POEMS
No Hope
Some of the cons in here are so full of crap
They think they know everything. Worse, they think they can teach others.
Take that prat down on the twos.
Everyone listened to him for some reason, some even called him teach’.
He was popular with some I will admit. But some hated him.
Some of the enhanced got him busted, but the S.O. washed his hands of it.
I could take him or leave him myself: He left me lukewarm.
Mind you, the governor wanted him dead.
They put him down on the twos because it’s the bottom landing.
And they busted him to basic. He didn’t seem to mind though, poor bastard.
Sound bloke though: He didn’t have much, but he always shared his canteen.
They say he never had anything anyway. His dad was an out of work chippy.
Rumour had it: His mother went into labour when they were out in the car.
They say she had to stop and she delivered him in a barn.
Imagine all that cow manure and silage.
Just before the accident he had about a dozen mates in his cell.
They met in secret but he claimed one of them grassed him up.
He shared a couple of sandwiches and a carton of grape juice.
He broke them up and handed them out. Then he said he was getting out.
And he asked them to think of him when they ate their toast.
It all seems so pointless to me: Look after yourself I say.
I remember once though, he found a cupboard full of baccy.
No one on the wing had any burn. And I know Pete and Andy looked in that cupboard.
They said there was none in there. But he opened it up and there was burn falling everywhere.
Then there was the accident. They forced him to work in the workshop.
He didn’t complain; In fact he never said a word.
Apparently some steel rods fell off a rack. One went right through his hands.
He had a funny habit of standing with his feet crossed.
And one went right through both of them.
As he fell, one of the screws tried to catch the last one.
He nearly caught it, but it slipped and went right through the side of his chest.
Funny thing is it didn’t bleed much.
There was just this watery ooze coming out of the hole.
Everyone thought it would be in the hospital for months,
But he was back on the wing in three days.
One of his mates: Tom he was called. Said he was full of crap.
Tommy reckoned he’d been self-harming in his cell.
The only think that convinced him was shoving his finger in the hole.
He always was a dirty git.
It seems so long ago now, but his mates still talk about him.
If you ask me they’re bloody daft.
The silly idiots even started an appreciation society.
They have these secret signals and code names:
All named after fish would you believe. They asked me to join them,
But I told them to grow up
I’m sick of bird.
It’s lonely in here.
There’s no one worth talking to;
Nothing to believe in;
No Hope.
I wonder if he will be back for another stretch.
Anti Social By Order
At last a law that keeps us free
From thieving kids and social disease
To stamp the yobs beyond control
Who will not do as they are told.
What justice is there in a glass
Reflecting street cred and social caste.
Their sticky fingers, inverted morals
And foul abuse are worn as laurels.
These boys are just not like the lads
Who’s lives are gilt with loving dads
Mum’s new boyfriends: hit and miss
And every night they’re on the piss
We weren’t like that, you must be mad.
We scrumped apples but that’s not bad.
We maybe dipped in mother’s purse
But these days they do things much worse.
They steal your money and rob the lot
Not lift a Snickers from Hawkins’ shop.
When we got home we watched TV
And then go sit and eat our tea.
We went to school; forgot homework
Not like these anti social shirks.
These boys are in and out of court;
Revolving doors of deaf, blind hurt.
The jackboot of the ASBO court
Will teach them when and how and ought:
Instruct them not to be that way.
The order says so anyway.
They should not steal so they can eat,
They should go hungry and be sweet.
So when their need’s a weight on me
The ASBO lifts it: brutally.
We can’t have kids behave like that
(If I just don my other hat)
At heart I am a charitable man
I just sent five quid to Oxfam.
The ASBO is the answer then
For NIMBYS and the likes of them.
But would they steal if people shared
Or gave a damn and really cared.
So when I look at stone hard eyes,
Of hardened crooks still in size five,
Do I see a heart of stone?
Or a frightened child; unloved, alone?
The Urban Foxes
Rows of houses, terraced, fenced
The regulated neat retreats: Safe havens from the fray
Slip their latches at the fall of light
And loose the foxes out into their domain.
Sneaking along the thin privet, flowing over walls.
The cunning foxes steal into the night.
Hugging shadows, shunning the stark sodium street light
Intermittent fox holes hold their reek intact
Marking their passing with acrid memories
Where no one spills the silent pacts of vile acts.
It is corrupt. No light will shine upon plots made here
The hunters are not boundried; like Robin
The garden gate divides but two sides of his domain.
The nightingale is silenced; fox is there
Waiting to pounce on the opportunity.
There are no reasons to conform to the rules
What fox finds is his to keep, losers weep.
Young mother intent upon her fussing brood
Three bags of shopping in each hand, juggling keys,
Clucks her brood indoors; safe enough
And five bags of shopping home
Feathers on black stained path
Have bluebottles buzzing over them
With no substance for them to settle on.
