SEVEN VIEWS

1. INDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

Sit still as statue

In the doorway.

Only eyes move

To observe

The sky above the street.

Cars, vans and

Hyper exploited moped riding

Food bringers

All pass remarked

But unexamined.

Ignore tarmac

And all that rolls there,

Only care

About feathers slicing air.

Notice the different ways

That they beat and glide

Notice, examine and classify

Herring gull, feral pigeon, wood pigeon,

Magpie, ring necked parakeet, crow

Sparrow, goldfinch, blue tit, starling

Maybe even a kestrel, a buzzard

Or a red kite.

Look again to check

Wing shape and flight pattern.

Sit and watch and wait

Until one day spring ends

With a mad high-pitched scream

And a bird that flies like nothing else

Because it always

Flies and nothing else

Swifts.

 

22. CITY VIEW WITH RURAL RADIO

Get up, and it’s either

Raining or not raining’

And the radio broadcasts

The incessant sound of

Farmers complaining.

Sheep bleat in the background,

Cows low, chickens cluck and

The farmers still cry:

Money is scarce

And rivers run dry.

So, agreeing with Marx about

Rural idiocy,

I look out of my kitchen window

Over the Thames valley.

I see the towers and spires

Of the Great Wen

And listen to the dawn chorus

Of the sirens of emergency vehicles

Crying again

And again, and again.

 

3 INTERNAL VIEW

I stare and glare

And think and compare,

But I can’t find it anywhere here.

I try to trap it,

But it eludes the snare.

It’s a hopeless situation,

Like waiting for a whale

In a railway station,

Or crossing the Antarctic

On a toothbrush pulled by giraffes

Or cooking an equation

With brussels sprouts for lunch

Or bisecting a philosopher

With a garden hose appliance

Or writing more rubbish

From a mouldy old brain

That’s too seemingly random

To ever do science.

 

4 VIEW OF THE RUINS OF GAZA THROUGH A SUBURBAN KITCHEN WINDOW IN LONDON

Why this continual wittering

About back garden birds twittering?

About the view from the kitchen window

Sitting up on a hill wondering

When the shopping will be

Delivered to the front door.

When the worst immediate fear is

Defective plumbing

And all the while knowing

Of thousands being driven mad

And killed with fear, fire, bullets,

Starvation and bombing

All the while knowing

And doing nothing.

 

5 VIEW THROUGH A TELESCOPIC SIGHT

One swift circled under drifting rain clouds

Over the rooves of rows of houses.

Over the old man sitting in his doorway

Looking out for omens above his home

And finding none;

Except for the increasing absence of birds

And presence of ugly square buildings

And small private jet planes

Flying in straight lines

To carry the bourgeoisie rapidly,

But not far enough, away.

Usually the old man is a gentle fool

Who takes delight from seeing

Wood pigeons climb and glide,

How finches bob and weave,

How seagulls wheel and scream,

And crows who know

Where they’re going.

He doesn’t object to airliners

Carrying people away

For their holidays,

But when the small private jets

Overfly his road,

He starts to fantasise

About rocket launchers.

 

6 VIEW FROM A HOSPITAL CUBICLE

There is no real view

From this CUBICLE at all

But some clever designer

Has covered one wall

With a photograph of

The Grand Union Canal

And placed another

Of blue sky and clouds

In a ceiling panel

But I doubt if that fooled

Any impatient in patient

In an accidental emergency.

 

7 A VIEW OF HOSPITAL AS A DATA MINE

The raw data arrives,

Sometimes it walks,

Sometimes it hops,

Or limps on crutches,

Or is wheeled in on wheelchairs,

Or is carried in ambulances,

Or on stretchers.

Different data is refined

And extracted

By different grades of worker.

Some use thermometers

Needles pressure cuffs

And X-rays.

Some ask questions.

Some make observations,

Then raw data is sorted,

Sat in chairs,

Laid on beds,

Sent to wards,

Or operating theatres.

Then the workers

Must sit down at screens

And keyboards and terminals

To extract and input

The important stuff

Sweeter than any honey

Made by bees in a hive,

More nutritious

Than any food carried

Into a nest by ants.

Data can be sent to centres,

Processed at vast expense,

Regardless of environmental cost,

And translated into money,

For somebody,

Other than workers or patients.

Tadpoles by post

 The postman rings the doorbell,

Then bangs on the door.

The resident opens an upstairs window.

