Sweet London

Honey trickles past Big Ben

Glitters in the midday sun

Warm and sticky

The kids are having fun

Jumping in barefoot

Expecting a splash

Wait a minute not so fast

Chocolate flows over Tower Bridge

Smooth and silky like Galaxy

Hot and sweet

Drivers are in ecstasy

Stopping their cars

Wanting to explore

Stop the traffic not so sure

Ice-cream fills the London Eye

Crying in the lunchtime heat

Tepid and tired

Tourists eager to eat

Sitting in their dessert

Like an unchanged nappy

Hold the ride please not so happy

(At three fifteen all will change

With dark clouds overhead)

Kids are screaming near Big Ben

Twisting in a golden pool

Legs and arms stuck

Honey starting to cool

Held fast in glue

Asking to be saved

But parents made their own mistake

They’re yelling in cars on Tower Bridge

Stranded in a cocoa mass

As the chocolate hardens

The vehicles have them trapped

Can’t even open

The door to go home

Family and friends won’t answer the phone

Communication’s ruined

By vanilla flavoured cream

The Eye became blind

Stopped turning mid-stream

People at the top

Shouting down below

When’s rescue? (Better they don’t know*)

*Police are imprisoned behind lion bars

Firemen + doctors held up by double deckers

Running on hot fudge sundae service

Memories

This is it.

The place where she once lived.

Familiarity and nostalgia

Wash over her in crashing waves;

she’s determined not to drown.

Her mind’s eye blinked;

brought them back to her.

Her friends, teenagers back then

finding life by a telephone box,

scratching names with a pfennig.

There’s the bubblegum machine

that gives birth to sticky treats

and the signs that speak German

guiding her home with expert arms

as the summer sun smiles.

Her mother, beckoning

from the ground floor window

which means dinner is almost ready.

Her sister and brothers are squeaking

down a shiny metal slide.

She walks to the apartment block

where disco lights circle a musty cellar.

The girls in peach and lime green,

the boys in denim with eighties hair

scaring each other in the graveyard.

A piece of grit lands in her eye;

she wipes it away with a shaking hand.

The image is gone

Now there’s no bubblegum machine.

The park has given up its toys,

her mother no longer has the key

to that dwelling, another family have

gatecrashed the proceedings.

The special place watches only her

standing alone, reminiscing.

The apartment block is just an apartment block;

the music has died. She sighs

then turns and walks without looking back.

No Feeling

She sat, she stared

She never cared

Even when the plants

Were all withered and dry

No pity fell

In drops from her eye

She was blank, she frowned

In nothingness she drowned

Even when the sky

Shone a sunny delight

No wonder crept

From some hidden light

She blinked, she looked away

No feeling

No

Not today

Rainy Bus Stop Afternoon

Rainy bus-stop afternoon

Pattering on the old tin roof

Like a slow round of applause

A drop of water starts its journey

Down the gritty glass pane

Then merges with another.

Rainy bus-stop afternoon

Cracked bottle-green paint reveals

A dull metal shape below

Looks like an old man on a bicycle

But it’s just a chipping

On a worn-out shelter.

Rainy bus-stop afternoon

Oil dances in a dimpled puddle

Psychedelic rainbow swirls

Rudely interrupted by a car

Whose careless tyres spray

A girl with an umbrella.

Rainy bus-stop afternoon

Swishing, swooshing bus arrives

The air smells like damp pavement

I wipe a lonely raindrop from my cheek

Climb aboard, pay my fare

The rain won’t stay forever.

Little Girl

You, sitting with daisy chain hair

Smiling, without a care, nothing

To disturb you, distort you, corrupt you,

No-one to interrupt you

In your flower-stalk art,

The art of youth. Which goes to prove,

Naivety is best. You’re truly blessed,

In your cartoon pyjamas and your

Little cotton vest, sprinkled scent

Of talcum powder fills the room.

You’re too gorgeous too soon,

Lost inside your fairytale book,

The one with pictures where you

Sit and look, with such innocence.

Those images – will burn themselves

Into your memory, to recall when

You are older. Your pretty eyes smolder,

Hair in bunches and a cheeky grin.

Don’t want anyone to get in,

Tarnish the joy that illuminates

Every inch of your freshly-washed face,

As you read with such concentration.

But to let you grow I must have patience;

Not blind you to reality. You rub your knee,

Hurts where you fell down earlier today,

Scraped on the pavement, you thought

The skin fell away, and searched for it

With no result; your baby tears

Were full of salt, but now you’re happy

As a newborn lamb. I understand,

The magic of your age – before you’re

Overworked and underpaid;

Stained by lovers loved and left;

Scorned by bullies, torn by theft;

Used by friends, scarred by fate;

Skipping lunch in case you’re late,

Despite all reason and good sense

I want to lock you up,

Build a fence, to shield you from

The world and all its self-made

Problems. Please, little girl,

Hold on to your lifted soul,

May your heart stay pure even when

You are old. I watch you now with

So much love, my little princess,

The whitest dove.

Edge of the World

Just sitting on the edge of the world

Waiting …

Feet dangling

Into the infinite unknown

Comforting a star

With consoling hands

Arguing with the moon.

Just sitting on the edge of the world

Waiting…

Hands dancing

Upon the universe tonight

Seducing a cloud

With silvery smiles

Arguing with the moon.

