Month: February 2021

Danger in Yorkshire:Don’t camp on a cliff

The River Warfe has raw sewage in it and will have until 2030 so the Water Board say
And it looks so inviting,The further upstream the better if you want a paddle

A couple and a child put their tent up for the night on the Edge of The Cliffs near Staithes [it’s unclear whether
that’s the top of the cliff or just below.’There have been many cliff falls near Runswick Bay and all along there
It may not be in Yorkshire but it’s close

A house in Halifax blew up but nobody seems to be seriously injured
Can it be gas?

Now speaks the Earth


Now speaks the earth of spring and all its joys.

Now flowers and blossom soothe our  lonely eyes.

So happy are the lovers, girls and boys,

As in the  daisied meadows they may lie.

Now speaks the sun and makes us  want to grow

to open like the flowers for his love

To let the life within us start to flow.

With  blessings sent down to us  from above.

Now every part of nature is in flood

Fresh leaves point down from trees to holy nests

The birds are active in this little wood,

And dwelling on the tree branch breast to breast.

Oh let’s not waste time glued to inner thoughts.

For we may miss the joy which spring has brought

It fell to earth with solemn gravity

Another branch has fallen from the tree
For nine short months, it weakened and grew dry.
It fell to  earth with utter gravity

Is comparing us to trees good simile?
I’d find a better if I’d wits to try
Another branch  has fallen from the tree

The tree grieves not, for trees like to be free
Their main desire is stature, to be high.
Dead branches fall to earth by gravity

Some compare life to a drunken sea;
Or to the sky where dance wild nuclei
Yet our most holy symbol is the tree

The strong hang on in their tenacity
Even as their leaves and berries fly
Weaker branches fall  with gravity

Death comes  so much harder to the high
This is no truth but neither do I lie
Another branch has broken from the tree
Thus disconnected , it is down and free

The shivering moon

The spiteful moon glares through the clouds of night
Unwanted by the men whose conscience aches
They must long for dawn, for sun and light
The shivering moon peers through the clouds of night
With unintended force it hurts the eye
Reminded those bereaved of their ill fate
Demented now, the moon gawps through the night
A loathsome sight to those whose conscience wakes

Yet life endures

Since you died I learned to use a crutch
I have noone to lean on, none to touch
I wanted you to die with kindly ease
Now I miss another I could tease

Noone knows what was our special tree
Nor why the pain of loss dwells in my knee
As if I cannot stand or wait alone
Dark earth is softer than these paving stones

The trees you loved my neighbours see as weeds
I shan’t recite a list of their misdeeds
Others gossip of my coloured coats
A widow’s weeds aren’t teal, they grin, they gloat

Before you went I saw the cloth of gold
Coming down from heaven to enfold
Then it rose, its satin thick and pure
Taking you away, yet life endures

The emptiness, the void, the loss, the pain
The crash severe we know is foreordained



The sky’s a shark

The sky is stark, the air is cool and still
The black cat’s run, the birds unfold all day
I sit down here and with my totty pray
Ye cast o’ foolish thoughts, you raped my will
We’ve each enraged the bureaucratic mill.
Oh frigid purse, I never meant to pay!
The sky ‘s a-spark, the air is warm and shrill
The saturnine demoted knelled their way
With this feathered pounce, my sample quill,
I cite the cheque and date it for next May.
Oh, tit for cat, the tiger’s bed ‘s astray.
Yer life is settled by a harlot’s will
The sky ‘s a shark, the air is sharper still.

The pavement

I knew the nearby pavement as if it were a face
The lines and cracks and puddles where holes sucked in the rain
The gutter where the marbles rolled,the grids like iron lace
I knew the nearby pavement as if it were a face
As if it had a consciousness,a heart to be embraced
It must have had some kind of mind,though never had a brain
I knew the nearby pavement as if it were my face
The lines and cracks and puddles where holes were filled with rain


Life, the dance

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We walked in rhythm  as if life were our dance
Holding hands, we smiled   whilst on our way
Exchanging too  a soft and loving glance
We walked in rhythm  as if  love were a dance 
Showing both the strength and  the nuance
I wish my love were still with me  at play
We walked in rhythm, our life  a home made dance
Holding hands, we smiled whilst on our wa

Tranquil but swift

When we’re feeling sad we need to dance
Every place once had its form and tune
In Ireland self taught fiddlers could entrance
As merry people danced under the moon

Now we watch the dancing on TV
We’re still as statues tossed onto settees
But watching others dance can never be
A way to change our mood as rolls the sea

Infantile and placid with our lot
We have cables,aerials and Sky
Could the supernatural begat
Creative hearts in those who careless lie?

