Tags from last 12 months
⁹ (1).....as blue as robins' eggs
though time’s chasm opens before my very sight,
and the vertigo returns with the Lapis Lazuli.
of the Byzantimes, Persians, Armenians, Assyrians.
each civilization alloted supreme value to the blue of lapis lazuli.
Saturday 30th September 2023 6:55 pm
.......early onset
The blue is missing from the sky today
the trees still have leaves
outside it is cold
the wind is cruel.
There is a person
in front of me
i don’t know who it is.
I remember playing out
with my sister
on a skipping rope.
It is cold inside,
that lady told me it is morning,
that is why I stretch and yawn.
The lady said I had a visitor
i was frightened to ask:
‘What is a vi...
Saturday 30th September 2023 6:37 pm
AN OPAL LUMINOSITY
Evening dark, damp, cold
Retreat into electric caves
Try not to think about you
In your grave. Your soul
Meandering. Suicides in GB
Buried in unconsecrated
Ground, until a MP topped
Himself and was buried
In Westminster Abbey 1822:
Viscount Castlereagh. I think.
Easier to digress than to confess
How flummoxed am I
With the whole unholy business
Of not saying good...
Thursday 28th September 2023 11:58 am
Wisława Szymborska Polish poet
The innocence of nature
Mocked by the depravity of humanity
You chose to spotlight the genocide
Of the Tarsier, a primate, DNA like ours,
With enormous seeing eyes.
You made the humble Tarsier
A metaphor for the innocence of nature
Exploited, ripped apart, killed for meat
Mocked for fun. No empathy between
Tarsier and Human. Man the killer
Species. You used bitter irony
To deny hu...
Monday 25th September 2023 8:45 pm
WE, THE ENGLISH
‘England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.’ George Orwell
Wat Tyler and the revolting peasants had paved the way
In the summer of 1381 Wat Tyler, as leader of the so-called “Peasants” Revolt,
Stepped out of the shadows, and when he did he was to rock the Anglo-Norma...
Sunday 24th September 2023 8:46 pm
SHEER LUNACY
In the red water the woman's head was immersed. As they drove the iron through the skull, a technique called trephination.She let out the roar of the damned, thus confirming trephination's efficacy and the doctors' suspicions.
Yellow bile for mania, black bile for depression, we need to teach her a lesson.
This innocent touched by angels, blessed by God, left to scream and scream and sleep...
Wednesday 20th September 2023 8:15 pm
16th June, 1904
I make the sign of the cross, today,
the last Saturday in August,
for Jack who died tod...
Tuesday 19th September 2023 11:39 pm
BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS
My son, my brother and my dog
Are shades I follow in my dreams.
They offer me swift glancing gleams,
Of all that is, not all that seems.
That hidden fountain of delight
That shines again, just out of sight,
That promised land, of sweet content,
That land where time is safely spent
Beneath the skies and stars of heaven,
Where every blemish is forgiven,
Where children play all night, a...
Friday 15th September 2023 7:41 pm
ELOQUENT GRAFFITI
It was an ordinary, wet north Manchester night
Of solid rain, unremittingly wet. And cold.
When, suddenly, all the rivers of all the world stopped flowing
And all the summer colours leached away and never returned.
And the wind so cold and stings like hell
And sky descends into the well of unforgiving.
And you're not here.
And the blackness is deep, so deep, and remains so deep
When...
Saturday 9th September 2023 2:38 pm
Indian summer
Comes to remind us not to expect
consistency from Mother Nature.
Climate change keeps us on our toes
Expecting….? God knows what blows.
https://youtu.be/yOKAQSGCm8Q?si=z9HpEgTDrsQW3a7_
Wednesday 6th September 2023 9:31 pm
Haiku
head shaved by eight o'clock
cold grips my skull - now brain freeze
stubble grows like wheat - neat!
https://youtu.be/bqtfl0gt5fM?si=2D4d9DfiNU6mC_Zd
Wednesday 6th September 2023 9:18 pm
Testament
"The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it." Sylvia Plath.
