COLLECTION SEPTEMBER 2025

Collection sep 2025

OR SO YOU BELIEVE

deshabille
(or so you believe)

whereas I would say
too much is divulged
subtext is showing

paradigm is exposed
to the ruination of your
                                  reputation
need yo cover up
       heads to
spin

though my own stock-
in-trade be
scarcely golden

seems like you may just
have rushed too pre-
cipitously into
some bad
media alchemy

and now
      are looking high and low
under every bombed structure
for each
    and every collateral

making such a racket to
deflect our eyes
           from the hypocrisy

the place
reduced to a desert,
carnage
            beyond words

sad that what might have
saved poetry
        bent out of shape to
sustain
    the war industry

defend
        death’s exceptionality

make the case for a rapture,
thing so sickly sweet

will
     annihilate the need for
theology
         morality, humanity

basic kindness and love
the species professed to hold dear

“”””
CHORD

I imagine
there is a script in my head

the page not yet in being
crying out for
birth by improvisation

wanting to go wherever
it wishes to go

meanwhile in the forest
Puck never foresaw King Crimson
never anticipated
the marriage
of Robert
and Toyah
Toyah and Robert

when these stories
                        tell themselves
they believe
brain states but pen dictates

something in the ether
flutes, strings or
maybe
     an eerie mellotron
singing, cross-
pollinating

I don’t know
whence or why all this comes

flows first
        like a trickle, then
a river flowing
through a capital city

but it comes
it comes
              turns time to
its tune

and you
     as always an inspiration
to me

serenading me silently
but inwardly I dance, have
no choice
           but to

your body
          raw rock and roll, incipient
heavy medal

your mind
Mingus, Davis jazz solo

your voice
   the missing solution to
every unsolved ancient philosophical
problem

every genre
zone and miracle  twist
in the plot, jaw
dropping moment

leaving no niche
left uncovered, hoard unfound
across that sweet topography

and every
molecule fibre
              crying out, imploring you
to fuse
with my mythology
jump aboard my allegory

become my inner metaphor
 
in the confused progressions of this symphony

the very Devil’s chord lurking
I do believe

“”””
IN THE MORNING

feeling buoyant
energized

thought myself
on my last legs

looks like
I was wrong

and so
many things to love
about a
new day
about the morning

let’s
take it
from the top

I love so
many things
in the morning

I love the smell
of Robert Duvall
telling me he loves
the smell of napalm
in the morning

alongside a river
that winds through shadow
to the dark heart of man

I love
fire and death in
my morning newspaper

nothing like
a dose of savagery and misery
with my bacon, eggs  and
pancakes
       toast and tea

but to
mellow out a little

I love my songs soft and
sentimental, expertly crooned
with Sinatra panache

catching me by surprise
as they drift across the airwaves

calming
      me down         straightening
                                 me out

making me
          comfortable, approachable

deadly in my
              sublime treachery

like Garbo, the greatest
of all double agents, quiet (and
marvellously) mad
magician
          of Allied spies

woke one morning
      concocted the most
delightfully outrageous fantasy

to deceive
    Hitler’s Reich
               lead up the garden path

do something for humanity
in the morning
             overlord of
all mornings

****

DARWIN 4

I like
to think of myself
of a Victorian naturalist
shot out
      of a cannon
into the future
through
space and time into
distant and
bizarre
      Goldilocks Zone

to find
myself
     taking a stroll like
Imperial British Gentlemen

walking on the
surface of an
alien planet
they
happened to
name after me

freshly equipped with
all my conversions

retractable legs, compound
eyes, downloaded intelligence
and full
hover capabilities
carrying me across the
needle-spine badlands,
the acid seas and lakes
of mercury

looking for
the planet’s raw nerve,
scouring every niche
for signs of
life, impending
intelligence,
hints of the biological

foundations of
new civilizations and
their
     inevitable cities
of deep, incandescent pain.

