Small Potatoes

 A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

It induces hubris.

And hubris by nature is insubstantial,

pinned to power inconsequential, like

the choice between chips

and roasties.

But when the potatoes are paths

and the peeling alone could end a life,

it's dangerous to listen to the Dauphinoise.

Creamy, smooth, rich they may be.

But unpalatable when paired with ketchup.

Even mayonnaise is too much.

The potato grows in silence.

The iron corrodes in silence. 

And knowledge corrodes noisily

shouting certainty above all things.

Garden Justice

 Spiders crawl.

Their sprawling limbs deftly spinning

false narratives into unrecognisable realities.

Nets of untruths bind and gag

honest observations.

Sticky strong silk shrouds 

instead of scold’s bridles

adorn whistleblowers.

No stocks for public punishment,

these juicy martyrs will be silently sucked dry. 

Eventually the weight of the larder will shred that web

and the arachnids of sophistry 

will be swallowed by the hooded crows of hubris.

Abstract Spring

 Laundry lots and sunny spots and warmth outside our windows - 

open now. New ideas, bicycle rituals and clearance.

In more ways than one.

Innocent individuals chase innocent dreams.

I would the world be with them. 

Part 1 - A Productive Sunday

 I was sick of the shape of the lounge. 

The windows ignored and the mess all around.

So we made a plan to move some shelves.

Well, one in particular, we could do it ourselves.

That big one, the oak one, the one full of books.

It'd been ages since we sorted them, I was on tenterhooks

For all the treasure we might find.

So we set aside some time.

Sunday morning, up at dawn.

Sort and shift, then mow the lawn. 

The deal was made, alarms were set.

Boxes and bags were ready prepped. 

My excitement at the prospect sowed tragedy's seed,

As whirring thoughts robbed me of the sleep that I'd need. 

And I heard the street life come and go,

Then witnessed the gamma light tangerine glow

Of the unwelcome sunrise that cruelly seeped

in through the window, and sent me to sleep.

At twenty to twelve my phone shrilly rang

Thrown into a panic, awake with a bang,

I fell out of bed and onto a shoe

(Which explains at least one of the mystery bruises)

Staggered to stand and opened the door,

Aghast at the time lost and vaguely sore.

Shouting “Good morning!” to Gio (still in bed)

while the homicidal feline winds his way through my legs 

and I try to get down the stairs.

Just there, through the 8 ft windowpane

Are Esmeralda and Jonathan, they're back again

For the summer. They're our resident herring gulls.

The cat is enraged, awkward placed and my lulls 

did not seem to be having the desired effect.

He was ready to kill me, his tail erect

And bristled to easily three times the width

of his normally slinky marinko tail-whip.

I stepped. He swiped then yowled down the stairs

and I followed, bleary haste tripping and scared.

There was so much to do! Cup of tea! 

Teeth and shoes! 

We hadn't a singular moment to lose.

Gio emerged, in the same state as me.

“We were going to move the bookshelves, weren't we?”

End of the End

 Another one gone.

Another three songs 

poisoned by emotional association.

It's a strange wave that breaks when they shoulder that box.

Raw, real and final.

The ritual is primal.

Elegies and eulogies hang 

as a forlorn fog, a longing 

we would call nostalgia

if it weren't so immediate.

So overwhelming.

Vinstaspam

 It's fascinating to watch the transformations,

the faces changing, shapes and shading

molding the old into the new.

Glued to metamorphoses 

my eyes eat the emergent futures.

Time lapse footage of homes refurbished,

swimming pools built in forests.

Inanely observing character arcs of 

of inanimate objects and costume art.

It's a digital dollshouse, an Arcadia of artifice.

The opiate of ordinary while you live life vicarious.

Damp

 Because the darkness remains, despite action to the contrary.

Because the dampness pervades, despite the open windowed remedy.

Rani ranidae, amphibious amphora, 

Vessel for all the spores that ever lived before her.

Mouldering and smoldering, restricted to the attic.

No yellow wallpaper, just a wheezing asthmatic.

Rhizaria in darkness lies, waiting to be fed

While her cousin Actinomycetota

Chivvies along the nearly dead.

Dehumidifier, anyone?

Float

 Stoicism in the face of Caprice 

is a skill

 that still

 evades more than it is exercised.

Long term goals require long term planning

and I'll be damned if anything more than the now exists for me.

(Toxic) mindfulness (a problematic paradigm that leaves me powerless in the face of troubling times) is pushed by gurus and gym bunnies alike.

All reaching for a blissful blank.

I recommend a floatation tank. 

Remains

 Counting down the days and ways that I have missed you.

The moments that we haven't shared.

The times I know that I was scared

but to others it looked like anger.

To others it looked like idiocy, 

like flippant avoidance of serious thought. 

The objects and experiences I bought

after you bought the farm.

It took years

and it's only now,

drowning in the hourglass

that I realise how much time has passed.

And how much 

I have left.

Balance

 The swoop of this pendulum gives me vertigo.

Up I go!

And down.

And how far down depends on things entirely outwith my control.

Slower in the midsection,

 feel those little swings like antipodean inflections;

teasings of an inverted world. 

There must be equilibrium.

What we lose on the objects we gain on the experiences

or so they tell me

 but the distance between stuck and free 

is light years.

And I'm in darkness,

still searching for a light.

Kathleen

In this tempestuous Spring I'm spinning

untethered, buffeted and way off course, of course. 

These searing winds bring new beginnings, 

weather muffling their message into Morse.

Rat a tat tat! It's only that 

I can't work out where the letters start and end.

It's murky down there. You'd better be smart and bend

your knees to prevent 

the seas reaching you.

Roll with each roll,

you can't control it.

Ten tonnes of emotional ballast beneath us,

we wait for the skies to clear.

Shrinkflation

 It’s heady times we’re living in!

Full pelt, high tilt, heading for oblivion,

watching the numbers on labels go up and 

pounds in pockets go down.

See the same all over town;

Three pints and a game of pool is now

One pint nursed over an evening.

Only there ‘cause it’s cheaper than the heating.

Choice between bus fare and eating.

Fancy portmanteaus to hide reality of meaning.

They call it Shrinkflation.

I call it profit-motivated, cronyist complicity in mass starvation.

Theirs is catchier.

 Whatever.

Have you eaten jelly babies recently?

When I opened my packet last night, 

The fright! 

The horror! The drama! The scene!

Half the kids had been kidnapped! 

I reached for my phone,

I had to call the police!

But then I remembered - they’d already know.

It’s been happening for decades at least.

We can talk about Freddos, too,

or car parts, or diesel, or booze

but my first glimpse of this dastardly practice

was mightily unsavoury -

you’ll have to forgive me for this.

How do I put this without getting banned?

Do you know what an eight of an ounce is in grams?

It’s 3 and a bit.

