Not exactly a bedroom but none the less
on the pavement in front of a shop
someone had made up their bed.

Although it was only a sleeping bag,
it was tastefully patterned, quite clean
and clearly most carefully spread.

Its position was expertly chosen,
tucked below the shop front overhang
where people weren't likely to tread

and the rain wouldn't reach from the nearby street
while the glass might just radiate heat -
a bedroom for someone well bred.

The tenant was not yet in residence
but, as  if on a bedside cabinet,
an up-market coffee cup said

"I'm certainly down but I'm not yet out.
If you give me a chance, I'll rise again.
Be thankful it's not you instead."

An Olympic Diet ?

The menu that's on offer is what's unsold
after the use-by date and consequently
dishes that once were hot have now gone cold
and what before was spicy now seems dicey.
Yet I see those over there have younger fare
with leaner meat, smooth skin and gleaming hair
so why should I settle for silver when there's gold?
Because, you silly sod, you're much too old.

Not dead but not moving except the chest swell;
not dead but not seeing with white marble eyes;
not dead but not hearing the news that we tell
with no independence from now till she dies.

This is the lady was brought up too well
to complain that her eyesight was failing
so now she inhabits her own little hell
but still with no ranting or railing.

Glaucoma took one eye and gave her a hint
that she'd better look after the other
but reading her book she continued to squint,
determined to not be a bother.

So now she is blind and can't read anymore;
she's no use for diary planners,
can't live for the crossword as she did before  -
a martyr to middle class manners.

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 ?

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.

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.