Star Filled Skies - The Red Whose Father Is The Knife (John Berger)

At first reading I thought you were on speed

Or that you had taken one two many

Of your painkilling drugs

But then I let your words slow me down

I discovered a new wavelength

I saw, and felt, your continuum

From white, to red, to black

Exactly as it is in life John

From birth, to being, to death

Best of all though, you took me back 

Back to my childhood bedroom, where

Model aeroplanes hung from the starry ceiling

My father used to sit on my bed to tell me 

The names of all of the colours in the world

He was the first to give me Cadmium Red

He spoke of red being an emotional colour

Indeed the highest of the high emotions

Coming along, at the beginning, and end of life

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Scunthorpe Cemetery - Cadmium Red (John Christie)

A funeral is a good place to find colour

It stands out, ever so strong

Among the blacks, and the greys

And the nothingness of passing

Also John, as you were in a crematorium

You might imagine the fierce red flames

The painting of Vesuvius erupting could come to mind

You know, by that Earl of Derby chap

Is it carnations that don’t have any scent

I think a strong note is a good guide to colour

I have asked my paint shop man

To make me up a tin of Cadmium Red

I thought it might bring some life

To the alcoves in the study

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A Different Introduction

What a good day, the first Friday

In November 2017

The first blank page, in a new blue book

And so what to write about; well, next week

I go to Buckfast Abbey, in Devon

For a four day retreat

I will write while I am there

Profusely I hope

I will write in this book

But the poems

They may be published elsewhere

Under the auspices of Abbey Poems

I am having keyhole surgery

On my frozen shoulder

On the first Saturday of 2018

No doubt the build-up

The event, and the aftermath

Will generate some words

But will they be poetic

Last night, in our writing group

We responded to artists letters

Specifically those between John Christie

And John Berger, from their album 

I Give You This Cadmium Red

Proserpine

Proserpine
Your words I find
In the midnight mind
Searching for a peace of kind
A solitary recitation
Escape to meditation
Walking on sands of sedimentation
From the galleries of sensation
Tortured heart
Broken soul
Bare, on the gallery wall
Pain standing ten feet tall
Your sleep
Is my sleep
Your weeping
Is what I keep
Silently, slowly you slip away
Fade, fade, fade away
The flowers lose their colour
The trees lose their leaves
Silently, slowly you slip away
My tortured heart
A deck of cards, broken apart
By the midnight mind
The insomnia was overtaken
Travelled it seems so so far away
And now we are awakened
Our pain has been taken
We have left behind
All what was forsaken
Lost what I thought was mine
In the garden of Proserpine

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Innocent I

I stare in the window a gleam in my eye
Come in beckons the lady
Me innocent I
The lace is St. Lauren

The French panties make you want to cry
I so so want to buy them
Me innocent I
The doorway is wide

No need to be scared
Come in beckons the lady, nothing to fear
The lace is authentic
The lady smiles
"Obviously for a special person”
Well now I'm talking, what do you think
In a shop full of ladies underwear

Without a blink
Me innocent I
"If my husband bought me that

Heavens knows what I’d do"
Yes now we are talking
And there's only us two
We've moved from St. Lauren

To G.Strings and briefs
"Some people will wear them

Some people won't
What about your lady
You innocent I”

I say that you are special
That your figure is good
That you are fun to be with
Educating me, innocent see
"But are you shy and retiring, 

or experimental and gay"
What! No, no, absolutely not I say
Just a slight misunderstanding
A little laugh
"I mean outgoing, energy for life”

Yes that's right
Back on the right track

Do you think a lady

Would like to be given these I ask
"Oh yes, oh yes, absolutely"
"Especially that

That would leave her in no doubt"
No doubt as to what, I dare not ask

Well that’s it, I’ll take them
Wrap ‘em up

"Nay you'll need t’stockings an’t slip”

She smiles
“You innocent I”

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When The Whites Of Your Eyes

