"allotments" poems
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.
A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.
Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.
Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.
Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.
3.1k
We all want someone to hold whilst the music plays
but this is a delayed reaction to teenage hormones,
you're clutching to not-a-lot-of-nothings,
smart jeans and smart cologne, a stolen ring
from your step-father's collection tidied away,
deep, in a box under bed sheets in that drawer.
Your mum says the right one will come 'round
soon enough, but so far the results
of dressing differently have resulted in
women speaking like spray from under a van:
rainwater white noise and not a lot else;
though you're still searching, if not for you,
for your mother instead, elderly and re-married:
some else's burden, another husband to carry.
Carry out of the bottom of drunken wine glasses
and into clear meadows on weekly walks
where discussions take place, peace treaty
talks about holidays in the Mediterranean,
upon balcony ledges they'll embrace, learn
about fading stars, the history behind buildings
visit local bars to drink sober cocktails
conjured up in off-the-web smoothie makers
bought with the ambition to make a living
and help the community out.
If not now then when, your **** shouts
hiding beneath moneyed material
cut in sweat shops, washed in sweat heaps,
delivered by the sweaty mail man of the Bronx,
will women love me you'll say,
will women want a house with me, stay the night
under reclaimed, bought from thrift shop,
lights and kiss until mornings turn into weeks,
those weeks into new jobs
and before you know it, retirement plots
in allotments off Broadway?
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 7:49 AM UTC
Rhetorically I wish the warm
Stoke rain
would wash away the grey gloom,
allotments included.
The greenfly and other impertinents unexempted.
Minor disruptions apart will bring out our stoicisn,
gushing from the backwaters
we feared we had become,
raking in a new terrain.
Jun 22, 2013
Jun 22, 2013 at 8:36 AM UTC
We go to Ikea having taken
the road through the allotments
& the Park which dates back
to Victorian times.
Inside the store
we grab at rugs & bowls
lie on the beds
until someone frowns
at us & we leave to
sit in the restaurant
with Swedish apple cake
& coffee, reminiscing
of the road we used to take
on the M48 bus to the store
which was near Spandau
one of the earliest settlements of Berlin
where the first Slavs
settled & lived
& how we had
back then a family card
to give us free coffee
before it all fell apart
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 12:06 PM UTC
Puffing profoundly on an old bone pipe.sat the old woman on rickety stool. A white tendril seeking altitude from schorching embers.
A wafting spirit casting errant admonishment.
Dusty footpath of a million footfalls all on missions of redemption lovelorn weeping allotments of anguish,pain and hope.FULLSTOP.
At sunbeaten,rainbleached risers three in number.
Splitpea fragrance wafting to greet.
Maybe collards too.
"What can I do for ?" But having asked,she already.knew.
To.walk.out to.the.shack.was.a.profound procession.
Made by many,owned by.few
Seeking solace from.the.witches brew.
"You need.a.poultace ?
Cast a spell for.you. ?
Fix it so.she.never leave you ?
Aint nothin.much.that.I.cant do.
Gonna fix.it.for.you.
Ramshackle rundown house of dreams,nightmares and stalking horses.
Beads and potions.come back lotions. Love notions out the window.like startled ratbats.
The little shack of sorrows.
Old time mystic.sitting on a stool.
Jingle pennies in pockets.
Yonder comes nother fool
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 9:02 AM UTC
The three of us sat on the disused, plastic patio chairs. Their white facade had faded into a malformed sort of grey, with grazes of mud and collected rainwater erosion further condemning them. We were blind drunk after three-and-a-half beers that were tempered with lemonade. The dreary five a.m. dawn threatens daylight, bringing an end to the party. In a few years’ time we’d be here again; coming down off drugs and talking about missed chances.
Tom and Amy are in my parent’s room, as we whisper conspiracy theories about his impotence, in the light of our lonely morning vigil. I barely remember what else was said, after we spoke of *** and love, and of our life beyond home. “There has to be something more, somewhere…” we would all insist. Yet, one by one, we have turned to shrugs, and those left to insist, do not.
What I do recall is the coffee (I never drank the stuff then) and dry crackers. As the sun came to rise and patterned the skies, we had seen one day slide into the next; we aged brilliantly in a moment. I stared out at the Rugby field just beyond the overgrown allotments; you could only make it out by the floodlights that towered over the trees. I knew then, of where I had always been, yet knew not where I needed to go.
I still don’t.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
sunday
Posted on March 16, 2014
off. stayed a while,
listening to the morning.
she said she had nothing to say,
yet her descriptions were thralling.
talk of allotments, sewing,
domestic days.
i like her letters.
i must write,
thank her for the book.
wild wales.
sbm.
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 3:09 AM UTC
The white-horses of the mind,
approaching the shores of the body,
never, ultimately, reach their destination
but break and disappear
leaving time's waves
to slowly erode
our animal allotments.
Jul 21, 2010
Jul 21, 2010 at 6:17 PM UTC
I am neither cryptic nor a firestone,
not even immune from hurt.
