Read and leave comments (4)

I rarely do preamble but feel the need here.  

Our poetry night moved venue a month back, and in so doing we moved to a function room that the pub owners had named and decorated as 'the spectacle'.  

So what I hear you ask?

I wanted to write something with that title in mind.  In so doing I came up wth the idea of a poet in the audience - as yet unheard, becoming the greatest perfor...

Read and leave comments (4)

The unions are dead,
carcasses of a once great
movement - now mute.

Great bones of industry fractured,
the post war dream was
butchered.  Left hanging
by the lady not for turning.

Time - time turned iron to rust
the common man’s
dreams like coal to dust.

Things can only get better!
So ‘New labour’ said.

But her bruise remains,

and all their blood has bled to blue
and i...

Read and leave comments (9)

Think TANK!

Our progressive think tank recommends
a back to work welfare solution.  Disability offends
us all with it’s idea of reliance, so what we need now
is a soft pastel re-focus on aspiration. 

You should appreciate our reclassification,
the monetary cut-back to your benefit
shows how well you actually are.

You simply wore the wrong tag;
were impoveris...

Read and leave comments (7)

Read and leave comments (1)

Life

In deed and indecision
with words or their omission,
by strategy or compulsion
In inertia or revolution.

To reach the moon, to sail the seas
to conquer lands, plant hopeful seeds.

In baking bread in breaking bread,
in building up with worn out tools
the loaded language of imperialist fools,

for all you are, and all you’re not
with cross to bare
o...

Read and leave comments (6)

ABC  

An after dark refuge for the boredom

of wild lads, that would otherwise turn bad.

Hitting the pads they came to understand routine

know what discipline means, when told to break.

Rocky music raised the pulse here,

as boxers, not dead-beats skipped to the beat

of aspirations.

Hard work, bumps and bruises

came their way; a little blood ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Read and leave comments (3)

The seasonal grind

through the gears

the autumn now

of working fears.

But what to do

when pension nears

as money’s tight

and mortgage rears?

The posties wife

she knew his mind

twenty years posting time;

but the wheels were falling off.

He chased the debts

with gambling ways

and soon she learnt 

that better days;

w...

Read and leave comments (5)