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.
Auspicious stars meeting on Orange Grove
prove a self-fulfilling prophesy mum right.
Everything falls into place shattering and unearthing a treasure trove
as records soar and lovers string each along with relationship kites.
If they steal it from you, it must have been worth stealing.
On Orange Grove, your bells are peeling.
How many times did you play dumb
and wake up wrecked to good Sunday morning weekend wisdom?
So, there you go again saying you want your freedom
plays on your turntable tongue.
Get the words wrong as much as you like as you rove
but make sure they make sense back on Orange Grove.
Gargoyle-tantrum quarrellers
square up as teeny-weeny warriors;
Bawl, bawl, bawl
The tears won’t work.
Dumped, and left to rot on the sofa
by the biggest dumpster your love could muster;
Blubber, blubber, blubber
The tears won’t work.
So, you didn’t get promoted
bursting with hurt pride and eyes bloated;
Snivel, snivel, snivel
The tears won’t work.
Whiling away a while in your drawing-pin head
not cut out for scissor pain in your ward bed;
Wail, wail, wail
The tears won’t work.
Proud parents smile overlooking
their children singing back lyrics learnt by heart.
Got past mistakes set up for the future selling out and overbooking
as kids sign the dotted line to a recording contract that will make them falling rising stars.
After a few spills’n’thrills
the game ended goalless
with flickering frozen action stills
of baggy-shorted 19th century defenders parking the omnibus.
No one but her gets it.
No one but her knows what I mean, really.
No one but her would laugh in fits.
No one but her would I even tell it to, see?
Got something special together
as the world upside down goes on spinning its bad vibes.
Keep ourselves raining in bad weather.
Keep ourselves keeping it nasty to jeering jibes.
No one but her knows her minimum
No one but her knows a white rabbit.
No one but her knows why ‘That joke isn’t funny anymore” is a song to be sung.
No one but her meant every whispered word just a little bit.
Deep-green fields far away,
picturesque and framed on a morning-memory day,
I’d love to be there
breathing in the dewy air.
I’d hypnotically stand as mesmerised as a foggy-faced scarecrow
up to my wooden stick ankles in lush-green grass blades
where sheep bleat and cows low
bringing me round to duelling crow-cawing echoes
where my frozen nose
refuses to dethaw to frosty wintry morning sense-of-smell dawn raids.
Wearing your heart on a sleeve
in your octopus pullover
like when you grieve
because it’s over.
Like when you blurt it out and see it blow away.
When instantaneous taxidermy stuffs you for your museums.
Like when you wrap up on a winter’s day.
When stalactite and stalagmite teeth get iced up in your gums.
Like when wearing your armour and slippers.
when plotting your fate at your toasty-crumb table
with more mights than mighty.
Like when you’re so keen to get there, you trip over your flippers.
Like when you’ll gaze out through your frosty flat-let window
in November 2090.
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 