I hadn't realised robins can hover
until a pair built a nest in a cupboard
along my outside passageway.

If I came out of my kitchen door
just as a robin was flying in,
it would slam on the brakes and hover

for just an instant, then turn around
and fly back out with the tasty snack
for its fledglings still in its beak.

According to my wife
it spoils the rhythm of life
when too much time
is spent on rhyme.

The Ballad of Trickledown

"Greed is great." economists say,
"Demand creates employment.
Ignore warped personalities.
More goods mean more enjoyment.

If some get rich while others starve,
that's natural selection.
The wealth will trickle down at last.
There's no need for dejection."

But when the buckets of the rich
get near to overflowing,
they buy some bigger ones instead
to stop enrichment slowing.

Or if they find their buckets leak
and some wealth is escaping,
they very soon find ways to stop
both hole and poor folk gaping.

So should we wait for Trickledown
to quench our thirst by sipping
the meagre damp refreshment gained
from taps yet barely dripping ?

The wealth in rich folks' swimming pools
reserved for private pleasure
could fill a public reservoir
for everybody's leisure.

But never yet in history
through all the different ages
have rich folk voluntarily
let go their wealth in stages

since, even when some sympathise
with poor folk or when some flirt
with socialism, they can't bear
to give up any comfort.

So should there be an armed revolt
to take what won't be given,
a rising tide of anger showing
the lengths to which we're driven ?

For what if waves of violence
should wash away foundations
and undermine the dominance
of privileged expectations ?

Would those who've suffered poverty
before achieving power
be keener on equality
or, like the others, shower

on family and friends the gifts
from wealth they have no right to,
corruption proving more tempting
than public good they might do.


With greed ingrained in most men's souls
we ought to be addressing
health before wealth, need before greed,
not giving greed our blessing.

No matter the rain and cold
or growing old
if I can be with you.

What odds old age's pains
and niggling strains
if you will still be true.

Who cares the years have passed ?
Nothing can last
except my love for you.

So damn death's growing cold;
let it be told
that what we had was true.

The night was raining orange in the road
when peering through my window from inside
revealed how little of the desolation showed
through the raindrop rash on the glass outside.

Strangely opaque to the stuttering light
each bead of water was a jewelled disc
concentrically filigreed in black and white
that put in place a sheet of sequins fixed

as screen between the growing storm outside
and my guilty despair which found expression
in sleepless nights. So nature intervened inside
a temporary high between two deep depressions.

Hang on a minute, lads. I've got a great idea. We need to get enough people together - a hundred, a thousand, better ten thousand -to all go out into the streets and murder someone. We all get convicted and sentenced to life with a minimum of fifty years so that the stupid kafirs have to pay to keep us in prison, feed us, clothe us, provide entertainment, medical care, etc for all those years. Enough expense to wreck the British economy ! Great idea, yes?

Parents have long shadows, longer
than those of other family,
friends, teachers, teenage idols.
They spread wider in the morning,
protecting from the rising heat.
Deeper than the static shadows
of home, they follow where you go.
Growing up is trying to detach
them  and bear the sunlight alone,
creating your own bold shadows.
But your parents' shadows lengthen
again in the evening, helping
to lead you back when you want to return.

Lines written in dejection near Brighton

As books sell cheap in jumble sales,
I bought a library for pence,
non-fiction mainly, being male
and rating knowledge and commonsense
more highly than the stuff of novels -
fantasy, romance, suspense.

I didn't read them straightaway,
thinking to keep them for old age
when, too decrepit then to play
my usual sports or even engage
in gardening, I'd train each day
with exercise in turning the page.

But now I'm nearly at that state,
I start to wonder what's the use.
My pub quiz knowledge doesn't rate
as wisdom even if abstruse
and since my death will wipe my slate,
what difference if I stay obtuse?

I've tried to understand this life -
the universe and Man's place in it
but science discoveries are so rife
knowledge multiplies by the minute
while mankind causes so much strife
I don't see any likely limit.

Civilisation is just veneer
covering pre-historic urges
and nothing I can do to steer
people away from the stress of scourges
affecting modern life which year
by year inexorably surges.

Sapience on a simian base
in retrospect is nothing great.
Intelligence helps to fuel the chase
for status and power and not abate
the age old, ape-like conflict race
but rather just augment that state.

I know the privileged still protect
their interests now the same as always
while the less fortunate expect
big changes only through the lotteries.
Goodwill is not enough to effect
any improvement on entrenched ways.