An eighth of an ounce once cost twenty quid!

And pound for pound we’re weaker than ever,

Tenuously taking steps while the tensions tighten in our tethers.

More debt, more struggle, less hope,

no matter how you rearrange it.

Recognising failures in the system doesn’t change it.

Standing idly by, 

blithely buying into blindfolds

blinged beyond belief

Offering ornamental oblivious relief 

from all the 

actions and inactions and reactions

and rot.

What’s it all for anyway?

We are sinking in the mire of our own making.

Taking too long to make choices,

fry replaced the song in our voices

long ago. It’s starting to show.

The foundations of civil edifice begin to splinter.

Yet to arrive are the fuel privations in the midst of bitterest Winter.

Still Summer,

still sunshine and clammy.

No bees, no insect bites from midges this year.

Just pollen dusted lashes and cheeks streaked with allergic tears.

Instability of emotion, 

plankton massacres in oceans,

death cult levels of devotion

to illogical half baked notions

and the over saturation of fear.

One in 6 adults here are on medicines for depression. 

When will we admit there’s nothing wrong with us,

but this path is cobblers

and we’ve broken heels.

It’s time to fix it. 

Here’s the deal. 

Leave the drama to the actors.

Consider the possibility of favourable factors.

Candles give both warmth and light.

Emulate them. Stop this simulation 

of projected self and merely

hold your own.

Solidify you source of ignition,

find truth lies in your intuition.

Be forthright,

Try, try, try, try again.

Offer help to strangers and friends.

We’re going to need it.

The Bells

 Another one gone! 

Brothers left without brothers

and mother's with hands so wrung 

they become the bell that tolls for grief.

Rare and not so rare 

their share of hard won wisdom 

is gone.

Vanished. Lost.

And what a loss it is, 

The lessons they shared with us

lessen the din of

 disharmonious hum into

sympathetic resonance.

Marvellous

 This year is brought to you by the word Marvellous.

The more I use it the truer this becomes.

It's funny the way things go, sometimes 

it feels the rain will never end.

And yet the brief kisses of sunshine leave ghosts of sensations

you can almost taste.

It's marvellous.

And so it is! Despite the rain,

 despite the Teran's rage, 

despite the pain of losing another of us, 

we're choosing to be just as much of us

and keep our humour high.

The days fly by, unfettered,

ever bettered 

by the promises of flowers planted 

in the hours nothing was granted 

gracefully, but striven after, 

relentlessly.

If You Go Down To The Woods Today

 The crown effect guarantees ends don’t quite meet in the folio dome of this cathedral. 

Timorous squeaks and piercing pleas out of reach to uncaring ears. 

As atheistic as I am, I recognise the prayers of the prey,

the pleasures of the predator.

Withheld warmth brings my uncaressed flesh to shiver.

Croaking, he hops. Eyes sharp, beak sharper; unobscured intelligence.

He’s come for my liver.

Head dips, gore drips and I am reminded of life’s 

carbon carousel.

Scream if you wanna go faster.

I had screamed, but what came after was not speed. 

What came after was 

dilated 

time.

I aligned myself with the smallest of beasts.

Ants. Watchmen beetles. Dispassionate and industrious.

Clouding eyes fixated on them; skittering, chittering.

Unmindful of the violence above.

Dry twigs and my bones were indistinguishable

snapping beneath brutal boots. 

Roots remodelled cheeks

deep lividity carving the caved contours into violets

blooming in darkness.

Ragged jagged breath and nails, too, tear

 for any available oxygen.

Desperation transforming 

grunts to glossolalia;

debutante to cooling cadaver.

In the post-orgasmic vacuum, psithurism roared.

I seeped through dank earth

and releasing claim on physicality,

observed from without.

Sunset at the Lilypond

 Gold discarded by the falling sun

floats on the crests of waves;

caught on unpopular opinions;

rocking hopeful rafts of dreams.

 beams lashed with limited means.

Instability constant, 

crows wheel and croak their intentions.

Under the surface, scales flash.

The waves splash, waking desperate instincts.

Instead, the raft disassembles

and this pharaoh is buried

with natural treasure bestowed 

by sunshine's dying glow.

Ambition

 New brooms sweep burned bridges into piles of ashen regrets.

Some say this way wipes slates white,

 writing “self awareness” in sinuous curve of tear tracks.

Blackened hands, blackened eyes,

scorched skirt rough against barbecued thighs.

Choking on the dust in the deserted river bed of ambition.

Dreaming of the days you played pooh sticks.

Wasted April

 Wandering this wasteland

weaponised with witty lines

lifted directly to remind us

April is the cruelest month

as if we didn't understand.

As if the death dates didn't loom each year

bank holiday conjunctions functioning 

as klaxons calling forth old traumas.

No chance of resurrection.

And who would want it anyway?

Watch all your loved ones die or decay.

Quickly, slowly, pass the days 

in dreadnoughts of anticipation.

The plunder of our collective memories

by the passing of its guardians

marks the changing of the guard,

the evolution of the yardstick of civilisation. 

To stall is to suffer.

To stagnate is to suffocate.

For us, to survive has to suffice

for the briefest of blooms still bless us with their beauty

and it is pity I feel for those who don't fill their eyes. 

Sick

 All my friends are sick.

In different ways, of course,

individuality being their unifying constant.

But sick, all the same.

These weirdish days of waits and delays and ever worsening pain and malaise is just what they deem normal. 

This dawdling decline into decrepitude is hastened by atmospheric insolence,

 thunderheads sulking heavy hunches into agonising lightning strikes. 

Limitations shackles dragging back our aspirations into effigies and imitations, bonsai prototypes of dreams.

Making mockery of wellness, these once vital shells dress their despair in decadence and call it art.

Our Kinsugi-ed hearts are stronger for the mending.

And each creation spawned through desperation for distraction gifts the world another opening- beyond which one may escape.

So keep producing wormholes

of connection, of reflection.

Imbibe the time defying expressions

of ancient artists. learn their lessons.

Problems shared are decimated

Perceptions are deceptive and underrated 

in their role as shepherd of experience.

Never follow the Judas goat of self pity.

That's a slippy slope into the spiral of shame,

of self neglect, frustration, sorrow and blame.

Instead adopt Marlowe, 

“Quod me nutrit me destruit”.

Hedonistically strategic cultural retreat,

driven by necessity of horrors to defeat

Fury’s furnace fuelled, the flames are licking at our feet

until we dance a desperate dance;

the two step tightrope tarantella.

And this corporeal existence passes

out of bounds and interstellar.

Simple

 Being inclined to the over active mind 

makes you vulnerable

in ways unimaginable

to folk who’ve never been waifs or strays.

Every step on the back foot, 

drawing predatory thoughts and hungry looks

to scurrying attempts at connection.

This world seems so simple,

to those who find it simple.

