In empty fields I strawl
And hear the blackbird speak
The dormice haunt in fives
Whilst the constellations are ajar
Then to a proud pond that maybe a lake
And to a star that tows to town
and speaks volumes
of the silence of the night

Lady Highgate, Martha thought alone.
Death or the gladioli,
the train tracks have already taken
companions , too quick to take in the malady.
Park benches, astute cold Sundays,
but no invited parties,
suitcases increasingly deftly packed,
never staying long enough to dream
Concrete  gardens, searching the shortest rose

Caught in perpetual motion
the sounds of 1970 can never dim.
Like a colossal empire
we're the last gallant year of the 1960's
Got newbies Quartermass and Ashkan
waxing  mettle
The Hammond and blues still ooze on
Prior Bubblegum pre Decimal  Day!

The Sunny disposition  70s
A head so full of rocks
and assorted ideals
The Bridge of youth were cast

A Ball in the park
history in the making
Smoking tall No 6's in the dark
Bleaching Sun of 1976
coupled with Dutch Elm Disease

Yellow teach yourself Karate
Polaroid's for the wonderment
Austrian Safeway White Wine

Broad enough shoulders to
manage the change
Memories made to last

Who cares if Bolan misparked his Jeepster
or Bowie had his Norfolk Broads moment
Give me sophisticated mid 70s tin pan alley
rather than Glam
Overnight Sensation by the Raspberries
or January by Pilot
From Glee to a top Three
in one easy swoop

Dream yourself back in the 70s
have a thunderbird wine
and recall Soho
with their ***** mac brigade
Blondes grow galore
under the halogens lights
Stars they strike a memory
Ride a White Swan
a serious Yellow Ford Cortina mk 3
and a fine mettel of a DIY  Judo book
with your thousand island sauce
served at eel pie island

Dismal has became helter skelter
most ladies in Mayfair  seem worn
they're tired, waylaid in fur
but its still a man's world then

The soothsayers grin
England lost to Poland in the qualifiers.
The aftershock of the energy crisis
sees new Sheikhs
money rolls like oil,
it buys and buys for some
even for the horses competing
at the London Riding Horse Parade.

Bedsit lights flicker
floorboards  creak
the night prolongs plans
to see through the situation
An envisaged train journey to Canterbury
may just reawaken this
side of reason
realising clear thoughts  
the richness of discourse 
where I may visit some folk club
summarise these my questions
through a better door

I think of you hitting your stride,
yellow Datsuns
Teach yourself judo,
Sun blast skies and a blue gust
of sea air
The practical willingness to self improve,
may have made us miss it
so I'm reminding you
what you breathed
doesn't necessarily ever have to end

Alleys that we run from
glue eyes for the sniffers,
away from the disheveled lowers.
School blazers aren't for chemical reactions,
nor can brain damage
be repaired.

Never take the past for granted
Teletext scores at TV Rental Window shop
for Saturday 4.45 results
Queues as long as sentences
Then to a night showing at the Scala Cinema
With an impromptu black cat at your lap
and cans of Dutch lager
for false courage
Then a breeze trip to Bradford
inspired by the movie
Bob Sue and Rita too
Breakfast at Manningham Lane
and a Kylie Minogue cassette
at a musical market fair.

They tried to crush me with boulders
until they built a misshapen temple
to mark my tears,
they tried to chase me with words
until I lexiongrapher
had the last word.

In a few years 1970 will be 50
I wonder how many possessions
we will still hold dating back then.
Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep will be plus one
and hot pants will be memories' manna.
We remember walking in lounges
where upholstery shimmered,
orange curtains and green leather sofas.
After 50 years we earn out right
to morally uphold then truisms
Bastions bemoaning the nonsense of today
Perhaps  being inclined to finally say
your face doesn't fit here

I am a whisper that relays on twine,
a promise
cackling in a stream of gossip

I am your worst dream a harpie,
a reverie that has long played
in some forgotten bordello labelled shame?

childlike we try to understand
the seventies
had my first girlfriend at 10
Strong Summer blaze of 76
bleaches away then sin,
although underage I watched ****
with my kid sister,
and bought strong Woodbines cigarettes for a shilling,
and heard the banter of Roberts
with his strong retelling of adult-themed books.

