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.

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.

'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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Constables hay wain crossed
the Stour, wooden wheels creaking,
countryside colours clouded,
trees shrouded Flatford Mill.

Lowry's people were going to work,
guarded by furious chimneys,
darkness conductors, limbs aching.
Beneath the plumes short lives streamed,
inhabiting a rent collector's dreams.

Thin models for humanity
suffered Salford's acid rain
from satanic wage slave mills.

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.

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.

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.

Someone must suffer to sate
strong will, greed and power lust.
Assuagement doesn't outlast
the pressure of furious rages.

We fear the hand of a ****** or
a Stalin, perhaps some passionate
servant of a cruel god. So we
fight to the death of the innocent.

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.

I don't know when or
who bought it, old worn,
battered, richly patinated,
ill-fitting our modern room.

Addressed with reverence
dur to age and tradition,
setting for many meals,
seances and squeals.

I was the noble Arthur
for a time, with a kingdom
to protect, a faith to defend
and my comrades to command.

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.

The interrior was dark and dusty,
a second-hand treasury for searchers.
Deeply breathing the particulate air,
I squeezed through to my secret back room.

Care of J.M. Dent and Everyman,
there for sixpence, at pocket money price,
an unexplored world could be had.
Dickens, Dumas and Stevenson.

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.

We may soon forget about them,
Perform our daily tasks.
Seek what pleasure may be found.
Regain contentment in whatever measure.

They will still claw at the razor wire,
discomforted by rain, wind and snow,
determined to resist their pains,
seeking to share our inherited treasure.

A dusty box full of paperbacks,
a cheap auction haul, an archive
of someone's memories,
old enthusiasms, enchanting
stories, exciting action yarns.

Time was too short to read them again,
more recent ones waiting attention,
unread juniors ambitious for
promotion, leaning out of bending shelves.

These dog-eared browning pages, acid etched
in someone's memory, ready to serve
again, resisting pulping or
landfilling illiterate soil.

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.

A small particle in a vast
universe, I accelerate
towards my collision
with my mortality.

A fragile loop, a wormhole,
a twisting bending journey,
picking up splintered experiences
through the pale lattice of my senses.

A repeatable experiment
with life, replicated throughout
generations of individuals,
trying to understand their collisions.

We trusted him, that voice on the wireless,
cricketer by conviction after all.
There were no other views that could
compete, but now we've grown more
critical or so we claim.

And yet we still have affectations,
our urban myths, two-faced politics.

There's strong pressure to conform with
the latest craze wherever born
We share the Ooh's and Aah's across the world
and must hooray the loudest common cause.

Some birds can't keep formation,
stretching every sinew,
exhausted by the effort.
Many are blown off course.

Others defying a common purpose,
seek their own promised land,
shedding feathers, cutting tethers,
revising what we understand.

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.

Single storey, long brick building,
curtained stage and wooden floors,
overture beginners, teachers,
scouts and guides in Sunday chorus.

Sounds of pennies dropping,
scraping chairs, coughing, iching, scratching,
and fidgets tiny bladders filling.

Holy high days came in cycles,
Whit Walks, banners, carnivals.
Many living on in stories,
since their final church parade.

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.

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.

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.

Men seek to test their metal,
heading for the sea, exploring
experience's distant depths,
plunder from the sea.

Different dangers from onshore.
Diffferent challenges. Naked
and adaptable, learning
ruthless lessons, chancing the main.

I'm partly this and partly that
partly veggie partly fat
trying to be a new man
and as she says partly human.

There's a myth that when you finish
a good book, the author dies for you.
At least, I often feel a sense of loss.
I was near the end of a fine book of essays.
I heard the author was dying, incurable.

Famous mass media man, favoured
by the more selective viewers, journalist,
interviewer, novellist, cultured critic,
humourist, philosopher, a thinker's man.

Ought I to have read that final essay,
defy the myth? Next day I scanned
the papers. His death was not reported.
I trust we both breathed normally again.

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'.

No others passing near,
deep breaths feed well-being,
freedom to think, to dream,
anarchuc senses in control.

Listening for the least,
making the most, smelling the green,
tasting the earth, watching the shadows
innocently exercise.

The short beat of an instant.
Reluctantlymoving on.

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.

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.

They're patrolling the walls again,
but not in the rain, a ragbag
army of volunteers. Traffic rattles
through, but not the charioteers.

They're searching lurching through the past,
not seeking to know what dreadful deeds
religion's deadly kisses, or excessive powers
have granted, but how life was, in short visits.

There are others, who could know how
man treatred man to misery,
through ****, rope, fire and blade,
even the big dipper thrills brigade.

He's marching out of step, our poet.
You can see it in their eyes and hear
it in their sighs. They whisper 'snob'.
But he's always gone beyond the norm,
hiding thoughts, hiding loves, faith denied.

Duty to art, duty to country,
duty to comrades bind and confound.
Few try to understand poetic
powers. Few seek the truth inside the man.

He set out to face the slaughter, knowing
death's colours, sounds and smells, writing of waste.
His end a poet's wreath matted red. His last
trench a French canal. His pen impatient

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.

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.

Buses are emptied unlike
many minds at this time
in the trudge to work
beneath the canopy of
buoyant barrage ballons.

Another factory day ***** in
the dark figures downcast with bad
war news and routine ritual.
But there is comfort to be had
in the chorus of familiar talk.

Granite tiled floor,
more interesting than Internet,
jagged streaky veins,
dense masculine stones,
polished gunmetal bloom.

Trying to establish patterns, symmetries.
Should I miss my appointment?
There's never time to persist.
Temptatioin of a timeless world.

It glows warm on her breast, polished
symbol of her life attachments,
subtly marking loving passion,
needing no flashing sparkling zest.

Once the scent of ancient pine,
gooey, enticing insect trap,
transluscent shroud for their remains,
since washed ashore between those
sheer, crumbling, shortbread cliffs.

They come in their hundreds of thousands,
floating magic carpets over our seas,
drowning, crawling up cruel sands,
bringing raw life, fuelling unease.

Salt for our wounds.
Tonic for our lethargies,
exorcizing the liturgy of myths.
Earth's orary grinds on.

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.

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'.

Their backs to cold wet weather. Summer again.
Another pair of feet joins the queue.
The shelter won't house half a bus load.
Puffs of breath wind whisked away.

Secretly seeking sun in others' smiles,
that star has left their universe.
Stony stares keep their queue places.
Vital signs of stamping feet,
and fingers twitching keyboards.

One shy solitary smiles, a contact,
no contract needed. Granting her
his daily nod, his thoughts return to bed.

His innovative drives
- passionate, natural man.
The knotted grains of his life,
bringing pleasure and distress,
making a disorderly mess.

Departed, is he forgiven?
Some refuse to judge. But what
of those whose lives were riven,
infatuation driven.

Lives passed by with many sighs.
Judged his life ignored his life, ignored his work,
leaving us unopened eyes
on mystic crow, tortured lines,
raw nerves, coded signs

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.

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.

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.