In memoriam

They cannot harm us, they are scattered

Beneath oak and sycamore. Littered stones

Express a vague hope for the interred

Ash trees are whispering through their bones

What on earth must they think of me

The curious dog-walkers who pass by

As I observe the leaves’ shifting filigree

Lying flat on my back, watching the sky?

I could watch the trees’ liquid skin for hours

And study each miniature vignette

Of bent mourners with their shop flowers

Some are not forgotten ­­– at least not yet

We hope that someone will do the same for us

Through hawthorns, the scarlet flash of a bus

Hello my friend

A song in praise of my best friend .... lager

Hello my friend it’s good to see you well

Even though my life has gone to hell

I'll pick you you up when you are sad

You give me reasons to be glad

Hello my friend it’s good to see you well

Hello my friend it’s good to see you too

You know it doesn’t matter what you do

I’m not your lover or you wife

I’ll never leave you all your life

Hello my friend it’s good to see you too

I know you love my golden skin

You don’t need whisky, wine or gin

Hello my friend it’s good to see you well

Hello my friend it’s good to see you back

I’ll give you the reasons when you lack

The power to see nobility

In your life’s complexity

Hello my friend it’s good to see you back

Hello my friend it’s god to see you here

I'll never leave you I'll always be near

Because we share a history

You’ll always be a part of me

Hello my friend it’s god to see you here

I know you love my golden skin

You don’t need whisky, wine or gin

Hello my friend it’s good to see you here

King Ludd

Moving through the city sinuously
Artefacts are buried in its slime
In the river’s flux is your history
You're a carved effigy, frozen in time
A city rose up, slowly, from the mud
You watched each tide, each sacrifice of blood
Its long ages moved under your head
Ages of pestilence, fire and flood
From the underpass an echoing melody
Flows like water from a violin
Telling a story that moves through me
It breaks through the city’s grey skin
I observe your city, your blood, your bone
King Ludd, crumbling man of stone




Picture: King Ludd and his sons Androgeus and Theomantius

House beautiful

Dreaming, we move from room to room

Through interiors that flatter our eyes

Easily seduced by ink and perfume

Filling our lives – we are like magpies

With the shadows thrown on the blank wall

It is the condition of fashion

To provide a Platonic ideal

Each page is a blueprint for our passion

I like that one; this one is so cool

A bright, uncluttered kitchen to walk through

The perfect room; that picture of a girl

I love that. It’s so minimalist. Do you?

Our interior templates can be seen

In the pages of this glossy magazine

Based on a conversation heard on a bus

Deia, 11 May 2010

Under the cliffs that walled your domain

is a house inhabited by ghosts

shaped terraces of lavender and thyme

your totems, your carefully folded shirts.

There is much of England in Deia.

Down the narrow lane where you took

your daily walk, are giant sycamores

and frothing hawthorns; a tumbling brook.

There is a different poetry here.

You knew that the Goddess must live

in the stepped mountains that climb to the sky

and the tumbling orchards of olive and fig.

On the crescent beach of your silver bay

your lemon is in our wine today.

Gentle Giant

Your were too delicate. Denim was the rage

Those crazed head-bangers with their long hair

Black Sabbath fans.They booed you off the stage

Every night. I wish that I'd been there

In a world of leather, men dressed as elves

With your curious polyphonies

You were willing to make fools of yourselves

To push boundaries with your harmonies

They did not warm to you, the metal tribe

They were puzzled by your melancholy

Your muscular jazz, your Medieval vibe

And, especially, your sense of irony

The Shulman brothers, Green, Pugwash on sticks

Minnear on keys. You rocked out with your licks.


Love this band. They are unjustly forgotten. I would crawl over broken glass to see them.




At a show at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, we went on stage and the Sabbath fans were shouting "get off, we want Sabbath" and we were just getting set to play 'Funny Ways'. We pulled out the cellos and violins, and the crowd starting heckling immediately, but we were gradually starting to get past it, when someone threw acherry bomb on stage.

