Firing Squad

She said that time
went upwards
And I said I thought that was spiders
No memories, she claimed
Were washed down the drain
When the single sun shines in the sky

I got the feeling of abbreviation
In the annulment clause
That somebody was not
Connecting what I was feeling
Like a draft coming in from outdoors

The house was sacred yet shattered
It had been, but would be for no more
The type on the computer mattered
But it was tattered prit-prattled
and poor
By the evening of the atomic bomb
A large shark was thrown through the roof
And the oceans boiled
As with turtles and whales
Who suddenly knew their own truth

You she said in closing
Have been acquitted of the true crime
There was dust on the shelves
Of your library of selves
The further back you looked in time

A candle was burning the evening
A thought conspired to form
But extinguished it was
By the hot winds flush
From the salty fleshed
Women of the storm

I slugged my way to the carpet
And left with a terrible head
The dawn came up on the parapet
And in the morning we counted the dead

Hegylab

What do you know of mountains?
I only know of the coast, the cliffs
The taste of the rain
The smell of toast
Or the streets

I could follow the cats
And tap them on the shoulder
I could caterwaul the taps
And turn over a new rocky boulder

But what use is all that?
What is the revenue?
Where are the black shadows
that pass under the rainbows
Along the avenues?

Mobile phones kill quality time

I lost my mobile phone the beginning of this course
And I have never been happier
No body phoned me up in my sleep
No one invited me to things I did not care for
Or if they did I felt ok not to go there

I was not pestered by whats app
Or meeting reminders
Or mobile phone updates for whatever crap

The organizers did not have the ability to contact me
I was free
In a word
If somebody died I would have heard
Somehow
But it did not trouble me
Nor did any desire to phone or speak to someone
Unnecessarily
I did not waste money on texts, endlessly
Inquiring of another's business
Or even organizing skype

However what I had was more cash
To spend on useful pursuits like swimming
That in fact chilled me out

When in the waiting lounge of certain arrivals
I looked up from my lap top
Which replaced my attention's focus
When the world got wired
And I saw a room full of young people bored staring down
Someone commented look at us now
And I thought of what could have happened
In a situation like this twenty years in the past
From now
Some bright spark would have started a game
Some camaraderie would have brought us together

It was there in virtue in vitro
In idea the embryo
Perhaps instead we would have read
A book or done a crossword
It is just that life not is too often wired
To the these black boxes of electricity
That are an anathema to the Human soul
Perhaps it is not all lost
Just the Ghost in the machine
Is beginning to take control

Old Rocks in the Sun

Today when the rains came
They came with a flourish
Like a goose shaking its ruffled feathers
A bristling kind of cold
And the dirty sky above the stones was enough
The photographer said it was good
To shoot a group in
To capture the moments of youth
Against such timeless monuments
The light was proof
Somehow in his lens
Of our existence and theirs
The Young ones
And the Old Stones

And who amongst them
Would be interested in old rocks?
Some relics of a bygone age
Some irrelevant artefacts
Who are not on Snapchat
Or facebook
Maybe StoneWall if such a social Media site existed

And yet of its day these Stones
Where the network hub
The consciousness centre of the people who lived then
The young and the old - probably not much older
Than many who were there today yawning
Complaining of how boring it all was
Of how long everything was taking
And how nothing was happening!
And there was nothing to see!

Only History!I thought to myself in disgrace
Only the geological and spiritual face
Of Time
The encapsulation of an epoch
Captured in unmovable objects
As permanent as their faith was to them
As certain as the seasons and the Sun
And the moon -were these monoliths to them
And their lives are all extinguished now
Yet these stones have stood the test of time
And will be standing even until the end of the world

Perhaps when the sea levels rise
And then the ice age comes
Perhaps someday a glacier
Will slide over them
And obliterate all trace
That Britons and Druids ever existed
But I hope not
And yet that would also be a fitting end somehow
To these doorways that have guarded
Gods from the early dawn
To the final sunset

Song of the Stones

Stone the crows
And crow to the stones
The litmus paper test
Of a life alone
Jeering, cheering the dog with the bone
Stone the crows I'm all alone

Stone the bees
They've buzzed for me
For the love of three,
The bark of the tree
Stone the bees

I've walked along
The single ducting
In the sight of wireless fluctuating
The needless tyres
On the wheel of life
That keeps on turning
As a turbulent strife

Song of the heart
Song of the Stones
Who stand apart
And never are known
Yet see with eyes as mysterious as seas
Quenched in the fire
Of the Sun of Salisbury

On the tides

All the alimony that we owe
To be phony if you know
Call the kettle black
Its boiling over at the back
Snake and wind, through the vines
Where I hear you ring
Who brought up the proposition
Like a childish kind of thing?

That was then and this is now
The golden goose and sacred cow
Both turned loose from the stable whose
Horse has bolted like a flying sow

Just immediately the truth was known
Like a hoof crushing a bone
Like jelly blackcurrant lake
That shakes in visions of my mistake

For the rest is yet unwritten
As the swallow flies so the bittern
Stares his snout to the sky
And asks again why he is shy