#commercialism
The calf lived, sadly, not as long as I
And had as much decision in its end
As I did in my start. I am a monk
Because an abbot, seeing in my eyes
A sense of understanding o’er my years
Instructed that I should be given up
And sent to learn the silent ways of prayer
In grey and brown and cold dark abbey walks.
Before my second sleep I would escape
From blank recitals, to the room of books
Where ****** and points of colour brought to life
The words that we were ordered to live by.
Among those pages I beheld my call
As distant from and better than my kin –
The art that called my wayward eye to flow
Was sense that moved as easily as air.
It must not be that simple, I was told –
The rules are more important than the work;
And while I bowed and took their words as law
I sensed their fear of power as from God.
For word of law to them was everything:
It kept the abbot in his house of gold
And every novice living in the thought
That one day such a life would be his own
If only he ignored his sense of self.
I pricked and pinned and copied sacred texts
A line a day, the pigments dull and flat
Until the moment came to decorate
The words of God impressed on pelt of calf;
And then I felt as if I were in charge –
The choice was down to me to use bright tones
To turn the eyes to points upon the page
So the Word was told, but under my control.
I truly felt that I was in the place
That God Himself appointed me to be;
That every shape I crafted passed His Word
In such a way that no one could reject
The power, truth and honesty bestowed.
Yet, while my masters revelled in the fame
That texts which I had drawn brought to their house,
I could not reconcile within my mind
The knowledge that the work I made was seen
Only and alone by parish priests
And not the congregation in itself –
The folk who needed most to see my art.
Kings and cardinals have made a much
Of certain pages that I came to make
Once seniority brought me to a place
Where I could do the which that I believe
Will bring me to the Lord beyond my death.
And yet as I observe my life’s labours
As work to be collected, traded, sold;
While I am told my only best reward
Is to be left to do the which I do –
I find I cannot live a moment more
Without accepting that, within my soul,
I always had to do what I now will.
The calf lives, strangely, further more than I
But had far less decision in its end
Than I have in my own. We are the page –
And as I realised, seeing in my eyes
A sense of understanding, oft denied,s
Instructed me, myself, to end my years
By teaching that my colours are a prayer
For grey and brown and cold dark abbey walks.
May 9
May 9, 2026 at 2:35 AM UTC
You look upon me
Unsteady gaze,
Flickering
A commercial you’re creating,
Selling a lie.
Not the Ginsu knives—
No,
Never anything real.
Broadcasting lives,
Shadows you dream,
Moonlight you breathe.
A tender sigh.
Everyone bought it.
Mar 29
Mar 29, 2026 at 3:44 AM UTC
Wires from descending elevators whip tourists into buying more than they can afford,
A group of cleaners take worn sponges and grate them against sterile table tops
Tired eyes glaring, so many faces forced into a socially restrained concrete,
Sipping lukewarm coffee whilst a massive woman dives into a greasy papery bag
A waiting room for spiritually degraded human beings,
Who can no longer bear to hold a saucepan
One man’s anxious head makes a turn as he waits for his friends to turn up,
Everyone here sitting in transient seating that numbs the **** muscles,
The only thing that links us together
People making occasional eye contact with one another,
It’s so brief yet so uncomfortable
Another group of cleaners with gloves like loosened condoms
They move in like domestic vultures,
They pick apart every table in their sight
A young man runs and weaves past these tables with hot plastic against his ears,
He’s talking to people who are very far away,
He’s mentioning travel arrangements,
He’s keen to get away
Dried salads line rusted metal troughs
Day old dim sims bathe in ***** coloured oil
Drinks fizzle and foam out through people’s mouths and noses
They look diseased and shattered by everything
People eating here supposedly akin to cattle at feeding time,
However,
Cattle eat fresh grass in lush fields with fluffy clouds with a bright blue sky above
Where you sit,
Plastic plants lay in corners producing no oxygen
Cold metal chairs hit stained tiles as cleaners start packing up for the day
Asian women in the distance paint customers long claws,
They smile at each other’s colourful toes with gleeful envy
Though a large bird **** splattered window you see people down below rubbing their bellies,
They ride an escalator upstairs,
To spend time with you in heaven
Wiping irreversible grease into your trousers,
You throw garbage into a metal mouth and leave
Mar 1, 2019
Mar 1, 2019 at 10:38 AM UTC
I'm not one for Valentine's Day.
Love wrapped up and packaged into superficial nothingness
The meaning, the weight and beauty of love, made less,
stripped away and replaced with balloons and chocolates.
No
If you love someone you tell them
every
day.
