Poems on The Valentine Papers

'Mrs' Burton

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The wedding ring is sham. The ‘Mrs’ shallow courtesy.
Poor thing she never will be bride as anyone can see.
Ungainly figure, features making plain that wit’s not there
Yet here she is near-time with child and under care.

I’m wiring fire alarms, she’s kenned my sympathetic ears
And pours into them constantly her catalogue of fears.
The staff puts poison in her food. There’s cameras in the roof
To spy upon her. “ Even in the toilets!” She claims proof.

A Big Hand for Softee

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve bought this software that writes quasi poetry
The breezes whisper to me of far Samarkand
I write a line. The next line it suggests to me
And foster fervent longing for that magic land
My words kindle connection in the software mind,
Palm trees are silhouette against vermilion sky
Sup-pos-ed-ly, though no connection can I find.
The night air wafting myrhh and frankincense and musk
Stupid software! Samarkand’s a modern city.
Hobbled camels belch and moan a common misery
Food processing, cotton, tourists (more’s the pity).
Clear desert air adds lustre to night’s jewellery
As old as Athens, Babylon, and Rome.
A meagre dung fire. Weariness! A day’s reach crossed
Alexander knew it. For Tameline ’twas home.
Software to Strabo….Bugger facts…..CREATE!!

A Kingdom in His Pocket

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

His little kingdom has long since been paved with houses, houses, houses.
Reverted pasture, walked-off in the great depression, wilderness again.
Six hundred acres, blackberry, manuka, gorse, remote from roads was his.
His until war ended and a then-released suburbia would ravage countryside.
That wasteland had been visited by no-one else for years, perhaps his lifetime.
And since at ten a decade was forever, that specified the pocket virgin land
With he its first explorer hacking jungle trails clearing to clearing,
Breaching guardian thorns and vines charmed wards of hidden pools
Pools home to languid mottled fish not knowing man. He thought them mountain trout.
Years later, he would know them as Galaxia. No matter. They were his
To catch or, better, quietly sit and watch. Soul therapy this watching fish.
Even the most sociable have need at times for some retreat wholly their own
And this was his. His stargaze world. His kingdom of redemption and refreshment.

Acceptance

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This childrens room of former days lies hidden in roof’s gable end
These many years unvisited. The children that it loved seem to forget.
They never call, but they were mortals, dead. Not knowing this it mourns
Lost happy times, the pillow fights, the books that burned the candle low,
The apple-pie-made beds, ghost stories in the dark, the endless arguments.
And sadder times, the in-disgrace ‘go to your room’ commands.
Which had it share hurt with its pets and try to give them solace.

All in All

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Curtains gently twitch, eyes watch, lips sneer.
Our favourite morning spectacle takes place.
Much better than the soaps these newly weds.
So passionate and conning not their covert gallery.
With desolate leave-taking common entertainment.
“They’ll soon get over that. Give them a month or two,”
We tell each other knowingly.

But our derisive sniffs and snide remarks
Mask real regret for that sweet interval
When we ourselves saw heaven in another’s eyes
And craved no sup but from another’s lips.
Believing our’s the love that poets laud.
To last not months or years but for all time.
True happy-ever-aftering seemed ours.

All Singing, All Dancing

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ray’s full-time showman and self-publicist.
No chance to boost his image ever missed.
His stage our paper mill, his audience
The management with his performance
Masking the real truth.

More like a leading man than leading hand.
Giving his impression of a one-man band.
Efficient , head down, working without aid.
We others toil unnoticed in his shade
Finishing what he started.

Controllers changed with his panache and flair
He leaves for lesser mortals to repair.
The Prince of Patch-ups, his expediency
Has filled our ‘must-do’ board and one can see
He just makes work.

Alone Among the Saved

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Carl’s only here because his parents vehemently insist
They hope he’ll be converted by this ‘power’ evangelist:
That he’ll heed Christ’s urgent call, repent, decide.
He won’t. His head’s on straight. This movement has an underside,
Hypocrisy and sham that’s plain to see. How to explain
To these, the willful blind, so smug at being born again.

Though all are ‘Spirit Led’ and speak in tongues, speak prophecy,
Not all are equal. Some stand out and make the claim to be
Much more inspired. This visitor’s been touted in the press
As “renowned Bible scholar”,“father of the faith”, no less,
“Church planter”, “healer”, “author”, “founder of ‘Mission of Praise’.”
And after that, who dares to question anything he says.

Altruism

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Set way back in the hills is this Edenic lake
Tranquil mirror of the crags and podocarps.
A definite must-see with a decent road. But no!
A hellish ten-mile hiking track. That’s criminal.
As motorists, we stuck it to the Tourist People.

“It’s not fair to the invalides and those with kids.
These people just lose out.” That’s what we said.
But could they understand we’d made a valid point?
Seems not! No thought there for convenience
But every thought for costs and who must pay.

And Yet Again

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I weep for you, the ones who caught
That first fleet crooked smile.
For now it seems ’twas all for naught
Those anxious months and birth’s travail
That in the end to this are brought.
So young to die.
I weep for you, the ones who bound
Themselves so unreservedly
To shape that life with values sound.
Whose faceless fears and sleepless nights
Go prematurely to the ground
With one so young.
I weep for you who listened for
A car returning in the night
That won’t return for ever more.
Who heard instead the dreaded knock
And found a policeman at the door.
So young himself.
I weep for us who blithely read
Of one more young life cast away
By someone else’s drink and speed.
So commonplace it fails to shock.
We turn the page and take no heed.
“I see we won the footy.”

Another Day

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Grey is the fashion colour here today.
Or so cloud, sea, and dunes appear to say.
The flying spume wets all and veils the view
And wind-blown sand, like shot, near pierces through.

Who would believe, amid this scene of blight,
This place, at other times, that quiet delight
Of friendly breezes, little waves that sigh,
To leave my heart content and heaven-high.

Now, huddled gulls, stiff-legged, their necks pulled in,
Cry all the world’s despair above the din.
As one they brace to face the cruel caress,
And share with me a mutual wretchedness.

Art

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My simple rule aesthetic is
If I can do it, clearly it ain’t art.
The broader visual arts I mean.
Art that reaches out and touches,
Speaks.
Whether in the abstract,
Representational
Or somewhere in between.
That spark so unexplainable
Shared by the moderns and old-masters
Even fleet graffiti artists
Sometimes by small children
Though not, alas, by me.

HOWEVER,
I can gift-wrap buildings
Hang lines with frilly underwear,
Build empty rooms with random lights,
Sit clarinets and metronomes on chairs ,
Paint canvases with cryptic words,
Arrange piles of dried excrement,
Exhibit unmade stained-by-passion beds,
And ask outrageous prices for my ‘work.’

At Centre Stage

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She is a groupie though not in the normal sense.
Group Therapy, Encounter Groups her thing.
A chance to hold the floor, to bare her soul,
To tell a horror story to eclipse the rest.

And when current relationships break down,
Strange how they do, she takes off to another town
With added fuel plus stories from her former group.
These now hers to relate as personal history.

And, to be fair, she does believe them to be such.
She can relay them with complete conviction.
Have her audience hanging on her every word.
And doesn’t she just love it holding every eye.

Back Out Fast

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“I’ve had five babies but the Welfare took them all away from me.”
A weary desolation clouds the voice of your unbidden guest.
This easy lay, this slut and petty thief, this poor pathetic creature
Is a mother too and grieves her loss as any normal mother would.

She’s in the depths right now. No job, no money, claims nowhere to go,
And though aquaintanceship is slight, she’s turned up at your door.
Housekeeping for a widower nearby, her service far exceeded duty’s call.
The farm boy jumped in for his share and both were soon sent on their way.

Bonsai

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s wrong, you’ll say, to speak ill of the dead and that I must dispute.
Was Lizzie Borden canonised in death? More to the point, were you?
Miss D…..a blast malignant touched a tender thrusting sprout.
Stunting the tree that might have been to life-long bonsai bondage.
Does a blighted forest mark your wake? Forty years of pliant youth
Suffered your despotic rule and feared your lavish retribution.
Some, I’m sure, still wonder as I did, “Just what is wrong with me?”

Brown Paper Bags

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Our food came grocer-packed in paper bags.
Brown bags! Sans blurb to laud health benefits.
Bags leaving us to choose our serving size.
No list of salt, fats, sugars, additives.
No mention of preservatives or calories.
Nutritionist world rule then future tense
And Wet-Nurse State a war to think about.
We managed to survive.

Our mother saved the dripping from the roast
And bought beef dripping from the butcher’s shop.
No cooking oil on sale. No magarine.
Just butter ration. Saturated fat!
We ingested those triglycerides
On war-time milling white bread, never brown,
Ignorant of high glycaemic index.
Strangely though, we thrived.

