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Sunday, 27 August 2023

Invisible Man

Strides and vest
F**k the rest, its just illumination
The record player and short-cropped hair
Can they take, can they take any more
Bare of foot, unable to care

Feeling and seeing the deep despair
Can they take any, any more
Rented room, fade and zoom
His personal space for me to play
Banks of lights, electric switches
Nothing to see, nothing to see
No route inside your mind, nothing to find
Invisible, invisible man
Strides and vest
F**k the rest, its just illumination

Drying frame, crying shame, crying game
It’s only tea towels and boxer’s briefs

Empty hangar, crumpled coat

Castle moat it ain’t
Chequered shirt, washed out dirt

Ready for tomorrow, or today
Put up chair, it’s not always there

Not permanent
Somewhere to stare

Though nowhere to hide or confide
Sink full of dishes

Curtains off the swishes
The bins are overflowing

With yesterday’s news
But hang just there; that Roman pillar’s rare
What’s it hide, what’s inside

Besides the wool and shoddy felt
Strides and vest
F**k the rest, it is just illumination



Saturday, 26 August 2023

Weightless

Remember watching

That 66 Wimbledon final
Then rushing on to the local court to play
And after watching the 66 world cup final

At the home of football
Then running to the nearest park

To score the winning goal
Remember Lords, cricket

Sunshine summer wherewithal
Inspired immediately to place

Willow bat on corky ball
Then there’s that Laurence Llewellyn
Encouraging us all

To change our living rooms
However, on this occasion, rather
It was the poetry of Carver
Betjeman, Browning and Auden
Visions, gifted through poems

Words sympathetically spoken
Of love and life, of love and loss
Emotion, pain, pleasure, candy floss
Sweetness to soften the blow
Without the worry of the sugar
Without the weight of the thought
I've let myself be immersed, I am enthused
I'm on their pitch, I write to you

Are you… confused



Friday, 25 August 2023

Free David Hockney




Orange grove
Mulholland Drive
From the mountain to the sea
Waves of Freesias
Floods of shimmering grass
From the garden to eternity
Orange men of Ulster
Belief, tradition or conspiracy
Fighting to be free
Decaying, slowly dying flowers
Scorched, torched, grassland misery
Genetic feeding, unknown disease
Blue sky, sunshine
A zephyr of a breeze
Summer dreams, sweet memories

Chocolate and Cinnamon
Birthday party
Sunday tea
Flying back from Guantanamo
Two years of nothing but darkness
Returning, again in darkness
Questioning and again questioning
Interrogation

Why, why were you there
Tomorrow you will be released
But will you, will you
Ever again be free


Thursday, 24 August 2023

Play Callisthenics

On every

One occasion
Yes every time

We meet
A special little

Happening
Yes dancing

Little feet
On every

One occasion
Simply washing

Dishes sleek
A separate

Memory moment
Yes dancing

Cheek to cheek

Morning Exercise
Awake
Awash
Avogadro’s law
Balance
Breathe
Balm of Gilead
Cajun
Cake
Carbon tetrachloride
Diesel
Dandruff
Dendrochronology
Element
Educate
Erotomania



Wednesday, 23 August 2023

Chorus (For those you’ve left behind)

It seems to me
From the way you dress
That you are a long way
A long way from home
I also surmise, surprised
That you are lost
Lost inside, or so I find
Inside your sketchbook mind
Looking back
Back along the promenade
The turret and the tower
They are your silhouettes
The clock in the square
The coronation cross
They are your foreground,
Your definition and fine detail
This picture

Framed to the East
Framed by the faraway shores
Beyond the distance

Away and beyond the horizon


The Jurassic cliffs crumble

Their history cloaks another kind of time
You are, I surmise
A long way from home
Are you here to escape
Escaping the troubles of a mad mankind
Are you here; away, but crippled
Crippled by your wandering mind
The stillness and calm
Of this present situation
Aside from the wars and the warriors
Is it this that tests your patience
The injustice of your situation
Not by choice, nor in context
Simply an artist drawing; drawing
On what’s left, left of life in time
The light is fading
You have moved along
The chorus, or the song, has gone
The stolen lives

Of those you’ve left behind