THE SILVER ROSE
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The Grand Tour
1
Tis the end of March & my rent is due,
But two life options lie open to me;
Break with a lover, lose friendship, split thro,’
Or chain myself to the servility
Of capitalism… A poet true
I yearn to be, so young, so sure, so free,
Romancin’ my mind with poetry’s flow,
So be it, with sure brave heart, I shall go.
2
I made love to my love the night before
I wrapp’d my guitar in a grey, baggy
Jumper I wore on cold nights down Turf Moor,
Raided the bank for all my rent money
& embark’d upon my third busker’s tour –
Her scent mull’d like wine, her tongue lull’d honey,
How we laugh’d as we revell’d, dear Rosie,
In kisses & love-songs & pure poesy!
3
I visit my dealer’s house in Hackney,
Score skunkweed to space out the pilgrimage;
From Waterloo I train-jump to the sea
Where stand I ‘neath the elemental rage
Of roaring tempest, common sense sends me
Seeking out a dry, dungeon’s hermitage
Neath Dover Castle, where my tour’s first night
Was spent writing by gothic candlelight.
4
I watch the white cliffs recede to a speck,
Then sing a fond farewell to old Blighty,
But like a wreck-head at a discotheque,
A certain chunderness docks to smite me,
I have to head down to the under-deck,
Feeling so sick I think I should whitey –
As one voyage ends, another embarks
At Ostend, there change Pounds to Francs & Marks.
5
Thro’ Belgium’s monotonous flat fields green
With mental-moustache-men I’ll share the train,
Finding Flemish floozies, barely fifteen,
Are singing the Spice Girls… no, not again!
We pass thro’ Bruges, whose spires of golden sheen
Glisten in the morning’s early-day rain,
Like beads of sweat on a wrestler’s muscles –
Half-an-hour later we land in Brussels.
6
I find a youth hostel that’s not too dear,
Skin up a joint & explore the city,
Sample the exquisite chocolate & beer,
Find the lifeless nightlife a bit shitty –
A distinct lack of any atmosphere.
So back at the hostel start a party
With some young Dutch – share my grass and guitar,
Then play these fellows Ian Brown’s ‘My Star.’
7
I fade trains south to Waterloo Station
To be filled with war-pride at the great sight
Of the Iron Lion of our nation
Pois’d above the field of terrible fight;
I walk with the ghosts of Napoleon,
Then bus it back to Brussels for the night;
See Catatonia play, blitzed on grass –
Boy oh boy that chicks got a real nice ass.
8
I cross the border into Germany,
There take a little stroll around Cologne,
Whose cathedral towers high above me,
The holiest skyscraper hewn from stone;
As the Youth Hostels are far too pricey
& Sol has not yet sat upon its throne,
I hop on a train & down the rail-line
Hit speed by the side of the mighty Rhine.
9
All thro’ Europa’s heart, in style, I go,
Most handsome citadels guarding the way,
Now darkening the river’s ancyent flow
Sol sets again, stars tinkling out in play;
Into old Nuremburg my train did slow
I’ve nearly crossed the Reich in one smart day.
Finding the Frankenhoff & its cheap bed,
I roll a joint up & then out I head.
10
I view the building where those Nazis heard
Their too kind fate; wyrd monsters like Herr Hess
Who’d murder at an evil tyrant’s word
& paste an entire planet with his mess;
I sample German beer – glass size absurd –
Then find an all-night café to play chess,
Back at the Frankenhoff I cannot sleep
Beneath my room some strip-joint’s bass booms deep.
11
Onto Vienna’s cultured legacy,
Whose cleanest streets are beautifully lined
With splendid architectural fancy,
As if some Danaan mind had here design’d
A capital of neatest majesty;
A host of impressionist paintings find,
What moment on an Opera House roof,
A poet perch’d on a pegasus hoof.
12
With Parsifal tromboning thro’ my skull
I roll up one last reefer, wash, get dressed,
& do one from Austria (far too dull)
On the world famous Orient Express;
With the rage of a matador-aimed bull
I supersoar, roarin’ t’wards Budapest,
Ambassadorial, a Sultan’s feast,
All set to feed, my first taste of the East,
13
A warm, friendly couple buy me coffee,
She is Norwegian, he is a Scotsman,
They are honeymooning in Hungary
From the Arctic fishinh port of Bergen;
He gives me a few fags & some money
Which I change when I get to the station,
Into Florins worth less than one-fifty –
The Scots are renowned for being thrifty!
14
“What the fuck am I doing in Hungary!?”
Think I as I search for somewhere to rest
In the dirty, bustling, car-choked, friendly
Bullet-hole-wall-lined streets of Budapest;
Architecture touched clearly by Turkey,
But laced with the consumeristic West;
I find the Mellow Mood Hostel – what luck!
For four pounds a night it’s as cheap as fuck.
15
The Turks may have come to murder Magyars,
But up to their angel-built baths Ill go,
To boil in the waters, cool in the spas,
Immers’d in reading Shelley’s dreamy flow,
Then a ‘Cisco lawyer goes for my arse
“What the fuck was that?!” – he offers to blow,
Blood muddies the waters, he gets the point –
I click! It’s a freakin’ gay pick-up joint.
16
I meet a lassie later, out we go,
The price of a nice evening meal to share,
“I’m from Richmond, where Edgar Allen Poe
Was born.” “I’m from Burnley, Lancashire.” “Where?”
The ghoulash was great with the wine, we flow
Out to the street, breathing in the sweet air,
Where, in a moment of drunken romance
I kiss’d her neck & seiz’d my shagging chance.
17
I left the lassie dreaming in my bed;
Shit, shower, shave, pack, roll-up sleepin’ bag,
Greet the warm morning, buy freshly baked bread,
Cheap beer & cheap cigs from some gypsy hag,
Play chess in the street, get really wasted,
Swindle a swindler with a Kingside blag,
Then heading on west down the railway line
I get me kicked off by the border line.
18
I gaze on familiar boyhood star
While I walk a few K to the border,
Along the line I thumb down a police car,
They bundle me in, “Silence!” the order,
So as they check the passport my guitar
Rings out in bizarre tuning & coda,
Bemused they release me at the train station
“Gizza lift” “No!” my tour’s first frustration!
19
‘Neath the European night sky, thick starred,
I find myself in a desolate zone,
Tip-toein’ past the sleepin’ border guard,
Relics from the cold war the scene adorn,
Two young Austrians thought they were hard,
With angry clashing voices of slabstone,
I looked straight down the barrel of a gun,
“Who won the fuckin war!?” & pass’d right on.
20
I take the greatest train jump of my tour
From Vienna to Villach, on a sleek
Inter-City, as each Alp towers o’er
My little carriage, each volcanic peak
Thrust from the fertile, verdant valley floor
With breathtakin’ beauty – I could not speak,
Until dinnertime by a mountain stream…
Villach’s heap’d watchers echo to my scream.
21
How glad am I to enter Italy,
For the call of the muse grows ever strong,
Like some wild animal trapp’d inside me,
To find a form in my juvenile song;
Snowy mountains shrink into flat country,
Thro’ fields of lazy green we zoom along,
To Venice; as Italy greets my feet
I see a canal sparkling,’ where’s the street?
22
Three days I spend in ardour Venetian
Three nights in a disused railway carriage,
Gusting around this floating museum
On a perfect barge; there is a marriage
Between my soul & the elysian,
A poet’s dreams are pulsing from the page,
As here in this soft city I savor
My first Italian ice cream flavor!
23
Thro’ Venice I, the poetic rover,
Roam streets by night, guitar oer broad back slung,
Under a statue of Casanova,
Ditties composed near Chichester are sung,
Eldritch voice attracts coins for each number,
Those tuneful tayles melodiously wrung,
& after playing for an hour or so
Buzzy black bongo bangers join my flow.
24
Distant Riviera di Levante
My heart’s destination, mine art’s true call,
But first, the mausoleum of Dante,
To tap into a predecessor soul,
Overgrown with moss & creeping ivy,
My man, you were the wildest of us all!
