The reference books don't help.
What is the meaning of that poem?
They say it's for the reader to decide,
that means my problem's multiplied.

Those critics don't help,
more mysterious than the poet.
An ancient priesthood of pleasure,
keeping secrets from the mystified.

I should have read more widely in my youth.
A hard science and its appliance
did not prepare me for these truths.
But I do like the words,
still more their musical score.

An unwelcome shock to see them again,
their faces no longer a part of the place.
His memory oiled by how things were
back then, in nineteen hundred and when?

Existence now seems full of persistent
memories, though there are false ones too.
Does he rely to much on them for what to do?
When people tell him words that chime,
should he so readily comply?

Should he trust himself to think things true?
Use his knowledge or review his ideas?
Retry those memories beyond a reasonable doubt,
seek out the false ones, chuck them out?

Many sing of Shakespeare or of Keats.
I look to a Scottish lad for my treats.
He was of Irish descent,
and but for friends he would have lived in a tent.

From weaver he rose to a poet of renown,
but his contemporaries treated him as a clown.
Employed to give recitations of his masterpieces,
such as the famous 'Tay Bridge Disaster' he was a poet
of an entirely different species.

Spurning fashionable poetic metaphor and scans,
his simple language amused his many fans.
Alas he died in poverty. Yes he was skint,
but unlike many others of his time,
his poetry's still in print.

I see them ready to go.
Soldiers in open order,
facing some deadly blow,
wistful in the early morning light.

Their names now engraved in cold stone,
my warm heart beating their tattoo.
I am chasened to the bone,
making this record of their plight.

Bright white vase, pink roses
rousing the blue walled sick room,
pointing to the beckoning sun,
drawing the patient on,
dosing her with life,
draining the manacing blues.

She rocks in her chair, tuning
to the fraught street air,
but soon it will be night.

She wouldn't, couldn't give her name,
but they still took her in when she called.
I visited, adopted her,
though she must have been in her twenties.

We called her Monica. It seemed to fit.
She never spoke, sitting at her half opened window,
sampling a sliver of the fraught stree air.
I don't think she could take any more of the real world.

She stayed there safe in her dull, blue walled retreat,
an observer, lacking a ticket of entry.
And when darkness fell, and the curtains were closed,
the house lights went up on her secret, inner theatre.

The steps were white
from wives who scrubbed
their knees red rubbed
Down our street
Down our street.

When trains went past
the houses shook
not made to last
Down our street
Down our street.

And we played games
on cobble stones
to neighbours moans
Down our street
Down our street.

Now the street is full of cars
active kids play games indoors
aviators in alien wars
Down our street
Down our street.

It's a kind of blindness,
never been there,
never seen there.
Not through my own eyes,
just in films and stills.

Even here I bring the blinds down
on native town and countryside.
Don't see what changes and what doesn't,
trying too much to cope with the present,
future and imagined virtual fights.

So what do others see? I can't use their eyes.
Can they be my spies? Can they infiltrate?
Can they secure my interests? Or are they
double agents for some other clandestine cause?

We'll be well cabbaged
before we're spring greened,
snowed on, blowed on,
Christmas glowed on.

Out of our walnut shells we'll come,
cycling for pleasure, recycling
for good measure, joining
the cycling chains of life.

It's the one behind taking the picture,
concealed, hiding in the crowd,
but not of it, divided from it
by the spirit of the camera.

What will she say, latter-day?
'I was part of it and this proves it.'
But it doesn't. She's moved only
by its framing, its history.

The poet's toolbox is
an onerous store for skills
with life and death
and words that ****.
Pandora's box with broken locks.

Hammering words,
chiselling words,
leaving the reader
nailed, *******, glued.

Pulsing phantoms through the brain,
playing tricks, memory ******.
But the writing keeps me sane.

Tall trees bend to watch the circus.
Red-brown leaves dance and clown,
leaping high somersaults,
bowing off with forward rolls.

