Grexit

Grexit, Brexit, where's it going to end?
Combine two strange words to make a new friend.
Will Frexit be next, or will they Fremain?
Will the Slovaks Czech out, or maybe abstain?
Of course, we can all be certain about Geremainy
They're still promising the land of the free.
Is Europe broken? Can it be true?
Will it be split into a mE and a yoU?
I can't wait for the vote to be read
And we can go back to saying just 'exit' instead.

The Wilderness

Wrapped in character-building cold
We slowly make the trek up top
Blue legs quivering
Red mouths laughing
As we leap and hide and chase and kick.
We are monarchs playing as men
And the wilderness our kingdom.

Stone formality soon gives way to true chaotic nature.
The further we go, the thicker it weaves about us.
There are passages here, dens, lairs,
Borders laid out and territories established.
The paths are the only neutral ground
But nature has claimed the neutral.
We run bare legged through brambles and ferns
And emerge into the safety
Of mud and grass and green space.

The river

I once knew love, but lost my way,
Searched obsessively for pebbles
In that thrilling stream.
Didn't see the gnawing dark
Or lonely ghosts that drift by the bank.
The river tried to carry me
To that ocean of love.
Swept as many stones as it could to draw me,
But I stood resolute.
Foolish.
Boots sinking deeper in the silt
And I craned my neck
Looking for imperfections in the river's flow
As the world turned
And the river ran dry
And all I was left with were stones.

I wish we'd talk

I wish we'd talk more, like the old days.
In days gone by we'd chat for hours on life's inanities.
You dominant, me following the thread,
Like something within us was joined
And somehow had been even before we met.
Like we'd known each other forever.
I thought it would go both ways,
That bond remaining in perpetuity,
But lives change.

I can't remember the last time we talked.
Not properly.
Not picked a conversation clean
Then side-hopped to another.
It's not quite out of sight - out of mind,
But the machine is no substitute
For the immediacy and intimacy of face to face.
I kid myself that distance is the problem,
But lives change.

The Devil's in my Sandwich

The Devil's in my sandwich
Waiting for me to bite
Somewhere between the pickle and the cheese
I bought it from the station
Where the man tipped me a smile
Said "You've never tasted sandwiches like these."

So I lifted the bread
With a prayer upon my lips
And I bit off more than ever I could chew
But I wore a brazen grin
As the pickle trickled out
Thinking "Devil, this time I have bitten you."

But you should never second guess
Where old Nicholas' involved
As I recalled a friend at lunch telling a joke
I opened up to laugh
And that sandwich tumbled down
As the devil he began to make me choke.

The Wall

They came over the wall
Gibbering, hungry,
Leaving nothing at all
In their wake.
We tried every sword,
Arrow, dagger, pike.
Everything we could afford
With our lives at stake.
But nothing did them harm.
Nothing forged of fire,
No spell or magic charm
Could pierce their skin.
At the final hour
When hope seemed lost
We discovered a power
And a way to win.

The Dachshund and the Poodle

"You've got to use your noodle,"
Said the dachshund to the poodle,
"You can't just blindly follow what they say.
If a stick goes over the edge
Do you jump when they say 'fetch'?
They can't go on having it their own way."

"We need our own collective,
To put this in perspective
A union for dogs whatever breed.
Excuse my Marxist leanings
But we've got to change proceedings,
Some canine communism's what we need."

"They think we're just pets to own,
That they can bribe us with a bone.
Well I tell you now enough's enough.
Can I count you as another?
Are you with me brother?"
To which the poodle drooled and gave a 'wuff'.

Toad and Mouse

In a small grey box by the side of the road
There lived a lively but slightly damp toad
With a thimble of tea and a loaf of bread
And a strip of twine he wrapped round his head.
He spent his days in modest joy
By whatever means he could employ
Which usually meant a song and a dance
And a tipple of tea when he got the chance.
And sometimes a visit from his friend the mouse
Who was also fond of toad's cardboard house
And fond of his tea and his twine-wrapped hat.
Some might say he was jealous at that
But the mouse and the toad were the firmest of friends
And they'd dance all day until night descends
And the time it came to leave toad's abode
And cross the long and tarmacky road
Which, it has to be said, was a dangerous spree
Especially when one had been tippling tea.
Now mouse, he ran, but toad, he just hopped
And the large white van, it never stopped.
And now it's mouse who dwells in the cardboard box
And instead of a hat he wears twine socks
Which keep his toes quite warm and dry
As the cold winter nights pass him by
And he mournfully sings by the thimble of tea
Of his old friend toad and how jolly he'd be
And if only on that fateful night
He'd looked to the left as well as the right
And hopped with perhaps just a little more vigour
Then toad might still have kept his figure.
But the cloud is silver-lined, thought mouse,
For he bequeathed to me this beautiful house
And this thimble of tea and this loaf of bread
And this twine, which I wear round my feet instead.
But as I sit by the side of the road
I admit I miss my dear friend toad.

