The night charade and other assorted chimes at the Bedford,
sometimes I stare at the moon,
it cannot comprehend what is going on
lost devotions, hedonism, no bulwark,
it stretches as far as the Wandle river
where a
once rusted supermarket trolley spoke as an epiphany,
for the immemorial down trodden.
Maria agreed, hope is transient,
perhaps unaware of the allusion.

The cold dash in October
could break your ankle,
on some twig strewn iced river,
gusted by this uneasy Bravado.
And through this
we form a common bond
the strewn and promiser will led their merry dance.

It is better to shut your eyes and see again
and undream.
So rollick in the  dew,
the  resplendent  Samphires will regrow.
For were we not pre destined
to edge towards the tidal  marshes
and with dugout boats
voyage through the satisfied.
Tempus fugit awaits
to enrapture  our intricacies.

The blades of grass untidy over some sub saharian variety.
The cumulus  clouds are more down town
with illegal builds shimmering  in the corners.
We look back at our hopes
and belatedly realise baristas have
subverted  our national brew.
Sub let flats with strangers passing through
leaving catering oil drums outside.
Our national prerequisite  minding ones own
allows everything unknowing to go on,
including a morning benefits agency raid.
Rules and queues consigned to ailing  England

The fjord shattered light
hues of autumn plaid
in their wanderings
to those darker corners.

"Footnotes" she publicly said the personality shorn,
both from my poem and the club,
the camaraderie I had expected as foregone, now unmerited
and the role trodden, had died.
C'est la guerre.

You're peering out for Sunshine
a cascade like yellow Dust falls.
The cavities will fill in time, enough for a Stadium.
The Pro-biotic yoghurt in your Duffel bag
is no longer ship shape,
a green mould from somewhere else is seeping.
I swear something has to give.
Your only defence a Swiss Army knife,
somehow  speckless from your childhood draw.
Later the Night sky begins to crackle
like you knew before.
Your only thought Mary
the local dental hygienist you fell in love for.

The Anorak diviners see
their market jolted, killed off  
Already Magic numbers's 64 and 200
are side-lined and downed,
all they have are memento boxes of
once household brands ,
liquidation like implosion sees,
ISO granularity choice further compressed,
those remaining niched as Professional film
to milk the last remnant of expediency,
in the midst of adversity
they should pledge their mounts
as a salvo to tomorrow.
Earmark them, gifted for
Local History Musems
pristine images from yesteryear.

In the darkness he felt threatened
the tables turn as he veers away,
ages usher had  nothing on time -
just the haunted side of jade,
the fossils turn of anger
a packed mass of double take
impenetrability stakes the  hills.

The thickets of time
come rain or shine,
scratch the best of years,
old man looking on
do you still count the cricket scores
in your sleep ?
with jumpers  for wickets,
and  blackberries  down country lanes.
Navel looking down
the vastness of your now waist line,
a mark of  your captaincy
receipts of your labour
dangling like a butchers overall.
In your limelight  your broadened smile
releases a relinquished accent
that you could never quite forgive.


.

In a space of one day
I saw two off duty ex- air stewardesses
who could have only flown in 1976
when blondes and JPS's really rode the Skies,
but at 14 your  unwittingly waiting,
since then I have never
framed it for myself.

Had anyone heard of her accidentally?
elsewhere there's no trace.
I saw this paradigm of time drift by.  
Leastways Nikon F / Nikkor lens
ER Ektachrome caught her beauty;
never  flighty  Lavinia  Stone:
1/125  F5.6  stood her evergreen.  
Grained figurine, patient as light.
Portraiture from heavens sense,
cloudy drizzle
times eminent on blue rays.

Peas in a pod muster.
Incubators already have inchoated
second best is not an option
From their little Red Houses
carrying the hopes of the World
albeit 95% Pass failure.
They always knew
45 KG's was never enough,
they have a capacity to even out thought thought,
professed middle class values,
iconoclastic Red double-deckers and love of the Bard,
there are no standard institutions
because like the last batch
spatial awareness
assumes their worth as peerless.

The blank pitch is as devoid
as helicopter sycamores
hovering over vacuous brown bags,
broken fingers
that once played the Viola
point to an emptier sky.
With apparent reason
the abated audience channels
sideways,
sadness slipping
the podium long rusted.

Autumns crisp veneer is never right,
duffle coats and borrowed scarves
cost fashion.
But less self consciousness
and inner glare will
release the light.
And let those leafs serenade
a russet honeycombe
of dark sherry and candlelight
in a whisper.

The moralist  is playing again,
bleaching your hair
is an unspoken uniform,
with so little soul
acetates don't get played.
New words gets bandied "plebs",
but without the de-rigueur  Corduroys
or  navy blazers,
we are all be tarred
with the same brush.
Meanwhile the coach exhaust  fumes
abnegated our pilgrimage to Stamford
and we all now agree we  
lived beyond our means
in exiguous Britain

The Cri de Coeur
screeches urgent emotion
but their Exclamations
are unpicked , back to determination
Did the Revellers needlessly pay for this their Summer ?
But for Capricious truths
they now run fickle and jarred
naked is the heart of the matter,
a hastened path runs counterintuitive
as empty silences often veers
ungrounded.

