Tag Archives: poetry from Bootle.

Plague.

I fear that that the plague under the skin,

first suffered as I entered the twilight of being considered

young, has returned as the itch of skin flares

and erupts like the seeded grumblings of Vesuvius

as her townsfolk gathered in blissful ignorance.

I am exhausted, yet words continue to flow

and they mock the carrier, taunting that somewhere

under the surface, next to the silvery fish like scales

that threaten to burst

and pulse and spread across my body once more,

causing anger and confusion as the pain in my back

Plague. full post

(315 words, estimated 1:16 mins reading time)

A Grecian Earn.

How long before the nation goes under the hammer

and its people sold as slaves to counteract

the weight of expectancy being urged

in a propaganda battle against Humanity?

 

Part of me wants them to fight on,

to deliver a black eye to the lords of high finance

and make them blush for the years they treated

a proud nation to the point where they become

the equivalent of Poundland,

the cheap shopping centre for the sun blessed and

morally out of step as they forget that the point

A Grecian Earn. full post

(264 words, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)

Nubian Kiss.

I lost a thousand days

and gained a thousand nights

on the moment I decided I could no longer

be in a relationship with my black Empress

who had seen me bathe naked

in a polluted river

every day since

I was a seventeen year old boy

desperate to be kissed by the exotic and hard done by.

 

What is there to be missed by letting the beauty go?

I mused one October morning at three, I left her

to be frozen out of my life

Nubian Kiss. full post

(192 words, estimated 46 secs reading time)

For The Missed.

I hate

how you make me miss you,

how you have occupied my thoughts

and perhaps being

the reason for the tarnish

upon my skin to have

returned,

scaly, dragon-like

and festering, biding its time

in which before the eruption and

the chemical disaster spill

combine

to infect every pore of my blistered skin

and I potter in darkness

away from the sun,

Marlowe stanced and not get over excited;

I hate

how I miss you.

 

I hate

For The Missed. full post

(180 words, estimated 43 secs reading time)

Madness Dwells Within…

Madness dwells within each of us, for some

the normality of the sacrifice to the death of Kings

reveals itself in their actions, the jealous zeal

in which they covet everything but life itself

and the dishonesty of their envious desires.

 

For others though it unwraps and unfolds like a

forgotten parchment,

a map of places unseen, of continents lost and drowned

far below the surface of Earth’s majesty;

of a building with secret time decayed, narrowed

dusty and cobwebbed tunnels that bid warning

Madness Dwells Within… full post

(317 words, estimated 1:16 mins reading time)

A Phonebox Knight.

There was a time

before time,

somewhere around the end

of the decade of lost hope

that was known  as the 1980s

in which being given a phone number

by the girl

you liked

was as prized as any medal

or award handed out by the state

or the unsaid respect of your mum and dad.

That number was hard won,

it was the mark of envy

perhaps in  other’s eyes and the sudden realisation

that what came next was love’s equivalent

to standing in a closed forbidding

A Phonebox Knight. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

The Last Action Of A Mad Poet In Italy.

They called the poet a fool for running to Italy

on the day he broke a thousand hearts,

yet even as the last maiden cried out in a mournful

repose and beat her now discarded breasts,

her long fingernails

biting deep down under that velvet, ivory white skin

and drawing blood that eventually found its way

to the oblivion of the dusty floor, licked clean by mites

and the might not haves running through her brain,

the fool, the poet and the madman all

became as one.

 

The Last Action Of A Mad Poet In Italy. full post

(370 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)

The Measure Of A Man.

Surely the measure of a man is not to confined

to the quality of his actions

on the battlefields of life, the swift response

to the spectre and dark shadows of looming war

or in how he holds himself when dining out in the company

of a young woman for the first time;

It must be seen above all in the dignity in which he holds

himself aloft when he prepares to say goodbye

to his father for the last time, it is the moment

in which a man becomes a giant.

The Measure Of A Man. full post

(211 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

Let Me Not.

Let me not forget you,

for in you I am tied to this place

and will be remembered by at least one

who liked me for what I am.

 

Let me not build a furnace

in which your memory becomes ash

and simply allows Time to erase line by line

the meaning in your measure and your affection.

 

Let me not become a piece of fashion

discarded by you, thrown into the back of drawer,

placed uncaringly into the hands of another

Let Me Not. full post

(135 words, estimated 32 secs reading time)

Thoughts On Father’s Day.

You are my soul

for in your happiness lies my truth

and whilst there are times

you must have despaired at my lack

of your complete moral vigour and

straight laced contemplation

in me,

I know that you have been proud.

 

I will never be the best that you could have fathered

and that I have failed

with death-defying ease

over and over again in many

of the sacred trusts and truth you placed my way,

however, I know

in everything you ever did for me

Thoughts On Father’s Day. full post

(165 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)