Those travails crack and then congeal,
as our obligatory tea making shows
the weathered storms exposing our late Autumn.
Our relationship shows  we are demeritorious
your sunken eyes betray the welling
and as comical as we stand
our emotions are replete with decay
as though we waded through a muddy field.

Sorry, is never really a strong enough word,
to disguise the hurt or pain caused.
I'm just deadwood going through some negativities.
It's unfair I've loaded this on you,
even if we're in a long relationship.
I wish to set you free.
return you to the calm
as a pupa before the metamorphosis.

The yews fingers eludicate avec moi
This winter filled with love
Memories grew within me
Life has become irreplaceable

In a forest of cornflower
I idle by
my headaches incessant
Life is a contraband
I'm hardly in a fit state

There's less opportunity for analogue cameras thesedays
what has this century done for us?
Slide film is diminishing
its a niche market for the fast buck.
Instead its digital pixels rather than steadfast grain.
But I'm laughing most cameras are actually mobile phones,
an indelicate breakout of self love presides,
lost to the instant world of media
Facebook and twitter are the price draw
for me too media savvy
Clearly creativity died somewhere.

Opposites don't attract,
every pigeon has potential  butter on their feet,
sourced from an inalienable  mountain
of bread rolls,
they have  often dreamed  of flying
to the sun
away from the inhospitable  concrete  fields,
but  in the  heat
they become  stuka sirens
and  people will find  that an impossible  thought

lavinia will walk through the dizzling rain,
to the artists colony this morning,
instinctively in and out of clothes
a bug in the bold long grass.

Upon leaving without her raincoat
she'll make a perfunctory impression,
nonchalant in cherry lipstick
blotted in another's dreams.

The school girl espies her teacher
from the Art room studio.
She wished that she was her Mother,
for she had blonde hair and green eyes
and excelled in kindness,
reminding her of blossom apples
The girl remembers this later in life
posting it as a monochrome Memory.
It seemed a quantum leap  
wishing for the impossible
to change Mothers.
The grown girl looked lovingly at her Mothers photograph
smiling from her care home,
for gentlefolk with dementia.
It was no quantum leap.
We are the Sum of our Parents
her Mothers mind danced amongst
Picket fences, keeping out the poultry
The sum of one's quest.

See the water wash over you
with droplets preserving your dreams
fashioned as orginal thoughts,
that you wished to swore
vouchsafed in your sincerity
and everyone's hopes.

Let the people decide on the dance,
not your midnight one
but the midday one
the sleep through the work day type.
Where on auto we can forget
about our neighbourhoods.
You know the ones
bad mannered mothers in league
with prams, a public menance
or their soon to be feral children
who never amount to doctors
just random statistics
where more was hoped for.

i am gallant in another world
the girl with rimmed glasses
and a Parisan top
in white slacks reading the guardian weekly.
I have no need for men
they are too needy
who trip over in the firmament
unlike my further dreams
of calico cats in the shade
and my friend Jane

"Oh no its not you again",
the spider combing through my hair,
acting like you couldn't care
turning my blonde hair
into  strands of straw,
so you could see me
cry and crumble


Only this morning when I had
my hot compress over my eyes.
I imagined a half formed image
of a Roman's eye socket.
I was frightened and could only
think that 1961 Photography annual
was to blame.
Catacombs of Rome
turned through and through,
oh black and white images
can be so visceral

Rapidly I opened my eyes
trying to regain some semblance

It was a long time coming
But now she says she wants her escape
weekends to replenish her sleepless nights
She has a gypsy's travel lust
Complains never gets cuddles
Walks over her men
Alikens herself to marmite
You are forced to either hate or love her
She's got her toxic relationship now
Where is her humanity
and true voix
of what she is really feeling
Never talks politics
despite reading the Mail,
seeks a  bad reaction everytime
never gave him a chance
Where does her gentleman lay
with  broken hearts
never happy now

I was around when someone shouted "Judas"
to Dylan for going electric.
I was the ink in Paul Simons North of England sound of silence.
I was the muse for David's  "Space Oddity"  all those pink  moons ago.

Illy cofffee served  down herne hill market
the staff this week seemed different.
Pullens restaurant stripped
to be refurbished,
the mandatory space optimiser
a flat at the back.
We read the planning permission notice
and realise space is a premium
Meanwhile people are so incidental.

