1045 - Work again

Returned to work, but took the morning off
Watched TV, and read a biography
That now and then is proving somewhat tough
It’s about Elizabeth Bathory
Who tortured and killed girls in Hungary
Around the time of Shakespeare, spearing them
Burning and freezing them horrifically
Killing 300 or more in her dens
Her castles, manor houses, noble friends
Protecting her for so long. Then work stuff
Had to be done in Warrington, where we
Discussed tax with a company. I went
In navy suit and purple tie… Enough
Smartness for one year - scruffiness for me!
Wed 15 July 2009

1024 - Busy day off

A sunny summer’s day… They do exist!
And I was off work watching Jeremy Kyle
Then Trisha, then I had a shopping list
Then finished reading ‘The Color Purple’
Lent by ex-girlfriend not seen for a while
Had lunch and also watched Monty Python
Still not rehearsed for tonight (that’s my style:
Leave it till last moment…) Watched Wimbledon
But conscious now of the time moving on
I realised the chance was almost missed
To practice for tonight. Decided I’ll
Do a medley of three songs (two are on
My CD) and a poem, one that dissed
Comedians, and contained appropriate bile
Wed 24 June 2009

989 - Dawn of the dead

Dawn of the dead, that’s how today has been
Awoke at 4.30, then stayed awake
Read Kierkegaard, and even that book seemed
To grip me as I read it at daybreak
I thought, ‘Oh well, I’ll be able to take
A nap on the sofa later,’ but no!
I couldn’t! Thinking there was some mistake
I kept closing my eyes, trying to flow
Into that stream of forgetfulness. Go
To sleep…To sleep…To sleep, perchance to dream
At 4pm I staggered, zombie-like
Back to my bed, a quiet radio
Providing background talk on the news themes
I’d been watching all day as my eyes ached
Wed 20 May 2009

922 - Lady Day

Woke up to see light streaming through the gap
Between curtain and wall, for the spring sun
Was waking me up early with a tap
On the eyelids. Turned the clock radio on
To hear the news just as it turned seven
Went for a leak and a book, having read
Marco Polo (again); Christine de Pizan
Her medieval aristocratic head
Wrapped round the insulting things always said
By men about women. Fifty page trap
‘City of Ladies’ turned into. Now done
With hopes of resumed slumber, out of bed
I clambered, lumbering to the wash tap
Today, those little jobs would all get done…
Sat 14 Mar 2009

894 - Happy alone

Tired last night, went to bed and fell asleep
Slept like a log, thank God, neighbours quiet
Valentine’s Day dawned, appointments to keep
With myself and work, no shortage of it
Started with the news, there’s no end to it
Watched a chart countdown, then football preview
Wrote fifteen pages of ‘Love At First Fright’
Then watched the football scores, as boys have to
Followed by rugby (Wales - England), then new
Songs written and recorded; been a steep
Learning curve, but getting there, bit by bit
Not bad when last month didn’t have a clue
I drank and smoked, and now to count some sheep
With Plato for my bedside reading shit!
Sat 14 Feb 2009

888 - Portrait of the artist as a knackered father

Ah, steak and ale pie at the County pub
After a frolic at Wacky Warehouse
Read ‘Crime and Punishment,’ then ate my grub
Along with young Josie who when she chose
Had plumped for burger. By that time the queues
Had gone and we got served quick. Then we nipped
To Wilmslow with her scooter, as the freeze
Continued to rain snowflakes, winter-gripped
Soon afterwards, driving away, I pipped
My horn, waved goodbye, headed to the hub
Of all my arty solo endeavours
Where at least TV channels won’t get flipped
By anyone but me, and I can scrub
All tasks, all art, and enjoy mental freeze
Sun 8 Feb 2009

885 - Desktop audit

What’s on my desk at home this cold evening?
My laptop, of course; it’s front and central
(I’d get a bad back typing and sitting
On the sofa); from it snakes a cable
Or three; a thin white microphone that’s all
Ready to be sung into; reluctant
To sing tonight. I am tired, I am ill
Or scared, maybe? I’m not sure what I want.
Camera and telephone in the distant
Left corner. On the right side, two writing-
Related books, with their disposable
Advice and two years of dust, dominant
But ignored, piles of CDs covering
Once promising, past sell-by date titles
Thur 5 Feb 2009

