The screen flickers, then changes
and times of trains are moving, changing.

This time of year, many things change;
although one thing seems to never change
- a tension between truth, half-truth and lie,

elastic, it leads from sunshine into shadow, night.
These days, it’s easy to deride
Truth, offering other headlines
from a mind â€" my trickster mind!

What occurs at eclipses, in deserts, big plains
is perspective â€" beyond our superficial terrain

and, as times up there on that screen change,
a train might arrive
carrying prophet, shaman, seer â€" or even a friend of mine.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

Down it loosens from the sky
along the trees and city blocks,
trampled on by squeaking feet
from 6 o’clock to 6 o’clock.

It gets inside the downfall pipes
and open upward mouths and eyes;
dropping through uncertainties
on certain hats and city types,
whitening our blackened streets,
changing an indifferent world.

The snowman’s little smile is curled
because he knows he’ll never cling
to a billion crazy snowflakes, each,
uniquely fashioned - everything.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

I had a moonlit dream
and asked myself if I’d be better
born a human - or a cow -
as if I could, like, choose my form:

to be honest I dunno
whether to become huge and simple, eat grass
24/7 - or bang on and on about the mortgage,
pension, kiddies, final blow.

All in all, today
I lean towards a munching low
and moo into my future,
knowing what’s of note;
a meadow, calves and parlors,
sun and quiet moon.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

For seven years I wrote a diary
nightly, asking ‘What’s my learning!?
‘My little contribution?
“A highlight from today’

in blue workbooks; a kind of romance
from days with tiny pieces, drawn
from wells, lively offerings,
brighter moments dawn to dawn.

It would be easy to get cynical;
say it’s weird that a younger ‘me’ believed
it important to catch those little fish
from pools of young anemones,
urchins, delicate algae, crabs:
but No I say Hello and Thanks.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

He likes to rabbit on, old Tony, giving all
and sundry gobfuls, earfuls, chatter
box, old Tony can’t half natter, talks
for England, verbal diarrhea.

Does it matter that he throws his words
out willy-nilly? Aren’t they just like seeds
or skimming stones or pips or dandelion clocks,
hoping one might stick like chucking pasta at a roof?

And Sigmund Freud, he knew
that smaller words will hold you;
id or ego,
if but try or is how no
just now so
me and
you.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

He walks in a bubble
- slow - or at the double
he keeps out of trouble,
grows a little stubble

and, as far as I can tell,
(when I chatted to shy Chris today)
every bubble’s shiny, small,
contained and neat and tidy

and so we talk, breathe out,
trying to expand our film;
try to merge a personal bliss
or hell before young Cupid’s dart
(or Death’s old rusty axe) â€" flies
and we bulge a little, weep a little; burst.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

it’s business we’re talking;
competitive advantage
cost cutting, numbers,
developing niche

and we get straight into it;
where to put people,
strength in our strategy,
huge hairy targets.

‘How’s Andrew?’ he asks me
(they’d met at a social)
and a lump in my throat rises up from down deep
and it’s only when eyes wet and lips start a-quivering
that we soften our truthfulness;
start to do business.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

it might seem boring
to recycle the same
nursery rhymes every day
in this order â€" Three Pigs, Three
Bears, Billy Goats Gruff, Jack and the Beanstalk;
a wolf, the porridge, the chair and the little bed,
the bridge and the troll and a repeatedly thudding axe

and when I’m asked
again, again, it’s hard
to keep it up - muster and talk
through the same old tale; until he eventually
gets a charmed look, away
and freshly lost in a dream
of significant story.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

I’m not joking when I say
a lock of hair from my great grandma’s
head was handed to me in a small
green box - when I was twelve;

cut off by her own mother’s finger and thumb,
stroked by my grandma
flushing cheeks, to see an
echo of herself and her mum.

One night, my dad took the lid off
and what I’d like to understand
is why I need a reminder, curling around,

twisted by an ancient strand of
hair that came out of her brain
for me to clutch, remember, time and again.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

I kid you not. I once was in the Utah
desert when a middle aged lady
looked at a skunk woofing her pizza,
not daring to stop it because of
the pong. A line of toothmarks shrunk her dinner
to a D, a half-zero, a part open tin,
like a button broken or a knob of lemon
bobbing about in a tonic and gin.

But that isn’t my motive here;
it’s more that, when the shaman suggested
we stay up all night guarding our circles
with fire and ritual to stop foxes and wolves,
the lady saw moons in the sky. Somber,
no alcohol, two moons, no kidding.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

Doubt not what this little ring meant
when it slipped on my finger last weekend
completing the C in commitment
part of a glory, an eight,

but that’s only the half of it:
a golden band â€" small - but still great
slipped beyond my finger’s crown,
while repeating some words - not my own.