The stacked deck favours the dealer.

Beg, borrow, steal 

mimic, mask. Never reveal

the hollow homunculus you feel,

or worse! Intensely solipsistic;

the only real person in a sea holographic

and loneliness becomes it's own sad satisfaction.

A “rebellion is better than tears” reaction

that eats at your happiness and interactions

until you're accustomed to numb.

You watch others’ battles won,

disaffected, trying to work out how it's done

or at least avoid pitfalls in the future.

And with time an illusory feature 

of other people's lives, who can plan anyway?

Why strive to do more than survive

when that's all you can manage most days?

And that's pushing it.

The path out of the shit is too well disguised

and buried behind the sharks’ smiling lies.

Societal standards seem illogically unwise

and they play the games with loaded dice

and rules they won't explain.

Every minute gain is minimised

by mistaken intentions. Subtle knives

and not so subtle, wasted time 

of trauma born. Mistrustful eyes

turn away from the world.

and back to the half life of disconnection.

That way is safer.

This world is simple

to those who find it simple.

By all means, take advantage of your advantages,

but notice the disadvantaged are taken advantage of

by systems they can't get a purchase on,

and people they dared to rely upon.

And every dismissive assumption you hold

in hands that have never been burned by the cold

is a nail on the bed you told

 us we made on our own.

So we'd better lie in it.

I'm not buying it.

This dance of the butterflies 

is so despised despite it's beauty.

Our average age on day of death is only 12 plus 40.

Disparities so distant instances of juxtaposition jarr intensely out of rhythm and with lyrical precision present suffering as noble when it's not.

It's not.

Applauding us for overcoming obstacles you placed

as if adjudicators in some Ninja Warrior race

feels disingenuous at best.

Gladiators, ready?!

Potential lost is our Roman empire.

No one here dreams of paradise.

This world is simple

 to those who find it simple.

Not the ones you label simple.

They're the most complex of all.

Here We Go Again

 And so here we go again,

Pitting flesh swollen with unshed tears.

You'd think after all these years we'd know

The earlier signs, the first parts to show

The strains. 

But no.

 Our ignorance remains

And where once there was shame

There is pride in the same.

I'm aware in the greater timeline

That this is merely a detour.

That everything anyone has ever fought and died for

Is just footnotes in the fossils.

Can you conceive it to be possible

That all your actions, however ignoble 

Don't mean anything?

Not really.

And we take everything so seriously 

Losing lifetimes to violent fantasy of justice 

But it's just this 

 bloodied blindfolds and broken bliss

Chasing leverets of honour through

Corn fields riddled with mines

And sometimes I think it's all worth it.

As once razed we could rebuild it perfect

And we'd know that we truly deserve it

Because we had suffered to earn it 

Fishing for Birds

 

I Just Might

 It calls to me at night.

The soothing hush is no match,

for the draw of the same pulse and roar.

It mesmerises with its might.

And I might, (I just might)

slip off down the alley,

bed-robed and barefoot,

pick over obstacles, 

ghostfaced and quiet

to arrive tea in hand to:

the bench on the harbour.

The distant clang of buoys,

the slaps of seductive slop

against darkened hulls.

The water is black and so is my desire to jump;

to swim, my flukes guttering in the moonlight.

Master Frank lolls, experience bestowed 

and impossible to surprise,

but young Sea Pie of Cultra stirs;

once sleeping eyes now peephole wide 

at spying Poseidon’s Daughter.

The water calls to pour down delighted spine,

shivers controlled by a peaceful mind.

Sensation of flying freely sublime.

Expansion of perception and deceptive passage of time.

The sea is all loving, all taking, all giving.

I am it and we are we

but duty calls me back to shore.

My tea is cold.

My cigarette: ashes.

My odious feet and unforgivable legs are numb.

Land sick, land locked, land thrown.

Gravity greedily reclaims my blubbersome, goose pimpled flesh

I stumble home; graceless, ungainly, exhausted.

Guiding unwilling, unnatural limbs up stairs of all things!

But, to bed; satiated, salinated, and sanctified.

 Suffocated

by the solidity 

of the Earth. 

Witness

I am swallowed by my bitterness

and I swallow it

in this fractal frame of failed relationships.

Cynicism soothes my wounded seat on shelf.

I can’t stand going out.

I’d rather sit here by myself.

I’m past all the politics,

all the pitifully petty pecks of poison.

I’ve destroyed some neural pathways -

traumatic mistakes in my past days -

I’m taking small steps to start to fix them.

Small steps are fine, but small talk is a human affliction.

Fill the air with comforting fiction:

soulless banality hosed down and repeated as wisdom

by those who love to speak but have never learned to listen;

giving advice even they don’t believe in.

It’s deceiving

telling everyone you’re

Fine

all the time. It’s not

Honest.

Holding back - substitution of feelings in place of facts.

Illogical reasoning misleads and distracts.

Choreographed outward expression to avoid exposing inner lack

of belonging.

This wrongling has always felt that gap.

When I started reading Phillip K Dick

I felt seen. Something in me clicked and it all made sense.

Let’s just say, for argument’s,

that you understand

how it feels to live life as a grain of sand.

Watch unreactive distracted citizenry

wail and gnash and wring their hands;

apathetically prophetic taking knees 

instead of making stands.

Trembling. Waiting for breath.

And when it comes, the hurricane howl ignites the spite that underlies society.

Sparks to the skies, and hang sobriety!

Times of extremes clouding clarity of conviction.

If we’re all victims, 

Then surely we’re all, too, perpetrators.

Ears filled with these half-baked statements of journalistic tinnitus

pushing the same old them-and-us.

Propaganda pervasive; twas ever thus.

Psychological soundbites and deep cuts.

And as above, so below. 

On a personal level, it’s starting to show.

Look among you! Do you even know

how many are masking? How many know?

For all of the feeling that’s public displayed

how little is shown when the mind’s whirr is stayed?

This adrenaline engine is seemingly binary:

tectonic plate movement rate

or warp times infinity.

Where is the nuance? Where the gradations?

Where are the plateaus and smooth undulations?

Youth speaks in infinites, we speak in finalities.

Counting up daily accounts 

of fatalities.

Powerless but to bear witness 

to all of it.

Little One

 You said I could be anything

As long as the words you wrote were the words I'd sing.

You said I could be anyone

If I'd do exactly what you'd want.

They said "You could be a star

If you lose ten pounds and change who you are".

They said "You could have this part. 

Come sit on this couch, you know where to start".

Oh my little one, you're prettier

In ribbons, dresses, ruby slippers,

Glossy pout and frilly knickers.

Oh my little one, your innocence 

Now bought and sold, preserved pretence

With pain and pills you're recompensed.

You said I shouldn't use my mind;

Smart women aren't hired and the world is unkind.