Bugaboo

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Bob pokes fun at his lack of size, spotlighting it
To make it seem a situation that he’s brought to terms
Though nothing could be further from the truth. It seers!
It towers! It overshadows everything. Distorts reality.
Self-denigrating size jokes, constant ‘really-I-don’t-care’,
Give warning not to laugh or make such jokes oneself.
While papier-mache men strut loudly with inflated merit
This bugaboo unjustly puts Bob’s noble traits in shade.
A fancied zit that blights the mirror’s pleasure in a face.

Buy! Buy! Buy!

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Can we live satisfied
When wants are multiplied
By men with cash to lend
And those with goods to vend?

Can fostered discontent
That never will relent
And dogs our every stride
Be left or turned aside?

We’re held in slavery
By product puffery
So that fulfillment means
Those new designer jeans.

With reasoning quite flawed
Technology we laud
As bettering mankind.
Such thinking’s worse than blind.

Mans’ basic needs are few.
Fulfilling work to do,
A faith, good friends, and family,
Material sufficiency.

Caught in Amber

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I am an exile
From a town remembered
Where time ceased
When my bus pulled out
Almost a life ago.
People who cannot age
In memories amber
Walk its streets
Short-back-and-sides people
Who stand for ‘The Queen’,
Drive British cars,
Hold now derided attitudes.
We
Belong to each other.
I loved them.
Love them still.
They live in me
And through me.
But!
I can never return.
My return would mean,
For them,
Immediate dissolution.

Collecting Eggs

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Among the pure delights, collecting eggs,
A never failing joy that simply begs
To share with us its magic every day.
Each forenoon’s strident loudly cackled boast
Excites us, serves to keep our thoughts engrossed
In promised booty that the sounds convey.

Just where and just how many will there be?
Most surely it’s the sheer uncertainty
That makes our primal hunting instincts rise.
We know the common places where they’ll hide,
Scorning the nesting boxes we provide,
But each day brings with it some new surprise.

Common Property

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The time’s long overdue to quit our bach at Onepu.
The bad feeling incurred makes it the wisest thing to do.
Our memories, our sacrifice to buy it, these we now must sell.
The wider family’s come to think the bach is theirs as well.
Theirs to use as they see fit or lend to favoured friends.
Offering first, then asking us, their cheek just never ends.
The rates, of course, are ours, insurance, upkeep, power bill.
They paint us stinking rich and don’t contribute, never will.
And when the tanks run dry, they never mess about.
They cell-phone call to have us send a water tanker out.
The property, the bach, the tanks belong to us and hence
They think the water naturally should be at our expense.
And when we say, “You drained the tanks, in fairness you should pay.”
We’re being ‘mean, vindictive, trying to ruin their holiday.’
Enough’s enough! Kids grown and flown we’ll sell our little gem.
Enjoy the rellies’ screams when it’s pulled out from under them.

Confidence

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What a strange animal is confidence.
Tied loosely to reality. Ephemeral.
Both parent and the offspring of itself
Unjustified or justified it thrives
And justified, unjustified, declines

How can I catch one for myself ?
And, heaven knows, I have the need
So even just a little one would do
To be at first harbinger of success
And later treasured trophy of that same.

Where they are found. Best bait to use.
A privileged coterie shares that knowledge
Though undeserving most would seem to be.
It’s bitter gall to have them sashay by me
With an elephant-sized confidence on leash.

Critter

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Tiny little critter, animated black speck
Built on a near microscopic scale.
Features too small for my hand lens to grasp
Yet you’re complete in all that life requires.
Digestion, respiration, reproduction.
Truly, I’m amazed, intrigued by you.
Unseen legs provide your locomotion.
Whither were you going? What your purpose?
What do you see? Are you aware of me?
Your brain, and I assume you have one,
What does it contain? Pre-patterning alone
Or actual thought, seeds of a personality?
But now, enough of this interrogation,
Let me help you forward on your way.

D Day

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Original version later rewritten as sonnet THE DAY GROWS LIGHT…
D-DAY
A grey half-light still reigns out in the yard
But brightening rooftops catch refulgent dawn
And through the looming trees one single ray,
Attenuated, sprawls across the lawn.

My frantic task has lasted all night through,
As coffee cups and ash tray indicate.
While scattered books and papers add their voice
Too chide me for this study left too late.

Dawn

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

For thirty years, each time the natal date came round
The regret, always simmering, became profound.
For what had seemed the fairest course for all back then,
When parents shamed brought pressure, she would not again
Consider. Claims that she was far to young to be
A mother though the shotgun waved insistently.
And so her son was given, others gained the joy
Of smiles, first words, first steps, he had become their boy.

Disillusioned

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It just proves what I’ve always said.
You can’t trust anyone at all.
You build your plans around them and
You get let down ‘most every time.
Pure selfishness that’s what it is.
The primal trait that rules this world.
No-one gives heed to what YOU want.
They just can’t see past number one.

But May! Who’d ever think that May
Would leave us so far in the lurch
By marrying at fifty one?
And why? True love? Don’t make me laugh.
A Massey lab assistant weds
A famous Caltech physicist
Who’s there to lead a seminar?
She must have drugged his beer.

Downe Whith Speling

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Tha Minnysta ov Educayshon,
Ser,
duz yore guvernmint
rekogknize the much increest efishonsee rezultint
from abbandining that tirranee sew kneedlesslee impozed
buy Docter Jonsen, Speling, eye meen. It’s knot ta bee supozed
that litterachure wil suffa. Kno such dyer kalamittee
ackerred inn Shaykspeers day. And if we fayce it onistlee
we must admitt, eevin four his tyme he spelt eeraticklee.
Offin in in the wun sentanse werds wer spelt in difarint wayz
yet kno whay afectid whir hiz dethliss poetree and plaze.
Too spel frea from coershon iz a baysick yoomin rite,
standidizayshon an ohpreshon sirr that wea shood fite.
If wi Nu Zeelandirs shood sett that leed fore uther nayshons,
pruuf reeders wohn’t bee kneedded fore skool publikayshons.
A sayving ser yu must agrea. Evree studint to muste gayne.
Insted ov speling’s strayt-jakit, tha freadum to remayn
tha marstir not tha slayv. Emoshinul securitee
wood bee ashured, know inhibishuns then, moor creaytiviti.
Weed hav kids riting novles and I’m shure that verry suun
sum wud skayl the hites ov exeylense and rite fa Mils & Buun.
Sew I deer Sirr, remayn yors faythfuli,
Dr. Stafford Bonnington. Ph.D.

Early Fifties

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Dad! Don’t annoy the man. Leave him alone.”
The house, daughter’s and husband’s, and her tone
Suggests she’s dealing with a fractious child
Poor dad! Additional humiliation’s piled
Upon this widower, taken in to look correct
In others’ eyes. Resented. Given no respect.

I’m not being annoyed. Can work and listen too.
Here is a very interesting man who knew
A world that’s gone, a world that I can only see
Through photographs and other links, and he
Is skilled in verbal portrait, and creating ambience,
He takes me there his fascinated audience.

East Wind

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

East Wind, you give yourself away, you’ve blown your cover.
Something lacking sentience could not produce such beauty.
Your sandstone etching demonstrates deft touch, good taste,
Which spears my heart, arrests my feet, this morning on my way.
Usually, you’ve gained my notice with your childish paddy.
The pushing over trees and stamping round to kick dust in my eyes
Admittedly, in gentler mood, you’ve kissed my brow, wiped sun-wrought sweat,
Yet here to my surprise and pleasure I discover your artistic side.
Millennia ago this once-seabed, savage-torn from mother’s breast,
Attacked, defaced, by vandal waves while in their reach,
Offended that fine sensibility, asked for your remedial hand.
Each visit you amend a little, striving for that cruel mirage perfection
I would say your work’s as close as anyone can get.

Empathy

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In this narrow seaside park, remote from houses
The distant car park fields a cosy female scrum
Its players lost to the everything but catch-up talk.
It seems that parenthood has been forgotten
One Mum has put her primary role on ‘Hold’
To launch her infant’s odyssey to far-off swings..

Pushed on a swing is juvenile Nirvana.
No-push means rainbow’s end, no pot of gold.
The stubborn swing insists it needs adult assist.
Though being male and therefore ‘stranger danger’
Slumped shoulders signal clear the tots distress.
No choice but push. Her disappointment mine.

Enchantment

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What we’re seeing now is what we’re being made to see.
A little girl with plastic wings is playing infant dreams.
Her mother wearing larger wings shares in her fairy world
Embarrassed loving aunt, no wings, pretending valiantly.
As pretend fairies they have right to dance as they are doing
We push our grocery karts aside. Give them clear way.
On every face a smile. We need more of this fantasy.

Every Town Should Have One

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The lure of the find became life-long obsession. Not pay dirt, some rich vein
Nor new species botanical, entamological, memorial in Latin for his name.
Not ocean bounty lodged among the sea-wrack, salvage, ambergris
Not Universal Theorem, cancer cure, rare herbs medicinal. Neither fame
Nor riches drove the impecunious lad but knowledge, things to pull apart.

