Thursday, March 28, 2024

LIGHT

 I can’t describe light,

I can give a name

And I might fail to explain

How light lights me up

Releases chemicals,

And electric currents.

I’m told, that these bounce

Surge and flicker

Through my confused, convoluted

Head porridge

Disassembling and reassembling

Photonic thoughts

Off the insides of my bone dome,

Making me happier than

Any drug has ever done.

I can’t explain.

Monday, March 04, 2024

February filldyke

 February filldyke has done it again,

It has rained, rained, rained and rained,

Filled every ditch, brook, runnel and drain.

 

Now March marches in

Like a muddy-booted soldier

Squishing through swamp,

As the year gets older.

 

Feb’s aways wet, but this filled the pail,

It drenched, poured, showered and drizzled,

It just wouldn’t stop.

It will turn the entire island

Into one blanket bog.

 

Soaked soil will rise up,

Buildings, trees and towers will fall,

Roads become rivers,

Sphagnum moss cover all.

 

Bog cotton will wave,

Where cities once were.

This may sound fantastic,

But it has happened before.

 

The future is amphibian,

As any frog knows,

So, we’ve just got to grow

Webs between our toes.

 

 

 

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Ultra processed emotions

 

I am tired and worn out,

Things are out of control,

Ultra processed emotions

Are polluting my soul.

 

Instant reactions appear on the screen,

Appealing shiny images

As sweet as can be.

Wars that kill cleanly

Never wound, madden or maim.

Reliable things and characters

That never ever age

Fresh juicy fruit, straight off the tree

Always appetising,

In the pictures that I see.

I know when I see it,

That I’m being sold a lie

Because that’s not all I eat

In my mainstream media pie.

 

I know when I see it,

That I’m being sold a lie

My reason tells me so,

But even though I try,

Images spark urges

Which I want to satisfy,

And reality can’t match

The barrage of stuff

That I see, hear and watch,

Including the illusion

That I have control.

Ultra processed emotions

Leave a hole in my soul.

Friday, February 02, 2024

IMBOLC AGAIN

A second month begins,

And as seconds slip away

Night begins to merge

From grey to paler grey.

Sounds change

As the city starts to wake.

Senses know this

Before conscious minds can,

And inside cocoons of.

Blankets, duvets and sheets

Larvae stir.

Flesh maggots emerge,

Then crawl to bathrooms.

Shedding skins of cloth,

That have inane words

Written on them.

Once washed,

Maggots metamorphose

Into people dressed in clothes

Now emblazoned with

Equally inane,

But slightly different slogans.

 

Look out and see,

Through the kitchen window,

A squadron of cormorants

Flying in a perfect v

Commuting across the city

Like everyone else

To exchange

Energy for food

To make more energy again

A second month begins.

 

 

 

OUR BLADDERS ALONE

 King Charles and my prostrate gland

Have made me into a republican man,

For whilst I groan and strain to piss,

Stuck on sixty-week waiting list,

That monarch, who I won’t call mine,

Is operated on and can recline,

In a warm clean private hospital bed,

Attentively nursed and very well fed,

Whilst I wait micturation, incomplete

On a cold suburban toilet seat.

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

honey buzzard,

 Oh honey, oh buzzard, oh honey buzzard,

Glide over serene in a cold blue winter sky.

Honey why do they name you buzzard, honey?

Since you do not buzz,

Like an untimely woken wasp queen,

Or an annoying immature bluebottle.

What meat are you seeking to spy,

As you ride the wind over London?

No bees nest yet,

Only ant people move below you,

In buses, cars and lorries

Carrying stuff which will be thrown away,

Collected recycled, reloaded

And carried away to be remade

And carried around again.

Sail over it all honey buzzard.

Come back again

To find the bees and the honey

When all the stuff has gone.

Thursday, January 18, 2024

GNARLY

 Is this the time to make words rhyme tightly?

Make them curve and curl, twist and swirl,

Round about each other and in and out?

Over and under, knotting untying and retying

Into chains, ropes, networks and skeins.

Like snakes, ladders and dragons,

Carved into a stone or a or a prow,

Following contours like ploughed lines,

Cut into soil, wood , bone and stone.