Armadillos and Earthworms

A peculiar creature is the armadillo
Protected on top but squidgy below
Its only defence is to roll in a ball
Which isn't really that much defence at all

I agree from a slow creature that might suffice
And from attacks from above it's awfully nice
But have you considered the dangers beneath?
Those burrowing creatures with razor-sharp teeth

The common earthworm, I've often found
Quite terrifying when it breaks from the ground
And towering over 8 inches high
It gives a roar that rends the sky

This creature most gardeners would invite
Is more vicious than a crazed Great White
More deadly than a scorpion
But children play with them for fun

They wriggle out across the soil
And look so helpless as they toil
We do not hear their noble words
As they sacrifice themselves to birds

Which they do to make us all believe
They're as harmless a creature as you could perceive
No-one suspects them of being more
Than bugs that thrive in our manure

But have you ever given thought
To what these fiends may do for sport?
Ooh, I swear it makes me squirm
Whenever I think of the earthworm.

Too Long

It's been too long
Memories fade to years
It's been too long
Everything's gone but the tears
With every night, another day
Another morning come what may
It's been too long
And I still want you here.

It's been too long
Yet I still wear the ring
It's been too long
You wouldn't recognise anything
The streets we walked succumbed to change
The very air seems quiet and strange
It's been too long
But the thorn still bears its sting.

The Broken Routine

The clock shouts time and up you rise,
The lack of sleep behind your eyes
Slippers and slacks the morning suit
Down the stairs, the nod to fruit
That is the apple slice in the muesli bowl.
The drops of milk with pure control,
Tea can't be too milky or strong
Don't leave the bag in the cup too long.
Just show it a quick 'how do you do'
Then put it aside for cup number two.
The toast that is so carefully timed
The marmalade that's just so fine
Each shred is measured to a 'T'
The sugar content an exact degree.
Then shower and dress and pack and go,
But what the neighbour's curtains don't show
Is that you're packing more than usual today,
You're leaving the house and moving away
And nothing now can make you stay.

The Chocolate

Eek - forgot to post yesterday's poem... Here it is:

Because the chocolate was not sweet enough
She filled the cup with sugar
Stirred three times and tapped the side
Placed it to her lips and sipped.
She put her feet upon the chair
Turned her back to the fire
Lifted her eyes and spoke to me
Of duty calling and defining the day.
Of delays, demands and more requests
To take her time and rule her life.
There's only so much one can do.
Only so far things can go
Before the push becomes a push-back.
Acceptance to resistance.
I don't know if there is
A measure of when that point is reached
Or if it's just a crowning
To the pressure building deep within.
She lifts her cup and sips again
And soon those pressures fall away.

Brick King Cnut

Brick-by-brick the oceans fall
To King Cnut and his Lego wall
He builds it high to stem the tide
Five metres high, ten metres wide
Millions of bricks stacked piece by piece
Covering every kink and crease
Of the coast around his bay
In defiance of what the wise men say
But Cnut did not think it through -
Always test before you do -
When finished it was quite a sight
But Lego is not water tight
The tide seeped straight through the cracks
Between the glistening Lego stacks
And Cnut who was sitting just behind
Did not get quite what he'd designed
Instead of having nice dry toes
He got wetter as the waters rose
And soon the bay became choked thick
With millions of floating Lego bricks.

Five Points

Funny how a star is born
A five-pointed thing
Not a ball of gas in fiery fury.
Why did 5 become the norm?
I wonder if from oceans warm
The starfish crept
Or found in desiccated state
Defined the celestial form?
Or if an artist tasked to perform
His art on canvas
Sketched out a stylised
Approximation of a solar storm.
Or God poured scorn
On man's attempt
To demonstrate the oceano-
Christian crown of thorns.
I don't know whether to fawn
Over one theory or another.
Or if folks just like the number 5
And have chosen to conform.

