MOONGOOLE
Collection
Old Goole
Goole
Yorkshire.
ENGLAND.
First published 2005
This collection copyright © Ian Kellett and
MOONGOOLE 2005
Smashwords Edition, 2010.
© StormSage Central Publishing House
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the above.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
Front and back covers and all illustrations
© Ian and Kirsty Kellett 2005
Give
For all the right reasons.
Also by Ian Kellett:
Over the Influence.
Poetically Incorrect.
Stories at the Door Told Walking.
Versus.
Contents:
1984 And All That.
A Light For The Less Helped.
A Night On The Couch.
A Shock To Your Docking Station.
Afoot.
Age Of Liberty.
Age Old Problems.
All For Me.
All For You.
An Appeal To Free People.
Another Enlightenment.
Arise.
Arisen.
Ark Blooms.
Around The Bend.
As Far As My Cards Could Take Me.
As Old As The World.
Ass Banned.
Away Gains.
Be Mine.
Be Yourself.
Bed Dog.
Better Getting Yet?
Beyond The End Of The World.
Bilking.
Bit Rummy.
Block.
Blurring Our World.
Braided.
Branched.
Brand New Britain.
Broken Into Peace.
Brokered Out Of Peace.
Burgeoned.
Business Assistants.
Can’t Swim Won’t Swim.
Chucking Back Flak.
Coming Out.
Compo Nation.
Concentrated English At The Modern School.
Conclusive Proof.
Contact Lens.
Contagious Arrangements.
Couldn’t Understand The Options
Crazy John.
Debenture Bond.
Don’t Go Learning Daddy’s Bad Habits.
Douglas And Me.
Mary And Me.
Down By Primrose Valley.
Draft Excluder.
Dredging Up.
Ease Out.
Easter.
Engineering Design.
Engineering Resigned.
Entrenched.
Entwined.
Even.
Evensong.
Evolvers.
Exterior Decorator.
Failed In Love With Me.
Fair Dodging.
Famous Weekend Breaks.
Finished.
First Flight.
First Crash.
First Mate.
Footballer’s Wife.
Forgiven Trespasses.
Forgotten And Found.
From Felixstowe.
Froydiddlyoydoydle.
Get Him Gone.
Getting Myself Gone.
Gone North.
Gone South.
Good Credit Record.
Good To Be Me.
Got You Where You Want Me.
Greenhouse Affection.
Gushing.
Hand Made In England.
Held Up To The Light Of The Levee.
Hermetic.
Hierarchy Rules.
Him.
Hindsight’s Second Theory.
Hit Don’t Kick.
Hoe Down Low.
Home Help.
Home To Please Me.
Home To Seize Her.
How.
How Many Givers Does It Take...?
Huge News.
Hundred Years War.
Hunting Season.
I Dotters And T Crossers.
I Know You Know My Name.
(I Know Your Name.)
Ides Of March.
Impression Of A Desperate Man.
In Her Ears.
In The Future The Past Looks Presentable.
Invert.
Jam.
Jaw Opening Awe Inspiring.
Jupiter And Mars.
Kirsty And Me.
Leader Of The Opposition.
Left In Their Own Mess.
Less Men Remain.
Light It Then Leg It.
Light Ventilation.
Lips Serviced.
London In July.
Lost In Morzine.
Loving An Old Primate.
Mad Love.
Man And The Land.
Manometer.
Marks Out Of Men.
Max The Lad.
May.
Meander.
Mentally Challenged Archbishop.
Middle Class Act.
Miscarried East Midlands.
Moongoole.
More Locks.
My Unemployed Thrombosis.
Myth Of Children.
Narcissus Bound.
Needer.
Neglect Full.
Never Ending Parental Duties.
Nexus.
No Home Guard.
No Sounds In Town.
No Way To Play.
Not Bill.
Not Living Forever.
Not Smoking Also Kills.
Of Seasonal Good Will.
Off Your Belly.
Old Fashioned Lover Boy.
Old Pea Soup.
On The Edgbaston Ledge. (08.08.05)
Once By The Sea.
One Last Message.
One Night Man.
One Today, Forty Tomorrow.