Just the music of the dance uplifts
The hearts that beat with love tranquil yet swift


The flowers scent

A sightless man on the cliff could smell the scents
As his daughter spoke the flowers names
He seemed happy, more than just content
A blind man in the garden sniffed the scents
We drank our tea with joy at careful chant
The sea was dancing, in and out it came
A sightless man near the cliff enjoyed the scents
His daughter told to all the flowers names

Do try to be more boring

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My photo

1.Wear a dull beige or grey knitted hat and shapeless beige padded jacket
2 Carry a plastic handbag or briefcase.
3 Knit your eyebrows
4.Mutter inaudibly as you walk
5 Sing Joan of Arc and wave your arms like Jennifer Warnes when queuing in Tesco’s.Maybe that’s more insane than boring
6 Ask people at the bus stop if they like Pritti Patel.
7.Keep mentioning Boris Johnson in a puzzled manner as id
8.Tell everyone how ill you feel and ask them what they think of bunion operations.
9.Ask them if someone moves their gadgets round at night while they are asleep
10.If asked to meet for coffee,say you don’t drink if wondering who he is
11 Tell your lover all about Wittgenstein while he is caressing your supine body.
12.Ask your lover to define postmodernism after they kiss you
13.Use cliches like , at this moment in time, getting down to the nitty gritty, whenever possible
14.Don’t keep up to date in which spectacles are in fashion.Say, what ‘s wrong with these.especially if they resemble Dame Edna Everage’s. Or  if you have mended them with Elastoplast or elephant tape
15 Always talk more than anyone you are with or
16  Never talk
17.Ask women why they wear trousers.
18 Ask people how often they wash their jeans
19 Try to convert people to your religion as often as you can
20.Say  you never eat foreign  food while you eat a Chinese take away
21  Cry  when someone else eats the last cream puff
22 Say you never watch sport as you believe wearing shorts is a mortal sin.
23 Ask people if you can borrow  their vibrator as your  hand held blender is broken and you want to make sponge cake
24 Never read a paper or hear the News
25 Ask someone why Moses has descendants while Plato has none.
26 Ask an orthodox Jew why God hates pork.
27,Ask a Catholic if  they are on the pill.
28 Never flirt or even look at people
29 Never  make jokes
30 Never read lists nor funny books

The Saxon cliffs at Hythe

I remember turquoise sea and sky
Burning stubble in the fields longside
Coming down the Saxon cliffs at Hythe

Joy had straightened all that was awry
By the shore we saw the tide was high
Only I remember turquoise sky


Colour makes me glad to be alive
The flowers were open with a spirit blithe
Atop the newer cliffs, a cafe hides

Joy is never found when willpower strives
Just as love’s destroyed when lovers lie
I remember sea turned teal, blue sky


Freed fom our hard work we felt alive
The sea triumphant inward seemed to glide
We came down the Saxon cliffs at Hythe

In my heart these memories survive
Colour,shore, the images abide
I remember turquoise sea surprised
Coming down the Saxon cliffs at Hythe

The lifeboat

We are in this boat together
Sailing across the bay.
Some have an easy voyage,
The wind is blowing their way
I wish I could always be sailing
Across an ocean with you
And never reach the other side
though it may be in view.
I want to see the sunrise
Across the dappled sea.
The ripples of the water
Reveal a new world to me.
One day this boat will reach the shore
Unless destroyed by storm
And I shall have to leave your arms
Where I have been so warm.
So just before we get there
I wanted you to know
That I shall always love you
Wherever you may go.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

The handkerchief pan

In the evening. simmering handkerchiefs
Perfumed the air with odours I can’t tell
Mother scrubbed them, hung them on the line
Then I had to iron them, folded well

Now we have our tissues, we don’t need
Hankies that need scrubbing many times
The oceans  deep are  poisoned  with our  waste
Is the use of tissues a  new crime?