The Soldiers return to their  home coming
at the same time
as the last M42 lenses were being sold
at  the down towns thrift shop.
There lay the rub
the old gun ** world was facing down
the commercial necessities of the Wild West.
The people had forgot their National pride
finding reasons to be embarrassed
for the hedonism sweeping the land
Their ostrich feathers
fluttered amongst abundance:
whose navel gazing allowed narcissism
to flourish.

River man takes his journey
through mearending reeds,
he's  got truth in his pocket
a diary of promises unsated.
For a shilling he take you to
hangmans corner,
a place to clear your head,
for a throw of the dice
he show you
the secret of life itself,
but beware of his wry smile!

you are the poet
the mirror to my soul
you're  like a beacon
that lights up my life
your words are a gift from Heaven

Before you go trust  in me
follow the warm Autumn fade
watch the geese to their journeys end.
Warry words I will not speak.
I shall return and talk of love
Our story is yet to be told.

Can we find a central meeting place?
How's Reg, bet the doctor's haven't told him his got the big C,
leastways with the fog he won't  find his tumour when lost.
A pint of mild and bitter mate
down Portland Steeet.
Heard Adriennes black dress is a stunner.
Ask her out to the flicks, maybe Doctor in Love?
"Not if it gives her any  ideas
Walking down the aisle is too like the
black out, remember".

I listen to the ebbs of the day
it never stops.
Under orange sky
I force a smile,
the coarse roots of the earth
rolls into one,
stepping forth, testing .
I fall to my knees
peace evades me.
I bench by parched broken trees,
breathing in a forest of leaves
am I my own law?

Took the train north
to capture the star gaze
Didn't say if she would come back
Where is her boyfriend now
The one she believed in


She chooses her colours for pleasure
Russett sunset
and embroideries for you
surrounds herself with friends
To learn the truth
Summer fade
Leaves a smile

The leaves turned amber
like an eclipse,
as the girl celebrated her 13th birthday
The music lessons grew tired
She would rather play
with the other children
The teacher became vexed at this turnaround
Trackless Children flourish on nothingness
as Autumn watches the merry-go-round.

As gentle as a fawn,
when she dances in his dancehall,
remembering Vietnam.
those bedeviled eastern nights,
when she bequeaths her needs
the vices of loss are a contagion,
in contemplating oblivion,
when there's hire in his heart.

With her brown boot on the carriage seat,
filing her nails
she was the detriment
of feminity.
The self was her only care,
mid thirties nurtured
the south east London way.
A night out planned at New Cross
she held no fear
educationally detached
raw emotions like nicotine cravings

The girl's  going  to  Michigan
staying with her family.
Please  no Hershey bars
we're quaintly  English,
an island race
of  fascinating climes,
so  no Atlantic  conversions
to the new axioms.,
Learn to  love tea again
persist with under statement
and  long live  queues

You entered a career  and grow with success.
You've become somebody
well respected,
carrying a banner of pride
your hobbies identified you,
never thinking this is borrowed time.
Your trust in yourself was impervious,
despite an event that had been building
lititle by little
like lit matchsticks slipping out of your hand,
onto a inflammable floor.
It's called an anxiety attack.
like a cat scratch it didn't amount too much when it noxiously came
but when you avoid the third train to work
panting like an out of breath player,
forcing yourself to stand amongst a group of yelling school kids
you already sense the nothingness
you've underplayed in your mind.
Arriving at the station
you want to double back
take to a station bench, admitting something wrong.
Forcing yourself to work
uttering the famous words
I cannot do this.
I'm heading for a breakdown.

Vanity supplanted the setting sun,
moonlight trails then called our finer points
we only had to have foresight
to cast our truer selves.
Walking with the assuredness
to unblink the rays of self assurance.

Once when you were young
you never had the chance
to be like normal  children
they scuffed your knees
turned martyrdom into a sport
as you were a diagnosed dyslexic:
very much cocooned
often aristocratic in pedigree.
TV became a refuge
a mechanical nanny !
Away from the special school down Brent.

The family car drove to North Wales
You said there was better scenery to be had on TV.
This moulded and shaped  you.
Saturday afternoon matinee on BBC 2
an added bonus
sometimes glee,  others slapstick humour.
One should curtsy to your droll  disposition
hold in high esteem.