Only Me.
Original Thing.
Our Town Races.
Out Between Work Rounds.
Painted Lady.
Pardon.
Passé.
Pensionary Cruise.
Perfect Quartet.
Perused.
Processed Matter.
Profundity.
Propagate Scandal.
Punt.
Putty Woman.
Queerer Than You Could Think.
Radical Surgery.
Reality Checked.
Reasonable Response.
Refugee Collection.
Righteous Beggars This Way.
Rolled Stone.
Roman Times New.
Rounders.
Routers.
Sans Sheriff.
Second Wind Wound.
Self Employed.
Self Imposed No Go Phone Area.
Serendipity Strikes Again.
Sex In The Head.
Shock Absorbed.
Shot Impetus.
Simon’s Best Advice.
Singularity.
Sighting.
Slaloms.
Sleep Less Sweet Aged.
Slipping When I Wake.
Small Adds.
(Small Take Aways.)
Speakership.
Sparing Hemingbrough.
Square.
Stampeding Herds.
Standard These Days.
Status Quota.
Staving Off Dogs.
Staying In All The Time.
Still.
Suspect Date A Sport.
Sward Fallen.
Sweet Antedates.
Tallied Up Wrong.
Terreplein.
Terrestrial Time.
Test Matched And Passed.
The Aussie Keeper.
The Best Went On.
The DL.
The Gold Ghost.
The Intruder Triangle.
The Last Diet.
The Lock And The Key.
The Millennium After.
The Most Beautiful Day Of The Year.
The Most Loved One Among Us.
The Obvious In Us.
The Only Known.
The Pantry Man Can.
The Road Show.
The Theory Of Umbrellativity.
Then.
They Know, They Do.
Those C***S Next Door.
Three Strikes Ago.
Through The Tubes.
Throughout The Year.
Time Goes Sideways Some Days.
Time’s House Declaration.
Tip.
Topped.
To Let.
Tobogganing.
Toby.
Together.
Tomorrow’s Life Today.
Tour De Force.
Tracy And Me.
Tracy’s Sister-In-Law And Me.
Train Set.
Treasure Buries.
Trials By Error.
Turning Riled.
Unbalanced Books.
Until I Am Undone.
Upon A Child Killer’s Death.
Vacancies.
Vernal Equinox.
Warm Dawn.
When Vice Is Verse.
Where Is Our Thinking?
Which Project?
Whispered.
With Crocodile Eyes.
With Whims Of Change.
Whole Man.
Worked Upon.
World Made Well.
Worn Down.
Would Be Aspirant.
Worsted.
You Know How We Were Earlier.
Youngrier
Your Amours.
1984 and all that.
The meek shall inherit the hearth
where the ashes of their fathers
are; scattered by American run
establishments and European
Unions, as their own turned
and were bought for fuel
while king coal burned
A light for the less helped.
It’s the side of us they wished
We showed more
We wish to know,
Witness the most;
The part they think worthy
Of knowing,
And worth the showing,
We want disclosed.
The wing less aired
To the world
We want their breath
To freshen,
And compliment the flush
They bring to us
When confirming first
Impressions.
A night on the couch.
The folder’s clips left open
On the pages of the day,
Freeing hooves
Of shoes
And pace,
Until all retire frayed.
Wild hyena spiders
In the creases of the room,
Behind TV,
Settee,
Bookcase,
Brazen in the evening’s bloom.
Spineless in retiring
To the bowels of the house,
With loose quilted
Guilty
Feelings,
Undone by desire’s mouth.
A shock to your docking station.
If you let them arrange what they want with their wealth
It will affect the position you’ve acquired for
yourself,
And every decision you have gainfully made
Will be lost in the evening shade
Of their rising.
Afoot.
The verse he worked he kept within a book,
Unlike anything constructed for such task,
Clutched between two ends of walnut form,
Upon the steepest shelf within his walls,
Whose aureate portcullis was secured
And latched by more deadlocks than any safe.
The words were served by no constricting meter,
At the centre of a thousand vacant pages,
Guarded by wood chiselled sentry keepers,
Beyond the reach of inadvertent fingers,
Behind the gilded door of curiosity,
Well chained and key ring kept in steady pockets.
