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Aug 2015 · 397
Beating Time
Tony Luxton Aug 2015
I'm at the forge again today
heating beating hammering away.
But words don't come without cliché
so I must let them run and play.

Playtime's hard upon the desk
these walls are hardly picturesque
the shape is wrought the work annealing
a product of poetic feeling.
Aug 2015 · 1.6k
Cuts
Tony Luxton Aug 2015
They're making cuts
The office shuts
The workshop's still
There's time to ****.

What shall I do
With nothing due
I'll start again
But how and when.

Forget me not
You're all I've got
We'll see it through
If you'll be true.
Aug 2015 · 523
Doing Time
Tony Luxton Aug 2015
If we trust our peace to a peace maker
to whom or what do we trust our time?
Maybe it's a watch alarm or beeper
in work or play until our final chime.

Time may be measured even treasured
though never really saved or enslaved.
Now long now short now spent now pressured
sometimes borrowed bided always craved.

It has no substance but is the essence
whose tincture tipples us into truculence
perhaps some paranoid pretence
amidst much of irrelevance.
Aug 2015 · 736
York Return
Tony Luxton Aug 2015
They died two millennia ago
and now their skeletons are on show.
In York they excavate the graves
of fit young men albeit slaves.

There's evidence of cruel wounds
from many ****** afternoons.
Some headless, some killed by hammer blow
while bloodlust crowds shout and bellow.

Their bones bear marks of contest
from lion's bite to coup de grace.
Buried with funeral feast.
Once doomed now exhumed underclass.

How should we react today
with intrigue and concern to learn?
Where does our bloodlust find its prey?
Drop it! Dig out the day return.
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Monday morning and here they wait
proffering their passports - pleasure cards
submitted to scanning for our next date.
Returning regular regards.

Brave Ben Hayes benign war hero
veteran of bellicose books
stalker of the cinema's front row
lover of library ladies' looks.

Miss Patterson reads the romantics
that free her from kindly caring
and meddling medical antics
that prevent her feelings flaring.

Finally here comes Francis
who craves crime and thriller novels
demented detectives dangerous dodges
devoted while the narrative unravels.
Then there's me. I'm normal.
Jul 2015 · 498
Corridor Hours
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Sitting watching waiting on strangers
each engaged not returning my gaze.
An alternating flowing current
switched off to others' fevered feelings.

One dimensional emotions
switching through time and place.
They meet:
- discordant face to distressed face
- happy sad pained angered anxious
differing to those of professional pace.

My turn next. Look respectable
but not too well. Don't say feeling fine.
He'll think you're wasting his valuable time.
Calm down - B.P. up. Now what's my story line.
Jul 2015 · 952
Text Maniac
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
You may go with Stevenson to Samoa
even ape Darwin's destruction of Noah
but have a care of going the way of Clare
or wandering wild with Oscar in despair.

You may well fall prey to the feminists' wrath
if you don't abuse Ted Hughes for Sylvia Plath
but it's the text that should trouble your head
let the authors lie in your second best bed.
Jul 2015 · 479
Saving the Day
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
They say we're in a money mess
their figures certainly impress
but who will pay their monstrous bill
now the bankers have had their fill.

It's not my battle but I must pay
I'm volunteered to save the day
they're cutting back on those we care for
the weak the sick - not those who have more.

There's nothing left for those in need
while fat cats scrounge with consummate greed
it's survival for the elitists
supported by the market's fleetest fleece-ests.
Jul 2015 · 3.1k
Two Cultures
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Two cultures worlds apart
some love science and others art
we're told they'll never jell
though Da Vinci drew quite well
Jul 2015 · 2.0k
Postcard
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
We're here for a couple of days
weather OK in some ways
went to the end of the pier
then back again for a beer
Beer was best.

Sunbathing without a vest
beetroot coloured painful chest
back for fish 'n chip tea
salt 'n vinegar free
Salt 'n vinegar best.

There's plenty to see and do
sideshows and slot machines too
glad to get home tomorrow
then we'll have to borrow
The Beer was best.
Jul 2015 · 2.9k
Living Together
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
The arts and the sciences
the sciences and the arts
the arts of the sciences
and the sciences of the arts
competing in their parts
yet cohabiting in our hearts
Jul 2015 · 768
Menu Haiku
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
1
I'll try something new
can't even say number ten
Ugh never again

#2
Spahetti easy
don't understand the others
Oh dear down my shirt

#3
Mainly cold dishes
How about soup of the day
lovely gazpacho

#4
Iced tapwater, please
taking care of the pennies
after lunch Rennies.
Jul 2015 · 674
The Nod
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
He nodded to me when
I moved my silent lips.

Warmth in this cold dark garden of the dead.
Not our memorial but another's.

How many years ago?
No apology.
Now this tacit truce,
nearly as good as a pint,
when he nodded to me.
Jul 2015 · 250
Rain Again
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Awake, rain again.
What did I dream -
hero or sinner,
watcher or actor.

When my mind
collides with the day
memory is corrupted.
Jul 2015 · 1.2k
Who Goes There
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
He's gone - dead
my memory redefined
what feelings will survive
who will remember?

