There you were always racing against time,
a willing mother, a conscientious worker, a wife sublime.
There you were with your wondrous wrinkles, your drooping eyelids and your starched crisp cuffs to waitress pinafore uniform you ironed so much.
There you were at the filthy hospital kitchen sink sloshing the dollops of patients’ left-over dinner bits and your magnificent pride with its iron core, smiling through all that .
There you were standing at the bus stop early purple morning or late black night the back stocking line straight and right and shoes polished waxy and bright.
There you were seemingly solid and confident, but really wobbly and light, smoking too many fags through too many disappointed nights.
I touched your cheeks when I caught you crying alone
The tears ran down leaving marks like dried milk
I touched your cheeks one soft like satin and the other like silk.
(“Bardo Dreams”, 2017, original mixed media encaustic)
Maybe so in Hollywood, yet
We all dream, not just fags,
And in our dreams we are all equal
Equal in being dreamers
Disembodied spirits on the way
No matter our sex, no matter our race
No matter our age or even species.
Disembodied spirits on the way
Dreaming like lovers do
Lovers of Life.
(9/20/25)
Can you lend me some money to get a packet of fags
Have you got any coffee or a few tea bags.
Can you give me some potatoes or a few slices of bread.
It’s only until my money comes as the kids have not been fed.
Can you look after the kids while I go to see a mate
I swear I will be twenty minutes and I will not be late.
Can you please understand why I’m calling on the phone
Can the kids stay the night as I can’t get back home.
Can you come to the court and would you stand my bail
As I was arrested selling drugs and they are sending me to jail.
Again it’s time to set some cars on fire
To smash some windows shouting out obsceneties
With Paris riots on TV you can’t get tired
Like trashy sequels of the Chaplin’s comedies
The action breaks down into episodes and gags
The crowd goes berserk with animation
They look quite serious, young lions and old fags
Rugged protesters, conscience of the nation
But don’t be fooled, it’s just the way they live
Traditional amusement, if you like
With little compensation they forgive
Until its time to start another strike
It was dramatic, till the fireworks began
Then water cannons jets endorse the celebration
Its Paris riots, open up your beer can
Sit back and watch the show of exaltation.
In case of article fourteen
Quite a problem could have been
Solved completely, setting free
All from tribal pedigree
No prejudice would take place
Based on nation or the race
No one meets with deprivation
Well protected by convention
Be it truth, we could have been
Living in most fairiest dream
Ever dreamt about, or heard
Magic of the written word
Would reach out the moral height
For the sake of human rights
But of course it’s just a joke
Article fourteen evokes
Well known habit to proclaim
Vaguely written rules of game
That’s not law, but just convention
Paving hell with good intention
Fence the road, and change some slabs
Re-elect old fags and hags
No one reads conventions, man
Wishful thinking is a damn
That’s innate with human race
I would really be amazed
If the article fourteen
Meant to be a real thing.
Shining Son.
Mum, can you see me?
Can you see what I’ve done?
Do you understand I wouldn’t,
Be here, without you mum.
Dad, are you looking?
Smoking your Player’s fags
Rubbing your chest like you
Used to, look at me, now, dad.
The rumours always abounding.
You didn’t want me around.
It’s no longer hurtfully astounding.
Some babies just aren’t planned.
All the things you did I remember.
The poverty, jealousy and the lies.
I’ve let all the malice go now.
Understand your shocked surprise.
But of course, I’ll never know.
Just exactly how you felt.
I see the holes in our carpet.
And my heart begins to melt.
I know you had dreams dad
Mum’s sewing could’ve been more.
You both stuck it out together.
Blooded plasters, on festering sores.
So, I’ve competed but never won.
I’ve tried and dreamed just like you.
I’m grateful, you had one last passion.
And created me, your shining son.
three hundred thousand unsmoked fags
since i took the plunge and stopped
i did it cold turkey mates, suffered as
my nicci levels plunged and dropped.
no nicci patches,
no nicci chewing gum,
no electric cigs,
good enough for some,
no therapies to help,
they just didn’t exist,
all those placebos
i so sadly missed.
so i went cold turkey mates
mainly through short cash
so why do i still dream of
lighting up, crashing the ash.
i dream i still smoke,
enjoy every single one
memories flooding back
from years long gone.
every single pilsner
accompanied by a ***
nothing quite like a grosse
and a long deep drag.
its sad really;
just a sick joke,
because in real life i just can’t
stand the smell of ciggie smoke.
i did it cold turkey mates, suffered
as my nicci levels plunged and dropped
three hundred thousand unsmoked fags
since i took the plunge and stopped
Furtive meeting
We sat in the park a packet of fags
a bottle of wine, on the back of a napkin
I wrote her a poem about love.
While struggling to find the right word
I hardly knew her, she fell asleep,
wine of good quality can be strong.
