At Aldeburgh you have to watch your back.

The beach is chilled, the Borough vents its wrath,

And whispered, ghostly choruses proclaim

‘Grimes’, as though in agony. Tormented,

A man prepares to sink his boat. Foghorns

Sound on nearby sandbanks. Night shelters shame.

Sweet morning comes, tearing at consciences

Of perky seafarers. Go, cast your nets,

And bring home lost m...

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I’m flying; I’m flying so high.

I rise without the slightest care

And feel that I could touch the sky.

I look down at the Earth, so rare –

Perhaps unique – yet compromised

By our neglect and non-respect

Of sacred duty to protect

The wonders nature has devised.

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It’s hard to understand;

From now on days expand.

The blue sky is set fair;

Leaves crunch in bracing air.

Though calm before a storm

Will flatter to deceive,

We fleetingly believe

That this is the new norm.

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Near the border, beyond the searchlights’ reach,

A child is born. No one is rejoicing.

Not his mother, too cold and scared to weep

The broken tears of happiness. Elsewhere,

The father fights to the front of the queue

For bread or rice. A truncheon lays him out.

Darkness: the boy is warmed, in straw, by beasts;

Cries echo mute and bellies run empty.

Then, as if from now...

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My long-delayed flight now fast receding,

The unfamiliar blankets my view.

I fail to recognise the city’s name;

I am waiting but do not know for what.

In this pandemic I walk straight and spare.

A frolicking heavy points through a door,

Where hard-faced boys are flicking bits of cake.

Bored, I join the queue at the pharmacy,

Hoping to find elusive masks and gel.

The man...

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Love survived a while, misshapen,

An anchorage in troubled times.

Grind had long warped its perfect form

And watered down its purity

To the blunt level of the street.

Yet it was still love, before bombs

Began to blow us all away.

Then it became a monument

Where people laid down wreathes and wept,

And dodged the bawdy public gaze.

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I’m mired in a pit of sleaze;

I'm sinking downwards past my knees.

I cast off principles with ease.

It seems that I’ve become immune

To shame which would make others swoon.

I'm mired in a pit of sleaze.

Just like a mouse who’s grabbed the cheese,

I only have myself to please.

I sup with porkers in a trough

And lay down vintage wines to quaff.

I’m mired ...

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A man I knew who lived in Paris

Painted his apartment red.

It was, he said, the colour of the dead.

That was his special trick:

To turn a rainbow on its head.

Last week in the newspaper, I read

That his bath tub was flooded,

His waters were muddied,

His habits, like insects, were studied

Under a microscope

Through the bottom of a jar.

Magnified, he seemed...

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We knew the pre-war world:

Lyrical, slightly decadent,

Subtle, though ironic,

A fabled land of make-believe.

We made allowances

And rubbed along, up to a point.

But post-war times are harsh:

Clean-shaven, dead legs, watch your back,

No loose talk, stay in line,

Rationing of love, smile control,

The ever-present threat of truth.

For some, the place where we now live

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Somebody has to spit it out;

To break news in a gentle way:

‘Excuse me, but you didn’t win.’

Merchants of hog-roast fantasies,

They won’t get it. Nor will the nutters

With bull-frog eyes. They will reject

The glaring truth, and counterclaim

‘We won! I’ve all the proof I need.

Even if I don’t, it’s your fault.

You are the ones to blame. Shame! Shame!’

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As a boy, Westcliff seemed like a foreign land,

A place of weekend fun, and frolics in the sand.

Later, he went there twice a month, for steak and sex:

For no other reason, whatever the season.

From their tiny window, they used to crane their necks

To see how pale, unsated passers-by

Would run towards the shelters to keep dry.

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Give me a break;

Cut me some slack.

I’m too ancient to be fast track;

Give me an old man’s job.

No stacking shelves

Or humping coal:

A comfy chair is my main goal.

Give me an old man’s job.

Forget late shifts

Or early starts;

I am more used to walk-on parts.

Give me an old man’s job.

Driving a bus

Is not for me;

I need too many breaks f...

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(England vs West Indies

5th Test match, 2nd Day,

19th August 1966. The Oval).