Fox laughs his eerie screech bark from the shadows
Then shows himself, flaunting, licking his lips
His tail sweeps the flies aside
Secure that they cannot touch him.
Correct do-gooders over empower him
The only force to stay the scunge is sheathed
Against the users hand
A double edged Damaclean strand
And mother fox applauds her band
The Swift
I was born in a mud walled house,
The land belonged to someone else.
My mother fed me: taught me well
And I learned how not to dwell
So when I left I told myself
To fly much higher than anyone else.
I’ll never fall so low with sloth
To sit around on trees and posts.
Since then I’ve never touched the ground
My wings are working twenty four round,
I eat and sleep not on the ground.
My income’s high, my future sound,
The old goose she just sits around:
Lives on hard water part year round.
I fly south to warmer climes,
I’ve wealth enough: why shouldn’t I
My old grandma was around
When that old goose’s shell was found.
They say the old bird’s nearly six,
Three score months and ten at least
But I don’t laze in feather beds,
They say ‘three years and you’ll be dead’.
Blind Charlie
This is Social Service here,
You’re registered with us.
I have a man who needs a room
He’s worn and rest he must.
A roof; a bed, a rude spread,
At evensong, his daily bread.
He just needs this, no more he’ll ask.
And in the morn to break his fast.
Yes: of course we’ll foot the bill
It is our duty to fulfil.
His name is Charlie, sage and kind
You need to understand his mind.
He’s alki; black and blind, you see,
You’re full?
I understand .
This is Social Service here,
You’re registered with us.
I have a man who needs a room
He’s worn and rest he must.
A roof; a bed, a rude spread’
At evensong, his daily bread.
He just needs this, no more he’ll ask.
And in the morn to break his fast.
Yes: of course we’ll foot the bill
It is our duty to fulfil.
His name is Charlie, sage and kind
You need to understand his mind.
He’s alki; black and blind, you see,
You’re full?
I understand .
“Hey lady”? Charlie cheerfully asks,
“Thank you for finding my repast.
But may with respect request
Stop telling them I’m blind”.
Ars gratia artis
(Ars causa percunia)
Here we go: A pen to flow.
A freebird gave it, don’t you know.
Johnny Livingston to go,
I can sell a poem now.
I stole the shirt off that bird’s back
It’s capital to be like that.
When he lost it, ragged and sodden,
He didn’t know he was post modern.
The Love of My Life
Cold, dark, lower than whale shit; alone.
There is a higher purpose meant to be.
Beside my sibling sisters wombed with me.
I know somehow, there is instinct in me.
When this steel clamped shell is cracked,
I will fly, defy the wind, low, fast,
Streaking through the forest and fen. What then?
Can I fly round a mountain o’er the sea?
My map is like a knowledge known to be.
I wonder when? One day I will be free.
To use migratory instincts god gave me.
I know before my birth these things to be.
The future: carbon dated; timed in me.
My standby light: it winks assuredly.
Pressure; cold, wet, hot, moving, faster, open, light
Bubbles and the hatch: clanged and gone
Into the abyss, it’s future none.
Seconds? Three Air. Free. Tail, fins: mach three.
Life’s short fast spurt is real in me.
I know god’s purpose: now no mystery.
My love, my life you’ll shortly see.
Starlight white: only for Gods to see.
Mere gods promoted to immortality.
Ides of March 2003
Dead mind’s Time
When time was long and we sat up till three
There were no morning suns till yardarm time.
And time from bed to bedtime we did waste
Enforced to limp in dead mind’s disability.
The door is cracked and light appears to shine
When schemes are made to dole out to the plebs
And when a pie-crust promise makes up dregs
The lea is hay to crop for me and mine.
Then when a promised place appears for real
And morocco opens wide to show its worth,
The light begins to shine and move the dirge
Of education, worthy now we feel.
Now we know our thoughts are not just boastful
Security is now no longer social.
I sit on my grass
I sit on my grass
The grass is green enough
My neighbour’s lawn seems greener
But that is just another thing
Born of jealousy
And the politics of envy.
And yet as I look I see
His grass is more than green
It has neat edges, trimmed with shears
And thought in their preparation
There has been planning in the spring
There has been a fertilizer
Some feed put down for the future look of the lawn
Then again when I see my sward it is green enough
But when I look at what is in that greenery
I am not entirely sure.
There is the clover, green sure
But a weed to the perfectionist
Then there is the moss
That is green too
Very green, but it has killed the grass
So my lawn is short on grass and high on green
That is something that I have never seen
Not in this life.
He rises early, pushes and cuts the level ground with his mower
Makes stripes
‘Like a proper lawn ‘ he boasts
Me I just skim the top off with the cheap hover from B&Q
It’s green innit?