So if I can't catch up with facts
and know enough of human nature,
why bother with my published tracts?
Yet how will I occupy my future?
The depressing fact is that it lacks
any sort of attractive feature.

So will I soon resort to ChickLit,
RomCom, murder mystery plots;
be bored by radio comedy wit
or doze through daytime TV slots?
Or should I rather learn to knit
or practise tying different knots?

The truth is I am losing the battle
for meaningful life. Time to retreat
and start the process of withdrawal.
While not acknowledging defeat,
even this verse on which I toil
heads for the button marked DELETE.

'Intelligent Design' my foot !
How in Heaven could he overlook
the need, now I' m old and running down,
for somewhere to wind me up again ?

When young, old age was just a rumour
justifiably ignored.
Although old folk were sometimes seen,
they could be properly forgotten
as alien embarrassments
in a world of wonder
waiting to be explored.

No knowledge then of the waiting tumour,
evolution's handicap.
Maturity too busy also,
earning a living, settling down,
companioning partners, raising kids,
to notice the closing trap.

Still nothing need disturb the humour
contemplating life ahead -
the traffic lights are mostly green
and if they're amber, you nip past them;
you can't wait for red.

But all the colours in the future
start to darken into dread.
There's a roadblock on the highway
which will stop you dead.

Debilitation and dementia
mark the progress of your ailment
for which there isn't any treatment.

So say goodbye to all your former
happiness (no use to rage)

and hello to your terminal trauma

of old age.

Lately I must renew my driving licence
but always receive my TV licence free.
I get the government winter fuel payment
and a buss pass that's invaluable to me.

I don't now need to look for paid employment
(I get more money from my pensions than I spend)
so I could pass my time in full enjoyment
before my life's inevitable end.

But life needs satisfaction as well as pleasure
and helping plants grow does fill up the daytime
while leaving the evenings free for ample leisure
with various choices for my adult playtime.

Except for nature, sport and a couple of quiz shows
I've almost given up watching live TV,
preferring music to dispel my mood lows
as more effective than stand-up comedy.

I really love the 'classic' catchy pop songs,
those filtered as the best from sixty years
of musical composition which well belongs
among the cultural triumphs of my peers.

So I frequent the local clubs and bar halls
that play the sort of music that I like
without the probability of bar brawls
or an egocentric oaf that hogs the mike.

Sometimes the bouncer checking ID at the door
looks at my licence and belches with surprise
since he hasn't yet seen me take the dance floor
pretending to be a youngster in disguise.

But I have a net of wrinkles on my face;
my jowls droop from sunken cheeks to chin;
my uncut hair's a probable disgrace;
my un-ironed body has drapes of sagging skin.

And yet I can't stop thinking I'm attractive
(if only girls wouldn't judge the book by the cover)
though I don't aspire to anything seductive;
I have no fantasies of being a lover.

But I love the vitality of female butterflies
dancing to the rhythm of the music
while around them buzz the male hoverflies
well on their way to being booze sick.

The woman beside me queueing at the bar,
looking like a tourist, at last is bold
enough to ask "Please, how old you are?"
and smiles at my standard reply "Too old."

But too glib really; really just a pup;
still young at heart; but lacking potency!
Perhaps it's time to hang my slippers up
as superhero - Teenage OAP.

It was never irrational fearing the edge
of the world if you thought it was flat.
On the basis it couldn't continue for ever
you'd tumble through space until 'splat'.

But why then do poets who should know much better
still fear the right edge of the page ?
Their lines now continually jump to the left
as if they're unable to gauge

how far they dare go away from the pack
till timidity forces them back.
Without the assurance of rythym and rhyme
it's just backward steps all the time.

I have a little poe tree;
nothing will it bare
about my human frailty
but what I hereby share.

There's very little silver
and even less that's gold
and as for Spain's fair daughter
I wouldn't be so bold.

Resolutions

I have to work hard at not believing in an afterlife where we will meet again and love each other for eternity.
I need to remind myself that wanting something to be true doesn't make it true.
I have to respect the scientific facts, however lacking in comfort.
I must resist the temptation of consolation.

We have the choice of so many media
there's no excuse for being bored
yet youngsters moan "There's nothing to do here . ."
 - better amused than ever before !

