The Poet Laureate reads...........
The Poet Laureate reads his commemorative poem on the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Astronomical Society: BBC ‘Broadcasting House’ 12 January 2020
(Today 13 January, coincidentally the BBC reports the oldest matter from a meteorite 7 billion years in the making. It carries dust grains, ‘star dust’, formed before our worlds existed).
When I heard the lauded Laureate*
...
Thursday 16th January 2020 10:48 am
The Table
The table, says Sergio, used to be an altar
It was sacramental, where the body and blood was truly shared
It was a confessional where all was forgiven, the Prodigal welcomed
Where you came in need and left fulfilled
Where you met in communion, bitterness laid aside, differences suspended
Where strangers were welcomed
Where to have was celebrated and to have not was left at the do...
Saturday 14th May 2016 10:27 pm
Winebar in Worktown
Wine Bar in Worktown
I am sitting in the Worktown wine bar
Wondering if my wine is corked
Wondering whether to complain
Wondering if I can be bothered
Wondering why I can’t be bothered.
In other words just filling the afternoon
Wondering not doing.
The girl behind the counter busies herself.
She’s doing. She’s wiping tables, filling sugar bowls.
She’s re-arr...
Sunday 8th June 2014 10:02 am
Voices Off
Voices Off
Dry today and a powder blue sky
Liquid rays paint rubber plant shadows on the back wall
I ignore the “to do” list and read to John Coltrane
“You should be outside on day like this” voices my mother
“Got his nose stuck in a book again” mutters my father.
I could be sweeping up fallen leaves
Brushing the muddy path
Raking the moss
A fire perhaps to glorify a win...
Monday 30th December 2013 11:09 am
Go Jack Go!
I wrote this in 2007 commemorating 50 years since On the Road was published. Not my favourite JK book, that has to be The Subterraneans or Dharma Bums, but I've followed its journey into cinema with interest, and despite the indifferent reviews am trying to approach seeing it with an open mind. He was a flawed character. Not that hard to identify with.
Go Jack Go! (19 April 20...
Monday 15th October 2012 4:23 pm
Plum blossoms in snow
Plum blossoms in snow
Like a character from a Murakami story
Mr Nagata looks into the embers of his dying fire
And remembers.
Mr Nagata surveys the familiar images
And pulling the sack around his shoulders
Takes another sip of Ballantynes.
There is the girl who he tries to forget
Her black hair bobbed
Her white neck polished.
Mr Na...
Monday 28th March 2011 9:27 pm
Lines written in theTudor House on the 30th Anniversary of the death of John Lennon
Lines written in the Tudor House on the 30thAnniversary of the death of John Lennon
Hey Johnnie
You hook-nosed bastard
You made specs sexy
And played a mean Rickenbacker
Attention seeking nihilist
Gob shite scouser
Merciless poison-tongued delinquent
Hiding the quiet man inside
To my dad’s amazement
You grew up and flew away
Sharing your dreams
...Friday 10th December 2010 11:18 am
Today
Today
The Palace and the tax office are rent asunder
And the dogs and swine lord it over the corpses
And the officials are queuing for the first flight out
And the Palace and the Tax Office are rent asunder
Yeah verily the Palace and the Tax Office are rent asunder
And Papa Doc smiles from the beyond
And the undead rise and their places filled by the newl...
Friday 15th January 2010 5:38 pm
Having a shower after watching the news headlines
Having a shower after watching the News Headlines
It’s all about the 40th lime
And how I should rub my head with coconut butter
And every person wasting £400 of food a year
And other big headline claims
And I say
“Is that £400 of food from Aldi or from M&S?”
Who cares, it’s all cow pies to Desperate Dan
And it’s phosphorous bombs and child witches
And it’s Helmand Province and Hellman’...
Thursday 31st December 2009 2:02 pm
The Staff Room Celebrates
The Staff Room Celebrates
“Now I know you’ll want to go out
and join the celebrations, but remember Kylie,
It’s not clever being drunk.”
That’s it, thank God, let’s celebrate
And eat the pattied calf.
Let’s go to McDonalds after work
Then drink until the last spark
Of sobriety has been extinguished
And the world goes dark.
Oh we’ll need no excuses.
It’s the festive season, we’ve ...
Friday 18th December 2009 9:05 am
John Jelly Tribute
John Jelly 1958-2004
Like many people I probably became conscious of John Jelly through his sheer consistency, perseverance and reliability. Walk through Newport Street Passage any weekday between 11am and 1pm and he would be there. It was his pitch. Sensibly placed under cover and strategically located between the Town Hall Square and Ashburner Street market. Always dressed in the same, dark ...
Monday 7th September 2009 1:30 pm
Big Chill August 2009
The Big Chill : all the right sounds but not necessarily in the right order
House
Garage
Punk
Funk
Dub
Rap
Beat-box
Drum ‘n’ bass
Jazz beats
Rare groove
Funked up
Multi phonic
Techno
Indie-pop
Soul
Electronic
Roots
Fusion
Hip hop
art pop
Funk laden
Rave
Deep funk
Grime
Kinetic
Electro
Lo fi
Disco
Doom metal
Baile funk
Downbeat
Acid house
Junglist
Ba...
Wednesday 26th August 2009 3:45 pm
If...........
If (....hardly original but eh!)
With due acknowledgement to Darren Thomas who would probably prefer to disown it.
