So far from home
so far from Rome
and still they comb the countryside,
yesterday's not so far away when you're history.

Celts and Gauls
each widow calls upon a saint to taint your offspring,
each song a dirge to wipe the scourge of Romans and their army from the shores of dear old Blighty.
I confuse these words I use and transcend time
each time another time to tell of conquests.

Have you seen the Book of Kells?
liabhar cheanannais as it's known,
or maybe in Rome,
the book of Columba,
I never did and
I never did the Dublin trail and never noticed
widow's wail about that either.

Each time brings its own tomorrow
a cycle down the paths of joy
where sorrow lurks to catch the unwary,
each time gets more scary than the last until
tomorrow's past and the rest is just the best of history
that we can make.
Some say fake, but I don't believe that either.

I always think
emergency
when she sits there
and stares at me
but she then says
she cares for me
and my heart rate
goes up.

Like a spot  that I keep picking or
a wound that I keep licking
I've got something kicking
'round in here,
something's buzzing in my brain
like flies, it's driving me insane,
picking, kicking, sticking to the lining,
I'm refining it,
digging through the flies and ****,
refining it.
Filing it and in a bit it will be clear,
something's
kicking 'round in here.

(20 minute poetry)

Stop me and try one
but
the ice lolly man
pedals on.

I shout for a cornet,
he cannot hear me
where once he was near me
he's now far away.

No ice cream today then
and when will I get one if
the lolly pop man
won't stop?

Greensleeves and
ice lolly memories
I wonder if Shakespeare
were here would
they stop for him?

This is fantasy
a Central line
romance for me

nothing to do but watch
faces
expressions,
shoe laces
undone
stop me and tie one
hold on I might buy one
the tube rumbles on
in tune.

Silence may be golden,
but down at the assay office
they won't pay for it.

Sir Nigel Gresley,
preaching like Wesley
approached Piccadilly
puffing like billy-o, but the
age of the steam loco
was drawing to a close.

And it always seems to be that way
tomorrow supersedes today
and the voice of yesterday
once so near,
calls now from far away
I hardly hear it
anymore.

Fortunes and fishermen
drowning in helium.

We should be priority
but we're
numbered
wings clipped
put behind bars as if
the sky has been ripped
from our grasp
and remains only a memory
in the aviary.

The word was boss,
top dollar diving
then hung on the cross
the word was still boss.

Along came ***** in pictures
the new pixels they sell us as scriptures,
but
nobody bothered to read
they just looked.

They'll celebrate revelations
drunken
besotted with their demonstrations
of faith.

But christ's on the freeway
doing eighty and
there's no way that he's
coming back.

Fortunes and fishermen who
hold tight to the talisman
praying
It'll be alright.

She was a ten
but that was way back when
before decimal coins
and long before the seams and several joins started to unpick
and now she looks sick.

Sick of the days
ticked off with those nights when she sits alone
frightened
so frightened if the phone starts to ring
or the doorbell chimes.

Not like those other times when she stood out in a crowd
her beauty (albeit plastic) would shout it out loud
'look at me
can you see you how good I feel',and still I would kneel at her feet
to me she's the sweet little lady
who one night in a Javanese bar said 'maybe' to me.

I see her now like never before
like today was the door that we came through
and if I knew then
even when she was a ten
that I'd still love her
a score of years on
when she is ill
I would still have gone it all the way
would still be here in love with her today
and that's the reason I believe
she'll get better when we leave
to count to ten
again.

(20 minute poetry)

You know you don't count when you're not counted in.

Let me begin where it starts at the breaking
if hearts can be broken at all.

I give my all, but still fall before the finishing post and the most I can hope for
is a beer,
nothing too dear as the price index shows.

But I don't get a look in and those ******* are drinking the good gin, the one they keep under the counter.
I don't count for **** all.

I won't let them win because I have the will to survive, **** their eyes if I don't and whether I count or do not I have the hand that takes the ***,
so ******* lot.

I'm told I'm too old to complain, I should be thankful for what I have got,
**** the lot of them.

Gentleman scholar I may be, but ****** if I'd follow that crew.

