Good Night's Sleep

A poem from 1994

To be

or not to be?

That is the question!

Are we

to be

or not to be?

That is the question!

Whether ‘tis nobler to keep in the mind

locked-in desires

and to suffer the slings and arrows

of deceptive hope

and crippling uncertainty

or to take up courage

against a sea of worries

and by opposing

face emotional suicide

To die

to sleep?

Oh, to sleep!

I think about you

and rob me of sleep

if I could talk to you about this

and quell the torture

I impose upon myself

to make an end of the secret

coming out

but fearing that I would make an end

of my psychology

and crawl back in

closing the door

locking and bolting it

to keep out unwelcome visitors

God, put an end to this, please!

Won’t you please, please help me!

Niche

A poem from 2017

Now I don’t mind

A narrow mind

A narrow path

To some seems daft

But I am fine with that

Yet when you see

Conspiracy

A devil’s trick

A stumbling brick

In everything

You err

A breakaway

A distrust

A disgust

No niche too small

To diss the all

Artificially bring down

The edifice

The one king’s crown

His delight

Is your dark night

An evil brood

All bad but you

You shrink and shrivel

Sailing your own leaking ark

Conveyor Belt

A poem from 2017

You sit and watch helplessly

Your life passes by in front of you

Strapped to a chair you cannot break free

Good times and bad times

Love, hate, jealousy, laughter

You cannot undo anything

You cannot do something differently

Now the first prize, now the booby prize

A cuddly toy, a teasmade, a set of crockery

You force yourself to remember each event

You want to justify your decisions

You feel so cold, so very cold

It's all so vivid, ultraHD, virtually reality

You suppress a scream

Ghosts cannot scream

You admit defeat

You stop struggling

You close your eyes

Game over

First Love

A poem from 2018

When they were young her kisses sent him into a trance

His mind went blank, an hour passed

His thoughts he couldn't recall

Now they are old he feels nothing at all

His heart is cold, his mind is bored

He spends the time thinking of football

Enema

A poem from 2017

It builds up until we can’t take it any more

I don’t know if we’re actively complicit

Or we just sit there, powerless

Magpies like shiny things and steal them

Can they be reasoned with?

Can you persuade them to give it all back

And make reparation on top of that

Or will they insist on feathering their nest at our expense

You may find the occasional repentant sinner

Can we sit down with them and talk?

Win their trust and then capture them

Making them tell us where they stashed the dough?

Uprisings come and uprisings go

Few and far between, they bring joy in the morning

But by tea time a new mini-dictator comes with smiles and promises

You know it won’t last but still you are happy

A self-deception? In denial? A yearning?

Power corrupts, but it can only corrupt an unrighteous man

A prince of peace is needed

A wonderful counsellor

A heavenly army

Flush out this detritus

Remove the mess we’ve made

Turn our suits into t-shirts

Give us all a holiday

Share the spoils

Treat us well

Serve the people

Plead for mercy

Weep for yourselves

The bells are silent

Where are we going?

To whom can we go?

Instant Coffee

A poem from 2017

When I was young there was only instant coffee

Well, when I say “only”, if there was anything else I certainly don’t remember it

Maybe we were just too poor or not adventurous enough

Well, now I come to think of it, there was Camp Coffee

That liquidy brown stuff with chicory taste

You can imagine how that excited the mind of a young child in the 70s!

I liked instant coffee and when I went to live abroad in my 20s all they had was filter coffee

I didn’t like it but had no choice

(And if you think I could have drunk their tea

Well, their “black tea” was muck)

I don’t remember why I didn’t like it

I just remember it as a fact

But, when in “Rome”...

And so I put up with it

I returned to England some years later

And it was back to good old instant!

Something has happened to me since

I don’t know what

The country in general has gone coffee mad

Actually, I could leave out the word “coffee” from that sentence and it would still be true

That’s another story for another day, but maybe I should consult a lawyer first?

Now, you can’t just go out and buy a coffee

They’ve gone so diverse with stupid names and the waitresses don’t even know what some of them are

I tend to stick with Americano

I’ve gotten used to that

And it’s the cheapest option

Mind you, drinking coffee in a cafe is only for when I’m on holiday

I don’t get why people pay more for a coffee in a cafe than they would for a whole packet or jar in a supermarket

They’ll subsequently moan about living standards and cutbacks and plead poverty

But I digress…

These days I still drink instant coffee for convenience

But I actually prefer filter

When I say “filter”, of course I mean in a “cafetiere”

This is what has happened to me and what I was going to say before i got sidetracked

But here’s the latest thing

(Well, it probably isn’t the latest thing, but hey…)

Barista-style wholebean instant coffee

The best of both worlds

The convenience of instant

Less washing up than a cafetiere

And with an upgraded taste that makes it like an Americano

The Same Old Story With A Different Name

A poem from 1986

there’s a burning in my heart again

it’s clawing at my brain

I hold my breath when I see you

but I have to let it out because

if I didn’t I’d suffocate

which would be pretty pointless

I’d love to tell you how I feel

but I won’t

for fear of rejection

so I’ll sit here

on the sofa of my mind

till someone else claims you

then I’ll kick myself

develop a crush on someone else

and write this poem out again