My golden tears flow, flow quickly
like flames in a drought-
spreading in gathering fury.
Sinking like rainbows in the sea.
My golden tears last a lifetime,
but bring no wealth to me.

I grabbed gold from the sun
one day and concealed
it in my brain. its
light created ectasy and made
me insane.

I took it out periodically
and admired it, lying supine
in my hand, the gold
would spin around both
shrink and expand,

but the gold although it glistened brightly
brought no love to me,
dripping like shimmering lava
circling and encircling
it hardened before my sight
growing harder as it cooled
it only revealed the night.

I loved it like sculpture, like beautiful paintings
on my wall,
I touched it as it shone,
as it took me for a fool.
I wiped my eyes with its fury
my eyes resembled tears,
golden tears that flow so quickly
down, down the empty years.

I crept into my soul in the profoundest night:
where spectral owls honked and hooted in fickle fright
and tongues rasped out sihouettes-
deepening shadows crawled from ***** mouths,
and love slunk around tattered skirts
in imitation of fungi growths:
paper covered me from head to shin
when I let the shadows thin fingers in!
words assembled like building blocks
men in high-heels/boys in frocks.  
                         In the morning, the sun
scoured my skin. I leant on the devil, standing alone,
                          he flipped me a coin
like he'd just tossed me a biscuit and a blood-red bone,
               as I whimpered into the mirror's torn
shimmering shafts of innocence, where beauty assaulted the black-eyed crone
for salutory afternoon tea,
the pretty boy charging the ugly boy an extortionate fee.

and the devil sang in the metronomic gloom
of departed joys.
I returned to my room,
playing with the boys-
coming intensely as the ice displayed
the solitary if fashionable route to Hades.
.

I was asleep that day when Death knocked
on my door
just wanting to pass the time-as you do.
he left a message,
nicely written it was
full of lovely words.

After reading I put it in my drawer
for safe keeping
determined to be out when he called again.

I don't mind Death,
I'm not prejudiced,
but once is enough-
and I'd rather he kept it at that.



Its was years before he returned,
this time when he knocked I opened the door and invited
him in. I had tea and biscuits ready,
a jam sandwich or two.
I let him sit on my most comfortable chair
and turned on the TV.

I watched him die. It was a good death.
I threw his bones into a black bag and left it
the following morning by my dustbin,
said a prayer over his remains
and walked slowly towards eternity.

High he rode, high above,
no one to hate
in the clouds, no one to love,
lost in thin, ensnaring fate,
he fitted heaven, hand in glove.

From his perch,
at YHWH's ponderous side,
he would lurch
like the morning tide,
reaching out to clutch.

sullen of face,
mesmerised by YHWH's poignant glare
he failed to trace
in the ancient one, infinite fear,
The old one with infinite grace.

They played chess under Sirius
drank wine near the sun
becoming delirious
when YHWH called him his son.
He yelled back: 'You can't be seious!'

But now, in his failure,
the two rarely speak,
for god he's now a blur
a loser, hopeless and weak,
a blunderer and cur.

'Dad', he says quietly,
'there's plenty of planets around
i can visit each nightly
with one hop, and one bound.'
God acknowledged him but slightly.

God nods in the sunshine,
not listening it seems,
now senile, snorting a line
the ancient one dreams.
It will, he thinks vaguely, all be fine!

I crept into the narrowing shadows,
darkness nudging light,
effusive stench burning into me,
dust swirling towards the pocked
and punished moon,
when the screaming stopped.
amongst the rubble
greased by blood
a solitary hand grasping
the final thoughts of
an annihilated soul compressed into
brick and steel, lost in pain forever.

Gloria was a grump,
delightful Felicity a frump,
Sara a bit of a chore
Liz liked gore,
Azi cried alot
Jill cared not a jot
for anyone, I learned
Cecila's stomach churned,
Roberto enjoyed her food
In public, Edie was rude,
Faizi liked to laugh
Katie liked to ****,
Esmeralda loved to ski
until she broke her knee,
Toni drempt of fame
but ended on the game,
Jen constantly made love
worn out, she resides above,
Queenie liked her drink
spent her days throwing up in a sink,
Julie adored her kids,
both are on the skids,
Siham adored money
was always miserable, never funny,
Frankie cared for wealth
spent a fortune on her health,
Jasmine was dour
more nettle than flower,
Ruby liked to cook,
Cynthia preferred a book,
Fill wanted to marry,
she eventually met Barry,
Aysha had great beauty
and was shrewdly dotty,
Anna was a shrew
which everyone but me knew,
Kath used excessive perfume-
smoking me out of my bedroom,
Pauline constantly showered
while Jackie always glowered
at strangers in the street-
where Carol and I met
on New Years Eve 2011
and for a month I was in heaven,
until my short affair
with nimble Clair,
Toni ate sparingly
lean meat and leaner celery,
Jo ate five times a day,
No one got in her way
of food, while Chris ate
tons of icecream, getting stuck in a gate
one day when off to work,
I took the opportunity, like a ****,
to leave waving goodbye
from my car. Why?
Essie was beside me
and again I needed to be free,
which a month later so did she!
Mitch bought me another
borrowing it off her brother,
who much bigger than me,
once more I was impelled to flee.
Suzanne in France
lead me a dance,
having other men every day
when I was away,
while Adalene
worked on my brain
and Genevieve broke my heart,
briefly, when apart
holidaying in the Alps with Jean
until her curiosity done
she came back and apologised,
and thereafter we thrived,
and would still be together
had not Heather
seduced me one day
when Genevieve was looking the other way
and did not see
Heather kissing me
by the pool
in Dakar, Senegal,
or making love
in rainy Vaduz,
holding hands in Bern
near a milk churn
having a bit of a lover's palava
in Bratislava.
When she found me with Ruth in Moscow
Genevieve told me sharpely to go,
I went. Ruth went off with Jean
and I took the first plane home,
meeting Jess in Heathrow
we took a taxi to Wivenhoe,
living there a year,
where fattened up with calorific beer
dressed now in grandad fashion
I started making a sullen impression
on even those who loved me,
but still, good reader, I needed to be free
so here I am now with Daphne
the final woman for me.