You know it
I know it
this situation is fuelled by
*******.

I escape now and then from the pen' not much to keep me there anyway,
no share and share
no one to help
do I ****** care?
I don't count,
but
neither do they.

I don't remember a day if it was a day,
life they say is for the living
can't say that I noticed.

But to be rescued when you don't know that you're dying,
******* in knots and you're not even trying to escape,
that is fate taking a hand.

I take today
picture a way to proceed and each day a new seed grows.

memories play poker and the joker runs on wild
but
the child in me runs free.

Faces appear
some near
some dear to me
and I see
the unknown
but
If happiness is the key
and the lock's somewhere
inside
then no matter who we are or were
It cannot hide forever,

I take these thoughts as a signpost
which is the most I can do

picking the right road takes the load off my back
puts me back on the right track
and
sometimes I'm glad that
I can't remember a thing.

With my eyes on the Sun
I see
fun
just over
the
horizon

In the hardening of an artery where the blood once flowed, eternity stares me in the face but between that place and here which the Devil holds dear is a sanctuary, a get away with it all before the last knockings call kind of place.

Hard walls and white walls, no satins, no lace just a safe kind of place that I like to call home.

Outclassed by being by-passed and the surgeons don't know my name but the game is the thing and the living bring hope or so it's said to the dying,

We're not dead, we're just trying it on for size, they say through the bloodshot of eyes that can't see,
I see it all in the arterial wall
you can't fool me,
eternity

Old bloke
got through the night
must smoke
anyone got a light?
but
nothing fell off, I don't have smoker's cough
and the coffee is hot in the ***,
She's humming a tune in the other bedroom
anyone got a light?
I'm stretching a bit because arthritis has hit
but it's not so bad, could be worse,
coffee is done and she's calling me 'come'
has anyone got a light?

They have a community garden there
where the old Abbey once stood
and where prayers were said long ago
people now go
to see the flowers bloom.

Room for religion and roses.

Manna from heaven.

It was lightning,
Krakatoa

and the gun blast
so much slower
than expected.

a minute for a moment gone
that echoed off the black smoke
sky.

The ache that takes your time away
the pain that brings the night to stay
so much of me within the day,
but slower than expected
why?

Stay connected
in
groups of up to six
only,
any more and you know
where the door is,

A butler counts as one
of the group
open your own Moet,
send the help home
with pay.

In asylums
we know them's not mental
they're not playing the game
just working the system.

and the street is a shill
plodding uphill,

the homeless,
why should we house them?
and the needy
why bother to feed them?

Greed then?

Let's all be the pigswill
the shill
plod uphill,
take what is there
because
we do not care.

Talk about polarisation,
It's not the ice caps,
it's
not space exploration,
this is the
Great British nation, but
turned out in new clothes
as
a giant corporation.

There are reactors that breed
self sustaining,
that's greed and
reactionaries in
missions with missions
to feed those on
the edges
those with real need

systems were meant to be hacked
codes to be cracked
fracking's not allowed.

what happened?
to fair play
was that only played by
people yesterday?

what about the tomorrow that
never comes?

guess what?
it's here now.

She rates at
twenty-seven degrees,
a bit of a tease
if you ask me,
but no one asks me
I am only the camera.

The minute I wake
I've one more minute to take another
to wash
One minute to dress
one minute to pray and confess
One minute I guess as I go out the door that my keys left behind me,for
one minute I swore.
One minute's as good as the next minute at best but the minute it strikes five o clock is the best.

Grandad did keep a pig and chickens also a monkey which was either sat on his shoulder or up on the clothes rack which was set high up in the kitchen..sometimes we would unfasten the rope that tied the rack, and did that monkey chatter as it fell towards the kitchen table..happy days.

My Grandad kept in the back garden ,a big fat rosy coloured pig.
Not the one that did a jig
but another
which was certainly a smelly thing.
Granpa would bring it bits and bobs and the pig would grunt in its approval
until the day came for the pig's removal.
It ended up in 16 dinner bowls and on one big serving plate.
I have to say pig tasted great with apple sauce
But of course
I miss him all the same.