Tell them with the way you look at them,
with the way you touch them,
buy her flowers because its Tuesday
dress up for him because you wanna take his breath away
all
over
again
falling in love is a whirlwind of involuntary passion
staying in love is an action
showing love is a responsibility, a choice
don't dull the song of love's voice because it shouldn't be loudest but one day a year
No
interlock your fingers and breathe each other in
not for a holiday, do it for the grin, that blooms on her face more lovely than any roses in a vase OH dear
No.
Love is not just once a year.
Feb 14, 2019
Feb 14, 2019 at 11:02 AM UTC
Cyber! Neon green, pinks,
Hair like vivid spotlights
At nightclubs, darting, sharp,
Strong-willed and persistent,
Piercing through the pale skin
Laid thinly over fog.
Shock-shock! If anarchy
Is popular, what does
It mean to rebel? Rave
Lights beam through the system
Like tracer rounds! The punks
Spin like halogen bulbs.
Steel! Plenty of plastic.
Enough to rebuild the
Eccentric walls of their
Flashy nightclubs. Above,
Sophisticated chains
Spin and drag over meat;
Pointless. A simple sort
Of mechanisation.
The music, the plastic,
The hair dye; all of it
Spits to the contrary,
Such anarchists are they.
Dec 5, 2018
Dec 5, 2018 at 5:42 AM UTC
Fire stirs gently
In the depths of my chest.
Hot rocks, rolling
The molten stones down to
My stomach. The
Ache is quelled, substitute
To flame. Piping
Cold nectar, as gold,
Drawing only the
Boldest flames, dragon-like,
From my throat, my eyes,
My thoughts,
Invoked. Strong,
Stirring-gold, brazing,
Golden flames. Quell
The pains of my
Productivity.
Sooth the raw burns
Of my purpose,
Or lack thereof.
Dec 4, 2018
Dec 4, 2018 at 7:36 AM UTC
A pale green Siren
With fair skin, and the distant
Aroma of coffee beans...
Behind her, a broad,
White-bearded old man
Grinning, stares through my head...
And above, the dull hum
Of an apple, a single bite missing,
Penetrates me with its glare...
My eyes sting with tears.
It's almost like they need
To force us to be human.
Dec 2, 2018
Dec 2, 2018 at 4:44 PM UTC
The end of Second Summer's day
When rain and snow have ceased to be
Will see the end of our delay
And mark the death of our decree.
*Elsewhere the despondent souls
Of smoke-stacks rise up from the coals...*
As plastic melts beneath the glare
And long the Dream was dashed ashore,
Then will smog-clouds light the air
And cast the fires across the moor.
*... Then, far beyond, the wand'ring mirth
Will strike the land, and scorch the Earth...*
Until the sky is raised in flame
We'll walk the trail of frail regrets,
And once the world glows hot with shame
Shame will then our end beget.
*... And so our doing will blaze the sky
By MMXXVII*.
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 5:32 PM UTC
A cloud of smoke and fog so toxic
They had to give it a name.
Out here, it coils around signs
And slinks up the height of buses:
Keen and watchful, like a python,
Squeezing the life from
My lungs. Heavy with ash
And tar from the cigarettes.
The fumes snake upwards,
Swirling in fog, smog,
Ashen clouds. There's a sight
For sore minds.
Nov 27, 2018
Nov 27, 2018 at 5:08 AM UTC
Sleeping commuters leave
Ghostly auras amidst
The foggy plastic windows.
They slumber through
The booming snore
Of exhaust-pipes, choking smoke.
Silence. Or closest to.
Even stopped, the Bus roars,
Patiently brooding, growling,
As a wolf in the underbrush
Watching the crimson lights, sharp
Like blood on a pavement.
A small cat, uncollared,
Sprints across the road
But is pounced upon.
The wheels creak,
Commuters stir, and the Bus
Stalks away into the night.
Nov 26, 2018
Nov 26, 2018 at 5:23 PM UTC
Last weekend, I
Went out stargazing.
I was struck
By the cold beauty of one
Lonely star, glistening
In the inky veil,
Winking at me.
Alone in her
Frigid bedsheets, she
Gazed down, like monarchy,
To I; the one who saw
Her quiet beauty.
She winked again,
Then drifted away:
A plane in the night.
So there were no stars
That evening, after all.
Nov 26, 2018
Nov 26, 2018 at 9:37 AM UTC
A plastic bottle
Sits discarded at
The foot of a
Recycling bin.
A city bird,
Mistaking it for
Some kind of
Strange fruit, or
Perhaps a meal
Fit for a king
Descends, grasps it
With pincer'd claws,
Then carries it to
Her nest, and sits
For five minutes,
Watching, confused,
As her hatchlings
Gnaw at the label.
In bright red letters:
'Taste The Feeling.'
