'And Then We Sever'

Soon my English master will take this not-so-White-Settler away from you
You are wanting to leave, to grow up, become a man of distinction; your own giant
Before you look to Edinburgh, permanently and look away from your dusky Jo’ in England
Remember how we played.
Your lairds along-side those from England as the ships docked at Liverpool, from West Indian shores
Heaving the carriage up the cliff from want of roads;
You, tending your father’s croft
Me, a decorative trinket for a baronet would break the cane
And knee-locking servitude
And run
All the way from Wigtownshire to Ayrshire, my skinny brown legs, heather-clawed
Nay bother, we’ll meet in the middle

Rob, I am an older freer man, in London now
I sigh memories before the destination board
I looked for you in Edinburgh, in a tenement beneath the castle
Unseated on Arthur’s Seat; tobogganing down towards the Festival.
Classy sandstone facades. Did I hear of you running behind Eglantine Maxwell
Riding a pig down the Royal Mile; the mistress has grown wild.
All the way from Edinburgh to Leith, your skinny white legs, heather-clawed
Nay bother, we’ll meet in the middle.

My twenties, the Highlands will always call the Englishman
Striding among the grouse, ‘driven’ and you a famous poet now.
Me just starting out, writing up the red in tooth and claw...Kinrara, Tomintoul, above Aviemore
Remember how we would both ‘run about the braes and pulled the gowans fine’.
Those keen-eyed Keepers could run the length of the land; wains on the backs of bards
From the Cairngorms to Dumfries,
From Thurso to Skye
Loch Lomond to Loch Ness
The Western Isles to the Shetland Islands (stopping for a dram in Orkney!)
From Mull to Aberdeen
Glasgow to Dundee
Their sturdy legs, heather-clawed.
Nay bother. They’ll meet in the middle

My heart is breaking Robbie, The drive away will be long
Remembering chasing pigs around the pen at Knockengorick, that last season of play,
Nessy gave us a knowing wink; our jaws dropping wider for a hoard of words that could not...
(Or was that a distant MacDonald matriarch, latterly O’)
...and then we sever.

I jump off the London-bound train at Carlisle, and cross to the other side.
Running all the way from England to Scotland, Robbie
Your Jo’’ Our skinny young legs, heather-clawed
Nay bother, we’ll meet in the middle.

When Older Men Younger Men Seek

When older men
Younger men seek
A waiting game
To make an old man meek
Who, when young
In turn was once waited on
Well pass the appointed time
Now choice; care-free abandon gone.

Cleaning out the plastic flutes;
A picnic in the park
With that younger man whose promises fade after
After-dark
The bright rose of summer
Will one day the rose of autumn meet
A waiting game
To make an old man meek.

The Owl and The Pussy Cat

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In an animal-smugglers' boat
They were drowned and found with two-thousand pound
And a newborn in the lining of a coat.

How foul the stars looked down tonight
On the water-logged animal farm
No song, no song from the back of the car
'Are we near, are we there, is it far!'
Is it far!
Is it far!
Are we near, are we there, is it far!

Pussy said to the owl, before they both drowned
"Kill our child for I can't bear it's moans".
She said , "His already dead, look here'; his little blue head was relayed round the world by a drone.
By a drone
By a drone
His little blue head was relayed round the world by a drone.

It's indeed far they say, a year and a day
To England from 'Bong-tree land's' bombed-out groves
But despite the sight of menageries in flight you'll still hear racist shite.
From a pig in a wig with a ring of burst veins on his nose
On his nose
On his nose
With a ring of burst veins on his nose.

Borderline

A cold cold family
A trio of witches
Leaves me reeling
They're asking for money for just one days' stay
To pay for a wake at which I've been robbed
As I rain curses down on the rooftop
Backing out of the valley of their heartless exil
Shouting, 'There is no love here,
And there never was!" I feel a fool;
I've left my wallet behind at the red- heads.

There caught all up like dirty litter
Swirling in the street-wind
With the drunks and the beggars
Untrousered and uncouth; my dear old friends
The mad who don't listen to none but their own croaks
For the next coin and drink and 'I haven't any money' choir of the unloved
Shuffling with the Irish sisters amid life's broken biscuits
Laughing like a drain they say, "You're telling tales just to steal our ears".
No one invites me, as they sit down to feast, in that terrible night place, on the devil's haunch.

I Go Into Other's Bodies When I Sleep

I go into other's bodies when I sleep
Not too severe,the worries I try to resolve;
Fear of flying; Sat at a terrace once a plane crashed in the harbour
In the news, the next day.
'How the hell am I going to pay the rent', comes up a lot.

Once, I came back into my house and there I was asleep on my sofa;
Re-entry was...well, like breaking in while drunk.
At least I have a home where my body, comfortable and safe,
Is there, on the sofa to come back to.

What if I returned from buffering a needy soul
Against fear of flying, (something that requires an adrenaline spike),
like 'How the hell am i going to pay the rent', (There's a lot of those these days)
And coming home after a night 'out' could not find my body.
There on the sofa; or those of my wife and my young children
Because I could not pay the rent.

The Dirty Laundry

This dirt cannot be laundered
This speck cannot be dislodged
No bleach remove this grime
That falls down from up above

A large machine won't do it
Dry Cleaning will be in vain
The patina of corruption
Will never unstain

Throw them in the bin marked 'soiled'
or 'whites mixed up with whites turned grey'
Or the bin marked, 'Truth of things hidden,
Made plain in the light of day'.

