poetry

In the 1990's I wrote a number of plays for the BBC.  The plays were full of poetry and off they went around the world via the BBC World Service having started life on BBC Radio 4. 

The head of Radio drama at the time, John Tydeman described my writing as 'Sub-Joycean' - a subtle ambiguity which I relish to this day.  I'm not sure if this section will remain - I don't know how relevant poetry is these days - but for now I will leave some here in case you fancy giving it a go.

Molo

‘Molo’, ‘Molo’ she said
‘Hey Molo’ she said

‘Remember you said my eyes used to bite?’
Molo remember?

And I cried
I cried that night
My tear bit a sheet-hole and Molo
‘Molo, hey Molo’ she said

I can’t bear it if you’re right

‘Molo, Molo listen’

Did you mean they bit to cut?’

I always wondered
Some men said
They were the bobbiest dazzlers and jeepers and creepers
I wondered why you pulled me up

Molo?

Did they?

I think because I looked so hard
It was a diamond cut
I was looking for you and some truth though Molo

When I was five
I knew what a lie was
By seven I was lying Molo pretending I was crying Molo

Is that what you meant?
When you said my eyes used to bite

Molo remember?

And I cried

I cried that night
My tear bit a sheet-hole and Molo
‘Molo, hey Molo’ she said

I can’t bear it if you’re right

You said I had a soldier eye
And I was sad and made them cold and grey
Until you paddled back and said

Come sweeten the ground
With one tear for Molo

I did – I let it go
Like sweet virgin-sweat

It felt like hell and still you didn’t give
You took another swipe of face from my weary night

‘Empty your eyes’ you said
‘Molo, Molo you did say that’

If that wouldn’t confuse a girl what would
Empty eyes like a challenge

Did you mean eyes that could not harm again?

I often wondered

Some men said
They fell in my pool and floundered, drowned and still
You pulled me up

Molo?

You did

I think because I can’t feign love
I knife myself
I was looking for you and some truth though Molo

When I was ten
I knew even then
At eleven I was lying Molo pretending I was fine Molo

Is that what you meant?
When you said my eyes used to bite

Molo remember?

And I cried
I cried that night
My tear bit a sheet-hole and Molo
‘Molo, hey Molo’ she said

I can’t bear it if you’re right

Hearttraffic

Everything has changed
Because of you

Is
Is a new Hearttraffic now

I hand my plans to you
Prayery-palms are uppy

Is a new Hearttraffic now

Is a messy heart perhaps
And lots to do

I can’t sweep – the heart’s a bleeding thing
I can only marvel at its holes

And babynice weight

Everything has changed because of you

Is a new Hearttraffic now

‘Hey Molo – are my eyes still biting?’

Job’s a goodun

Yeah – now he hurtles home
At a glance – success, he breathes

He is back with us
Almost from the dead

So in a sense
The job’s a goodun

He carries his cage with him
He carries his guards with him
He carries his sentence with him
He carries his sad tits-on-show walls

With him

Yeah – he’s glad to be going
At a glance – happy

He’s engaged – at least one of us is
Almost excited

So in a sense
Woo-hoo

He carries his car with him
He carries his gun with him
He carries his newspaper with him
He carries his sandwiches with him

Men on the verge are beautiful
Under grey sideburns

You’ll see chewing gum stress
Bleeding a little Morse code

Don’t you fucking leave me
I’m nearly lost forever

Asquith’s furtive

He’s tapping his books again
He’s furtive with new friends again
Dropping his head to old comforts like

The navel
And

Wassitallabout

I did something daring
Roaring I did
And threw away your map of reasonable bearing

And let the wind take me
To somewhere sublime

But it doesn’t does it?

It took me to the shipping lane
With facecry oil slicky

Which was ok

I just didn’t keep in touch

Think I don’t lick armpits?

I do
And upside down I know to adore

Was it the Barry town trilogy?
Where they took a horse upstairs
I can hang with the scallies if I need to

But they never hang with me

One day
Technology will make your face a book
Of all your loves

And all your lesser loves

Man with a mission in his ardour will know
When to read

And when to burn

If it seems difficult
(Like taking a horse upstairs)

‘Molo – hey Molo’

Not now

If it’s difficult – leave it to me

Yoow

Howl – I’m in a musichole
I’ve gotta give up – and let the whole hole show

I’ll show before you do though

And naked’s easy when you’re looking at clothes
And the eyes of a soon-to-be-strangely-unclothed

Yoow

Even a spit of rain
Would electrocute this

Cuddugen

Brave and against her worldly-wisdom
She dives in

She rides wayward
Banishes the doubts like secret floorcrumbs

And just rides in

With a flower in her mouth

And lies in both eyes

I have a problem
But she doesn’t have a problem

She has a situation

And it is critical

I may as well be at ‘cuddegen’ castle

Silly – but I may as well

I am this weird old lockkeeper
And timekeeper
And watcher of time

I have seen them come
And I have seen them come twice

No mouthflower can shock me

Only the last little drop of honest shame

Will perfume this room

Breep breep

The dread ‘phone sang
Unless it’s my children

I’m not in

Archives will never house the rings we had
We are all the same

We are learning to ignore
Aren’t we beautiful?

