plasticate sarcophagate

plasticate sarcophagate 

kill the last blade of grass,

kill the last bumble bee;

bury me in concrete,

and sarcophagate my cemetery.

nothing lasts forever,

no one left to say

‘the end is nigh’,

all are never: when even to die

is dead and gone away.

but a form of life may survive,

from its niche as it explodes;

but it will know nothing of my poetry,

will know nothing of my odes.

remember the dinosaurs, neanderthals?

well now man will not remember man;

miles above the thermal vents,

where the plasticated finite seas ran

ashore with packets of sordid news,

of a damp and sodden, sorry species,

that has eaten everything, and 

covered the world with its fallacious faeces

piled up to the last gasp of air

in the flooded cavern.

too late man! you’ve done it now!

it’s over. it’s over!

as the song ran:

‘I used to love her,

but it’s

all over now".

Teenage boys - well I angst you?

Teenage boys - well I angst you?

When ‘she’ was around the next corner.

When the ice went on and on,

and tip toe was above the dark cold void,

we were all addicted to finding the bluest sky,

to kiss under the lilac trees,

on the sunniest of sunny days.

Yet the rain fell in tear-sodden sheets,

a halo around the orange lamplight night;

and the walk home was a lonely dark.

Turning to look over your shoulder,

to peer down every sliver street;

was to look in vain, in vain.

It never would be; and yet we knew it would.

One day.

For all corners turn the world around,

and no one can be hidden for ever.

And if we walk the walk, we may meet.

We might.

And if we talk the talk, we may walk

some more and then ... we ...

So, we plod the dream around the corner,

under the same old street lamp,

in the same old rain,

day after day,

night after night,

for one day we might.

We might.

Fraughts napping

Fraughts napping 

Does my cat ponder why i speak?

Does she long to reply?

Or does she see how my words creak,

spittled on rusty hooks and hanging to dry?

And the tattoo of the old songs;

why do I find my eyes 

smarting under skylark skies;

full of tears as I run along.

How the sixties pulled away from

the spent bubblegum fifties,

beyond the remorse of war,

a zany decade, was permitted.

Pasties asked of the pub side door,

it’s light beaming onto the dark

village, with its slag-stoned streets, 

where the snow was settling on a

childhood, once and for all.

Hooks and worms, the fisher boy,

with his rod and reel might

catch himself a summer’s day,

to fry on a long and wintered night.

For every time I fall asleep,

these memories creep;

in a child’s shawl

I leave today and crawl

back home again;
O Mammy, Mammy please,

do kiss away this pain.

late in the day down day

late in day down day

to be but alone is enough

for any one 

                   as it is for me

to quietly sit per breaths

as per breaths be

                   the anonymity 

of the curtained night

to lay aside my eyes

and think

                  the threads

that skein the edge

off the tapestry of day

to rest the warp

                   and weft of

blackening moonbeams

to close my eyes

around the music’s

                   gentle torment

to close the book-lids at last

for look the pen lies desk-ward

its ink is drawn

                   the day is dry

and but i alone did see it 

and with it did slowly die

fall

fall

a hedgehog-rolled autumn

deeper brambles the words

at the first leaf fall of fall 

for soon the first snowflake

of a cold blizzard white down 

will shutter and batten

window words cut that crown

around the gone fire of summer

for the winter sun has come

to bind us tightly together

and for us all that is all

and it’s so cold

catatonic

catatonic 

slowly smooth your slowly cat

in séance with all the cats 

of all the times of time

in a reverie turning

eyes into eyes

black into black

further into a longing

that is slowly smoothingly infinite

off your trolley

off your trolley 

into the day

into harms way

into the arms of fate

into the ambulance 

into the admissions unit

into the scan

into the operating theatre

into resuscitation

into asystole 

into the mortuary 

into the chapel of rest

into the hearse 

into the crematorium 

into the urn

into the garden of remembrance 

into memory

into the family tree

into yesteryear 

into anonymity 

into who?