Those rich metaphors drawn from the sky and sea;
rich funereal language, baptism and burial and birth,
blossom and harvest, wise ones, witan’s children.
From the lips of children we must learn that clinging
to life is not enough.

Smoke over Mosul. Mosul’s churches where once
the Jacobite heart of Christian belief was celebrated
amongst the ruins of Nineveh, along the same back paths
...

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Seventy eight cents accelerated into a slapped palm
A nod between us to prepare this nickle dime handoff
Passenger in this body behind a wheel
Slave to yellow white blurs on blacktop
Can't stop thinking I should drive up all the roads I drove down,
Manic around town, sporting a frown
Like a clown with mismatched shoes
Filling blank space with blues and booze
No cruise control to pull me do...

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A Pilgrim's Life

 

She had reached the age of ninety nine 

I do believe that she knew it was her time

A life well lived dutiful and true

Through years of war and peace she had come through

Her life had been exemplary in so many ways

And now to the beach of life she joined those final waves

 

From a life of intense activity and care

She had reached the final heavenly s...

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Daffodils are coming up 
gifting us a glimpse of their floral delight 
Little yellow beacons dancing in the wind
bringing us this hopeful sight

The bright, sunshine yellow flower 
gives us the feels that spring is almost here
The promise of warmer and brighter days 
delivers some much needed cheer 

Photo credit Dr Amir Khan
 

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The jingle jangle jailer

had some jingle jangle keys

Some of them were so big

They dangled right down to his knees

 

But this jingle jangle jailer

He ran the strictest of cells

The inmates drove him crazy

Especially with the smells

 

When the Jingle Jangle Jailer

tried to clean the cells out

They’d rattle the bars on their doors

curse, scream and shout

 

...

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The haunting of a broken tap: drip, drop

The thirst after the sun: drink, gulp

She never said a lot, gargling girl

Sliding in and out of my body

Helping me breathe, walk, talk

That was why I swam

It was water

Brought me alive floating out to No Man’s

Diving down to skim the sand

It was water

Wanted it, always had it, but could never catch it.

It was water

Insipi...

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I'm just a human 

Haven't any supernatural powers within 

But i do sense events even before they happen 

Which may cause me anxiety or makes me happy 

 

May God be with you always 

Choices you make, decisions you take 

I can just pray and hope for things to go in a good way 

My anxities are my problems to deal with 

So i keep quiet and won't ever bother you 

 

I ho...

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The invisible truth and

The voiceless words

Both are pertinent …still today

 

There was no escape route

Nor there will be one any day

Still I’m with your memories

 

Maybe not so memorable

Like the penned down words

Of the love poems

 

Or like the melancholic lovers

With the old photographs

Torn, yet not faded out completely

 

Mine was not so with...

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you scream at me,

for my anxiety.

as if i don’t already know it’s a burden,

if i could turn off my head i would.

all this noise is suffocating.

- b. jordan 

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Let your inner flames burst

Show the world your hunger and thirst

For the passions you have hidden

Let it release from your mind’s prison

No need to be shy or step back

Keep moving forward because you are on the right track

Forget your past and let your mistakes stay behind

Dive into the beautiful world and see what you can find

Life is too short to just sit back and relax

...

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Discipline guides a child like a steering wheel guides a car,

When a child does not adhere to your rules ,he or she can only go so far.

The word discipline can mean to guide or teach,

A moral training to provide good goals to reach.

 

In recent decades discipline has become more rare,

Always commend children for their obedience and care.

A deliberate disobedience a child must ...

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there is a wanting so dreadful within me. 

and god put it there he sent me here to be hungry and alone,

with blood dripping from my mouth the mouth of babes. 

if i meet him and he smiles i swear i'll make him cry the way i do.  

i have love. I HAVE LOVE.

i have it to give, in buckets, in pails,

theyre so full of love i could hardly fill them with sand.

but where do i put them ...

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The sharp edges of my broken self have cut you deep.
I know this, but know this... 

Our blood mixes on the floor as we both
slowly die from the same cuts.

