Poetry

Wednesday, 27 September 2023

Curtains

 The wind blows my curtains

That day has been lost

In times so uncertain

Hopes ghost trains tossed

From yardarms

The sails in the four winds crossed

And I've hurt my loved one

Though the paint work looked glossed


I cheer to the kettle

I stand by the bowl

Where my pain is like nettles

That stings as you scold

And the throat of a songbird

Is white and it's red

But feel so caged up inside my own head


Light hits the coffee cup

And its long shadow casts

The darkness of days

In a lost hour's glass

If you drink to my future

Well I drink to your past

Somehow we've been glued up

As by sutures to last

Living with mermaids

 It's all just attachment theory

The stresses and strains

And the colours run down the drains

We've washed ourselves clean

In the new green machine

But I still cannot wash out the stain

I mean

The blood spot

of a murder scene

In which we killed our love

Got away clean?

Scot-free

Neither

lest the bonds of guilt

Struggle to hold the mermaid

As she tries to leave the sea

Sunday, 24 September 2023

Sound story

 Like thunder clapping

Tap dancers tapping

Seagulls flapping

Above ocean waves


Love unwrapping

Milestones lapping

Thoughts and ghosts

Against graveyard graves


Like kettles rumbling

And Televisions grumbling

And old men humbling

Their lives away


I hear you slapping

The thighs of happening

Happy as larry

Larry who saves


All these wonderings

Pirates in swaddlings

Mothers in coddling

And lovers in lathes


Chiseling out existence

To a fine point

Like a dagger or a spear

And losing the thread

But gaining the yarn

Somewhere we guessed

It could do us no harm



Haycation - now that's a bit corny

 haycation noun [C]

/heɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
a holiday spent on a farm, during which the guests sometimes help out with the farm work

Tunnel vision

 The dirge was heard

In an echo

Of faceless voices

Down the tunnel escaping choices

On a single track minded train

Robber barons, and braids are framed

In forget me not knots

That tie down your friends

On the rails, down the line to freedom


Some signal man says you must change tracks

And hoops are thrown, like star jacks

To catch on the back of my hand

Like maps

I know so well, yet there's something I lack


A compass stored away

A needle on my lap

To follow the flow of flowers

down wild winding tracks


I see the gods of Ash collapse

In the leaves of their prayers

Their devotees, picking through snapped branches

Like grasping knobbly fingers of old witches

The skeletons of women trees

Who's men folk have wandered too far

Skeletons soon to be but ashes


Who is that monkey sat there?

 Who is that monkey sat there?

What does he want?

Who is he with?

Why is he scratching his bum

Does he have some kind of itch?

No, Monkey, no!

No, I won't give you an inch

You'd take a mile

I can see it in your cheeky smile

And I know you would switch

Your allegiances in the end

Deceitful little monkey

I don't trust you at all

So this is England

So this is England

Walking down the High Street of a Somerset town

Shops are closing down

Or shut up already,

Walking with a dry mouth, parched

But The pub at the end

It hearkens no laugh

The bar is a dark place

The bar stools stand

Empty as a pocket

In an empty land

So this is England

I hear you say

What I had come to love

Has soon been blown away

In a wind of change

As across the motorway

The dust of dry fields

The corn storks decay


But this is Autumn, the voice of reason calls

And anyway what's the season, we

Still have the market stalls

And Artists crying treason

Writing written on the walls

Who's sold off this lovely land

The politicians or the fools?

Who voted for them in the first place?

In this government of crows

This murdering of Parliament

This place where no hope grows

And yet and yet I hear you say

This is Winter, it goes that way

Perennial seasons, people trying

To reclaim

The name of the rose

So this is England


Dig in your own garden and look after your own lot

Put up notices, beg for pardon

Give whatever you've got

Give as good as you get

And forget to pick forget-me-nots

For suckling bees at flowers

Could not count all of their stock

Store it in piles in larders

Fill up the honeypot

And save for a rainy day

For you know that happens a lot

Though we never spend

Even though today is no day to save

Gather it in at your wedding

Give it away at your grave


Yes this is England,

Hoarding your plot

And marking out the lines 

Where you go

Where you do not

And never throw a stone at a crow

Never break the glass houses

Because we've built them out of stone

And we've tied them on necklaces down blouses

Caught in the cleavage gap

Between two breasts boom and bust

Crying I must, I must, I must improve my bust

Yet leverage of whale bones, never

Moved the beached body off the beach

We saw the mermaids waving in the surf

We gave it a pauper's grave and tears of grief

This great flotilla of what was once our dreams

That came up for air once

But heard only screams

Yelling go back, go back

And warning us of the sand banks

But it was too late as The hull

Hit ground and broke the cranks

Yet this is England

We've landed

This place of our dreams

This isle of forever

Forever down flowing streams

Water, water everywhere, flowing down the sink

Water, water everywhere, and only beer we drink