Poetry Blog by Ian Whiteley

Old Men’s Tears

With hearts as heavy as thunder clouds

What once were torrents

Are now just trickles

Reflecting our futures

In the silver shimmer of our past

And they come

In stumbling honour

And their humility

Denies them as heroes

For the heroes were left behind

In voices cracked with age

They tell their tales

Of simple duty

In the face of...

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COMEDY HITLER

Comedy Hitler?
Freddie Starr? Charlie Chaplin?
No - Nigel Farage

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Raising The Standards (With Banners Held High) [MUSIC VERSION]

You said that you wanted a land fit for heroes,

a place to call home that they’d show off with pride

but somewhere along the way you forgot

the reasons they fought and the reasons they died.

They thought they were fighting for honour and justice,

suppressing the tyrants and saving our land -

but returned ...

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Immortality Methodology

Always remember -

endings are new beginnings.

Here’s to the future,

where an ending waits for me

while my words live forever.

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Phantoms

We Humans are immortal if we choose to be

Drifting on the ether or the digitised streams

Of social media networks and video channels

Whilst our bodies turn to dust beneath the soil.

Our likeness Our actions   Our spirit        Our thoughts

Our friends    Our interactions       Our choices  Our life

Free spirits inhabiting the space we call Home

Adrif...

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Nunquam Iterum!

Dear Wilfred

Thank you for your honesty

Without your vivid colours

These experiences would be shadows

Colourless and somehow unreal

But now we see sickly colours of the gas

We feel the helpless panic of the scurry

We touch the comrade writhing in the deadly sea

Your stressed heartbeat

The hopelessness of loss

Despair at the trudge

The d...

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Sonnet 91 In The Age Of The Slow Departure

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,

Some like to brag of money that they make

Some just want the power to force their will

Some never choose to give but only take.

And every politician takes a vow

To do the people’s true will without fail

Yet what are all these promises worth now

The desperate cry is screamed to no...

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Jimmy Is A Ghost

Jimmy is a ghost

Of the man he used to be

He sits in the rain

Drinking second hand tea

And he hopes that his kids

Will never have to see

His hands outstretched

In an ignored plea

Yeah Jimmy is a ghost

Jimmy is a ghost

Off of Oxford Street

He has nothing left to barter

He has nothing left to eat

Just threadbare dreams

And train...

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Why Do They Call You Summer?

Why do they call you summer

When your name is April?

Your fragrant scent of early roses

Permeates the room

And sunlight cuts across

The blue Axminster carpet

Bleaching the swirling dust

And warms tables to the touch.

I long for your cool hands

Across my fevered brow

But all you give me

Is clammy, blanketing heat.

I ...

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A Rose By Any Other Name

If I were a doctor

Treating your wounds

And infections

Your bile and liver

You would welcome me

If I were a restaurateur

Feeding you for free

Flavouring your drinks

Would you not welcome me?

I am clockmaker

Yellow gold

Like summer sun

I drift

On the breeze

And still

You do not welcome me

I am the l...

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Nature’s Banquet

I am the humble Wildebeest -

Mother Natures moving feast.

My mother warned “Don’t wander off

or you’ll end up a Lion’s scoff”.

Some folk call me a Gnu,

I’ve heard it all, there’s nothing new

In puns that you may decide to frame

around this inauspicious name.

I guess I’ll never have a life

of family bliss with kids and wife,

cause every da...

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Girl With Tear

She was having one of those bad hair days

The crystal blue eyed girl

The perfect lashes

The cultured brow

Outside the sky was the colour of slate

But the diagonal screen kept the night away

All she wanted was some square jawed Joe

To trample into her simple temple

All she ever got was schmucks

Them’s the breaks Daddy-o

Her face like some sunburn...

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Monday Morning – 9AM

He calls the meeting to order

The alligator with the human skin briefcase

Teeth like buzz-saw blades

She raises the first objection

The girl with butterfly wings

Muddy puddles for eyes

The maggot takes the minutes

Slowly chewing the page

Drizzling ink-blood on paper

Smudging ideas

A firefly drifts aimlessly

From subject to subject

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Chelp

So

Like

He did everything backards-road round

Put on his coit

And pulled his hat on his eead

Washed his face wi’a wet dish-claht

And I’m like Whatever

Kids were art laiking

Mucking abart

Ran off darn a ginnel

Roobub pie

Waiting back at home

Some spice afore then

A ha’porth’a Spanish

Wash it darn

Wi’a sup er watter

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AmericaZ

America -

big

corporate

demigod.

Enlisting

fear,

generating

homophobia,

infringing

justice,

killing

liberties.

Manipulating

nationalistic

opinion.

Perniciously

quenching

radical,

subjective,

thoughts.

Ugly,

venomous

Whitehouse -

xenophobia

your

zeitgeist,

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Elegy For A Ghost

Some say ghosts are chilling things

Ethereal and fleeting

But they’re not

They are the empty chair

The pint not bought in a round

The hiss at the end of a telephone line

The deleting of a mobile number

They are the sad spaces

That once held you

On the terraces

At the bar

In the conversation

Ghosts are sad things

They h...

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Down At The End Of Lonely Street

Sat in the Tupelo hardware store

Waiting for a buyer to arrive

A price tag hanging from my neck

Six dollars ninety five

When a woman and a scrawny kid

Come through the big glass door

Her name is Gladys the proprietor says

And they both look run down poor

It’s January nineteen forty six

Close to his birthday I’m told

He com...

