Final Placement

Where will I be
When it is my time
Where will I find those rooms, rooms
I once found by being so so clandestine

The old places
Are no longer there
Or they have been changed
Beyond compare

I might be on a mountain
In a log cabin
With an outdoor veranda
For a rocking chair

The old places
Are no longer there
Or they have been changed
Beyond compare

I might be in a valley
In a mill workers house
With three narrow storeys
And pull-up stairs

The old places
Are no longer there
Or they have been changed
Beyond compare

I might be on retreat
With the Benedictine Monks
At Buckfast Abbey
Or Ampleforth

The old places
They are still there
They haven’t changed
But remained beyond compare

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for his Collected Works

Taking Stock

I was that full-formed itinerant
That entered this world
Eight pounds, four ounces
Of skin and bone, muscle and blood
Body and soul, heart and mind

Was I born a socialist
When did I learn to despise the Tories
What is your view on nature versus nurture
Are you brazen enough to think
That you truly do have a choice

At the centre; my kernel, my core
The givens, the lineage
Parents, grand-parents, further back
The inescapable, non-transferable
Immutable, family tree

On the outside
Birdsong, chimney stacks
The ever-flowing stream
And the glorious wonder of friendship

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for his Collected Works

Poltergeist (Diluted)

I had a thought, or rather a feeling
I was laid on the settee
Watching a Scandi-Noir TV film
Projected onto the fireplace wall

Other than this light
The room was in total darkness
I wanted to ask you
How you imagined the story would pan out

It was then that I realised
That earlier in the day you had set off
To visit your friend in the city
You would be away for four or five days

So I was alone in the room
Alone with my broken knee

Again I had the thought, or rather the feeling
You were indeed sat in your favourite chair
But by now I knew, for I had observed
That I was entirely and most certainly alone

I did not tell you, before you set off
About my falling down the stairs
I did not want you to worry
On a day when you should be happy

So I was alone in the room
Alone with my broken knee

The Noir plot line was pretty straightforward
Already the murderer has been revealed
And the side-stream narratives
Are also quite obvious in nature

And so I was alone in the room
Alone with my broken knee

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Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Quarterly Rant

Why do I feel so angry
When I open the Poetry Review
Is this a seriously strange strain of jealousy
Which chooses to overwhelm me

Does this show the futility
Of my fight against the establishment
That old names are laid beside new faces
Yet all seem intellectually academic in style

Why don’t I trust myself enough
To enter any of their competitions
Is my lack of self-belief raised
To stand me back on my unicycle pedestal

I don’t want to say anymore
I am already tied in knots of my own making
I didn’t leave school with any qualifications
Neither did I get a full-time university degree

So I wade in puddles of envy
I wallow in mires and mires of self-pity
I know there is no enforced duty
Except to Emerson College’s Poetry Otherwise

Which as you might see, calms me
Almost instantaneously gives me the time
To settle into a poem, to settle with a poem
Yet not with the Scottish mathematician

Whose self-indulgent dirge
Is so so similar to my own work
But hey, I am not published, nor never will be
Not by the hierarchy of establishment that is

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Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Developments

There is an independent pleasure
To drinking iced carbonated water
In a public house full of drinkers
Of stronger ales and spirits

Not to be supercilious I might add
But for the goodness of one’s health
Keen to work out how to remember
The detailed memories of the night before

That I can maintain the non-indulgence
For days, and weeks, and months
Says something of my spirited make up
Also my fear of an accelerated decline

And so today I shaved off my facial hair
Which, for sure, did make me look older
Now I sit, in the high bright sunlight
As the young man I once was might have done

That I did this in my own time, at my discretion
May say something accurate, or articulate
About a somewhat obstinate, stubborn being
Which nature and nurture have gifted to me

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works