Good Times

Cold light of dusk
illuminated through
these stained glass windows.
Candles lit for saints and sinners
cast dancing shadows
on the marbled aisles.
Prayers for lost souls,
mumbled in archaic prose
to heighten sense
of magic and reverence.

Genuflection.
      Sign of the Cross.
               Body of Christ.
      Blood of Christ
Soul of Man

The burnt rag smell
of i...

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A Wee Dram

The dancing flames lick gently at the grate,
a bottle splashes amber to the glass,
soft chimes reminding that the hour is late,
aromas drift of peat and harsh deer grass,
the smoky mist of morning, with each pass.
The glow of bonfires as I gently kiss,
letting the rich swelling flavours amass
and burn upon my lips, no thoughts but this –
“how can something so bitter bring suc...

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Anti-Christ(mas)

Santa Claus isn’t real -
there, I’ve gone and said it.
Just some smart-arsed marketing ploy
to stress your Christmas cards of credit,
an old Bavarian legend
glammed up and pushed by Coke
to give a job each yuletide
to some fat, be-whiskered bloke
who likes a little tipple
and knee jogging some pre-pubescent cutie -
under any other circumstance
you’d report him to pro...

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Arroyo

The rain has fallen down for twenty hours
from a dead sky of slate and granite hews,
dampening the walls of urban towers.

Cobbled streets the colour of an old bruise,
tyres rattle over pothole dark drains,
counterpoint to some distant splashing shoes.

The day cast in monochromatic stains
as water forms itself into a lake
that eddies into inner city lanes.

A passing car cre...

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Last Orders

I come on Thursday, sit on wooden chair
where poets congregate in strange half light,
sharing their thoughts with those who gather there -
the words are spoken, soaring, shining bright,
warming us as we leave to face the night.
The bear pit darkens, but forever hosts
the rhyming, raging, ranting, Tudor ghosts.

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A Tree In The Elephant’s Graveyard

It began with a pen
and paper,
beneath a tree.
Carried here
upon a rat
to rest awhile.

The paper was white
and stared at me
insolently.
The pen hovered,
dripping ink
like tears.

A serpent
coiled itself
around My neck.
I thought of stars
and dreamt
of gouache landscapes.

Still the paper
would not
fuck the pen.
My thoughts
were clear,
...

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Philae Shakes The Hand Of God

What is the etiquette
for shaking hands
with God?

His ancient skin
so cracked
and old.

We have travelled far
to penetrate
His hide.

The cold, dark cosmos
squeals with
indignation.

“Know your place,
you of greens
and blues”,

sing the disregarded
stars and
planets.

We pass through
the blazing tails
of comets.

We burn money
in plasm...

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Wounded.

Black bullet hole wound
blooms red November petals.
Blood and remembrance.

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An Unexpected Ghost In The Yorkshire Post

She stares out at me from the page of white -
all pixels, paper, print and phantom eyes,
a child of contrasts under exposed skies
dancing somewhere between the dark and light.
I recognise the features well, despite
the brutal glare of histories disguise.
This archive feature caught me by surprise
for we are separated by times flight.
You are a g...

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Foot Soldier.

We were sent to fight a war
that we didn’t believe in,
knowing that there would be
civilian casualties.
Paid a pittance
to be on the front line
facing hostiles every day.
Privately hating
the faceless generals
who stayed hidden
in the bunkers
giving their orders.

Many were wounded,
left for dead,
injured in ways
that civilians
wouldn’t understand -
because some ...

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~All The Little Creatures Of Glass City

They built this ghost town
before there were any ghosts.
Large glass canyons
where the wind whistles,
drawing dust and smoke
into whirling devils.
Reflections bouncing
from linear surfaces.
Where once there was life
there is none.

You pull a coat,
tightly, against your chin
and comment on the chill air
that scrapes way
at exposed flesh,
l...

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Excavating Aldgate Tube Station (1876)

Underneath the rat infested streets
dead bodies were piled high, row on row.
Enshrouded in their grimy, night-soiled sheets.
- thrown to the devils down below.

Dead bodies were piled high, row on row.
Plague pits rampant all around Aldgate.
Thrown to the waiting devils down below -
unmarked graves meant no one knew their fate.

Plague pits rampa...

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Afraid Of The Dark

what you can’t see
cannot hurt you
ghouls and ghosts
things of the dark
things you don’t understand.
close your eyes go to sleep
think of happy things and places
let your mind move on
be at peace child

the thing that scratches at the window
you know it’s just a branch
the creak of a floorboard
late at night
a cold chill that drifts
through a warm house
the un...

