She asks why I don't speak of it.
I will not. It is a lake of blood
of flesh and bones and limbs and stink.
I fear to sink but will not let go.

I am as one with it. there is no me.
So I must guard its dam, stop any leaks,
for a breach would drown us both, leave nothing
but acid bog, infertile, insensate.

She seeks to cure me, to 'get it off my chest'.
There's no rest. The pressure builds and I need ale
to stem the pains and blames she cannot share.

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.

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.

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.

Sit tight. Do nowt. Say nowt.Hear all. See all.
Watch the deadly idiotboard of news unfurl.
Watch the deserving rich desert the poor.

A featureless snowstorm of foreign fear,
eyes glazing over, lacking focus. Fearing
zealots within and without. Without power
of intervention. Beyond comprehension.

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.

The two meter square dance
Leaving nothing to chance
Everybody's doing it
The pavement prance.

By Government order
Single file avoidance style
Mask covered faces
Queuing spaces.

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.

Sitting waiting in the packed room,
trying not to adopt the mood,
watching bubbles rise 'What's 'er name'?
sensing movements, glancing eyes.
A few know each other,
smile hello, kids bellow.

This is not the place for show.
The bubbles silently burst.
No effort worth the candle
sadly burning, spluttering.
Sighs sour invisible clouds,
waiting for the 'Next , please' blow.

Visitors pass from empty bed
to empty bed, like Royals,
silently soaking up the dread
atmosphere with remote respect.

Examining clipboard histories,
rehearsing their medical soaps.
Volunteers answer questions,
the front line troops in trying
to raise our war dead back to life.

Have a care John Willie was not
just a private, not a number,
nor a diagnosis. He was
a person and a brave soldier.

Old photos frame soldiers' pains,
they're wearing posterity masks,
hiding feelings and memories
that lurch back again and again.

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.

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.

They're bright pink, so not bought for me.
Smooth surfaced petals curling back
like luxury tactile textiles.
Their shape defining shadows
paint a surface symmetry.
Trusting eager stems stretch upwards
but the ceiling sheds no sunlight.
It's March and these are summer roses.
Short stay visas, not cottage flowers.

A week later and there's wilting.
Petals like used tissues wrinkle,
silk dresses rustling to the floor.
Dark green leaves crumble to the touch.
Stilled life leaves fragrant memories.

It's the one behind taking the picture,
concealed, hiding in the crowd,
but not of it, divided from it
by the spirit of the camera.

What will she say, latter-day?
'I was part of it and this proves it.'
But it doesn't. She's moved only
by its framing, its history.

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.

Vast lists of names at cenotaphs
on crosses, in columns of newspapers,
inscribed by those who lived, for those
I never knew so can't remember.

Reduced to uniform remains,
some named 'Soldier of the Great War'.
A greatness in numbers lost,
lives wrecked - measures of excess.

November flags dip, bands march,
standing to mark with silence
violence done to those unknown to them.
Some lament more recent deaths.

The piety of war.

I'm buying some new old CDs
to remind me of my old young days.
The time of the trad jazz revival
and the stranger shores of Joan Baez.

Tom Lehrer made chemical magic
and poisoned pigeons in the park.
He promised to go with us when we go,
when we half expected nuclear snow.

Those were the days my friend
that came to an end, but like our parents,
we still feel warmth in summer suns
tht glow in memory's furlough.

There's something special about a named train,
the Mallard, the Royal Scot,
more romantic than a mere number.
Ours was the Red Rose, pride of LMS.

The London-Liverpool express
flahing North, four-thirty on the dot,
a sight not to be missed, exciting
street players of jacks and hopscotch.

She thundered through the blue brick tunnel,
erupted into the grass-lined cutting,
swallowed our footbridge in smog and sulphur.
The we loyal fans ran home to eat our spam.

Sunday - the weekend's tombstone,
burying the worst of last week.
The silent ringing of church bells,
best suit coffined in my wardrobe.

I see proud parents pushing prams,
grandads toddling after toddlers,
but no young couples promenade,
as we did when teenagers.

