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.

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

Did Jesus Install Fitted Kitchens?

 

 

"Let me make one of my famous prophecies or predictions,

In 2000 years, everyone’s going to be into fitted kitchens.

I may have been born in a lowly stable,

In a manger, or a stall,

But I’m telling you,

2000 years hence nobody’s going to want a boring old table,

Not when they can have a huge island, granite topped.

Livery cupboards, dole cupboards, ambrys, hutches, all will have flopped,

No one will want anything made of oak,

Or free standing,

Nowt so queer as folk,

They’ll all be demanding

MDF fitted to a plastered wall,

Let me assure you Martha,

In the future, you’ll never be left to prepare a meal on your own,

There’ll be no hearth at all,

Only cooking machines,

And high-speed equipment for heating up baked beans.

Your guests will all be gathered in ‘the heart of the home’

Each distracted by the screen of his mobile phone,

And there’ll be underfloor heating, like the Romans have in Rome.

Even in houses protected by listing,

They’ll all be insisting,

On the modern and new.

Symmetrical cupboards lined up in a row.

Let me fit one for you, gratis, and as quid pro quo,

I’ll tell my friends about it and you'll let them come and see,

How easy life can be,

When a kitchen’s fully fitted

And with gadgets fully kitted

Nothing unbalanced or quirky or odd

Think of all the time they’ll have to come and follow me,

But hey, what do I know?

I’m just the son of God!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 inquiry, to find out what to do,

About the balls that people speak,

Which no one thinks is true.

 

“Search for Anything”

Salmon pink, celadon, Georgian grey,

Persimmon, burr elm, something to say,

Pithers stove, anthracite, happy childhood day,

R.P English accent making bad things go away,

Shaft of golden sunlight, dancing dust motes in the ray,

Recorders and then singing and afternoon play.

Scarlet scented lipstick, teenage walks across the stray,

Absorption in a novel, fields with bales of hay,

And yet if sweet nostalgia were something one could buy,

I’d be a bleak progressive and want the past to die. 

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.

On The Nature of Possessions

There is something in the nature of possessions

That leads others to believe they are evidence of obsessions,

They are the means of creating impressions,

In our own minds and in the minds of fantasy peers

Whose imagined, envious expressions

Bring great pleasure

As we like to see ourselves

As we believe jealous others see us.

But there’s more than that to the items we treasure

They are not merely the solid, physical means by which we provoke

Gasps of astonishment and praise from imaginary friends,

Whose green eyed emotions we hope to stoke

Nor are they solely the method by which we measure

Our worth, they aren’t just the means to shallow ends

Demonstrating our superiority over ordinary folk,

Nor evidence of some neurotic psychology

Rooted in chemistry or biology.

No, I think our collections and selections

And by implication our rejections

Are not weird manifestations of Freudian predilections,

Not much to do with childhood, or sexual repressions,

No, the obvious truth is still true,

They are maps and signposts and directions

Which as to our values and interests 

Attempt to give some sort of clue.

 

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.

 

Colin 2

 

Another Colin, seemingly as nuts,

As him whom I have spoken of before,

Same hospital, but on a different ward,

Whose mouth, once opened, never after shuts

To stem the sales pitch one can’t ignore,

The patter packed away and safely stored

For just such an event as this day seems,

He’s lying down, but in his mind he struts,

Before a willing audience he must not bore,

And to be truthful, none of us is bored,

When listening to his well remembered streams

Of knowledgeable chatter which relates

To printers and to copying machines.

He truly knows his stuff and must appeal

Not just to us, but those who count the beans,

And so statistics creep into the mix,

Which more than mere anecdote reveal

The era which he’s speaking of. He states

Them with such confidence and dates

Thereby his time of ‘usefulness’ when dreams

Were not allowed and truly never sought,

Except where they would help to spur him on

To greater sales figures which themselves 

Were more than just sufficient a reward,

Although, of course the bonus pay was good,

He did not work this way against his will,

One senses that his patter was his fix.

