Saturday, 10 December 2016

Tweets 1


TEACHING
I certainly never thought much of the pay
but I did get a lot of holiday.

NOSE DROP
It seems to me now that I'm old
the end of my nose is always cold.

MALE SECRETS
The world of men is a charnel house
full of the bones from skeletons in cupboards.

She asked me to write her a poem.
No need, I said, you ARE one.

The women I want just don't want me
and the ones I don't want do.

EPITAPH
Gym junkie, gardener, poet, dancer.

PRAISEWORTHY TOLERANCE
Though murderous muslims test society
normal folk aren't murdering muslims

I'm really trying to ignor all those offers aimed to please;
I'm really tired of being conned by all the Ts and Cs.

I hate this damned detritus of the floor.
As soon as I've cleaned up there's always more.

AFFAIRS
Sex is a superficial sore.
Love is the cancer at the core.

Years calm appetites
but fail to banish fantasies.

Everybody else's death
is easily understandable.
Only our own isn't.

Do hunky guys with bigger dicks
feel extra pressure on their pricks?

SEEDLINGS
Home them longer
till they're stronger
to thwart the thugs 
of this year's slugs.

Nothing feels finer
than a woman's vagina.





















Saturday, 12 November 2016

A change of mood

I played all night, ignored the scatter-gun
approach of those around me, trusted in
the colours only and the stats displayed
which all the time were in my favour.

I didn't really think of it as fun
but rather just the challenge of trying to win,
to beat the nervous stress of being afraid
to lose as a lifelong frugal saver.

But I was losing badly. Just a run
of bad luck. It can't last. It will begin
to change. Schoolboy probability made
it sure. My confidence didn't waver.

Eventually though, some doubt began to rankle.
The rumble of the windowless casino seemed
the sound of turning wheels digesting money.

The croupier's 'No more bets' among the jangle
of competing voices could be deemed
a new and different meaning not so funny.

On the one discreet clock only the angle
of the hands proved time was passing. Cleaned
out again, the cashpoint closed me down.

Time to drive home. Outside, new daylight
filtered through the air. I drove too fast,
enraged at my stupidity in wasting
self denying, miserly hoarded cash.
Away from the city the sun was an angry boil
on the hills. Reaching the scarp I braked,
ready to descend, then stopped, amazed.
Below, the usual landscape had been flooded.
Only the tops of the tallest trees reached up
for help. The white lake below stretched
to the Weald in the distance. The surface
was tumbled as if boiling. The white fog
dissolved the red mist in my mind. I sat
quietly for a while considering Nature,
Science, Beauty, The Littleness Of My
Puny Life. Driving on again
I forgot the money, just glad to be alive.

Sunday, 16 October 2016

Jewels

Raised up from clay to velvet beds,
clean polished faces winking wealth,
cut gems adorn decrepit heads
and nestle skin past youthful health;

cold shards of rock armoured in gold
and silver glint eternity
while stony silences unfold
a coolness for mortality.

The shower of goldfinch comes to ground
beneath a golden oriole;
pearl bordered skippers zig zag round -
an airy, dancing, vital shoal.

Jewels that live, like rubythroat,
should stun us more than minerals;
both rich and poor alike can gloat
at silver throated emeralds.

Spring is coming to a winter garden

Goldfinch dip down from the frosted bushes to perch on the feeder but the blackbirds ignore the bread thrown out on the lawn for them, only pausing to peck occasionally at a more tempting morsel. The scene resembles a teenage dance floor in a music-less interval. The boys chase the girls and see off other boys while the girls chase off unwanted boys and in their excitement even chase each other. In the overhanging oak, staid pigeons seated around the edge of the action, oversee the actors, monitoring each fluffing flutter and remembering with nostalgia the lost vitality of youth.

What matters?

Not where you've been
and what you've seen
nor who you've known
or what what you own
and certainly not what you've earned
but rather what you've learned.

Not your good looks
or published books;
not your physique
however sleek;
not what you've won
but what you've done
to make life fair
by what you share.

Not fine careers
all through the years
(respected names
untouched by blames),
not what you wear
but how you care
for others who
have need of you.


Not what you drive
or how contrive
the deals you make
and cuts you take;
not where you live
but what you give;
not how you live
or how you die
unless you question "Why?

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Leda and the swan do not offend me
although their progeny were problematic;
if Midas' wife is happy being bullied,
it's not my business what makes her ecstatic;
but women should consider how their issue
affects the general gene pool of the race;
the minotaur warns how a loss of virtue
can cause a bigger problem than disgrace.
Presumably way back in ancient history
some silly girl could not resist the call
of amorous rodents which explains the mystery
of why there's genes of lemming in us all.

Wednesday, 17 August 2016

I hate old folks yet have to see them everywhere:
clogging up the buses, littering the parks,
impeding daytime shopping when they should be home in care.
They vacillate at ATMs and dawdle on the walkways;
their zimmer shopping trolleys cause a clutter in the cafes;
their shiny tortoise vehicles plough wide furrows in pedestrians
and looking in their faces you can see the kind of mess they're in.
I hate their sagging skin, their stooping postures, shuffling walks;
I hate their creaky movements, vapid gestures, halting talk;
I hate their dowdy clothes, their grey and thin, if any, hair
and all the things that start to fail with no hope of repair.
I hate the lack of beauty, any semblance of vitality
and hate to think that this will be my future as normality.
I hate to see what I will be (and probably am already).

Tuesday, 28 June 2016

Man's triumph is that he can think;
his tragedy - he knows he'll die.

