LAWN CARROT

 I walk through the iced streets and cast a wistful stare towards a melted snowman's nose resting in a front garden. 

Then I remember it hasn't snowed here and it's just a carrot on a lawn.

IT'S NOT ALL WHITE

 It's not alright

It's not all white

Snow didn't fall on our town

I'm on a hill

I'm glad, but still,

Kids are all wearing frowns

Wellies were found

Scarves were unwound

Snowball-fight texts were sent

The weather app failed

The snow ship has sailed

Even I feel a sad lament.

RATTLING ON AND ON

I have four alarms 

For four times a day

I'm swallowing pills 

To keep harm at bay

I find it easy 

Fighting this battle

But four times a day

I'm just one big rattle.

BRAVERY AND MAGIC

 When I revisit scenes from my youth the area is smaller. Not just physically so. There's a lack of magic to woods where I climbed trees and hunted conkers and newts. There's no air of mystery to a frozen pond where once I tested fear with wellies. Bravery must hide with the magic

DAYS LIKE THESE

 The days fruit grow steady 

And our heart's a'thumping

Let's all get ready

For a full day of scrumping.

THE ART OF NOISE

Time seems to stop and waits for a battery 

It's an illusion wrapped up in flattery

Nothing can stop the tick-tock of time

We think it stands silent but it's switched to mime.

CORDS

 Today would've been my great grans 125th birthday. I once spoke to her of her childhood remembrances of soldiers returning from the Boer War. I wonder what my great grandkids will take from me, if I'm lucky enough to see them,  to further lengthen times extension lead.

SILENT PASSENGER

 Does a clock ever really stop

When right two times a day?

There's no tick or tock to spot

Time Travel's stowaway.

COVID CHRISTMAS

Has Santa thrown in the towel this year?

Has he cast his hat down whilst depressed?

Rudolph's red nose and a cough spread good cheer

But they also spread positive tests.

Who will help Santa now he's isolating?

This frontline worker needs vaccinating.

RAINBIRD

Where do all the birds go when it's raining?

How do they keep all their feathers dry?

Do they get some avian, wet training?

Or do they tough it out there in the sky?

CLOUDY

 Used to love laying on my back with the kids looking up to the sky. We'd guess fantastic beasts and silly faces from the clouds. They're older now. Only I occasionally look up to the sky and search for those same, fleeting images. They may sometimes drift away, but they're there.

DRAWING ROOM

 The rain hammers home a message in dots and splashes. I try to interpret its coarse code. Through the rainy pallette of my kitchen window all of the colours run and all of the colours dance. I get the impression that it's still a work in progress. A coffee draws me back to bed.

HINTERLANDS

 I lay in the gentle hinterlands of sleep. Small noises become half-dreams. Half-dreams become reality. Within this floating realm I hold all the possibilities of the day and all the impossibilities of my imagination. For a few seconds, as I open my eyes, I lay in both worlds.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR(WAVES)

I was very much Radio 1

and you were so Radio 3

we now both explore, Radio 4,

'cos we love on the same frequency

FORWARD

 

We plant our feet upon the earth

And cast the route we've been

What's a million footprints worth

On a route that we've yet seen?

RECYCLING

 

I once recycled my bicycle

It then became a tricycle

It started out a unicycle.

It remains - philosophical.

CLOCKFACE

 As a kid I lived near a church tower. I had a telescope and zoomed into the clockface. I saw the big, minute hand moving as tiny jerks. I was privileged. Above a flow of christenings, marriages and funerals, only I and the birds saw the church mark the passing of time another way.

SHADOW PUDDLE

 

Does a shadow puddle only get a shadow wet

If a shadow's sopping is it stopping to forget

The shadow puddle it just splashed in causing all this mess

Without a shadow of a doubt it's anybody's guess.

TREAD LIGHTLY

 Rubber tread marks at road bends and junctions.Permanent reminders, last second decisions. Sometimes they're criss-crossed with other treadmarks.Good decisions? Bad ones? Yeats' line pops up, "Tread lightly, because you tread on my dreams." What of the story where the tread ends?

TIME MIRROR

 The tick and the tock of a clock, and the whirring and the purring of a fan. White noise in my dark bedroom. During the night the blades must've caught both the tick and the tock and thrown time into fast forward. 

That must be why there's a grey haired man living in my mirror.

HAIKU 10.12.20

Straight lines everywhere

Overlaying nature bare

Lined, false, thoroughfare

LEGWORK IN PROGRESS

Orthotic Clinic here I come
To fix my left foot it's quite numb
It flops about though imperceptible
Both my legs are asymmetrical

Here's to hoping they assist
For if this footflop still persists
I fear my left leg will one day
Just get so weak it fades away.

MONOPOLY - TIER 3 Edition - Rules

Do Not Pass Go-STAY PUT!

Do Not Collect £200 as

Community Chest is deflated.

No Chance at all.

Just Visiting?

Fined £1,000.

Whitehall-only square

where you can freely trade.

Income Tax is due-no Water Works

Mayfair?

Nothing's fair

Go To Jail.

REFLECTION

Every now and then

I look into your eyes

And see our love again

Then and now inside

CRIMEWATCH

 Overnight, the fog seems to have pulled down the sky, with smokey, dancing clouds just feet above my lawn. They dangle there like silent cat burglars suspended by wire, eager to steal my potted  plants and my good rake, I bet. 