I deem myself functional
from a dearth of sources.
Gardening being instinctive.
Enduring Agnes my first love
with her then fringed suede ideals,
temporarily blamed herself,
believing I could never be
the sum of her dreams.
Men are not clotheshorses
they don't need to kick clod.
Some would rather grew
Nicotiana Sylvestris and
the Sunflower "Moonwalker"
in their Midshires allotments
with Agnes's tending
their "Love lies bleeding".
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 2:42 PM UTC
The neighbours are making their rounds.
They tend to their allotments under the allowance
of nature, a certainty in the seasons
as they compensate for the disorder
in their lives: the mislaid decisions
that gave comfort
at the expense of vitality.
James watches them from the bedroom window,
the way everyone walks with a proud hunch.
How the stem of a flower grows into the wind.
Flakes of white paint fall off the windowsill
like sugared almonds: the sweetness
of his anxiety,
the agitation of tobacco.
It is the only patch of green in a mile,
a cell of vegetation behind a locked gate.
A frost threatens and calloused hands
turn to pink cushion, blue extremities
folding tarp: a devoted shelter for
next season's radishes,
whilst the homeless die in the streets.
Dec 28, 2014
Dec 28, 2014 at 6:41 PM UTC
There are a great many things I've wanted to ask of you, whoever or whatever you are. Some far more poignant than others. What I really want to know are questions pertaining to us, your creations, and what you intended for us to do with this thing we call Free Will. Deeper than that, I want you to explain why you made me as I am, why you place people in my path, and ask things of me which I have not the power or the courage to perform. Why did you gift me with the perception to see into the heart of things, and the conviction that I MUST make right that which is wrong. I look around everyday and am astonished at the contradictions in this world. This schizophrenic society we've built upon the ashes of an idea horrifies me with it's multitude of messages, it's towers built on the illusion that we ARE what we OWN, and that worth is measured in stock. If we aren't beautiful, we can pay to be so, if we aren't smart, we can pay others to be smart for us, if we are not brave, we can hire others to die for us. There is so much beauty all around us, yet we've abstracted existence into sections of time, allotments of economic calculations instead of living, breathing humanity. But that's not what I'm angry about. I'm angry that you've made me in such a way that I can't function very well in "everyday life". I saw hell in the eyes of a beautiful **** Addict, the truth of her squalid life behind the veneer of beauty and calm and power she presented only a few hours before. This person had what our society tells us we must have in order to be happy. Clearly, we are missing something if Miss Beautiful Blonde **** Head had to find some kind of feeling in that. And make no mistake, there's very few illegal substances that I haven't forced upon my body at one time or another, and it disgusts me that I have to partake of a drug in order to be able to speak to people without hiding behind some kind of armour. But it's a lie, it's fake, just as the society we created is a lie. I would give everything to be able to have understood this when I was fifteen and could have started this journey differently. But it was not to be so, for whatever reason I, and so many others, are empty vessels on this sea. All those weeping, wounded hearts you placed before me and commanded me to heal, when my own was broken. I hate you for that. I reject this existence, this scramble for position and power atop a mountain of rags and orphans. I deny the Will to Power. And to the world you allowed us to create, the world that eats living ghosts and plastic ******* that learned how to burn whole populations away....to this world I will always say "NO".
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 10:53 PM UTC
****** in the afternoon,
Orphans brawling in stereo,
hometown ballads of unseen terraces,
bar stool swallowing peanuts, pretzels,
salted anti-depressant,
the foul smell of life amongst
folded towels, synthetic apple,
the Magna Carta of Suburbia.
The allotments buckle and spread,
fragile sexuality, the April sun;
quick to heat, quick to tears
after a long winter of recovery.
Grit in the carpet, art in the air,
it comes too thick to catch a breath,
too thin on the lungs
to turn it to a song, or prayer.
This G-dless drug,
hippie theories, old self-harm habits,
slanted handwriting to prove a point;
intelligible fears for acceptance
as words form like train tracks
in my disappearance from this:
the peak of the day,
at the bottom of the world.
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 5:56 AM UTC
The televisions are humming on Suicide Avenue.
Scarecrows hang in the allotments
And the residents scream white-noise lullabies
Into their pillow.
All is quiet.
All is still as the street-lights turn off.
George leaves for his night shift at quarter to one,
Careful not to wake a soul.
Floodlights on; signal to the curtain-twitchers
That he will make it there on time.
The house-cats have broken out on Suicide Avenue.
Flat tyres fill the driveways
To remind us of the cost of leaving.
The residents quicken heartbeats
To the breaking news.
The teenagers send laser pens to the stars
In the hope of bringing something down.
A scar still feels like a mark
You have left upon the world.
The residents do not give a **** on Suicide Avenue.
Nets surround the disused trampoline,
Cameras fitted over plasma screens,
But there is no one to catch the fallen.
When solace is required,
All is quiet.
When peace is required,
All is noise.
