Tuesday, 19 August 2014

Referendum 2016 - the Brexit politicians



It's not just the photo'd immigrant queue
all flooding into our country
but the siren call that we and you,
we the people all together,
will not be told just what to do
by foreign Brussels bureaucrats
who anyway don't have a clue.
Take back control. It should be us
telling you yokels what to do.

Evatra, Madagascar

The view is beautiful, a photo made for dreams
where breakers charge the beach, wave upon wave,
in playful threat that tumbles into gleams
of white teeth smiles of children which engrave
the memory and windblown hair that streams

above the crests. The sand-bar echoes sea
into the still lagoon where the wind skims
the surface into rippled tracery
of ducks and drakes. Later, as the sun dims,
the moon lays on the lake an icy sheen.
But other eyes observe a different scene.

This is a prison where the inmates own
no crime but still are sentenced poverty;
the sullen villagers are daily shown
the passing tourist's latest novelty -
the video camera, watch or mobile phone

still light years out of reach of those who dwell
distant as aliens from outer space,
so far apart their worlds. Those who can sell
the tourist services, however base,
convince themselves that they are doing well

but all will suffer. Nobody enjoys
their poverty except it seems the fate
of all, which every tourist wave destroys.
When sense of deprivation causes hate,
what will they think and do as men, those boys
with home-made boats on string their only toys ?

Wednesday, 9 July 2014

The Periodic Table

"Hi" he lisped,"be back at nine o'clock for news".
Nabbing the Mg van, old Al signed out past Clarence:
"Keep calm, you scumbag. Tich will surely vet the crews"
"I'm not fearing cops tonight, curse Grozny gang sense"
George was assembling brickred airbags for Israel,
young Fitzroy's inbuilt moulder botching Ruby Rhoda's
lapdog. Agency Cds invoked snazzy hasbeens' terrible
exercise gymnastics banning lazy loaders'
lanthanoids and never reaching actinoids.

Monday, 19 May 2014

DINKY

"Single or return?" the clerk enquired.
"What do you mean - 'return' ?",  I said,
"The journey's all one-way and straight ahead.
We can't come back when we've expired."

"Sorry." she said, "I didn't make it clear.
Of course you can't be born anew
but what you can do is to make the view
of life when you were young appear

again."
           "What ! Why would we do that?  We're not
just kids. We're adult and enjoy
the perks of middle age . . . . "
                                             "But they will cloy !
Age makes both brain and body rot

and makes your life a motorway to death,
careering down the fast lane, freed
(you think) from all the fines for too much speed.
The scenic route gives pause for breath."

"Now look here, lady ! What gives you the right
to lecture me on how to spend
my life? Just you watch out or you'll offend
my wife who does that job each night !"

"Sorry again," she said, "but I don't see
that you have children anywhere.
Without them life is just a single fare
but with them you repeatedly

return, through children and grandchildren too,
to wonder born of innocence.
Such joy surpasses pounds and pence.
Consider while there's time, your wife and you."

Perhaps the clerk was more than what she seemed;
in the room behind, her sister spun
a thread; another measured what she'd done;
beside her, well worn scissors gleamed.

Saturday, 17 May 2014

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality."  -  T.S.Eliot

It's not so much reality that we can't bear
(we wrestle with it every day)
but more that here and now are not enough;
we have a need for something to look forward to.

Our everyday concerns leave little time to spare;
we fill the gaps with gossip and the news and share
the weather. There are times though when our thoughts will stray
to what we want to have and do and in what way
we can achieve our ends. The future is the stuff
of dreams but dreams must be made real instead of bluff
so when no future's left, we can enjoy anew
the memories of the life that we look backward through.

Tweets -1

         Not voyeur but auditeur.
         ------------------------------
Embarrassing noises heard from high,
the rumbling and moans from planes in the sky

Attractive only as taboo,
elsewise an uninviting view,
when spread so flappy vulgar -
a woman's precious vulva.

      Elderly widows
They'd like to have young,
they'd like to have rich.
If they can't have both,
the problem is which.


Wimbledon Men's Singles Final
---------------------------------------
Centre court is the place to be
but the view is better on TV.

MY  WIFE
When I also certainly die
I will have eternity
to patiently, carefully search for you
floating somewhere among the stars.


Friday, 14 March 2014

Oh hell, my house is full of squatters !
They sprawl complacently in every room,
self-righteous residents like sitting tenants,
sure of their occupation lawfully based
on length of tenure, lack of illegality,
passive spectators of my incompetence
in letting such a dire situation happen.
They hang about in wardrobes, sit on shelves,
play hide and seek in drawers and cupboards,
slip down the sides of sofas, holes in pockets,
crawl under documents and cloak themselves in dust -
all the accumulated objects I don't use
or even know exactly that exist.