I sip my coffee and watch their crime unfold.

RETURNING MEMORIES

I went to my old school last week

And everything was little

I wished I really hadn't peeked

Our memories are so brittle.

Gone were great big classrooms

The school canteen was diddy

Memory floats in vaccums

Just like me the great big kiddy.

STORYBOOK

 Tell me some stories

I've not heard before

The door is before us

To Life's bookstore.

ONLY THE LONELY

 You can always spot a long-forgotten wall. Joins creak and loosen and the weight it's had to bear has caused it to bow due to lack of attention. Of course, the greatest clue is that nature has returned, new shoots appear amid flaky stone and brick. 

Nature reclaims the lonely.

FIRST CUP OF COFFEE FROM A PROPER COFFEE POD MACHINE

 

from bean to pod machine

a sci-fi way to drink caffeine

WHERE AM I?

 Every moment of every day

I'm farther away from who I was 

And every moment of every day

I'm closer still to who I'll become

I sit in the present and wonder

Who shall I be today?

A 2020 ADVENT CALENDAR

Let'd see what's behind Door 1. 

A Nativity Scene. Ah.

But there's no room at the inn. Strictly speaking all the inns are still in Lockdown. Bethlehem is in Tier 2 when it reopens but Joseph and Mary can't afford the substantial meal needed to enter.

NEVERENDING PIECE, MAN

A psychedelic dot-to-dot

A book for every hippy

A book they cannot end or stop

The flashbacks keep them trippy

MIND THE GAP

It's not the tick

Nor the tock 

Of the clock

They're markers

Unseen

For our lives

In-between

THE BEACH

 Time is sand on a beach. Where the only certainty is where we've walked. Don't stop to collect it, for then we're merely the hourglass. Better to enjoy the feeling of it between our feet. Sense every grain. Run, too, with time. As far as we're allowed. The beach goes on forever.

POP-UP WEATHER APP

 

My weather app says,

"It's 3 degrees and it feels like 3 degrees."

Oh, Summer, when will I see you again,

My woman in love, overseas.

NOT GOING OUT

 It's cold today

It's minus one

That one is me

Outside I'll shun

I'm stuck in bed

Which is quite true

But to be fair

I need a brew

I'll just get up

And make a pot 

Then back to bed

Where it is hot

I hate the cold

And it hates me

We don't get on

As you can see.

STAIR LIFT

My feet don't work like they used to

At the end of my dodgy legs

Which in turn connect to my back

Which cracks like the shells of eggs

I don't let it get me too down

It doesn't bring me to tears

I'll wait on the ground floor for now

Until my jet pack appears

STREAMING DREAMING

 

My dog is distant

He's here having dreams

The snoring persistent

He's running through streams

DENIER OF HOSIERY

I climbed the ladder in her tights 

And I got higher and higher

But then I was turned down, twice

She's a denier, denier.

LANE DEPARTURE

 

You're the M1 for me

I've gone off the A43

The M25 has lost its sex drive

And the A12 just goes to the sea

PATRILINEAL

Beeching

without hesitation

Leaching 

from station to station

Preaching

for the good of the nation

Teaching

control by castration

SOLITARY CUTLERY

I haven't got a spoon

I haven't got a knife

I hope to get some soon

It's a lonely, forking life

BEWARE OF CHILDREN

Our dog sits in our front window

Barking at the strangers 

Thinks he is a good guard dog

Warning us of dangers

But he barks at everyone

Friends and family flee

He's even barking at the kids

But he gets that from me.

BECAUSE IT'S THERE

 

The never rest

the arc of time

we try to keep

a steady climb

because it's there

the goal's the summit

after that

it's not to plummet

RAILINGS

 The cemetery railings round our way are long gone. Cut down quickly, like so many, for much needed metal for the war effort. Inside those cemeteries now lie the very men whose own efforts were sadly cut down.

Because of them we can enjoy the peace to contemplate on such things.

THE INBETWEEN

 We get ups and downs on life's trampoline

We live most our days in the in-between.

4 eva

 I wonder if anything that we leave will last as long as a dinosaurs fossilised footprint? Will future archaeologists marvel over a fossilised tree and ponder the cryptic message, "Steve luvs Andrea 4 eva" ?

I've been with my wife for 23 years.

Be kinda cool to get to 23 million.

LIGHT AND SHADE

 

A man made of shadows was outside

His substance you couldn't see through

His outline was much like his inside

Without light he'd vanish from view.

TIMESCALES

When rivers run dry as the sun drinks each drop

When fields are bare brittle as a broken world stops

When even the cockroach can't catch its short breath

When memories of us have the last dance with death.

Will Trump then concede? 

FRIDAY 13TH. PART ONE

Superstitious? Touch wood?
I walk under ladders right where they're stood
Never pull on a Parsons nose
Blue & green seen all over my clothes
I don't pray & I won't wish
I swim after the heartiest dish
Friday 13th holds no fear for me
I stop in bed as a guarantee

TWITCH

Every time you see a curtain in your street just twitch 

It might be that the house in question has a little itch

It might be that your neighbours think that you're up to no good

It might be cos you're stood where someone else like you just stood.

