Your Account Does Not Have Two-Factor Authentication Enabled

 

Your Account Does Not Have Two-Factor Authentication Enabled

 

Well, thank God for that,

because one of these days -

he’s all alone

cover’s blown,

fumbles his phone,

password’s shown,

but - how can I remember that

he sighs -

looks up, takes a bullet 

and dies,

fuck your two factor he cries.

Leaking Tradecraft

 

Leaking Tradecraft

 

Why, it’s been six months,

maybe more,

the postman knocked the door

or would’ve done –

but those days are gone,

just emails marked spam -

he was once wont to knock twice,

you know?

You scowl at the bill,

call them in

to have a meter fitted -

it’s original sin

to be wasteful

in their green utopia, for sure.

So, they came,

poked about with your pipes a bit

gave it the full five minutes,

cocked an ear,

with utmost solemnity declared

shock, horror –

there’s leaks round here.

17 bloody litres a day,

making their way

into your scorched Earth -

well, something’s having a party,

you’d maybe think,

water, water everywhere,

let’s have a bit to drink.

But where?

Where do you think it be?

Matey takes his divining rod,

licks a gritty finger,

points with certainty

at your kitchen floor,

under ceramic tiles,

beneath them warped boards,

with confidence declares

that he’s heard a noise.

And that’s it.

Months pass, until at last

here’s your leaden plumber

of weighty matters,

all creosote coveralls

and putty splatters,

a-gurning and a-frowning,

blowtorch to hand

and in his other

a vicious receipt he plans

to lay upon you

come that happy day,

but – scowls and says –

Oh dear, no leak here,

they’re plumb wrong –

think it’s up your top path,

they're having a laugh

them other lads -

we’ll be back next month,

thereabouts, it's lunch.

No one round here’s grinning

at all those drawstrings

snipped by ruthless cutpurses

and you’d fucking swear

but it does no good to curse –

it’s the UK, fear the worse.

Topological

 

Topological

 

Wait—you mean topical, don’t you?

There’s nothing topical about the M50,

an under-engineered relic connecting

nowhere to nothing much,

targets Wales, misses by miles

and barely offers a hard shoulder to cry on—

 

but look - on account of her—you’re forced

to use it using you or be damned -

I battled their logic for so long,

cursed when I was forced to buy one,

screamed 'turn round, go back, you're wrong',

but was shot for a flushed grouse's song.

 

So, pull from your pocket. Check. Enough.

Mine’s got fluff

that, God willing, might choke the bastard.

 

There are tributaries of messages

feeding estuaries of conrotatory seas—

a confusion of contradictions

you’re made to answer,

each and every one for everyone.

 

Don’t think to block, leave groups,

or invoke the fifth—

that only stirs a hornet’s nest

beneath her beehive:

sent on impulse, on every whim,

on every ill-formed

spark across synapses, thumb-fired,

six or seven already today to every soul.

 

All around her it grows. Forms

from a flick of the wrist, a stab at glass,

an eternal fluid rictus-stream

so thick she’s landscaping it now—

hod-carrying brick by brick,

each post rammed and replies laid in place,

a landscape littered with dour faces,

mutinous whispers, daggered smiles

and putting out a thousand miles.

We’re getting seasick of it,

queasy mariners gripping the gunwales,

sucked off into lost tunnels

as it slowly reshapes itself—imperceptible

cracks become caves, stacks, stumps,

remolding whatever was as once it was.

All around her hat, the debris

of her mind’s eye from her mind flies.

And they—

cartographers of the surveyed—

issue grim diktats, dire warnings,

grey apocalypses from breast-pocket laptops,

scarring terrains, carving their names

into twisted metal, blasted concrete

trod under dust and rubble.

 

Clawed earth while she screamed violated rage,

warned you—but it’s already too late -

all that's left is a psychoscape.

Pronounced Ah-Teh

 

Pronounced Ah-Teh

 

The uneasy silence of ceasefire

and an unseasonal rain of domino spots

swabs the alley’s brick tessellations.

