New Stuff
Here are some new, previously unpublished poems.
Stuff I’ve written recently.
Some stuff even The Lovely Ali hasn’t read yet.
Imagine.
January
Parka fur freezes into hedgehog spikes
Breath burns, fog thickens
Dark when you wake for work
Dark when you get home
The best place on the bus
Is the back seat over the engine
The sun recedes into myth
Despite the ongoing Balticness
Snowdrops push upward
Through the permafrost
Snow falls in lazy pirouettes
But, like an angry divorcee
It will never settle
Butterflies Everywhere
A borboleta blockbuster
Stop motion snow angels
In Rorschach symmetry
I could tell you what
They remind me of
But
I’d have to kill you
Butterflies everywhere
Random choreography
Dancing in the air
Hit the mark every time
Drunk flowers
lose their lustre
On to the next and on
To the next
And on
Butterflies everywhere
Icing sugar pollen
Dusting twiggy limbs
Air kissed wings
Flicker and nip and tuck
Pausing for another slug
Another deep draught
Of sweet sweet nectar
Butterflies everywhere
Clockspring proboscis
A treble clef unwinds
Recognises melody
Weighing scales
Not to scale
Antennae twitch
Questing for a signal
Chaos theory
In practice
Butterflies everywhere
Marshmallow laughter
Crowding her mouth
In silent hysteria
Sheaves and reams
Of neat, thin pinions
Beating, beating
A gummy shield
A flimsy concertina
I’ll name that tune
In no time at all
Butterflies everywhere
Lepidoptera powdering
Featherweight blanket
All over and under her
Shimmering, breathing
A Mexican wave of wings
Evaporates in startled escape
Leaving nothing but
Ephemeral iridescence
A shining, still life
Absurd
Sunday
Bloody Sunday
Gruff cough of hunter’s gunday
So many clustered, repeated reports
Like they missed the first lesson
Of Caçadores Um-Zero-Um
Surely the quarry would be alerted
Disconcerted and dispersed by
This cacophony of cracks and claps?
If I were a hunter
But then again, no
I have never handled a handgun
Or a rifle, wielded any kind of weapon
Outside of a pocket knife my wife’s
Mother gifted one Christmas
And don’t get me wrong
I use it for opening packages
Not people
If I were a hunter
I would not be a hunter
I could not be a hunter
The concept of a killing shot
A killer is something I am not
And despite this, I still eat meat
Pale pink plastic packaged poultry
Mostly - of course I cook it first
I’m not a monster
Back to Sunday
In my half-awake state
I am the escaping prey
A juggernaut javali
Thrashing through the forest
With no pretence of stealth
Trotters outstretched in supplication
I beseech the bewildered hunters
Still the yapping mutts
With a dead eye
Plead for leniency
In guttural tones
Then I’m fully awake
Count my fingers
Absurd
The dream I just had
You would not believe
Unimpressed, she turns away
Shadows
LED lantern hanging swinging
Light white bright brighter than white
Casting hard sharp stark darkness
Shadows with a tangible presence That almost land with a bang
Flattening the solid and soft
Surfaces alike, until chaotically
Indistinguishable, extinguished
Blasting the contrast of ashen ink
Against ochre paperback pages
To virtual unreadability.
And oh the countless times
Unresponsive switches for light
Are flicked uselessly on and off
Off and on and off, accompanied by
Sweary condemnation and
Eventual rueful laughter
And so to bed, unlit, much earlier
Than in more enlightened times
Rain rattles Gene Krupa paradiddles
Wind whips up panic
Plucks at timbers and tiles
Shadows gather and merge
Become one with the black world
Overwhelm sleep.
Lost in Translation
Inarticulated
A jacknifing juggernaut of
Ill-judged
Juddering jocular japes
Nothing so funny as trying
To exhume a dead sense of humour
Don’t know what they’re saying
How they’re saying it
Or why they’re saying
What they’re saying, so
Do we defend their right
Or castigate, castrate, berate?
Who are we, arbiters of matters moral
Umpires or vampires, damp with plasma
Or is it all just a misunderstanding
Demanding abandonment of
Literally critical literary critique
Atavistic political activism
Schisms of rhythms
Disorganising organisms
Attesting to obfuscation
At the final destination
Hopelessly
Lost in translation
This Masquerade
Is a dance
Is a party
It’s an event
It’s creative and it’s arty
Everyone wears masks
So as not to show
What’s really going on
Wearing poker faces
To give away nothing
And take everything in
It’s win-win - or is it?
When we dance
We bow down low
How low can we go
Before we find ourselves
In limbo
It takes more than just two
To tango
It takes a village to raise a child
It takes a city to drive them wild
Takes a country to put them in their place
Wearing someone else’s face
The police will never trace
Our outlines in chalk
The outline of the plot
The transition
Of our exposition
Through this party
This dance
This ball
The story, whether true
Or false
This masquerade