Saturday 30 May 2020

i’ll put them just here

i’ll put them just here 

the riveters in the wagon works,
a tough bunch.
spitting, swearing, ‘who you looking at?’
sort of bunch of fives. 
the fettlers in the bottom shop,
grit blasted smiles and billie cans,
and jack hammer humour,  son.
the moulders tamped of sand in
clamped metal boxes, their heads and gates,
and their hoses for breakouts and their bots
for the holes and rodded into the cupola spout
jammed shut. or poked open to
flow into the mould of their day shift.
the slam! the wham! of the exploding gas
beneath the cast beds, ignited by a 
spark from the furnace. the same sparks
that burred in ears and down socks, or 
were doused by the floor’s sandy dirt.

these are the men / boys of my youth. 
the ones i decided were across the river’s mile,
and not my cup of tea - which was Glengettie actually.

so i ran with the hare, and soared with the lark,
hill-high and be-blued above the heather.
those alone moments with a rod or a gun
and the neighbour’s dog. bonzo.
i remember bonzo, i do. he was a fun dog,
a company across the fields sort of dog. 
a marsh harrier of rats in the rubbish tips 
long-walked upon the marsh.

these marble memories rattle now, around and 
around they rattle my brain - as that song said.
where shall i lay them, and when is the time?
here upon a few lines of ink think? or shall i 
take them to the graveside of childhood and
knock the door and run away? but, hey,
they are homing dreams, like the pigeons in baskets
at release of somewhere, somewhere.

look, i’ll put them just here. OK?
look after them for me; 
i won’t be long.

toot toot - - a - - toot toot -‬ ‪yeah

toot toot - - a - - toot toot -‬ ‪yeah

they got cars in the gardens ‬
‪i’ll get some of them seeds‬
‪and a sack of concrete‬
‪it’ll grow great like‬
‪toot toot - - a - - toot toot‬ - yeah

Friday 29 May 2020

I am climbing up the poets

I am climbing up the poets

I am climbing up the poets,
hammering my piton words
into the gasps of their stuttering,
sparking my crampons against
the overhangs of their mountainous 
talent, fighting without the oxygen
of their intellect, I struggle upwards,
the view over each mind a vista of
surmise and surprise at how rarefied
the gin clear air of enigmatic thought
is at such altitude. Throwing off the
guide ropes of the leaders, without
point I scramble up the scree of
shifting words, sifting the orientation
of the gravity of my situation of the 
understanding that what is beyond
and above the viewpoints of those
below, I will attain the nirvana of a banana,
and they say ‘how profound’ he is
for I am on solid ground now,
the clouds are my armchairs,
blue my horizoned eyes.
Casting down the safety ropes
I slip the crampons and abseil out,
and out, down and down, upon the drug 
of ages. Plummeting through history I
arrive in poet’s corner to be interred 
immemorial by those who forgot the summit
and buried themselves in my words, and
in the autumn of their desire, they
never flew away except upon my words;
bar one, or maybe two, who started the climb
to a summit higher than time itself. 

the new normal

the new normal 

it can’t - it can
it can - it can’t
it must - oh no it mustn’t 
how can we - how can we not
we cannot - yes you can
are you dead sure - sure dead - right
we’ll never adjust - you already have

now it is how it is

Sunday 24 May 2020

call me rough life

call me rough life


call me rough life
why do you not call me to play the fool
the arrogant roughneck drinking fool
that wrote for her - you know - 
those lurid nights of windowed cities
and bars and wet streets and brawls in
in stairwells of brevity kisses
and traffic hisses away down town
and frowns and downs and downs
to wet knee wet with tears raining down with
your mascara and bruised love if
love it be for me and my fallandering
why don’t you rough me up and
leave me with enough smoke-stained angst
to write the brutal lines that all the great 
do-no-good poets clawed 
upon the page’s confessions of regret 
and fabled acerbic pounding of
relationships gone on far far too long past
their ability to even breathe an emotion

why this easy ambiance this ease of life
that pours not cider vinegar but maple syrup
that has not one word to cut the days of
blank pages and no looks that could kill
in red ink the slammed book of poems
dedicated in hatred to all whose meritocracy 
i defied to entertain just my egotistical nonchalance  
now that i bare write nothing nothing at all for
having not died in that life i lay down nothing 

is it too late these aged years to ride
the bronco stallion of desire unbridled
and fly at last to the wild side of life
rattling penniless unrepentant galavanting
nailing dirty words smearing fetid words
bleeding grimy words spitting oathy words
leaving no stone of life unturned before
the days run down

is it too late
am i run to time run done
it is over mun 
it is isn’t it 
and was it not i 
who left it
all undone

Saturday 23 May 2020

swimming in the sea that is the wind

swimming in the sea that is the wind

swimming in the sea that is the wind
blacking beneath the metronome,
this jig upon the corner’s flatulence, of
picking at leaves soon to be the leftovers 
of the storm’s disrespect. 

when a thousand suns dance upon the daisies
that is the summer wind. winding down now
the unwinding of the runner beans. well i mean,
you know, how is this, that these days are? well you know?
well enough how what can is cannot and what is cannot be.

so now we venture afield, winding in the choices of
lanes running the decisions that the wind fled.
that the ruination of thoughts survived in eyes
lemon sunned with the rime of salt. yes you fall now
with me upon this, but tomorrow it will be different.
a different wind will or will not be - we.

