1029 - Death's eye

Death’s eye does not look down on us tonight
For it has lost its visionary gleam
And so, not from death’s eye comes any fright
But only from our own internal scream
The light of death, a dark red laser beam
That penetrates our skin, reaches our heart
And, as we lie in bed, dissolved in dream
Some part of us tells us it’s time to part
Our own executioner, our own dart
Rises from within, reaches a great height
Then turns, descending, too fast to be seen
Not seen, just felt, victim of prisoner’s art
A cold black feeling spreading from one bite
Your hear your organs play your funeral theme
Mon 29 June 2009

1016 - Just flu in from Mexico

A woman's died from swine flu in Scotland
And a colleague who sits two seats from me
Is going next month to the very land
Where the outbreak began, on holiday
Hey, let's go to Mexico, we all say
The rooms are cheap right now, the plane seats too
If you're fed up of fever caused by hay
Then Mexico's where you should fly for flu
Remember all those colds caught when you flew
On other, shorter flights? Well, when you land
Back in the UK, you'll say 'Excuse me...
I think I'm going to sneeze. A-a-achooooo!
If you don't want the bug, cover your hands
Not your face. Enjoy Mexico City!
Tue 16 June 2009

954 - Hillsborough, twenty years on

Today the main news was from Liverpool
Today was twenty years from Hillsborough
The Sheffield stadium where fate was cruel
To football fans crushed in that disaster
I saw the pictures on the day after
Sick close-ups of the dying; some enjoyed
Them, but they were just lads from Manchester
Finding some fun in those Scouse lives destroyed
Hardly surprising then that there’s such pride
In Liverpool today for those football
Supporters they remember, year on year
And anger that the cover-up tried to hide
Mistakes by police. Today, Anfield full
Of mourners, the 96 remembered
Wed 15 Apr 2009

941 - Spring has sprung, but will summer be a bummer?

These lovely spring days, will they ever last
Deep into summer? They so rarely do
Maybe not always would it be for best
If all days were stunners with skies of blue
Perhaps some years we need more rain, that's true
And dull greyness to contrast with brightness
Too much sun, I fear, would simply mean you
And I would gain less, and grass would grow less
Rain brings fertility and wealth, keeps us
Hard at our duty, rarely thinking past
Our jobs for thirty hours, and weekends too
If there is booty to be made. Shameless,
Aren't we, slaves to our greed, never to rest
Until our graves are impressive to view
Thur 2 Apr 2009

859 - It couldn't happen here

What would it matter if our hearts stopped now?
We think we matter, but it’s just to us
Like locusts we swarm, eager to devour
Hell’s getting hotter with each car and bus
Are stoics, or maybe mass murderers
The most logical thinkers of the lot
Because they’ve concluded nothing matters
Why not be super-cool or extra-hot?
Or laugh in the torturer’s face - why not?
That’s one thing he hates, won’t ever allow
Upset the rotten applecart, make news
Abuse them back, some new gunpowder plot
For good needs goodness to grow. Plough and sow
Poisonous seeds and all we’ll reap is dust
Sat 10 Jan 2009

850 - Happy New Year

The fireworks break the silence and the dark
Of blackest midnight’s momentary grip
The past strangled, the new year makes its mark
It wipes its fratricidal hands and slips
Into the driver’s seat. Another trip
Into the unknown, please. You know the drill:
Yes, let’s have lots of scary turns and dips
And on the journey, we’ll count those you kill
With foot full down and hands spinning the wheel
Unless we’re thrown or you suddenly park
By some icy roadside and then you flip
Around, arm on the seat top, smile, reveal
A hideous bony face like ours, so stark
‘Here is your future,’ spoken without lips
Thur 1 Jan 2009

825 - Time to leave the playground

Beautiful blue sky, winter blue sky blues
Noticing red ears, noses and faces
Frosty ground fosters slips, slides, the odd bruise
Boots, gloves for those you love in cold places
Smoky breath, tokens of death in phases
From warmth to chill, as from health to illness
Children laugh, old men cough and wipe noses
Low key minders, reminders of stillness
Playground sounds, parental unwillingness
Mid-afternoon, soon hidden in the hues
Of purple, the bright bauble’s last traces
Stay down now as night covers trees and grass
With numbing blanket. Thank it, don’t refuse
For someone’s needed to push up daisies
Sun 7 Dec 2008

799 - 11/11, 11am

At eleven this morning, ninety years
Have passed since the end of that awful war
Only three survivors now, shedding tears
For fallen comrades, old memories still raw
The new National Memorial, not too far
From my home town of Lichfield, is the scene
Of sombre ceremony; with such poor
Weather, that beam of light will not be seen
To shine through the crack in the wall that means
To make the wreaths glow at this time of year
To shine gold rays of glory on the poor
Long-gone heroes of '14 to '18
Eleven has passed now; the sun appears
Briefly. Heavy cloud returns as before
Tue 11 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

768 - Musing without boozing

Been thinking on and off ’bout love and death
Do either exist, or like life, are they
Hard to pin down? Maybe life is a myth
Or just a word that our egos obey
Our life comes from the fire and rock and play
Of subatomic particles, all dead
From that viewpoint we’re all still space like they
Although they create patterns in our head
That we enjoy awhile but then the dread
Develops. Love has gone, and even breath
Is shortening like hair that’s turning grey
Yet when there’s no point getting out of bed
We reach completion, work all done, and stiff
As we may be, that’s where we want to stay
Sat 11 Oct 2008

