Crowcall

What you will find here is a collation of musings usually cobbled onto paper scraps and knackered envelopes between 2002 and 2007.

I have taken up meditation since that time, and though I still struggle sometimes, the necessity to decipher those struggles by way of words is much diminished these days.

Some of what is here probably isn’t who I am now. The less nail-bitingly earnest bits I would still stand by. The weird humour is still me.  The conjuring of space is still me. As an artefact of it’s time I have for better or worse left it intact. Do I sound pretentious or what?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STROUD

Swift’s Hill, Stroud December 18th 06.

 

Light tipped up out over Bisley and then

Abbey Wood

hoovering mist in Slad

pulling back the curtains

as sun inches higher.

 

 

 

 

 

Lone hawthorn

bursting flame to thin winter air

you suck juices from the limestone

making plumping food for birds.

 

 

 

 

 

Moving through the high hedge

staccato sun burst blinks its

sillohetted roll call

sycamore hazel hazel elder thorn and on

berries red and Old Man’s Beard

tinsel the way with cream weavings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

British Airways.
It was England, heading out

dropping away from the downlands

into a frolick of wildy cavorting hills

setting washboard undulations

for Wales and West to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My new place

not just the Meeting of the Waters

but also those rolling hillscapes that live in us.

the call of the green lush pebbledash wet of Wales

of yellowstoned Wiltshire and north

and the grained-in burr of the West country

of imperial threads to London’s trains

creviced meanderings of canal

and almost impercievable byways

airways for the soul

hemmed in a great arc by

The Ridgeway and it’s age-stoned jewels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crows.
An abrasion of clacking pirates

carve and curl unseen curtains

cross the winter roost

loose in sky; hassle a buzzard

high within the masts of

beeches like sailing ships

rushing headlong with infinite grace toward

the other end of winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning To Converse With Birds;

Another winter outdoors

snuggled on a battered sofa

eating hot oats and

whatever else I have

honeyed black tea and spice

drunk from a big old jam jar

gazing on a wallpaper of

buzzard and crow-flecked beeches

with my guitar

I am learning to converse with birds.

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Penniless.
Trading penniless days and hours

on stale endeavours long gone

winds down and chattering mind

accidentally slows, rests in a day

of aimless comfort and chat,

sofas and tea, and

nothing in particular.

A forgotten breeding ground

for momentary contentments and

the wanderlust of inspiration is seeded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bask embalmed in the frosted point of November’s turn.

five owls ricochet unseen in the oak-stretched bank

blanket up to the nakedness of Swift’s Hill

to the fuzzy fading moon

a shape of quiet purpose

and a funny kind of warmth.

 

 

 

 

 

A solitary romance has me

and weds me to my place

all this shall be my reception

and bless me as the guest.

Small mercies kiss the night

To sleep.

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horse alone regardless

chews grass head down

unremitting as the rain

scours the last vestiges

of the vernal fullness

weeds brown and scrag

mud swells shining ripening ooze

the drawl of English winter

casts its hand across a skyless grey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I cast again scattered words like bones and hope for oracle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scrooged again into fingerless mittens

a layer of dirt binds me in position

what will you eat today? Eat our food

we are free of diesel injustices

we are peasant we are simple

we feed the living heart of the turning world

we give the fuel for your life adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

Peasant.

Peasant raw from the day to day of it all

certain only in my mud and boots

an angry righteous value

my only pension plan

cast words are my television

weather and dirt my wondrous science

the woods my jewel box

the hoot and cackle of owl and crow

I wear them inside

my unseen designer bling-bling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no need of trinkets

to tell me which planet I am on

nor need for signs

to inform me

which forces are afoot

all language is writ between earth sky and soul

conversations held across the rivers of the senses

today I no longer need anyone

to tell me who I am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday 4am June 2002,

Werndolau Farm Llandeilo, Wales):

Birdsong

glowing dawn, fresh,

I’m the only human up.

Job to do – I know it back to front

don’t have to think about it.

I’m good at it – reliable, useful.

Going away I am, height of the Summer

years of scrambling about, dreaming of

a primary position.

Well this one’s pretty good.

Finding beauty loads more.

Landscapes to dream for,

like-minded interested folk,

but not that easy, I admit.

Useful job, driving, co-working, land.

