As he studied the grey stubble in the mirror
he began to wonder if rather than considering
each new conquest a success
he should think of it as the consequence
of another failure

We couldn't see, we didn't know
We were just actors in a play
A play that would never open
Or see the light of day

We thought we were in love
We told each other so
Perhaps we were, but something changed
What it was I didn't know

We talked about the future
How our love would last
Now for you and me
There is no future
Just a distant past

We didn't get as far as rings or shiny suits
In fact we didn't give each other anything
Till you gave me the ever so delicate
Ever so dainty
Shiny
Little
Boot

At the end of the run
To spoil the fun
An evil crime
Conceived by a twisted mind
Delivered by human ****

First, the basics -
I may lose you quite soon here,
It won't matter though
I'll say bye now
I don't blame you
There is nothing to commend this poem
It deserves no likes
It has no rhythm, none at all.
No wisdom, humour or philosophy.
If you get this far, well done
I admire your persistence.
I dedicate it to the little **** on the internet
Who tried to defraud me of £130 last night.
It was unsettling, so I write for therapy.

Anyway, the basics -
Well maybe we'll leave them for another day
I have already used up too much of your valuable time
And there are loads of proper poems to read here
So off you go, all that other stuff can wait

I'd love to play the piano really, really well
Or strum away on guitar
And sound like Ralf McTell
But I don't have the talent
And I don't really have the time
So I'll just sit here like I do
Making up a rhyme.

I saw a photograph of you
As a girl of seventeen
I thought about myself back then
If we had met, how would it have been?

Youthful lives in flux
The future just a haze
Steered by chance, fate, luck
To make it through the maze

So many couples set up home
Promise not to stray
Then exercise their right to roam
And throw it all away

I guess we'll never know
But here we are today
This is how we are right now
And how we want to stay

A little story (true) from a hundred years (almost), passed on to me by word of mouth by someone whose identity my memory has lost.

A man and wife lived in the house which I owned much later. He was called away to war and for four whole years he disappeared, she didn't hear a word.

I guess he was no writer.

He found himself released, no longer mired in foreign soil. War was won, the only thing to be done was go home once more.

He sent a telegram from the port, I'm coming home real soon. But he arrived before the post, and surprised his wife, who probably said something like,

Why my dear, did you not write?

Next time I go to the ocean
I will see you there
Your voice will calm the restless waves
The wind will play with your hair

The sand will accept our footprints
Our steps will be in time
Our gaze will scan the horizon
Your hand will be in mine

And when we are tired we will turn for home
The light will fade at the end of the day
We'll leave our footprints on the beach
And the tide will wash them away

My friends and I are sitting in this bombed out house
Our rifles rest against the wall
No lamp is lit
As daylight fades the little window frames the moon
We smoke, we read, we write a letter home
We don't dwell on horrors past
Nor on what is yet to come

                                                I won't let my guts gush out
                                                Into foreign mud
                                                Nor die in no man's land alone
                                                I want to make it back to you
                                                I want to make it home

We're winning now, they're on the run
Supplies cut off, they're desperate
They've suffered even more than us
But we have to keep the pressure up
One thing I've learned while I've been here
Don't underestimate the ***

                                                     I've been here such a long time now
                                                     Seen so many good men die
                                                     Killed a good few too
                                                     I know that danger still surrounds us
                                                     Even now I might not make it through

I just need to carry on
Hold on to my life
You know that when I make it back to you
Soon we will be man and wife

                                                      Jack

I think I'll go for a walk
To myself I shall mutter and talk
I'll search high and low
And home I'll not go
Till I find the poem I sought

Shocking how the time goes
Like a river it flows and flows
It just disappears
Days become years
Where does it go, do you knows?

He found a rock, the geologist
Whose identity he missed
He thought it was gneiss
But when he looked twice
It was just a piece of schist

They found a bug to eat plastic
Which everyone thought was fantastic
But they started to frown
When their pants fell down
Because it ate the elastic

You said to me the other day
There's only me and you
But babe I need to tell you
I'm only passing thru

You say I saved you from yourself
And perhaps it's true
But remember when I say
I'm only passing thru

It's gonna hit you 'cos you see
You'll need somebody new
You're gonna come to realise
I'm only passing thru

Passing thru, passing thru,
What I say is true
Babe did I tell you
I'm only passing thru

If you waken me from sleep
Gently call my name
I've been away and I have changed
Things are not the same

If you waken me from sleep
Don't pull my toe like before
I've been to war and seen too much
I can't be playful any more

If you waken me from sleep
Don't raise your voice or pull the sheet
Remember I go back at night
Back where I can't hide

She went to waken him from sleep
She didn't call his name
She pulled his toe like before
She thought things were the same

She's our woman who does
so she is
here once a week
her name is Viv
she sweeps the floor
washes the tiles
arranges the papers in neat little piles
flicks a duster across a few things
breaks a saucer
and gently places it into the bin

If you were here beside me still
With weather fine and time to ****
We could go strolling on the shore
Believing in eternity once more
And, perhaps, one day we will

So stubborn is this mournful chill
And hard to climb this unforgiving hill
My soul would be at peace, not war
If you were here...

We cannot chose to live or die at will
Or all our hopes and dreams fulfill
We let imagined gods keep score
And cannot change what went before
But what a tonic, what a thrill
If you were here...

