Enclosure
I’m as selfish
as the next man
hedging off all that’s mine
or as much as i can.
I’m a man possessed
with what i’m worth
making up ground
dispossessed of from birth.
Keeping stock
is my stock-in-trade:
not so much a black sheep
as a dark horse often’s say’d
I’m not one for sharing.
No trespassing here!
You’d be better off
(and you’d better be off)
not coming near.
Home Ground
He dwells on his life
With no fixed abode.
Serenades his wife
On make-believe road.
A few close shaves,
His beard unkept,
He reads Jesus Saves!
And swears Jesus Wept!
He can’t work out
How he got to this stage;
A pantomime lout
In a fit of rage.
He shakes a fist
But never hands.
He’s got to get pissed
To understand.
The more he gives in
The less he tries.
The less he wins
The higher the highs.
He’s on home ground
But far away.
He looks around
For a place to stay.
The Great Disappearing Man
He’s quite a spectacle as he wastes away.
Savings under the mattress for a rainy day
Going up in smoke for all to see.
Bugger-all hope in his battle to be
The Man who Came Back from Death’s Door
To a standing ovation and round of applause.
But, as visiting hours take their toll
And he’s turned over to a drum roll
The grand finale, the final act
Leaves the spectators wearing black
World of Pandemonium
(I wrote this in September 2000 and last verse is always my claim to nostradamus fame considering what happened a year later)
I crash out
On a dream-collision course.
Everything coming to mind
By magnetic force.
Old age pensioners
On walking sticks, pogo
As pneumatic drills
Dig up concrete to and fro.
Juggernauts, overtaking, jack-knife
Off roller-coaster roads
As parked, blow-up cars
Paper-bag explode.
A battle of tumbling bricks
Breaks out within the city walls.
In a world of pandemonium
Who knows what’s in store?
Medieval Stocks
Last night, I saw myself cry
Out the corner of my eye.
Tears of disgrace.
Tomato pips down my face.
But despite the jeers
And malevolent cheers
I peered at the crowd;
Saw you shouting loud.
And indeed the whole rabble
Looked like your double
As you hurled your abuse
And all that red juice.
Slinging your mud
And baying for blood
I suddenly woke
Next to you, all my fault.
Medieval Torture
I wrench the wheel
with its cogs of steel
and force me to feel
a twist, tug and jerk.
Got down to an art
this strain on my heart
that pulls me apart
with unhurried hurt.
A word in my ear
I don’t want to hear
that plays on my fear
from fingers to toe.
Ropes creak, indulge.
Bones crack and bulge
to make me divulge
what I don’t know.
Market Town
Housewives, eyes peeled
At the fruit ‘n’ veg stall
Make children eat their greens
Before getting more.
Local lads,
In the free-house, brawl
Where pigs don’t fly but chairs just might
In a free-for-all.
Horsy husbands
Bolt for the door
As mad cows get milked
For household chores.
Foxes, off the trail
Make fox-hunters bawl
As anti-blood sport marchers
Go to war.
Scarecrows make a stand
Against jet-black outlaws
As fields turn yellow
And armies of rodents withdraw.
Tractors trundle.
Combine-harvesters. snore:
Sleeping giants
As daylight falls.
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 