How can it be in this a civilised age
that we can fail not just those who try to change the world,
the young and full and ideas and sense beyond the crèche
of the Westminster island, but those who find
their way to emulation is to stand scowling at the passers by,
the feral
dogs keeping guard, the accessory to modern sainthood
as they patrol the streets in black armour, the modern knights
of the uneven and tattered pavement.
How is it possible to see the divide between the same coin,
Who would be a poet, writer or scribe in the modern world?
How much more exciting and soul destroying
it must have been in days when Kerouac could slump over a typewriter
and bang his head in withdrawn frustration
on the polished and
d
e
n
t
e
d
desk.
The pile of A4 paper to his left , ever dwindling, never being pregnant with word
upon word, upon life sentence, instead cluttering up the floor
in a moon scarred landscape that defeats the purpose
Should I compare you to harridan hag of a winter’s day?
For you are the television screens celebrity whore,
Who people urge others on to detest what you say
Because your mealy brown nosed mouth knows no common decent law.
The papers are full of your tripe, belly pork and pock marked offal
And the stuffing, well best left to the imagination
Of the viewer who glances with excited glee at your high pitch waffle
At your endless diatribes set to cause expected squeal and harmfully stun.
Will you be content when you see the nation burn?
Comfortable in justice being done and the millions
who are suddenly afraid of you, enough to throw their hands up
in mock surrender, and who know that they could end up
choking on their own ideals.
The nation has sizzled under a pressure cooker so great
and for so long that it can be a surprise to the senses
that the loose flying sparks that live in the memory
have somehow not caught alight and burst into
The superficial feel of a day merging into the next is highlighted more in December.
The few short hours in which the remaining, decaying leaves on the ground
deposit their skid-like dead mark forever in the winter blasted ember,
only to be eaten away by the snow and harshness of the chilling, frost biting sound.
December is the widow of our years.
It fights for all its worth against the final reckoning,
but it knows that soon, very soon, it will sleep forever and in no more tears
Ninety-six hours I’m away from your smile.
A delicate touch displayed on an unspoiled face,
I count down the hours, fingers marking time
and try to keep myself amused
through this horrendous trial.
Each week we go through the same ritual dance,
a tear hidden behind a fond farewell.
A promise that whatever happens to us
we will call at the same hour, each separate day.
Wherever I am staying and wherever my thoughts dwell.
By Tuesday night I’m climbing the walls.
How many times does the opportunity arise
in which you can visit the ghosts
and smile with relief as a tear gently rolls down your cheek?
A bedroom door hides many a secret from the world,
the stolen, lengthy, beautiful snog with a girlfriend, heavy petting banned
in the local swimming pool, but a delight worth risking
when she cycles
over to see you from Wendlebury one summer’s day
in ‘85 and music from a band worth loving plays, crackles, skips
like my heart as she leans in again,
The mistake inside the lines…
Or perhaps more the blunder of birth, the errors between the margins
That are crossed out, erased and deleted with anticipated glee.
Like a master Historian paid by the winner to paint the pretender to the crown
As the Devil incarnate and the cause of all Humanity’s woes.
Any good they may have done assigned to someone else,
The credit of a lifetimes work expunged and made worthless.
The error between the margins, the deviation of the norm
Of the designated mechanical drive that makes the worker Bee
Still trying to hold back time and tide which waits for no man,
Canute of Westminster smiles and clings to a palm of gold coins
presented by those with real power and with a vested interest.
The stones that grated under his feet, the shale, the battered million grains of sand
Are nothing but a memory in which money to be thrown is no object.
With regal boots, the King of Westminster waded into the fury and cried out,
“Why Neptune does thy take offence with the poor souls of this land?