After a while even Heaven fades,
exalted tube journeys
and flourished delicatessens
helps change the mind.
Weekend Bed sits in Notting Hill Gate,
regaling stories of  her missed A levels
and dreams of being an actress,
before being misunderstood,
in turn he intended to go to Polytechnic,
two potentially interesting people
future's denied by defenestration,
too late in building bridges
learnt by confirming hurt.

Before the decade spat us out,
on our bicycles we had options,
the electric blaze truly sped by
with the years
and Dad's knew their sons interests
lay in Rock, where musicians in de rigueur denims
sign posted the alpha roost
and we all had dreams of blondes,
their beacons crafting
secrets and desires about growing up.
This was the surest way
to catch an education for life

Awareness drifts by like stories carried by sandals;
Travelers too few to carry conviction
tarry in sand,
like a neon after thought.
Relics of crystallised fables parade;
on non roaming pathways
an eerie silence that dealt time
is only fortuitous in whispered light

I am anchored to thoughts of Brugge.
My gastronomical panache is set.
Walking in a medieval town is like
voyaging  to the summits,
the stillness of the morning air
comes with a sense of belief.
Rossie our  tour guide
quilts you with the  knowledge
and a  knowing boon.
Nowhere else provides such testimony.

I see a tribal emnity
between the boules club and ornithpologiists,
laying  siege to the bus station
as if they were on satins
old enough to know better
but still besotted with the twig of youth

He is not really happy.
having studied Scaffolding
but for now he is un-waged
and unlike codeine, pain becomes  an inverse release.
He focusses thoughts on the past
and somehow  thinks
Manchester City F.C 1955
were an in-form team
and 1971 had the best sueded hippy chicks
with names like Sheila and Madeline
But believes in his heart, post Jubilee 1977
was when the purple  patch went rotten.

Into free-fall, there's stymie and no rhythm
the grasshoppers fly around in circles, unaware,
the flow is as soak grass
burnt by the equivocal scorching sun,
wonder waits still for recognition
that will dissolve, unremembered
as soon as we get second wind

across the canals we gallantly roamed
our engine horse drawn
the quilt of the bubolic defines us,
basking under hazy willow
the scattering of cowslip and orchids
purveyed through the bankside,
with the staggered moon
pacing our miidnight dreams
amongst croaking frogs
and the knowing water vole

I wanted to out perform performance Art
so I painted a splash of colour to your dress
but the revellers were like City drones
deciding this was unbearably light,
so I moved back to Molly, who still unbowed
performed her theatrical reprimands
but the Labyrinth was like a pulse
translucent.

My Copal Square bladed shutter
Calibrated, adjusted, lubricated,with tlc
re-captures fields of Shirley poppies
tight roping Nevada's mountainous ranges.

A blush of rouge in July
the sway of Lady's fingers
who do you otherwise spurn,
are there any more wishes
you could christen
over and beyond the neck of mountains,
you had your flings -
entertaining gapes
mustering mouths,
spreadeagle
shinning with the fields
a touche of July

I sat behind your seat
and spoke incessantly,
like a corral reef
I laid myself open
part algae, part azure.
I knew then I was adrift,
too much had run under my bridge.
Longing was  academic.
Gardens become a cutting metaphor.

The next time I saw you
this  draw bridge
would have become a parapet
if you had not already known.
Only my eyes had the courage
to realise
I  no longer found shelter in your words

Torrents of wind, strewn upon man and beast
an irradiant moment terses through the veins
howls bewilderment speculates, 
attempting to overthrow the instant,
home is a short shrift distance
her only resonance is a leitmotif
that hail the late seasons repentance.

Questions  cluster like  rain clouds,
it's often easier  to hide under autumns anonymity,
and sling this old  life into recluse.
Yet how could I slip away
and  honestly believe there was a reason?
What if the promise of tomorrow was marshalled today?
to be offered flourishing hope,
only by renewal does one  give,
unless  my heart  is snagged
it  comes back  to changes.

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.

