Dull pattering through agonised woods

fumbling winds, serrating storms

animals vanishing into the undergrowth

scurrying beneath the ground

birds huddling under leaves.

The river breaks its bank

water spreading out like *****

villages swamped with infestation.

The storm batters and bruises,

bellowing through the night like a troubled god.

Of terrible storms that broke through the town
Strangling, uprooting trees, slicing away
Homes, a gurgling pulsating fury of air and rain
That lasted four days. Unremitting,
It brought huge waves in its wake
From the tormented sea. All along the assaulted
Coast people choked and drowned,
Their corpses tipped
Onto beaches huddled between ravaged furniture
And drying plastic shopping bags,
Swollen limbs nibbled at by fish and *****,
And scattered throughout the streets
Picked at by dogs,
A feast that set them up
For the coming cold weather. Fleeing birds
Squalling overhead in clamorous flocks, plucked
From the sky and shattered on rocks;
The cats had a field day until
Becoming engulfed too in marauding waves
Deluging the land. Foxes screamed from the hopeless
Shelter of water saturated dens;
Only jagged ruins remained,
Futile gestures to a once-only god.
Towns inland were wrecked by the hurricane bursts
And all fell silent as the storm
Fled like a Viking raider back into the sea, dragging its
Spoils.

The bird that flies

Through flawless skies

Has many wings on which to float

And many bills to sing in tune from its throat,

In its desire for breath

In face of death.

It was the day the toilet broke,
the day the bank was robbed
when my wife walked out,
suitcase in hand. Her head
blown off on the pavement
in the gunfire between bank robbers
and police. It was that kind of day.
That evening I had the toilet repaired.

I watch you crawling slowly,
the earth clothes you;
i watch as light shakes
your limbs in supperating harmony,
the earth conceals you;
i watch your expiration,
the earth frames you.
i watch your quiet resurrection,
emerging crossly into day,
the earth, the dry warm earth
chokes you.

The ecstasy was profound
burning through limb and pore-
attached to the ground,
bound by its core.

Pulling away the joy
circulated through her form
smiling at the boy
now depleted and worn.

I know you haven’t heard from me
For a millennium, but here I am
Still around, still observing, still involved.
I am ancient of course but no older than before
When you knew me as a warrior-striding
Over flaming mountains and trembling seas.
Do you remember?
Do you remember how I inspired you from
The clouds? My voice like thunder,
My voice carrying lightening from a darkening
Sky? ……………………Well, anyway, good to see
You all once again.
I actually haven’t been myself recently.
My legs have troubled me. My eyes
Have been plaguing me. I cannot see the earth
Clearly anymore.  In my wizened vision
It resembles a roughly-used marble,
I am after all, now and forever, the ancient of days.

Here’s the thing. I’m getting bored both of
Your antics and your obsession
With me. Please, lighten up! I made the
Sun so you would smile, children to give you hope!
But, it didn’t work I fear.

I can abide your petty squabbles.
Truly I can. I can abide your desperate need
For war. It’s quite exciting really and once I played
My part. The agonised features of the dying
Appeal to my nasty side to be honest.
I have a very nasty side as you are well aware.
I like your skyscrapers, your irritating as flies planes,
Your huge cities, your good as well as your promiscuous
Women, your strange observances
Songs and poetry. It is all very jolly.  But,
And it’s a huge ‘but’ I must admit,
I have grown bored.
You no longer inspire me. I am no longer
Eager to view your funny ways
When I wake, and before I sleep. I’ve decided
Your little planet must go. Sorry, I’m like that.
I follow my whims. Tomorrow, at 10 I turn off the light
So, please, stop praying. It’s so depressing.
There will be no reprieve this time. Accept your fate!
You will not feel a thing!  So, let’s make our final goodbyes.
I have really enjoyed your company-
Au Revoir. Oh, please stop crying-
It was great fun after all for all of us. Remember,
Nothing lasts forever. Not even me!

