My Poetry: This Is Home

This is home,
where memories lie in dark niche
of lampless streets
older than the birch trees
under which we spoke
of our first kiss 
then played video games
into the night until we hit 
last base guided by cheap cider
and sleepovers of our teens
became reserved for girls.

This is home,
Where hedges I saw planted
are now head high,
hiding houses now home
to unfamiliar faces 
lined up in front of a TV 
throwing iridescent shapes 
onto muted midnight street
where silent foxes skulk
and we all pretend Monday
will never come.

This is home
where the big skies of youth
have four more stars 
looking down upon us
since I watched them
glaze over in smoky teenage haze
then later smudge with tears
so I raise the glass
a little higher tonight
in memory of those
who are eternal now.

This is home
where new faces are introduced
as old friends by friends
in pubs where our father's
fathers beat their way 
through weekend pub rounds
till Monday’s bruised knuckles
returned to building sites.
Where we now spend nights
mopping up whiskey to
escape everything the beer fails 
to silence, in company of people
whose roots have not yet took hold
in expanding village. 

This is home,
where we learnt that love 
not obsession rules the heart 
as the metallic summer sun
rose and fell with the leaves,
where green turned to golden brown
as we sat with stoned smiles
trying to outrun ghosts
of our childhood
but we all fell like Icarus,
and as we watched our youth 
race away in the rear view mirror
of old age we learnt
we could never completely leave 
our memories and tears behind.

This is home,
where memories lie in dark niche
of my lampless heart.

NB this is the sister poem to 'Docking' which you can read here if you wish: [url]http://www.thepoetryforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=57460[/url] Both poems are about the Norfolk village I grew up in

My Poetry: Wildflowers

Wildflowers

---

They have dug up the garden
Where now shall those Wildflowers
Of our city bloom
And how will they now grow
Old with us and wilt
Within the arc of the sun
Under rainbow skies.

They stole a solitary corner of beauty
From where beauty hides
In the shadow of sky risers
Where piss snakes from dark corners
Where people hide in niches
Where roses and hyacinths
Only bloom on inked arms of hipsters
And poppies arrive in ten pound
Bouquets, drawing blood red tears
From the skin of the thin pale poets.

Now the Wildflowers are gone
We’ve one less way to find beauty
In tower block cemetary
To know nature's subtle cause
Behind the mourning eyes
Of those haunted empty beds
Which wait for life in silence,
Who know beauty is transient,
And so never chase the sun.

They have taken the garden.
Removed it from our reach,
Now how can we

teach the youth
That a tooth for a tooth is the same
As leaving hickies on a virgins neck
Like laughing at the freaks
Falling sideways down the street
As pretending life will call
After screwing you again.

They have dug up the garden
Where the wild flowers grew
The ancient worm licked soil
Which gave life to society's edge,
And fed them from its breast
Must not stay barren
Must one day return
Resurrected from concrete tome
For when they are in bloom
We are all wildflowers.

My Poetry: Carnival Ducks

Carnival Ducks

---

Lined up like carnival ducks
stalled blank faces
with old rucksacks and plastic bags
on precinct meeting place.

A hundred holy shoes lined up
along a bench,
each corner of each mouth
turned to the floor

listening to the one with
a bottle of cheap blues
and bad news on her breath
recite her lines as if she were
a leading player in a Beckett play.

They all prey for something
to soften the day, her words work
while they wait for time to pass away
like a loved pet.

An acoustic busker jams
another nineties hit;
a child dances, unaware
of everything except the music,
his parents aware of everything,
but the music.

I sit on the bench
eating a pre-packaged cheese sandwich
as i read the poster
on the theatre wall opposite.

Art mirrors life,
tragedy and humour
are married, unfaithful lovers
in this carnival town, i think,

we are either shooting
or are the game,
but never both.

 

 

My Poetry: Chocolate Cake

I bought you three cakes
all different types,
peddled those sugary wedges
across the city when demons
had you chained to your bed.

Bought you cake
because I wanted to make you feel
like I cared you got better,
because I felt helpless
to do anything else.

It was the last time I saw you.

That summer afternoon
when all the things that didn't matter
sat outside your window
baking in the afternoon heat.

The white cardboard boxes
looked like coffins
laid out on your blue cotton sheets
which turned to metal
under your touch,

you reached out
with a fork for the chocolate cake,
ate it like a sinner
consumes a last minute pardon,

you didn't speak again
after whispering a thank you,
until I left, I never knew
if it's sweet medicine healed,
I only hoped.

My Poetry: And It Stoned Me

And It Stoned Me

---

Sat, watching waves lick the beach

like a dog in summer
I find a stone and I'm stoned,
A thousand lifetimes
Cupped in my hand.
Silent, constant like the water
Which shaped it,
Or as if it'd seen things
It could not articulate

Or understood all words

Lost truth in translation.
Quite, like it had seen seas

Which no longer exist
Except in myth,
Like it could not tell of its birth
Formed in the breast
Of infant moss mountain
Riven by infinite time
Whose back was scarred
From ancient footprints.

Could not tell of how
It's been thrown by hand

Of unknown man
Knee and back bent
To a matriarch diety.

Could never speak of the day
It survived robed preachers

Whose twisted tongue
Spoke of ritualistic secrets
As they confiscated innocence
Singing from hymn sheets gilded

By soiled coin;
Curupt men who put worth
In stone tablet words
Then forgot to look
Beneath their noses
At a simple stone
And question why
Some mountains reman silent
Reaching to caress
The sad cheek of sky
While others caress
pebble beach sea
And others incite
Violence and greed.

My Poetry: Notes from a Thursday Morning

Notes from a Thursday Morning

---

The cold air,
is still as the sea.
Gulls hunt on wing
for tourist offerings,
but the barren streets
are litter free this morning,
except for the gum freckles
making them look diseased
somehow,
and of course
they are for those
stuck in god forsaken city,
static except for the lines
on bog-top tiles
and the cracked face
greeting people
with a beggars courtesy
on the bit between
St James' and North Street.
But there’s nothing
but fluff filling
my pocket so I shrug,
and offer an appology
by way of explanation that
I can't even buy a smile
from the hipster barista
in destination café,
or short order waitress
in the corner ignoring me
filling her notepad
with pencil sketches
for a new sweetheart,
cold and still as the air.

 

My Poetry: The Empty Chair

The Empty Chair

---

And from nowhere,
the empty chair appears,
its cheap pine veneer
blankly staring.
I was not even thinking
of you or her or them,
but there it is,
a silent reminder
sat neatly opposite
in sullen soundtrack cafe,
as if from nowhere
like a summer storm or
guest house ghost
to remind the eye,
what it does not see
that a solitary coffee
is no substitute
since we said goodbye.