Just sitting on the edge of the world

Waiting…

Eyes sparkling

Within the mystical twilight

Reading a poem

Written on planets

And arguing,

Arguing with the moon.

Sneeze

Someone sneezed.  It was a Tuesday

which means you kiss a stranger.

Now his wife is filing for divorce.

Asylum Seeker

(Published in Aesthetica Magazine Issue 11)

Washed up on the shoreline

Washed out

Even the sun accuses me

With its blinding glare

An unseen drummer

Pounding torment in my head

Mouth arid, parched

Like the rainless Sahara

Stomach groans, teeth aching to bite

Longing for food and water

What will happen to me now?

I lost my wife and daughter

On the journey.

Broken free from the trailer

Broken heart

Escape from the raging driver

Who brandishes his hate

With lead piping

That shattered bone in my arm

Terrified, tearing

On some kind of motorway

Body crying, hands begging to hold

Desperate for love and comfort

Don’t think I can carry on

Cannot make the effort

I fall to my knees.

Picked up by blazing blue light

Picked apart

Thrust into a lonely cell

Beg for an interpreter

To explain why

But my words are only heard

By callous bars

Who proudly prevent my exit

Eyes swollen, throat choking on air

Pleading to God for mercy

Don’t send me back, start screaming

I’ve caused controversy

They stare at me.

Inside a hostel now

Inside out

That’s how my being survives

Questioned by the Home Office

Apparently

Not enough evidence found

By man in suit

Who stamped my papers ‘REFUSED’

Brain unbalanced, soul without hope

I am becoming weaker

Deportation, degradation

Land of the free detests

Asylum seeker.

Parrot

Squawking secret

Reflects on day’s events

Shatters killer’s glass alibi

Mirror

Thoughts of Marc Antony

(Published in From The Heart, Forward Press, 2005)

Here, in Tarsus, ruby sandals leave traces of her step in the dust

She drifts towards me with the poise and grace of a vulture

I draw in the scent of her ebony ringlets, aroma of sweet almond oil

Now I see beads woven and strung in beautiful patterns

Inlaid with gold rosettes.

She is near, and I’m a victim – lured by those dark and dusky eyes

Enhanced by viper-coloured eyelids, and a drop of moisture

Upon ochre-tinted lips, slightly parted – an enticing and colourful smile

The skin upon her cheek is as white as the lotus flower

Tinged with fuchsian glow.

Around her head a ring of shining cobras, in honey yellow coils

Gleaming horns rise on either side of a precious solar disk

The wind rustles her sea-green cloak, revealing a crocus-yellow gown

I glimpse some scarlet silk beneath as it twinkles in the moonlight

She glitters like a treasured jewel.

They warned me she would be alluring, but nothing has prepared me

A flame ignites within my heart – my blood is white-hot passion

Her smouldering gaze melts into mine, consuming me with trembling fever

Caesar, now I comprehend seduction in its many forms, for tonight

Spellbound, I’ve fallen for her.

She

She,

her fingers gnarled, trembling

like knotted branches of an aged tree,

clasps a linen shroud – which, like

a cloud, settles around her weathered face.

Nameless one, hides her expression

behind a makeshift burka, one eye

watching with curiosity, but

she is afraid. Who can blame her,

being a widow never became her.

Her husband put on his war boots,

marched out of her life, then his own.

She,

sells eggs and goats, trying

to make a decent living, desperate

to help her ailing mother.

To God she prays, please let her recover.

Faceless one, whose dreams were shattered

when habibi breathed his last. How can

she leave the past, or even escape?

She is afraid. Who can blame her,

the last attempt they stripped and maimed her.

She aches for freedom, yearns for love,

her childhood home now merely dust,

She.

Feeling Diluted

Feeling diluted, adrift on your thoughts

Like a castaway on an unsettled sea

A life of flooding, a tangle of weeds

A spatter of teardrops where dewdrops should be

So sit by the river, draw stars in the sand

Listen carefully to the stream as it flows

Absorb the trickle, the rustle of reeds

And move like the water – adapt as you go

The Centipede Story

This guy was lonely and so he decided life would be more fun if he had a pet. So he went to the pet store and told the owner that he wanted to buy an unusual pet.

After some discussion, he finally bought a centipede which came in a little white box to use for his house.

He took the box back home, found a good location for the box, and decided he would start off by taking his new pet to the bar to have a drink.

So he asked the centipede in the box, “Would you like to go to Frank’s with me and have a beer?”

But there was no answer from his new pet.

This bothered him a bit, but he waited a few minutes and then asked him again, “How about going to the bar and having a drink with me?”

But again, there was no answer from his new friend and pet.

So he waited a few minutes more, thinking about the situation.

He decided to ask him one more time; this time putting his face up against the centipede’s house and shouting, “Hey, in there! Would you like to go to Frank’s place and have a drink with me?”

A little voice came out of the box ………..

……

……

……

……

……

……

……

“I heard you the first time! I’m just putting on my shoes”

Inner Peace

By following the simple advice I read in an article, I have finally found inner peace. The article read:

“The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you’ve started.”

So I looked around the house to see all the things I started and hadn’t finished and before coming to work this morning I have finished off a bottle of Bacardi, 1/2 a bottle of red wine, a small box of chocolates, 3 shots of tequila, a can of cider and some cheese triangles.

You have no idea how good I feel

You may pass this on to those you feel are also in need of Inner Peace