Iris and Blanche,
retired West end Usherettes,
Joint treasurers to the benevolent society,
their own Christmas story flickers ,
fearing  poverty, melted candles
for  6d - they buy the job lot,
worn, threadbare carpets cover the hallway.
Seemingly unmoved, they try to forget
this turn of fortune.

Upheaval is now the perpetual downturn.
They’ve availed themselves to
missing out on life's gravy train, 
and been met with gas light frugality.
The sunken mattress tumbles across the  wooden floor,
casting shadows over,
yesterday's hubris.

When we had left the Seamans mission
lugging our suitcases,
Beeston seemed the best place to go
4.6 A.B.V  felt like pushing the boat,
but the fillies were feisty enough
to flog off our descendants
into the zeitgeist.

the cryptic egg is the custodian
the egg is greater than the seed
the seed is the dynastic interpretation

The  longing  to  compete  up a  one way street,
foolhardy if the  confidence is lost
But  inherent  is  this wish
to  be  better than  thou.
My  sageful  advice may  fall on  cloth  ears
having  run its course,
being an ensemble  of  sorts.
The  mighty  brevity  will surely  decline
with  the  passing  of  time
perhaps  long  after­ these ideals

Scheiuw  you'll never know
the beauty of her beads
her gentle Aegean eyes
bluer than azure.
In her tears there's regret for
the alpha bet
for those who swooned
too low,
who came un-courtly after
the legends.

I love the natural evilness of Monkshoods
their dark blue hypnotism,
but if contained and recognised
there unlikely to be of any threat,
unlike people of course
of whom you could say where
not naturally evil
merely acquisitional -
with all those fault lines that runs from that
headstrong and running on empty,
said the poet as  the nuclear laden train
passed by the suicidal rail line.

The Orb is relying on remnant technology
they effortlessly jettison LCD's
to breach the black hole,
humankoids re-activate their birth circuitry
programmed to emote on Ringoo, Jhon,
yet they have dissipated the rest.
In a parallel universe optic nerves
will ruse carbon copies of George and Paul
and everybody will laugh nervously
at two systems so disproportionate
re-uniting the infinite.

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.

Muster and Roll
Imagine time and the continental plates merging
Trust in no one, Enkai or  Snake oil medicine shows.
Gumbo stew trumps the Serengeti ?
Wildebeest hording into the new territory
Manifest destinies assured.

I cannot see her being a troubadour
there's too much work to be done,
she only hangs around the fringes
lacking  that inner feel,
once she sang the Worlds Requiem
but her interpretation lacked punch
had she the wherewithal needed?
Her jaded baggage indeterminate now
lugs her capered turn.

Let true conventionalism light the pathways.
Upright, always  thinking  of others,
never running a rapier  through  the artery
of true feelings.
Sometimes impervious  ideals,  unmasks the man  
by being unopen to the  gusts of  change
one  must  never  question preparedness.

What has happened to our Croydon?
Where is Allders and the Warehouse Theatre?
even our Market is disappearing!
do you think you can tell,
when you stopped being our town?
Don't  put us in line
with Norbury.

You're a Street Map that has to be believed.
George Street 1975 then a jewel in everybody's  Crown, Mister K too.
Croydon had it all, the weekly Safeway shopping -
Grants , North End, Greyhound and L & H Cloake,
even a Manhattan skyline -
Shop girls  I was too young to know
a la W.H Smith's Whitgift Centre
with a surfeit of ready Queen  albums!
even the YMCA  
would have done Disco
B.T Express's "do it till your satisfied"
I believe,
and the always evergreen
Van Damme Bar.
The Tavern in the Town
fondly recalled.

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 Oak branches perturbe
swelled eyes takes in the abjectness,
denouncement's rasp makes in roads
in despatch,
"a moribund soul is tantamount
to mountainous *** ash",
Crows outstretch their wingspan
secretly chiding at such termerity

Unable to sleep at night,
the factory's shattering light
transcends time
thoughts of an equivocal  escape plan
emerge, lunar station over and out!
but the awakening cat can only confirm reality.
I am left no wiser
why sleep had not been possible
then I realise,
December the month of fogs,
errant, stop and start
sweet and sour:
a lonelier time
than its invented self
could ever envisage.

