Who may not talk must fight,
engage the diplomacy of guns,
though having supped the devils' ***,
we look on our works and despair.

Ideas have become principles
and our givens must be taken.
Vile words replace understanding
or mitigate our unfound trust.

Perhaps one should contemplate
or denounce our loss of grace
displacing belicose thoughts.

He sang the people's songs
and faught the people's causes.
Others heard and blacked his name.
That was for him no badge of shame.

A five string banjo man,
folk singer, left winger,
he sang brave words in trying times,
striving to strengthen basic rights.

Pete Seeger died aged ninety-four
and left a heritage for man.
Asking us to Turn! Turn! Turn!
Urging us to overcome.

He lived next door but one to us
and chased me down the entry.
We went to school and played our tricks.
We worked at weaving - wenched and fished.

Listened to the deadly yarn
the friendly seargeant spun.
Signed us up, lined us up like bobbins
waiting for our places in the sun.

Willie shared a fage with me
before the whistle blew.
We had a packet left
so shared our memories too.

We walked straight as shuttles
through that valley of the Somme.
Six hundred fell with Willie
'neath the barrage from the ***.

The slaughter carried on.

The East Lancs filled our ranks
from outside Accrington.
Will sharing **** catch on?

You made it to the Top of the Pops.
What was it like to be idolized
- do you still savour the fame
- does it remain or fade?

'I am left with what I am,
needing to recognized myself
for what I am and always was.'
- But is nothing left of stardom?

'A star! A shooting star more like
that quickly falls to Earth
dazzling itself, burning away
its substance in the flames.'

The first line came easily,
so I seized the moment,
then stumbled through a jumble,
half memories, half queries.

It had seemed beautiful
when I spoke it to the night
but now wasted, wounded,
like a lasered tattoo.

Two living statues,
a man of silver
and one who sits mid-air.
Crowds pause wonder stare.

A trench foot Tommy
stands lonely unremarked,
bronzed as his medal,
braced for our next war.

At least five a day! Stop smoking!
Enough messages to fatten a
health  freak, sprinkling my consciousness
like drizzle pimpling a window pane.

On Dali time - I wander
a nightmare hall of mirrors.
My watch slow, slow - marching
past the appointment hour.

Incubating my ***** sample,
I watch a young man bending forward
like a scribe studying his text.
Someone silently mouthing
her missal or her shopping list.

Ping! Will William Shaw
please go to room five.
Back to the slow march.
Please let me be next.

The first round is celebrities,
probably a knockout for me.
Most people I could mention would
be lucky still to be on pension.

My geography now is history.
Leningrad has already been purged
but where have they put Calcutta?
Oh! Calcutta - the internet I suppose.

I'm told that trivia and me don't fit.
Still, not much does these days.
Pass the cocoa and Rich Teas, please.

Newton, Shakespeare and Lady Day
on the shoulders of giants I totter
science technology and poetry
politics media and philosophy
layer on layer of ideology
collide like matter and antimatter.
Rules from school and infancy
loyalty influence and love.
You ask me what makes me tick.
The clock ticks. My watch ticks.
I quietly wonder - tick, tick, tick.

The stream of Sunday people
used to separate down High Street,
led by family threads, some to
Bethesda others to St. Pauls.

Some time later they joined a stream again,
swirling, rippling with the gossip of the day.
Their duty done singing hymns, dropping pennies,
offering prayers and sitting through sermons. Amen.

Prominent St. Pauls praised by Pevsner
as Runcorn's most distinctive building,
but Bethesda, older, iron railed,
both cures for souls till their people left.

Now St. Pauls cures patients' bodies,
while Bethesda harbours buses.
Weekday people steam and gossip,
potions purchased, journeys joined.

There is a drawing on my wall,
a pen and ink impression
of the old Transporter Bridge,
a Mecccano masterpiece.

It's my tardis, my time machine,
portal to a vast interior
of vivid early images,
sounds of a rumbling grumbling bogie,
pulling me back through time.

The clatter as our boarding gate swings shut,
an alert pause in the varnished cabin,
we listen for the next familiar step,
the creaking **** towards Runcorn Gap,
passing over Aethelfleda's Castle,
the mid-crossing windblown waltzing,
the bustling landing in the other county.