Transistors, integrated circuits, printed circuit boards had yet to come
And with them present-day reliability. Valves remained the electronic kings
Aging everything around them with their radiated heat, aging themselves.
Late Friday afternoon the radio shops would empty bins of parts replaced
Send the apprentice with them to the dump. These were the treasure sought

First Night

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Why did I let things get this far? Sometimes I’m not too bright.
They said I was the part, to life. The jollied me along.
It’s opening night, I’m in the wings and paralysed with fright.
A racing heart and jelly legs, dry throat, don’t get me wrong,
I’ll go on if it kills me and most probably it will.
Producer smiles encouragement. It’s alright for you lass!
But I must brave that sea of vulture’s eyes. Their one great thrill
Will be to see yours-truly fluff and look a total ass.

For Kathryn

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Not many get a choice of baby. Perhaps that’s just as well.
For looking at each page, as yet unsullied, how are we to tell
What time and our own actions will inscribe? There’s heredity
That many think the pointer. I say, ‘No!’ For surely they must see,
Beyond glib stereotype, that infamy and saintly grace,
Stupidity and genius rare have no regard for race.
True…parents’ genes determine build and maybe temperament
Yet random combination makes each offspring different.

For the Second Time

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Rose drove her husband’s rubbish truck, wore overalls and boots.
‘Half bloody man!’ her critics sneered. ‘Imagine HER in bed!’
How quickly we clothe others with personas off-the-rack.
Investing entire nations with a garment ready-made.

At home, out of those overalls, a Rose most did not see.
All woman, comely, sensitive, artistic, dutiful.
And motherly, the children neat and clean in things she’d made.
Their furnishings were spartan but she made that house a home.

Free Gift

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Passing older women, total strangers, on the street
Pleasing to my eye perhaps by apt attire I think it meet
To briefly tell them so, and why, to give their day a lift.
While valuable to them, for me a cost-me-nothing gift.
‘I like your dress\your hat\your hair\your smile\whatever.’
Which should be said on impulse, passing. One must never
Stop, accost, to do so makes the comment suspect even threat
Their mirror may claim wrinkles, gray hair, double chin, and yet
This second opinion says, ‘So what?’, proves them attractive still.
A precious belief. You walk out of their life with their good will.

Genesis

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The new day stretches, yawning, on the black-felt hills.
Her consort’s yet to show his face but can’t be far behind
To snuff those distant candles that have been my light thus far.
Here in a world reincarnate, amorphous still,
I’m getting in our sweet-breathed cows for milking.
The air is tonic, chill and dry. Frost crackles underfoot.
My siblings lie unconscious, warm abed. As eldest
I’m the unpaid hand who milks before and after school.
Works weekends while the others play and visit friends.
For now the whole world’s me, these girls. None else exists.
But soon, “Let there be light.” The world will widen out.
“Let there be herb, and moving creature, fowl that fly.”
So it will come to be. A wonder lost to those in bed.
My privilege to be here at the birthing, watch creation.

Gentleman's Club

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Folk dare not venture far, and not at night.
A dragon sailed the heavens to their woe.
Fair maidens could not sate its appetite
And by that time their ranks were running low.

Then came the standard proclamation,
‘Half my kingdom and my daughter’s hand
To any man who brings extermination
To the dragon ravaging our land.’

The kingdom lured, (poor princess, she was plain)
Drew valiant men, knights bold, unbeaten.
They left ‘midst cheers, were never seen again,
Tinned food all and thus meant to be eaten.

Girl Washing

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

YOUNG GIRL WASHING, 19/11/10
Scion of the British Empire, fragile slip.
Transplanted far around the earth’s long curve. curve
Our ‘England expects’ her offspring to befit her.
So you sweet child must be espalier grown.
Trained, trimmed, and bent to meet exacting standards.
Husbandry gossomer-light but always there light
To form from you the ideal English woman.
“Did you wash behind your ears? Are your nails clean?”
Mama will ask. Attend to her. She wishes best. attend
Would have in you John Wesley’s ‘cleanly godliness.’
In reaching that perfection, little things have moment. moment

Give an Inch

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Through the sliding door brown eyes are pleading.
We steel ourselves and try to be unheeding.
Inside, a friendly fire, the room is warm.
Outside, the bitter wind precedes a storm.
But still those eyes are silently beseeching
Their mute reproaches to our conscience reaching.
We let her in though not a household pet.
She showers her thanks, and water, since she’s wet.
Thank goodness for the thirsty mat beside the door.
“Here’s where you stop,” we say. “Not one inch more.”
A futile hope. We find that in an hour or so
She’s crept, by stages, right up to the glow
And sprawled, displacing us the warmth to hog.
Which is a cheek for she’s our neighbour’s dog.

Going by the Book

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

These guys that knot their bed sheets into ropes
And saw through iron bars with sand on string
Are in my firm opinion simply dopes.
Experience has not taught them a thing.
Sure, they get out but out they do not stay
And that’s the point of any get-away.
I’m leaving by the front gate, openly.
I’m going to make the system work for me.

I’ll be a model prisoner, earn parole,
I’ll get religion bad and bleach me soul
To dazzling whiteness, wear me pant’s knees thin
With everlasting prayer. Then I’ll begin
To preach the judgement, warn all to repent
Like me, do penance for the lives they’ve spent.
They’ll get so brassed-off with me piety
They’ll PLEAD to have the system work for me.

Going Solo

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Are you listening subconconcious? Is there anybody there?
The word processors fired up and I’m sitting in my chair
Eager fingers at the keyboard but I don’t know what to write.
Rustle up some inspiration, make it crisp and erudite.

That request was put in hours ago, my patience has run out.
I’m coming to suspect that you don’t know what you’re about.
I’m starting off without you. No more waiting. What’s the point?
I’ll write a masterpiece and won’t YOUR nose be out of joint.

Good Pickings

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

That earnest lady with collection box? Mrs Good!
She’ll never make the honours list and yet she should.
Ever selfless worker, Mrs Good’s our treasurer,
Committee stalwart now these many years although her
Grown children, when babies, never used the clinic.
No-one wants her job. Though mothers with a child that’s sick
Bless the service, not a one’s prepared to pull some weight,
Take the reins. We’re tiring. Young blood we’d appreciate.

Goodbye Unsaid

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What do we talk about old friend
When your life’s racing to its end?
You seem a stranger now, so thin
And mummified. When I came in,
I wasn’t really sure that it was you.

I try to hide my shock, pretend
Belief that you are on the mend.
I prayed those months you were away
For treatment but your looks betray
The failure of both science and my prayer.

Gramps

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Gramps has a jar of toffees on the shelf above the sink
And when we’ve done the dishes, we have one to celebrate.
Then, if it’s after breakfast, he will say, “What do you think,
Shall we totter to the Dairy for a paper?” I say, “Great!”
We both pretend that’s why we go, but Gramps just loves ice cream.
He always gets us double scoops and what a funny sight,
That busy tongue, those sticky hands, his grin a face-wide beam.
I’m sure he takes me as excuse to make it all look right.
And Gramps has slabs of shop-made cake with icing thick as thick
They come out when we have a drink and he says, “Have some more.”
Not like my Mum who thinks that too much cake will make me sick.
She says that he just spoils me. Surely that’s what Gramps are for!

Guerrilla Warfare

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She now says she forgives me. Trumpets loud this seeming virtue.
Shades of Pecksniff and Uriah Heep! It’s her at fault not me.
A keen and subtle weapon fits her hand, perfect to pursue
Her sly warfare. A bland mask hides her cancerous enmity.
What damns me is to be her husbands friend and that from way back.
This then constitutes me threat and subject to covert attack.
Nothing’s really open, always she protests my good at heart,
Sorrowing when I reject the loving counsel she’d impart.
Tell me! Wouldn’t you if all your moves were caste in the worst light?
Patient protest or no protest, Either way it proves she’s right.
My protest seeks to hide my guilt, silence shows I’ve no defence.
The baseness of my nature is an axiom. I just can’t win and hence
Must slough off oblique skirmishing, all that scathing rubbishing
Of those who share my views, and overlook those eyebrows rising
In expression of disgust. Her spouse and I have business ties.
Also from way back. Can they hold up still against the artful lies
She whispers? Our front, outwardly polite, now sustains a crack.
She’s quite upset to think I’d charge her guilty of attack
And, of course, she’s not. I’m ALWAYS taking things in the wrong way.
But, saintly example, she forgives the cruel things I say.
I could cut my loses, sell out, walk away. At that I jib.
Regretfully, it’s much to late to give Adam back his rib.

Haiku

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

These were put in a haiku competition but had no luck. One of the winners had four lines which makes me wonder about the judges.

This caterpillar 5
Thinks gluttony a virtue. 7
Not in my garden! 5

The wind whispers news
From far exotic places
And sets me yearning.