Amidst the depths of contemplation’s maze,
Words grotesque and selfish lie ablaze,
A fusion of curdled musings intertwine,
In late October light, a restless mind resigns.
Like an old moon, friendly yet discreet,
Stalks the dawn sky, casting shadows sweet,
In this time of rhyme, where memories reside,
Sh...
Tuesday 5th September 2023 5:01 pm
Mem û Zîn
aniseed-tasting drink
Stinks but is addictive, especially
Here in Paris on the left-bank,
Near Montmartre
Where the Institut is
Where we plan, conspire,
Work out who is the traitor
Who the informer, who the liar.
I am always thirsty for wine too
To the extent of our...
Saturday 2nd September 2023 11:03 pm
ELEGY for ANNA
Anna Campbell was her name and Kurdistan
her nation — she died on March 15 2018, the Ides of March.
She was fighting as part of the all-female
Kurdish Women’s Protection Units, the YPJ.
She was 26 when she died
a long way from Lewes in East Sussex where she was raised.
She was killed by a Turkish airstrike — the Islamist Turks NATO-empowered enemies of the Kurds.
Anna had dyed h...
Friday 1st September 2023 9:38 pm
Blank slate
saw her in the street
polite, random, neat.
forget drunkenness
create the diabolical
divine Tabula Rasa – blank slate
too late.
one, kind, sweet woman,
polished floors with rage
arms red and fleshy –
dark memory of her soul
late, near the Spaniard’s Inn,
full moon shining,
with all the solemnity of a river in flood,
sleeping London dreaming o...
Wednesday 30th August 2023 11:01 pm
The closing of the day
We walk a steep and slippery way,
mixing senses in synaesthesia’s way,
it seem as if I am a chorus in a play.
We feel by measures hidden from the eye
time borrowed, days wasted, life goes by,
I walk along a steep and scattered way.
Winter seeps me into sleep, as my soul flies
to the gist of an art unborrowed from the eye;
I learn by going, where I have to go, inside.
Dark ...
Tuesday 29th August 2023 8:06 pm
The consolations of love
Sadnesses besiege me,
at the dying of the light,
nothing can console me,
like a vein of ore run through solid rock,
through my life
the glittering flow of tears
has been like a tumbling spring
in hill country.
My love, stretched upon this rack of time,
appears redundant, gone,
until her song is sung,
until her time is right
until the light in her eyes
greets me at night....
Memo...
Saturday 26th August 2023 10:42 pm
Second Chances
memory fades
slippery words
frankly absurd
at home the fulcrum fulminates
again children expect blows
nobody knows
eldest boy
emotions frozen
for years and years
unbridled tears
father, brother son, friend
world without end
pressure in my head
they're dead
thinking will no longer do
so what more can ye do?
walk a way with a dog
Skip into music
Fade into art.
Be a part...
Friday 25th August 2023 10:29 pm
HERE I LIE
https://aphelis.net/james-joyce-meets-nora-barnacle/
I stare at the ceiling, stare at the sky, time flies by. I scuttle along a dirt track, climb over a stile into a cornfield in the previous century I see no blood-red poppies, merely blue corn flowers and the witch Hazel. Now, I’m stuck in the backroom off of Clapham Green, where the black mould spreads insidiously like a disease tha...
Wednesday 23rd August 2023 3:41 pm
THE SNOT-GREEN SEA
The winter sharp brains of children
Took a turn for the worse,
Suffered an inferiority complex.
Dispersed, triumphant solely in their dreams.
They came running across raging seas, dancing on the waves.
A storm-blessed salty awakening.
Had nothing to regret.
They were sweeter than children.
The word ‘atrocity’ was expunged from the dictionary.
Elm trees were caw-caw-cawing with the roo...
Tuesday 22nd August 2023 6:08 pm
The pharmacology of shadow
When sadnesses besiege you,
at the dying of the light,
and starlight illuminates
the end of days
then star-crossed lovers
quietly drift away,
sigh silently out of sight
of mirrors, water, eyes,
And you will find, momentarily,
humankind loses its disguise..
