cab to the crematorium

My own personal grey cloud

Has been hanging unmoving over me

For weeks now

Reason, which used to be my best friend,

Is no help to me.

Only a singing blackbird

Can teach me a true philosophy.

So, I caught a cab to the crematorium,

Where I sat on low brick wall

Looking at the manicured lawns and trees

Above me a skylark sang,

A buzzard sparred with gulls and crows,

Then another hawk appeared.

These are all good omens.

The mourners assembled below,

Not somber suited as usual,

But a multi-faceted colourful crowd,

Gathered to pay their many respects

To a multi-faceted colourful man,

Who after floods of praise and love,

Was burned in a wicker casket.

A true Druid.

dambusters

 Heroes are necessary,

To oil the meat-grinding wheels of war.

Those mired in a deadly dreary slog,

That might well only lead to death or defeat,

Need shining examples to encourage them.

Wonder weapons and shortcuts to victory,

That confirm the righteousness of our side

Are deployed, tales of them told

Again and again and

Songs are sung about our brave men,

Who flew into darkness,

Braved flak and fighters to breach dams

To drown people in darkness,

With the waters that they unleashed.

Yet, if in a different time,

A different dam is blown,

And towns are mown down and drowned,

That is different,

That is a war crime.

Decades

Un

Like funfairs or amusement arcades

Decades

Are not, after all, a laugh.

They’re no fun,

They cannot be outrun.

From time to time, I’m

Deluded into thinking

That I’ve made a gain,

Or overcome some

Injury or setback

And now, I’m back on track,

Rolling on like a moving train.

But Decades will never let me get

Away with that

They rush past and overtake,

Faster and faster.

 

In the nineteen fifties they bought smog

To pollute my young lungs

They bestowed whooping cough and asthma on me,

Then they killed my mother in flu epidemic

A death to set me up for life.

The nineteen sixties

They brought bullying and miseducation,

At the hands of nostalgia addicted dregs

Of a dying empire.

The seventies sweetened life

With sex and drugs and rock and roll

Since then, it’s been downhill ever since,

Like the falling pebble that moves the small stone

that moves the bigger stone,

that moves the small boulder,

that moves the bigger boulder,

that starts the avalanche.

 

I saw that sweep my father away,

Why did I ever imagine myself immune?

 

Decades

Are not, after all, a laugh.

 

cranes

 Eye scan every horizon around and

I see cranes, cranes and cranes again.

Looming constructors of construction,

As the city goes on and on

Building itself by destruction and resurrection.

 

But, as an urban romantic,

Idealising and fantasising

About beautiful natural nature,

Out there somewhere,

I wish I could see

Beautiful long-legged birds

Dancing all around me,

Summoning emotions with their cries

As they flock across the skies.

 

Any feathered cranes would do;

Sandhill cranes, whooping cranes,

Japanese blue cranes,

Red crowned cranes and

Grey crowned cranes,

Even the misnamed common cranes.

 

But I see metal monsters instead,

Swivelling, raising and lowering vast limbs,

Blinking red hazard lights

Like evil eyes.

These are the cranes that inspired H.G.Wells

To imagine murderous martian monsters.

But these are human made and human controlled.

I might despise them

For spoiling my suburban skyline

But only hope that they could build

A way out of human destruction,

An escape from our self-made extinction,

And one day, maybe

Bring back the real cranes again.

EMILE

Like a suspended blade

That has to descend

The news came,

And your name cannot now be called

So that you will hear.

Instead, it will be inscribed

On the certificates, the obituaries

And the programmes.

 

You were a wonderful man,

A man of many aspects

Shining out through many facets

Like a diamond.

Shining out through words and paint

Onto paper canvas and walls,

Giving generously to all and for all.

 

And those of us left behind,

Must try to continue to create as best we can,

With your memory in our minds.

THREE

 I set a silly puzzle,

As I listen to the drizzle,

Splattering on the roof.

I devise an equation to solve a situation,

That needs no solution.

 

There are three cities, built next to three rivers.

Two thirds are on islands,

And two other thirds have risen

To overthrow cruel rulers;

But only one has been burnt

By bombs from the sky.

And one third of the cities

Organises massive grovelling

To a silly king.

 

Many cities are older,

And the three won’t last forever

Beasts will walk on their ruins,

While the rivers roll on.

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

 I am bored by the sight of my street,

It never seems to change.

The sky is standard English grey.

Windows of similar semi-detached houses,

Masked with net curtains and blinds,

Seem like indifferent expressionless eyes.

One seagull honks as it flies by,

Is it wondering why it’s so far from the ocean?

I feel no emotion as I wait

For a van to bring me groceries.

I am a lucky old man,

In other streets houses explode in flames,

And vehicles deliver teams of assassins.

Residents hide in cellars and under beds.

Hot metal death screams through the sky,

They hope it will pass them by

Or they run as far and as fast as they can

Boredom doesn’t feature in their concerns.