It was set up to be blue-sky perfection:

Pitch good, England batting, West Indies out.

Our schoolboy heroes would soon take the field,

But getting to the venue was a race

With others who sought tickets and a place.

We sprinted from the tube towards the queue,

Which stretched by n...

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I love you. What else matters?

Is there any more to say?

Note that I say ‘love’ and not ‘loved’.

Our lives would be so different

If our paths had not crossed;

We have formed our current selves.

I carry you with me;

Yes, I cling to a memory,

Fading away, I’m sure,

Though not quite disappearing,

And so never in the past.

But there is more to it than th...

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‘Love? One word’s like any other.’

I find it hard to disagree,

Or to take the time to ponder

The relevance of this to me.

‘Love’ is a word, lost in the crowds:

Unremarkable, floating past,

No special features make it proud,

Its letters spelled from first to last.

Which begs the question, not so new:

If all of the above is true,

Why is it that I would go...

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There’s a rhythm to the morning:

A rhythm of insects and birds,

A rhythm of running water,

A rhythm of early rising,

A rhythm rich in such delights,

Not in any way surprising.

There’s a rhythm to the daytime:

A beat of plausibility,

A rhythm of passing and drift,

A pulse of journeys never made,

A shunned availability

Of sunlight and a pledge of shade.

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A middle-aged man nearby

Is clearing up some leaves.

He swings the blower round;

Enjoys its phallic whirl.

It reminds him of the time

When he could get the girl.

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He jerks and spins with his white powdered face;

His path to this new style was quite bizarre.

Before, he was magnetic standing still.

There was no rage. There was an inner peace

Which audiences felt within their souls.

He held them in the palms of silent hands.

Why did he change? Why this sudden frenzy?

Since when did he become this irate ghost?

We needed what he...

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I knew her. We were at work together.

I had not seen her for at least two years.

‘I’ve left Mike.’ The news came as a bombshell.

‘I’m with Vince now. You know, from the office.’

‘But you seemed so happy,’ I said, weakly.

‘You have to seize the moment,’ was her reply.

The moment? Vince? That lazy sofa slug?

‘He’s exciting!’ she snapped, smiling hungrily.

‘The momen...

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The geese will reach their end one day and die,

More elegant than some who take this part.

Young lovers and whoever passes by

Believe themselves far from this noble art.

Yet feathers and the piles of ageing bones

Remind us of what one day lays in store:

Condolences, sincere but in cold tones,

Bowed heads which move in lines across the floor.

We should take ti...

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The middle class are ruled by hate;

They bully and manipulate.

They deal in lies and twist the truth,

Corrupt the innocence of youth

And cheat on friends to keep what’s theirs:

A place above the creaking stairs.

Ambition will keep them ahead

In bank and castle and in bed,

But it is cunning, raw and low,

Which helps their favoured winds to blow

To worlds of ...

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The grass grows, too slowly;

The world revolves and bakes.

A river bed cries out

For all that might have been.

A painted flower wilts

To some second childhood;

Youth secretly envies

Its fading contentment.

The old, as usual, waste

Into next to nothing.

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At some football clubs (one, at least)

They don't need a manager,

They're looking for a messiah.

Will he help to take them higher

Up the league?  Does Europe beckon?

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Too hot to Handel, I reckon.

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On this rueful menu

Of sprawls of blanked windows,

The world seems in retreat.

Nowhere is idyllic,

No place remains the same.

Our damp minds shed some tears

Of unknown provenance;

Nothing belongs to us.

The old ones, lying flat,

Unburied, unreplaced,

Stretch out beyond our dreams,

Beyond our memories.

Lost in our foulest mood,

Are we still visible?

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You can burn the books,

You can burn the man,

You can burn the woman,

You can burn the young,

You can burn the old,

You can burn their goods, bought and sold.

But you cannot burn minds,

You cannot burn the heart,

You cannot burn the spirit or the soul.

You can’t delete with kerosene

Love, hope and all that’s in between.

You cannot burn the memory, not yet...

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In dictators’ architecture,

Neat and tidy form seduces.