Ravenna, this may be a swift sojurn,
But one day, with my wife, I shall return.
25
How balmy is the Florentine evening,
Whose stylish sweetnes softened Dante’s tongue,
Outside Shelley’s old villa I’m busking,
To soon attract a most beautiful throng
Of German fraulines, who are visiting
This sultry city, entranced by my song,
Two of them follow me into a park
For passionate encounters in the dark.
26
We wake in arms, after cappuccinos,
We wander moped streets, a sacred city
Thro’ which argent-sheen’d Arno grandly flows;
I buy a book to fill with poetry,
On the title page Maya draws a rose,
Then buy fresh foods & climb a hill where we
Build a fire, cook dinner, watch the sunshine
Fade over Florence with a sweet red wine.
27
‘How romantic it is to be abroad,
Free from the chains of a working mans day,’
Think I while walkin’ the main Pisan road
Passing a troupe of buskers on the way
With guitar, ink-pens & notebook my load
I’ve arrived, aye, all my dreams seem OK –
Then see the leaning tower – am I drunk?
On further inspection one side has sunk.
28
Back from the tower Fate bids me to meet
The busker’s troupe in musical mid-flow;
There’s an old black bluesman with dust-bare feet,
A dark, Chilean named Kapitano
& a saxman sultrifying the street;
They offer me wine, adding my oestro,
You’ve never heard a more raunchier noise
& just like that! I’m one of the bad boys.
29
I settle with this best of holidays;
Each one begins with pasta from a nun,
Then idle hours spent musing beneath rays
Of an English summer-like springtime sun;
When falls the warm evening I, then, amaze
The Pisan public with songs sweetly spun,
& blitzed on six bottles of Tuscan red
Outside a church we make our cardboard bed.
30
On borrowing a mountain bike I ride
Thro’ Tuscan plains all sensuous, sublime;
Leaving behind linear countryside
Up an ashen mountain my pedals climb,
Breaching the steep peak’s top, embracing wide
& fertile vista, immersing in rhyme,
With hang-gliders updrifting in the sky,
“Hello,” I shout & “Ciao” is the reply.
31
I jump a train to San Guilliano
To walk on Shelley’s mountains, but instead
I’ll sit in the street with old man Franco,
He ploughs me with red, risotto & bread,
Plus a whole sow’s leg – my stomach doth blow,
Tho’ we hardly understand a word said,
We converse about the war, England, life,
Italy, poetry & his dead wife.
32
Pisa is like Oxbridge, old student town;
One day while composin’ I met a bunch
Of poser undergraduates, they’re down
With what I’m doing & cook a great lunch,
Converse in English & show me around
Their night-clubs, jazz cafes, & as the crunch
Doth come, with Latino chick well-endowed
With looks, I fuck her, do my country proud.
33
I wander up the coastline for to muse,
Setting up camp in a cliffside quarry,
Resplendent in luscious, blue, sea-side views,
By the chapel of Portovenere,
Tonight my life, my mind, mine art shall fuse
& awakening to my destiny,
Prepare for the sun to set ‘low the line,
By buildin’ fire, ent’rin town, stealin wine.
34
With topless bottle of red in my hand,
Up cliff-face I scamper with the surge-might
Of some fabl’d hero from Plato’s land,
& claiming the top, gulls in freedoms flight,
Silhouette the setting sun, a wide band
Of gold spread ‘cross azure seas, from this height
I muse on the rippling sea-meadows blue –
This evening gives birth to a poet true.
35
I pause to reflect on the life I knew;
Nice house, nice job, nice girl, nice skunk, nice deal;
Compare these to these skies & seas of blue,
And this sense of sheer assurance I feel
At joinin’ the bravestars, we happy few –
No more a cog on the soul-grindin’ wheel,
Besides, England does my fuckin’ brain in
& I bet, as I’m writin,’ its rainin’.
36
Dizzying to my heart’s epiphany,
The last sun-chink was slipping ‘low the line,
Her last shed ray sped ‘cross the darkling sea
To sparkle on an object, close, divine;
A Silver Rose, so lovely & so wee,
Had caught my eyes with its delightful shine –
Plucking my moment’s floral momento
I left for camp, led by its lamp-like glow.
37
Southwards I go, to Viareggio,
Beneath the Apennines, whose lofty height
Towers o’er the lines of my third canto,
As shrouded by the drowsy, star-strewn night.
I build a fire beside the softsea flow,
Cook up a meal, by fading ember light
I shed a tear for some long ago year
When Shelley’s corpse was found & burnt – right here!
38
I awoke to the skin-warm, golden glimmers
Of a glorious sun, whose burning rays
Ever stronger grow, over sand shimmers
A floaty, velvety, dream-curtain haze,
Watching speedboats dashing between swimmers
All thro’ the day my skin cooks more ablaze,
So much, when back in Pisa my new tan
Has cut so deep, folk think I’m a black man.
39
Soon back am I in bohemian swing
Musing away; one long, mellow daydream;
By the side of the Arno sometimes sing,
Or bask in the sun with wine & ice-cream,
Or busk to the world as a poet-king,
Then party hard with Kapitano’s team;
For life is forever tender to me
Having tasted the breath of Italy.
40
In the warm morning, after a party,
I sit with Kapitano round a fire;
He teaches me the bird-songs of Chile
& how to busk a day without a lyre;
Brimming with wisdom into the city
I drift, when in a shock of love desire
She’s sat on the grass banging wee bongos,
‘…To describe the way I feel,’ the song goes.
41
She seems to me the first fair star of Eve,
With ocean eyes & smile of teeth pearl white,
And perfect curves like you wouldn’t believe,
My heart melteth at the sensual sight
Of beauty’s first essence, this I receive
In raptures, as we, by the Arno’s flight
Converge as one ‘til comes the sad sundown –
“Meet me in Rome,” we kiss as she leaves town.
42
The night before my tour’s final movement
I play my farewell set, busk up a pill,
Slide down the Maccinera for groovement
With a slick Sicilian band, until
An onslaught of Dutch Techno bombardment
Releases built up pressures ‘til the chill –
Coming down leisurely, laid back, sublime,
Puffing out chillum smoke, passing smooth time.
43
Heading down south on the click-clack train track,
At two AM the conductor finds me
With a bag of books, the rags on my back
& in my hands a copy of Shelley;
Expecting some Hampshire inspector’s flak
The guy, instead, showers me with pity –
Six hours later, the twilight before dawn,
I walk the streets of Rome waiting for morn.
44
As o’er the Eternal City doth come
The mellow, yellow orb of Italy;
I stroll all around the Colosseum
Musing upon my growing poetry,
A race of chariots soon won – struck dumb
By Rome’s incredible decadency,
Yet senses of fallen grandeurs pervade
For glory lasts as long as summer shade.
45
These ruins seem to speak, they sing with pride,
Splendors far surpassing exhortation,
Bridges spanning the Tiber’s jadestone glide
Bare intricate statues, inspiration
Flows onto my page, cast & sanctified,
As in a nation within a nation,
With dead popes standing guard o’er Peters square,
I start my final stanzas – almost there!
46
I hold the address of a place to stay –
The old fort at Prenestina – where I
Am welcomed most warmly, don’t have to pay
For my bed beside this Bengali guy,
Who stacks up his chillum… inhale… OK
I’m well wasted.. so go exploring, high,
Thro’ sun-trapp’d seclusion, my mad new home,
A sanctum for the artist youths of Rome.
47
I jump a tram this sunniest of days
Down into the tourist-laden city,
Upon the Spanish Steps I pause & laze
Then walk into a shrine of poetry;
‘Tis true that a true poet seldom pays,
Reciting a passage from my Shelley,
I get in for free, see hand at first hand,
Awaken’d to kinship – my fearless band!
48
I sharpen my features & dress to impress,
Entering a candlelit theatre
Find dark, Grecian drama in deep progress,
Aha! My marvelous Manuela,
My sexy, smiling,’ stage-struttin’ actress,
I knew right then that I had to have her,
“You look beautiful, like a Silver Rose!”
