Poetry

Monday, 3 June 2019

Budapest Gravy

Look I walk upon the street my name is big man of Budapest
I walk with puffed out bloated chest

Get out the way ye sonny boys
No more shall you bother my way
I am rich man, wealthy tyrant
Hear my bank notes making hay

Pass I by the bustling banks
Erste bank and OTP
They have my blessings
They have my savings
Though circling vultures
Forebode above

The nation bubbles upon a cauldron
Knivving witches and sorcerers stir
They fan the flames that make strange broths grow
And sup their takings in their bowls

Down the street I meet the dogmen
Walking their wives and girlfriends' Fidos
Look their faces are like their masters
The dogs lead these men by the nose

Those same circles hubble bubble
Witches stir with dead men's bones
Thirty years have now past us
And their curses return to atone

They rock and roll the dog headed men
They knock their knuckles upon restless doors
Never stopping, but stealing quarters
For the Nations acumen

The grifters lurk around every corner
Tricksters lean against lamp posts
They are seated in the board rooms
As drunkards rest like freedoms ghosts

And Shop girls patter in the cafes
Bearded Bohems boast in barbers
Toad like kings sit on their riches
Counting money  like birds of the sky

Allay your fears the wine is soothing
The government gives us pavements
The river is drunk down by the citizens
Drop by bitter drop

Ashen faces look at the fires
The city is burning by the mob
All the emperors shower their vanities
With statues raised to a bold man's job

And with this statue they hope to prove
The Gods favour worthy of their sacrifice
But none would give what they owe us
None but the prosperous who secret their hoards

In the city park grow the fruit trees
Grafted on plum to apple
As the Mosque is grafted to the chapel
And in the Bell tower of the pear tree
Rings the fruit of rotten boroughs
In the warm breeze
That blows the wind chime
Soothing like the wise words of people
Whose dishonesty drops like a burning steeple
Upon their own heads like the reign of time

And if just one should speak the true words
Then we may have our just desserts
But it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven
Than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle



Saturday, 1 June 2019

River bride

The river runs high
And the waves spill over
The river runs wide
Like a bride from the altar

The river cries tears
Like salt from the salter
The river bolts clear
Like a horse from the halter

They try to cross
But they can't cross over
There is only loss
Until all our words falter

Why must we try
To go further than the father
Who knows what we hide
From son to daughter

Away she tries
Kicks her spurs in its sides
The horse is a runner
Like the waves of water



Friday, 31 May 2019

After The Lion left the room

The lion left the room
It had been sitting in the corner
Foreboding our doom
It took its pound of flesh
Before it left
And we are all that remains
We are the rest

The river Gods have claimed their sacrifice
They raged and raved all night
Two ships collided in the water
They paid the highest price

But are they finished with the slaughter
How many deaths will be the toll
Before the river authorities alter
And reason takes back control

I hear the head and shoulders heaving
The rescuers on heavy ropes heave ho
And as they walk away, in leaving,
Dejected with heavy footsteps go

They dragged the river bed
No sign could they find of the hull
Like the rib cage of a whale encasing
The breathless bodies and souls

The water comes in shocking shards
Like ice sheets falling from the skies
And in the river the terrible serpents
Close their grips and tighten their ties

Hard, hard they thrash in the water
Oh what purpose could justify
Such loss, such senseless torture
Tourists visiting first time in their lives

Out on the David's ship deck the captain glimpses
This gargantuan ship in surprise
And the other Captain of the Goliath Viking
Can neither see clearly nor take evasive exercise

The bulk of one, the distraction of the other
The bridge looms large like an open mouth
And forth spills the torrents of snow from the Alps
As rain falls hard from dark black skies

What were they doing out in such weather?
Was it worth the price of the ticket that cost their lives?