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Weird Sisters

when did we four last meet
with doctor martins on our feet
hubble, bubble trick or treat
kiss and tell arms to greet
looks that kill in a heartbeat
concrete steps as a seat
stir the cauldron feel the heat
cool as fuck neat neat neat
no surrender no retreat
angel faces so petite
whiplash smiles sugar sweet
weird sisters of the street

Inspired By: photograph by Ri...

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~~In The Beginning

leaving marks
that’s all we’re doing
leaving marks

daubed on cave walls
scratched on parchment
prodded into submission
on a plastic keyboard

blood ink
drying
becoming permanent

or
crossed through
with a graphite swipe
erased by rubber
white paint
lost

ideas and musings
bold statements
of intent
waxing lyrical
outpourings
of joy
of hate
of love
...

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funeral days

funeral days
should always be like this

early mourning dew
in the eyes of those gathered
under a slate grey sky
(not blasphemous blue)
whose heavy tears
will splash
the golden Judas kiss
of leaves crackling
beneath disrobed trees
betraying the sadness
with their joyful colour

the heavy damp sods of earth
clinging close to the coffin
like the grief
that surrounds...

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Blockhead

He had a disability
and didn’t mind that you knew it,
tumbling around on callipers -
his attitude was ‘screw it’!
Spasticus Autisticus -
an anthem for the broken.
Poet, musician, human being,
not some crippled token.
A war cry in this normal land
for those who were disabled
and through their bloody mindedness
became the walking, talking, enabled.
He hit us with a rhythm st...

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My music project THE CROWS OF ALBION have released their new CD and DOWNLOAD on 1st October 2014.

21 tracks across 80 minutes featuring 14 poems I first posted to Write Out Loud (see link to tags below) set to musical backings. The remaining songs are covers versions (Motorhead & Bob Dylan) and traditional wartime favourites 'Pack Up Your Troubles...' and 'It's A Long Way To Tipperary'.

Ther...

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kraken

leviathan
rusty bones
supporting hide
of rotting wood
the pungent smell
of seaweed

digesting
long dead things
its aged frame
crawls ashore
clicking like
fighting crabs

groaning
exertions
sand sloughing
from its skin

primordial
grey skies
clinging mist
clothing it
in gloom

a thousand
scrabbling legs
gripping claws
taking root
heaving carcass
to the shore

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Snipers

was it out there
that I became a ghost?

I may be an unreliable witness
the constant stress does that to you
the days spent outside, unprotected
with a local population
that won’t look you in the eye
or when they do
they have the look of hate
that you are even there at all

if only the locals were less hostile
to my cause
if only I could count on my military team
to back ...

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The Crooked Beast At The End Of A Crooked Path

I saw him rise like a dark spectre
in the clouds
at the end of a crooked path
his horned head cocked
spreading his cloven claws
astride the graves that nestled
safe beneath the trees
his wings unfurling
across the sky
and gathering in
the long dead souls
beneath the ground
and I thought
I heard the demon say
“I told you I would not fo...

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Armistice (Gods Of War)

The ink upon this document
dries twice as fast as blood
that seeps into this continent
and mixes with the mud.
The war to end all wars they say,
though many have their doubts
that a piece of paper, signed today,
will quell the zealots shouts.

So they dance beneath the spires
of Britannia’s grieving towns
and let the mourning of sad shires
taint her flimsy ta...

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Death Of A Poet (Anthem For Doomed Youth)

The grey November sky has lost its light,
 just one more boy has fallen to his death,
 another lad who won’t survive the fight
 or pass beyond this final exhaled breath.
 Though many soldiers leave this war unheard,
 their stories lost forever, never told,
 this one will paint us pictures with his words
 that will not lose their power or grow old...

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Death Of A Poet

The grey November sky has lost its light,
just one more boy has fallen to his death,
another lad who won’t survive the fight
or pass beyond this final exhaled breath.
Though many soldiers leave this war unheard,
their stories lost forever, never told,
this one will paint us pictures with his words
that will not lose their power or grow old.

A week beyond that fatal can...

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Dead Men’s Boots

tough as old leather
their souls worn down
eyes vacant of lace
collected by the door
the day they swapped
their pit-boots
for the Kings shilling
and donned their shiny
new military issue

there they stayed
gathering dust
and old potatoes
in their safe grasp
neatly lined
waiting for the return
of father and two sons
to the safety
of their hearth

day after da...