The meaning of the lines was never met,
As the text was left unwinding on its page,
Unable to escape its loyal binding,
More utmost than its culture’s highest ground,
Unknown as every cat had other wonders,
And once revered keys no longer found.
Age of Liberty.
Speak like a sage
As you creak like a stage,
And at the peak of your age
You’ll be caged.
Age old problems.
When the desire for youth is
reflected
In the acquiring of beauties’
Perfection
Then the rest of the age is
affected
By the next generations
infection.
All for me.
It’s not the fear of failure
That leaves me in the nearly
Man camp or solutions hope;
Their effects have always made
Their presence felt, but much
Later than reservations set in.
It’s not decisions made and taken
Hastily that leave me hesitant
Before the next step; I have always
Followed paths of first impulse
And allowed their mixed results
To cleave the following.
It’s not the fluctuating movement
Of the clock or its inevitable destination
That roots me to the spot; its hands have
Always pointed me vicariously forward
Whilst their journey has commemorated
What I left behind.
It’s not the lassitude of people that
Refuses my progression through them or
The weight of peers pressing on demand;
They have always been a vanity I’ve avoided
For the sake of my own service and the sanity
Of worthiness I’ve always thought myself a part.
It’s not the contradictions rising from the
Universe’s origin or Jesus Christ ascending
From a sallow coloured land or the meandering of
Existence which is always out of reach and just
About to be revealed behind the curtain pall;
No, it’s my cowardice, my bravery, my fealty,
My treason, my absolute refusal to continue
Anymore before the maze of human nature.
All for you.
Staying scares,
and fear freezes me,
So I step upstairs,
but rising seizes me,
So I sleep in chairs,
but dreaming teases me,
So I go elsewhere,
and doubt releases me.
An appeal to free people.
I’ve told you once,
A dozen times,
You must get out of this place;
There’s nothing here
For one as you,
A shrewd purveyor of taste.
Love it has left you
Alone, and bereft too,
A hollow persuasion of man;
So what’s the point
In hanging round
This fallen land?
With nowhere to work
And nothing to learn.
So take you off
To another shore, another shore;
With nowhere to work,
No one to talk to,
No disturbances,
No people.
Another enlightenment.
His mouth was too small
For his words,
And his voice was too slight
To be heard,
So the sound left him and
Flew like a bird
Anchored.
And his hands were too weak
To commit
To any campaign
Or estate,
Though they busied themselves
In the visit,
Despite,
And together they could
Not impact
The professional lecturers’
Act,
And as slick and as quickly
As that
He was sacked.
Arise.
As I stand in the valley of retrospect
There are people with me,
But they don’t reflect;
I wait for a call to announce the all clear,
Here with my sweat
Which is older than tears.
As I rise to the crest of my own hill
There is no one with me,
But I stay there still;
I wait for the hollow beneath me to grow,
Here on my shift
Which is colder than stone.
As I leap from the surface before its advance
There is only a moment
For my abstinence;
I wait for its wonder to undo the sky,
Here with my breath
Which is holding me high.
Arisen.
On the last day
Of the year,
Death, dressed
Up to the nines
For the night
And in arrears,
Crept quick
Behind my
Father,
Stole his
Soul away
Without a word,
And fled
Like any
Merrymaker
Late.
So call death
To a pause,
For I do not fear him,
Though he shall me.
Ark blooms.
Coveted flowers
Shed petals in even
Their finest environments,
Becoming the ash of old age
And the trade of dry merchandise vendors.
Swung arc like
Over the heads of
The newly wed and onto
The casks of the truly dead,
Or underfoot in front of both debates,
Until patted down
New mounds of earth,
Displaced to make way
For freshly buried treasure
Chests, become their resting place;
To be left insect free
And blown seedless for
The lack of happenings then
Lifted at the throat by sorrowed thieves,
Arriving without a fresh set in their hands.
Around the bend.
I will make my defence
Against the world
If words of sense
Have been misheard,
If time well spent
Has been deferred,
And good intentions
Misrepresented.
