Poetry

Thursday 28 June 2018

Hog weed a cautionary tale

Hogweed, snogweed
Everybody bog bleed
This way that way
Everybody making hay
But don't strim it
Don't you even try to skim it
All I have to say is that
Brush cutters make Hog weed go splat!

All I have to say is that
Brush cutters make Hog weed go splat!

This weed, that weed, everywhere a Hog weed
snort out truffle, get your feathers in a ruffle
Pig nut, pig root, Pig iron, pig boot
All I have to say is that
Brush cutters make Hog weed go splat!

Ham plant, bacon rind, 
Squealing herb, make you go blind
Trotter hoof, so aloof
Big leaf, Pig belief
All I have to say is that
Brush cutters make Hog weed go splat!

Pigs might fly, so you say
If they do stay away
They touch your skin, it's a sin
White death burning thing
All I have to say is that
Brush cutters make Hog weed go splat!

Curly tails, mind the snail,
Avoid the elder, like the plague
Witches broom, witches tree
Pig on a broom don't be silly
All I have to say is that
Brush cutters make Hog weed go splat!

White spot, Sun spot,
Blisters burst, and hurt a lot
Itchy arm, itchy neck
Catch that hog, make an arrest
Call the pigs, on second thoughts
Do the test - does it snort?
If it does stay away,
Or send him to market down the motorway
All I have to say is that
Brush cutters make Hog weed go splat!

Monday 25 June 2018

Shades of Grey

The cigarette swans, the ashes fall down
Like white confetti after the cigarette wedding
Of Cinderella and Ashley
And the Chimney Sweep brides maid
The best man swept her up the aisle into
A heap at the end of the knave
And what a navel she had
Would make a blind man join the navy
To see the ships insight

On the hill where the Ashes sway
Where the snowy coloured buzzards sit
And the egrets in the thick oaks shit
And Squabble over every measly fish

In the pines by the drove where the crows
Chatter in their parliamentary murderous way
Plotting treason with gun powder as black as their feathers

And all the shades of the sky as she melts the yoke of sun
Into the mixing bowl of creamy blue robin egg cake mix
Baking in the horizon's oven
Tomorrow the new day will rise

Friday 22 June 2018

Over the meadow

The sun cuts low
Over the Meadow
The sheep they go
Over the meadow
Over the meadow
This evening

Over the meadow
The cows low
They cast their long shadow
Over the meadow
This evening

There goes the black crow
Over the meadow
Over the meadow
There leap the deer
Cotton tails bobbing
Over the meadow
This evening

Wednesday 20 June 2018

Salmon Souls

My soul is tickled pink
Like the salmon clouds that swim towards the sunset
Chasing the dying of the light
Chasing upstream to where they know they will die
Dissipate their rain seed
Into vapours of steam
Lay their atmospheric eggs down
In the settling dew
Lay them on the flower or the weed
Both glisten beautiful
In the morning as if new
And then mother Sun lifts them up again in her warming rays
Puts them in the misty plays
And there they stay until father fire summons them
To greater heights
Where afraid of the chaotic wind swirls
They band together and travel the world
Out into the ocean of sky where they breed
With other clouds
To live lives in thunder or lightening
in the Caribbean
Or less loud and frightening
Over the English Seas

kissing gate

There is a kiss on the door step
That says come back and see me honey
There is a kiss near the forceps
That says give your braces some money

There is even a kiss in the shower
One in which two tug boats touch
They have been pulling the wreck of love
Too long up the river, that flows too much

There is a kiss that says good bye
That says see you now I must fly
There is a coward's kiss
And I have given it too many times

There is a kiss that is kissed by a lover
When you wish the planets would kiss one another
So that heaven would align
And star-crossed under cover
The perfect would come true of father and mother

The land is in sight

The time will come when all
This sand
Will seem like shit
In my hand
But for now
I wipe my brow
Continue to sit
Continue to stand
And pass through the day
Like a ghost without sound
Like a ship without sail
Trying not to run aground

And the storms may blow
And the seas may sink
Before the tow
I pull and think
Upon my oars
that reach for the brink
Where the water runs over the gunwhale

I have seen many like me before
They cry caterwauling from the stocks
The captain has whipped them
Then they're sent below
To be out of sight of St Peter's Rock
But I know
There is land ahoy
Although I see it not
From my crows nest
I see clouds gather
There one day I may rest

Monday 18 June 2018

Woman in the Window


There’s a woman in her window and she’s watering her plants
Just as the sunlight marks the day’s start
And she tends to the seedlings and watches them grow
Which she put in three weeks ago
And there are men with suitcases wheeling them down the street,
for their families are leaving their hotel in retreat
And elderly women towing their trollies behind
Back from the morning shop at the grocers