STIRS AND CREAKS

Morning sounds

A car so far away

Perhaps a sound of yesterday?

My house stirs, creaks, returns to sleep

A grand old age

Deserves its rest

Watched Victorians like me 

In the same kitchen as me

Stir and creak just like me

An eye for all eternal tea.

NATURE IN LOCKDOWN

 A faded gauze of morning hints at better days. Grass has stopped growing. Worms can finally get some peace. The leaf dance is cancelled due to lack of wind. Is nature obeying Lockdown rules? I count 6 pigeons on a TV aerial, 5 on a wall. Could it be? 

No. 

None are wearing masks.

THE GREAT RUBBER BAND BALL 1979-1982

Where'd you go? I meticulously added each one of your scrappy loops and watched you turn into a rubber giant. I rolled you around. I admired you. I was very proud of you. With each band you imperceptibly grew.

We both imperceptibly grew.

OH, BYE DON!

Biden won

oh, bye Don!

let bygones be bygones

your work here is now done

Biden won

oh, bye Don!

Biden won

a big win

a big win we've all seen

bunker boy's just obscene

crying on

the last green

TOOLS

I don't know why we're not given the tools when we're younger to fully appreciate our parents. Life just works that way. The gift and curse of memory means we can revisit our much missed loved ones but we can never stay to tell them what we've learned.

STRANGE MORNING

I wake in a sticky, muddy, sucking shell hole

I'm with my great grandfather

His arm awkwardly plugs a sticky, muddy, sucking back wound

I try in vain to shout to him

That I know he lives

Through sticky, muddy, sucking memory

Strange morning

FIRST COFFEE - A LEGAL ARGUMENT

Discombobulation at your

disassociation from the

discontinuation of the night.

Misrepresentation and the

misinterpratation of the

misappropriation of the light.

Inconsideration for your

incoordination leads to

identification of your plight.

COFFEE UP

 An anonymous morning. It's too cold yet to show its face, here. No sights or sounds. Not even road noise, unless you count the scooter from up the street. A rattling abacus of one every morning at six. I shout in my head 'stop the count' and smile.

No lawyers needed. Only coffee.

TRUMP'S FAMILY RECIPE

Take 1 large country, settled in the pack.

Shake pack vigorously. 

Pour pack into boiling water

Keep simmering for 4 years.

Siphon scum from top

Add pepper spray.

Stir continuosly

Do not burn

If so, cut off black parts

Serves only one.

BINWAR

Bin bags and bin juice

All across the floor

Which bin for which use?

Recycling uproar

"It's not my turn this week"

Both my boys do cry

Both now start to shriek

As the lorry passes by

Both grab two bin bags

Running down the road

My two scallywags

Lightening my load.

RAINDROP MEMORY

 I stand at my back door with the early morning rain. One raindrop moistens both cheek and memory.

My nan taking a hankie, trying to rub out what we later found out to be the start of my 1st teenage spot and not a grubby mark. 

I touch the drop. It rolls down my stubbled cheek.

NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE TIMES

 

Lavender blue

Dilly, dilly

Covid 19

Locked down again

Dilly, dally

Death rate's obscene.

POPPING OUT FOR THE BINS

I only popped outside because the bins had fallen down

How was I to know the winds would catch my dressing gown?

I saw my neighbours face trapped in that rictus smile of fear

How was I to know that part of me had reappeared?

ONE SCHOOL OF THOUGHT

On Thursday we English get Lockdowned

With a feather I could be knocked down

The kids in the schools

Are kept there by fools 

Who forget the 'vid spreads in the playground

THE GREEN LADY

 My solitary holly tree bends with the wind. Its arched surprise known just  to me. Straightened and bent in rhymic disharmony. Flexing with the wind, it reminds me of being forced to morning exercise. A green lady. Her leaves shaken to indignant prime prickle.

She is not amused.

EYEWITNESS

Morning's still an artist's impression that's been sketched from previous accounts. A reconstruction of a morning, such is the early hour at which I wake. I'm certain the sun will rise. I believe in the testimony. I believe in the artist's ability. 

Hope they catch its good side

PASSING

 

When I see a passing plane I wonder where it's going 

It might be off to sun kissed shores I have no way of knowing

I wonder if the plane is off on long or just short haul?

I wonder if they think of us as much or not at all?

GIANT HEDGEHOG MORNINGS

 In a half-realised, early morning, my garden is still being drawn. My bush is mostly a giant hedgehog, the holly tree a fearsomely armoured knight. My lawn, a misty sea of shifting sand. Light rubs out my fantasy world. It disappears into my imagination, where it rests a while.

PLOTS

 Cemetery stories : The plot within the plot. We all hope for a multigenerational epic saga and not the flash fiction of some. But I suppose if a story touches your heart, one that we can relate to, then it matters not the length of the tale but the fact it got to be told at all.

KING SHODDY

 The man's clothes were shoddy and of poor material

But he sucked on a mint that made him feel imperial.

POP!

 If only words formed like visible breath on cold mornings. We could carry them around like tiny language ballons.

"Good Morning", tied to a piece of string, would mean we could simply smile at people we meet. We'd knowingly nod and point to the words bobbing alongside us. 

Pop!

