Marketplace

This space is like a ghost town

Trestle tables row on row

Echoing with the hustle bustle

Vendors cries of long ago

I held my mother’s hand

And listened to them shout

‘apples sixpence a pound

Come on get your money out!’

Comics stored in cardboard boxes

Toys stacked high on stands

Gleaming in the Friday sun

Just out of reach of sticky h...

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My Mother’s Kitchen

I’m in my mother’s kitchen

It’s a Monday afternoon

The oven’s heated up the air

The buns will be out soon

Everywhere there’s an aroma

Of cinnamon and spice

An apple pie sits on the table

I’m waiting for a slice

A black-leaded coal fire

Does it’s best to dominate

The heat and the smells

That the baking permeates

An old fridge hums...

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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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Returning Home

Will the birds sing in the garden

Will we go down to the sea

Will we build our castles of sand

Will there still be scones for tea

Will my father still be smoking

Will he jog me on his knee

Will summer days still last forever

Will there still be scones for tea

Will we dream of great adventures

Will westerns still be on TV

Will we sit ar...

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The Making Of A Worker.

The lorry tips its rubble

On the road outside our house,

the privet hedge engulfed

in a primordial cloud of dust,

it drives away in chugging glee

having spilled its heavy load

and we stand and watch it go

as the carbon mountain settles.

The sergeant-major father

barks his orders at the troops

and our little hands clasp tight

the...

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Once Upon A Time

Pop wagons
rattling and clinking
with their gaudy shades
of potions slopping.

Coal lorries
groaning up the hill
breathing their dragons breath
of carbon dust.

The aged magik
of a ramshackle
cobblers hut
and the clanging of the last.

The shout of
“Rag and Bone”
echoing down
a Monday morning.

Tobacconist 
selling chocolate cigars
to little mimics
of the...

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Drowse

When there are no mirrors
I am young again
Sitting in the warming glow
of distant years
The aches and pains
will all be gone tomorrow
The days are long
and never seem to grey.
Parents are in another room
just out of hearing
The T.V has three channels
all black and white
Three meals a day
are sitting on the table
The bonfire smoke
creates the evening dusk.

Another time I...

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Any Winter Saturday In Nineteen Seventy

multi-coloured, sweet, cloying battenberg
taking away the bitter taste of defeat
it’s yellow and pink uniformity
In sharp contrast to the soft curves of the settee
putting ones and two’s and crosses
next to the selections on the pools
a dirty yellow stain hangs over the chair
where my father coughs and splutters on his tea

blacks and whites and ...

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SKOOL DAZE

At our school we wore red ties and big, blue, woolly sweaters.

Groaning, frowning, learning all those numbers, saints and letters.

The nuns were big and ruthless and they loved to swish the cane.

The summer skies were always blue, it never seemed to rain.

I had a cat sewn in my bag - I couldn’t read my name -

till some wise wit made fun of it – I n...

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