You’re walking with purpose

for lemons – clean out today –

in the shop, four pitted specimens,

no boat docked, so, yesterday’s

and MJ mugs and says, ‘Where Ate?’

while you’re offering to pay.

In bed. Lately, sleep’s hard to grab -

alarms, national alerts, distant booms

that infiltrate bedrooms –

but MJ pouts and rolls her eyes,

‘Bring milk, put egg, put bread,

wake Ate and say, table is ready.’

You nod. It seems reasonable advice,

smile thanks and leave, dodging raindrops.

That evening, Ate puts the grip

on you, over pizza and a bit to drink,

‘If you let me sleep, I’ll bring the stick,’

she promises with a languid wink.

Ipis

 

Ipis

 

I wonder if your cockroach

finds enlightenment

in being – where being is spent,

scuttling from boot to boot,

born to be trod - if it has, indeed

any concept of birth,

death, in-between – often seen

coiled up, crushed, back broke,

prostrate on brick, peddling sky

kerb-crawling corners to die.

Even labels signal fate

in Oceanic spat consonance

or Eastasian soft sibilance -

something filthy shadowed

coming at night, shunning light,

quartered in your cortex.

Here’s a Tom from idle reflex

batting a stray from paw to paw

to pass an otherwise dull hour -

now, imagine, Winston, if you will,

his orange eyes, full of fever

and his boot, stamping forever.

Ever Inwards Outwards

 

Ever Inwards Outwards

 

Thick oily fumes of rumour

choke passages, screw with air,

maybe his files are somewhere out there -

it’s a battle to draw breath

and underneath thinning hair

thatching a liver spot pate

his tumor grows and grows,

issuing direct threats to the frontal lobe -

vogue, let’s get to it, nothing to it,

strike a pose and scalp.

 

Meanwhile at home, accept a plate

of warmed over, leftover

chicken. She’s sweet, he’s sour

wanting nothing so much

as a buttered cod, chips, beer,

she replaces a grim news with a loud cheer

of some nightly Filipina gameshow and -

finish up your food dear.

He’s sulky, rotavates rice with a fork

in push back, doesn’t feel the need to talk,

wishes he didn’t have to walk

the streets of Al Sadd

after she’s washed dishes feeling thrifty.

She secures his wallet with a grin

slips him her arm in

and therefore linked

closing doors, he thaws

because she’s so much smaller than him -

but fierce.

 

That night, the national emergency alarm

keeps him tossing, awake -

shrapnel tumbles upon Muraikh

drawing blood and unsheathing

as his missiles streak the sky unleashed,

drawing cat-claw scratch lines

across night's blackboard

in something like awe and ire,

but in the morning - ceasefire.

Absolutely No Sense of Humour

 

Absolutely No Sense of Humour

 

Oh, my grim-hewed night, oh light so black,

oh, alack, alack, alack.

You - found, wherever day is not,

to borrow a phrase - bloodletting.

Maniac eyes; in the way you drive,

cut up weaklings behind the wheel

in Landcruisers built from far more steel

than is strictly needed. It’s lost

now – from where or which organic soup

your million hordes crawled, which whoop

or flange of baboons, which troop

called you to arms, but here you stand.

Accountable to a strict regimen,

each of you a humourless specimen

of phlegm and yellow bile

forging ahead - top value scrabble tile

ace high straight flush for faces,

any vestige of compassionate trace

barely begot, barely begun, there's none.

This your land of lions,

your scorpion tails,

of blank slates that at wakes leave trails

of paddle-churned pale white whey

pudding spots in forbidding grey –

why, you are fifty years flipped from here

and when our worlds moved on,

your misbegottens were forgotten.

Oh, brave new world that brought forth

such blocks, such stones, such senseless things,

while I buy her diamond rings

and she’s in love with me and - well,

you know – she said so – of course,

so the only advice I’ve left to give

is why not laugh and let them live?

Donlon Gone

 

Donlon Gone

 

I flew in from the West, mostly done,

a crisp packet on the breeze - cheese and onion,

prawn cocktail, marmite or gammon –

these are my favourites, see? Have some.