WEAK PULSE

 How I love the weak pulses of starlight that throb from deep space. A connection to a time when even dinosaurs and the very land on which they walked were twinkles in Father Time's eyes. Infant time, heartbeat time, reaching us through the veil, remembrance of what is to come.

COGS

The creak of a rusty gate

Is time breathing out

Where you hear

Its cogs

Turn

DRAFTY LEAVES

There once was a man who swept up some leaves

And the wind did its best to disrupt him

But he was a poet, he'd worked at his drafts

And would not let this breeze interrupt him.

EPIC SEA JOURNEYS

It's easy to get lost within the maelstrom

It's hard to seek a way out from the storm

Though we find ourselves upon rough waters

Most of us will make it back to port

Not for us the waving wives to greet us 

Not for us the flag-strewn harbour bay

That final time when silent drops the anchor

Dry land and tall tales is where we'll stay.

LEAFMOTIF

I dreamt I was a falling leaf

Floating to the ground

I woke naked in my garden

With no one else around.

WOOD SMOKE

 Autumn smells like a day after a bonfire. Hints of wood smoke, a boring party guest refusing to leave. No noise is good noise as I read my paper. The morning assembles itself, one colour at a time. Orange takes a tester pot to the sky. It'd better be dawn and not another bonfire.

CHRONIC

 

Carry chronic pain

Old Contemptible

Carry shrapnel wounds

No to roaring fires

No to whisky notes

No to talk of derring-do

Carry chronic pain

Old Town Gossip

Bearer of bad news

Now you find your mouth

Now it's stitched shut

Now you'll have to mime for clues

LEAF

 A leaf stayed on this tree one autumn. Just one. Every day I was willing it to fall. To catch up with the rest, do it's bit. As winter came I realised I was willing it to stay on, to beat the cold, to cling on. One day it'd gone. I knew it was with the others but it was unique.

balance

we walk past we walk through so many things we grit our teeth to walk on from pavements sleeping sacks we're in a rush guilty we can't always stop we miss beauty in madness in the everyday sunrise we calibrate sadness to joy we balance on existence and hope we don't fall

AGE v NIGHT

Floating around in squid-ink dark

Feeling my way for the light

Slapping my hands on the walls & myself

Stumble-fumbling the night 

Switches are found & finally slapped

Light covers ceiling to floor

1 small win for Age v Night

Now what did I get up for?

A CONFIDENT MAN

 

A man in shorts at 6am

Is a confident man indeed

To have such legs and display 'em

Here's a man who will surely succeed.

No jeans or trousers for this sport

It's legs alfresco today

If we accept 6am shorts

We too can live our life our way.

THE GHOSTS OF YESTERDAY

 

The ghosts of Yesterday

Lightkeepers whilst we snore

Shine trusted passage way

Past rocks unto safe shores.

WRINKLED GHOSTS

Wrinkled ghosts are everywhere

Airbags in a car for spare

Crumpled packs of cigarettes

Discarded bills for household debts

Pillows that still hold the form

On beds that are no longer warm

We live with ghosts we cannot see

We sweep their leaves for potpourri.

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

 

I'm neither Midlands

North or South

I'm West of East

(by word of mouth)

I have no voice

I have no place

I like that choice

I like our space

GESTURES

I live at the top of a hill

My mate he lives at the bottom

We're finding most days

We're exchanging waves

I'll whistle some days when I spot him

We hardly ever speak

It's fine for me and my mate

Gestures are fine

As old as time

You'll find it's how most men relate

SANDY FOOTPRINTS

Out goes the yawning tide

Smoothing the sands of today

So the footprints that we leave

Are there upon display

In comes the yawning tide

Smoothing the sands of today

So the footprints that we leave 

Will surely wash away

ART

 

Art is how we relax

it makes us ponder

it makes us wonder

it makes us feel

it makes us free

it makes us care

it makes us cry

it makes us laugh

it makes us love

it makes us think

it makes us thankful

it makes us thoughtful

it makes us real

it makes us raw

it makes us, us.

I KNOW

 

I know the stars are here

I know they're hidden by the clouds

I know the clouds are here

I know they're hidden by the trees

I know the trees are here

I know they're hidden by the night

I know the night is here

I know it's hiding in plain sight

Who's hiding us from view?

WALK-IN CORONAVIRUS TEST - 06/10/20

Shove it up your nose

Keep going

Shove it in as far as it goes

Shove it 'round your tonsils too

I'll let you know when you are through

That's it

You're done

You'll know by text

That way out

Keep going

Next

TRAILS

 

We make trails as we meander through life

Not for us the silvery path of a snail

But in the smiles of loved ones and loves lost

In the joy of the new

The satisfaction of the old

In the homes we inhabit

In the hopes which we visit

One-way trails

Trials

Triumphs.

MINX

 Woken by the sounds of rain that had sent me off to sleep, Nature's Syncopated Rhythm is playing softly on my roof. Only the toughest cats, the most shameful of revellers, will be out in this. Sunday is still wearing a little black number, smelling of Saturday's aftershave.

Minx.

MOONSHOTS

 

Milk-bottle white

Full-up tonight

Waxing gibbous

Wanes within us

Pulling on tides

Pushing on tides

A farmer's marker

A scarred reminder

Battles to come

Battles once fought

Gravity-lite

A lonely sight

Loved from afar

Lunatics yarn

Heavens afar

Our own rock star.

