My Poetry: Sitting In A Bar While Outside Grows Dark

The point of her breast
breaks the soft line
of synthetic t-shirt
gently, so gentle I’m not sure
if I imagined it. I look again.
Her solid curves are more erotic
than anything I can remember,
and I can remember nothing
this side of the morning.
She serves another beer.
Smiles. Turns as if to say
you did not imagine it.
And the turn is accentuated by
the bottom of the glass,
which fogs her lines
like looking at a reflection in a river
when your eyes are toxic.
Her face, empty of chemical smears,
is like a new canvas:
no rouge splits her lip,
or straddles her cheek;
no blue sits atop her eyes
which are clear, like a new puddle.
She smells of dust or
perhaps the arms of an old man.
Her thick hips rock
her waist rolls to the DJ
—a poet with the heart of an Irishman—
who drinks as if his pockets
are full of bad luck.
He plays tracks
recorded before her daddy was born:
Lewis and Berry, Stones and Elvis.
And it feels like time is everything
but a linear narrative,
and as the songs play the clocks stop,
we all turn a shade lighter.
The currency of death and youth
is not accepted here.
Beside me a man squats next
to a three drink old pint,
he is not here to forget
just to hide.
The DJ plays ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me”
and we all begin to dance on our seats;
The bargirl jives with the barman
and we all start to remember
our own happy thoughts
while outside grows dark with the rain.

My Poetry: With Broken Wing

With broken wing
the black bird waits
alone, watching
leaves turn to rust
around its nest.
‘Quick take me.
For I can no longer fly,’
it calls to death
for time is sorrow
and this morrow a chore.
But it must wait
for fate's crow to caw.

Time may yet seal
the wings' wound,
perhaps a day will come when
once again it takes to sky;
but it must wait its time
that little bird.

Until that morrow,
when the third caw sounds,
it cowers from the morning sun
in body too young
to know the timbre of being old;
but one day soon
its feathers will turn new colours,
and death will step
from its dreams, and draw close
and say, your time is NOW.

My Poetry: The Resurrection

She rubs the keys

Hunched silent over typewriter
Cus it helps her forget.
Solitary therapy
To fill grieving afternoons

Since he was gone.

An action figure sits in trophy
Guarding the windowsill till his return
She's not moved it since that day.

She remembers her pride
When he brought it home.
His first and last
Man of the match
And how he fantasised
About starting for Arsenal
As he practised penalties

In the living room.

She rubs faster the harder
Memories return
With lint cloth she polishes
Sharp chemical smell
Fixing old typewriter
Sharp as a new pin,
Until by her hands and sweat
It's resurrected,

Brought back to life,
The way she wishes
She could coax breath back

Into her little boy.

My Poetry: I Reach Unto The Naked Boughs

I reach unto the naked boughs
In hope I may find
What, I do not know.
Answers to a timeless question?

I reach unto the naked bough
For thou, who may be there;
To whom I give this gentile prayer
To water these parched pagan roots

I reach unto the naked boughs
If lightly I bend my ear, and
Hold my breath, to hear the word
Will secrets spill from empty nest?

I reach unto the naked boughs
I seek thee, ist thou there
Within the western wind
Which whispers hidden truth

I reach unto the blooming boughs
To pick honeyed blossom
Which flowers from forbidden fruit
Of my latest resurrection.

My Poetry: Today I Read Auden

Today I read a thin volume
Of poems by an unromantic,
Who knew love as a secret.
I found him,
Hid deep in a bookshop corner,
As I flicked through an anthology
Devised to make men cry.
I didn't. But felt his shoulder,
Frail and bony, offering a pillow
To bury my head in.
So I turned out my hungry pockets
And bought that cheap paperback
Because sometimes
Only an old man
Knows this feeling...

When the click of clock ticks
Loud as bombs.
When you can feel
The body decaying, slowly;
Flesh but a rusting machine
In odious system.
When the day favours not
The brave or foolish
But he who tastes
The bitterness of twisted fate
And does not buckle,
Just gently folds himself
Into the chair,
and waits.

I could have chosen Dylan,
Or Buckowski,
But I’m too tired to join their fight.
I could have read Heaney,
But I’m too frail for nostalgia
And besides, that boy is dead now.
I could have read Corso,
But I am too resigned
To this new landscape
To search for salvation in the horizon.
So I chose Auden,
Felt his avuncular embrace,
Felt his words fill my emptiness
Like holy wine on tongue
Because, I thought it would help
I was wrong.

My Poetry: Beside Those Reading This

It has to do with the sunset,
In the conviction the sun
Will once again rise,
Beside those who are reading this.

It has to do with pregnant belief
That love is not stillborn, and
A bit more, besides
Those who are reading this.

It has to do with the ancient oak,
Within which truth grew
From heart of the fallen acorn
Beside those who are reading this.

It has to do with the fallow field,
From whose earth one day we shall reap
So as we wait, go tell others
Beside those who are reading this.

It has to do with the sunset.
In the conviction the sun
May rise and fall, but its beauty
Resides inside those reading this.

My Poetry: Spring Is For The Dreamers

Today the sea is flat,

Calm as a saucer of milk.

Licks of a light breeze

Ripples the surface,

I watch its undulations 

Gently slap stone beach

Then dissipate from bus window

On morning rush to work.

A pier, white as June clouds,

Pushes out to the horizon

Where a boat sits, inviting

You to pick a flag under

Which to sail:choose servitude or freedom,

Though there promises are lies.

Along the esplanade

Walkers walk slow,

Bikers drift on the soft wind

Which hardly lifts

The red and white flag

Into the pale blue sky.

If summer is for lovers,

Spring is for the dreamers;

The promise of what could be

Is everywhere:

On the branches of trees,

In swollen bellies,

Yellow dafs yelling

In green, uncut fields.

Today everything is calm,

Mother Nature's embrace,

Makes me feel like an infant

In awe of her majesty;

Today everything is calm.