An impudent wave,
Rushing unseen up the beach,
Wets my trouser legs.

Cold slate-grey river.
Willows, mist caught in their hair.
Sun peeps over world’s edge.

hans christian andersen

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

two pretentious modern poets approached a publisher
he couldn’t begin to make sense of their stuff
but their reputation had preceded them
they had appeared in Landfall
they had massive arts grants
he published

reviewers couldn’t make anything of it either
though apparently everyone else understood
the editor of Landfall
the arts grant people
they raved

the committees choosing school text books
were naturally even more confused
but since the critics claimed that
it set new directions
they bought

Healing

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Original. Rewritten as sonnet MY FEET DELIGHT… Nov 98.

HEALING ON A LONELY BEACH

My feet delight to walk upon your sand
Swabbed clean and holystoned scant hours ago.
These graving tools record my progress and
Leave in their wake the thanks I’d have you know.

So dull the day and yet your prospects please.
Strange physic paves your strand that lies beside.
Somehow my regrets fade, my tensions ease,
And wash away as by tomorrows tide.

Healing on a Lonely Beach

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

MY FEET DELIGHT….
My feet delight to write upon your sand,
Swabbed clean and holystoned scant hours ago.
These graving tools record my progress and
Leave in their wake the thanks I’d have you know.
When cancerous woes would seem to overwhelm,
I leave those cares in bond and come to you
To find true solace in your magic realm
And have my blunted spirit forged anew.
Though dull the day yet still your prospects please.
Strange physic paves your strand that lies beside.
Somehow my regrets fade, my tension ease,
And wash away as by an evening tide.
Blithe gulls command this breeze exultantly.
And with them my heart soars. Uplifted. Free!

I Love You Anne

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I love you Anne though forty years have passed
And I’ve not heard a word of you in all that time.
The little girl I knew has grown into a woman.
Cold calculation tells me that you’re fifty two.
Married I assume, a mother, possibly a grandmother.
The sylph of youth now gone with grey encroaching.
Yet one’s essential essence, rock-like, resists time.
You are the girl I loved and love. That cannot change.

I Love You Anne

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I love you Anne though forty years have flown
And in that time I’ve heard no word of you.
The naive child is to the woman grown
And by cold calculation fifty two.
The Sylph of youth long fled, the grey now near.
Married, I assume. Mother? Grandmother?
But still the girl I loved and love, revere.
Innate virtue life’s cares cannot smother.
A callow youth, in lodgings, found a friend.
A little sister of whom he grew fond.
And though their closeness danger might portend.
Philea and not Eros was the bond.
A sweet out-going child so you began.
Goodness personified. I love you Anne.

I'll Take the Cash

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

If he’s gained the reputation of fixing the unfixable, why should I care?
He works as Baggage Handler at the International Airport and it’s there
His miracles bring fame. Appliances and anything that’s electronic.
He takes home to work his special magic, get them in good nick.

I know because a mutual friend informs me that I’m acting as ghost fixer.
They all come to me. It’s on my workbench that they drink of the elixir
Of extended life. This once electrical apprentice who failed to qualify,
Can talk the talk and comes across as a most knowledgeable guy.

I'm Going Home

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“I’m going home today. My wife will pick me up this afternoon.”
Several times he told me his exciting news. I worked on and soon
I had a helper in this fine old man so quick and rational.
Leaving the asylum! I felt so pleased for him for, after all,
He’d been here many years but clearly had no place here anymore.
We talked and what a life he’d led. Adventure. Roamed the world before
The accident that put him here, playing piano for support.
Showed me his burn-scarred hands, with, I presumed, arthritis and I thought
‘That’s playing done for you my friend.’ Yet after lunch, a little tired,
He left me, went into the lounge and played and played as one inspired.
The true professional who harmonised instinctively. And when
I left, before his wife arrived, I thought we’d never meet again.

In Total Remission

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I wonder what has happened to the girls that I sighed after in my youth,
My bashful, tongue-tied youth. Those goddesses for me so unapproachable:
So capable of turning me to ashes with one withering glance
When clever openers, sweet compliments, were culled from song and film,
Rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed but never used except in wild daydream.
I wonder what they’re doing now, how skittish fortune’s dealt with them.
Perhaps, for most, their beauty’s well past use-by date……But so is mine.
Perhaps my sighs would now be with relief that that wall was not breached.
That’s not the point for, even then, I wish them well. They still have part in me.
The plumage of pretense de rigueur for the mating dance long moulted,
The years make me as comfortable with women as with men, surely with them.
No clever openings necessary now just open self with complement spontaneous.
No use to ask that magic grant me access though.
I can’t remember any of their names.

Involvement

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Little lady, solo mother, native bee
A shrub’s resplendandant florets , summer’s last,
Attracted you along with countless kin.
But you my careless missy, as I watch,
Have blundered into strands of spider silk.
What can I do but free you, get involved?
You’re thanks? None that I noticed,,,Flick !
Away to hungry lavae, clay bank nest.

Two weeks on and summer’s really faded.
With blossoms something now of memory.
Your former larder just a mown- grass desert.
So can you wonder that I worry for you?
How can you survive? Have you survived?
But hopefully your kids have got to pupa stage
Thus setting free their work-a- holic mum.
I see me, in effect, part of the family.

It Must Be Spring

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Apparently deserted street with me on foot
But at a corner, coming from my left,
I met up with Jack Sparrow, also a pedestrian
Who clearly has some building work in hand.
Gripped in his beak ten metres of recording tape
Which drags behind to snag and keep him grounded.
At our confrontation, in alarm, he takes to wing.
A personal fear? More likely that I’ll grab his prize.
But half the road width has him puffed and crashed
To doggedly take up the haul again on foot
And hop off down the road that’s to my right.
The Devil bids me stand upon his plastic train.
But no! I quite admire the gutsy little fellow.
Wish that I could follow see where ‘home’ is.
How he hopes to use it. Can’t though. Running late.
Yet I can just imagine what his wife is going to say.
Her scorn. I’ll bet he never hears the end of it.

It's an Honour to Serve

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Walt hates my guts because I think that Public Service means just that.
I’m used to helping people in the private sector, like to help them.
He sees my stance naïve, making a rod for him and everybody else.
The department pays lip service to King Public but that’s gilded cant.
Joe Public is a nuisance. Unadmitted! But a nuisance just the same.

Refer to Walt a case that rightfully is his and he’ll refuse it angrily.
Tell me to, “Handle it yourself,” and when I do I’m still offside.
My case approach entirely mishandled, his comments scathing.
Though everything I do is wrong, most work seems to fall my way.
Walt, diligent for mates, has made a special art of dragging feet.

Jessie

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A country town whose main street is the main highway.
One thousand people, shops, a garage, one hotel,
And Jessie importuning travellers who stop.
Playing up gentility and sounding like the Queen.

A woman of good breeding no-one here can doubt.
English. Educated. That posh accent’s not put on.
How comes she to be here, a world away from home
So down-at-heel, now local legend, laughing-stock?

The answer’s simple. Alcohol. It rules her life.
A prohibition order bans her from the pub
So strangers are dragooned to buy drink for this lady
Whose upbringing, she says, precludes her entering bars.

Jim Boy

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve been together all our lives, Jim Boy.
It’s been a boon to have a friend like you.
With all we’ve shared, events cannot destroy
The closer bond than brothers ’tween we two.

You understand me, care consistently.
When I’m chased off to bed, disgraced outcast,
Rejected by the world, you comfort me,
Lie at my side and bring me peace at last.

And when I chopped my foot it wasn’t Dad
Or Mum I looked to first to give support.
I bellowed out for ‘Jimmy’, yes you lad,
For you’re my strength, in trouble you’re my fort.

Job Satisfaction

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s sad to see the old trades go and some would say a crime.
So let me take you by the hand and whisk you back in time.
Now where are we? Why Holloway. You’ve not been here before?
A woman’s for the drop today. Just peep in through that door.

Good lookin’-eh?-and yet she caught her husband with the maid.
A touch of arsenic in his food soon stopped the tricks he played.
The parson’s wrestled with her soul, her last meal’s on that tray,
At eight the prison guv’nor comes and we get underway.

Journey Into Space

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As I behold the heavens on a clear and star-lit night,
My mind moves into hyper-drive, my fancy takes to flight.
The earth shrinks to a speck, then disappears, left far behind.
Beyond the solar system’s outer reaches, soon I find
Andromeda, our near galactic neighbour looming fast.
I’ll not stop there, I’ve done the place to death these three nights past.
Delightful when it’s sights were new, it’s now become a bore.
It’s time to boldly go where mind has never gone before.
The star-ship Fancy, under my command, will set to rest
Fierce arguments concerning which hypothesis is best.
I’ll view from close-up quasars, binary stars, and those gas streams
So fast and light-years long. I’ll check on any spot that seems
A likely black hole and, should it’s massive gravitation
Try to suck me in, my stronger-still imagination
Will resist. When back, I’ll let all know the true position,
Win fame, a Nobel Prize. Some may brand it supposition
But who cares? They’ll be narked because it wasn’t them but I
Who conquered space and pioneered this safer was to fly

Left Behind

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘You are just what you eat,’ it has been said.
Not me. I seem to be what I have read.

