Trying to write I lift a scab
to see my lifeforce flow,
for under the crust of all things dead
lie things we crave to know…
yet in such knowing are we fixed
or wounded all the more?
by careless angst we self-inflict
there is no reason for…
Peace talks
The water is Still and Sparkling
the AC is silent as dust,
tame media outlets remarking
which one of these suits can we trust?
The translators verbose and inventive
sit idly waiting on words,
a settlement holds no incentive
so enthused, they resolve to throw curbs.
Front lines are bloody and broken,
of talking, there’s none to be heard…
you’re dead or you’re merely a token
of losses already incurred.
They’ll talk while the bloods bleeding out,
and they’ll dine while the metal’s in flight
despite all of the peace that they spout,
they’ll steer clear from the fray of the fight.
The infinity of consequence
Regard your hands with disgust.
Idle, they are the tools of wicked thought…
Your mind wanders the contours of things forbidden,
misused, it writes a script for dormant horrors…
the seed and the active ingredient repel,
whilst psychopathic imagination permits all…
the membrane of restraint is gossamer thin…
a butterfly wing betwixt heaven and hell
between war and peace
that moment between the idea and the act,
before a life or the world entire might change…
In those quiet spaces of strength or surrender
lives are shaped or destroyed
that know not each other.
Aubade-esque
I come awake, sunlight banishing the night,
clawing at curtains it smears the shabby walls…
the debris of yesterday best forgotten offends my sight,
relentless optimism cares not where on it falls.
The fog of memory lifts, dreams combust in vampiric flame.
I am adrift, ripped too early from interstellar torpor.
It’s not that heavenly bodies could be held to any blame
when sometimes they interrupt, but “please no fucking more”
The street won’t relent for birdsong or for breeze,
tongues and footfall percuss unconcerned with my demise…
I curse the brutal concrete and give worship to the trees
denying gods my forfeit who let such horrors rise.
Repel the prying rays, permit the darkness stay,
that I might curl one more dream around a world asleep…
to slumber through the noise and the ravages of day,
and not to wake in this one, more damage here to reap.
To see must be to speak
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.
With the Certainty of the Day
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.
Paradoxical Voyage
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.
Gift
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.
A Vermin Complete
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.
One thing becomes another
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.
Of sorrowful songs there is no fear
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.
At five o’clock a million things
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.
Are We The Only Living Ones to Have Thought
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
Into the wild
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 and Me
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.
The last laureates
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.
Alba
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.
War in Season
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.

Epitaph For The Waste Land
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.
They Also Serve
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