You said that I shouldn't frown;

Because wrinkles are ugly, ageing's not allowed.

They said someone should shut me down.

So they gave me more pep pills, trapped inside their playground.

They said I was a doped up mess;

NDA silenced, I could not confess.

Not so little one, the time has come

To climb the beanstalk, get the gold,

Write off all of the lies they've sold.

Not so little one, no one's gonna come to rescue you 

No woodsman, fairy, crystal shoe.

No no no no no no no no.

You said you'd cut another deal,

But your Faustian pact just does not appeal.

You said I'd never work again,

That I'd stumble through life and end up round the bend.

They said I would change my mind,

Come crawling back, leave my freedom behind.

They said they would write me off,

Slander my name, tell the world I'm insane.

La, la la la la la la la.

You're the little one, you come to me

On bended knee with palms outstretched 

As if I'd forgive, as if I'd forget.

You're the little one.

You cast me as your princess,

 I became the femme fatale.

I say you shouldn't follow me,

For I am the giant, this beanstalk belongs to me.

I say you couldn't take control 

Of my future. I've paid with the years that you stole. 

I say mutual exploitation

Cuts both ways. I'm banking those days.

I say "You avaricious fool,

You were just a tool now I make all the rules."

No more little one, you can't climb trees in ruby slippers.

You'll get a slap in the face from the hand that feeds. 

You're the little one

I've been where you'll never go;

Behind the curtain, beyond the rainbow.

No more little one, the time has come

To take the less well travelled road 

And follow it, wherever it goes.

Listen/Download Little One on BandCamp

https://empireof.bandcamp.com/track/little-one-original

Self-referential #6

 I am so sick of all of it.

The corruption,  the lies, the statistics. 

I once was able to warn allegorically 

but now I state baldly, in fact; categorically 

That dystopian nightmare has crossed to our waking.

We're inside a hellscape of our own creation.

Cassandra I, scribed. The Mistress of Mince.

High on a hill girt by oceans of ink.

Foretelling it all in bouquets of verse

presented with the flourish of the under-rehearsed.

For now the flourishes will wait.

I'm overwhelmed and overweight 

and spending all my energy 

on the one who means the most to me. 

Hermitage and happiness go hand in hand. 

Watch my tail feather shake as I stick my ostrich head in the ground

It's more important to make memories.

Too late to warn of the future. 

Witch's Garden

 Green grow the shoots here in my witch's garden.

Tiny green tendrils that reach to the light.

The fox wears the bells here in my witch's garden;

Atropa bells nod. Keep watch in the night. 

My heart is purple as hellebore

that blooms in cold and rain.

My colours warm with pleasure

to thaw your frozen pain.

Tall grow the trees here in my witch's garden.

Higher than headheight, verbena in your eye.

Short grow the shrubs here in my witch's garden.

All thyme is creeping, at least in your eyes.

My heart is purple as hellebore 

that blooms in cold and rain.

My colours warm with pleasure

to thaw your frozen pain.

Perfume hangs heavy in my witch's garden;

Lilac that lingers long after the sun.

Firebird foxgloves in my witch's garden,

mend broken hearts but could break them for fun!

My heart is purple as hellebore

that blooms in cold and rain. 

My colours warm with pleasure 

to thaw your frozen pain.

Pity invaders in my witch's garden;

unwittingly playing with death at each touch.

They nourish the ground here in my witch's garden.

Of blood meal and bone meal there's never enough! 

My heart is purple as hellebore 

that blooms in cold and rain.

My colours warm with pleasure 

to thaw your frozen pain. 

Listen to the song here; 

https://on.soundcloud.com/JyyjV

Deeper

 I've been waiting so long.

I said, I've been waiting so long.

But like every man or woman that ever has been, you're running late.

You never call, never phone or write. 

You just don't show up for our date.

No, no.

All I ever wanted, ever wanted 

Was One Good Man.

All I ever wanted, ever wanted

Was a love

That's deeper.

So I met a poet at the Chelsea, he said

"I'll be your Bobby, you can be my Brigitte"

So I lent him my head and he gave me a hand, baby

Get It While You Can. He

Promised me poems. I said, "Catch Me Daddy!

Go read to old ladies instead!" 

Yeah yeah. 

All I ever wanted, ever wanted Was

One good man.

All I ever wanted, ever wanted Was

A love

That's deeper.

I'm just A Woman Left Lonely

Singing in this empty room.

I've gotta Try (Just A Little Bit Harder) to wait

My cigarettes burned out too soon.

So I'm out here walking in the rain

Little Girl Blue with her Ball and Chain.

What Good Can Drinking Do? Oh.

All I ever wanted, ever wanted

Was one good man.

All I ever wanted, ever wanted

Was a love, a love a love, a love

That's deeper, yeah. 

So I found myself a new man.

He's tall and he's thin.

Not much of a looker.

His countenance is grim.

He's only got one outfit, his smile is wide.

No Mercedes Benz, just a horse to ride.

Under this Half Moon it's finally time

To stop my Misery'n. Oh! 

All I ever wanted, ever wanted

Was one good man.

All I ever wanted, ever wanted

Was a love, that's deeper. Yeah.

So this Summertime

I've found my love

I've got one good man!

And he's the Reaper. 

New poem, new song. 

Find it online:  Empire of - Deeper. 

Listen here: https://on.soundcloud.com/pjvTD

Download/stream everywhere now.

A New Direction

 

https://on.soundcloud.com/LR83k

Some of you may have been wondering why I have been quiet recently. 

I have been busily working on a new project, which is starting to come to fruition. 

Above is a link to the first track of my forthcoming album. Check it out and let me know what you think. 

Love always. Xx

After The Storm

 

I never thought the I would side with an aggressor.

“Never let the means unjustify the ends"

But it's hard to have honour suffocating under pressure 

When the enemy of the enemy's temporarily your friend.

12 step. Goose step. Misstep. Fall.

Fatalistic, impotent. 

Flailing fetid firmament. 

Perpetually panic-perched

In fight or flight frozen.

But the show's on.

So it goes on.

Mask in metaphor,  mask in reality.

Putting  on the face of a sunny personality. 

Scars in metaphor, scars in reality.

No more question of my strength or my sanity.

Crossfire massacre of crazed masculinity;

No Man's Land is my permanent vicinity;

With extra helpings of aggression at Christmas,

“for old times’ sake" it's a sentimental sickness.

Threat-making, bear-baiting sarcastic cowardice.

Rage-churning, bridge-burning emotional terrorist. 

Promises vomited into pits of lies, bilious

dismissive, supercilious 

and sneering in your bitterness,  you're hideous.

My defence is the simplest;

nullifying narcissistic assaults on my peacefulness 

by finding you ridiculous.

You're piteous and less than this.

I am the carapace that weathers every storm.

