I

I created fire
I paddled the Amazon

I wrestled tigers
I built the Pyramids

I sailed the seas
I fought at Waterloo

I abolished slavery
I painted Mona Lisa

I tied the noose
I pulled the trigger

I wrote the book
I sang the song

I was Jack the Ripper
I killed Kennedy

I climbed Everest
I walked on the Moon

I lived, I laughed, I loved, I died

***

I will see you again, dear
I will return

I will colonise Mars
I will cure disease
I will build a time machine
We will live forever

love is life

love sounds like morning birdsong
love looks sunset pink
love feels as smooth as satin
love smells of summer roses
love tastes of strawberries and cream

love sounds breathless and urgent
love looks flushed and swollen
love feels hot and wet
love smells damp and sweaty
love tastes sharp and salty

love is fragile and ephemeral
love is elemental and immortal

From the Roof of the World

Lace your fingers with mine, fall in step with me.
Love me, baby, in the way only you can.
Cradle my heart with your tender slender fingers.
Sing a soft lullaby as I drift away in your arms.

Old grey yesterdays, silent, dark and troubled
are piles of stone, layered in history's dust.
A summer breeze lifts, wafts a new virgin sheet
that lands upon our laps, awaits our words of love.

You and I are poised at the roof of the world.
Let's launch headlong into the majestic sky,
feel the wind beneath our wings and soar eagle-high,
giddy and expectant in thin translucent air.

Circle spirals slowly, lean in lazy loops;
fields a patchwork quilt, our safety net below.
By degrees we'll glide on our familiar path,
our rhythm sweet, our heading sure and tireless.

And when we land on deep, soft grass we'll roll and
laugh and sigh. Our lives in endless summer sun
stretching to the red hills of this enchanted Isle.
Be mine sweet child in time, be mine, forever mine.

she

she speaks the truth;
as authentic as the day is long.
she is a whirlwind;
falls asleep when she's done.

she bakes me biscuits;
eats only a nibble herself.
she's one tough cookie;
comes undone in my arms.

she is incredibly small;
has the heart and soul of a tigress.
she has my back;
will defend me with tooth and claw.

the hurricane and the breeze

she roars her presence, screams and crashes off mountain tops,

makes toys of ocean liners and flattens mighty oaks.

barreling up streets she comes, spitting grit in your eye

howling under eaves and screaming through city canyons.

he stirs a gentle eddy of leaves, ruffles feathers

on the robin's back, touches the face of a baby.

with a stream of whispers he enters, softly sighing.

his presence merely an idea, a suggestion.

in the eye of the storm a curious hush resides.

the hurricane and the breeze exchange breath, become one.

black dog

The late grey day presses inky misery through hollow walls
where he lies, abandoned to the hungry hellhound of the night.
Loping on long legs, coat matted and alive with fleas, it leaps
and settles on his tired chest, amber eyes like stinking pus.

Outside, the unlatched gate (where beauty and her loving heart
departed) batters and bangs on screeching hinges, hopeless now.
He strains to lift his bones but the black beast, his burden, weighs down.
At daybreak, soaked in sleepless sweat, he shuts the blind, denies

entry to spectacular dawn. Glorious shards of diamond white
will daily spear and soon will pierce his gloom, just not today.

Prince Edward Island

Red plumes of dust behind my rolling wheels
are torn aloft by ever whipping winds.
In each field a leaning barn will lurk
behind a skirt of rippling grass.

Black rag crows flung between plowed furrows
caw then soar, now bank and dive
behind the tractor's wobbly wheels to
compete with gulls blown in from briny shores.

Red roof, white church, and crumbling homestead
with crooked mailbox and lupin ditch,
nestle under azure skies where great
eagles circle, beady eyes on land.

From a high green hill my eye can spy
the silver thread curving on blue sea;
a mooring rope lest this isle should float
beyond the pull of land and drift free.

Steel piles driven deep into bedrock
carry life and limb and cherished hearts,
over swirling white-capped waves, to these
home shores where time's footfalls gently press.

mindfulness

Precious faces dissolve as I try to focus,
come into sharp relief when I turn away.
I loved these people, their minds, their essence
yet their features frustrate and elude me.