862 - Desperately seeking God

Is God an old white man or a black girl
Or just a point of white light spinning round
Does God reside up there, or in this world
All-powerful, but nowhere to be found
Which to choose? With evidence this unsound
You're free to believe what your folks believe
To papal edicts millions are bound
From Torah or Koran rules are received
Or maybe you have your own God, who leaves
You free to do your own thing, till the pull
Of gravity and time leaves you earthbound
For evermore. This prospect sorely grieves
Before burial, before black smoke curls
Find a God, please. Look closely all around...
Tue 13 Jan 2009

813 - Scottish angels

I finished reading Shadow of the Wind
On the train home from Glasgow in the dark
The sun shone all day. First, we tried to find
Queen Street station, on George Square. Hearing talk
From my colleague about the angels: ‘Look!’
I saw four buxom goddesses of love
Made of stone, holding up buildings. We walk
Away from love, from those girls up above
In the cold morning air, senses removed
Showing the boobs that no hearts beat behind
Got places to go, people to see, work
(In this case, tax talk.) Northward the train drove
Through green fields, orange hills, blue skies, a kind
Vision of Scotland, beautiful and stark
Tue 25 Nov 2008

795 - Advice on dying

Advice on dying, yes, that’s what I want
No, I’m not jetting off to Switzerland
Assisted suicide is not my point
But how to go gentle to Neverland
Where night is white, when my time is at hand
I want to see that white light (not tonight!)
Mirages, smoke, fireflies, flickering flame, and
Pure colours white, orange, black, then clear light
Forever, as I dissolve from your sight
‘I’ returns to concepts the living hunt
While eighty winds, fire, water and the land
Move as one in life’s separatenesses, quite
Unable to unsee their fragile bond
Dreaming of life preserved in grains of sand
Fri 7 Nov 2008

763 - Cider with Tommy

Tess of the D’Urbervilles is awful sad
Like most of Thomas Hardy’s morbid stuff
Wasn’t that Alec D’Urberville a cad?
Sorry, but in this context it’s quite tough
To leave out the word ‘cad,’ yet does it prove
Hardy’s themes of loss that this word has died
Like the old rural ways he used to love
Those peasant nights beside the fireside?
That’s if they were lucky to live beside
Some forest where the tree-trunks could be had
For firewood, although this then would remove
The ancient wood over time. Hardy cried
For the world as it was when, as a lad
He’d roam chalk lanes and help thatch the odd roof
Mon 6 Oct 2008

714 - Darwin, Dawkins and Dr Williams

Last week I read Darwin on holiday
While waiting for the others to awake
It was rather dry (the book, not the day)
But it was an effort I had to make
And now Richard Dawkins is trying to break
The hold of religion on school science
Campaigning hard for Darwin’s shocking take
That we are related to worms and hens
Which some schools daren’t stand by, in case offence
Is taken by ostriches, who when they
Hear hard, challenging truth, declare it fake
And say that science isn’t evidence
Dawkins is talkin’ to Canterbury
And Rowan’s goin’ to squirm like a snake
Mon 18 Aug 2008

692 - Schopenhauering

Read Schopenhauer while I was waiting
Intelligence just leads to suffering
Because we dwell on setbacks, all hoping
For better times, but life’s disappointing
Even when goals are reached, the joy’s fleeting
And as time marches on, health’s declining
Instead of living now, we’re just counting
The days and years down to the grim ending
While plants and animals are existing
Unconscious of their end or beginning
So that’s why the dolphin’s always grinning
If life was all pleasure, and pain missing
We’d need to hurt, to kill, to do something
To spice up dull existence, so boring
Sun 27 July 2008

