When you’re at your all-time low
you want to look cool.
No longer need to worry about what you don’t understand or know
‘cos you’re no longer at school.
Swallow the keys to your cell to hide them.
Then throw them up to get out.
Worry about where and when
but who to avoid is what it’s really about.
Songs that get in your head forever
pop in from time to time like family and old friends.
You know you won’t be leaving anything of any worth behind
but it’ll have been worth it when it ends.
at 7.34 he stepped out
at 7.34 he closed the door behind him
at 7.43 he stubbed out a fag and bought a newspaper
at 8.08 and 20 seconds, he left the cafe
at 9.09 and 3 seconds, he was snapped smiling on the street.
a little plug (number 15); https://blog.feedspot.com/poetry_blogs/
*first three lines of every verse are from my primary school reports.
John has worked well throughout the year
Although he tends to dream at times.
Often puzzled by new ideas,
His poems, occasionally, lack acceptable rhymes.
He is beginning to come out of his shell
And this is mirrored by his general improvement.
A most likeable boy, he should do well.
Enjoys a tipple, keen to experiment.
Somewhat hesitant when expressing himself orally
He isn’t, by nature, very forward.
His letters well-formed, his written work’s neat and tidy
But when getting round to e-mails, he’s easily bored.
A slight thickness in speech (i.e. a lisp),
He’s a co-operative and pleasant member of the class.
He has a natural flair for language and shows great promise
Though, after twenty five years in Italy, he could roll his ‘R’s.
People are gate-crashing
the politicians’ world party
cracking open crates of ale
and raiding refineries for gallons of oil.
No one knows what fate awaits
the fleeing President of the Big United Mates
but it is believed, doing a bunk,
he may be in a bunker.
Ordinary people, in so many words,
have told leaders they’re a bunch of nerds.
No one knows their whereabouts
but wherever they are, they’re probably out.
Unconfirmed reports suggest it’s just a utopia
as the old flags burn and the new one flies.
Opticians, reeling from the unforeseen demand,
say revellers just can’t believe their eyes.
World At One
He or she shouts at him or her
You’re fucking useless!
which isn’t really fair,
Just their life’s a mess.
Everyone has their flaws
behind closed doors.
I got mine and you got yours.
Let’s live in peace.
T.V. War
Tin-pot dictators in palatial parliaments
have their people exit-poll in poverty
as democratic leaders on Speakers’ Corner
get on higher soapboxes for superiority.
Journalist cats get caught
by snuff movie makers talking in tongues
no-one understands, with notes
foreign newsreaders can’t read but call ransoms.
Bombs drop and regimes fall.
Truth is the prerogative of braggarts and liars.
All the allies furtively round the table
‘cos enemies don’t kill as many as friendly fire.
And You Can Quote Me On This
I’m not here to be right;
I’m not right.
I’m just here to right.
Right as in a wrong.
Or was it;
I’m not here to be right;
I’m not right.
I’m just here to write.
Right as in spelt wrong.
Or was it;
I’m not here to be right.
I am right.
I’m just here to write
Write as in what’s wrong.
Or was it;
I’m not here to be right.
I am right.
I’m just here to write.
Write as in I’m wrong.
No-one has time to grieve.
Not even the bereaved.
The cortege, heavily, low-gears the slope
But it’s all to quick for the followers to cope.-
Your death came as one of those shocks.
It will always be the hardest of knocks.
Your funeral on that sunshiny day
Was out the blue.
Take care on your way.
You were there as you lay.
We’ll miss you til our dying day.
Round the corner there may be someone or something
with your life in its sling
and something in for you.
Keep still, and only move if you have to.
Along a road a wall is high
and behind it danger may lie.
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.
A pigeon at the foreign languages faculty
goes to seagull classes out to sea.
As Flamingoes chip away for their exam in ‘Woodpecker up a Tree’
An exchange English crow gets French sparrow tutorials on the streets of gay Paris.
Greenfinches studying ‘Parrot’ do their best
as kingfishers get hooked on ‘Gold-crest’.
As model eagle students soar above the rest.
Mallard ducks take the plunge and take the ‘lesser swallow-tailed swift’ test.
Pelicans learn how to be robins with a Christmas term trip to a quaint little village
As wrens learn how to crane their necks for ‘Ostrich’.
Budgerigars try to gobble like turkeys fattened for the fridge.
Erasmus vultures steal like magpies on a steel bridge.
As birds of a feather flock together for a degree to migrate,
the owl-scholarly hierarchy hawks sit at the top of their perch; and deliberate.
She met him and he met her
on a street called saint lucifer.
But what they did wasn’t wicked;
just a pot of tea and the odd dunked biscuit.
Both would flirt with riskless danger
with childish dreams away in a manger.
She was hitched and so was he.
Both would talk of being free.
Neither of their partners knew
that every so often they shared a brew.
After all, it wasn’t betrayal.
Hardly a crime befitting of jail.
But what went down on Saint Lucifer Street
when one said it was better not to meet
left one of them feeling much the worse
with trust misplaced and a devilish curse.