When the whites of your eyes
Don't see the light of day too often
Then my friend it's time to call a halt
Yes when every waking moment
Bequeaths some form of escape
The time is nigh to seek gestalt
Each cringe of skin
Each sudden jitter
Listen
Listen good
Time to change
So how do you go, where to look
The answer is screaming
But it is within
And no more lies will help you
Begin
Of course the biggest most damaging lie

Is to oneself
But also the most easy

Until self respect returns
Clutch not onto straws
Unless to hold them in your hands
And gaze real hard
Mean something
So stare beyond the bricks and mortar
Focus your attention

On the most minuscule

Be not afraid of being misunderstood

Or of misunderstanding
Slowly now, real slow, take all of your time
Soon, soon the thinking will begin
Take a thought and write it down
Pluck another, as they race across
Your myriad of disconnections
Now mix the thoughts with pen on paper
In words, in pictures
And as you draw, as the ink flows
From those thousand instantaneous hits

Inside your head
Remember

No conception this from stimulant
No alcoholic haze , nor nicotine dullness
Just you and you
Move on, move on, still smooth, still slow
Reach your tips of toes, beyond the body
Stretch out, to your very extremities
Turn on the music, listen, listen
To just one heartbeat
Amongst those hundred thousand

Collisions of sound
Take a colour and rub it rich
Deep into the canvas
A life in layers
Layers of golden crimson
Now pick up the silk
Soft, so so softly, stroke between
Your fingers and your thighs
This is you and only you
Alive to tactile sensory sensation
Stimulated within, within, by you
Step now, step forward, step back
Twist your toes and smile
Learn to say to say control
You may feel, if you wish
A little pleased with progress
But progress one moment only
Knowing full well this house of cards
Is not yet to turn to stone
So stop, stop now, and work hard
To recollect
Remember that very instant, when
You did not, would not, could not, say no
Folding, falling

For fictitious, viscous, 'freedom'
If, if only
Avoid if only
Build a test to test temptation
All the while fondling silk

And feeling good
Each and every once you see temptation

Eating at your core
Work, work with pen and paper

Work with thoughts and thoughts
Now decide, in the full light of day
And the full light of your being

Your reason, your rational, for living
Escape if you wish
But escape to nothing
Nothing more than the oxygen 

The oxygen of you and you
Stroke the marble, marvel at the texture
Mould the ball, within your palm
Say soft words, say them slowly
Sometime take time to contemplate
Two thoughts

Intertwined with a common bond
Molecules in mesh
Upon this creation add your idea
Try to weave your way inside
This composite, stable

Living, breathing structure
Feel, feel not for a parting
But a solid bond, a point of high energy
Waiting for your fusion
This is friendship
Here the lies are gone, and to enter
Your first pass, is with truth to yourself
Friendship is a form of magic
Conjured from the craziest calculations
Open your arms embrace, smile…

Enter

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Aye Lad We’re Watching Coronation Street

Aye lad we’re watching Coronation street
N'today on t’phone

To that Manchester lass
A sort of broad vocal happy laugh
Filled the air and filled the moment
Void of anything except innocence
Happy asking directions to deepest Devon
Aye lad, you see it’s the simple things
Simple and complete communication
Keeping speaking souls sanguine
Lately we’ve been forgetting
Later perhaps regretting
But. sometimes not even that

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Sculptures in Expanded Polystyrene