The bomb blast tore like a new toy.
Science who ranks as distemper
outshone the future.
Scribes of contemporary fore
deliriously notated
the torn ligaments.
Opiates scream dying life
The bomb blast imploded
our unspoken rationale
short of Humanity.

like a darted journey
the spokes of despair,
sharpend by hazel spears
betray an inordinance of time.
Lost amongst the amber stones
light shafTing twilights furl
we succumb beseaching

Fire storm gave  you a cleansing  hand
cajoling not unlike a rabbit breaking through fences.
I feel more for foxes
but don't let that guise serve as something else.
Sheild my dignity by the pylons
deeply electric
azure as a dream
the bugles will surely entertain.
can closure be provided?

A whole new light means
your spectrum rests indeterminate
silence alone  cannot  disguise
the sense of foreboding,
darkness parades,
platitudes never vivid
a plinth to past  glories
shorn whose rueful  possibilities
shuns new growth.

laminated headlands batter  
the wilderness of superficality,
scanned bucolic butterflies flutterings ,
have lost all sense of season
except for the observation posts,
speculating fresh awe
from the baying guests
whose insatiable fantasies
takes nature a step towards  the adultered.

The copious shambles of rocks
waylaid the roadside,
by the time we saw the  Beaufort castle walls
it was easy to see it as a mirror
of its surroundings,
a cannonade of angry words
miscued with shots of Peace.
This belated excursion
was like an erstwhile  trumpet
for phosphorus clouds
and driven rain shrapnel
had attempted to ebonize the landscape,
our luggage with best intent was smoking
by the derelict Vichy bolt hole.

The candor of colour plays havoc
on the jaded wallpaper,
ravenous cracks in the ceiling  cry mauve pain,
tantamount to walks into woods  with unseen prying eyes.
Yellow I recall was the fixer, the foil  of the tableau.
We have all been burnt, having offered our souls into the nexus of assumed sincerity
and still become twice removed.

Down Cricklewood and Hampstead ponds
eyeing au pairs from France and Germany
wheeling  their ******* -
madam's pram.
They can hardly wait for their rest days.
Ride along King's Road and smoke Gitanes,
listen to May Blitz on eight track
you don't need Einstein to see your right.
Burning September sun
hot pants a la mode
said the tawny Owl.

Although I too have forgotten my lines
today's celluloid seems to be shedding its script
the raw talent confers a lack of oomph.
Only my projection screen follows perfection.
I'm caught in a nitrate web,
with partaken beauty firing
my basement dreams,
onward choices amongst Colleen Moore
and Blanche Sweet
testifies professionalism spoke eloquently without words

The  living windowsill  heaves in shyness
dappled moon flowers readily indolent,
Saint Joan alone shone in salient hope.
Ambient light peculiarly treads on others' footsteps,
as reticent prays find tearfulness enough
to make the Angels  cry,
egress only,
until we've drunk our Peace.

I became aware of my own solitude
a crestfallen fool,
there being no further care shown.
A pie dish that did not even rank a second thought,
cankerous I ought to think.
Maybe if I just snake around, then preen;
somebody get their just desserts.
Forget that, I was gooseberry to my best friend Marilyn
but alas the bloke was insincere,
it was a waste of her time.

The Moon went down
the fallen crest of a Queen
- beat Lucifer like a snake.

Words and phrases
runs counter as daffodils
defiantly shy from beauty
listening to the vetch's forlorn,
sometimes we face long standing fears,
in time we question
if we really belonged to this ungainly,
the word of fable instinctively  protests,
unfolding its quilt
pledging Crocheted yarns of winding roads,
we then assuredly dream of
open spaces.

The Neon chatter box
says lets all talk with the same tongue,
he said he was sorry for before,
his moustache quivered under this
sanguine strain.
Most of us are foxes
who glady forage through black sacks,
some of us sit bow legged
quintessence in a darkened room
and siphon others gloom away,
but there's no standard release clause
their eyes rock with the tide
until a printing press is sought
yet their Universal probity ignores
the jammy Neon chatter boxes duplicity
embossed as the stalwart he now wants plangent marching in step

He bleed into a cipher
yellow tinged cornfields recoiled,
beyond the woven baskets
unaware the cruel season roamed,
naked our course runs
the languid seasons rendered.

