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.

My Poetry: When I Was a Spaceman

When I was not so old,
I would hide in small niche

Of blanket and pillow cave
From where I would fly

My spaceship,

First mate Ted by side,
Explore new stars and nebula

Or at least somewhere,

That wasn’t there.

And we would leave,
The cold earth behind

With its arguments
And black eye bullies,
School, and concealed tears
From weekend visits
Whenever we could.

In the ether we would be free,
Beneath that blanket rocket
Till ground control
Called up for tea,
And we would have to leave
Our secret galaxy
For another TV dinner reality.

When I was a teen,
I would hide in spacedust dreams
Dear old Ted long disappeared,
Swapped for friends
Who’d dance and sing,
Astronauts without a ship
Shoot straight through

To Monday without sleep

Ignore the days that dragged between
Till our bodies were weak,
Callow of heart and pale of skin.

We pretended we knew

The secrets of life,
And how to run, and run till we fell.
Until to bed, Itook

Ill of will and fight
Where dear ole Ted returned
With lopsided poppy grin
Where together, once again
We visited our secret galaxy
Waiting for a new reality.

Now as a man,
I hide in rye and beer
Neatly tucked away in niches,
Long ago I stopped pretending
This spaceship finished its last mission
In acceptance of this
New reality.   

My Poetry: And It Rains

And it rains,
Sometimes it snows;
It is always cold,
And it rains

So it goes,
Sometimes it’s fine;
It's always a lie,
So it goes

So it be,
Sometimes he knows;
It's always low,
So it be

And it rains,
Sometimes it goes;
It is always cold
Then it rains

My Poetry: Playground of the Gods

Death cult story told as truth
Round campfires, and in tomes
One man’s terrorist

Is another’s freedom fighter
Innocent son of seedless birth
Resurrected to save

Us from our greatest sin
Which sits not between our legs

But in holy layered ritualistic truth

That spirit beats flesh forever
We are but kindred spirit
Except for those we’re told to despise

But, if words stolen by Rome,
For vanity and for profit

Turned his image back to flesh,
Stripped book of cover story?
It's naked words held to the light
No God holding whip to slave.
No pulpit words to make us fear

No virgin birth or second coming
Just another mortal body
Born of Mother Earth's androgynous womb
Another servant searching for a way
To justify this spiteful world
Before pleading for freedom
Before her gavel of her glory?

What if cross was stripped of reverence?
Would corn bread still feed
Those hungry for the message?
Would red wine still sate
Those thirsty to sup his blood?
But what of he who casts doubts,
Or hunts for truth outside their spires
Where gnostic knowledge frees the soul
As turns body back into dust.
What of he who searches, but
Lays axe to sacred tree
From which fruit hangs,
Rotted by a false piety
Made bitter through a twisted faith.
Will in rapturous pyre he burn
If he ignores indoctrinated truths?

My POetry: Slower. Happier. Better (Just Say No)

Stood, piss snaking between my shoes
In dark niche, of wheely bin,
Blowing away an old cobweb
Sniffing snow,
From a stranger’s key
When I wonder if its time
To just say No.

23 years of highs and lows,
Chasing hits
In cop soaked streets,
Shady deals in shadier estates,
Rooms stripped bare by seedy habit,
Carpets covered in dirty pins
Bits and bobs of other things,
I wonder if now
I could deal with the hassle.

Petty thefts to pay the man,
Chasing bags and cling-filmed eighths.
I used to think
That this was it
Till I learned to relax,

Swapped the gear for gym wear,
Muscles in places
I used to ache,
Reading books to test the brain
Instead of tomes of abuse and pain.
I wonder if now,
I'm happier with
The pace a little slower.

My Poetry: Hold Gently That Black Spider, Little One

'Where do the reptile eyed go
When the sun comes up?'

asks a girl holding a black spider*

‘They go where white cells clot,’
Said a gossamer boy with webbed eyes.
‘They hide in oak veneered Gothic parlours

Lined with the scabbed carcasses

Of their penniless prey;
Hide where blue-blood* turns green,
Where baying swine
Feed from plates of peasant offal.

‘Where they talk in hushed code,
Where souls turn charcoal
In dirty handshake rooms,
Where wax faces reflect disbelief
In mirrors gilded with the bones
Of forgotten corpses
Of rag and bone men

Who died as they were born
so were laid in pauper graves.”

