MIND FRIGHT FRIDAY NIGHT

 

I’d been out to the pub on my own I came back early, it was one of those nights. I walked up the main road a little drunk. It was then I heard a car, it sped away so very fast – getaway? Briefly I saw it, gone. Seconds later I heard two bangs, fireworks? No pretty sky light display, screams! I heard screams of, “Help! Help! My husband’s been shot!” my drunkenness shoved aside like an unwelcome friend I rushed to the house, got in the back door saw a scene from hell. Why did fate pick me? Why did fate pick me to see a man dying from a gunshot wound one metre from me? Why did fate allow this to happen? I don’t care what he had done no one deserves death by firearm. Blown away they call it. There was nothing I could do, I felt so helpless. I called the medics; silly woman on the phone did stress me out! That night everything changed forever, the last of my innocence died when I tried to help a shocked wife whose now a widow with her two kids. I wish I could have done more but I feel I failed, being a witness to a dying man’s life, an end. I’ll place flowers at her gate to remember an awful night that washed away my petty problems. Why did a man die?

 

Based on real events I sadly came across 18-9-09 no more guns(or knives) on our streets enough is enough. this is new work.

 

all old work below

 

BEER FESTIVAL

 

It happens once a year and it’s all in the name of fun.

You could call it a sacred event as people who attend

are devoutly practising their religion.

They come from far and round to this beer festival

to drink their favourite ales from small obscure breweries.

Some will like what they taste, you notice it as soon

as you come through the door.

Now ten pints later we are ready to leave…

shaky but surely we head for the door and home.

When I wake up in the morning with a bad head

and look at my leaflets and cheap t-shirt,

I’ll smile at the fun I had and wish next years here sooner.

CRAZY WEATHER

 

Last Friday was warm, just like summer.

It was a time to get drunk as we enjoy

the heat in our light t-shirts and jeans.

Now the weather breaks, all blustery and cold.

Bank holiday weekend was ruined before it began,

three days of rain and miserable anxiety.

Now on Wednesday the clouds come

and snow begins to fall.

It disappears as soon as it comes

to be replaced by rain and hail.

Things can’t get worse, only better,

so I say a prayer that next week will be fine.

 

CHAFF

 

Tuesday is February, an unwanted day

like the unwanted month, of no use whatsoever.

Might as well call it the unwanted day and useless month.

Can’t go and get pissed or dance in a glitzy club on a Tuesday.

It wouldn’t feel right if you could, the working week not even half thru.

What to do? Play darts at the pub? Okay for sad middle-aged fat men.

And what to do in February? Go and get a tan in Spain, yea right.

Or skiing in Norway, my spiritual home.

For us all February and Tuesday are useless,

no more but chaff against the wheat.

Come on July and Friday!

 

 

 

 

HUN 1

 

Deck of Glorious rising up and down,

anymore and we can’t launch.

See my mates fly off—now it’s me!

Full throttle and my Gladiator is up

and away, biplane wings biting the air,

Norway bound to kill the Hun.

What! No airfield with neat grass strip,

petrol bowsers, NAAFI shop? Are you nuts?

Where do we land? On a farm track or hidden

beach, a road in a town? No! On a frozen lake.

One metre of ice to be a concrete pad.

See the snow white lake frozen solid

over the mountains, past a forest?

Coming down, I see my mates over there—

no one bought it so I’ll land okay.

Defend Norway from the evil Hun!

 

KOREA’S TICKING TIME BOMB

 

North and South Korea at arms race heaven, a massive number of weapons all waiting to be used – tanks, guns and bombs. One war was enough but nearly fifty years have passed and so it’s time for another. North uses Migs and howitzers, South uses F-16s and cluster bombs all stockpiled at warehouses and airbases. Have these people lost their minds? Making law with the barrel of a gun thinking that they are gangsters at an international level. This is Korea’s ticking bomb, with North being the explosive and the South the fuse.

 

PATHWAY

 

Reflections in wax indistinct and pliable images

of you fading now to a mass,

long path before me, long path behind me.

One was the way to you, now it’s the way from you.

Yet you’re there, always a presence of what we had

for those three weeks, what we could have been, should have been.

Your silence was your biggest crime, my silliness mine.

Never to be reversed, our lost opportunity that torments

me with questions. I know you were my fairy tale

that fell between my fingers, then and forever.

You are me, I am you.

Now that I have another I won’t abandon you

like you abandoned me.

She knows of you, that I carry your memory,

can overcome but never forget.

I will be all right.

 

JANUARY 1945, GERMANY

 

Mankind has ran amuck, not even God is here to stop his madness.

The sides of good and evil have both gone mad, so crazy

it defies belief. Mottle coloured Focke-Wulfs fly in combat

against Tempests and the Typhoons fly over the snowy

new year landscape hunting German tanks.

How long can anyone believe in God

when so much goes on, so much that is wrong?