The Chandos

This pub is London's unfriendliest scene

The decor – brown and corrupted maroon

Stacked chairs, like a junk shop or lumber room

A pool table's violent shade of green

The locals display their team's tattered flag

It’s a faded badge of hostility

Fierce pride. Grimy authenticity

Everyone hating them is their bag

A giant screen dominates every angle

Raptly, they watch inarticulate men

Prod a small white ball, gracefully

Around a vivid green rectangle

For Christ's sake don't tell them.

It’s a kind of poetry. They would kill me

Sullen Sid

For Alberto

He is from Galacia where they love fish – eating them. This miserable shop (my closest chippy) fascinated and constantly disappointed him

Sullen Sid waits silently for trade

Today's day-glo special – battered hake

Business is less likely than a police raid

Once, he pulled a huge carp from a lake

Poor Sid, it isn’t much of a life

He fills the fryer, sings the same song

Endures the moods of his trouble and strife

His motto – the customer is always wrong

Now they don’t come. Like a bitter old toad

He’ll blame everyone but himself

Curse the bright new chippy down the road

Lug more pickled onions onto the shelf

The spent fat, the plump carp, his grumpy wife

Poor Sid. It isn’t much of a life

Bus stop Venus

Clothing Giant H&M Defends ‘Perfect’ Virtual Models

Posed on an unseen beach, you casually

hook a curved thumb into your waistband.

The sapphire sea shades into an azure sky

your arms are dusted with fine white sand

your poised limbs’ artful informality

and the perfection of your symmetry

make you a Photoshop Aphrodite –

a vision of carved mahogany.
Your swimming costume hints at what is not
visible more than what it reveal to us

you are a living statue. God, you are hot!

Your half-closed lids are ambiguous.

Only £3.99 for your top!

You're a Venus for the bus stop.

Snowdrops

Close to Bosworth field, I finally arrive

Woodlands, a muddy farm track, a gate

At the village of Croxall a lowering sky

Broods over the manorial estate

The church beckons me. Am I going home?

Faded and creased like an old diagram

England is written in its soft grey stone

Perhaps it will tell me who I am

I seek meaning trying to disinter the dead

From the old graves, where the past is frozen

Nothing. Sometimes the past cannot be read

Snowdrops smother them – a white explosion

I seek consolation from their beauty

The ancient village is lost, so am I

Rockstar

For Fergus

On a weekday night, in this obscure place

they roar for you and queue for beer

beauty’s habitual tropes, your satyr face.

But, clearly, you do not want to be here.

You know how to dig gold with your pick

to capture an audience. You do now.

With each soaring chorus and fast lick

the crowd indulges you, recalling how

you straddled the world from club to club –

your audacious bends, your famous sustain.

In each hall, stadium and, now, pub

you grimaced, as if in rapture or pain.

You sought beauty with your profanity

assuming greatness was your vanity.

Syrup

For Jack S

Your songs flowed like syrup from the stage.

With your emollient inanity

You raised the stakes of vulgarity

A bad taste champion for a vulgar age.

There was a ready market clearly

For you trite songs. You would always give them

Your trademark, a clumping rhythm.

You possessed a redundant fertility.

There was a cruel hardness behind your eyes

Even your street-waif look did violence.

Apparently, you were beastly to your band.

This, frankly, comes as no surprise

For it was merely a pose, your innocence.

The worst cruelty comes from the bland

The Paper Moon

They are demolishing the Paper Moon
Its thin walls were fragile, after all
Moving slowly to oblivion
The fatal touch of the wrecking ball.
Soon they will be stripped back to air
Leaving, merely, a residuum
A faint echo of our evenings there
Nights of moon-drenched delirium.
A smudged thumbprint of reflected light
All the time, she was haunting our skies
Like a shadowy ghost, vague and white
The begetter of our mysteries –
Occasions of revelry and song.
Happily, the real moon will go on