The music of the 90s
were a wave and tangy (strings)

i exist solely  
to fretter my abilities
making you sad

They masquerade as a Plethora of Businessmen
incorporating a bastion of QC's
with a palliative cure
to balance the books
and create wealth
the trickle-down effect

But instead of that
they return  us to Dickensian times
Soup Kitchens
Food Banks
and dwellings collapsable
North-South divide!
Have they really a Commission for care
or is it just inflation
a bufflers air?
an abdication  of feelers

Do you think being poisoned
helps or hinders the arguement
I'm off to buy some Coffee
Think well before I Come back

That nobody editor from Leeds
she thinks she can tell us
who should write the garden reviews
She likes to think she"s backbone of the society
she's a townie from a town
too small for its yolk.
One day I push her into some thorny
spinoza
that be a gadfly for her big mouth

Share with me
Give me your fledging feelings
I will shape them into something probable

And I cherish the rain
that musters under your feet
Tansy herbes of the heart
would turn you into Eve
And I as Adam drinking
the nectar of your countenance

An emergent crimson light
settles after the rain.
The ******* bended  knees
kissed the morning dew,
and bid her classmates goodbye
The elm leaves flurried, from the eastern wind.

The Nuns in their dark sanctuary
closed their hearts to the aegis of  youth
and the art of forgiveness.

The pale girl averted her gaze,
from her music teacher,
walked to the duck pond instead
where the reeds grow.

A father returns to his birth country
and enjoins  the garden  route tour
from Johannesburg to East London by plane
we enjoyed our Koeksister biscuit on board.
On the road, we saw a Scottish man
with his native maid
sell tartan rugs in  the middle of nowhere
Then  to Plettenberg Bay my parent's honeymoon  abode
where we saw the August Whales at the lookout hotel
through the telescopic lens with a Canadian's Canon  F1  
The waitresses were no more than  16 years
laughing  profusely amongst themselves
We traveled to Cape Town
But I was in  no fit state to join another wine tour
I was “  moeg”  - tired   from the car ride

Arise the  knight  in your teddy bear,
laugh at  Mr Benn and  Top Cat
for you want to  be a soldier,
crossing  swords,  
crashing with all the dislikers;
fellow children finding serenity
in simplicity
but you hold rose thorns
so that they spear you
to greater deeds

If the scoreline between us is not pleasing
there's a door to pass through,
another room to re-count feelings somehow lost.
Its an unwritten fragment in a diary
towards a realised tear
I have tried to hide

These are the things I remember, well
The raising clouds over the smokey hill
into the Natal Moon
where the Boer sharp shooter
plies his  *** shot luck at us,
Rooi Necks  over the ridge
and we drink in mirth
surviving another capricious  Summer

chastising  yourself in aggravation,
your fingers grow stiff,
running out of time,
from the meanderings of convention.
Tall in November dusk,
without any brevity.
How you dwindle
into the sunlit fields

Down the dusty lane
The Wind she calls my name
Good enough to count the sleeping hamlets
She puts a smile on my face
lit by childlike candles
Tidier with bloom
She unfettered my gloom
a gushing  bride

A miniaturized Panzer unit has just
terrorized my lawn
The Parrot has escaped
and the cat ominously reappears
I have introduced two holidaying friends together
I need a better day
"Off with the old, on with the new"
Should I actualize with a change
so I can tend my Mulberry Bush
I wink decidedly

I could singe your whiskers
laugh aloud at your corderoys,
remove  your landed title
and send you to live in a tent
at the edge of  the woods
I've always wanted a hermit
in the vicinity of the folly.

like a copse in the shrub
the dandelions' flutter
the brackish waters ripple and reverberate
as the bare branches
tired of the wind
dance askance

You worked all day
and only now
can belief grace you,
whilst you drink  cofee.
Mealy mouthed is better at meal times
you squeeze the ketchup
to watch the splash
on your empty plate.
No explanation is offered
if its bravado its misunderstood.
Its just the exasperation unstated.

in the moment of love
i walk 10 feet tall
i grasp for air

i am a jealous God,
throw away  your pots and pans
i cannot stand the din.

