Pedestals

Heed the mob with scythe and sickle,
Burning torches, glassy eyes.
Adoration false and fickle.
Come to cut her down to size.
They invested, they projected,
Told her she could have it all.
And when she did the unexpected
Gleeful forced her graceless fall.
Bind her hands and cut her tongue out.
Mock her struggle to survive.
Hobble her with heartfelt hatred
Sharpen up your spiteful knives.
Parcel out her flesh as pound cakes
Pass around her hacked off hair.
Memorise her worst mistakes.
Burden her with cross to bear.
Be careful when you are beholden.
Flatterers are always liars.
Don't believe your hype or fanbase.
Pedestals are funeral pyres.

Uncomfortable Crown

Stand 6ft back and deliver.
Stand 6ft back motherfucker.
Keep your distance, kill the virus.
We're united as divided.
Stay 6ft back motherfucker!

Hands on flesh and dripping lips
Are distant memories.
Finger tips
are gloved; and inside
red and raw
from soap and scrubbing.
Dry and sore.
Visors fogged with rancid breath.
Dehydration's safest bet.
Under aprons nervous sweat
trickles, tickles.
Don't stop yet.
If not service then you're worthless
and essential's redefined.
It's the year of perfect vision.
See the world through unslept eyes.
Safety now is in division.
Mass graves dug attest this fact.
The way it was was never normal.
That bridge is ash.
There's no way back.

Choices 2; an answer

I've spoken about choices before,
About how
The decisions we make are more
Or less
Than we give them credit for.

I find myself poised to respond
to a rhetorical question i once posed
That I find had limited scope.

Do you want gold, or silver bars on your cage?

 I would never have guessed
That fortress walls and barbed wire fences
Were even an option.
I was unaware that moats could be added,
Crocodiles,  branches of wait-a-while tangles,
A fire! Why not? And those monkeys with wings.
The whole Sleeping Beauty sharp bramble thorn things.

I feel like this wasn't really choice,
That through the cacophony of survival
My low, stammering voice
Got lost. And arrivals
Of heavier burdens to hoist
An unwelcome surprise. 

The Belle of Bulgham Bay

This verdant,  windswept spit of land
Ringed around with golden sands
Tended by MecLir 's right hand
Where magic makes its final stand.
Curlews cries,
Enormous skies,
Phynodderree in poor disguise
Mooinger veggey in Elfin Glen
Preserved til now from way back when.
Cashtal yn Ard, the sacred ground,
Silkies surfing at The Sound.

The lady I'd like to discuss with you now
has been cruelly misnamed as a sea cow,
by sailors sloshed on rationed rum
I'm not sure how else this siren would become
such a lumberous beast. She's more the sea sparra.
She is the Belle of Bulgham Bay, the beautiful Ben Varrey.

Now, memories made
when families play
In millpond waves
on sunny days
Often come at hidden cost,
I mean, how many earrings have you lost?
How many individual socks,
How many flip, but no more flop?

When you've baked your brain you know you can't trust it,
Distracted by sand in your toes and your gusset,
You picked up the spade, you picked up the bucket,
But you always leave something behind.

These tiny trinkets, swallowed by tide,
Make for glorious mermaid finds,
Out at Maughold she's a cave that's filled with wondrous things.
Buttons, brooches, bonnets, buckles; the bounty high tide brings.
She's got spectacles and hearing aids, dentures and toupees
But these oh so personal items are not lost, in fact they're saved.
In the Curiosities of Terra Firma Museum they are all exhibits.
And it's helping to explain some eccentric human habits.
Creatures come from distant oceans to educate themselves
on the ways of the grotesque flesh folk. Entrance costs two shells.
The Belle of Bulgham Bay is rightly proud of her collection
But she keeps a secret stash of her special selections.
In here she keeps the sandals, flip flops,
Workmen's boot, verruca socks,
Toe rings in particular are impossible to resist.
You see, the Belle of Bulgham Bay is a foot fetishist.
It all began when she was young,
Angsty, teenaged, spotty.
She saw a flip flop floating by,
A bit unbleached and grotty.
The imprints of the toes were clear
On polystyrene foam,
Stroked the ridges, mesmerised.
She felt her heart unfold.

So on this verdant windswept spit of land, &
When walking barefoot on the sand
Domt be surprised if a clammy white hand
Reaches out
AND GRABS YOU!!

Collectors

Some people collect stamps.
Some people collect coins.
Some people make air fix models so well
You can barely see the joins.

Some people collect conquests.
Some people collect scars.
Some people collect experiences
during which they see stars.

I've got a new collection,
and not through conscious act.
It's been kind of foisted on me and
I'd rather give it back.
I'll put it in an album,
Neat, protected, labelled, proud
private slice of all the lives
that used to be around.
Past tense.
You see it's all the funeral cards
with photos and songs and poems.
It's hard
to watch the collection grow.
I have no control
over this.
It's not like pokemon cards or vintage picture discs.
They're all limited editions,
all one off works of art.
All threads in one rich tapestry
of which we're just one part.
And the pattern that they weave glistens
Crystallised in wisdom.
Passed through timely advice
and an ear willing to listen.
It's not like I can display it.
For flat living it's highly compatible.
For the major part of it,
It's completely intangible.
The cards are merely a symbol:
A trinket in place of a jewel.
One hydrogen atom representing
Each universe of you.
So I'll put them in an album,
neat, protected,  labelled,  proud
and share them with the enthusiasm
of the traction engine crowd.

Some people collect conquests.
Some people collect scars.
Some people collect experiences
during which they see stars.

Some people collect stamps.
Some people collect coins.
Some people make air fix models so well
You can barely see the joins. 

I am Alpha

Every third generation
Comes a swell of population
That is heavily swayed towards the masculine breed.
Their forefathers before them
Only dreamt of time for boredom
Heavy hardships sailing on an ocean of needs.

Now over educated,
And fatally frustrated
By the search for rites of passage in this labyrinth of lies.
Force fed plastic fantasy
Of brutal masculinity.
Expectations uniform imperfectly their size.

Pain is compulsory.  Suffering is optional.
Terror unavoidable, endurance's honour irrational.
Hollow hearted heroes hand on bleak batons of bones.
Absentee role models bequeath medallions of millstones.

Shed your manacles of manhood,
Shake the shroud of conqueror.
Share your weakness to withstand it
Shine love's light as northern star.

Effervescent energy when unused turns to bile
And atrophy follows apathy, in deed, in thought, in style.
To combat putrefaction do not turn to dull distraction
Reframe homegrown heroes in your overactive mind.
You can be a man of action in your human interactions
Without staying isolated and it starts with being kind
To yourself.