Everything is rotten now
The Dirty Laundry will not be closed
Nothing will ever be clean again
The wrong kind of grit now sullies England's Rose

To those who listen clearly
Beyond what high-class accents mean
You will hear in Cameron's tones
The muffled sound of dirty pebbles rattling round
An even dirtier machine

The Isle of Arran

If I had tramped these hills,
These high hills of Arran,
These glens carved by ice-giants-
My whole life-long,
Through shades of purple and green,
Deep yellow seasons of gorse

If these had marked my footfall
Through scree, burn and tarn
Every boulder familiar
Each graggy skyline a friend

Then, old and worn
I too would gladly lay me down
Beneath an anonymous cairn of rocks
For all weathers

Home

I am not due to return to Fairyland
Any time soon; work to be done.
But I love Annwyn with all my heart.
The young men, warriors all,
On the ramparts of Caer Siddhi waving
As The Guardian of the Stout Door
Guides me from the Shelving Side
Into the Twilight World.
There below me, the Dale of Devwy
Did Myrddin meet me at the Ninth-Wave?
None but seven returned from Caer Wydr
Home

Sleepwalkers

"Europeans have lowered their voices
On trains and in public places"
"We no longer feel welcome here".
While like automaton we talk
Stocks, shares, trade and exchange rates
When was the drawbridge raised to our hearts
You want figures.
Each of the three million young europeans
We've insulted will tell two people; (mum and dad probably)
That's 6 million who will tell 12 million
12 million will tell a further 24
Mainland Europeans...
In two years time and at an exponential rate through of word of mouth 50% per week -
112 weeks til deadline for article 50 elapses
Til we broker financial deals for ourselves
Over those from the EU we have caused to lower their voices
Ashamed of their accents
-Will amount to...
Well, do the math...
That's all we're good at.

Rosalind

'Her fractured contours dun where soon his ray would show more clear her dereliction'. In Parenthesis, David Jones

Rosalind

Walls of jumbled gilt-framed Arcadian scenes, ornate plate and fine porcelain figurines
Reflecting antique lamp-light; artificial evening sun
And old men in stuffed chairs, essence of Gentleman's Club
Slumped like Vaughan Williams in a corner of Chelsea
Women with strayed straw hair in ankle-length black velvet pass a silver platter of food
And the grand piano too large in the tiny room
Among the golden tat of Empire, they respectfully wait
For Rosalind's arias

Set-posed, dyed black chignon above pale white imperious skin;
No trace of her plantation pedigree
There's conspiracy in holding back a smile, the crack of open laughter at this absurd music box
In this air of salon, like a social pas de deux in an empty gallery; my awkwardness shows
Do not break the illusion

Her husband, an aged child actor fumes at nothing, in the hallway
Maybe at this destination reached, Rosalind's party
He stands on the angry shores of dementia
As Rosalind sings badly in bad German

In Green Fields

In green fields sorrow falls
Blood spatters the daisies
Rustic dreams of rural idyll
Under marching boot
Then cleave to mother homeland
Hearts ablaze with courage
Going home the victors
Beyond this there is no more

A Portrait

Portrait.

One day he wasn't there
A void behind the counter
The sound of defeafening silence
'This parrot is dead!'
Sagacious London wide-boy brogue; Charlie.
"The English speak in statements;
Because they know everything".An accent-coach once said.
And Charlie did know everything and drole too.

Out of place, to think back; three decades older
Than the university girls serving
Flap-jacks, cappucinos and seaweed empanadas
But over half the regular customers
Were approaching fifty or passed
Sat among the artwork, come to hear Charlie...and
Watch the university girls

The owners, Boookie and Tristan loved him
Good for business, worked tirelessly
'Wounded sort, abandonned, there was prison,
Low self-estime, we'd pay him but you know..."
Charlie knew all the old Goon Show sketches and
Obscure tit-bits about musicians and bands and
Still went to gigs , six-foot three above youth.

The men collapsed in their coats
Bewildered by middle-age
And Charlie who gave them
License to play

"We had to let him go", Confided Boookie and Tristan
Back from a shaman retreat in the South of France.
"Inappropriate texts to some of the staff"
(Probably asked to be paid)
Knew his wit and sexual inuendoes
Might come back to bite him one day
And the jocular demand for kisses

His name is now taboo, imply the owners
With masks and smiles which really say
'We raise ourselves up on nothing'
And, 'We're glad you've picked a side'
And the ageing men collapsed in their coats
Even more bewildered by middle-age,
Watch the university girls serving
And dare not cross the line.

A Phyrric Victory

i won a Pyrrhic victory
but i could not see the loss
only the vainglory
and used arrogance to disguise failure
a lesson i've been sent to feel
before moving on

to boast of triumph
from an urchin's landfill
and raise a cup of sordid gold
in a madman's bunker
a giant's face looking down
before moving on

i'll head from the head
to the heart one day
from the echo of patriarchs
to the matriarchal hearth
and feed those that i can
before moving on

i won a Phyrric victory
if victories won are not seen bitter-sweet
and failure's shadow
is not also victory
to go towards with warm embrace
before moving on