Alarm

Seagulls swim and squawk
In the grey shadow sky
Wingbeats pound like the gallows drum
Exploding like an express train
From the night tunnel

Beaks like headlights in your eyes
Poke through the membranes
Pecking their way to the nerves
And blinding you into wakefulness.

Now the alarm chirrups
Like a goading lark
Mocking you into the morning.

Myths

Ruminating
Over biting off more than I can chew
Heavy thoughts of burdens
Being careful
About responsibility.

The unknown
Is an unexplored jungle
Full of thought-terrors
The unexplained corners
Of our imaginations.

What are the odds on a gamble?
Fear
Or is it consolidation?
My mind can conjure
Whatever myths I decide.

Dippy

It bared it's teeth at me and sang
Of a world long past
A history that not even memory could withold
A time surpassed and guessed at
By men with trowels and toothbrushes
Digging and scraping
At the no-longer-bones that were longer
Than anyone had seen before.

It spoke of wildness and wilderness
Thunder-hoofing the horizons
And roaring the sunsets to oblivion
And though not bones
They were imagination
No more real than the cardboard fort
But still the smells shone through.

It grew smaller over the years
No longer awed overhead but at eye-level
But still it sings like a giant in my heart
Striding back to the remembered past
Of childhood and inspiration
And something far older
That was a forever away.

Inbox

Like an overgrown garden full of weeds

Or an aging pond, in which algae now feeds

A box filled attic room of clutter

Unwanted mosses overflowing the gutter

A chemical fuelled body requiring a detox

The post holiday junk to be purged from my inbox

Weekends

Where do the weekends go?
Flashing by briefly like
Bluebells in the Spring
A riot of colour in contrast
To the black and white week
Leaving behind a grassy glade.

Where do they go?
Like sudden Summer showers
Washing away the grime and dirt
Of the week's pleasureless desert
To be thrust back in
To the desolate dunes.

Where?
Like the fleeting beauty of Autumn leaves
Turning the trees to rainbows
Before a Sunday night fall
Exposes the stark skeleton
Of the working week's branches.

They pass from
Winter's warming blanket
Of sparkling snow
To the raw thaw
Of Monday mornings
And drowning like swollen rivers
They drift down to the sea
To be swallowed
With those that have gone before.

That's where the weekends go.

London

The smells and the sights
The shapes and the lights
The ups and the downs
The paupers and the crowns

The straights, curves and narrows
The pigeons, crows and sparrows
The bells ringing loud
The crush of the crowd

The gives and the takes
The ponds and the lakes
The wildernesses green
The enclosures unseen
The homes and the houses
The live-ins, the spouses

The foods and the drink
The safety and the brink
The ebbs and the flows
The sucks and the blows

The hopes and the fears
The tragedies and tears
The life and the death
The first and last breath

Winter

Contrails scour the sky
Tinged with raspberries and cream
On a blue background

The air is stillness
Frost growing on the meadows
Crystal sparkling grass

Thickening cold seeps
Branching from my fingertips
Numbed and chilly hands

Dreams of buttered toast
And warmed duvets snuggle safe
On a Winter's morn

Chocked

Two trains missing and the next one chocked
Corridors heaving and the doorways blocked
Pushing and shoving, both in and out
'Can you move down please'? Someone starts to shout

Squeezed in like sardines being taken for a ride
Swelling on a higher sea with each new station's tide
Cattle truck commuting at it's very worst
Drowning in a people sea in which you've been immersed

The information's basic on each and every board
It feels as though your awful travel plight has been ignored
If management could receive first hand experience
They might get to see it's more than inconvenience

Cashless

They call it cashless
All this swiping
   Chip and pin
   Touch in
But they're hyping
It up

It's still all money
That we use
   Though spend our pay
   In a different way
Now we lose
Track of it

And we spend our cash
So much faster
   Focusing our minds
   On bargain finds
That it no longer lasts a
Full month

So falling short
We are falling prey
   To top rate lenders
   Credit vendors
Who ensure we stay
Cashless

But what about a world
Without money
   A chance to share
   To take care
Of family
Without a price

The world could work
As a team
   No hunger or war
   No rich, no poor
What a dream
Truly cashless

Sun

The Sun has got it's clothes on
Hip hip hip hooray
Page 3 is virtual history
And we hope it stays away

The Sun has got it's clothes on
No more drooling men
Will objectify or give the eye
To half naked women

The Sun has got it's clothes on
The feminists have won
There's no place for panty lace
Sexism has been undone

Blue

Whether I'm feeling upbeat
Or depressed
Full of life
Or in need of a rest

Ecstatic
And raring to go
Wound up
Needing something to throw

My emotion
Is all my own
Personal
And for me alone

Not
A promoter's dream
Not a craze
Or internet meme

Frustrated

I guess it's no one's fault
That I get that jolt
Of frustration
When you explode
Into one of your tantrums
Over the cleaning
Of dirty bums
Or the choice of
A particular book.

You are frustrated too
And have no other way
To display
Your annoyance.

I just have to learn
To breathe and say
You cannot always get your way
But down deep
I know that what I really need
Is sleep.

