chocolate fireguard, teapot,
or fender, icecream sofa, dry sea
or wet towel, glass hammer,

waterproof teabag, newspaper
raincoat and umbrella, lead parachute, ashtray on a motorbike,

handbrake on a canoe,
vote in a dictatorship,
loudhailer to a deaf mute,
grief at a wedding,

****** in a monastery.
inflatable dartboard,
spoon in a knife-fight,
screen door on a submarine,

wooden soap, shortbread tires,  
knitted light bulb,
bread boat, plasticine wire cutters,
paper hole punch, water hat,

custard floorboards,
ceiling tiles made of gravy,
portrait of a bowl of soup,
a stone cigarette,

syrup knickers, hole in my bucket,
plastic oven, wax truss,
liquorice bridge,
false teeth made of soap,

lemonade roof,
jelly boots,
jam cardigan,

paper bicycle pump,
ice-cream saucepans,
soluble drain pipe,
packet of rubber nails,

see-through mirror,
revolving basement restaurant
roll-on hairspray, rubber pencil,

****** with a hole in it,
limp ****, pockets on a lettuce,
**** on a fish, lolly pop van in Hell,

one-legged man in an ****
kicking competition,

meaningless life,
unnecessary death,
forgotten words and deeds,
ignored needs,


this poem.

Unmanned, like a bull bereft of all;
a flaccid decoration without use;
at least if thee had what I have
thou could be a woman; ******
hiding your treasure for marriage
and hypocrisy. And leave me
with empty decoration; rings
without sense, dresses without purpose.

Go about your business thou say
I want nothing to do with thee now;
yet not a month ago it was all Peggy this,
Peggy that; such are the changes
of the seasons. I do not want to give birth
to an empty ache; wet nurse it; teach it
its father's worth; I cannot tell the ache
how we loved, how we met, how we joyed.

I cannot sit round this mughouse days
and months I must out into the world
roll in the smell of Man again
with a jug of ale in one hand
and earning a stony crust
from some wight with a jangling purse.
And forget the bull that was castrated.

HEART-SHIP

About me, I swear down.
I'll tell thee of treks – how I in radged-days
put up with fretted-time,
sought abode and still do, get bitter ***-care,
in us heart-ship, scary waves’ rolling,
where narrow neet-ogle
often kept us at heart-ship’s stem
when it scurries by cliffs.

Us feet clammed by cold,
bound by frost’s frozen cold steel,
where those frets sighed
marfin about heart;
clemmed within ripped
mind of sea-knackered.

2.  CARE-BEGGARED

Town lads have it soft, dunt know nowt
as how us, care-beggared, ice-scratched sea dwellers wintered in exile,
swayed from mates and kin,
rigged with rime-crystals.
Hail stones bounced off our decks.
I heard nowt there but sea’s groan,
ice-flecked seas furrow. Heard at times summat like swan’s. And made glad by gannet’s and curlew's clamour,
for homely laughter,
gull-shriek for bitter ale.
Hail beat up stone-cliffs, where feathered
spray nattered to them; often eagles dew-feathered screamed.
No mates sheltered us,
or made us feel minded.

Town folk dunt credit it,
complacent with blessings
and few baleful journeys –
proud and wine-sozzled, how I, knackered,
often on sea-snickets had to abide.
Night-shadow snuffed us out;
snow fell from the north;
rime bound soil; hail felled earth
coldest of corns. So, now, thoughts
mither my heart, that I the deep sea,
salt-waves, should fetch myself on.

3. NOR

Salt yearn moves us gently.
Desire is a gust catcher.
Heart-ship bobs in its harbour,
as it pitches and yaws
to stranger islands.
Refugees homeland seek.
Though embarking, the reckless, skilful, youthful, brave,
do not know what life has in store.
Nor my hands on harp or on coin,
on lasses limbs delight,
nor on owt save wayward water.