Good cogs;

good cog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw her stand between the rocks

cradle starfish in her lap

ears full of breaking foam

solving pebbles into shifting sands

a dream she found it washed ashore

still twitching half life in her hands

she could not throw it back,

so she stepped out to the waves

her garment wet and messed about her face

removed it and swam to starfish home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With friendful words of you

I becomes invincible

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the hills and the crow’s caw

how they circle over head the trees

way you bring me tea and breakfast in bed

days when I can lie in and don’t have to get up.

children ask me things

their parents think its rude

tofu cheesecake after chinese food

schemes and ingenuity that keep the pigs off our backs

we sing opera when we make love

you kiss me when I feel a mess

watching people in the park whistling when its dark

counting constellations under firelight

riding my bike through countryside

living in a bender in the woods living with you

I know your moods

apple crumble

everything about you the sense of familiarity

the web of friends who will fight

Against things all messed

the sense of rightness  when so much is corrupted

I’ve got fire to stand up

I don’t have to speak with you when I’m down

we have vision when so much else is crossed and blurred

you still love me despite what you’ve heard

getting stoned and having sex in the shower

I would like to sing you love songs

from the top of the Eiffel Tower

accidentally doing things never thought I could

enjoying things that I never thought I would

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A dying leaf

Gets caught by the wind

And falls from the tree

And having no thoughts on the matter

Becomes a butterfly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sit with love sit with love

sit with love
before you

it all sits

here

before you

everything you ever wished

or feared

or wished away

with hope or dream

or dashed determination

still here in quiet place

everything you ever wished

it all sits here

before you

like love or adventure

like a childs innocence

and trust

it all sits here before you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mudflats        (for Helen)
Making up for me I thought

“soon all this will be perfect”

standing on the sea edge

I took out a list of possibilities

and held it upside-down, and bemused,

dropped  list number 126 down into mud.

Idly I wondered how strangely

like all the other lists it seemed.

So wading and wading out

this place is so familiar

once a drowning cloying place

to flail my arms and panic

these days it seems its just plain mud.

Wading through it

up to our knees and our necks

it’s a popular landscape.

(You’ll be surprised who you meet)

you can be certain of good company

as you wish you’d get things right

pushing hard and straining

or just slapping a sorry wet arse down in it,

sticky and gooey its easy to forget,

you’re not on your own with it.

Funny how we’re all here

Talking of fishing boats and estuaries

of seagulls and gannets

of riding bicycles and horses

of walking on promenades.

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ever seem we wish for sense

of containment, for wide-screen definitions

channels sometimes hop, chop and scutter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Issue:

One day all the TVs broke

and everyone stared, but no-one spoke

so what are we without the box

we’ll find each other beyond the shock

get nervous; get over it, we’ll be okay

find creation in ourselves, a beautiful way

plummet the depths and speak your heart

let boredom and frustration go,

leave TVs illusion left in tatters

find in your life what really matters

say goodbye to your passivity

say hello to your massivity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wheeling wild, mind’s on fire like a teenager

out of range like a joyrider

wheels turning rubber burning

I got no clue where I’m going to.
Out into the country

find inspiration in little things

turn the switch…

…mind still firing….

…creation’s flame flickers in the well of silence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speyside  Scotland 2001
In the world

every thought I had

shook into a hundred shards;

then a thousand;

then a million

and then I lost it

so I stood there, firm against the swell of mountain grass

held within my mind, and anchored.

Bracing against a vicious howling snow-pecked gale

and what was out there?

In this moment, in this raw unfettered place

mocking, moaning and calling

to every shaky notion I ever might have

within and without

this shell of my body and my distant eye

yearning, lost, and there, and complete

all at once

I had to laugh

never could make too much sense of things

and still I loved this world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Night driving from Wales, delivering veg to london:

 

Hard lines but

fast brick this

concrete cars is

tarmac scream not

bright lights what

flashing flashing I

adverts telling me feel

whether I want it inside

or not that I love it

that I want it

 

 

 

 

 

Cars
infiltrate and irritate

sensibilities

like rampant bindweed

pointless and lumpy, honking your

big white horn, over and over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buildings.
Everywhere I go

monuments to the need; to dig our feet into the earth

to stop ourselves from falling off the endless

ceaseless turning of who knows what,

and who knows where we’re going

so we build monuments.

