WHEN

When I was a little child
Everything tickled harmony
The trees tied to the earth
The earth roped to the sky
(I was bobbing up and down)

And I heard
Summer frogs croak at night
The old folk tapping
On graves or scraping
Their zimmers down lanes

And I ran
Down snow covered alleys
Missing broken glass and cans
Seeing only good in my village

The sun was a big fat ball
Smiling at my cousins
The glitzy stars, without anger
Without showmanship

Just doing its job with a
Polished shine, helping me enjoy
The turn of the big wheel
And the age of nine.

THREE WATER HOUSES

Grey mist over white mist
Furs the Cambridge B&B
Where Professors travel in circles
Then tip their damp Philosophy
Out of baskets,
And watch it run...

"But they always explained it"
Said a visiting man,
"And illustrated it with diagrams"

***

Visibility diminishes around an
Autumnal Yellowstone geyser;
The Master ticketman
Cowers in his yellow anarak
In a poorly sited
Ticketmasters shed
And cries

"He always measured the height
Of it each day", says the visitor

***

On a bank holiday
An exceptional updraft of spray
From an Atlantic cliff
Enters a window in the West of Eire
Deposits a wave
On two newly weds

"Such a mystical arrangement
Unlike anything in England",
They wrote in the visitors book.

TWISTER

Lightning vanishes old tights
Hung on a metallic washing-line.
A tornado rapes the cornfields -
An amazing combine.

This is the end of the world
My personal effects lost
In a drunken carousel -
Nowhere to go
No hatch to batten down.

A roll of the dice will take it
Behind me, towards
Or away from my life

Lord predict this path
More accurately. I will rise or
Fall, to see it wither and die.

THOUGHTS ON A PENNINE ORDNANCE SURVEY MAP

I think of those men who recorded each
Individual shaft, peat pit, depression,
Strong shale tracks that started out
With promise, then faded into air.
A cartography of hope.

Their draughtsmanship embraced
Local contours; A 'skirtful of stones',
'Fenny Shaw's allotment', the enigma
Of 'Brass Castle'. Labels applied to
Nothing, laid over white.

Yet even though this moor is grand
It is not enough to make me
Passionately walk or promenade.

This moor still needs something;
A brow, jagged with indelible ink,
Sides as stern as Pen-y-ghent
A rudimentary cairn.

A MAGICAL WINTER IN THE ATTIC

A storm drops off a
Contingent, a shoal of fish-men
Who lick windows, their slimy
Eyes are portols on my pane

Above my head, in the wires
The shell of a dead scorpion
Has plaintive potential -
But its sting plucks a random
Dutiful note.

Outside in the street of talents
A grid caresses Africa -
Mother Africa with its dry mouth.

Nothing fits

Nothing useful in this attic....

I watch the water outside, its cold
I turn the dial up to three...
My fire loves me, keep my heart wistful
And warm as a pelican's breast

MARS MYTH

I sing of gold plated foals
Still-born in the meadow
Heavy molten fillies of a
Ancient laborious art
Hissssss

And, in the dark of that hall,
The intricate simplicity
Of gleaming flies made of new
Alloys, whose continual buzzing
Reaches god-children, wearing chiffon
And absorbing music

They do not see the pullies and
Snare-traps of this lair, the volcano
Where Mars's hand almost rests,
Releasing the delicate art of war.

THE BLACK MARKET OF ECONOMIC FLOWERS

The lightning
Split the bank open
Money everywhere, like pollen
On the breeze. Wildlife scattered
Both North and South.

A Tawny owl hoots so fearful.
Six tear-diamonds and a pearl fall
Onto abandoned garden shears;
A marigold bows its beautiful head

As the brown river flows West
Towards the place of its death.
But it is indifferent to the value
Of each petal, each seed in its flood
So Plutonic, and blessed.

THE BLUE APPLE

An inveterate pen
Sucker, I ate a ripe
Pippin and smeared blue ink
Over the brown hole

My bruised lips
Wandered, made
Terrible art

Nothing beautiful in
Such ancient strains -
From Rennaisance
To the drool of Pollock.
A bite too far.

BRADFORD MARKET

Regal atmospheres
Infused into herbal tea,
A seventies cafe stage-set.
I relax on green plastic
Balancing on the concept 'chair' -

I alter my arteries
With clouds of smoke,
Glare at other customers.

The shepherds pie arrives
Packed with steaming vitamins
The stalls stocked with
Tradition - 'Grease' shown
In Travolta hair styles

The best meat, butchered yesterday,
Is arranged pathologically,
While goggle-eyed fish
Cry on slabs

Everthing is watered down
- Or genuine - I must decide.

Soon I buy my Ukranian bread
Heading back down the hill
To where improvisation gives way
To good Northern hypnotism
And a conglomerates branded water.

CHANGE OF FACE

When Im in the City
I long for a peaceful town
And when I'm in the village
I turn it all around

I look at the brown Oxfam page
Lay down a Seraph an Italic
And then the crown of a Capitol
Space Space

I rule over the page
A paper pauper a vellum
Beggar - fear the deadline

Full stops hold great meaning.
My brown page edits the
Fresh mass graves from the hell
Of Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast

When Im in the City
I live in Cafe Nero,
My day job lies between township
And Urban village - I click to
Translate this blood into print.