But what’s it really about?
Can anyone give me a shout-out
on the meaning of commitment, or love,
haha â€" guffaw - nobody can have
an answer, I hope that they’d blank;
it’s for husband and wife to work out.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

Something from Nothing
and a word reverberates
away to Nothing.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

3 things matter:
rage at the mad hatter
in others and your not-so-humble
self - the inevitable tumble
into old age - and our found
habits tracking like a hound
until we grab a chance
and maybe learn to dance.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

I
produce
hair on the
front of my eye-
brows I put there
for no reason I see
that it’s utterly futile
but still I sprout a small mane
maybe only because
I can when I choose
grow and inflate
yes create
my wee
star

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

Some mornings I reckon
it’s gonna be frosty;
nose-tingling hoary,
unsafe to walk on

but today, before a new dawn,
I came out my front door
and the sigh of a zephyr
came up from the earth.

Unusual near winter
that the ground sends a balm,
a hot breath, an out breath,
a generous kiss,
rekindling my centre
to let out his warmth.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

Nod a bottle at a brittle glass
and fizzy lemonade arises,
toxicates a nostril,
titillates and fills:

more than ‘satisfactory’,
popping at their birth-point,
bubbles sharp and piquant
instigate a sneeze:

higher than high,
brighter than light,
way beyond planets,
ripple and lap
up to emotion,
quivering lips.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

See a smile
of mirth and mischief
when he leads
his laggard brother
in a march
from car to pub and bar;
a glance suggests how
fun will surely follow.

Track in-step
until he opens up
his arms with cheek
and, like a tuning fork,
stands, vibrates and hullabaloos
‘Happy Birth-day toooo you!!!’

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

Same routine,
up at 5;
forgives himself
for last night’s
misdemeanors.

After all,
it’s only words!
Breakfast mind
plots away

and then comes back
to coffee and a roll.
Through a glass, he sweeps

a gaze at folly â€" every being
and himself - and feels

a sudden thud of peace.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

Today I walked past loads of doors
and, do you know, I had an urge
to reach and turn every handle;
see what lurks on the other side.

Something within us loves
hidden rooms, locked;
a key, a push, a creak,
a prisoner running free,

but tonight
when earth turns;

doors will bolt,
locked like clams,
holding tight
onto watery dreams.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

We had a chat
about a rat;
yours a giant,
mine - a tyrant.

We made a jigsaw
like a sunset;
an orange (I saw)
you saw red

but only when my fruit
and your new fangled colour
merge do we, in truth,
create an apple’s figure

- and the rat, of course,
was a very helpful chap.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

Imagine looking out
from way inside yourself
as a baby, or a boy with
Down’s:
without any crazy
constructs, rules.

This place would seem
unsafe â€" a dream!

And your strategy?
How would you get through
a moment, next few minutes, hours,
when you couldn’t hide,
or run, or surf the web a while?
I’ll tell you what â€" you’d smile!

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

I jump on a train
but every seat’s full;
I buzz up and down
like an ant in an anthill

looking for my place;
trying, trusting god,
but every gaze avoids
my eyes, my eager face

and, deep inside, I pray,
pacing like a dad.
that I will find a friend
that, if I trust today,
a gap will open, smile;
my heart is thudding still.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

At a time he sensed was right
up he stood like a reluctant schoolboy
twisting keys in his right hand pocket,
excruciating as an amateur only

can be, and he started to sing, quietly
and human, a song we’d all heard before
- at least for the chorus â€" and he sang the verses,
growing more confident with our support

and do you suppose nothing else happened
that night as he opened his heart like a rainbow?
A melting of oddness and newness ensued
and the tune that was sung by a small Irish crowd
swelled like a wave from our depth, in a song,
and I filled, overflowed, by the beauty I cried.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

If you came this way
along a climbing path
you might sit awhile
with all kinds of human notions
until your mind eventually
slowed, senses awoke,
and took in that mammoth
mountain in front â€" bathed
into sunlight and darting
with swifts.
The wonder of it
could make you kneel and pray,
overwhelmed and tearful,
until nothing arises
and fear itself flies
with a tremulous influx
of Love.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»

A leaf like a slowly closing hand
drops off

a great mother of a
tree - letting go

(irresistibly
it lets go)

in a shutterdown
of winter’s paler light.

How wonderful like a butterfly
to flutter, tumble, still;

only caught by wind - not knowing
that the lattice bark has started on a spree

with sun and rain and waving snow,
of soundness and repair.

Thanks for supporting Real Poems!

Read More...»