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.

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.

A makeshift camp of hardy souls,
the air is cold but we are free
and hold to our common causes.
Little is said. There's much quiet thought.

The crackling fire makes it all
real, fans our fellowship of feelings,
casting shadows of mysterious
creatures . The flames flay our faces red.

Limbs stiffen, ache, but only eyes move
for fear of breaking our charmed circle.
Minds are moving fast over unknown
futures, over people from the past.

Salt waves breaking on the seashore.
Their sound waves shaking our eardrums,
as we sat listening to his tales.
Even wise Canute couldn't hold back
the surging tides of myth.

We were beachcombers, picking up
the flotsam and jetsam of stories,
not history, his stories,
tutorials in delights and dangers.

We've since learned
his stories are truths.
They are myths
that helped us muddle through.

A walk in the park
Where there is some talk
Of raising the Snark
Misguided remark.

There is no conclusion
That I could envision
To plunder delusion
And clear the confusion

While we may contest
That theories attest
His morbid diffusion
Just leave him to rest.

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.

Shop windows dazzle in the sun,
attracting tourist moths with money.
They gape and point and squint and pay.

Behind the glass the ugly cuddly
stare back, glare in disgust at the stack
of dazed outsize heads on parade.

Ranks of captured trolls boil with rage,
their destinies - slobbering kids,
hot rooms, pink rabbits, red balloons.
No match for their cool mountain caves.

Beware these creatures of mischief
and fear. They bear malice - kitsch, occult.
Do not mock them. Stick them on your shelves.
They are our other selves.

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

He always stops to look at
school art displays, searching for
the old hiking boot paintings.
Examines them very closely,
not artfully, but comparing
wrinkles with his mirror image.

Their skin colour darker than his,
except for the newer, resented
interlopers. He doesn't trust them,
inexperienced, uncomfortable,
painfully rigid in their ways.
He favours those that have seen better days.

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.

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.

We wait, not showing nerves for face,
betrayed by unnatural ways.
Quick glances, nods, prayers to gods,
a restless quiet descends on us.

Thoughts dominated, in distress,
no relief in brightly coloured walls,
A nervous joke, tense smiles pretend.
A name is called, one chosen, others stalled.

Trying thinking more hopefully,
but I'm sinking into reverie -
the doorway's open - no escape.

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.

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.

Many of our dead are paper cuttings,
memories of those surviving or
doing duty by our famous dead.
Guardian obituries
stored in books I've read.

Hughes, Eliot, Larkin, Heaney,
MacNiece and Thomas mourning their last drinks.
Uncomfortable shelfmates all,
eternal quarrels, truth debates.

Eliot polite and debonair,
while Hughes cares no for airs and graces
but puts the ladies through their paces.

Heaney digs his pen through family,
myth and culture's history, mining
human misery and mystery,
then Larkin's calendar of life
confronts our stark reality.

I cannot pass these shelves untouched,
demanding voices drench the air,
nor can I find a useful test
by which I can decide who's best.

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.

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.

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.

Polluted sources running through
the mind - others wastes. Ambitious,
power-seeking sources fill
tributaries trickling poison
throughout mankind. Confusion
at the confluence of influence.

Shadows of eternal night.
Seeping through the veins, a flow
of falsehood, rhetoric creating
unnatural pain - phantoms
dreamed up in others brains.

The Earth is bleeding red and slow,
shuddering in a hot sweat,
cracking it's stretched skin, projectile
vomiting its rumbling guts.

My people run. Too late! Too late!
The Earth God's anger seals their fate.
Stone encased we shall remain, until
the curious unveil our pain.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

It's that time of year.
I know what's good for them,
but their thorns resist,
like children being trained.
Exuberance must be contained
for the good of next year's growth.

They ***** me bringing blood,
having their own red way,
making my hands bloom,
as if their summer's here to stay.

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.

We met in the rain, wet, distraught,
too short a moment ot engage,
to wrapped up to become enraptured,
too uncomfortable for comforting.
The rain created our chance meeting,
then dampened our greetings.

Woken. Rain agaain.
What did I dream -
hero or sinner,
watcher or actor?

When my mind
colludes with the day
memories corrupt.

Awake, rain again.
What did I dream -
hero or sinner,
watcher or actor.

When my mind
collides with the day
memory is corrupted.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A shadow on next door's shed.
A life class in nature's art.
A starling's perfect form, no
human hand could imitate.

One quick dart and she has gone,
leaving my life as others have,
and I must contemplate my losses,
like stars crossing a silent gravestone.

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 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?

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.