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 1:25 PM UTC
The other day, I
Tried to eat a
*** of yoghurt.
Lacking the tools,
I called up
To my mother:
"Mum! Where
Are the spoons?"
The fatal words.
Now, every time I
Go online, all the
Adverts are for cutlery.
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 12:30 PM UTC
Frigid buildings as those
That scrape the sky, climbing.
In a place that no-one knows,
Distant bells are chiming
To the shots and screaming,
"Stop resisting!" A rise
In terror betraying
The brittle city's brittle lies.
And for a time we hoped that they
Would never know our quiet rage,
And from the melting lights, we pray
For the silent, now upstaged.
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 7:41 AM UTC
About a year ago,
I quit smoking.
My counselor - a
Firm anti-smoker -
Told me, "Well done,"
And as I left
Her office, a thick cloud
Of bus-exhaust billowed
Up to the third story
Window, and seeped within.
"No smoking," the sign said;
"It's bad for your health."
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 7:19 AM UTC
Do you know, the exact design
Of spikes and wires atop street-signs
And the sort, are to stop
Pigeons ******** on the top?
And yet, just the other day,
A mother pigeon - as if to say
**** you!" to the local street -
Had made her nest up, nice and neat,
Above the very spikes they laid
To stop the nest from being made.
And as I passed, I thought aloud,
"'At-a-girl! She should be proud!"
Nov 23, 2018
Nov 23, 2018 at 4:12 PM UTC
Amidst the chaotic thrums
Of silence, a lone ant
Rises among the swarm.
Slowly, and with no small
Amount of huge determination,
She ascends the blade
Of grass, and stands aloft.
Overseeing the nest,
She sees nothing at all.
Nov 23, 2018
Nov 23, 2018 at 3:56 PM UTC
The blackbirds sang throughout midday
Beneath a sky of white and grey.
The people heard their gentle muse
Between the ads and evening news.
One long day bled into night
Whereby the call of the moonlight
Danced and laughed the night away
'Til nightly folks were led astray.
Along, the smoke was blown beyond
The city-smog and withered fronds
Of ravaged trees across the land
Where once the city didn't stand;
And as the sun began to rise
A distinct welling in their eyes
Told them that they weren't so wrong
For listening to the blackbirds' song.
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 6:13 PM UTC
The cold metal door
Squeeaaaks
And swings to the wall
In a thump of agony.
Lever-action. The bolt
Cliiiicks
To the hammer, before the
Brittle door-shavings
Rocket outwards in a
BANG!
Metal shatters like laminate.
In a way, its like
The spirit.
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 4:38 PM UTC
There, I wipe the rain
From my glasses. "What
Is it?" I point out, and gaze
At the tune of my heart
To where the autumn trees
Fold into one another like soft
Lovers, wrapped in golden sheets,
Huddled against the wind.
Not a month later, I
Return to bid Autumn's lovers
Farewell to Winter. But they are
No longer bathed in gold;
The plastic sun, a sort of
Yellow lie, towers on a monolith
Where they once stood. And nearby,
A crude, concrete mockery
Complete with billowing smoke,
And a drive-through, stands
Hot-tempered and selfish
Like a wart on the nose of Love.
Nov 14, 2018
Nov 14, 2018 at 12:07 PM UTC
The distant cry
Of a black-bird
Echoes up high
But is not heard.
Somewhere beneath,
A rodent nests
In tar and grief
With young in-breast.
And, in valleys,
A crushing guilt
Poisons the land
To bleed and wilt;
Pestilence is
Upon them. Not
A plague: rather,
Humanity.
Nov 12, 2018
Nov 12, 2018 at 4:19 AM UTC
A spark is lit in cinders
That alights into a ball of outrage
True to the cause. "They
are at fault, this much is known,"
But is quickly forgotten. Like magpies,
Utterly self-removed, we forget
And collect more shiny things.
Women of ice dance in glass trays
As society's polite reminder:
'Be distracted, please.'
Nov 11, 2018
Nov 11, 2018 at 7:21 AM UTC
Somewhere cold, a
Hot crimson balloon ascends
Amongst the concrete and rebar.
It rises to the glistening roof
Then bursts. The kids saw
It rise, but not its fall.
Nov 11, 2018
Nov 11, 2018 at 7:16 AM UTC
"Getting sick of married life?
Tired of your ageing wife?
Well, you can create her face anew
With plastic skin and pink tissue!"
"Yes, in only three short days,
She'll be worthy of your praise.
Just send a cheque to this address
And trust us, friend, we'll sort the rest!"
The bill-boards scream in the night
As wolves in the canopy.
Like lasers, they seethe and cut
Through the diamonds of your wet eyes,
Convincing you all too soon that
You are not already perfect.
Nov 7, 2018
Nov 7, 2018 at 10:10 AM UTC