Category: Poetry

I began writing poetry as a teenager and never stopped. I read poetry, my all-time favourites, are Marina Tsvetaeva from Russia and well, dozens of others.

Children How Can I Feed You

Children how can I feed you
The hirers and firers are closed
Children if you are starving
I’ll let you eat my toes

Children I know you are hungry
But your father has no wheat
I cannot bake my bread for you
So I’ll let you eat my feet

Children you are thinner now
And I’ve been out to beg
I’ve not been granted a halfpenny
So I’ll let you eat my leg

Children will you ever grow
How do I give you a better start
Take out your knives and forks my pets
I’ll let you eat my heart

Children I am nothing now
I have nothing left to give
I’m going far away now so
You’ll have a better chance to live

The Cold Grey Skies of New Year’s Eve

Under the cold grey skies of New Year’s Eve
She walks like a giant shadow shimmering against the sky
In her hands raindrops grasp for air
The silent air pensive with rage

Under the cold grey skies of the Millennium’s end
All the loves in her heart are crying
There are tears amongst the rotten fruit?
There are wooden horses in the shadows

The cold grey skies hide the sun and stars
Hopes rise from the black inky depth of dark dreams
A quiet pain tickles her heart with an unknown song
As tumbling golden words roll through the spirit world

The cold grey skies begin their transformation
Soon the ghostly empty summer shadow will take flesh
The heat of the new century is to be braved
The lure and the light of love is to be conquered

My words are cold like brittle ash
They fade before me like the words of the dead
The cold grey skies are quietly alone
They look through my eyes without conclusions

In the old Millennium, she is an actress in a bar
Repeating her performances to the cheers of drunks
The wine flows like blood between tables and chairs
The mirrors are steamed up and no one can see

The cold grey skies of the Millennium’s end
Are the same grey skies of many a winter
But the greatest men have set down their running blocks
The great men have made their chalk marks on the field

The new age will end the old age
The old memories the old world will have to go
Then the cold grey skies will be free
Free from the reflections in an old man’s eyes

1999

The Spirits Follow You through the New Year

The spirits follow you through the New Year
Tower Bridge beckons you with a wall of flame
Above the light of the fireworks the night is a slow piano
The stars are sad singers above the blast of gunpowder

I have joined the stars this day
Where no one will see me
Hiding behind the veils of the winter sun
Where nothing can touch me

The spirits are laughing at your absence
They who razed and misled the leaders
That sailed down the river with a warships salute
And even the captain could not see or stop them

I have joined the invisible stars
No one sees me now
Invisible above the daylight and clouds
Where nothing can hurt me

The spirits are as free as feral cats now
They are not grateful for their release
They may come back to get you
You who ignore all the warning signs

I have joined the bright little stars
Come nearer and I am an unquenchable fire
Floating forever above the earthen skies

Plummeting Bird

Plummeting bird
Wings at your side
Hit by a missile
In the countryside

What is your evil?
That you must die
Yet never a tear
In your little bird’s eye

Did you struggle with angels?
And lose the fight
Do they take your wings?
And your power of flight

Plummeting bird
Who flew above Queens
Plummeting bird
Who flew above dreams

Plummeting bird
My oh my
Falling to earth
How well you die

With plumage like fire
That lights up the sky
Falling to earth
How well you die

Plummeting bird
With a dove in your claw
That flies to freedom
Before you hit the floor

Astarte

Astarte here comes your first Easter sacrifice
Dragging a crucifix across the old Market Square
Salvation Army band beating a military drum
Through the wet April morning, but nobody cares

A thin young man with long blond hair
White shirt hanging loosely down
Carries the old wooden crucifix
As working-class people walk around
Not taking any notice, not feeling any pain
Just shopping for groceries in the rain

Astarte here comes your second Easter sacrifice
With a cross dragged along by the Festival Hall
A folk Rock Band plays Irish reels
As tourists and culture vultures call

There is no Christ here that I can see
He is obscured by the smiling, dancing crowd
Who would pick up his cross for him here?
The music played is very loud

The actors are wearing proper Roman tunics
The drama is free but the coffee is dear

Astarte I know what’s been lost and what’s been fixed
You can’t fool me with your game
And if your thousand Christ’s and their crosses
Entertain a lost world now, then who’s to blame?

Fireworks were exploding

Fireworks were exploding in the darkness outside
That mirrored the empty seat between us
I removed my old hard shoes so damaged by wear and tear
But even this removal was not enough

My own weight was making me sink
My voyage through life is but one more hard shore
I pulled a tape measure out of a bright night star
It showed me the length of time
Between the food on my plate and the Arena swept clean
For the blood and bones of my love

“And you the softest of all night stars,
Light without body, how you dazzle my eyes
Your milk-white face shimmers in my soul like a jug of moonlight”.

The moonlight that night was centred in a muddy halo of colours in the sky
The clouds were smoke kicked up by the horses of the apocalypse
They had passed by behind the cloud mass and left a trail of sparks
Anyone of which could set the world ablaze

There are so many doors through your soul
So many teeth that words are cut through with

The tablecloth covered over the Grey dust of the hotel you were given as a home
Peppermint grew through the weave with the taste and smell of its delicate leaves

There under it’s scented leaves that filled the kitchen
Your eyes were soft as fresh bed linen
You were as motionless as a flytrap in the shadow of the moon

I Hear the Moon Sing

I hear the moon sing
But I see the sun cry
As your naked body begins to fly

I follow dressed in black
With the diary of your bed
With the little white angels
Who were your best bedspread

But down in your grave
Go the museum bones
The flocks of your sheep
And an old vixens moans

While you tidy your room
And comb out your hair
Did you know it was my body
They really buried in there

Yes did you know it was my body
They really buried in there