The Storyteller

At the corner of the wall, she stood
And listened to the tales he told
Full of truths and half-truths.
She laughed and raised
Her right hand to her mouth
Stifling more, saving them for another time.
When the show was over
And the audience had left,
She entered like a shy autograph hunter
Creeping behind him and clearing her throat.
He didn't turn, just raised his hands and took hers.
And there they stood, aging as time weathered them.
Smiles on both of their faces.
Looking back at better times and stories still to come.

The Hammer

They say he'd done a bad thing
And he did his woman wrong.

Late night when the cars had gone
And Lily whispered by
He followed with a heavy heart
And liquor in his eye.

Talk was he was a weak man
And she was playing him for a fool.
Talk had got his anger up,
And talk had lost his cool.

He tailed her to the 21
And waited across in a bar,
Pouring oil on his anger
Straight from a whiskey jar.

Thoughts flooded out of him
Like the sweat upon his brow,
Of what she had been doing,
With who, where and how.

As he drank he mumbled
All the things that he would say
And his hand stole to his pocket
And the hammer he'd taken that day.

At last he saw her leave
As the lights fell with the rain,
Walking with another man
Smiling as they came.

He tailed them through the streets
Crept close without a sound
And like the judge in the courtroom
He brought the hammer down,

The man went down first
And Lily's screams were short
There was no mercy in his mind
Just one burning thought

Of his Lily dressed in white
Upon their wedding day
And the man lying dead beside her
Trying to take her away.

But as he stood there in the dark
And the rain kept coming down
The man fell from his thoughts
Leaving just Lily in her wedding gown.

She looked at him with so much love
And asked him what he'd done,
And he knew he had no answer
And he knew he couldn't run.

As the lights and sirens came for him
He didn't move an inch
Didn't struggle as the irons clicked on
Stood dumb and didn't flinch.

He knew the moment he had struck
As clear as in a song
That he had done a bad thing
And done his woman wrong.

As the days went on it came to light
That she'd been out alone
Selling cigarettes at night clubs
And stashing the money at home

Hidden away in a locked box
Where he couldn't spend it on booze
With a crumpled paper advert
For a Mississippi cruise.

The judge let fall the hammer
And his last thoughts as he swung
Were that he had done a bad thing
And he'd done his woman wrong.

The Hare

The hare rose and twitched
Amid the kerneled oats
Two ears taut against the tide.
At some hidden sign or sound
He dropped and was gone
A thrash of grass revealing a turn
Gone 50 yards away.
The field moved again as one
And I moved too
Hefting my bag and boots
To the path of brittle mud
Whistling notes to a rising lark
And setting the sun behind me.

The Zero State of Mind

There is a point where everything becomes a want of nothing.
Or rather, everything becomes an expectation with nothing returned.
Call it luck. Call it the zero state of a random roll.
The impossible odds of Senet.
Turn the page, take the shot, roll the dice.
May chance choose you as you choose chance.

Some people are born lucky,
But there are different kinds of luck.
Some strive for the extraordinary,
The one in a million.
I never had the one, but I had the million.
The ordinary luck.
The best kind.
The kind that does not roll a zero.
That knows never to expect nothing,
And instead has everything.

Socks

I met a man that never did
Wear socks upon his feet
But he managed it in such a way
That was ever so discrete.

His trouser length was always
Just a little over sized
And his boots stopped somewhere
Between his ankles and his thighs.

But all of this caused
Problems of perspiration
With the trousers and the boots
Preventing air circulation.

As he ambled through the day
And pedi-temperature rose
A distinctive aroma
Began pooling round his toes.

It increased exponentially
Moisture, smell and heat
'Til he was forced to remove his boots
And we all became aware of his feet.

As far from dusk as it is to daybreak

The sheet slips and you turn to breathe
Outside is as dark as in at this time,
But I see you clearly in my mind's eye
Every familiar shadow and line.

I sit in silence, staring into nothing,
Feeling the years pass us by.
My eyes are too open to sleep,
But it's bat-black in the room
And as far from dusk as it is to daybreak.

