You are my guide, from the womb to the soil in which
my cremated remains will hug and embrace with the same deep thought
as when I was a child in which you were my teacher,
when I was the teenage boy in whose arms I wanted to hold you with
and kiss you gently,
to the middle aged man in which I have become
and in which you are the one I strive
to be equal to, you are my guide.
From the grandmother with unseen feminist principals,
It used to be so easy to dream of running away,
to throw in the towel and become forgotten quickly in one day.
Leave all behind and always start a new
be a vagabond, a tramp in new clothing, with no expectation from anyone
because they hadn’t got used to you.
Just turn up in a different town one day,
the fresh faced boy on the street, the accent from far away.
Nobody gave a damn because they had no idea,
but they gave a damn when I could not fit in, a ragged detestable man
We’ve all had that weasel on our backs at one time or another
but perhaps we haven’t dealt with it as gracefully
as a Woodpecker in flight.
This predator senses opportunity and attacks for gain
by offering only a platitude and the empty smile
and nothing else in return.
Whereas the badger, noble creature of the forest floor, set in its ways
and looking for all the world as a master of ethnic equality, sees the situation
in black and white and fights back against the weasel, but will probably
She rang me in the middle of the night, speech slightly slurred,
scurried, slow drawled, concerned and with heavy patience address.
“I worry about you, I believe you will write yourself to death
one dank and dark December day.”
The hint of concern overflowing and verging on future grief
overwhelmed me briefly and
I paused for thought, after all the hour had not long since departed
three, half a pall bearing team I thought wildly with a wry grin,
I wonder where the other half went, perhaps to make sandwiches, after all
With the pleasantries over, the argument started in earnest
and February shook its small but well rounded
fist at the other eleven members
of the council and stated his intent to see equality achieved that day.
“I still don’t understand why I cannot at least be thirty days long…!”
He boomed in a winter foamed echoing voice
which shook snow from the steadfast Oak and which drifted in a flurry
on to the table carved from a fallen Willow and in which
August exclaimed a serious dislike for.
Mavis “The Shredder” Stockdale always wanted to be a renowned guitarist,
one who could take the simplest of ideas laid down by the songwriter
and burn the opposition to the outskirts of Hell
and leave audiences gasping in the wake of a lover letter placed chord
and suffering the beauty of a well plucked string.
Above all, Mavis knew she could duel banjo, guitar, mandolin and violin,
but with sad reflection not the cello as she had seen a God play with perfection
one night in the Cavern one night, her hair flowing red but shimmering with depth
March stands on the precipice of life and dislikes the view.
The infant King, fawned over, lauded, feted and feared in equal measure,
the tyrant teenage regal monster and the early despot in waiting
rages. His senses coloured, polarised by anger, unhappiness and sorrow,
understands only too well that for all his blustering fury, this is not
what he was meant to be to the people in his shadow.
The blackness of the sky, the rage and fury, the odd measure of calm
in another wise incensed frenzy in which ships shiver in still icy waters ,
…I want to scream, for screaming makes the pain seem less acute
for the briefest of moments and in the end brief respite can surely only be noble.
I should buckle under the weight of it all and prepare my coffin suit
and place my emotional trust in the fall out quality of Chernobyl.
You have been the most faithful of companions, conspiring harridan.
Never wavering in your ability to astound and fuck me over, friend
time and time again, if personified, you would make the most evil of men
We are so sorry to inform you
that we are going to have to close you down and take your licence away
after finding disturbing material on your premises, now be careful what you do
or indeed what you say,
for there is no arguing with the evidence of you supplying hard
karaoke to the citizens of this town,
lethal stuff that would confound the most elegant sounding of any bard
and in which it sounds like cats you are trying to drown.
I charge you with section 101 of the criminal penal act,
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,