Winter lace
adorns the windowpanes
Crisp white snow
crunches underfoot
a trail of crimson drops
lead to the winter woods

day at the races
a night at the opera
mercurial songs

dark piano plays
bohemian rhapsody
the white queen dreaming

a sheer heart attack
great king rat bought and sold
to a faithless world

Just be yourself
and they’ll like you
I was always told
The dead can’t speak
Another lie.

The children had made a tiny snowman
with a baby carrot nose
Shining black beads for eyes
and a pearl button smile

That night it began to snow
and the poor snowman
was completely covered

Then an Angel saw him
She gave him two sapphires for eyes
and a diamond smile

She took him up to the heavens
and placed him there among the stars
Where he illuminates the skies
with his diamond smile

Snowfall covered  the world.
Icicles grew
like diamond swords for heroines.
Window panes delicate French lace.
The world shrouded in silence
that precedes the lovers first kiss.

Winter rules her kingdom
garlanded with jasmine and ivy.
Clothed in the dazzling sunlight
over the first snowfall.

It was the best of lines
it was the worst of lines
At least it rhymes

diva madonna
living in dark new york slums
moonlighting boudoir

a material girl
heart closed for so many years
when her mother died

for she was frozen
years when her heart was broken
now she cannot melt

still I see her dance
in dark arabic rhythms
give away our hearts

Don’t go until I have made you suffer
The day has turned drear and scrofulous
Insipid cats prowl in alleys
while dogs yearn to **** them

Opening doors you may find rude things
Like housewives **** with rubber gloves
cleaning china
and searching for stray hairpins
All is lost

Dreamer
darkness steals your face
I’m lost to you
who roam in palaces
of winter jasmine
and lie with sirens
in beds of silk and gold

Opening the gate to the home
of the gentle dead.
Dreaming of lost lives
under  faded drifts of leaves.

Halloween passed
with teenagers on dares.
Christmas passed
with mothers sorrowing.

What will this new year bring?
Flowers wither on the graves
of the grateful dead.
For those forgotten or abandoned,
the featherlight perch of the sparrow.

dreams fade at sunrise
bright birdsong awakens me
robin sings sweetly

I found  the ring I lost last Summer
It was lost in a drift of leaves,
and I wonder
how it got there.

I forget so easily these days
Yet I still hold memories
like cream in a fine china jug

Present moments just drift away
like these Autumn leaves
So I sit down with my jug

Like a bright eyed magpie
I pluck choice berries.
Then pour over cream
and like  those leaves
I drift, just drift away.

The moon is in eclipse
She swirls a scarlet cloak
around midnight
Unicorn stars silver bright
fall to the darkened Earth

She is an invisible shadow
emerging at last
like flame from coals
Then a pearl
from the limitless ocean

eidelwiess flower
symbol of freedom and hope
purity and light

It’s the empty spaces
the silence between cars passing
and the ringtones of the phone
that won’t be you

Cleft of mystery
shadow leading to hidden waters
A mysterious spring that feeds
the well of dreams

Essence of rose,
she is bound with silver chains,
released to ride the night

At sunset I enter
love’s Eleusian mystery
Lost in her flowing waterfall
of midnight hair

She is rose and jasmine
and tigers breath
Orchids of night surround us
ecstatically she sips their nectar

Moon moth and night blooming flower
at sunrise vanishing
into the carmine sky

Dreaming the day away
as morning mists clear
Lost within your embrace
in the dark spill of your hair

Let the day go by
well stay together here
Our love brings the stars to shine
our heartbeat the moon tides

It’s dusk now.
Clouds clump like a bunch of used tissues
My socks are mostly odd ones.
War threatens.
The cat hasn’t moved for three days.
Drugs might help,
but since my life is a bad trip,
there is no point.