We make the railways run on time

And chant a patriotic rhyme;

Till gradually we come to see

That freedom’s jumble has its uses.

When the inquisitive explore,

The enquiry usually finds,

By asking some awkward questions

And by risking indiscretions,

The one insurmountable truth:

Clean shapes don’t sign...

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At dusk, perched on the lines,

Honing barbs, passing time,

They seem to pose a threat.

But is it real? Are they?

We wait for them to move;

What do they have to prove?

They could stay where they are,

Or take themselves away.

The sight of them entwines

Round our unease, and yet

For now they crouch and mime

Today’s events. That said,

They sense what lies ahead...

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The lava’s molten rhythm flows,

And down below our whole world slows;

As thoughts turn upwards to the heat,

We learn to measure our retreat.

The first sign is a rumbling sound

Which chills the spine and moves the ground.

The liquid rock spurts out and pours;

The mountain murmurs turn to roars.

With this inferno holding sway,

Inheritance is swept away;

...

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Land

This is the land of dangerous love,

Of amorous experiment;

This is the land of freezing football,

Of floodlit cloggers with intent;

This is the land of the mangled sweethearts,

Of boyfriends too careless to repent.

This is the land of gloating towers,

Of the neighbours’ warning shots;

This is the land of the quick backhander,

Of the under...

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Climate Change and us

The planet turns, the planet turns;

The adults fiddle while Rome burns.

And children yet to be conceived

Have every right to feel aggrieved.

And us? We plunder wealth from mines

And join the back of frantic lines

In shirtsleeved January sales,

Pursued by ever-warming gales.

Exhausts and power stations spout

Unheeded warnings all ab...

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The cricket season reached its end that day.

We mothballed all the stumps and pads and gloves

And pondered over matches not yet played,

The stolen opportunities for some.

We thought of runs we scored and catches claimed,

And contemplated England for a time

And what impending winter may well bring.

How many years would pass till we again

Undo our bags to twirl our ...

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This was his plan: imitating their dance,

Massaging their myths, storming, by surprise,

Their sand trap of conspiracies and lies;

To step on, by default, the greatest stage

Which life or spite could plausibly advance.

Lost in their bazaar, his slight repertoire

Propelled him to a failure by slow rage,

Though in the end he rallied to make par

And saved what could be traded a...

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It’s hard to forget the road signs,

Emerging from the Memphis grey,

Electrified and hoisted up

To the edge of the stratosphere,

To counter the obsessives who

Came with telescopic ladders;

The copyright mark on the grave

(Was that usual? I don’t know);

The heaps of tacky souvenirs

In shops at the end of the Earth,

Where only the gas stations hear you;

The deodo...

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Getting ready for bed last night,

I heard, in the distance, a cry.

An owl? A dog’s bark? No, a man

Howling at his disappointments,

At his bad luck, his one mistake,

His limp, his pain, the sucker punch

Which floored him when caught off his guard.

Then, all at once, the silence fell.

As I sank into the mattress,

I thought of his long night ahead,

Of good deeds tha...

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Gary and Barry were as happy as Larry,

But Larry was really quite depressed.

So were Gary and Barry

Feeling all that happy?

You may have already guessed.

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Drop the less obvious, the cryptic clue;

I expect that from others, not from you.

Your talent is to give it to me straight;

Which is why you remain my friend and mate.

So please, no subtle hints, no secret code;

My kind of game is where all hands are showed.

Discreet intimations just leave me cold;

I need the direct, the up-front, the bold.

Inklings and whispers are no soli...

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‘Bang-Bang’ Johnny loomed large above my youth:

A cowboy hero shooting baddies down,

He made the world a better place to live.

Part comic-book, part black and white TV,

He had the most profound effect on me.

I never questioned what is right and wrong

Or asked myself about the shades of grey.

I just assumed that guys with guns and stripes

Would constitute a proper ...

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You ask if you can buy some piece of tat.

You ask how far will go this winding road.

You ask to where this raging river flows.

You ask for the stars, the moon and the sun;

All day you make demands,

But you never float on the weightlessness of a melody,

You never breathe the clean air of the prisoners’ freedom,

Never die a little during a string quartet,

And never ...