Old boy’s-adventure books of derring do
And British pluck: high-minded heroes who
Were God-ordained to rule a child-like breed
Of dusky skin, with gun-boat if the need
Arose. No questions loomed of other’s right
To work out their own destiny. The might
Of British arms acquired divinity.
Bles-sed those coerced by British sovereignty.

Let Me Tell You

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It rankles, sickens me, that subtle lie
That brought me censure. Powerless was my
Sad truth ‘gainst his ‘divine’ authority.
A lesson for the future that must be.

The saintly-seeming Pastor of our flock
Declined to give the ‘weak of faith’ the shock
Of disillusion. So I paid the price.
The ‘greater good’ required my sacrifice.

And now he gives a lead, forgiving me.
A nice display of Christian charity.
Still, underneath, I know he knows he owes.
Through all that posed concern his unrest shows.

Let's Say It's Magic

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Karangahape Road just opposite the top of Queen Street, late in1936.
Upstairs in Howie Walker Dentist’s waiting room, a wailing two-year old.
His mother’s in the chair. He’s been excluded. Are they going to hurt her?
Patients waiting wish some saviour would take charge and shut him up.
One lady does. “A game, a game, I know a game. Would you like to play a game?
He brightens up a once his mother suddenly forgotten. Yes. He’d love to play.

Little Blue

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Little Blue, I’m sure you have a Latin name but “Little Blue” must do.
Some time a botanist got on his knees, as I have done, and marvelled.
You so small, so seeming insignificant, and yet so very beautiful.
Who smuggled you into my lawn? The seed I bought was certified.
Your neighbours, drab, rely on the capricious wind for their posterity
But here are you adorned to tempt a lover. I would say an aesthete.
But just who?
Your man-of science will have watched, identified your caller,
But I have not the time. I have this lawn to mow and other chores.
Still!….Just for you sweet thing…I’ll lift the blade a smidgen.

Loyal Friends

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You tell me that I cannot drag you in.
That you, when certain matters were discussed,
Were being shown around the house by Lyn.
You say I’m bending facts, betray a trust.

It’s me betrayed when you rescript that day
And run for cover now the whistles blown
Indignantly disclaiming all I say
To leave me under fire, to stand alone.

What happened to your seething indignation
At doubtful goings-on, dishonesty?
Who urged that we exposed the situation
But now knows nothing and abandoms me?

Luke 8:48

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Put your glasses on me girl,” I said.
And you, “But I don’t need them Dad, I’m healed.”
Though fresh-come postcard held to nose tip
Called it lie, your voice echoed belief.

To not be healed meant lack of faith.
A thing not to be countenanced.
So reason must be set upon it’s head.
’thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.'

Your years of nous and education
Overwritten by euphoria,
Fervent singing, hallelujahs passionate,
Bodies swaying, heaven-reaching hands.

Mafeking Street

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Houses so close they keep their elbows in.
Tired geriatrics spec-built fot the less well-off.
The nearest phone, shops, public transport too
In Dad’s day far away on higher ground.
No piped hot water then, fridges unknown.
Each day’s necessities a trudge uphill.

At my first sight since infant days, I’m shocked.
My father and his brother spent their youth here.
In full-on-sunshine days the way Dad told.
His tantalising twenties, gone, beyond my reach.
But see this narrow, steep, horse-traffic street
Chloresterol restricted by parked cars.

Meeting

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Mid-teens, apprenticed, farming district, early fifties,
Work-life spent in houses with both spouses home,
And being just ’the boy’ and therefore in effect unseen
He watches carefully forced to this conclusion.
Couples never meet although they bed together,
Share a brace of children. Live in different worlds.
Complementary bodies by society’s rails converged.
Women never understood. Their value architectural..

Clear of the trenches he has met the other side,
The analogue of his mind in an older-woman’s head.
She widowed, of his parents generation, one of his bosses.
Like him not lock-stepped to pervading group-think
Their ‘fellow-Martian’ recognition hard to be explained.
They’re somehow kin and meld as a sure match.
Local lore would see it ‘mother-son-she-never-had’
Or sex. Congress of men and women highly suspect.

Might Have Beens

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

He meets her daily in the street
Ever with grandchildren in tow
And diffidently stops to greet
This secret love of long ago.

While he held back another beau
Had ventured, won the prize
Of one whose virtues time would show
And difficulty realise.

A widow young, kids raised alone,
To flower with a nuture rare,
Each now with families of their own
A testimony to her care.

At times he’s thought, “Perhaps we two…..?”
But then, “no that’s absurd!”
Always first choice, if he but knew,
And still he dare not say the word.

Misdirection

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

To my despair, our friend, the pseudo poet
Conceals from all his fuzzy thoughts inchoate
With fancy layouts, grammar on the rack.
Obscurity the core of his attack
Upon the mind, to solemnly insist
On subtle depths that really don’t exist.

All rules he sets aside, metre and rhyme,
To make untrammelled imagery the prime
Requisite, or so he says, and yet,
Reading his stuff, what insights do we get?
The cogency is ours. From thickets dense
The cozened reader flushes his own sense.

Misled

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Those two young children kneeling on the hearth are Sis and me.
We’re shouting up the flue those words that magically take wing
And speed home to the pole and to the ears of Santa Claus and he
Is taking up his pad to carefully note what things we’d have him bring.

In our world of wonder such a thing’s a given, possible.
So, as to being good, we snow him with our virtue, saintliness.
Though never to be seen being adult means that he’s gullible
And our requests and cuteness will be crowned with sure success.

My Apologies

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Jane.. When young I wronged you.
Was repulsed.
I loved and well related to the Haworth girls
But not to you.
Unfairly blamed you for the leisured parasites
You chronicled.
Their seasons at Bath, their Balls, their being seen.
Such pointless lives.

Their daughters schooled as lure for titles, money.
Sad performing dolls.
Securely mounted on the backs of underlings
Who have no name.
Church-sanctioned ‘unter menschen’
GOD “ordered their estate”
To make the oil and water separation
Between each class His will.

My Town

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This town is not my town. Mine hummed with trams.
It’s sky framed with electric wires to give them life.
And flush-railed roads to make these beasts bend to our will.
No traffic lights to regiment, but human touch, white gloved police.

The buildings of my town had character, they drew the eye.
Their faces gave one echoes of past cultures at their height.
Classic columns fronted banks, bespoke solidity.
Today’s anthills of soulless mirrored glass no place.

No More Spelling, No More Books

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Horizons moved in from the time that he left school
Freed from the painful need to think, observe, and read.
He’d served his sentence. No-one but the utter fool
Would willingly seek headaches once there was no need.

Why fill one’s mind with useless guff since all that stuff
Would not win him the good life, clothes and wheels?
With head down in the real world he’d quite enough
To make ends meet while dreaming of the perks he lacked.

No Rest for the Wicked

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I find myself this morning on an island in a milk-white sea
Which silently by night has drowned the suburbs all around.
Civil Defence has shown itself remiss to the extreme degree
Not bringing those affected to this higher safer ground.
Those jutting chimneys, slender reefs, are marking on the surface drift
The brickworks’ kilns, my workplace, now foundered on the ocean’s floor.
Drowned, I assume, the gallant crew who manned the evening shift.
But wait! A highway leads into the depths upon that farther shore.
Some cars drive down to disappear while others driving out are clearly seen.
Life still goes on down there it seems. I’m not to get a day-off out of this.
Drat! Drat! Drat! I’ll have to pack some lunch. Warm up the Holden submarine.
Kiss the missus, just in case, and dive with fellow wage-slaves to Atlantis.

Not at All Rosey

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Poor rose what wrong they’ve done you.
They’ve bred away that hardiness
So native to your ancestors
Found still in feral cousins.

They’ve left you delicate, prone to disease
To black-spot, mould and mildew,
To the aphid and leaf-roller,
Totally dependent on their care.

The pleasure of the eye their end
With not the least concern for you
Whose beauty they exploit.

Taken in the fresh-faced bud.
A briefly-favoured kept-woman.
To be discarded when you fade.
Supplanted by some younger bloom.

Number

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

NO SENSE MARKS THIS LAMENT…..
No sense marks this lament, this gnawing grief.
Though knowing that in no way brings relief.
And foolish even more guilt that assails
As accusation swells the keening wails.
I’ve borne six children, couldn’t handle more,
\
But still child seven, never now to live
Through tubes tied, rises to accuse me for
An act it is unable to forgive.
This child, I wonder what it would have been.
Boy or girl? Studious or athletic? And
To which side of the family would it lean
Had I demurred and nature had free hand?
Deprived of life! As though scraped from the womb!
This stone within me rests upon its tomb.

