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Monday, 19 April 2021

On Every Sunday Of The Year

Tick tock, drip drop
Clocks gong in the garden
Chitter chatter
Bach plays a cantata
Newly scribed
Fairly scattered

On every 
Sunday of the year
Be dur a dub
Per dup
Ber dub 

A dup, purr dup
Mathematician
Of the counterpoint

On every 
Sunday of the year
Lah la de la
Di lad
E la, lad
A la de dee
Introvert
Invert of controversy


Sunday, 18 April 2021

The National Game Of Men Insane

Out of the box, it falls onto the floor it owns
A photograph; black & white football stripe
A sight to see forty years odd, and ripe
Before the scars, the tissues torn
The cortisone injections

A time of legends and football unshackled
Cindered covered parkland in skilful sin
Sticking the boot in
Cut tight skin on padded shin
The premeditated, berated
Serrated sliding tackle

Youths prepared for battle
Marsden wreck on Monday night
Little love lost; local league, a game, a fight
Soccer; it’s like this from Stockport to Seattle

Later; time for pints in the bar
The bus to town, remember to score
Chasing starts; toes touch the dance floor
Foes in frolic and fellowship with. Those
Infamous football stars

Back home
All over for another season
They visit, we visit
We don’t need much reason
Keeps us cut to the bone
We’ve kicked and spit; breathed our last

Put our arms around each other, inane
The national game of men insane
Caught up, as the red mist
Falls upon our past


Saturday, 17 April 2021

So Swift

The painter paints
Lays oil upon his canvas
Sees further than the sky
His aim never wanes

His picture only to be
For life, for liveliness
To have a new edge
Such that you and I

Can wonder more
At the world about us
My words though to stay
Are by compare

So swift; here, and then away
No pause to escape delay
In sands of time perhaps
But for now; a poem for this day


Friday, 16 April 2021

The Country In City Clothes

There were forty-two
Sheep in the field
Forty-two
Or forty-three

Should it matter
You could count
Them in a photograph
If it is of such importance

If you wish
Pull on your Wellingtons
Plunge into the flooded mud
At the bog end bit of the field

By the stream
If that helps
Because I just wondered
If you would truly enjoy to sink

Cars drive by
Every morning
In sun, in rain
Or as today, today…

The field before the fallen tree
A few years ago now
The flowers too, surely
They will in turn die

A lonely walk this
The country in city clothes
Black on green, red on brown
The flowered lapel

It is the final story
This, and the tears
Which somehow are
Always to follow later


Thursday, 15 April 2021

Sway And Wave A Last Goodbye

One by one the songbirds sing
their long and last good morrows
As heads of corn they sway
and wave their last goodbye
Acid laughter sings a little longer
No more, no, no more sorrows
Newborn generation’s endless tears
of parted love they cry

One by one the songbirds sing
As heads of corn they sway
and wave a last goodbye

Neon lights fall back
into the welcome warm dark shadow
Moments torn, but always they had to try

Once more inside that anguish
One more night
deep inside the born-again rebirth
No less painful
yet the gift of life is a worthy fight

One by one
The songbirds sing
Their long and last good morrow
One by one
The songbirds sing

Where now our matron
our only solid stone
our true soul mother

Where is she
to calm the madness
To turn down beds
and give homage
to the polished tiles glimmer

The gold oak doors are opened
We see the children deep inside
Safe, in far away full night’s sleep

One by one the songbirds sing
One by one the songbirds sing
We walk away
with hands inside our pockets
We walk away
under the silver, middle-night moon

One by one the songbirds sing
their long and last good morrow
One by one the songbirds sing
As heads of corn they sway
and wave a last goodbye
And one by one they sway
and wave a last goodbye