So when you, my father
So when you, my father,
come next to pass us by,
ask again if I
would rather find you standing
strong, as once you did
to my childish eye,
with a voice that made me tremble
in both love and fear of failing you.
Or find now forgiveness
in your frailty,
your hard lines softened
by confusion, the indignity
of dependence offered
as absolution
for your judgement of
my different song.
In this there is no choosing.
The exercise of love
exorcises all
but the fear of losing love.
Ask again and you will
find me answerless,
unable to explain
the journey from your public
wrath to your private pain.
Prince in Blue Genes
Prince in Blue Genes
"Prince Charles Fears Genetic Disaster"
(Daily Mail, 17th May 2000)
We read in the paper Prince Charles is dismayed
by science and scientists wrecking the place.
"A bloomin' international disgrace"
he said, then knelt down and prayed.
It's something to do with the way that genetics
are tinkered with, reproducing some freak
reproduction whose nature and chin are too weak
to understand human aesthetics.
One look at his family's history's enough
to tell that a simple genetic disaster
occurred when Queen Vic was spliced by her master,
Prince Albert, all proud, in the buff.
And thus Charlie's mum and Philip the Greek
are both blood relations of Vicky and Bert,
whose seed is widespread among the inert
royal families of Europe's shit creek.
Poor Charles, self deluded, sounds almost ironic
as he preaches on genes and how they morphose.
He is, in his pomp, like a king with no clothes.
We'd cry if it wasn't so comic.
Insane Sonnets
Second Hand Shoes After I've sat and mused awhile on things I might have seen or missed or places that I might have been or those I could or not resist, I slowly bend to pull the laces intertwining with my shoes, that have not and have been places on some ambling country cruise. At times I've caught myself amused to think they, sometime in the past, clung to someone else's feet treading down a distant street. And, knowing I'll not be the last, take care to see they're not abused. It's Not Unknown It's not unknown for one to see a deer stopped in it's tracks or sight a gasping bumble bee making sneak attacks on brightly coloured pantaloons drying in the breeze on hot and sunny afternoons just right for outdoor teas. And it is quite astonishing to what lengths we will go to shoot the deer and swat the bee and raze the pastures low. We say the urging comes from lust to equalise this dust, with dust.
On the Outskirts of Apathy
On the Outskirts of Apathy
It seemed there was little left to undertake,
not a thing that was worth the bother of,
like unwashed plates or crumpled unmade beds,
unweeded gardens, lawns that should be mown,
that cupboard door still hanging by a hinge,
children's washing rotting in a pile
and lists of things to do thrown in the bin.
Half a dozen novels in a heap
confirmed his inability to end
those tasks begun half-heartedly at best
before the pall of ennui cast it's gloom,
much like ecliptic light cast by the moon
intervening where there should be sun.
Bills unpaid and mounting on the shelf,
the car besmeared and quite a riot of rust,
the path unswept, a rot of autumn leaves,
that smashed tile letting rain in through the roof
and all he wants to do is have a rest,
take evidence, think certainty is proof
enough that, finally, there's little left
but mounting an attack on those that shriek
adherence to the chains of common sense;
that petit bourgeois sanctimoniousness
implied by Sunday roasts and polished cars,
sane views on immigration and the fact
we all know who's to blame for unemployment.
The leaflet's half completed on the screen,
the hard disk's unfragmented space is small.
It crashes twenty times an afternoon
until his anger dissipates like smoke
and clarity that what he's doing is crap
descends like waves of sunlight through a lens.
The half drunk cups of coffee stain with rings
the window sill he'd placed them upon.
He finds another cup beneath the couch.
The coffee's grey with spores of mouldy milk
and, further in, the plate baked hard with sauce
he'd had with pie and chips the week before.
The campaign faltered then. He recognised
the effort was not worth the anxiousness
implicit in a project of this kind.
He briefly thought of tidying the place
before the evening news made sure he wept.
Yet when his tears were hardly dry, he swept.
Communion
Communion
And so, you whispering to me
mixed lucid diction with a truth
appearing almost silently.