And listen whistling
Whilst the charade
That is chosen by most
Of it is paraded,
And chicanes of every
Length are imparted,
Intending to soften
The speed of deceit.
As far as my cards could take me.
Burning holds my middle ground
Where I thought I could remain unscathed,
But was all too soon tracked down;
Turning holes out daily
To saturate parades,
And ventures there impaled.
Congestion hovers briefly lit
By those about their exodus,
With thoughts of things worth benefit
Gone lest they covert too much space;
Succumbed where others have
Endured along the way.
Unfurled and rolled around the block
With looks over their shoulders,
As if uncertain stock.
A world of average summary;
More than they were when here
Or where they wished to be.
As old as the world.
Your beauty passed through
And suited the view,
And settled most arguments;
The image of you
Made others improve,
And better their words as they went.
Your name the world kept
For times when it wept,
And times when its laughter was bold;
Whilst over stones stepped,
And in dreams well slept,
Your face was the one that consoled.
Ass banned.
He played the trumpet with his arse hole,
What a sound to behold,
And a smell
To be felling
A giant.
On knees and elbows
His gut pipes composed,
And his ring
Began singing
Defiant.
Away gains.
Resigned to take orders
From midshipman boarders,
Hotel towel hoarders.
Moved to confusion
By a stomach protrusion,
A larger allusion.
Willed to be thinner,
A luckless beginner,
I’m full before dinner.
Restless in sleeping,
Boardy in keeping,
Secretly eating.
Autumn is nearing,
Hooligans cheering,
Slender men sneering.
Be mine.
Hey you, I’m seeking your attention by
politely trying to get through to you,
but your shawl is wrapped tight and
your ill-natured face too exclusive.
Please take some time to consider my
Request, and the rest of them passing
your tower, and do not dismiss us as
insects or tread careless and compact
our heads and our hearts, or bear envy
and hatred towards us.
But if you do so then here is my knife
for your use; why don’t you slice up my
throat and bleed it into the moat you
have dug around your shrouded walls?
The ones no trebuchet can penetrate,
or ordnance survey; the ones un-scaled
by education and its ever changing preachers,
those mossed over by the moral decay
of leadership speeches, neglected and
abandoned and toasted in the hellfire
bars of Whitehall – my walls.
Be yourself.
Forget your neck
And throat
Where that
Cancer wrote
Its name,
And speak again
In syllables
Less fraught.
Concede your system
Its response,
As well being
Only sent
One suit,
And what fine
Defence was
Made of it.
Bed dog.
He goes outside
To do his business,
And extend his stay
Back inwards.
Where linen waits
To soothe his soul,
And keep at bay
Cold people.
Better getting yet?
Sitting on a wall,
Beside the road,
In the summer rain
That is common place everywhere you go,
When a face goes by,
And a body too,
And here, and there, a pair of shoes,
Sued lined, air soled, ankle deep;
Such a dirty thing
Attracts,
And as it may,
My concern is leant
Then returned
To its own affairs,
That cannot decide what is scarce
Or plentiful.
Beyond the end of the world.
Past the slightest horizon
Of hesitation
Waits what will be
Our destiny.
And vast the sighted eyes
In awe of withdrawal;
All forced to beyond
The end of the world as one.
Amassed under the highest rivals
Until slaughter and all of her
Children anoint you with praise,
And settle your faith.
Bilking.
I got a glass back,
A flat glass back at that,
And an unpacked month
Of Sundays couldn’t break it.
A relaxed front,
A fun filled sun tanned one,
And a summer’s worth of
Workouts could not remake it.
I got a complex,
In work shy combat slacks,
And an army full of
Recruiters couldn’t shake it.
I got a slow pen,
An all day fulfilling end,
And the whole wide world
Of haste can go forsake it.
Bit rummy.
Inside my mind is a portal to hell
Where the devil dips his toe in my well.
Well it’s not in my mind,
It’s in the yard,
And it’s a pot hole near Hull,
And the devil, he’s my wife,
And she’s got her finger in my drink.