Cuts can heal and the blood flow be the
warmth of love and wholeness. 
Isn't that the ultimate goal?
Someone to bleed with,
someone to heal with?
The knowing that the cracks have been
tested and sealed!
Tighter than new, stronger ...

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Of course it's shocking.  These weren't holiday camps.

 

In the beginning it was so simple, all so easy.  Then it amazed him that she would fuck for a small piece of bread and cheese.

For her, she did what she had to do.  What guilt she had was not for prostituting herself but because she did not share with the other women, whom she saw becoming walking skeletons over a matter of weeks.

...

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For the first few days
after they let me out
it was backwards 
and forwards
in-between the hospital and home,

then expanding to include 
the doctors at my local practice 
then back to the hospital
and the doctors 
the day after that

saying the same thing
to me over and over 
without even looking
at their computer screens
‘It’s still too high
we want you to introduce
the strengt...

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Can you dance Mr. Bear?
Yes, when I find some honey in a tree,
or wherever I discover it

My button eyes
and felt covered nose
are more keen
than they may seem.

Is it sweet like me,
this honey, Mr. Bear?
Yes, and I would always share it with you.
I really don't mind.

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The Monsters inside me 

Scream, Cry, Hide 

As if I'll never servive

Deep in my thoughts

I want to 

Scream, cry, hide

I hate it here

Traped in a cage 

That no one believes is a cage

But that is just the problem 

Because 

I scream

I cry 

I've asked for help

But now i'll just hide

I'll just keep in my head

One more year and I'll be fine

And be able t...

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I work best with lots of pillows

of time

softening the pace of my day,

tortoise not hare,

slow lane works best for me,

so when you see that slow- walking lady

try not to honk too much at her,

she'll get out of your way

in due course,

fast or slow

we all arrive at the finish--

eventually.

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Through fifty years tight buds would swell
Down fifty years sweet blossoms fell.
Tears enough shall balance humour
let poetry narrate disaster.

Quite dead, to our lawn, the bird fell. 
Put in each heart a myth to retell.
As if each one a feather took
and privately pressed it in a book.

Of this each one now stands accused:
secret keeping and hidden views.
For fifty years are felt...

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everything moves 

towards freedom 

 

everything 

demands release 

 

entropy as beauty 

beauty as a way of being

 

slugs 

and mushrooms

 

artists

as we take off our pants

 

 

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Listen close between the

horns and percussion

of the churning traffic

 

you'll hear the sunlight 

creaking 

across the floorboards

of an attic room

 

the one where a fly 

keeps buzzing In and out

as if looking for something

he left behind.

 

Someone is waking now

and reaching out

in an otherwise empty bed

 

while in the balcony below

the wid...

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~ imPRESSions ~

 

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The Industry of Hate ‘Gone’ Away

 

     I wish for a cappella music to accompany

a teal green sea,

   an azure horizon and golden dusk,

 

     I hope for a family strong

in tolerance yet feint of rewards,

   rewards that understands more than

fair share of brutal has befallen they.

 

     My goal is a personal homage

to perhaps an ancient Greek, a Hypocrates

...

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Illusion, is where we all are

An illusory world, with illusory mirrors

Reflecting illusory walls.

Beaches of milk

Seas of coal,

Sky of  fire

Just an illusion

Look through the fog

Peer into the mist

Fleeting shadows inhabit these realms but they’re an illusion

Is the past an illusion ?

Time gone before that was rushed through unseen

Gone in an illusionary blur

...

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There is no such thing as a river wide enough

to keep me from reaching you.

If there is no boat available,

I'll simply swim the whole distance for you.

Even if I get swept away by the current,

I will make sure my body reaches you at least.

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A harrowing gale, tortures the moors.
For me, no welcome of open doors.
A relentless storm, with no remorse.
Has blown my life totally of its course.

I try to find my bearings, find my feet.
Somebody to help me, I need to meet.
The cruel elements are not on my side.
I look for shelter, a safe place to hide.

In the distance, a lone light, I can see.
If peers through the gloom...calling...