We spin and whirl and shiver.
like hemlock in the hay,
we are Witch, Wicca, Wizard
who sway beneath the moon,
all night, all da...
Tuesday 22nd August 2023 1:01 pm
The Longing
Wednesday 16th August 2023 8:46 pm
BRITTLE BEAUTY
Brittle beauty, that Nature made so frail,
Whereof the gift is small, and short the season;
Flowering to-day, to-morrow apt to fail;
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (born 1516/17, executed 19 January 1547)
to all those who choose to live instead.
not to avert your gaze
when all the world’s ablaze.
Give all t...
Tuesday 15th August 2023 10:37 am
Cortez the Killer - Stewardship
Photo by Ales Krivec on Unsplash
On these dog days
of a future summer,
on a future planet,
after much deprivation and cruelty
ours is a molested nature,
that screams in agony in an iron trap
where the final wild tiger
bleeds to death
as humans point their cameras and smile.
Will these few remaining animals be abused
exterminated, tortured
like all four-legged creatures
...
Saturday 12th August 2023 8:53 pm
Lament
Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash
A bond unbreakable —
Private soldier Jack Prince by name,
Not a pillar of strength, nor with a heart aflame,
You you didn’t live a life of wisdom and insight,
Your absence does not leave a void that feels so right.
Do you rest, in eternal slumber?
Spirits dance on, like a glowing ember —
or so the poet says —
Does your legacy live...
Saturday 12th August 2023 2:36 pm
Moon, moon
Moon came to an old Cheshire mere,
In all her shadowy finery.
This boy cannot stop looking
And looking at pretty Missy Moon.
Thunder growls on this high summer eve
Missy Moon shows off her talents
Her rounded suppleness of form
Shows us all her shades and shadows and crevices
Toing-and-froing the moon swings like a nursery rhyme
Moonlight flows and the boy is now an old man
Sleeping ...
Wednesday 9th August 2023 8:36 pm
Snow white stars
The moon was sad, as only the moon can be.
Men in tears seek to flee the nightmare of their lives
We dream that with fingers we can pluck
The calmness of flowers, the depths of moments,
The completeness of a live birth.
White sobs slide into our eyes
Remembering the smile of another
A mother,
On the fortunate day of our first kiss.
The past was a magnet that draws
Into us the heady...
Wednesday 9th August 2023 8:23 pm
i.m. Syd Barrett (1946-2006)
Syd, do you remember that golden sun,
When youth burned bright, your journey just begun?
Shine on, you crazy diamond, hold your flame,
Illuminate this world, leave your mark, etch your name.
In your eyes, a depth, a universe, vast,
Black holes of wisdom, memories from the past.
Shine on, you crazy diamond, never lose your glow,
Your brilliance shines through deepest darkness, in a cel...
Sunday 6th August 2023 8:46 pm
Whining poetry
Complain with the full force of a Jesuit priest
Whine like a man who knows he's out of time
Casuistry and sophistry
Work together
In perfect harmony.
Poetry's more about wine than whine
More about seeking to express the inexpressible
Than complaining about how difficult it is.
A true poet makes the difficult easy
Can turn water into wine in a half-truncated line
Caesuras can soar in ...
Friday 4th August 2023 4:50 pm
The peasant poet
John Clare knew and understood
the wonder of the mundane,
how nothing remains the same.
Glint, glance, gaze, smile,
the optimism of
that pastoral green mile.
You saw and smelt
a myriad of wild flowers
sway in the breeze.
You looked up at the swirling clouds,
a grey-blue reflection of your unassumed eternity
and then you wrote your poetry
unmindful of the side long glan...
Wednesday 2nd August 2023 11:41 am
Muscle memory
From trembling thin arms to thunderous cries,
A childhood stained with hunger's cruel guise,
Clutching to mother, seeking her solace tight,
In a world where shadows cast a daunting fright.
Constant threats and abuse, a heavy weight,
Youth stolen away, no chance to abate,
Eldest boy, burdened beyond his years,
In grey short pants, resilience through tears.
Socks pulled up, a symbol of s...
