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.