When the light went, a cold wind blew.
An accumulation of warmth
came from copse and hill,
cheap spawned and self created,
as the night renewed.
He walked home, careless of his stumbling steps,
and softly threw his bags to the
floor, demons on the hearth-rug,
coiling snakes and insects everywhere.

It was all behind him now.
A sullen fist of half-remembered regret,
the weather-laden wood carrying his dreams
in each silver flaked leaf.

A half-remembered face, an
age destroyed beauty.
It was time to go now!
Time to go!

In ragged feet, I rushed across the bridge-
Gleaming periwinkles flourished in the distant fields
Reflecting the cloud-free sky,
Golden sunflowers pitted the hills like pus. In the distance,
Fringed with yellow and red, stood a tent
And within was the warlord, aged now and grizzled,
His parchment skin and toothless smile a rebuke
To his youthful triumphs.
His guards parted. I entered
Into a swirling fog of scent
A floor covered in bright-coloured carpets.
Gesturing, the old man bade I move closer
And, belly swollen by hunger, I slowly advanced.
Touching my forehead with a wrinkled finger
He said: “You are my successor.”

I ate well for months.
I was given my own guards,
My own beautiful tent.
Even though only a boy
I received several lovers.
Those around me always listened
To my words. They obeyed.
Every other day, beneath the pubescent
Glare of the early sun,
I hunted deer and lions, protected
By a hundred archers. Every day
I dined on venison.

The old king rarely left the camp.
Late morning he donned his shimmering,
Armour, reflecting shards of brilliant light,
And for an hour reviewed his warriors
On the nearby heath, soured by winds. He,
A wretched old man wrapped in ermine.
After, as a whim, sending them off to die,
Dribbling from his lips, beneath sunken cheeks
And rheumy eyes, at the end of his creeping
Days. Returning to his tent, swaddled
By remembrances. Impotent in body and mind.

We played cards together once a month
Surrounded by slaves. The candelabras burst
With perfumed radiance: musicians played
Soothing songs on cymbals, drums and flutes.
Girls danced; swinging, pirouetting,
Leaping in the excited manner of newly-born fawns.
The air grew heavy with dust.
The air grew pungent with odour.
Scattered around were dishes of date and melon.

“When I die, twenty years from now,” he began, smiling,
Popping a date into his mouth. “You will be king.
And rule as I ruled. A celebrated warrior and judge.
A killer of thieves, destroyer of cities. When old,
As I now am old, you too will seek a successor-
A ragged, hungry boy born to rule, who one day
Walks into your home.”

The king dipped a date into goat’s milk.
He watched me as an owl watches a mouse,
His moist lips smacking audibly. “But that will
Be many years from now.” He continued.
He smiled again, the smile of a torturer.

Within the year I lead his armies,
Rampaging across the wild, blasted plains
And to the walls of distant cities
Leaving piles of bones. I returned
With wagons full of gold, dragging behind
A thousand slaves. The king meanwhile
Lounged in his garlanded tent eating sweets,
Hoarding his growing wealth, washed and perfumed
By half-naked handmaidens.

After two years I planned his death,
And claimed the kingdom for myself.

When spring came the mountain rain fell, the rivers overflowed,
The sun was a yellow bud,
My armies rested on the hills
Polishing their weapons with dew.
The king had ordered veal that day cooked in spices
From the east. He drank watered wine.
The multitude of slaves sang love songs with pitiful voices.
I stole into his tent at twilight.
He lay asleep on his divan, bloated and belching.
A warbler burbled in the trees,
A jay cackled from bushes by the water’s edge.
I lifted my knife and softly approached
His slumbering form. He opened his eyes and smiled
As I buried it in his chest.

I sit on a throne surrounded by my
Endlessly-victorious regiments, king of a thousand lands, eating
Fruits from India, chewing fragrant leaves from the furthest isles where the sun
Burns forever. I have grown fat.
I have grown old. I look out towards the bridge,
Cracked, worn, covered with vines, vexed by the
Rivers surging tides. I search the horizon
For a ragged boy bringing in his unblemished soul
My death.

Beneath the water lived a nymph, beautiful as
A flower, if you like woman with petals
Growing from out of their face
And lips adorned with myriad metals
Moving silently with infinite grace.