I'm the arrow-struck, 4ft thick, besieged fortress wall.

I am Horatio standing on the bridge.

I'm a nanny-goat protecting her kid.

You are a buzzing gnat,

A toxic stinking sewer r*t,

A remnant of an era that

is over and I won't go back.

I've lost count of the times you've tried to inspire suicide 

But my success is measured in the things I have survived

and every time I smile I know I'm breaking free of your control.

My laughter is the fanfare at the rebirth of my soul.

I am stronger now that I'm free.

I am seizing liberty 

My choices are my own (inside constraints of living)

My future is unwritten.

It's only just beginning 

And my life's my own, 

My life's MY OWN. 

(In case anyone was wondering,  we don't use the word R A T in this country. It brings terrible misfortune.)

I Write To Still My Inside Songs

 

I write to still my inside songs.

But words escape, they flutter fecklessly away.

I grit my teeth and bite my tongue.

Verbal tics have possessed me lifelong.
The disguises are displaying exponential decay.
I write to still my inside songs,

to shackle them with cursive ink where they belong;
expression of ignorant impression of air from within clay.
I grit my teeth and bite my tongue.

The context is lost and meter and meaning are both wrong
But phrases form perfume and colour my spiritual bouquet.
I write to still my inside songs.

And sometimes they're dripping with venom and vengeance from forked prong
But I never claimed to be Virtue in any morality play.
I grit my teeth and bite my tongue.

It's the battle to wrestle harpy squawk into birdsong
Sit and scribe, instead of say.
I write to still my inside songs.
I grit my teeth and bite my tongue. 

Davey Jones

 

This body of water
Swallows bodies of our daughters,
 bones of our sons.
Unforgiving, dark, forbidding, 
Rolling roar at sinking sun.
Beneath, the beasts,
Insatiable, sleek,
Electrical activity
That signals what they seek.
Saline gargle, Panicked splashing,
Telltale sound of surface slapping
Sensing from distant continents
the scent of stress incontinence.
Heavy, tired, socks that slide
half way off feet
Already freezing,
Tiny
speck
of life
in ocean vastness
Muster all the power that you can harness,
Burning core, your microcosm
Water scorched and adrenaline sodden,
Rages in futility
Against elemental inevitability.

Release air, relinquish earth,
Extinguish fire and become water.

Hypoxia hallucinations,
Visions, sounds and strange sensations
Faces, flashes of conversations
In unfamiliar situations.

And pain.

And then peace.

Consciousness incorporeal,
Subaquatic, state surreal.
Watch from without
As you wash away
And lose the ability to feel.

No more pain
No more rage
No more age
No more aching
No more taking breaths before you speak.
No more breaths.
Only freedom.
Go with the waves.
Let them take you away.

This body of water
Swallows bodies of our daughters
And bones of our sons.

#solwayharvester #drowning #lostatsea #nautical #daveyjoneslocker #poem #poetry #amwriting 

The Monster Under The Bed

 

My mother always shushed me when I went to her and said
"I think there's a monster hiding underneath my bed"
She said to me "you silly bean,
All that's there is mess.
Did you think I hadn't noticed?
It's time that you confessed
To your scurryfunge scullduggery
Honesty is best"
Well, frankly I was not in the mood
For lectures on my housework
Or lack of it.
I pursued it once again,
"It's there, I know,  I heard it move
I thought I saw some eyes,
When I tried to trap it with my books
And muddy docs, size 5.
I heard snoring earlier, I swear it! No, I did!
How can you be so sure there's no monster under my bed?"
"Because monsters, my love, live
 in story books
And in the hearts of man.
I explain that when you're older.
You'll learn to understand. 
They aren't interested in your ankles,
Or giving wriggling toes bites.
They are not photophobic
Now turn off your light."
I held on to her dressing gown as she tried to leave
and once again persisted. I began to plead,
"But what if it gets me, what will I do?
Can I shout you if it happens?
Will you come through?"
Exasperated  now, she sighed;
"Look, there isn't a monster,
That noise is your belly, or maybe it's sounds from the radio, or telly.
I'm tired, it's late, go to sleep,
Don't complain..
I don't want to have to come through again."
"Ok then, mummy, if you are sure"
Placated, I was; reclined and demure.
"Love you mummy, sleep well, good night"
"Schlaft gut" was her automatic, heartfelt reply.
The light was extinguished, the footsteps retreated
I lay in my duvet  cocoon anticipating
Silence.
After 5 minutes of adjusting eyes
The shadows were forming into threatening guise.
And then I heard it, the little scrabble thump
Of the creature residing beneath my bunk.
I rolled to the wall and pulled up my feet
My fear crystallising into gritted teeth.
I turned again, foetal, now blankets dishevelled
And gingerly stretched out my fingers the level
of the corner of the bed,
And gave them a wave
And a savage white claw shot up out of the grave.
I yelped and pulled back,
Heard a disgruntled snort.
And my anxiety giggle was horrifying caught
In my throat, trying desperately to stay quiet.
I don't want to be part of the monster's diet.
Hand wounds aren't easy to explain
And bite Mark's are obvious quadrants of pain
And if there is evidence that the monster is real,
then mummy might actually get down and kneel
And find you! And we can't really have that,
Can we, my darling, secret, feral cat?

Green Eyed Monster

 

This year, of all it's hardships

This year, of all it's woes.

This year of lessons, battles, losses, hurt and heaviness and sorrow.

Has been particularly difficult
For writers of dystopian allegororical ilk.

No  matter how outlandish
Or seemingly absurd
It's all plays out in news reports
Almost word for word.
From fire and murder Hornets
To plague and civil rights
Through the gauntlet of grotesqueries
To the scuttling at night
Of genetically modified crayfish clones
Eating cholera corpses down to the bones
In the waterways of a graveyard
In a major European city.
None of it's very pretty.
So this year, I have focused
My (by nature, admittedly a bit goth) brain,
On learning how to smile again.
As happiness is a revolutionary act.

