A time, A place.

For my Dad.


Tears you weep today will dry
I am with you still
I will wipe them by and by
As all those who love you will

I am without the taunt of pain
Without the taunt of fear
I am at peace with all my heart
But that peace will also keep me near

For the body may be broken
The words now silenced too
But the soul has been replenished
By the love that's shown you.

Don't hang your head in sorrow
Just heed my words so wise
I now tread a path divine
That reaches to the skies

Take comfort that I know such peace
Don't mourn a passing or a death
For I have eternal light for warmth
The breeze from angels wings my breath

Our time on earth so short yet don't regret
I have lived as only I would care
One day that light will shine so bright once more
And I will be waiting for you.... there.

Dusk

The silence broken, shrieks a far off hawk
As darkness starts to fall it leads alone to night
As cloudless dusk shows Venus first
In a dazzling display of early light

The orange sky spreads fingers
Heaven wide and stretched so long
Above the silent hills
Though nothing at this moment feels wrong

The silent grasses wear a heavy dew
They glisten in the stillest air
The last rays of the sun have painted them
Orange and yellow like crystals everywhere

The sheep lie still and cry a sorrowful
cry that breaks the dusky silence
As the quiet of the valley overwhelms
The senses that would shy away from violence

A mist is slowly gathering to follow river path
The coolness of late evening is felt
A rememberance of times so sadly past
Attacks your very senses makes you melt.

These are times of deepest thoughts and dreams
When youth made up such thoughts alone
And made such stories that you could believe
Nurture, care for and make your very own.

I am older now and to such views I aspire
To conjure up those thoughts for just a second
But in a fleeting moment they are gone
As if into a mortal reality they are so beckoned.

The test.

Ask me not for good advice pretend i dont exist
Reach out for all that's true to you alone
The feelings that you dwell upon then make you so
Not scribblings on some self appointed list

Dont set the bar so high that you are sure to fail
Remember that in life the losers have a place
The reason for competing is not to win alone
And life is not a senseless race upon a guided rail

Brightness in endeavour finds a way to every heart
From whence direction came it matters not
Like music soothes the tortured mind with just a song
And all that lies before in life right from the very start.

That life will treat you with respect upon your chosen path
A gamble that has odds of such proportions very true
Your strength will come in all those testing times that lie ahead
Your one and only weapon your ability to smile ...and laugh

Buzzin'

Head is always buzzing as the days are flying by
The world is just a blur today think i'm gonna cry
There aint no time for manners and the lies are guaranteed
All the people round me seem to have a different need

I ask a simple question and the answers never come
I think I need a holiday somewhere with loads of sun
Sitting down and drinking mean would be a worthy cause
No telephone like back at home no knocks on office doors

But I must sit amongst this shit and while my days away
Cos holidays are just a dream I never save my pay
So when I'm home i'll ditch the phone and kick back in the chair
And listen to some Marley tunes it's just like i am there

Now if your feeling down and blue and life is just a chore
Slam dunk the phone leave it alone it's just another bore
Party hard and party fast let music be your master
Enjoy your life forget the strife you won't die any faster

The devil wears red ..

The face of evil knows my creed
Sets a chair at my table of hate
Loud cheers at sight of my deadliest deed
Oh!.. lost souls can always just wait

Our source of believers is plentiful too
For accomplices we rarely seek
Just ordinary people like me and like you
With a penchant to pray on the weak

My evil is such that my foes simply wilt
My being offends a whole host
I feed on such people so riddled with guilt
On my plight to spread evil I boast.

A quantum of thoughts is all i require
No salesman's patter from me
I pander to those with a greedy desire
And hell is their true destiny

Believe in your God and shout out his name
I promise to give it some thought
To me it is all just a wonderful game
There's a price that you all can be bought

Prada was just a joke that i played
My fashion is anything red
My price is the ultimate one you will pay
So enjoy, you're mine when you're dead...

. 

A churlish thing.

I sit and contemplate 'that' word
For the life of me.. I know not why
It is a word that sits uncomfortably
A stranger in a land laden with such thoughts .

'Love' is made of childish things
That once this mind new well
But now all too often it is my jailer
There to beat my life and soul into a cage.

I have 'loved' many things and people,
I have 'loved my life and family
But in reality what is love if it can't be true
Or in fact you are not true to love?.

I stand and take a bow to the points it has won
It pays me no respect or dues... nor i it
Save for children that love unconditionally
I am unloved. So be it. I am still me.

