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Biography is either masked ball or epitaph. As you find me, so we are.

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Space Race

Why do they call it a world war;
Does Earth know what she’s fighting for?
Do planets buy up bombs and guns
To blow themselves to kingdom comes?
There have been two, apparently.
So by my count this must be three.
Though we’ve been trained to look for flags –
Those national interests shown by rags
Of different colours and designs -
And so been blind to clearer signs
Of actual deaths, manmade by those
Whose acts and journeys just arose
To serve some purpose.  Who knows what.
Did someone know but then forgot?
Perhaps it’s all to prove a name,
Or find another one to blame,
To own some rocks, to earn some cash,
Or just to make a bigger splash.
So when they look for life on Mars,
By sending rockets to the stars,
I look and see the Martians came.
It must be them.  Who’d kill the same
Species?  Knock off their shared genes?
That would be crazy.  All these scenes
Of mothers clutching dying young.
Please say a Martian fired the gun.
A human would not be so mad
To kill that unique chance we had.
Maybe an Einstein or a Bard.
Replacing them will not be hard
But physically cannot occur,
The spacetime changed which means that her
Tiny creation, one that grew
Inside and after pain she knew
Them in the world, has gone
For good.  Or bad, if you believe that wrong
Exists, and not that might is right,
Or faster missiles or most hands
To throw grenades in distant lands.
We’ve gone to Mars and so this fuss.
It’s that, or Mars has come to us.

Monday 27 February 2012

ninky's nursing rime

spunefed, spunefed thryce a dae
keeps the maladie at bae
in betwixt the dosing plae
something simple then we'll crune
to a dittie on yon spune
lulla-lalla goes tha tune.

Friday 24 February 2012

Hazey Fantazey

Emblazoned images allure,
Give semblance of a fake azure;
An afterlife – those Hades Shades
And para-Disa everglades

For 'ghosts' are but our futures told
Through whispered poetry of old,
That in its 'nows' reveals our pasts;
Mythmakes our future everlasts.

The eight is but the mirrored three,
The beating wing of symmetry,
The ampersand, the sealed knot,
The folded S, the curve-joined dot.

When octo-numbered, isoprene
Paints fruit bright red with lycopene,
As half-made H evolved to be
The alpha-numbered eighth-placed He.

Like spiders' legs – and those of Horse,
Ridden by godhead of the Norse,
That Odin, Woden, Santa-Claus
Dressed brown, then green, then red of course.

This syllabled iambic line,
This way that Man creates Divine
And god(s) of magic, poetry,
Wisdom and war and prophecy.

The Wanderer has travelled far -
His name mutates like twinkling Star,
Divinely shining Man’s desire -
But which burns brighter, glass or fire?

Thursday 23 February 2012

The Hourglass


A great King coming to his Final Day,
Called on his courtiers to find a way,
That drawing on the vastness of his wealth,
He might restore his worn out self to health.

"But Master", cried the wisest of his clan,
"We've scoured the Kingdom looking for a plan;
It seems Tomorrow won't provide a price -
So we return to seek your sage advice."

The Regent gazed upon the crowd and sighed,
"I won't follow my father - who has died -
Return good servants, ask on Time again -
And forge a deal; you must dig deep my men".

The delegation turned and journeyed back,
None knowing how to progress their attack -
And whilst with hopeless task in hand they tired,
At home the old King quietly expired.

So be ye pauper, prince or humble clerk,
Aim to enjoy the moments of your work.
The Hour spent cannot be bought or sold -
And makes your Time more valuable than gold.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Vlad's Ampersand

Under Shade of Hazel tree,
As the sky reflects the sea,
Where the Red King meets the Green,
Here the Poet sets the scene.
Preterist rhymes future done,
When the Moon outshone her Sun.
Lucky guess or crystal ball
Let the Bard predict her fall?

As the children learn to skate,
Or the scholar draws the eight,
Or the wing mirrors its mate,
So her meter pens her fate.
Or does Life within the Art
Foretell progress of the Heart?
Which is real and which pretend -
That beginning, or this end?

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Knicker Bocker

My layered delight
My waking sight

My Fortean dream
My les scent scheme

My schoolyard blush
My what’s the rush

My please don’t stop
My cherry top

My honeyed whip
My backward flip

My hosen knees
My Tutnese squeeze

My French goodnight
My sweet polite

My jellied turn
My live and learn

My secret key
My no that’s me


My let’s not stay
My runaway

My boyish dress
My poetess

My much too much
My Double Dutch

My linger-ie
My memory

My devoured glory
My syrup story

Monday 20 February 2012

Antiphony 79


When I became world-weary, resigned to growing old,
I glimpsed another country, all glittering in gold.
Its tongue spoke in a riddle that to mine ears rang clear,
The sharpest ever chorus I’d had the joy to hear.
With wisdom rhymed by Khayyám, a sip of Adeline,
Some canny turns from Yaffle, and finest thoughts of thine;
In strange-familiar voices, familiar-strangeness meets
On golden lands as timeless as the record this defeats.
These threads weave magic netting, a spacetime of the mind,
Where radials are broken, there’s mirror fix designed.
In Luna-ticking notions the joined line ever runs
To country bathed in golden light of arrant thieving sons.

Sunday 19 February 2012

Mortal Combat

‘Tis but a Drug provides this feel
Of Treasure to be sought;
Unto blind Mistress men must kneel,
To speak of battles fought.
She makes all Fair in Love and War;
To progress her attack
All Matter’s played by her and more -
It’s White that moves the Black.
For whether in the Lover’s touch,
Or killing field’s death-dance,
You’ll find the Drug is much a much -
And all’s the Addict’s stance.
For e’er you hear Love’s passion sung,
There’s Villain in the piece;
Some Rival who must be undone -
Until the pangs decease.
Between the moves contrary Truth
Bears witness to this plan;
From warring men save future Youth,
To grow to warring Man -
Who in Love’s garden pluck a Rose
To tend beyond all others,
Then guard Her beauty to death throes
Of Self (or rival lovers).
As winners lose when losers win
The Drug makes players daft;
The game but begins the Begin
And laughs the last unlaugh.

Friday 17 February 2012

Hickory Dicks


It’s never too early to be too late
At self-service buffets of pick-your-own plate
“I don’t like tomatoes”, “I’m no good at sums”,
Funny how narrow the diet becomes.
A world of the wary and chronically neat
Senses defined by the ‘all you can’t eat’,
Rotating menus form predictive text
Dictating futures with, “What to buy next?”
Broken down bodies sport ‘just do it’ shoes
Holidays run like parochial news.
Boats in the harbour that never leave port –
Things representing some dream they once bought.
The completing proof is all they await
It wasn’t too early to be far too late.