FLAG IN CHURCH, 1918-

There's a flag in our church that hangs tattered

Not really a whole flag at all

It was sent into battles

To hear the death rattles

Of those who had answered the call

Now it hangs here and no longer flutters

What purpose I can only muse

Is it there to inspire

The boys in the choir

Has it broken old men in the pews?

MRS GEARY

 

Mrs Geary, selling spuds

A bargain at tuppence a pound

Her shop is now flats, she is long gone

But I feel that she's still around

Back on the street where I was so small

Remembering the places I'd hide

Mrs Geary still opens her shop

And welcomes the young me inside.

HUES

Like a distant relatives surprise visit

we begrudgingly welcome autumn

skirts of leaves dress lawns

gathering in wind traps

for hedgehogs to explore

wood pigeons dominate bird tables 

angry starlings keep their peace

the days get shorter

as if to stifle

winters faint call.

STARDUST

The vast time loop of deep space

seeing stars long since destroyed

in supernova fury

our very atoms forged in

such cosmic soup

such cosmic mirrors

reflect back on ourselves

everyone we've loved

everyone we will ever love

shining back at us as we 

reflect on the universe

JOURNEYS

 Night hums a far more interesting tune than day. Its people have better stories. The cloak of anonymity that falls around night lends it furtive excitement. Often people don't choose to inhabit the night. Fate chooses for them. Humanity comes from understanding these journeys.

BIN TO THE FUTURE

 

I once met a time traveller

Jolly was he

Said he's from the future

One I couldn't see

I asked him was it wondrous?

Grinning like a child

He said "I'm from Tomorrow

You forget the bins"

And smiled.

SIMULANTS

 

They say we live in a simulated reality

can it be?

are we all but ones and zeros in some space hero's home?

where we roam

where all of our life has been just algorithms

schisms of code in a galaxy far far away

don't you feel like we're glitching

just hitching a ride?

let's make it to the next level

where we fight the devil

or blow up something

or meet the princess

or blow up something

failing that 

if all hope is lost

if we're out of lives

with failing health

just turn us off

and on again

we can start over

we space rovers

LIGHT

If light be rationed

And doled out by the book

I'd join the longest queue

Just so I could see your look

I'd hoard all my hours 

So I could see your smile

Without you I'm in darkness

So I'd definitely stockpile

Rising early every morn'

To bring you sunrise

And the dawn

LEFT IN THE WAKE

 Lucia Joyce is buried in our cemetery. Troubled daughter of James. A beauty in her day, a talented dancer, one-time girlfriend of Samuel Beckett. Mates wife treated her in local mental health hospital where she spent her later years.

"My daddy writes stories", she once told her.

POWER CUT

 Alarm?

Erm

Flashing clock

Why?

Power Cut

When?

PANIC!

Kid 1

Kid 2

Kid 3

Get up

Get up 

Get up 

Dog

Get down

No walk 

Not yet

Toast

Toast

Toast

Toilet flushing

Teeth a'brushing

Socks?

Pants?

Hurry 

Hurry

Hurry

Bag 1

Bag 2 

Bag 3

Go

Go

Go

Love 

Door slam

Door slam

Door slam

You

RULES IS RULES

 Tuesday. The better-looking twin of Monday.  The gauze of early morning is being tugged at by elfin birdsong. The angry scooter down the road pipes up as if someone's tossed screams into a choir. It's chased away by the silence 6am demands in our street. 

Rules is rules.

STARLIGHT

We're made of stardust and slight regret
forged within explosive acts
Atoms scattered 'cross whole milky ways
billions of years ago

Yet more than the stars
Much more than the matter
We are the moment
We are the now

We are dust again too soon

This is our firmament

HEAD SCRATCHER

It's true that we can look up into the night sky and see starlight from millions of years ago, only now reaching us from the long, cold journey through space and time. It's also true that a lot of these stars may have already ended their existence, blowing apart in massive supernova events, scattering their stardust over the galaxies. We are made from stardust. The very atoms that are our basic building blocks were forged in such events. It is therefore safe to assume that when we turn our heads to the heavens, look upon images of long-dead stars still shining brightly in the sky, we could simultaneously be looking at parts of ourselves that are now down here on Earth looking starward. It's quite the head-scratcher.

B/W LOVE

 

There is a memory

of colour at this time

of day

A kitchen sink realism 

of a Saturday night and

Sunday morning

My room at the top

is an L shaped room

This is my street

My family way

I have a place to go

A kind of loving

The homeliness of 

the long distance poet.

INFINITE VISION

See the universe in your eyes
Infinite pools of reflection
Gaze to the heavens
Gaze to the skies
There you will find the connection.

SHORE LEAVE

We walk along the tidal ties of time
Leaving rippled footprints in our wake
It's not for us the swelling surf to climb
On peaceful shores our memories we make.

POSSIBILITIES

There's a tiny shaft of light
You can hardly call it that
Peeking in my room
Yet lying still and flat

Contained within this light
In this miniature sun-ray
Are endless possibilities
For the greatest day.

CHAMPION

In heady, heady, days of yore
of Champion The Wonder Horse
I'd run to school and run right back
gallop cross my fields & track
the swiftest arrows,now quite slow
have lost their whizz, lost their bow
the only streak of flashing light
is me at midnight's prostate flight!

