Rough

I have killed

As a fifteen year old youth I worked in the local slaughter house, earning pocket money for the summer holidays, picking up enough cash for Friday nights at the YMCA; the discotheque where I splashed on Brut aux de cologne (before it became a mass consumer commodity)

I poured scent to cover up the stench of blood and sweat and fear; the fear of the cornered sheep who knew from the ambient noise, and the putrid smell, that their time would very soon be up

My time also done; the highly flighty young girls entirely unimpressed with my disk jockey selections (Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and the like), they breezed off to more more soulful & romantic liaisons; who knows, even to find a little bit of rough

Not that the rough boys ever worked the slaughterhouse; no, mostly the rough boys were cowards and bullies, synthetic tough guys, with no real fibre, or backbone, or steel

The sort of boys who worked best in gangs, or who took their strength from their weapons of choice, the sort of young men who might have tried it on with me, until they heard that already I was a killer

I had killed before

It was a long time ago, I only mention it now, as we collectively undress, more as a point of disclosure, to let you know of what I was once capable.

It took a while to learn to stand up to bullies; perhaps less time to move on to the more expensive aromatics

I hope that gives you some certainty, perhaps increases your expectations, of my future intentions




a poem from the collection Into the Present Decade - Love with Droplets of Joy available by clicking on the link

Reclamation Yard

I could believe, if I wanted to, that with all those gulls in the silver, white and grey sky, the sea could easily be over the horizon

You might share this thought-stream, from the evidence of your personal vista; pray tell of your own unique over the top dreams, themes, dramas, and convictions

There are times when I could be embarrassed; there are occasions when I need to find a place to hide

Not out here though, not beneath the bare trees that rest beside the canal, along the snow covered path that might easily never end

You might walk with me for a while, have fun seeing your own breath, inhale the smoke from the silage-stacked fires, and peer gratefully down the endless corridors of limes

Remember those times when you may be embarrassed, occasions when you need to find a place to hide




a poem from the collection Into the Present Decade - Love with Droplets of Joy available by clicking on the link

Highway

First the door
Then the carriage
From the almanac
Coupled in marriage

Rope filled thoughts
Thoughts that ravage
Scavengers rustle
Down’t unlit passage

An interior tussle
Dark with damage
All Freudian slips to
Psycho micromanage

Trips born in haste
Vain with baggage
Powdered tufts
Acrid as cabbage








a poem from the collection Into the Present Decade - Love with Droplets of Joy available by clicking on the link

Pittance of troubles

Insecurity and insincerity stand side by side at the gatepost; the CD player's drawer will not open

Another nail in the mid life, late life, risible crisis coffin; it doesn't amount to much does it, the result of a technical fault combined with low blood sugar levels

Does anyone really believe; or are these just words, for just how long should the endurance be measured to satisfy the title of believer

Thus to be endowed, with the moniker of an altogether satisfactory chap, not at all to my dissatisfaction; no news yet from the car insurance, a dull wet mist to look out on

The beat from Jim Moray might beat me back to life, as equally well might reading Romantic Moderns






a poem from the collection Into the Present Decade - Love with Droplets of Joy available by clicking on the link

I Write

There is sadness, is that not one of the reasons I go there; four down beats to every five beat bar, or five to every seven on an upbeat kind of day

Beats and bars and sweet sorrowful music to coincide with the tides ebb and flow; compelled by what's lost and what's not to be; to tell the truth how can we be swell yet at the same time dwell on the past presented by itself

There is hurt and pain, it is more than one half of what drives me; the coiled spring that energises the clock when otherwise all time seems spent

There are imaginary postulations, which if revealed would for sure embarrass me

I also need to find places to hide those moments of half-belief in ridiculous implausible situations and coincidences

These are daydreams of indiscrete circumstances; premeditations created with wilful invitations, and often in my mind super-sensorially accepted

All this holds at bay the clear and final closure; yes there is upset, the infinite concentration and distillation of years of personal doubt

Yet to give this up, to give up this past, to offer it to flame, is no more or no less than a partial personal cremation; it is too big an ask of this one person

Fires rise, sparks die away, embers glow until the rains come; yet our embers glow long beyond the rainfalls

There is that mouth taste of waste; what a place to take the case to tribunal, there to face the rights and wrongs, to sing the songs of good and bad across Pontius Pilate’s plate of contemplative pebbles

One stays quiet, even with the most direct attack, clearly more had broken down than could be in one mind entertained; that stream of bile on the journey north, what had been done to deserve this, surely tiredness can only accept it's fair share of the blame

I too am tired, tired of all the unease that surrounds me, as though I am the kernel of tiredness, the core of earths negative energy

& so I write with coloured pens, listen to artists in colourful conversation, choose purple as my new seasons colour, re-engage with paisley patterned cotton shirts, resplendent in their blues and berries



a poem from the collection Into the Present Decade - Love with Droplets of Joy available by clicking on the link