Dear reader, thumbing through my book – Allow me to ally your quarm, Dear reader: you shall fetch no harm Within – for ev’rywhere you look, I promise you shall only find Here poems with their lines entwined In rhymes and rhymes which lace and bind Agreeably with eye and hook.
Nowhere in my whole collection Shall you need to choke a groan At all the orphans, all alone, With friendless lines in disconnection. Barely noticing their neighbours, Such lines flail with blunted sabres, Never pooling all their labours, Pulling ev’ry-which direction.
Dear reader, pondering my book – Feel free, take your time. Take the long and thoughtful look And do not worry – they all rhyme.
I know it doesn’t feel like it, Especially on the news, But the world is getting safer all the same. Wars are killing fewer, Though it’s hard to spot the clues In the endless rounds of jingo, spin and blame. But there, buried in statistics, Proof is waiting to be found That murder, rape and violence are down. We’ve never had a world so good As this world here, right now – Better than our hope could dare allow.
It never was forgone, It’s taken so much hard work to achieve – Work we never knew that we could do, Was going on. So ev’ry time we heave, It seems we get a little calmer, And we get a little kinder, Though we need the odd reminder to believe.
And yet, We know it doesn’t feel like it, Especially on the news – For all this peace, there’s not that much about. We’re killing people daily, And ev’ry time we do, we lose – So war is down, but war is far from out. Our angels may be better, But our angels still fall short of best – The world is getting good, but not yet blessed. Our progress may be progress, But it’s coming far too slow – We cannot wait for fairer winds to blow.
It never is forgone, And all this work could quickly fall apart – The darkest days of our old ways Could yet be set upon. Let’s hope that we are smart – We haven’t time for shock and awe, We haven’t time to settle scores – We need to stop the wars before they start.
Lis’ning to psychedelic music, Joss stick sending up a stream, Lava shadows on the ceiling, Red wine drifting off to dream.
Don’t need drugs to taste the acid, Just an over-yellow mind – It’s gonna be one of those fitful nights When the gears of my conscious grind.
Too much psychedelia, It’s not from the drugs, this trance, though – I swear, just wine, and a lack of coffee, So why do the colours dance so ?
I guess that I must be dreaming ? I really hope that I’m dreaming… Cos if this is really psychotrope Then I’m trapped inside a kaleidoscope.
I guess there are folks who deal with this ev’ry day – Does it make me a bad person to say That I never wanted to end up that way ? Like this way. Like slipping down the slope.
Lis’ning to psychedelic noodling – Are they slurred, or only me ? It sorta sounds like forty-fives That are played at thirty-three.
Don’t need drugs to hear the acid Needle jumping, stuck on repeat – It’s gonna be one of those Mobius nights When Alice can’t find her feet.
Too much recycled diorama, But if not drugs, then what have I taken ? If only I’d swallowed some bloody caffeine Cos I need to reawaken.
So why am I still here dreaming ? Or what if I’m not here dreaming ? It’s not any pills from off the shelf, But maybe my brain has brewed some itself ?
Maybe it’s cloning its own serotonin all day, Or morphing endorphins to help it to play. Or doped-up on dopamine, drooling away ? Who’s to say ? Is it madness by stealth ?
Lis’ning to psychedelic mumbling, Are they blurry ? Hard to see… This cover art is always changing – Which side’s A and which side’s B ?
Don’t need drugs to see the acid Sparking somewhere, distant, bleak – It’s gonna be one of those unplugged nights When the doors of perception creak.
Too much psyched-out sepia – I don’t even own a secret stash, But these uninvited thoughts wanna dance, Now this party’s about to crash.
Can I still hope I’m nothing but dreaming ? I gonna need help if I find I’m not dreaming Cos I just don’t know how I’m gonna survive If I’m right here awake and I’m streaming this live.
I don’t want to crash, but I don’t want to stay, So help me to crash to an overcast day – Cos there’s so many colours, I can’t find my way – Help me, pray, when the DTs arrive.
Lis’ning to spaced-out psychic music, Sometimes my mind is not my friend, Cos psychedelic may sound angelic, But it’s based on the blues in the end.
Ballet, op’ra and poetry – Loved by luvvies and the BBC But otherwise ignored by all and quite right too. Up their own arses, these brown-nose arts Are permanent’ly trapped in a bubble of farts Just like the upper-chattering classes talking poo. Please, oh please, let me never be trendy, Keep me away from the cognoscenti, Shovelling tax-pounds into their bottomless troughs. I’ll take my chance with the free-will market Than crawling on my belly on a critic’s carpet – They may be lefties, but trust me – they’re just a bunch of toffs.
So you say you don’t like my fill-in-the-blank, Well okay grandad, off you trot, So you think my taste is ‘square’ and ‘rank’, Well God bless you and off you trot, And love what you love and leave what you don’t, And tell what you will and spare what you won’t, But if you can’t wait to gossip what you hate, Well groovy, daddy-o, off you trot, Don’t let me stop you, but hold on there, Just let me work out how much I care While I crank my fav’rit song upto ten – WHAT’S THAT ? SAY WHAT ? COME AGEN ? You were prob’ly calling it a ‘din’ and ‘rot’ Cos these days, whinging’s all you got – So I guess you don’t like the whole ‘darn’ lot, But don’t worry, geezer, off you trot.
I could lie here for hours, Lie in tranquillity, Keep all your showers and saunas from me. There’s only one way for seeping out grime, I just need a tub and a loofah – and time. Secluded, alone, with my own private lake, I soak in the warmth as I soak out the ache, I massage my fingers through lathering cream, And I breathe in the salts with the tickle’ing steam. And eyes closed, transposed, I lie, And nothing will matter until I’m dry. I let wash away all the pressure and bile. So go on without me, at least for a while.
I always imagine a bath is the perfect place to mine inspiration, but I think the brevity of this poem shows how little I find. I’m more likely to turn up forty winks – and nothing wrong with that.
Tucked up under the eaves of the church The gargoyles lurk upon their haunches, Spindly fingers stroking their paunches. Out the corners of my eye they lurch, But when I turn, they’re stony still – A sneer on every maul and bill. “You can’t fool me by playing statue, Because, one of these days, I’ll catch you !”
Craning up at the eaves of the church, I’m staring-out their stones and mortar, Gagging on their breath of fetid water. Square is my gaze upon their perch, Just waiting for their craggy blink To prove they move as much as they stink. But I stare in vain, and most unwise, When one of them gurgles, and spits in my eyes.
See all of your princes who grasp at our lives With their handshakes and greased palms and fists wrapped in cotton – They claw for a kingdom where sleight-of-hand thrives, But their fingers are crossed and their nails are all rotten. You keep all your holdings tight under your thumb As your signet-wrapped digits are stroking your beard – But grips can be prised as the years render numb, And the light-fingered upstarts are squeezing you plum, And there’s no-one to catch you when ’last you succumb – Your talons are chipped and too weak, in the end, to be feared.
It always has to be that way, because it’s always been that way – And if there were another way, already it would be that way. You really think you can disclaim a thousand years of just-the-same ? The lesson you will learn at last: your future lies all in the past.
Rhyming Couplets 