Concrete dreams

Come on raise this building

Like a Moses foundation

Pillars of Salt

And pillars of rock

The three little pigs in a housing shock

Negative equity of Goldilocks

Rising inflation forced onto bears

Some of them built Shepton Mallet

The town

Sheep rustlers, shearers, 

Property of the crown

Strode was there with flowing hair

Looking down

Upon the poor who flocked to her door

Including the Ugly duckling

Black swan, white swan not seen anymore

Only on the pub signs swinging above the door

Periwinkle, weasel, wren and Robin

In the twisting clematis hob-gobble

Hoblin, goblin, shaven head

What dreams we have, when we are dead

Dying, trying to be new

Shepton Mallet, pallet crew

Shifting cider

Shifting saw

Bed pan, dustpan, bread pan more

Whistle down the truckers road

Hard granite town

Prince from a toad

Someone dreamt of a cinema

Another of a theatre

Built an enormous house

That turned into a monster

Some say its hideous, oh what an eye-sore

What do we need a fairy tale

We have Ugly post modernism to abhor

I'm not sure

It is a ball and chain

Tying the town down

It is almost a shame, almost a game

A mirror of the Church somehow

Except a warped being bent and contorted

Not given full form

Like a nineteen eighties computer game

Grasping at perfection

In replication, Ironic in it's supplication to

perfection, acknowledging limitation

Yet that was cool back then

Now it is a record of a time before

It is like a tetras castle fallen out of the sky

Landed like a giant parcel, some knowledge of 

an American Apple pie

But incoherent and intransigent,

And in, in , in itself  out of place

In congruent

But let's not worry ourselves

It was somebody else's concrete dream

And we no longer see the seams

It has been sewn into the fabric of life

Now it is a gym, it has turned into

It's own image of itself at last

A modern church - a temple to the body

The material wealth

Of protein and carbohydrate

Packed inside, prayed to 

Heated up baked in the crucible

Of exercise and self-belief

The Great I, the great I am

As we climb mount Ego

On the steps

As we let off steam

As we lose sweat by the buckets

On the exercise bike

Perhaps we lose our selves

We forget the boredom of days

That put on the fat

We negate with positive prayer, the mantra, I will get there

One step at a time

Like a stair way to heaven

Built of tetras bricks

That have fallen down for our sake

To climb, to work out

Rearrange angles, remake

So perhaps this ex theatre really is our modern church

as close as we can make it

Though I am yet to see John the Baptist

Lift a Bar bell in there

Although you never can tell of course

Carparks in Angel land

They're putting up carparks in Angel Land
Where angels once walked
Now men are greasing their hands
With the dirty money
And the golden bands
That they pass around now in Angel Land

They are rolling their dozers down the main roads
They are swinging their cranes and carrying their loads
Where angels once walked softly, they now look on in dread
For Angel Land is a place they now fear to tread

They're raising their structures, erecting their towers
Blocks of offices for foreign powers
They are building and bumping and turning their heads
In Angel Land where angels now fear to tread

Gone is the gentleness of thought or action
They are using their heads in cold calculation
Compacting the soil, with blood, sweat and tears
Ignoring their consciences or the angels' fears

They're putting up carparks in Angel land
And paving the paradise God's made with his hands
They're doing it today, it'll be gone by tomorrow
When the only angels in the land will be walking in sorrow

Letter in a bottle

By the time you get this

The hills will have boiled

The shrugging chimneys

Will have spouted forth smokes

The dignity of trees will have reminded you of forbearance

And given shape to your patience

In the fulfilment of time

As you wait out the winter

In the quarries of sadness

The sad stones are crushed

Into mountains of lime

As the rubble lakes lie

In the seas of your eyes

Where blood tears have fallen

From the railway line

These tracks are so forlorn

As iron whiskers worn

By cats

And children who play in the ruins

On the brown broken down platforms

Of the railway line

The picture of sadness of Hungary are not the trees

Or the dereliction of the buildings

These are just superficial responses

To an underlying cause,

What future hopes are there

for any of them?

What future for any of us?

The river with its tongue

The river with its tongue so cold

Speaks in slow vowels rolled

The bridge with its mouth bowed

Swallows all that it is told

And the bank side buildings' walls

Listen with ears numbed to stone

Strange gases emit and drift

Along the surface water sunlit

And race at faster speeds yet

Than the river boat captains can bet

Like a substance unknown to man

This life force moves with a mysterious plan

When asked who will understand

It answers only that women can

Yet lions guard the gates of freedom

For some things of stone may still have reason

And ideals of ancestors long dead bones

Resonate with the striding feet of tourist season

roots

Roots of this city

This is the tree

The plants are the people

They settle they join 

Spread their fingers to the water

Feel the river

Some are born here by

Rights to die

Some have lived

Such separate lives

But their roots are set down

Like stones writ in blood

Deep in the heart of the ground

Where they tread

While acacia trees tower

Like the panel buildings above

And bees beside garden fences

Drone and buzz

My heart is in the river

The peace keeper of love

It sings all the sweeter 

For chestnut leaves above

That drop brown to the nutty ground

And crinkle when crushed

Like foot on a crown

panels impression

I wake up in the morning
Panel buildings in my head
Concrete cliffs surround me
Down the beach street
Where the bus sped

