In 2016, I wrote a collection called ‘Moonsville’ when I wanted to get gothic, Victorian darkness in! After having watched a documentary on Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. The whole collection had a darkness to it cos I liked a fact that in the documentary it said that there had been a summer of darkness one year in Britain! These two poems are maybe my two favourites from ‘Moonsville’. The first influenced by a song I love by Siouxie and the Banshees called ‘Carousel’ and the second written after David Bowie’s death, and a couple of lines dedicated to a great friend of mine, David Trist who had died suddenly in 2015.
ON A CAROUSEL
Morning mourners come to terms with their birth.
Toddlers clamber up shoes piled up in the corner of the room;
Start school, risk getting into trouble or not, do their homework,
and love most things that go crack, bang and boom.
Later and well before, flower bulbs are lobbed into the sea.
Seeds rain down on seaworthy upside-down roofs.
Everyone needs money, or something to get something, a currency
As wine bottles twirl round daring them to tell truths.
Over time, flesh drops off bones as skin gets torn.
Brains bubble and boil in jars hidden away in treetop laboratory hideaways.
They retire or die before, expect the unknown, finish their days.
The only thing for sure is running away to the fair will be frowned upon
and, even contemplating it, will be treated with scorn.
PIONEER 10
Far out and far off
Messengers send out messages for others far away.
Above a head shouldering that flaming blame
A heart bursts below on a planet of anonymous fame.
After your death, going back home isn’t quite the same.
I count down blast off to your return.
All of the papers mentioned you ‘cause you were headline news.
All the night stars tonight have the sky blues.
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 