MORNING HAIKU - Fun For Old Rope

Where the child goes home
When they have long skipped the day
Fun waits patiently

SQUATTERS WRITE

I live with Anxiety and Depression.

They squat with me.

They know their rights.

Anxiety has a thousand ideas for home improvement.

              all at once 

        at the same time 

simultaneously     

              together

   concurrently

Not concurrently.

That's not at the same time. 

Or is it?

Damn.

Start again. 

                 from the start

    of course from the start

       where else can you start

     if you didn't 

                start at the start

     it wouldn't be called 

the start

Start again

It's not Anxiety's house. 

It squats with me.

It knows its rights

Depression hates every single one of these ideas

They're not outstanding 

They're not superb 

They're not terrific 

They're not unsurpassed 

They're not transcending 

They're not matchless

They're as fucking stupid as you are

Which is ordinarily stupid

No

Just ordinary

Now that’s depressing

It's not Depression’s house.

It squats with me it knows its rights.

Black mold on the walls

Black holes on the soul

That’s better. 

I should let Anxiety know that one

Though he’d only worry about black holes

Sucking out all the light 

Spewing forth darkness

Chewing up universes

One atom at a time

And what a time to be alive

If time had any meaning 

We hang watches from our wrists 

We hang clocks on the wall

We hang our heads in shame

We’re time lords

And ladies and gentlemen

Welcome to the beginning of time

Which probably started with a black hole

Having crushed another universe into oblivion

Vomits it forth into ours

Screaming and crying

A reincarnated newborn

With no one to slap its arse and tell it to breathe

But it does

The immaculate conception

Born of a crushed universe

And?

And probably God

Why not?

It’s as safe a place to start as any

And there is nowhere to start

At the beginning of time

Or nowhen 

Now then

Anxiety and Depression

They know their rights

They squat in me

Astride my hopes and with my fears

But I’ve grown attached to them 

They told me to say that

Stockholm Syndromes

The pair of them

They know their rights

And I know i’m right

And I know they know their rights

And they know I know I’m right

It’s all very cosy inside my brain

Or whatever part of me makes me 

Me

I think it’s my brain

But many years ago

At one time or another

It was my dick

My liver

My sweet left foot

And my blue blue eyes

Both of them you see

I needed both to see

I needed all of that to be me

Squatters rights

Squatters write on the walls

And on the toilet doors

And on the threadbare floors

And when they’ve written 

On every blank space 

They ruminate in rooms

And hate and wait

And often late

Though mark the date

And mark my words

There’s blank space yet 

Between the words

Because there’s the place

The blank space

We’ve yet to use

A whole universe awaits

Between the walls

Inside the cracks

Or maybe just maybe

That’s where the Black Holes live

Waiting to suck out the life and light

From those that dare

To fall between the words and the cracks

Now that they start to appear in my thinking

I wish i was still drinking

I’d remember it in the morning through groans

And moans and recriminations

A rainbow elation

When a rediscovered memory 

Becomes the pot of gold

It never gets old

Because time as I’ve said

Only exists because of the watches

And clocks 

And timetables

Which is where time is eaten

And washing up is done after a timely meal 

Or a tiny meal

And a Happy Meal comes with a toy

If you throw away the toy 

You can play with the packaging

And it’s damaging to

The environment

Which is wasteful 

Who needs the N in environment

What a waste

Ian Dury 

Goodnight.

Stephen Kerr 25.03.19

MORNING HAIKU

The first light appears,
Reveals all the blue colours
Before deciding

WINTERFOOD

Let leaves fall in confettis of autumn
as we marry the sights
of a land bronzed by fields
of harvested crops
under retreating sun
along juice-stained lanes
to giggles of children
and crumbling pie
in the blink of an eye
our golden memories
are safely gathered in

WINS A LOT

A full moon
A plaintive sky
A restless dog

The laziest hobo
wanders room to room
in fitful rounds of sleep

His new food
this silent protest

It won't change the world
but I'll change it back

I tell him
He snores

He dreams of victory
and his next campaign.

NO RETURNS?

Time

Bottle it if you can

Place it on a shelf

Call them memories

Take down when required.

FACE

The cliff fakes indelible marks
we are but fragments of the edifice
within snaps of generations trapped in cracks
cut through by tide and time
we know our sell by date
we live with crumbling permanence
yet somehow beauty endures
and we smile at, or for, the ages.

LEFT UNSAID

Behind the bins
And washing up
Smells from rooms
And broken cups

To time we've missed
Giving lifts
To kids with lives
In different shifts

To baggy clothes
We wear with shame
To PPI
We've tried to claim

To beaches lost
Cos we've been sick
From childhood illness
We thought kicked

To walking dogs
In pouring rain
To split poo bags
And mud parades

I love you

I don't say that much
But a hard, hard world
Needs your soft touch

(Stephen and Andrea Kerr. Still together since '97)

LOOK

My terraced street's cramped
I can't see the horizon
Squashed-together houses
Well, it's hardly surprising

Birds on chimney tops
They're all looking down
Waiting for a breakfast
To crawl up from the ground

If I am being reflective
We long for the others perspective.