4. UNWINTER

These woodlands unwinter too much with blossom,
give too much gold to villages, overbrighten meadows. World pushes on, all this urges us,
doom minded spirits to leave on flood-ways.
Heart-ship tugs at moorings.
Summer cuckoo's mournful call urges,
bodes sorrow, bitter in breast-hoard.
If tha blessed with comfort, how does tha know what some endure on tracks of exile?


5. WHALE-WEND

Heart-ship tugs at its harbour.
My imagination in mere-flood,
in whale plunge, wide in its turns
eager for seas vastness. Gannet yells
as whale-wends, spirit quickens over holm’s deep, irresistible delights of life are more
than this life that flits on land.
Illness, old age and aggression
wrests life away, bests breath.

6. PRAISE OF LIFE

Praise life. Before tha death
tha must climb mast against malice,
shun dodgy devils. Days stale,
earth’s grandeur beggared,
now no bosses, gold-givers gone,
glorious deeds done,
live out their doom.
Joys stale, weak rule this world,
live here afflicted. Glory humbled,
earth grows old, withers this November.
Old age fares over thee; tha bright face pale;
gray-haired, tha grieves over tha mates
given to the sod. Homeless tha flesh, then, when life is lost to thee, tha cannot sweet swallow nor sore feel, hand stir nor mind think.
Tha gold means nowt beside graves of tha mates, that proud deed will not go with thee,
gold is no help to a self full of itself.

7.   THE MEASURER

The world's craftsman is a Measurer
that turns the earth. Founder of fields
and sky. Only the foolish mess with it
and die unexpected. Tha must be humble.
The Measurer helps them be strong
as is minded in steer of their heart-ship
wise in tha decisions, clean in tha ways.
Anchor tha fire or be burned.
  Fate is stronger Measurer than any a tha thought.
Harbour is a life long in love of Earth,
hope int skies. Through all rough tides
and smooth trust in water and the sod.

I am May
home to fey
orchard ermine,
pear leaf blister,
rhomboid tortrix,
light emerald,
lackey, vapourer,
fruitlet mining tortrix,
small eggar and lappet
folded wings are
doors attracted to light

collect my fragrant
white flowers,
red fruits
and bathe
in fleshdecay
to fold into lovemake
give birth
avoid my blades

I always ask blood
of the careless

I will always ask
of you
what you do not wish to give

wander abaht atter a home
as av no bairns ad Tek us in
so the living hereabahts
rush inside
early doors
afore sunset
lock doors
pull down shades,
turn mirrors to walls

do all to stop me seeing em
for if I did
I'd carry 'em off.

*** named a monkey
after us, the lemur
cos we big eyes
are aht at neet
and mek ghost noises

so bairns bang *** lids
howl like wolves
joined by tarn dogs,
to frit us away

while nannans spin abaht,
splash boiling watta
rahnd rooms with a wooden ladle .

Am one dead al not find a home.

   I'd carry 'em off.

down the Dearne on a digestive,
up the Thames on a Bourbon,
down the Sheaf on a Garibaldi,
up the Don on a Flapjack.

down the Tyne on a Brandy Snap,
up the Wear on a Hobnob,
down the Severn on a Ginger Nut,
up the Lune on a Custard Creme.

down the Styx on a sunflower seed bun,
up the Lethe on a lemongrass stick,
down the Rhine on a Raisin Slice,
up the Seine on a Belgian Pancake.

strike sparks off the hill
tumble down charged, fall
an electric river.

Captured photon tracks
dot glass, world atom
accelerator.

Lost particles,
paper thin blanketed
homeless huddle
in doorways.

Tiny explosions
of heaven's tears
across the nailed lake.

Day ends as fishermen
fold up their green chairs
by a splashed evening water

glowered, puddled.

LURED BY RAIN AND SHADOW


navigate by rain,

gobbets in motion,
their rhythmic fall and beat,
every drop a note,

on pavement,
tarmac, wood,
tile, hollow metal,
close your eyes,
listen to the music,
varied semitones,

blind, you navigate
by the landscape
described by percussion.