What we want most is just entertainment,
something to entertain our minds -
clothes for the king, invisible raiment,
no matter it deceives or blinds:

too many papers, too many pages,
too many glossy magazines;
too many programmes aired on the wireless,
too many channels on TV;

not enough news to fill all the spaces,
not enough facts to inform views,
not enough people wanting to progress
but loads of dross from which to choose -

journalists seeking prize-winning inches,
columnists needing new ideas,
cameramen chasing passionate clinches
(editors' circulation fears!).

But for the peasants tending their livestock,
fetching the water, weeding fields,
what do they think of watching the sun-clock
hour after hour till daylight yields?

What do they think of during the darkness,
chores all completed, free to muse ?
No entertainment centre to access,
probably not even numbing booze !

How do they manage minus presenters,
make-over experts, fashion tips,
new revelations daring the censors,
interview sound bites, image clips ?

Might they just notice nature more often
rather than crass consumer goods ?
Might they just pay their old folk attention,
play with their children in the woods ?

Or do they just create superstition
(something to occupy their minds)
fairies and ghosts or even religion -
imagination of all kinds ?

Once started up our brains don't stop humming,
fuelled by language, never still;
even in sleep our dreams just keep coming;
blanking out thought is beyond our will.

We are all evolution's last victims
plagued by our brains and language skill,
peak of mutation's random bizarre whims,
ultimate unsuccessful frill !

As with the physical, so with the mental -
nature abhors a vacuum:
pity we try to make life too gentle
using hot air like opium !

Fortieth wedding anniversary

What is it with these multiples of ten
assuming their superiority?
Who do they think they are, products of men
that then acquire fake celebrity?
Republicans and socialists like me
distrust all forms of privileged elite,
so how approve an anniversary
that has nine indians for every chief?
We tend to make too much of lone events
and pressure for exaggeration mounts;
sometimes we need to use our commonsense -
it's not the wedding but the marriage counts.
Alright, I've grumped enough, I'm nearly done -
forty is fine but I want forty one.

Christabel

You are the country I inhabit;
you are the dialect I speak;
you are the years of being happy
through the routine of the week.

You are the house I feel at home in
(garden annually renewed);
you are the clothes I wear for comfort;
you are my bestest favourite food.

You are my passport to adventure,
snorkelling with ray and shark;
you are the stars in constellations
guiding through the blinding dark
.
You are the blue sky sun above me
warm in winter, summer bliss;
you are the one I need to love me -
bed-time cuddle, day-time kiss.

You are the atmosphere around me;
you are my whole environment;
you were the dawn and will be sunset -
this is for you - my testament.

It can't be true, there must be  some mistake.
That's it of course. They happen all the time.
It's understandable someone should make
an error. Or perhaps it's just a game
you're playing with me. Soon I'm sure to wake
up. This will all turn out to be a dream
and you'll be back with me just like before.
I really will be glad to have you home
again. I realise now I've loved you more
and more as all the years passed by. I blame
myself I never said it. Still, I'm sure
you understand. Oh, sod it, all the same
this is unreal. Of course I know what real
life is. We lived it forty years a team
of two. Nothing has changed. I still can feel
you here around me. Christ, I want to scream
out loud. You can't be gone. I know that we'll
still be together. Now it's time you came
back home. This is impossible. You know
I need you. What shall I do? I'm not ashamed
to say I'll just be lost without you. So
that's settled then, our old life all reclaimed.
Or something like it. Please, oh please don't go.
I need you so.

"Mr. Carter? This is the hospice.
I'm sorry to tell you that your wife died
quickly at ten to six this morning."

I never knew what death was till you died.
With others it was just another fact,
some foreign event; celebrities meant nothing -
I don't remember where I was when Di
or JFK died; neighbours passed away
as small clouds in the sky which soon dispersed;
friends and relatives were passing showers;
none of those prepared me for the typhoon
tearing down our world in devastation
when you died. And yet I knew it coming.
Once treatment stopped, the months of weakening
blew icily in one direction only.
My frail human nature humanly began
to think ahead beyond your death to what
my life would be when you were gone. I know
now I could not imagine then my life
without you. How could I know that objects
harbour empty spaces like shadows
and mark your presence by your absences -
the empty sofa, vacant table place,
the car seat where you navigated for me,
the lonely bed where I no longer sleep -
your kitchen and your garden wait for you
and I just can't believe you won't be back.
Death is the unbelievable never
again of seeing, touching, talking to.
What I didn't know was it would hit so hard.