Those of us who are land lubbers
Know little of the risks involved
Nor of the captain who could read the water
Its every twist and fold

But what such currents could do after
The cruel twists of fate now told
The river like a Neptune's circus
Where carpets were pulled
And many rugs fold

Where lions of waves leaped at the wreck
Tigers of currents growled underside
And the ring master's whip
Could do nothing to save him
And carried it with him
Down to his grave

Now the water is calmer
The storm is over
The tempest has ceased
The river is high up to the border
The banks like the cage of a wild beast

The spectators look on
who have been left to their own doom
After the lion has left the room

Sunday, 26 May 2019

I tried to write you a letter

Well I could have wrote you a letter
but I knew not what to say
So to phone from here was better
But I had hell to pay
Now the devil's in the detail
And he was hard at work that day
Listening to the intel
Of what we had to say

I should have wrote you a letter
To save some face
But instead I thought it better
To call you from my place

Now the weathers getting wetter
And the sun hides his face
Some say I should forget her
But they're not in my place

So I write you this letter
To put an end to my curse
But instead of getting better
Things just got much worse

Well I walk in hills with the twisting vines
And I know love kills but it takes its time
So we can do worse than sip another wine
Because love can be a remedy when it isn't a crime

Now young witches
Hide in ditches
Awaiting to cast their spell
But you can't say I'm not religious
When I slayed the sacred cow
And all those sons of bitches
Who break their wedding vow
Well I tried to write you a letter
But the words fails me now

Good day / Bad day



The landscape changed
The train didn’t seem to go
The way I had arranged

In my mind it had derailed
Flowed into a dream land
of hills and beaches
Fresh rills and green beeches stand
Sziget Szent Miklos
I understand now is not Csepel
Just as HEV 6 is not the same as HEV 7
One track leads to heaven
The other rail goes to hell

If it can be right that my mistake
Be made by mortal hands
The logic I forsake
When I chose to walk not stand
Without my bicycle
I am confined to these iron wheels
That roll in undeniable locomotion
Circumventing paradise
The devil took control
And wielded his mighty sword
Cut through Kis vagoshid’s soil
Cleaved a mighty chasm
The place that I did fall
And yet the Csepel Angels
Came to my fallen call
Carried me on wings of steel
Back upon the pilgrim’s road
Now I feel my world is real
That I am missing my heavy load

My heart evacuated the devil
From its grip
The witch let go her talon hold
Upon my earthly trip
And I am a freeman at last
To live no more a slave
In this poor country of consequences
Their past decisions proved too grave

Miss Budapest


Will I miss Budapest
Will I miss Budapest
Will I miss, will I miss
Will I miss  Miss Budapest

Miss Budapest walked in her new dress
And it swished and it swayed
Around her waist
And she tied back her sweet hair
In the way of her care
And I’ll miss her I’ll miss her
I dare say

But its all for the best
That I leave Budapest
And her perilous ways
And her seductive days
And I dare say I’ll Miss
That tempestuous witch
That made my passions itch
With her swish and her sway
But I could never trust
The ice or the rust
Of her rivers and bridges
That turned shivers in fridges
And her cold stare
But I dare say
On bright sunny days
Then her light shiny haze
Was my chestnut doom
My Budapest room
In the fallow streets’ rays
Where I rest under limes
And shadows of pines
In the dark garden climes
Of her past noon times
Well I’ll Miss her
I’ll Miss her
I’ll kiss her
Do kiss her
For me
For brother and sister
The sun and the moon
Will pass like bright chariots
Maybe I’ll come back to her soon

Thursday, 23 May 2019

The world is a beautiful place


The world is a beautiful place
The world stands up in grace
The world shags backwards
All the faces of disgrace
And all the flowers of the city
Are so pretty in their place

The fogs are lifting
Like liquorice canals
Flowing like the pony-tails
Of men in white vans
Shagging like grey suits
Of the pick-up brigade the
Flat caps that never stayed
The he never came back
Leather jacket shade
Of black
The plasterers with grizzly jaws
And fags hanging out of their mouths

The motorcycling husband and wife
With their kid in the sack
The hoodies
The workmen, the chinned hardmen
Who walk like cockerels with their
Shoulders pushed back
Jutting their jaws like the titanic
Ice breakers
Ready for an attack
The music lovers with their head-phones in dancing
To their own tune
And then the girls with their blue dyed hair
Strands cut like records
The baseball caps in reverse
The noble ruck sack wearing youths
The couples in earnest pursuit of life
And love and meaning
And the wind in the red curly locks
Of a young man who faces his life alone
The survivors
The strivers and the thrivers
Rubbing shoulders in the same street
The world is a wonderful place
I believe
In the smile
Of chubby cherubs
The dirty grey brown hair
Of old mother hubbards
Who peck the ground
For their meal
The world is a beautiful place
I still feel