I think I heard a foreign leader say:

‘I haven’t focused on this for a while’;

But I must focus on it every day

And cannot fake concern or flash a smile.

I put my kids into the shelter’s care

And pray no missiles fall upon my place;

Each night time’s challenge is to grab some share

Of soothing sleep, with each new dawn to face.

My husband is still fighting at the ...

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They say that we should get in shape

And learn to take it on the chin,

Stiffen our sinews, grit our teeth;

‘Believe it, brothers, you can’t win’.

They say there is no difference

Between righteousness and sin;

‘It could just be that might is right’,

They tell you with their trademark grin.

They say we have our work cut out

Just to protect our kith and kin;

Su...

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When the war comes, we try to look our best.

We comb our hair and flash a cheery smile,

While digging out our most arresting clothes.

We slap on perfume, rouge or after-shave,

To give a top impression as we queue

And trust such elaborate adornment

Will soften each and every body blow.

Of course, such moves are bound to be in vain;

The enemy enjoys our togged-up state

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You live the season of grovel,

Of royal visits, Nobel Prize.

A gaudy blanket of faint praise

Spreads out before your very eyes,

And no one makes a mention of

Your record of pathetic lies.

You’re sitting on your gilded throne,

Accumulating all your cash;

You take revenge upon your foes

While spouting out your daily trash,

And will not bother to turn up

And figh...

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Someone said it: Time is a thief.

It takes a part of us each day.

At first, it doesn’t seem too much:

A single hair, a shard of skin,

A tiny speck of recollections;

But the tally mounts, the mirror

Documents this slippery slope.

Time, we know, is a one-way bet;

Such a lot goes unrecorded.

Our memories cannot keep up,

So even at our peak the gaps

Expand like hu...

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At the songs of the birds,

My heart erupts with joy

And streams of colour fill my world.

At the songs of the trees,

I catch the rusty leaves

Which crumble, softly, in my hand.

At the songs of the clouds,

I imagine myself

Floating, at untold altitudes.

At the songs of the grass,

I listen, intently,

For unlikely scraps of news.

At the songs of ...

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When objects are transported we take care,

Imprinting the word ‘fragile’ on the box;

So when they are dispatched to who knows where,

They are preserved from damage and from knocks.

But when it’s people threatened by our strikes,

We never stick a label on their backs;

Presuming they form part of our dislikes,

We offer no protection from attacks.

Perhaps a living pa...

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I wonder and I often weep

When I see children fast asleep,

While shells and missiles thunder down

On streets and building in their town.

They’ve grown accustomed to the noise

Of their enemy’s grotesque toys;

Oblivious to every bang,

As though some modest church bell rang.

They run to schoolyards, as they must,

Past dwellings crumbling to dust,

And all, at le...

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The aftermath? Sounds promising, but wait -

It’s far too messy, a lot like hard work.

A non-stop, glamour-light slog:

There’s the rubble, the charred remains,

The peacekeeping, the building back.

Keep clear, if you know what’s good for you.

And the time – months, years. No one cares.

No more kudos here; the news moves on.

The aftermyth is a better bet:

A slick turn ...

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I hang around professionals,

Who scheme the future and invent;

No room for some, it seems.

But you? You’ll be all right.

Over sandwiches and backstabs,

They design unbreakable walls,

Where unemployed husbands

Practise their penalties.

The old certainties – confetti,

The rush of blood – have vanished.

A slap does the job now;

Pride flutters in a flag.

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He never reached retirement;

He beavered away till the last,

And from his modest office desk

He receded into the past.

Nobody threw a party

Or presented him with a watch;

He ploughed on as hard as ever,

Till health took him downwards a notch.

At home he composed his poems

In an atmosphere most discreet,

Though colleagues knew of his exploits

And some wors...

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I was a person;

They’ve unpersoned me.

They say I have seen

All I need to see.

I’ve tried the clichés,

The methods, the plans;

I’ve joined all the clubs,

The tribes and the clans.

But nothing has worked.

Beyond these four walls,

I sense hostile tones

And nobody calls.

I’ve done little wrong,

I dare to believe,

But soon they will come;

Un...