****

THERE IS NO

there is no
poetry to survive
the six million

poetry dies
a death
each genocide

spicy left-leaning
socialist philosopher
from Frankfurt
made that
     point with
finality and
killer succinctness

no landscape
ever worth writing about
once
    the bombers have been

tanks
   churned their way through

ploughing through fields
that never
can
   be ploughed again

until
    that horror, that pain
burned
    into memory

is
  thing lost to time
can no longer remain

****
ARACHNE

I implored
the goddess
for an advance
to cover my needs

willfully mishearing
she proffered advice regarding
my need for brevity,
to come to the point

write the scenes
in strict succession
creating characters
who could not
fail
   to convince

and thus, my fingers
immediately responded
inspired divinely

exploded at once
across the keyboard
worlds
    apart from my usual plod

pinging away, spinning tales
rich in revolutionary output
soon impinging
upon a critical mass

whereupon
    I dreamt such

a perfectly sound and logical
left-brained dream

much scissor snip snap
and fabric flowing
output growing

and the clothes by no
means invisible but
fit for an Emperor

consummately tailored
yet desperately clinging

whilst
     the goddess acknowledging
my supremacy in
the very shape
    ot this transformation
ss I
rappel, abseil, become
finest
      weaver of treachery

suspended by
the divine strength of silk,
my silk

and you now dangling, reader,
hanging on for dear life.

****

CAVALIER

let them
bulld a chapel

weave corsages, prim
nosegays

see
where my finger points
out into the distance, just
on the horizon, vague yet
stark
   beginnings of a scaffold

yet this is
just presentment, this you
can relegate  Shakespearean style
to the vagaries of a bad dream

Lucasta’s posies have
little surface connection with
a lunge into hedonism,
living
     by the sharpness of
rapier, dagger,
long sword

which words
    sst themselves, deliver their
own bitter, toxic,
raucous fruit

out there forces
starting small, becoming titanic

great the heart that
survives this ice, amidst
all this
      cacophony,
      yields pandamonium

****

CYPRUS

something boiling in
the water
                   off
the coast
              of Cyprus

a gorgeous monster
created from foam

lethal  one kiss
of kisses

the beauty of which, wonder
of wonders that
love goddess,

simply
         destroyed me

****
CURVATURE

wholly complicit
she

observes how the light
dapples her desk

take a
counter to her
and
she will not
stop ticking

good sign!

neat how
just a word
from her physics Professor
can break this reverie
bring her
back to reality (so-
called)

him within which
expounding at length
on the cast-iron
laws of
repulsion, attraction;

the sheer number
of white-hot articles published
hourly, daily,
emanating
out of this machine

testament to how
slowly the Universe
has slowed down
(no quick
       big crunch less
than than
lovingly speaking)

still locked
and loaded, explosive,
                   keen on expanding

whilst the warmth
of that afore obliquely
hinted at
      solar radiation

runs up her arms
pours down her neck

leaving her
         ripe for anything

feeling never before so
cute and
astute, philosophically awake

ready to
deal with dark energies,
dark matter
across
    whatever distance

strip
back that veil

trace (her
very first blueprint)

the soul of her curvature,
all curvature
    as it makes its way

****

LESS THAN FINE

wanted to write a
sexy poem
very
sexual

but the ink
prematurely ejaculated
shot out of my pen

wanted to a write a
very scary poem
ultimate scare

but the ink froze
my blood curdled
as it
    hit my brain

wanted to write a
very sentimental poem
terribly sad

but the
page got fluffy
all
   of a sudden
out of nowhere
went all
soft toy on me

didn’t want to
write an
elegy, my
elegy

a poem
on death
but you
twisted my arm
persuaded me I should

promising  me
you would give me
the perfect
last line

all those last lines of my own
though by
no means hopeless
less
   than fine

****

APOLLO

rocket
to the Moon

rocket
saying Hi, dropping
into my
back yard

bringing my own
private star, billion
degree
       Sun

same rocket
rocket
men
    rode to the Moon

(bouncing, buggying around
scenic drive
      one small
step for man)

same as the one that
took out my house, my
tiny lawn

like the eggs on the stove
I was cooking when
it came
       to pay
a visit, pay
its respects

popping, exploding in
that red-hot thermonuclear pan

I was
well and truly Sun god fried

****
CRYPTIC

rearranged the furniture
in my head
  (a few dry walls
had to knock out)

started to resemble
a mausoleum

which
so startled me
ended up
forgetting entirely
about my bed

and how and why
ended up in
the first place
fighting with this allegory

but did sleep
and collided with
all I had
moved and misplaced
throughout
         my dream

in dream
    no GPS no
proximity scream

things as they present themselves
could hardly be
more cryptic

****

ORIGIN STORY

I have totally
equipped this poem
for survival

to be a
lean,
mean
break-
dancing machine

sharp in tooth
incredibly soft in paw entirely.