My concrete corner,
Unwelcome altar of
Windswept plastic offerings
To the God of down-at-heel seaside towns
Crisp packets,  chippy wrappers,
Discarded masks,
Encroaching valerian, damp and doll sized dunes
Became a waving wash of wafting treasure.
I had finally cracked under the pressure.
The need to nurture is less what this was about,
More the need to beautify.
So I began haphazardly.
Went to the garden centre to see
What sacrificial flora I could adopt.
I've never stopped trying to grow things.
It's just that I have black thumbs and sap-stained fingers,
From all plants I've killed over the years.
But the indoor ones, for me, it seems
Were too fragile and subject to neuroses,
They'd sulk themselves to death
after a couple of months of neglect.
Outdoor plants, though!
A brand new world of possibilities.
I started with just a couple,
Something that's hard to kill.
Flaming lady shrubberies
A statement, if you will.
The smiling assistant assured me
It didn't need much care.
Just a spot that wasn't too windy
And some pruning here and there.
Well.
I put them down and on they grew,
New scarlett leaves unfurling.
Eye pleasing and inobtrusive,
My experiment conclusive,
The plants brought me joy.
Now. I'm a product of a culture
And of a generation spoiled.
Millenials, we whine and grouse
About our lack of toys.
But we were born in the 80s,
where excess was the goal
And when we find something that dopamine hits
We fall into addiction roles.
I didnt mean for all of it
To get so out of hand.
That flaming lady beckoned, you see
And I accepted her junglist plans.
The next trip I checked all the labels.
The corner we had was quite dark.
We get 2 hours of sun in the morning
So we had to have shade loving plants.
It took me what felt like forever
Methodically checking the charts
For sun dials and seasons and meaning
Behind the corporate cartoonists art.
Eventually I made my choices, picked out some pots too.
Went to the counter to pay for it all
And encountered Snooty Boots Sue.
She smiled and welcomed the greenlings
To be zapped in their barcode baptism
Then turned to me to ask questions
And referred to the plants all in Latin.
I shrugged and explained my new passion,
Confessed my ignorance of it all.
So Sue turned her sizable nose up
Pursed her lips, crossed her arms and drawled
"Oh I see. You're a new gardener"
As if new made me automatic scum.
"You will need some compost to go with this,
Can you guess which is the right one?"
She gestured a bingo winged arm to her left,
I Dreadingly looked to my right
A wall of colourful plastic sacks
Of variously composted shite.
I hadn't a clue,  I shrugged again
"The one with the flowers?" I guessed.
"Nooo" she sneered, ample chest in grey wool.

 "The blue bag for you would be best".
As she was taking my payment she asked,
"Where have you left your car?"
"No, I actually-"
"What?"she interrupted,
"Without it you wont get far"
The notes of disdain and triumph were there.
And her haughtiness was just too much.
"I'll be fine " I shot back, my shoulders squared,
Teeth gritted, jawline jut.
She smiled at me sweetly,
And said "if you're sure.
Here, let me help you"
I looked at the floor,
I looked at the sides, I looked at my stuff
I realised that Hercules himself would find it quite tough
To carry it.

It's that old 80s lifestyle, the drive of must have more.
I'm not making excuses, an explanation is all.
But I'd come this far. She couldn't win
So i sorted out my freight
One on the back, hands full, under arm
Ceramics! It was some weight.
Then Snooty boots Sue
Got her moment to shine
And reminded me with a grin:
"Don't forget to take your compost"
I took a deep breath in.
"No, no, quite right. Could you give me a hand?
It's under control, this was part of the plan.
I just need help to raise it over
This bag, then I can carry it on my shoulder".
Aghast, sue said,
"You can't do that! You'll hurt yourself, what about your back?"
I said " i can, i am, I'm off. I'm not going far. Thanks very much".
And strode with as much briskness as I could
Staggering slightly, and sliding in mud.
Once round the corner and out of her sight
I Gave up the ridiculous impotent fight
Against gravity,
and let the bag slide to the floor,
Off my shoulder,
by now reddened, soggy and sore.
Pondering what on earth could be done.
To rescue me from my pride's bumbledom.
When a black cloud surrounded once white panel van
Burped to a shuddering halt
And sooty marked garden gnome face of a man
Shouted something about
Needing a lift, could he be of assistance
I was so overjoyed I damned well near kissed him.
And I managed to get them home.
A quick cup of tea and I was out there digging,
As happy as a pig in it.
Trowel in hand, repotting and arranging
Trying to make the prettiest fit.
And when the spell broke it was later that day,
I'd whiled a good few hours away
Immersed in the earth and the dirt and the smell.
I was happy.
The theory, proved, conclusive.
But the height of that first joy proved elusive.
It was good still, yes, no denying,
But it seemed no matter which plants i was buying
I couldn't get that first /rush/ again.
My flower seeking urge was becoming so great
I'd been buying in secret alone
And sneaking succulents into the trolley
When shopping for food for our home.
What had been a barren grey wasteland
Had become, not the gardens at Kew,
But at least a refreshingly green space
As the plantpots number grew.
They encroached on the path and blocked doorways.
They clawed at passersby.
Honestly if one had demanded Feed Me!
I wouldn't have been surprised.
And I had peace to keep with the neighbours,
Who had nearly lost an eye.
So I took up my secuters in shaking hands, and trimmed them down to size.
I snipped and I sighed, saddened at their shrinkage.
I sorrowfully apologised.
Tidy and tamed they finally are, neatly encased in the corner.
But I can't wait to see the growth of the jungle
When the weather finally gets warmer.
For now I am on the wagon.
No more plants for me.
The pathway is halfway passable
And the fire escape is free.
I might fall off this wagon,
I can't promise I've stopped forever.
But my millenial whining at least has moved on,
To complaining about the weather.

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.

Picking Scabs

Fire gazing family,
Night breezes lazily
Hissing through leaves and open windows.
“what is it? Why the sudden stirring?”
“hasten, children. Close the curtains".
Scrubbed cheeks, kissed brows,
Blankets tucked, thumbs sucked,
Knotting feet and now, sleep.

My mother had warned of the Carras Dhoo men
When the briny breeze blew up the glen.
She'd told of the gloom and the peaty tomb
And the lives of unfortunates taken too soon
And their hunts conducted under silvery moon,
Oh, we knew of the Carras Dhoo men.

The paths, the routes, the cave, the nooks,
the crannies stashed with finery snatched
From drowning grasp
Of hands that lead to skulls scarlet smashed.
The rocks that froth with bezerkers ferocity,
Passengers previous pomposity
Reduced to loot worth losing your life over.
Hah! We knew of the Carras Dhoo men.

Night dashes on hillside, steep and tripping slide,
The cruel tide siding with those who upon her do not ride
Through respect
But instead turn the earth.
Whose women were dark haired and dark eyed,
Adorned glorious bejewelled in their men's finds,
Beguiling glamour of the hard life,
We were warned of the Carras Dhoo men.

We heeded indeed, our ravenous ears
Drank the juice and spat the seeds
As reformed roguery and diabolical deeds.
Reigniting a fire in our eyes, we rose,
A group of reluctant wives, willing warriors,  natural worriers,
To reclaim our lives.

Revestment bereft, avoidance schemes ended
And with them all chance of our happy ending.
Mouths to feed, our need undeniably greater
Than the flashy tourists, the odd passing freighter
That might pass our way.
There's a big boat in the bay, boy.

There’s a big boat in the bay.
Tomorrow we'll take the children to play,
Down by the breakwater,
Picnic sandwiches cut into quarters,
Castles and hole digging,
Where the tide washes in.
You should come down to meet us.
We like to play a game we call
“Finder's Keepers “.