They drove cars that belched out poison fumes
Incarcerated beasts in zoos
Farmed animals to **** and eat
( A savage taste for ****** meat )

Launched lethal weapons by the ton
( Wars were always going on )
Bred like rabbits and died young

They burned up all that filthy oil
Melted all the ice
The sea rose up around their feet
But their music was quite nice

The forests they all slashed and burned
Some didn't have enough to eat
Cars would crash, ships would sink
Did they ever stop to think
This isn't very neat

Fueled by greed and a selfish gene
They carried on regardless
So nature wiped her slate quite clean
Showed who held the clout
Those people thought they could outwit her
No wonder they died out

Another masterpiece born
Want to hear it?
Blank face, yawns

There it lay
Down by the kerb
A scrap of paper
Covered in words

A little poem
Thrown away
Without a message
Nothing to say

To write such verse
Is nearly a sin
So I cast it away
This time in a bin

Let'***** the road, you and me
Let's find out who we're meant to be
Let's burn some gas and feel some speed
Let's do it now, I feel the need

Or maybe stay at home and plan it
It would be kinder to the planet

He used to man a machine gun
But now it was years since the war
When he'd fought for King and country
In the mud and the blood and the gore

How many Bosche did you **** they would ask
In his understated way
He'd say I must have got several
Not many got away

Sometimes on a Saturday night
Down at the Hart with a beer
It all came back to him like a wave
He'd stand and stare and stare

Then he was gripping his gun again
It was like he'd suddenly snapped
With his back to the wall he'd be shouting
Rat a tat, rat a tat tat

After a while he'd go quiet
Finish his drink alone
Darts flew again, cards were dealt
The old soldier walked back home

Hello poetry friends, great lexicon
Facebook friends, need English lesson

It was mid-Summer night
He thought that he might
Ask for her hand
As they strolled on the sand

He said I'll love you for all of time
If you just promise you will be mine
But alas his love was blind

For when he met mother
His vision recovered
And quickly he changed his mind

She lived her life like a true christian
I never once heard her complain
Even when squeezed in the vice-like grip
Of a tumour on the brain

She described a fog descending
The signs were subtle at first
We all must do our best she said
Just before she lost  her words

She passed on Sunday morning
Snow drifts lay outside
Ever the one to consider others
Her family by her side

-  Winter is long
    But the sun shines
    In your art  -

Carefully she sowed the seed
of pretence
Nurtured, fed, exposed to light

Inhabited root and branch

And it became her reality
Her skeleton

And she wondered
where have all the good men gone

but still she had her music
at least

She lit a candle
to the dying
and the thought sustained her
that maybe
she was the happiest person she knew

It's time to write a poem
Don't know what about
First we need a subject
Nothing's coming out

The river isn't flowing
Nothing in the store
Read other people's poems
Pushing at the door

Raid the bank of memories
To supplement the day
Senses at the ready
Like a bird of prey

Then a spark, a glint, a flash
Clutch it with both fists
Take it home, examine it
Pull it all to bits

play me love's music
harmonise our hearts'  tempo
practice every day

Before the crystal screen sometimes
I linger far too long
Maybe find a seed to sow
Or reminder of a song

Something prompts a laugh out loud
The mood is lifted high
Next may come a downer
That's ok
There is serenity in melancholy
Brings balance to the day

The rounds are taking far too long
An hour later I'm still there
Dusty's waiting for his walk
As the wood stove breathes in air

you ignore the good
     you just see bad
your glass is always empty
    it's in your head
  you're sad and mad

    nothing we can do
    nothing we can say
you make it hard for everyone
       you and me
  we wouldn't last a day

every wheel will cease to turn
every lesson be unlearned
every tide will ebb away
every colour fade to grey

every truth will prove a lie
every star burn and die
we will all be flying high
stardust in the sky

Santa baby
This year I have for you just one request
I know you'll help because you always do your best

You'll be my special honey for ever more
If you can give us all a miracle cure

For cancer baby
So hurry down the chimney tonight

I never thought of you as a killer
But I guess it's different when it's yourself
Builders go bust all the time
But you went out with a bang

The last time we met you were behind me at the check-out
Your posture upright, proud as always
Towering, gazing over my head
I can only imagine the tide of emotion that must have overwhelmed you

You have occupied my thoughts these last few days
God only knows what it has done to your wife and dear old mother
No doubt those words will be used
While the balance of his mind was disturbed

They say you had no money for the wages
Richard, this was not the solution
So sad, so sad
You've made us all so sad

The Bishop of Edinburgh has lost his faith
Now he tweets instead of prays
At least he can be sure there is someone
               Out there

Oh for a life of mirth, without an increasing girth!

I must have been missing something
Without realising
Scares me a bit
How much I think about you now
How I would miss you if you were gone
I'd be ok, I'd be fine
Go back to like before
Tickedy boo
Without you

But I would feel a loss
I'm not the only one to feel this way
I think you feel it too
I'm surprised
I have become a partial prisoner
Before my very eyes
A willing hostage
Going for a ride

Obama fulfills his destiny
  as the president born
        to campaign.

Come on Leonard, be a sport
Admit that you write poetry
Your stuff is better by a thousand times
Than anything that I could write
So if you are not a poet sir
Where does that leave me?

Harry Patch, Harry Patch
Last man standing
Who saw so many, many fall
Beyond our understanding

Your body is weak, and your time must come soon
But your will is strong and your spirit shines through

You've lived so long, now you must be strong
And tell those tales of fear and regret
The ones you tried so hard to forget

On Christmas Eve in the 1970's everyone got ******.
At office parties random couples paired off and snogged.
Bus drivers waved their passengers through,
they didn't want your money.
Even they were ******.
Probably the coppers had a few
down at the station.
Glass of sherry anyone?

The pleasure is mine
in a glass of wine

My pleasure is you
in the things that you do

The pleasure is ours
in all the shared hours
we are able to spend together

They're worth more than gold
or riches untold
a pleasure we'll treasure for ever

.                                        sit down
                                   take some time
                            lay your hand in mine
                    feel the tension seep away, let go
                       rest the body, heal the mind
                                 let oxytocin flow

broken eggs on lawn
what villain so dastardly?
 magpie looking fat