So his lawn is green, trimmed, perfect in every way.
The edges sheared and the rye and fescue in perfect mix
Mine I sit on and the kids have worn it bare patched.
There is clover and daises, heads pray to the sun
The dandelions rule here. Broad leaved and resilient
Under the show? Annual fescues hold the scarlet pimpernel dear.
Wild vetch and humble plantain all share here.
There is room for all an this imperfect square of stamping ground
Yet no habitat is called a weed
And no plant fears selecting for a spray.
He may keep the bowling green
kept for the whites where children are banned
laser level and watered by the help.
My wilderness is a happy place to be.
Sick Amore
Before my birth, in the autumn of life,
I left my mother to fly, free as the wind.
Wingspinning to the sod; my plot of clay
Drowned in winter’s rains; hoar chilled,
Petrified: devoid of life to see.
So I wait; certain of my well rounded life.
Nature; nurture and at last the promise of warm relief
Encouraged me to take root in my community.
I spring into the world.
I am defenceless, young and know not why
My place in the world is claimed by other souls
Who fence me in the land which nature gave to me.
And so I had my infancy, innocent
Of my crime until the flail reminded me.
Cut deep, wounded, sapped.
It would be called a scratch and me self piteous.
Yet nature is as nature grows
My thorough scratch a scar now bold.
The woodsman views me hideously,
Not fit to live in woodlands free.
His axe tomorrow executes me.
My Rock
I went and sat on a rock by the shore,
With all the other iguanas.
The hot listless light lapped the waves
Gently on the craggy strand
There was a rock next to me
Smooth as alabaster, well rounded, golden tanned
The smooth curves were more: Like sculpture.
I picked up the alluring amber
Enchanted I took her home with me,
I caressed her; showed her off
Now there are three cascalhos too.
The Furtive Gift
Grace:
Grace;
Grace,
Your nipples feed my face.
Magog: Woodswoman green
Your breast, my life,
Should not be seen.
Obscene heavy breast
Upon which I lean unseen,
First fodder of mankind we glean
For why is your breast obscene?
This Green and Peasant Land
Where would we be, locked in this institution,
If our country had a constitution.
The shirt stamped H.M.P. says property:
Does that mean cotton cloth of weft and weave?
Or do they mean the number they perceive?
When will we see our people set up properly?
There is one bill our governor could conceive:
And that is one of rights for us to own.
From Thoreau’s scratched sapling oak has grown.
With errant lawful letters now full grown
We hold no truth to be self evident
Lost life and liberty now to lament
And happiness no right, except repent
And happiness no right, will you repent?
The Naked Sheet
And so it is now that it must be done
Stalking the bank with anticipation
The blank sheet striking fear in the heart:
The jumping heart, seeking the inspiration of
The leaded penne that plumbs the depths.
To hope to catch another mind less wary.
Blank: white glare that burns green shades on the eye.
Polarizes the mind to see the hidden depths.
The Emerald Damsel, dazzling as she scribes.
Dipping in the inky depths reflected there.
She, writing the poetry of nature
Is joyous to be here in the now
The Flower of Spring
This is May,
Though with the sloe blackthorn it was confused,
Is scented of the summer coming June.
No more autumn’s bitter plum
And blackened thorns of winter.
Soon, June;
Small boys war with green unripened fruit
Cow parsley stalks the barrels, haws to shoot.
Frolics on the village green
Make summer’s gurgle: children’s hoots.
Remember then the red haw of the winter
Blackbird’s breakfast on winter’s bounty
The slow black thorn of winter’s prick
The hoar on windows scrapes away
We know there will be another day.
May is coming sweet scented May
May white and pure with toxic scent awaits.
Do not confuse the black thorn with the May.
The Rocky Horror Show
There must be some way out of here
Said the juggler to the thief.
I spent my days with a woman unkind
But the song remains the same.
Hey, Jude can wail and dirge all day
But things can not improve
They’re gathered in their masses, yet
The coven pot it brews.
The riffs just rip and blare the ears
With a discord lead and drum
The suit on stage with a guitar slung
Leads with acoustic sound
Can they play in a band?
With their heads in the sand?
Have colour without a hue?
There is a world tour: It’s all planned.
The roadies have their gear.
They’ve gone to build a scaffold stage
To raise a glass in cheer.
There is one star they want up there
To take a drop the most.
But all they find for all that grind
Is a hobo in a hole.
Art for Fuck’s Sake
I’ve been to see pornography: Swan Lake
Didn’t see Billy Elliot though.
We all squirmed in our seats with excitement
All that bulge and gusset;
Enough to make you want a wank.
Fuck the dancing; I’m fucking the chorus line
They actually pay me to hold her there?
When I lift her, spread legs in the air.
Tights? Are they to hide your stiffy
Imagine that lot in 10 denier?
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