He did not need incentives for he’d gone

Into this market gap in depth and thought

It satisfying simply in itself 

This real need to cater for, fulfil,

And thus he spoke of what he understood.

But what is comprehension of this sort?

A life of dedication to a cause

That has no greater purpose, yet improves

The working days of others who care naught

For plain men such as him, whose long soliloquies,

Delivered with good humour, without pause,

For forty years perhaps, had kindly brought

Them the ability to undertake 

Their daily tasks with ease. Faciloquies

Is not a word, but that is what we heard,

By accident because of some anomalies 

Within the ageing brain, these monologues 

Designed and much rehearsed, to sell such tools

As make life simple for such other fools,

As drudge in offices and make facsimiles.

Now Colin lies in bed, in summer heat,

And blethers on, repeat, repeat, repeat.

West Yorkshire Apples

 https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/127309028?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY

I don’t know why I think of it,

But when I see a photograph

Of Heptonstall or Hebden Bridge,

I think of how the apples taste,

Grown on ground of some hard ridge,

Of peaty moor and stony waste,

And how the sun goes out of sight,

Behind the hills at some young hour,

And almost taste their deep-green sour.

And how I cheer myself and laugh

To think I live upon the plain,

Where children dwell beneath a sky

Where sun, once up, can then remain,

Pouring down its ripening light,

It's kindly warmth or burning heat,

Unless it's covered by a cloud,

That takes its time in drifting by,

And how the apples seem to crowd

On ancient trees and look as bright

As they are sweet.

And like them, feel the need to cleave,

 And know I never wish to leave.

 

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. 

Colin

 

It was all such an unlikely tale,

A made up, wishful confabulation,

You were just another elderly male,

Sad, lost, making the kind of conversation

Men of your age and social station,

Are wont to make, feeble banter, bound to fail,

We did not trust the words that were spoken

By your sort, 

And your chatter made everything fraught.

Friday tea time suggested fish and chips

And you’d overheard a recommendation,

A new place in town, 

Or was it merely imagination?

You saw yourself running down,

In your flimsy, open-backed hospital gown,

And placing your Friday night order,

For inmates whose hearts and minds and hips

Were broken.

A generous, fatty, battered round,

For though demented your soul was sound,

And then you remembered your former life,

And thought of your clothes and your car,

And you spoke about your wife,

Lovely, kind and giving,

And none of us believed her living,

Though you used the present, ‘is’ and ‘are’.

We felt sad and looked at the floor,

Thought of the man you had been before,

But knew by your vacant eyes,

Your words were self comforting lies,

Felt something like despair,

Then Brenda walked in at the door!

And Brenda was realer than real,

Though certainly a creation,

Brenda was just what was needed,

Brenda it seemed had succeeded,

In being all the things any man would adore,

Cheerful, jolly, with sex appeal,

Warm of heart and mind and large of bust,

Dressed in red, with bleach blonde hair,

Still married and without disgust. 

On cognitive dissonance (the lack thereof in some obvious hypocrites)

 

Why is no vibration beating

In your dull and muddled mind?

Why do no alarm bells ring,

At your contradictory bleating?

Cognitive dissonance, just not a thing?

Ah yes,

I guess,

It’s when you’re Tweeting

That you speak from your behind.

And in your rectum there is no cognition,

Only a single, narrow ambition,

To expel the crap and the stinking gas,

From where it's been brewing in the store,

And this you do, and express no contrition,

Because it’s valued as rich manure,

By fellow members of your class.

 

I Wish to Chat to A Mushroom

 

I wish to chat to a mushroom,

To tell it all my woes,

I’d confide in its ancient wisdom,

And ask it what it knows.

But I fear it would not understand me,

Would gossip and tell of my fears,

Through its endless mycelium channels

That sprout from its mushroom toes.

