tit for tat

LOST ENVOYS (song)

Bust open the clock
Think of a rhyme
Tick Tock lock stock
And six Gatling barrels

The Viet Kong practice
Shooting the messenger
Flown in by Kissinger

*

Ring ring
Who's there
I don't care - yes
I'm the envoy sent in
There years ago by Mr Blair
Do you have any Playboy
Juggs or Mayfair?

*

Hail Mary Mother of God
I'm floating down a stream
Holding a briefcase
Blowing bubbles of red

My dream was to be elected
To the College of Cardinals

It's just not fair...
The Communacado's in my hair

EXPRESSIONS CATCH - 1

There is a tap-root pushing in the
Dark -White, ironic and insistent;
There is a splendid melodic line at
High altitude (I think it is
A splash of jazz - a lark)

There is fallen Viennese souffle,
Diplomacy, war - the bravery
Of writing for a blog in a war.

There is volcanic rain, scoured plains
Gnarled North-Rennaissance fingers
Sketching heroic burned marble.
Fleshy fireworks ignite the stolen
Herculaneum kiss....

EXPRESSIONS CATCH - 2

There is love - and the strange
Double beat of new harmony at night.
There is intelligence, the round of stars,
A galloping horse in it's
Narrow field, unseen - alone.

We are more than the Sun-heart tethered
In our petty kingdoms. Men catch the World
And are imprisoned inside rainbows.

SERMON 1

Mummified computers and senses
Fall away - People need a safer place.
A permanent store of perfection
For good and evil, for invention
(For the heart of God is very old
And very strange).

TREE OF POETRY

This poetry will be empty;
A sphere of possibilities
A receptive negative, before

The click of realisation.
The lightning tearing down
A human tree of nerves

THE POETRY EMPORIUM

At my store there's nothing
Visual, all is a-b-c-d-e, things
For the mind, a pulsing fork,
A super highway of words.

You must add instincts
Colour, 4 elements, a few clouds
To set your preferred scene - then
Just sit back, relax and dream.

SHE SEES CLAIRVOYENTLY...

To where waves in his muscles
Store the peaks and troughs of
Seven crashed relationships,
Employee shouting matches, the
Sensitive arabesques and curlycues
Of lumbar regional sex
(which almost hit the spot)

And reaches out to provide the
Sure and knowing grip of the Amazonian
Goddess, guessing the tense history in
Each shoulder knot, tracing solemn
Bumps in a rotund torso -

To reach his deeper archaeology of pain ....
Factory redundancy, stolen kisses, evil
Saturday night suppers, and a 2nd division
1970's blizzard wrecked football match.

THE PERFUMER

Distilling pearly vials of red
Into a bucket, spitting daffs
Out of his mouth, he tastes
Meat and two veg in mashed petals

Then turns up the bunsen
To max, to hear fields sing;

His aim is an apococalypse of needs
In pippette, a captured feeling of
Procreation, reducing a world
Of thought, willpower, emotion
To patented smell.

RED PERFUME

The rose is a whirlpool
That opens layer by layer
To give out fragrance even

Though it's beauty will die
And the fate of loveliness
Is to be crucified

STANDING TALL

March by, clench fists
Reveal patriotism -
Heavy duty thoughts

Salute this chimney, busted
Door - A ghost of a warehouse
With leather-clad workers...

The whole ensemble stood
Proudly intact through
Two World Wars.

DEMOLITION v.2

Raised slowly in 1904
Given a date-stone, and a team
Of skilled men and labourers
It will all be over in a day.

The machine is round the back
Playing hide and seek, packing muscle
It's elongated limb and pincer extracting
Dirty wood from the second story -

The front is still open for business,
but it's being eaten up inside. Soon there
Is a shower of wood and slate and brick;
I'm in Normandy circa 1944 – I retreat

From a great cloud of dust as
Another piece of industry and commerce
Falls away - and I think about
Bradford Town, Time, Ecclesiastes.

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE SEA

I want to live still beside
The manic ocean, unburden
These fazed emotions and
In that broil and tumble
Join arms around the world.

BEAUTIFUL CLICK

Your wonderful camera
Has a poet's eye
You point it up
It drinks the sky.

LOST

Every falling flake
From a wildflower

Each swirling snowstorm
In which men are lost

The twist of
Scewered lover's hands
Each thing reveals the cost.

LAST NIGHT IN THE BAR

My nerve is dying -
Can't seem to hold
This fractured glass

My friends are flames...

Blood is dyed
Whiskey, there's a smoky
Idealism on my breath

And I love you sweet
Like a chess player
Needs an exciting game,
Like a mouth needs a kiss.

SAILING AWAY

(A Tribute To Cole Porter)

To define myself
By a whole bunch of words
How ridiculous, my tongue
Wet and rigid as a tombstone.

Oh I can talk and emote -
I can smile and erode the
Distinctions we smudged
So easily in conversations

But I can sail away in a
Broad white cotton shirt
And land on your doorstep -
To drink your smile...

***

Charm is my singular name
My tongue covered in caviar
Wit on my tongue -
We dance in bathrobes
Newly monogrammed stars

So will you take me in -
Take me to your room and
Tie me to your breath -
To keep me completely free?

THE SECRET TRUNK

Mum and dad
Never explained creation -
The fission at the centre

So I learnt it from a tree trunk
Hollow with criminals,
Venus eyes, and fantasy

A BODY WITH NO SCARS

Childhood is a bucket of fun,
A place to get real dirty
Then wash if off white bodies
In memories with no scars.

SPLIT OPEN

Were all beautiful
In our innards

In the yards
Of place we know;
Like the open countryside
That calls to our heart
With love and tranquility

We ache inside
When truly split open -
In those moments
Some people overflow

POEM CHAPEL

Cliche as it sounds and
Contrary to expectation,
This poem is a chapel
Where criminals may beat
On the door - seeking sanctuary

WRITING IN THE DARK

Writing to friends
In the dark hoping
The slopes of my letters
Join up good and that when
I wake up it's not

Just some comedy loop the loop.
I don't know any of you -
Is that why were close?

Yes don't know you folks...

Yet I believe a stranger
Will never kill,
Hurt, or cancel out
These bright hopes.