Some are cages to our every dying day

or maybe ovens for the bread of invention

cloak our secret yearnings behind closed doors

sometimes this is the only way we know how to be free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plane takes off

I kiss you with my heart and eyes

goodbye Elizabeth’s majesty and your hedgerow patchwork dress

I have travelled unravelled through your petticoats

with thoughts for different futures and

your sweet english apple in my hand

you’ve been the making of me even when I broke away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her blue dress caught me unawares

spun everyones head and made me sigh

she looks like a river flowing down our street

she could wash you away.

she rises like the sea, and everyone wants to laugh with her

lets all sail away, get caught in her tide

she has eyes like the sky, she’ll fly your kite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Helen.
Set your feet into the soil

damp and black between your toes

lets go swimming

hands in my pockets

swaying head turned to the sky, smiling

listening for birds and distant traffic

lets go swimming right where we are.

Go see the horses, feed carrots

to great slobbering tongues and excited nostrils

huffing bucking head skin and bristle

lets go swimming across the common,

feel the winter chill on our faces

lazy drifting steam train breath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem for people that feel like slugs.

 

Jumble

grumble

stumble

tumble

crumble

rumble

fumble

bumble

mumble

humble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hedge-cutting;

Talley Rd Llandeilo Jan 05.
Creeping through the fingered branches

a flinty stare into the bottom of the year

weather snakes into you,

beating, driving haphazard sheets

below, the crucked valley

bright lights in windows

in houses

of neighbours I do not know

hands red raw with all this

damp in all my corners

do what you have to

build a house on eternal rivulets,

on whatever happens here.

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deep Poem No.165
earth divider

creepy crawlie

funky spider

lemon-headed

wishful thinker

politicians

arsehole stinker

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stuff.
I will endlessly juggle

my time my effort

my life  my soul to the end:

aquiring and using

juggling and hoarding

dismembering and discarding

the fridge the freezer

plastic things from the nineteen-seventies

grandma’s old bits

memorabilia

forgetorabilia

useless worthless

craporabilia.

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FAY.
She told me city stories

of scallies and junkies

of witches and goths

of the gritty day to day

real lives curling up through the brickwork

no time for middle-rank poo poo look at my hair-do

got a sanitary job what do you do?

She thinks, she dances and then she does voodoo.
Me, a country boy

this an other world to get my rules around

too many expectations, I floundered.
An array of glittering humanity

everyone in their place

and me again flotsam no longer my favourite occupation

you up there dancing smoking talking

while I here listen to the spaces

wishing them filled by woodland

or at least your stunning grace.

 

 

 

 

 

Fay Stealth Bomber.

Fay pulled out her ears and got a contract with the Royal Air Force as a stealth bomber. Humming through the sky she saw a huge wedding cake – it was Buckingham Palace. She swooped on down and munched it in one gulp, the Queen and all the other minions. Then Fay the stealth bomber flew over the Houses of Parliament; she spiralled up high into the sky above them and dropped a huge hairy bricky shit down on it, turning it to rubble, Big Ben’s grand erection permanently deflated.

–

 

 

 

 

 

Love’s like that…

I woke up in the morning and I had turned into ameobaman. Fay woke up and she had turned into Ameobawoman. We grumped and munged together and

melted through the bedsheets as a primal oooze, melted down and around through the mattress springs and onto the carpet below. And then through the cracks in the floorboards and blop onto the floor downstairs.

Aha! Breakfast we thought, but bugger, we had no arms and could not make toast. We were unsatisfied. We waited on the kitchen floor. Eventually a visitor came, and he stepped on us so we sucked him into our goo, and we got bigger. Whilst digesting him, another visitor turned up and the same thing happened. Over and over we ate all the visitors to the house.

People went in but no-one came out. It was very suspicious. The neighbours called the police. They ordered someone to answer the door but of course no-one did. So they kicked in the door, went in and !SLOOOP! – were never seen again. So the neighbours called the Prime Minister and he called the army to the house. Meanwhile, we the primal ooze were straining to get free of the house and when the army came and blew the house up, we gooped up into the air and splatted on the army like a tidal wave of snot. We ate the army and crunched on the bones of its guns and tanks and we glooped greenly down the street eating cars and houses and lamp-posts and little dogs and little bits of dog shit and everything else besides. And then we took over Manchester. And then? Why the world of course.

 

 

 

 

 

After Fay.
Early morning I woke in a misted field

in dew and cobweb garlands

by a bridge across a railway line

lorries and birdsong

leaves are yellowing

two days ago Fay said

‘Something’s changed;

it’s autumn now.’

