Very Big Night

Just woke up from a very big night
Probably done things I shouldn’t have
Walked a hell of a long way
Got lost and wandered astray
Swallowed copious amounts of beer
Don’t even remember how I got here
Alcohol burns through my bloodstream guzzling
Events and their relevance still puzzling
Every muscle in my body aching
Every vessel in my head pulsing
The walls of my room won’t stop shaking
Man next door with a lawnmower not helping


This poem is from my new project step &repeat, consisting of 28 new poems and images in two parts. Please click on the image below to step in.

Nothing To Win

When seagull meets pigeon at the water’s edge
the fight begins,
for hungry stomachs and ruffled wings.
A wretched gathering desperate for gain
as they challenge for tossed scraps,
stale, full of sin,
And so continues the food chain,
A struggle of many with only one aim,
from the squalid bowels of a garbage bin.
How quick we are when there’s nothing to lose
But quick would we be if nothing to win?

Money

For many years,
Centuries...
Money was the great leveller.

Now
That the gap has grown wider
And corruption is rife
To fulfil the lavish dreams
Of lifestyles of the rich,
This is no longer the case.

Something new and unforeseen has come
To take the place of the ghost of lost money.
The new great leveller
Will be climate.

The Photo Taker

For now the results are beknown to but one.
His work is done. He captures in his craft a crowd,
Envelopes every feature, line and wrinkle of the individual,
And their involvement in events, unveiled in the group portrait.

For now there is one who caters for many.
His aim is to satisfy the subject itself,
Whose faces are shuffled, focussed and framed,
Whose lives are preserved in this time-honoured trade.

For now there is only one with forsworn insight,
Until all is revealed in black and white;
Only one mind with the gift to know all,
Only one eye with the skill to show all.

In the decades to come there will be but one,
Forgotten by those he chose to remember.
The only one without proof he was even present at the grand bash,
The ghost who is forever gone with a flash!

The Watery Prison

This dim cage.

Cold

Damp

Dark.


The iron bars fall like pellets of rain,
And surround me;

A prisoner of the law,
a prisoner of the pain.


In the grey clouds in the ceiling of my cell,
Occasional beams of sunlight,
peering through the cracks,

Enlighten me;
an inmate of Hell.


On the mouldy floor the water drops stain,
And wet me;

A prisoner of the law,
a prisoner of the rain.

Aspirin Over The Moon

How is it,
That on such a still evening,
With the slightest ruffle of warm breeze in the air,
With the softest frond of light radiating from the glow of distant planets,
And the fullest of bold yellow moons holding command over our horizon,
Against the deepest and darkest backdrop of true midnight sky,

How is it up here,
As we propose to drift silently through infinity in our hot air balloon,
Floating so effortlessly on unplotted course,
Where the complexity and majesty and absolute intricacy of the universe
Is unveiled and starts to reveal itself to our very conscience,
And the total extravagance of bearing witness to such a phenomenal privilege
Is brought a little closer into context,
Like a canvas taking form to the strokes of Van Gogh’s perfect mind,
That to try and even begin to fathom would bring lament to the most projected thought,
And cause the hairs on the surface of the back of one’s neck
To stand in unanswerable awe,

How is it up here,
In this theatre of timeless tranquillity,
In this orbit of wondrous reflection,
This picture of purest fertility,
In this presence of greatness,
In the absence of space,
Not ringed in by substance,
In this life altering spectacle,
This transcending, this blending, this melding of the worlds,
This expansion of the very meaning of the word beauty,
How is it up here,
That someone could ask for an aspirin?

UFO

The lunge is quick like an angry boar,
The launch is smooth and wind it draws,
A whirlpool of focus and immediate attention,
Circumstances forgotten while surroundings blur.
The body rises but the head goes first,
A shattering collision of reflex and nerve,
Shimmering decisions as the future unfolds,
The barrier broken, the army march forth.