Pain overwhelmed everything;
nothing else mattered except it should stop.
You never complained or bemoaned your luck.
The opiates fought a bitter long retreat
but eventually the shoots of despair
began to pierce the morphine blanketing.
Embarrassed by your helplessness you wailed
"I can't do anything." and once you said
"I can't go on." and only once "I want
to die." The hospice took you when you asked,
clenching the rail of the bed in your
distress. Dying was merciful.

We had the funeral;
I entertained the crowd;
it all went very well.
People talk of closure - nothing closes;
instead there opens an ocean of time
and an endless desert of emptiness.

I brought the flowers from your coffin home
and put them on our bedroom window-sill.
They seemed to like the cold and flourished there
serene among the scene of suffering
where nagging pain had clamped its teeth around
your arm and dumped its weight upon your chest.

I feel so desperately sorry for you
as if I never realised it would come to this.
Your flowers in the bedroom have wilted now
and I, like a tortoise without a shell,
wait for my grief to wilt as well.

I never knew what life was till you died -
our lives are just a momentary spark
that flares an instant only in the dark.
But you existed and I loved you, so
that is enough and all I need to know.

When I sit here at night alone,
I simply can't believe you've gone.
This house, our home for years, has grown
around us like a shell upon
which every little scratch and dent
reminds me of some incident
we shared together in the past
and all the memories outlast
your unbelievable absence now
so that I sit and marvel how
your presence rests upon the furniture,
your commonsense in choice of literature,
your essence in the scent your flowers bring,
your influence enveloping everything.
Your personality is here to guide me
so how can you have died ? You live beside me.

It isn't true to say I miss you all the time
for, when I'm busy, I don't think of you at all
but that's no different from the way it always was
when you were always here to come home to.

And I work hard at keeping myself occupied,
struggling with all the chores I never used to do -
the cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, making the bed -
the things I always used to leave to you.

I take responsibility for your garden now,
planning the flowers to look bright all summer long,
sowing the seeds then pricking out or potting up,
learning gradually what I'm doing wrong.

I do an evening class in Portuguese and try
again to master Arabic. I lift the weights
and juggle, watch the TV endlessly
and monitor the savings interest rates.

But how the hours have lengthened since you went away
and now there seem too many minutes in the day;
I'm only throwing handfuls of sand into the sea
trying to fill it up lest memory
in some unmarshalled moment surge
out of control and once more scourge
my faults and failings, grief
and guilt and disbelief
with words I dread -
that you are dead.

Mornings are worst with waking up
to one more day of loneliness;
bed-time is best with promise of
eventual unconsciousness.

But all the time between is strewn with mines
that catch the progress of the day
and snag attention from my blank routines
on fragments of yourself that stay

scattered around the house like cluster bombs
primed to explode if I so much
as notice them - your precious address book,
your handbag which you tried to clutch

bound for the hospice never coming back,
the garden sweet peas grown too late,
a shopping list in your clear handwriting,
a single shoe without its mate.

So many objects bring back memories
of you and all the years we shared,
gouging new painful wounds in mental flesh,
shrapnel of love because we cared.

It isn't true to say I miss you all the time
but, oh, how I miss you when I do.

Years ago a pigeon lay dead
in the gutter near our house,
killed by a car.
Its mate pattered to and fro beside it
distressed that it didn't rise and fly.
I couldn't help.

One evenning walking through a city square
in Mexico, we passed an injured pigeon
fluttering on the ground.
Its flapping wings only turned itself around.
It couldn't fly.
I went back to crush its head with my foot.

The neighbour's cat began to live in the road,
dozing the day away curled round itself
on the warm tarmac.
(Your sofa was more comfortable.)
It didn't seem to mind the hard surface,
refusing to budge unless forced to.
(You also didn't stir much.)
Pedestrians paused to wonder if it was dead,
killed by a car perhaps, and some lady drivers
even stopped and got out to ask it to move.
Little girls on their way to and from school
got to know and stroke it.
(You didn't have many visitors
but neither did you want them.)
When it rained, the cat tried to shelter under
a nearby bush, its fur sequined with water droplets.
Eventually it was found dead on the back doorstep
of a neighbour's house, not its own.
(Eventually you asked to go to the hospice.)