Number Seven

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

No sense marks this lament of gnawing grief.
Though knowing that in no way brings relief.
And foolish even more, guilt that assails
As accusation swells the keening wails.

I’ve borne six children, couldn’t handle more,
But still child seven, never now to live
Through tubes tied, rises to accuse me for
An act it is unable to forgive.

This child, I wonder what it would have been?
Boy or girl? Studious or athletic? And
To which side of the family would it lean
Had I demured and nature had free hand?

Obsession

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Stockcars, stockcars, stockcars, bloody stockcars
All those noisy battered hulks are super stars
In Malcom’s galaxy, his grand obsession.
No need to guess what is his prize possession
Or what he rambles on about incessantly.
That there is more to life he cannot seem to see.

We’re painters and the firm put us together
On domestic work which made me wonder whether
Former mates declined to work with him again.
That’s probable. Now our relationship is under strain.
He means well, truly does, but drives me up the wall
I’m sorry for him. Tried to tell him. Did no good at all.

Peripatus

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hungry little carnivore
Hunting on the forest floor.
In guise of a caterpillar
You’re a dedicated killer.
Ripping into captured prey.
Sucking their life force away.
Anywhere that’s moist you’re found,
In leaf-litter, underground.
Under stones and logs you lurk
Engaged in your nefarious work.
Twenty eight to eighty eight
Legs you have. I think it’s great
How those legs bring up the rear
Move in concert with those more near.
Each serried rank in paying heed
Betrays a strong brain taking lead.
Onychophoran, people think,
Represent a living link
From annelid to arthropod.
Well maybe so but one thing’s odd.
Arthropoda are your game.
What did you eat before they came?

Phoebe

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

At my approach she fades. Why must she always fade?
This tantalizing remnant of the past: this shade
Who teases me, distracts me out of mind.
No creature of my making but one somehow left behind.

How soon our scratches on this world are polished out.
A family’s universe once centred here about.
Of their cottage, on this knoll, hardly a trace remains
With they themselves now quite forgotten for their pains.

Pilgrimage

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Your problem is your liver.” Those were his words with me still in the doorway
I was supposed to be impressed, believe, accept it preternatural, and henceforth say
With convert gratitude, “He knew! The moment that he saw my face he knew!
Saw what those useless doctors couldn’t see and did for me what none of them could do.”

An obvious trick. I faced a charlatan. His questions framed then formed his real decision.
The street photographer of film days took his unasked snaps on film’s tail-end. His con
To make you feel committed. ‘That poor man has wasted film on me.’ In truth he’d not!
You’d stop, agree to buy, he’d wind back to an unused spot and take a real shot.

Plums

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Were Uncle Charlie’s plums as good
As memory would now insist?
Were they as big as cricket balls,
Black-fleshed ambrosia that no-one could resist.

That hideout down behind the hedge
Where with our booty we’d have flown.
Boasting of our capacity
As witnessed by the heap accreting stone by stone.

And juice! Could there have been so much
Of that perverse insidious dye
To always stain us down the front
Accusingly, to give our innocence the lie?

Real Peas

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Those peas you shuffle round your plate,
Won’t go no matter how you fool
And, though they’re something that you hate,
‘Clean plate gets pudding’ that’s the rule.

I sympathise. Those peas aren’t peas
Bred for succulence and taste
But engineer-designed to ease
Machin’ry problems and cut waste.

Tinned peas were once our winter fare,
We’d dream of each new-season’s crop.
Though dear at first, what did we care
With craving such as that to sop.

Reprise

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Neuron screams to neuron,”Molly Bates!”
Synapses trigger fifty-year-old charges.

Molly Bates his bane of early working years.
Boiling over milk to spoil range elements.
Accepting no-one else to make repairs.
She fancied him. He knew it. No-one else believed.
She was his Mum’s age. Married. Seven kids.
His boss, highly amused, would not allow excuse
Suggesting the experience might do him good.
She’d told him once she’d nothing underneath her dress.
Though acting dumb, he’d seen where this was meant to lead
And timed his future calls to have her spouse at home
Scared, that alone,she’d press, refusal bringing cries of rape.
All day she’d ring his boss, “Where is MY man to fix MY stove?”
And even husband home, her act for him was blatant,

Sixpence to Get in, Thrupence to Spend

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Saturday arvo.We’ve been extra good Billy and me for one self-serving reason.
The flicks! We now pester our Mums to let us go, citing our helpfulness.
Success! Our bare feet washed (sissies wear shoes), coat over play clothes, we’re away.
Coins clutched in hand we join the stream converging on the Town Hall matinee.
We stand stiff for the anthem. It’s wartime and we’re Empire’s patriotic sons.
Gaumont British news reel. War tide’s turned. The Japs and Nazis run. Loud cheers!

Sleepless Nights

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps one sees things just that little clearer in the dark
Lying sleepless in the middle hours mind roving restless,
Stripping bare the should-be-obvious long masked,
Charging me with gullibility. Which charge I can’t deny.

There’s Ken my one-time Ministry Of Works apprentice.
Department legend, envied sexual folk-hero
While virgin me had difficulty even saying, “Hi!”
But decades on facts speak and Ken was crafted myth.

Ruth I thought my better, awed by glowing sanctity.
When she was framed by cunning friends, saddled with blame,
Her trusting nature taken cruel advantage of, I fought for her,
Believed when no-one else believed. I now know me deceived.

So Your Mother's an Old Bitch

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I bitch because I love you girl,
Nag because I really care.
There’s a system, preditory,
Smiling come-ons just out there.

Brightly gleam its doubtful values,
Subtley are their merits sung.
Hidden snares, with bait enticing,
Wait to trap unwary young.

Precepts that my mother lived by,
That have helped me to this day,
Slyly these ones would disparage,
Have you trash and throw away.

Undermining all I’ve taught you,
Massed, their prophets stand arrayed.
I seem to fight the whole world ‘Love’
And–can you wonder?–I’m afraid.

Someday Perhaps

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A humble bach beside some quiet bay, a boat to help him set his net
Life-long that is his simple dream. Apparently affordable but yet,
There are others to consider,

His two young daughters must have ponies. They will just DIE otherwise.
This means grazing, riding habits, saddlery and vets, and, as you surmise,
One vast plughole for money.

And then they must have ballet lessons, piano lessons, elocution too.
He mustn’t moan. These are essential things that EVERY girl must do.
Can’t he see they’re talented?

Spidey

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The newspaper was gutted and discarded on the sofa’s arm
On it appeared, apparently from nowhere this sapient spider
One of the smaller kind and he was clearly int’rested in me
How did I know? Can I read spider faces? Somehow I just knew.
And the interest was mutual as was the close examination.
Two eyes stared at him and eight unblinking eyes stared back.
And when I spoke his body language showed his understanding.
He slowly sidled nearer. For a better view apparently.
So could it be that even with eight eyes he was myopic?
What was his fascination with me? Not as prey I’m certain.
Even he would see the idea laughable. Too large for one meal,
Still too large for two. The rest of me would need refrigeration.
What were the thoughts fermenting in that little head of his?

Summit Meeting

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She climbs trees for the simple joy of climbing trees,
The challenge of the difficult ascent, the god-like heights,
And she’s in her late sixties, far beyond tom-boy excuse.
Doing what she’s always done, with long-honed skills.
This erstwhile nursing trainee once raised eyebrows
Playing Tarzan’s Jane in Hagley Park, raises them still.
Women may scale climbing walls: the bleakest mountains
Which is laudable when closing on three score and ten.
But women don’t climb trees. Somehow it isn’t right.
This very same taboo is settled on we older men.
Today, none near to see, I fell prey to the urge.
High in the leafy crown toyed with by wind, we met.

Sweet Revenge

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

…………………………..

See the gentle dental nurse
Who’s one idea of bliss is
Drilling right into the nerves
Of my canine incissors.

I bear it all with stoic calm:
With fortitude and grit.
Just wait I’ll get my own back soon
When she tells me to spit.
…………………………………..
Te Kopuru School Dental Clinic
early 1960s.

That

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Once more Room Six is called down from its vocal heights
To note exam-like silence from beyond the linking door.
Room Seven! Academic saints, young paragons, teacher’ delights
Exemplify the standards to be strived for. It seems sure
That Room Six falls well short of such an eminence.
Brash, loud, and easily distracted from the task in hand
But I must plead a sweet simplicity in their defence
And generosity with hugs, prime currency in any land.

That Cloud

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

If I remember it, it must be true
That cloud with palm trees on its shore,
A castle on its ice-cream uplands,
People crowding to its edge to wave.

Yes! It was long ago. Yes! I was three.
But threes can see things grown-ups cannot see,
Know the world has wonders, sense the magic
And the little people, shy, at vision’s fringe.