 
Builth Rd Train Stn. mid Wales

Eight railwaymen all orange glow

tooled up with jokes and tea

hammers and suchlike

laying new rails in a quiet stretch they tell me

sitting on a rockery of broken concrete

 

 

birch yellow autumn morning

crisp with song

rosehip fireworks

food for winter come

 

 

fourteen striped terrace houses

waiting for the train

ever since Victoria’s day.

Everyone’s on the move

kissing their families goodbye

dispense with tradition

go go go

the grand global exploration

how will it be when it all comes home?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your warm and furry influence

Wales you have known me

in mischief and in rain

so good to see you

hold me in your arms

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A butterfly flies into a new age bookshop and discovers that the beating of his wings has the power to cause a hurricane. The butterfly becomes very self-conscious and hides on a shelf. It discovers another book about regression and becomes a caterpillar. Learning that Being Here Now is the way, It gets stuck as the caterpillar and doesn’t know what to do next. Eventually it leaves in confusion vowing never to read any more self help books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Man,

Come, and speak another language as you dare spill your guts on the boulevard of broken men. Dare you utter the tattered threads of you. If you offer into the empty noise of our usual words, does it makes you quiver? Are you uncertain of the ground you venture, amongst men and man; unmapped. Come, and speak another language every roulette reveal-ation a dragons egg or an unresponded turd. There is more to man than silence, brighter options than evasions, all that living beauty to unveil.

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A yard of pity-me tears is no declaration of love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Escape from Planet Hollywood.

Openning shots. An empty barren landscape. Heat haze rising off a dust road.Where is it? Could be many places. The sound of a distant engine, roaring. A car appears on the horizon. Closes into shot. A red car. A Ford. Country guitar plays, Bluegrass.
Damascus, Tennessee.

I’m an American in my homeland. Still looking for the security bit.

Why am I here? Where am I going?

I look at my life like it’s a film. I’m in the driving seat.

When things look black I glamourise it.

I glamourise things a lot. I guess I’m running on Hollywood hope. As you read this, maybe you get a profile shot of me, clutching the wheel heading on down across the dirt dow some mid-west road. Straight as a die. Road to salvation. Or damnation. Or something at least. Something else.

Where was I coming from? I’ll tell you that later. Where’m I going?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Some days I’m Steve Mcqueen. On the real sunny days, it’s The Great Escape.

Other times I’m some scrawny B list guy from New England or Oregan. On my way out there to find out what goes on in this moonscape.

The stupidest thing is, I’m not even American. I’m from London and I’m thinking in American. I’m not on that highway; I’m in the middle of a town walking from one place to another, hands in pockets, somewhere too

wet and familiar to me to bear mentioning the name of. Truth is I could be anywhere. I could be anyone.

‘Steve. Steve!’

‘Huh! What?’

‘You wanna cuppa coffee mate?’

Des from marketing.

EL CAPITAN THE HEAD OF DEPARTMENT WHO NAMED HIMSELF AFTER A MOUNTAIN IN CALIFORNIA. DES FROM MARKETING WHO THINKS HE HAS A PERFECT RADIO 4 GUARDIAN BBC2 SWANKY LIFESTYLE.

I keep wondering when exactly I get to kiss the beautiful girl.

Still thinking with that phoney American accent.

Arrived at work, sat at my desk. No, no, no that’s too clichéd. Another Hollywood start to a film. No that’s not where I am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Squat down in the grass bare arse to the frost

steaming like a winter horse

pondering my lists, mirror to all my doings

sometimes the best thing in the world

is just to relax for a minute

and shit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hush us away from the burly of the distant roaring day

Orion’s stars have come out to play

wrap me in icy winter blanket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Firebird.

Just as I thought I was dying

firebird crouched inside and stared me

suddenly into the lap of the waiting land,

bright and vibrant, alive and settled

alive with visions of

dancers of words in dancerless places

hush for the sound of resting in restless places

so then become, be safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toothpaste.
It’s very quiet.

