Regrets, I’ve had a few
A crude red rose
An unwanted tattoo
Blood and ink, inscribes my flesh
Permanent art
A reminder of pain

You are a huge O mouth
Open and yawning like a sink hole
Yelling absurd answers to simple questions
Your breath a cloud of steam
That freezes in the night air
Raw laugh, loud like a hyena

To those who talk but never think
An exhausting mouth eating oxygen
Eating and eating
Emitting opinions
The tongue in perpetual motion
The jawbone still chattering
Your mouth can run marathons
Silenced into a stupor
I sit here and say nothing
Pretending to listen

You’ve seen me in the valley
On the edge of a fell
A black hanging rock
My face is rough and bleak
My hair is wild heather
My jawline is sharp and rugged
If you stand on my head and look down
It’s a thousand feet drop to the bottom
Grass grows on my chin
The wind has pounded my body over many years
The rain has pelted me very hard
The weather shows me no mercy
Still I sit here petrified
Proud and silent as a stone
Like a survivor

I’m not like the Ripper or a notorious name
A celebrity killer looking for fame
I could be living alone in the house next door
In a suburb next to a family of four
There’s nothing really dark about me
Just a few skeletons behind the settee
One night I had a few friends around
By morning they just could not be found
A couple of them were acting like fools
Messing around with garden tools
Things just went too far last night
A few arguments and then a little fight
Air rifle pellet went right through one eye
Picked up a ***** and swatted a fly
They had ****** on the carpet and foul sofa stains
Bits of ***** on the wall with blown out brains
Glassed in the face and the mirror smashed
All the guests have gone and the party’s crashed
I arranged their limbs in little squares
In the cupboard just under the stairs
Just take a look at this Motley Crew
All ******* useless with nothing to do
They came for a laugh and left in stitches
No more fun for these sons of *******
I won’t bore you with the details of my deeds
How their hacked off fingers were planted with weeds
Shaved their heads with a sickle and axe
Disposed like waste in carbon sacks
So remember this if friends are fake
They never give back but always take
Don’t waste more time or ask them why
Lets them go, let them die

After a fall you must rise
Pick yourself up for the next surprise
Lie there for a minute on the floor,
No bones broken but the body feels sore
Praise yourself and stand up tall,
Don’t stay down after a fall.
You may feel hurt or shatter like a cup,
When you go down the only way is back up.
Fall forwards down to one side
Go backwards and lose your pride
Dropped like a glass just about to smash
A phoenix rising up from the ash
Its more than instinct avoiding pain
The will to live is to get up again

I waited, I waited and waited some more
No one came knocking, no one at the door
And the years went by and by
For over fifty years I sat squatted,
Still nothing.

I grew older than dirt
Two eyes gather dust
My heart has died quietly
My liver has turned bitter
My kidneys have failed
While on a hospital waiting list
It was all very boring

While waiting I looked at the time
While waiting I wrote a death letter
While waiting I watched birds grow wings
The broken hands of the clock
Time had stopped
I have taken vows
To keep waiting

It's all over now
Life’s lesson learned
My breath bated.
kick the legs away
Nothing comes to those who waited

I’m losing it  
Losing what ?
Losing interest
what attracts now repels,
oh what the ******* hell
where is yesterday glow ?
distant stars dead and cold
love goes cold like a bloodless fish,  
there it goes : going going gone
drifting, receding, vanishing over the horizon,
out of focus
your eyes look like frosted glass
it’s not death but the dying signal
weak blips of the uninterested
Losing it
rotten roses in a tub
wilted heart in a jug,
and so the well of inspiration
is expired

Blown up into black on white
So calm against the darkness
Daylight gone and the curtain down
Lights off for the rest of life
Haunted house and nameless thought
Blackened mind and foul deeds done
On the floor and locked indoors
Last rites with the lonely wife

With nothing on and standing stark
So bold against the emptiness
In nature’s state and body white
Leave the bone and bleach the flesh
Underneath she’s black
Once the bride to be
Now an exquisite corpse

No more Polyfilla face
Behold the plain and naked
Made up in poor taste
Death mask and masquerade
Poor state of nature
Tarted up and raw

Fight the flaccid face
Tighten up the lines
Stretchmarks are stripes
Jowls hang and flap façade in crisis
Out flicks the knife
Smile for life with one slash

Round up the rings
Count up the crags
Callous with age
Horns on the hands
Petrified hags hard and rock like

Gnarled old bark
Woman tree wither
Roots left in ruins
Ends split and hairdo dead
All through and done for
Overblown and glory gone

Hothouse has no bed
Bare glass and empty bar
Haunted room for two
Old and lonely ghost
Vital flowers dead
Wilted heart and rose
The color of dry blood

Lonely light bulb naked
Just hanging by a hair
Put the shadows on the shade
Wallflowers standing bare
And whitewash on the face
Hardhat with a headlamp
Bright and diamond eye
Flick the instant switch

Never go out at night
Don’t live to see the stars
Seated at the dark bar
We’re locked indoors for life
Those who come to visit
Stay lonely forever

pain is a permanent marker
unremovable like coffee stains on carpet
undoable like stomach knots
unalterable like bad surgery
unwanted tattoos tell the truth

reminder of pain imprints in flesh
indelible ink writing on private parts
ingrained in memory like ***** rings around a tub
surgery scars reveal new skin

entrenched in the brain
pushed to the back of the mind
pain recorded, hidden, collated, undeleted
recycled every 14 days
triggered by foul smell, bad tastes and bitter tea

badly drawn with a pen
pain is a permanent marker
forever and binding

Mary made the monster walk
Taught the thing to talk back
Grew up wild and ran amok
Came back home to stalk her

Brainchild was no ****** birth
No mother on earth wanted Mary
Plays the father figure
Hate begets ogre

Antichrist or a gift of god
No justice by law of Sod
Nature made a botch job
When Mary met the monster

Red letter just penned
Ink dried up and dead
Like old friend and flower
Gone and no one to send to

Firebomb the dead letter
Say your goodbyes
Packed into a suitcase
Baggage on the last bus

Many years under the eyes
Bloodshot nights stay awake
Looks black in the sad bed
Rain sodden and head beaten hollow
Out in all weathers to be tarred and truly feathered

Lost rats in a maze chase tail
Masters deliver dead letters in the mail
No one to return no senders name
Let the post bags burn
Charred remains of dead letters in the urn

No one took the blame for the bomb
Unsigned and  nameless
Blew up the faithless
Your love is a dead letter

Balloons float across the firmament
Colored kites look like sky writing
Jet planes breathe vapor trails blue horizon
Thin wispy cirrus painted on an Azure sky
Morning sun smiling down
What a lovely day I thought
As I lay in the field
Beside bales of hay
While having a heart attack

I see trees burnt black
Dead roses too
Nothing can bloom
No flowers new
And I think to myself
What have we done to this earth ?

The sky is ablaze
The sun glows white
Smog stays all day
A forest burns at night
And I think t myself
What have we done to this world ?

The fish are full of plastic
Seabirds can’t fly
Red tide is like blood
Whales washed up to die
There’s an island of garbage
Drawn on the map
The sea turns toxic
An ocean of crap
And I think t myself
What have we done to this earth ?

Babies cry because they know
They will reap just what we sow
And I think to myself
What have we done to this world ?