Fishermen who caught her, in alarm
Tossed her back with dismayed cries
Fearful that she would do them harm
When she exposed her fangs, darting from her eyes,
Forked tongues from each palm.

But apart from all that, she was a delightful creature
As proud as a catwalk model
Sexuality impressed into each feature
Death in each cuddle,
Poison injected from each freshly opening suture.

At the sea’s dark bottom lived the nymph
Devouring fish raw, terrifying sharks and barracuda,
Dining on shellfish and prawns for lunch;
Darting amongst Angel Fish and eels, a hungry aficionada,
Tearing into shreds what she could not crunch.

Gentle with her own kind until coition
Was complete, when if hungry she devoured
Her temporary mate without undue consideration,
No please or thank you. Feeling duly empowered
By her actions, as confirmed by her explosive, acrid indigestion.

No longer young, her children dead,
She glides through the water from China to France
A preposterous seaweed hat upon her head
And in several places, impaling her scaly flesh a serrated coral branch.
Her sartorial taste filling even the sharks with fin-quaking dread.

The last of the kind. The others are (literally) toast.
Protected by animal charities here and abroad
She gladly subsists on ambitious swimmers who venture far from the coast
All she can now catch or afford.
A capricious tyrant until the last, when, victim of a fisherman’s boast

She was hoist up like iniquitous cod
Out of the sea, paraded on the deck while she struggled for breath.
Shot at. Abused. Poked and speared with a steel tipped rod,
Dragged into the harbour, pummelled close to death.
Screaming out, as she in unexpected agony died: “I thought, I truly thought, I was god!”

The raven strutted into view-
Dissembling crows
Peered from the tangled grass lashed
Into solemn silence.
The raven assumed a coal-black authority
Driven by its coal-black soul.
Its beak stabbed out automatically
Bleakness of past; spectral futures
Like echoes. Its eyes were cruel drops
Of impenetrable night.
The raven possessed everything in
The imperious manner of a cut-throat-
Killing without fear, without conscience.
It ruled like the destroyer.

The Right Thing

What would you do
With a life in your hands?
Those begging eyes
Pleading for clemency
For an existence hanging in the balance.
So easy it would be
To let the knife drop
To let the bullet fly
Out of your control
Snuffing out another.
Would it satisfy you
To see the skin go pallid
The eyes glaze over
A carcass crumple to your feet?
Do you enjoy the thought
Of a mother weeping
A father distraught
A family rendered asunder
From your crime?
I pity you
The likes for which this decision is easy.
Just hope that if you ever find your life
In someone else’s hands
They know
The right decision to make.

The ruins peered out from behind
The blue-flecked crag
Where eagles nested.
Wind-blown, storm-tossed
Only the walls remain.
The turrets are now heaps of grass covered
Bricks, the keep a muddy mound.

Here, once were warriors,
Draped in furs, bearing swords
That glinted across the sea in defiance,
Defending the land from strangers.
Here, once were warriors-
All long gone!

Time itself has altered what once
Was considered unalterable.
When kings ruled from inland palaces
And long powerful ships caressed the jagged
Shore; now washed up on the beach
Like the kingdom they protected, flotsam:
Cruelly ruined planks of elm, distorted by
Sea and salt; masts broken and disfigured.

A once glorious people, now gone!
Palaces overthrown!
All hanging onto unforgiving Time
Like fossilised carbuncles.
Ripped from Time in a plethora of
Anguished voices dying slowly-
Calling out for resolution.

A cherry tree, heavy with fruit,

Once stood at the bottom of my garden

By the small pond filled with septic water

Disagreeably still. Ignoring it, over time, its

Fruit fell and decayed.

Over time its trunk became overwhelmed

With boles, its branches snapped.

Close by the rich soil

Was suffocated with weeds.

Psychiatrists said my son was mad
But I only saw a child,
He needed to be locked up, he was dangerous and bad
They declared, but I knew he was only wild.