And they put me up in accommodation,

showed me a local gym,

how to get takeaways delivered by them

poor people - in bags of trays

like your sweet sticky cold coffees,

your burgers, chickens, doughnuts, toffee

flavoured popped chips - left on me doorstep

until my arse is buggered out of bed,

shower with only seconds flat,

grab me drink, make the bus and sit,

shuttled in to work unprepared,

doze in front of twenty kids and stare

hungover at me phone. It's great, dozens of us

with just about enough pay

to - come the weekend - get pissed, you know,

until the money runs out - halfway through

the month, regular as clockwork,

screaming good crack, good crack 

at one in the morning,

having fist fights in the foyer and falling -

if anything’s there it’s nothing that I lack.

Then, one of them declared war on another one,

their loss, that’s me, Donlon gone.

Right Instinct, Wrong Time.

 

Right Instinct, Wrong Time.

 

Well, possibly, now war’s reduced

to white noise, stock footage,

grandstanding talk of an outage

you were moved to comment on -

thoughts return to the humdrum,

like mundane origins.

Here’s a wire bound notebook,

cheap biro, a cold study at his desk.

Conceivably Winter, back’s to the TV

that’s been forever forbidden

due to some forgotten transgression.

No amount of negotiation

will ever rebuild what’s lost,

just simmering resentment to this day,

years and years to count costs.

What will it be? Pick up stick,

and that’s blue ink that comes from it

in fits and starts. You look –

this blot on a copy book,

this misbegotten life,

this scrap to file under surplus requirement.

Yet, imagination’s budding, years unspent

without tools of war, but bent

satirical, angry, composing quixotic lines –

right instinct, wrong time.

The Cous Cous Syndrome

 

The Cous Cous Syndrome

 

There’s a war on,

she’s had a baby, he’s filling in.

There’s a grinding of the secret teeth,

no maternity relief,

procrastination is not the thief –

so, my, my - smile at least.

In the secret circle of suckers

he’s holding forth,

that’s the nature of the beast –

opines ‘Gimme. Gimme bad advice

you ever had - all in the style

of Kipling’s ‘If’’. Sits back, smiles.

But, you know, silence –

they’re unsure, he’s new

and they’re missing Miss, too.

‘When’s she back?

and other ungrateful crap

designed to try the patience

of a pedagogic saint

giving up all his free time

for free. But that’s not the way,

not how it pans out in life,

your saviour the remover to remove.

‘I’ll tell you about cous cous’

says he, ‘from Tunisia,

my advice, never eat it, see?

Just my little joke, kids, sorry!’

An hour later the first complaint,

from your outraged parent,

via Chat GPT

to give it that little punch –

cuts out the thinking,

scarred forever, traumatized 

and if life was skin,

she's permanently blistered.

So, the next day, ‘Where’s Mister?”

Oh, he’s gone, war on.

Utopia

 

Utopia

 

Four weeks -

All it takes, to show

you can’t have both;

how pipe dreams

sink boats.

 

Power from streams

provisional winds -

but what comes of cold

remains cold,

will do so

to the last rage

of a new ice age.

 

It cannot warm

will not prevail

hanging limp, the mains’lls

shiver timbers

with whispers of waste,

and all those ships

that cannot sail

remain in place.

 

Turn you turbines turn

like stroboscopes -

offer us freeze-frames

of better times,

8.3 billion stick silhouettes

dancing minuets,

writing one hundred lines

 

of unions trashed,

closed pits,

rust that clogs the drill bits,

and coal slumbering

deep in seams –

 

remove pumps,

shut off sumps,

let winding engines

wind their last,

with final blast

lay cooling towers to rest -

 

send generals and majors forth,

let whatever will

take its bloody course,

curse your green seas

damn your clear lakes –

 

four weeks is

all it takes.

It’s Said You’ll Suffer The Most

 

It’s Said You’ll Suffer The Most

 

Whether you believe it true

or think it fake

depends on what sleeps beneath your lake -

if you can conjure up huge peaks,

uprearing, looming large

as you boat these waters alone

or not - if you’re scrolling phones.