The cobwebs in the kitchen
buys realisation
nothings perfect.
At times it feels I am
looking  down from this cupboard
and the marbled floor,
feels  like a  colliding world
The spoons are spectres of ghosts present,
as the moon inversely reflects
with wings  to fly
another tempest cup of sorrow

Right-wing Boris conspiracies awry
they tried to lynch Starmer
The Woke are fighting back
No ancien monuments for us.
Meanwhile, Tenants fight council mold
of long-neglected council dwellings
Our Saviours have been returned
sealed unopened,
on a sunken ship, inflation at a generational 5.5%
Gas cap in April at 7.1%
February days
Evergreen Russia on the reconnaissance
War in Europe
What have we learned

Darling sweetheart
I can only say I love you
in a  French letter.
The ginger cat will purr
on a cold winters night, alone I
walk home in the snow.

Darling Sweetheart
I feel lost in your refrain.
My language  is in a welter
as I arise from my slumber.
What words can I conjour?
Your freckled like thighs,
with long shoulders back,
spoke a  term apart
to sink as low to say.
Bon  Soir.

I went through the snow and ice,
with sleatting rain,
to become the class of 96.
Without a woman in sight
we were rats in a sinking ship,
made worse by our task master
taking 50% value.

where are our heroes?
their bland bleatings we suffer,
this static turn
on Albion street.
Their illicit Lockdown Party's
burn an incense
in our souls,
our gallant sacrifice thwarted.
This luster flathead etched,
upon hoardes of Townies and ruralites memories

Sunday has broken the rain
when dressed in canary yellow.
Over the embankment the once bending train
took you away
but with rebirth we can sway again
together counting the flame
spelling your name

When the offspring has  flown from its  nest,
having been nourished all for the best
it will soon fly westwards
to welcome the  beginning of  its own time.
How our original plans  speck away
when we had  laden the  powder of  trust
on  its  feet
but so  often the web has run full circle
turning from purity to  false flight
the inner being of the  fledging

loneliness is no ones friend,
the sea by yourself,
means you act like the only sailor.

My friend's visiting Calico cat hid
under the TV table recently
a momentary panic is a very long time
when uncertain in anothers space.
Reminds when I was 9
I lost my locket
and told a fib
on how it vanished under the sofa
clearly somewhere along  the hither
there lingers a trace of a lie

A man is a rusty pylon
ruffling the electricity
And we sing Elijah
watching the sunnier chimes

A novice is like a rose
barbed to the counterpoint
He riles like a clown
when his future is a welter

A journeyman  is like a priest
haggling all the untruths
he blames when someone strifes

She kept a promise to herself
by sweeping her lair
to  remind herself  work had to be done,
rayon waistcoats and crossing rubicons  
to iron out those industrious imperfections
that had made for her rugged fayre ,
no longer undecided  she'd vanish the dust
from the present
that had slyly thwarted the fullness
of her bond.

A new leaf is like an epiphany
Surge bright and strong.
For tomorrow is an awakening,
and tonight tempus fugit.

I could be the lash
under your eyelid
taste your summer wine
sip from your song
Such an azure day
listen to your dahlias grow
meet you in the street
mid-cycle
in the passing of goodbye

What kind words can we use?
Kindly years  Kindly Sir, Kindly dream?
Where there is no kindness
there is only referment

The ordinary never forgetting days
slips through my palms
like salted brine

After the rain
a pale anemone shies
over the convenient ashes of remorse
yet dreams are for losers
and waylaid journeymen

in my room
I have the plath and trakl poets
it's not as though I'm  sadly blue
I write poems of my own
dreamily dreaming of love and dahlias
and await  the never arrived ourtime  message's
that is today's show of good graciousness

Thought I understood the world
where's there's a message buried in there somewhere,
carried by a higher ideal.
Endless days of waiting,
Eastern nights bedevils his schemes,
bright lights cannot identify the griever,
running faster I am another searcher