You are beautiful and faded
Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir.
In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes,
And the perfume of your soul
Is vague and suffusing,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colours.

My vigour is a new-minted penny,
Which I cast at your feet.
Gather it up from the dust,
That its sparkle may amuse you.

I’m still fighting dragons, big scaly beasts.
Some I have vanquished, but some have me beat.
I picked up my armour, my helm and my spear,
From life's many conflicts year upon year.

And boldly some mornings I set out to greet,
These terrible monsters that want me as meat.
Advancing with caution, blood pounds in my ear,
Legs turn to jelly the beastie draws near!

With  deafening roar and spine-chilling haste,
The beast sets towards me intent to lay waste,
To rend and devour, consume and despoil
Leaving nothing but tatters to litter the soil.

Bravely I face it  resolved to subdue,
The evil incarnate  that comes into view.
The battle commences steel meets with claw,
Fearful but stalwart I strike at its maw.

It parries the blow asI fall to the ground,
And claws slash the space where I used to be found.
Now flat on my back I ****** with my blade,
Piercing the hide it attempts to evade.

The point of my weapon now deep in its chest,
Its  claws scrape the rings of my chain mail vest.
Its head twists around and I stare at its eye,
The evil intent there is clear to espy.

Jaws now agape and a lunge at my head,
And teeth whose sole purpose is seeing me dead,
The snap of its jaw almost tears through my craw,
The stink of its breath is the odour of war.

The essence of violence, the stench of decay.
The tincture of suffering the tang of dismay.
I gag at the foulness pervading  the air,
And retch from the pungence that sits with me there.

But I must disavow the prevailing scent,
So girding my ***** i tear and I rent.
I push with my blade driving close to its heart,
And the beast sensing death decides to  impart.

One last token of cruelty and frenzy and ire,
Disgorged from its belly, dragon breath fire!
A torrent of flame it spattered and spewed
Engulfing my armour the pain it imbued.

Like something from hell that hideous heat,
Scorching  my skin with the ache of defeat.
Ignoring the torment I pushed my steel hard,
Driving the spear tip deep into its heart.

Now it lay silent its fury all spent,
I crawled from the carcass in silent lament.
The dragon lay silent St George would be proud,
And I for my part had avoided the shroud.

                                             •  •  •

I woke from my slumber and checked my email,
A message was waiting that made me turn pale.
A dragon had found me, more combat to come,
It was my ex partner, the fight for my son.

I’m still fighting dragons, big scaly beasts,
Some I have vanquished, but some have me beat.
I pick up my armour, my helm and my spear.
I fight as a father to have my son near.
This I've been doing, year after year.



September 2010

Ditch diggers don't write poems -
As if there might be found
A single thought  profound
Amid the mud they go in;
The pungence in essence released
From trees' roots that are severed
Is never fragrant like lilacs,
And their labor is of purpose,
That dirt removed by aching backs -
Gashed earth becomes the grave
In which our sins can be hidden;
Tomorrow ditches will be filled in,
Restoring peace which land craves,
The simple laborer's work done.

Ditch diggers don't write poetry -
Palms calloused in pick and *****,
Too rough when art 's to be made,
Remain convinced by sophistry
They've no true claim to a pen.
Clods of clay always remain
Adhered to heels of workmen's boots,
Becoming my life's defining metaphor.
So we forgo more ethereal pursuits,
Though forever treasuring sweetness
Flowed over soil of our dank holes,
Loving breaths exhaled from souls,
Floral kisses blown across distance.

A gentle pungence of the nutmeg
Burns the hands that dwell in its ashes
Sprinkle generously, lest you want the
concoction, to turn out bland.
Yet, how would bland be? A curry.
Dressed in an assortment of spices,
As, Cardamoms and Peppercorns and
Cinnamons and Aniseeed_ Do add a
bay leaf as you temper the potion
to a base.

It is joy, manifold_ flavours not just in
conclusion but odyssey of the process.
It is joy, unbound, creation nienté
could bring about such happiness !
Joy of the 'Kitchen Wizard' is
in his pots and potions found !

for the girl with vines of lilac encircling her ribs,
like the ivy on the turrets of her castle;
she, with her gentle smiles and gentler hands,
walks confident, not proud,
speaks to be heard, not loud.

you've walked her floors and ran your fingers
through the tapestries she weaves
in the loose braids of her hair.
you kiss the hand of a princess,
and step on the toes of a queen.

for the girl whose elegance
knows more of the growing season,
than it sees of the green.
spends her love to grant you yours,
shares her wealth to make up for yours.

she withers in broad daylight,
her petals soaked in ammonium,
and your fingers reek pungence.
you begged to breathe more life into her,
and now, she suffocates on you.

for the flower girl,
in loving memory.

In Washington I smell a rat
It’s Donald Trump, Trump is that
With hair like that he should wear a hat
Or feed his head to a junk yard cat.

The smell’s the stench of hypocracy
It’s the end of our democracy
What’s in store is hard to see
I hope it’s not kleptocracy.

Can’t you smell that putrid stink
each time you see him in printer’s ink?
He’s taking us right to the brink
of what it is, I hate to think.

His are not very pleasant odors
(he lost by several million voters)
and when he speaks, we need decoders
for him and his band of vile freeloaders.

It’s not so pleasant, is his pungence
that fills our airwaves in such abundance
and drives us to such vile repugnance;
can’t we lock him in some dungeons?

But by next year I sense the aroma
of voters’ rejection of this melanoma.
We’ll all come out of this our coma
from Maine to far off Oklahoma.

He's dire; he's uncanny
Stuck in my dead body
He's a brute; he's a boar
He's brewing my gore

Breathing my breath
gorging my soul
picking my scabs
and licking my throat

Pastors; squealing nonsense
Thick with smothering incense
Shamans; howling vengeance
Maggots and rotting pungence

Nibbling your dimple
he bruises your temple
Twisting your ankle
he craves you ample