Strange the shit you make up when
You’re drifting in the sun with a
Litre of rum on a day that’s disposed of
Its use. Having stopped running around
And settled for a more respectful
Existence your mind tends to stray
If not sprayed on the page, which it
Isn’t today. And the wife has stopped
Mithering and is enjoying herself too
For a change, as the lilt shifts along.
Still there is this evil presence in my head,
But it’s too pissed to pop out.
Block.
Someone should put a leash
On these people and tether
The end to a pole in the back
Yard, where the main building’s
Shadow will cast them the world’s
Last look, and save the sky
The disquiet of doing so.
Blurring our world.
Well the sun was not so hot when we decided
To switch off the radio and take a ride,
But we only got as far as the ice cream van
When we turned around and made for home again.
By the river bank and thru the short cut clearing,
Which was not so clear as nettles left their sting,
But we managed to hit road before we wilted,
Though our tutti-frutti well and truly melted.
And as the sky became increasingly revealing,
And settled for its afternoon appeal,
We left our cycles petting in the bike shed,
And lingered ourselves awhile, behind.
And in the evening we rounded on the garden,
And ate as night pretended to return,
And finding our holy day amazing
Stayed a little longer in its grace.
Braided.
There must have been a bus route back from Aggie’s,
Along the swollen road of Holloway,
To half way up a high rise flat on Holly Street,
But I cannot recall it for the life of me.
A brief recline upon a folded sofa bed,
Before a hop skip hike to Liverpool Street,
Unfolded paper planes read on the over ground,
Then under Ilford slipped away to work.
A less than tasty first floor occupation,
Five years in the making but still broken,
As a cord of older women without romance
Unravelled ‘til a nurse applied a knot.
Returned up north without a respirator,
And lost in Leeds alone without a clue,
A one doored house with two dogs and their owner,
And then back again to Goole to square the circle.
There must have been a point to this performance,
Or something to reward the exploration,
But its lost trip with the last dropped tab of acid
Did nothing to recover my first love.
Branched.
So if we forget narrative strands,
And naturally occurring threads
Of association, what have we left?
Facts stating that we’re getting
Heavier every day or that we have
A coin’s toss probability of contracting
Something or transmitting it on,
Or developing a learning disorder
Or an anti social upwards mobility
Condition or a good chance of being
Arrested for growing cancer or
Some other affliction likely to
Drain the last pennies from Nannies
Purse or that NHS.CO.fUcKed got struck
By an ice berg in search of a pole
To attach itself to – well it would
Wouldn’t it as they’re all over here
And not in Poland – but
Can you blame them when our
Minimum is their average, and
There’s no one left there to
Compete with. You see, that’s
What happens when you let it all
Out: punctuation disappears and
Everybody thinks they’re a poet,
But when nobody listens anymore
You’d be better off warming
Your hands with your words.
Brand New Britain.
Several more laws to endorse
Before leaving,
And further rewards to ensure.
Certain new layers to enforce
The old evening,
Which is long overdue for renewal.
Broken into peace.
If I ever find whoever did this
Then nobody else will,
Bits and pieces will bare witness
To the alarm of being still.
Brokered out of peace.
Too awful to be,
And increasingly
A disservice;
An ill prepared quarrel
Regardless, but started
On purpose.
Though lawful at first,
And logically versed,
It defaulted,
And out staying its welcome,
And freeing old venom,
It halted.
Reshuffled and shaped,
And urgently draped
With investment,
It couldn’t persuade
The natives to change
Their assessment.
Burgeoned.
Men made war
Until those fought
Were smothered,
Then paid for more
Upon the shores
Of others;
Helot of death
And its process
Of vesture,
Until the breath
Of loss arrested
Lustre.
Passed closeted
And those widespread
Completely;
The fastest dead
And those festered
Discretely.
Business assistants.
The weeks are speeding by,
And we’re no further down the line;
Indeed we appear to be behind
The times.
And the distance has been ordered,
And our efforts well accorded,
But our progress has afforded
No reward.
So either pace will need increasing,
Or our burdens some releasing,
Otherwise we’ll be appeasing
No timepiece,
And we’ll have to let it by us,
And sit idly compliant,
As our wonderful alliance
Takes offence,
And leaves us in the distance
Where it found us in the first place,
With our bluster and our business
Unconvinced.
