Ignore poetry
at your peril,
even a teenage crush
that rips your heart apart
as you find meaning
to your tears and anguish
can be found to be more beneficial
once explored in any shapely
form and luscious lips worth kissing
will do more for your soul
than feigning interest
in the rights of a triangle
tilted on its side….Ignore poetry
and when hoping to court
your love with words,
think back to the sentence
Time
Measured out and detailed
how-ever you wish, by the beat…
ing clock, the chimes of mid…
night that slips into day…
minute
by minute
hour
by hour, by sunlight’s yawn
and the thunder of the dark…
this works
if you have somewhere
you need to be
regulated by the syncing of your heart
to the pendulum doom laden swing…back and forth
timed to perfection, a minute gained
here, a moment saved
there
for what, pray tell…
The pattern of my day has become ninety percent
the same, as the day before,
the day before, the day before,
repeated actions, a couple of games of Cribbage
to get the brain in gear, repeated actions,
an album of the day, in which to reminisce,
to remember you,
or someone that looks the same,
as you did back then,
in my memory,
the sense of new excitement
coursing through my veins,
as I undo a new recording
The trigger feels inviting
doesn’t it?
The parade passes your house,
and I get it, you’re afraid,
something inside you
that has always been there
hiding,
concealing itself under the thin mask
of respectability, cruelty, and hate
denied,
loathing and malice
rebuffed,
accusations of temper tantrums
rejected,
as you point your gun at the crowd
because you feel afraid…
…or is it real, this feeling of power
you imagine you had as you squeeze
It may look spectacular,
The first-time roll
of the – count them and weep – five sixes
that make up the thrill of Yahtzee,
but what does that matter if all you roll
afterwards is the odd
double four,
forever chasing the large straight
or the four of a kind,
shaking your hand, blowing
the dice, willing them
to give you the thrill once more of a five
that leads to a hundred…
forgetting that the win is based
partly on making sure you score
Surrounded upon all sides
by a mountain of inspiration
I could ever wish for,
and yet here I sit behind
a lock down home, scared
to take a peek, occasionally
being brave to see what’s happening,
the peep hole giving a glimpse of
what is normal.
Normal, nothing
had better be considered
as normal again, not by their standards,
not in our lifetime, not in the next,
because all is out of control,
Could you have imagined
as In-laws looked on
at the Warwickshire lad who
swept the nurse off her feet,
what fifty years would bring.
A half century on, time has been
and what a time it was,
from a still black and white photograph
as family joined, a celebration
that has been at sea and the comfort
of dry land, did you imagine
ever
that the life you have shared
would have been
before playing Cribbage
Wearing the outside
in these days, my Grandfather
would have raised
an eyebrow at the lack of formality
even behind the closed
green and yellow door,
brill creamed silver hair, combed
in, neatly presented,
even out of uniform,
he stood tall.
These days
in, are fraught
behind the closed doors
we have shut
tight, stopping short of hammering
wood across the entrance,
confining ourselves
to the odd peek
“Put that light out”, would come a voice of thunder
from outside on the street, “Don’t you know
there’s a war on?”
You couldn’t answer back
by saying I know my rights, but I need to see,
how am I supposed to do this, that, and a bit of the other
if my lights aren’t glaring, lighting up the streets…
any way I don’t believe there is danger
up in the skies, I think you are over
reacting, jumped up little Hitler,
that sound above
My Grandfather fought an Evil,
as all who lived in dark times
swore to do, that came
with shiny jackboots
and a list of names to shoot
should they get past Dover.
One Great Grandfather was the chief
stoker on the ship that took the King
to the edge of freedom
as the world declared
no more, no more lists,
no more boots kicking down the door.
Another of that generation
defied the bombs
that flew over Birmingham,