I met Adele in my son's first school
so, reader, I guess I'm just an unstructured fool,
for along came Celeste, Diane and Frick
making me still a colossal p......k.

RIDING AND RIDDEN
Riding by the upturned glen
forever chaste
she rarely stopped for gasping men
wan and waste
but riding and ridden
she flew into the trees
seductively bidden
parted her knees
and enveloped by sighs
she opened her thighs.

Yes, we know too well
that we must die,
Feel the drear gusts of death
the final fear
the angry sigh-
we know, we both know in each fading breath
that all religion is a lie
that grief
disapears by and by
and tears never bring relief
the sun always brings heat
we know all this but never ask why
and smile together in careless defeat.
hold my hand as we walk along
forgiving love,
forgiving wrong
knowing too that above
is neither further life nor duller song.
hold my hand
as we go
step by step; slow, very slow.,

And yet what flower
breaks at this hour,
what thread of sunlight
is shrunken by night?

What insect burrows into day
in what soil do your dreams softly lay?
What cruel rain tumbles from the sky,
where does the soul lie?

to give back to the enemy and fleeing from the battlefield at the time of fighting(Sahih Bukhari: Volume 4, Book 51: Wills and Testaments (Wasaayaa), Number 28:)
Sahih Bukhari: Volume 4, Book 52: Fighting for the Cause of ALLAH [S.W.T], Number 65:

Narrated Abu Musa (R.A):



If a religion celebrates war
What then is religion for?
To instigate battle, to encourage ******
to perpetuate belief, or aims yet absurder?
Instigating empire from the corrusive sands
innocents slain as religion expands,
tolerance and nurture dispelled-
difference culled.

Religion will corrupt the mind
turning even the best of us morally blind,
actions scripted by dubious text
lives pretenaturally wrecked-
civilisations devastated
ideologically impregnated,
hoary beards  and hoary words
twittering with dim-witted birds.

Books provide touchstones
for antique bones,
inflammable phrases
for religious actors caught in symbolic mazes,
inspiring hatred
in undeveloped souls, hate unabated.

Fighting to expand a creed
is planting the very seed
of pain and injustice,
of terror in music festivals
knives that rise and fall
in a rythmic toll


Young girls displaying flesh
hacked to death.
In such imaginings ethics fails
like the frightened child in ferocious gales.
Can we celebrate war
through religion's constant gore,
acolytes acquired
through spear and sword?

Expanding the umma through contemporary states
the unenquiring priest convinced of heroic fates,
of suicides enrolled in heaven
amongst similarly conscripted brethren,
for a god complicit in ******-
what, oh what, is absurder?

Connecting with the Umma
In space and time,
Prostrate in prayer
Contained and comforted
By the mosque’s sanguine light,
The ordered lines of acolytes
In reverential rows.
All herein was ordered and controlled,
Gender’s appropriately separated,
The air devoid of ****** musk,
All done correctly to dusty text.

Outside, oh outside, is chaos
The kaffir engaged in godless behaviour
Flesh exhibited in defiance of god’s
Thousand clearly expressed rules
Remorselessly recorded within
The rippling shadows of sand.
That unknown form sitting in judgement
In a heavenly court, unseen and oblique,
But remarkably like the courts of men.

Tainted thoughts of the unbeliever-
Intimate touches in the moonlight,
Caresses in the sunlight
Laughing, singing, and drinking,
Unaccustomed to strict religious
Contemplation, the rightful punishments
That occasion neglect.
The serpentine gaiety unravelling his solemn mind.  
He held his throbbing
Head as he released himself from prayer;
Walking outside the women’s exposed flesh
Gave him murderous ideas.

the road gathers itself like a drained old woman,
hunched over rags, beneath the gloomy crag,
sintering as it nears the beach,
worn out through time, impoverished
it has become reflective in the chittering half-light.
Eviscerated by the pawing waves,
contradictory cracks like entrails, hanging out
crushed into solitude , it redefines its continuous retreat.
In the reductive shade
it circumvents the cove, its tarmac withered,
a battered host to foreign weeds.