I am all alone

the stars look on overhead, smiling at me;

my beard is my friend.

it is like a pussy cat, living on my face

I eat a toothpaste sandwich

nutrition and dental care in one go.

neat, huh?

my guts feel weird

that toothpaste must be rotten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ying and Yang of Six Things.
Bananas are funny;

oranges are not

cheese is funny;

olives are not

trousers are funny;

skirts are not.

specially on a hippy with a beard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All things move

as sure as sunlight

I thank you in a smile

you encircle me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Victorians Vs Elephants.
Victorians

don’t like sex

they’re too busy being wrapped up

in ridiculous etiquettes

even so

they made our grandads and grandmas

maybe they had secret sex

in the backs of victorian cars
Elephants (on the other hand)

like to have fun

and they also do lots of poo

so don’t stand right under one

in case it does some on you

and you get covered in goo
Victorians

aren’t much of a laugh

they are embarrassed by the naked legs

on a giraffe

never mind the pianos

here’s the Victorians…
Victorians are very good at science and sums

to compensate for having

their heads up their bums

they’d rather go around

telling everyone they’re wrong

instead of drinking tea

with their friends and their mums
Victorians are born in every century

just like some people spend all their lives

being seventy

so just you be aware in case

one tries to sensible you to death.
So maybe I’ll go to India

and smoke some toot

maybe I’ll become a mahoot

go riding in the sun

it would be a real hoot

paint myself blue

and learn to play the flute

going doot doot-doot doot doot doot-doot doot- doot dooooo….

(saying ‘hey elephant; take a walk on the wild side)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Allaleigh, Dartmouth Devon June 06.
Blueblack rococco popcorn swirl

crows caw twilit twists unseen in boughs

kings and queens of high summer oaks

carrying the threads of my wondering

bring them to merry knots

weave a net for night-time

cast a spell for hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rosie.
A wearing Summer haze relents to cooling mists

the English sigh and breathe again

today the Trickster comes on his rounds.

a hot foot skip and jump

dance to the days like a well-honed Irishman

skips to the rapid turns of a pub fiddle

keep jumping boy, keep jumping.
So this fine rounded woman

her hair like a crow to a river

calls me to her, to her place by the sea.
beach-combing days never end.

always, we pick out twigs and leaves and shells

curios of the lines between the world

door knockers to the poem of the dancing day

we too are the pips and jewels of our people

borne across unseen winds

so the world rushes on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Efficiently.
I am the man who makes the tea

for the woman who is the personal assistant

to the man that organises the focus group

that meets every other Wednesday

to decide what kind of plastic and what colour

this month’s disposable fashionable handle should be

that goes on to the magnifying glasses

that our sister company makes

in order that we may stare up each other’s arses

more efficiently.

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not often

bedded

or even very well

readed

I try to keep myself level

headed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Makes A Poem?
Sometimes

a poem is

just an observation

put into a sentance and

spread

over several lines

to make us

take more notice.

It sounds more sublime

spoken

with an accent

from Liverpool .

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boaties.
I came to a place, my place

where dreamers gather

where folly is the greatest aspiration

where drifting is the purest purpose

where distance gets reduced

to a chugging crawl

up endless winding

bodies of calm

flanked by incidental trees

serenaded by ducks and coots, swans and herons

and the gush of milestone weirs.

 

 

 

 

 

Up the Thames Isis .
From Oxford twenty miles I walked today

my legs like jelly

buzzing with nettle stings

I wind down beneath an old pollarded willow

the sun drops

and a steady breeze draws in.

I hope it doesn’t rain.

 

 

 

 

 

Recumbant!

Pedalo!

Kayak!

Catamaram!

Bowtop!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chimneys Meadows near Duxford.
I find three sleeping snails

and arrange them into a triskele.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Thomas’ Church Cricklade Sept 06.
Awaken the morning

at the apex of the Gothic arch

frame of the church porch

a big fat spider toils at its invisible web.

through the arch, in the garden

beyond the church wall

a blackbird stands atop

a laden apple tree

pecking at a fruit

checking between pecks;

who may be hunting him?

a sudden movement

and off he flies…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fingers red with fine uncommon dewberry blood

low to the ground

loose, like a low and misty blackberry

tastes like the English version of a blueberry

beautfully tangy

carefully isolate the seeds

by sucking the flesh and nibbling with teeth

coerce the sticky seeds

into my gentleman’s waistcoat pocket.

then come two middle aged short haired women

walking down from the Source.

maybe two dykes,

paying homage to an aspect.

I recommend them the fine .

Dry the seeds by osmosis in my pocket.

send them to friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A WISH FOR ENGLAND
1

Finstown, Orkney.
Undo the mess, and pick the locks

I’ve me a sense to the river

I’ve me a sense to the wind that’s roaring

I’ve me a sense to the sea
Orkney Ferry.