Couched in the long grass, in the insect world,
Like me they saw it. The wee folk that is.
A sudden awestruck silence then the hum
Of converse. “See it?” “Yes of course! I’ve eyes!”

The Backyard Miracle

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A miracle’s occuring in my yard. A butterfly has laid an egg.
New life in its most basic state. A knocked-down kit complete in every part.
This single cell has, nested at its core, extremely comprehensive plans
Finely reduced to micro-micro-dot. The cell divides, one, two, four, eight,
Then thousands, each one carrying the duplicated plans. Work’s underway.

Cells differentiate and, by some mutual agreement, are assigned
To take whatever form and fill whatever place the structure then requires.
Such skillful project planning, parts arrive at need, flawless, exact amounts.
On time, the membrane ruptures to unveil the product of this careful work.
A yellow, white, and black machine whose only purpose is to eat and eat.

The Castle Cat Bar

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Outside the women cluster on the footpath
Before time
All filled with longing, yearning for their love
Sweet faithful ethanol

Balked by that barracade of wood and glass
The hotel door
Balked by insistence on a rigid law
For opening time

At last, when doors to paradise spring wide
There comes the push
And loud bids vie to gain the bar’s attention
That first jug or nip

Then, title-rights to customary tables claimed
First glass
And in that moment their love consummated
Satisfaction

The Comforter

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s dark in the assembly bay.
The launching’s still some days away.
Hydraulic rumbles mute the thump
Of the buildings primary pump.
The vessel rising on the slips
Moves tiny hand to tiny lips
And, giving hint of what’s to come,
Opening wide pokes in its thumb.

Twelve years find this self-same lad
Hooked on the habit just as bad.
No scolding, bribe or finger stall
Has been of any use at all.
When tiredness comes or stress is there
A forefinger winds up his hair
With index finger round his nose
Into his mouth that thumb still goes.

The Cradle of the Young Achievers

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We have no failures on our roll.
Don’t know the meaning of the word.
‘Each one a winner/ that’s our goal.
Some call it cant but that’s absurd.

How do your pupils fare in external examinations?

Exams! Why put them under stress?
Such competition blights the soul
Of those who can’t quite find success.
We strive to make our pupils whole.

Then how do you assess their academic advancement?

Assessment? We don’t interfere.
Each moves ahead at his own pace,
Approved, accepted. We’re just here
To guide the flowering of our race.

The Fall

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Good grief! Has marriage rung this change in three short years?
Immaculate head-turner into this coarse drab. Who
Would have thought it possible? The covert smears
Spread wide by shaded rivals turn out to be true.

A town’s attention seemed the due of such as she,
A proud high-stepper making all the background fade,
Painted, coiffured, and polished to extremity.
Trans-am to Trabant distance from this sway-backed jade.

She’s helped me carry in their T.V. set. Her smell
So acrid, not the time of month or recent sweat
But grave fumes sounding personal pride’s death knell.
Night’s come. The once-resplendent sun has firmly set.

The Guys Upstairs

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’d like to know who really runs my mind.
Who was it put those sadists on the night desk?
My tortured bladder trunk-calls, “Water-works here Central.
Wake this fella up, toot sweet! I’m bustin!”
But do they wake me up? What do you think?
It’s what they’re waiting for. They rub their hands.

The blighters have me wake in virtual reality.
Wake in an ever changing house that rambles over acres.
And where’s the nearest toilet? No-one’s there to ask.
A million doors to raise my hopes, each turns the knife.
With many labelled ‘TOILET’ but not so.
Their plumbing’s been ripped out. They’re filled with junk.

The Joys of Second Childhood

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

SECOND CHILDHOOD. 8\03\02
We were two older couples with our grand-kids at the beach
The children playing safely in the shallows within reach.
Running short on conversation, tired of sitting keeping watch,
We marked out squares, we chose our stone, we played hopscotch.

Training in agility for Roman troops in Britain started it.
Their children copied dad, cut down the pitch, made rules to fit.
The game spread to the continent, from there conquered the world…and
Came to reach its greatest heights on our firm strip of sand.

The Morning Light

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The grand illusions faded and the tide of British red turned back.
God-given rights and duties now revealed as self-bestowed,
Steel-backed benevolence as underpinned with unacknowledged greed.
Yet Albion’s shadow leaves a blight on many lands.

Poor Victoria! Imperialist warmonger. What wrongs done in her name,
What glib assurance given and treaties signed though scarce fulfilled.
The heirs of those who promised much, while yet extracting more,
Retreat now back within their walls eschewing all responsibility.

The Near-perfect Husband

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The house itself gave warning in some strange and subtle way
His fingers on the door knob sensed its feelings of dismay.
That the house’s structure could convey the possibility
Of death within, he had no doubt. And yet, how could that be?
His wife, it had to be his wife, had seemed much brighter,
More decisive somehow, in the morning when he left her.
Was she just out and did misreading of the emptiness
Give force to latent fears? A forlorn hope and believed less
And less, as silent rooms, now much more clean and tidy
Than recent months had seen, conveyed their sad finality.
He found the spa pool warm as was the body of his wife
Head sunk in water red from savaged wrists that drained her life.

The Night Belongs to Me

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Camp bed hard against the wall beyond the reach of weather.
Open verandah. Farm house.
Parents and siblings, dead inside their wooden mausoleum,
Await a resurrection with the dawn.
Out here the night’s alive with sights and sounds and smells.
The night is mine.

Cock calls to cock across the reaches of the Kaihu Valley.
Dog answers distant dog.
Pukekos in the swamp conduct a family disagreement.
Hens mutter in their sleep.
Somewhere a steel coffin grumbles forward in a pool of light.
These sounds are mine.

The Real Music Lovers

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Auckland Town Hall, sixties, National Orchestra.
I’m sitting front row, right-wing balcony,
The program’s safe, trite, easily digested.
The standard fare for summer matinees.
Beethoven, Hadyn, Schubert, all good stuff,
But from the interval things go amiss.

They throw at us a piece by Douglas Lillburn
A work a world away from lolly-pops.
This step beyond the classics and romantics,
Begs close attention, effort on our part.
It’s fresh, rewarding, but just to the few,
And shuffling feet and unrest soon intrude.

The Uneven Yoke

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She rued the day she married Jim.
Whatever had she seen in him?
He’d seemed to be her dashing prince,
Her destiny, but ever since
‘Twas all too clear he was, in truth,
Insensitive, bovine, uncouth.

But, luckily, the children were
True intellectuals like her.
Artistic, musical, and proud
To soar above the common crowd.
These qualities Jim could not share.
He was the cross they all must bear.

In public sure to bring them shame,
Quite heedless of the family name.
His manners gauche and unrefined.
Yet all their hissed asides combined
Got nowhere. Always he seemed bent
On causing them embarrassment.

The Victor

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The tyrants gone , his dreams of conquest thwarted for this year.
His cadres will regroup, return anew, but have no fear.
Think how valiantly you fought, his forces couldn’t breach your wall.
Your branches wrestled with a Sumo Wind and took no fall
And when his icy missiles fell, hail, sleet, and lashing rain
You sank a little with each blow but, uncowed, stood erect again.
Though all the elements allied to force his sovereighty
They found in you their match, my pround unconquerable tree.

The Voracious Skip

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘My next move after this is going to be the nursing home,’
He tells the sympathetic woman on her morning walk. But….
The skip says more.

Late master of his house to mere border in his son’s.
From large house to one room in town. Convenient perhaps
But first step down.

For years his glass has gulled him with still-youthful looks
Though termite age has mined below deceptive intact surfaces
Now giving way.

The Winter Fold

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A foundling egg left on a milkweed doorstep
To never know its mother or near kin.
And foundlings all the future generations
Each questing north, vanguard of burgeoning spring.
Their every action programmed, automatic
Begs question then. Could memory be inherent?
Each egg bear imprint, area, grove, tree?
For later, summer over, autumn southing,
Late generations follow, southing too
And find that very grove, that tree in Mexico
To aestivate, endure, a future for their race.
Salmon ‘home’ to where they hatched. Birds follow birds
But Monarchs ‘home’ to somewhere that they’ve never known.
So could it be that HE who made this fragile flock
Calls home these wandering children to this fold.

The Yard Grows Light

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

D-DAY Rewritten a sonnet Nov 98

THE YARD GROWS LIGHT……
The yard grows light now. Night will not belay.
The brightening rooftops catch refulgent dawn
And through the looming trees one single ray
Attenuated sprawls across the lawn.
Somehow these last few months have slipped away
While friends and I to Bacchus paid our dues.
And now comes with the sun that fatal day
That predicates my future win or lose.
My frantic task has seen this whole night out.
As coffee cups and ash tray indicate.
While scattered books and papers raise their shout
To chide me for this study left too late.
My lack of in-depth knowledge I may fake.
My greater problem! Can I stay awake?

