presents and parcels

 

Once presents and parcels were special things

Only arriving on certain occasions

Carefully wrapped in layers of paper

Secured with sticky tape and string

By your friends and your relations,

Then opened to reveal objects of delight,

On days of celebration.

 

This is how It was long ago  

Now in middle class utopia

Traffic jams of delivery vans

Clog the crescents and groves of suburbia

Each vehicle driven

By a most miserable man

Overworked and underpaid

By the number of drops he does

A pittance for each delivery he has made

 

Meanwhile nearby the High Streets die

Shops coffined up by shutters,

Their doorways once carefully swept,

Are now niches where are rubbish collects:

 

And in Bleak Fields

Where motorways intersect

Large sheds have been erected

Computer governed inside

And roboticized

Here goods are packed and selected

With lorries streaming in

And the vans streaming out

Tons and tons and tons

Of stuff is moved about

And delivered to destinations

Where packaging is ripped off

And thrown away

As we build an all-consuming future

Living on top of garbage hills

Unpacking endless artefacts

Of course, this can last forever

Surely our planet cannot be finite,

If our demands are exponential

BIRDBRAIN

In winter,

The interlaced, Interlocking, leafless,

Limbs and branches and twigs

Of two plum trees

Look to me

Like the nerve connections

In a vast wet wooden brain,

As I sit and stare air up at them,

In a thin cold December rain.

After I have loaded

The feeders  with seeds and suet,

Many small birds begin to fly in.

Landing in in the treetops

Then dropping, hopping and

Fluttering down

Coal tits, blue tits, great tits

Dunnocks, robins and goldfinches

Make indirect, differing routes

From perch to perch 

Nearer and nearer to the food.

Bobbing and turning their heads,

At every stage along the way.

Checking all around for predators:

Because there must be a catch.

As even little birds know

That free lunches are fictitious.

So, they work their ways,

Round and down the trees

Until they're placed

To make rapid dashes in, 

Quickly pick and grab,

Then immediately escape

To eat elsewhere  

The price that they pay for suet and seeds

Is that I watch them 

And compare them

With the starting sparks of ideas

Or initial perceptions

That somehow stick and then begin

Hopping and moving in impulses,

And by intuition,

From neuron to neuron,

Building metaphors,

Shaping ideas,

And then, maybe making

Something like

This poem.

 

for Paul McGrane

 Compere without compare,

Presiding, always with equanimity,

Over the sublime, the beautiful and

Many, many rhymed lines,

Of unparalleled inanity.

You introduced and listened to

Rappers, ranters,

Jokers and croakers,

Sonnets, ballads and even haiku,

But nothing ever seemed to

Phaze you.

What will all those poets do now?

Well, they’ll just carry on and on and on,

Without you,

But you helped them say

What they wanted to say.

Thank you .

OCTOBER ENGLISH FROG

 Oi mate, you'd better hibernate

Winter’s on its way,

And it won’t hesitate.

So, get yourself secure,

And do deep deep sleep.

Just crash right out,

Until springtime brings relief.

Crawl underneath a stone,

Or creep under a log.

A nasty English winter

Is no place for a frog.

Snuggling below

A tasteful garden feature

Would make a warm winter hotel

For a cold-blooded creature.

I've got to stay awake

For six months,

A shivering man,

So, I envy the slumber

Of an amphibian.

You can dream

Of the sun

While you hunker down and wait.

You can’t fly like a swallow

You’re unable to migrate,

So, take decisive inaction,

And proceed to hibernate.

autumnal

 the wind makes the trees speak

as it strips them down to their wooden skeletons

‘Why did summer die?’ they cry’

weeping leaves that rattle along

tarmac and pavement

clouds ride a growing gale

crows try to fly into it

and fail

blown off straight flightpaths

like black rags

Scrawl crawls

Scrawl crawls across this white page

like a trail left by a drunken ant

that's been dipped in ink

outside the window in October

parakeets screech at each other

and I screech at my hand

that can no longer control a pen

once I could right fine script

wield an italic nib

to do calligraphy almost

then I tripped headfirst

into some dustbins

breaking the arm

held out to break my fall

now my days of fine script are over

I must use a machine

that does not understand my words

or failing that

I'll have to employ

a drunken ant

endless carp

 "|"And instead of this endless carping saying it's difficult to get them, we should be celebrating this phenomenal success of the British nation ..." j.rees-mogg

I am an endless carp

I live at the bottom of the pond

i neither know nor like nor understand

what goes on Beyond

I swim around in the mud

eating bugs and worms and scraps

I have on endless appetite

and magnificent shiny scales

I'll eat more and more and more and more

until I'm as big as a whale

 And, I know that I am endless

because I've never seen my tail