We shout quietly into mother's failing ear,

conscious of the others in the ward,

though their faces suggest they are absent.

She is sure that the thing which takes her temperature

is making her hearing worse.

Frail ladies clutch flimsy nighties

to skeletal bones,

while horsey voiced visitors

boom into unhearing ears.

A huge man in a greatcoat

strokes his lush, black beard

and...

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I Saw The Moon At Lunchtime

she was looking pale and wan.

The sun was glowing cheeked

behind lace curtains.

Regular hours are essential to health

You never see a nocturnal solar excursion.

He is a sensible chap of regular habit.

That lunar lady though!

Always sickly,

she wastes.

I have seen her reclining.

So thin,

as if she might disappear.

Next thing you know,

she is all bl...

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I saw you

wandering along a country road,

looking content and serene.

With your magnificent,

permed white hair and

more magnificent balls.

You were a vision of

relaxed power.

You peered into each farm gate

as you passed.

Maybe you were looking for some cows

whose acquaintance you might like to make.

The great ring in your nose

by which your mighty strength

had been controlled,

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Portia knows that life is a pain.

Just having been out shopping again.

It is a nasty continuous round, of

Doing boring things in the kitchen.

Peter comes home from his tedious job.

He cannot help thinking that Portia's a slob.

She's scruffy and tired and, all of the time,

Doing boring things in the kitchen.

Portia peels spuds during GMTV,

While the window cleaner se...

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Harriet Harman, Minister for constitutional Affairs (no I haven't a clue what that is), says that paying for sex should be made illegal. If she thinks that would stop prostitution, or make women safer, she is mad.

Bobbing and Peering

The street is lined with pretty girls,

in micro skirts and cheeky curls.

They look at every passing car.

Bobbing and peering.

Behind them lurk their pimpi...

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The blackened stumps

of sad neglect

stare out from cracked

and shrunken lips.

A hoarse request

for change, is inaudible

above the noise

of the traffic.

The sad smile

and extended hand

tell of her need.

Watery eyes match

the spot of spittle

hanging in the corner

of a mouth,

slack and weak.

Alone among

a million people.

Hungry 'mid

the rotting food.

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JESUS! What is this all about?

Just cost and family rows.

Useless presents, tasteless tat,

shops so full of crowds.

A decorated pine tree

and a fat, old man in red.

A dry and tasteless turkey,

and crawling, drunk to bed.

The stable was for donkeys.

That's how it should have stayed.

Three wierdos with their trinkets

were best sent on their way.

For some it's saturnalia.

It's s...

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Our beloved queen St Nicolas

was born today

at the North Pole at 3pm.

She was born to a reindeer

with a serious alcohol habit.

While Randolph nipped off

to get more booze,

some escaped polar bears

from Neverland Zoo

came and took care of her.

Then a great star appeared,

showing the way to the polar bears.

They were the purest, perfectly

white as he was.

He wanted them back

...

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So this is the New Mexico.

What crap was the old one

to make this?

In Albuquerque from

Spider Spoon Restaurant

by fake antique bus

to Old Town.

Well, well!

There's another failed actor

shot dead

in the middle of the street.

Yesterdaves with an Elvis suit,

Yuk Mexican food

and crap Indian 'art'.

A soulless new, sprawling

concrete city with

a nice mountain outside.

Th...

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Agadir

As a child I remember

the terrible news.

Agadir destroyed.

Fifteen thousand dead

in fifteen seconds.

An earthquake

tore the town apart

and consumed it.

Forty six years later

I visit on holiday.

There is nothing

to talk about

other than the earthquake,

the heat, and sardines.

Fat, pink travellers

hustled in a smelly souk.

Fifteen thousand ghosts

mingle in the be...

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There was a girl form Camden Town

came down to Leicester Square.

She set herself a target to

find her fortune there.

A sleazy chap moved up to her

and this is what he said.

"A girl like you could do real well

down here in the West End."

The girl replied "you slimy creep

I did not come for hire

I set myself to find a life

away from slum land mire."

"A very sound and worthy ch...

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The Ring Mistress

opened proceedings.

Puffing out her crimson chest

and with a sweep

of her turquoise tail,

she let out a shrill whistle.

The lion holding back

a small shame of primates

with a chair

was so skilful.

I couldn't believe it

when he put his paw

in the beast's mouth.

They are so well trained.

The troupe

of health and safety inspectors

were very entertaining.

Jum...

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In the beginning there was Adam.

He was a Smith.

Crafting with an invisible hand,

he carved out

the wealth of nations.

A horseshoe

never made a blacksmith.

Complexity creates

the illusion of design.