She lay so calmly after sleepless nights
I hardly had the heart to wake her;
she looked so peaceful in the morning light -
should I disturb her, did I dare shake her ?
I sat beside her on a stool
and kissed her forehead, marble cool.
"Wake up." I whispered, "Let's go home.
There's lots to do and I need you."
She didn't stir - I waited -
then reluctantly I left her.
I know she would have come if she could
but the coffin kept her.

"You and me, we're a team." I said,
"Where you go, I go, since we wed."
But now - I'm here and you are dead.

When cancer whispered down the phone,
I swore you wouldn't be alone.
But now - just how do I atone

for loving life
more than my wife ?

They think I'm talking  to myself.
I'm not. I talk to you.
I know that you're not listening
but what else can I do ?

For forty years you've been the one
that's suffered from my moans
so who else can I turn to now
to listen to my groans ?

If only you were really here
and life was as before,
you'd tell me "Don't you be so glum.
What are you crying for ?"

We used to say we had a rule -
if one of us felt down,
the other had to pick them up
and turn their humour round.

But since you died and I'm alone,
I'm feeling down a lot.
The children do their best to help.
They're very good but not

my wife. I simply want you back.
I still can't get my head
around my loss. There's nothing left.
I might as well be dead.

Out of my depth and floundering
you tried to teach me how to swim;
I learned enough to keep afloat
and then you pulled me in.

Secure on land I found my feet
and gladly fell in step with you;
we marched together down the years
and hid the sea from view.

With time we built a barrier
proof against any threatening storm
and in its lee we passed our lives
peaceful, dry and warm.

But then you died and suddenly
our guarding sea-wall cracked apart;
it cannot keep the ocean out
and I'm back at my start.

But this time's different from before -
no teacher tries to help me swim;
no longer caring if I drown
I watch the sea sweep in.

I wish I believed in life after death
for then my few remaining years
would have a purpose past all fears,
knowing the way to reach you again
would start with my last breath.

How we would literally jump for joy
at last when we could spot each other
among death's refugees and smother
ourselves with hugs and kisses then
as if still girl and boy.

And so many stories would have to be told
from all the painful years apart.
Though hard to know just where to start,
they'd all tumble out in the end
as eternity unfolds.

And you would be well not wasted and ill;
your eyes would shine with happiness.
We'd cling together for the rest
of time and never part again.
What chance of all this ? Nil.

Kribi, Cameroon

This is as far south as I go -
another mangroved beach to show
the neighbours when I get back home,
hot sun, cool breeze, black skins, white foam
fingers of sea clutching the land
but slipping backward down the sand.
Driven by unseen forces they return
in vain, unable to unlearn
the constant useless worrying -
a toothless mongrel slobbering
its worn-out, ragged, tattered toy.
This is a thought I don't enjoy.

Here with the time and peace in which to think,
I think of you when struggling on the brink
of life and death, so feebly clutching life,
resigned to dying, slipping away from strife,
too worn-out trying to survive. These memories
revive the bad time when all remedies
were gone. The old heartbreaking scenes return,
the searing plaintive wailings I must learn,
not to forget, but not to be upset
by. No matter what I do, I won't forget
you clutching the bedrail where my hand should be.
The pity and the pathos stay with me
but I must mend my tattered life. Henceforth
I must move on. Tomorrow I go north.

Kings Church creative workshop

Unlike some other 'congregations'
a roughly equal spread of sexes
and certainly more young than old.

The hymns had catchy tunes and rythms
well strummed in chords and  generally
mouthed by all though volumes varied.

And yet the lyrics seemed unusual -
much use of 'God' but none of 'Jesus'
and but a single one of 'saviour'.

The idea of God was strong protector,
a trustworthy refuge in a storm -
what women want in ideal husbands !

Chinguetti cemetery, Mauretania

No neat rows here of polished craftsmanship.
Instead most plots are roughly marked by shards
of shattered rock set edgewise in the sand.
Headstones, where they exist, are crudely hewn,
some shallowly engraved, some painted, some
bare stone lacking Arabic inscription.
This is a harsh land. No soil. Rock and sand.
The sun burns, wells run dry. The cemeterey
seems a jungle of jagged teeth, sharp, hard,
or open charnel house of broken bones.
The scene gives little comfort, one would think,
but early morning sees the blue robes drift
between the graves. One woman's pink robe flowers
next to the stone she sits beside and holds.
Others sit or stand gripping the headstones
of their lost loved ones - parents, spouses, sons -
something to hold on to in the pain of loss.
I know the feeling and so feel a bond
past race, religion, wealth or national strife,
with other fellow travellers through life.

