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.