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From The Attic

A wooden chest, labelled ‘Uncle Jack’

Slowly I start to unpack:

Inside there sits some dusty books

Carefully placed so if someone looks

They will not see what’s underneath

A collection of human teeth

A fine, silken, black top hat

A jar half full of congealed fat

Some boiled sweets in a paper cone

Something that looks like a finger bone

Some...

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Martyr

T’was the twenty fourth of February,

eighteen thirty four,

when the Tolpuddle sheriff

came a’knocking at my door.

Served with a warrant

I was swiftly hastened away

for taking an illegal oath

to challenge my meagre pay.

You see we were only paid six shillings a week

for working the squires land,

so we set up a trade union

and in our little band

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Raising The Standards (With Banners Held High)

You said that you wanted a land fit for heroes,

a place to call home that they’d show off with pride

but somewhere along the way you forgot

the reasons they fought and the reasons they died.

They thought they were fighting for honour and justice,

suppressing the tyrants and saving our land -

but returned to a country tha...

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The Turning Of The Tide

… and the ocean’s spoke

in a voice of wrath and anger

that sounded like dark pebbles

rolling towards the shore

in a blood red tide,

‘You have given us your detritus

and so we return yours’.

And their tone

was accusatory,

and their vengeance swift…

It started on a sunny day

with naked bodies basking

in warm August sun.

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Vesuvius

Moulded from my own fair hands

At the age of not very old

I still remember the cold, clammy clay

And the satisfying way

It was slice from the workboard

By a length of taut wire

Painted blue and green and red

And glazed with over ardour

So that the glistening sheen

hardened into rivulets

That have the appearance

Of old sneeze

Baked in m...

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Grit

I cannot say for certain where I’m ‘from’

beyond the day I crawled into this world

and that’s the way I like it, truth be told,

to shape my own existence from the start.

That blond boy there with freckles and basin cut,

a shy one, wearing simple NHS specs,

in clothes bought big so he could grow

to fill them on a diet of Yorkshire pud.

An artist’s bent...

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heatwave

it were cracking’t pavements

the sky were chelsea blue

you were sucking cider

from an ice lolly

cos they said it made yer drunk

and we pretended it did

when yer scored a goal

on’t hay coloured pitch

yer mates were hot ‘n sweaty

and their celebrations

trickled down yer back

and salted yer lips

there were standpipes

at end’er sherwood...

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A List Of Things We Buried In The Garden

- A photograph of better times.

- An empty bottle of scotch.

- A well thumbed copy of ‘True Crimes’.

- A useless, broken watch.

- Seven bottles of little white pills.

- A pair of latex gloves.

- A folder with a thousand bills.

- A bunch of dead foxgloves.

- The broken vase they occupied...

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Blue On Blue Contact

This blue on blue contact

is really rather fun.

Amber shoots at Boris

with her metaphoric gun,

Michael snipes at Dominic,

Andrea shoots from the hip

And Jacob assaults everyone

with his stiff upper lip.

This blue on blue contact

puts them under friendly fire -

the egotist, the pessimist

the naysayer and liar.

They all have an op...

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Simple Pleasures

A quiet corner of the room,

curtains drawn to the night,

the gentle glow from simple lamp

that casts a magic light,

a book opened, page twenty three,

with hundreds yet to read,

the urgent ticking of the clock

muffled, paid no heed.

A glass of something warming

and shortbread on a plate,

the crackle of a fire

that dances in the grate,

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Manhattan Morning

the cat was sick

I cared for it

which made me late

to catch the bus

which got caught up

in traffic jams

so I got off

to walk the last few blocks

which made me sweat

under the blue sky

my brow was wet

with perspiration

out of breath

I stepped inside

a coffee shop

and bought a cup

of Espresso

and spilt the lot

because I ...

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The Parable Of The Wolf And The Lamb.

We are the men of peace, they say,

we hide in plain sight of you all

taking their innocence away.

We simply ask that you will pray

for those who sin and those who fall.

We are the men of peace, they say.

We ask for penance every day,

we prey upon the week and small,

taking their innocence away.

We look after th...

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In Memoriam

The gravestones in this place are wet with tears

Of children, wives and husbands who have stood

Beside dark holes that swallow up their fears

Replacing ice water where once flowed blood.

November skies are grey and hold no lights,

The flowers flattened in a winter gale

That whips away dark thoughts the widow fights

To keep hidden behind her mourning veil.

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hide and seek

one thousand and one

one thousand and

my head pressed against the bark

on the tree by the pond side

where the ducks quack back

at the boy with the ball

whose dreams are

not yet fully formed

two one thousand and three

one thou

sat by the brown muddy water

with schoolbooks spilling from bags

a kiss on the cheek

and we carve ...

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Time To Decide Patsy

I’m sat amongst the boxes

In my nest not in a tree

The November sun is dazzling

It’s nineteen sixty three

In the land of the brave

In the land of the free

I’m learning how to kill

In the book depository

I look down the barrel

To see what I can see

A woman dressed  in pink

Her hand is on his knee

I squint at his head

It’s just him ...

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Recipe For Disaster

Make sure you’ve got a big bowl.

OK, we’re ready to commence.

Take a pinch of honesty,

add an ounce of common sense,

stir in bloody mindedness,

gently fold in care,

season it with integrity

(if you’ve got any spare),

sprinkle it with passion,

avoid the nuts and flakes,

put it in a hot oven

and see how long it takes

for it to become bu...

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