That night… her hotel bed… our teeth-torn clothes.
49
With my lady sleepin’, thro’ the city,
I roam, a sweet sun illumines the streets,
A tranquil Protestant cemetary,
& Shelley’s tower, where my muse completes
Her visitation; I feel tired, empty,
But wait! As I stood by the grave of Keats
I surge with strength to try the train-jump home
& did one from the glory that was Rome.
50
Cashing in my emergency tenner,
Join’d with cann’d beef I bought in Hungary,
I’ll busk up a little extra lira,
& hunger up the length of Italy
Upon my last evensongs at Pisa,
Already it all seem’d a memory,
For Kapitano had moved on to France
To work the World Cup with a beggar’s dance.
51
So, leaving gentle Arno to her flow,
Jumping trains to an uncertain future,
I once again view’d Viareggio,
Le Spezia, then pass’d thro’ Genoa;
Spent sunset in the streets of Torino,
Faded a sleeper to the French border –
But travelin’ don’t always go to plan,
My bloody train had landed in Milan!
52
I was now sev’ral hundred miles of course,
& how it happen’d did not understand,
But youth is driven by a hidden force,
Which made me take the train to Switzerland,
At whose harsh border found I smart resource –
For they had rejected me out of hand
(I look’d like a tramp) – after midnight, tense,
I found a rabbit-hole shewn from the fence.
53
I felt like I’d escaped Colditz Castle,
But as I pass’d thro’ chocolate Zurich,
I was toss’d into a world of hassle,
The Swiss care not for buskers & their reek,
After lots of shouting & a wrestle,
I was plung’d in a police cell for my cheek,
But come sundown eveything was sorted –
The next day I was to be deported!
54
They marched me on a fancy Swiss Air Jet,
Handcuff’d until the very last moment,
For I had slipped right thro’ their border net,
Back to my native island must be sent,
On fine French wine my flight was free from fret,
For thanks to a filthy rich government –
I carried massive bundles of Swiss Francs,
The dowry of their Nazi-lovin’ banks.
55
I thrill’d so much to drop into Heathrow,
Tho’ from the wine a little worse for wear,
To Rosie’s boudoir hopefully I’ll go –
At first she gives me such a startl’d stare,
But soon romancing reconvenes fair flow
I fed her verses on a velvet air,
Said she, “Why don’t we take a bath, my sweet…”
With that hot wash my Grand Tour was complete.
The Return of the Rose
L’INITIATA
I am the Silver Rose & in these words confide;
Far better to have lived than to have died,
& lives of highlights, which we poets lead,
Preserve them in soft pots of molten mead.
This is a selfie for the Facebook Age,
Catching its zeitgeist butterflies in nets,
Psychean constructs waltz across the page,
A blog gone viral… want to read? hen lets!
To thee I leave my sonnetrie in trust,
Dear reader, as in these I am alive,
Tho’ most of them must join me in the dust,
Perhaps the better handful will survive.
When, tho’ my soul in this no longer grows,
While we share this still lives the Silver Rose.
L’AMFIPARNASSO
There is a setting of the Summer sun
& in that setting Summer’s glory gone,
Progressing slowly through my younger years
A kind of British poetry appears,
A project on whose ridge I’ll stake my name,
My future reputation, & my fame,
Clear words conforming an authentic song,
Some metaphysic symphony among
These epic sagas of our mortal kind,
When poetry doth eternize the mind;
Form terse bouquets of ambisonic verse,
All closeted within the airy purse
That is this book, this box of words ye hold,
To gaze on when ye’re young, gush praise on when ye’re old!
MILLENNIUM LIFE
At this stage of Mankind’s devolution,
We live in an age of air pollution,
Fat-cats & taxes, taxi fares, faxes,
Serial killers, silky leg waxes,
Condoms, modems, gimmicks, gadgets, gizmos,
Two rubber ducks & comic book heroes,
Football… rock & roll… catwalk… movie stars,
Recession, depression & wonder bras,
Four packs & prozac, pylon countryside,
Anarchist daughter, schoolboy suicide,
Just-add-water, slaughter of Mother Earth,
Demise of religion, pagan rebirth,
Not one inch left of this globe to explore,
The whole world itchin’ for its third World War!
NOW THAT I AM TWENTY-FIVE
Now the landlords shouted, “Sup up!” at some jam night down Camden,
Time has come for me to sum up some cool shit which have done;
I have had mi share o’ ladies, & some of ’em together,
Played football round the counties proudly for mi Lancashire,
I have caught the Tallin ferry, composed poesie midst Pompeii,
Trudged through muddy Glastonbury off my nut to see Brown play,
I have master’d Fare Evasion, troubadour’d thro’ all my crimes
(Except fer one ‘boitelle du vin’ they reported in the Times),
I have watched my team at Wembley, been a champion at chess,
Dodg’d the workplace prison mis’ry, nigh six years free now from stress,
I have writ a wicked album, formed a company of kings,
Chased romantic ghosts through Belgium… these, &many other things,
For I’m flush with understanding what it means to be alive –
With a spirit so demanding now that I am Twenty-Five!
EXHORTATIONS
If the world that you live for is noble
& to do yer damn best is yer dream,
You must train through the pain & the rain, son,
Then you might just get in the team.
When its time to alight on the beaches
For your captain, your country & all,
When yer passion turns into yer duty,
& yer name might just hang off a wall.
Aye, c’mon, lad, you know yer can do it,
Digging deeper than you’ve dug before,
With the grace of the Gods in thy favour,
You might just win one, no matter how sore;
Yes, you might be a true bloody hero,
What the hell are yer waiting for?
COMMUTER LOVE
She shivers in vain under the old clock tower;
Drizzle spate, lover late, fizzling date…
“The 17.17 from Dover Priory
Has been diverted via Bat & Ball…”
She morbidly walks into Unwins,
Buys a bottle of cheap red Chianti
To take home to its depressing glass;
Tonight she’ll romance Albert Square
& a fisherman’s pie from Tescos –
Laced with white-hot jalapenos.
Then, the EUREKA knock at the door
& Terrence will stand there, slick-soaked hair,
Saying,”Sorry, Daphne, I’ve had a total nightmare!”
“Drive next time!” she’ll whisper, kissing him prodigiously.
ON A BUS
I step on a bus
little fuss
few passengers
watch me sit
a black woman
a young punk
old man twiddles his tash
& in a flash
the bus sets off
planes wing over London
& as we reach Holborn
my brain
pretends to be elsewhere
dreaming of mysterious fancies
LONDON
In London …
… every person, £vri person,
everí person, ever the person, evri person,
Beverly Beeson, £very person, (every person),
everí person, every per$on, iga inimene,
every person, ogni personne, Ava’s prison,
evrí person, evil curses, weather is worsening,
heavenly verses, devlish curses? chaque personne,
everí person, e^ery person, Eva’s aspersian,
£very person, <very person, ev{ry per$on,
everí mason, clever wee person, every person,
… is a passing thought!
POET’S CORNER
Mine art estrang’d, yet beauty breathes in me,
Paints tangible dreams to adorn the page,
Illuminous thoughts to mark this dark age
Of souls laissez-faire!
Feel me rise freely
In triumph, as my song’s resplendency
Shoots a lucid star ‘cross an opaque stage,
A spirit releas’d from its mortal cage…
O! How I would die for thee poetry
In raptures receiving the sacred states
Of an enlighten’d mind, virtuous heart
And resurgent soul!
I follow the fates,
Rejoice in the exstasi of mine art,
To champion Renaissance, join the brave
Who sought the greatest glory of the grave.
WESTENDERS
Twas a quintessential English evening
All about town & the capital’s core,
On my arm a wonderful flutterling
Perfectly amenable to the tour.
We met in a wine-bar off Trafalgar,
To delve within a cosy eaterie,
Then took our places at the theatre
For the Mousetrap’s befuddling mystery.