Us in our plastic and glass, oil fueled comfort

in looking back is there a re-connect.

people enrobed in skins and rough cloth

chop across the broiling grey

their lives in the hands of the Gods.
Returning on the Hamnavoe

I spied a grey seal bobbing up for air

swimming in the direction of The Seal Island;

Orkney… It looked at us.

everything moves, blows through us.
On water,dark bodies rise and glimpse the air

following the boats wake

noting our progress with interest.
Endless Himalaya

formed and lost,

formed and lost

more endless rolling scapes of hill

than any map can ever chain.

Caithness.
Locality is dying

being killed by the Big Muscled Outsider

all value and no character

all name and no personality

cheap food sucked in on diesel fumes

does not nourish the heart of our place.

Why should we be here?

The Big Name SuperMaul has seduced us

and reduced us…

every town and village

being turned into The Cultural Monotone.

The Mass of Us, we are forgetting who we are

because we are allowing ourselves

to be erased.

Supermarkets everywhere.
2

West Berkshire Violence.
In an area in Newbury called The Nightingales

stands a retail park where used to be a rugby pitch

where kids could cut loose and kick balls.

‘The kids can be such a nuisance these days,

we were never like it in my day.’

No ball games in this area; do not sit on the grass.
The little’uns threw rocks instead

at the Community Centre.

‘These kids have no moral values’

someone said, looking at the kicked-in door

of the building that looked like an electrical substation,

or an invitation to Hell.

‘If I was them’

I thought,

‘I would have done the same’.
A brick encrusted place

that grew in the shade of Greenham Common

not half a mile away.

What was once birch woods and birds

good and flat

razed and then stayed

by American bomber command

to help hold back the German fascist threat.
Then lips tightened

as the guns were lain down

they said the war had ended

and no-one dared argue.

Instead we settled for another industrial revolution

whilst we revelled in our new-found blue collar lives

the Americans stayed put

we helped them build a precipice

in the birchy glades of Aldermaston

the sunlight twinkles through the leaves,

but it is something more than summer’s promise that lingers in the air.

So West Berkshire sighed, became accustomed

and the sound of voices, stilled.

The war went on.
I grew up amid the trees and the concrete

amid an insidiously distrustful air

that someone far away labelled ‘Peace’.

We never quite believed what grown-ups said so

we’d go and break stuff for kicks.
3

In moments of tiredness

I really do want to believe in your world

you seem so all-consuming

like a vampire

you sometimes even seem to consume me

oh when I’m tired when I’m tired when I’m tired

maybe I should spend what little money I have

and buy into all your lies.

Deep down when I am quiet

I feel other voices

encourage belief in something other

to feel what we feel…

in billboard maelstrom

all I want is honesty.
4

Howwooo

the wolf in you

there is nearly always a howling

from the depths of your belly

it turns up in your mind

as endless questions

reel

towards the fantasy of perfection

howwooo

the howl is the way it is.
5

Need.

Some days all parameters lay in disarray

yet by others it glows a simple genius
If all we need is kindness and purpose

in exchange for food and shelter

how compelling and strange

to be gripped in the machinations of security.
We pack in brick proximity

cars buzz through the hive

thrive on noise and sensation

to prove we are alive.
Which space to stretch release?

Instead souls simmer

some faces sour;

so we are the grist,

the dust…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rainbow.
Above the rounding in

stone built thrum

stand apart I think

in wider arks.
Join with the rain

a delight in summer

by autumn a dividing line

between those that go home to dry out

and those that do not.
Pitch ourselves then

against the town,

some days the breeze smarts

all for the need of tea and food that’s hot.
Walk and walk and walk and walk

to keep the heat alive.

A library becomes a rest home.
Worn fused to the green grey decay of winter.

 

How then comes April

it’s first short promise of brightness

if I am in Llandeilo maybe, the rain relents

I fancy I saw a kite

stretching its wings

broad and high on the blue

first taste of the days to come

of the never-ending succulent sun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But for rain

I sleep

with dirt and grass my carpet

trees my blanket

sky for roof

barking fox and cackling crow

shall be my jewels.

embalm me in your liveness.
Slip into the vulva of naked night

away from the bonds of time

and the day’s machine.
Come into the sounds of animal darkness

washing and cracking around you…
A lull…

be safe in her unseenness

I shall worship unto the moment of sleep

until the moment of death

dreams shall be my sacrament.

If I could uninvent brick walls

I surely would

sleep every soul in England’s towns

outside

Feel against their flesh

the soulbright clamour of nocturnity…

Who then would we be?