See the crows with bloody beaks

that pluck the tongues

through which truth speaks

 

See the men with bloody tongues

that strikes out truth

were e’re it comes

 

See the scribes with words writ wrong

who care not where

their ink comes from

 

See the eyes that welcome blight

that fills their soul

yet steals their sight

 

See all this yet carry on?

you’ll have no voice

when all is gone.

 

On this our darkest night,

aurora stains the mountains red,

the impatient blade of morning

bleeds the starlight pale.

No staunch defence

could stem such blackness bled,

nor bar the shaft of golden day,

that all of life should fail.

 

And once so sure, our hearts entwined

beat the very same,

that spinning in their union

no imposter could unbind.

Yet still the blade of cursed time

split the veil and came

that all which once would always be

was lost to never find.

 

Rocks will break the oceans top

and spill great sailors to their graves,

where hulls of ships become mere crop,

becalmed, at rest in coastal caves…

 

echoes of the timbers split

the wash and swell unseen by men,

blown by winds where lovers sit

whose hearts may never love again.

 

All men are wrecks upon some shore

their journey’s spent, their cargo lost.

For time and tides will wait no more

each voyage sunk beneath its cost.

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t the morning that came,

nor the night that slipped from the sky,

but somewhere

between dreams

and my waking,

some other dimension

passed by.

 

It wasn’t an absence or presence,

nor the things with the traces of you,

but somewhere

between light

and moons crescent,

a ghost of you came

shining through.

 

It must have been something you left,

some intangible force of the heart,

which could never be snuffed

or bereft,

that no

earthly bound force

keep apart.

 

It must have been something you gave me,

a secret or code buried deep,

that somehow

could reach out

and touch me,

in a world where our love

doesn’t sleep.

 

They laughed at you,

your accent, your hair, your skin…

your knowledge of nothing

that they believed in.

 

Your best friend, a Jew

then Vikram the Sikh,

the Haggis, the Kosher,

the words you couldn’t speak.

 

Your smile now victorious,

when you pass by the School,

the Temples, the Shop’s,

the Cruel Swimming Pool.

 

The Church your dad built

they burned and defaced,

that they pissed on and cursed,

their own culture disgraced.

 

Now money buys friendship

no matter your creed,

if you’re off the front line

and signed up to the greed.

 

The roots are returning

they’re breaking old ground,

the torches are burning

new enemies found.

 

It’s those who have not,

“A Vermin complete”

the ones now forgot

down there on the Street…

 

who’ll rise up one morning

too full from their hate,

who’ll kill without warning

who’ll tear down the gates…

 

whose colours will blend

whose stories converge,

from that bitter end

new worlds will emerge.

 

Yet it’s all an illusion

there is nothing new,

we kill for amusement

and something to do.

 

He takes a sack of crumpled shirts,

a puzzle

and a gun.

He leaves with wigs and mini skirts

and “Chuzzlewit”

for fun.

 

He’s in a Queue at “Waitrose”,

transformed,

an amazon,

all selfish hair and Dickens prose,

prior signs

of him, all gone.

 

The High Street hums with laundries,

wringing out

their blood-stained cash,

all shiny fronts and tawdry,

there’s pus

beneath the rash.

 

From pedestals of entitlement,

beflagged

and microphoned,

they profess their own enlightenment

with eyes

as cold as stone.

 

A cross becomes a Hakenkreuz,

a blessing

a salute,

the masses in their halls rejoice,

their march

a stamping boot.

 

One thing becomes another,

it sheds

alluring skin,

its prey too late

discovers,

the reality within.

And the pit is full of bodies,

disguises stripped

and gone,

all hope of change,

our folly,

they built their lies upon.

 

 

 

 

A face as smooth as glass

that time has fallen from,

tracks of tears have passed

the weight of years moved on.

 

Hands purpura petalled

fold like angels wings,

hair as gentle snowflakes

a midnight clear might bring…

 

a robin on a window ledge

a flower full in bloom,

the sacred vow of loves long pledge,

a summer gone too soon.

 

And yet the song we hear is light

it lifts the leaden heart,

for dark with all its fearful night

can ne’er two lovers part.

 

 

 

 

It’s five o’clock in the morning, it’s -5,

my dog pisses as she stares at me.

 

Her steam, my breath as one

I think she’s laughing.

I’m laughing, I’m wearing shorts and a beanie.

 

What is this,

eccentric Englishness?

 

Stars in silver sulphide pierce a frigid sky

a Supernova vents it’s dying throes.

 

She stands from squat,

the Blackbird sings

 

At five o’clock

a million things.

 

Used to be

I could get all the news I need

on the weather report

 

When days

were long

and darker times came in short

 

I could gather all the news I need

on the weather report

 

Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today

but cry

and to cry and to cry and to cry

for what’s going on

 

is this the only dying world

our greed’s brought.

 

Most of the time they’re gone

and we just don’t care, no we just don’t care

you can see that their lives are gone

and we just don’t care

 

Friends, why don’t we open our minds

I know there’s so much we could find

fly to where we’re one of a kind

fly now and leave these horrors behind

 

Hey, let your honesty shine, shine, shine,

let it shine on down

on them

let it shine on down

to them

 

Are we the only living ones to have thought

what we paid for is not what they bought

 

When we preach but don’t practice what’s taught

when we preach yet don’t practice what’s taught

 

Behind the songful thicket

where fields tuck in to ancient earth,

the tiny birds sing thanks to birth

 

trod and turned by boot and plough

much goes unseen by humans now.

