My poetry: Bookshop

I do not want to leave,
Trapped between believing
I can read every single page
That I may understand each word,
And knowing i never can.
I have nothing
But time, free time
And yet i cannot buy,
Or steal an hour,
From this constant chatter
To loose myself in the silence
Of the hallowed pages
Between the sentences,
Make friends with new words
Feel the hug of old ones
Reappearing from nowhere.
How i long to empty my head
Allow dreams and images
To overwhelm,
I am overwhelmed
As i choose another
From the shelf, and replace it
Carefully with one hand
As if tucking a dear companion
Into a sick bed.
I do not want to leave,
For out there sadness
Is my only friend,
Dumb, inelegant, unintelligible
Sadness.
I do not want to leave.

My Poetry: Do Nothing

*Warning contains adult language and references*

When force-fed fame

By media hungry whores,

Performing mock satanic rituals,

On Superbowl half-time shows,

Do nothing!

They're just slaves imprisoned by promises

Of prime time television slots.
Busy turning photoshoots into careers,

Becoming fake reality idols

To kids left thinking their best shot at life

Is becoming a contestant

On Britain's Got Talent;

Before we were happy with nature,
Now smart phones have turned us

Into whores for likes,

Before selfies made us superstars

To 250 followers,

now being liked by strangers

Is better than trusting men in turbans

Woman in burkas or even schoolmates

Who sit at the front of class

Daring to learn about life

Outside columns of celebrity gossip.

When force-fed porn

By money hungry whores 

Plucked teen starlets paid to perform

With no way to say no,

Do Nothing!

Welcome unsubtle sex references

Into home via media icons

Magazine ads and hand-held screens

Turning bedrooms into dungeons,

Let them transform Youtube playgrounds

Into places where girls are bullied

For not giving head at thirteen,

And boys are effeminate

If not notching up conquests;

Each told fucking, fame and drugs

Is better than passing GCSE English.

Do nothing

Do not switch on the TV,

Do not charge your smart phone

Do not turn on your lap-top.

Do not become so damned fearful

You forget to question

The onerous instruments of repression,

Keeping us servile

Because until we no longer fear freedom,

From Sex and Money

And meaningless possessions

We will always be slaves

To our invisible masters.

My Poetry: Kefalonia

Skeletons of houses litter the landscape
Ribbons of road ease slowly, up 
Then down, reeling around
The pine green hillsides 
Innocent as a virgin’s thigh.
Mountains like small breasts'
Heave and swell
Under the bellowing clouds
Which caress them gently
Like a new mother her first son

Crystal waters undulate to shore
Rattle white pebbles smooth
As a hustler's midnight lie,
Salt cracks on bare chested paperback afternoon
Diving belles and trunk-clad boys
Like milk white flotsam
And mahogany jetsam
litter the beach on a day when
Youth's currency is as good as mine
When we are all paupers 
Kneeling at mother nature's door
Begging for forgiveness for ignoring
All her calls.

A solemn boat bobs to the horizon,
An old man snags a fish,
Small, silvery penance for patience
On green fern harbour wall
Where weekend sailors drop anchor
Where locals reclaim tavernas
Lost once again in card game revelry
As chatter of foreign tongues
Become a whisper,
Where an orthodox priest in black, 
Bends his grey beard into car window 
Where silent streets forgive everything.

As night’s cloak falls, discarded
Over land which spawned religious legend
Zeus' rage roars eloquently, casting
Electric arcs across charcoal sky
Silhouetting slate sea and land,
Building wind whips trees which bend
To their new master.
Rain explodes off half built roads
Illuminated by car headlight beams.

This island, which witnessed atrocities 
By marauding colonising armies,
Earthquakes which shook soil and soul,
Left boxes full of grief and ruins,
Is now ready to pull the curtain
On another international invasion: 
The last flight is Monday,
Everything closed Sunday,
Each visitor a pinker shade of pale,
Packed, waiting for cut-cost aeroplane,
Like condemned men to return us,
To old cold rain misery of Blightly, 
From wence we came.

