There in the corner of my room
I feel a strong sense of doom
With all lights out, the room is dark
My dog begins to bark!
Yet, I see a blinking light
Of a ghostly apparition in the night!
Clunk…Clunk…is the sound I hear
As the ghostly-being draws awfully near
The scent of the dead is somewhat odd
I spot its evil grin a I scramble for my rod!
It knows I see it and knows I’m there
Life flashes before me as I horridly stare
Right in the face of this ghostly-being
I can’t believe what my eyes are seeing!
Fear leaves its dreadful taste in my mouth and tongue
I can’t help but scream to the top of my lungs!
But, to my surprise
It winks and replies:
“Shhh! Not so loud, living corpse!
You’re going to go hoarse!
Just let me touch your mobile phone
You know, E.T. has to go phone home!”
If I could turn into mashed potatoes faster.
31 miles and my feet don’t hurt.
There is no detour.
If you run for 31 miles.
There is no detour that doesn’t need to eat.
And my feet don’t hurt, sputter, and gurgle.
Even after being turned into foot chowder.
I took off my shoes.
Going underground in the sewer is nice as her famous ribs.
But ruins shoes and there was no reason to run so far.
Clunk.
I don't want to be a processed human
warm thumpads on click screen
cant put my hands in my pcokets
pockets filled with sand
cup of dirt by my table
Orange fire tree, a beauty, shivers in gray
I am not aware of me
when nature bears to see its swaying leaves
there's glory in the metal squeak of a guitar string
feel dead wood, relief, plastic wrapped child roses
Smell the green on harvested before bloom
The blood crust on my ear
monstrous scratching between straw hair of a dead scalp makes me want to rip skin out
Ocean water take me there but i hear electric of cars every step
bushes square
trees baby leaves
bloomed too late to turn green
Watch a movie set in italy you feel the vibrations of the screen
make your face red; silent scream
pop ups, plastic warmth
cling to the radiator through polyester, spine compressed and half your bed taken by an amass of wires and clunk: heavy mess to project reality
My veins pump blood spray when cut
I'm a real human transmitting consciousness through things i never knew
drained my energy in this scry mirror: to be human is selfish, AI helps with all but takes root to steal yourself and sell it back to you
Grey metal, lost lustre
Sharp angles with blunt meaning
Tinkle, clunk, staccato mumble
Buried invitation, sent
At random. I pick up
Some straight hard piece
It hides a secret
But what is hiding if not
Showing secretly?
Staring, gaping
Gives no explanation
If you look into the toolbox
The toolbox looks into you.
I am random
Or will do my best to be so.
Symmetry is dead.
And I being undead
Turn from the toolbox
With sinking heart
Imagining the recesses
Filled with life
He leads me through East London,
docks, pubs, among the stray dogs, the
River Thames lapping at low clouds.
We find the second-hand player in a street
where the shops are dusty holes under the arches
of viaducts and railway bridges,
Me carrying the portable Dancette record player
in its hard Bakelite box,
lifting it by its leatherette handle, and I,
small for my age
but wanting so much to lug it all the way home.
The plastic cuts my fingers,
sharp corners bark my shins.
Father talks of his life here, the blackouts
and bombs, rationing,
and the bloody Saturday night street fights.
He whistles tunes
from a songbook of dead crooners.
That evening sitting together, with Sinatra -
watching the dark blue Capitol label
spiral and blur,
hearing the unseen belt under the bobbing needle
as it chewed vinyl -
reliving the clunk-clunk of our boots
as we pushed back fog-muted miles.
Years later, finding that player again
in mother's attic, lifting the machine
feeling how light, it is,
willing to take another walk with him
yet not knowing how to catch up.
River makes its final clunk
Between
Hills
Rolling boulders like turtle shells
Empty of their mouths and hearts
River bent
Flailing legs and neck
No longer reflects
The sun and moon
From water’s absence down its back.
Turns her terrible brittle head
From me
Teeth gnashing on the spools of willow
To her memory
When mud was forest
Footsteps
Croaking with frogs and dazzled with dragonflies
Ringed in a halo of cold fog.
We are dying
Together
Not angels nor even demons
But conquering visitors from a desert
Who brought nothing but the leech of desert
With us
Covering the entire Earth with insatiable thirst
And hunger
Kings and Queens for a day
Destroyers
Of those ceremony drums
Of gods and plants animals and language
When we lived as One
Gift
Strummed through the harp of gratitude.
Now, I seek a forgiving signal
From perhaps a divine wave
Coming from the dying Mother
This way
You poor skinless fool
The fire shall burn behind you
The entire Earth and its people
Which is all the things that flutter
Crawl walk and sing
"An empty bowl
With a spoon beside you."