Simpler things

are made.

A market is unknowably complicated.

Nobody can manage it.

Humans have the idea of a market,

but markets make themselves.

Humans thought of the internet

bu...

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Some thoughts as the Bali conference stumbles to a conclusion.

Guilty

When they arrested me

I was pretty cocky.

They hadn't got anything on me.

I would be free in no time.

Demanding apologies

Selling my story

Sneering at the plods.

I was an innocent with

a blameless bourgeois life

a boring late life, life.

A quiet inoffensive life.

They couldn't know

that I drink

more...

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Not all important events are held in the USA. Poland excels in this particular field of endeavour.

The World Pipe Smoking Championships

The lady puffed.

While all around her coughed

and spluttered to extinction,

the lady puffed.

Poles apart,

the stained moustaches

and shrivelled lungs

sucked with the skill of decades,

and the lady puffed.

The lady puffed

patiently, per...

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Fast out of the traps,

Joey Chestnut led for America

with Takeru Kobayashi

thundering alongside for Japan.

Kobayashi, the six time winner

had been hot favourite

until Arthritic Jaw and

Wisdom Tooth Extraction

set him back.

'Jaws' Chestnut sprung

a pre-race surprise

by beating the dog munching

record with a dazzling 59.5.

With the also rans dropping back

the contenders matc...

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Dark, dismal, dreary days.

Short, sharply shivering days

Sleet slaked and sodden days.

Days sad with savage chill.

Days filled with feeling ill.

Days grey and brooding still.

Weak watered sunlight brief.

Grim trees bereft of leaf.

Lost to the daylight thief.

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Silhouettes glide slowly

under ice.

Golden slithers

in a silver haze.

Signs of life

amid frozen winter

wasteland.

Hints of pleasure

yet to come.

Now is a beauty

all its own.

Featureless,

pure and white.

Crisp blanket over

every part. Hiding

weed and plant and slab.

Crystal spikes

from gutter gleam.

Twinkling blue

and red and green.

Pale yolk

of winter sun,

g...

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And now for the long range forecast.

There will be

the coldest winter for years.

Gas will run out.

Electricity will be cut.

Roads will be snow bound.

Brass monkeys will be bereft.

This global warming is hard.

As you can see,

a new front is advancing across Egypt.

The waters will turn to blood,

except for Israelites of course.

Frogs gnats, flies, mosquitoes, lice and horsefli...

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Up in the morning

creaking and yawning

hungover and feeling

half dead.

I lurch down the stairs

full of worries and cares

and so fat I could

only lumber.

A quick cup of tea

then off for a pee,

but then stay

for a little bit extra

A good kilo lighter

So fit, and much brighter,

I bound from the bog

full of fun.

Wine is a pleasure

and food is still better,

but a jolly g...

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Darwinian evolution

is a truly wonderful thing.

Transforming a prison officer

from grafting to ex-pat bling.

By long canoe to from Seaton Carew

straight along Panama Canal.

A five year trip to paradise

with a healthy and glowing tan.

The missing man, a long time dead,

is on his way back to the nick.

The lovely wife with a brand new life

seems now to have missed a trick.

Insu...

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I would rather not be a Dick

I would have preferred to be Rich.

but Dick it is.

Dick it always has been.

It might not have been so bad

being Dick,

if only I had been

well - larger.

Kids don't do irony

do they?

No - calling me Donkey Dick

wasn't irony,

it was fucking murder.

I died.

My dick died.

It started out small

and got smaller.

Every time I heard it

I lost another mill...

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In a green and tranquil valley,

peaceful dale, at Vale of York.

Was a wand'ring woolly graveyard,

where we went to take a walk.

Nestled in the sloping green field,

stood a house of mellow stone.

Beneath its solid slate umbrella,

lived a farming clan at home,

Fortress walls around their farmland.

Valley sides held off the world.

Tended fields sit by the farmhouse,

patch work...

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Bearing Mohammed, the kufr ape

spreads sedition in school.

Seducing children

from the way of the righteous.

Toying with the offspring of the faithful.

Tempting their small minds from the true path.

Surely this is wickedness.

Bear faced lies confuse the youth

about our glorious dictatorship.

The name of the prophet bears down

on the flayed backs of the ladies

before our sweet sha...

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How I love you, sweaty armpit,

Every day at half past eight.

All summer long, I race to join you.

Bakerloo to Charing Cross.

Jostled tight in fraught containment.

Strap hung grace, courts nose pressed flat.

For you are tall and fair and fragrant,

But I am short and bald and fat.

Our carriage lurches.

You are twirling.

Hirsute lip, sweeps

pearl dropped breast.

