My Poetry: Bus Ride into Town

A woman with a pram,

High street bags by her feet

Watches her daughter sleeping.

An old man sways, hanging off a rail

Each bump drawing a grimace

On his wizened face.

A blonde with red lipstick

Flashes a cheap diamond finger

From the latest unsuitable suitor.

A fella with a swan nesting

On manual labour hands

Sits so I can smell his lifestyle.

A hipster beanie, embarks

He's taking his moustache on a date,

To a trend bar full of clones.

A couple sit in silence

They shall be loyal untill death

Robs the other of a friend.

I skinhead, with Wu Tang tattoo,

Waits to get off with teen girl,

Her smile suggests he's not the first.

A woman in jeggings sits

Her frozen fast food belly

Hanging over her crutch.

A grey frizzy bob sits

Tapping a phone, either texting

Reading or surfing Tinder, I suppose.

I notice a black bow in electric blue hair

I want to know her name

And what her pin badge means.

But then there's a ring,

"The next stop is Churchill Square"

And i leave my daydreaming behind.

My Poetry: Their Names Will Not Erode With Time

This is a poem about war. 
Inspired after reading a biography of Winston Churchill: so it starts in World War 1 

Time will not erode the names
Of ordinary men, who died
So brothers and mothers
Left on mourning beaches
Could live ordinary lives.
Bravery sparked in the pits 
Of their starving bellies
Meeting hate with defiance,
Till puncture wounds
Bloomed like poppies on soiled kit. 
Rivers of blood running 
From bodies of fathers and sons
Like veins through the mud.
Death trenches lit-up like beacons
But lessons learnt by the many
Were soon forgotten by the few.

Their Carved granite names
Will not erode with time,
Just as the saltwater, long dried,
On unmarked graves
Never diluted their memory.
Lest we forget 
How sovereign fingers put to sword
Hateful doctrine of corrupt regime;
Lest we forget
Our boys who fought fire and brimstone 
With fists forged from fear;
Lest we forget
Sacrifices made for mankind
Are made by the meek,
Forced into bravery by battles
Waged by masters of war.

Their names will not erode with time
But how they must turn
In crumbling graves
To see a country’s finest hour
Destroyed by the next.
To see Eton criminals sipping port
In green leather war rooms
Sacrificing lives to feed egotism
Like pawns on a chequers board.
Nothing learnt, no hushing
Of gunfire or death's lonely peal,
The metronomic rhythm of mortality
Still rings like funeral bells,
Feeding fatcats thirst for more
Land, more money, more power
But they pay no heed or toll 
Greed not tempered
By their sons blood spilled
By foreign hands… 
Their names left to erode with time.

My Poetry: It Takes A Train To Forget part2

Electric chug of box-car
Pulls me from the city
Carriage window sits silent
As brick and people rattle by
Until…
Rolling banks of reborn trees
Become the backdrop of virgin views, 
Pregnant with Mother Nature's promise.

White bob of spring rabbit tail 
Speckles the stillness like 
Summer clouds, as it
Darts under rotund hedge. 
Fawn elegance of unstartled deer 
Chewing in unison,
Graceful beast in the belly
Of wild England’s strolling habitat.

Swans slowly circle, 
Fleck plate glass lakes
Where hibernating boats wait
For winters kiss to fade
From multi-coloured hulls.
A fox stalks sly as a card shark
Waiting for the spade black night
Before reaping princely rewards
Of an unspoken instinct.

Patchwork cattle sadly grazing,
Growing milky fat,
To feed our yoghurt obsessions - 
When…
Forgotten childhood memories 
Of careless country summers startle 
Empty-headed days spent 
Stoned, skipping crusting pats in the heat.

Oh, country,
Prised from your bosom
It Takes a Train to Forget
The city.

My Poetry: It Takes a Train to Forget part 1

 

Prised from your arms,

I turned to stone in her embrace
This city offers no milk of inspiration
From her tainted breast
My wet nurse cannot sate
This appetite for isolation.
Soiled senses see trees
Used as grey urban ornaments,
Grass a 20 bag hipster accessory.

Prised from your bosom,

I turn ghost white in the half-light
Of fluorescent city streets,
Your pleasant, ancient beauty
Used to sooth my blues,
But too long
In the exhausting fumes
Of bricks and morter vista
Have calcified my senses.

Prised from your touch

Empathy dulls, as I settle
In concrete confinement
With sullied city machines,
Pavements smog thick
With broken men marching
From door-to-door-to-door-to-door.
Punching keyboards, clock
Watching, waiting for weekend reprieve
From jobs which define their happiness.

Oh, country,
Prised from your bosom,
It Takes a Train to Forget
The city.

My Poetry: I Watch the Ship Pass

I watch the ship pass the horizon,

For a long moment all I see
I do not notice the sun
Fading, turning the world red,
The ship becomes a silhouette,
A clipped shape in the dying daylight
And I know, if I wait
Returned from whence it came
Held like a baby
Where it waits, salt water rusting
Its once steely hull, till from solitude
To the vast black ocean
It goes, one last time.

Is the ugly metal hull carving its path
Through the steel cold sea.


Its pulchritude slowly dies,
Leaving just the rose gilded clouds -
A reminder of its lost beauty.


For the embers of lightTo reignite the dawn
This vessel will not be here;



In the still berth of the harbour

My Poetry: Struck Dumb

Struck dumb by a mild dose
Of contentinitus
I hang to old social media posts, 
like a barfly holds onto a drunken dream.
Squirrelled beneath the stairs
I watch the world spin
And wait for malady to return,
wanting more
Like hungry grave craving
Dirt falling on mortis body
Placating grey silence of death
With red platelets of inner horror
Carpets smeared
With amorphous art from
Untwisting the stomach’s loathing 
Grown bloated with love
And from nowhere I’m dancing
Blindly to a playlist 
Compiled ten years ago, while... 

Truth's blow strikes low
So drunk I sway to slow songs
And drink and dance 
The tango with my impassive
Mistress the night.
Till all I hear is the folk songer
And understand what he means 
When he sings: “New York, New York, you're nearly gone”
Like pernicious ghostly whispers
Of that raven beaked beauty
Who taps at my bedframe
Till the madness which follows me 
Drives me from my bed.
And at half-mast I dance
Dance, dance, in the lamplight
And wait for love 
Or boredom or hate
To tear me apart again.

My Poetry: Litter the streets with love

Litter the streets with love
Rain down kisses, like confetti
On the heads of pedestrians
Hold hands with loved ones,
Touch cheeks with acquaintances
Smile at strangers till they reciprocate
Or for acts of gross kindness
Your great blue heart is arrested.
Deck the high street windows
With red paper hearts,
Let yours thaw from a lover's breath
In a public display of affection,
Like OAPs still leaning on each other.
Fill the air with war time hits
So when we meet again
You can say I told you so.
Lend me a Leonard Cohen love song
So when we part, i'll understand
For me you made that exception.
Give me a song so we may
Sing together when times allow,
Give me a kiss, for when they do not
And litter the streets with hearts
For today is Valentine
I am yours, will you be mine.