My puppy ran past me with purpose
I was thinking squirrel or rabbit
Relieved he returned empty mouthed
Not like the time he dropped a dead squirrel
At my feet in the living room
Frozen, it landed with a clunk next to my bare foot
My typewriter
was not a good typewriter,
its keys were weighty,
you had to use brain muscle to work it,
nobody wanted it.
My son unpacked a home computer.
I stood by and watched
as all the electronics were laid out on the floor
and surgically knitted together.
I knew then
that I would be consistently out of touch,
and possibly would remain
stuck in an obsolete year
trying to catch up
from the rear of the field.
I wrote my first poem
on that clickity-clack manual machine,
then a dozen more,
all of them were heavy handed,
yet that hefty labor
made me think
I was crafting something worthwhile.
Later, I was enslaved to a computer keyboard,
chained as I was to its subsonic urgings
I could tell
the world was speeding away
faster than I could write.
When my kind of poet dies,
he is immediately ed,
for all his contemporary poems
turn into digital wormholes
that suck him into an unknown grave.
The young look to dead poets for wisdom -
truth is,
that those ham-fisted plodders
have long ago
turned into chunky typewriters
that nobody wants.
We were careful as we entered the dark barn.
There are always hoes, rakes, and scythes lying around.
You do not want to step on something that means stitches.
I had done that before.
What is grandpa keeping in here? I wondered.
My cousin said “there is something alive. Maybe a goat?”
Our goal was the hay mow. We love playing up there.
We reached it before day break
We heard a clunk, and there was a ladder next to the mow.
My cousin looked as startled as I felt.
Someone was in here with us. Someone who could move a ladder.
A few minutes later an alpaca in sunglasses appeared.
Apparently, he was standing on the ladder.
“Is that an alpaca?” My cousin whispered.
“Sure is,” the alpaca whispered back.
Little bear expected to clunk his little soft head
But his mother was swift, she did not want him dead
She caught him with strong arms that were rather red.
The bell rang once, a faint tingle;
clear, sharp in the cold, numbing air
yet strangely muffled in the mist.
All heard it, the distant, single;
ting, behind the droning prayer.
Though not a soul among their midst
affirmed each other that they heard.
The rope slid by black-gloved fingers
while the casket heavily sunk,
The vicar’s final mournful word
hangs above them all and lingers;
another ding, a thudding clunk.
Eyes quickly turn towards each other
others stare towards the ringing sound.
Disturbed unkindness ravens crow
above a grave; Elsie’s brother
interred beneath this Holy ground;
some twenty-seven years ago!
I’ve been told
“things work out for the best”
in that way each of us
Divinely blessed
God in control they say –
if only Time didn’t hurt…
I believe in life hereafter
I believe no wrong God
can’t have undone; someday
somehow our dear Lord to make
all losses won --
God in control they say --
if only Time didn’t hurt…
God in control they say
though ticking I find unbearable
swinging pendulum a clank and
clunk~ when a heart sunk
too deep one’s despair...yet I
am told, God is always
fair – always there – somewhere
taking loving care
God in control they say --
if only Time didn’t hurt...
No theologian am I
just a common soul, treading, adrift;
questioning if sane to trust in fate --
dialogues with God sounding always
one sided debate --
I believe in love
while more questioning
my faith
God in control they say
your silence pushing me
further astray --
if only Time didn’t hurt...
If only Time didn’t hurt…
If only Time didn’t hurt….
Afternoons in winter;
When the hours seemed to drag,
Were always made more bearable
With grandma's button bag.
The sound is unmistakable,
The rattle, ting and clunk,
Of the decades of collected
Baubles, buckles, coins and junk.
Each button tells a story,
Where and when it was acquired,
Those cut off coats and dresses,
Mary years before admired.
The bag is full of memories
Stories from the past,
So we pass them to our children
In the hope nostalgia lasts.
Here I am at 9am
My laptop bloody dead
Can’t charge it cause of them
Feeling like a clunk head
Here I am on my chair
Face glued to the iphone
With nothing new to share
What I’ve learned from home
Here I am hearing words
Lacking meaning in my head
Gibber’s the merely verb
My lecturer has fed
Hope I don’t fall asleep
Counting the number of sheep
big eyed owl
all puffed up
tormented by wind
whistling tree branches
tick tock of clock tower
dog wolfs himself up
identical black cat howlers
tug of war
puffing
spurting
spitting
sneaky skeleton ticks and tocks
clicky clacky clicky clacky
whoo whoo whee whee
bouncing skeleton head
diabolical music
villain dance
four smart ass skeletons
ring around the rosie
five-year-old jig
cartoon music
pogo sticking
rolling jack hammering
playing dah bones
piano spine
clunk on dah head
weird laugh
violin cat
playing sassy silly skeletal scales
caw caw caw caw
damned rooster!
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