The man in the raincoat tuts and mutters
stares at he puddles that form in the street
that splash up upon his cold angry feet
from the gathering streams that flow in the gutters

Tomorrow s a time like far away
and memory a knife like ice
and hope a sun to sink again
when London winter clips the skin

He turns again the pavement then
spins up glaring like a grimace
and thinking of some fonder place
he ascends the creaking stairs to the kitchen

Water boiled for tea and heat
he hates the furniture and tends
to wait for some fair-weather friend
the window rataplans with wind and wet.

Murdering a cigarette
in the saucer filled with ends
They say that God is always good
so howcome  it rain on weekends ?

Copyright London 1990

The Flying Fish.
by Mark Hurlin-Shelton



It was late in the night
and the ships crew snored
When a rather strange creature landed aboard
I thought it
the most extraordinary thing
For there lay before me
a fish with wings
Well here is a question
for wise men to solve
However did such
a strange creature evolve
A creature that isn't contented to be
Like all of the others
that swim in the sea
I wonder when was it
that the first fish tried
to grow little wings
and to swim in the sky
What do you think
don't you think it absurd?
A fish with a wish to be a bird.

Mark Hurlin Shelton

Lament

For all the brain i never use

the muscles that i seldom flex

bad habits that i need to lose

the fulfilment not quite found in ***



all the hurts , we should not keep score

a life, so much i had left for dead

the abandoned child in my shivering core

and all my sadness left unsaid



what asks the sorry soul but why

why me oh why this tiresome toil

to the horizon gaze and sigh

then plod ones way across the soil



for all the world that was not mine

for all the chances past me slipped

the place was right but not the time

many a miss between cup and lip




for all the doors i did not knock

the flowers only God will smell

the passing seconds on the clock

will never wait us after all



for lands my shoes may never walk

the blue expanse i cannot fly

an earthbound angel makes small talk

while he contemplates the  sky


all the plans that went astray

the friends that flew and never waited

for every dream that could not stay

but left me feeling so frustrated.

Once I went upon a time

On tender foot down a far fled lane

A tangled haunt of yesterdays astray


Long was my hunt for a fondness or

A certain door

A value or an anchor

For a ship to sail me to myself


To the awesome abyss of the self

I fell,my moods of poison pulled

I felt the falling stars they screamed


How then I howled in the nihilate night

Too sullied to soothe my lonesome ghost

My bitten bones for hollow time




My heart a black-hole house of cards

Slipped sigh of shames, a hungered Hades

A burnt out history bile and ***** had fumed


But I was too young to be that old

I must find my joy and hold it fond

to Hunt the rainbow -Honour life



but I had been blind to the haven of hearts

On the tongue-tips of touch my blessings stood

And much more than warm with will and giving



Stirred the memory of his music in me

Forgiveness !! - Cried his humble name

Peace trembled through me, stars sang life



His Love shone through the ice of my armour-shell

New birth for my blunt and brittle box

That breathed in a dreamless ditch of ‘ then’



And then that cherub child that longed

Loomed large so large in the life of me

Did make me doubt the shackle and the stab



Though thorny chain of void has led me here

A sprig of springtime mine

Has bathed my heart in his balmy sea



Through waves of golden nectar now

I hum with the hymns of his creativity

He sings oh poet be like a child


Be Meek and kind and come to me

Hammersmith on Thames at Low Tide

This sparkling beach of river silt, quiet and white
the barge boats languidly tilted to rest
a rustic wind that tastes of brine the gannets nag a rebellowing cry
these spoilt natured birds hungrily hover and comb the low tide Thames

Bleached jetsam, driftwood, cork, plastic detergent bottles
frayed rope, flotsam, rusted chain, emerald-green glass
broken smoothed with time treated, caked in silted London clay
chipped ceramic, porcelain, frayed nylon twine
and rusted green copper hinges here are ideas of Caesars coins
elusive treasures, lost goblets- teasing thoughts of Londinium...
Roman Gallipots and galleys sunk deep in layers asleep beneath the river bed
an old and rusted barge an exo-skeleton grown over with watery weeds
scattered with rags and oil cans discarded rusted tools damp straw and flies

The Great Thames, smelly mother
indifferent to Empires Great artery, mighty sewer
of the city washing away the cities sins
assuming with neglect and time our spoilt oily natures
in a rising of breath and a sighing of fall
singing the metres and moods of history.

Mark Hurlin Shelton

Composed on a walk between Hampstead Highgate (not too far from John Keat's house) late 1980's

It has been a day for wandering
beneath this sky of early spring
among these trees to freely breathe in an Eden Green
i can scarce believe the beauty of this scene
-the sunlight shines in through the trees
like bright gold blazing from my dreams
and sparkles just so that it seems
the sunbeams tiptoe on the breeze

In this my magic afternoon
of rambles over sleepy heath
I am bathed In cool tranquility
for here the world breathes out a breath
that stirs the child that weeps in me
and calls him to be free

Somehow it as occurred to me
that I will never quite completely be
at peace in the world of peoples schemes
but there is something in this scene
-that is in the soul and stuff of me
and this is the spring of my poetry

so cut me open when I die
inside me you will find the sky
and in my heart the mellow sun
and behind my eyes - the makers mystery.

Mark Hurlin Shelton