I can still see Stan pulling his hair and
off there to the right, Oliver with his,
I can never remember if it was a bowler or a pork pie hat, but I kinda like that, like the haziness of a memory that comforts me, it's a
part of the comedy of growing up.

Once, like I was two or maybe three an eternity ago, on a trike, pedals and a bell, pedalling like hell was on nmy trail,
but
the word constituent, constituant, ringing in my head, must have repeated and said that word for hours and hours.

Mum Said, i had ABC, well that's waht it sounded like to me,

acronyms, CIA, RAC,CBI,

I went to the citizens advice bureau
the CAB, WHICH
if I really had OCD, would be the ABC, BUT YOU SEE the alphabet is what we get in tinswith tomata sauce and Mum OF course had the last
word.
They always do when you're two or maybe three.

I will become food for the worms
and they'll take it in turns
to feed on my flesh

I will be a creche for their young
what fun,
can't wait.

But
It won't be me there
so why should I care?

It'll be the suitcase that carried me
from point A
to point B

Still food for the worms though
and that's a thought to think upon
when I'm gone.

What are You wishing for,
more of the same?

I'm wishing for that gentle
kiss of sunshine on my skin,
for the night to let the day in,
for the summer to begin,
not forgetting
World Peace, because
one never knows
if one is in
a
Miss World contest.

I hardly started Sunday and yet soon it will be Monday, where's the ****** fairness gone, She says, John, get a grip, the week ahead won't trip you up and anyway, she says, work is good for you,
who's she trying to kid?

oh! but
this kid knows what side is bread is buttered on, oh yeah, and that means that I must go on and on until the horizon fills my eyes and on and on, guess I'm mumbling now and wondering how the day went so fast.

The chickens coming home to roost are certainly not a boost to self esteem,
I mean,
the past rears up its ugly head with words you may or might not have said and you can't remember what's true or not.
It feels like I'm heading South with the stock in my hands and the barrel in my mouth.
I did decide that suicide was not for me,a coward I might be but brave enough to ***** me out,hah I doubt that.
you can smack me 'til I'm blue in the face but I won't fall,I survive in the race and the chickens can peck as chickens will,
until they've had their fill,
but they are greedy *******,blood suckers to boot,maybe I should pull the trigger and shoot,but
let them roost and let them sleep and
I'll just keep the shotgun for fun.

Charles, you can
forget about the tar and just feather me
and I will spread my wings and fly free.

Weathering the storm which appears to be
the new ‘norm’
but no matter how fast you run or how far
you fly
time catches up with you,

by and by we’ll all go to sleep
if only to keep the dreams we have alive.

© 2020

..and we breathe
begin to oxidise
tears that run to rust
dry on the eyes that see
a boom and then a bust
but
nothing untoward that comes towards me
only Destiny and she's no angel.

People come and go
some I know
some I've known
and now outgrown
childish ways
'not so much
'the good old days'
seen in an alcoholic haze
but
just a phase.

Places
pass or I pass places
faces
wanted posters
more rides on
the roller coasters

what happened to the
brand new?
an engine heading to a fire
two cops sat in the
black Maria and the telephone
boxes that really work

redundancy is the new brand new
and someone knew but it was not me.

I want to laze
but then again
I want everything
with mayonnaise
or cream

do I have to dream it?

am I to be
forever stuck
reading some lines
in a fairy tale book?

I wish
pro-active
was a pill one could take
to take away the ache.

It's that time or this time depending on
which clock you're looking at,

I'm looking at my body crock (..oops I mean) clock,
it's telling me that the time's well past uncertainty,

But
I am as sure as I can be
that
everything is working
satisfactorily.

The poetry came from a dream which in itself was quite obscene and the rhymes reflected that, but times being as they are, anything taken beyond the edge is considered as taking it too far,
so the admin' host removed my post as is his right to do.
but
life isn't banal
it's carnal,
feral,
frightening.

Still, it doesn't do to cause offense.

I could send myself a memo
but
to where I do not know,
never knew a place I stayed at
didn't know a place to go.

