2025
Shrine
Young man
High octane
Testosterone
No time to shine
Baseball cap
Cable tied and a traffic cone
Died before his time
Dead flower heads
Cellophane wrapped
A Roadside shrine
Roadkill
It’s sad when a human dies
if you knew them well of course
Less so sad a dog, a cat, a mouse, a rat a horse
But is it sadder a squashed adder on the road
Than a raptor, a pheasant or toad
Sadder to see a dead hedgehog maybe
Than a rabbit, badger, fox
Or a humble bumble bee
I, like many a guy, would happily squish a fly
Bugger the bugs with insecticide
Perfect apples for perfect for apple pie
Sadder a Rhino I think
If something has to go extinct
It’s a sadder fact though
If the least thing dies out
As the oil runs out
We’re probably fucked
There was an old woman who swallowed a fly
To this beautiful world, the saddest goodbye
If
If an old man with a sandwich board
Proclaims the end of the world
Best ignore him
Take no notice
If the world’s top scientists
Proclaim the same
Better take it on board
Take notice
Sycamore Gap
The defendants claim it wasn’t them
Each claims the other was to blame
That anyone might be bothered
No thought had apparently occurred
Thoughtless mindless and absurd
The sicko vandals of sycamore gap
Extraordinary how they could even think that
Chopping down a tree was funny
Not even in it for the money
It was just a tree
Like the calved up oak of Toby Carvery
Not ebony, nor ivory
Nor global catastrophe
Not the full scale destruction
Of millions of acres felled to feed
Burgers to our fast food greed
State sanctioned strategic stupidity
Multinational corporate cupidity
Greenwashing Dracs burning our tax
And virgin Canadian wilderness
Corrupt government monkey business
Cut down the Robin Hood tree
Rob posterity of an iconic sightsee
Chop down a Canadian wood
Get a bloody knighthood
At his majesty’s pleasure
Or in his majesty’s House
Alethea
Alethea, how fragile we are
Where are you now, then, where are we?
What is this frail state we call reality?
Alethea, what is the here, what now?
Is life a game? Are you free from pain?
Did you win oh winsome dame?
Somewhere between Amazonian queen
And Pre-Raphaelite dream
The haloed Madonna of high Victoriana
Have you reached your nirvana?
Never grow old
Though your body grows cold
Memories
Of bright and sparkling eyes
An unforgettable smile
We are blessed
That you graced this place awhile
Flâneur
A large woman adjusts her dress
Addresses the height of her slacks
Gives the hem of her blouse a caress
Passing a man in black with two loaded packs
One on the front and one on the back
His long black hair in a tangled mess
A woman takes a last long drag on her fag
And drops it on the ground
A man looks like he’s looking for butts
Dressed in double denim with eyes cast down
Examining something small that he’s found
Shuffling in the gutter
With the occasional cackle and mutter
A woman carries a carrier bag with the one word ‘butter’
And a man carries another bag that just says ‘Jones’
Bob Dylan in the background softly sings
‘Like a Rolling Stone, Like a complete unknown’
As a man strolls past fast gripping his stroller
A young mother with a pram and a plan
With a crocheted tank top that could be handmade
A man dressed up for a parade is much older
A couple in sun hats, tall and thin
They’ve come from a hike in the sticks
With their hiking boots and walking sticks
Girls in summer dresses with headphones in
A huge variety of skin tones and bling
What looks like a scout troop troop by
An old woman with a stoop says hi
To an old man with shuffling feet
While a man reads a book in a window seat
Bellies like barrels on more than a few men
A woman walks by looks like someone I knew but then it can’t be, because she’s dead
There’s a woman with a bald head
And another in a Hijab
A man with a rucksack on his back and a pipe like popeye or stepping out of the pages of a thriller from the 20’s
A pink lady with a chihuahua scoots by on a scooter
A lad in school uniform heads for a shop selling computers
Ten minutes on the high street
The people I don’t meet or greet
Oddities a plenty
But now my coffee cup is empty
Trees
Maybe we look down on trees
They are rooted to a spot, we are not
Crows may look down on earthbound us
And caw a jeer at our chains of gravity
Mostly we look up at them
Perched high in a canopy
A tree that maybe saw
The rise and fall of a Roman dynasty
That mighty being might pity us
Our span of being so mayfly brief
If I were a tree would I/me matter?
A Sequoia with ten human lifespans
And a span of 20 outstretched hands
Turned to lumber by a chainsaw wielding man
Brazilian rosewood tone wood trees
Felled close to extinction
We can’t see the wood for the trees I believe
As we come to understand there is no singularity
No ID - all ego each individual rather
A symbiotic multitude of beings
Universes within universes
The internet like micilli of communication
By which trees commune
What do they say to us?
Do we just not comprehend?
The God myth - in our own image
Only super human rather
Everything being perfectly adapted
Super not sub human
All intertwined in the struggle for persistence
All pulling their own strings
Doing their own thing
In the perpetual perfection of existence
Tea With the Queen
My sweetheart marked a heart in the trunk
Of a tree in the park
The tree, the elephant and me all have trunks
As does the 4.43 branch line service
To Southend on Sea
I have been known to pee in the sea
In my trunks
The tree in the park the dog marks has rough bark
The dog that pees has a bark - ruff!
Not to confuse the tree’s canopy
With the canapé at the queen’s garden party
No matter how grand her ruff
Bite off more than you can chew
And bark your shin maybe
End up feeling well a little rough
George, Jack and Me
Why, when you fly the Union Jack or George Cross do I feel so cross, hacked off?
Bigoted rightwing nationalist toffs
Between you and me is no ‘us’
I feel more affinity with refugees
My British passport may be blue
But my blood - as red as can be
My opinions are as far from you
As the desert from the sea
Cemetery
It's peaceful here amongst the dead
The wobbly stones at foot and head
The pigeons coo, a distant drone
An hour or so I’ll be back home
This guy died 1823
His life long gone from living memory
His wife and daughter lie beside
We can only wonder what was his strife
Left to rest, to rot, return
To this good earth we call our home
The cycle of life and death besides
As I sit in the sun at this old graveside
So much hurt and death and pain
The bombs that drop from aeroplanes
I wish the whole wide world could be
As peaceful as this cemetery