20 year poor decision, that’s what it takes -

going for second-best seats

the second-most unhappy state -

sticking plasters, pinkies in dykes,

the second-nearest way,  the lookalikes

and just about rights.

Have jungled-up second-rate celebrities,

Love Islands, Big Brothers on TV,

the only way is TOWIE

and vote eviction or don’t vote at all,

austerity and Brexit after all

were pretty good calls

or as near as dammit –

you could sell the second-hand

and shell out billions

on feckless demands

to be tolerant of gender reveal parties.

Do what it was that made your parents feel

that this is just plain common sense,

boy, evicting immigrants,

putting up barbed wire fences,

patrol the white-cliff beaches.

Maggie, where’s your free market now?

Peopled by those tolerant

of diminishing returns.

Who cares? Not him, he’ll leave you to burn

and regard existence on your sidelong screen

as somebody else hurtles ravines.

Strawberry

 

Strawberry

 

She could be blonde, it could be dyed,

like most things that start from the inside

and grow outwards to greet the eye -

Behold her. You might guess Scandinavia,

possibly it has been brushed by Agnetha,

as there’s something going on - but no -

you’d be wrong because she belongs

to Czechoslovakia. It’s The Republic now,

she once insisted, when I was oblivious.

It’s been a tough month for both of us

for her, more than me, you’d guess,

what with war’s constant missile warnings,

school foreclosed, distance learning

imposed a second time this decade.

Age has withered her. There are lines -

some born of stubbornness, others kind,

it is ten years passed since we first met

and she picked me up - so I can forget

that in my heart I made a silent compact

to always protect. I feel I should pass by;

see her bright diamonds twinkle lively

today - for what she does we do – not die.

We smile. Shy. I want to see your lovely face,

I said, candid, thinking of a thousand ships,

and then, to my surprise, she blushed

to her roots. We passed some small talk

about history repeating, the day’s work,

how she snuck to her office, forbidden.

So,  I wondered if you could love so much

that all transgressions could be forgiven

even when her rage will come again,

thoughts can touch, and hearts can mend,

and her husband looking like Santa Claus

passes parcels through a shutting door.

The Basic Problem

 

The Basic Problem

 

Nowadays, people spout ‘reach out’.

it’s been seen going about -

one of those tuppeny ha’penny phrases,

that’s done the rounds a while

tossed off towards the end

of every insincere email sent.

Those with brains recall The Four Tops;

resonance of guttural shouts

that had ten times more integrity;

and meant something.

There’s wellness rooms, too,

if you’re overworked, stressed,

or violently depressed,

boasting scented candles and vibrochairs -

book yourself in, have 20 minutes of throb,

try not to think of Monty Python, Black Rod,

or Wankel rotary engines.

Meanwhile, another batch of undercooked

cookie cutter employees, most of them crooked

or on the make profiteers

with nothing squared between their ears

are heading your way, starstruck,

having been told they're professionals.

The basic problem is people, you see?

solve that, live easy, healthy, free.

A Clink of Lite

 

Clink of Lite

 

Just a ray and a Dreyfus’ eyeball

winking manic then winking out –

nothing more, that’s all

except gob-fulls of spat rhetoric,

but the other side denied it,

never happened, they claimed,

we care less, send your planes.

Door cracking off a quick blink,

oh, yes, you’ll see a glimpse

but they rewrote continuity

in time for ‘Revenge’s’ ambiguity –

he’s banged up in an asylum,

but then, maybe they all should be.

All this is moot, these chinks of light,

Sammy’s not for packing, no sir,

claims of cancelled flights,

domestic arrangements, childcare,

terrible Wi-Fi, honest, he swears

leaving those left over there

to slum it, pick over his traces,

do all that work on his behalf:

you can’t blame him for a last laugh

he’s praying that you’ll be all right -

toasts you with a clink of lite.

Rags and Shags

 

Rags and Shags

 

Watching news, your gaze is held, braced

as if by the locking arms of a service structure

before a rocket launches into space.