I've come to see Saint Christopher,
a cult local celebrity -
commanding, remote, bearing
the burden of pious prayers,
a chip from Cheshire's sandstone lip -
to hitch a lift on his shoulders
into Norton priory's past.

Gingerly touching sandstone walls,
connecting with their history,
rough grains adhere to my hand.
I somehow feel part of it now,
watching mediaeval hoodies
as they celebrate the spilling
of some ancient sacred blood.

We're boating on Brindley's cut
cruising to the cotton city
Manchester where it all goes on
the engine of our empire.

Eight hours of ease from Top Locks,
meals provided, plenty to see
here on the cutting edge
of British engineering.

A night out on the tiles
then back again to dear old Runcorn,
something to tell our kids,
the start of a transport revolution.

They huddle in the cold damp darkness
grateful for the sheltering sandstone
shuddering at each echoing blast
a remorseless dull ache
like their meagre rations
eyelids shutting wrinkling between attacks
seeking peace and inner sleepless solace.

'Them docks is taking a pasting.'
'Me Dad works there.'

Another attack, tunnels rumble
evoking century old echoes
of rusty trundling drum-line wagons
bearing sandstone blocks to build the docks
now being blitzed blighting the night sky.

The morning brings a dusty disquiet.
Merseyside emerges curses soldiers on.

Cocooned under a web of road
rail and footpath at Top Locks
five narrow boats await their fate
stuck in a canal trade ice age.

Calling for new boat people
to change course from speed and stress
they're refitted cleaned and preened
for slow lane contemplation.

Slowly ne vessels pump life blood
branching out across old veins
filling the ships with goods again.

They swarm around their polyglot guide
trying to catch her savoured words
to match her stories with their myths
and the histories of Old England.

Here painted living statues pose
frozen til some money's paid
like mercenary seaside slot machines.

No place for the camera shy
no space for passers-by
no peace for older eyes
who seek their place in winter's light.

Once private priviledged and aloof
the Grange is now a public place
where children swing and slide and shine
flowers in their parents' eyes
where births and marriages and deaths
bare bones rest in Runcorn's archive.

Here people seek to right their wrongs
express their doubts and fears and views
it's here that ballots call the shots
for mayors and councillors and clerks
pursuing our priorities.

I'm passed unnoticed
I am driftwood beached blanched
til my final tide.

Haiku 2
I am seventeen
imposed as a three line whip
imaged as haiku.

Haiku 3
Blackbird bristling bold
chirping like an angry wife
did he do her wrong.

Haiku 4

Magpies skymasters
flying menacing moguls
casting long shadows.

An old curiosity shop
a lost world depository
dark dusty as pharaoh's tomb
worming squirming carefully through
where 'Breakages Must Be Paid For'.

Stopped clocks claiming time is up
sofas trailing their entrails
peeved pictures offered for their frames
and bureaux bursting with bumf.

Rummaging through dank passages
searching inner chamber book stocks
classic novels at six old pence
thumbed pages bought for improvement.

Nelson Collins Clear Type Press
Dent and Everyman in distress
Dumas Dickens and Conan Doyle
countless cultural references.

It's half past four and the Red Rose
is Doppler dashing across
bullying slow fourth class hikers bikers
who dare to share the bridge walkway.

Puffing pumping its steam sweat smoke
straining through the shielding lattice
smogging choking foot folk
who snort its sulphur scented smuts.

Finger soldered brilliant new gold band
proudly circling nuptial sun
orbiting eclipsing the clans
completing a family connexion
with others ovoid chipped but fondly funded
wearing thin on hardened blue veined hands
some waving some proclaiming all belonging.

'The number you have dialled is engaged.'
Madam, I don't want to marry you.
This is the tenth time you refused me.
Perhaps it's an official secret
a phone in an empty locked room
or in a government bomb shelter.
I'd better check the website again.
Premium bonds or powerful bombs?

A personal unique key
I've never been good with locks.
This depends on memory
but I suffer from mental blocks.

I need a new one
coded cryptic covert
not to be entered lightly
like a woman's purse.

I should never write it down.
I should never breathe a word.
Too much trouble. Start a pin strike.
Wear purple. Do what the hell you like.

