EXTINCT

Alexander muses and
Persian curtains burn.
George double ya,
Friendly fire sparkles from
His teeth.
Deconsructavists all.
Dirty breeches.
Molten gold.
Molten lanquage.
"MY culture d'ya HEAR!"
Extinct volcanoes of
The ancients are wiped
Off the chalkboard.
Ministers mumble with
Crossed fingers.
Children in the playground
Play with broken heads.
Goldsmiths
Fashion
Cluster jewellery.
Alexander and George
Annihilate creative sweat,
Drunk neat with ice.
Creation and Destruction.
Denial and Misinformation.

SHOULDHAM WARREN

Pine trees-the lungs of Shouldham Warren exude their
pine-scented breath. Ribs of tree trunks
and aoeli of needles filter out
the setting sun. Bird songs fade
into the forest's heart.
My boots crush grass, splash water, squelch
mud. A thought of menace, a safe shudder of
imagined dangers thrill me as I think of the
many miles to tread before home.
The sun sets in Shouldham Warren,
shadows deepen. Moonlight flickers on the
road ahead. Moonbeams pierce into
the forest's heart.

THE GARDEN

How I sing in this garden.
How I devour your flowers.
Those Scarlet Pimpernels of secrecy.
Those sweet vessels of fluorescent vibrations.

The birds are ravenous and gorge themselves
into corpuscles of blood and gore.
How they flutter helplessly against the roses,
those thorns of Christ.

The jagged roofs of houses
no longer protect from the
smashing fist of God.

SMASH! The apples shoot homewards
those bullets of dambusting bombs
their juices flowing with the acid of lemons.

SMASH! The leaves cry out,
their curtains and robes
withered by the flames of death.

I drown in a sea of grass,
grass cuttings creep into my lungs
and find salvation in my windpipe.

Twigs and stems rudely grow upwards
with no sense of direction.
They need schooling!
These young bucks of indifference!

Beetles with hideous skin diseases,
lay their young inside other young.
The flowers are sick in the hedgerows.

And in the dark hedgerows, demons,
their crests running with blood,
lay tables of blue carcasses.
Their hands reach outwards
to steal the sunlight.

The lilies laugh, the air
is filled with their laughter.
Their stamens arrow outwards
piercing my body like St. Sebastian.

A blackbird mite-ridden and tick-ridden,
covered with putrid feathers of oily tar.
And in his beak, a bill of flying ants,
he dances his rhythmic dance of
death and destruction.

I try to decipher the transistor radio.
This hidden book of many tongues,
from this life of emerald, that
manifests itself in ecstasy.

An ecstasy infinitely more powerful
than the most intense orgasm.
The orgasm of nature.
The orgasm of stars.

The spirals of seconds.
The spirals of plants.
They sing with lustrous dewdrops,
each with their own symphony of colour.
But I am blind to the music I hear.

Molten magma bubbles up
bleeding through the pores of earth.
The magma burns and I would burn.

But the ground has made a safe duvet
for me to lay naked
and soak up the dew like a sponge,
nourishing my body with a prayer.

My eyes are snails
crushed by that thief.
That pirate song thrush who,
after many years of slaughter
hides his sins, with lies of
beautiful bird song.

He sings to the courtroom of air.
He sings to the jury of clouds.
He sings to the witnesses of worms.

And in the middle of this garden is the apple tree.
A mischievous overlord
who gnashes his teeth
at the sheer audicity
of his slaves' rebellion.

Those multicoloured slaves
who slaver and beg for
the chalice of misery at his feet.

Cataclysmic beetles.
Accuse Alice with
a handbag of lies.

Alice is tried by the court.
Alice is found guilty!
Alice is disgraced!
Alice is beheaded!

There is blood in Wonderland!
A heathen mass of destruction
and disharmony that rises
up against Lewis.

The timeless energy of homing pigeons
lost to the eagle's talons.
A sacrifice of hermits
whose body is tacked
on to these poetical stanzas
of this garden's insincere solitude.

A.D. 1420

Heh! Go crazy! This summer!
From Mongolia to the Lake District-
You'll have a whale of a time among
the wild mushrooms and clams.

Best sellers! Best prices!
Smile, breathe in pure nature.
Remember one Steppe at a time!

A single Mongolian Yurt is pitched.
Only accessible by public transport
where you can indulge in all your
fantasies of bush craft.

So they really are to die for!
Ignore the gross bloody civil war
and dart through the Rhino's legs!
Have fun! Have fun!