The dishwasher groans like ocean waves.
Dolphins whinge horrifically
from my new relaxation tape.
At least I have my cat to love me,
even if it’s dead.

eyes inscrutable
looking through concealed window
longing for freedom

Have you danced with the leaves
in Autumn
Have you made angels in the snow
Have you welcomed the Spring
with an anthem
Have you longed for Summer to come
In each season is a lesson
of life and love and hope
of joy and inspiration
in the fairground of the world

fairy and snowflake
glitter ball winter lovers
he melts into her

Fallen Angel
Carrion crow wings
shelter from driving rain

There is yet hope
A star reflected
in a puddle
still holds celestial light

It reignites the fire
so long extinguished
Your heart is a phoenix
arising in the morning

You were Lucifer
Lord of the drug dead corpses
****** bleeds from your veins

Angel dust phantoms
claw at your feet
but still you rise

****** with purple hearts
Qualude queens and tricks
Poppers and ******
Have no significance
for a living flame

fallen star walks earth
green grass to gold and silver
lost diamond of skies

My Aunt went to see
fifty shades of grey
at the local W.I.
Afterwards there was tea
with suggestive biscuits



( only the English will get this)

My Aunt says in her day
there were far fewer birth signs.
Women only got drunk at New Year,
so most people were Leos.

My Aunt says
she thinks these wife swapping parties
where partners are chosen
by throwing your car keys on the table
are very risky.
After all, what if you went home
with the wrong car?

My Aunt says in her day
men weren’t allowed in the kitchen.
And very often, the bedroom too.

My Aunt says
she could never live
in the U.S.A.
as it’s full of Americans

My Aunt says
in her day all women
weren’t allowed ladies
and those that weren’t
didn’t tell.

My Aunt says it’s pointless
putting the clocks back
when you just put them forwards
six months later,
and why won’t people
leave time alone?

My Aunt says
if a chef can drop
a cream meringue on the floor
and call it Eton Mess,
why can’t she do something similar
with her sherry trifle?

My Aunt says
that when she dies,
she wants a simple crenellation
with afternoon tea to follow.

My Aunt says
with all this mobile tracking
G.P.S. and Satnav,
nobody knows
where they are anymore

My Aunt doesn’t understand
all this internet friending and trolling.
In her day, people kept themselves to themselves,
and talked about people behind their backs.

My Aunt says
in her day men got their rations
once a week.
Now they’re continually raiding
the marital cupboard.

My Aunt says in her day
there was none of this violence
.People lived peacefully together,
except for the two world wars.

My Aunt says she doesn’t approve
of Alcoholics Anonymous.
In her day,
everything was out in the open.

My Aunt can’t understand
women watching football.
After all, it’s bad enough
men playing a pointless game,
without women encouraging them.

My Aunt says that in her day
fourteen year olds had to be
back home by nine.
When they got a bit older
they weren’t allowed out
before that either.

My Aunt says,
it’s terrible having a cupboard
just for shoes
when so many people are homeless.

My Aunt doesn’t hold
with all this hugging and kissing
when family members meet up.
In her day people kept a proper distance.
Everyone hated each other
because they were overcrowded.

My Aunt says
if I put her in an old people’s home
she won’t leave me her two cats
or the dog
or the parakeet

My Aunt says
It’s easier at the dentists these days.
When she was young
they frequently sported
black eyes

My Aunt says
she doesn’t hold with predjudice.
After all, she sees no reason why Black people
should not be allowed
to live next door to each other.

My Aunt is more tolerant
of people from the U.S.A. these days.
After all, she says,
someone’s got to be American.

My Aunt says
if God intended for people
to be vegetarian
sheep would be made
of tofu

My Aunt says after an unfortunate
mixup ordering a video
that she always thought *******
was a brand of mouthwash

My Aunt said
her nephews conversation about
Hawkwind’s music
was unexpectedly interesting
but she thinks the spirit of the age
should remain gin
and not a daft name for a song

My Aunt says
there were no expensive cots
in her day
Babies slept in drawers
After all if you forgot
and shut the drawer
you were very likely to hear them
Mind, she added thoughtfully
There was the unfortunate case
of cousin Ethel

My Aunt says the last time
she went to the cinema
it was Bingo.
But she thinks she arrived late
at the interval
Because they played a daft game
that went on for ages
so she decided to leave.