There it stands modelling a fine coat of dust
covering the rim chips that cheapen it.
This vase stood for more than I can understand.
In earthenware fashioned from English clay
by English hands, but unfashionable now
a small squat *** of Dalton blue and brown.
Two necklaces of tiny beads clasp its neck
like corsets holding open its cornet mouth.
But we no longer hear its tunes or read its runes.

When I hold it in my hands I see Great Grandma's room
with highland cattle in a Scottish mountain scene.
The long-case clock of fear and fascination
where mother was threatened with incarceration
but never ******. Its rustic case reached down
to Earth's grim brimstone and fiery domains.
'There,' Mother said, 'lie Grandma's tortured remains.'

There's a flap on - flying fluttering
olympian feeding before the frosts
competitive cooperation
repetitive consternation
tribal territories transgressed
survival of the fattest.

Darker days dominate.
The land browns bare.
Animals hibernate.

'It's not the same', the doctor said,
'Don't do it or you'll become obese.
Their diet would put you in bed.
You'd die before your time
of some terrible disease.
Follow my special diet.
And run if it's fun .'

'But don't be a convert to anorexia.
That's a perverse faith.
You'd never make it as a wraith.
Take a tablet for your headache.'

Some tell me Blackpool's cool,
so I sit in the cool,
watching a darkening sky,
wrapped against the onshore breeze,
stifling a day's end sigh.

Starlings do maths in the sky,
imaginary numbers,
imaginative paths,
sweeping, forming swarming,
hereditary helix,
genetic genuflection.

His wife and he, they tried to see
what differences they defended.
Where calmness was the casualty
and tranquillity upended.

They struck them down, each in their turn
to please the other's whim,
until no fault was there to find,
and boredom settled in.

We're on the culture bus to Woburn.
Our teacher's got a sculpture crush.
He talks art to us and trusts we'll learn
to treasure beauty in artistic form.
We'll see the Three Graces, god like faces.
Fabulously fashioned in white marble.
We're not to focus on their private parts,
but concentrate on carefully crafted,
sensuous, sweeping, silky surfaces,
shaping youth beauty, mirth and elegance.

Smithy says you can safely stare.
Our girls giggle at our faces,
then blush when we compare.
Seems it's unfair. What's a boy to do?

Market car parks all but empty.
Wind blown bags and wrappers plenty.
Windows mirror dark depression.
Wily ****-kids lack discretion.

Hoardings, dulling, staining, tearing.
People facing lack of caring.
People scraping, scrounging, screaming.
People coping, calming, hoping.

What, where, when, why, who, how,
Kipling's six critical friends,
rippling through my memory cells.
Welling up as willow wisp.

Waiting for a flame to flicker,
crinkling eyes and wrinkling brow,
testing temper, checking time,
scribbling words that do not rhyme.

Buying, vying for space in the crush.
Queueing, rueing the race to spend.
Sighing, desiring a place to sit,
a vacant seat another target.
But this time shaded and discrete.
A place of grace to contemplate
what pleases and how it teases,
leaving the blight of appetite.

His wife and he, they tried to see
what differences they defended,
where calmness was the casualty
and tranquillity upended.

They struck them down, each in its turn
to please the other's whim,
until no fault was there to find,
and boredom settled in.

Some say you can't read someone's thoughts.
Some claim to read them like a book.
It's phantom pages may engage
but I move on from thought to thought.

Those readings choke like a bindweed cloak,
coiling, twining, transmuting brutes.
Stereotypes shape many folk,
stifling, stunting valuable fruit.

'You're frowning,' she said.
'It can't be that bad.'
He switched 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.

The number one of many mounds
in Suffolk's shrouded Sutton Hoo
is savage Raedwald's resting ground,
shipboard treasures the only crew.

His iron helmet and his sword,
his shield and spears and silver bowls,
rich remnants of his royal horde
declare dominion over souls.

Who would bury me with treasure?
No weapons, just my worldly goods,
my Sunday suit, not made to measure,
my poems, written just for pleasure.

I'll just read the birthdays now.
Good gracious! Is he still alive?
It's getting late for fifty-eight.
I thought he'd taken his last bow.
How much more can he survive?

I see he's still on fifty-eight,
while she's now owning to forty-five.
What will tomorrow's lot contrive?