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TILF

They parade down the catwalk
outside of number ten
it’s David’s new TILF army
taking over from the men
cause he’s not likely to be a winner
at next years general election
and if it doesn’t work for him
well, he’ll still have the erection
as he brings some lovely ladies
into the cabinet
because the wrinkly bastards
were as bad as it could get
so here are some ideas Dave
that ...

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An Angel Bathes In Tears

Diniel rested for a second
and turned his eyes away
from those that he was caring for
and in that moment all was lost.
Now he bathes in the cascades
of acidic human tears
that flood the world with grief.
Erosive and corrosive
at the passing of infant souls
in a war that has no meaning
in a world that has no morals.
Now his dainty angel features
disappear unt...

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Thor (He's A Jolly Good Fellow)

Another bloody immigrant
has just moved in next door -
he’s North East European
and goes by the name of Thor.
So as good old Mister Farage says
“There ought to be a law
that stops them coming here
cause we can’t take any more”.

He’s got long blonde tussled hair
and a chiselled square jaw
and he’s taking British jobs
at the local Ikea store -
yet all...

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Remember Scarborough!

The day our town was visited by war,
we hardly had the time to ring the bells.
The bairns were playing on our golden shore
and savouring the fish and seaweed smells,
building castles of sand, collecting shells -
though these were not of molluscs but of steel -
and all at once a thousand blazing hells
fell from the sky with each chiming peel.
Remember Scarborough – ...

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Canary Girl (Chilwell, July 1st 1918)

When she went there her eyes were clear,
just seventeen, her skin was fair.
She was my love, my Jeanie dear,
she wore blue ribbons in her hair
of blond, and I could only stare
and wonder at her beauty wild.
The sweet songbird - my only child.

She had a voice that raised good cheer,
when Jeanie sang we were aware
in chapels (and after a beer),
th...

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White Feather

I didn’t see her pass me in the street,
the woman with the husband at the front,
but felt the tell-tale tickle of a feather -
pressed discreetly soft against my palm.
The accusation whispered in a hate-filled voice,
“Coward”, dripped with venom from her lips
and I assumed she talked to me, although I couldn’t see
if the feather in my hand was truly white.
For I had returne...

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Blood Moon

“Sweet Katarina, dance for me”,
said the man with the black balloon,
whose face looked rather like a wolf
if glanced in the back of a spoon -
and for each dance she did for him
he would pass her another string
with a midnight helium ball
tied on to its end with a ring.

She danced until her little hands
were full of the magical twine
and the villagers all agreed
they’d ne...

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Craiglockhart (Not Yet Diagnosed Nervous)

When I kicked over the wheelchair
I couldn’t do the simplest task,
except the epileptic flailing
of my military antimasque.
Turning on the hissing gas-lamp
had me reaching for the mask.
You opened up my mind
and you didn’t even ask.

Sh-sh-sh shut the fuck up,
I think I’m going insane,
I’ve got all these bombs
going off in my brain.
I’m lik...

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War Boys

“YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU”

We’re going to war boys,
we’re going to war,
Lord Kitchener asked us
so we formed a corps.
Joe and Jack from the factory,
Ted and Jim from the farm,
the recruiting sergeant assures us
that there’s little chance of harm.
We’re part of the great pals army
and we’ve fallen for his charm
as we march away to war.

We’re in the war boys,
we’re in the ...

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Roadie.

When heavy metal bands reform
it’s nothing like it was in the day,
when daily excess was the norm
and we needed drugs to help us play.
From riding into the teeth of the storm
we had to curtail our wicked ways.

The Roadies still get us up to speed,
tune guitars - get everything we need.
They’re an invaluable, yet dying breed -
Roadies still get us up to speed.

Even though w...

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Children Of The Glamned (Resurrection Shuffle)

We found out all we knew about sex
in Youth Clubs and the disco-teques
grinding slowly to T-Rex
pumping from the Teac decks
then with Pans People our flames were fanned
we were the children of the glamned.

A thousand miles we’d gladly travel
for Noddy Holder’s voice of gravel
then watch our hopes and dreams unravel
in brief encounters wi...

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the small matter of a white screen at midnight

the mocking cursor blinks upon the screen
and my flagging muse sinks
still unable to find links
and then little englyn winks

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Passchendaele (Autumn 1917)

Blind, wide open, eyes.
Dripping poppy petal tears.
Crimson rivers flow.

Fields transformed to mud.
Deep cut trenches scar the earth.
Wounds that will not heal.