Psychiatrists have for decades employed
ECT, that damages brains, destroys memory;
With omnipresent power employed
The soul-disabling effects of SS-influenced lobotomy.

They prescribed (prescribe) addictive drugs
To all and sundry, on a whim,
Giving them to children, like street-wise thugs
Covered in expensive bling.

I took my son away
Protecting him from a psychotropic shower,
Until he’s strong enough to have his say,
Not silenced by mis-used power.

He talks of love and wondrous things,
Of things he’s read and seen
All they can see is a boy who stupidly grins-
Like playground bullies, ignorant and mean.

They said my son was mad
Needs to be drugged, pinned down, abused
But surely the world is worryingly sad,
Allowing people to be so used?

Watching the sea, fixated on waves,
Touched by its beauty
The tsunami overwhelmed the land:
Consumed me.

UNANSWERED



How strange it was to see her there
After so much suffering. Her dying marriage
A bleeding and untreated smear,
Disguising a love neither would salvage.
The music played, the guests danced
With savage partners whose love retreated and advanced.  

His awkward lover lingers quietly in the room
By turn shade, shadow, and silhouette,
She sways slowly to each repeated tune
Too triumphantly passionate to experience regret.
Mistress and wife exchange no glance, assuming ignorance
Of each other’s uncomfortable presence.


The loss of another’s love can wound
More brutally than the lover’s death
The secession of an intimate bond
Becomes a winding, coagulating mess.
When lovers connect they forget
What broke when they met.


A slow guitar riff makes her weep.
She takes my hand. She calls me friend.
I smile, with thoughts of my own to keep,
My own unanswered love to tend.
I kindly wipe away her tears,
But not my own. Those I’ve kept for years.


Beautiful songs, erratically played,
He glances towards her, smiles and leaves,
She turns away, both destroyed and dismayed,
Stands silently in the septic light and grieves.
I take her hand, but she pulls quickly away
I offer her a drink. She declines and will not stay.


I buy another whisky at the bar, tossing it down.
In a cruelly dissipating cloud, her fresh perfume lingers
Mimicking her constant image.  My phone rings and I frown.
My forgiving wife is calling. With guilt and regret, my fingers
Tighten around the glass. I say: “Honey, I’ll be home soon.”
And, like others, leave the signifying gloom.


Touched by the sharp morning light
Half-empty glasses, abandoned halls,
Breaking out from the hasty coition of the night
Love radiates, caresses, falls.
When ubiquitous lovers combine it highlights briefly
How lonely it leaves those who grasp at love weakly.

Her leaving suited her
Better than her arrival,
Her returning
Better than her going.

To prevent men’s gaze, confirming her religious
Conviction, she wore a veil-black as ink, dark as coal-
No man could henceforth lust after her
Driven wild by the sight of her skin. Jump her.
Strip her. **** her! She drifted forever like
A ghost, an object, a hollow shell.

Only her husband saw her beauty.
And after him, another.
The institution of marriage demanded
Cloaks of invisibility, walls of ubiquity, anonymous
Submersion into gender.

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.*

W.B.Yeats




In a time such as this, in darkening days
        Without screeching witches
Frightened banshees, buggered old men
Searching for solace, eyes streaming with icicle-lust-
Gangrene facebook: torn-up, shredded twitter

The cries of the disconnected,
Wailing!
Wailing!

In a time like this, in darkening days,
The disconnections come in waves!

Searching for reason amongst the unreasoning,
Hunting for sanity within the insane,
Identifying the dead from amongst the living.

Wailing!
Wailing!

Email excreting venom
Internet exfoliating lies-politicians wrapped
                         In deceit-
A cold time of it, a wretched time of it.

Only within our hearts does hope lie.
                      Only there
Away from conflict and disorder
                             Away
From the capricious cacophony of biased debate.

Wailing!
Wailing!

The climbing heat of the cruellest summer
Transcended pool and wood
Feeding upon
The huddling men.

Their bodies saturated with sweat,
Foreheads brown, the fighting done,
They talked together of both home and future
In the manner of men casually strolling
Through a park or meeting
After work, drinking tea or beer.