Battery

A siren wails
And you're bunker bound
Someone's missing
You're looking round
Where...
A siren wails
You're on a boat
Are you sinking?
Are you holding a stoat?
It's...
A siren wails
Or are they singing to you
You're swimming over
Sense of deja vous
That...
A siren wails
The shaft is filling
Gasping for air
But the dentist's still drilling
Your...
A siren wails
The house is on fire
The room is filling
With a male voice choir
From...
A siren wails
Wake in the bed you're lying
A false alarm
The battery's dying

Really?

Did he really mean to say that?
The idea is absurd
That a Birmingham Muslim takeover
Really had occurred
Where did he get his information?
He's been made to look a fool
And worse he's one who advises
The people there to rule

Did he really mean to say that?
It's so nonsensical
The idea of all that snooping
Sounds very tyrannical
Terrorists will always find
Some way with which to discuss
So it risks erasing expressive freedom
For the rest of us

Did he really mean to say that?
What a comparison to unfurl
A tragedy with many dead
To a man who raped a girl
They don't even bear relation
They are completely different sets
Blameless victims and an unrepentant
Who deserves all that he gets

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/11/fox-news-steven-emerson-birmingham-muslims
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/13/cameron-ban-encryption-digital-britain-online-shopping-banking-messaging-terror
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jan/08/gordon-taylor-ched-evans-hillsborough-pfa

Computer

You wait and stare
Wonder what you're doing
There
Is no sign
Of movement
Even malign
Which would be something
To give you hope
Some glimmer
To help you cope
With the fact that
You have work to do
But your computer won't
Respond to you

Fox

How came you there Mr Fox
Spirit passed without the den
Life ebbed away by time's tick tocks
Snatched at night like a clucking hen

Death has drawn it's razor teeth
Bitten down and turned the locks
Placed upon you it's red sacred wreath
How came you there Mr Fox

Fantasies

I hear the wind whinnying like a herd of wild horses in the sky
Dragon wingbeats gust as they surf the clouds
Roaring a gale to the horizon

I see firs and spruces nodding their tips like drunken ravers
Whilst lines of leafless trees sway their limbs
Like a crowd of Glastonbury revellers

Half detached signs are flapping
Like birds with broken wings
And hats become targets for breezy snipers

People are blown backwards
As if struggling through a heaving crowd of negative thoughts
Until crosswinds propel them sideways
Kicked by a sadist PE teacher

And the smell is of sand and seashores
Forests and pinecones
Transporting me to fantasies of faraway places

Incomprehensible

Of course it must be condemned
An act of brutality
Which is a mystery
To most of us

But perhaps this is the issue
This lack of understanding
Cultures a puzzle to one another
Become threatening

So we threaten in return
And as the threats escalate
There is no turning back
Pride is at stake
With a tragic consequence

The world collapses for us all
If we cannot learn to talk
And attempt to comprehend
Each other

Lift

Do I regret, or wonder, the gift
Some people have to ignore
All that is around them.

In a lift
On the train
At the shops.

Are their heads jam packed
Or empty
Is their brain
In overload or spaced out.

One day they might get whacked
If they get in the way
Barge past
Tread on toes.

Not by me
But by one who knows
A martial art.

Mistake

They shout and protest
Form riots, unrest
And say the world was best
Before

Claims of immigration
Ruining the nation
And the threat of conflagration
Once more

The flames are fanned
But we must take a stand
Against those most unmanned
By fear

It's tolerance at stake
And reason could break
Until the racist mistake
Is made clear

Lights

They counted down the days
Looking all the time
For ways to put a stop
To it all
Too aware the world could fall apart.
But nothing now could halt
The chain of events
And careering like a train
Without a brake
That rents the countryside with screams
It flew to take the world with it
And without doubt
The fight was on
The night the Christmas lights went out.

Questions

Where do all the children go to play
When all the parks are padlocked New Years Day?

How do those on zero hours get their leave
For full-time friends parties Christmas Eve?

Why can landlords still expect their rent
Whilst preaching abstention to the poor during lent?

Who is it feels the sting of alienation
When inclusivity and the community are on vacation?

When will politicians do what they say
Instead of claiming dragons exist for St Georges Day?

What will end the myth of consumer living
And will we survive to give the Earth thanksgiving?

Mound

I never brought you flowers
Nor hung up ornamentation
I never wailed with grief
Nor sung you lamentations
It was not because I didn't miss you
Not because I didn't care
All there was was a mound of earth
And I just didn't see you there

Cave

I want my cave today
My shelter from the storm
I want my little hideaway
Where I can curl up warm

I want away from all the crowds
Even the odd person or two
Sail up high upon the clouds
Be alone, and with a view

I want beauty and I want delight
But life gets in the way
So hide me deep in artificial night
Curled up in my cave today

Resolution

A new year’s resolution

Is a revolution of the mind

A desire to bring change; Evolve

To find a different you

Dissolve your faults and remind

Yourself to enjoy life

Excise those addictions

And prejudiced convictions

Be kind to others

See the best in the world

Fill in the self-dug holes

Stop playing the roles

That define you negatively

And blind you to reality

A chance to start again

Depart from the past

Leave behind and cast off

Your worn out clothes

Redress and address desires

Burning ambitions

And rise from the fires

Like a phoenix refreshed

Made anew

A new start

For a new year