They're telling us of dreadful acts
of ******, **** and pillage,
countless callous brutal facts,
defenceless desperate rage.

And so our allies intervene
to tear away the tyrants
and leave a gap for votes to fill
from those who live and have the will.

But many die from friendly fire
lit by furious righteous rage
while canny men conspire to score,
see headlines on the city page.

We only met upon the page,
different experiences, different lives,
fleeting sightings of him on the screen,
saddened when he finally died.

His 'squat pen' still digs into my mind,
mining for a common ore,
sharing feelings raw and ripe
of kindness, cruelty, death and life.

Walking along the narrow track,
parents shepherding ice cream kids,
making way for pushchairs, making waves.
The lakeside watch on ducks and swans.
The nodding smiles and genteel grins,
like a 50's Sunday promenade,
while walking sticks wait by benches
dreams die when mobiles chime.

It was a very long day,
and a very late night,
waiting for her call.

I couldn't listen for the phone,
I was listening to my head,
waiting for her call.

I couldn't focus in my mind,
I was invaded by a dread,
waiting for her call.

When she phoned I left unsaid
all the feelings I had fed,
waiting for her call.

They're telling us of dreadful acts
of ****** **** and pillage
countless callous brutal facts
defenceless desperate rage.

And so our allies intervene
to tear away the tyrants
and leave a gap for votes to fill
from those who live and have the will.

But many die from friendly fire
lit by furious righteous rage
while canny men conspire to score
see headlines on the city page.

Stitching our times together
threading patterns through the day
leaving nothing to chance but ourselves
dropping stitches of thought by the way.

Putting feelings and failures aside
pleading pressure of work not to play
bleeding our time through the void
wasting our minds in the fray.

Are we abusing our strengths
leaving fallow to follow the clock
letting means transcend the ends
should we now be taking stock.

Some say we are all islands
solitary lonely shadow lands.
Some claim a community.
Is there a sum of humanity?

Poems - causeways between castaways
constructing insights into language
link lives, as well as brains can contrive,
summoning minds to share and thrive.

Some sit turning handles,
minds lit by candles.
But do their arc lamps flash
when freed from making cash.

While some are wriggling, book worming,
their minds inflamed, brightly burning.
The difference, some time to think,
nature's race or nurture's link.

What should I write about this life?
Should I think in terms of strife?
When I write should I add gloss?
What should I leave as dross?

It can't have been a life of gloom.
He must have had a time of bloom.
Where others jibe, should I proclaim,
or blind myself to shame?

'I'll see that plate clean,' she said,
'Or I'll send you straight to bed.'
Liver and onions lie in wait,
two choices up for debate.

'I won't hear a word till you've finished.'
It lay there still undiminished.
It's cold, unfit to eat, congealed,
and nowhere can it be concealed.

'You should have thought of that before.'
When I grow up I'll eat no more
of that cabbage, liver - lousy crud.
Give me sweets and crisps, perhaps rice pud'.

She should have thrown it in the bin.
Now I'm stuck, a locust for my sin.
I must eat all, my waists expanding.
Though Mother's gone, her ghost's demanding.

She says she's hungry again,
but her lap tray gives her away.
Innocent rations remain.
Ignored by the mind astray.

She asks for the time of day,
but the clock stares back dismayed,
for the day, the month and the time
bear the guilt for the aging crime.

The future's guilt may be greater,
the unspoken final negator.
Not heard, not seen, not feared,
not blamed, not cheered.

All day it rained,
watching through the window, pained.
Children restless, stuck inside.
Nothing doing in this tide.

To the shops, join the queue.
All the drivers in a stew.
Parking chaos, anger raised,
deftly weaving through the crazed.

Money flowing like the rain.
Credit cards delay the pain.
Mac sales up, swimsuits down,
hunting bargains like a clown.

As I sat in the café,
and said to myself,
'Coffee's bad for the health,
but can it be worse than tea'

What to write about cafes?
The smell of the food
induces a mood,
a feeling that life is free.

At the end of a long walled garden,
where predators lie in wait,
there's a place for birds, a haven,
a table with food as bait.

Children frighten the birds away,
not meaning any harm,
but predators wait with charm as bait,
stalking children at play.