732 - Horn of plenty

I saw those hooded eyes, that Buddha face
Of Charlie Parker; that's how Kerouac
Describes him as he blows his horn, in place
As usual next to Dizzy's brass attack
On TV in '52, with no crack
Of emotion or movement in his eyes
His hands somehow obeying brain on smack
Looking twice his age. And soon, when he dies
The coroner will estimate fifties
As his age, not merely 34. Space,
Too much space in his brain; needs to pour back
Some shit to fill some of it in; devise
Some braking mechanism, slow the pace
Of bird thought in his head, pull off the track
Fri 5 Sep 2008

683 - Fertile soil

I wonder whether feelings or a numb
Mere vegetable existence is best
A fish doesn’t fear the whale’s mouth that comes
Like the Grand Canyon to a faller’s rest
And does it matter once you pass the test
And spawn as you were meant? And anyway
Whether you do or don’t you’re just a guest
A machine with your plug pulled out one day
A seed that lands, takes root, is pulled away
Prematurely by hands of fate, the thumb
Down pointing to the soil that teems restless
A billion brown jaws await their payday
Denied for now, but patient and then some
Brainless, painless, and by us, unimpressed
Fri 18 July 2008

680 - The void

If there’s one thing we all try to avoid
And thinking is an obstacle to this
It is the contemplation of the void
More than the deadly dark and deep abyss
More than our partner’s final Judas kiss
More than the fires of hell Jesus will roam
Dante and Virgil’s literary bliss
Obliteration? More like cosy home
Seen Naples with Vesuvius’ vanished cone
Impervious to new life, life destroyed
Do we mourn our ancestors in the seas
Pre-Cambrian invertebrates in foam
Bubbling on grassless shores? Are they annoyed?
I doubt it, because ignorance is bliss
Tue 15 July 2008

622 - Twenty-eight years

Twenty-eight years now since Ian C died
At only twenty-three, as depression
Took hold and slowly choked him. Suicide.
That great wordsmith, performer. His vision
Lives on; the music of Joy Division
Created a new order, new glamour
Showed northern could be arty, though that son
Of Salford, Tony Wilson, was much more
Hyperbolic as usual, saying these four
Young men transformed Manchester from a tired
Post-industrial wilderness. Modern
And gleaming now it stands (in places), more
Modern than Liverpool. Ha! (Local pride!)
Still, that old port has music of its own
Sun 18 May 2008

610 - The warmth of the sun

A lovely warm spring day, no coat needed.
The weather can be friendly, usually is
But through Burma a cyclone has seeded
Destruction, loss of life and hopelessness.
The Burmese authorities are far less
Accepting of our help than they should be,
But this time they have been forced to request
Our charity, humiliatingly.
Some good may come of such a tragedy;
In wartime, most of the public heeded
The call for unity; foreign allies
Joining the struggle against the Nazi.
As once our threatened people united,
Could weather’s violence bring us back to peace?
Tue 6 May 2008

603 - Goodbye Geoff

Old Geoffrey was cremated there today,
But weeping wasn’t wanted, and was checked.
The minister kept chins up, though we prayed
With chins down, dictated by etiquette.
Where were my flowers? I was quite upset
They weren’t delivered. Geoffrey was let down;
Some incompetent floral bureaucrat
Ignored instructions from Manchester town
With respect to our bouquet. His renown,
However, undiminished, as his day
On this earth is finished. We’ll resurrect
His memory, though his ashes are blown.
And so, as cruel April turns to May,
I’ll raise a glass of cider in respect.
Tue 29 Apr 2008

599 - Lines to mine

Hey children! When I’m dead, will you read these?
Will you rethink the thoughts that I once had,
Then shaped into this finished form? Entries
Of emotion, observation, sad, glad,
On global websites and on paper (had
From the office). Will it really matter,
When I am dissolved, that I had not made
The grade, or taken holidays to where
Others have flown with BA, Ryanair,
And droned on about to my envious ears?
Will it matter that I was quite so bad
At living up to my promise? Unfair
Was life to me, and you maybe, but please
Look after these. Feel glad rather than sad.
Fri 25 Apr 2008

594 - At the funeral

Proximity to death makes life seem bleak,
But while in company we persevere
In laughing at the little things, and speak
Of plans and pleasures, maybe with a beer.
We’ll do whatever makes our minds less clear,
Even after a loved one’s passed away;
Arranging funerals is easier
Than thinking of our fate, or the fate they
Have already met face on. On the day
We’ll meet and mourn, but publicly we’ll seek
To control reactions. Maybe a tear
Or two during the service is okay,
But over sandwiches, no, not a squeak
Of discomfort’s appropriate. Tea, dear?
Sun 20 Apr 2008

590 - Carry on dying

Hello everybody, how are you all?
Well, not so good, but we must carry on,
Like Kenneth Williams, maybe appalled,
But determined to try to eke some fun
Out of this existence, even when some
Try to prevent it. What’s the bloody point?
Well, good question. Perhaps you should ask mum
Or dad: what did they get out of this joint?
I spose, if they’re still alive, they might point
To younger days when life was still a ball,
A time that they still like to reflect on,
When hope still burned, when older ones anoint
Them with what they had learned before the fall,
Before eternity’s oblivion.
Wed 16 Apr 2008

564 - Cut down in your prime

I see just blue sky where the tree once stood.
Now empty space rules, punctuated by
A tiny cloud which has now exited
Stage left. All is bare. Only the wind’s sigh;
No more rustling pine branches reach for my
Second floor window. Oh, my dear green friend,
Where are you now? Do dead trees climb the sky,
Higher even than when alive? An end,
Or a beginning? Why then did you bend
Majestically with the wind? Where’s the good
In your existence, now you’re gone? I try
To picture a tree heaven. It offends
Intelligence. We tell ourselves we should
Win immortality. But trees don’t lie.
Fri 21 Mar 2008