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(Maternity Ward – Ukraine)

Caesarean by torchlight,

Windows spraying shards,

Husband killed in fighting,

She holds no more cards.

Shifted while in labour,

Infant on a drip,

Ordeal terrifying,

Fights to keep her grip.

The doctors and the nurses

Deliver in the dark,

But sometimes the destruction

And the death are just too stark.

In Moscow th...

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If you should choose to criticise

Or express a contrary view,

Be careful in your enterprise;

The machine is coming for you.

Beware of joining in dissent,

Although you may desire to.

At leisure you may well repent;

The machine is coming for you.

It does not ban outright, it chills,

Despite your number being few.

It blames critiques for all our ills;

The ma...

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‘There’s a body on the carpet, George’ ;

‘Not now, I’m watching the match.’

‘There’s a body on the carpet, George’ ;

‘Not now, they’re replaying that catch.’

‘There’s a body on the carpet, George’ ;

‘Not now, I’m eating my dinner.

Tonight they’re showing Premier League

And then the lottery winner.’

‘There’s a body on the carpet, George’ ;

‘Not now, there’s the ...

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Through the debris and denial,

Through the scalps and the spoils,

Through the hunger for roadkill,

Through the ravaging of space,

Through the emptiness,

The huddled, the distress,

The voice is strangely silent.

You’d think it would say something,

But no, not a peep.

Its acolytes are there, of course,

Busy working the room,

Eyeing up the main chance,

Checkin...

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Time flies backwards when we dream;

In each invasion of the past

We meet with those who are long gone

And seek to settle gripes and scores.

But dreams never pierce the future,

That misty land of things to come.

To dream the future, we search out

That crammed crevasse of oddities

Where forecasts, estimations, lurk,

And fight our battles to construct

The heaps of p...

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When Hitler’s blazing bombs crashed down,

And you fought the flames with zeal,

Imagine if some man-child screamed:

‘You gotta make a deal!’

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As soon as his last friend had gone,

He felt, for the first time, alone,

With no one to make sense of life,

Nobody to call on the phone.

When he called out in need of help,

Or roared like a lion in pain,

Who would be there to listen now?

Who would ever listen again?

The service had been a comfort,

The vicar was well up to speed,

But the empty chair by his s...

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I had a quick glance at the stats,

At these cold additions of shame;

The dead are piled high with the wounded,

And we all know who is to blame.

It doesn’t seem to worry him;

That victims were daughters and sons,

Whose parents will not see again

Their cherished, most beloved ones.

Because of one man’s vanity,

These young lives have gone up in smoke.

If he had...

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There’s a summit in Alaska,

With Don and his mate Vlad.

They’re going to talk about Ukraine;

The omens are quite bad.

They’re due to feast on gourmet food;

Their hot thirsts will be slaked,

But any deal that’s hammered out

Is bound to be half-baked.

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He’ll write a hundred pages in a day

And work from dawn to dusk without a stop;

Especially when deadlines start to loom,

The level of his output will not drop.

Maintaining his plush lifestyle will depend

On such unsparing episodes of work;

He tears a plot from deep inside his mind

And in a month is signing with a smirk.

Then it is time to rest and to enjoy

The ...

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It started off at two per cent

And now they want a little more.

Up to five is being mentioned,

Though somewhat less for the US;

It’s probably well-intentioned,

But, why? Nobody is quite sure.

To fight the wars that we deserve,

We’ll have to stump up lots more cash.

Mass destruction won’t come cheap:

As coffers fill to foot the bill;

The troops are massed like fri...

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We’re in the grip of something;

We are not quite sure what.

It’s crew, so strange and shifty,

Is hatching some dark plot.

It once seemed so far from us,

But now starts to inject

Its bigotry and poison

In all it can infect.

It creeps beneath the radar

When attention is elsewhere;

With one grab it conditions

It’s prey inside its lair,

Releasing the...

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You almost bleed your smiles these days,

Like acting out a tiny death;

Though your pinched faces still resist,

You have to measure every breath.

I notice, each time that you cry,

Your tears no longer flow, they spill.

Do those inflicting this foul mess

Consider what they really kill?

I see you trying to join in fun,

Whenever someone makes a joke,

But laughte...

