I write this little narrative
and shall endevour to be brief,
for events that I unburden
may never gain of true belief.
I put to you dear reader
that tomorrow I shall die
for the events that so destroyed me
but with this wording I will try.

As a child I was so happy
and being of good disposition.
I had a fondness for all creatures,
so to care for was my mission.
With my pets as my companions
that such a pleasure is the truth.
I cared, fed and caressed them,
this was the model of my youth.

Into manhood I was pleasant.
A woman sent from God above.
Such a bride that shared my passion
of such animals I love.
Love flourished inside our home life
Our demeanour was one of that,
so we puchased gold fish and a rabbit,
a small monkey and black cat.

'Pluto' purred a lovely song,
readilly did steel my heart.
He was large, soft and so loving
and from my side was hard to part.
This large black cat worried my wife
as superstitions do so cast.
Though it slackened seriousness
as ancient ideals do not last.

Seven years we were intent
until my character did start to change.
Temperament was quick to follow,
my personality grew strange.
The demon drink was now a worry
when my wife would feel my knuckle.
For one moment I was raged
and the other I would chuckle.

One night upon my return
witha drunken mans' complexion.
Pluto wanting nothing from me
felt irate of rough connection.
Reluctantly he beared down his claw
as from my grasp he tried to fly
and as my blood did slowly trickle
I removed my knife and then his eye.

As the daylight light gave its shine
from the excesses of last eve's gin.
I from remorse supped in excess
Trying to drown this evil sin.
I was weak and so un-trying
lashing out at one and all.
No longer in control of
it seemed my destiny to fall.

Pluto recovered this ordeal,
though eye-less socket was my gift.
I could not be so surprised,
as on my approach he would fly swift.
No longer was he my ally.
No longer was he my friend.
No longer did I drink the *****
but this avoidance would soon end.

He still attended this abode
Wandering with one eyed navigation
Although I felt the pangs of grief
Grief soon changed to irritation.
One morning I did slip a noose
Around poor Pluto's scraggy throat
I hung him from a tree outside
drinking a bottle whilst I gloat.

Against the laws of God I ******
In satisfaction I do wallow
Excuse is this intrusive substance
My own forgiveness do I swallow.
Evil, horror and unkind
Depravity is what I think
These thoughts float freely around my mind
All conjured up from Demon drink.

That night such cruel deed had been done
for something happened so unfair.
As I awoke, my home in flames.
My wealth all gone I felt despair.
On visiting the smouldering ashes
that once I could call my address.
I found almost complete destruction
as i surveyed this total mess.

I came upon just one exception.
The wall where once had stood my bed
A crowd had gathered for some reason,
suprise to me it must be said.
Curiosity drew me closer
To see what they gazed at
and as if graven in bas relief
the figure of a gigantic cat.

Such accuracy it must be said
Stood proudly within the wreck
Above where my head used to rest
A rope about the creature's neck.
When I beheld this apparition,
for scarcely could I regard it less.
feeling terror to the extreme,
drew upon me such untold stress.

I came to think about that night
When fires rage was at its most
That someone must of free'd the feline
Cut it down from hanging post.
Perhaps then thrown through open window
With view to raising me from sleep
Compressed my **** fresh in new plaster
a burnt portrait for me to keep.

Such great impression on my mind.
Phantasms thought could not forget.
feeling such insincere remorse
I chose to search for similar pet.
Whilst I frequented vile haunts
with painstaking examination,
decided cat should be of similar look.
I did not want emancipation.

In a den of vile infamy
Half stupified I sat
When something claimed of my attention
In the form of a black cat.
Hazily I reeled in shock
Was this Pluto in my sight
Until after greater examining
I noticed a splodge of white.

I thought for just one moment
My mind was setting me a test
For Pluto was as black as soot
But this **** wore a white breast.
He came to me immediately
Upon me he did laize
I purchased him right there and then
I smothered him with love and praise.

My wife did so adore this cat.
But for myself after some time
Much love did turn again to loathing
and its presence cringed my spine.
The reason came the next day on
as Inhebriated I was no more
I saw that he had just one eye.
So shocked was I, I think I swore.