One pointed to a wound
That swelled slowly
Popping a cigarette in his mouth
With quietly accomplished bravado.
He was a shrewd hand at dying.
He understood the drama well.

The weather grasped the defeated
Unearthing their cries.

The field was marked with blood
Flies rushing about in exhilaration at
The sudden banquet.
Last gasps, inaudible farewells, came through the silence.
A vociferous diatribe of artillery
Resonated like an enfeebled ghost
Vanishing into cloud and mist.

The field was abandoned to carrion and dogs.
There were too many to bury.
Sunset fell upon them like a worn bandage
Torn off a seeping wound,
The light distinguishing the horror in a flash.


‘A fine time we had of it,’ the old soldier said
As they bore their burdens to the next
Hurried engagement
Where the dead seemed to outnumber the grass on which they lay.

What if my sight deludes my brain
And shows me things that cannot be?
What if my brain deludes my sight
With shapes and colours distorting light?
What if a chair is not a chair,
A sky not a sky?
What if my body belongs
Outside of time, in ridges, in riffs, in kaleidoscopes,
Pinging around or forever mute?
What if I die, but am not dead,
Having never been alive
That what was breathe was CGI
That what was a heartbeat merely
A mythological god slamming against a drum?
What if my words are not my words
But belong to speakers in the past
My thoughts not mine, nor yours,
But passing adverts in the electrified air?
What if existence is without shape,
Unseeable, unmeasurable,
A perishable vapour already dissipating
Unable to form and never formable?
What if none of these words were written
None of these words were read,
Nothing appeared here-
Nothing has happened, or ever does,
Except in your unquiet head?

What now, the loss of limbs in a distant conflagration?
The seeping brains amongst poppy fields?
The myriad nature of violent death, outside of journalistic imagination
A grind of experience on which the lost youth builds.
What now? Within the shredding blasts euphoria
The élan of a soldier, in memoria

Downing drinks in the Stag and Hare
After a tour, ordinary actions reek of tedium
There is, in the conviviality, no rush of adrenalin there
Fermenting trouble establishes a happy medium.
Quarrelling with a man who wears a business suit
Is displaced adventure, smashing his face in is a hoot.

What now? A mate, a favoured friend, dies in the dirt
When whistling a tune, recalling the holiday in Spain, the family,
A shot coursing through his unbuttoned shirt
Deflating his lung, another shattering his knee
When he died, his platoon died too,
Metaphorically; the snipers aim was true.

Bottled up in Basra, aimlessly wandering in Helmand
A shrill event on News at Ten between politics and football,
Another death, another iconic face, the catasphropic end
Of a youthful  life.  What now? The swift end to a morning stroll
Amongst watching villagers in dry breathless mountains
Empty streams and florescent fountains.

In the terracotta dirt my soul leaked away
My final return was like a funeral celebration,
I said nothing anymore. I had nothing left to say.
I’d given my youth to a sniping cynical nation.
What now? It was over for me in a grasping world-
A gooey puddle spread beneath me as my soul evacuated.

When it is my time to die
Will I be frightened
Will I weep, struggling to hold onto the light
Will I pointlessly wonder why
I must embrace the end
My breathe coming slowly, my sight

Searching through darkness?
Will I hold onto
My loved ones, hoping to stay
As I expel in a volatile mess
What in life I have been through
Passing on my way?

As life disappears
And emptiness beckons uncontrollably
Will I know to let go
Embrace my fears
Leave with unruffled dignity
Fall calmly into that of which no one can know?

That day we came
and having come
lapped at by perfumed light
at once separated.
We bathed in the pool
the water like crystal
in the sunset
our limbs like glass.

