Poetry

 

Circadian Rhythms

 

I am not old

But at an age

When the dawn is already day.

I meet the moon in the morning

The sun still on her way.

 

Pink clouds flush with her soft sweet rise,

Blue spreading out his arms to embrace the daytime skies.

Bats waft through the sky

As though wading through dimensions

Macabre into morning light

Dissolving expectations.

 

When did I retune my circadian rhythm?

So cicadas marked the time for bed,

And the dawn birds choose the wakening?

 

Not long ago their early call was feared by my generation,

Late nights melting into cold hard 4ams

Stirred confused communal hesitation

We stumbled home to face the consequences of

Our circadian law breaking.

 

Now I join the dance macabre

Of nocturnal navigation.

With closed eyes I rise from bed

Lured by some subtle sense of cessation.

 

I watch and let the day reveal itself,

We wake up hand in hand.

She leads me to my cup of tea

And fills my head with plans.

 

And I prefer this subtlety,

this flowing with the forces,

I think of generations gone,

When daylight was a resource

Electric light has charged our bodies

Jumpstarts our inner engines.

 

But the dance of daylight into dreams

Or stories into legends

Takes time to change,

To wake, to waft,

Like dawn becoming day

 

You may say

My habits are like those of a little old lady

But I’ve a head start daily

 

So when the sunshine’s fading

Circadia will lay me down

To sound subconscious realms

And I’ll be dream deep in the darkest hour

Before the dawn starts breaking

 

And when the time is right to shed the night

I can begin awaking

The silence of the morning light

Smiles at our secret meeting.

 

A tryst in sweet Circadia

A place and time to start creating.

 

 

Monsoon Mania

 

One rain occasion

The rain spat down

Like a stamped foot

30 seconds flat, if that.

Not a minute of drama

But a moment of madness

 

Softer drops soon followed

Crescendoing again into a full body

belly flopped splash fest

Going out required, not a brolly

But a bullet proof vest!

It tapered after three minutes. Max.

A mere moment

for a mini monsoon.

 

Near silence ensued

Only simple squeaks

and rustlings dripped

from leaves

And filtered into ears

And then up the nose, that smell…

A gorgeous gust of new dew

To welcome us back outside

 

 

Stories for Samhain

Hand Tree

Hand Tree

Give me your leaves

Hand me your gifts

Grown from soil and seeds

Hand in hand

We’ll replenish the land

With skin and bone

From every hu-man

Sussex Sea Shanties

Back in Brighton

A zinging zephyr spurs at my heels
swept up on a zeal of mercurial camphor
I hover over familiar feeling pavements.

A minty fresh mayhem quips at my heart
like a mischievous sibling chatting through laughter.
I’m reminded of a hot, cold
new old
ebb and flow;
an energy so fast, in slow mo

On the go, in the throws, anything goes
Where wild lip shades walk, talk,
kiss and blow bubbles of pure hope
left over from last night’s giggles,
Squabbles unrepressed.
The best dressed competition everyday,
the worst just a footstep away.

I sit softly to see the sea-
a personified sigh.
A human in the hole of a holiday.
Wind wars with wave
sun spills out of whetted wounds
Thoughts are pulled out of my ears by the hairs on my head.
Flossed with fresh air
Blessed with fresh starts
Intoxicated with memories
and knee deep in broken hearts.

 

Sea Change

I’m thirsty for the sea,

for it to drink me in a reciprocal quench,

to be drenched in that sparkling ice cool collation of H2…

O to bask in that reverie of sky blue.

That salty stench distilling then filling

my sensory flue.

Filled with ephemeral particles

my warm skin is startled

as the first toe dipped intro sends shivering sparkles

up into my innermost centre pole.

Ripples send nipples on end,

hard enough to slice through this surface of diamonds.

Not a warm, but a wincing wet welcome.

Submerged, immersed, merging

cell to cell,

sea to sea

sea to me.

 

My Space poetry (fourth worst poetry in the universe after Vogon)  

S           P           A            C           E

S urrounding all the mess and matter, a

P erfect place for peace to shatter the

A ils of crazed consumerism

C hannelled through this spacious prism, shines

E ndless light and possibilities.

SPACE creates infinities.

My Space

Space is a piece of peace.

Give me space to release

Fill my gaps with emptiness,

Nothing is worth more than nothingness.

Inside and outside the Clay Pot

It sits on your skin

It holds you

You breathe it in

You fall through it

It moves through you

opening areas

making gaps

We’re made of crannies

Full of nooks

You breathe it out

it’s full of stuff

Does emptiness exist?

Is there enough?

Space is a resource

It can be exploited

A hole, an orifice, it can be violated

Dark matter

in which it strings hang

Vacuum packed

stacked

Claustrophobia attack

If you can’t swing a cat

Throw a stone

Hear a bat, hearing

Breathe in,

You are alone

Now it fills you

It’s the same element

Space.

Dabbling in Drab

 

Inflammation for the Nation

Limp bowel

Vexed mouth

Fire in belly

Travelling south

Wet blanket

Damp heat

Steam bath

Cold feet

Hard head

Break through

Smooth over

Undo

Rise up

Look down

See clearly

Leave town

Close knit

Worlds apart

Find your voice

Follow your heart

 

 

 

Working for the NHS

A long day so easily forgotten

Like a patient after a traumatic operation.

Yet I return in one piece.

Achy feet, a pang in the back

It’s all part of the service

The bags show we care.

 

Then, with a soothing smile,

and a cold cheeked embrace

Biomedicine is biorhythmically outplayed.

I am cured.

 

So I eat without thinking of flesh and blood.

And sleep like the dead.

 

A painkiller is not

The same as immunity.

You just don’t feel what is hurting you.

 

 

The Stress Economy

So civilisation

May owe its creation

To the idea that ideas are put into actions

And so the foundations of buildings were laid

By countless slaves

Whip cracked, broken backed

Lorded over, spat at.

 

Systems formed, cultures cultivated

But the forces of stress are never sated.

More and more is always wanted

And someone’s got to go and get it

So others can flaunt it, have it, and own it.

 

The building blocks of civilisations

Made of stress, demand, impatience

Are downfalls of us all, as people fall, ill

As inner systems strangle,

Hernias and guts entangle

Worry worms of work tomorrow

Tunnel through our souls

And sorrowful

hearts

As anxiety and fear prevail.

 

And the mind cannot suffer alone

So through the brain and spinal bone

Nerves are knackered,

Veins are blown

Teeth clench

Jaws unhinge…the mind, it helps my friend

Some gallows humour about being mad

But no one will admit to that!

 

So deep down muscles wrench

Friction in the bowels commence

The stomach pit is set alight

Fire! Fire! Fight or flight!

 

But there’s no where to go

And no one to punch

Just a pine lined corridor leading to lunch

Where sloppy seconds revolve on a plate, and

Your boss licks sour lips as you try not to hate her

And intangible tannoys of meaningless data

Spur on paranoia as they seem to berate you.

 

So salaries splurge on doctor’s appointments

Where nothing is found but self-accusations

That money is squandered on social occasions,

And occasional beers, fags and drugs, illegal?

 

Take 2 3 times daily with every meal

It will clear up in no time, just try and relax

But it keeps coming back

Mutated and cracked

You’ve spent your pay packet

And can’t even sleep

To stop all this racket

 

The NHS is free? Well who’s helping me?

My pockets are emptied on the stress economy

A subtle slavery

Killing me softly

Slowly