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The glinting, glistening crowd

Are banging at my door,

Demanding satisfaction;

They know my weaknesses, of course.

Cagey, I hide in the basement

And plead a prior engagement,

But they will come tomorrow,

And they day after that;

And the public mood, for what it’s worth,

Is on their side.

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According to the poet,

It began in ‘sixty-three,

When rhythms of the world were young

So many songs remained unsung,

And life was gentler in degree.

There had been rumblings, of course;

The signs were there some years before

That the secret might be out

(Arthur Seaton had put it about),

But few could tell what lay in store.

It should have been a watershed,

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Having your windows blown out

And your face cut by the glass,

And seeing your neighbours' daughter

Blown in the air and tumbling,

Minus one leg, next to their dead dog,

Ranks as pretty low grade stuff now.

Let’s face it, it’s not nuclear, with madcap types

Talking of Hiroshima and obliteration.

Having said that, it’s not exactly nice here

There’s a war on, you know.

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The Lord and Lady Airhead-Jones

Swim naked in the sea;

The last remaining patriot

Is hanging from a tree,

And doubters laugh at the idea

That this land could be free.

Old soldiers in the nursing home

Binge out on TV dross,

While brass behind the bunker’s door

Will not admit their loss,

And the well-heeled party members

Could scarcely give a toss.

The c...

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The bright blue sky: a memory

Of our infancy, bathed in light.

In a cloudless recollection,

We dare to revisit those days,

When, brim full of freedom from care,

We ran and pedalled like the wind,

Unfazed, it seems, on our stick legs,

Licking clean our knocks and grazes.

Old snaps solidify our smiles.

This lost land of the all-possible

Soon dimmed its way to school and...

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The middle of the night.

A word comes,

A phrase, a verse,

The first hint of a rhyme.

All, in the midst

Of sleep and time,

Are lost.

At no apparent cost.

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My enemy lives over there:

In the house across the road.

Not long ago, I knew him well;

But no longer. Sad, really.

He and his son helped me lift

That big oak dining table

On to our garden terrace.

What a job! And what a night

We had, of fun and frolics.

Now times, like looks, have hardened,

And yet, once, we were firm friends.

Then they came and built that fence.

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I wrote these lines of love, my dear,

Before the cold days of the war.

When you were near, so near, my dear;

When I was close, so close, to here,

And no one knew what lay in store.

Now all these lines have chilled, my dear,

Though love remains, strong as before.

Now you are far, so far, my dear,

While I am shivering with fear;

And all we can expect is more.

...

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Fred Bunting, TV gardener, retired,

Confessed to the world that he had sired

Three sons and a daughter, handsomely aged,

With Mavis Malarky, alluring, unwaged.

Fred ran a farm shop while still on our screens,

Where Mavis would pop by each day for greens.

They say Fred was smitten the first time they met,

And soon their encounters were steamy and wet.

Friends notic...

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It is through events and at gatherings

That the meaning of time is understood.

As we pack together in a huddle,

Time passes us by and yet it connects

And joins us as one, like links in a chain,

When we combine, as indistinct as rain.

Sixty years ago, I was in a crowd,

Some of whom were there sixty years before;

This summer I see some with years ahead.

This cycle con...

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He liked a little giggle,

To ease his nagging pain;

He giggled at the Middle East,

He giggled at Ukraine.

He giggled at the climate’s pranks,

And at the unemployed;

He giggled at inflation,

At communities destroyed.

He giggled at the experts,

Predicting doom and gloom;

He giggled at the warheads,

Directed at his room.

He giggled at the cinders

...

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This is the age of the porky;

This is the age of the lie.

Big men who wield power

No longer even try

To utter one word

Which might just be true.

They know they don’t need to;

They’re laughing at you.

They’re laughing at you

Because you lap it up,

As if you read tea leaves

In their plastic cup.

They make up the numbers,

They make up the quotes,

They’re...

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Johnny Exit scarpered

Through the once impregnable door:

Shut now. Well bolted.

Though people still knock.

That was fifty years ago;

He drove a Vauxhall in his vest

On days of melting tarmac,

When sizzled cash was king.