****

IN AN IDEAL WORLD

fishing
    for jellyfish

wouldn’t know
how to start

unless
common sense dictate

candy rod
             sugar sinker

gelatinous hook
baited with
            (in an
ideal world)

strawberry cream and
vanilla custard

****
ZAPIRO

it’s no paranoia
just
bad fractals

not a tad of alien malfeasance
behind those clouds

focus
   won’t you

be like the Sun itself
passing through
a magnifying glass

observing
how a piece of paper
flapped in Parliament
(Parliament
of Parliaments)
might cause the wind
to howl
through streets shut down

a bad time idea
whose time is here

and now
only the anointed
wish to be
associated with it

loyal to
this final state
of secure being

iron wire and
tape spinning

nothing like it
even if your
paranoia run rampant

nothing in your
mind could be more off-beam

****
VISITATION

Had a bad dream. A stinker.

Dionysus, Apollo
moving in
as next
door neighbours

tightest of brothers
bitterest of rivals

neatly trimmed
the hedges between them
swarming with vipers

and me
in my own garden
drinking posh tea
Ambrosia flavoured

when
     at their joint house party
episode war erupted
after guests
spoke brazenly
           reacted ill-advisedly

blows, shots
exchanged, heavenly dactylic
style of sibling fighting

and all caught as collateral
in a disciplined rush
to
   escape to high ground
live to tell the story

and me
waking from this dream
finding myself
worse off
    plunged into another

hated, loved
by the gods

lost
    at sea, shipwrecked unless
forever sailing

no sight of land
just the great
            fiction of Elysium  Hades, Olympus

eternal wine-dark sea.
   
****

the telepath writes haiku
always leaving the last line
blank

to be frank

****

let me use
sign language
to express

what words of desire
lack the feel for

short on touch

****
in the sea of irony
only the humorless
                     drown

elect to
sink

rather than swim

****

BY A THREAD

my poem
is running
with the wolves

running
from the dogs

poems
always seem
to end up
chased into the forest
running from the dogs

sheltering
beneath the tall trees
trees stocked
with good wood

springy, workable,

chop/chop
                  /chop

and there you have it
a gibbet born of craftsmanship
set to hang

unless
      we cut out the middleman
let the trees themselves
do the culling, catching
chasing

me meanwhile
so desperate to
deflect
    win hearts and minds
counter-persuade
them

   I am repentant utterly
reborn to turn
over a new leaf

doing my best to change things
before the last line closes

leaves us
   between turnstiles
frozen in limbo

hanging
      by a thread, by
a single thread hanging

****

CANOPY

catch me
in the treetops

dodging
the attack butterflies

buzzing out
of character like
angry 109 Messerschmitts (someone
having stirred up
their nest to a frenzy of
National Socialist fervor)

below the canopy
burnt out hulks
civilizations scrapyarded

threatening the promise
of sacred, peaceful,
untroubled,
          no bumps
in the night sleep

parachutes
opening formally, things
mushrooming with
a wide radius

dreams as thick as dead leaves
as the last days of Northern Autumn
everywhere you look
littering the forest floor

“”””
NILE LESSON

I am doing my level best
to teach the art of poetry
to the Queen of the Nile

knowing that
the slightest pedagogical
mistake might turn
my body into
a pincushion for arrows

and so
words hang back, prove0
extraordinarily reluctant

stick in my throat
like fat scarab beetles

even as
a real, intrepid scarab
attempts to
  cross the palace floor
for which gross violation
and fatal impropriety

she does catch
    and crack it open
its
  carapace
being no match

and me left
thinking, wondering
if there be
a metaphor here
to elucidate
    for her desired
edification

but then
when (Isis-inspired)
I ask her to regale me
with list
   upon list
of words whose sound she loves

those lethal eyes dance

her voice
goes gold filigree

mind
    rises to the moment
as if
   a thing of fine silver
housed in bluest
lapis-lazuli

is all, she is all,
softest of waves
about
   to crash on the shore after
crossing the Mediterranean