Will you love m...

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Existing only as a line

on a memorial,

I know only he is gone,

not how he lived.

A body lost

in endless trenches,

filled with wasted youth.

His nation needed HIM

to be torn

from his family

to a far off war and

a forgotten death.

His blood mingling

with those

murdered at dawn

by their own side,

in front of the

same trenches.

Too frail to fight,

Baker was a butler.

Ser...

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At uni they were marching

behind banners red and proud.

They proclaimed the fight for freedom

and they puffed the weed in clouds.

They went on by degrees

to lead the government.

The chance to bring in liberty

that with banners they proclaimed.

Now, heading up their Ministries,

the student rebels have

the power in their grasp at last,

the legislators hand.

So now they show th...

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Gordon, Gordon turning right.

Now to Harmanise your plight

To Abraham, from God was given

cash aplenty, no discretion.

On the Rock they queued and cued

You stumbled while more debt accrued.

Two slipped discs laid you more low.

A few Watts more and you will go.

Gordon, Gordon's fading might.

Sleepless times again tonight.

Mendelssohn composed a letter.

Made things worse instead o...

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Paradise

This is a great democracy.

A beacon for the world.

We lock you up for fourteen days,

without a charge or trial.

We treat you with suspicion,

because your skin is black.

And if you pray to Mecca,

We will send your preacher back.

You chose our earthly paradise,

Above your Umma's poor.

You love the bling,

And everything,

the satan brings and more.

This is a great ...

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As the imperial bulldog,

gives way to the beasts

of Tien an Men

amid a firework fantasia,

a governor cries.

As a kilted piper

passes a goose

stepping liberationist

in the teeming rain,

an expat sighs.

As a foreign prince

slinks off

in a gilded yacht,

while army rumbles in.

Hope of freedom dies.

The handover by Britain of Hong Kong and the New Territories to the Peoples Re...

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A strong and angry black man

from a ghetto, rough and poor,

may have killed some people,

but nobody can be sure.

Shaky witness evidence

and racist LA cops,

got their desired sentence

and its politics that counts.

As Arnie weighed up carefully,

the votes in life and death,

redemption and a fight for peace

did not concern him much.

The rich and mighty governor

with ego twice as...

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I dreamed of being a surrealist

like my Dada, until I rejected him.

Now there is just existence

and the terror of what is.

Dog the civiliser is gone.

Now the dreadful freedom brings

the nausea of existence,

nausea at the absurdity

of the arbitrary.

The lugubrious paranoiac,

le viol, avida Gala,

devoured by dollars.

Sexual instinct, savouring

the sentiment of death,

Deception...

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Vile parasites.

Your golden,oily skins

oozing with excess.

Drunk in your dry kingdom.

Saud lechers mawling

voiceless, voteless beauties

who may not drive

or leave their homes

without the right man.

This land you stole

in the name of Wahhab

bleeds daily.

The blood of lopped limbs,

mingles with the blood

of heads rolling beneath

the sword.

The only voice to be heard

is the s...

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Skill ivy to the brolig heure

Cur forstang tho it clive

Fung custove for sing crulling sime

Cud prustick villing nive

Fud custagavidge sorkily

Fud favit barramore

Yet fortasonich tithily

Cum carad konik dore

Far fortu later farid us

Cut fitti fitti cude

Faranupted tully fules

Tarrabered in the lude

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Black hearted blackguard,

the Smith

wrought only misery

when he stole a nation.

Not in our lifetime will

the damage be repaired.

Not in a thousand years,

will the crime be forgotten.

What he took without sanction

from the onlooking world

was a colonial mansion

built with the blood soaked sweat

of a million subjugated toilers.

What he created was the venom

of the abused mass

tha...

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Thomas had a mouse for breakfast.

Not all of one,

just half the face.

The guts he dragged across the kitchen.

Other bits in every place.

"The cat flea

is the biggest biting nuisance

in the western world."

Tell that to the mouse.

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On the holy field of battle,

the contenders take their place.

A second ties on gloves.

There is hatred in their face.

The bell is rung, and in they go,

to but and grope and gore.

In several shameful minutes,

they wage their sordid war.

For millions of dollars,

adoration and the fame,

these mounds of throbbing muscle

pound brains to win their 'game'.

Then in mighty final clim...

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The very first time that I did it

wasn't warm, or safe, or at home.

It was furtive, and risky, and freezing.

I cringe at the thought every time.

The very first time that I saw it,

I shuddered with horror and fear.

This was the end, I just knew it.

Pleasure was gone from me here.

The very first time that I had it,

I couldn't get over the thrill.

The best in my life by a long way.