On the bank
in the hot conjoined air
we made love again
our sweat
like silver in the moonlight.

the water's suppurating flow
drew our limbs
like flotsam in the reeds
grappling glistering lilies
as we floated in slow, *******
currents.

along the bank, the Camphor
shades the forest flowers
through the long-leaved grass
the python slinks

We leave for home
darkened by the sun..........
tongues digging into melons,
pomegranates laid out
neatly for dessert


******* out the Rambutan-
once the hairy skin is peeled-
fiery, red
the soft core sweeter than coitus-
and stays longer in our thoughts.
is this where the dreams are,
or where the dreaming begins,
between the first caress
and the final gasp of satisfaction?
Where the threshing limbs
devour the sun-shredded wheat
and the panting ribbons of air
swallow the final sigh-
the sleek river flowing
seaward, ocean marshalling
the land,
coral languishing in green pools
of broken light.

Here, within this infused beauty,
******* has power
beyond the weather-bound senses
of our northern homes,
encased in dull precipitation
sunshine a blunted knife

beyond the ***-shaped mountains
high above the trees
like a tear emerging from the sky
drops the waterfall
its descent
languid, its fall sharp and effortless;
tinged with azure, carefully sprinkled flakes
it spreads out like a clear, chiming puddle.
There we spread ourselves
naked in the sunlight
the sea's rumbling noise
distant and fumbling-

spreading its curling claws
into the slyly forming sunset
in reiterated rhythms
like beating hearts
like lungs-
the carefully manufactured beats
blending.

When someone dies their thoughts
Die with them,
Their bones absorb their words-
After a summer others cease to remember,
We fade and then are gone.


Each person is replaced:
Vast cities shrink becoming grass-beaten mounds,
Shining cultures wither,
Their intricate palaces shatter,
Temples decay under interminable suns,
Religions flounder, sacrificed to time.

Philosophies expire like sunlight
When night falls, wise words unravel,
Tortured by inconsequence,
Decay dripping from each syllable
Like uncollected wind-driven *******
Running down a lonely street.

In the alley the dog howls,
Amongst the discarded boxes the
Raven sings.

In the deep, uncertain night the strangers met,
Unseeing, unknowing, unthinking-dulled brain and senses,
Through the porous shadows and tangled foliage they crept
Stumbling over fallen trees and broken-down fences
Their hatred binding them, root to root,
In the mediating light of the silvered moon;
Rotten barks covered in fungi, dried twigs cracking underfoot;
Reaching the village outskirts they emitted a painless moan
And stumbled on. Slow breezes drifted over their flesh, sun-driven
Investigative fingers inspecting their souls, medicating pain.
Memory restored, childhood relived, time rendered fission,
Their fears gliding away in the quietly-falling rain.

Striving through the bluster of life, together or apart,
We return to where in life we made an imperfectly remembered start.

When the rose’s bloom darkens
When the mountains sink,
When the desert overcomes starkness
And life comes to a brink,
When shade is clarified by light
And rain returns to cloud,
When day exonerates the night
And silence is too loud
And voices become deaf;
Then that’s when thankfully
Life replaces death
And what is, is no longer what is to be
And tears grow kinder
The air flows more gently
And gods grow ever blinder
And land returns to sea.

When the sea rolled in
I knew we were ******!
It came in like an express
Snorting, snarling, inconsiderate
Blowing everyone away.
I survived. Clinging to a tree.
I watched my friends
Wallow away in sea-water.

When the sun cracked
the planets exploded
each merely shrapnel in a second-
or like the gas giants
puttering into kaleidoscopic spirals
and waving a
symphonic farewell to the universe
grasping the furtive tails
of comets.

mercury shrank into a cindered ball
venus ejected its poisonous atmosphere
like a dying woman her most expensive dresses
mars spun off into the velvety expanse of dark-
but it didn't matter.
only the earth wavered, holding on
to its dignity. Its oceans spilled out,
mottled soup shooting from a bowl,
and its internal fires groaned like arthritic
knees.

In the huge expanse of space
no one noticed,
no one cared.

A deepening hue, packaging crisp and dry,

Telescoping skies, hard bitten with dust

A sly moon, scarred and half-lit.

It didn’t end with a whimper

After all,

But brightly and loudly like a celebration.

It was proud of its going.

Colour spawned from a devil’s jaw, not

A god’s dull reason. Fire everywhere,

Referencing volcanic insinuations, the afterbirth of a planet.

The last man standing

Was burnt to a crisp