I can remember most things mostly
but
there's others slip the net
I do
wish I'd wrote that memo
as an aid to not forget.

being old is no excuse
for the man who's not obtuse
????????er
what
was I saying?
help me out here
oh wait
there's a memo in the tray it
says
I have a place to stay,
now I know where I am going
this must be my...

**** I forgot again haha.
it's not the end of the world until it's the end of the world.

We become critical
analytical,
what we need is
something magical

the hunter in me hunts within me
while the gatherer prepares
the feast.

One coin
with two sides
but
we always seem to be
on the edge,

I can't tell what time it is
the clock has stopped
and it's dark outside

So
it could be midnight
just before first light or
half way through,
if
I had some candle light
I might see.

The radio conked out
and
after listening to the crap
that was put out
I'd be zonked out
too.

please message me
with the time
if you have the time,

I never did.

No one in particular
is not very particular
about the things he does

I adhere to the principle
that  to be a prince
and not a pimple
one must have a purpose.

If I need fine tuning
they'd soon put me in
or put the boot in
and that wouldn't suit me in
the slightest.

anyway
being particular has had its day
and what I do
or not do
doesn't bother me
it shouldn't worry you.

But
if I had OCD
would the dyslexic
see
me as a cod?
nothing odd
just peculiar
not the OCD,
me.

don't get upset, it's only poetry.

I told her don't worry,
no hurry
we'll get there and share each other,together, and if it's bad weather outside,we can stay in and hide,under the duvet,
'okay' she replied,'let us ride through the storms and make some of our own'
she ,
makes me groan in surrender,so tender,so meek and so mild and yet, she is wild,under the duvet where we hide away,making hay,
and today she is friction,she is real,not some fiction of mine,not some time on my own,not some duvet I've thrown in the lonely of night,
If I'm wrong,she is right and as I hold her,as I told her,
love is for keeps.

The clock ticks on
you think the alarm's
a bomb
and it blows up in your
face.

That's how it feels
if you make your deals
with the Devil or his son.

Must run
got a train to catch
got to patch in
to this day and
its sin.

In the spectrum
if ** hum
is light
I got no right
to complain

the clock ticks on
just the same
and
I still think it's a
bomb.

How the day drags
dragging your home in two bags and
your life in a rucksack.
Look back if you will it is just one
more hill that
you climbed.

The stepping stones
crossing boundaries
exchanging homes,
hanging on by a thread.

If I'm to be dead
I will live on
in the rising waters
when the stones have gone.

Lick my lips
she slips right in,
is this where
the beauty of
life begins?

Kiss me later
kiss me soon,
kiss me under the
sparkling moon
reflected on the
stepping stones where
the light
hones
my appreciation.

If I am failing,
if that is what's ailing me
then I sit uncomfortably
with death at my side.

In the ruins where I strayed
where I played
I have stayed for too long
and
time has abruptly erupted.

It's Sunday
and I am practising
my shining
just in case
'Jesus
wants me for a sunbeam'

(20 minute poetry)


She
crept through the spyglass and into my eyes where looks passed between us that made us both blush,
no rush, she said
somewhere inside my head and the evening lit up like a firework bursting way up in the sky.

I couldn't die a worse death now if I didn't taste her lips how I have longed for this moment to come.

The sun rose before we had satisfied, what she said was true and to me who has lorded over a continent, if ladies are such as can be islands to me could see that this maybe was indeed the fine lady I had spied through the spyglass so long ago.

Many years at the oasis have caused me to kiss many a more toad and this new road I rise on is the road I set eyes on and with good hope in my heart I go on.

It's a parable,
A take on misfortune and the men who die too soon and a true love that pulls through in the end.

(20 minute poetry)


Where the chamois go
out along the plateau
to where the winds blow and the Sun sets with that special lonely kind of golden glow

and silence undercuts the thermals.


It pleases the eye to wonder on high,
the eagles, another golden in the golden sky wonder why
I am here.

Away from the chaos of life in the city,
to absorb what is seen
to ponder on what will and if will
will still be.

On the spiral staircase and we turn about face
but the staircase is still there on the rise going nowhere

it's a ruse of no use to me.


The plateau is where we stow all the memories we own
the plateau is a home to me.