Can’t swim won’t swim.
You think you’ve got it
But you haven’t,
You think you’re on it
But your not;
You better watch
As it unravels
And begins
To turn and clot.
Because you’re dreams
Have been impinged on,
And contracted
Actual woes,
As their seams
Have all been singed off
And attracted
Undertows.
And you can’t move
Ever inland,
Growing higher
Than the ground,
For the ditch has proved
Resilient
In its desire
To surround.
Chucking back flak.
The town had not seen
A blackout like it
Since the Second World War;
He wasn’t just drinking,
He was setting a score.
Coming out.
All removed from reality
and fallen from story time,
All internally search engined
and far away glazed eyed.
All soup kitchen altruism
and winter stock piling,
All definite advocates
and jury enquiries.
All children adorers
and baby sit finders,
All cared for the elderly
and karma reminders.
All vendors of instance
and future franchisers,
All buyers of dreams sold
and tired improvisers.
All globetrotting veterans
and air crash survivors,
All clients of faith clubs
and slaves to devices.
All hot politicians
and coolest conspirers,
All forsworn blood suckers
and clandestine vampires.
All tree slumbered monkeys
and ground hopping mice,
All recognized hunters
in gathered disguise.
Compo nation.
You owners of wealth
Afford more and more health,
Whilst the poor
Must make do,
And are forced to sue you,
Using only your guile and their stealth.
Concentrated English at the Modern School.
It made you sit up straight and crystallize
Those wriggling things into butterflies,
That inevitably entered your cavities
In his presence.
So you focused what you could attentively tune,
As he spoke to the class, but you thought only to you,
About how you were not to be taught by the spoon
In his lessons.
And in time you agreed that his methods were sound,
As you learned more than all of the others around,
And realized you were one of the lucky who found
The one and only Mr. Evans.
Conclusive proof.
You like your seafood platter,
Whilst I take my fish in batter.
Contact lens.
Oval eyes
With solid whites,
And firm outlines,
Shine out from their position.
Unfolded lids
With equal sides,
And lashes without
Need of any crescent.
Focal length
With deepest well,
And no defence,
Alights upon its purpose.
Opposing eyes
Of high azure,
Receive your sight
Without impediment.
Contagious arrangements.
Sharp scraping edges everywhere;
Chiselled teeth and nails
Used as though gutting something:
Hooking,
Fleecing,
Plucking,
Easing hair away from skin away from
Flesh and bone until heart pierced.
In between tender caress
That, once revealed, condemns me
To another volley’s hail;
Making,
Pressing,
Taking,
Dressing up as affection over anxious
Panic and fear until appeased.
Couldn’t understand the options
Thank you for calling and please
Take one of the following options, press:
- For a hand grab,
- For a blow job,
- For the full works,
- For the back door,
- For a quick fix,
- For eccentric or
- To talk to an operator dirtily.
But please be aware that you may
Be recorded and used in our latest commercial.
Crazy John.
He could talk the knickers of a
Ninety year old,
But his work with frozen chickens
Still did not establish whether he
Was a giblets in or out kind of man.
Debenture bond.
How strange the world is
And its changes:
My sister’s children,
Whose father left,
Bear his name;
Whilst my child,
Whose father left,
Bears mine.
Don’t go learning daddy’s bad habits.
I will say for you
All the things you dare not,
And take for you
The risk of being caught.
Douglas and me.
Creatures on show
Are not compared to each other,
But their measure,
And my measure
Was my father,
To whom no man compares.
And.
Mary and me.
No mother ever loved a son so much,
But then
No son ever had a mother such.
Down by Primrose Valley.
A cloud drifts calf high from
The approaching snake of dry
Sand rising from the beach;
In sudden bursts it nips up
And bites your face before
Gently settling behind you.
You take the opposite direction,
Into town, and follow only
Coasts that warn of their approach.
Over tidy inclines and in and
Out of little stores; leaving as
The shore resolves its business.
Up rising steps eroded by
The wear of generations old
Approval, until home arrives;
A little caravan of privacy
Where youth can find the
Time to age in peace.
Draft excluder.