Hymnal text, creed and prayer are etched in stone
but her name darts here and there, defies pinning down.
Words of old songs flow summer honey thick
but this morning's news is flimsy, already gone.

Where are my grey socks? An odd ball tucked somewhere?
I had yellow ones and a matching tie in '74,
nestling in a cherished drawer, the third one down,
in a room, in a house, in a street I lived on.

While bland minutiae soar to break the surface
murky depths claw vital facts below.
It's intriguing, what my mind believes worth saving,
my oatmeal head, grey and gently simmering.

I'm conjuring a scene half a century old
with a searing clarity, not recalled by squares
of foxy Kodak pressed between ancient boards.
As real as photons dancing on my retinas.

The common man remembers best his favourite things,
those tarnished gems and bouncing pearls he deftly caught.
If faces, scents or whispered words are lost
they merely spilled from my treasure chest...

like teardrops from my brimming eye.

the days of our lives

look back, what life will you see?
a fleeing pinpoint of violent light,
shrinking into eternity,
the sum of your efforts amounting to nil.

when bone and lust are laid to dust
under some fated reaper’s gaze,
is your mark in bold relief or just
the faintest murmur of a trace?

glittering exploits will not matter
today’s fat sun is the golden prize.
seize grief and love with equal might
for these are the days of our lives.

beginning to end

singularity
infinite density
big bang

speed of light
expansion

hydrogen
gravity
space
time
black hole
escape velocity
event horizon
collapse
big crunch

vanishing point

Ageless Love

dismantle my life
with precision
and love

wrap up my previous me
bequeath my treasures
before I go

it’s time to live fast
i am an outlaw now
tearing across the divide

arctic delta blues called
from a whisper to a scream
now I am inside you

i am leaving everything
behind for you
i am your pillar

ageless love
tomorrow when I am old
care for me

hold my hand
say my name
fuck forever

Bluesy Blues

Muscle and bone, just a routine miracle in carbon and water
stardust capable of greatness but condemned to obscurity.
Notionally intelligent while screaming insane.
Excuse me while I break my own heart.

Gimme a bitter placebo or slip me a strong panacea.
Just gimme pretend meds to mend my pretend head,
a wasted waster wasting his decades.
Excuse me while I numb my own heart.

Stinging tears screamed and howled away on racing rubber.
Needle reaches vertical and my knee trails the blacktop
leaning hard into a long fast bend.
Excuse me while I smash my own heart.

An ocean evening hot and humid, deep and tight, wet and smooth,
shuddering. Sparkling waves, deliciously soft pressing sand.
Rolling to stare at the cold "maybe" stars.
Excuse me while I stamp on my heart.

Biting the top off a bottle would be so fucking simple.
Calendar, yearbook, milestones and pledges swallowed.
A screeching halt at the precipice edge.
Excuse me while I consider my heart.

"There goes my hero, he’s ordinary…"
Foo Fighters - My Hero

Optimistic Pessimism

Blue skies are really red, hate is really love, death is really life and full of apparent contradictions. I am as confused as ever.

OPTIMISTIC PESSIMISM

I remember a happy embryo
Will I die a contented corpse?
Give me something to live for.

Live the wildest danger
Take it to the limit and back
Give me something to try for.

Slip a hand between life’s thighs
She moans and opens wide
Give me someone to lie for.

Smell my leather jacket
Wear my dusty boots
Give me something to ride for

Shall I suck a lemon
Sour suits my yellow life
Give me something to cry for

Deliver me another chance
To write history as a winner
Give me something to die for.

she says...

“Talk to me of your dread fears
show me inside your head,
through salty wet cheek rivers
where your eyes have bled.