A new discerning ear’s a force

Aren’t we?

Beautiful

Your hall seems full

Excuse me if I’m blunt
But your hall seems full

You try to shock me with your sex poems
Rubbing at my knee

I think I understand what you are doing
It’s so close to truth

But don’t you think

Also

That it isn’t?

Owl’s, unmoved in dug-night preen
Shielded eyes of the lover are only

Wanting your more to make shadows on their more

Don’t we need some privacy back?
Under your words

Are shifting lonely feet

Cruel are the clouds

When - bored of sky
They muddy us

Like a clack of gamblers wishing
When clarity wants for nothing

And lies and sighs and wants and whys
Rain over our smiles

Cruel are the clouds

And great are the clouds

Godshadow

I thought
For less than one minute I thought I saw

God’s shadow

And it touched my heart

Like blind-hands Braille reading ‘love’ as it slid down my wall

 Science blushed
‘It was the passing cloud, a blocked sun you saw’

Yet would not take from me
My moment of love

‘It was window stuff’

Though it could not help steal a glance

At the curtaincrack
As if to make an extra, silent point

And it seems to me I might have folded my God
And kept something safe

And hidden my keeping – safe

And today I want to read again
And touch again

See if the scent of love has remained
Over that sacred page

My house has Godshadow
And you find me here, watching for it
And science is with me, fanned hand over smiling mouth

Yet watching me
Watching for Godshadow

Logic and love are happy to play

Very

Slow

Thoughts belong to no one

Across book and mind they roam, word and sigh

Never lost - though they act like sheep, like sheep

They are not free

They are found, paddocked and fed
By man

And need

For an answer - for the need of an answer

I thought
I might abandon something else today

Those sacred days where you lose something else

That beautiful emptying – one less idea
One fewer reason

I could watch Godshadows come and go
And not hold a one

Even send an old thought to go with it

Back to either science or God

Not measure the distance or count the clocks

Unpadlock my room of answers
And watch them join those random-owned sheep
And disappear

Into that loose- random flock

And with one fewer answer to hold
Maybe I could sit and watch Godshadows all day

And stalk them through my house

And make a pattern of the weave of their shapes

And one fewer answer would ease our shoulders

 A broken branch, blessings and disasters (all of that)

As though it were a broken branch
I dragged what life and leaf was left

Of a night behind

And looked behind at earth-scratched tracks
At the zig

The zag

And thought of the story of blessings
And the story of disasters

How a blessing can be a disaster
How disasters can be blessings

All that zig and that zag as I dragged
What life and leaf was left

Of a night behind

Where does that story come from?  Of the man who lost his precious horse and as his fellow villagers came with commiserations. ‘Poor you’ – (all that) and his answer that it could yet be a blessing – how they looked upon him with pity, until some days later came the ‘stolen’ prized horse, returned to him (hallelujah) - but with several, extra wild horses in attendance. (Hallelujah hallelujah)  The villagers came again – this time they came to praise his good fortune – ‘what a blessing’ and (all that) and his reply - that it could yet turn to disaster.  And where does that story come from and how does it end?  I know more disaster does indeed befall the man who in turn, once again declares it a potential blessing, which in turn – it is! - Though not before he receives again the lamentations of villagers despairing on his behalf.

Is this ‘the moment’ those prophets talk of?

Neither blessing nor disaster

The night is behind me

Whether it becomes a blessing or disaster I can never truly know

I let it go

Yep 

  I took 14 people longing

I was one of them

Longings are not belongings – they are

Drunk partygoers

Weaving home to understanding

Like lost snow in the air after the big fall

Discant

What you will hear is the discant of her love
The voice you will hear arrives late

It’s the trace of embroiderers’ hands

Candle to a fingertip

It laces the sound into bodiced-love
And held like that

Sweet is the sound of mercy

I cannot love more

In safe and beautiful ghostland

Waltz is woowa woowa woowa slow
And dazed, long, beautiful uncomplicated

Our hands are through the walls

Rather a waltz with a wall between is quite divine

Our kiss will haunt the hall
All love is

Rarely seen

Untitled – 3rd February 2009

It’s not the church on the hill
But light – collapsing onto grass

Spreading - a laughing child on helpless night

It’s not grace
It’s putting another first

And watching your tongue

Envelope

I thought I saw

A crowd – marrying a crowd

And it’s not just my vast

It is your vast – imagine that - vast after vast

They joined and yet combined they could not match

One man’s vast

One woman called to heaven

‘There is no vast which can match a single vast – not combined’

Perhaps it is not the combined vast

‘How will we know though?’

