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

TROUSERS

By Folkestone’s coastal beaches,

Where waves lap at the cliff's foot

And desperate people arrive by dinghy

Lives a poet who is selfless

And not stingy

This poet packed a package

Then boarded a northbound train

He was going to go to London

And then return again

He passes orchards and hop fields

As he rides along the rails

He speeds through lush valleys

Past wooded Wealden Hills

He Stops at Ashford station

Yet he does not disembark

It is not his destination

He must travel onward

Through tunnels deep and dark  

He must ride through concrete wasteland

Right into the capital’s entrails

And Change his mode of movement

To a metal worm running

On iron Lines of underground rails 

The tube bores under London

Like a maggot through rotten fruit

Until in the northern suburbs

Out into daylight it shoots

Here the poet and his parcel

Do both board an omnibus

And ride it until the end of its route

At its terminus

Which is Barnet hospital

Where the poet’s friend

Lies recovering in a bed

But the poet cannot visit

He must leave his parcel instead

With the door people there

Since coronavirus is rife

Pandemic is everywhere

Thus, the poet’s friend’s trousers                         

Have been carried up from the seaside

By the poet’s generous journey

By this bard's day long ride.

I commemorate his trouser mission,

I honour his selflessness,

To travel so far

To bring a friend

An end to leg nakedness

Garden Tiger

Garden Tiger flying into human house,

From a soft black autumn night

Black and white patterns over orange underwing

A nonstop midnight moth

Addicted to light

Circles round the room

A tiny kamikaze plane

Dives headlong at the table lamp

Again, and again

Drawn to its own destruction

Headbutting a hot bulb

Flops back exhausted

Fluttering wings, waving limbs

Compelled by incandescence

It can’t stop itself

Drunk on this false sun

It rises up once more

And makes another flight to doom

I was happy to see its beauty

In this lonely room

But I’ve no wish to be

Witness to suicide

So, I catch it in a beer glass

Bless it and throw it

Out of my window

Back home to the night.

INTENSIVE CARE

I have been sedated, opiated, and constipated

Laid on my back here in Intensive care where

The nurses are wonderful ‘

The nurses are incredible,

And the food is edible

The lights are bright

The machines are frightening

But there is codeine and morphine and paracetamol

And the pain Is bearable

For a stretch if I don't move around too much

I piss through a catheter

Have Strange dreams

Wake and remember where I am

I think that I know what it all means

I'm on my back in a hospital,

Re knitting a broken bone, I hope,

Trying to think straight through clouds of dope

We can’t all do that

Laid down In beds like plants

Or sat in sticky plastic hospital armchairs

Some believe their wives are with them

When there's nobody else there

And one man is sure that he is falling downstairs

If I had a faith

I might pray

But for whatever reason the pain ebbs away

And I start to hope for the chance

To ride home in an ambulance

But for now, I’m

Laid on my back here in Intensive care where

The nurses are wonderful ‘

The nurses are incredible,

And the food is edible

The lights are bright

The machines are frightening

But what am I whingeing about?

I'm in Barnet, not Beirut,

When the windows were blown out

And some of the wonderful, incredible nurses died

I could have been wheeled out into the car park

Through corridors carpeted with broken glass

Left to snivel on my drip

As the casualty's came in

So, I lay in my bed in Barnet

Dreaming of going home,

Free from fear off death and debt

And thanking socialism for the NHS.