Saturday 1 August 2015

Fanfare for the Common Crumpet

Trumpet the crumpet
it deserves fans and fanfares
like it or lump it
with marmite to comfort you, in your cares
from tarts through to strumpets
no one would dare
pilfer my crumpet
they're too good to share
If Iron Mike took my crumpet
Though I may lose my life there
I'd just have to thump it
If you're holding my crumpet
Son, you are going no where.

Trumpet the crumpet
Warburtons' best
till the butter runs down
my chin to my chest
and till  my tummy
silently swells under my vest
the golden crumpet of comfort
has got me, in handcuffs
and under arrest
I'm slave to the crumpet,
I'm at it's behest
I'll take the crumpets
And you keep the rest.

Kite

The diary is clear,
The desk is cluttered,
Before a word, is thought, written or uttered,
The screen is blank,
Before it could rise, the word sank,
Falling from skies,
Into a sink tank,
An unthink tank,

And whom should I thank?
The bank is bust,
But think, I must,
Before my thought-wheels rust
And creak, squeal, squeak,
Gone to ground,
Ground to a halt,
No dynamite image,
To blow open this poetry vault,

Listless and in the beginning,
The lazy, languid and indulgent sinning,
Patience scoured, worn and thinning,
Impotence conceived, it's sperm are swimming,
The baby dying, inertia winning,

Words, words, everywhere,
And not a thought to think,
And drowning in words,
All but submerged,
And my time is starting to sink,
To shrink,
Creation is closing,
Receding,
Conceding,
And dragging me over the brink,

Beyond this desk,
And through the glass,
The stillness of the Sabbath cries,
And beyond my garden,
Hardened I gaze into the skies,
And through vacant eyes,
From below the houses,
I see it rise,

In the net of it's silhouette, I am caught,
Its red tail forking my thought,
Its curving crook beak,
Has proven a hook,
And I am helpless to write,
But sit,
And look,

As I wrestled and writhed, chained to this chair,
All the while,
The kite,
Was wheeling out there,
Arcing and swooping, and soaring free
As I had intended, a poem to be,

Never gone but just out of sight,
No ties that bind,
To limit this kite
As free and as easy,
As my thoughts ought to be,
But eyes on a screen,
Are unable to see,

And now distracted, drawn taught, and taunted,
Its freedom of ease, in the breeze, leaves me haunted.

Mesmerised, I sighed,
And like sighs sink,
And breathing chests rise,
I resign myself,
And stare after the kite, into the skies,

"Oh well", I say, though there is no one to tell,
Recoiling  after a while into my shell,
"I'll never write a poem now".








The Cushion of The Years (Shield against Apollyon)

  Tonight, at 51, With the duvet pulled up to my ears, I will play myself to sleep, With the cassette replacement, Of the tape my mother bou...