We never will

I thought I saw

Mrs. Atlas

She was watching Atlas – her concern was a hand

East to west – over a pregnant stomach

The moved ghost-dancers danced

At the edge of the walls
Dumb-unmoved watchers – handling tissues
In scant-tight pockets

No one is requiring them to watch

There is nothing to watch

This dance is being danced

They might dry their lips with tissues
But then

They might not have licked them in the first place

The ghost-dancers came to dance
Not once have they asked for an inch of room
Not once have they said ‘no’

Not once have they said ‘don’t do it’

They came to dance

Since life is a grey paradise left
You will not find them asking

‘Why are they choosing to leave the room now?’

When they left

Only the man who had seen them spoke

‘They had a map and a hat’

An energetic laugh was rapid like ahca acha

‘He said the ordinance was just in his head’

And she ‘made him wear a map to keep his head dry’

And waving – without a look back
Off

Off down the brambles again
Hand paper-skinlovely

Your word

I valyou

I do
I valyou

And pressed his cheek to hers
‘Let me reduce my words’

One-by-one

I love you

Now, fading and melting ‘I love you’
Fingered into the summer table and the snow on the summer table

And bright mouthed
To the golden-going moon

‘Did you resist teaching?’
‘Did you resist palming your wonderfuls?

I did not

I nearly did – but I did not

Transience tripped from my soul
As though I could save her from here

‘Did you resist?’

I did not
I nearly did – but I did not

Now watching it leave as soon as it came
God-broomed by a plucky sun

I will not write her answers

She has plenty to torture her now

I could escape into caves

Like a Bond villain – oh for a big kind Bond

Now, fading and melting ‘I love you’

I would carpenter with you

I am all done with the market
Of buying and selling

There is nothing left to buy that I want
And nothing of worth left to sell

I would carpenter with you

In a shaded shed

Laughing for night and night

Now we have a new problem to laugh about

‘What’s to make?’

Only the arrow of something straight

Something which flies true

Straight into the heart of life’s bark

It’s much to be uncled by the weather alone

Just a mere hint at snow
And I am out again – free again – playing like a night-fox

I have curled my heart around the ivy
And here’s to the persuasion of the huggers hug

Yes
I am a ghost today

I am in the trunk – mission as sap
I am the brown bird’s chest – aligned and ready

I am a ghost today

I can swim under oceans – any moan you hear
Is the freedom moan

The motorbike yell
The love-crow’s craw

I am the snow

Queen

Was I outside – were we there with the snow falling?
Were you tilting your crown?

Sinatra-wise

Yet kneeled - secret queened
No bow could disturb her

Tea and awe and constant lack of majesty

As I took a look for the sword
She bent her head down

‘Raise your head’

She wanted to show me the cigarette burn on her coat
She wanted to show me the 5% voucher in her pocket

Soldier

Why do you gaze at the ground?

There are no bullets flying from the ground
Are you listening?

Is it the bloody victoryless fuck?

Is that what you are listening to with your gaze?

And a passing order

Vile friendships that cannot be matched with the love

Is a tremor worth a jump?
Soldier

I wanted to hold you

Your most trusted friend is dead

All who have lived are dead with you

Why do you listen when you could look for dangers?

Are you not tempted?
To tie your eyes to string

And float them above the truth

Until you can look down on the patterns of lies that built its shoes

And declare

Yes I will live
Yes I will live

Soldier

I know they are calling for you again

For more
After all
You are alive

Why do you gaze at the ground?

Are you listening?

The cordial of love

Quite why it is the cordial of love

I cannot say

But sun, found in the heart of the earth of the snow covered earth
Is gold blood

And snow in the sun is the maddening rose
In excited child-cheek

If you take a handful of disappearing snow
Into your hands and search for the sun

You will find it

Today – my sky
Has littered us with broken stars

A white-hatted sun is lonely

Sum of its going and broken stars has left the afternoon

Recklessly quiet

Today – my sky
Has littered us with broken stars

A white-hatted sun is lonely
Sum of its going and broken stars has left the afternoon

Recklessly quiet

The palace

A palace – palace of simple chair

Palace of simple night

Night lights, cold air

Palace of standing outside with our cigarettes

I’ll try to make you a button from moon
You make a scarf from old sun

A palace of rules
Good rules

Rules that feel like frail old loves
Shawled against the bite

Song, old song from the palace halls
Under our skin

Ankles arching with every effort to speak love

You could be the night

Some, almost their faces drain looking at you
They are the day

You are the night

Looking out from their comfort
You are the night

The bare and forgotten
The grey night tree – and from the fire
And the tea

And the blanket – the ‘day of plenty’ they

Stare

Stay

Pity and harrowed they watch

You could be the night

And you could be

The night

Looking in

From the moon-tattooed-path

You can see the light, the fire, the tea and the blanket

And they can see the night
And you could be the night looking in

Sa sa sa souza

Stammering he wants to say I love you Souza

Sa
Sa sa sa souza

It sa sounds like songs

So few truths come alone

In a crowd
Hear me – I am silent – I am the doubt

And the openhanded

Hear me

I am the white noise of activity
The background hiss

So few truths come alone

Mob-heavy – caveat-rich
They are layered with doubt and sound

Hear me

I am silent – I am the doubt

And the openhanded

some poems here