I am
Something which even
The mongrel cur
That wanders the stinking gutters
And refuses nothing,
Would be unable to stomach
Vomiting it back
And leaving it
To suppurate
Foetid with the stench of decay
So that you
Covering your face
Would turn away
Retching.
Better a park bench
Than that bed.
Better a long day on the road
Than those awful nights
Better this nothing
Than that nothing
Better this loneliness
Than that
Better an early winding sheet
Than those suffocating blankets
Better the hard clean living sod
Than that billowing white abscess,
That bed of pus and maggots.
All my life I have burnt and cut myself
Now the cold pure wind
Can extinguish
The last charred hacked remains.
Better this death
Than that.
A hand held out, that on its palm
The sun and sea may dance
Their shimmering pas de deux.
They leap – a jewelled filigree
Hangs sparkling on the sky-blue air.
They run – and every pool’s awash
And every crevice filled with sun-drenched joy.
Pink Thrift and white Sea Campion
Pack out the greensward-carpeted
And stoney-seated stalls;
While from the wings and galleries
The Kittiwakes their screaming,
Caves their thundrous, plaudits raise.
Sun-drenched succulance,
Sensuous voloptulance,
Scented intoxulance,
Sinful indulgulance –
Mangoes!
“I’ll get it, luv.”
“Hey, Jim – its them – with the Watch Tower stuff
‘The world is doomed’, the man says.”
“Cor blimey, luv!
Tell ’em – ‘The questions are quite bad enough!
So who on earth wants answers?'”
Bleeding the atmosphere
We transfuse our pale minds
With its coloured ether.
The will edited out
By fine-tuned surgery,
Freed from the contagion
Of life’s three dimensions,
Our eyes kiss the grey cheek
Of our benefactor.
We sigh,
Smile,
And settle –
Quarantined forever.
Am I lonely? Never more
Than when this question I explore.
Are you lonely? This I say
To keep my loneliness at bay.
Are we lonely? Let us dream
That life is not what it may seem.
A simple place – where
Warmed by sun and love,
As on a mother’s lap, aproned with flowers,
I sit;
Lulled by the soft songs of summer.
And all around me
Kentish air is quick with scented sounds
Whispering all that England was
And all I hope ’twill be
Here laughter and good fellowship
Grow easy with the Hazel, hip and haw.
Good food is on the plate,
Thankfulness in the heart.
Here sleep is rest
And waking – more.
Dry as a cough and stiff with spines
Whose points inject what he opines
A venom that all minds would close,
He never thinks – he merely knows.
Bibles bash or Bibles burn
Wine into water he can turn
Birds of Paradise never fly
In the thin air of his bleak sky.
A small barrel of buzzes
He fusses round the flowers’ faces
Like a latin barber.
It seems that what he does is
Choose those Dandelions and Daisies
With the best-filled larder.
Then, pollen-filled, he thus is
Ready to return to base – his
Hive in some green arbour.
How similar to us is
Bumble Bee! We too like stasis.
Changing seems much harder.