Isn't this fun! But even more
extraordinary are the views out the back!
Embark on your own Historical voyage,
I mean, where would you rather be?

HE FROZE IN THE ATTIC

High camp and splendidly nasty good fun!
Grandfather disappeared, a model of the doomed.
Said goodnight twice-there were distances in that iron-man!
Inching between chair and makeshift bed.
He was stagestruck in Watlington, a nerdy insecure writer.

Disturbing to watch, your ill-fated setting
a starry cast, a fire by which you could sit.
Playing surrogate mother you never returned.

Out of the white dress, to the Channel Islands.
He defied industry gossip, gone is the grim realism
of endless winter evenings. He was a sex-crazed -
washed-up-medallion-man
who fancied the commander,
and was shot in crisp secret.
A soldier all and proud of it.

SMILE

All day his doctors crafted
the Prime Minister's stoical smile.
His teeth, honed with white Superglutex©
and polished with supreme Denturetrox©
glamoured brighter than any
other on the planet.

The cameras were positioned
carefully on their Xs. No detail
was left unscrutinised. A propagandist's
dream of excellence.

Then at the moment when the
Prime Minister beamed, the
sun blazed gloriously from behind
the clouds. Rays freed from ozone
cages blinded eyes and smashed
camera lenses.

And with the intesnsity of the flare
his teeth shuddered back into grey.
In shame they dropped out one
by one until lips set with super-grade
Glossixicide© clasped a black
crescent void. A ghastly grimace
on the PM's face.

after Sappho

AESOP'S FOIBLE

The ants they worked all hours God sent,
under the sun and under the stars.
They hoarded their wealth in High Street Banks
and raced around in their luminous cars.

Whilst grasshoppers who dwelt nearby
frolicked and gambolled and jumped about,
taking life easy and life with ease,
fun within and fun without.

When winter bit hard and hard it bit
the grasshoppers sheltered away.
Under the roots and under the leaves
away from the chill of day.

But as for the ants they all died out
having cut down all the trees.
A wind has blown their homes away
their bodies stiffened in the freeze.

SNOW WHITE

In her sparkling, tinkling, golden world
Snow White was Queen
with a host of adoring coutiers.

But was laughed at
by family and friends
until she felt like a peasant.

So she left and travelled south,
where she encountered
a company of Dwarves
whom she emphatically enslaved.

And sent to the mines
to dig for diamonds and gold
in terrible working conditions.

As for the sweet animals of the forest,
they were promptly (but politely) informed,
if the house was not cleaned to perfection
the dinner menu would be changed.

Snow White grew fat and ruled her kingdom
with rage, weight and a great big stick.
Goldilocks and LR Riding Hood enrolled
and they became a trinity of tyrants.

The three bears signed up to be bodyguards.

Machiavellian meetings and furtive whisperings
led the dwarves to hire
the Wicked Witch of the West.

They watched in gruesome glee
as Snow White munched on the
poisoned apple.

DR WHO TAKES A HOLIDAY

Dr Who is fed up.
Dr Who is tired.
Dr Who is tired of kicking Dalek ass
or clearing off cybermen.
In fact he doesn't want errant Aliens
of any kind.
He is sick of any more jokes.
You know the one.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Dr.
Dr Who?
Ha ha! Very unfunny very unkind.
"I save the Human Race and they
laught at my expense!"
He figures it will always be like this.
Always be good and evil, "well all well and good"
he says.
But Dr Who is exhausted.
So he thinks to himself
"I need a holiday, get away from it all."
So he sells his tardis
(and all the other bibs and bobs)
to a second-hand car salesman
"only 5 trillion miles on the clock"
a small white lie, so what
he thinks.

He was viewed strangely at customs
and when they asked
where he came from
there was pandemonium at the airport.
But he got there,
able to put his feet up
no more meddling assistants
no one to fall out with
no one to fall in love with.
Just himself and sea, sun, sand
and ice creams.
"What a life" he thought "what luxury,
what bliss."
And when he eventually returned
the world hadn't changed
that much.
The Daleks and Cybermen had fought a war,
and wiped each other out.
The Human Race was still there
in all its manifestations.
Life had just got on fine
without Dr Who getting involved.
"No more timelording and meddling
for me" he thought.
Dr Who was free of all that.
Dr Who was free.

SHEEP'S HEAD

On top of a gatepost was a sheep's head.
The remnant of some religious festival
from the day before.
It smiled with rows
of small white teeth
like a grotesque finial.

