Underneath the Horse Chestnut Tree
We scattered mum over where her sister lay
My Father seemed smaller somehow as my Brother,
Ready to catch him at any moment,
Walked him out of the churchyard
Beneath the archway where he had once kissed her
The world seemed silent just for them
The sky had grabbed the clouds and held them still,
And the wind and the birds and the trees all held court
As the...
Friday 5th August 2011 10:31 am
Kissing the Alien (a boyhood dream)
Awash with the monochrome glow
Of Saturday television
I would watch cardboard rocket ships on strings
Wobble into polystyrene cities
Buck and Flash and James T. Kirk
Would wrassle to the ground
All manner of humanoids with strange features
Made of mud or rock or wood
Each one succumbing to the earthling’s righteousness
With a boff and a thud
...
Thursday 4th August 2011 4:42 pm
Yellow Purple Blue
The corridors seem longer with each foreboding march along
Men my age, mid-life, shuffle toward me dragging their drips
Or machines that feed tubes into their sides, their throats, their asses
I watch the gunk being sucked out and the penicillin pumping in.
I was here many times as a kid
We ran riot with our legs cast, stitches busting, nightgowns flapping
The nurses wou...
Monday 1st August 2011 8:19 pm
Nagasaki Shadows
Watching the ocean cherryspit villages across the fields
And spew the wreckages of an age into the Kyoukai
Where the flotsam and the derelict are indiscernible
From the hoardings and the fabric of the cot, the house
The workstation and the supermarket fittings
I can’t help but think that
If the waves keep rolling, rolling
Rolling on
They would be strong enough
To wash away the...
Thursday 17th March 2011 3:18 pm
One Nil
You pull a Cruyff turn
Score and embrace the winger
I’m left standing still
Tuesday 1st June 2010 11:00 am
TIME OF THE MONTH/FOOTBALL POEM
I'd always been a Coventry supporter
strange, everyday for a month
to hear me shouting
"COME ON YOU REDS"
Sunday 30th May 2010 12:46 pm
Just Because (For Rupert Anson the last scoundrel in Speke)
He grew his hair and a beard
When I lost faith with my youth.
He kicked down fences
To show the vandals how it should be done
And smoked grass for the first time
As an octogenarian.
Just because.
He rode a tricycle to town and back
Everyday
When he reluctantly gave up his engines.
And he sat on benches
With WET PAINT signs
Still being written. Vill...
Friday 28th May 2010 1:43 pm
There is nothing better than a truly beautiful sky
The moon has been in a fight tonight
And the bruise spreads across the sky;
Yellow and purple. I think maybe
The mountain is broken.
We’ll need to get that fixed
And hope it sets.
You are leaning on the fender
Skirtucked and leatherbooted
Foot tapping to the sounds
Of Sam Cooke singing
The sounds of dignity
In the face of oppression.
The w...
Thursday 27th May 2010 10:47 pm
THE FLY
Thursday 27th May 2010 9:27 pm
BACK-SEAT BRENDA
I was in love with back seat Brenda
We all were.
But I was at that age
Where I still called my friends lesbians
Because I did not know what it meant.
I was in love with back seat Brenda
And how could you not be.
She had a peardrop smile
And eyes that twinkled like gobstoppers
After
Twenty
Minutes
Of
Sucking.
8:15 at her bus stop
And fifty homemade hair-do's
Tu...
Thursday 20th May 2010 8:49 pm
THE TOAD THE HEART AND THE VALENTINE GIFT
Thursday 20th May 2010 8:25 pm
Stargiver
The curtains seem closed on the heavens
It is coalmine black
Before diamonds had formed.
The whispering of trees to the wind the only audible sound.
We are wrapped up in blankets
And I can barely make out your silhouette,
A tangle of hair like canary grass on the Mara River,
A flash of teeth and eyes, fireworks reflecting in the waters.
I wish that I could see your f...
Thursday 20th May 2010 8:22 pm
Puedo Escribir (tonight I can write)
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'I have never felt the convincing waves
Crashing over the rocks of my heart'
Or, 'this night I have watched a thousand suns dying,
Extinguished from existence in the obsidian sky'
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Only in loving her does the puzzle seem ...
Thursday 20th May 2010 8:19 pm
Online Love (for Jen Lewis)
Wednesday 19th May 2010 12:27 pm
Pandora’s Box
When all you have left is hope
Locked away
In a jar
Hidden under the bed
Sucking in dust
Perhaps it was a good thing
You let go of all that hate.
Wednesday 19th May 2010 12:06 pm
Saltwater
When an ocean cries
For the loss of love,
In grief,
What seeps from its eyes,
The swell of every wave
Beneath?
Saturday 15th May 2010 10:04 am
SHIT ON YOUR SHOES (a love poem)
Is the poetry of our lovemaking.
Scribbled on the front of my school textbooks
Is the script of my emotions.
I have painted murals on palaces,
Drawn in chalk the epitome of my knowledge
On Sunset Boulevard and Tibetan Mountains.
I have hidden prose for you
On the underneath of snails,
In the bellies of Great white sharks.
Painstak...
Wednesday 12th May 2010 3:53 pm
Damned Chemistry
And I would study you rather than the texts.
Everything I gleaned about the human eye
Was from careful observation of yours.
I dissected your navy blue jumper
And weighed each breast in the palms of my mind
Ran my hands over your skin
And kept samples on slides
To examine under the microscope
Later.
And all I ...
Wednesday 12th May 2010 9:50 am
Prometheus and Andromeda
Tuesday 11th May 2010 10:17 pm
Consulting the Auricle
Monday 10th May 2010 4:52 pm
Panchajanya
Monday 10th May 2010 1:54 pm
Armistice Day
Thursday 6th May 2010 3:15 pm
Fumbling with the Mathematics
The night terrors take over
Sweatyshakes and screams waking neighbours
And starting a chorus of foxes;
Crying like panic into the night.
The very odds against meeting you
Are simply astronomical
At best.
Seven billion people
Halved by sex
Divided by geography
And still I never fancied my chances.
And then the formula,
(Beyond Einstein, beyond Hawkins)
To figure out ...
Thursday 6th May 2010 2:15 pm
HEAVEN MUST BE A COLD AND LONELY PLACE
Heaven must be a cold and lonely place,
white and friendless,
bald and endless,
a bit like Milton Keynes.
Thursday 6th May 2010 2:14 pm
THE BATH THAT KEEPS OUR PAST ALIVE
Thursday 6th May 2010 2:12 pm
Pretty little Innuendos
Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos”
(I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.)
Pablo Neruda – Love Poem XIV
Thursday 6th May 2010 2:11 pm
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY
Elephantiasis of the testicles
Can't be much fun.
Sitting on your bollocks
Instead of your bum.
Thursday 6th May 2010 2:09 pm
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