I am, for my sins,
trying my utmost
to teach
      the art of poetry
to the Queen of the Nile

****
FIRST GEAR

making hot
stuff with you

raises
my pain threshold

lowers my centre of gravity

tunes me up, every piston
pushing perfectly,
like
    a twelve cylinder engine

a portrait of road
holding, fuel-injected precision,
as soon as you get me
out of first gear

****

PROFESSOR MOONSHINE

was wearing
my best strip-searched
human face
instant guide
to my moral integrity
goodness of my nature

philosophizing
at the turnstile

life
death
Heaven Hell
United City

activating my consciouness
Earth watch, star radar

derby match floodlight
bathing the stadium

sky wheeling in time lapse
as it got to
penalty shootout

even as Sputnik
circles, Eagle as landed
space roce
      whizzes by

long time long time
(unless already on Mars
conspiracy theory) we
all
   believe we saw

boys shot from sunny Florida
racing in silver dune buggies
back
fron the Sea of Storms
bouncing in that gravity
towards the Sea of Tranquility

****

    ACCORDINGLY

this poem
(if you can call it that)
has been prescribed
for the safety of us all
in the interests
of National Security

no one may according
duplicate, disseminate, read,
repeat, cut splice dice
dip
   into
take a single syllable
from this poem

allow the words
to proliferate, play
run
all over the play

and so
  in the interests of
the preservation
of hard won liberties
let us
   all
stay
    on the same
page
rejoice in this dictate
        
****
FOR  HANNAH ARENDT

what it the compassion
you can squeeze
like a lemon
drag
from a stone?

camp gypsy
coaxing a wealth
of sadness out of an accordion

a couple of devil
Halloween masks
fall by the wayside

not all that skims
is banal
entirely devoid of imagination

lips finding
special pleasure, dodging meaning

the road
once tangential is
now overgrown
unless it is autobahn

we were
      talking compassion

but dismiss this, or
whatever

not enough tears
in out history
   ever to drench you

****
TESLA

the light
transmigrates

was here
now there

st that speed
knows neither
time
    nor distance

even
that wizard Nikola
                       Tesla
cannot
catch it, stop
it telexing itself

from point
to point

suffusing the darkness,
                          waving goodbye
at the moment
of arrival

keeping
you guessing
beyond the possibility
of infinite circuitry

****

IN PARENTHESIS

long division
square root
(stick night
black night
in parenthesis

before you take the liberty
to photon bombard it)

I would write
you up
if you were
worth the trouble
let you
take me in
your arms
and multiply me

all your chromosomes
gotten into the habit
or reading
me like a book

backwards forwards
straight line, arabesque,
turning
     your story my story
into a flip thru
pop up
  illustrated manuscript

shaving away those
bad dreams, wonky genes,
picking and choosing
choice bits
     from my D

N

   A spiral

not all behind
the scenes
        the clothes
the blinds  the curtains

so
   seemingly old  inert,
entropic, horribly
outworn
    and outmoded

see how fresh how suddenly
green
   when you edit, splice
cut through
sheath
    down to essential fibre

highest factor lowest
common denominator

blend with which
life can perhaps do something

****

BOX

packed
my universe

into a box
not Pandora’s
not Schrodinger’s
and nothing

Chinese
a
b
o
u
t
  it

set it
on its way
cast it
adrift

packed it
a box lunch

the universe never
giving
   a free lunch

but here
we are talking
        about the space
outside it

****

ONCE AGAIN

who knows
what lived there
in that stinky,
dirty brown pond

iced over
beautiful again

or so
it seemed to me
back then

here trying
to put into words
my childhood memory

****

SCRUB

scrub what I
said

previously, delighting
in your company

I am not prone to
insincerity, bound
to lie
about my infidelity

theoretical or
otherwise (perhaps
the thread
running
counter-clockwise)