My wife was in a happy state
Thinking that my life had changed
Back to my old and wanted ways
Before my life became deranged.
The white mark upon the felines breast
over time appeared to define
Into a picture so distintive.
A Gallows was this eerie sign.

My sanity was in unsolid state
This creature soon to be bereft
Supporting a badge of owners crime
over its Agony and Death.
This brute of similar attribute
To he I had once destroyed,
tormented and most worried me.
My vengeance would not be denied.

My temperence was as a beast
With furious tempers flare
I almost abandoned all this strife
without so much as single care.
One day on household errand
on my brow this cat shone tax.
Whilst in the cellar with the *****
I tried to **** it with an axe.

Guarded by my faithfull wife,
I still remember what she said
Leave this poor dumb creature be.
I left the axe inside her head.
Such ****** was not deliberate
I could not resolve that this be real
but after contemplative time
I knew this crime I must conceal.

I pondered long what course to take
I could not move her by day or night,
must be accomplished down below
to keep this body far from sight.
Encasing her behind the wall
as monks once did in bygone age.
Surrounded now with morter and brick
it was the most solid of cage.

Before the last brick was replaced
I searched the house for Pluto's clone.
No sign was found of one eyed tom,
my persecutor had gone to roam.
I looked with pride at job well done.
Such rendering was no disgrace,
nothing toward had happened here
with everything nicely in its place.

I searched again to find the beast
he that to me did not impress.
Although I'd killed I slept so tranquil.
My mood did qualm and I felt fresh.
Second and third days came and went
But feline never made a show
He must of truly read my mind
Decided safer he should go.

The fourth day after assassination,
Police came around this place to delve.
After a most intense exploration,
suspiscion they decide to shelve.
In my triumph I did take on pride,
I pointed out this house so stout
and taking up my wooden cane
I gave the wall a hearty clout.

May the lord deliver me
from the fangs of acrid friend.
For squeeling came from beyond that wall
leaving my secret at an end.
In my haste to hide my sin,
I hid the corpse and cleared the room
It seems the brute had never gone
Instead it hid inside the tomb.

Here I stand in readiness
these gallows wanting company
and with this rope around my neck
it seems my wife I will soon see.
If only ego had refrained
and with that cane I'd caused no fuss,
perhaps they may never of heard
the reply from that old black ****

Splashed into boiling water
Swirled on a spoon
Milk makes clouds in brownness
A splodge makes a moon

The spoon stirring causes chaos
Man watches and waits
For the cooling and the stillness
Of this drink of the greats

This is one of Barry Hodges "Memories" poems.

*O how I recall with sadness in my poor forsaken heart
How I lost my fat-arsed sister (though she was a silly ****);
We had just enjoyed a meal on the esplanade at Taormina
(soup, spaghetti alla vongole followed by some tasty semolina)
So we went for a digestive walk through the Sicilian hills
Not realising we were in for some awful shocks and spills.

There came a mighty roar and a dreadful smell of sulphur
(even worse than flatulence or a burp caused by little Maria's peptic ulcer)
Oh dear, oh dear, Mount Etna had just violently erupted
With lava bursting out, from the bowels of earth rudely eructed,
And with a sickening splodge a fiery lump landed on the hapless bird
Causing her to die forthwith, screaming louder than I'd ever heard.

God in his mysterious ways is supposed to show us his mighty wonders
But occasionally I do believe he quite clearly makes some ******* blunders;
And I really think it's quite unfair to cause a volcano to blow up
Especially since it looked a nice mountain for bold climbers to go up;
But it's an ill wind that blows no one any good has always been my motto
So I emptied Maria's scorched purse, went to a bar and got quite blotto.

The stench of death draws me close,
Overwhelming my senses,
Shrouding my eyes with a deep lust.
I pounce on the leftovers of discarded
By Death
And tear the bleak carcass
With my greedy claws.
A black splodge on the tapestry of nature,
A mirthless outlier, the king of dead.
A pillager, I reign the fallen towns,
I **** His Garden.
I liberate the frail from the shackles of life
And let harmony seep into his creations.
Without me his castle of cards
Will reduce to ash and dust
And scattered shards.

the water grips my reflection

all wobbly head
     quavering legs

a swathe of hillside
     like an avocado slice

trees squashed together
     in a bristly embrace

gluey splodge of cloud
     on a periwinkle sky

shimmer of sunlight
     across the lake

illuminates your face

My uncle is in a twilight home
for the seriously demented
and he'll never be coming back
from the place he's in
even if he could find the ******* way.