O! the night brimm’d a goblet romantic
& our spirits, yes, they sparkl’d as the stars,
Rosie was a gentle alcoholic,
Floating, flirting, thro’ her favourite bars’
When to the chimes of Big Ben’s booming bells
We jump’d the last train down to Tunbridge Wells.
THE GENTLEMAN’S ART OF GOOD WOOING
Sir, just as sea-galleons need proper manning,
To act like a stallion needs dapper planning,
Ride out in the morning, find snappy new shirt,
Fine wine & fresh watermelons for a private desert.
Whether up in the Andes, or by the Atlantic,
Reserve a nice table with view quite romantic
For love in the city seek art, tho’ not too much,
For sitting still together allows two hearts totouch.
Well sir, to get the best out of screwing
Try the Gentleman’s Art of Good Wooing,
For a woman well-wooed in her bloom
Is a vixen when moved to the bedroom,
There kissing her neck-line with thrilling caress
Ensures her bloom’s plucking… her petals’ undress.
AMORETTI
There is nothing like a writhing woman
Astride the throbbing member of her man,
When both of them – in panting unison –
Upclimbing to a symbiotic scream,
Surfing all florid energies between
That first flesh-lock & silence satisfied.
Her bosom bouncing & in full control,
She rode my phallus to its full climax,
Verve of man’s primal sin, lust & romance
Express’d in its most physical conjoin,
While thrusting cunny subtly pleasures both.
Thro’ clench & kiss we learn to fall in love,
‘Til wondrous woosinesses of spent lust
Endows us both with drowsy sweetness sound.
ROSIE’S SCHOOL RUN
OH MY GOD! I’m having a nightmare,
Fuck, look at the fucking time!
“SHUUTTT UUUPPP!!!”
The kids are doin’ my head in
With their school-stuff everywhere,
“Here’s yer shoes, here’s yer socks,
Heres yer fuckin’ sandwich box!”
“MUMMY… don’t swear!”
OH MY GOD! Its ten to nine now,
& my car-keys JUST AREN’T THERE!
Will it rain, will mum call,
Will I end up on the dole
O MY GOD! Its five to nine now
& the traffics hits a WALL!
THIS IS MY COUNTRY
Good Morning Great Britain
Still great, still Britain
The sun is shining, 10:45 AM
£296.26 pence in my pocket
Time to bet it all on black & hit the road again
If time is a mere scratch & life is nothing
& nothing that occurs is of the slightest importance
From Aberdeen to Birmingham, Arundel & Deal
From Dullis Hill to Rotherham, Bristol & Peel
From Inverness to Liverpool, Leeds & Palmer’s Green
From Lewisham to Padiham & all the pubs between
From Badminton to Twickenham & Barton-in-the-Beans
‘Til my bardic breath expires
This is my Time,
This is my Rhyme,
This is my Country!
BRIGHTON PROMENADE
Less than an hour’s ride from London wind the bustling Brighton Lanes,
A plethora of vests & T-shirts, oriental eats,florists, flatcaps & funky beats,
Further still the shlinky streets were buzzin’ with bookshops & babes,
Clocks, calendars, creams & rings & everyone flitting around like schmetterlings….
…Thro’ the exotic Pavilion Gardens I walk, deeper into narrow streets
Past vinyl hives & vespa mopeds, botanical lives &electric threads,
Flea markets, & duvet-dappled beds as to my ears swept the sea’s dull roar,
For Brighthelmstone’s a jewel perch’d upon the rocky English shore…
…Onto the beach I tarried, where waves crashed inonto the wet, stony sands,
Today just gulls at play & a grey-haired old geezer with scarf & beret;
This is why I travel, for moments like these, melodic music & a warm seabreeze…
…I’m gliding barefoot along the promenade unto a skeletal relic,
Where barefoot on the stones, quaffing beer beside the Pier,
I watched the gull fleet sail the spangled wave.
TRAINING IN THE ART OF FARE EVASION
The Fader Code
1 Remain alert
2 Always keep your cool
3 Trust your instincts
4 Never show your money
5 Know your stations
6 Another five minutes won’t hurt in the loo
7 Know your enemy
8 Know your postcodes
9 The train’s going there anyway
10 When in doubt, clout
11 The train always comes when you’re skinnin’ up
12 It is every Fader’s duty to baffle & confuse
13 Always remember your free cup of tea
14 There’s no need to rush – unless you’re being chased
TIP NUMBER SEVEN
Pantglas Primary School
Perch’d under the Shadow of Death
Without a breath…
Morning assembly
Half-term imminent
Tsu-Na-Mi of slag
Sludge, mud, rubble,
Miners & mothers
& their mothers, clawing the sludge
Cries of babies dwindling
Just ten dug out
The rest broken-bodied
Entombed under the Shadow of Death
Without a breath
CAMBRIA
I enter’d Wales along its southern shore,
Pass’d many breezy towns of prime bereft;
Like Newport, Port Talbert, Haverfordwest,
Then, as I saw Saint David’s ancient spires,
The Irish Ocean met me with a smile,
Whose coast curl’d north; ghostly Aberystwyth,
Aberdovey’s dream, Harlech’s stoic stones,
Dolgellau’s mellow stream, fair Machynlleth,
Portmerions bejewell’d masonry,
Delayed my days, for this is wondrous Wales,
A David to the Saxon Goliath,
But prouder than each English heart I know,
Where, as I stood upon Glendower’s keep,
Cymru’s grey passes bash’d the flashing skies!
OVER GWYNEDD
I tackl’d Snowdon from the low Rhyd Ddu,
Infinite furlongs from her summit view;
The little cluster that is Liverpool
& mountain masses rustic minds enjewel,
The twinkle of the distant River Dee,
The rising lion of Aran Fawwdwy,
The quaint domain of old Dolgellau grey,
The epic sweep which keep Cardigan Bay,
Dinas Emrys & her sleeping dragon,
The castles; Flint, Harlech & Caernarvon,
The isle adjacent to th’adjacent isle
& yonder, Wicklow’s shadowy defile –
The British Isles have wrapt me all around,
Though in the heavens I still touch her ground.
BURNLEY BOUND
Poised almost home we hiked up Kinder Scout
In early April when the branches bare,
Or glittering with leaves just starting out
Upon their quest to fumigate the air;
Away, below all mysterious moors,
Manchester rises from a distant plain,
With all its red brick misery & laws,
Its vehicles, its vapours, & its vain,
Whose city craziness I here dismiss,
For Burnley’s beddiness a day awaits,
Where first my spirit felt its mother’s kiss
Entangled in the fibres of the fates;
But now… a moment settled on a stone
A breath of wind, the heather… & alone!
DEERPLAY MOOR
Foxglove & thistle empurpling the trail
That modern man in motion wide discards,
It was time to return to Lancashire
Across the heights that shadow Calderdale,
& I, their poetical passenger,
Orpheus pressing hard against my sail,
& yes! It seem’d his song had form’d a gale,
Why else allude to mythic Thracian bards!
Across the fields I find the Burnley way,
Lit by those little yellow birds & bees
That lead me onto Thievely Pike, among
Such scenes of rugged beauty greening grey,
Those Pennines sweeping distance by degrees
& fading far as bards conclude their song.
Bingo Lingo
ODE
On
the
BINGO LINGO
heard at the
WOODTOP SHELTERED HOUSING
In the Lancashire town of Burnley
STROPHE
Ladies & gentlemen eyes down,
Bag o’ sweets for your line,
Two pound your full house;
Snakes alive, all the fives, fifty-five,
Christmas cake, three & eight, thirty-eighty,
& it’s half-way there, four & five, forty-five,
Doctors orders, on its own, the number nine,
Seven & six,
“Was she worth it?”
“Every penny!”
Seventy-six,
Fanny’s started fidgeting as usual
Gerry takes a sip of Cuban Rum
Kelly’s Eye, on its own, the number one,
& its three & O, Dirty Gertie, blind thirty,
Tickle me, six & three, sixty-three,
& its thee & me, two & three, twenty-three,
Five & nine, the Brighton Line, fifty-nine,
Its Diana Doors in droopy drawers,
All the fours, fort-….