An ounce of humam kindness
does that go a long way?
or is it alteady an exit sign
appearing to usher you away to safety
when its only envious of the vacant space.
A barbed comment may after all be an underlay warning
for a fault line
that an unrealised friend is trying to repair

Do you still hope for your school days
when a smoke was just for laughs
and sweet heart  pledges were written in chalk
and picket fences kept the sheep
away from the cabbage patch the teachers carefully planted

Burden street,
wish wash
Newcastle  rain,
The gust cuts
to the bone
Ghosts avail themselves
to street corners
eye sockets ,
holes with grey light
speak of the tedium
the porosity of meek

Maybe another story  can furnish the mood
let fate wave a sensation
the passage between you and I,
its tantamount  to a  binding ;
fortuitously a  lit spark
will shorn your  withholding  the truth,
a silent  yearning reached,
long set as a promise.

By the border
they drink cactus  wine
breathless
outdoing   each other cussing their own Mothers
they tell poignant  stories  for a few guineas
on their first and only  loves
before they became tramps of sorts
profusely  coughing  up
nobody wants them mow

Dusk will wash away hope
as sometimes day labels lives journal
as the eloquence  of fools
but the nights emerald light
will chide the constant promise for resolution
permanently unfinished.

Brandishing a wand of  memories,
whose images held magical meanings
where for the first time you yearned
for knowledge as special as your
day dreams
that you still recall  today.

It's the same monstrosity
Like briar wood on display
Mother Anne disciplines her kids
It's always like the first day of her personal crusade
Like being drawn under the ocean floor
Escapades are the order of the day
But it's the present that is the crow

Monday's feeling exemplified
the collection is on Wednesday,
specifically black bins
to usher away all that  feels  like  dirt.
Yesterday's  postcards of  Paris
and torn landing cards.
You've  stopped  dreaming of escapades
no azure skies,
just  improbable  matchsticks
keeping  the  eyelids  open
soaking  up  the  winter  in London

London should be a no go zone
it should be boarded up
feed it to the Zombies,
the final act of a virology department,
Don't ever start again
plug up the Thames
turn the whole place into a desert
allow the foxes to be unfazed
attack attack feral humans

if I were you
what  thoughts would pervade
enjoining on a journey

In this void I question serenity
gazes are treated as lances,
even freckles are friendless
such is the self;
a bouquet of inward reverence.
Ashen is  this dayglow world
the past is pictured fairer
yet surely are we culpable
to be led so astray.

The note said
loves a nest,
there's this incessant need,
rising in your dreams,
the art of listening
to your heart,
crying in your depths
Pigeon man,
garnish your love,
and then he vanished,
like a stone
into the world
torching the night.

I squeeze the last of the toothpaste,
well within my rights to be confounded
where does the time go ?
Only last night my paracetamols
where within a month of expiry.
The crux of the matter
office space is a premium
the lastest snag is hot desking,
early starts for the morning-
tired, tired so unnaturally.
I never seem to get the shopping properly done,
too preoccupied winding down for bed,
a cycle is emerging
my long life milk needs replacing.

Children I have some news for you
"The Jews and Arabs are at war this Saturday"
Passing words for youngsters,
who were such small cogs in the wheel
not quite comprending the enormity.
Our world was too precise
we were being processed into an unflinching class regime
At thirteen it was a new school for the boarders,
and if you hadn't made Prefect then
the rub of  decesion had passed you by.

The skyline disappears once again
as blackness returns the night.
The outsiders bath in the squalid  moonlight,
abluting their good intentions.
The metamorphosis is complete.
Darkness will reign supreme.
They gather by the smithy
opining with a wild lament .

I didn't have anything against Rupert Bear
his colouring book beat pixels way before their time
Who wouldn't  later do their home work
when we could play our mix tapes -
The Motors and XTC
and in the middle period
if I  ever got stuck
depend on ones sisters to spruce a playground scruff

If we blank out today
and picture post 1974
we walk with a careless air
just wondering about
the new neighbours
We mix tape the second rate
Rock bands
whilst still knowing David Essex was an adonis
and contemplate  learning French
long before hearing french kissing in the USA

In the meantime the chimes
dance beneath our eyes,
as to share our last realisation;
kindness doesnt rain down in
the places we knew.
How we had to prise gratitude
from the heartless,
those general unfeeling
who should have been eternally distanced

i could be your lifeline
you could be my brook,
in times of trouble
we shouldn't overlook.

Like a lost colour
a  dream  remains unexplained.
Promises set from beguile
point  towards  windswept  winter lands
I try to  half  forget the sadness,
along  lovers lanes
where thatched roofs remember
moonlight  togetherness

Dancing faces in a crowd
but it had to be you
cuddling the light from dark
affording serenity
(chase a star catch a cloud)
We are everything positive
because we are in the making
Fulham Queenie
cast your shawl
winning her bid
for a Croydonite
no more uncertainties