on course
the axis and the allies
their ranks are shaping up
war is coming
one way or another
sooner or later
i told you so
will tell you so
and you will listen then
how to load your gun
how god is on your side
how to recall that
one of the backroads of evolution
is extinction
the fulcrum of the seesaw
is crumbling
pick your side
lobelia
you look so fine
in your tallest blue ballgown
crinolined and suave
as the midnight horses steady
to pull the golden coach
at pantomime’s curtain call
look out behind you
button’s buds are tightly bound
his eyes rise to your eye’s occasion
as the iced slipper so becoming of winter
fits the price of spring-flower’s gown
a fillet of my childhood
above the sawdust
they hung them silver hooked
whole sides of beef
man chops i called them
everyone laughed
some memories are lard
rich but unpalatable
the dry blood had a sadness
wrapped in greaseproof paper
the till rang it all up
those times
priceless now
a grain of truth
the breath of another pauses
atop of a sand dune’s flow
a grain of truth unsettled
in a new direction now
it’s all so unsettling
sharing an indecision
all alone until
a lone breath
of another intones
this way not that
now
who would have thought that …
a cuckoo thought
the cuckoo’s call
is a false heart
inside a true heart
the call out of an orphan
in that unjust moment
tomorrow is decided
in yesterday’s deceit
canes canes canes
all those tall canes
along the road of winter’s holiday
where once the snow relied upon them
to steer the plough
now see how they flash past on the black road
that kisses the mountain tops
making passes at girls in sunglasses
canes canes canes
hold out your hands to
the draft of this thought
the arthritic librarian
the pain booked
on the top shelf of if only
reached by a ladder wrung of words
hobbled from the hands
that placed it there
the pagination
of an imagination
that could move you
to read what was written
up there
in an attempt to make it
all right again with god
while down here
the ladder’s gnarled feet
refuse to slide
some wards of wisdom
we called the gurney
the silver cloud
their final journey
twelve wards
a hospital canteen
yet the destination of the silver cloud
was always ward thirteen
the notice on the door said
by appointment only
the chapel of rest
the mortuary
a poem for Salem’s poem
the booming of whale song
hooves across the savanna
the screech of a raptor
a breath at sunset
moonsong above
the crackle of a camp fire
the yes of locked eyes
yes
some words reverberate
homeless in the tome of the ear
restless as the background radiation
across the universe of humanity they roam
awakening in every hearer
a deep longing
for we are all lost
in the cacophony of being
dancing like butterflies
their beauty is mesmerising
eternal in their transience
they boom
how to write a book of poems
sit for a long time
staring
the flow of clichés
down the rivers
of thought
of life
stay sitting
let the leaves flow past
one after another until
in the col of waiting
one here
another there
step aside
courting one another
in their roundabout way
a chain
forms
to bind the book
that will lock up your heart
now
throw it into the depths of could have
stand up
walk away
courting a thought
reflective counterculture a reflection
then i saw me
and it was all over
the rage
that i might be the establishment
drove me sane
never again the freedom
to say this is me
seething
the smashed reflection
was no longer reflective
the establishment had been established
long before
here they come again
kids ~ well i ask you
tallboy
upstairs sunday morning
hand-chins on the bed with my mother
watching them through the curtain crack
off to church in their finery
with their fox stoles
their lucky rabbit’s paws pinned in silver
mum tumbling acid drops at so and so
all fur coat and no knickers
etc her amen
then down stairs to get on with the dinner
dad down the pub for his prandial pint
before his afternoon nap
when i winked off to sunday school
and the curtains closed
