In sheep cropped pasture
where clouds chase ghostly shadows
sun brittle bones scream
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
What Makes A Poem
It's gotta rhyme
else it ain't worth a dime
though I strongly disagree
with this philosophy...
...awww crap
else it ain't worth a dime
though I strongly disagree
with this philosophy...
...awww crap
By A River
and distant lowing
scrambling over
tangled root stone bedding
neath hillside glowing
from cloud stalked
cold shock
to sun burst warming
flows river umber
running iced tea
tarnished and malty.
To this tumble
comes happy dog
snout near rabbit deep
wary cottontails peep
from behind mossy log.
While hedgerow and tree
with gummy slap
and spittle spray of sap
shed and share their berry
bees, silver backed
full droning bluster
drain all they can muster
before dragons snap.
Damp ochreous sheep
like tea-bags spent
connote what ferments
this tawny creek
Steaming hummocks
draw up the eye
to a full weighted sky
where the swifts run amok
through a rising feast
and with like minded purpose
the bubbling surface
is equally policed
Soon, oh too soon
throughway is blocked
each gateway fast locked
by authority oppugned
from this unfriendly zone
we turn on our heels
retreat cross green fields
to man's enclaves of stone
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Runswick Bay
Through stair-rod rain such
precipitous descent leaves
breath in short supply
Over warm wet sands
swallows run low to the ground
feeding black arrows
Stone finned sharks encamp
below the beach awaiting
careless tourist feet
Wind scoured detritus
rewards each searching foray
fresh discoveries
Wave chiselled dark caves
Invite exploration of
dank interiors
Stone cast dead shadows
ciphers from Earth’s callow bloom
lay broken cast-offs
While the village sits
atop its haven of rock
in pretty repose
Hill fed lees stream down
shit littered weathered causeway
in doleful disgust
Monday, 29 August 2011
All The Time In The World
of fire and ice
rough fell born
in flash and fury hurled
from the high ground
fountainhead
set in motion
artlessly impelled
downwards tumbling
by such attraction
that demands all
obey its draw.
But my life’s course
stretches far beyond
your mortal grasp
and moves at a pace
measured in millennia
as you count days
I may rest bestilled
in quiet backwaters,
with fragile gossamer
dancing suitors,
a heavy quilt of moss
my besplendoured bed
Then torrent and
boiling spume,
surging anew
cast me seawards
towards a destiny
you cannot follow
I may reach the ocean,
traverse the abyss
arrive diminished
on alien shores,
or waste away
before that mark
But beyond your
temporal sight
I will subside toward
that searing core then
enkindled, compressed,
emerge once more
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Whitby

I came, Demeter like,
silent amid the mizzle
save for the seas salty breath
in the dead rigging.
An alabastrine jig and reel
trails suspended on spectral strings
to the gentle pitch and roll
of my progress
towards the enduring
granite blocked cove where
I slide under the stoical
gaze of twin Cyclops sentinels.
No mournful bell at sea
accompanies me. I live,
but wraithlike pass over
the thronging cobblestones
to leap some two hundred
steps of dripping flag
to good St Mary’s
broken toothed orchard of stone
till at last with aspect overseeing
the wild Ness and Burg,
in the shadow of Dane sacked abbey,
I sit where Stoker sat.
In collaboration with my daughter (it's true too as I am suffering the injuries still)
We went on an adventure
me and mum and dad.
Went places we shouldn’t,
were a little bit bad
But when we were caught
and did as we were told
dad only went and fell
down a six foot hole.
me and mum and dad.
Went places we shouldn’t,
were a little bit bad
But when we were caught
and did as we were told
dad only went and fell
down a six foot hole.
Friday, 19 August 2011
Spider

Once I knew a spider
wore Doc Martens on his feet,
eight hole on eight hairy legs
he wasn’t too discrete.
He rode a lengthy shadow
while he stomped round the floor
this micro muy macho
unabashedly cocksure
I trapped him in a glass one night
And told him at the door
“My wife she doesn’t like you
don’t you come around no more”
But spiders rarely listen
and ignoring my request
next evening he returned
our octo- booted guest
A Glowering
How long is it since I really smiled?
A beam that lifts my ears and wrinkles my eyes,
shoots the corners of my mouth towards the sky,
draws the blood up from my leaden feet,
and pumps my head full with a giddy heat.
Dear friend, it’s been far too long a while.
A beam that lifts my ears and wrinkles my eyes,
shoots the corners of my mouth towards the sky,
draws the blood up from my leaden feet,
and pumps my head full with a giddy heat.
Dear friend, it’s been far too long a while.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Starkey Raving
Enough!
We can
ill afford the luxury
of the
invidious
intellectualism
that each
oblique
pseudology
pitches
to the bigotry
of a nation
We can
ill afford the luxury
of the
invidious
intellectualism
that each
oblique
pseudology
pitches
to the bigotry
of a nation
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
An Absence Of Sleep

for this leaden head,
with heaving chest
my psyche adrift
gripped in a cyclone
of foolish reverie.
Vital sprites
brand my minds eye
planting chimera roots
of inarticulate desires,
sowing seeds
of wanton confusion.
Such perjury
of my heart. What lies
this spirit now denies,
ignites afresh
an abhorrent chemistry
that piques my craving
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Ghosts

