Seeing you was the only time in my life
that I ever felt the pang,
of what I was gleefully told by my best friend, was jealousy.
For two weeks you burned me up inside and the heat
was intense and stupid and it took me that fortnight to teach me
a lesson, of what is the point of the crippling state of mind
that passes itself off as an emotion;
but is just the pre-curser to slavery.
We had dated, indeed continued to do so,
If the thought of the deceitful behaviour resulting in the
unkindness of Ravens, who cackle
in delight as they plot and scheme and smirk during the sentimental speech
at the wake of a buzzard and the hippopotamus gloating as his bloated
views on such things are taken with a pinch of salt,
then be more concerned for the actions of another,
for the arrogance of Seagulls is absolute.
They strut round with conceit and an air of self importance
that belies their place in society. They may not be bottom
My name is of no importance
as I sit here quietly breathing in dust from the beaten up
old chair you provided me with.
My clothes as crumpled as my un-digestable heart
in this crowded room, where you sit
comfortably and with an air of seething malice wait
for me
to admit that
all you need to know is that I am a poetry addict
and that it has been that way ever thus.
The intervention should be hailed a success
for I have gone at least a couple of hours since I
…and Just by chance I looked up at the moon
and saw the false brightly lit orb shrouded by a perfect circle
where clouds had formed separating to make a giant’s eye.
Unblinking, all-knowing, understanding the darkest secrets
of the solitary magpie sheltering in the darkness of the church eaves
and its feathers ruffling, tearing at the bird-like sleep, dozing
dreaming of glittering bauble and fully formed salutes
from passing strangers.
The moon is but a mere child’s pebble thrown, ejected with violence
onto a dusty unused sandpit, the hollow crater surrounded
It was only by chance
that in my decreasing state of awareness,
of Morpheus’ gradual tightening grip on the synapses
in
my
brain
and the closing down of reason and rational expectation,
that I forgot to switch off the phone
that led to call of desperation being heard.
In the darkness of the winter night,
the shrill of Bell’s worst nightmare
woke me from the deepening fugue and of wrestling dreams
and hazily I crawled,
groped and moaned aloud in ever increasing
volumes
You are cold to the touch oh moody one.
You offer so much potential but in your sullen distance
You sometimes forget that you are here to have fun
and a different face to your sister’s bleak resistance.
Like some petulant teenager rebelling against its parents scorn
you rage and blind, leaving a northern blanket of unfathomable white,
screaming to anyone who listens that you wish you’d not been born
and cursing them for their folly as they gaze upon you with hopeful sight.
The Medieval child, lauded over and acclaimed at the start of the year,
now will show its true colours to the world away
from its long since gone mother’s breast.
The old harridan who succumb to final old age
at the moment of delivery follows her charges fortunes now
as it gears up to become a teenager.
The January day is over and Janus rests content for another year
not to have to keep up the pretence of concern or anxiety
of what was before. His young responsibility, now old enough
They are retiring the reason for loss of faith.
As the bones will be taken down and will never
adorn the main hall in my lifetime, how Darwin must be laughing
at the peculiar notion that my evolution started not with
an ape or a monkey but with a dinosaur and now that beast
of my burden is leaving home, presumed missing.
Eight years old, dressed in green, no badges yet of note earned
and the first of many visits to the Capital undertaken
with a tour and my paid homage
The devoid of feeling, empty processed pea tin rattles down the street and
pushed along by the banshee like eruption of winds
that beat, beat…beat against the window
pleading to be let in, the tin can, the remnants
of its former glory long since spilled on the Bootle battlefield
shows off its ability to send
out a message in Morse Code to anybody willing to listen.
The signal is kept going, the odd momentary lapse
where the wind blasts it up against the side of half
We sat back triumphant, but exhausted and overwhelmingly drunk
in a small public bar by Waterloo Station
full of football supporters letting off steam
after their team had lost in the capital again
and part of our collective soul didn’t care,
but the devilish, impish, teasing part thought,
we could wind them up after winning our own battle
with all that sits on the coloured squares and overpriced
bars and a tin of beer outside Holloway Jail.
Our own private Monopoly Board challenge.
February 17th 1996 and the first train up from Salisbury