I wish to chat to a mushroom,

I wish it would lend me its ears,

But when you confide in a toadstool

Who knows where your secret goes?

I suspect they are less dependable,

Than all the whisperin’ grass,

And their thoughts would be depressing,

And felt as a great morass,

Of damp and dark and breaking down

And a musty smell in the nose.

For although it’s a fruiting body,

It’s only the bit that shows,

And the rest of it’s complex and murky,

And it prattles away as it grows.

 

Will it add value, or make it more saleable?

Were I to acquire

A stuffed pike, 

Would it add value,

If I put it

In the downstairs loo?

Is it the sort of thing people like? 

Would it make people aspire,

To a certain lifestyle,

Or put people off, 

Because it’s vile? 

I don’t mean actually in the bog,

Of course,

I mean on top of the chiffonier,

To hide a scratch in the veneer.

Would people think 

I’m a huntin’ shootin’ and fishin’ toff,

All about horse,

And dog,

Or a liar?

Would it distract from the chip in the tile,

Above the sink?

What about a crystal chandelier,

Or two,

Are they more tarty than arty?

Or a pair of fauteuils, Louis Quinze or Seize,

Either side of the fire,

Would that make it seem like a des. res.?

Or should one go the whole hog,

A gilt salon suite,

Would it go with a club fender?

Would that show

I was the right kind of vendor?

Someone cultured, in the know?

Would such things complete

The impression

That this is a home of good taste,

And each possession

Treasured, inherited, long ago?

And could I then sell with Inigo? 

 

In The Tedium of a Metric Afternoon

 

I had the leisure,

To measure for pleasure,

The nature of an afternoon,

Of warm and scented, honeyed June,

When all was peace, yet nothing still,

To calculate the sublime,

In time and also in ‘mil’.

 

I felt the need, when I heard

The song of a garden bird,

There was nothing to gain

By use of the word,

And so reduced it to the absurd,

And measured it’s voice

And the thrill of its trill

With great precision and pain.

 

And afterwards knew,

That nothing was true,

Which existed in fragments alone,

But on a hunch

After eating lunch,

It occurred,

That I understood,

At the level of instinct and bone,

A truth that pertained in both garden and wood:

Beauty and flowers and finches,

Should always be measured in inches.

 

The Nouveaux Riches We Shall Always Have With Us

 

The nouveaux riches we shall always have with us,

And every game is always the same.

The nouveaux riches will never forgive us,

Only ever apportion blame.

There are sixty-six different genders,

As once there were fish knives and grapefruit spoons,

All of them plated and benders,

Poor, sad, aspirational goons.

Demonstrating sophistication,

Showing you’ve always belonged in your station,

Pretending to care about ‘Black Lives’,

Expressing imaginary guilt,

Because nothing says ‘terribly posh’,

Like my lot owned slaves, don’t y’know?

Two centuries ago.

The nouveaux riches we shall always have with us,

And every game is always the same,

Signalling virtue, 

Apportioning blame,

The nouveaux riches will never forgive us.

 

 

The Solid Silver Train

 

Why is there no train for my sexual preference?

The train for father and mother,

30 years man and wife?

Where is the train that only runs about every 6 weeks,

Where the passengers don’t spank each other,

Where nobody speaks,

At all,

Let alone makes any reference

To what’s occurring?

But instead just enjoy the ride,

Without declaring their pride,

As a brief escape from everyday life.

And at the end of the journey,

Thank each other.

Cometh the Psychopath, Cometh the Cycle Path

 

What’s with all the axing?

Only asking,

First, they came for the trees,

Then the BBC Singers, 

What is it in the psychology

Of all these ‘progressive’ left wingers?

And Tories and Lib Dems,

With local power,

Do they never tire,

Of letting go

Of that which is good,

Nationally, 

Or in their own neighbourhood?

Cometh the hour,

Cometh the psychopath

Cometh the cycle path,

Endeth the choir.