Rural poverty

Don’t bang on over what’s not fair

I’ve ditched the Volvo for a hatch

We’re down to only one au pair

There’s something mouldy in the thatch

It’s hell in Chipping Sodbury

The hardships of our Cotswolds life

The day-to-day indignity

Have made a martyr of my wife

The pinch of rural poverty

Is written on her face, the fear

Of scrimping to pay stable fees

There’ll be no skiing trip this year!

She squabbles with the Aga louts

Fighting over cut price sprouts

Old Kent Road

        

for Sara


They are tearing down the fire station
Cubes are laced across a churned up field
Soon it will be a glittering cave of light
At least the common cannot be defiled
I have seen its grass sea whitened with frost
We yearn for natural light, weather
And seek to re-capture what is lost
In Oak Furniture Land, World of Leather
Once this road passed through an ancient forest
Always, the green wood pushes through
The new furniture is temporary at best
I pass the fire station thinking how you
Would see a maypole, a druid at the bus stop
Soon there will be a new place to shop

A public house in south-east London

It is like of an old Wild West saloon –
memories of laughter and fights
are pushed into its shadows.
Its patrons lived mainly at night.
They are gone, but their tales and songs
seem congealed in the deep brown varnish.
The boom times ended; the world moved on
leaving only the lonely and damaged
tarnished cups, a broken-down piano.
Hooded like death in a grey cowl
the scrawny man who no-one talks to
sits alone in the dark on his bar stool
Penge Pete. No-one can beat him on the drop
between Cash Converters and the pound shop.

The old adversary

Life was easy. We had no enemies

and so he came, moving stealthily.

He travelled at night, marking his territory.

He pushed against the window easily

and invaded our private sanctuary.

Unsubtle in his vicious attack

he created chaos in the shrubbery.

He withdrew; then he came back

Pummelling with his fists of air

firing his bullets from the trees

he bent back branches like iron bars.

He stripped the willows, boiling their leaves.

In a crude display of primitive might -

the old adversary. He came to fight.

The Age of Heroes

Men with beards who play guitars
who feel no pain from their tattoos
men who know the parts of cars
secretive about their views
their personal philosophies
display the awesome power of Zen
they can punch through steel with ease
their whisper has the power of ten
men who chase their wildest dreams
in TV documentaries
men who double-stitch their seams
they cross the world in SUVs
and then return with gifts for us
a yeti’s ear, a colobus

The king of bores

Life was happening. You did not see

It was being unboxed around the bus

Colours, shutters, clouds in windows, graffiti

You did not see them. Instead

You acted as if we were not there

To appropriate a metaphor

You showed us your underwear

You did not acknowledge us. Instead

You invited us into your brain

Through the implement clamped to your head

In a soliloquy of the inane

Some voices are mellifluous. Not yours

It irritates. You are the king of bores

The man who hated Britain

Red Ed's pledge to bring back socialism is a homage to his Marxist father. So what did Miliband Snr really believe in? The answer should disturb everyone who loves this country

 

Daily Mail, 27^th September 2013

It’s the heft of winter that I love

green tunnels through beech trees

boiled sweets and corned beef

country railways, the constant apologies.

Fried breakfasts and mugs of tea

ancient churches and old rectories.

Walks on the heath, with my dog

the tolerance of eccentricities

the throaty roar of a Jaguar

lichen on walls, the green of a thistle

the taste of marmalade, sour and sweet

buttered toast, the milkman’s whistle.

The way that darkness falls unexpectedly

like an anvil over the old cemetery.



Some observations from my morning walk, whilst musing upon the Ralph Miliband busines and what it means to love the country that you live in. 

No ogre

Now I see that you were no ogre

Perhaps you were cursed by a sprite

You were born under a sad star

The clock struck thirteen that night

A spell made the milk sour

It turned your wine to vinegar

The wind changed, it darkened your humour

A blue moon made you what you are

Something was wrong; you could not be happy

That is, you could not allow yourself to be

It was not you but your star that dismissed me

Demeaned my efforts, drove me away

Now, at last, I can forgive you

The spell is broken. I am free

A history of dust

Our world is made from rags and feathers

from silver, pearl and ivory.

Carefully, we model our treasures

from iron and mahogany.

We design them artfully.

We measure and saw, grind and scutch

but time degrades our industry

reducing our labours to not much.

It refashions our endeavours.

They swirl around us, here and there

a silky residue of wind-blown particles

soft to the touch, returned to air

with spent atoms of used skin and rust

our vanity, a history of dust.

Crossing the lake

The ice is thin, we risk falling through

And yet we cross the frozen lake

Is it because we have no choice?

Or is it because we want to –

That we are afraid of mundanity?

You showed us how. You had been there before

We were reassured by your voice

The grace of your words, your nonchalance

Your strong narratives of blood and place

Seemed to anchor us in reality

You were never afraid to look down

Perhaps you saw shadows congealed below

Your poems were not merely beautiful

You were perfect in your ordinariness

Rockstars attended your funeral

The ice is thin, we risk falling through

And yet we walk, or dance, across the lake

To be human is to nudge calamity

Is it because we have no choice?

