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.'

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

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.

Our roaming ponies lead me to see
the fishing boats off Scalloway,
hustling, bustling activity,
trawling treasures from Norway.

Watching Shetland's secret heroes,
shipping out their weaponry. Mum says,
'small arrows against Germany.
Hush! Don't tell, may Norway's hopes fare well.'

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.

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.

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.

She's down and all on board are lost
in a country full of hate.
Unnamed bodies lie and rot,
victims of collateral shame.

Like blackbirds pulling worms from lawns,
they pick possessions over,
voiding evidence, spoiling, looting,
while dead voices scream dishonour.

The freedom to fight for your side
or just to fight another tribe.
Fingers pointing, picking fault,
while expert pickers are deterred.
Newsmen gather every word.

We are progressing upstream, no sighting yet.
Their gods are letting us pass unmolested.
Even the sun beckons us up these blue waters,
but the cliffs are closing in, scarved with the icy
torrents of waterfalls spilling their glacial flux.

In the distance is a great broad path, paved
in crazy glazing, glinting in the sun.
There's no escaping this snare's enchantment.

Surely, they don't take us for their pirate
longboat returning to digorge its stolen treasures.

Somewhere Thor's hammer is at work. We pray
we will be spared his unforgiving anvil,
for we come only with our tourist tribute.

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.

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.

We drove the kids North East to
our adopted hinterland
of moreish moorland, the Brontes
heath and heather hiding-place,
near peacock splendid Castle Howard.

Town kids need more stimulation,
animal animation.
A newly opened zoo park
offered flamingos in the pink,
fapping, fluttering, squarking
round a stinking muddy pool.

We splashed about, rain soaked,
licking mud spiced ice creams,
shivering, slipping, thinking
it's what you try to do for kids.

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.

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.

Knees aching climbing the hill,
gras patches, soft landings
among sandstone islands,
dreaming cold clime exploring.

Shoe gripping rocks
of concreted fossils,
weighing on times remains
- triassic scales.

My multiplexed cells,
morphed versions of those
modelled in the strata.

Not master of all I see.
Not master of me.

Ten gassed men. Ten gassed men.
They follow blind in single file.
One turns to spew and break the chain
of shouldered hands and splintered minds.

Ten blind men. Ten blind men.
Each marked for sacrifice,
bandaged eyes and mustard faced,
lungs in foamed embrace.

Ten maked men. Ten marked men.
their eyes see what we can't
in Singer Seargeant's paint,
sights rehearsed and cursed.

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.

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.

An empty street succumbs to one
solitary walker, anonymous
in his raincoat, listening to his
own footsteps, and the camping holiday rain,
dripping. Pigeons mutter disapproval
at this inconsiderate interloper.

His stride shortens, pace quickens, feeling
discomfort at his isolation,
his cold wet feet spattering through puddles.

Grids gurgle, lace curtains tremble.
Mute unseen watchers focus on this
dark figure at the centre of the
taciturn invisible crowd.

Guessing his destination and
motives - a night worker
or burglar up to his tricks -
until his key opens number
twenty-six. Uncountable stealthy
spies retreat and sigh.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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?

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.

Waves of flames playing the end of pier,
defying choking smoke. Starring in
a dramatic end of show, the ghosts
of bright theatre lights and magic nights.

Last chance performance before the
blackened bones of my childhood stand
empty as salty seaside shells.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.'

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.

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.

I saw her stiffen when he knocked.
She'd had a premonition.
In the hall she paused trembling
by his photo on the wall.

Eddie stood at arms length, silent,
stretching out to deliver the brief
tribute of despair. His glance to me, forlorn.
How long before we too must leave for France?

He sees through it, like
the young tend to do,
a modern stone sculpture
with holes you can see through.

Having recently read
'The Emperir's New Clothes',
he thinks they're at it again,
expensively baffling brains.

He looks through the spy holes
at their puzzled attention,
amused at the bemused,
using their words of pretension.

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.

I cannot settle in Blighty.
Wounded or not I have changed.

My feelings are with my comrades,
platonic, a complex of simplicities.
We talk only together for no others understand
beyond the old lies and the gas attack of poetry.

My being is incomplete.
I lack the wounds
to disregard life
beyond my skin.

The dark second floor passageway
celebrates its one blessed feature,
a sash window, tarnished panes,
pixels, lit in colours beyond RGB.

An ordered scene of chevron gables,
an art deco arrangement, apex
clasping serpentine rust red pantiles,
pitched protection for the action below.

Steam escaping kitchen windows,
conveying today's menu,
while shining expectant plates await.

A clustered community,
mutering togetherness,
jealousies beneath the breath.

I am a tree - old and knarled.
I shall open my arms,
whisper to my seedlings
just how things might be.

In the time of the moon watch, fear
of tomorrow. Horizons close
down. Thoughts and images expand.
What if, where, why, how overcome.

We need to be together, hold
back our worst dreams. Talk becomes
our first line of defence. Pretence?
Other's stories help turn away
our real unreal fears and hopes.

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.

Grandad did you used to skim stones
off the pond? Yes the very same one.
We had a champion. His
went right across the other bank.

In life, he hit a log and sank.
Eric nestled in the tall grass.
James made waves and moved on, but Tom
reached the other side and slowly dried.

And Grandad, what about you? Well,
I'm still here aren't I, hoping to
be skimming stones with you, til your
son comes along and I dry up too.

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.

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.