Tip toe in a mordant night
having slipped on an Amaryllis's mantle piece
There's a compliment
buried in there somewhere !

on cloudless days we besmirch the suns reign
the spirit hankers for Autumn
the baltic coast apposite
launches thy being by the northern skies,
a trinity of light  leds to the caucasus plains
to reveal Edens gardens
and locate cultivars of apple
and vine
to graft onto our dying seasons

I could write grandeur about Tansy
Orange, Orange like the curtains of my youth
the back yard where my lips sealed onto the Ice Lolly
that capricious Winter.
Until Stones can provide cover
we are urgently bolted to this floor.

The wind chilled the dead pigeons
the chimney had long been dormant,
if they had lain elsewhere
their beaks would carried the seeds of change,
yet the graded storeys were never condemned
as long as the Portland stone cladding
was not too evasive,
growls from under the porridge table 
by the occasioned Ginger
spared these absurd notions

Better duck the Stuka dive bombers
if you want to still paint like Rothko.
I can no more steal your last breath
than exhibit prostrate in your sky,
we all have our crosses to bear
but I am confidently on a fool's errant
searching another thoroughbred obligation
with my paraplastic factory vision,
currently stranded in Haifa
night goggles on!

The winds of hope blow through
the boarding house's corridors
sober, listening to John Kay's "Easy Evil"
having finally rinsed my glass of Tennessee whisky,
that once flowed sojourn down stream.
With the best of  intentions,
hell's as current as the midnight lodger,
presiding in room 207,
her absinthe addiction
driven me to distraction
some are marooned on  the rich mud silt of life,
but I need to edge towards resolution.
a packed suitcase
whose once dreams hazed,
finally vies beyond the rivers edge.

They only wanted  blue and red
but white unapologetic  forces her colours,
wise she will never wash her  pride.
Enticing a love affair with the tri-colour,
dangling the years
whereupon cadres and ditches
shimmer the trenches of the  mind,
options too limited  now to  matter
walks  nonchalantly on bleeding stumps

You tasted marzipan on her lips
but you wanted the steadfast of  Marchepan,
a fuller denser taste
already the deceit ran through your veins.
The Night keepers have  moments
with their concubines,
and there lay the rub.
Your betrothed only smiled
in half uncertainty.

The Grapes you feasted on
swelled your eyes,
receding hopes
chasten powers,
having played with grief
to shore some unrequited resentment
you withdrew.
The beast of envy has scorned sanity
to  improve his venture.

It must be progress
when Alpha to Omega
is uttered by a child.
Can their BBM's really
create a new World vision ?
Are part time Revolutionaires
thickening the Plot
and will the threatening Sword of Damocles
ever be ploughed into something
more askance ?

August is never  lost to Summer,
she shares in her sphere of circularity
Calendula's a by-word  for prolonging,
dead-heading vies with the flush.
Lunaria's prized seed pods' legacy's boon.
In redolent contemplation.
Autumn bulbs eagerly  secured.
Amongst them Colichicums a wondrous  shrub
for late September's  appearance.

Like a Stallion,  August's canter masquerades
the truest of challenges ,
for the final  hurdle.
By means of subtle suggestiveness
Russet subsumes the Red.
Blue musters a tired
muddying  Purple.
Yellow bleaches
as though touched
by the exertion of congruity

She had always been a dreamer
never believing 5"2 had been the issue.
A Napoleon comfort complex cultivated
Believing personal leadership was inevitable
St Helena would never be an option.
Her akimbo pose was to die for.
ADÉLIE, of  sometimes higher ideal
your eyes gaze without feeling
across the Channel deemed possibly truculent.
Blinded by this scary Palladium
you should only untangle due blame.

The Analogue diviners
200's swirled and drowned,
ISO granularity further compressed
in the midst of adversity
we will pledge our mounts
to  prosperity.

The taking of Roses
their ovaries lesioned,
stamen's blanched
Is hubris now mordant  ?

A knock back, a kick back
it all sounds the same
somewhere the tiredness settled in
like creaking wood,
there was no firm floor
just a ledge, peering,
no Sister in arms
to show her Mother's strength,
just a rudimentary Boy
drifting into survival mode,
a Mudlark dredging in the Thames
with no brass jug
just a porous defense

My Sister Annabel
wore a button hole Anemone,
reflecting a broken heart
Sometimes trellises harness
country abounds
where the Land owner promises
wealth and company
and instead finds himself a scullery maid
where the Mastiffs in another life
may have been the commonable.

For fity miles
she rode on a  rare Steed
to show her endeavour,
never saying whether should would dither -
a hearth must be prepared with care
a heart's evermore if it is sincere,
dreaming of the future under a
Trestle viaduct,
she recalled tact,
your typical daughter
with thin waist
and flaxen hair
could be changed by the World,
instead she had the courage of choice,
to embroider a kindred yarn
and perform revival folk
to kinder Columbine kingdoms,
perchance early to rise?

Aching legs won't carry your lazy ideals
The light patterns on the veranda dissipate
your past Summer's glory
Aged arguments still tarry a cast
and slightly overdoing it at the Lido
promised more than capability
as your range shrinks day by day.