old age beckons
Dissipation of the mind
crumbling of the body
simplification of living
shaking of unshaken beliefs
fade to credits…
Mind and body crumble
May 15th, 2011We toil
May 11th, 2011
Do not be fooled.
These streets, paved with gold,
glisten with bent back sweat,
dripped and sleeve dried of narrow eyes
that hurt in the salt soaked sunshine
and half moon light.
No riches.
Simple broken ends, hammered by the waves
and buried by the mocking seagull’s cry.
Slow train
May 10th, 2011Slow train, taking it’s time to go nowhere
Empty mind, staring at fields
Don’t care, how long it takes to get going
Life will, still wait for me.
Four inches wide
May 8th, 2011The fear is four inches wide and sits by my heart.
Just down, to the right, it perches with the presence of a clutch of angry vipers tied in a ball.
They sleep; but not for long. They wake
and my life is filled again with writhing hate. As
their bodies wind together they make dark cold liquid run through my insides.
Dripping onto my stomach, provoking eruption.
They stretch down each arm, lifting with a forked lick the hairs they find there.
They turn, and now they have created gravity. A superpresent
force that inverts me, makes the fear my centre, my down, my earth.
All is now in thrall to the fear.
It wins. I orbit it.
A helpless fleshy satellite flung round for an eternity by my own folly.
Off the wall
May 8th, 2011High-wire
Cheesewire cuts the souls beneath my feet.
Frowning down at
Emotional account – is overdrawn.
Planning permission required
From grass-roots up;
The sky’s the limit.
Only 20 pounds and this
Is what I bought.
A drought,
A hunger –
Desperately seeking captivated audience
To catch my drift
Across a landscape,
Painted wordily in ink.
Personal Effects
And yet you still are unaffected?
I spilled not knowing –
Thick and slick –
Too slippery for me.
Humpty Dumpty.
Broken lines and fragments.
Shelling never stops.
Did I mention how high I was?
And now back home on earth,
My heights are but a fighter jet,
A mirage through the clouds.
All my thoughts are pregnant birds
That try to fly betwixt these words –
And though perhaps they’ll go unheard
They yearn to sing aloud.
Holding hands.
A piggy-bank
A childhood could not fill.
Timely intervention
Watching notes rain wet on teenage years
Discordant striking tears for fears –
Pneumonia or chill?
No gangrenous hopes,
Nor organic dreams;
All chrome and armour clad.
Wires corrode
And yet they hold
Ideas aloft, aloof and crazed
Like a preacher dressed in plaid.
To this moment complete,
Nothing may alter
A tattooed sermon never taught.
I’d like to leave this honest yoke,
Be back where I belong.
No bad egg yet the question I beg –
Would He rather a Father distraught?
Back to back
With mother moon,
All things considered
The end comes too soon.
But not yet.
This chicken run
Can’t catch my breath,
However clumsy I feel.
Wings spread to the heavens above –
Almost gracefully sometimes –
I pray but not to God;
To the gentle breeze
That carries my weight,
That I should not fall
‘Ere I reach the stars.
Air miles short,
Curtailing destined rise to fame.
Though in my heart
I feel uplifted,
Off the wall,
I feel no shame.
A night of deep reflection
May 8th, 2011That night a lone trumpeter climbed to the top of the castle walls and, facing outwards, sounded the last post. The mood around town was sombre. This was a night to focus the mind. People sat in pubs in their accustomed seats but the usual Saturday night banter was absent.
The notes from the trumpet brought everywhere to a dead silence. Walkers stopped walking, passing cars pulled in and, inside, juke boxes were turned off. As the music faded away everywhere remained still as folk contemplated what lay ahead…
The Blue Square Bet Premier league.
The Violin
May 5th, 2011
In Wray the pigeon is dead, long live the 30Meg symmetrical connection! #twicket
April 27th, 2011In Wray the pigeon is dead,
Martyred on a loop of fibre,
His old and inefficient ways,
Killed off by Doyle of cyber.
The ways of farmfolk perceived:
Rustic whirr of disaffection,
Dawned now the age of Internet,
Enlightening connection!
Oh city boys this killer,
Was 30 Meg symmetrical,
An epitaph, in words of rhyme
This last post, poetical.
For @cyberdoyle
PUSHING BACK THE TIDE – ISLAND DUET
April 25th, 2011Travelling hopefully
I was buried in the music,
old time stuff,
the same songs,
time again,
too loud,
random wanderings
the red sunset
added a touch of magic
to a seaborne pallet
totally calm
the island silhouette
unfamiliar, exotic
Sunday night and wide awake,
clear of mind, imagination fuelled
Arrived – day 1 – rocks at Peel castle
At the edge of the sea I sat, waiting, with expectations of the tide, almost full in. The soak of the bolder wave did not come.
Lands edge was final. There could be nowhere else, no other place, an ending.
I was completely alone though not companionless. My thoughts ran quiet amusements whilst around me the water swirled and pulsated; timeless beats of an incomprehensible song.
I asked no questions. There were no answers.
The Joke of the Dead Man Walking
April 15th, 2011
Ridicule is most painful when
The joker and the joke are
One and the same.
Confessing a weakness
In every action:
This terrible self-parody,
An unintended act
By a clown who cannot cry.
Intaken air sometimes brings
The world in with it,
A punchline to the ribs
Released as a foolish whisper.
Death is full of ill-humour and,
No,
Even the jester will not die laughing.
If the gallows man knows this gag
He’s not letting on
As he tightens the tie at his neck.
The crowd knows what follows
And herein lies
The predictability of a limerick life.
Cartoon cats never catch the bird,
While the coyote detonates
Himself
Yet again;
Did they write the script?
Self-contained comic stripped
Of dignity by the second page,
Stapled and folded over
Upon itself;
Apparently quite popular
With the condemned.
Tragic comedy
Is the dead man’s gift;
An artistic sacrifice without reward
Except for the comfort
Of soliloquy.
The Bird Feeder Episode 3
April 8th, 2011The third in a series of exciting/mildly interesting/relaxing (delete as appropriate) videos showing birds feeding in our back garden. Action at around 4 minutes.
The Bird Feeder Episode 2
April 8th, 2011The second in a series of relaxing videos showing birds feeding in our back garden. Action at 6 and 14 minutes.
The Bird Feeder
April 7th, 2011Take some time out, relax, and watch the bird feeder. Don’t expect huge activity but patience is rewarded.
The long slow death of an elderly elephant
April 3rd, 2011Revving it up
March 30th, 2011If the road is closed and we get to our destination
Did we need it in the first place?
If we didn’t need it, why was it built?
What came first, the road or the demand for the road?