When you went to Everton primary,

you’d chafe at the bit for the mobile library,

lend The Big Book of Space and devour it.

Today, they shot frames of a pink deck chair,

abandoned in tatters, cut to it over there -

in amongst the killed concrete.

The deck had gone, hanging incomplete

and as for the fabric – sailcloth, canvas -

well, these artists brush in broad strokes.

Later you watch as a bridge is detonated,

surrounding brush and scrubs decimated,

causing gaudy peacock plumes to rise.

Meanwhile, on a brick littered Corniche

they’re building oilskinned cities of tents,

tarpaulins draped from tailgates, low rent

one ringed stoves slowly boiling over.

There’ll be no school today,

instead, a brother pushes his sister to and fro,

doing the Science, counting sink holes,

contemplating a combustion chamber’s thrust,

delivering its payload, driving aloft,

doing the Math, stirring the dust.

Scission

 

Scission

 

Over there you say being over here’s

too high a price to pay, too severe,

and talk of war zones, missiles, drones

send messages on your iPhones.

It’s all over International Sky News

journalists and pundits’ informed views

as long as it includes ordinary blokes,

UK interest, like this bird’s fat folks

whose flight was grounded. Stranded,

I’ll bet wishing they’d never landed -

after a while Al Jazeera’s a better bet

than listening to recycled shitheads.

I’m waiting at signals by The Corniche,

after casting for sheirii - that’s fish -

caught zero, bugger all - but it's fine

sitting under the rising sun, passing time.

My mind’s elsewhere, of course

in case there’s an alarm; deadly force

arcing overhead. I’m there pondering

fate, how you’d said I’d be squandering

everything when I put it behind me

coming here, then, by accident I hear

you gossiping incidents ten years prior.

Know what I think? Life must be dire

indeed, if that’s all there’s left to fire

up engines. What's kept is meaning less

as we’re getting older, shorter of breath:

when you retire, you said you’d travel.

Well, fine. Just leave me here to unravel

the dullness in your thoughts that drone;

I’ll happily reap this whirlwind alone.

Your Ordinary Citizens

Your Ordinary Citizens

 

Have not had a break in such a long time,

shoplifting’s on the rise,

a victimless crime,

no off-ramp in sight,

and didn’t you vote for Brexit?

 

Headline inflation’s on the up,

something about an oil slump

your prices rising at the pump,

benefit costs of feeding the five thousand invalids,

and didn’t you elect Boris?

 

It’s a profoundly devastating unenviable - a big spike

from your bottom on the rise,

and there’ll be a hike

in mortgages, rents, package holiday flights,

and didn’t you catch Love Island?

 

No comfort at all, post Covid, after Austerity, it’s all in bits,

massive effect of an immediate hit,

your heating bill’s due a bit of a blip,

something to do with geopolitics,

to be honest, you didn’t understand it,

something about existential shit,

and didn’t you vote for Brexit?

Sunday Sunday

 

Sunday Sunday

 

Once upon a time, fifty years ago

when I was younger – well, there was Sunday.

The sullen seventies winds blew

doctrines of unappealing church bells

across dockyards, spiritless syllables

of ancient grizzled undertows.

If you searched, you’d have found us

at Aggie Weston’s Royal Sailors Rest,

Albert Road, for a pound a night or so,

the very place after Saturday at Castaways.

No manic Monday about Sundays then,

in the television room, Brian Walden,

interviewing old, tired men,

Jenkins, Callaghan, Wedgewood Benn,

to Nantucket Sleigh Ride by Mountain,

a year out from Bowie’s ‘Fashion’

which would somehow be the difference.

Maybe you’d avoid a bible study group,

always voluntary, of course,

unless, like a sprat, you were caught,

and, if that was the unhappy case,

prepare your knees for hard talk

for her humble tiled floor was brutal,

keep any look neutral, resistance is futile.