Art College
Art and Architecture
Young Turks
Swirling skirts
Gangster’s molls
Christmas dolls
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac
Christine Perfect's Chicken Shack
Technical College
Engineering and electricity
Young men
Stiff shirts
Girlfriends
Sunday tea
Northern Soul
Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay
Coincide
Cross the divide
Shave the days into nights
Union bars, steel guitars
Youth in spirit
Growing apart, growing together
Amazing Blondell
Principal Edwards Magic Theatre
The text books bind
The engineer’s mind
Straight and true and able
Pockets full of logarithmic tables
Thermodynamically stable
Calculating the impedance of cable
Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd
Page and Plant’s Led Zeppelin
Indentured Apprentice
Golden Boy
Time off for good behaviour
Time off for inappropriate attire
Under his skin
Touching nerves so thin
Andy Fair-weather Lowe's Amen Corner
Jimi Hendrix's Experience
Days off for DJ's
Excused
Losing time falling behind
Someone has to fall away
Rising to the top
Completely unable to stop
King Crimson

In the court of the Crimson King
Stevie Wonder's Innervision
Work in figures
Work in words
Work in space
Plastic like plasticine
Sculptures

In Polyethylene paint
David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust
Andy Wharol's New York Dolls
Working out past times
Rationalise fates own schemes
Dreams and disappointments
Certificates and senior appointments
Work to play
Play engulfed by work
Simply Red
Van the Man
Music lover, worker, poet

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Virginia in the Cinema

The poet rolled right out of the window
The writers rolled right along the riverbed
The flowers forgot

That they had been given
And the cake could not remember

Being iced twice
Virginia in the half empty cinema
You mesmerised with your surprise
You kissed her on the lips
We never knew how much you missed her
Now we drive home across the moor
Under starlit skies we surmise
Who was the begotten bard
Understanding never-ending loving
Virginia in Sussex and Surrey
Craving for the faster life
In New York she became
Only the lonely organiser
Friends and lovers and husbands
Tearing hair and wearing thin
Unable to enable or to establish
Sense or source of equilibrium

Your fingers and fags
Ink stain and nicotine
In between the glory and the glamour
The nerves and the never knowing
Wanting to be more than normal
Wanting to walk out and down along
Wearing what
Whatever young girls wear along
In the cafe windows
On the railway platforms
Real people disappear in fear
Why do they stare
Another century, another era
Paperbacks and plays all show
Silver screen brings you near
We, you, no one will ever never know
The credits roll
Our arms unfold
We scatter your flowers
And pour the nectar deeply

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Pimps and Tarts, Poets and Writers

Black stockings, spotted skirt

Engaging smile, pretty flirt, dealing dirt
Dollars or dope, just enough rope

To bring her home, she's never alone
Violence in love, her presence she moves

The crescent moon, it can't rise too soon
Black, in black coffee cafe, jukebox jive

He's so alive it's killing him
His girl works, he shows her the door

He has to score, it's killing him
Shining, silver and gold, everything

He holds, he has sold for his soul
She is escaping from within, mescaline

Frightens her skin, her nerves, quieten
Stronger, the fool took her time

Nearly took her total

She's longing to be strong again
Singing songs, clean and confident

Freedom yet still on the edge

A need to perform, limited reform

Don't want to get at it again
He's doing time, paying his fine

Corrupting society, importing exploitation

Prostituting the situation
In a year, she's still clear, but now he's out

He's roundabout, nothings changed

Still the strange satisfaction

Of manipulation
Of course she falls, no one to call

He holds her tight, says it's alright

You know he cares, he smiles and stares
Fear or love, good god above

God only knows, having been before

Why the need to score

Why go on the game again
A passion for crime, even doing time

Learning new tricks, corrupting young

Hicks, building reputations

Avoiding situations-vacant

Waken in the new black economy
Talk about arts, poets and tarts
Sculptors, fighters, pimps and writers

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First Poem of the Day

First poem of the day
Clearer than a Capstan full strength
Meaning seemingly

Endless understanding
That first breath of intellectual inoculation
That first untainted web of words

So so carefully interwoven
Woven more than spoken

Softly lowered and laid to rest
Better than the best of stories

Thoughts broken down

With feelings wide opened
Awoken to our own intrinsic imagination
Blown on the mountains

Of menthol inhalation
Consulate reminders of a nicotine past
Thanks, for the first poem of the day

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