And this street is a river
The people like fish fled
Fleet finned like a sparrow
On each corner
An acacia tree bled
Like sea weed
Crying for Hungary
In the waves
The starved of starling streets
The pigeon happy
Pecking crumbs at your feet
The holding on to church
Of the bum
Asleep in the grave yard
With his trousers round his ankles

And the endless streets
Warmth of the bus
The friendly atmosphere
Of two woman chatting while
Looking down at her baby
In the pram
Eyes of love

Mars Day

Out  here on Mars
It's hard to make a living
All the culture Vultures
Are busy with their killing

Out here on Mars
They talk backwards too
In fact I told them I liked animals
And they locked my soul in a zoo

Its hot though and I like it
Strange it is to say
Like autumn hasn't touched us
We're sliding down the Milkyway

And I work with a lot of Martians
They are always building bricks and bombs
They say they're building an army
To take over Earth
Well its seems barmy
Hardly worth it
To me

You know the parade is on
The Carnival is tuning up
We have to March this way til Christmas
In case the Russians turn up
And if they do
We'll take their flag
And burn it up

It's hard you know, the burning
The atmosphere's so thin
They really don't get the joke at all
Its lucky they're all thick skinned

I keep my bell jar helmet on
All the Martian day long
I can't understand
What they say to me
The wires got crossed
Its all wrong

Fan Club

I decided to start a fan club
But only I turned up at the pub
Apparently nobody likes a fan
Half as much as they like a can

So I ordered half a pint
And sat there thinking half the night
Of why it was no one likes fans
Instead they prefer driving white vans

I asked the man on the bar stool
Do you like a hand powered tool?
One that will keep you cool at night
He thought that I wanted some kind of fight

Next I said to the bar tender
How about you my great pretender?
Do you like it when the arms swing round
He merely passed behind the glasses making little sound

That I thought was just typical
You try to have a conversation about something quite topical
And they get the impression you are a fool
When really what I am on about they learnt about in school

A fan club as I see it,
Is made up of fans
There needs to be more than one of them
To come up with any plans

Of course who needs a fan in winter?
No one I hear you cry
The weather does for us
What the fan would try
Even in a tropic storm
Or in a Hurricane
The wind is blowing (often warm)
And sometimes there is rain
Does one need a fan then
No of course not said I
But before the Invention of the fan
all we had was wind and sky

After my brief reverie
My mind returned to the bar
It was hot, and the men were sweltering
Outside on the road was sticky tar

What I think we all need now
I said to my companions with a smile
Is a machine that blows cool air
And it takes off the heat for a while

Now they started to agree
And I saw the nodding heads
Then I just reiterated what I before had said
This is the time of the fan
So who is with me gentlemen?
The men stood up, and raised their cups
Said to the fan building station

And so we filed out the pub
The bar tender included -
Whether he left his grub, I have not concluded
And we walked to my garden shed
Of the community allotment hub

Getting out bamboo and tools
We began to build a fan
At first it looked like a wind mill
And was too gigantic in size
Next we dismissed that idea
For our Mk 2 version realized

It was your average 2 meter armed affair
The radial distance being sufficient
To give a good blast of air
How we thought would it now turn?
Since the problem was the lack of wind
Some body who was a cyclist ran off to find
His bicycle

What goes around comes around
So the saying goes
And once we had hooked up his bike
Our medium fan did blow
All it required now was a willing worker
We decided in the pub to take turns
Each half hour

This gave each a break and each some
Little exercise
As it was the process did take
more than a minute but less than nine to five

So thankfully installed now back inside the pub
We each could enjoy the nice cool air
As we supped our beverage or devoured our grub
It was the perfect solution to a hot summer's day
I had found my fan club
And there's the rub - what fans of fans were they?

There was one exception - that is the peddler
He would get too hot poor guy
Til he went pink as a pig in a pig sty
We had to rescue him with another fan
Madam Butterfly

The house of the Wolf

All the houses are dug like wolverines

The opening lines of smug underlings

Fall by the wayside of a certain despair

They know no happy endings

They forgo repair

I salute the happy cats

The bold bright eyes

The pigs even fly

Above their sties

And such are the cornered hues

When heaven lets go her deluge

Upon the unsuspecting folk

Dragged out and beaten put in yoke

I looked for humility in the hands of those I knew

Looked for a caring touch, but they were few

The salad days are over too

And looking back now I’m older

It seems colder there though almost new

The lucky ones with tickets to this life

Get to ride the train without much strife

Those of us without the fare

must dodge the inspector

When he comes to claim his ware

We must slip between the tracks, jump the carriages

Hold on tight to cracks, as the train rumbles past

Like thunder we shall ride the lightning last

Some of us must choose marriage

For that is the building block of society

By that token you earn your keep

In the land of peaceful sleep

And yet if you choose to rebel

What is there left which you can sell?