The youth are lost on Suicide Avenue.
There is only one route to take.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 7:46 PM UTC
I am living as your echo.
Lung cancer victim,
Vague pilgrim of kindness,
Tainted by the everyday;
By our suicidal blindness.
Keep the noise low,
As you walk on past the room,
You might hear our quiet love;
Collecting forget-me-nots,
Memorising the feel
Of the hand beneath the glove.
I am living in displacement,
Neither north, nor south,
And soon landlocked in yesterday;
Too many miles from the coastline,
And with too many debts left to pay.
Keep your lips strange
And foreign, as if we’re falling
In love again. Don’t forget this youth
When we leave it,
But let this heartache turn to gains.
There are no decimals to love.
Binary code, you’re either in or you’re out;
You’re either kissing the toad,
Or questing for an actor
To tolerate you;
Without any essence of doubt.
I don’t know where I am, father.
I can’t see the floodlights
That used to beam over the allotments;
Polluting the stars. My bike is chained
In the garage, my legs are tired,
And Cawston Woods only brings me to despair.
I want to claim back my royalties,
I want my piece of the share.
We have all paid our dues now,
We have worked ourselves sore,
For this malnourished freedom;
Of which still lays a cure.
We must see politic as silence,
In its content and fact,
To see the newsreader’s babble,
As one orchestrated act.
We must love for the earthworm,
And for the life-giving bee;
For the nuclei of dead sunlight,
For our brief eternity.
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 9:31 PM UTC
Colour-coded lists
with satisfying check marks
Tally for self-worth score
Free time is a dead wasteland
Work compulsion conquers all
Work is my saviour
Proof that I have use
Grateful for the gift
of structured daily toil
I don’t need a break
I am far too strong
I am made to stand
in any roaring storm
Endlessly on point
I cannot relax
Maybe I should take
a class in calming down
Another degree
Major in stillness
Minor in poems,
music, walks and gardens
What happens to me
While I do ‘leisure’?
What will I be worth
when I take time for me?
When days are rough at work, and heat is high
My self-esteem is carried by a role
To prove each working day that I am fine
And value comes from actions to assist
At frantic pace that slowly dents my soul
Beware when job and self strong-overlap
Identity is blank beyond my job
Then molehills swell to snowy mountain range
Allotments to sheep stations in my mind
And working day and night a sleeve-worn slog
Befogged in role, befuddled in self-worth
In muddled shame, obscured by guilt and fear
With added slow fatigue and hopelessness
And where do your needs end, and mine begin?
All rules of world and life become unclear
Learn to take time off
Negotiate with myself
New type of self-worth
Creative time, open field
Discovery nurtures all
Nov 23, 2024
Nov 23, 2024 at 1:26 AM UTC
Gentle seas reflect light near the island of Brac
Local men tender their allotments early in the morning
Swifts start to dart about
A local lady carries herbs and flowers down hill to the restaurants
Old men gather for coffee and cigarettes
People carry bread and cherry baklava from the bakery
The butcher's door is always open, he is working hard
Tourists sprint about in a hurry
Kids play cards as if it's the 1970's
Ladies show off dramatic tattoos on their backs
Walking down the steps to the beach
I sit near the outdoor shower and relax, getting ready to dive in
Jul 18, 2023
Jul 18, 2023 at 5:31 AM UTC
Between the fissures of our existence,
there is a moment where we must all
decay into a garden of eternal beauty.
But for us to collect on the petals of
our demise, we must surrender.
Yielding to our fears of eternal silence.
We are all but a breath from our inevitable
decay, but we still try to water dead roots
that'll never grow again, dead flowers to ash.
Were prettier when were still, vacant allotments
of thought that'll never regrow. Where just a
moment of death consumed to never live again.
Dec 9, 2017
Dec 9, 2017 at 5:00 PM UTC
they're situated in a heaven
more commonly known
as the trolling estate
at this infamous piece of property
they dream up
an inordinate
amount of quasi accounts
which they use in an
alternate fashion
to harass and outrageously torment
they who hold but one
solo account
these ego driven allotments
aren't worthy of due
consideration
we should on them be showering
the language of severest
condemnation
it is very clear to see
that the trolls have little to do
with their ever vacuous
time
but sit at a computer screen
and bedevil the poet community
like an unconscionable
chime
they rear their multiple heads
to habitually
******
in such an unstately
manner of
zest
Feb 13, 2018
Feb 13, 2018 at 5:40 PM UTC
This land we inhabit
Staking our fences
The lens through which we see the world
From behind windows and hedges
Spectators of passers-by
Random sidewalk happenstances
We live vicariously through
What lives on the outside of our plots
Our parcels, our lots, our allotments and our storylines
Where branching out will always be
Punished by pruning and
Shielding off of stretching out
The ground beneath our feet too fixed and stable
To switch
When plots thicken
It does nothing
But hold us in place
Mar 20, 2021
Mar 20, 2021 at 5:35 PM UTC