Stop all the clocks, cut off Big Ben,
Prevent PM’s Questions, we’ll have none of them.
Silence the protesters and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let a fly-pass circle overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message She is Dead,
Sing the hymns that were her greatest loves,
Let guardsmen wear black cotton gloves.

She squeezed the North, the South, the East and West,
The mines were axed, The Poor repressed.
She was Reagan’s love, his talk, his song,
We feared she’d last for ever: we were wrong.

The Tories are not wanted now, vote out every one
Pack up The Express and dismantle The Sun;
Pour away the tears and sweep up the wood –
Thatcherism is gone for good.

She peels each wafered layer
To expose the next.
Bitter tears lie at her heart.

Parasitic friend,
Your promises to me were
Laced with poisoned breath.

We sit cross-legged in the story corner
Breathing faint ammonia smells.
Table chants and hymns echo through corridor acoustics,
All creatures great and small.

We are wedged in a tangle of podgy thighs,
Grazed knees, scabs and warts.

And Anthony is sitting alone again
Where he can do no harm.

Yet he said he would bring it, and bring it he has.
Its tiny white head is nosing over
The  hem of his pocket,
Whiskers a-twitch and
Eyes like tiny blood blisters ripe for popping.

A shudder of shivering whispers and
Nervous heads are half turned:

Yes, Anthony is smiling his special smile.

Mrs Lloyd has found the page,
My lids are squeezed tight
As I urge my mind to follow her away
From here, away from now.

For playtime will be murder once again.

Gold tipped crocus spears
Pierce the frost-skinned garden's heart:
Winter lies bleeding

Spring rejoices to
The trumpeting daffodils'
Triumphant fanfare

Sunshine,
Birdsong
And children drunk on
Lemonade
And laughter.

That Welsh picnic
Has lasted forty years
And will last forty more
In dream

And in nightmare.

The stream babbled
Over pebbles,
Fern fronds
Brushed our sun-browned shins

Till the dead sheep
Slugged us in the guts.

Bloated and bulbous,
The body dammed the stream,
Its lifeless eyes
Crawling with life.

Those pearly marbles were
A child’s looking glass into death.

The pebbles we hurled
In reckless revulsion
Were the silent screams
Of violated youth,

And those dead sheep thuds
The dawning of our mortality.

A limerick writer from Kent
Found his pencil all crooked and bent.
Though sucked, licked and chewed,
It still remained skewed,
(Even stretched to its fullest extent).

You didn't get a valentine
Nor a supermarket rose,
We never sipped that vintage wine
Or read romantic prose.

You left before I told you,
I threw away my chance
To have you and to hold you:
I’m rubbish at romance.

The end was tranquil
Her eyes remained open wide
To mirror my tears

My Vellum

Alluring and demure
In your virginity
Never yet
Creased nor crumpled
Your tight young corners
Remain stiff and pert
In their newness
Your long lithe sides
Tense for my careful touch
Lest blood be spilt

My gold nib
I dip
In midnight ink
Piercing its surface skin
And lift

It drips
One

Two

Black
Secrets
Back to their bottle

My hand is poised
Over your pristine smoothness
And with calm precision
I carve broad majuscules
That twist and cut
To hairlines of breathtaking
Intimate intricacy

Quick teasing serifs
Long lingering descenders
Strokes of tactile
Joy

Then stand back

Empty
In wonder at
Your calligraphic beauty

She headed to bed for the night,
And proceeded to switch off the light.
Then she tossed and she turned
Till the sheets were well-burned
And her duvet began to ignite.


© Marcus Lane 2010

She slumps in sleep
Paws clasped prayer-like
Dream-dozing eyelids a-simmer

A spasm-triggered flesh flick
An ear-alert to a tremorous tick
Crisp-dry nose with involuntary sniff
Old dog breath brewing brown toothed whiff

With pain weary grunt
She heaves her lumpy bulk
Onto shaky splayed legs
That hobble and limp

Catches my eye
With a puppy-pleased glint

Wags

.... and pees

I fear the way you love me:
That tender-touching kiss
Seducing me to nightly
Sink deep in your abyss.

Those smooth caresses take me
To places that I dread,
Your cunning fingers rouse me
To plan such lies ahead.

But while we writhe and tumble
In lust's hypnotic hold,
I fear the final stumble
That will see the truth unfold.

That evening of  glowing leaves
The sweating sky oozed red ,
Shimmered in the mirroring
Pools of rainbow swirls.

The crazed earth,
Blast blown,
Crumbled finely.

Filtered through
Fragile fingers,
Wafer-skinned.

Dust to dust

Rising,

Rising to colossus clouds.

Till the killing breeze blew.

© Marcus Lane 2010

Altering my words
Just to score a few cheap points.
You're good at that game!

A proud man,
Upright and unshakable
In belief and morals,
Once only was he seen
Without his tie.

A child of Edwardian England,
The links Of his watch chain
Glinted
As they hung
With formality and elegance
From his waistcoat pocket,
Yes even as he worked.

And work he did.
Patiently,
Brilliantly and tirelessly
With ingenuity and imagination.
A craftsman from a bygone age.
True master of his tools.

Grandfathers are soft,
Playful, bear-like in their
Gruff-whiskered familiarity.

Not Poppy.
Unknowingly aloof from his grandchildren,
We avoided the need for directly addressing him,
Unsure of where we stood.
He’d probably have secretly
Loved the informality
Of our secret nickname.
I hope he knew.

The chapel piano did for him.
Too much weight for his work-weary ticker.

Grandma gave me his pocket watch to keep,
And for a time I treasured it,
Feeling its weight
Like a smooth round pebble
In my palm.
A workman’s watch;
Practical.
A yellowing face
Behind a scratched
And hazy glass.
But accurate,
And precise.
Reliable as the man.

Detached in life,
I liked to hope that
Gazing down,
Watching,
He just might have
Laughed
In loving acknowledgement of his
Grandson’s curiosity
And foolishness
Sitting cross-legged on the carpet,
With heart-thumping nausea

Adrift in a sea of springs.

Don't cry, this kiss is a kiss goodbye.
Don't cling, it's time to part.
Don't look at me nor ask me why
I've taken back my heart.

No questioning, no pleading;
No door remains ajar.
No doubt your heart is bleeding
Now, and wounds of love will scar.

Don't hope to ever turn back time,
Nor resurrect the flame
Of what became a pantomime
Of love, in all but name.

2.19 am.
Another sleepless night in
Clinging sweaty sheets.

Unnoticed by day,
This metronomic ticking
Is thieving my sleep.

It's no use hiding -
My water glass magnifies
The luminous dial.

Ominous red glow,
Like an army on the ridge,
Retreat into dream.

© Marcus Lane 2008

A pin point
Of liquid silver sound
Trickles from

Open sky

Low under leaden feet
The cheated generation
Lies
Present and correct
Rank and file
Row upon row

Dark sockets gape
Where eyes once flared and flinched
Bled and oozed
Then locked their grateful lids
To extinguish Hell

For good

Beneath the sun's glower
I raise mine to
Squint
At the lark

Ascending