Thin air

My hungry jowls are lean and thin
I am a beast, I play to win
Ruthlessly, I seek to grow
By devouring those below

My simple goal, to win the race
On this planet and in space
I always get the fattest cut
And I should be happy but

The voice that says I shouldn't care
When I am carving up my share
Is not as strident as before
It's bugging me about the poor

At night, when I should be sleeping
I hear the sound of people weeping
The thin air fails to hold me up
Liquid is spilling from my cup

Travelling hopefully

It is a noble act to labour and save

To thrash the motorways, to work hard.

Their charcoal grey suits and aftershave

Radiate a modest self-regard.

In a hierarchy of vertical esteem

They cluster in groups around the bar.

Travelling salesmen. Of what do they dream?

Of a quicker route, a superior car

A freshly-ironed shirt, a silk tie.

They are eternally driving, hopefully

It was the rim for them, not the bullseye

They work hard for the family

In the middle lane, neither peasant nor king

On the motorway, hopefully travelling.

Only ajar

I ain’t never won no fucking award

I’ve tried hard, shed syllables of blood

Merely to attract your casual disregard

In essence, your poetry is no good

Good university, expensive school

People like you prefer not to gloat

Artfully, you played me for a fool

You encouraged me, then you slit my throat

It must be fun to patronise a lout

And to possess the keys to the jail

You promised, emptily, to let me out

Carefully, you set me up to fail

The door slammed shut, my dreams were broken

It was only ajar, never open

Blackberries

 

The autumn berries sweet from the earth
Are wandering over the graveyard fence

The hawthorns shower us with rebirth
In the spring, in a cloud of incense.
Exposing our human fallibility
Are the neat instructions by the gate.

Like a hymn of praise to gravity
The stones’ comic refusal to stand straight

And their poignant and useless pleas

Inflate us with a sense of levity.

In here, the natural mysteries

Are a consolation for our brevity

And the cosmic cycles of light and dark
Shakespeare’s arcadia – a kind park.

An Imaginary Dialogue with the Arts Council

Here’s a cheque, they said to me

Your imagery is finely-wrought

It will relieve your penury

Though gifts like yours cannot be bought

We love to hear you curse and rage

You speak the language of the slum

You've caught the spirit of the age

With your inspired delirium

But the wolf is at your door

Your life is threadbare, like your coat

Aren’t you tired of being poor

Of shopping with a credit note?

There are bloodspots on your sheets

You are pale and spectre thin

You wouldn’t want to end like Keats

You need to let some daylight in

Leave this dull town and go away

At our expense, go grab some sun

We’ll pay you for a holiday

On the Mediterranean

The words continued blah blah blah

We only want to see you thrive

They said that I should buy a car

I said, hey look, I do not drive

As for being deathly pale

I told them, I don’t want no cruise

My thin white ass is not for sale

I’m faithful to my sacred muse

You’re little better than a pimp

And those you subsidise are whores

I don’t propose to be your gimp

I will not sell my metaphors

I do not want your subsidy

A hatchback or a pension scheme

No government can master me

I do not have to pay to dream

There is more to life than brass

So go hence from this private place

I’m happy in the underclass

But leave your number – just in case

Ordinary Rag (electric)

Pavement Trapeze with Special Brew

Villanelle


In the winter where do all the tramps go?

In their dark suits of mildewed plaid

We shy away from them, we would not follow

Gentlemen of the road, they like to bellow

Their battered top hats are tattered and frayed

In the winter where do all the tramps go?

A whimsical advertisement for Special Brew

Their pavement trapeze makes us afraid

We shy away from them, we would not follow

We would not smoke their hand-me-down tobacco

Of minor catastrophes their lives are made

In the winter where do all the tramps go?

If we offered our help, they might say no –

We live in fear of the tramp’s tirade

We shy away from them, we would not follow

When we are in the warm and the first snow

On the rooftops and velvet fields is laid

In the winter, where do all the tramps go?

We shy away from them, we would not follow

The New Rector

You came to Warehorne to give them hope

Their swampy lives were short and harsh

They lived in fear of gibbet and rope

The lawless tribes of Romney Marsh.

They smiled as you offered them the host –

The new rector at St Matthew’s.

Already, they could see your ghost

It was not men, but the ague that killed you

The marshes claimed you; you won’t go back

A yellow chill made you fall asleep.

Now, in the burial ground by The Woolpack

Your grave is nibbled by the Romney sheep.

Like the others, you were corruptible

A lonely bell tolls for your funeral.




THIS PARISH lies upon the clay-hills, near the western boundaries of them, an unhealthy, as well as unpleasant situation, partaking of the gross atmosphere of the Marsh, and the soil of it in general a deep miry clay. The village is built round a large green, called the Lecon, or more properly, the Lecton, on which is a handsome house, the property of Mr. Thomas Hodges, who lives in it, as his ancestors have for some generations past, bearing for their arms, Or, three crescents, sable, on a canton, argent, two bars wavy, azure, over all an anchor in pale, sable. At a small distance from the Lecon is Warehorne-green, and round it several houses, one of which is the parsonage, and another Tinton-house, Mr. Howland's, who lives in it. The church stands on the edge of the hill, overlooking the Marsh, which is at the foot of it. About a mile northeast from the church, over which the country is hill and dale, is the hamlet of Ham-street, close at the edge of the Marsh; part of which only is in this parish, and about a mile further in the Marsh, another small hamlet, called Hammill-green, through which is the usual high road, an execrable bad one, from this part of the Marsh to the upland country. This parish extends northward by a narrow slip between Shadoxhurst and Orlestone, as far as Sugar-loaf and Bromley-green, which is partly in it, all which is for the greatest part covered with coppice wood; and it extends again in like manner into the Marsh southward to Brookland, and joins Snave. All of it, above the Marsh, is within the Weald.

There are two fairs, one kept on Ham-street-green, on the 14th of May, for toys, and the other on the 2d and 3d of October, on Warehorne-green, the profits of which belong to the earl of Thanet, being a very large one for cattle.

The FIRST MENTION made of Warehorne is in a charter of king Egbert, who with king Ethelwulf his son, in 820, gave to one Godwine, two plough-lands, in a place called by the English, Werehornas, situated among the marshes, and it was bought for one hundred shillings in money, and, as the boundaries are expressed extended on the east part southward over the river Limen, unto the South Saxon limits.

Dear deity

This is a rondeau





Thunder frightens us; it works, certainly                       

It pushes us inside, dear deity                                                           

It’s like a whiplash across the sky                                               

And the flash – an arc of petulance. But why          

Do you like to intimidate so readily?

Is it to punish us for being free?

Wasn't it you who gave us our liberty           

So that we could be good, allegedly?

Thunder frightens us                                                                       

Perhaps, like a director, you like see

Our blood – its innate theatricality

Even the innocent will bleed and die

Do you enjoy watching them as they cry? 
Do you get off on it. Really?                     

Thunder frightens us