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.