At the disco

Don't think about it.
Don't let the thought brush across your mind.
Don't let even the flicker of a thought cross your mind.
Don't let the faintest shadow of a flicker . . . .
She's just too young.
(In her thirties at most.)

Summer music festivals

Are they all mad, those festival fans,

vertical sardines in green field cans, 

many so far from the acts on stages

they need a screen to watch their sages.

They pay for songs they can hear at home

or on their smart phones as they roam.

And now that some of it's on TV

they could watch in comfort at home for free..

So why do they do it? I don't understand.

Why such an effort for any band?

The human need for something to do

and something to look forward to?

Or the vain idea to afterwards share

their selfies showing 'I was there !'

Columbine High School

What was it like, that morning in Spring?
Drove in as usual, parking OK?
Met with your buddy, everything ready?
How did it feel knowing This Is The Day?

None  of the guys who were sat in school diner
knew what you carried under your coat.
What did you think as you put down your rucksack
under the table? Did you note

which of those jocks in their usual places
sneered down their noses or jeered you again?
You'll wipe the grin from their silly faces.
They won't be smiling when

your bomb explodes. Those cock-sucking jerks
all deserve what they get. And if they survive
the blast, then you're ready to give them the works
when they crawl from the hall. Your gun will contrive

a suitable welcome and splatter their brains
all over the floor. But then nothing happened.
Weren't you just gutted it didn't go off?
Did you perhaps feel a bit of a failure?

Time to assert yourself, stroll round the school,
look in the classrooms, shoot a few dead,
get me a nigger - that would be cool,
snuff a few bitches - better than bed.

You were The Man with the gun in your hand,
watching them cower, fear in their eyes.
Did you enjoy their pathetic pleading,
you with the power to say who dies?

One in the corridor, two in that classroom,
this one they've locked - well there's plenty more yet.
Don't they look stupid ducked under the tables?
Come out, you fuckers, I ain't broken sweat!

Power intoxicates. Pity? What's that?
Death is so simple, a twitch of the finger.
That fucking teacher who thinks he's a hero
got a surprise - now he's more like a zero.

Was it as good as you thought it would be
or did it pall once you'd killed a few?
Probably what you wanted was fame
so hard luck, pal, I've forgotten your name.

Did you achieve what you wanted to do?
You certainly showed them you weren't such a prick.
Now everybody can see the real you -
a nasty stinking pile of shit.

Catch 66

Widowed at sixty four, it took two years
for me to realise my predicament.
My wife had not seemed old being wrapped
in memory and out of focus since
so close. Sex was less passion than comfort;
companionship was everything.
But, single again, the dying embers
of desire are fanned by youthful beauty
everywhere - taut skin, white smiles, slim bodies -
while women of my own age seem so old
or else, if well preserved, ooze vanity.
So should I board the Russian bridal train
or join the batchelors of Bangkok,
court a little Thai or Philipino,
seducing some young woman with western wealth ?
There is a catch. Young women need young men
to give them babies and to bring those up.
What sort of woman trades a family life
for wrinkled riches ? There you have it.
Any young woman prepared to partner me
is not the kind of girl I want to see.

Fifty-plus singles group

The evening chatter bubbles to the ceiling,
a head of froth above the effervescent
jollity of alcohol. The pints of beer
and glasses of white wine bob up and down
upon the swell where balding heads of men
and ladies' coiffured grey rock gently in
agreement. Eddies and undercurrents swirl.

Though smartly dressed, few women risk revealing
cleavage. Well-chosen clothes still reminiscent
of younger times aim to disguise the year
of birth and sagging body. The men around
all smile and joke, enjoying once again
a brief flirtation, vaguely remembering
the youthful challenge of a pretty girl.

This is a landlocked bay protected from
the rough uncaring sea beyond. The tides
still rise and fall but wise discretion hides
all hopes of voyages of discovery.

Newcomers test the water at the edge;
then braver ones cast free, drifting among
the islands of conversation, to be swung
ashore, they hope, on some inviting beach.

The organisers act as lifeguards for
those who lack a foothhold, out of their depth,
but what of those like me who can't accept
this crumbling harbour as marina ?

For we are the debris of wrecked relationships,
the jetsam of separation and divorce,
flotsam of partner's death or else, of course,
long independence sinking into loneliness.