He smashed  his toy gun in seventy four.
Desperation - his face soured.
The shopkeeper knew he was more than kaput
and as for missing the xmas disco ~
he world never walk under the moon of love
from that day beyond.
The bullies had ran their cause
carefully formulating the groundswell.
Who were they his enduring question?

.

The offer of  exploration
is as clear as a dusted chalk board,
fading into oblivion.
This developmental poetry  course is
turning lop sided,
who wants to record a hushed whisper,
chasm five ways into  the inner self
or recount a  colour,
with an emotional resonance.
The ghosts of the past fail to impress.
They cannot compel.
Surely the now is more pressing
not some cultivated  co-dependency

Adieu I will curl away
and reawaken ten years from now
like an unwitting coil
I spring  some confounded earnestness
of built up creaks and misalignments ,
serenade me not,
for discordant pipers foil
their sepia tinged pedestraness.

No more long stares
spent phenol syringes fresh on the streets,
barbiturated ruffians riddled,
denizens lost into this killing machine,
over dosed on Laudanum yesterday's ***** with temerity to spare,
turns tricks down
tomorrow someone laugh and high kick her,
those new Barista Gangsters , their marketing strategy
stretches the mind,
enough to **** a healthy Ox.
Lean close and hear
this requisitioned block is a pleasure dome
suitable for gilded beautification.

Have you tasted jealously ?
its like a misshapen stomach
that swallowed jellied biros .
Are you lacking in choreography,
where your own walk
should be the more significant dance
rather than the musings of a foolscap fanatic.

Thesaurus m-real
how do I complete ?
Cassell  blinks through his A-Z
and ruminate an hour more.
I'm permanently stuck inside plain foolscap
whilst lexicographers twitter,
now assuredly  crimson
shred my make Believe traces.

(The poem is about the mayhem of inventing a non existent word)

Who is amused?
there's primordial ivy clinging  on my brickwork
and an incident of blank verse at my poetry club,
possible unemployment rearing its head for moi.
Before my downsizing commences,
I've  been busy buying more CD's
but that's my contre jour
befittingly everybody else is into  iTunes,
I can only listen to myself,
even if music be the devils tune
I'll  soon be home for more,
burning fossil fuels willingly
of Mesohippus's and other three toes.

Time for inroads
and watch me grow into a confession
to unhide.
There's room for you too,
grasping the infinity and movement
the gamble of the moon speaks,
luneria flowers to mark the winds cause
and learn words giving belief
wiser than us after all.

Potpourri on the concrete carpet
how can this be held as beguiling?.
Even the willows sigh by the
increasing turbulence of the wind.
Legends so few of them,
stagnating without a hand to lift
their encapsulation.
Dreamscapes  bygone
as sure as  grief rotted down,
the nightingale  stranded,
erstwhile finally.

Verdant comforts,
cleomes and dalhias,
walks by  cobbled paths
Artists and their pedestals
incapsulating these vistas,
therein lays the beauty
we all knew inherent
in each and every of our  dawn risings

Like a blase fencer
a stab proof jacket
touches
serenity

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

Are your eyes as plaintive
as your made up face,
reclining on this polished chair
could a few words make the difference?
between wishing something true
or a lost dream leaching on the still

There is no shelter in this emerald  isle.
We are authors of our own hastening,
shunning simplicity and  the covert.
Fear is now permeable
its utterance  loitering like a well worn thread
turmoill  thickens livid  eyes
translating  further woe.

The hat did not make the boy
they even wanted to select their prefered neighbours.
The dusty unused courtyard
long buried prayer books loitered.
If there was a God he was already made
in their own image,
insular  and grunt.
To surrender to their leaden aviary
the cage wouldn't need bars,
archaism would ablute the soul
the world outsiders
a plank walkway the only means.

The radio song itself had died on the dashboard
the new abjudicator had shorn
the Moon like a clip board,
whose patient shadows wane,
those cornea headlights  now incessant,
our sudden rasp of thirst
seemed to last until the first Sprig.
Moments we shared later recoiled,
our needless surrender held no prevarication,
yet others less incurious could only wish away this
dirt-road.

Flat roofs and ivied.