But tonight? Ah, tonight.
The brine’s in the breeze
Hissing lazily through leaves
Whispering claxon call to deeds
for those that know
To listen for it.

Tomato

In my drive to self sufficiency
Indoor gardening appealed to me,
So I hung them in the windowsill,
Ingredients 3.

I knew it was a risk to put
The basil with the rosemary
But I figured one would thrive
And which didn't really matter to me.
What I didn't figure on, though
Was the overgrown triffid tomato tree

It started as a sturdy branch,
Hopeful, healthy, heavenly scented,
Enjoyed the cyclical drown and parch
Of a suntrap windowbox well vented.

Past the window and round the corner,
The tentacles claimed the wall.

And now a fruit is dangling, heavy
Promise-green of future feast.
Tantalising, tempting beauty
It grows each day and whispers “eat me”
As I wash the dishes underneath.

Psalm for Motorcyclists

TT is here

The wheel of prayer roaring
Thirty seven and three quarters
Of energy embedded in
Sacrificially sanctified soil.

This is how new ley lines are formed.
This is where heroes are born.
This is why leather is worn.

The pillion-pilgrims return
With acolytes of their own
And pass the passion in their turn
To new generations grown.

Sacred speed, courage, endurance,
Gladiatorial battle with nature's forces
South sea sounding gulls wail a chorus
Heralding the arrival of thousands of tourists

The islanders take a breath.
Let us pray.

Straight outta tha Pondy

It's nice to be down with you Southside folk. 

Got my passport stamped by some Culture Vannnin bloke.

He gave me border grief,
wouldn't cut me no slack.
I'm from the wrong side of the electric railway track.

I live in Ramsey.
It's the place to be.
We don't get your chances or your budgetries.
You've got most of the jobs, most of the bars
and most of the parking for most of the cars.
We've got increasing numbers of unemployed,
pregnant teens and banged up boys.
We've got genteel hippies, restaurants,
Shakti Man and the Mooragh splash park.
We're a town with texture and layers of past
and the odd pool of vomit you have to sidle past.
They've gentrified our heart and installed a Costa Coffee.
The old businesses are closing 'cause the young folk have no money.
We've a working port, a bit industrial.
Still a bit rough; we're Mannanin's rebel.

You've know you've met a Northerner when you meet attitude
and you in your ignorance might think them being rude
but what you're missing is up here we don't have need for graces. We like straight talking, standing ground and getting in your faces.

They've fancily repaved Parliament Street
but that doesn't change the leaking shoes or dogshit on your feet.
You can will a town to prosper but you can't make poor folk spend
and everything's eroded by the pigeons in the end.
You tell us about Anagh Coar and what it's like in Pully
but they all seem bourgeois when you compare them to the Pondy.

In the winter it is crowded in the Library
because it has heating and you can stay all day for free.
The businesses that work up here are all a bit niche.
Old money eccentricities unlike your nouveau riche
high street brand name blandness up and down your old Strand Street,
homogenised and sterilised by office shoe clad feet.
Not happy with two Costas, you've a Starbucks now as well!
And what have we got to counter that?
Leonard Singer, and Alan Bell.

Slack Lining

Heel to toe, heel to toe.
Stepping carefully, stepping slow.
Each foreshadowed print a potential mine;
choose between conflicting signs.
This way, that way, u-turn, short cut,
tunnel, bridge, no through road, shut.

Tight rope, slight hope,
but no sign of safety net.
Height choked, dry throat,
not even half way over yet.

The depths below, glow.
inviting inverted flight, one way,
skimming with fluttering skirts,
nirvana visage no longer concerned,
diverted from diurnal concerted
effort.

The glow below, expects.
Lava monsters, demons, mummies,
Terminator 2, crocodiles and slurry
await you moaning, reaching, grasping.
Sulphur-breath and curses rasping.
Tentacles, tendril, terrorists, Thatcher,
Count Olaf and the Child Snatcher,
Gagamel, Skeletor, Mumraa, Blair
welcome you and take their share.

That glow is far beneath.
Let it remain so.
For now furrow of thwarted thoughts
form saline irrigation forks
and roll into the watering stalks
of eyes stress-blade sharpened to
hunting hawks.

Feel the breeze on your face.
Pick up the pace.
Purposeful placing of heel-toe-heel-toe race,
miss-step apprehension with mistaken nonchalance replaced.
Almost indifferent to the threat
you split and curtsy, pirouette.
Amaze with your ability
to juggle responsibility
while dropping things that they don't see
into the depths below.

Heel toe. Step. Heel toe.
Along you glibly go.

Wider sections provide reprieve
from constant pressure. Ironically
it's from this bit you'll likely fall,
when you paid  attention to the ground
at all.

Present

We are here and now
but how
to get out of this mess
is the question.

Grotesquely gratefully undertaken guilt
in the lands that colonialism built.
Damocles democracy up to the hilt.
Kamikazi kakistocracy cashing in on milk long spilt.
Curdled cultures spreading spores.
Survival instinct the strongest force
on decreasingly distant shores
while we try to define "reliable source".
Fake news and State news and Corporate news, too;
they're all propaganda
an underhand way to push one agenda
it's demonstrably true.
We've gone from mock outrage, to sincere apathy, to militant bickering.
It's a revolting rhapsody
of society's disunification and collapse.

Here we are, and now.
Ploughing on,
disregarding rippling rumbles
as grumbling gods.

Tornadoes, volcanoes; hurricaine brutality;
gargantuan gyres and shifts of polarity.
Terra Firma trembles to Terra Fragility.
Rewarding ruination dressed as destructive capability.
Vulgar vultures, wagers of war
licking their lips while weapons stocks soar
and waste water rattles shake plates to the core
and toothless judiciary makes jokes of the law.
Free speech and Hate speech and Corporate speech too;
they're sophisticated-
in the Platonic sense-
manipulated.
None of it's true.
We've gone from communication, to control,
to Twitterati creedence gifts.
It's left a giant hole
where debate should be.
We've let civilisation lapse.

Are we here? And now?
Surround yourself with light
and fight
the frequencies of dischord.
Use courtesy. Firstly remember compassion
before embarking on any rash action.
Remember that romance is not being rationed
and amplifiers elevate the maxim of attraction.
Guttural grunts of headline hacks.
Persistant pop ups of click bait claptrap.
Love's language languishes solely through lack
of being spoken. Take speech back.
Home life and Work life and Corporate life, too.
They're all characters-
in facets of sense-
they're all you.
We went from idealist, to masochist,
to embracing practicality
and in the midst lost liberty.
We built our own traps.
Here
and Now
are we.

Not to quote Jurassic Park, but -

My dear fellow jugglers 

in the Cirque du Suburbia,
you may think your home impervious
to encroaching adult themes.
But “Nature always finds a way”
and they’re going to learn it all some day
but it’s probably better in some ways than by some other means.