“EE-YAAAA!!”
Shouts Mary Pie,
Much to Cliff’s consternation,
He only needed one for the line.
Al, the old drunk, goes to check the ticket;
55, 76, 1, 63, 59, 44
Then hands her the boiled sweets.
“I’ll give them to Dolly,” says Mary Pie,
‘They’re no good for mi teeth…’
ANTISTROPHE
Suddenly it gets serious,
Destiny comes calling
Eyes Down for your full house…
On its own, its lucky seven
Unlucky for some, thirteen
Heinz Varieties, five & seven, fifty-seven
Ooo! its those legs, eleven…
The room echoes to shrill cat whistles
Sherwood Forest, all the trees, thirty-three
A fumph & a duck, five & two, fifty two,
All the sixes, clickety-click, sixty-six,
& someone didn’t flush the toilet,
Its a dirty loo, thirty-two…
‘Five-O, Five-O, its off to work we go,
With a shovel & pick & a walking stick, Five-O,Five-O!’
Purple-haired Slyvia gets exited & carries on the song,
“Five-O, Five-O, its off to work we go,
With a bucket & spade & a hand grenade,
Five-O, Five-O,”
Blind fifty!
Its two little ducks, twenty-two,
Its the sunset strip, all the sevens, seventy-seven,
& a duck & a crutch, two & seven, twenty-seven,
Almost there, eight & nine, eighty-nine,
Ooo! its top of the shop, blind ninety!
The tensions maxing out now
Like when Kruschev sailed for Cuba…
EPODE
The room is about to explode,
Cliff only needs one for the full house
But Mary Pie (the old buggar),
is right on his tail…
& its queen bee, seventy-three
Anyway up, six & nine, sixty-nine
& its those steps! three & nine, thirty-nine
Man alive, the number five
& its two fat ladies, all the eights, eighty-eight,#
Danny la rue, fifty two
You’ve been & gone at eighty one,
The key of the door, two & one, twenty-one
& its Ghandis breakfast, blind eighty!
“EE-ya!” shouts Dolly, knockin’ over her drink
Much to Cliff’s annoyance
Al goes to check the ticket;
7, 57, 33, 66, 77, 90, 88, 21, 80
& gives her the two pound!
“I’ll share it with Mary Pie,” she says with asmile.
Ladies & gentlemen eyes down,
Bag o’ sweets for your line,
Two pound your full house…
Lancashire Rose
HOME
You must know Burnley to see it’s beauty,
Twix’ Hameldon & Pendle where she lies,
Thou fertile region of the North Country,
Of bingo halls & market stalls & pies,
Of cobblestones & Bovis Homes & lanes,
Of working men & the working men’s pride,
Of balmy days & snowy greys & rains
& blatantly the world’s best football side.
You must know Burnley to see it’s beauty,
The arches & the chimneys & Turf Moor,
The stately halls of Gawthorpe & Towneley,
The station & the bus-stop & mi door –
You can keep yer New York, Delhi & Rome,
At th’end o’ day, pal, there’s no place like home!
MI MUM’S
I breeze in, kiss mi Mum, butter some bread,
“A phone call, letter, we thought you were dead!”
“Mum, chasin’ destiny, I do great feats,
But you treat me like Abbey treat Keats!”
“Yer no son of mine get a proper job
Yer nowt but a no-good, bone idle slob!”
That same old twitterin’ in mi ear lobe,
I shit, shower, shave, raid mi Dad’s wardrobe…
Down Burnley Miners where men dodge their wives
Best bitter’s well cheap & bonhomie thrives.
“Oi thats mi shirt!” “Owdo Dad? “Owdo Son!
“How was London?” “Funny!”
…when we were done
Back at the ranch Mum’s cursing lotto numbers,
Dad’s snoring through his twelve bitter slumbers.
MI’ DAD
Yes, I’m really glad yer mi dad, Dad,
Yer the best that a young lad could have, Dad,
Far better than the king o’ Baghdad,
Yer mi dad, Dad!
Aye, I’m really glad I’m yer lad, Dad
Cos I get to crash in yer pad, Dad
& chat to yer when I’m all sad, Dad
Yer mi dad, Dad!
Yer always so bloody well clad, Dad
& make the best eggs that I’ve had, Dad
But yer brews, bloody ‘ell, they’re so bad, Dad
Yer mi dad, Dad!
& better still, yer mi mate, mate
& I love yer, an that’s fuckin’ great!
FIRST KISS
I was a six-year-child when first I felt
My soul entwining with the fairer sex,
Em’rald-eyed neighbor, who, one starry night
Said, “Have you ever kiss’d a lass before?”
“Of course!” I yelp’d, but grandmas do not count
& as we kiss’d she giggled at my lips
Closed shut & clamp’d by frigid innocence,
& said, “No, not like that, ya kiss like this…”
& show’d me how my mouth should act a fish.
Soon sprinting home, embarrass’d at the deed,
That never was repeated I believe,
For looking back, I was, in tender days
Contented with the kisses of grandmas
& nee-owwwwing with little Corgi Cars.
GANNOW TOP
I learnt to swim right at the top o’ Rosegrove
& got a ten-meter badge for mi speedos,
I was seven or so, & two years later,
Went off wi’ mi class to the baths, n’ that.
So, as I’m sat down wi’ mi mates on the bus,
A poo started moving, a real turtle-head
& instead of rushing straight to the toilet
I thought that I’d get changed first, n’ that.
Then, lo & behold, on mi cubicle floor
That self-same poo plopp’d down all goo & stinkin,’
So mi teacher made me clean the buggar up,
Then sent me to sit in the stands, n’ that,
Where I waited mi teasing classmates with dread,
But never, to their credit, was one word said!
LOSING MY VIRGINITY
One night I saw her bra all pink & soft
& underneath, a bosom good & large,
& I began to kiss her on the neck,
Lips bobbing like a robin in the snow,
A dilettante before a women’s walls,
She commented upon my tenderness,
& led me to the lands of the undress’d,
Slipping a condom on me, & aspar
Her legs invite me in, a thrust or three,
& we were lost in rhythm, groans & gasps,
Until I came & there a man became,
Up standing before a full-length mirror
I gazed upon my body, athlete-lean,
& knew, right then, I was for fucking keen.
ARRAN STREET
As a poignant time-lapse of the soul
Removes my child-hood street-by-street,
I brood upon an artificial meadow,
Where recently dilapidated terraces
Were brick-by-brick demolish’d, levell’d low.
Once, with life, these districts resounded,
But all is fading now, like fallen flies;
Grandmas, Grandads, Cousins, Aunties, Uncles –
A generation bounden in photographs –
Back then they laughed & cried like me & you.
My own street seems to have survived the cull –
But for how long? If others of its ilk
Were deemed ungodly, surely snobbish time
Shall banish mine beneath some grassy mound.
PENDLE
With a vigour that hordes the squirrel stores,
Fair sommer’s morning drives us to the moors,
Twix’ scatter’d wracks of industry’s decay
‘Tween Leeds & Liverpool made fair way,
Then to some heathen sentinel upwind.
Treading rough fields, forgotten roads behind,
Shelt’ring from northern breeze I lounge supine
On whale-back’d peak, thou solit’ry pennine,
All in the misty vale an entity;
Those auld terraced rows of Pendle City,
Whose galaxy of lights shatters the gloam,
With one of them the hearthstar of my home,
Forever, there, my spirit shall abide,
Fair feather’d by this precious countryside.
SIR NICKY STOWELL
Nick, ‘diddliddling,’ my bestest friend,
Do you remember our eighteenth summer,
It felt that the good times would never end
& Barry Island the only bummer.
That Ynnysddu flat, weed, laughs & wimmin,’
‘Blowin’ a reefer on Salisbury plain,’
Seven chicks in Newquay, soapbar, swimmin’
Our first Glasto – you gotta go again.
Saw… Bjork’s Debut, Newport’s Supersonics,
Peer Gynt down Stratford, Burnley rule Wembley,
Massive crowd in Brixton for the Manics
& that mad, May night near Monmouth, where we
Sat with the Roses and their album new,
“Don’t think it’s as good as the first,” said you.