Your breathing held a promise both
wise and soaked with sensuality
like a rose's rapacious growth.
I blushed when you, with such gentility,
formed perfectly with your mouth
the means of whispering to me.
Disenlightenment
Disenlightenment The street is full today of faces that I know. I see them everywhere in dreams that we all share, that pulling undertow, subconsciousness at play collectively, unsung but vivid in my sight. How is it that we lost? What led us here? What cost is mounting? Where is light? Who are we among? The vision of yesterday is overtaken, gone. Yet struggle still remains. We calculate the gains, those we count upon, those we'll not betray despite the fact we're weak. So where now do we turn to beat back what is dark; that confounded oligarch who ever strives to burn those very things we seek?
Perversions
Perversions I like travelling backwards in trains, Tinkering about with the drains, Encountering muggers in parks, Failing to beat snooker sharks, Being at the back of the queue When petrol deliveries are due. I like shouting out in the street And hugging people I meet, As long as they're suitably keen And don't at all mind being seen Locked in a friendly embrace Without feeling daft or abase. I like to talk dirty in bars On politics, god and the stars, On dismantling all nation states, Tangling those up in debates Whose preference is football and sex. I like to find ways to perplex. I pick on a topic and lose, Like betting that rabbits wear shoes, Or if the debate has been won, Turn it round till I'm got on the run And arguing backwards at pace That there isn't a human race. I like it on strike when I'm losing My wages. I find it amusing To picket the scabs and the bosses. Their faces make up for the losses A stoppage of working engenders. After picket line duty - the benders! I'm partial to chocolate with cider Which makes me feel free as a glider When losing it's hawser and soaring. The problems begin when withdrawing. There's much to be said of addiction So any obtuse predilection To opine abusers are for it, I'd really rather ignore it. I'd like to withhold all my taxes, Smash up cell phones, computers and faxes, Glue locks up when no one is looking And sign autographs Trevor Brooking! But I'll settle for clearing the drains And travelling backwards in trains.
Anacreontic for a Pandemic
The pubs are to reopen
Soon and thank landlord for that.
I can't move for bottled beer
That is cluttering the flat
And bringing me to the edge
Of alcoholic torpor.
Now I can queue, register,
To once more be a pauper,
Sup a pint or two of ale,
As I said to my mate Syd,
Through my obligatory
Face mask, for only ten quid!
Arrival
Arrival
At last, you said, arrival.
The place was gaunt, no trivial
adornments, superfluous curlicues
distracting us from country views,
the long sweep of distant hill,
the air steeped in summer, still
as silence. We unpacked cases pleasantly
weighted with those presently
thrown on things
we'd brought to spoil us, panderings
to seal this as summer.
We were strangers here, newcomers
entering their escape
from lives of previous shape-
lessness. You brushed your hair out,
swinging the mane of it about
in a new found act of careless
satisfaction, as if you could bear less
the tight knot of work than this
first step to summer bliss.
The bleached, whitewashed walls,
the static-like, grating calls
cicadas made, the olives
sweet-sour smell like polish,
light, luminous and bare
as a white sheet, the air
a perfume of dust and roses.
It was like a place that half supposes
itself loved, half loathed, for all it is;
free, ascetic, full of lethargies.
I knew then we'd never leave
and I continued to believe
us there, even when back
in the cold city suffering lack
of light, astringency, darkness
scouring us out, remarkless
for whole evenings, as in our eyes
that gaunt place deposited it's lies,
it's blandishments, the ticking hope
of what is warm, an air you envelop,
savour, taunting us to submit.
The illusory, haunting, shape of it.
Serbia
Serbia You said I should pick you up at five but when I arrived to find you still bullied by your work's endlessness, I knew how little precision means when timing the moment freedom strikes. We sat at last, looking at the sea the way an absconder does. You took the cider to your lips, toasting how the small ships passed, their decks awash with fresh news. Later we passed a pond where young moorhens scarpered through the pondweed, harvested fields skating with light, that spot where a Saxon king was overthrown.
Poems, Polemicks and Licks 