There's nothing in me but dreams and bad ideas.
Whenever I close my eyes, strange faces leap at me.
Sometimes familiar, sometimes inhuman.
Some move, some speak,
But I never listen for long.

Instead, I move to the centre,
Quo lux ducit,
And seek peace.

Zombies

A zombie's favourite dish is brains
At least, that's what they say
As they waddle and they shuffle
After breakfast every day.

They often chase me through the fields
Mumbling all the while,
But luckily they haven't worked out
How to climb a stile.

The Owl

The owl carefully spun its spine
To turn its head and fix its gaze
To see a shrew a world below
And fall like the moon's rays.

Rock pools

Starfish stir amid the foaming rock pools
Where they make their home,
And hermit crabs address the crowds
Of fish that flit beneath the clouds.

Eastbourne

The clouds broke over the church
And the hills grew close,
Pulling me over Eastbourne and down to the sea.
Chimneys stacked brick by brick
Above the trees and screaming gulls.
Filtered through the dust and fog
And lightning rods linking God and his people
Straight down through the steeple.

---

Concrete shapes and linking steel
The Midas thorn and winding wheel
Sun-burned stone and bone-bleached wood
Things that lived and that yet could.

--

A city born of salt and spray
Dreaming through its rainy days
With palm trees echoing old hotels
And air thick with shrieks and smells.

The Button

You wanted to see what the button would do
So you pressed it.
Didn't think at all what might happen to you
You just pressed it.
I'd been standing there thinking for over an hour
But pushing that button was not in my power.

Too many variables, too many unknowns
So I left it.
Force without thought I just cannot condone
So I left it.
So which one of us did the right thing?
Tell me is action or intellect king?
You opened the door and stepped out
While I stayed inside in a moment of doubt
Wondering if things would have changed if I'd been less retiring.

The Monster

He had a dragon's eyes
And the nose of a troll -
Of immense size
With a wart on the knoll.
His teeth were those of a vampire,
And on a moonless night he'd been bitten.
His looks were worse than monsters in books
But he had the soul of a kitten.

Late Nights

There's something to be said for going to bed
At a suitable time in the evening.
All this fretting and fright at past midnight
Doesn't really help anything.
When it's time to rise all bleary eyed
At 5 o'clock in the morning
It'd be best to have had a little more rest
And might stop some of the yawning.

Night Becomes the Hunter

Beware, little one,
Don't stray too long in the moon's bright gift.
Death is in the air,
Silent and swift.
Every creak a signal,
Each snapping twig a call to feast.
Night becomes the hunter,
A cloak for the beast.

Away in the fields,
Be sure to stay in the herd's safe throng.
Death is in the pack,
Reveling in song.
Each bark is closer,
Every yowl and lick of hungry jaws.
Night becomes the hunter,
A pad for their paws.

No safety in the seas,
Not in the warm current or soft ocean mud.
Death is in the water,
Lusting for blood.
Each wave is an echo,
At every shadow the shoal tenses.
Night becomes the hunter,
A boon for their senses.

In the cool desert,
When the heat leaves and the air invites.
Death is in the darkness,
It stings and bites.
Each crack of claws,
Every flick and angry twitch of their tails.
Night becomes the hunter,
And the hunter never fails.

The Wisp

Alone, it stood, the wisp of hair.
Proud and fair, debonair,
Without a care.

While its brethren fell away
It chose to stay, every day,
And turned to grey.

Standing there

Stained from the news
And taking care of you
For payments long undue.
The carpet gripped
The highest rung and slipped
Undone upon the brink.
You saw it come
You always saw
But graffiti isn't always truth.
Hang low the gifts on Christmas day
Take care to watch and place each one.
Feelings disappear I'm told
Like caravans on a rainslick hill.
You laughed at that
In times gone past,
But now at last the weather changed
Tore out that page
Replaced the cautious err,
and left me speechless
Standing there.

The wind

There's a chill in the air tonight,
Gusts of wind hammer the windows.
There was a time when I wanted to be out in storms.
To feel that elemental ecstasy
And our impotence. Irrelevance.
Now I sit here shivering.
Tired. Ill.
Whatever life force left in me
Has shriveled to a husk of age
And lusts lost.
What happened to that part of me?
What happened to the whole of me?
The wind calls to me
And I turn my face away.