Nobody wants what you can give

A humorous life is what you live

Then is it better to live in drama

Of the fading corpse?

You know the deal, you’ve seen the scene

In the movie of course

It will be a re-run, of such pride eroding toil

That would break the back of camels

Sent out to walk on sandy soil

It would be a desert dry

And yet I think that I could try

For there is something left in the sky or land

That speaks of rain

And then a little rain could come

And freshen up the hopes of one

Whose confidence had been hard done

Under such a blazing sun

Night Bus

Night bus, night bus coming down the road

Coming like a troubled truss, for our woes to unload

Night bus in the water, in the river with the toad

Night bus its double trust, all your thoughts its knowed

Night bus on the Danube, down Bartók Béla, crossing near to Blaha Lujza utca

Crossing over the border, crossing lines and crossing hairs

To get her in your sight

Yet you know she!s not the target

Target of the night

Night bus rolling strongly like an unstoppable force

Filling with the people of the party

Flowing out like a river’s course

Filling up like sardines

Filling up like kippers,

Making me sleep your night bus dreams

While I put on my slippers

Getting out in the rain, in the heart filled night

In the mountains of my youth

The moon burns big and bright

In the architecture of desire, the buildings are taking shape

They fall and quake into one another

A new home to make

Night bus brewing merrily,

Like a kettle a boil

Steaming down the wet rainy streets

With the night busman’s toil

Archaeopteryx

The trees are awake
The fields in furrow
The brown salty earth
Is dug from the burrow
The rabbit makes his home beneath
Where vineyards grow
The wind has teeth

Then opens out the fertile plane
Where land has lain
The fossils remain
Of so many millenia ago
Epochs, eras our clocks cannot know
Of a time when dinosaurs roamed
Now slip-silted down muddy loam
It fell and slipped down a loamy flume
Within minutes the flow had covered its plume

Archaeopteryx half bird, half beast
The link between these two disparate cleats

For the benefit of those who don't know
this dinosaur had feathers
His beak did crow
Even from the other parts we know
This bird had claws from arm to toe

Unlike anything that had gone before
His skeleton opened up many a genetic door
The missing link, the piece of the chain
That would tie down Prehistoric Adam to Cain

What memories of a terror-bound world
Would be released if we could read its skull?
If the tracks and times, and minutes
Were laid down like tree rings
Or the braille-like markings of a limpets shell

Of what world might Archaeopteryx speak?
One of unimaginable beauty, one where terror peaks?
Palm trees as tall as two story buildings
Jungles alive with giant insects and snakes
All creatures inhabiting a godless ocean
With razor sharp teeth leaving devastating wakes

How might he have lived?
What aerobatic skill?
To evade the predators clutch,
Or to make his own deadly kill
How did he hone his technique?
Where was his school?
At what did he pique?
Were there extremes in plenitude?
Mountainous relief?
Did he witness an earthquake divide and fold?
Did a volcanic eruption turn his world cold?
Were there rains for days, did it hail stones?
Was there room for beauty or mere survival alone?
When and how did the butterfly come to be?
How did such a delicate beauty from the beast flee?
What of the flower, why is it here?
How can an hour be heard to chime in its ear?
What possible claim do we have to this earth?
How can we name it ours?
By whose power do we say we have worth?

Reflections on an Island :Letter from an Island

The wind is howling now

A gale out to sea

The gulls all look pale

In a marked misery

They are petals

Collected on the flat rocks

Which lie who knows why

When around them

Are all jagged vertical alumni

I’m writing home

On a Saturday

To say

The visitors never came

The sea it was too rough

Hopes candle dwindled

To a low flame

We occupy our time

In occlusions from the high eye

Victorian built bunkers

Where are stored work tools

Where we make driftwood benches

And walk along the shore

On our feet are Wellington boots

In our hands are bow saws

We topple and slip and hop

 Over the newly wetted rocks

Look in at rock pools

By the white sea-foam fringes stop

At first I thought a bird had died

But it was not feathers

Rather lathered up plankton water

Aerated by the belts of wind like leathers

Across waves as if chastising unruly sons and daughters

At night we wait until the last light from the sky has gone

Before turning on

The bulbs of electric

And a fire is a blessing every few days

Because there is nowhere to go

We become important to each other

And habits of meal times are sacred things

Not to be broken

As marriage vows and rings

Conversation usually goes well

Few things stand as tokens

Except doing unto others as you would have done unto yourself

The unwritten authority of the warden in most things

Is left unspoken

We defer to him as lost sheep

Sometimes he is our shepherd

What he has an abundance of is confidence

And a love of food

In some respects we may not get on without him