Can you hear her contours,
tell the leather, lace
and cloth she wears
by arrangement of sound
in the downpour?

A time when you don't
want the rain to stop
until you can inhale
her sweet fragrance.

And open your eyes.

shadow breathes

see how your shadow moves
across the arc of her arm
your shadow breathes to kiss
away the cold up to her neck

across the cool leather couch
she lounges on to reveal more
of her thighs than is sane
for the blood pump inside you

and your lips press into her neck
and the rise of her ******* through
her little black dress, and thighs
that fall open as you kiss an ear.

A ROSARY

of raindroplets down the window glass.
Contemplate the mystery within
each of these splattered dribbles.

Each holds grains, dried sea salt, dust or smoke ascended skywards from water
or land into swirling eddies of air,

each holds dead cells sloughed,
perhaps by lovers fingers, or
by beasts slouching to Bethlehem,

each holds a prayer for life,
a hymn to its origins, a curse
of flood, a blessing of light.

bolt the doors, lock the windows,
doomsday is coming to town,
'cos London's got a muslim mayor.

O, woe is us, our children are not safe,
we can't walk the streets at night,
listen for the knock on your door
'cos London has a muslim mayor.

O, the monsters are being elected,
our nightmares have come true,
there'll be ****** on the streets,
'cos London's elected a muslim mayor.

green, as I'm cabbage looking
red, as I'm devilish seeming
blue, as I'm sky tasting
black, as I'm painted sounding
grey, as I'm fogged if I'm knowing
white, as I'm angelic touching
brown, as I'm **** feeling

In spring morning haze,
out of a red brick council house
window a bothered standing hawk
borrows wide eyed Wonder from a radged lad who reaches upwards
with pudgy hands to grasp
her silver underside and blue head.

Wonder bawls as it arcs in her claws
over grassed over pit heaps of Finished
Work and Help's call centre natter
to a high perch in **** racked ruins of an Old Hall.

Wonder refuses warm carcasses
of mice and voles,
desperate feathered mam returns
with scavenged chips, naan bread and pizza.

In noon summer shimmer
she pushes Wonder to fly,
but it falls out the cup,
grasps stone wall in its drop.

Soon, a cuckoo, Wonder heaves
the other nippers, fat Loneliness and scrawny Grief, or is it scrawny Loneliness
and fat Grief, out their home,
into an autumn mid afternoon
of burnished fallen leaves,

or, bored at mam's twitter
Wonder cannot garner,
breaks its fellow fledglings bones,
ragged Hunger and blistered Wishes,
or is it ragged Wishes and blistered Hunger.

Soon too big for home,
Wonder falls to earth,
and snaps its spine.

Kestrel mam covers Wonder's face
with her wing in winter night
gust, then abandons it
to foxfood and worms.

tha wanna get some TN's
in, man. It'll not be well for him
if he's not got none in colour
I like. Silver and blue.

Won £160 quid, man,
on the spin. Could see
the numbers dropping.
I knew what numbers
were coming up next, yeh.
So I sets up the twenty pences.
Folk looking at me straight up,
like I'm all these flashing lights.

Lost £200 on horses.
I'll try to get another grant.
Might get those TN's.
Have you signed up
for them classes
in mental illness
and depression?

Three probation officers
drilling me, man. I broke
the tag. It were dragging.
I was going to be had up
for criminal damage, yeh.
But when I were convicted
of armed robbery,
first conviction was quashed.

These trainers, man, just
turn your foot and its
like all these colours,
ultraviolet, and all those
blues. Trainers, man, yeh.

far down
into the pit of hell
as it is possible to go
and still see the stars shining.

far up
into the spit of sky
as it is possible to go
and still see the wood for the trees.

stride differently
step without the roll
maybe heel down first
not ball, incline to outside
or inside edge, wear down
leather differently,
walk with an edge.

Way I walk too well known
for surprise, danger or risk.
Have to take chances
gamble, though, not familiar
or comfortable this is good.

Step change and thought,
if think as you step
around, change step,
how thought is reached,
how words reach page.