THE FURNITURE RUNS AWAY TO THE CIRCUS


The furniture has decided
to run away from home.

Yep, just...up sticks &...gone.

The bed threw itself
out the open window.

The sofa abseiled
down the south side

of our newly painted
sky blue house.

The tables and chairs
have legged it.

The piano left
by the back door.

I stand in
the naked room.

Only a stool
has stood by me.

A three legged stool
I have had since a child.

"Stool pigeon!"
the other chairs hissed at it.

Now I feel King Lear like
with only this fool of a stool

for company.

My mind a blasted heath.

"Why...?" I demand
". . .why!"

The stool hasn't got the heart
to tell me.

SPRING'S FIRST DAY

Spring
didn't know what was wrong.

It turned off the country.
Then turned it on again.

Nothing
doing.

Spring called technical assistance.
Was told there had been

a very virulent
Tory virus.

Blue was now the new red.
Lies were the new truth.

Britain had got a bargain
basement Trump.

Like an Ikea idea
with parts that didn't

go A
into B.

And had a ***** or two
missing.

Oh God
call that a Cabinet!

Nothing pretty
about that Patel.

And a Gove
as toxic as ever.

Spring didn't know
what to do

about
the Tory thing.

What had Britain been
thinking?

Emotional
hari-kari.

Only hope it would run
its course.

Just a fearful chapter
in  a future history book.

"Never has so little
being done by so few!"

Spring made sunlight
and shadow shake hands.

Sprinkled bird song
amongst the hedges.

Did what it had to do.
Got on with the job.

Whatever
the political weather.

"Is there..." Spring pondered
"...more  poets than before?"

I put down my pen.
And cried.

MY LOVE IS AS A FEVER...LONGING STILL

All that long hot summer through
I shared a summer cold with you

that seemed to last forever.

Whether, sharing the same germs, dreams,
bacteria or whatever

it seemed to bind us so...very close together.

If this was love...it couldn't get no better.

And all my heart
could say

even to this day...is:

'Bless you...bless you...bless you.'

"IF YOU TICKLE US..."

The moon intently listens
to the open air

production of
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

- in Venice

this delicious summer’s night
(hemmed in by houses)

where we discover that

“The quality of mercy
is not
strained...”

as a couple upstairs
come home and proceed to make
long loud passionate love

“...it droppeth like.. “

another couple scream and fight
as windows smash and plates crash

“... the gentle rain from Heaven...”

“Agghhh! ”
“Cazzo in culo! ”

and throws his clothes out
the now broken window

“...upon the earth below...”

as a gondola ghosts by in mist
with an atrocious tourist version of
“O Sole Mio! ”

as another window
lights up
and a telly bellows
a dubbed in gangster shoot out.

“Aggggh!
“Va fancip! ”

We are enthralled with
(delighted and enraptured)

not only with
the splendour that is Shakespeare

but also with
the real life drama

of this gentle Italian night
and of how we got

our “pound of flesh.”

SISTER HAMLET

Oh, I still remember
your Hamlet
(the best production I ever saw)

you home from school
wrapping yourself in the crimson curtain
of our living room

& stabbing yourself
in the arras
& crying: “ a rat...a rat! ”

& how something or other was rotten
& bringing the curtain down
upon your dying

annoying our mother
critical of your over-heated performance
she sending us(like a bad review)scampering

I will remember
your Shakespeare
to my dying day

your eyes wild
your hair flying
and how

with an entire
cast of you
you acted it out

to my open and gasping
mouth drinking you in
with my thirsty mind

Shakespeare come
startlingly alive me peppered
with beauty & spittle

oh, sister Hamlet
I still live in the wonder
of your telling

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO MR. SHAKESPEARE


I step out of
the here & now

slip into the space
be-tween

second (&) second.

Time scowls: 'Oh...
don't tell me I've lost

....him again! '

Invisible to all
in my window seat.

Now, here
in Llanigon

upon the point
High darren

I again that
little boy

letting the world go by
(hidden in a heartbeat)

lost in THE TEMPEST
of words

caught between the thresholds
of worlds upon worlds.

'Come to me...
...with a thought! '
the ******* book calls

'Your thoughts...
...I cleave to! '
I whisper to its words.

I all at once
my own

Ariel & Prospero

set free from the knotted
pine of dyslexia

thanks to Mr. Shakespeare's
spell.

HANKERING

"Honey and mmmmm
mustard!"

The sun glares down
upon such a diet.

She balances the bowl
on her pregnant belly.

Her body not her own.
"My baby boy's hijacking me!"

At least with her last girl
it was non-stop ice cream.

Ice cream and pickles
Oh and blue crayons.

She knows now it is
pica.

But that knowledge
doesn't stop the craving.

A cloud too
pregnant with a moon.

Stars tremble
in a puddle.

A car's headlight
travels across the ceiling.

"Mmmmm mustard
and honey!"