

And fancied a miner’s daughter.

More rugby league in that area, then.

He was called up for the war;

I wonder what he’s doing now?

‘Pint-size’ Gregor

Was the husband of a cousin.

Never a cross word;

Twenty years in car assembly.

He was called up for the war;

I wonder what he’s doing now?

‘Slowcoach’ Colin...

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It puts things into perspective:

Legions of the brave stand and fight

Death and destruction in Ukraine,

While this end whingers demonstrate

Against a simple covid jab

Or wearing a mask on a train.

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A pensioner may say,

On each St Crispin's day:

‘Now let sleeping dogs lie.’

But some old men do not forget;

An ancient jibe leaves them upset.

They nurse a grudge until they die.

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We talk about war crimes,

But all war is a crime.

No one should have to take up arms

And to try to kill his brother.

Health warnings flash across our screens.

The lifeless husks of battle rage

Or those dismembered by explosions

(‘You may find some of these images upsetting’);

They were just following orders.

But no one should follow orders.

To hell with the...

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It seems a waste of time to write

While shots ring out

And bombs and missiles fall,

While populations flee

And others have their backs against the wall,

While bullies swagger round the land

And choose their puppets to install,

It seems a waste of time to write.

No! This is what the strongmen want:

Put down your pen and  call it a day.

They seek monopolies on word...

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Without art, there would still be shapes,

Dancing in your dreams.

But what would be the point?

Without love, there would still be glances:

Random, half-welcoming, half-shy.

But what would be the point?

Without faith, there would still be queues,

Credulous, consenting in their fear.

But what would be the point?

Without music, there would still be noises:

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They used to moan about him in the slips,

High up in the gods at Covent Garden.

(These were the ones who queued to buy returns.)

‘He wouldn’t do the lifts,’ was their complaint.

‘He’s no longer what he was,’ they exclaimed.

I never saw him there, just the B-team,

But watched him dance at the Coliseum

And then some years afterwards in Brussels:

Mid-Forties and no longer in h...

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‘Another week closer to the pension.’

On every Friday afternoon at five

Old ‘Grandad’ in the office would say that.

At first we were shocked, in our boyish ways;

It seemed to us that he had given up.

What he said was, of course, completely true,

And applied to all without exception,

But he was getting near to the finish,

Which made the countdown to the line more real,

Wh...

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There’s something unique about a radio play,

When you settle back in the quietness of dark.

It is not the programme’s quality which matters,

But that you create a softly spoken haven

Far from the chaos and cacophony of light.

It’s as though each uttered word puts out the fires

Which rage inside your head throughout the day.

Drifting in and out of sleep, the drama unfolds

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The Sunday of the Soul

Should be its day of rest.

It labours hard all week,

Through diligent respect

For features of its host:

A gush of intellect

On prominent display.

A physical virtue,

From grace and power forged.

An armoury of love

To melt the coldest heart.

The absence of remorse.

Endowed with all this stuff,

Six days should be enough.

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When we were boys, the bags of crisps were small:

A special treat outside the gates at school.

Now packets, verging close on supersize,

Reverberate with healthy-eating lies;

So two-ton men scoop them up in bunches,

Believing they will substitute for lunches.

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There is a place which I encounter in my dreams;

I never come across it in real life.

A port on a river, a Sunday afternoon,

Some families buy lemonade. Just then,

Without quite knowing why, everyone is afraid.

Darkness falls, while debts are quietly paid.

At other times, the riverboats sail up and down.

The air is tense and tight. The parasols

Seem to frown. Old men w...

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Some clergy we know won’t leave cathedrals.

Why should they? There they have all that they need:

Pomp, faith and power over life and death.

The ones who do venture out discover

A mess of a world, with stammering crowds,

Stricken women who curse when buying bread,

The rich, first in line for absolution.

Yet they negotiate the obstacles,

Jump the barriers, take rough stu...

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With purpose, yet strangely cowed, the fox trots

Past sleeping beggars through the city’s gloom.

He is out of his territory here,

And far from the comfort of what he knows;

So falls back on the bags and open bins.

Scavenging, with teeth as sharp as needles,

He feeds off this wretched underbelly

Like a king, lounging on his shop-soiled throne.

That said, at quiet times he mu...

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When I see a painting, what do I see?

A man, a woman, a garden, a tree?

Perhaps there’s a mountain in the distance,

But soon I reflect on the existence

Of a facet of the work much greater:

The vision and mind of its creator.

A picture is a window on ideas

Which bubble up and percolate for years.

They finally express themselves in paint,

Which slaps on and hardens with no...

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Up-market sheds are all the rage.

People write memoirs inside them,

Or compose their latest music,

Or contemplate, or drink sherry

And frolic with gold-plated friends.

But real sheds are more sinister:

Lives, mostly gone, are embedded

Within the jumbled disarray

Of mud-caked tools and slapdash piles

Of festering ambitions.

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Uncle Fred was a star on a tightrope.

He came home every day and skipped across -

Thirty feet up, without a safety net,

Above the back yards between the houses -

The swaying chasm spread before our roof.

Risking all, in any kind of weather,

He shone with elegance like Fred Astaire.

At first the neighbours applauded and cheered

(Wives lay awake in their delicious dreams),

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Once we have climbed the greasy pole,

We seek enjoyable pursuits.

We think power equals pleasure;

We pretend that we devour,

At length, and from a place of strength,

All of our past annoyances

And irritations. But do we?

Pleasure as a settling of scores

Is just revenge in poor disguise.

We know revenge in any form

Is like a cocktail with no spark.

So is this p...

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A man lay on the railway track

And waited calmly for his train.

Approaching fast, it ran him down;

He quivered and got up again.

This feat of mind over matter

Was the subject of much chatter.

He did the tour of the bars,

Showing everyone his scars.

‘My destiny was to survive;

I knew I would come out alive.

It’s true I teetered on the brink,

But all turned...

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I met a poet in the park;

He asked me if I liked his rhymes.

I answered, ‘well, in these strange times..’

The passers-by turned heads to stare,

But none amongst them seemed to care.

As daytime drifted into dark,

I left him seated, looking low.

What happened next, I do not know.

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She danced away the afternoon

With men who, in another life,

Might land a spacecraft on the moon.

The world was simple then. A slew

Of tranquillised delights calmed nerves.

Our cares were solvable, and few.

Celebrities would saunter past;

Some boy performed his turn. The troops,

Reluctant, waited for the blast,

Eyes closed and fingers in their ears.

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