Sunrise chides the posturing sky, the sulking universal remnants
vanishing in the fenestrated glare. In the near distance, air unravels,
the moving storm exhaling slips of cloud
rapidly swarming like furious flecks of phlegm-sneezed out in perpetuity
between heat and cold.  
The road lies entombed beneath a scree, tumbledown stones and dust.
Ramblers and cars have sought and found
an alternative route. The moistened rubble creaks
as liquid gathers in its shifting heart, crawling out in rivulets-the rain
descending like spit,
emolliating the countryside, shifting dollops of fetid mud,
enveloping like a furious aneurysm.

Sea and land entrenched in conflict,
a war of attrition always won by seas, unleashing energy
of mindful apocalypse in the manner of a gentle sigh.
The gaping abscess of scarred promontories tottering
like feverish drunks. The mouthed obscenities of carnivorous
birds radiates throughout the cove pinpointing local
drownings encrusted with salt. Sea upon sea impose themselves
enviously on rampant shorelines feasting on sand and rock. Never ending!
Plunging ever forward like a barren plough, receding, only to
re-site its casual fury-implosion upon explosion.

The road in its sullen retreat
stumbles through narrow valleys speckled
with gloom; trees with yellow flowers
blooming in crinkled shadows,
deer leaping through high-standing grass, mincing
between tall thin trees. Loping down
into the cities, it becomes a tousled high street full
of immigrants, all yearning for the sea.

15 to love, still able to win,
gotta tough it out,
winning is everything. Losing's a sin.
I'll keep trying. I'm still in with a shout.

My backhand slices
the ball to my foe
(Joe's my friend but in a crisis,
I shift where the winds blow)

He parries, sends the ball to the line,
his touch is immaculate,
cleaner than mine.
I leap like a cat

return it with ease
he flicks it back over the net
intending to tease.
I grimace. We made a bet

and now I engage
into higher gear,
my brain fills with rage,
my heart fills with fear.

Advantage to me,
the crowd stands to cheer,
Joe falls to one knee,
buckled, losing a tear.

I volley. It whizzers
past his frozen form
he tries, but misses,
defeated, forelorn.

At last I have won,
the gold cup is mine,
another dream spun,
back to the factory line.

In this contorted frame, badger-like scurrying,
Scrabbling for prey, in the midst of fratricidal disputes-
The dead lingering like ruptured sores-
The dead dripping like candy from Christmas trees,
Our lives meandering, our thoughts remain.

In this dry season drunken men walk like dragons
Scales roaring with white flame:
Fangs like industrial weapons
Formed into one ghastly metaphor, belching shells from darkened trenches
Beating out wafer-thin souls in Basra.
Here Hell soared like a Heaven of scimitars and virgins; angry youths
In Tennessee praying savagely to a dead god-
Lost limbs their accumulated homage
Laid on the altars with terrifying grief.

In the deserts the sun sinks more rapidly, or appears to,
In the deserts wars leave permanent evidence,
Carbonised debris, skeletonised trucks, gutted tanks with flaring giblets;
In the deserts wars are rarely tidied away.
The only thing to rot is flesh.


  2

The street in which they live is regularly cleaned,
Dustbins are emptied once a week. No one there
Hears the rumbling in the basements,
The cold sound of torture puncturing existence,
The fleeting sound of knives sharpening on blunt throats,
Children laughing in back gardens
Bullets whistling through winter weather,
The incoherent dragon feasting on rats.

The postman never calls. He gave up this route
A year ago, fed up of walking in shadows
Dripping with slime. Now, the doorbells chime,
But no one is there.
No one answers.


Tuesday morning an archangel called. No one was home.
He left a card waggling his wings
In frustration. Oh, how the archangel missed god,
Dumped here among the heathen
In an urban utopia-wanting so much to die.
The beatitudes of heaven, of choirs, of clouds, of shame,
Closed to him for infinity,
God rapping his pure finger-tips on celestial glass coloured
Green and blue, resembling his third best creation.

The archangel, like all his kind, had grown bored
And had taken to drugs
To alleviate the perpetual drone of eternity,
Committing genocide occasionally to relieve his despair,
Seducing women when that paled
Creating new religions, once every five hundred years,
When feeling particularly wicked.

Like god, he did not know how to die.



Around god’s head the angels flew
Searching for nits.  Swatting them with his
Infinite, multi-coloured hand
They flew through the darkening universe
Smashed through the earth,
Ending up at the nuclear core searching endlessly for Hell,
While their ominous creator
Smiled. They’d never clocked his humour
After a billion years. Everything he did,
He did in jest.