Now those eidolic dread horses
have scarred your slumber
and even your furniture
has silent, open mouthed nightmares
of the too soon dead school friends
who never ended their crossings
where there she stoops in shroud
ghastly knelt as in prayer
and you can see through the tricks
of the light that say “she’s there”
your crumpling chest boiling
as the bones in your legs atomize
while those without body cross
the empty room, no need to surmise
that which lies bereft and restless
may yet have something to say
and you are the luckless soul
who lives within their byway
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Thursday, 11 August 2011
You Are!
August spawned a raging storm
Four nights we watched our TV’s burn
We wrung our hands in shock & shame
Then looked for someone else to blame
I turned that smoking TV off
And saw reflected the one to ‘cuff
A rapacious servant of generation me
“Guilty as charged” my contrite plea
Four nights we watched our TV’s burn
We wrung our hands in shock & shame
Then looked for someone else to blame
I turned that smoking TV off
And saw reflected the one to ‘cuff
A rapacious servant of generation me
“Guilty as charged” my contrite plea
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Right?
I can see the day where
I’d throw a brick
run headlong
and aim a kick
at the flashing blue
and the line of shields.
I’d resist and fight
the way they wield
their batons and
their heavy boots
but I can’t see a way
I would ever loot.
Of course that’s so easy
for me to say
while I can still
feed myself each day
I’d throw a brick
run headlong
and aim a kick
at the flashing blue
and the line of shields.
I’d resist and fight
the way they wield
their batons and
their heavy boots
but I can’t see a way
I would ever loot.
Of course that’s so easy
for me to say
while I can still
feed myself each day
Monday, 8 August 2011
A quick reflection on Tottenham
Gazing over the fresh grown rubble,
the long term bounty of borrowed trouble,
it begs a question with which we have to wrestle.
If it’s only the threat of burning petrol
that can make the truth of now more palpable
then my friend, no matter how unpalatable,
is it not time to make this field more level
and burst the bubble of those too comfortable?
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Baking Saturday Apple Pie
slice and dice
and
sugar and spice
and
hubble bubble
oh
here comes trouble
now
knead and roll
and
empty the bowl
now
butter that dish
and
make a wish
and
mould your base
then
pastry encase
now
throw in the oven
and
await such heaven
and
sugar and spice
and
hubble bubble
oh
here comes trouble
now
knead and roll
and
empty the bowl
now
butter that dish
and
make a wish
and
mould your base
then
pastry encase
now
throw in the oven
and
await such heaven
Friday, 5 August 2011
Cold Radiance
skinny dipping
on sopping silk
a cold pooling
of lunar refraction
steeps our
summer drowsing
ghostly fish,
lustrous slivers,
skip across
tumid fleshy belly
I kiss that
soft arousing
lip traced
phantom trail
silver shimmering
wandering avenue
to a mellifluent
moss dowsing
maybe one more verse to follow
on sopping silk
a cold pooling
of lunar refraction
steeps our
summer drowsing
ghostly fish,
lustrous slivers,
skip across
tumid fleshy belly
I kiss that
soft arousing
lip traced
phantom trail
silver shimmering
wandering avenue
to a mellifluent
moss dowsing
maybe one more verse to follow
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Summer Rain
Cool midnight rain
seduces my tiny eden
leaving her flushed
in a post-coital ardour
of musk steaming
foeniculum fusion,
her passion exploding in
open leaved splendour
seduces my tiny eden
leaving her flushed
in a post-coital ardour
of musk steaming
foeniculum fusion,
her passion exploding in
open leaved splendour
Devon
This is why I nearly didn't make it much past my 19th birthday
Amidst a sultry warming
three boys, stood
in the thrall
of a Devon dawning,
with no words of warning
saw no cause
to fear
the sirens snare calling.
Surf gently boiling
trimming the shore
with silver pearls
then throatily yodelling
and backs arching
three boys
cast their bodies
into the brisk and brining
blue, who’s welcoming
embrace extorts
gleeful gasps
with her cooling.
Arms now wheeling
three boys
set their sights
on a distant rocky shoring.
Bare, hot feet dancing
on baking crust
they fashioned
a clumsy landing
and while lizard basking
three boys
fail to grasp
the tide was swiftly changing
Where there was nothing
two vivid flags
now fiercely
fly, extolling
the limits of swimming
a zone where now
three boys
can see they’re clearly breaching.
Panicked hearts racing
they throw themselves
at safeties shore,
arms and blood pumping
but with riptide pulling
each drive alee
three boys
foresee their drowning.
With the last breath gasping
of a final push
they hit the beach,
landed fish flopping,
lungs stretched to bursting
where three boys see,
in thankful eyes,
no words need speaking
Amidst a sultry warming
three boys, stood
in the thrall
of a Devon dawning,
with no words of warning
saw no cause
to fear
the sirens snare calling.
Surf gently boiling
trimming the shore
with silver pearls
then throatily yodelling
and backs arching
three boys
cast their bodies
into the brisk and brining
blue, who’s welcoming
embrace extorts
gleeful gasps
with her cooling.
Arms now wheeling
three boys
set their sights
on a distant rocky shoring.
Bare, hot feet dancing
on baking crust
they fashioned
a clumsy landing
and while lizard basking
three boys
fail to grasp
the tide was swiftly changing
Where there was nothing
two vivid flags
now fiercely
fly, extolling
the limits of swimming
a zone where now
three boys
can see they’re clearly breaching.
Panicked hearts racing
they throw themselves
at safeties shore,
arms and blood pumping
but with riptide pulling
each drive alee
three boys
foresee their drowning.
With the last breath gasping
of a final push
they hit the beach,
landed fish flopping,
lungs stretched to bursting
where three boys see,
in thankful eyes,
no words need speaking
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
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