"Dear Edna" (my uncle wrote) "I am feeling low today
mainly because of the diarrheoa
I have had for the past week
although how you could get the runs
from eating pre-mashed milk pudding
is a ******* mystery to yours truly
I blame the African chef
I don't think he washes his hands
after he drops a log or two.

"It has been so long since your Auntie Linda passed
over to what may be a better place
than here because it could hardly be
worse what with the bedbugs
and the Asian nurse who keeps making me
use a bedpan in public as a punishment
for wetting the bed.

"To be frank with you though,
sometimes I can't remember
what I did yesterday or tomorrow either
but on other days everything is clear
and I think there is a Chinaman hiding
in my bedside cabinet and I am worried he might be
some sort of homosexualist after my *******
especially after my weekly bath
when it's relatively fresh.

"And, my dear niece (if that's who you are
I am not two hundred percent sure at the moment),
I don't think I got my breakfast today again
what a ****** surprise but at least
I won't have the runs again
it's because the Filipino nurses are eating it
my breakfast I mean not the other stuff.

"Your auntie my dear late wife was a truly gentle soul
and I am sure she is the only woman I have ever truly loved
the others were just a bit of spare how's-your-father
even though she could be very trying at times
and I remember once she bit someone
from the social security services
when they tried to help her up
off the kitchen floor after one of her attacks
she thought he was trying to cop a quick feel-up
below the waistline on the sly."

There's a rather nasty splodge on the paper
at this juncture, it looks like Uncle Bert
coughed up a lump of something
or other semi-terminal.

*"I've been thinking it over
about the nurse who stole my breakfast
and I might be mistaken.
I think it's quite possible she could be Romanian
now that we are in the European Union
there's a lot of funny people about
and they're taking over everything
you can't get Wagon Wheels in the tuckshop any more
only some beetroot flavoured biscuits.

"I am very worried one fine day I shall wake up
and not remember all the happy times
about my long years with my dear late wife
whose name eludes me for the moment
but I am still worried about the carpet slipper
and breakfast thieves round here.

"I fancied a nice piece of boiled salmon for lunch today
but it will be fish fingers once more this Friday
not that there's any catholics in here
and the staff are muslims in any case
and don't these people know fishes
don't have fingers, but flippers and fins
not that I'd eat a fin but that's another
country in the European Union I think
or it might be Frinton-on- Sea
where I think I once got a bit
of outdoor legover action.

"I wouldn't mind dying but I am scared to do it just yet
because I think I have lost my faith in baby Jesus
in fact I can't remember who she is even
and I hope my Linda (I remembered her name now)
will have gone to heaven in spite of biting
that health worker when he goosed her
the thought of going to heaven and she's not there
would be ******* dreadful
as I fancy a bit of the other.

"I think I can hear someone in the next ward
singing obscene songs in a wavering voice
with a la-la-la for the forgotten words
but remembering all the good bits
the bits they miss out of the Daily Mail.

"Where in God's name is my lunch
and who has got my slippers
how many times must I ask
and where is my bedpan when I need it?
Can you bring me one, Edna,
it would be nice to have a bedpan
all to myself as I hate sharing one
with Mr Ali as his son keeps sending him
cold takeaway curries which means
his motions are very strong indeed
Love from your uncle Bert.
PS I will put you back in my will
if you come up with that bedpan."

The garden served little purpose
It sprawled across the bored ground, despondent beneath the yawning sun
My mother would wail her annual rage
At the snarling weeds that softly smothered the flowers
How I loved those flowers
Rejected footballs perplexed the lawn
Their obtuse hulks spoiling that ripple of green
I found a four leafed clover there once
He poked his obscure head above his brothers: a suicide mission to bring me luck
They are all dead now
I didn’t waste nearly enough time reclined on that jealous cushion
Watching the lethargic clouds wobble on