Empty crisp bags join the show.
Gallop ******* down the street.
Heads sink deeper into collars.
Flapping hats prepare to go.

Plastic bags trapeze from trees.
Overhead wires sing harmonies.
Creaking boughs play timpani.
Isobars squint spitefully.

This is my own Ming vase.
I love it, treasure it.
I really don't know why.

It's odd and old, never to be sold,
cold to my touch, and stands aloof,
my only precious piece.

I'll never see another,
and dare not even try
for fear that I'll lose my loving eye.

We're weary and wet,
trowelling through the muck,
looking for ancient bones,
cold as skeletons.

The earth gives up its ***** old men,
bequeathing their remains -
bog people, trog people,
pongy gaping gob people -
most likely Angles and Saxons.

At least they have their own ***** old women,
and don't try to rattle our women's bones.

I always found you attractive,
since I first saw you in the schoolroom.
Cheerful friend, shining, finely moulded.
Later you climbed above my class.
I was shy, lacking nous.

Then we moved up - single-*** schools,
repressed when our feelings flexed.
Vexed with books, exams, homework,
competing for our chosen paths.

We work in neighbouring labs.
Please answer my lovelorn phone calls.
You're still my magnet,
and I'm your iron filings.

We say it's work, but hardly
in progress. Nothing changes
except ourselves, filing regrets
that we must watch wait and record.

We write as best we can,
not knowing why our words
come out portraying
misery, mystery and hope.

It is said that poets are born,
not made, but we are made
when someone reads our work.

I shouldn't have bothered.
I thought this was a posh area.
Now I see it's not.
'Tommy Rot!'

Look at the gardens.
The lawns are covered in weeds.
'*******! We grow herbs a lot.'

Even you're car's a mess.
Not been cleaned in ages.
'I wash it often,
every guilt trip day.'

And those dogs, do they howl all night?
'Oh no. Nothing like that.
It's just the neighbours in a fight.'

They say that mirror smashing
leads to seven years of fear,
and ladder dodging
leaves you in the clear.

I don't believe in luck,
accidents perhaps,
but just make sure you don't
step on the pavement cracks.

'Coming, ready or not.' Now I'm prepared,
watching, waiting, hyperventilating,
hiding by the back yard gate.
Should I peep or close my eyes,
pretend a ghostly disguise.

Cold rough brick won't build my life.
Pete formed attachments, made them pay
and called the tune until the day
when bricks collapsed, crushing his disguise.

I saw him white haired, small bent.
There were pictures, Cheshire men,
comrades, serious, smiling, unsure.
His later trenches were for spuds.

On postcard he's crouched by a road,
grinning, rifle aimed at camera,
a shot of friendly fire from France bound home.

He didn't talk about the War,
except to say the food was good.
The youth grew into the uniform.
Gran said he came home mid blown.

A small nest in a large sea,
the beat of the blades keeps
time for those still alive,
whose desperate waves
defy tide timetables.

The camera zooms in on
anguished faces and still ones.
We lean forward screened from pain,
listening to the death count,
time and time and time again.

They say you should own change,
one of our few possessions,
having to pay for the past,
though changes never last.

It's said its as good as a rest,
but don't we fear some changes.
Who benefits is the test,
and who looses history erases.

So they're always taking away.
We're ren ting, repenting the present,
dissenting form changes and loss,
for loss is a change, as we pay.

'You're frowning', she said.
'It can't be that bad.
I switch thoughts, creating
plausible lies, hiding
protecting regrets.

Things done, never undone,
left to sink in the silt
of the best forgotten,
growing  into islands of debt.

Here they come to seek a symbol
of seaside sun - a cruise ship
castaway, beached,rain stained,
landlubbers hamock and griddle.

But first they collapse me and curse me.
Doing it properly should be
part of their curriculum vitae,
a test of nationality.

Then I'm candy flossed, ice creamed, Blackpool
rocked, salted and crisped, generally stuffed,
while they lie back, roast and relax.
Good job it's not a nudist beach.