And all the shops were always shut,

repeats of ‘Black Beauty’ or ‘Follyfoot’

not nearly enough to keep

hungry like the wolf from the door

on the hunt for five loaves and fishes -

we'd just scream with boredom, wait,

bristling for matinees at The Drake,

or The Friendship Inn to open,

for just one hour, twelve until one

after sermon’s done; final hymn’s sung

serving cockle shells of vinaigrette prawns

pineapple and cheese, impaled onions

and just half a pint of bitter, please.

I’m glad it’s all over,

my friend, just think yourself blessed

those wretched Sundays are behind us now;

that door bolted and shuttered

unless you are by some means found

in primeval lands of religious nutters.

Dimmer Switch

 

Dimmer Switch

 

You’re driving at night, ignorant,

on some single track with pretensions

to be a trunk road – which, I don’t know –

 

maybe that winding one

skirting Loch Lomond; slippery when wet,

your switchback at Inverbeg,

those ancient potholes of Ardlui

or hidden double dips at Luss -

when, without announcement or fuss,

there’s incoming at full beam on.

 

But you’re pondering, mind wandering

about ancient cultures and heritage sites,

thinking, well, you know,

they weren’t actually that bright,

were they? No wonder they didn’t survive,

neither side;

no one gets out of here alive.

 

Maybe it’s excessive pride

that eventually did for them.

 

Like Michelle once cried:

When they go low, we go high

which is complete bollocks, really,

after all, you tried,

but it trips glibly off the tongue,

when you’re young.

 

Here’s another one.

Football, a matter of life and death,

he assures you.

Defend until your last breath,

then, take a celestial escalator, ascend

like David Niven, remember him?

 

Oh, football’s serious, a battlefield

not a park when those fans are screaming

doctrines like we want revolution,

so here's some for free

have a bit of ideology

knocked into you, boy,

and fisting each other if they get

a wrong line or chant out of step -

mate, they should’ve known better

at their ancient age.

 

Game? Forget it:

You couldn’t see nothing,

in amongst the throttling,

left them at half time to get on with it,

maim each other,

cripple themselves, brother on brother

waving flags, sticking their own eyes out,

until the last gasp of the last shout,

and the ref blew up.

 

But still, all this is really nothing,

a diversion before that onrushing

truck I mentioned

still oncoming and foxes you with headlamps,

one hand a wheelclamp,

the other holds the cards; a strategic bluff

or straight flush

your single track, not wide enough

for passing places or off ramps -

will you extend a middle finger, let it come

or dim your lights from full beam on?

Bracken

  

Bracken

 

From the mountain’s treelined slopes,

to an unmetalled road below,

his fence-line hung in bracken robes

and he said to me, take this scythe,

hack it all back, cut a buffer zone

until the choked barbed wire is revealed,

prepare it from the ground up for repair.

I felt it was a baleful punishment

for sexual encounters, drunken roaming

tripping light fantastics late home

from the village pub, four miles or more

and in the morning my head, sore,

a dehydrated throat begging water, water.

I looked at his offered sickle

in disdain – he had other slaughter

at his disposal, chainsaws, poisons, killers

that could bust bunkers, let alone weeds

and could be put to lively use.

I shrugged in spite, let loose

with that little something, spilling juice,

determined to prove the bastard wrong

and even while my head ached

put my back into it, for venom’s sake,

carving his bidden, bloody path.

Soon, in victory, all was revealed,

barbed wire, tempered steel

but I noted, as I beat down hot strokes,

the damage to his undergrowth,

holding in my sweaty palm

those flowers that did little harm.

Later, noting his fence never was fixed,

I saw new bracken reconquer it.

My Credit With You

 

My Credit With You

 

We've had lovers who defended slippery ground,

planted flags; built their motte and bailey there -

constructed from a slightest touch without sound,

lash-lowered looks, all flicks of unkempt hair -

we let down the drawbridge to broach the moat.

while they sang Take me as I am, forget about her,

in hints of Dionne Warwick’s ‘Wives and Lovers’

but later we both came to regret our affairs.

We thought we'd definitely secured the boat,

backchecked clues, talked not quite lies, alibis,

yet it seems once our Rubicon’s crossed,

all we thought was ours was lost,

and looking forwards, how can each of us trust

in slick sidepieces that have already cheated?