II

Champagne priests chant

Folded double inside

Green leather backed thrones:
‘We must exorcise dissident-men‡
Pierce their eyes
With scalpel sharp pens,
Sacrifice their tongue

To our dumb Gods

So  they cannot see or speak
Of the horrors hid in glass nests

A thousand feet tall;

Retell the horror of daylight spiders,
Suited thieves in shark toothed boots
Drinking the milk-blood
From scum patinated streets

‘We must snip societal muscle
From societal bone,” they sing

In neither tune nor melody.
“Slice sinew holding flesh to flesh
Divide diseased estates,
Cause homes to haemorrhage love,
Break bonds till brother and brother

Are enemy,
Till their will turns to poison

In their hollowed cheek.
Crush these velvet black ants‡
As they scapper through OUR city.”

III

By Lucifer’s light
The angels shall descend
To save those with sacred tongue texts;
The ants will be burnt
In rusting cauldrons

By alchemists perfecting

Potions and salves to stave off death.
While the spiders dance
Around the pyre

Reciting Crowley’s rhymes

Till their loins explode with fire.
History will be rewritten
In these oak veneered Gothic parlours;
The dissidents will become
Hate figures. Scapegoats.
Demonised.
The reptile eyed

When day arrives

Return to your mother’s oak veneered womb.

So,

Hold gently that black spider,
Little one.

*the establishment/politicians
‡ the poor/working class/unprivileged

My Poetry: She Is My

She is my first beer:
Quenches my thirst,
And eases my wary bones

She is my second beer:
Dulls the edges of the day,
And makes me want more

She is my third beer:
Turns my legs to jelly,
And intoxicates my head

She is my fourth beer:
Making me forget,
And want to dance

She is my fifth beer:
An invitation,
I cannot bear to refuse

She is my whiskey:
Puts a grin on my heart
As she lays me to bed.

My Poetry: How Long Before We’re Wearing Stars On Our Pyjamas

I

The real oppressors of your freedom
Are not wearing jackboots
Hijabs or stars on pyjamas.
They don’t bare arms on jihadi TV.
They don’t wear uniforms.
They don’t wear dog collars.
They don’t speak in foreign tongues.
They don’t cross borders.
They do not wait in hoodies
At the end of your street.
They don’t wear angry faces.
They will not be your friend.
They do not live in your house.
They are not the latest knife crime stats.
They do not listen to Rap.

They’ll be wearing suits
Matched with secret ties.
They will wave false flags.
They will steal your freedom
In the name of protection
While you skim social media.
They will be the face
Of faceless corporations.
They will engineer forced migration.
They will create borders
By which YOU are told to judge people.
They will fracture society.
They will manufacture fear.
They will not be ‘voted’ in.
They will not stand for democracy.
They will be the establishment.

II

The disease of business elite
Infects Westminister with greed
Party neutral donors

Wine, dined and 69ed
On luxury yachts
So moneyed vultures can pick
At bones of asset-stripped nation.
Common’s benches lobby
For free-trade dream.
In side-room deals
Corporate whores dodge tax
Compliance bought with a nod and a wink
And a six-figure membership
To a company’s board.

Unions vilified in the press,
Castrated in the Commons
By neck-tie terrorists
Conducting ‘collateral damage’
To single mum housing estates.
Screwing Proles further

In their poverty hole:
Give us slogans telling us
‘We’ve never had it so good’
But we’re still fucking slaves
As far as I can tell,
Bull-whip and yoke swapped
For social media anxiety
Oppressed obsessed with eastern patsy’s
While unelected law makers erode rights.
Food-banks feed first world hunger
While fat cats suckle cream
From a nation’s wizened breast

III

Drug company CEO
Withholds cancer cure
For another fist full of dollars.
Cash strapped hospitals

Buy into postcode lottery,
It could be YOU who stays
The rest left to pick a God and prey.

Oil tanker spills black gold

Into crystal blue waters

Marine life destroyed
Conglomerate shrugs

Trying to protect bottom line.
Paid off congress publically tuts
At another sea disaster,

Then pockets back-hander.

My POetry: I Rehearse Your Death

I re-read the lines of the poem
They are not particularly sad
Or good,
But I imagine the words spilling,

Like tears, from my lips
As I say goodbye.

I do this often, even when
The words aren't special,
The meaning unpure,
The setting uninspiring.
Still I search for the text

To understand what you meant to me.

Which might explain how I feel
As you lay before me
Skin stiffening like cooling wax
In silk lined pine box.
I do this because...

Because one day
It will not be a rehearsal

On commute back home.
Preparation so when
The call comes

I will still be able to breathe.

Blunt sword that carves
A piece of my happiness
From my mouth, 

My cheek, my day

With a stranger’s soft musing.

I re-read the lines of the poem
And think, I will call
You again soon enough
Just to make sure you're alright
While I still can.