DREAMTIME

Time skulks in a corner

banished from dreams
where seconds and hours
dine at the same table
(the bill is
of course
equitably
split)
Here I set the clock
born of my own rhythm
Skittish Summer Time

Time waits for this man
and creeps to feast
from the end of dreams

SMITTEN

There's a tiny, tiny space
that's between here and then
where we have managed to fit in

In this tiny, tiny space
balanced on the light
we are here and we are smitten

We ride this tiny, tiny space
this secret space of ours
here we find the future's unwritten.

TUMBLE-DRYER WORLD

I've woken to a tumble-dryer world.Fallen leaves, reanimated, dance zombie jitterbugs in gardens. Old TV aerials vibrate, as if channeling old TV. Treetops cheerlead with green pom-poms. Birds are not yet gone with the wind, but the way those aerials are vibrating...

LOCKDOWN HAIR

Haircuts at home with ten quid clippers
looks like me but as a nipper
dragged to barbers by my dad
"Just skin the lot, now sit still lad"
I don't mind this new arrangement
mainly cos I avoid payment
I'll miss one thing when all this stops
My wife gives me a lollipop.

DAD

My dad has laid a million bricks
then a million more
he started when he was 15
now he's 74
he shows no signs of stopping
as he adds homes to my town
I struggle over syllables
he's bending over ground.

The one thing I am grateful for
That he's still here to lift me more

SCHOOL DAY CRUSH - A FOND REMEMBRANCE

I tried to sniff your hair years back
When you passed me by
But sniff turned sneeze and I just hacked
A greenie on your tie

FLAG SHAGGER

We're safe and healthy
and that counts for wealthy
and refugees ask for the same

But who will divide us
it's those who's beside us
with silly, shit flags in their names.

LAYERS

When the memory of our memory
no longer has the light
and there's shadows falling
onto grains of sand

eternal whispers call our names
we're rocks and streets and hills
we're trees and earth
we're layers of this land.

WAKING IN THE DARK

I wake to find night's taken even more of morning's duvet. Darkness. I imagine I'm in bed. It's the last place I went. I imagine I'm still in my house. Haven't moved in years. I imagine the street's not gone. Where would it park around here?
I turn on a light.
Phew! Still here.

CARRIED ON THE WIND

When the wind picks up speed
and takes my breath away

I want it to find you
and I want you to know

That from my lips to yours
Is but a single breeze

That from my mind to yours
Is but a single thought

That from my heart to yours
Is but a single beat.

BETWIXT AND BETWEEN SNACKS

I wake betwixt the midst
of the mix of first light

And the vapourising
vanishing last dreams

I like 'Betwixt' that's good
but where did that come from?

My cheek from where
I peel old snacks it seems.

IMPRESSIONS

Memories moulded into shapes
Ghostly impressions of what's been before
Here be walkers
Tread softly
Because you tread on my strolls.

(apologies to Yeats)

FOG

It's foggy this morning
As if this early
needs any help
in being fuzzy.
Chimney tops float in the air.
Birds fly in and out
of nothing
and back again.
I stand at the top of my hill
as if I'm on Stars in Your Eyes.
Today Matthew
I'm going to be me
(or as close as I can be)

STANDBY FOR TODAY

The TV standby light
shines faintly in the dark

If I don't turn it on
will all the world stay back?

Could I be King Canute
to all the daily news?

Denier of the soaps
terrestrial TV tides?

I'll never know
as I relent
and let the world pour in

Stand by...

STOKING TIME

Yesterday has been consumed
memories are but embers
light the fire and stoke Today
that Tomorrow shall remember.

SIX DEGREES OF DECORATION

I remember flocked wallpaper in our old house
Hideous purple on gold
Between chimney breasts
By the music centre
By the Simon & Garfunkel records
(Sound of Silence was dad's favourite)
And though he loved mum loads
That's why we had flocked wallpaper.

NONSENSE VERSE - 2020

A family of Syrians went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat
They were left with no money
Traffickers are scummy
Humanity barely afloat.

CHILDSHEAD REVISITED

My childhood home's up for sale. I drove by it yesterday, 37 years after we left. I went to the agents website for pics.
My posters are still on my wall. Dad's workboots are by the back door. All the parties we ever had are still happening all at once.

That's what I saw.

KNOW YOUR TRIANGLES

Isosceles
If you please
Has two degrees
The same you sees

Equilateral
No collateral
Degrees compatible
Nowt unnatural

Scalene
Angles seen
All contravene
Each other's lean

Right Angle
Dangles
90 degrees
It's such a breeze
Now learn all these.

MORSE CODE AND X-RAY SPECS

Learned Morse Code from a booklet in The Topper comic. Spent hours practicing. Was going to be a spy. The problem was, no one else knew Morse Code! My hopes were dotted & dashed.
Their X-Ray specs were no better. Blurry messes, not naked ladies!

Had The Topper seen through me?

1976

I'm reminded of the summer of '76 on days like this. Bare legs burned by vinyl car seats. Mum packing sandwiches in Tupperware for car trips & finding the heat's cooked them. Standpipes, freedom & never knowing we had nothing.
I still run towards the sound of an ice cream van.

