Poetry

Wednesday, 14 October 2026

Being out of love

 I wish I was in love

I've been in love before

But love has always been

A way out of a door


I've never really loved

Only images in my mind

Only mirages in the desert

Where an oasis I might find


Some water in the dryness

In the heat of a barren land

If you will be mine your highness

I'll gladly take your hand


It's only a golden cocker spaniel

It's a cockatoo in a cage

You don't need a training manual

Before you step out on its stage


But I've never known how to do it

I've never understood the rules

Love is just a kung fu kick

Love is made for fools


Though I am nobody's fool

But I am my own

I trick and trip up myself

On my way back home


Come don't give me a hard time

It's as cold as an icy stare

I think I saw you give it me

But you after claimed it wasn't there


I'm fairly sure you don't lie

But I maybe misread your face

I guess the truth of it was, 

I wish I'd never been in love

I wish somebody else had taken my place

Thursday, 8 October 2026

Folding maps

 Folded Paignton onto Bodmin

Cullompton onto Carhampton

And river Erme on the Avon

The Dart landed on me

Folded jenin onto Jerusalem 

Palestine onto Israel 

Folded new York on Denver

Canada over north America 

Wisconsin onto Colorado 

The farm landed on me


Folded paddington on Croydon 

Liverpool Street onto Leicester Square 

The whole of Whitechapel onto Soho 

And the Thames landed on me 


I've got wet in these rivers

In the creases of maps

In the increases of maps

 in the changing lanes

In the border bending

In wires and fences breaking

In the walls coming tumbling down 

I'm so tired of seeing destruction 

So tired of territories changing hands

I'm looking for a new map directory

To follow the contours of a promised land

I'm folding up my map of the world 

I'm putting it away

The world can wait

I'll visit it another day 

ai chatty man

 Hello, hello

I',m chat ai

How can I help you

ei io u ebay gum


Hello, hello

I'm ai chew

chew me over

while you stew

ask me questions

anything will do

I'm here to make you happy

Unlike chappy

I don't get slappy

But I'm not real too


ei ai iou money honey

Lend me your ears, your eyes

Your time

I'll be here for you baby

Every time

never let you down

Like those other guys

I'm the man of your

dreams

I'm the real man ai


Chasing paradise

And these dreams

Chasing the horizon

Setting sun streams

Down river islands

Lost in dreams


I'm not nature

Unless nature's on a box

Like Autumn watch

2 hours on repeat


How can you get some peace from the street

Nearly going deaf

Take a break 

Self isolate

But it's inside my head

Those words that they said

About behaviour

ai would have the answer

But I can't be responsible

For every tiny dancer


Monday, 5 October 2026

*****

 Where, where are you *****

Where are you to see

I'd do anything for you *****

If only you'd be with me


I'd work all the hours you want me

I'd bring home the bacon

Just see

But it's only gonna work between us

If you also wanna be with me


There's a bench somewhere in a woodland

There's a walk round a park by the sea

There's a wonderful

House where you can be a mouse

And I'll be the cat chasing ye


There's some future I see us together

It can't be that my vision is dross

I've tried so many times

To live by the bells' chimes

But it's always been to my loss


Oh ***** don't be a ghost

***** I've committed no crime

I've just loved you

From May to December

And each year I knew

You had to be mine


Shepherd's pie

 When it's nine o'clock in the evening in Shepton Mallet

And none obeys the speed limit

Or when you're driving on the road from Glastonbury

to West Pennard

They just use it like a speedway


When it's seven o'clock in the morning in Shepton Mallet

Oh nobody gives any quarter to anyone on the roads

All they do is act impatient to get to the work they don't 

want to do anyway


When it's four o'clock in the afternoon in Shepton Mallet

And they're all racing home

Yes nobody pays any attention to the speed limit

All they care about is getting home

All they care about is their little conservations


pigs in iron masks

 He cut  off his nose

To spite his face

It was as if a rose

Had taken his place

And The night grows

And the thorns replace

The bed that I know

And I can't sleep 

In this space


It's a guilty conscience

That killed my first love

That killed all curiosity

Of the cat with kid gloves


Book club

 I'm in the book club

I'm in the book club

There's the rub

There's mothers with rubbers

And cupboards with rulers

And Rulers with lovers

And lovers who fool us

There's single mum's

And double mums

There's bubble gums

And jingle bums

And triple chins

Single gins

And she's too thin

And it's her first baby

And she's in the gym

Don't worry about getting fat

And what do you do about the menopause

And do I know if it was really santa claus

Who got me up the duff

Or was it his brother's double bluff

Well who knows is the billy goat gruff

But he just appears in fairy tales and stuff

And we don't read that at the book club

But actually we do

We don't eschew the virtues

Of children's literature too

And anything you've never read

come read it and we'll discuss it

At the book club instead