The sightings continue:

In supermarkets, like Elvis,

Or just last week, in town,

Knocked down by a motorbike.

The file festers, w...

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I watch the old men

Who run the world’s show;

With tails in the air,

They try this and that.

With bully-boy flab,

A conscience unpricked,

Their memory slack,

Their puny goods limp,

They slaughter at will,

Kick out at the cat;

They burp and they lark,

In packs at the swill.

I hanker for youth

To take its turn still.

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We all remember the old West:

The double-doored saloon,

The stone-faced marshal

Nonchalantly polishing his star,

The light relief of card sharks,

The men of few words,

The rough drinks, slung along the bar,

The menace of a parched cactus,

And you, the dogsbody,

Cleaning up the mess

Once the gunfighter has gone.

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I think that the artist got it spot on.

This is man at his most basic:

Trapped in the eternal tunnel,

With no beginning, no end, no escape,

Vulnerable like never before.

The place is a shelter, of course,

But could easily be a slaughterhouse,

Fried in fat if the walls don’t hold.

Try to imagine the pitch dark.

Just how has humanity come to this?

Cowerin...

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The metal’s falling

From the sky, like rain.

A warped ambition

Terrifies Ukraine,

As someone, somewhere,

Swells up with disdain,

While his practised sneer

Dishes out the pain.

And the world knows well

That he won’t explain,

But that, sure as hell,

He’ll be back again.

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Not long ago, you’d be thought eccentric,

If you chose to buy a full electric,

But internal combustion’s had its day;

That’s what the men in the showrooms now say.

It cruises at speed, with no CO2,

For years after purchase it runs like new;

And plugging it in is no longer naff,

As you relax in the motorway caff.

Green credentials are part of its appeal;

You’re an eco-war...

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‘Savoury stuff. That’s the ticket,’

Said my friend in the canteen queue.

Naturally more circumspect,

I asked ‘Is that potato real?’

‘You’re joking,’ quipped Young Doris

(Old Doris was doing desserts),

And piled the slop up on my plate.

Those lunches hit you where it hurts.

Finding a table, we sat down,

With colleagues in old overalls,

Who talked of hangings and o...

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Twenty dead so far……..

I wonder if they get an extra mark

For killing kids or snuffing babies out?

On their twisted scale of staff incentives,

Perhaps their bonus swells at all such scalps;

Perhaps their backs are slapped at each week’s end.

They say that talks for peace are well on track,

But we see little sign of it round here.

We feel the foul, malignant breath of b...

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Jack’s fancy was a bungalow,

Nestled quietly near the woods;

A garden and a patio,

A place to store his worldly goods.

A haven close to nature’s heart,

Where he could ponder and could rest;

A spot for music and for art,

And all the things he liked the best.

But pleasure soon began to wane,

As viral traffic pounded past,

And noise from each approaching plane

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The odd small child has copped it,

A writer here, a pensioner,

And, just around the corner,

An engineer.

It’s the same old detritus of war;

Keep moving now,

There’s nothing to see,

Nothing to fear.

The single mum with stumps for legs

Has made somebody’s day,

Just like the school and hospital,

Each with rooves blown away.

More detritus, but life goes on...

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‘Your country needs you!’

Came the breathless whine,

As we put our names

On the dotted line.

Everyone went;

We all joined the queue.

No questions were asked.

None of us knew

About proper war;

We weren’t playing games:

Grenades in an ambush,

A tank crew in flames.

Although we were told

That problems were shared,

It soon became clear

That ...

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By day he played the markets;

At night he played the fool.

In youth he would play truant,

To get away from school.

In common with those round him,

In life he played a part:

A tragic, gilded aesthete

Who suffered for his art,

The tough, self-made financier,

Who played for all they’re worth

The hapless types endowed with

A silver spoon from birth,

...

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Fawn, Lick and Grovel’s advice has come in:

Turn the other cheek, take it on the chin.

It’s should be simple to sit there and grin,

While he spills all his gibberish and bile

(In other circumstances, you might smile).

You have to be his stooge and feel his smack,

And grit your teeth as you’re stabbed in the back.

A handshake with the king, or fulsome praise,

May push humili...

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