Poetry

Saturday, 30 March 2024

Northbound on the South west coastal path

 Dipped in the black lagoon

Mother nature gave a boon

We enjoyed the sun and sea

On our road to Calvary


In fact the path a tortoise shell

Cracked then wet, baked and fell

Onto the beach where the seals dwell

We detoured round timeless dell


And ponies scuffed and thorns they scratched at

Our scarves and stuffed swimming backpacks

As we trotted down soggy hill side

where celandine grows over the rides

And sun dappled horses with distended bellies graze

Beside the estuary on beautiful sunny days


Then each bend and twist and turn

Leaves you amazed at rocks that burn

In the setting sun that returns

Down to rest in the sea's urn


Trying to remember what songs to sing

We saw a ship come sailing in

And glimpses of the bays and coves of coast

Great beauty had they of to boast 

 

And casting off now the funeral habit, 

Our pace quickens to that of a rabbit

But our feet before were more tortoise lead

So we were late arriving at Portishead 


When finally reaching that promised land

We could no more find a bus than could we stand

Yet somehow we must make it back to Clevedon

And recover my car, because that's where we leaved 'em


Luckily a fairy godmother was at hand

And when she suggested hitch hiking I couldn't understand

But an Angel with a cherub turned up in time

And into her blue chariot we both climbed

And not quite flaming, but at least it sped

Us far away from Portishead


We must thank our lucky stars

For all the others never stopped their cars

But this sweet child of God was sent

On Easter Saturday after Lent

And like Jesus rising from the tomb

We were freed from doom and gloom


Not that Portishead is a bad place

But you don't wish to be stranded there in disgrace

I am sure Clevedon is not a poor place for many

but also Portishead must cost a pretty penny

And of everyone who pointed out a bus stop to us

Not a single one had ever ridden the Clevedon bus


Traffic update

 Heading from reading

Left wanting in wantage

Swanning about in Swanage

I don't know who you left me for

As I was driving down the M4

I wish to visit your love funnel

As I'm going through the Dartford tunnel


Had to have a peewee

When I met a kiwi

He held the key

But I couldn't pull him free

He was a stick-in-the-mud

With the blood and the flood



Man of Sand


Here I stand
a man of sand
which time does wash away
My only relief
From the ocean reef
Greets my face the cool sea spray
As each grain of belief
falls to the waves beneath
and a man mould of clay
A new man of sand
who now may stand
To greet a bold new day

Here I stand
a man of sand
One which the ocean may carol
but which part of me is given
which part has it stole
Which land locked heart the key?
Love is strange, love is bold
Love grows weary, then is old
But each grain new
My hand does hold
As if of silver, as if of Gold
And as this cursed melody
Rolls with tide and ocean wave
A man of sand
does too give way
To love bold, and love brave

Yet here I stand
a man of sand
And across the sea I reach
For to hold the hand
Of my love who stands
on the other beach
Time has ravaged each of us
The sands of time do fall
And what was once sand in your eyes
Now my sandy voice does call
Oh Love is but a shifting quick sand
Into it each man may fall
and who amongst us would reach across
Who would answer your love's call?

