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.