Thursday 21 May 2020

‘how he wrote the flow of our pouring’


‘how he wrote the flow of our pouring’

see that?
see how it came from nowhere?

it frightens me - sometimes.
how the words seem to come from a spirit
just behind the edge of hindsight,
beyond the dusk at the back of my mind.

is there a hole in space-time leading to where
the poets rail that their words must be heard,
must be still the font of all of their times;
and am i chosen as this conduit?
a vent in the dam of the damned words!

it frightens me,
                         and yet
i repeat them 
               because i have to.
do i not? do i not?

but it still frightens me to ask

‘how did i write the flow of his outpouring’ 

Monday 18 May 2020

you herd right


you herd right 

BBC sport - there’s no sport

repeats

the herd instinct

you heard 

corvid - an anagram for god 

a tricky one - think about it

BBC sport - there’s no sport

you heard that lemmings jump

to conclusions 

Sunday 17 May 2020

parall hell

parall hell  

every mind 
a parallel universe 
many minds
a multiverse
death a closed door
birth a matinee 
with no encore 
bubbles balloon then coalesce 
i guess 
this makes for more not less
now there’s an idea 
and another idea
but i have no idea
do you? 
and you and you
and me?

every mind 
a parallel universe 
many minds
a multiverse ... 

Saturday 16 May 2020

the trout stream


the trout stream

walk the sleepers
one by one
by one by one

one by one
by one by one

hooks and worms
and rod and reel 

the evening’s boy
is troutward bound 
along the saddletank line
beneath the main

past the creaking sheds
that sped his feet beneath
the dead works walls and
all the way the ruins closed
and closer until it
breathed the reedmace’s
sunny way along the pipe
that carried the mysterious what
that held the balanced tread
of trespass through the gasometer works
and there he was 
it was the
worm in the flow and
trout in mind’s eye so
he’ll walk the sundown
as he always did
in the turning of the day’s
weariness as the gnats
danced the setting way
he flowed moonward 
for another day
another day
is won


that blank page

that blank page

i walked the sides
i kicked the corners
i estimated the centre
i checked it
i folded an idea
i turned down the corners
i remember now
i slid down from the top
i climbed the sides
i poked a hole
i told a lie
i erased it
i went clockwise 
i went anti-clockwise 
i turned it over
i turned it back
i folded it and folded it
i made a paper plane 
i jumped on
and flew away

toot if you agree

toot if you agree

you are not human
unless you are talking through a car

toot toot   toot toot
           toot toot

Friday 15 May 2020

A poem

A poem

A high wire without a safety net. ‬
A drum roll, a held breath,‬
    a gasp.‬
‪A lonely walk, high above the mirror‬
‪of yesterday’s lake - below the clouds there is applause, but‬
‪somewhere along the way you lost‬
‪your grip on reality. ‬
‪Now, go back and do it again!‬
‪You fool. ‬

Thursday 14 May 2020

Caitlin and Dylan

Caitlin and Dylan 

Let’s say Caitlin and Dylan 
Just for a change 
He probably said Caitlin and me
Or did he say Caitlin and I 
I think not
But here she is at his side
Bread and milk
After the beer
Youth dressed in Welsh
Before Laugharne was varnished
Before that little cross
Brought all the visitors
To look for the source spring 
Before the paths were trodden 
When the future was uncertain
Even then his words were the germ seed 
Of all our secret gardens 
Did she say that
She said something to him
If only Dylan Dylan Bach!


Tuesday 12 May 2020

a bunch of kids

a bunch of kids

the future is this bunch of kids‬
‪what they do not know 
now‬
‪is that one day they will not know 
how‬
‪time flew away the way it did‬
‪the way it did    the way it did
and stole their innocence‬
‪and bestowed it on a bunch of kids‬

Sunday 10 May 2020

Poet apposite poet


Poet apposite poet

I’ve thought of a few lines.
Are they not clever? 
Don’t you think I am a great poet? 
Maybe? Like the old poets thought they were. 
When you read them now and again 
they remain, 
like my lines,
the first among many unequals. 
Don’t you think my daring do deserves airing
in the panoply of the crowned?

No? 
Ah well, 
there you go then.

Saturday 9 May 2020

COVID - 19

Lockdown
VE Day
Goes viral
We’ll meet again
Says the virus
There’ll be blue lips over
The white cliffs on Dover
And Jimmy will go to sleep
And never wake up again

Wednesday 6 May 2020

polly amnesia

polly amnesia 

alone - i talk to polly

she repeats everything you said
including the sad bits
the bits i would prefer to forget
that you said forget she said

a moving parody of what the parrot cannot be‬

‪what vial could hold your last tear
‪what locket the words you could not say‬
dare not say 

what voice could - other than yours 
‪answer me‬ that

polly

Tuesday 5 May 2020

fluke?

fluke?

what fluke
has loaned me this mind
that has infinite capacity (perhaps)
to think
before it is returned 
to the infinite empty shelves
stretching empathy 
in the library of nothing
that by definition is outside 
of infinity (perhaps)
is it a fluke?

Sunday 3 May 2020

anti-social distancing

anti-social distancing 

meeting an old friend‬
‪and the pain‬
‪of backing away‬
does not go away‬
‪with our smiles‬
‪stretching thinner‬
‪and thinner‬
‪passing by on the other side‬
‪with our thoughts‬

Friday 1 May 2020

the cat and the sunbeam

it is mid morning - and
the cat has caught a sunbeam
oh daisy daisy do 
here it is upon the hearth rug
she’s brought it home for you

that moment

that moment

smash/merge our skulls
our brains our thoughts our bodies 
our tomorrows and our yesterdays
do it now before this moment is passed 
and we lay back away back where
our breaths are hard annealed 
call me those names that fervour bites 
white on lips to screw our eyes as
tight as our beating chests
heaving in unison with time’s always 
was and as we know now
will always be
do it now