Wednesday 22 November 2023

An Estate Agent Dreams Of His Ideal Client


 


The vendor’s getting on, the house is tired,

She thinks things are alright,

Because she had the place rewired,

Thirty years ago, you can tell she’s tight.

The house is sound, structurally maintained,

But nobody seems to have explained,

You need a bathroom for every bedroom,

To bring things up to the modern age,

A bog of one’s own is all the rage,

A big fat Yorkshire businessman,

Can’t be expected to rise in the gloom,

And walk down a corridor to move his bowels.

If it wasn’t for his wife, he’d use a bed pan,

Can’t really be arsed to go to the bog at all,

Let alone go wandering down the hall.

His wife loves an ensuite, with fluffy white towels,

In piles,

And she says she doesn’t mind hearing him straining,

Giving himself piles, as long as she’s certain

The toilet’s draining,

And the shower has a modern glass door,

And no curtain,

And a wet room floor.

So, the ornamental plasterwork, newly restored

Is going to have to go,

People are bored,

With that kind of look,

Out of a history book.

The conservation people won’t mind,

I’ll make sure of that, it’s who you know,

Been in the business 40 years or so.

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 8 November 2023

STANCE

 


 

I resent the stance you have taken.

I feel utterly forsaken,

For all we have is stances,

Our carefully choreographed dances,

With which, round truth, we lightly trip,

Hoping never to stumble or slip,

“Revealing for all of the others to see”,

Just why it is they can’t trust you or me.

We pretend to resent the imperial past,

But you know we must never be honest, at last,

And admit that its over for good,

For how can our virtue be understood,

If it’s known that we’re powerless, alone?

Who can possibly know of our rage,

If we do not posture upon the ‘world’ stage?

From our offices at the council, in Burnley or Oldham or Colne.

 

Tuesday 3 October 2023

Mouth Organ

 


I wish that I could lie,

Out of sight of cold blue sky,

Empty, cold,

Absent of mind,

Thinking no dull, adult thought,

Uncomprehending, dumb, untaught,

Still myself, boring, old,

But back in that place

 I used to find,

When as a child I sought

Comfort, satisfaction,

Numb and peaceful noise distraction.


I wish to transcend the daily grind,

And all that is stressful and fraught,

Flat on my back

On wide and ancient, deal boards,

Finding some untuneful rest,

Breathing reedy, metal chords,

Deep in my receptive chest.

 

 

Monday 2 October 2023

A Government Review

 


People have been talking balls,

Government must review,

Make sure the balls they‘re talking,

Is really getting through,

For who would take much notice,

Of all the balls that’s spoken,

If no one from the government

Made a gesture, just a token,

And held a long enquiry, to find out what to do,

About the balls that people speak,

Which no one thinks is true.

 

Sunday 1 October 2023

The powers that be have “deemed”


The powers that be have deemed

Me capable of action

Of which I have never dreamed,

Or worse, of thinking thoughts,

Which seem to them to have seemed

So reprehensible

That I should be tried in the courts

Of their minds and judged

According to their new laws

Invented on purpose to cause

Me, them to have broken,

Merely by having spoken.

And now I am guilty as charged

To the gleeful satisfaction,

Of those for whom recent history

Is entirely shrouded in mystery.

Friday 18 August 2023

On Delirium




Delirium’s effect upon the brain

Lasts far beyond the hour it is at hand,

It leaves a marker there, a madness stain,

Which ill effect we rarely understand.

It feels like strength to doubt the shifting sand,

We sense in this new state we’re deeply sane

And yet we’re cynical and now let nothing stand.


Delirium’s effect upon the brain

Means endless fighting, which becomes a drain,

Yet we can’t bear the world to be quite bland,

And argue day and night and so our pain

Lasts far beyond the hour it is at hand.

And now we seek for cures and then demand

Our loved ones also take up our disdain.

Delirium invades the peaceful land

It leaves a marker there, a madness stain,

A blood soaked soil where breeds a stronger strain

Of cynicism, sure that evil’s planned.

And how much evil does this world contain

Which ill effect we rarely understand?

Why is it the downtrodden who are damned

And those with power left to grasp and gain?

We cannot leave the flames of truth un-fanned,

And so we stoke the heat which we retain:

Delirium.









 

Sunday 25 June 2023

Not Trivial

 The dead can’t feel the warm wind from the south,

Across the skin that shivers not, yet feels

And sends a pleasant message to the mouth,

About the lovely time of year which then reveals

The shallow mind belonging to our flesh.

And yet how terrible to know no more

The warm wind on us, or the cold and fresh,

Then hear the mindless comments of each pore

Or follicle responding to the air,

By pouring out a little salty sweat

Or rising up and bristling a hair.

If we could know when we were dead, regret,

I think we might express it all together

In philosophical discussion of the weather.