If pigs get swine flu
Do sailors get brine flu
Do egotists get mine flu
Do cokeheads get line flu
If Geordies get Tyne flu
Do librarians get fine flu
Do policemen get crime flu
And binmen get grime flu
If tangents get sine flu
Do dusters get shine flu
Do lemons get ...
Monday 10th August 2009 12:20 pm
Give Generously
Poets in Need
(in partnership with the Campaign for Real Poetry and Poet Relief)
“Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be laughed at and ridiculed. Difficult eh? Not nice. But how much worse to be ignored and unrecognised?”
While you’re sitting there wallowing in the self-satisfaction that comes from not giving a toss what people think about you, mired to the armpits in TV soa...
Tuesday 28th July 2009 12:23 am
Little Roy
Little Roy
Little Roy, he’s a bit of a boy
And a lot more than a cuddly toy
He can sink more chips than Helen of Troy
And he’s got more sauce than a bottle of soy.
He’s got a brother called Kev, and a mother called Stella
Which helps explain why he’s a happy fella
He’s got more balls than a fortune teller
And more cards up his sleeve than Yuri Geller.
He’s a party gnome,...
Sunday 26th July 2009 4:18 pm
Ten Years After
This is one of my oldest extant poems kindly published by John Hall in the first edition of Citizen 32.
Ten Years After (1979)
I am bobbing in a tiny boat upon a velvet ocean
Above me the moon smiles down
I now know there is no moon rabbit
And they know it is not made of cheese.
It is merely rock and dust, lit by the sun’s aura
Its smile merely craters ranged across its surface
T...
Thursday 16th July 2009 10:25 am
20 July 1969
20 July 1969 One small step
We are watching the grainy monochrome images on TV in company with half the world, but at 12.30 I leave to walk under a moonlit sky down St Helen’s Road and into the depot. She does not like me working nights, nor spending my days at the beach while she types for eight hours shipwrecked in a babble of unfamiliar tongues. I’m striding and staring upwards in ...
Thursday 16th July 2009 10:22 am
Guru
Guru
He is wise, his eyes have seen it all
You cannot grasp the breadth
Of his understanding.
He is profound
Deep down his wisdom
Spans the aeons.
He is a master, He is a sage.
He is deep, but he is not impenetrable.
He will peel himself back
Sheet after sheet.
He is translucent
Each skin a statement.
You can see and smell and taste
Each layer, like a luscious onion.
...
Saturday 4th July 2009 12:29 pm
as if by magic...
as if by magic.....
One, easing the poetry bus down Radcliffe Road, approaching the bridge that spans the mighty Tonge.
Two, its last journey, all decisions made, Metro Salvage assure me they pay “top prices”.
Three, Joe, six, chunnering in the seat behind, goofing about school.
Four, BANG!
Five, brown blur slaps windscreen, disappears as brakes slam.
Six, simultaneous thoughts, (is that...
Sunday 21st June 2009 5:58 pm
The Writing Class
The Writing Class
In the writing class we capture memories
Corralled and hobbled like prairie mustangs
We pen them in according to their colour, age and size
Taming them to break their spirits
Forcing them to learn new tricks.
They become our servants docile and less feisty
Hooves shod and harness polished
But deep down we know they will be always wild at heart
They will never truly be...
Monday 17th November 2008 12:11 am
Confucian Chronicles
The house style is imperial, conservative in dress and etiquette,
Vestments and head wear are de rigeur.
Superiors are approached with bowed heads
And addressed as Sir,Your Worship, Mrs or Madam,
Depending on their place in the hierarchy.
The peasants and minor clerks, have long known their place.
Patronage is too generous to jeopardise through flippant challenge...
Monday 25th August 2008 5:25 pm
Hovis in Wonderland : Latitude Festival 2008
OK this is all very late and dulled by the passage of time and the fact that I took neither a notebook or camera with me. Crime of crimes I treated Latitude like a holiday rather than a marketing opportunity. Will I ever learn? It has taken me two weeks to recover from the excesses, the lack of sleep, the sanitation and the poetry saturation.
Before I dredge thr...
Friday 1st August 2008 1:40 pm
Dropping the Mask
Dropping the Mask
Dead Good Poets Society Wed 15 April 2008
The performances of Rosie Lugosi and Chloe Poems have generally left me feeling in much the same way as young children often feel about circus clowns. Well not quite hysterical jibbering terror, but a sense of wondering if there’s a victim involved in this edgy cabaret and could it be me. Cruel intelligence and a mask coupled with mate...
Thursday 17th April 2008 12:11 pm
The Long Good Friday
THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY February Blog 2008
All night long the wind’s been whipping the tiles, and I’ve set my new super duper DAB alarm for six thirty but I can’t get to sleep and it’s already turned two. Somewhere in the ether is a heavenly choir which forces me to twice check to see if I mistuned the sleep function, aagh the horrors of technology. Then I get it, about three thirty by now, quite...
Tuesday 5th February 2008 1:18 am
Remembrance Sunday
Yesterday being Remembrance Day
I made a point of remembering
And joined several hundred other rememberers
On the Town Hall Square
Where I bumped into Alec Simister
Who I hadn't seen for ten years
Now there's a man who could wear a bowler hat and rolled umbrella
As well as any city banker, retired guards officer
Or Orange Lodge member
His high cheek bones and straight black hair suggest he ...Sunday 18th November 2007 8:41 pm
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