THE AWARD - version 2

I descend through clarts;
Above me Pippistrelle whirl
Into air-waves as I navigate
A well-trodden path.

I see two boys jumping into the river -
Giddy sensation, the erasure of guile;
A delayed second, shimmering as
They struggle from knots of glue

I explore millionaires row and note
The well-healed paths for promising
Bankers the great economy of bluebells
Which all year the earth concealed
Beneath its dank skin of green

And I commend this place -
A postcode which gets everything right
(keeping others in terrace and estates)
This town's consumers enjoy swathes of clover
And protected woodland, their children competing
In rigorously patrolled academic categories

THE AWARD

I descend to heaven
Navigating by well-trod paths
See boys jumping into the river -
Sensation, the abscence of guile;
An extra delayed second, they surface
Struggling from knots

I explore millionaires row and note
The well-healed paths for pets,
And promising bankers; a wood
Showing explosions of bluebells
Which all year the earth concealed
Beneath its skin of deep green

And I commend this town, so civilised;
When such a place gets everything right
Keeping the uneducated in terrace and estates
The great swathes of those
Who 'made it' in clover and
Their children thriving in school

It deserves
An award of some sort.

VIEWS

The trees trespass
Over the manicured hillside;
Spread themselves
Too sporadic to recolonise

I eat olive pate

I who came from the soil
And bought an acre for song
Search the hills
With range-finder eyes

I catch the blue flash of the car

Behind me a house with an
Extension, leans to it's side.
The gravel drive undisturbed.

A young Merlin betrays itself
Lapwing parents distract
As the dirty house deeds flutter

I finish the pate and drink my wine

I think of her body
Curled with yellow nails
And unresolved grief,
Limbs soaking into the peat
Her crystal blue eyes turning brown.

HELLO

Anna not being yet
Above par, you write basically as I
Start to go woozy, feel spectacularly
Tired. Your fingers work so fast
(used to working on legalistic terms?)

You convey yearning
To discus new emotions
New situations and sensibilities.

Your honest blog comments
(Always dotting dots where
Those dots are required!) are
Appreciated and valued - Smoothly
Presented and beautifully formed

I havn't yet seen you leave
Any unfinished words lying around
Like Easter Island statues
(Im less tidy there - Ouch!)

Hmmm - It seems I owe you a letter in reply
To yours, but meanwhile good luck with your novel
Keep your conduit of Imagination
Open and flowing
The sun always rises
On those interesting literary shores

Well thats it -
Must say 'night' here
I'll leave this screen of words to the
Caretaking nuzzling dark

HOW TO CONVALESCE

A neutral verb
Basically to convalesce
Is not to do anything except to
Bathe, pump blood, breathe

The inscribed words
Above your bed
(Suitable for gentlemen
And akin to gentrification)
Should be DO FUCK ALL

As your hair recedes and
Each limb grows an unatural hue -
Know that life will once again
Flood in

Just wait - keep your chin up
And your linen half clean

And a hidden bonus
Given to some - such weakness can
Occasionally in your watch
Of twenty-four hours, reveal
The mighty verb of who we are.

THANKS

All Art
Is an Offering of thanks
To God, To It,
To the great Bish Bosh

For putting us on the spot

PRODUCTS

I am the King-size
Mars chocolate bar.
You associate me
With a certain experience

Unwrap me eat me

I am a Carlsburg can;
You associate the cool
Green sheen and smooth sides
With a sense of elation
Anytime at all!

Drink me

I am an employee
You associate my
Shirt and tie with an ability
To forget my identity,
Who I really am

Unzip your fly
Share me with your friends
Crumple my CV
Then file me to oblivion

MY MUSIC

I had the best of lessons
Abba, Sibelius, Grieg all
Fulfiled my childhood needs

Then, two years later
When I didn't particularly care
Bruckner's monolithic 'Double Zero'
A symphony with blank eyes and
A panzer division for a mouth
Introduced Brass...

Ranks and ranks of brass, the climactic
Moment, a mile long train
Leaping off its tracks

REDNECK BEATNIK POLITIK

Gotta find the trail
Where the lonesome
Vote in shoals according
To their primary colours

I love the abstractions
That make people herd together

Let my words
Be pinned to their fears
And still our beating hearts

-----------------------------

TONY GRAPE

- all politics ends in tears

little grape-man
lies in state
crushed by political
Manouverings, words of hate

he developed a ruse
to leak some juice
and now, given on a bad news day
his exploits fill
Ten new bottles of wine

Sublime year 1997?

Hmmm
It turned out for me,
A disengenuous year -
His presedential leadership
And readiness for war
(Plus worst of all a contempt
For honest British Ale)
Means I tear him out of
My political leopard skin book

NEWSPEAK

This newsheet of impassioned
Rhetoric, historical quips,
Available at all good retailers
For five pounds (and a bit)
Will end up as paper mache
And wrap up fish and chips