nor will I
allow myself to be
railed (meaning
mono-rsiled)
unwittingly into it
led by
the nose to find
Nature’s soft truth
bound by
those laid-down trails
marked out
as alluring reams of
ribboned finery
that all the world
might see and believe

no let me
unusually direct
sparing in
extravagant epithet
or punctuational necessity,
far from being
abstract voyeur or
philosophical contemplation

stuck at my window desk
sifting through papers
so much
     snow, white
space
inside and out
already falling, falling
beginning to fall

already
       up to my neck in it
obviously lost count of it

not a
bird (in the hand or
bush)

nest
to cuckoo in
within a proverbial mile

****

THE RHYTHM

it is the
rhythm
that survives

finds its home
sets the edge
gives the tone

survives the centuries
connects the stars

lives
and dies
lives and dies

it is the rhythm
that outlasts
decides
what
stays; belongs

survives
the rhyme

****
FIN

we are
at the end of the last reel

the sea is out there
other mise-en-scene

steadicam shot tracking
us as we
go our separate ways
last piece of
dialogue

syllables exchanged
words spoken to each other

the  crew are removing things
the theme is ending
catharsis death

back at the studio
a nightwatchman
flicks the on off switch

****
ASS

listen
observe

I sense here
a mad dialectic

right wing
            left
wing

left brain right wing

not excluding
all that stuff
still left

       in the centre
       left and right of centre

talking opposing fighting
negotiating
       
                      brought to
the boil
coming to head

pain
     in the ass

virus finding the door
wide wide open

no need to burrow
drill
   right through the skull

****

SCRY

I scry
the world

through
smokey quartz

whereby
                whatever
visions I see

always
          remain guarded

steeped
            in cold blood
close to the bone

I scry the stars
through the same
dark crystal

knowing as with us
and our blue
bright planet

out in that darkness
nothing remains what it first seems
  
****

PUNCTURED

on its way
to a smooth landing
3I/ATLAS must
have decisively
punctured
Fermi’s paradox

unless it didn’t
unless
     it was just a comet
after all

a speed freak comet,
utterly anomalous
without
    respect for comet rules
and the abiding
principles
of our scientific community

and all that talk of
lights nicely
    planned trajectory
(worryingly
       strategic) and
messages sent to
NASA telling
us no
    worries within
the hydrogen band

just the usual junk
that orbits
        common sense in
our media eccentrically

product of our
demand for excitement,
need for
       hysteria
fear of annihilation

longing
     for signs and
last ditch
hope that the cosmos
might notice us

assign us place
and propriety we

just do not deserve

****

3I

piece of
space rock
            encroaching

if that be the correct verb
for thing absolutely
shunting it

fastest of the insanely fast
top of its class

which
       speed and
basically everything else

our state of the art
Maths and Physics
can
   say nothing about

every thesis and
theorem instantly
black holed

pure nickel
pure nickel
     not even conceivable unless
metallurgy manufactured

Nature
caught us napping
never told us
          how much out
there is
   left field

        things like that
keen to just fly by
take
  a good luck at us
(though
    without brain, without
eyes

probabilistic freak out
presumably most certainly

****

REAPER

thought roses
inappropriate

so sent you
a bouquet
of Carolina Reapers

could not be
more scarlet

brutally
scarlet

emblem of
the fire
of my love

****

TOUCHSTONE

trick of the light!
the poem
was there
all along

just had
to be uncovered
unless excavated

dug up
out of that trench
fished from
that pond

traced back to
its pathway through
your
   ocean of smart
quick-fire synapses (not
to mix
metaphors at this crucial point)

for here we
outdo ourselves (or would if
we knew
    our power, how easily
we could)
sail that sea of combinations
cross continents of
possibility at
what in reality must
be light speed

test
the horizon of galaxy as
we find ourselves
infinity bound

backwards forwards pitch, yaw
and roll
      from here we can
head in
any direction

rounding the cape
from interior to exterior

and me
      so softly, soundly touched,

rounding you (or
so I must believe)

here at
the heart of simulation
sublime deception

exactly as I dream