Formal, frozen, inexpressive
faces, relatives and friends,
people I've nor seen for years,
shuffling funeral shoes,
nervous, rehearsing things to say.

Others never seen before.
His networks still in tact,
mine sadly declining.
Perhaps I didn't know he who goes there.
Pass friend.
Jul 2015 · 730
The Novice
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Must concentrate. I'm getting things wrong.
What's a professional poet like?
Does he take sugar? What can I do?
He'll be better at it than me.
Relax, smile, tell jokes instead of style.
Jul 2015 · 1.4k
Signs of Life
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
We studied sine waves at school,
reassuringly regular,
continuously cyclic,
unendingly, bendingly cool.
Consistent in order and logic.

Then I turned to poetry.
People poems moved my mind,
many rudely peculiar,
some consistently inclined,
unbending or heart rending,
often playing the fool.
Jul 2015 · 857
After Life
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
They're sorry to announce she's dead
peacefully passed over in bed
with family and dearest friends
a blessing for her in the end

They always use such clichéd weasel words
to avoid offence or create pretence
kindly perpetuate lying-in-state
wash the slate and cleanse cool reference

Seems strange I don't see her going gently
I saw her manically playing the Shrew
she cast two gentle husbands aside
ever the screaming cheating bride
but on stage and screen ever the radiant queen

We're told to celebrate A-list lives
but I contemplate my own losses
those parts of my life that passed away
watching old films is my afterlife.
Jul 2015 · 1.5k
Norman Aged Seven
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Here he lies with family
his name and dates given
what other data's wanting
to relive his love and hates

Norman -old English-North Man
Victorian Saxon son
though several times removed
a memory scratched on stone

Or was his bloodline Viking
his longboat in the offing
vicariously fighting
through his seven seas of time

He might have lived much longer
been stronger named for William
ruthless feudal Norman King
but my mind is just dancing.
Jul 2015 · 698
Single Minded
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
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.
Jul 2015 · 514
Transports of Delight
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
All people that on Earth do dwell
playing nukie, bound for hell.
Oh, what transports of delight
when the husbands start to fight
Jul 2015 · 413
To My Wife
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
I'm partly this and partly that
partly veggie partly fat
trying to be a new man
and as she says partly human.
Jul 2015 · 6.7k
Communication
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
I wandered lonely in a crowd
a ghost among the people
whose arms were raised and heads were bowed
in solemn salutation to the gods
of contemporary communication.
She didn't, did she was the cry.
I'll never know. Why should I?
Jul 2015 · 727
In My Prime
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
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.
Jul 2015 · 558
Our Sally
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Her good winter coat covers all.
Her thin frame fleshed in old fashion,
wearily wearing threads too small.
a sweet, silent, sombre passion.

Wheezing, short-stepping, unsteady,
a shadowy, sundry, proud soul.
No eyes meet hers. No neighbours nod.
Each vacant gaze defies delays.

She sallies forth but comes in last,
politely suppressing her past.
But she's been there, got the T-shirt.
It's in the wardrobe gathering dust.

Painfully perched on life's bare branch,
praying not to break the bough,
she's as snsible as they expect.
More sensitiive than they allow.
Jul 2015 · 892
Our Gang
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Our gang built bonfires on the back field
from prunings, clippings, waste wood and junk.
Our gang played games in the street
- Statues, Simon Says, Hopscotch, Tag,
chased down entries, Knock and Run,
chewed bubble gum, swapped cards and comics,
played marbles through rain and smog and sun.

Then cars began to fill our street,
no place for games and cards and comics.
We chased girls, got the music beat.
The our gang split up - economics.

Some still play games but gamble,
drink fire, wear tags, swap cash for hash.
Others work for pay and seldom play,
spend cash on kids and wives and worthy lives.
Jul 2015 · 1.1k
The Sepia Portrait
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
He's looking at me again.
Eyes fixed like he was insane.
Clay pipe propped on lips, pondering,
seriously sepia wondering.
No name on the severe brown frame.

He stares but doesn't see me.
I don't see him for what he was.
I see a fictional facsimile,
conflation of another's fantasies
- comic working class
- salt of the Earth
- his own man
- hero or Caliban.
Jul 2015 · 969
Enterprise Britain
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Column by column the legions' feet
march disciplined down Watling Street,
followed by rumbling carts and grumbling
stragglers leaving villas crumbling.

To Rome to save the imperial home,
making Britain an enterprise zone
for Saxons, Vikings, Celts and Angles,
savage battles and local wrangles.

Weeds weave tapestry around a tomb.
Dust encrusts a silent Roman room.
Mosaics stare at the rotted roof.
Painted plaster falls, jigsaw proof.

Perhaps when shopping centres fail,
and motor cars no more prevail,
when wattle homes are reinvented,
then thinking time will be augmented.
Jul 2015 · 2.0k
Green Man
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
A small speck in a spectacular church.
I seek some smaller, simpler works.
A green man worms through wooden leaves,
struggling for freedom from nature.