My wife wears the sandals.
I never could. Must wear socks.
She says, No socks with sandals.
It's just not done! Sorry, don't
see myself with scented candles,
wispy beard smoking ***.
No disregards, it's just not my lot.

Chaotic cabinet of curios,
obsessive dreams unlocked her secret drawers.
Who was Sylvia, a poetic
slave to an idealized dead father?

Her suurogate father figure Ted
would never do. Her seven year
itch at last unstuck her glue, sent
her back to hom she hardly knew.

He arrived unexpected,
and unknown to me, excited
but uncertain. Returning home
demobbed, still salty from the sea.

But nothing like the pictures
on Grandpa's pack of Players.
No bushy beard,
a sad weary smile,
a warm embrace.

So this was a father - mine.
Would I grow up like him?
How would Mum be? No welcome
home for others from our street.

I love these old snickelways
and lanes in York, my second home.
This one's dark, damp, mysterious,
narrow single file uneven path,
cantilevered street lamp half way down,
sun setting at the far end.

A woman walks ahead, squeezing
through, blinding sunlit halo.
Difficult to distinguish. Not quite right.

'Can I help', I cry. She just moans
and shuffles on, head lolling,
curious scarf wrapped round her neck.

A postcard from the shop next door explains:
'Alice Smith lived here,
died in eighteen hundred and twenty-five.
Hanged for being mad.
Mad Alice Lane, York'.

They're digging up the cobbles in our street,
moving them to a classier area.
We'll be given tarmac, black and soft in the sun.

Yes, even here it shines - on men's vests.
They're red faced, drinking from lager cans,
while their women finger scarved curlers.
At least, that's what others think they see.

But neighbours do talk with us.
There's a code of decency,
though Mum says, 'some have hearts
as black as the tarmac'.

There's a hierarchy,
in minds and heads,
if not in pockets.

Some day the toffs will turf us out,
gentrify our street. We'll be moved,
filed vertically, pigeon lofts in the sky.
Then they'll bring our cobbles back.

Like feeding birds alert for movement,
we watch the flickering images,
distracted by sounds, voices, music,
taking flight from raw deal reality.

It's the images that move our minds,
not the pain, despair, lack of care.
We crave the shock, the resus, shaking
the bordom from our souls. Life's victims
might exchange given the chance to compare.

Be ready! I'm coming for you, he warned.
We shrank into the doorways,
watching, waiting for the clutch
of his dragon's claws, his rheumy eyes, eagle's beak.
It was just Old Joe, playing our game,
until they stopped him dead.

She said he was wealthy,
owned several properties,
endowed several churches
and sired seven children,
all of whom he disowned.

For her, evidence that wealth
doesn't always trickle down.
He left it to foreign missions,
teachers of intolerance.

Tattered black and white photo,
his eyes glare from crackled glaze,
severe stare, pefected
through lifelong practice,
or simply hypocracy.

Malevolence sparked her old, blue,
hooded eyes as she told me of his death.
He claimed he did not suffer
because of his righteousness.

She bore her story as a curse,
relieved to pass it on to me.
Now I pass the burden on.

Why does the grass grow fast?
Why do pigeons persist?
Why jellyfish?

Why do weeds always succeed?
I cut the lawns, prune the trees,
seed the bald patches.

Wild ways still hold sway.
Why is nature inconsiderate?

There's a postcard on the mantle.
Where did they get to this time?
Egypt - They're cruising the Nile,
touring temples, pyramids, tombs.

They've come a long way from Blackpool.
They won't see the tower.

Will the pharoahs mind?
There treasures picked millenia ago,
deprived of their worldly needs
for a market in plunder.

Still there won't be a space for my charriot.
I don't expect to cross the Styx
or see Akenaton's face.

Postcards don't give you the smells and sounds,
the moments effect of light and dark,
the lift in spirits as you gaze on each new view,
the urge to closely observe.