Beauty stands

Beauty stands

I cannot hold

It in my hands

I must be bold

When beauty falls

Through all the worlds

And wars so cold

And beauty is as beauty calls


And I look upon the scene

The sky is blue

The fields are green

And I know it's all to seem

For beauty stands and beauty falls


And our's is time

And time must rust

All the things we love and trust

Beauty binds us

And beauty must stand and fall


Stand and fall

Like all is dust

To savour a kiss of a lover's lust

A tree in the forest that turns to dust

Beauty stands and beauty falls


As the cows in the field chew cud

And the plain road turns into mud

All we know are the desert and flood

As beauty stands and beauty falls


And I know that my life is blood

And anything I do, I do for love

Because beauty stands and beauty falls

Yes beauty stands and beauty falls


Like time's sands

And castle walls 

Beauty stands

And beauty falls


And like some hands

Whose prayer does call

Beauty stands

And beauty falls


And if your love 

In times are lost

Do not be afraid

Trust in the cross

For that man

Who guards it all

Beauty stands

And beauty falls


And if you walk in a troubled land

Where there are no friends

near to hand

Only the devil's tempting call

Beauty stands and beauty falls

Beauty stands through it all


Beauty stands through it all

The ravages of time

And beauty falls


Beauty stands and Beauty falls

Through our hands

Like crumbling walls

Through it all

He stands

Yes beauty stands tall


And the fires of love burn quick

They beat our hearts with a birch whip stick

And they call love is cold oh love is cruel


Beauty stands through it all

The ways of man

They stand and fall

And beauty is like no other plan

Beauty stands

Through it all




Wednesday, 27 March 2024

Come back to see me

 Come back to see me when the wood is green

Come back to see me when what's past has been

Come back to see me when the ghosts have seen

All your hearts desires washed down the stream


Come back to see me in the college time

When we loved together under the sun's repine

Come back to see me and I'll see you

And we can live again because we were young too


Come back to see me and it will be alright

The day will turn to evening, and then into night

But we'll be together through the rain and storm

Oh come back to see me before we were born


All this together is like leather that's worn

Down to the tethers of the sheep in the morn

And I don't know whether you're tired or torn

But come back to see me and we'll both see the dawn

Sunday, 24 March 2024

tree man

 My skin, it turned to bark

And my ears they turned to leaves

My arms they were the branch

And my legs the trunk and sleeve

I felt my eyes grow dark

But a light there to believe

Shone my inward lark

And Sung on in the eves


I became a tree

I planted myself down

In earth and in the park

A budding swirling crown

Blossoming 

Going underground

 I'm going underground again

Yes I'm going underground

All these things that I have found

Means I'm going underground


I'm listening for the sound again

I'm listening for the sound

Of rushing air

To know you are there

To feel what I have found


Into the void we explore

We reach

We think it's new

But if you uncover what is hidden

What is it you've found?

It wasn't lost - this cavern

It was made without intention

Only by our own invention

Have we invested it with meaning


Humans must project deep significance to each action 

for without it we are sliding through a chaotic vacuum

But does this mastery of emotion

Lead to anything but rationalization 

The ability to see a picture as a whole

But yet framed by our own conception

Nature is still an unfathomable question


How or why we are here, just a drop in an ocean

Yet some frame of reference must be taken

For otherwise fear is the overriding emotion

And the only antidote to fear is love 

Friday, 22 March 2024

Dancing in heaven

 Funeral and a dance

Once you lie

to get your chance

The other pie in the sky

A funeral and a dance

One day


Helen of Acquiescence

Aquitaine Acquaintance

and quantified unqualified


Amid, the shore foot boot leg coffin

Foo mantou ted

Medicated adrenal dance

Of Pituitary gland

Sanded, broke down in castles I once visited as a child

The smell of mown grass and happy freedom of home

 She of the hammerheads

She said, he said, Shark!

And it was all Noah's Ark

And animals, all creatures great and small

And all hopefulness in orange blooms

And plum shower blossoms

And I kicked a football dream

And broke a windscreen

And car crash

Or faces slashed

In pubs far too extreme

This life

This knife

That cuts the marrow

The mustard

Pétard, Pétanque, Jean luc Picard

Cri du Canard Cul de Sac

And don't you look back

As they lower you down

Don't you know you're dancing now

In heaven

Tuesday, 19 March 2024

Last of the Mohicans

 He was was the last of the Mohicans

He was the last of his tribe

And they called down the Jamaicans

And They called out all the bribes


He stumbled under blunderbus

He crumbled in the tide

But he was the last of the Mohicans and us

He was the last to have died


I cut out my own tongue as I'm speaking

So sick I am of having lied

And the taste of distrust

Like the red blood of rust

On the blade of the loved ones who have cried


I am the last of the mohicans

The last one of a crooked tribe

And not one of us is one I would trust

But for any I'd gladly lay down my life


Take me back to New York city

Take me to see old Cheyenne

And even the Cree with their lock and key

Shall see how the Lakota cried


Fight me off like a virus

Fly in the face of fear and greed

And with impossible speed

See all that we need

Another Red skin and his Creed


I am the last of the Mohicans

They called me a devil in a coat red-dyed

But they caught the black bear

And sold the buffalo hair

And now the soldier's lost his pride


Take me to the south face of the mountain

Lay my body on it's side

Let my ancestors keep a watch

Of my spirit as the scotch

Is drunk by white soldiers who had lied

Monday, 11 March 2024

Starbucks Mary

 I met Mary in Starbucks

Jesus was a barista there

He made a wicked Cappuccino

And his Latte was beyond compare


I met Mary in Starbucks she was 

Visiting her son on the run

He'd been hiding from the law

Always kept an open door

And Mary went dressed as a nun


I met Mary in Starbucks

She was singing at the top of her lungs

Why the government is corrupt

And why do they kill and disrupt

All of my sisters they've hung


I met Mary in Starbucks

But nobody else was there

They hadn't drunk from his cup

not since the police had turned up

And thrown his ass behind bars


I met Mary in Starbucks

She said "this is where it all began

Just a couple students got together

And then they came up with a plan


So keep on drinking your coffee

Keep on writing while your in the can

Soon somebody is gonna set you free

It might be God or the Son of Man"