Sunday, 8 May 2016

" . . . some corner of a foreign field . . ." - RB

As I walked out one midsummer evening
away from the city and up on the Downs,
the sky was still blue and the sun still shining
and the warm air full of nature's sounds
of birds and bloody mosquitos whining.

Then a different sound from a nearby meadow !
A group of people were sprawled on the grass,
young adults playing guitar and fiddle
and one even singing and shuffling a dance
while children played Pig in the Middle.

An idyllic scene that I carried with me,
buoyed by the vision of family pleasure,
all through the work of the following week
till again I had time and weather and leisure
to hopefully take another peek.

Who knows ? Perhaps it wasn't those people
that left their litter there revealed.
Perhaps there had been some other string band
to spoil that corner of a non-foreign field
that is unfortunately England.
Just wait a little longer, Thomas Hardy:
the aspirin will thin your blood, not heart,
while further ageing further thins desire
as you try to get ready to depart.

Socrates spurned the throbbings of noontide,
grateful to be free from that indignity,
knowing they will in all of us subside
and leave the love of youthful beauty quite lust free.

Monday, 25 April 2016

My mother told me I never should
let a boy know I think he looks good.
So now when I go to some boyband's gig,
dressed up all sexy and fired by a swig
of vodka, I really grab at the chance
to shout that I love them and hope they glance
my way in the crowd and see that I'm there,
jump down to get me and answer my prayer.
But after it's over, on the way home,
I know it's just pipe dreams and all alone
in my bedroom I realise how I'll be glad
to meet in my town some presentable lad
who'll love me and help me to bring up our kids,
be faithful and work hard to bring in the quids.
I still go to gigs 'cos it's something to do
but look for the boys in the crowd for the few
possible partners till I find the one
I can tell to his face that he's more than just fun.

Friday, 22 April 2016

From a newspaper report

Poor kid ! He didn't deserve to die.
That was too much. Just unlucky to crack
his head on the ground when he was hit.
Punched. Could have happened to anyone.
But he certainly wasn't poor, or rather,
his family wasn't, what with him going
to a top public school. What a waste.
But what an attitude. Trying to put
his attacker down, metaphorically, verbally.
Seeing the other guy as an ignorant pleb.
Knowing his own superiority, bred into him
all through his childhood - family, school,
sports, clubs, societies, all his friends.
But what a stupid thing to say. Hadn't yet
learned properly to keep such things unsaid.
Known but unsaid among people like himself.
"One day you'll work for me."

Monday, 18 April 2016

The journey

Just focus on the road ahead
and glance the views on either side;
no need to hurry but instead
enjoy the experience of the ride.
Respect the other vehicles' rights
to use the carriageway as well
and, when it's dark, switch on your lights.
Restrain the horn and try to quell
impatience when the traffic's stuck.
When breakdowns happen, then you need
to ask for help; don't count on luck.
Go forward, not where others lead.
The rearview mirror is very small;
it hardly needs any use at all.

Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Sky high

The east wind cold but the March day dry
and insistent light being dragged away,
I straggled home from allotment hours
and saw an event I'd not seen before.

There was something happening in the sky:
not the mass of a murmuration
but a cruciform swarm, black against blue,
a hundred at least or even two.

Black crosses swooping, spiralling, looping,
gliding and sliding, diving, stooping,
the dark cloud drifting away then back
as the birds intermingled a whirling pack.

Then I noticed that some were leaving,
heading off in different directions,
sometimes a threesome but mainly a pair
heading home to goodness knows where.

How strange, I thought, what's going on
as the avian couples drifted away.
And then it struck me after a pause -
of course, speed dating for jackdaws.

Monday, 15 February 2016

At the exit

Jammed in the crush at the disco exit
and pressed against a pert young lady
whose cleavage I'd admired all evening,
I whispered to her how nice her breasts were.
She gave no acknowledgement or reaction
but her friend beside her got very upset -
"How dare you talk about my friend's breasts !
You should be ashamed of yourself, you arsehole !"
"It was meant as a compliment, nothing more.
Just like you've got very nice legs."
"Oh." She huffed and looked away.
The logjam shifted and we squeezed outside
like coloured toothpaste from the tube.
I watched them walk ahead of me
then went my usual own way home.
I hadn't noticed her legs before.
They weren't anything special.

Friday, 5 February 2016

So often the means is more important than the end. Trying to achieve something absorbs our energy and fills our time no matter how trivial the aim. In fact, most ambitions prove trivial in the end, our achievements rejected or excelled by our successors. He's a lucky man who dies knowing his contribution will last. But we need to fill our lives with something and doing the best we can at anything is means and end enough for happiness.

26p

I wrote a travelogue, studded with poems,
infatuation, sense of duty, jokes.
Then spent the next decade revising it
just like them London literary blokes.
At last I was ready to publish but
was the world ready to receive my gem ?
To my astonishment Kindle took it
swear words and all, root and stem.
So I waited in hope for it to flower
and eventually got my due come-uppance.
The payment advice arrived by e-mail -
in old money roughly five and tuppence.

Friday, 15 January 2016

She doesn't drive and so I fetch her
from her house that's miles away
in my car to suit her pleasure
and see the latest film or play.

But I drive home in desperation
since she doesn't let me stay
and think between our assignations
how does she get around ok.

I wonder if some other boyfriend
takes her in a posher car
and after some too boozy evening
somehow makes her go too far.

It makes me feel some sort of  'gopher'
and doesn't do much for my pride.
Although I'm certainly the chauffeur,
who's taking who for a ride?