Poem for the Moths.

You are fragile tracing paper thin.
Easily a berry between two long fingers.
You dart busying yourself searching
for bright heat or the light of purpose,
which only moths know and talk about
in moth think moth talk and moth love,
perhaps the pursuit of safety.

But why is the light so maddeningly important,
you hover there like late Buddhas,
in the air of time. Are you Trapped in
moth size, screaming toward the light?
'Clip my wings! Make me larger!
Don't want to be a moth anymore!'

What nonsense; mistaking lamp bulbs
for flower heads. You remind me
of a certain someone species, a certain civilised
manwomankind. They appear clumsy, fluttering
foolish but sincere in the heart of the matter
like you struggling into the small hours
but generally they turn the light off and go to Sleep.




*I realise the Moth muse is staid, over done, but I like the poem, its nonchalance; a lackadaisical muse upon a moths flicker, while smoking alone, one night, in the back garden of the close.

The forgotten Jesus

The Forgotten Jesus:

I keep making people fall asleep;
whenever I sit beside them for long enough
and say what needs to be said they slowly
but surely doze off into tranquil snooze.
I am left with eternity all around me
twiddling my thumbs, lonely for my Father,
who never calls; perhaps he too has passed out
on his Heavenly bed, dreaming of everyone
and everything, besides me.

Team Work at the Post Office (excerpt)

Terry: 'Awright Spacecadet! Ya fuckin' dandy boy, yee. How come yir in at yir work early the day? You here tae shirk work fir a bit longer?'

Colboy: 'Am no a spacecadet, a keep tellin yee, I'm a fully qualified Astronaut. And, a work like fuck in this place, we all day. A pull ma weight. So don't make oot am freeloadin or no breakin back in this joab.'

Terry: 'Aye, Son, lot a pish! just you get the heed doon, and stop fuckin' waffling.'

Colboy: 'It's the system, the organisation is fucked, we can't work within it, we canny cope, we just tolerate it, we shouldnay tolerate any of it, we are the system, and wir no that systematic, believe it or no. It has us tearing each other apart, when we should be dismantling the shite system.'

Terry: 'Ack! Yir all talk bumboy. Lot a pish! Just get on with yir work and shut it! You don't know your livin, Son.'

Colboy: 'Is that right, Dad?'

Joe: Is that terry and col havin a shouting match? HAHA! Terry, ya fuckin' inbred beast, shut the fuck up and get a wife! Stop being married tae the joab. Ya jobsworth Proddy.

Terry: 'Ha! You shut it, Joesy! Ya catholic cock. You catholics, all shaggin wee boys!'

Joe: 'Ha! And you proddies, all fucken memebers o yir ain family. Fuckin beasts. A tell you, beasts, man.

Terry: 'Right, shut it, every body get the fucken heeds doon and do some work. Ya shower o reprobates.'

A Skittish Boy

(Me, aged roughly, 4 years old)

The Ancestors’ albums
All the photo albums of my family history
Are stored in the eves of the attic.
In the night the attic doors shudder in the wind,
And depending on the strength of the wind
Sometimes the rattling wakes you.

Queer memory
A hot summer tent, flap flailing in the breeze.
We climbed in and out, naked, blithe. Two boys uncovered.
Our clothes still inside. Our bodies without recoil.
Little luminous white skins not without a blemish.

In Art class,
We made Valentine cards
and marked our kisses with an X.
I never painted much always drawing
stick soldiers in battle scenes.
Later adding underground bunkers for safety,

now here I am
And I’m thinking,
(And the thinking screws it)
become a type writer,
a word dresser, an honesty monster.
Something straight along the line.

Chaffinch

Little bird
upon the branch
singing;
you have no
National Insurance
number and that
is beautiful.
You fly, live die
and cannot be arrested.

So many faces I can pull

So many faces I can pull,
like Mr Sad and Mr Cool.

On Sunday's young boy Halo
On Monday's old man gloom.

And on occasion Mr Angry
concedes that he loves Mr fool.

Cause we're all in this together,
all the faces I can pull.

But most of all I love Mr Big Laugh
And sincere, Mr Wink-if-it's-True.




*This is definitely one for the kids book.

Car Park Poem

car car car car car car car car
car car car car car car car car
car car car car car car car car
car car car car car car car car
car car car car car car car car
car car car car car car car car

Car parks,
as a space,
offer very little poetry.