RIKKI DEE’S TABLE
Dick needs a table
Over the tops at Clitheroe
& its car boot country sale
Prams * jigsaws * suitcases * mothball suits
Settees * lawnmowers * crap coats * comics
& finally, a three pound table
On a wood to coinage ratio the real deal
‘Made in Czechoslovakia’ stamped underneath
Looks a bit like a bench
We bus it home, the smash & grab complete
Walk up to Healy Wood, steep from the station
Chillin’out frequently, perched upon our ‘bench’
Gazin’ on Burnley, & Townley & Pendle
Then finally home to a perfect fit!
AMSTERDAMINNIT
We trawl the long-haul of the motorway
& pick up more pot-heads past Birmingham,
Jelly wobbles on the waves to Calais,
Mojo pukes in the lowlands near the ‘Dam.
We rush to relax in the smoky cafes;
Try Purple Haze & buy Sensemelia,
Each stella & space-cake skanks up the daze
Of a mushroom-gilded psychedelia.
We tram through ‘Dam to the sleezy district,
Pluck up Dutch courage for ‘Sucky Fucky,’
Crack head whores slink at doors, wink’d to be pick’d-
Its a shame when you pay to get lucky…
Skunked-up, smashed to fuck, zombie bus, bongtubes,
Grass stashed up Nicky’s ass, Richie’s itchy pubes.
CLUBBINIT
“Reyt, where’s next?”
“West Bams on at the Orbit…”
“…Nah man, too late…”
“…TheHac’…”
“…Nah, the beers shit…”
“…Sankeys…”“…Nah man, it’s closed down…”
“…Wigan Pier…”
…Nah, man, their stellas are well properdear…”
“…Lets hit Blackpool, find a cheap B & B,
& pick up some chicks from a Hen Party…”
“…Nah, bin there, worn the crap hat, c’mon team,
Let’s go unleash these libidos down Cream!”
Razzin’ the freeway, babblin’ ‘bout the Dam,
With techno bangin’ Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam-Blam!
“Mint mix, Richie,” “Yeah, Angels ninety-six!”
”…Ee-yar Damo” “…Ta Mojo, Oos next”… “Nicks!”
We park near the nightclub,
“Owdo lasses!”
Floozies cruise by,
“Hey cuties, nice asses!”
SAINT PETER’S FIELDS
Twyx Peterloo and Amritsar are passed a hundred years,
Islands of violent massacres, from oceans made of tears
They rise on rocks of dignity:- love, liberty and pride,
When desperate humanity despotic thugs defied,
When blunt and drunken yeomanry shed mothers’ blood, with child,
Saints of seditious tragedy society restyled,
Their murders ever worship’d in the wake of centuries,
Deep fervours hangin’ off the walls of holy galleries.
Not Shelley, even Ghandi, ever had our age foreseen,
When strange evolving tyranny still keep the laymen lean,
When opioids are funnel’d in to feed the phrenzied rich,
When soul restraining mortgages wounds struggle us to stitch,
While poverty’s addictions yet afflict the wider world,
The masses work is not yet done, let banners be unfurl’d.
SALLY CINNAMON
Its High-Midnight… Dirtytheivinscouseland,
We swagger four abreast, wild North-West band,
Slip to the front of the coach-loaded queue,
“We’re extras in Hollyoaks!”
& slink through.
Bass boom, big beats, laser lights, neuro-surge,
‘She’s fuckin gorgeous!’…satyrian urge
Sails me thro’ a sea of juicy bootie.
“If I said you had a sexy body….” *
Fate plays a Soul Mate, our ships run aground…
I smile,
She smiles,
I touch her silky hand,
Storm-lightning crackles, at long last we’ve found,
The key to life, in this we understand
The machinations of the Gods above….
A kiss, & in one moment fall in love.
*… would you hold it against me
ON COMING TOGETHER
I’ll never pass another night
As sweet as ours was yesterday,
When all the world was set aright
& Angels play.
Tingling, romancing, dancing tongues,
Went tender twisting, while your eyes
Contentment shone, we heard the songs
The Seraphim devise.
When like the running of a race
We reach’d the rope, there souls unpent;
& stroking trembling thighs, your face
Show’d passion spent!
Aye, lass, we set the world aright
While Angels play’d.
THITHER THE ABOVE
O knightly lights of heaven, star on star,
You never shone so beauteous, we are
The work, perhaps, of some astral being,
Or am I him now I am the all-seeing
Acolyte of the lost art of the skies,
Painting Orion & the Geminis,
Musing upon those long, eternal days
Soar shooting stars, trailblazing my amaze,
Mix’d with the phantom-llumin’d Milky Way
I saw, I swear, the Seraphim at play,
Dancing between the planetary kings;
Lord Jupiter & Saturn’s eerie rings,
Venus is beaming streaming dreams of love
Sweetheart come hither, thither the above.
LOVE’S DAWN
My love, as our love is spreading wider than the morning
Together, with waking day, in the wake of night
Let us settle in silent ecstasy
Observers of cities below Watching
From this high advantage Developing
On heath, up hill, Enveloping moments
As one For like a flight of swallows lift
On ocean winds, above the isles We touch
Soft spirits sail higher Eyes committing
Pleasure beckons Mercurial kisses
We smile As kitten paws a mellow mouse
The lion roars inside these feral souls
& we are born again, the music of the morn
Accompanies these energies love’s mysteries supply
Love At First Sight
ON
the
LOVE
this poet experienced
AT
the
FIRST SIGHT
of
Sally Cinnamon
Being virgin to Eros & his sighs
Spectral seconds attend the growing soul
Hearing a lute-string’d aether-breathing call
I turn’d to see her star-wreath’d, lustful eyes.
My eagle-lashed, Latvian poetess,
My pearl-eyed raven in her Persian dress,
My Spanish pea-hen spangling as she comes,
My nude Numidian banging the drums.
Like mountain men & archipelagos
Or young sweethearts sniffing a first red rose
Like money men glimpsing a glint of gold
Or distant kin returning to the fold
We are the music of the finches green
We are twa pussies purring by a fire
We are the fragrance of a vernal scene
We are twa frogs full throated with desire
I watch’d her as she walk’d across the moon,
An airless void of loveless futures spent,
Each little step she’s taken plays a tune,
Beholding her a parfit innocent
I rocketed into her grey-toned sphere,
& scatter’d lunar dusts, as these unveil,
A world of fertile colours, closing near
Her heart’s cocoon, it crumples, thin & frail.
Crackling with all the majesty of love
She flutters into air with velvet wings,
An angel floating, hovering above
An orchestra supports her as she sings;
“We are two blossoms of this bonnie land,
We are two rabbits sprinting ‘cross the glen,
We are the seaweed strewn across the sand,
We are two badgers snuggled in their den!”
Long time, for this fair moment, did we wait,
Which two sure hearts attaches into one,
& felt us fair as fairly dealt us fate
As match we – with a gasp – empyrean!
There was an instant karma to our touch,
As if we had belong’d since time began,
For how can two new strangers feel so much,
Thro’ times like these life serves the higher plan.
Like songbirds witnessing the world’s first dawn,
Or proud parents cooing their babe’s first yawn,
Like virgins witness to the breast exposed,
Or an exploring of the always closed,
We are morning in the Tuscan enclaves,
We are night on the Sea of Galilee,
We are swans a-gone gliding between white waves,
For we are one in nature, you & me.
The Language of Birds
THE
LANGUAGE
OF
BIRDS
A woman’s body is like a violin;
It takes a terrific musician to play it
JD Salinger
LOB 1: Spring
Interea longis fessos, erroribus artus
Deponens, jacui viridanti in fluminis ora
Murmure languidulo sopitus, et otia duxi,
Permulsus volucrum concentu auraque Favoni
Artur Rimbaud
*
Come listen lady-lovers to the Language of the Birds,
Hands slipping under covers to the magic of these words,
Unleash thy spinning fingers, let’s explore Calypso’s Cave,
When ecstasy must bring us ever closer, lord & slave.
