everyone lies and everyone gets up
everyone hides and everyone
everyone keeps secrets and everyone
everyone betrays
and everyone
everyone serves everyone on runny treacle trays
and everyone
everyone stabs everyone in the back
and everyone
everyone gets railroaded off track
and everyone
everyone has rage
and everyone
everyone dribbles in their shallow bib grave
and everyone
They sleep through most of it.
Their birthday a day of sleep
They drink water a bit
and jump on cat biscuit buffet tables in one leap.
They like routine
and party guests are no different.
They’ve already been
and habitually went.
Birthday cats are too cool to know how old they are.
What do they care?
They know they’re immortal and got nine lives to spare.
Their fur at any party is the latest fashion to wear.
Every moment makes me think of a minute
when any one of them might have changed in sixty seconds.
If I was never good enough that’s too bad.
If happiness never made it, that’s sad.
Evenings that went pear-shaped in a moment.
Days that could have been saved if nights hadn’t left them for dead.
I never said anything I meant
but what I said was from the gut and I momentarily meant everything I said.
Got to get my hair cut soon
and (like always) want John Lennon’s haircut on Top of the Pops in 1970 as Yoko knitted to the tune.
I’ve got the hair but not got the hairdresser.
When I say ‘short’, they just get out their shaver
and start shaving as I sit silently ranting and raving.
Anyone know a good hairdresser who when I say’ Instant Karma’, they get it?
She would nod off during anything
however important.
The coronation of the king,
a garden party or any diplomatic event.
the opening of parliament,
a war commemoration
a royal visit to disaster victims, touching and poignant
a Christmas mass or national celebration,
a cup final at Wembley,
a royal palladium performance,
a documentary on TV,
a royal tour on some far off continent.
She’d just nod off
and became famous for it.
To wake her up, diplomats and dignitaries would cough
or nudge her with an elbow quick.
Her citizens would take bets
on how long she would last before dozing off.
Even at home in her castle surrounded by her family and pets,
everyone got tired of her snoozing off all the time like a tiresome toff
while watching films on her kingdom sofa in her land of nod.
More stupid ideas than a brain drain,
there’s a massive mind the gap side of the brain
that turns into a brain-dead blob
with a boasting mouth bigger than a gob.
Thick as a plank on four legs
and a pinball brain rattling inside a wooden skull,
each one of them beggars belief begs,
sleeping like a log brainwave dull.
A tree clearly more than ‘just a tree.’
but their splintered little eyes couldn’t see
beyond their Pinocchio noses full of little sap lies
with one chopping the other one down with mindless alibis.
Nature regenerates like annual rings and there’s hope
something good will come out of such a rootless human act.
But for now, this poem ends with a big compassionate nope:
Would love the judge to become a hanging one and hang them from ‘just a tree’.
Yep, nope, that’s not the jury member or even human being I aspire to be
and I’m the first to say sorry
if I’ve cracked.
That sycamore gap tree is obviously much bigger than I could ever be.
Garden birds are dying out. So, get out while you can.
Because, one day, wood pigeons and the like will be gone.
Those mornings when you woke up to a dawn chorus.
Those small hours when you rolled home flapping and dying of thirst.
You live for poetry and music and art
but you can’t rhyme or sing or paint for toffee.
It hardly crosses my mind how long we’ve been apart
but there’s hardly a day when I don’t think about you and me.
So, this is the message of this poem or song or painting.
Know you’re going to die when the birds won’t sing.
Make the most of a nightingale or sparrow or thrush.
‘Cos once they’re gone, there’s a dark silent rush.
Meak, weak, sleek, antique, chic voice.
Rebellious, zealous, jealous, go on tell us voice.
Gruff, rough, tough, huff huff, enough voice.
Singing, bringing, swinging, winging it, clinging voice.
Sensitive, last breath to live, all to give, memory like a sieve voice.
Loud, proud, shroud, howled, cowed, bowed, wowed voice.
Cold, bold, sold, doled, goaled, coaled, moled, grassy knolled, being told, holed voice.
Silent, pent up, sent off, off we went, spent, lent voice.
Up ended, fended, tended, never ended, mended voice.
Exuberant, jubilant, giant, tyrant, infant voice.
Who’s who, chew crew, melted, pelted, belted voice.
Orgasmic, psychic, psychiatric, give it a kick, looking at a brick, tick tick tick voice.
Taking, waking, faking, shaking, breaking voice.
Milking it, lilting, wilting voice.
Fading, jading, cascading, stayed in, cut-blading, masquerading, raiding, intimating voice.
Forgetful, hateful, hopeful, wonderful voice.
I’ve been looking at
smoke and mirrors around me.
How the shadow of death marches
towards a front in its folly
as ghosts of the gone cry.
One-eyed war monger mongrels
bay for blood and an eye for an eye
ripping open flesh and bone shells
under a torrent of bullet tears that cry.
It’s late and dark and not long to go.
Sniper kids with toy rifles at the window.
Adults running for their lives in a perpetual circle.
Gagged hostages vow vengeance and hum a battle cry.
I wait for my world to go round
after ages being flat.
With people far away, nature has a field day.
Seagulls raid empty squares vying with rubbish-rummaging rats.
I wonder if the after-world will catch
my last words.
Whether seeing ‘They’re after you’ being graffitied on my four walls
is a sign of paranoia or just a tendency to talk to birds.
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 