I counted my cigarettes had five left
saw the tempting light of a night bar
left her sleeping, went and had a drink.
Coming back, she had left my poem
written on the clean side of a napkin
was on the ground torn to shreds.
Guys v Girls
Pre night out checklist
Girl's
Push up bra clevage out
Going commando
2 pair's of spare knickers
Make up plastred on over an
inch thick
Fake tan , eyelashes , nails
Botox infused duck lips
Sporadic sprinkling of glitter
everywhere
Stiletto heeled shoes barely
able to stand upright in
See through dress so short
displaying bits of flesh that
have never seen the
light of day before
Token handbag no coat
Fake i.d in order to get in
Check complete let's go girl's
You never know tonight
1 of us could meet our
Prince charming or Soulmate
Guy's
Cash 20 fags
1 condom just incase you
never know fingers crossed
Splash of cheap aftershave
Job done check complete
Right boys come on
Let's have it
1st one to throw up pass
out start a fight or gets off
with a fat or ugly
bird is a total and utter legend
And gets free drinks bought
for them for the rest of the
night
There was an old stripper called Jacky,
who's act was deemed rather tacky.
But she got her comeuppance
when, out of her tuppence,
fell six pipes, fifty fags and some baccy.
All things can tempt me some far more than others
Hear what sates my desire what are my druthers
Anger and booze led me astray in the past
Poetry and rhythm now give a kinder blast
Coffee helps for my ink to flow from the quill
Fags sweets and Coke Zero help to feed my skill
But my lover's curves keeps me from writing
To kiss ruby lips is far more exciting
So I follow my mouth and write on her skin
Drink passion and heart blood and then I begin …
25th February 2020
Contest All Things Can Tempt Me
Sponsor Beth Evans
Syllables checked howmanysyllables.com
After three decades and a kicking more,
I deem it glaring waste and blatant loss
To play sad part of second servile fiddle
In elite cadres agleam with ersatz gloss.
Whatever charged scrolls attuned to pelt
With loaded deterrents deft souls that try,
I now must with age's ever-tightening belt
Stand to trite spites and their swipes defy.
Despite your puffed plots sick to the brim,
Those smiling streaks quite honed to trim
Purest dreams spruced by endless hopes;
I must pull down your fog’s fettering ropes.
Your lusts-spitting spikes I'll at last shame,
And sink them beneath your gloomy mast;
None of your snaky snares again shall trap,
Nor any of your foiling fangs soil this name.
All your trussing tentacles I must bid adieu,
Now that I am at last wholly done with you!
Amid taxing toils and ever ebbing throes,
We totter toward the end that must come;
Yielding all stale themes of yester-breath,
Our face as meek as that of a dying lamb.
Such ill-fated Odyssey kicks off with a cry
Of baffled aspects between fright and joy,
And thus unfurls green every puerile soul,
Mocking suns that idly as fierce wasps fly.
In clueless middle of life's vanishing rise,
Beauty's Foe hatches his secret disguise
That steals unseen health's naive gleams,
And in bits confounds her soaring dreams.
At last are her tics shut piece after piece
By plotting Hour who fairer lucks thieves;
And blends of sad sighs and deft disease
Slay any fags of throb swift sunset leaves.
Not so fickle this trembling hand's doleful ink:
It'll kick and roam past Time's snobbish brink!
What's that robed in gleaming emeralds rare,
Among the so-called dark-hued junkets plain?
So in blackest nooks glittering gems do glow,
Where prejudice would like them labelled vain?
Bravest arms that swift swords in virtue wave,
Cry for the very plunder their rawest valor gave;
Lying hands that didn't any valiant battles fight,
Claim the loot and push its owners out of sight.
Who is that warrior in harm's way yet unbent,
In peril's fierce path still going fast and stout?
See with what peerless conquest unparalleled,
The fitting patriot fags foes with fearless rout?
The country-loving martyr in clammy attires red,
Misses the full liberty into which his bravery led.
The country-hating bigot with faint fallacies bleak,
Takes all glory and dubs him an undeserving freak.
If Nature herself can't her succinct laws rewrite,
Don't tell me that Black is not as good as White!
Let the lions roar,
For the deaf can’t hear and the rest choose not to listen,
There’s no sense anymore,
When a child’s tears are all that glistens,
Abandoned and forsaken,
Too much pain and too much wrong,
Hope savagely taken,
How much longer can this go on,
Have you done anything to help this plight,
Have you done anything but avert your sight,
The smallest kindness means more than you realise,
Open your heart to the sound of their cries,
It doesn’t take much to help make a difference,
All that it takes is and end to this ignorance,
How much are fags or a bottle of coke,
A pound from each person sounds like a joke,
But still it would make a missive impact,
Still it would start to improve the fact,
That too many kids are homeless today,
Because too many of us turn the other way.
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