Blank eyes return my straining stare.
Sharp sculptings scratch my cautious touch.
Brooding, symbolic soul,
nightmare archetype,
stalker of the psyche.

Nature greedily grips the green man,
growing through gaping eyes and nose,
reaching for modern eco-man,
who disputes to his final throes.
Jul 2015 · 666
A Time for Hope
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Market car parks all but empty.
Wind blown bags and wrappers plenty.
Windows mirror deep depression.
Wily whizz-kids lack discretion.

Hoardings, dulling, staining, tearing.
People facing lack of caring.
People scraping, scrounging, screaming.
People coping, calming, hoping
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
Picture portraits in a small photo,
generations on a great hall's walls.
Prominent people of the past,
lives emptied out in a room now empty,
but still present in its patinated patterns.

Like pretend gods they covet their ill-gotten goods,
while the room fills with artisan phantoms,
championing their creative crafts,
charming the furnishings they fashioned.
Their lives survive only in their works,
some unattributed, unfamed but unshamed.
Jul 2015 · 1.1k
A Dream
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
There's that feeling again,
a pressure to return.
It could never be the same,
next time no longer unique.
I'd need something new from it.
For now, I'm waking from
the author's dream.
Ian Woods asked me to submit this poem. Thank you Ian.
Jul 2015 · 1.1k
Sharing Fags
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
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 sergeant spun.
Signed us up, lined up like bobbins,
waiting for our places in the sun.

Willie shared a *** 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.
Jul 2015 · 799
We were there
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
We were there on both sides of the Somme
seeking our stories of gory glory.
We were there teaching our young to **** and bomb
whipping up feelings of sadistic fury.

We were there purifying the race
destroying the foreigner - leaving no trace.
We were there fighting the just war
til all that was left was just war.
Tony Luxton Jul 2015
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 secret shadow to moonshine
bottles clanking - guilty glancing
bulging stout bag - liquor dancing.

Standing at our poet's corner
spectators pilgrims commentators.
Ectoplasmis streams rise and flare
hot heaving lungs to cold dry air.
They stare - prepare explanations
poltergeist premeditations.
As a youngster, I witnessed these events (somewhat embroidered) from my bedroom window. In the 1950s they made the national news. I don't believe in poltergeists.
Tony Luxton Jun 2015
There's a drawing on my wall
a pen and ink impression
of the old transporter bridge
- a Meccano 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.
Jun 2015 · 617
A Lost World
Tony Luxton Jun 2015
Gone are the glory days of jam butties
when marmalade was shredded gold
and spam pretended to be ham
and plum jam tested for a cold.

The wireless was our window on the world.
The Weekly News and Guardian
gave local news, views and reviews.
Street chatter made stories that much fatter.

That world now reappears to me.
But in it I take no part.
No good, no bad, no clumsy me,
no touch, no sound, no sacred heart-to-heart.
with a cold 'plum jam' = 'plub jab'
Jun 2015 · 3.4k
The Staffordshire Hoard
Tony Luxton Jun 2015
Gold and silver battle *****
torn from swords saddles and crosses
lying beneath a farmer's field
tributes to kings and bellicose gods.

Fierce birds of prey snakes fish and bears
framed in filigree geometry
guarded warriors' savage souls.
No mercy in Mercia.

Archeologists anthropologists
historians librarians
curators and consertvators
collect confer and classify
while I just try to connect.
Jun 2015 · 1.5k
Space Sonnet
Tony Luxton Jun 2015
Someone's speaking in the kitchen,
though I know I'm on my own.
It's no ordinary sound of house.
We do not usually converse.
Its chatter is perverse,
so dialogue leads to friction,
when it nags me into cleaning,
while competing for attention
with the garden, growing, greening.
Like twins they twist my tolerance.

That speaker's spoiled my thinking,
so easy to displace,
but I'll stop his broadcast bleating
and tune to inner space.
Tony Luxton Jun 2015
As we approach time moves faster
her late gate pass wasting away
though we're running through the wet
and waltzing through the traffic spray.

Breathing heavily we arrive
weaving through the pairs of leaving
clustered lusting cuddling couples
whose ardour thrives a five to ten.

My girl guides us to the last tree.
We grin and grapple futilely.

Those sentry lamps that guard the path
a checkpoint no charlie shall pass
then knife-faced Nora rings the bell
consigning men to outer hell.
Jun 2015 · 802
Missing
Tony Luxton Jun 2015
She's missing, they're sure of it now.
They thought it strange no one called,
not a word, not a sight, not a sound.
We fear for her, missing overnight.

They're searching, asking questions now.
Locals helping, no one sleeping.
No word yet, family weeping.
Headline news, tension rising.

It seems like a week has passed by.
Police announce an arrest,
unspoken ******* fears.
Volunteers asked to stand down.
Missing, she'll always be missing.
Jun 2015 · 504
Milk Wood
Tony Luxton Jun 2015
I keep hearing the voices
the magical mystery voices
singing for joy and for sadness
of Dai Bread's three in a bed
of Rosie Probert , Duck Lane - dead
of Miss Myfanwys washing line
of those alive and those dead
who visit privately instead.

— The End —