“I’ll be down to get it”

He shouts, then he struggles

To descend fifteen stairs,

Gripping the banister tight,

Balancing with his walking stick

And placing each foot carefully.

This isn’t fast enough for the postman,

Who bangs on the front door again.

‘Wait!’ The resident says

Before he opens his portal to get

A parcel labelled ‘LIVE ANIMALS’.

Now he must act fast

Before the contents give up the ghost,

For he has just received

Tadpoles by post.

Squawking at each other

Podcasts and Podcasters

Piffle, prattle and rattle

On and on and on

Like dried out peas and beans

Bouncing around inside a tin can

Arguing, hair splitting, nitpicking

Again, and again.

After a short while,

Every topic seems the same.

Although I know

I should value freedom of speech

And this cacophony

Is better than the monotony

Of the authoritarian pompous guff

Which was always pronounced

By someone named Reginald

Broadcast only at the correct times from

The varnished wireless cabinet

In the sitting room.

Now we get a multi-faceted

Continual multi-opiniated mess

Of clanging egotistical gobshite

Noisy Parrots in a cage

Squawking at each other

Whilst the zookeeper

Goes about his business.

INDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

Sit still as statue

In the doorway.

Only eyes move

To observe

The sky above the street.

Cars, vans and

Hyper exploited moped riding

Food bringers

All pass remarked

But unexamined.

Ignore tarmac

And all that rolls there,

Only care

About feathers slicing air.

Notice the different ways

That they beat and glide

Notice, examine and classify

Herring gull, feral pigeon, wood pigeon,

Magpie, ring necked parakeet, crow

Sparrow, goldfinch, blue tit, starling

Maybe even a kestrel, a buzzard

Or a red kite.

Look again to check

Wing shape and flight pattern.

Sit and watch and wait

Until one day spring ends

With a mad high-pitched scream

And a bird that flies like nothing else

Because it always

Flies and nothing else

Swifts.

anglerfish

A monkfish on the bottom of an aquarium tank

Lies camoflagued on the gravel,

It could be looking at the glass screen

That separates her from the world

And keeps her alive

Though I doubt that

She knows that.

The screen that

I stare at every day

Has shown me what a monkfish is,

What it looks like,

What it does

And that anglerfish is

Its other name.

Now I know how

It can be caught and cut,

And sliced and iced.

Some say that

Its flesh tastes nice.

And that’s not all

That my screen lets me see,

I can see sea, seals,

Seagulls, sealions, sealice,

And long muscular fighting conger eels,

Hooked and hauled up on lines,

From sunken wrecks.

I don’t know

If this tidal flow

Of maritime information

Keeps me as supine

As the anglerfish

Lying on the bottom of my tank

Staring at the screen

But I can tell you this,

My false consciousness

Is full of fish.

grouse

Now I know,

Or imagine that I know

What it feels like

To be a grouse.

Whatever I say

Is no use.

The beaters and dogs

Are moving up behind me.

I feel fear

As they draw near.

Soon I must break cover,

Try to fly

As fast as I can over

The booming

Lead spraying guns.

I’ll have to make a sky run

Launch myself

Get it over

Get it done

As fast as I dare

Through the deadly

Flak-filled air

Beat my wings desperately

And pray that

I don’t get terminated by

Some cretinous plutocrat.

sphere I go

 Like a sphere I go

Here and there,

A spare pillock,

Or an unattached bollock,

That rolls around

Because it’s round

And all there is to do

Is to go wherever

It’s pushed and

Impelled by

The tip of the cue.

Never knowing why

Never having a clue,

Just rotating on something

That’s rotating in space.

A pimple on a pimple

In a place that’s

Not a plaice.

A jellyfish in an ocean

Has much more control.

Like flotsam

Like jetsam

Any tide can carry me by

Wash me up,

Or take me under

Let me breathe,

Or make me drown.

It’s as if I was a human

In a world

Ruled by a clown.

Lilieth leapt the electric fence,

Lilieth leapt the electric fence,

Maybe, at the time, it made sense,

To pounce, claws extended, at a bird in flight,

And so, fall into freedom by accident.

Or maybe she made a deliberate jailbreak,

‘cause you gotta do what you gotta do,

To get outta the zoo.

Who knows what a lynx thinks?

 

But briefly, Lilieth  the lynx got away

And was no longer on display,

She was no longer confined,

To be admired or to be ignored ,

By the curious, the awestruck, or the bored.

Peering through the wire.

