The time

Was opportune.

My members all had mutinied,

Gone traitorous,

Withdrawn

Their mandate from the will,

And the will stood

A lonely sentinel

Afraid.

Behind my eyes

The minds limbs had grown gaunt,

Gnarled,

Defoliate.

And through all

The Simmoom of a desiccating want

Ceaselessly parched.

You,

Were a call to combat.

Eyes

Shaftin...

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(before you send the entry)

Chime, prime, grime, entwine, paradigm,

mountain-climb, or even sublime the bloody thing.

But never, ever, ever, ever,

Ever, ever, ever, ever

(Under no imaginable circumstances whatsoever)

Rhyme the bloody thing.

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(The poem no one is going to ask me to write

celebrating the next royal visit of her majesty

to my home city of Liverpool).

We`re citizens, Ma`am, of our particular city,

Our own beloved mass of masonry,

And though the stranger may not think it pretty,

We are glad to be

We live up here beside our windy river

(The sea drives in and scours us twice a ...

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Just think

Up North

A majority of

Four million odd

Voters

Slotting

Pieces of paper

Into slots

May be

Pulling up

Root

By electoral

Root

Three hundred

Years

Of union.

(For a full explanation apply to David Cameron)

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(a Poem for Yvonnes` eightieth birthday)

I watched her for a long, long while,

Dancing with a lithely grace,

Wondering `did she never smile?`

This lady from the far-off place.

Then suddenly, like day-break beaming,

Ivory through a forest gleaming,

Laughter, lightening her face,

Spread sunshine through a shady place.

And sent one shaft – like Cupid`s d...

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Look at that girl groove! See how her dancing soothes

Weary eyes as ~ in the music`s slake ~ she moves,

Flex as a sea-frond, supple and slender and smooth. 

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(A modern tale)

Strange, the way their love disintegrated:

Spats and small disloyalties-petty spites-

Were for the most part causes. No reasons, really,

But squabble enough for their small hearts

And feeble loves. And though, at first,

There was an ache around the hollowness,

It was of small consequence – soon gone.

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(An exercise in Scouse narrative verse spliced with a little poetry)

Girls are funny things sometimes, aren`t they?

I mean, funny peculiar.

Take, for instance, the other day:

There was this gazelle of a girl,

Wide eyed, long-legged,

I tell you: In no wise did she walk, Being so full of grace,

But she made an elegant progress from place to place.

Boy, was I sm...

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( polishing his specs yet again)

Jesus! Is this the world

closing it`s eyes...on me?

Or is it me

closing my eyes..on the world?

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 (As someone puzzled at the relatively sparse reaction on here to the recent UKIP victories, I was fascinated by the opinion of Labour`s Stella Creasey in wednesday`s Daily Mail that if migrant workers were prevented from filling jobs in our economy then middle-class women would have to breed (and quickly) to fill a need created by Britains low birth-rate and ageing population. As someone who has ...

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One night, after drinking in a down-town pub (where the air was a fuzz of gunge smoke and all the talk was about The Fords car factory in Speke.

I staggered home to my tall tenement block at the end of a street which used to run plumb between the opposing old Orange and Catholic areas of Liverpool and, listening to an account of Sunni/Shia combat on the tele, began to wonder about all kinds of ...

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(Apology from the millions of the feminine `chosen`)

Our most sincere congratulation

And fellow - feminine applause

To your prestigious celebration

Honouring our women`s cause.

We`re sorry we could not assist

(Our inclination being thwarted)

For, though we too are feminist,

We`ve been (genderly) aborted.

(And thence could not participate

In our female discar...

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Lily going by

Hers was a beauty sheer and clear and clean

…………….A beauty born to break

Across the placid sight of placid men,

Leaving such lovely turbulence in its wake

That they be never – ever –the same again

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Celia would say with that sly old knowing wink:

`If this Almighty really existed wouldn`t you think

That he`d want us unbelieving folk to know himself

And so would simply , unmistakeably show himself,

Rise up in all his splendour, wiggle his magic wand,

Bid all the world`s wickedness shrivel, flee, abscond?

I mean, why so shy? so bashful? keep himself so hid,

Why not just...

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Ante room. Empty. Eighties disco music and lights from offstage. A young lad bursts in, his mate clinging to his shoulders…The lad wears sunshades. He snatches the shades off and – holding them -  blinks about short-sightedly. His mate turns him round angrily.

MATE

Why didn`t you talk to her`?

LAD

I was talkin` me `ead off…she scooted.

MATE

`Cause yo...

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(Lines for the lady medic)

You`ll laugh and say, `That poets in a plight`

That, `He`ll remember nothing` or maybe fret,

That `being three-parts tipsy on the night

the things he said were anyway all lies`

But, love, could I forget,

How the laughter, capering with the light,

Danced wild Antrim-antics in your eyes?

Or that your voice had in it, when you talked,

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