Single seat fighters fly so low hunting and killing

with nothing to stop them except flak cannons.

This is the glory of war and now today,

no one remembers or cares about the past, but me.

 

BOX

 

What’s in a box?

Is there a chance that this small box

I have here is the key to my future,

that I will need nothing more in my life ever again?

No job juggling numbers of paying bills

and skimping for food.

No dreams of holidays or getting a car.

All I need is here in my box,

8 by 6inch of cardboard one inch deep.

I open it and find this pad here with this pen.

I do this poem, the poem that will change my future for ever.

What’s in your box?

Credit cards, God, jewellery or other riches?

Open it and find out.

I have the key to my future right here,

out of my box—a book and a pen, nothing more.

Prologue

   Well, how could it have come to this? How many times had that single question been asked? Not that it mattered now, the dice had been thrown and the result wasn't good. Why couldn't the people in charge just talk to each other? Instead of firing all those missiles. Now it was too late, all of those innocents had died. Hadn't the civil war brought enough bloodshed? Obviously not. Now our once great country was smashed and ruined, thrust back almost to the stone age but cavemen never had semi – automatic weapons did they?

   I suppose we'll pull through, one way or another. We have to help ourselves, no one else seems to want to. I wonder, are we the lucky ones sitting here in a bombed out country? It seems true that the meek shall inherit the earth, an earth scorched by the use of nuclear arms and a people living by the law of the gun.

   Maybe the dead were the lucky ones, may they rest in peace…

 

CIRCLE TREE

 

I see a small tree in the middle of a city sprawl.

Concrete surround tries to hide delicate green leaves,

rusty iron railings vie for rain to rust arm thick trunk. Support.

A finger up to Man’s straight lines and dirty office blocks.

New green leaves spring forth in Spring,

trying to live in a seasonless place.

I sit under thin sparse leaves wondering

if any more trees will ever be here?

To end this loneliness and make a pair,

be almost human. Breed, family?

You just need yourself, not more trees.

An island of a single tree, here in the city.

One symbol of my Pagan religion, of life.

Not to your capitalist money grabbing ways,

mobiles, filofax, fast car and more in your ineffective

short life.

Cut this tree down, it will live on in mine and people’s memories.

“Look, that’s where that tree was all on its own, I remember it now.”

 

EPIPHANY ON THE EDGE

 

The weight of the world on a spider’s web.

Everything is relative, life force flows in each blade of glass.

In each house is a guy or a gal just like me.

I see them from the Edge. This epiphany is mine.

Soon to leave my northern lands, south bound.

Writing to where? Autumn views from

Oldham Edge. When will I return?

 

TINNED AREA

 

Menace in a supermarket coming to a store near you,

all of it now in real surreal experience.

Now I hide as my mind descends to that of a child

like depths where only an innocent’s night terrors dwell.

I build a hide of tins on the shelf to keep eyes

of physical terror out of my view.

Yet they see me behind my Heinz 57 beans,

sense my presence as they rape my mind.

Defenceless yet again this is my lot as I hide

in the dark on a narrow shelf in a supermarket.

Crazy spectres are the only customers, me the only purchase.

 

 

IT’S IN THE SONG

 

There is a song for everyone no matter what music you like, ....

from balsy music like Shampoo to the heaviest rock like Pantera, ....

it’s all there for you to like. ....

Me, I like most of it except dance music ....

which I think is music for criminals who drive ....

Volkswagen Golfs with blacked out windows. ....

From the Doors to Nirvana whose singers are dead, ....

their music is still popular and liked. ....

The bands of the 80’s are enjoyed now as much as then. ....

I think the bangles and T’Pau are so cool ....

with music to sing along and chill out to.....

 

MOONBEAMS

The moon shines through the glass ....

casting a white splash of colour – ....

it’s here for all to see. ....

Meanwhile the naked bulb ....

tries to compete and fails miserably, ....

its feeble light scattering ....

on the opposite pane.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAGIC THINGS

Do you see magic things like I see? ....

The enchanting tooth fairy silently coming ....

to take your tooth on a cool spring evening. ....

A Goddess of summer dancing majestically ....

over sunbaked land, her golden kiss bringing ....

flowers to the trees. ....

An eagle of the autumn equinox signalling ....

the start of decline as leaves fall earthwards. ....

And snowy angels of winter sowing white ....

snow over the land in a crisp layer of coldness. ....

These are some of the magical things I see ....

as I watch our seasons pass..

 

REED

I bow down to life as it crushes me completely,

relentlessly and incomprehensively.

The pressure is so much, is my breaking point near?

Or will I last out forever while those around me fall?

I don't know and I can only guess at the outcome

as I take it day by day.

I have so little that I can call my own,

just my things that can be moved in a day.

I had a car and a wife but I was never really happy,

not in the way that love would last forever.

I am like a reed, bending in the wind

but will I break in the hurricane or sway in the breeze?