Now let’s candidly demand further escorts,

once more unto the breach, summoning force -

but our credit now stands on such slippery ground

that in these wretched ways we're perceived:

either cowards or flatterers that always deceive.

The Plate of Hummus

 

The Plate of Hummus

 

Behold a postured plate of chickpea hummus,

swimming lucent thick in olive oil

no dregs here, not your common pomace,

no skins, seeds, pulp, stems

but this is built from high grade virgin

and ground sesame tahini in light beige,

khaki or charcoal black, in gluts

that threaten to overspill this chinaware.

You could send some through there,

but where the kuboos, where the breadsticks,

what mode of transport - chopsticks?

On dishes at 270 degrees to port,

doughballs congregate, flatbreads caught

sitting in breadcrumb flotillas for crows to peck,

squabble over, guard it jealous or court,

but at obverse angle, you’ve come up short,

bare ramekins, hollow vessels for toothless gums:

a drum, a drum - The Trencherman comes.

Net Zero

 

Net Zero

 

Net Zero, Cancel Culture, Operation Greenfly,

no petrol engined cars in 2035 -

Bernard Manning’s toast and marmalade

is in those little racked triangle displays -

if you’re a Bay City Roller, be very afraid

and surely Reggie Perrin once blacked up,

Rigsby’s magic love wood sticks, interrupted

with lustful cries of Miss Jones, Miss Jones.

Oy, yoi, yoi, you with ologies, scrolling iPhones

while overseas, not too far from here,

the stage is set and we’ll impose our ideals yet,

close your strait and mine your ocean

because I’ve got a notion, suntan lotion

has your actual emulsion base, part oil

so spread it on your hot peeled skin, baby,

and while you’re boiling, we’ll send the navy.

Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth

from within the Great Barrier Reef

and beyond – Westward, Calendar, Look East,

they said wind turbines would bring relief,

geothermal and hydroelectric is where it’s at

photovoltaic solar farms and other crap,

see what brave new worlds have brought you,

your tankers hove-to, dead in the water,

they're lying becalmed, but where’s the harm?

The Last Post

 

The Last Post

 

Middle hours of the night, 

let's throttle and thrash

head over heel, pull thin sheets

which combat mosquitos

but escalate heat

until all’s sticky,

wake each morning with headache

and wonder if 

today could be the last post.

 

The odds in favour? Infinitesimal.

The odds against are strong

and yet who knows if 

this warning klaxon

or next thunderclap 

could be the final one -

a last trump, a bugle long.

There’s always that chance;

what you thought you knew is gone

and dreams come deep

as dawn's shadows creep.

 

Last night you dreamt of John,

resurrected within admiring throng,

signing copies, quintessential

while Dylan chewed 

from cold cups of stewed lentils,

a red dal – boiled cheap

into sticky thick red heaps

a plague upon snatched sleep.

A Good Kicking

 

A Good Kicking

Admit that part of you is exultant
when a good kicking is gifted to truculent
bastards with inflexible views.
The end-user has become the used –
bloody, pulped nose received,
swollen, purpled bruising neutralizes eyelids,
rendering opaque what once was clear,
thick lips stopper words from eager ears
like keeping oil in the bottle
or gas in the pipes.

Think boxing, think bare-knuckle fights—
like that time George Sweeney let fly
his fists in Funchal with silent cry
over your two competing ideologies,
the liberal versus the National Front,
and you thought the bastard worth a punt,
but all it took was one swift punch
and you were down in dust and gash.

Bested, a savage battering, thrashed—
your left eye never the same;
to this day it weeps in remembrance’s name,
recalling innocent friends caught in flak,
their horror at this surprise attack
that came out of thin air. 

When it was over, his arm round your shoulder,
he says—you fought like a tiger—softly,
but kept his views intact and attitude frosty,
until what it was was forgot.

After the fury and the shock
came stratagems and a simmering pot
that never quite over-boiled but brewed—
to stew an element of surprise,
for if opponents do survive,
what is knocked down will always rise.