Saturday, 9 March 2024

Devotional diet

 Goally, rolly

And a carpet of peas

Rolled up in a blanket

Set out upon seas


Fire and a banquet

Lamplit reliefs

Sugar candy mountains

Rotting young one's teeth


Rapacious raptors

And captors of belief

In capacious chapters

Read from pulpits beneath


Stone arches and bridges

Of a midnight's grief

When all the walls fall

We put up in good faith


Shattered the wrong foot

Chews its pavement of souls

Walking down the road

Of little self-control


Too much self-control

Leads to a traffic jam patrol

Where people cram in queues and ram

Their heads in petty polls


Changelings and shapeless things

Make jelly fish stands

Where octopus sell shellfish

And the selfish understand


Jealousy is a jellyfish

That stings and holds on tight

And will want to wrap its tentacles

around your throat tonight


But the beach is full of lost souls

And the sea awash with fish shoals

Diverting and divining the right

And searching in a rockpool for

Merciful relief

That all the pearls are oyster tears

Down along the beach


I walk my dog, my wolves are packed

Like sardines in a tin can

And the ice cream man he sells my soles

To footpads of the caravans


Which come past

Like camels cast

Ships' shadows out on the ocean

A followed fast

The murky mast 

creeps out of misty motion


My love is a lark, and sleepless dark

And dendrites of devotion

For thought sparks

The potted past in history's looking glass


Why do the seas, in constancies

bring back what we have thrown them?

Regurgitate the waste and hate

We've robbed and de-robed them


The shadows cast and I am last

To leave the rotting lotion

Of foam stuck fast to friends faces past

I once loved with deep emotion

Thursday, 7 March 2024

Lunchbox

Standing in the school yard throwing about our new frisbee

I don't know where we're going

I don't know who we'll be

Oh but you've got a bigger lunchbox than me


Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I bet you could fit a big sandwich

with cheese and pepperoni 

Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I can't help but notice your lunchbox is mighty


At our graduation picking up our degrees

I don't know where we're going

I don't know who we'll be

Oh but you've got a bigger lunchbox than me


Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I bet you could fit a big sandwich

with cheese and pepperoni 

Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I can't help but notice your lunchbox odyssey


In the estate agent's office picking up the new house key

I don't know where we're going

I don't know who we'll be

I can't but notice, and it's beginning to gnaw at me

How you've got a bigger lunchbox than me


Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I bet you could fit a big sandwich

with cheese and pepperoni 

Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I can't help but notice your lunchbox hanging free


In the hospital waiting room can't wait to see the new baby

I don't know where we're going

I don't know who we'll be

I just happened to look and find out what I see

how you've still got a bigger lunchbox than me


Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I bet you could fit a big sandwich

with cheese and pepperoni 

Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I can't but notice your lunchbox proximity


Sitting in the factory yard having a cup of tea

 I don't know where we're going

I don't know who we'll be

Oh but one thing that keeps on showing

Is that green eyed monster of envy

Yes you've got a bigger lunchbox than me


Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I bet you could fit a big sandwich

with cheese and pepperoni 

Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I can't help but notice your lunchbox's magnanimity


Lying in the graveyard nothing to worry about now we're free

 Still I don't know where we're going

Still I don't know who we'll be

I know we all were born equal and I love equality

Just how come, it might sound profound your mound 

looks like a mountain while mine's more molehill ground

Yes it seems you've still got a bigger lunchbox than me


Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I bet you could fit a big sandwich

with cheese and pepperoni 

Bigger lunchbox, lunchbox than me

I can't help but notice your lunchbox's indomitability


Tuesday, 5 March 2024

Woolly

 Time is a sheep

That I keep counting

One minute following the next

Like the rams are mounting

Falling on the hillside

Of a black and white despair

I know I should get going

But I keep going nowhere

Always back into the same old pen

I wish could remember way back when

This whole place was green fields

And times flock hadn't marched

But now the clock has reached us

Time flies by too fast

Put them back into their mother's

Pregnant in the moment

I am here but she's past on

In to eternal foment