Gas clouds drift from hell.
Death exhaled in fetid breath.
Lost boys fall like flies.

Ghosts haunt no mans land
searching for their bitter souls
in butchered bodies.

Finding empty shells,
...

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Slamming Flies (Gallipoli – 5th June 1915)

Arriving at the Dardanelles
guns flashing, the sound of rifle fire.
they heaved our ship right up to the shore.

We sat there waiting for the dawn
And saw a big marquee
that made us think of village fetes.

We all rushed to it
like boys going to a circus
but found it all laced up.

Unlaced and opened, It was full of corpses.
Dead Englishme...

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the vegetable man

the vegetable man proclaims his entrance
in a voice as crisp as iceberg lettuce
the aroma that surrounds him is as pungent
as stewed cabbage on a grey cloudy Monday
children cross the road to avoid him
in his coconut overcoat and jaunty aubergine hat

the vegetable man has cauliflower ears
that dribble cheddar cheese sauce
the hair that hangs from his grimy head
is t...

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Home By Christmas

I fear I let my feelings rule my head,
that you would have no trouble getting leave.
You would be home by Christmas as they said.

All through the Autumn, sleeping cold in bed,
I dreamt of all our marriage would achieve.
I fear I let my feelings rule my head.

Not since the day that both of us were wed
had we missed carols, sung that holy eve.
You would be home by Ch...

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Under The Bridge

hunched up like a demon
grotesque and out of shape
tip tip tapping on the keyboard
mouth permanently agape
looking for hurt and misery
searching out the weak
twisted soul and brainless
an ever growing clique
devouring our innocence
inflicting further pain
they look for human tragedy
their claws dig in again
we cannot understand them
so we underestimate
their capac...

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Digital Clock Blues

the pulsing dots on my digital clock
are slightly out of sync
with my thumping heart and spinning head
I’m so drunk I can’t think

I see your face like neon taste
it makes me want for home
my hair’s a mess my clothes un-pressed
Oh Christ! I need a comb

my love’s shot down in rainbow ruin
I’ve played the game and lost
now the drinking’s stopped me thinking
and I...

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remembering the terrible lizard

my blood is ink
my words the beating heart
a page of skin
tattooed  stories
etched upon it

my vinyl soul
each hiss and crackle
pop and scratch
a wrinkle on the face
of times gone past

my music cries
with fuzz guitars
and thunder drums
cacophony of chaos
transcendental

my world is dark
each pinprick light
a star to gaze upon
and wonder at t...

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Grandchildren Of The Somme

the dead lay on the injured earth
all wearing grey death masks of mud
a tally of what life is worth
just bone and sinew flesh and blood

attrition wrought its deadly cost
the river Somme held back its flood
humanity forever lost
just bone and sinew flesh and blood

sixteen miles wide and just six deep
survivors wondered if they could
block out the dreams t...

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some of you kind Write Out Louders offered me some great encouragement when I posted this poem earlier this year (tribute to Pete Seeger) and suggested it might work well with a musical backing -so - I've been in the studios and produced this version - I hope you like it:

The Walkin’ Man

Serendipity Spangle was a walkin’ man -
of that, there is no doubt,
he walked across great continents
...

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Bruises Of The Norman Yoake.

True Levellers dig over public field,
enclosed by hedgerows, cut by ditches deep.
Allow the earth to ultimately yield
its bounty – for you sow what you will reap,
a crop that’s fit for kings, the poor to keep.
This land is not the property of lords,
no matter it was seized by force of swords.

True Levellers defend the public field,
for nothing changes from...

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Children Of The Glamned

preying on the teenage Kohl eyed panda
tinfoil fumbling back stage
now fear her mature rampage
finding strength in her dotage

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The Bicycle Scout (21st August 1914)

bicycle wheel spins in blood drenched Belgian hops
as the echo of a gunshot fades away
behind the gorse hedgerow Private John Parr drops
amid the yellow hypnotic summer sway
he is the first scythe-cut of Britain’s young crops
many come to deathly harvest from this day
and when the madness eventually stops
for him, and those that follow, the world will...

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the flimsy frame rattles
as a doom laden bellow
pierces the smoky milk
shrieking  away unwary
sailors straying close
to Yorkshires crumbling coast
like some creature
lost in torment

we cower
beneath dull yellow light
from sweet smelling
gas lamps
their cog wheels
turned up high
and wicks ablaze
to ward off the dark

a jigsaw unattended
its pieces spilling
c...

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