Now the dust behind the doorway
Must be thicker than it was when
It was open,
For I know it levers inwards
But I cannot push against
Its closure.
And I’m told it isn’t locked
And that the room is bare of
Any trappings,
Having been appropriated
By the house clearance
Contractors.
And there are no people in there
Or I would have heard them call
Once shoved against;
So unless they’re dead and propping
Up the door I’d best assume
That no one’s present.
And the landlord isn’t helping,
As he’s left me all alone
With idle hands,
And I’m feeling rather certain
That the door will only give
To devils’ work.
Dredging up.
Everything by the book,
Except the words themselves,
Which left to find an author to
Enlist them.
So deferential hooks
Were swept beyond myself,
And snagged upon an artist’s true
Existence.
Now every little look
Is kept upon my shelves
In case I needed another view’s
Assistance.
Ease out.
There will be no peace will there?
No rest for me.
Amidst the gaming of the day
Results remain,
But have no effect upon my outcome.
The frame resists
As pictures change within,
But still convey
An image’s consistent message;
Sometimes left,
And sometimes right, but always
Up above the
Point of most resistance, where
Sleep pursues
Unloved, unused to fools like me.
Easter.
The treason
Of the season
Is sedition,
A favourite
Of our saviour’s
Position.
Engineering design.
My exhaust pipe is
Pumping out curious smoke,
And I know I’m not
Electing a new pope,
So there’s something
Right wrong with my vehicle,
Or the injections
I gave to its fuel,
Or it’s maybe to do
With my reasoning
Of technical things
Learnt at evening school,
Or it could be my
Biology lesson
Was taught by an
Unqualified person.
Engineering resigned.
One minute it was working
As it always had,
The next it wasn’t
As it never did,
Powered as ever was
With nothing undone,
Buttons switched on
And leads plugged in,
All lights flashing
In correct succession,
But nothing emerging
Upon closer inspection.
Entrenched.
Less than one year on
And my tin foil thin
White gold wedding ring
Has dug itself in
Around my finger,
And will not be removed;
More a part of me
Now than you.
But as slight as it is,
It’s all the proof
I’ll ever need to
Remind me to
Keep my head
Down.
Entwined.
So they purchased the steel,
And the horse power’s oat meal,
And clearly laid out the facts:
The helicopter
Would adopt a taut line
Whilst hoisting,
One piece at a time,
All the apparatus
And swift calculators into place,
Where together they’d cover
The roles of the lover
And the leaver who could not subtract.
Even.
Fool let me shelter your
illusions for you and taper
fair replacements for abuse.
Send me your expectations
and I will matchstick box
them for their striking.
Let me set your captured free
and fill their cells with
less wilful needs,
and confirm your roots
before cold animals collect
them for their roofs.
Give up your yearly mention
and let God receive it from
me, strengthened,
and achieve what service
of contrition has the length
to save a shadow of yourself.
Allow me to fortify your stockade
doors in order to protect them
from the pressure of it all,
and forge from the degrees
of your world a purpose
to preserve.
Evensong.
That poor little swimmer
Had a bowl of shark fin soup
Before his late afternoon dip,
And was too full to see the
Selachian astern that ate him;
Blessed are the lessons that are
Learned before vespers.
Evolvers.
A plague of individual sheep
Is upon us,
And there’s nothing
More dangerous
Or honest.
Exterior decorator.
He treated you like an under side
with ground in filth and hanging strands
of dried things planted there to veil their
dreadful sight.
But you were shy of this design;
kept in the darkened places he created
out of ordinary interiors, and adorned with
piecemeal furniture that he had grouped
to suit his purpose.
Being aware of your surroundings but not
informed of their condition or the pain of angles squeezed into planes unused to them, and bolted
to restrict return;
Twisted into other shapes’ existence to confirm
the full unnatural ambit of his state of urgency,
and especially for you to feel less comfort than accustomed to.
Shadowed but not so much so as to distort
completely all the lines of walls and doors;
all inclines without concealing their distress;
all the softness of the bedding whilst inuring
him below and the tip of your appointment
without fully understanding what was going
on beneath.
Failed in love with me.
Every day
A different shade,