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My observation on Liverpol European City of Culture 2008

The 'Pool

The pool is cool.

From the lively beat in the caverns

of liver challenging Mathew Street

to the rich heaps of scrap in the dock,

the pool is cool.

Slaves gave the graces to stand by the river,

The wave of Cunard and the Star turned to pearls.

A mighty, rich city so boastful in grandeur,

knew poverty when the...

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The Peabody Duck March

Since opening its doors on November 1, 1986, The Peabody Orlando has continued, in unbroken sequence, the traditional March of The Peabody Ducks which began at its sister property, The Peabody Memphis, many, many years ago.

Each morning, promptly at 11 a.m., the hotel's atrium lobby is the scene of a remarkable ritual. In a special elevator, the five North American mall...

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I'm glad I don't speak German

and salute the fuehrer's flag.

Free of Stalin's frozen gulags

Not in Trotsky's paradise.

That Bin Laden's worldwide caliphate,

with limbs and heads lopped off,

remains the madman's fantasy

is comfort beyond words.

The stumbling democracies

that rule the western states,

frustrate at their complacency

depress with decadence.

Should ayatollas wield...

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Joe Angel mounted Pegasus,

and off they winged their way.

They flew past

gimble's breakfast time

to where the muleys play.

Carl Crocophant loved Ellie.

An eledile of grace.

So Carl and Ellie travelled off

to plight their troth in space.

Jo Angel met them wandering

in starry, starry sky.

He married them,

right there and then

and bid them fair goodbye.

They honeymooned

in G...

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Anonymously born

in sterile rooms.

Delivered by masked faces.

Despatched to homes,

the new born

has every need met.

Fed, watered, comforted,

baby sat and tended.

Nannied and protected.

Welfare throughout life.

No risk

of independence.

No chance

of going out

in glory.

No battle,

plague

or wild excess.

Just tepid caring.

Free of passion.

Then mild death

ends this frail

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Tabatha Bagginshaw jumped in the cab

of her new inter-stellar green prune.

She nipped out to Jupiter, just before tea,

with a sharp left turn at the moon.

We whipped round the galaxy roaring with glee,

with a sharp left turn at the moon.

Tabath Bagginshaw played with the groak

who lives in the Jovian dune.

They spent the night out, watching clarvicles dance

round the sharp left turn ...

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Who killed Hen Harrier?

"Not me" said Ginger Nut,

patting his faithful mutt.

Who killed Hen Harrier?

"Not me" said Carrot Top,

"the harrier's a topping job."

Who killed Hen Harrier?

"Not me" said Sloaney Mate

on Sandringham fine estate.

Who killed Hen Harrier?

"I" said the badger.

"I killed Hen Harrier with my bovine TB."

Who killed Hen Harrier?

"I'll cull the foul kille...

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Shadows lengthen in the still warm eve.

Honeysuckle scent perfumes the air.

No sound disturbs the peace or breeze intrudes.

With rapid change from corps to pas de deux,

The swallows leave and bats command the stage.

In silouhette, they dance with dainty poise,

Each perfect move reflected in the pool.

Frail damsel fly and sleek, slow moving carp,

Complete the ballet played for our d...

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Rolling black couds,

rolling back calm.

Screaming wind.

Breaking wind

howls in the cellar.

Waves in the carpet.

Creaking root

and thrashing branch.

Lively oak

to splintered fuel.

Letterbox rattles.

No post appears.

Posts fence the wind,

over the garden wall.

Rain lashed window.

A million rainbows

on the world.

Incessant drumming

on the roof.

Deadly patters

on t...

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Mares grazed in quiet contentment,

Their foals were close beside.

They suckled and they frolicked,

While the mothers watched with pride.

This scene of peace and beauty,

Was shattered with a din.

When horse box clattered to the site,

And passion galloped in.

A mighty beast stood proud and tall,

His male pride proclaimed.

A whinny rent the tranquil air.

Head throw...

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Froggy did a wooing go.

Bonking frogette, nice and slow.

Soon the pond was full of spawn.

A million tadpoles then were born.

The fish looked on, all goggle eyed.

A feast was all that they espied.

They chased the tiny taddy shoals

and swallowed their black wriggly goals.

Fat, sleek and broadly smiling fish

rejoice in their amphibidish.

But poor old froggy and frogette

see their b...

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The choreography

was immaculate.

Every inch of the

small stage was used.

Her costume too

was stunning.

Meticulously

she arranged it

to ensure

that it showed

her movement off

to its best

during the performance.

It was a full house

and she knew

that some of the audience

would be there specially

because it was her.

Kora had a following

and she took pleasure

in the passi...

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