We gather in the life of hope eternal
but what do we gather for ? Love is a leap
too far, a solitary thought some keep
well hidden in a bottom drawer.

Our hormones make us seek the other sex.
While men still fantasise in locked rooms
of their minds, women can dream of brides and grooms.
We want to salvage what's left of our lives;

we have a deep need not to be alone;
we want someone to fill our days and nights
with meaning but without those silly fights;
companionship is what we'd settle for.

The hope of happiness is never past;
I hope that all get what they want at last

but I am sinking miles out at sea
weighed down by orphaned memories. For me,

adrift in an ocean beyond safe shores,
old age is drowning, clutching no straws.

She came to me last night, crept into bed,
rested her head upon my shoulder, her weight so light.
She told me some-one had died
but I couldn't place the name.
In a conscious dream I tried to hold her
but she softly slipped away.
O my dead wife, when will you come again?

What is the matter with the people
who won't execute a beyond doubt murderer?
Do they just blindly accept 'Thou shalt not kill'
though probably not even practising Christians?
Are they all conscientious objectors
who wouldn't kill an enemy in a war?
"Oh, that's different" they'll say. But it isn't.
If there is any acceptable killing
of another person, who most deserves to die,
the enemy soldier fighting for his country
(just like us) or the murderer of little children?
"There's always doubt about the conviction"
No, some murders are proved beyond all doubt
or even, in a few cases, admitted.
And don't say "Execution is barbaric"
One mark of a civilised society
is not that it doesn't execute
but that it doesn't torture before execution.
"But everyone has the right to life"
Do you think Nature gives that right?
If you are alone in a desert, lost
and dying of thirst, try saying "I have the right to life"
and see what difference it makes.
It's human societies that give rights
to those who keep their laws.
Those who break the laws are punished
by the withdrawal of their rights
e.g. to 'liberty and the pursuit of happiness'
when they are imprisoned.
So rights can be withdrawn !
Why not the right to life itself?
Life in nature isn't sacred;
creatures kill each other naturally.
And don't start on about 'rehabilitation'.
Why do you care so much about the murderer
and so little about the victim?
Why aren't you totally outraged
about some-one having their life stolen?
A murderer cannot make good their crime;
they cannot bring the victim back to life.
Having stolen some-one else's life
they must forfeit their own
It's what's called justice.
Or shall we spend millions on them,
keeping them alive in prison
and caring for their welfare
when we won't spend so much for so many ill patients?

The Black Room

Do I malign you, Senor Goya,
in thinking you were a bit like me -
plagued by scenes from the mental sewer
from which it seems I will never be free.

Your Black Room disturbed from the lightless
dark of buried caves the sleeping bats
to paint the greying sky with sightless
vampires hunting scurrying rats.

Man is a compound not a mixture,
the good inseparable from the bad,
but societies give some moral fixture
applying to everyone but the mad.

Yet sex and violence urges simmer,
without boiling over generally,
and increased heat may result in grimmer
actions, atrocity, tragedy.

The baser instincts of masculine nature
in times of righteous hatred or war
erupt in rape and murder and torture -
unspeakable acts when there's no law.

But who are they that commit atrocities ?
Which acquaintance might do such things ?
What would you do with the opportunities
of not being punished for anything ?

We'll all insist that we wouldn't succumb
too temptation to do the unprintable
but we'll also have to admit for some
unspeakable isn't unthinkable.

It is arranged. Her father agrees.
I will have her, so young and fresh and soft.
She will do anything I want. Everything.
But she cannot be trusted.
I am old. She will be attracted to younger men.
They must not see her. Or she them.
She must stay at home, indoors.
Or, going out with me, be covered up.
Totally.
My old wife will not be happy but she must accept it.
Anyway she will have a new servant.
Ah, how wonderful it is to be alive.

She offered me only the faintest of dates:
"Be here next week and I'll dance with you."
But that in itself was a bit of a breakthrough
from someone who never took off her coat.
Perhaps she was wary of showing her figure,
afraid perhaps that the boys would snigger
as they lounged at the bar with their mates.

Despite her dull coat though, she'd plenty of fans
because she was blessed with a beautiful face.
She certainly wouldn't have been out of place
as cover girl fronting some posh magazine
with fine balanced features, pure skin, piercing eyes
and a smile that engendered interior sighs.
I tried to resist making plans.

