flags fly
presidents talk
swallows swoop
and people walk
girls make passes
dogs bark
tanks roll
and cars park
fag-ends burn
snipers shoot
records spin
and loiters loot
pop fans clamour
street lamps shine
windows close
and lovers dine.
Government policy forces pensioners onto the streets to march
hardly able to make it across the road
with their gripes and groans in a shopping bag.
Vinyl records blaring out from old peoples’ homes.
Hospital porters spinning around on their bums.
As, lurking behind, tape-measuring funeral directors lag.
On Pleasure Pieland
islanders live life under a system called pie-in-the-sky.
Plumbers fit pipe dreams
and statistics on counting your blessings are always high.
Opticians sell rose-tinted glasses
to see good things over the horizon
and in every house, doors are fitted
so that when one closes, another one opens.
Every silver cloud has a golden lining
and everyone’s glass is always half-full.
Every adult has the job they want
and every pupil is the teacher’s pet in every school.
There’s love at first sight and love that lasts
and, for those more adventurous, true love in blasts.
Underdogs win and no-one feels like they’ve lost even when
they lose.
Everyone walks around in everybody else’s shoes.
Pielanders are so happy they look pie-eyed.
They’re easy to recognise.
Doctors prescribe magic potions for free
and hospitals are only there to rest in cos nobody really dies.
And so I went to the train station
and looked up at the great glass roof ceiling in iron
from where timepieces hung
and from where black suits swung.
Leather-faced passengers
shuffled slowly along in queues, bunched,
with feet in their luggage up to their knees
sticking out their ticket tongues
to have them punched.
And when the announcement told me
which platform to go to, I got on
and fell asleep in my seat to dream
‘til when the locomotive would run out of steam.
Hanging the ‘Back Soon’ sign on my eyes
and shutting up shop for a while
I’ve posted ‘Gone Fishing’ online and gone offline
and laid myself like a stone on my sofa as far away as a mile.
Blissfully resigned to the fact that there’s no point to anything,
leaves on the trees outside rustle ripple clap
in a standing ovation
to my apathetic but admirable decision to stop struggling
and cat-nap paw-wrap the human condition.
My only goal is to do nothing but listen to music
as musical notes in my living room laze, lull and glow.
They yawn and stretch and give me the thumbs up
while saying ‘whatever’ to whatever the world has to throw at us.
What gets my goat;
A string of jealousies tangled in my throat.
Sant’ Efisio’s bells strike two
and what the hell are you up to?
Vagabond, bottle-necked in life, before me.
What’s it like Mr Nobody?
“It’s a life of shit!”
My landlady, at the sink, spits.
Whatever happens next
I wonder am I perplexed:
Belongings bundled together on a stick;
Should I be optimistic?
A quick appraisal anchored down in rhymes.
Another one with wavy lines.
I’m sorry. No more news.
Write back. What about you?
This life is doing me no good.
I’m getting more and more bitter.
If I were me I would,
So I give up. I’m no quitter.
Keep away if you know what’s good for me.
As welcome as the enemy.
Wish there was some way to gag the voices
that order me about like a headless chicken.
You’ve got some front to shout what you shout.
I’ve got no defence to rant what I rant.
To get anywhere, I try to smoke myself out
with a fag that burns out to everything I can’t.
Darkness is the new light at the end of the tunnel
with the earth being blasted and pummelled.
Some luck is on its way
on a scrunched up piece of paper with codes
that need deciphering by dawn today.
I never get the exposure I like.
There’s either too much or too little light
Either I’m the centre of attention or ignored.
I never get the exposure I like.
I never seem to be in focus.
There always seems to be a bit of blur.
Like squinting and not seeing right.
I never seem to be in focus.
It makes me momentarily snap.
Noise I can’t help but notice.
Always sort of in the wrong frame of mind.
It makes me momentarily snap.
Though I get my daily dose of the Masters of Photography
I wonder what’s wrong with me.
Nothing clicks
though I get my daily dose of the Masters of Photography.
In the dark about after hours,
and what happens when the minutes run out
with that last second on hand,
we sit in a circle holding hands
waiting for an off-guard spirit to drunkenly blurt something out.
If ever there was a chance,
you’d think your loved ones would give you a sign.
With the clocks ticking down, whether grandfather or digital, putting them back is an autumnal dance.
Me personally I’d love to hear from that mother of mine.
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 