Some sought their compensation
in sensational Sunday press.
It's surely generational.
We were schooled for Sunday rest.

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.

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.

When you set out through the forest,
hunting, logging, picking fruit,
ask a wodwo to escort you,
with his hefty club at hand,
dragon slayer on demand.

Pay him for the service rendered.
Gold and silver are not tendered,
share the food that you have found
now dragon's meat is not around.

The bin lorry had been.
I picked up a fragment
of our neighbours lives,
litter they must have scrapped.

We do not know them.
They're always moving on.
Urban Bedouin,
with a thousand and one
domestic tales untold.

The Calder cut a channel
through the ancient stones of Elmet,
sculpting minds of millstone grit
in moorland weavers' kin.

Poetry coursed his veins.
Clotted domestric pain
flooded his synapse.
His shrouded fame collapsed.

'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?

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.

Gudron graced many a viking's visions,
like a Helen or a Guenevere.
But no ray of light could be shone
on her four disturbing dreams.

Until one day a wise kinsman called,
a dream interpreter, who told her
that she would outlast four husbands.
His foretelling came to pass.

But she never wed the man she loved.
He set sail. Gudron remained.
Iceland's first christian nun.

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.

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.

Their boat turned in towards us
ready to board our vessel
to take us to their island,
a fastness, craggy, bleak, treeless.

To winter peat fires, gales, darkness,
weird northern tales of gods and trolls,
black nights seared by bright light curtains,
a violent Viking heritage.

A place where cold sea and ocean
overturn the crippled sea stacks,
our lives in the boarding party's
hands and our skilful Shetland pilot.

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.

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.

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 sectret shadow to moonshine
bottles clanking guilty glancing
bulging stout bag liquor dancing.

Standing at the poet's corner
spectators pilgrims commentators
ectoplasmic streams rise and flare
hot heaving lungs to cold dry air
they star prepare explanations
poltergeist premeditations.

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.

He said, 'Give me an hour or two.
There's a cafe round the corner.'

Friendly faces.
Instant coffee - black, no sugar.
Just sit and wait.
Or can I write.

Pen and paper cheap enough.
They don't sell inspiration.

Traffic rattling past.
Radio no help.

Thinking.
Time lost.
Time spent.
Time up at last.

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 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.

She called me from downstairs.
There's some gear, medical stuff
outside, two cases, a midwife's
instruments, why put them here?

Don't touch them, you never know
these days, perhaps they're from next
door. She's a midwife, so I hear.
I'll ask them to identify.

They checked and foud her car unlocked.
But why left for us to find?
A joke? A cruel comment,
mocking us who nest no more.

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.

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 always found you attractive,
since I first saw you in the schoolroom.
Cheerful friend, shining, finely moulded.
Later you climbed above my class.
I was shy, lacking nous.

Then we moved up - single-*** schools,
repressed when our feelings flexed.
Vexed with books, exams, homework,
competing for our chosen paths.

We work in neighbouring labs.
Please answer my lovelorn phone calls.
You're still my magnet,
and I'm your iron filings.

He nodded to me when
I moved my silent lips.

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

How many years ago?
But no apology.
Now this tacit truce.
Nearly as good as a scotch,
when he nodded to me.

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.

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.

It's eighteen twenty-six,
a deserted esplanade,
no hen nights, no fish 'n chips,
an onshore wind, a wave cascade.

An observer sits at waters' edge
on a rotting timber sledge.
He's looking seaward, not watching,
not waiting, deeply contemplating.

Then he paints a picture of this place,
a record in suble water colour,
of a man on a sledge at the waters' edge.

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.

The sun is shining, games not played,
only the dog walkers parade,
morale declining, children pining,
this is the plague decade.

Key workers nervously,
bravely give service,
while others wait
to discover their fate.

Watching wretched news,
numbers are rising,
much elegising,
loves no one would choose.

The sun is shining, games not played
only the dog walkers parade
Morale declining children pining
This is the plague decade.

Key workers nervously
bravely give service
while others wait
to discover their fate.

Watching wretched news
numbers are rising
much televising
loves no one would choose.

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.

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.