Tuesday 1st August 2023 10:18 pm
SACRIFICE
An epiphany of history:
The momentary blindness
Of a sunshine daydream;
Of what life could’ve been.
Instead we have
the normal crucifixions:
the splatters of human brains
all over underground trains
and the splatter on the sands
of the desert seer.
In my beginning is my end,
the starting point for music and poetry and art,
the gulags and the camps and massacres came later,
they s...
Tuesday 1st August 2023 4:04 pm
Who the hell can see forever?
Wild is the way, unclear is the day.
The seeping mottled sky passes me by
Opening before me the vista of a life:
A world of smell and sight and sound,
The portals of discovery all around,
I enter this world, this newfoundland:
The sheer vividness of colour abounds
Synaesthesia's all round visibility of sound,
Flesh and blood, heart and soul
All the half-created, half-perceived
Epipha...
Monday 31st July 2023 10:36 am
Sinéad O'Connor
All those who scramble after death
And all its accompanying sensations
Gather around you now. You looked
In so many different directions for the truth
And I don't know if you ever found it.
But you tried. God, you tried.
All those south Dublin Gaels dismissed you,
As they did the Aran sweaters they used to wear
During the Celtic Tiger with their Estonian nannies
And their Latvian garde...
Wednesday 26th July 2023 9:51 pm
Granddaughter
Oft and steady rhythm of a baby
breathing
her gaze tells you all you need to know,
her footsteps tender in the snow,
the pitter-patter blast of rain upon a window,
considering all we do, and do not, know
we stand hand-in-hand
toe-to-toe
under this beautiful July moon.
And now she's our lady in red,
dancing at the party.
Big school beckons in September,
with all its inherited human...
Tuesday 25th July 2023 10:10 am
Bandit country
In this land of loughs and dry burials
The invisible lends itself into visibility
In the dialect of words – tattered,
Stained, inadequate – visceral words
Spew like blood from a gargoyle
Into this mist-ridden air where these
Pagan burrows hide the dead inside
Blessed Earth: dogs still dig for bones
And the music fills the very air
Lacerated by the explosions of anger
We see upon the red...
Monday 24th July 2023 5:38 pm
Noli Timere
Minutes before he died, the poet Seamus Heaney texted to his wife in Latin: Noli timere or do not be afraid.
Seamus Heaney's sons carrying their father's coffin
Redemption comes at such a cost.
Freezing winds off the Irish sea
Blow me away from hearth and home
At such a cost - loss pressing on loss -
Yet still the winter-birds sing,
Seemingly, so carelessly,
A...
Sunday 23rd July 2023 12:33 am
Sketches in a minor key
Her red-gold hair
on a stormy autumn day
along the borderland where
time fades away
Like the leafy-mist
which persists,
drifts along the hedge rows
on this late-summer morn
Emptily, curiously,
revealing a design hidden
in these swirls of hieroglyphics,
hidden in the wood-smoke
burning our throats on a lost
once-upon-a-time damp autumn eve
I am afflicted by
the time...
Tuesday 18th July 2023 8:35 pm
Space-Time
I have a dead weight inside of me
Which I carry around all day,
It often tries to kill me
And it will not go away.
I send this freight’s immensity
To the centre of a black hole;
Retracing the wandering journey
Of my wandering-wandering soul.
Mine is a grave singularity,
It contains a huge-huge mass,
In an infinitely small-small space:
A density — gravity...
Sunday 16th July 2023 1:15 am
Heart-worn highways
Charles Bukowski probably said (or wrote)
That we are here to laugh at the odds.
I’d say it all depends. Listening to a rich
New Englander (Martha’s Vineyard)
Pontificate upon the miniaturist artists
Of the Renaissance in the ever-so well
Known salons of Venice or Florence
(Such pale shadows of the British Imperialist
Tomb raiders of the nineteenth century).
These daughters of th...
Friday 14th July 2023 9:33 pm
A stoic suicide
We wake to the rumbling thunder of blood,
Pumping hearts, twisted hearts, this shadow and I
Squeeze into the thick silences of trees.
