Pandora

Old words, middle aged voices
Youthful inspiration
For a catalogue of all those past disasters

In love with salt water
Water that turned to stone
In love with climbing trees
Trees that forgot I had been there
In love with a whole load of care
Care that cares and cares and cares

Elsewhere, the noise of work
Destroys the artist's train of thought
Although to pick carrots
From the monastic garden
Would be as though stealing
The thoughts of love itself

Middling muddled words
As old age creeps up on youth
To inspire the entrance of ever more disasters

available here for kindle

On Approaching Darkness

Rain clouds, absconded from the south
Heavy with blackened outpourings
A thin wedge of washed out red
Hovers over the far western horizon
Only to the north is there a virgin sky
Resplendent with a single solitary star
These are dramatic gladiatorial visions
As one might hope for on the eve of battle
Not that I am at war any more
For all that had to be settled, is to be settled

Love, it sure has its hunger moments
One bite is never enough, is it
Our needs need to be taken completely
Swung in waltzers and wurlitzers alike
Smoking as we race to the piers end
As we snatch and grapple to be lord of the ring
These are fantastic imaginations
Screams caught with joy and eureka
Not that I have lost my marbles
For all that is open, is open for adventure

available here for kindle

Fat And Fiddle

Would you like mushrooms
There are some in the pan
Of course you would like mushrooms
With your egg, with your ham

These are the simple temptations
Put out to feed the working man
They are though the source of cholesterol
Of which your nurse is not a fan

She would prefer that you take muesli
Or dried fruit, with even drier bran
All this to keep the blood pressure at bay
And not to die, whilst enjoying strawberry jam

available here for kindle

Hamper At The Ready

Between the castle and the sea
Between the railway-line
And the country-estate, set out
In the style of Capability Brown

Little old man
In your little old foreign car
With overseas number plate

Do you know this place that I know not
Are you a tourist, or a local character
Someone who prefers left hand drive
Leans, to the continental way of life

Between the piano and the violin
Between the green lights
And the sail boats
That bobble up and down

Little old man
In your little old foreign car
With overseas number plate

Would you care to share a baguette
Or take pasta, sprinkled with parmesan
Drink bottled water, Perrier of course
Or perhaps champagne, sipped in place of strife

available here for kindle

Nature And Man Not Quite At One

Light falls onto the crop field
Only a strip for now
Gifts preferential growth conditions
To the favoured corner

It is what we do is it not
To make favourites
Of those already blessed with the best
Of nutritive environments

The solitary gull glides and swoops
A scavenger to all intents and purposes
To be frowned upon at the seaside
When all he asks for is vanilla ice cream

The gull though will die a less viscous death
Than the glorious flamboyant partridge
Who for now struts his stuff without demure

But his vainglorious neck will soon be limp
Slung as game, over the gamekeepers shoulder
Or hung, as a trophy, by the gun toting sportsman

available here for kindle