rubbish love

Do I love rubbish?

Or does  rubbish love me?

We attract each other mutually.

I sit at home and this what I see:

A small stone statue of a squid,

A street map of Ostend,

Two carpenter’s rules

A selection of stickers for long lost causes,

Harmonicas and parcel tape,

Manuals for programs that I never run,

Wires for computers that have long since gone,

A selection of DVD’s that I never watch,

A cardboard container for a bottle of scotch,

I was going to store something in it,

But I don’t know if I did,

So it sits on the shelf,

Until I replace it with something else,

Like a shoebox full of letters

Or a hat that doesn’t fit.

So perhaps I should move out

Taking all of this

And live with my love forever

On the street in a skip.

thick knees

Some people call me ‘thick knees’,

But, the middle joints of my long yellow legs

Are not excessively large, in my opinion.

My legs match my unblinking yellow eye

And compliment my camouflage plumage.

Some people call me ‘stone curlew’,

But I’m no sort of curlew at all.

I have no long curved beak

To probe mud for tiny crustaceans,

And I sing no plaintive song,

When I do aviation.

My call is like a hinge squeaking in the wind,

Or two rusty knives scraping together.

Few people ever see me

As I sit low among scrub and stones’

They have to seek me out

With high powered telescopes.

Then through a lens you can look at me

And I’ll look right back at you,

With my yellow unblinking eye.

Call me all the names you want

Even use Latin too,

I’ll just give you a yellow-eyed stare,

Because that’s what  I do.

pollarded plane trees

The pollarded plane trees of this street

extend shorn, branchless limbs.

In rows, these trees stand,

Like giant injured pleading hands,

Imploring for light and warmth,

Which is denied,

By the wet slate grey sky.

But from the top of one tree,

A red-breasted king sings.

So all may know, from the magnificence of his song,

That this is his domain,

Where all who hear,

Are subject to his reign.

Cock robin swells his breast and proclaims:

Winter will end.

Spring will come again.

cephalopod.dreams,

I mostly really like my dreams,

Though they can sometimes be

Fearful, surreal and odd

But,  I really want to know

What it’s like to dream

As a cephalopod.

Yes, my desire is to know

What it’s like to dream

Like an octopus, squid or cuttlefish

Which each have nine brains

And that is the reason why

I have this impossible wish.

Each tentacle of

These maritime beasts

Has one mind of its own

To direct its actions,

To process its emotions

To understand the world.

So one mind could dream of catching food?

Another of meeting a mate?

Another of dodging predators?

Another of having fun?

And another of learning from schools of mackerel

Beneath the light of a watery sun?

Would it be like changing

TV Channels with remote control,

If there’s a nightmare on one,

Just change to two

So calm can be restored?

Or is it a complete cacophony,

Fear, love, wonder, desire, despair

All together at once?

But my one brain’s all alone

In its own bone dome

Ruling a nervous domain

Imagining cephalopod dreaming

And worrying about catching trains

Flick a thumb down,

Flick a thumb down,

Strike flint on steel,

Make flame.

Light the dry leaves,

Suck the smoke into lungs.

Tobacco is a treacherous weed,

Which does not get you high,

But just makes you need,

So ignite, inhale,    

Repeat thirty times a day

For thirty years

Until eventually

You unchain yourself

From the treacherous weed,

But you cannot escape free

The cycle powering lungs

That once got you up mountains,

Now won’t even let you reach

The end of the street

Unless you often stop

To wheeze, pant and cough.

And someone in Brazil

Flicks a thumb down,

Strikes flint on steel,

Makes flame.

Lights the dry leaves,

Burns a forest,

And this whole planet

Sucks the smoke into its lungs.

SMALL GREAT GRETA

Which drop of water will be the one,

That trickles down from the melting glacier,

Into the ocean

And raises the sea level enough to breach

The flood barriers of the City?

And which tiny pebble,

Freed from the ice will roll,

Knock two more pebbles to motion

Then knock two more which

Then move a rock which knocks

A boulder to roll down

Taking more with it until

Whole hillsides roll over

Airports, railways, roads and towns?

And which schoolgirl

Can move a few to join the cause,

Who then move more, and more, and more,

Until there are millions in the streets

Saying ‘stop your greed,

Mend the damage that you have done,

We will not let your stupidity

Wreck our only home?

'Lung Function’,

They call this place 'Lung Function’,

But, that’s not what happens here,

As we sit around wheezing and waiting ,

In uncomfortable plastic chairs.

We sit around coughing and wheezing,

As our lungs will not function in London,

Because we’ve been breathing the air.