 

Perhaps real freedom then kicked in,

With no food and drink provided,

Out in the woods and the fields and hills,

To eat she has to hunt and kill,

And at first maybe she has an edge,

As it must be centuries,

Since any lynx walked and stalked

Along these thickets and hedges,

So maybe some rabbits and mice,

Or a bird or two, turned just too late

And drew their last breaths,

Between the jaws of golden-eyed death.

 

Sadly, hunters can be hunted too,

And Lilieth could not be left to be free,

She was the ‘property’ of a zoo,

And large predators in Britain just cannot be,

Unless they’re members of the bourgeoisie.

 

Uncaught Lilieth caused official fear

Alleged to pose a risk “severe”,

So a killing bullet, not a tranquilising dart,

Was sent to stop this beauty’s heart.

 

But the wheel will turn, and justice will be done,

And free once more,  Lilieth will run,

Padding along on larger paws,

With longer, stronger, deadlier claws,

Reborn a larger, fiercer cat,

 

She’ll rip out the throats of bureaucrats.

imperial shitstorm

Before I was born,

The island where I now live,

Was one origin

Of a worldwide shitstorm.

A tornado of piracy,

A cyclone of brutality,

Sending ships

To inflict war, exploitation

And imperial inhumanity.

It was not unique in this,

And what’s more,

Maybe its people learnt

From what had gone before,

When longships and galleys

Arrived on its shores.

For too long a time

There was success

In these crimes,

Because it had the luck

To strike when

Its victims were

Divided and weak.

Then its sins were glorified,

Dressed with stolen jewels,

Silks, gold and furs

And myths that dignified

Theft’s cause.

Many who had stayed home,

Responded with

Loud applause

Since the imperial shitstorm

Transformed them

Into some sort of master race

Told they were superior

To others in

Other places.

For a while

This obscene panoply

Trundled on like

Some vast stone Victorian memorial

Dragged by proles,

Peasants and slaves

Trailing behind

Tears, bloodstains and

Broken bodies and souls

For the benefit

Of ruling ghouls.

But it’s now going

Slower and slower,

As its victims have rebelled,

Now it can barely crawl.

It needs sticks, supports

And surgeries

To stagger along at all

But it is still greeted

With cheers

For every lurch it makes

‘Reform’, they cry

Yet it’s far too late

For this lurching zombie

Parasite state.

 

 

 

Boring chores

 Sweeping floors,

Closing doors

Smearing ointment on sores

Cleaning the machine

That’s supposed to stop snores.

Boring chores

That I deplore

And then deplore again,

Down to my very core

That’s how much I deplore

Boring chores

Because they are boring

But there’s no ignoring

Boring chores

And I could make them

Even more boring

By making a chore

Of keeping a list

Of chores that I’d done

And those that I’d missed

But that would have

The tedious potential

Of driving me

Completely mental

Since that list

Would continue

As long as I exist

And continue on

Some more

There can be no end

To boring chores

bright white angel

 On the hill outside the surgery,

A man walks by,

Holding a child’s hand in one hand,

And a lead attached to a small dog,

That resembles an animated bathmat,

In the other.

The child is eating something,

But drops a part of this food

Onto the pavement.

The dog wants to eat

The fallen food.

The man prevents this

By tugging the dog’s lead.

Then the three of them move on.

The fallen food remains lying

On a grey paving slab until,

 A herring gull flying by, spies it.

Circles to make sure it’s safe,

Descends like a bright white angel,

Lands,

Seizes the food in its sharp yellow beak,

And, almost immediately flies off again,

Swallowing the food.

Satisfied that the pavement is now cleansed,

I enter the surgery

To give blood.

Gishgalloping codswallopers,

 Gishgalloping codswallopers,

And disparaging apparatchiks,

Bullshit spraying placemen,

Confabulating conspiracists,

Concoctors of word-salad camouflage,

Chefs of illusion, sauciers of  poison,

Hypocritical polecat polemicists,

Ideological concoctors fooling yourselves with

Nonsenses that you intend others to lap up.

Puffers of spurious smokescreens,

Priests of the closed and comatose mind,

Offerers of false comfort,

Constructors of straw effigies.

Carboot sellers of second hand moral panics,

Singers of mendacious elegies

Sometimes there seems to be no one else than you,

But none of this is new,

Lies are as old as Adam,and older.

Baboons lie to lions

And terns feign broken wings to conceal their nests

Even flies lie, pretending to be bees.

So why is the current torrent of untruth

So distressing?

Could it be that I have fallen for my own lies

About my honesty?