Nothin on...G4S

With apologies to Bruce Springsteen :-)... but none to G4s  

Bought a bourgeois house in the Cheshire hills
With a load of hundred thousand Olympic bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched 'round and 'round 'til half-past dawn
We made fifty-seven million and nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and nothin' on

Well now security sure was my company's wish
So we hopped into town for some youth to diss
I tied them to the top of my Japanese car
I asked 'em to make us safe but we never got far
A message came back from the great beyond
There's fifty-seven million spent and nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and nothin' on

Well we might'a made some friends with some billionaires
We gotta big cheque that was causing some stares
All I got was a note that said I have to step down
There's fifty seven million spent but no-ones in town "
(Fifty-seven million and nothin' doin)

So I bought a .44 magnum, it was solid steel cast
And in the blessed name of Elvis well I just let it blast
'Til my career lay in pieces there at my feet
And they busted me for security i just failed to meet
Judge said "What you got in your defense son?"
"Fifty-seven million and nothin' on"
Fifty-seven million and nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and still and nothin' on

I can see by your smile son there's nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and nothin' on
Fifty-seven million and no security on...

The Window.

An arch, rectangle, round or square
A portal to your world,
The window's form takes many shapes
Reflecting life unfurled.

A sign of light a place to view
From storm a shelter too,
Where rain's transparent beauty's seen
Along with morning dew.

Life is there behind that glass,
First seen from mother's breast
In every waking moment then
Until we're laid to rest.

Shadow Of Life.

My life is but a shadow.
I exist but in reality there is no me.
I am there because I am seen
I am seen and hence expected

But, there is no me.
If i disappear there would be no change
The same things would occur
I make no difference

It is not lonely.
It is more real than loneliness
A sense of lost.
A sense of no direction.

I fear that i am swallowed whole
Irrational.. if you are not I
A pitiful existence
From a pitiful man.

Words cannot console such thoughts
A mistake so many people make.
Only strength of my mind and spirit
Stand a mortal chance. 

But I weaken.
The reckoning is due
When your worth is in question
Why should this wretch be saved.

I look for guidance
I look for reason
I look for love.
I find only my shadow.

But it's not really there. Is it?.




 

The Silenced Heroes.

A solitary chair, a place no longer set
Amidst the sound of silence we never will forget
A family in mourning with hearts just torn in two
A feeling of emotion so raw it swallows you

No walks on sunny Sundays, no picnics in the park
No hugs when they are needed no light when it is dark
A whole new world emerges so full of broken dreams
The heartache and the sadness normality it seems.

The politicians speeches the rhetoric of hate
They say its getting better but for you its now too late
The painfulness of living a life when they are gone
The darkest days ahead now where once they proudly shone

Take comfort in your time of need and let your spirit soar
For people of this country will support you evermore
Those bombs may break a body on unforgiving sand
But heroes find a special place, it's called the promised land.

I am no poet.

A poet... oh i am?, says I,

Perhaps it's what you think

Just mixed up words of life I cry

From someone on the brink


Mere words assembled in a row

From thoughts so few of many

labelled then a poet so,

Though none worth but a penny.



I speak as though my mind should find

My head in quite a spin,

With rhymes and verse a peace I find

That life could scarce begin.



That label sticks and holds me back

A form I have to follow,

A fear of literary attack,

Can leave my words quite hollow



So cast me not as just a poet

Sense that i am fighting,

I'm more than that and you should know it

That's why i keep writing.

 

Newspapers 'shock and poor'

In all the years that the press have been making mistakes and paying for them, it still seems they have learnt very little. Take for instance that wonderful spectacle the soon to open Olympics.
Now, excuse me if i am wrong but the whole world will be homing in on our little island to watch this event and we should be showing all and sundry just what we are capable of . My bet however, (and it's a sure fire winner) is that the press will have managed to taint the event with their left/right and middle unwanted views and vitriol about security/drugs/scandal/ticket fraud.....you name it.
We are subjected to a barrage of spiteful tit for tat bile by 'columnists' who have their own agenda or a score to settle and it seems anybody and i mean ANYBODY can become a newspaper commentator these days, God forbid Attila The Hun ever gets reincarnated.
Seriously, I think newspapers are so afraid of the Internet they think they have to use shock and scandal headlines to attract any form of audience and in fact any type of audience. I think they are betraying their roots, newspapers were traditionally the breakfast table norm in this country of ours and their demise is not all due to the rise in technology. What editors don't realise is that they should concentrate on less titillation and more observation. A well written knowledgeable piece of journalism is always going to attract a wide audience, Internet or no Internet, interesting reading will always find an appreciative audience and people talk...
 With the current array of 'Z list' celebs that write for every broad sheet going there is a watering down of 'from the heart' and well investigated and researched subjects to read, this leads inevitably to a loss in readership and as we have all seen a desperation to sell the product which in turn leads to 'shock and poor' journalism.