*
I have sung a hundred sonnets in-between dull Sunday psalms
For the girls in pretty bonnets in the fields amidst the farms,
When in the warmer seasons I would lead them thro’ the corn,
To tease with playful reasons why our clothes should lay unworn!
*
As the good girls giggled by me, kicking apples down the lane,
I would whisper to them shyly, pressing flowers in a chain,
& charming them with sympathy, invite them thro’ the trees
To where they’ve bended good to me in woodlands on their knees.
*
On finishing their feast of me I’d lift a glist’ning chin,
Let kisses seek release in me, a look shall guide us in;
As for the rest; release the chi, hands roving as before,
If standing, let your spangling panties dangle to the floor,
*
If riding, ye should pull aside & park amidst the pines,
If biding time before he comes, uncork the scented wines,
Dress in a little negligee, let’s dim that too bright light,
There’s nothing like a lass at play to whet my appetite.
*
Lift up thy lighter fancies girls; a gorgeous gull white scene,
Wind-flashing snowdrift whips & swirls above the thirsted green,
See snow-drop heads & crocuses seep colours through the glade
& lily-lidded lotuses peep from a woodland shade.
*
Into the forest – lifeless, leafless – rushed the eastern breeze,
A flash of flushing springtime, herbage fluffs the blasted trees,
Down to a breast’s unbuttoning warm sunbeams gilding gold,
Despite the old dames muttering, ‘tonight might still be cold.’
*
A full-lipp’d, long-lash’d redhead, on the roads down to Dalry,
Has flipp’d the faintest flashings from the corners of her eye,
‘What bird or beast doth patter by?’ Her thoughts could not concur,
‘Perhaps a pretty butterfly?’ I float my mind to her;
*
‘Please feel no fear, my lovely lass, pray put your milk-pails down,
I fain would never let ye pass me, walking into town,
Without quenching my bone-dry thirst upon thy milk so white –
Aye, ye shall be the very first to whet my appetite.’
*
To woolly warmth I dive at once, suckling ten jiggling toes,
Then steadied her milk buckets as up both her legs I rose;
To nubile nibbling lay she flat, her struggle sparalyzed,
With ‘Stop!’ ‘Oh no!’ ‘Dinnae do that!’ Her snuggles much disguis’d.
*
Lips passing by her special place, beyond her belly too,
Clamping upon those ample breasts, her handsome nipples drew
Into my mouth, insatiate dance, on blowing moisture cool,
I headed south to find the lode-stone of her lady-jewel.
*
My scouting hands went on ahead, one found her rustic mound,
Her paradise, her pubic bed, I rubb’d it round & round,
As if it were a tended ground of silk-grass, softly swaying,
While blended pleasure-scented sounds assented to my playing.
*
O cunnilingus, intense tickling, flip-flap lapping tongue,
That flickers like a candle flame, that licks her fast & strong,
My swiftly-darting serpent tongue unleash’d pink alphabets
& sometimes strumm’d a Muslim-song flung from the minarets.
*
Both up & down, both fast & fully furious it roves,
Kissing virginal sunlit lips, searching for treasure troves,
I hit a spot, O special spot, her smooth back arch’d aloft,
‘Suck it,’ she almost begg’d to me, ‘suck it’ she whisper’d soft.
*
Erewhile I sucked I heard her sing, it was a joy to see
Her little quim all quivering essential ecstasy,
Slipping a sturdy finger in, gripping her thre’penny piece,
With gleeful pelvic beckoning her G-force did release.
*
I push’d on hard into that place, breath ruddering my own,
As swift rotations click in pace gush-waters flood the zone
From cunny upwards thrust uncoiling kundalini thread,
Mind disassembling, wet thighs trembling,earthquakes in her head.
*
From shaky pails thick droplets white splash flames across her waist,
Bright orbs of milky crystal, quite alluring to the taste,
‘At last my thirst is quench’d…‘ upjinking from her tensing knees,
Pull’d out… a wink, with one last drink went slinking thro’ the trees.
*
I left her in a panting pile, exhausted, eyelids tight,
Dreaming of shores romantic t’where she’d fly in faerie flight,
Catching her breath she patted down her petticoat, & tread
Back to her distant eiderdown, her boyfriend & their bed.
*
Upon the path she pass’d a lass, who, like a drunken bride
Taken to task, listen’d aghast; then ask’d, ‘where does he hide?’
Her fever pinn’d to open masts, she’ll share that man’s desire,
& was, that day, the second lass to fan my special fire.
*
These precious meetings soon became obsessional in me,
Investing into Heaven’s nests infectious energy
For, ‘things that mak a grown hen blush,’ shrill whispers in the kirk,
As to the woods more women rush those hours men trudge to work.
*
As one-by-one, footloose & free, dames skip back to their lives,
‘What changes have come over thee,’ hum husbands to their wives,
‘For ye seem very amorous, the most since ye turn’d bride,’
Of course it was her time with us that sent them satisfied.
*
LOB 2: Summer
I was only a poor poet, made for singing at her casement,
As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other things
She walked so high above me, she appeared to my abasement,
In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel clad in wings!
Elizabeth Barrett-Browning
*
As summer chimes enchorial, what chorus every morn
Of songbirds’ strung arboreal for Horus’ all reborn,
My wilder side ran rampant loose, so good to feel alive,
‘I should,’ I mused, ‘try & seduce’ the wives of Moniaive,
*
For they go out a-foraging when trees are leafy full;
‘Believe me when I say to thee thou art too beautiful,’
I’d purr to them cautiously keen, a cheek-stray’d hair to fix,
Whether they were a crisp sixteen or frisky fifty-six.
*
Round all the girls of Galloway a wicked rumour spread;
‘A man lives in the woods, they say, makes forest floors a bed,
& understands the secrets of the Birds which dwell above
& better still he speaks the words to rouse a woman’s love.’
*
Ours was a Xanadu that June, a ‘Cisco this July,
As August Harvest comes too soon, one half-mile from Dalry
I saw a pretty buxom lass with hair like knotted gold,
Which glimmer’d gladly as she pass’d into the woodland wold,
*
When startling her a moment, stepping out from breathing trees,
‘Relax,’ said I, ‘Sir, are ya he?’ ‘Perhaps…’ ‘Sir if ya please,
I beg ye to attend tae what,’ she purs’d her scarlet lips,
‘Has burst intae some harlet knot, some curse between mah hips.
*
I think about yers everywhere, about the things ye’ll dee
Tae me if ah could only share mah perfect fling wi’ ye,
Mah pussy is an aga-stove that’s ne’er bin left to cool,
Which I’ve ‘gan ardour grove-tae-grove tae find ye, like a fool!’
*
‘Perhaps,’ much flatter’d by her dream, ‘a little later dear,
First, let us sup these sweetly streaming hillside waters clear,
Then feast upon this tasty hare I’ve roasted with dry sticks,
I caught it in my woodland snare, I caught it with my tricks.’
*
As with that gaily-splendid lass I settl’d to a meal,
Sat in the ferly-scented grass, our conversations wheel;
Bones pick’d right clean we look’d up to the dappl’d canopy
Where bluebirds preen, & pluck’d a few red apple-lanterns free.
*
She chibb’d a bite, I watch’d her loose lips slip the flesh within,
Watch sev’ral little juice-drips dribble down her tilted chin,
Them melted in her cleavage, when compell’d to view the wedge,
I felt my loins’ thrust-leverage propel me from love’s ledge,
*
T’where I a tender kiss impart, planted on panting chest,
An inch or two above her heart, let Nature do the rest;
Implanting rosin beauties in her ears, beneath the Jays,
Enriching courtship’s duties, weeping tears beneath my praise.
*
Brushing my hips her deft hand grips my cleft caduceus,
Between my lips her firm tongue slips wild, fluttering kisses,
‘What do you want… I want to please you,’ pleads she with a stare,
‘I only want,’ I whisper teasing, ‘just to be… down there.’