Don’t shout and scream in silence
please tell me aloud instead.
Your torment is real and
angry but I know

behind blue eyes your private thoughts
breathe softly when you say my name.”
"Think of it this way, " I reply
"the price of life is pain."

change of heart

crooked smile and lazy wink
broad grin and twinkling eye
boyish charmer slightly shy

blue sky high gear rolling
top down sunshine cruising
huge horizon music pumping

fragile self esteem falling
false laughter seldom smiling
desperate sorrow barely breathing

sinking shoulders and curled lip
ugly glare and furrowed brow
blinking back angry tears

fire deep inside the belly
bitter anger in the heart
but nothing on my mind

all an act a stupid game
life’s a cunt death’s the same
I lost my mask am I to blame?

life

a comet spitting orange fire delivers by chance
its elemental payload to some giant lifeless globe.
a chemical sea of sulphurous foetid waves
is warming by degrees as a stellar furnace glows.

vacuum stretching epochs will map the crimson sky
as gravity exerts its pull on time and tide.
orbits dictate climate eclipsing light with shade
while random moving bodies converge and then collide.

precious squirming life crawls from stinking pond to hill
grows beaks and wings and learns to climb the clouds.
seasons produce golden corn; man tames the savage beasts;
order settles cautiously over nature's chaos.

intellect brings culture where art and science flourish
then walking talking rapists murder friend and foe.
technology rampages to final mushroom war,
through cataclysm all is lost, nothing left to show.

mayhem

music and love
love and life
life and death

prismatic beauty
intellectual acuity
soul penetration

precipice fingernails
200 feet per second
vertical chasm

sentimental torture
nervous exhaustion
emotional collapse

cerebral atrophy
arterial sclerosis
cardiac arrest

degrees of life
death by coma
flatline

The search

an emotional sceptic
raised on guilt and shame
he was given nothing
but breath and a name

drinking back the anger
swimming against the tide
to keep alive the notion
of self-taught love and pride

a code of holy pressure
stunted nature’s growth
blind belief in heaven
ignores the hell on earth

life and love forever
he sees between the cracks
as half a century later
he peels the layers back

Strangers in London

I scribbled this several months ago and some will already have seen it. I was inspired by the sights and sounds of a recent long day out in London. Always impressive yet still good to get home...

Pitch black lark calls, buttered toast with blackest coffee
Drying roads and pale blue skies call strangers to the smoke
Limo ditched at regal Kew and silver tube to town
Riding grey steel rails we are ticket-holding folk.

Vaulted halls hold timeless works of brush and oil
A nation’s treasures staring back with tired eyes
Guards of ancient age asleep by priceless charge
Room by giant room we mark them off, each prize.

Heavy surge of grey and green slides under famous bridge
Bobbing craft ply upstream against its mighty weight
Then turn and race the homeward leg with ease
Pavements mirror skies as dark as grey wet slate.

A pin-stripe holds his lunch in tiny carrier bags
Power-dressing blonde clicks by in tall black heels
White beard tinged with yellow smoke stares as
Rider swoops through red lights, locks his wheels.

Canary Wharf recalls the days of cutters hauling loads
Of ginger spice from islands never seen
No dockers carry barrels now but still the traders profit
Their wares remain unseen except on screen.

Isle of Dogs now glitters, a city of glass and steel
Half a million souls at work from fifty storeys high
Peering over Limehouse Reach or gazing over Greenwich
So far over London that I think a man could fly.

Eyes smarting from the wind, feet numb tired and sore
So Hampshire seems a better place to spend the evening hours
Say farewell to crowded roads and streets of shabby style
A shire boy has had enough today of spires and towers.

"London calling at the top of the dial,
After all this won't you give me a smile?"
The Clash - London Calling

Let Loose in '57

Here I was about 23.
I meant this poem to be about growing up. I originally posted it several months ago, before I had readers! It probably deserves another airing.

Let Loose in '57

Churchill breathed and barbers' poles
Were red and white back then.
We warmed our bones with smoky coals
When I was under ten.

Sport was hard and fast but fair,
Our heroes cheap and clean.
Life was sweet and kind to all
When I reached middle teens.

The girls I knew wore candy stripes
And boys smoked Number 10s.
A Ford Capri drew looks of envy
Punk was light years off.

Beer was warm in dimpled glasses
Summer skies were blue.
Platform boots made men of boys,
Starman was fifteen too.

Special Brew fucked all the years
From then til ’93.
That’s twenty winters cold and numb
Before It shook me free.

Can’t remember summers’ days that
Should’ve been golden heaven.
But that’s the price I guess I pay,
Let loose in ’57.