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The Peppers lived at number three;

Our house was at number eight.

We used to see them every day,

Crouched down behind their garden gate.

Mr Pepper’s hair was snowy white;

His stare grew ever bolder.

Mrs Pepper oozed the glamour,

Though was twenty-five years older.

They had a mangy dog called Fred

And at least a hundred cats.

They were so pampered that t...

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Our television crew arrived today,

To celebrate his age of eighty-five,

Perhaps surprised that he was still alive.

The film ‘Nigel Thing at work, rest and play’

Was always bound to be a non-event.

All we got was a sedentary old gent.

The foppish young admirers had left

To chatter somewhere down near Charing Cross,

The critics had forgotten who he was,

His last ...

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At grubby winter’s evening time,

They waited in the cold and dark.

He saw her run across the park;

Each changed their taxis in between,

To take no chance of being seen.

He opted for a jazzy blue;

She wrapped herself in guilty green.

Later, beneath a small squashed sky,

They looked back at the empty room,

Scraped featureless by some new broom,

With all scraps...

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He had said: ‘Don’t give it a thought,’

So I did not;

But later, in the shade of a waking moment

Of a quiet spot, I did.

It was not the thought, but the memory;

I had opened that door

And seen them. It couldn’t be erased

Or picked up off the floor, not now.

She had come after me, rearranged her hair.

Then his turn to explain,

Or try to, but I was in no ...

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The global rat,

He’s on the prowl;

He may be eating local fowl.

No time to talk,

No time to play,

Global rat is getting away.

He’ll never been caught, the global rat;

He’s fallen down hard and hit the ground,

Yet signs of his presence still abound.

The autumn leaves, the apple tree,

The family down at twenty-three,

Can testify he’s still around.

W...

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Once demos held the highest ground;

We marched against an unjust war.

Now what the hell do they march for?

These folks (mostly blokes) like the sound

Of their own voice. What do they say?

Why should we let them have their way?

They talk of choice and being free

But do not know what these words mean.

They disbelieve all we can see

Through face masks and the plastic s...

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Come Sun, drop down, defer to light;

Defer to stars, soon twinkling bright,

Defer to the Moon, up above,

Defer to unlit, sombre love.

Defer to silence in the sky,

To floating clouds which tiptoe by,

To owls and their nocturnal shriek.

The dark, by dint of huge physique,

Enjoins the light to stay away

And shields the secret lives at play.

At least till Earth compl...

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The plight of such seniors is well known:

Stripped of a status they once used to own,

They still play a part at eighty years old,

With faces flushed and extremities cold.

Retired from cavorting on the stage,

With spouses well beyond the pension age,

They favour shop clothes and elastic waists,

Count Berg and Stravinsky among their tastes.

With no further...

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There is a limit to the size of Earth;

We have to learn to live within this sphere.

This air, this land, these seas are all we have;

We can’t make any more, no matter how

We play and toy with innovative fakes.

No annex on the Moon, no Mars estate;

We work with what is here, without complaint.

There’s progress, there is fantasy, and then

Wet dreams of schoolboys wasting...

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Raw data swirled around my head;

I should have been in love instead,

But I was not. Time and again

The mechanism of my brain

Seizes up with dancing numbers,

While the worn-out city slumbers.

The next day, through some early mist,

I hesitate, but don’t insist;

Convoys of data trundle by

And each one tries to catch my eye;

But, for the sake of you and I,

I steel myse...

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The crushed-ice boy in the corner

Has both his eyes fixed on the cup,

But the old hands near the dart board

Have the tournament sewn up.

Though cocky, preening juniors

Contest the calls across the net,

The veterans the other side

Win at a canter for a bet.

Gun-waving youths are boasting that

They’ll stop the flight of helpless birds;

The grey campa...

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One evening as I dig and hoe,

I chance upon parades of souls,

Proceeding past the garden’s end.

Electing not to comprehend

The point of our respective roles,

I follow, distantly and slow,

Then stop, astonished, in the woods.

For my intruder’s eye can see

The souls span humankind, of course,

But plants and beasts are there in force;

You find a man, an ass or tree:

O...

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