While we did our  homework  after tea
My brother  liked his Wagner at  full blast
Imagine  learning Latin  with that din
Now the time for anger  has  long passed

Bad memories change  by  newly given grace
Evoking hints of  mother and her face

The cake tins

I see the tins I used for Christmas Cakes
The Russian Cheese Cake and the apple tart
Nowadays do younger women bake?

I remember mother making Buns
Hot,uncross, she made cakes with her heart
Her apple suet pudding beat her plum

The kitchen was a room with its own fire
There we ate and cooked and fought,alarmed
Children pinch and nip and even bite

I banged my head upon the table sharp
The corners seemed to hate me,even spurn
I wished I were a dog so I could bark

I fell down the stairs, it was a thrill
It hurt less than the beatings made me smart
Children were deprived of any will

Shall these cake tins from my home depart?
Shall I make a small cake from a chart?
I hold the tin I used for Christmas Cake
Watching TV where new experts bake

Pen and bell

In this so called office,I am trapped
Trying hard to write and to adapt
I have numerous pens in this my cell
Reminding me of school, the longed for bell

Ten past four, we put on winter clothes
I crossed the Park in fog, it wet my nose
Walking down our street I’d see the cat
Sitting on the pavement, Ginger spat

I put the kettle on to make our tea
The coal glowed low and red like elves in glee
The aluminium teapot never broke
The kettle had turned black , the milk was smoked

I had that tiny piece from others free
That was when I learned that I am Me

Where are you from?

I’ve spent so long listening to Leonard Cohen when I’ve been sad,I now have a semi- Canadian accent.


One day I was at the bus stop and noone was around so
I sang “Joan of Arc” which takes 7 minutes
The nest time I met a friend, she said,I didn’t know you could
sing.She was behind her hedge!
I used to listen to the same songs over and over again

https://youtu.be/2zjLBWnZGTU

The war for peace

Like psychotic infants huge with rage
The human race grew rich on war not peace
Until at last the whole world was engaged
World Wars the great Plays on this our stage
Like psychotic infants hot with rage
Their burning breath took books,rich page by page
All imagined horror they increased
Like psychotic infants wild with rage
The human race fooled into War for Peace


No light in the dark after tea

I wanted to go the bathroom
But the Council has closed them all down
What shall we do
When we can’t find a loo
Anywhere in the whole town?

Some people cut back on water
But that makes your urine too strong
Drink diet lemonade
Over which nuns have prayed
Otherwise you may be shunned

The city has no fields and hedges
Where peasants could find some relief
Our bodies and bladders ruled
By this old ship of fools
Unbuild all the cities with streets

I washed my own hair in the kitchen
We had no bathroom,you see
We had out own lavatory
In the back yardery
No light in the dark after tea

I am glad that I have my own bathroom
It’s much better when I menstruate
I can see my own blood
Sometimes in flood
I wish I’d sent that to the Tate

I prefer it green

Bless me ,Father, I have sinned again
Needlessly I caused my lover pain
If he asks for whipping, use a cane
I cannot strike the one I love, be plain
My sin is in my tongue,I call him names
I feel you need to show a bit more shame
Do no others try their love to tame?
Don’t fool with me,I guess you are insane.
If I am, it’s God that is to blame
Don’t you know to say that is a crime?
You mix your legal and your moral zones.
I’ve had enough of this,I’m going home
Will your lover come across to Rome?
No,we live in sin, please change your tone
I am sad for I live all alone
I can only recommend you find a crone
I’d prefer a witch, is this the time?
Any time is right if there’s a line
You mean I have to phone them,I can try
It’s up to you, quit moaning, you’ll be fine
I’d better wash my hands and have a cry
Let it out and sin with no more sighs
Thanks for that,I think you’re very wise
Moreover I do like your gorgeous eyes
This is about the end,I know you spy
I’d love you, if you told me truly why.
Now we are absolved we need a fry
Get the eggs, the bacon’s turning grey
I prefer it green, so go away























Oh, what is left this world, its might?

 I can’t write poems about   the Fall
Plastic window,  curtain calls
Coloured  clothes pegs and the iron
Men with names like Kid and Lion

I can’t write poems  about  my school
Nor   algebraic  rings of fools
I hate to eat from plates at dinner
Am I   on the spectrum, not a sinner?

I cannot write about the Christ
Evoking grief at  sacrifice.
Paedophilia   hid by men
Men whose lies  might come again

Oh, what is left this world, its might?
Seek the grace to see and  fight