Or is it because we seek eternity?

A new fruit

Blackberry is in decline

Soon, there’ll be a gap in my suit

Business has dried up, it’s lost its shine

It’s been replaced by a new fruit

Teenagers have stopped pinging

Cos Apple has shown them how

To put the fun into ringing –

(We are all children now)

The savvy iPhone does the biz

It’s a lifestyle in your pocket
It can show you where Orion is

To play music, you can dock it

At one time, Blackberry was king

Now it’s shrivelled, it’s last year’s thing

It's a smash

This [film/book/song] is the hit of the year

Merely a catalogue of repetition

Its lack of ambition is clear

It makes no imposition

It refuses to light fires

It is explicit in its limitations

The banality of its desires
Carefully, it lowers expectations

Then limbos beneath the bar

You won’t be challenged or distressed

It will please you if you are

Easily impressed

Nothing original, nothing new

This [film/book/song] is just for you

Heatwave

Twenty: a walk in the park

The touch of fresh, white linen

Scent of magnolias in the dark

Olive faces of Greek women

I trail my fingers in a fountain

The cicadas are singing

Pines clothe the cool mountain

Thirty: tomatoes fail to thrive

I have to water them on the hour

Question: should I keep them alive?

Extreme loss of will-power

The dogs are too hot to yelp
I’m praying for a shower

– Not that it would help

Forty: the odour of rotting fruit

Creeps along the alley

Sweat breaks through my suit

It feels like death valley  

I don’t like this at all  

I wish that it was January

Paint is blistering on the wall

Fifty: to be outside is stupidity

To be inside is no joke

Extreme humidity

Increases the risk of heat stroke

Cracked throat, can’t cough

I’m not a fit bloke

Body functions are turning off

Sixty: too hot for Special Forces

Stopped sweating hours ago

Stench of rotting horses

Blood pressure is low

The failure of thermoregulation

Means there is nowhere left to go –

The last train is leaving the station

What is it?

When we are happy, when we cry

When we are sitting in the dark

When we are walking in the park

When we sing a lullaby

Whether banal or sublime

It is a source of human pleasure –

A perfect curve, buried treasure

It is used to record goodness and crime

In slang expressions and in formality

It connect the words we utter

It is the marriage of beauty and time

It dulls hardships, reflects our reality

It softens and smoothes, like butter

We cannot live without it: rhyme

Audacity

As they throw their shapes recklessly
it’s their audacity that sets then apart.
They are rule breakers, almost foolhardy.

We admire their shadow puppetry
the abandonment of their art.
As they throw their shapes recklessly

they know, almost with certainty
how far to stretch our aching heart.
They are rule breakers, almost foolhardy

dancing around eternity
juggling with air and light.
As they throw their shapes recklessly

their effortless dexterity
makes our tired eyes dart.
They are rule breakers, almost foolhardy.

Although we suspect trickery
we are not them, could not scale their height.
As they throw their shapes recklessly
they are rule breakers, almost foolhardy.

Limelight

You did not suffer exactly

At worst, a benign indifference

Being outshone was your cruelty

You were eclipsed by brilliance

Your skin grew pale on your shelf

All that time in the dark was lost

You turned in on yourself

Not hardened by fire or frost

Your introspection dulled your spark

There was too much time for thinking

Your green eyes grew wide in the dark

And when you emerged white and blinking

Into the day, it was far too bright

You missed the darkness. You shunned the limelight

Ballad of Charles Saatchi

 The old-fashioned millionaire




I says, ‘put on your coat’
She wouldn’t stop her yap
So I’ve grabbed her round throat
I ain’t given her no slap!

She's made me do it, I swear
She’s jealous. She’s turned to fat
She’s scared I’m looking elsewhere
They’re all the same, birds like that
 

OK, it don’t look good
But them cameras, they lied
Look at it this way, blood
She’s hardly even cried!

She’s made me do it, the tart
Flirting with every bloke
She knows nuffink about art
She’s turned me into joke!

Goddess

Think of me as your Cavalier

You are my Golf, my Yaris

I would take you for a beer

Or for a weekend, in Paris

Think of me as your Subaru

You are my Saxo my Polo

There is little I wouldn’t do for you

I would give you my last Rolo

Think of me as your Granada

I would lend you my best winter coat

I would be kinder, try harder

Than that beast who grabbed your throat

You are my Prius, Nigella

My Cherry; I’m your kind of fella

No net

For Andre

They are the rule-breakers, almost foolhardy

See them skip recklessly across the wire

Throw shapes with their shadow puppetry

Or pass their bare skin through the fire

We admire the illusion, is it trickery?

As they juggle with light, burst out of the stave

Their skill lies in their audacity –

Fortune favours those who are brave

They know, with mathematical certainty

When to push, when to gamble with their art

See them dance around eternity

We’re not like them. We could not scale their height
They are the poets of the cold, thin air

They need no net. They know that one is there.