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He fills no space now in my quiet room.

Silence. A silence that I fill with ancient guilt,

my words morphing into pain, yet edited

away from anger, leaving a cold darkness

bereft of his voice, leaving a blind sorrow

censored of healing hope: a quietude.  

Outside, the sun is blown against the glass

as it would lighten spirits, yet

its gentling warmth cannot thaw

the chil...

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Pictures are simply moments frozen in time!
They make it possible for us to travel through time. 

Our own personal time machine but we can only catch a glimpse of the past, they have no way of telling us what the future may hold.

Relics of time and space, intergalactic instruments if you will, propelling us from one reality to the next. I wonder what stories all these pictures would tell, i...

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I remember running 

To the corner shop

A 10p mix-up 

Is what I got!

 

Exotic pineapple

In sugary cubes

Mixed in with 1p

and ½ penny chews!

 

There were Hearts of love

With messages wrote 

To give to those

Who floated your boat

 

Liquorice laces!

Hubba Bubba too

So you could blow pink bubbles

As big as me and you!

(OK, so that might be 

a ...

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Something tells you that whatever you do

is not quite good enough

but not good enough for who?

Ask yourself if you dare but have a care

the answer may come back to haunt

a way ahead may be closed to you. 

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CHANGING TRACKS                                                           96

Must I change now the track I took,

so many years gone, step aside to let the

pack lurch on, sweet health oozing from

every pore, always pushing, being pushed,

asking more of every pliant limb, every

pumping cell? I can tell it is the time, I

hear the bell and a number that I somehow

know is mine...

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For Peter Robinson

 

I was listening to Dylan’s Time Out of Mind,

his late renewal after wasted years

– all simmer and wry despair –

to find that maybe he was rated again.

The voice was a wreck on a burnished track;

the songs a palimpsest of antique blues.

 

In the end the words will come

if they have to, like music that’s ghosted

by echoes stored in a phonogra...

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It's okay son

Daddy's drunk again

Do what I say not what I do 

Ders more banging and shouting in the house tonight

Ma has having a break down she doesn't know what to do 

More kids lost to the Monday club 

No money for extras

No way of redoing the truma

Oh one more he shuts

But at what cost

It's an on going circle 

It's an on going pain that's clear to see 

Oh i...

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The risk is there's nothing left but hate,

Or loathing and calls for revenge.

Should we prevail, one understands;

In battle, feelings are stripped down,

Until all that remains is raw,

Sensitive to the lightest touch

And far too easily provoked.

It’s simple, from many miles away,

To preach reconciliation

And call for offering of hands.

Less straightforward if family

...

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The wind chimes of serendipity

lead to a trail of runes

that neither assert, nor prove

the answer of answers, or

the plan of a demiurge, 

but gently illumine

the mooring of a morning, as 

silence silvers the leaves, 

a synaesthesia of

infinitesimal extremes, 

a simple agonizing bliss...

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Light seeps through cracked lashes.

The new day’s tide sweeps a winter beach,

debris left on rippled sand

forms a room of furniture

in a head weighed with questions.

 

Out of frozen vaults of memory,

a canvas dragged into the morning sun

thaws slowly, mixed colour through frost

leaching out in blurred patches

on old bones in a strange bed.

 

Who owns these sho...

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You gotta away, I’m in the dirt, thinking if this would be the end, pretending smiles and writing rhymes to forget who you are, I’m feeling ok since you woke up Eros from the grave.

Flirting eyes, shy hearts, I’ve always been the one in the back, watching others falling into wonderland, would you like to bring me back to the light? Im feeling ok seeing your flawless face every day.

September...

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I got the driving back to Malton,

On the endless A64 blues!

I can’t listen to the radio,

I don’t want to hear the news!

All the dire warnings

And all the tedious queues!

I got the driving back to Malton,

On the endless A64 blues!

 

Stuck behind some tractors,

And a mobile port-a-loo,

I’ve missed yet another meeting,

This is a right fine how-do-do! 

I got the ...

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I was not alive during World War two

Even dad was a mere lad in the blitz.

