A Pretty Kettle of Poetry

I like walking by the sea
with my head in the sand.
I like picking up my seashell ears to listen for free
to waves with their timpani drums and starfish band.

I like getting away from everyone all alone
to be by myself to see what it means on my own.
I like being by the sea in the winter and spring
as autumn goes and summer’s about to be invaded by that near naked human thing.

I like throwing sea potatoes back to their long-lost friends.
I like skimming slim-line shiny pebbles in their personal Olympics.
I like looking up at seagulls overhead even though my wig falls off now and again.
I like admiring the web-feet artwork they leave behind and poo poo their critics.

Nothing like being by the sea
with a weathervane on top of my head spinning as sea breeze worries unwind.
I like paddling with my sandwich board on, declaring myself free,
as seaweed tangles up between my toes, just to remind me complete freedom isn’t that easy to find.

I was just another one
who knew it was wrong
but didn’t speak up for what’s right
and slept safely in my bed at night.

I was just another one who didn’t act
apart for show
to get brownie points racked
up on my school report to sleep well on my pillow.

When history books gathered dust on my shelves
and history channel commentators spouted their wise words to themselves
I was just another one
who didn’t stop them doing what I already knew was wrong.

And when I became just another one who got myself battered
I, at least, got myself saved and conscience cleared by being a victim.
Just another one who didn’t think it mattered
until I was dragged away from my bed to detention for being too dim.

Old friends with old tolls to tell,
pulling together despite a ropey universe,
where nothing means nothing
and whenish arrives the hearse.

That rascally boy and that tomboy girl
ringing doorbells and running away
snapping cheesy smiles of frankensense and monster myrrh,
unwrapping presents on a vague week-long recordless birthday.

OAPs singing songs from The Great War
keeping everyone awake in the middle of the night
crying out for water, rebelliously bedridden, with a churchful in store
leaving behind a haunted house in the sticks under the January moonlight.

Rationally, makes sense through and through.
Emotionally, leaves hearts full.
There”s nothing you can do.
Destination dead end day in Morgue Street
at the end of something as fleeting as cruel.

The best thing about having young parents
is they’ll be with you through a lot of your life
unless they die young
which is the worst thing about being young.

Of course the young looked older back then
and getting older turned them back young
unless they acted so old
they pretended to never be young.

Look through a kiddy kaleidoscope
and roll marble grown up eyes
unless your box of cut-outs has enough question marks
to keep on asking curious childish whys.

Use unless a lot
unless it doesn’t fit.
Sorry if it’s difficult
being close a lot a bit.

Sixth sense at sixes and sevens,
reading too much into bibles and heavens,
best be down to earth and no nonsense,
with a say it as it is and a penny for your thoughts with a sales tag pence.

Play dumb to deceive.
Play undertaker to bereave.
The younger you are, the longer you’ll last
till aging takes over which it will do fast.

Live through everything life has to throw at you.
Don’t bother making a mountain out of a mole uphill.
Seems like you always knew what there was to ever know
gossiping just round the corner with that same postcode still.

It was a nosebleed.
It was optimism and pessimism balancing on a word.
It was a new year’s day lead
with evidence and clues that deliberately tone-deaf dawn chorus birds heard.

Occupational hazard for the meaningful
is posting their ideas for the meaningless.
The worst best thing for guillotine builders is being cool
as they lose their heads in a bloody mess.

Running to the wings and coming to a dead end
poor little rich millionaires run out of mansion bedrooms to hide in
cornered by wool knitting nitwits who’ve pulled wool from their eyes and who lend
themselves to do something historically original and trespass against those who sin win.

Revolution against revolutionaries and coggy wheelers.
Up-ending the head-over-heelers.
Have you had a good day or made a day good?
Looking forward to seeing you turn blind like you envisioned you would.

The getaway car’s engine is running inconspicuously
ready for the disappearance act.
Timings throughout meticulously
timed to overturn doubts and make them fact.

If all goes to plan, the getaway will get away with it.
The authorities won’t have a clue.
No fuzz but champagne fizz
and living it up in sunny climes with nothing but leisure to do.

Codename ‘Calvin’.
Make of that what you will.
Make counterfeit copies of original sin
and vanish into nothing or into an unwanted mug shot still.

Writing poetries
is like Nostradamus wrote prophesies.
I don’t know if they shed light
but, if you drink enough to candles like me, they might.

If you breed sentences with turkey-fat words
you can make them full of fake alibi meaning.
In any court of poetic justice, you might get away with being a free-verse jail bird
when you answer for your double-meaning scheming.

I like everything psychedelic.
And colourful nonsense.
But I’d rather write meaningful classics.
Fact is I can’t, so hide behind a fence
as a sniper of words.

Sixth sense at sixes and sevens,
reading too much into bibles and heavens,
best be down to earth and no nonsense,
with a say it as it is and a penny for your thoughts with a sales tag pence.

Play dumb to deceive.
Play undertaker to bereave.
The younger you are, the longer you’ll last
till aging takes over which it will do fast.

Live with everything life has to throw at you.
Don’t bother making a mountain out of a mole up hill.
Seems like you always knew what there was to ever know,
gossiping just round the corner with that same postcode still.

It was a fiery poppy red bleed.
It was optimism and pessimism balancing on one word.
It was a new year’s day hospital revelation lead
with evidence and clues that deliberately deaf medically-trained revellers heard.

365 days
do 360 degrees
with winter snow, springtime bloom and summer haze
through to autumn leaves
spiralling back to icy freeze.

I’ve had quite a year
that no new year’s resolution could have crystal-balled.
An unseen leap year forward on February 29th
that would have left any boastful know-it-all fortune teller appalled
with no anniversary near.

How’s it been for you all?
The next 12 months beckon.
We’ve been here before
and know it’ll pass in a second.

Wish you well.
Wish us too.
Kiss who you love to the midnight bell.
Hope you’ll be listening to songs you love that woo
or, if not, ones in your jukebox head, bringing in the new.