I sat
all morning
in front
of a tree

it was
a cedar,
the day
before
the solstice

I let
the cold
possess me,
became one
with the
shortening
light

tomorrow,
and then
tomorrow

still
among
silent
cedars.

Go out
and let the rain
fleck your face
with kisses

sometimes 
happiness
looks like this

the pump 
run dry,
a meeting

or a slow
progression
in the mist
to nowhere. 

Fountain

An animal fell in the well
and poisoned half the village;

to understand what was wrong
we also drank from the well.

At the Embassy of Ecuador
A smell assails you at the door
     A pallid freak
     With a wikileak
Is sleeping on the floor.

Millefeuille, stacked pancakes, cassata
Lasagne, spam fritters, frittata
    So many great dishes
    Are subliminal wishes
To defang the vagina dentata.

If the all-knowing God is everywhere

Then time and space are a circular square

     If He is in me

     Then I must be

Already back over Here.

Second Tour of Duty

OH SC HI MI NH IA MA GA IN IN VT NM

Old World

It's
those
dashed
colons:-

they've
got us
licked
the dogs

bollocks.

The Louisiana Purchase

OH LA LA IA MI NM OR MO ND IA
NE WA ND CA ND ID CO AL LA ND

Transatlantica

It was
a sketchy
memory:

it started
with
entrées

and ended
with Leslie
in knickers

nibbling
biscuits
and sucking
on a fag.

The winter

They say there might be a war 

     but I don’t know, I mean,

I can hear all the big guys

     saying crazy stuff

but I’m just not sure there are

     enough of us nowadays

willing to head off, hey ho,

     hey ho, it’s off to war

we go, and watch our own

     innards unspool on our lap.

Whenever it is winter

     I am young again,

the cold air is the same air

     I inspired the time

the trees first spoke; of course

     there’ll always be a bunch

of god jobs blowing themselves

     up but I’ve got a hunch

that they’re a dying breed.

Summer in the city

One degree, two degree, refugee, four;

Here are the honeybees stacked on the floor.

Chittagong, Jakarta, Hamburg, New Orleans;

Progress is a million men in metal and glass machines.

Here is the smiling billionaire floating off to Mars;

Here are the endless satellites we thought were shooting stars.

Here is the mountain shifting, here the acidic sea;

Here is the way we have been told it was always meant to be.

Here is our intelligence and here the final bird;

Here is every former thing and each redundant word.

There is a hand that guides us and all is for the best;

So kiss the fist that loves you and put the kids to bed.

And so

you go back

to the well

not 

because

you

want to

but

because

you thirst;

character

they say is

fate

but today

I woke

in sunlight 

trembling

ants

on the table

were eating

a wasp

I had

almost

gone

almost

to the end

of my

mistake

The bugs

The bugs are in the bedroom,
    the bugs are in my mind;

The bugs were there before us,
    the bugs and their ilk
    will outlast time;

The bugs are in the food we eat,
    the bugs are in my gut;

E coli pluribus unum:
    without the bugs
    there is no us.

Wish

The sun’s been up for hours

but I am still in bed

The whisky had its way with me

I can hear it in my head

The breeze outside the window

the birds up in the sky

The children in the courtyard

and the adults in the lie

The room has never been this full

but there is noone here

I wish you would come back again 
and the demons disappear 

Macron in the land of Justin

My latest op-ed has just been published by The National Observer.  It looks at Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau - with a fair helping of Arthurian legend and climate change thrown in for good measure.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/06/04/opinion/macron-land-justin

flowers

"I will always be on the side of those who have nothing, of those to whom the peace of nothingness is denied. We - and by we I mean those of us who are intellectuals, educated in well-off middle-class families - are being called to make sacrifices. Let's accept the challenge."

Federico García Lorca

Four o'clock beauty

    and no bird sings

Nine in the morning

    and no bird sings

Rivers of concrete

    and no bird sings

Life in its beauty

    and no bird sings

Season of longing 

    and no bird sings

Sweat on the sidewalk

    and no bird sings

Where are the children

    and no bird sings

Nights of becoming

    and no bird sings

Growth like a cancer

    and no bird sings

Quiet at evening

    and no bird sings

Endless denial

    and no bird sings

Hold me my lover

    and no bird sings

Turn to me savior

    and no bird sings

Empty pavilions

    and no bird sings

Blood on the mattress

    and no bird sings

Sunset of plastic

    and no bird sings

Drowning forever

    and no bird sings

Dust on the eyelid

    and no bird sings

Trees in their silence

    and no birds sing

agreedyethicaladyelps

4am beauty and no bird sang

Kill your sons

My article on Leonard Cohen and climate change has been published on the website of Canadian newspaper, The National Observer.

Will

I want
to leave
my children
the things
I have left
undone.

We overstayed our welcome,

We drank up all your wine,

We left at dawn, our shirts were torn

And the day was looking fine.

We wanted to find heaven,

We didn't know the way,

We skulked around the carnival ground,

The sky was getting grey.

We sailed off to an island,

To an idyll in the sun,

We were looking for enlightenment 

But it wasn't any fun.

So we went back to the party

And found you'd locked the door,

We sat outside and nodded off

And woke up on the floor.

And then it started raining,

It pissed it down for hours,

The land was overrun with weeds,

With rodents, moss and flowers.

remembered rooms
remembered rooms

you can't forget
what was done and said
in remembered rooms

     seeing
for the first time
  snow

There's a woman Theresa
    who hasn't a name

There's always a woman
    or someone to blame

There's a man who's been dying
    for sixty long years

And a people who're crying
    without any tears

People from shitholes
    with nothing to lose

And despicable cunts
    with despicable views

There's millions of people
    all over the earth

Bodies in lorries
    and kids giving birth

Thousands are sailing
    and hundreds will drown

The oceans rise up
    and the corpses sink down

The blacks in the basement
     the arabs in hell

The gays off high buildings
    the witch in the well

There's always a witch
    or a woman to blame

Some other bugger
    to swallow our shame.

There's a woman Theresa

   who hasn't a name

There's always a woman

   or someone to blame;

There's a man who's been dying

   for sixty long years

And a people who're crying

   without any tears.