Cogs
For too long unheeded, it’s time
to note their virtues: the way
they grip and take the strain;
their down-to-earth precision.
Gearing up doggedly, with only
occasional jolts and judders,
the odd involuntary moan,
they are truly fit for purpose,
when there’s work to do.
Tight-lipped and stubborn,
their staying power outlasts
newfangled knowingness,
...Thursday 6th October 2022 12:00 pm
Martial Music
It’s always grounded in the two-four beat
of boot soles tramping across a field,
the plod of units across terrain
a general stakes his name on.
Holding the line, the kettle pounds
its rhythms of mutual fear. Embellished
with fifes, the snares are brash,
their prattle false as speeches
on recruitment day. Add some chimes
and majorettes, high-stepping,
winso...
Saturday 30th April 2022 7:19 pm
Gold
Its lack of reaction has made it unique,
that and the way it can magnetize fools:
forty-niners, Midas, the futures mob –
so gung-ho, yet always dazzled by it,
like urchins dreaming of gilded pavements.
Locked in a vault, it validates paper.
It's what the rich cling to when the bubble
bursts, smiling at the rest of us, our mouths
agape, who wonder why what's left
...Wednesday 27th April 2022 1:27 pm
Magnesium
‘The difficulty, then, is how far we are ourselves
the objects of our senses.’
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
Like a flimsy thread my vanity
clings to, it seems that as far
as logic’s concerned what I call
my self’s a phantom and no more
a part of me than skin, hair
or toenails are, shed by the strangers
they started out with.
So where is the screen ...
Sunday 24th April 2022 12:24 pm
Bigger Trees Near Warter
after David Hockney
Through tangled centuries of ownership
and rights these trees have always survived.
Each one in its turn reduced to a stump,
they came back stronger, earning their keep.
The harsher the husbandry, the sturdier
they grew, for what do we know
that’s more dependable
than roots, bole, and branches?
Retaining the vigour of ...
Sunday 6th March 2022 2:06 pm
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