Living a stone's throw from Grimsby docks

Bombed nightly by 'The Luftwaffes Herr Fritz.'

 

I remember reading about the Yangtze incident,

In an old National Geographic edition

As well as the wars in Kenya and Korea

The horrors of the Indian Partition

 

Little more than just a toddler

Back in...

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I met my lowest moment and became one with the darkest parts of me.

I was fragile, weak, broken beyond repair.

Life was an annoyance and breathing was just a chore.

It felt as if I couldn’t fathom such pain any longer until I came face to face with skies of blue-

Once again a reminder that hope lives.

I do believe it to be found in the daring colors of the sunset, the subtle whisper...

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When spring arrives,
A group of flowers enjoy
Their countenance and
As the day grows older
They lose their incandescent looks.
If they could know the collapse
Before the begetting,
I hope they'd remain unborn.

A child was obsessed with
Playing her dolls,
Fortuitously a wooden wife
Fell on, mother said:
'The earth is dancing',
The child took it in a wrong way,
Her body was found
Af...

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I was once a dancing flame but I forgot how to dance so I mimicked others until one day... pft.

I am unable to see myself burning out untill I spit, clinging to the bitter end of the wick.

At first, I am a soldier, fighting because I know the end is coming.

At the end is a void. Nothing in it and nothing can fill it. Nothing matters.

DESPERATION. Pouring everything and anything into th...

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Once upon a time there was an adult and a child. They were a teacher and a pupil and for a while it was good. Then it was attacked and it ended with loose ends.

We're taught, and we know it, that the teacher pupil relationship can mean something. It's famous that it means something to the pupil, and it meant something to me. They all did, that group. The project was personal. 

I wanted to ta...

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The midget mind of an individual voices their opinions on what is seen, rubbing salt into the wounds of those with bound hands, little options, and misguided dreams..

Hateful words splice open rubber, and air sucks life into deep sea graves, criminalising the unknown and drowning, as water filled lungs sink beneath the waves.

White gleaming smiles, hide the rotten teeth, of no compassion and...

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I keep drowning
in the noise
Of
Others opinions
on how
To live my life
Their expectations
Only stress and scare me
If only I knew myself
Inside out
Through and through
If only I've finally become
Deaf and dumb
To this noise around
If only I can make
A decision
and swear on my integrity
That it's truly
Mine own
If only I stop
Striving to prove myself
to this world around......
...

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speech of a term is speech of a speech
speech is speech of a speech
speech is speech of america
america is a figure of speech
speech is a term of speech
speech is a term of america
america is a term of america

america is a beauty of a beautiful speech
beauty is beauty of a magnificent speech
beauty is beauty of a magnificent term of speech
a beautiful america is the beauty of america
...

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When Economics
has sex
with politics
and the Law
it spawns Asylums
in which
to lock up the poor
whether
dragged off to Jail
or
sent off to war
It's the
cell or the trench
for you that's
in store.

 

Verse & Photo by Tommy Carroll

 

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Armadillo…… Draught British Sherry

 

It pissed it down that bitter cold night

Rain bounced off the roofs with a din

Dad looked out the window forlornly….. and said

I think I’d best have a night in

 

It was rare for mi dad… not to go out

And he made our lives hell.. when he din’t

But it wasn’t the weather…. that made him stop in

It was more to the fact…… he was skint...

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You were supposed to be temporary.

A Mr. Right Now

But you were so persistent when I was so hesitant.

You opened your arms when I shied away.

So believe me when I say, that it hurt to be betrayed. 

You looked me in the eyes when you told your bold face lies. 

I wanted to believe you, I almost believed you, because deep down I didn't want to lose you. 

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In your burgundy Theodora dress

Pinned with diamond paste brooch in the shape of star

Crow haired and orb eyed and looking me down

Your haughty voice that last lick of grandeur

The drawstring bag of an escapee and all your poetry books

To drive through the night playing Huron

Here in this little settlement of trees and lanes

Our old caravan that we shall home yet

Embellish ...

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