Why go to this broken landscape
  to claim you've been there you've lived
  to add the graffiti of your presence to these precise hieroglyphs
  to see an unusual land that's been usual for centuries past?

It's Blackpool by the sea for me.

I'm told they marvelled
at the winter sun
rising through the henge
symbol of times gone
times to come, longer days
renewal of life's ways.

We think we understand
the coming and the going
the passage of the seasons
nights days fortunes made lost
death's cost and yet we fight.

A short eight line poem
promise of things unsaid
or complete in its simplicity
stretching my imagination.

Do I read between the lines
try to search the poet's thoughts?
I cannot help but sour my own
sown like weeds among his vines.

A light tea before her reading
so I can focus on her words
seek out their meaning
refrain her rhythms
define her rhymes
listen for her killer lines.
A music too rich to revise.

Are those tiny strands really me?
They say each set is unique
but no one is anonymous
like an inherited trace book.

I carry my history with me.
No wonder I'm overweight
celt viking or anglo-saxon
or two out of three a cross breed.

I even passed this burden to my kids
left slivers all over the place
though I was always told to tidy up.

They only talk at night
all else is quiet
facing each other
at more than two sword lengths.

Opposite sides of the House
on opposite walls they parley.
Seeing them during the day
you'd swear they smiled above you.

Wishing you cou could have eavesdropped
learned more of what they think.
They stand aside from you in that gallery.

A peaceful morning
snuggling within myself
piecing together feelings
of well-being - inner cleaning.

The day viewed from a telescope's
objective lens suppressed at length.
Multi-screen imagination
until incursions grey the frame
mediating reality.

He had his vision,
wouldn't listen.
Mother sad,
father angry.

He despised advice.
Discounted the price.
Mother sad,
father angry.

Shunned his closest friends.
Wouldn't make amends.
Mother sad,
father angry.

Finally he went,
all arguments spent.
Mother and father despondent.

Robin's flashing safety
coat's in flight, defying cats.
The pigeon squadron's wheeling,
awaiting a blackbird 'All Clear'.

Then they all come, perfect landings,
on grass and path and seed feeder,
a thieving, weaving, twittering scrum,
saleroom scurrying, juggling, grumbling.

Starlings gardening,
earthworms squirming,
magpies spooking,
pretence pets.

Alone on this dark wet flagstone
hiding not hibernating place
no hedge to hug no worms to dig
stunned torchlit searchlight target
awaiting attack from hostiles
spine chilling prying naturephiles.

Musing at my bedroom window
proscenium to the street scene
parents in the back room snoring.
St. Michael's sandstones frowning
at poor Sally shambling shuffling
from sectret shadow to moonshine
bottles clanking guilty glancing
bulging stout bag liquor dancing.

Standing at the poet's corner
spectators pilgrims commentators
ectoplasmic streams rise and flare
hot heaving lungs to cold dry air
they star prepare explanations
poltergeist premeditations.

All people that on Earth do well
playing nukie bound for hell
oh what transports of delight
when the husbands start to fight.

I'm partly this and partly that
partly veggie and partly fat.
Trying hard to be the new man
and as she says 'partly human'.

How was I in my prime
was I sublime or merely sub
did I impress or distress
in my mumbling fumbling way
did I go the extra mile
tell me why do you smile.

I think I'll populate this land
with menacing creatures,
others making mistakes,
vital dramas.
Perhaps there'll be a happy end.

A hidden corner's shadowy cast,
a trapped reliquary,
unfashionables crafted in the past,
pending rebirth.

Banished by media teacher gurus,
punished for flouting current taste lore,
distressed, wasted, awaiting expert pleasure.

It's just long wave light, airborne
dust. But even long wave makes me
shudder - emotional partings
'Brief Encounter'
Sign of age.

Buck up. There may be bad weather,
but if I hadn't seen it, would that
still apply? Pretend it didn't
happen - illusion - bloodshot eyes.