Dead Sharks

The frantic Atlantic

The Pancreatic Adriatic

The Brownian motion of the Indian Ocean

The rather wet flannel of the English Channel

The rusted Iron Quay of the Trusted Red Sea

Cajoling Memory

Of Sea shanty carols

The whiff of cliffs

The dead fish scrolls

That turn up and roll

Over and over in a white wash

Of crustacean suicide

Calcium lime tide

Abide with me

Its baptism goes

Submerge let go

Of your worldly throes

Let wild horses stampede you to sleep

In the dark inviting night

A swimming adventure

The temptation of death

Easy as slipping into sleep

Less Temporary

Though is drowning

Cousin to snoring, yawning and frowning

Conscious only of its state in itself

Narcoleptic Narcissus

Of the Narwhale tribe

The seeing of unicorns

Of stars in the reflection

Of waves and tide

The thrashing of sharks

The gnashing of teeth

The permanency of death

And its impossibility in the mind of someone living

Except in the Sea

Where we’re all out of reach

But we have to keep moving or like a shark we shall die

A shark has no choice but to kill to survive

And then what you're left with is a dead shark 

Missing Words

Do you remember Weöres Sándor

The exhibit of moving words

Like our own story

We were filling in the gaps

With our hands

Trying different combinations

Approaching a whole

You carried the words so gently

In your cupped hand

As on your lips

So like your kisses

But sometimes they missed

An unrhymed vowel

Improperly pronounced consonant

The dissonance made the little birds shake

On their brittle little legs

But they kept singing

After all

We were not so lost for words

Ours had wings and flew

And the gaps were no more empty

Because we didn’t fill them

But fuller for all we knew

This too will pass

This too will pass

The rose that climbs upon the wall

The primrose blossom all

The Snowdrops and the Hawthorn’s flower

As in the wee small hour

This too will pass

The road that’s cracked and torn asunder

The memories of regret or blunder

And time as light that trips in power

Flickers brief as candlesticks in the midnight hour

This too will pass

The Spring whose surprises do unfold

The stranger waits on a platform cold

The meeting of two friends by chance

Or the sharing of a final dance

This too will pass

All the songs of love and man

All the law broken, held or still in plan

Every thought, or deed or act

Each right or wrong, promise or contract

This too will pass

And so you say you love the season

Spring’s festoon April’s foolish reason

You say the day you prefer to night

What’s bright and gay over what’s out of sight

This too will pass

Be not surprised that all is folly

That the wheel turn’s rain requires your brolly

Nor that woman and man curse and hurt

In Tavern’s the same doomed play rehearsed

This too will pass

I see the writing on the wall

The blood that’s in the mouth of a fool

An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth

What lies are told through Vanity

Or in Humility what Truth

 This too will pass

The Starlings murmur in the sky

The Cloth is starched, cast is the dye

The Spindle turns driven by the wheel

Desire burns but its just the way we feel

This too will pass

I have no possessions, though once I had Gold

Like a King, I would buy a thing; even a soul could be sold

Wisdom is worth more than any belonging

Sadness makes the heart larger, than for any true or false longing

This too will pass

Alder Tree

Alder Tree

Alder snakebite bark

Almost adder in colour

Almost has a bark worse than its bite

As a Dog, loyal to the damp wet lands

As a watch dog waiting in water for his master’s return

Almost ‘Alter’ another a changed tree

Made different by a root’s width geometry

Haltered stopped in its snake tracks

Through the river in the swamp

Just like a traveller chosen to stand and stare up

More upward and proper than the wayward willow

More symmetrical like a spiral

Or a cart wheel a Mandala blowing free

Generous with its fruit, and looking brown

And warm with its little lanterns of nut-cones hanging down

Pruner -Somerset Skyline

Somerset Skyline

The look of Apple trees in Winter

Their Spiny fingers

Bud knuckles

Ladders of nearly buds grapple

The cold sky like hooks

Whose black blue bruise

Of storm clouds roll in on the horizon

And they claw at it

Apple trees are thought of so innocently, happily

But Apples were in the Garden of Eden

The knowledge of Good and Evil

The Fruit that gives this knowledge

As alive and promiscuous as anything

World changers

And when I prune them

Am I cutting back the tree of knowledge

Hurting the chances of this bursting secret?

Its branches never fall freely they grapple

Unlike the apple

The limbs of thought like ideas in a brain

Interweave, hook and thread on new neurons

The old memories are cut away

To make room for new

The buds are nodes the chance of new connections

In an infinity of chemical reactions of the air and the tissue

Material of earth is sculpted by the brain tree into its new thought

Its atmosphere of the moment

The pattern of their branch shadows

And the crinkle of their oval leaves underfoot

The pages their ideas are written on

Lying open to the sky

And the precious fruit

Inviting you to try

The Battle of Ham Wall, or alternative places

Ham wall was an ancient pig battlefield. For years wild hogs had crossed tusks on this flat leafless plain. They fought over the one enormous oak that provided acorns for the winning tribe of pigs.

            However, after the great battle of Catcott moor one side, the Curly Whirlies, lost and retreated down onto this more easterly plot. Upon doing this they discovered the Oak tree and so in order to defend this they built an enormously long security wall of peat. Because the wild hogs guarded it through little windows at certain points it then became known as Ham wall.

            The Victorious tribe of Halalumi then made their offensive, because scratching around for bare bones had gone on long enough, they needed and wanted acorns. King Hal ordered the Ham wall that had now dried out over some years, to be torched. The dry summer of the arson and the surprise nature of the attack left the Curly Whirlies frying like bacon and unfortunately crackling too. All that remained was a scar of ashen ground, tusks and pork chops lying hither and tither. The odour of cooked pork and burnt offerings was not to leave the marsh for fifty years. 

Earthworms and DVDs

Earth Worms and DVDs

Two things I do not seem to see

These days

Though like the night you know they’re

Out there somewhere moving

Playing

Re-running the same old pattern

This mineral in that garden

In one end and out the other

You wouldn’t think it had a mother

Earth worms and the film trade

So much garbage regurgitated

Swallowed up remade

Repackaged the resold for re-use

They are the ultimate composters

Recycling what others abuse

Pre-womble dawn, before Nature

Grew a big ‘N’ in the national conscience

Earthworms were living it large

Nobody bothered them down on the farm

Nobody said oh look how good

I want a new one I’ll write a new book

In two years it will be turned into a film

And somebody will be unwrapping the cling film

Then loading it back into the Dvd player

Like their sandwiches they consume

While they act out the worm slayer

And dig in the garden of forgotten stories

And dredge up some rot

From the compost tub of past glories

Left over food beginning to mould

Pass it over here its one that hasn’t been told

Give it to the worms I know they’ll eat it

Any old crap used tins of sardines

A packet of biscuits

Just leave it out and the birds will have it

Well no actually! We’re not all worms

We have feelings when we’re trodden on

We squirm

Don’t throw us your never ending supply of sap

Else you might find these Earthworms

Decide to fight back

You might find your beds infested with snails

Which we have corralled

With our elegant telescopic tails

You may find your bath tubs filled up with pond weed

Your Pumpkin seed bread already gone to seed

But worst of all when you’re relaxing at night

You’ll find yourself strapped to your armchair unable to fight

And the one diet you’ll know

Yet you’ll know it ain’t right

Will be to watch your own DVDs

On a loop repeat like in flight

This is what you’ve given us

This diet of earth worms

Learn to read a new book why don’t you

So that your script words

Are not food for worms

The spit of birds

Who desert you