The one time I'd managed a serious chat
she'd seemed to be lacking in family ties -
no mention of mother (a minor surprise),
no father around but a junior sister,
still studying, who she helped out with money
which, on her small salary, wouldn't be funny.
Perhaps I could help her with that !

So during the next week I spent too much time
in trying to clarify feelings about her
and what my intentions really were.
The difference in ages was several decades
so I was too old to have hopes as a lover
but what about being a surrogate father?
A Sugar Daddy slime ?!

I hoped my intentions were not quite that bad
(my real daughter, older, would surely not think so
since all women guard against male libido).
Platonic paternal was struggling with basic
attraction to beauty and though it was natural
I couldn't decide just how much it was sexual.
My aged confusion was sad.

But I turned up next week - and she wasn't there!
OK, so that solves it. And just as well.
And then she walked in and I just couldn't quell
the race in my pulse but the lads in attendance
whisked her off to the bar and she passed and ignored me.
OK, what the hell! She would likely have bored me.
They all went outside and I sulked in my chair.

The evening dragged on with no hint of romance.
I looked for her outside but she wasn't there.
The band played their last song; I made for the door.
Then caught a quick glance of her there in a corner
away in the dark with a girlfriend, talking.
Totally flummoxed I just kept on walking
but once outside knew that I'd missed my chance.
In a bright red dress she was ready to dance.

Last overland trip ?

The semi-circle of camping chairs
focuses on the cooking food
(more tuna and stir-fry cabbages)
but also keeps attention glued
on the group itself and avoids the stares
of the gathering local savages.

Like a circle of covered wagons from
the wild west of the USA,
the defensive wall keeps the enemy out
and allows us not to give away
food we don't want or lose aplomb
if someone challenges with a shout.

Our culture encourages selfishness
and makes us inhospitable.
Perhaps if we faced outwards instead
we'd find the poor more pitiable
and see our spoiled self-indulgence less
important than them being better fed.

The land of lost content

Now near the end of widowed life,
I shall not find again
joy of the kind I owe my wife.
What pain and hope remain ?

Maybe my grandchildren could spare
a little joy to fill
my days and then we all could share
some happy highways still.

Country sport

I  can never make my mind up about rats -
they have such a bad press, there must be something in it
but when I see one playing in the grass
or climbing the brambles to eat the blackberries,
swimming in the stream or wading in the shallows,
they're just part of the miracle of life on Earth
like you and me. Yet, like children born in slums,
they carry the stigma of reputed filth.
But these rats don't live in sewers.
I know where they sleep and breed - in a burrow
under the concrete base of my compost bins.
I suppose I should inform the local council
of their whereabouts but the rodent operative
would only poison them which I consider an ignoble death.
Instead I try to keep their numbers down
by shooting them with an air rifle or, to be more precise,
shooting AT them since I rarely manage to hit one
and even less often actually kill one. Still, I enjoy
the challenge of the sport as one of the shooting set.
Perhaps grouse eventually ?

I don't understand why there's always inflation
making us all seem much richer by far
than our parents' and grandparents' generations.

It's true that our standard of living has risen
due to technology innovations
and all the new gadgets that commerce has given.

So the time is long past when we all used to gasp
with envy at rich list millionaires
since a million pounds is now easy to grasp

when so many people have that in their house.
Now to be rich you need very much more
which businessmen with the appropriate nous

gain from their markets becoming worldwide.
And film stars and pop stars all get much richer
from just the same effort more widely applied.

The new opportunities globalisation
affords means that wealth must be measured in billions
to earn any rich list approbation.

But now there are so many billionaires
what's the next step in this vanity game?
Who will gain fame as the first trillionaire?

Young women are so beautiful
they're wasted on young men
who can't appreciate in full
the wonder of the miracle
of slender bodies, tender skin.

Or that's the age old fantasy
dreamed up by older men
who feel they're losing energy
and know the sad reality
of paunchy bodies, sagging skin.

If nature's scheme of things still held,
the drive of younger men,
whose strength and vigour's always excelled
their elders' waning lust, would meld
virility with love within

harmonious marriages to make
the raising of new children
more important than some aged rake's
insemination bolstering fake
machismo. Though, still, women

can't resist the tempt of wealth
with fame not even when
they risk their future children's health
conceived by mutant sperm in stealth
caressing withered, wrinkled skin.

And what's the psychological stress
on any child who time and again
must realise that their dad is less
a father when the other kids guess
he's the grand-dad? Bear it and grin?