lines in a cemetery

cemeteries are strange
graves in a line
neatly arranged
with slab designs
names, dates
hollow phrases
stones like weights
to freight the spaces

in other beliefs
they hang your bones
for light relief
in catacombs
tourists take snaps
of skeleton preachers
skulls in stacks
crosses of femurs

either way
life’s all you’ve got
one day here
the next day not
so dig me a bed
lay me down gently
a tree overhead
its roots to hold me

ten easy steps to a new year’s you

  1. Drink more water. Water’s cool. Water fills your energy pool. Just think drink – and that drink is water. You’re obviously not drinking as much as you oughta. The human body needs 60 percent. Technically a fire hydrant. If you wanna be fit and animated, strap on a tank and stay hydrated.
  2. Think positive. Negativity’s provocative. Learn to see the best in people (unless they’re absolutely unspeakable – in which case positively avoid ‘em, while you figure out simple ways to destroy them).
  3. Dance with abandon a minute a day. Don’t let shopping trolleys get in your way. Dance with bananas, dance with sprouts. Dance as security escorts you out.
  4. Keep a journal of your thoughts. Use a pseudonym to avoid the courts.
  5. You do you. Everyone else is taken – true? I know you’ve been getting a little bit stressed – but catfishing’s technically identity theft.
  6. Walk for half an hour a day. By the end of the week you’ll be miles away.
  7. Detox relationships, spruce up your spouse. Take a steam cleaner to your friends and your house. Strip things back to the bare essentials. Find a tin for your pens and pencils. Take out the trash with gloves and tongs. Maybe you’ll see where your life went wrong.
  8. Smile at strangers. Wink and nod. Not your problem if they think you’re odd. Shoulders back, eyes on the level. Whistle like you’re something special. Because feelings follow where actions lead. Success is practically guaranteed. In no time at all you’ll be cock-a-hoop (but no-one’ll sit next to you on the tube).
  9. Identify goals for the end of each month. Write an action plan over lunch. Take the plan, mail it to yourself. Then stack it with the others on the very top shelf.
  10. Enrol on a course. Learn to cook. Read a self-improvement book. Take a blood test. Take a break. Get a grip fer chrissakes.

unforeseen consequences

I built a sweet robot
that looked like me
he went off to work
uncomplainingly
he shopped and he cooked
he kept the place clean
he saw friends and family
for propylene
worked out at weekends
was cheerful in queues
kept up to date
with the daily news
tended the garden
was social or private
sometimes quarrelsome
sometimes quiet
one day he stopped me
and said with a cough
it seems you’re redundant
and switched me off

an old rebellion folk song

sing a-hey ho the wind and the rain
the tories are history and spring comes again
we’ll win back our freedom, we’ll take back control
just call the election, let’s go to the polls

the country was ruined, the country was wracked
our rivers polluted, our railways off track
our schools and our hospitals riven with strife
britannia sold cheaply and put to the knife
your monument in granite
was profits not planet
the narrowest of self-serving worlds you inhabit
where there was discord
you brought alarm
the knacker’s van parked up on ol’ maggie’s farm
the daily mail bleating
the telegraph tweeting
the backroom oligarchs meeting n’greeting
but despite all the slogans
the deals and the bungs
you still couldn’t stop the change that would come

sing a-hey ho the wind and the rain
the tories are history and spring comes again
we’ll win back our freedom, we’ll take back control
just call the election, let’s go to the polls …

(exit, jangling bells, clacking staves, spinning round in circles &c…)

bless the bed

suddenly – a violent storm
lightning, squally rain
here I am, snug and warm
up late with a book again

propped up on pillows
buried in a duvet
lost in the temples
of Göbekli Tepe

foxes, snakes, vultures, wolves
on jointed megaliths
patiently carved with primitive tools
for ritual emphasis

here I lie, the light still on
the new year just ahead
worried about what’s yet to come
while ancient beasts play round my bed