*
Haunching myself above her as the Moon tips oer the land,
She’s begging me to fuck her, tugging with an eager hand
My hard as rock, blood-swollen cock, pulsating smooth & red,
Fed in her aching labyrinth where liquid-silvers thread.
*
The Moon sent Myrtho’s shadows to the waters & the rocks
Beside the earthy meadows fill’d with dandelion clocks,
Then entering she gave a <GASP>, when with a fearful heave
Flesh lock’d in flesh, with tight’ning clasp our slim limbs interweave.
*
‘Look at the trees! Look at the trees!’ Her voice was rich like honey,
Its cadence willing me to please her choice, bewitching cunny,
Then spinning round she leaps on top, a spider with her prey,
Sliding her spike inside us… or I her… O God that’s Great!
*
Of all the images I see this is her matchless angle,
When gorgeously up over me breasts to my body dangle,
Them drifting down enchanting to my nipple-tickling teeth,
While fingers taut & slanting pat her lattice underneath.
*
For this is bliss, yes you & I, eternity is now,
When misty & auspicious skies, mysterious, endow
This moment with salacious light, thy vision grass-stalks frame,
Swaying to our lovemaking as when thunder moves thro’ flame.
*
Just like the waves which lap erewhile wee sailboats cruise the bay,
I pulse within almandine isle…. now turning her we lay
Two taut milk-ladles in the grass… then rise we, howling hounds,
Slapping her plump, abounding ass as mighty thigh-push pounds.
*
As she her conjugals betray’d (& bore she no remorse),
Like flagellants her flesh was flay’d, goug’d by the jaggy gorse,
She gave retort to shake the dead, or raise a husband’s e’en –
His wife, he thought, was making bread, but naewhere could be seen.
*
With gangly gang of angry guys he flung his search-array
Towards our clanging passion-cries a mile or two away,
For I, that night, had grown cocksure, with such doth instinct blunt,
Blown mesmerised by her alluring, soul-consuming cunt.
*
Ignoring vatic, stern-squawk’d cries from birds flown branch & leaf,
I lock’d her fast ‘twyx naked thighs, her troth of wedlock’s thief,
But just before oblivion’s forever shouts should flee,
Five gruff, rough, tough-toned scruffy men about us could we see.
*
Dark faces torchlight-flickering they dragg’d our lust apart,
With wife & husband bickering they tied us to a cart,
& dragg’d me off to Dumfries town, where in a cell I lay,
Alone… some flagging, sad-faced clown… the gossip of Galloway!
LOB 3: Autumn
Bref, mon esprit sans connaissance d’ame
Vivait alors sur la bouche a ma dame
Don’t se mourait le corps enamoure:
Et si la levre eut guere demoure
Contre la mienne, elle m’eut suce l’ame
En la baisant
Clement Marot
*
As I, condemn’d to live in sighs by Burghers of Dumfries,
Did one day listen to the cries of south-migrating Geese,
I found the frumpy Jailor’s Wife (she’d had me in July),
Had cook’d for me some country knife inside a prime beef pie.
*
With this (how marvellous the ruse) her half-wit husband trick’d,
With that lard-fellow well asnooze that tight wee lock I pick’d,
Ghosting within her chamber-room I twist her crystal dial,
Oblivious to danger’s doom for it had been a while.
*
Screeching upon an iron chair the Jailor eas’d from sleep,
I kiss’d his wife, fled from the lair, thro’ open window leap,
Night-hush soon broken by a howl to wake the whole damn town,
‘That man-wolf has escaped!’ men scowl, ‘let’s hunt the bastard down.’
*
Curs chase me thirty miles or more all thro’ the furtive night,
Til, coming hard upon thy door, ‘tis time to set things right,
On answering I sense thy shock, too scared to rouse the home,
Eyes Meet, Our Singing Soul-Ship’s Dock, Lips-Lock & Tongue-Tips Roam.
*
‘Why come to me?’ ‘I want to see thee, darling, I love you!
No woman’s ever shone in me the starlight that ye do;
Come leave thy husband, mistress, come & leave him as he snores,‘
Rush’d… in a state of half undress… ye join me out of doors.
*
Hen, off we fled, ‘gan glen-to-glen, two partners, hand-in-hand,
Up to the lang Water of Ken, hung high above the land,
From comely fleece we made a fire, where in its homely light
Lines of my silver sonnets hop like robins thro’ the night.
*
‘Ye jewel of the diamond’s price, ye bloom of rose’s rank,
Thine everlasting eyes entice me off the pirate’s plank
Into the oceans of thy heart, for in that heart we dwell,
Within this heart my Heaven & outwith thy heart my Hell.
*
My lovely love, my precious rose, more glorious than gold,
Led blithely in thy pert, lithe pose thy fineries unfold,
Lass, let me please unpick thy blouse with long, leaf-speckled stick,
I’ve sensed a lover’s needs arouse in thee, so strong, so quick.
*
Let lips fall on thy gentlest O, them deftly there shall trace
Wee love hearts with a fearie flow, leave imprints soft, like lace,
Let lips all feather-wafting drift against thy breasts so pert
Let strapping hands hitch up & lift the hem-stich of thy skirt,
*
With firmer grasp thy knees imprised, & spun upon the heel,
Ye with a gasp shall realized these sonnetries are real!’
A love of wondrous poesy creeping into violet hearts,
Pressing Atlantis panties deep into thy private parts;
*
A phantasy of auld return’d… she ravished midst the ferns,
When thistles bit & nettles burn’d un-noticed as she yearns
For some strong buck to suck her neck… I did & shook yer soul,
As buckling knees flop to the deck where, coupling, ye did crawl
*
To claim my carmine cock’s release, ye kneeling midst the trees,
Spread feelings I would fain ne’er cease from licking, taste & tease,
Girl, let things go, feel more than owned; throat, mouth, full of my girth,
Happy to drink thine ease from drouth, a thirsty girdle’s worth.
*
When licencing my roving palms, ye swoon & let them go,
Before, afront, between thy charms… above, behind, below,
Long fingers kissing cunny caves,’ rose-petal’d realms of bliss,
Tongue licking mystic honey-waves from crystal clitoris.
*
Beside the half-curl’d forest fronds of ferns wash’d by the Sun,
My swelling, bell-like manhood fondly yearns inside for yer hun’,
& enters supersensal worlds; hot, dizzying, orgasmic,
Surfing the transcendental swirls, inspiraling with magic,
*
I raise ye by thy slender waist, & with the other hand
Slow wind ye round, as now ye face the soaring, tawny land,
A rhythmical osmosis drew hot juices thro’ my loins
While sounds of hooves & horses grew that cursing cur conjoins.
*
A big, bold, beating, soul-completing, soar of awesome drums,
Roaring as fleet-heel’d saints were meeting, plucking seraph-strums,
Eternal & terrific discombobulating beam,
Our harp of sensuality’s emasculating dream.
*
A stunning gasp, the gauntlet run, our clasp insep’rable
Splashes across the Rubicon, the susurrus cerebral,
O sheer breath-taking, femur-shaking, quaking rush of blood;
O leaf-vein snaking, fruit-route taking, breaking gush of flood!
*
There flows such electricity when pours the whitest wine,
Immersed in eth’reality, content to know you’re mine,
As spurting procreation cells into thy nest released,
A songbird celebration fell’d the flame-fest to the east.
*
There is a certain alchemy when melodies fair merge,
I share with she rare chemistry & wear it surge-on-surge,
I live in her, she lives in me, there’s lyrics in our lust,
Such mystery shall always be our music & our trust.
*
Like Agravain on the ascent, like Agamemnon, rise
Hounds hard upon our blended scent; glows vile, bloodthirsty eyes,
As closer wrathful clamour grows I comfort thee & say,
‘There is a path from all our woes, we Poets know the way.
*
My lover, let us cuddle tight, gaze safely in these eyes,
Watch rays of psilocybin light make lazars in the skies…’
All in a dash of quantum flash we two were two white swans
Soaring yon Solway’s pebbledash to lands of sandy bronze.
*