Now the dark lights of Christmastide afflict us
Twilight memories drift, flux and flicker
In this breeze of time.
Penumbra-beginning, hologram-end,
Such pungent affirmations,
Slip into the generations of suffering:
Eyes lifted to a cross, a crescent, a ...
Tuesday 11th July 2023 5:02 pm
An Aphrodite night
When sadnesses besiege you
with the dying of the light,
and you find your solace in starlight,
time drifts away from mirrors,water, eyes
on this Aphrodite night of no disguise.
When night falls and cats crawl,
my heart is filled with sadness, I fear
starlight does not illuminate sky at all.
We know that all human love must die.
as silently we drift apart,
away from each othe...
Sunday 9th July 2023 8:47 pm
UNDER THE VOLCANO
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
How, unless you drink as I do, can you hope to understand the beauty of an old indian woman playing dominoes with a chicken? Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano
On a road out of London pulled up at a pub
I heard him say the words I remember, today.
The working man suffers: glug, glug, glug
The drinking man loves: glug, glug, glug.
Taste the whiskey, feel t...
Friday 7th July 2023 5:16 pm
Outfoxing the Furies
Fluid the medium by which we desire,
Heavy the limits to which we aspire
To lift ourselves free, on the wings of a dove,
To practise perfection by drinking his blood.
The illusion of earth is splintering fast
As we grab at the air, as we fall at the last:
Witchery, Witan, Wicca and Wizard
Pursuing the furies is why we are feared.
Opening up space and stretching out time
In a flurry of wor...
Wednesday 5th July 2023 8:15 pm
The rhythm of a dream
From he multi-verse within
I stumble into my usual discontented
Bout of sleep –
A fragment of the fourth dimension,
Trapped inside, no disguise.
In an echo of a dream –
Time, like the river Lethe,
Washes over me
And left I am here, bereft,
To float upon the river of unmindfulness
Towards the golden dome
Which glows with Synesthetic force –
A pulsating kaleidoscope of times...
Tuesday 4th July 2023 8:24 pm
Conjugations & Confabulations
Sometimes it’s best just to make up poems
In your head whilst drinking beer and gin
Then let them blow away on a windy day in July
Sitting outside in cold sunshine with Woody.
If I call you what the fuck I like
And you call me what the fuck you like
What are the chances it’d be the same fucking word?
Would you take a fence or would I take a fence
Or is it only certain horses that ...
Saturday 1st July 2023 8:31 pm
FIELD THEORY
and then half again,
this inevitably leads to the curve of infinity:
to that spike in the universal calculus
caused by a single boy’s once-upon-a-time enquiry
into the extraordinary to – ing and fro – ing of time and space.
This intricate lattice work of filigree and lace
through which gleams spark into memories,
are...
Friday 30th June 2023 7:50 pm
The stolen child
Then being lifted by a fairy-wild
She kissed my cheek and mussed my hair
And then she wasn’t there.
Some blind folk see the faeries clear,
For faeries are always close or near.
Oh, better far than what we see
Are fairy wings that brush our faces
Like spiders’ webs, or shimmering laces.
Such magical, lovely, lonely things.
A rustle in the wind reminds us
...
Thursday 29th June 2023 7:14 pm
Flogging a dead horse
Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com
Early on in Dostoevsky’s great work Crime and Punishment.
Published in 1866 when Dostoevsky was 44 years old,
Raskolnikov, an ex-student in St Petersburg, sees himself as a young boy,
Walking through a provincial town with his father.
Outside a pub, a drunken rabble surrounds a weary old horse,
Hitched to a weighty cartload that it canno...
Wednesday 28th June 2023 8:46 pm
Tuesday
Today I listened to a loada shit
Concerning toxic masculinity
I was kinda bored. It was Radio 4.
It was an arrogant fucking lecture on
The vital importance of the pronoun
'They' and hey there were no jokes..
This is no way to speak to ordinary users
Of language. It's a shame that working
Class people are so excluded from
These delightful ways of speaking. Minority
Rules you say. No p...
Tuesday 27th June 2023 10:05 pm
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