BAGS FOR LIFE

Our teabags look like pyramids
I've no idea why
We are a Lidl limited
It's all my mummy will buy

BUS DRIVING PRICES

The 19 used to go to town
It cost me all of 2p
The same, I recall
As a packet of Snaps
And I know that this ages me

I recently caught a bus into town
The first for many a year
The trip was a pound
One-way, not around
For that I thought least I could steer

Zzz

Awake before senses & sound
to snores from my old faithful hound
and the fan as it whirrs
and the house as it stirs
and my creaky knees
and the odd nighttime sneeze
and that hound's quite smelly
with his rumbling belly

Somehow I slept so tight
despite such a silent night

QUESTIONS FOR SLUGS

Are you homeless snails?
Why do you cling to the inside of my back door?
What original sin has cast you out of the garden?
How do you get in?
Have you tiny keys?
Are you thinking of shelling out?
Making my house your home?

You'll need a bigger back.

I'VE NO IDEA

Today I've run out of ideas
It's a no poem day for me
Normally write one with my breakfast
I'll have to write one for my tea.

SILVER LININGS

Echoes of love and cebration
must fall from our ears
In some tiny quantum-level of existence
Those sounds and vibrations
Of our birthdays and weddings
still exist
Many years from now
A geek will discover them
Be greatly lauded
But stumped by Hi Ho Silver Lining.

DIG

A dinosaur & a unicorn were arguing one day
Thought the other fake because it weren't seen down our way
"I'm real cos I'm in the ground
for all the kids to find!"
"Yeah but I'm forever trotting in a kiddies mind!"

The moral of this altercarion?
Dig dinosaurs & imagination.

TIMING SLEEP

I'm waking up earlier and earlier
It's making me surlier and surlier
I'm well on the way
Back to yesterday
Where there's me
The insomniac journeyer.

SUMMER SENSES

The distant hum and whirring
of a strimmer in the sun
A garden chair scrapes patio stone
turned to the best of day
A glass takes light through fruit-coloured drink and scatters tiny rainbows
Childrens voices climb up and down fences
I welcome the tinkle of summer.

THE MIGHTY TREE

We can't hear the tree breathe
We can't see a leaf feed
We can't tell it traps time in its core
We saplings, we planted
We just take for granted
There'll always be rings to explore.

FORCED RHYME IN ANCIENT GREECE

Oh Icarus, Oh Icarus
In those waxed wings
You look ridicarus

Oh Icarus, Oh Icarus
We laughed so hard
You must be sick of us

PLUMMET

As a tiny child
in my back garden
I climbed a plum tree
where I got stuck

I shouted for dad
and he appeared
"Jump" he said
"I'll catch you"

I did and he did
I was flying through air
Never before had
I felt so scared

I landed in big arms

Now I could climb anything.

CARRY ON CLEO

I wake wrapped in the duvet
My wife & I lay there
Before & after silk worms
I'm an Egyptian mummy in a summer tog
I quietly roll out of bed
Unfurl myself on the floor
Cleopatra-in-a-rug
I toddle off to make coffee
Semi-skimmed
No asses milk
Pharaoh nuff.

THE PLURAL OF ABACUS

Abaci is right
Abacuses, too
You're thinking, can it be?
Count on me it's true.

PULP FICTION

More and more
recycled paper
recycled paper
is now being used.

The newspaper you read
or the book you devour
have been through many lifetimes
since it swayed in the sun
and fought the breeze
and welcomed the rain.

Season upon season
Held briefly in your hands.

ECHOES OF TIME

Time
Strangest beast in the universe
Splits in half
And half again
And half again

Time
Strangest beast in the universe
Doubles in size
And doubles again
And doubles again

Never-ending echoes
In which we live our lives

BLEARY-EYED DEFINITIONS

Monologue - the world's smallest timber yard
Museum - looking at what a cow says
Upstairs - happy steps
Recycled - a lap of honour in a velodrome
Rectangular - a ruined geometry experiment
Behind - the business end of honey

MUSICAL FEAST

If I ate music then I wouldn't waver
I'd start the feast off with a packet of quavers
I'd think for a minute, food for the soul
Then I'd eat my share of old rock & rolls
I'd finish the meal with a refreshing soda
What else at the end but a cold can of coda?🎶

PAW

As brickies that reach the ascent
Of a chimney-pot part of a build
We'd sign our names in cement
A tradition to show off our skills

One day we thought of a new twist
And left some fake paw prints up there
Poor future archaeologists
Will think once all dogs flew in the air

NINA

Nina Simone & I make coffee. My headphones keep the High Priestess Of Soul from waking a sleeping house. Sunday chooses a grey filter. A jazz filter. Smoky with spots of colour poking through. Birds improvise in syncopated time. They, coffee, & Miss Simone have put a spell on me.

UP

93 million miles from a sun
We zoom 'round this shining star
Gravity comes from a force that is spun
The ground & us never go far
What will go up will always come down
Newton's 3rd Law says it's true
I'll tell me wife, it may stop a frown
If it's used on the seat in our loo

WALK OF SHAME

I have walked home with the dawn and a girl
But not for many a year

I still see the dawn and its beauty unfurl
But just me and my prostate are here.

DON'T READ ALL ABOUT IT!

A stink of ink and vinegar
seeps right through the paper
Yesterday's news is that
tonight's dinner is served
Battered bits on page 3
Headlines of halibut
All sea life is there
When did newspapers stop
in the chip shop?
I don't remember reading about it.