So watch this space, The papers will have their say rightly or wrongly and the whole bandwagon that is mere titillation and 10% news will roll on and leave outsiders with a tainted and exaggerated view of the wonderful diverse society we live in.  In turn our newspapers demise is being written on the wall as sure as Freddie Starr's hamster lived happily ever after.

The wise man.

A wise man listens more than speaks
A problem he can halve
Do months of work in less than weeks
And make the saddest laugh

He uses brains to conquer brawn
Sheds light on darkest times
And seldom is 'to manor born'
His speech the sweetest rhymes

But who will listen when he's down?
When answers aren't forthcoming
When he is wearing frightful frown
His head so full and humming'

My guess.. the wise man stops to think
He weighs up all the odds
And never ventures to the brink
Like many selfish God's

He takes such issues in his stride
Reviews the situation
And when he's laughed and maybe cried
He takes a long vacation !

.

An honest tale.

Would that i be asked upon what makes me the man?
I surely would reply all grand things and puff my chest and pout
Be strong with my convictions so on life and all it's action's
And speak in gruff and lowered tones of feats that take your breath
And not merely the slaying of all those before who stand upon my trail
So that i may follow the path that my father set so many years ago.
Alas for me if i answered thus so in truth it would be a certain lie.
I am not that man who would beat and wound one so
I am not that strongest of leaders that fronts the battle lines
My heart does not follow such passions and never has
I am at one with what this world would offer me in peace
Mother nature holds my sway and lifts my heart apace
The flowing streams and swaying leaves in summer's breeze
And bluest sky that drops to earth and shrouds this greenest land
Where roses grow and bloom such beauty despite their thorny stems
For I am at one with who i am, not who i must be perceived to be.
Different, aye,  that's as maybe too, but less a man because of it?
Well not says I. For a real man will stand for who he is and has become..
So listen not to men in power and importance with such a reverence
For they have yet to be honest with themselves not just you and I.

Money Talks.

You have no sense of right and wrong.
'No, but I have money.'
You tell such lies, string folks along
'Yes, but i have money.'
When asked a question you will duck
'Yes but I have money.'
You ride the people and your luck
'Yes but I have money.'
What makes you so just damn cocksure?
'It's that I have money.'
Your day will come and that's for sure
'Not, while I have money.'

'For money says where roads will go
A train can travel yes or no
It says when wars can now be fought
And who amongst us can be bought
It kills the weak protects the strong
Or builds a runway 10 miles long
It governs countries like or not
Says who can live and who is shot
It sparks debates that shouldnt be
In houses parliamentary.
The press will play to money's tune
Why... money got us to the moon!
So of it's power there's no doubt
You have no say if you're without.
Our club has members so elite
Without us life is incomplete
Go rant and rave to highest chair
...You'll find that money put him there.'




 

The Price Of Silence.

The cross to bear that silence brings
When reason says it's madness
Can take the shape of many things
Eternal in it's sadness

A silence kept will test a soul
A task that most would feign
For truth exacts a heavy toll
When asked to then explain

So be of stout and strongest heart
Let conscience be your guide
No silence dare pull you apart
When truth is at your side

love.

Love can be a waiting game
A lazy crazy hating game
It tugs your shirt when you ignore it
Kings and Queens bow down before it
Power wealth and education
No defence to love's temptation
People of  the world succumb
To all loves powers they are dumb
But love can cause such hurt inside
Yet place a smile on blushing bride
Take it lightly at your peril
Never tamed and always ferral
So be warned if you start falling
Or ask love to come a calling
Take on board just what i'm saying
With the devil you are playing
Harness love and hold it's hand
And you could see the promised land
But just remember what i've said
And never take your love as read.
 

Life.

Ssssshhhhh.....just listen.
Hear that?
That is the sound of life.
Did you hear it?
Try again.
Ssssshhhh....try harder.
heard it ...?
No?.
Close your eyes.
Sit perfectly still.
Listen to the background.
Listen.
Heard it now?
Good.
Remember it.
For it is all around you.
It's the true story.
Not the fiction you make of it.
It's real.