Through the Valley of Temptation

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Remember now, no chocolate bars or things not on that list
Enjoined my darling wife as I departed and we kissed.
“What me? I’ll be a rock,” I said, “As blind as blind can be
To every blandishment that supermarket throws at me.

Her disbelief was patent as I headed for the door.
Beneath her breath she muttered that she’d heard that one before.
From her! Beloved of marketers, a puppet in their dance,
Piling goods into her trolley with her eyes glazed, in a trance.

Time as a Cure

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘Time cures all ills’. Perhaps it may
Yet Time’s a slow physician.
Supporting which I’d have you note
The threatening condition
In Ireland all these years from Cromwell’s day.
World around, the same position,
Late colonial ambition
Left fest’ring wounds that will not go away.

Who’s to blame? That’s not my brief.
And it’s really my belief
That time can make the rights and wrong quite blurred.
The past, to be sure,
Has a lot to answer for
But the way we treasure grievance is absurd.

To a Cock Sparrow

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Little bird, I like your cheek
As closer, closer still, you seek
My fragments, though retreating at a glance.

My friend, you need no striking hue.
Your work-day drab will more than do.
You’ve style that no adornment could enhance.

Now your competition’s come
Fighting you for every crumb.
Hey! Manners! You’re as bad as all the rest.

Though your life may seem so free
To the poor earth-bound like me
Perhaps there can’t be life without contest.

To the Editor

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Sir, what’s happened to our years? We’ve been shortchanged.
There’s no guts in them now and very little heart.
When I was younger years were years and so arranged
That weeks and months were endless, birthdays aeons apart.
The things that you could do in just one day back then
People now would not believe. Devaluation,
That’s the problem. All our woe stems from that day when
Britain moved her currency from gold. That nation
Caused a sharp decline. The goods these days don’t last long,
Not beyond the guarantee, and you can’t fix them.
All the old songs live and yet the modern hit song
Tends to wilt in days, promoters must re-mix them.
It’s all this rush, rush, rush. Days now are mini-size.
No time for decent workmanship, that’s what I hold.
You reads the morning paper and to your surprise
It’s lunchtime. The solution? Obviously GOLD!
Backing the Gold Standard, we’d see how business hums.
New longer days, ten days a week, they’d do the trick,
Make exports, jobs, and get young fellas of their bums
The Beehive Boys may scoff, but then, they’re BLOODY THICK.
Yours,
Richard.

To You Johnny

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘CLASS: NEW ENTRANTS. 1939.’
That’s us Johnny.
The cheeky-looking ones on the end.
Caste into a cruel world at five.
‘The cuts’ supplied by Miss Dureau.
No play-way those days. Eh?

Look at us. We’d made it. We were big.
Standard Six, of course, were MASSIVE.
And yet as time propelled us up.
They shrank in both authority and size.
And, reaching the heights,
We found them to be us.
Those were the formative years Johnny.
Huge chunks of you were welded into me.

Too Late

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She doesn’t know me anymore, this wife of fifty years.
The house of flesh, once comely, always vital, stands bereft
Of mistress, yet not all my prayers nor my unmanly tears
Can breach that vault where wit has flown to raise the one who left.

And does it wait for me, this same returning to the crib?
Though would I know or care? For clearly it would assuage
This grief, this guilt. But no! The soiled bed-linen and the bib
Do not bear thinking of. Please God, let death erase my page.

Tops

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

15/3/02

TOPS.
She’s sought me out this lady who abused me on the phone
Back when we’d both been dragged into a custody dispute.
Her sister being ‘perfect’ my side had to be alone
At fault which caste me ’trouble maker’, ’twister’, ’liar’, ‘brute’.

Three quarters of an hour she chewed my ear. I kept my cool,
Did not reply in kind, remained polite. That rubbed her raw.
‘I was laughing at her—making it a joke and her a fool.’
No chance to reason with her. My attempts inflamed her more.

Toward a Brighter Future

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There are people in this world who actually like cats
And that is sad. It’s a curious obsession that’s
Long overdue for serious attention. Perhaps,
This year, moves can be made to rectify this lapse.

Cats are so demanding, totally self-centred parasites.
Their personal comfort comes before all else. The rights
Of others not even considered. Faithful they are not.
They smarm around you when they want something but that’s your lot.

Trains

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

18/6/06

DOWN WITH DIESELS.

The bell rings in the signal box.
That means the train’s left Henderson
And Master Four, an expert, knows the drill.

He checks the signals are set right.
Yes! Signal man comes down the steps
With tablet for exchanger. Four approves.

And then it’s watch and wait. Eyes right.
Interminable wait. An age.
A distant smoke plume. Nearer whistle shriek.

Then charging up for its grand entrance.
Self important. Screeching brakes.
A REAL train, smoke, steam, hot smell, smuts.

Trisomy 21

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

(DOWN’S SYNDROME)

Among the nicest people on this earth,
With qualities we well could emulate,
Though sadly disadvantaged from their birth
They still display a gentle caring trait.

And if this same concern our actions shaped,
Would we have broken homes, kids on the loose,
Or wars, and would we see our planet raped?
We stand condemned and wanting for excuse.

True Justice

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Your honour, members of the jury,
I’m sure you’ll understand my clients fury
When for an afternoon with love he toiled
Only to have his masterwork despoiled.
Steak and kidney pudding, food of kings,
His flatmates only being used to things
Like Big Macs, chips, Kentucky Fried,
Their culinary crassness cannot be denied
But to excuse them surely it does not
Their mothers too must answer for a lot
Denying sons this epicurian delight.
My client was resolved to set this right.

Unanswerable

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Set in a mould soon after birth
And damaged by a winning strategy
She flies off to bizarre extremes
Should family even seem to disagree.

“You hate me, don’t you? Wish me dead
Out of your way. I should have realised
That nothing I can do will ever please.
For what thanks do I get? Just criticised.”

She spews her bile with endless variations
Unfounded are her charges but no joke.
Fire-faced her anger, crockery, fists fly
‘Til hubby fears she’s going to have a stroke.

Uppity Female

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She could lie. She had to. She was loyal.
As secretary to ‘Head of Procurement’.
Excuse and cover-ups were just the norm.
Things left undone and he’d be missing somewhere,
Discussing golf, dissecting last week’s round.
And with him knackered from a heavy night,
She’d keep the world at bay and mother him

She could organise. And that was by default.
Competition forced a move to ‘Just in Time’.
With bought-in parts arriving on the hour.
No large inventory to take up slack.
No leeway anymore to make mistakes.
Frustrating detail fell into her lap.
He saw the BROADER sweep as his forte.

We Never Touched

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I love a woman dead these thirty years.
Wife of another man.
Ours not a hot and panting love,
And never courtship,
But a chaste affection
For we never touched.
Yet by some strange convergence
We became soul siblings
Open to each other, sans facade
And trusting without limit.
Love quietly understood,
Needing no words,
Resists time’s fading.

Web Building

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A spider occupies the seat beside me in the terminal.
Our morning flight’s delayed. We’re grounded here for now.
His sharp appearance, suit, tie, polish, all for business,
Shouts loud that he is predatory focused on success.
Success, of course, is money. Time is money.
Minutes can’t be wasted. Every tick must earn its keep..
The cell-phone in his hand spins out a sticky thread,
“I’ve just heard something useful and my first thought was of you.”
Again, and yet again through numerous stored numbers,
“I’ve just heard something useful and my first thought was of you.”
The first time it could well be true. Reiteration brands it lie
With me beside to hear. No shame to him apparently he’s networking,
He’s selling. The acknowledged good, where everybody wins.

Whatever I Did I'm Sorry

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Tell me please what I’ve done wrong.
I’m only four years old.
What did I do to raise your ire,
To draw your bombs and cannon fire,
At least I should be told.

Must be ‘cause I misbehaved
That Daddy had to fight.
I’ve heard a whisper that he’s dead,
Out in the desert, so they said.
‘Stoo late to put that right.

What I’ve done must be quite bad
To cause this misery.
No power, no food, no medicine,
And mother’s getting thin as thin
And all because of me.

Whipping Boy

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She’s lost all of her money
As I said she would
And now she’s adamant it’s all my fault.
I told her that it was a scam
Right from the very start
At least a dozen times or more.
She claims just two or three
And now denies her fury
At my slandering that ’lovely man’
Quite angrily in fact.
She grudgingly admits she wouldn’t listen
But
She still feels I’m entirely to blame
Because
I should have MADE her listen.

Written for Television

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The war has stopped for a commercial break.
A jaded world puts score cards down to make
Some supper. Fifty million toilets flush.

Without a doubt T.V. has come of age,
Allowing all to share the battle’s rage
Through satellite and telephoto lens.

Each telling blow and every young life spent
Honoured with instant replay and comment
To make this Roman holiday complete.

Impatient now, the high-tech hounds of doom
Stand leashed until transmission can resume.
But first…..this message from our sponsors.