667 - Vigilantes

The vigilantes of normality
The self-appointed guardians of right
Control the streets and offices, you, me
And knife us in the back as we take flight
But worst of all is when we choose to fight
Then we are hunted down like some poor fox
Hounds salivating; orchestrating bites
Sound of conductor’s baton as it knocks
For silence before the whole building rocks
Sound of the judge’s gavel; the guilty
Hears sentence passed in whispers, out of sight
And must depart; the train waits on its tracks
For some gulag perhaps, or Coventry
The trial over, there’s no chance to see
The charge or build defence. So Kafka writes
Wed 2 July 2008

651 - Scary library

Be wary in your local library
You never know who you might see in there
Some read the papers, and some seem to be
Sheltering from the rain, while some just stare
Don’t come too close, or come close if you dare
Their eyes summarising their lonely fear
Surprising you as you look everywhere
Around each corner, down each aisle. Ah, here
Are those ten year old videos. To clear,
Some dog-eared hardbacks and some scratched CDs
By Britney Spears and the soundtrack from ‘Hair’
DVDs on how to reduce your rear
Travel and war books, not much poetry
Make sure you book time on the computer
Mon 16 June 2008

581 - Unholy spirit

Family breakdown, child abusers spawning,
And literary genres cashing in.
News stories abound; it’s so interesting,
Like all crime and violence, rape, invasion,
War, ethnic strife, all kinds of perversion:
That’s all that sells. Talent seems rather rare
Nowadays. Books don’t sell unless they shun
Thoughtfulness and just get down to the bare
Bones, lovely or otherwise. But is there
Nothing more to life than uncovering
Our sicknesses? It seems if we’ve not been
Raped, tortured or abused, not millionaire
Celebrities in rehab, publishing
Companies and bookshop interest is thin.
Mon 7 Apr 2008

541 - Earthquake!

Earthquake! Last night, due to a network glitch
Causing a loss of internet access,
I went to bed early with a book which
Was dull enough to remove any stress:
A well-known book, by Thomas a Kempis,
Preaching docility and acceptance
To the poor of the late Middle Ages,
Who might otherwise rebel, take offence.
The light turned off, radio lulling sense,
But sleep was slow to come; I'd always twitch
Myself awake, steadily getting less
Sleepy, more tired. My bed began to dance.
Alarmed, I sat up. My bed rocked and pitched.
Was someone underneath? Then, quietness.
Wed 27 Feb 2008

539 - St Augustine at the open mike night

St Augustine of Hippo was so hip
Around the year AD 370
He went to Carthage and used tongue and lip
Expertly on rhetoric and lady
Him and his mates even wrote poetry
And entered open mic nights (without mic)
He spoke fluently, rarely did he slip
Up in love's language, satire's barb and spike
His mother Monica, though, did not like
His worldliness, praying it was a blip
And that he'd jack in being a Manichee
Before God's hellfire-starting match could strike
A mother's love will eventually pip
Things at the post, and he became saintly
Mon 25 Feb 2008

535 - Wide awake again

As I lay in bed, wide awake again -
The fourth straight night of sleeplessness, with a
Fifth certain tonight, following the Green
Room poetry night (I'm just a spectator) -
I turned off the radio (Obama
Defeating Clinton) and turned on the light.
One hour of sleep ended by rare nightmare,
Followed by hearing the usual late-night
Tap dancing routine from below, the fight
To drift back off lost once again. Routine,
These days, but Marcus A., my advisor,
Counselled I accept happily my plight.
I finished reading, emptied my urine,
Then to kitchen for mouthful of water.
Thur 21 Feb 2008

534 - Meditation on Meditations

I thought about the whole wide universe
And how it was one single entity
And wrote about it. But then, what was worse,
I read the same thoughts written before me.
So long before, the year was one eighty
AD or earlier. The author was
A great man, emperor, and long feted
For his ‘Meditations,’ maybe because
They still seem so wise, yes, even to us
In this age when wisdom is so dispersed,
We all have a share large enough to be
A latter day Marcus Aurelius.
Live your life in the present, and the curse
Will be lifted that is mortality.
Wed 20 Feb 2008