My Poetry: First Blooms of Spring

First Blooms of Spring

---

With the first blooms
of green,
the warm winds begin,
to melt away
that winter,
and by summer
the coldness of our goodbye
will be gone forever.

My Poetry: His Royal Moggyness

His Royal Moggyness

---

Beneath his chin
his knees neatly folded
his royal moggyness sat
caring not for what hid
behind the sofa
or the lace curtains
or even the door
on this day
when clouds were being
rung dry of their water
like an old bit a rag,
or a lover stood at window
waiting for an adulterer’s return.

Jack, for that was his name,
sat still as a nun’s blouse
silently thunking
about all the ickle mouses
he would catch when sun come.
Trapping their tiny tails
with the pad of his paw
in pastures dyed green
by showers of summer
sun and drenchy 

rain

.

How he would gently coax,
with hirsute whiskered grin,
the scaredy ickle mices
from the hidey corners
into playing catchy
and go runneth, when
they wished neither to be caught
or to be a play thing
for this nefarious feline
who only cared to play
when his regalness
was feeling rather frisky.

But that was for all
another day,
thought Jack, as he sat
on his mat,
for this day,
was perfect for purring
and dreaming
as the grey day filled
the windows with steaming.

My Poetry: Boundary Road, 11:15am

*please be aware it has an astrixed swear word*

 

These are the people,
For whom the plastic spoon
Was their birth right,
Menial work their inheritance.
These are the people
Who live hand to mouth,
Benefit cheque shopping days
In pound shops and discount stores,
For whom whole weekends are wasted
F**king and drinking
And reproducing,
Waiting for it all to manifest
In some medical emergency
Robbing them of breath
Their only god given right.

 

These are the people,
Who clean toilets, tend tills
Stack boxes in warehouses
Serve bad beer
In bad pubs to afternoon boozers
With 40 a day coughs
Yellow fingers and B&H perfume,
Who dream of lottery wins
So they can buy the things
They think Beyonce does,
Watch news for celebrity gossip
So they can bitch on a c-lister
One reality show above them
On a ladder leant against
Bourgeoise wall where
Wit and will will not overcome.

 

These are the people,
And I recognise them,
But no longer know them.

These are the people
For whom subservience,
Hegemony, poverty and deference
Are the price they pay
To Eton’s old boy mafia.
These are the silent majority,
Who laugh and swear and gossip
About TV shows
Cus any dream will do
When reality is a foe.

 

My Poetry: Ballad From A Hospital Bed

Ballad From A Hospital Bed

---

But out there,
beyond the curtain,
beyond the white starched
pine scrubbed corridors
love is a currency,
but in here, breath is:
breath and morphine.
For when love can fill the lungs
no longer, or shoot the red wine
of life through veins
that once got me drunk
as the blood orange sun fell
from crystal sky, or made me feel
like the missing piece
in a million bit jigsaw,
then breath will be all that's left,
until even she fades
like the day from my bed side.

But, alas.....
We are born and we fall
within these white walls,
nature mothering our infant lips
past the first breaths
never free us from her breast
even when our ivory teeth
grow long like a summer shadow,

striping the ebony streets
like a zebras back.
That day returns,
when lamp posts, people, fences
turned from the sun,
to hide their dark places
from the light,
that morn when you let me sulk
then helped me out of bed
when my knees wobbled
and the skin crawled bleak
from my back.

I hold you close today,
through the roar of sirens
which steal silent reverie
as they cart another life
to the mortuary slab
via a white coat stethoscope
prancing from bed to ward
to bed with no patience of death
or beautiful words to break
news that the black wind signals,
like trumpets on battle field,
the final curtain call.
And I feel helpless
like Savanna cub who cowers
but is dumb to know
the jaws of seraphim predator
of concrete jungle
may yet kiss the pain away.