But most otiose of all in that seldom wandered paradise was the Wall
That Wall was never high enough
I see it from my back door
Squat, depressed, sighing, each dusty clot of red brick seems so lifeless
Doomed to live out the rest of its days as a failure
All flung ***** that compress their rubbery bodies against it will soon vault over
It crudely bookends the busily neat hedge
Simply because that is where the drunken soil runs out
It fails too at its chief instruction:
Be the purgatory bridge between Our heaven and Their hell
But the Wall was never high enough

I remember the other side of the Wall
How I crouched in filth
Needless to be afraid of a cut from a single blade of grass
Impoverished chickens clucked in the squalor
How they survived such malnourishment awed me
The friends I thought I had there cheated me
And I ran from that disastrous place
Where chaos twisted the agonised branches of the hedge we shared
But it followed me like an age old Gypsy curse
Even today, a writhing, mewing splodge of night will sit on the Wall
Looking too fat for its own fur coat
It will viciously attack the thin air for a while
Perhaps accept a stroke but, seeing no morsel, wander home
But I am not spared
For I can see its wasteland kingdom from my window

It is not an evil place
But the Wall was never high enough

The fonterrorists will go elsewhere
The big boy powers always find a small dot far away from their large splodge
To check and wreck havoc to
It’s got to be far far enough away that if you can smell the smoke,
It’s faint enough that you could mistake it for incense
Or your might twitch your nose
Turn your head and say
Is someone smoking?
It smells like someone is smoking?

When the water is more **** than water
When it is only dry, desitutte,
eroded wasted uselessness,
The fonterrorists will go elsewhere
Somewhere with more utility.

Tripped out on Californian sunshine,
In the fields a whole troop of us
Running giggling round the fishing lakes
Or sat under the deep dark trees
I once found a whole city with streets
In miniature on a path
Citizens of blue and green and red walked different paths
Sue, Foxy and the others shouting to come on
I said no I'll just stay here a while
At least I had a reason
Splodge spent the whole day walking round the same tree
Sid had to drag him off
Then we built massive fires in the barn with no roof
They thought we were satanists doing rituals
Pulled it down
Ghosts in my head, some are gone
It was stranger the day I watched the Sun melting
Dripping onto snow drops of gold

RED splodge on YELLOW splodge makes ORANGE splodge.

There's a bit of Sun today but not a Sunday day at all, it's a splodge of Monday that fell out of Sunday half cut and dried,
look at me in the mirror?
I almost died,
had to laugh with the fright of it
sit down
have a write a bit and you thought I was
going to write something with ***** in it.
but that's about right
isn't it?

London grey.
leaden sky
molten river

foggy building
termite works
big city

lights dim in
neon struggle
from the moon

ink splodge
some nightmare
psyche gone awry

In the silent spaces
Of pre-dawn
Particles of dreams
Oscillate
And merge

Dewdrops sparkle
Catching rays of pure sun
As the wondrous
Unfettered
Glory of creativity
Awakens

Super-natural bodies dance
And smiles drift into sleeping faces
As delicately as the approach of spring

Songs are born
And writers take up pens
Artists splodge their brushes
Into thick globs of paint

Actors breathe deeply
Singers warm their voices
And poets notice
Each blade of grass
And bow in wonder
At each tiny miracle

This great world
Is the cradle
Of human endeavour
And true art
A supreme act of gratitude

There IS nobody to ask, you say,
when we turn our stomachached motor
up another wavy lane, temporarily
rest it as we squint at the AA Big Easy
Read Britain 2022, locate the B3220
and realise we’re in another
splodge of a town, homes in a hodgepodge,
the obligatory church. A mistake, we know now,
to leave late in the day, another hour ‘till
The Hole in the Wall where they’ll wait,
no doubt sigh, waste time spinning
the beermats as a gaggle of rowdy
just past-the-post teens blot the night
with the guzzling of spirits, their hangovers
like belches of fog come lun - Satnav wasn’t
on the blink, but it is. Now look, I say,
calmly because tempers can boil over
matters so trivial, if we take the A3124,
wriggle right at Whiddon Down
to the A30, breeze by Exeter, a doddle
down to the coast, we’ll make it by nine.
You know how impatient they are. Ten
minutes won’t hurt, the vehicle grumbling
into action, tired and miffed with our
wonky deviation. It’s then, eking back
the way we came, an image forms - a bronzed,
slippery chalice named Stella, flat cap
of foam on the rim of extinction.