 

Beyond the foamy edge

where breakers roll on timeless sand,

the wilding wind knows no command

 

stamped then cleared by men and tides.

whose howls are drowned like griefs lost cries

 

beneath the thinning soil

where darkness bears no fear to life,

the crawling universe is rife

 

stained and spoiled by poisoned plan

yet still they toil in spite of man.

 

Between lost degrees

where all worlds meet,

we close our eyes and still our feet

 

that none may see and none may go

where harmony might fledge and grow.

 

 

 

Larkin lived on Dixon Drive

now he’s still dead

and I’m alive.

He stacked books

with referenced spine

and trousered coin,

paid in fine.

 

I lived just off Ethel Road

half a man

but full-on toad.

Crushed into my loutish form

dull schooling

shaped me

to this norm.

 

Phil moved on,

to Queens and hope

with less despair

and longer rope.

An “elsewhere place”

that pushed his pen

“the salt rebuff” of tougher men.

 

I too, found the Belfast road

its years had turned…

too much implode.

No scholars gown

or tweed for me,

nor friendly tongue

across that sea.

 

He a poet I the fool

two lives not shaped

by finer tools.

Though one sharp mind

was lesser lost

the two seemed spent

at equal cost.

 

 

All the poets of all the Kings

with all their fine imaginings

have only ever offered up

the favoured flavour of their sup.

 

with words so lofty, full of grace

persuading of their given place,

that they alone could fill that space.

Emblazoned coin, gods chosen face.

 

While those of us with poets eyes

not blessed with pardons for our lies,

see through the crown to truthful skies

where sunlight strips all earthly guise.

 

Then with our mortal time unspun

we’ll coil our spirit toward the Sun,

to close the round as it begun

where all of matter is as one.

 

Wrapped in sky and heathered hills

caressed by briny horses wild,

so far from dark satanic mills

survives the empire’s favoured child.

 

Once stripped and starved of tongue and god

its people slaved and banished cold,

crofts and mànas razed to sod

that none who dwelled there might grow old.

 

But land in time calls back its own

disgorging tyrants, killing kings,

and those returning hold what’s known

that those who stole could never bring.

 

This place so loved by earth and man

too much that any heart could own,

will never bow to scheme or plan

that was not on its own shores grown.

Ice puddles like lily pads
an archipelago of creeping freeze,
stepping stones of tears perhaps
shed by autumns grieving trees…
then captured in the frozen glare
of sunlight’s first defiant rays,
they’ll fade as if were never there
to herald in such hopeful days.
So many things unseen by men
the simple and the subtle change,
that slip through time like ink through pen
rewritten on an unturned page…
like bridges built between the wars
that yield to fear and promised gain,
all reaching out, their hope ignored
when war in season comes again.


 

I see them in forgotten towns

men in pairs and burdened mums,

nowhere stares with heads bowed down

“Something broken this way comes”

 

In carless forecourts of bleak hotels

where fag butts rot and litter blows,

cruel deals are done that no one tells…

We turn our heads so no one knows.

 

While in the dens of whispered spite

be-trolleyed locals sneer and scoff,

at those who stain their one birthright,

and dare to be of different cloth…

 

This inheritance of human spill

a cash cow for the Corporate Kings,

who for 14 years and lack of will

made misery their sum of things.

 

Times will change as time must do

with cut and thrust new Kingdoms Come,

and who’s to say it won’t be you

that those who rise will hateful shun.

 

 

Though there are wars that we cannot see

their wounds and scars leave history

some is carved in marbled stone

the names of those beloved and known…

 

and some is seared to flesh and mind

unknown to those we left behind

who waved us off and served us well

and in their waiting shared our hell

 

Flesh is commodity
guns universal
uniforms reversable
flags incontrovertible

Kimchi for Borscht
tank for a horse
fodder for force
mutual of course

Bodies for bags
medals perhaps
dictators relapse
generational gaps

Star for a Sickle
water for trickle
allegiance for fickle
too much for so Little

Blood for the soil
dollars for oil
horrors recoil
exploited for toil

Glory for States
closed borders for gates
freedom abates
oblivion awaits…

The Jag is in the driveway
behind the iron gates,
the home was christened “My-Way”
(he who loses hesitates)

All the frills are garish
from The Pillars to The Pool,
the gothic-faux nightmarish
its rendition most uncool.

The topiary is phallic
it’s freudiently flawed,
the colour palette so manic
passing psychopaths applaud.

A bronze eagle guards the doorway
it’s talons dipped in gold,
Munch’s art screams in the hallway
a fucking car-crash to behold.

A kaleidoscope of carnage
a tragedy of taste,
like a turd that can’t be varnished
or a Henry Moore defaced.

i

 

Millenia before divisions birth

sands shifted unconstrained,

seas un-parted caressed the earth,

no sacred path by men ordained.

 

ii

 

Lands unfolding, gods and kings

psalms and gospels, crescent and cross.

Twelve tribes rising, desert springs,

prophesying wealth and loss.

 

Borders burning, skies afire

blood and soil, words of hate.

Symbols raising tension higher,

revelation incarnate.

 

iii

 

Desolation, wastelands of peace

sea and land unconstrained,

for gods and kings all domains cease

the reckless path of men ordained.