You’ll all be aware of the endless oughts
that contort and constrict
instinctive care.
Single modern motherhood is
a carousel
tersely tethered with knots.
Will nots and spill nots
and hope nots and choke nots
and try nots and cry nots
and eat nots and teach nots.
The most strangulatory
of these tangles is
expose not
meaning: Protect your child from the darkness of this world
and teach them the strength of enlightenment.

The entitlement of access to the hive mind
-by necessity a skill they must learn,
‘cause coding is the future –
shoots my determined obsolescence right in the maternals.
So to detract from external influence
I knew what to do.

We’d get
a pet.

Landlord clause: no fur or paws
no electricity eating heated enclosures,
no live food, no rodents,
no hooves, smooth or cloven.
From amidst this messy mesh
a loophole
I sagely extracted.
No one had said anything
about marine arachnids.

Fishtank purchased, live plants in
filter on and the process begins.
Background danios Spotty and Stripey
soar and chase and are occasionally fighty
but mostly work as extras in the theatre of the tank.
We even had a red-shirt! For his sacrifice we thank him.
In true tradition we set the stage; when he died the first act was over.
Two long months we’d had to wait for the alga bloom to cover
enough of the surfaces to act as a rider
for our new stars: The undersea spiders!
Or shrimp. As they’re also called
or as some people say, “You mean PET PRAWNS?!”

Yes.
is the answer.

Now. After about a month a strange thing appeared,
at first no bigger than a poppy seed
then as it grew I came to realize
there was more than one stowaway snail inside.
Gio was delighted, I was concerned
about intercrustacean diplomatic relations
but they co-existed peacefully and the purpose was perfectly served.

Until the day these mucilaginous interlopers, now numbering four or five
decided to stage a three-day-three-way-sex-show. Live.
Right at the front of the tank they were!
“Mummy, what are they doing?” “Errrrrrr..
I think they’re making babies, Gio.”
“But there’s three of them!” “Yes, I know…
oh I can’t explain it, they’re snails, I’m not sure-
hey, who’s that in the castle with his face out the door?
Is it Blackfish? Has he made friends with the shrimp?
He’s the first fish to spend time in there I think.”

This happy distracting friendship warmed both of our hearts
and we smiled as Blackfish spent more time in the dark
and the shrimp brought him food and he slowly grew fatter
but everything was lovely and nothing else mattered.
The snails population in the background grew and grew.
We lost count when they got past 22.

One morning I was woken by Gio screaming “Mummy!
The shrimp have got Blackfish and they’re opeing his tummy!”
I raced in and slack-jaw gawped. The violence was alarming.
But more than this; the realization that shrimp understand farming.
Two Medium Shrimp held Corpsefish still, while Big Shrimp did the slashing
and then they gathered round and gorged themselves. Gio, big-eyed watched the action.

More generations of snails came. Then more and more and more
until the monopod population was a problem we couldn’t ignore.
We had to get rid of all of them. We couldn’t leave even an egg.
They eaten us out of live plants. We’d had to get fake ones instead!
It took the final solution. We gave the tank a deep clean.
And boiled the snails in the gravel. And murdered their babies with steam.

Then rebuilt the tank from the ground up and so far, it seems to go well.
It’s more like an eight-year-old’s fish tank and less like the circles of hell.

I think it’s fair to say, in this case
my attempts at parenting were a little displaced
by “Nature, red in tooth and claw”
or, transparent in the case of the shrimp’s grinding maw.

I tried to protect my son from his curiosity and an internet search engine,
but accidently introduced him to orgies, murder, evisceration
and ethnic cleansing.

DOROTHIA

Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'd like you to meet my friend.
Her name is DOROTHIA,
She lives risks and sets trends.
Her Diabetes is type 2,
through diet self-inflicted.
She's Obese, technically morbidly so
and Reclusive - isolation addicted.
She's Older now, she draws a pension,
loves her Tobacco, Hedges and Benson.
She's Hypertensive,
is doing something about it,
but her Inactivity gives
her anxiety no outlet,
so Alcohol is where she turns.
And this is how DOROTHIA learned
all the risks factors for developing dementia.
After diagnosis, here is the message she sent ya:

"All of these causes are within your control,
act now and make changes.
Grow heathily old"


                                                                                                 

All of the above are the controllable risk factors available to avoid developing dementia.

Just a piece of information. I'm not lecturing.
 I wrote it to help me remember for day-job purposes.

While you're here though, please consider becoming a Dementia Friend. This requires nothing more of you other than you than to read some information, watch some videos and apply the awareness you gain to your life. It can make a huge difference to people's lives.

Go here to learn more and become a Dementia Friend.

Thanks. Xxxx

Winter Solstice

History's hurts burst gracelessly and blur
the polished edges of responses
sponsored by maturity.
Blurting half-burped mutterings of
defensive small-talk offerings
in place of confident honesty.
The maw of malicious memories yawns
and looses vapours venomous,
vines around voice until it leaves a croak.
Crone-dry and bladder-wracked,
hoarse retorts crack
thoughtless reports across the
hectares of unspoken battles fought.

Token offerings to false idols prove the dedication to deceit.
Conceit conceals tears long since congealed
into crevasses carved by rictus grin.
Spinning stories cobweb thin
from which a larder fully stocked with
melancholy memories of mockeries suspends,
an endless supply of abuse.

Cogitations crank and the wheel, it turns.
Burn the lights on the longest night,
for tonight we learn and sacrifice
a sorrow
in exchange for wisdom.
Flames devour, smoke billows,
sour tongue converted to
icing sugar ash,
cinnamon cynicism
and not-in-my-name nutmeg.

Feast upon your fears and you will never feel them again.

Yule Be Back

A portal opened in my lounge

sometime in mid-November.

A velvet wrinkle overlapped and

time’s quilt was oddly angled.

Up went the tree!

Up went the lights!

The glorious windows

dressed in party clothes.

Stair rods and banisters

festoons and fragrances

that speak of feasts and warming spices.

Inviting glows and cosy stories

by torchlight.

Outside

conker battles finalise into

en of season skirmishes.

Guys succumbed to elemental distress

and the stench of rotting pumpkin corpses

rang from the town in

jubilant and guttural rowdy shouts

as cold breath caught in

over confident throats.

As a penalty for this

badly ironed chronological coverlet

a fine was set

and the time was taken back.

With bated breath in stasis

the presents waited.

The house waited.

In the missing time a place was found for everything

and having no time to dally in,

everything went to its place.

Reset for rambunctious rabble’s return.

For music and pictures and stories and tea.

For dinosaurs and Harryhausen, Nick Cave and walks by the sea.

Longing for the normal passage of time.

Smooth, wrinkle.

The house waits.