It greeted us as we sidled past
on our way to school.
And over the course of a week,
the eyes glazed with milk,
the smile became a grimace.

I remember looking elsewhere
at the time of slaughter.
The securing of legs and
the cutting of a delicate throat.

Then I must confess,
I ogled with morbid fascination
at the subsequent carving.
The careful emptying of intestines.
The sacred bucket of blood and offal.

At night I lay awake, a witness
to the rabid screeching of cats
serenading the honoured sacrifice
while moonlight glimmered on its rotting face.

my creativity

my creativity is the smell of musty paint
dying on the palette
cobwebs and stale muslin
shroud the outside sunlight

my art is a silent crowded room
a tiger asleep in a cage
a coma induced by violent meat
years of suppressed rage

my mind is a lighthouse obscured by fog
too many paths thru the wood
my consciousness a traffic-jam
a heart that wishes good

my creativity is stuck in treacle
obsessions are a drug
i am an anxiety junkie
drowning in the mud

SNAIL CROSSING

In search of better feeding grounds
a snail ventures the concrete path.
Going from safe green to safer green,
and throughout its leisurely meandering,
time seems to relax.
Seconds become minutes, minutes become hours,
during which a sudden footstep
may crush its fragile shell.

Like someone who endlessly waits
for the phone to ring,
for the call that will change
their life for good or ill.

4 O'CLOCK

Flowers in a state of slow decay
survey a once lively room.
A clock measures
the dying light of day.

A street lamp casts
patterns of yellow-white
across the carpet.
The atmosphere deepens
in contemplation.

Embers glow upon the fire.
Shadows stretch their hands
across the walls.
The hot coals settle.

Gran is snoring, head in hand
a sleeper in the gloom.
On her feet a gift of slippers,
in her head a dream of childhood,
sunshine and daisies.

GARDEN IN MAY

In this May garden:

Where the greenfinch shines in the sun and whose wings
flash yellow when she flies.

Where fledglings clamour for food where the once flowered
bluebell is amply podded.

Where moles burrow their labyrinthian tunnels and where
they dot the lawn with volcanoes of soil.

Where flies meander over the grass and where they rest
and scuttle on verdant leaves.

Where the seed pods of honesty are spattered with
raindrops.

Where pond frogs drift languidly, half submerged, and where
freshly washed towels swell gently in the breeze.


In this garden:

Where lilies are burnt and blackened by winter frosts.

Where roses spill their petals and whose leaves are marred
by caterpillars.

Where swallows are swallowed up by the vast blue sky.

Where the wind chimes tinkle and where the high-flying
aircraft shudders the air with its low sonorous sound.

Where cats pretend to stalk and kill and where they recline
in shadowy hideouts with their paws outstretched.

Where robins splash and frolic in the birdbath and where
the skittish blue tit flits and whirrs its dainty wings.


In the evening in this garden:

Where bats flutter erratically and where a house mouse
fusses at the edge of the undergrowth.

Where trees are washed orange by the setting sun.

Where the blackbird utters its warning cry, and whose liquid
melody gushes forth from apple boughs.

Where tiny dragon mouths of honeysuckle permeate
the air with their perfume.

Where pots huddle by the garden shed.

Where at dusk the lights of the house warm and brighten
against the oncoming gloom.

Where the crescent moon peeks from ephemeral clouds.

All these I have loved in this glorious garden in May.

after Walt Whitman

DESERTED BOAT

You lay ravaged.
By that army of pioneering
plants that have blocked your
lifeblood of arteries, capillaries and veins.
Soaking up your salty saviour
with thirsty stems and hungry leaves.

Your guts and intestines
are home for lurking animals.
With your blistering, cracking, peeling paint
You pine.
You are pine.
While floating souls take time to stare
and study your imprisoned hulk.

One day the sea may discover you
like some lost friend.
And take you to some other shore
where cliffs welcome you
with arms of jagged rocks.

Your flotsam
of wet and warped and weathered planks
lay strewn like sculptures on the shore.
Hardly noticed by passing faces.

PSYCHOSIS

Bad thoughts trap you
in a fantasy world of
warmth, safety and delusion,
not knowing you are
open to the elements.

The rain of abuse.
The hail of criticism.
The storm of anger.

You stumble over wasteland
covering your eyes
with your fists.
Bewildered, confused and
battle-scarred.

You are utterly alone.