A scaffold pole

I’m told that when some people dream,

Symphonies, songs, magnificent designs

And paradigm shattering theories can be born;

To enrich and change our world.

I’m not in that league,

I’m a silly old fart,

I dream of no science, music, nor art.

So, as my unconscious absorbs

Gale forecasts from the radio

And my weak bladder drags me into wakefulness,

I have nightmares about

A scaffold pole leaning against

My backyard brick wall.

Poised to fall windblown,

Smashing through a window.

I know the scaffold pole must

Be laid down for the peaceful sleep

That I cannot now have,

Because in my dream

The scaffold pole grows

Taller and heavier than it really is

A grey vast iron monster

Which I am unable to wrestle down

To the ground.

So, no theories

No Symphonies, songs,

Or magnificent designs for me

Just fear of a heavy metal defeat.

 

 

KINGSBURY

Visit the suburb of Kingsbury to see

Private wealth and public squalor

Rubbing shoulders, uneasily.

High street traffic jammed with four by four

Petrol guzzlers and big new electric hybrids.

And the pretty signs on the lampposts

Above the cycle lanes tell us

How eco-friendly Kingsbury is.

This truth is confirmed as tired men

Recycle almost new attire,

Rummaging through the piles of discarded clothes

Outside the old clothes bin.

Some pick up trousers,

From the chewing gum stained pavement

Then hold them up against

The worn out strides

That they’re already wearing.

Families pass them by on their way

To the vegetarian restaurants and supermarkets,

Cars roll on regardless,

And wastebins overflow

Into the empty cycle lanes.

 

 

TURNER

 'The Sun is God’,

Turner said.

He showed how it can even shine

From a canvas rubbed with ‘shit’

Which it has enabled us to see

The Sun shining over the seas,

Where battleships fight

Drowning sailors as they sink.

Shining over the waves,

Which are the only headstones

That the slaves jettisoned

From the Zong would have,

If it wasn’t for Turner.

So our Sun God shines,

Over turnip pickers at Slough,

And warring apes and ants,

As it once shone

Over dinosaurs, terror birds

And gorgonopsids.

Does it watch life

Making

Mistake after mistake after mistake ,

As it burns?

LIGHT

 I can’t describe light,

I can give a name

And I might fail to explain

How light lights me up

Releases chemicals,

And electric currents.

I’m told, that these bounce

Surge and flicker

Through my confused, convoluted

Head porridge

Disassembling and reassembling

Photonic thoughts

Off the insides of my bone dome,

Making me happier than

Any drug has ever done.

I can’t explain.

February filldyke

 February filldyke has done it again,

It has rained, rained, rained and rained,

Filled every ditch, brook, runnel and drain.

 

Now March marches in

Like a muddy-booted soldier

Squishing through swamp,

As the year gets older.

 

Feb’s aways wet, but this filled the pail,

It drenched, poured, showered and drizzled,

It just wouldn’t stop.

It will turn the entire island

Into one blanket bog.

 

Soaked soil will rise up,

Buildings, trees and towers will fall,

Roads become rivers,

Sphagnum moss cover all.

 

Bog cotton will wave,

Where cities once were.

This may sound fantastic,

But it has happened before.

 

The future is amphibian,

As any frog knows,

So, we’ve just got to grow

Webs between our toes.

 

 

 

Ultra processed emotions

 

I am tired and worn out,

Things are out of control,

Ultra processed emotions

Are polluting my soul.

 

Instant reactions appear on the screen,

Appealing shiny images

As sweet as can be.

Wars that kill cleanly

Never wound, madden or maim.

Reliable things and characters

That never ever age

Fresh juicy fruit, straight off the tree

Always appetising,

In the pictures that I see.

I know when I see it,

That I’m being sold a lie

Because that’s not all I eat

In my mainstream media pie.

 

I know when I see it,

That I’m being sold a lie

My reason tells me so,

But even though I try,

Images spark urges

Which I want to satisfy,

And reality can’t match

The barrage of stuff

That I see, hear and watch,

Including the illusion

That I have control.

Ultra processed emotions

Leave a hole in my soul.

IMBOLC AGAIN

A second month begins,

And as seconds slip away

Night begins to merge

From grey to paler grey.

Sounds change

As the city starts to wake.

Senses know this

Before conscious minds can,

And inside cocoons of.

Blankets, duvets and sheets

Larvae stir.

Flesh maggots emerge,

Then crawl to bathrooms.

Shedding skins of cloth,

That have inane words

Written on them.

Once washed,

Maggots metamorphose

Into people dressed in clothes

Now emblazoned with

Equally inane,

But slightly different slogans.

 

Look out and see,

Through the kitchen window,

A squadron of cormorants

Flying in a perfect v

Commuting across the city

Like everyone else

To exchange

Energy for food

To make more energy again

A second month begins.

 

 

 

OUR BLADDERS ALONE

 King Charles and my prostrate gland

Have made me into a republican man,

For whilst I groan and strain to piss,

Stuck on sixty-week waiting list,

That monarch, who I won’t call mine,

Is operated on and can recline,

In a warm clean private hospital bed,

Attentively nursed and very well fed,

Whilst I wait micturation, incomplete

On a cold suburban toilet seat.

honey buzzard,

 Oh honey, oh buzzard, oh honey buzzard,

Glide over serene in a cold blue winter sky.

Honey why do they name you buzzard, honey?

Since you do not buzz,

Like an untimely woken wasp queen,

Or an annoying immature bluebottle.

What meat are you seeking to spy,

As you ride the wind over London?

No bees nest yet,

Only ant people move below you,

In buses, cars and lorries

Carrying stuff which will be thrown away,

Collected recycled, reloaded

And carried away to be remade

And carried around again.

Sail over it all honey buzzard.

Come back again

To find the bees and the honey

When all the stuff has gone.

GNARLY

 Is this the time to make words rhyme tightly?

Make them curve and curl, twist and swirl,

Round about each other and in and out?

Over and under, knotting untying and retying

Into chains, ropes, networks and skeins.

Like snakes, ladders and dragons,

Carved into a stone or a or a prow,

Following contours like ploughed lines,

Cut into soil, wood , bone and stone.

Sunlight sets me off.

Sunlight sets me off.

It could burn you to a crisp,

Or drive you mad, before it killed you

With dehydration and/or heat exhaustion.

Yet even on a freezing day,

When pavements are punctuated

By static streaks of frozen water,

Sunlight sets me off,

Like coming up unexpectedly

On a wondrous consequence-free drug.

I’m high laughing and smiling

At silly ideas;

But, if and only if,

I’ve got somewhere warm to sit

And gaze through double glazing

At cold, cold sunlight outside.