The Flowers of the Garage Forecourt

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Budding lovers beware
of the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt;
they are not for courting.

Love will not blossom
with the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt,
these blundering bouquets

of cellophaned sadness:
the slip-road roses and tarmacked tulips,
petrol pump peonies

and crushed-dream chrysanthemums.
All those dahlias of desperation.
The I-forgot-you forget-me-nots.

Please know this, would-be customers
of the Flowers of the Garage Forecourt:
romance wilts with a lack of forethought.

As I Grow Old I Will March Not Shuffle

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

As I grow old
I will not shuffle to the beat
of self-interest
and make that slow retreat
​​​to the right.

I will be a septuagenarian insurrectionist
marching with the kids. I shall sing
‘La Marseillaise’, whilst brandishing
homemade placards that proclaim
‘DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING’.

I will be an octogenarian obstructionist,
and build unscalable barricades
from bottles of flat lemonade,
tartan blankets and chicken wire.
I will hurl prejudice upon the brazier’s fire.

I will be a nonagenarian nonconformist,
armed with a ballpoint pen
and a hand that shakes with rage not age
at politicians’ latest crimes,
in strongly-worded letters to The Times.

I will be a centenarian centurion
and allow injustice no admittance.
I will stage longstanding sit-ins.
My mobility scooter and I
will move for no-one.

And when I die
I will be the scattered ashes
that attach themselves to the lashes
and blind the eyes
of racists and fascists.

From The Encyclopedia of Alternative Facts

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Frankenstein was the monster’s name.
There’s no such thing as climate change.
A solero is a type of hat.
The planet is not round but flat.

Six is the legal drinking age.
Women are paid an equal wage.
Elvis was influenced by Take That.
The planet is not round but flat.

Achilles had a dodgy knee.
Terror comes from refugees.
Insomnia affects most cats.
The planet is not round but flat.

There are no fascists on the rise.
A politician never lies.
It’s impossible to change a fact.
The planet is not round but flat.

Baby on Board

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

This badge
proudpinned to my lapel

may proclaim Baby on Board
but it fails to dispel

the mistrust that sits
around me. Suspicion crams

itself into the carriage.
They would rather see me hang.

Me! With my aching back
and Monday morning sickness,

these need-to-go-to-bed eyes,
and a belly that thickens

beneath my shirt
like skin on a rice pudding.

Me! A clearly pregnant man
in his forties, unshaven

with three days’ stubble
who is experiencing unruly cravings

for pistachio ice cream
and shredded wheat.

But no, not a single
please, DO have this seat.

I suppose that’s what happens
in these post-truth days;

no-one believes anything
another says.

Inside, I feel
something stirring.

I clutch at straps
for the remaining journey.

Your 2017 Haiku Horoscopes

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Capricorn

Trousers start to sag
as your pockets bulge with coins.
A year of much change.

Aquarius

You join the circus.
Retrain as tightrope walker.
Good work-life balance.

Pisces

You leave the city
to become a sheep shearer.
New year, a new ewe.

Aries

On Twitter you find
your new haiku horoscope.
It tells you little.

Taurus

You hate your star sign.
Disgruntled, you convert to
Capricornism.

Gemini

Mars enters the sphere
of concupiscent Venus.
Not sure what that means.

Cancer

The year drifts past you
in TV shows and hot food.
Netflix and chilli.

Leo

You date all your cheques
with the year twenty sixteen
until November.

Virgo

You stare at your phone,
look up briefly in July,
then stare at your phone

Libra

At last you make it!
That flat pack IKEA desk
from their Croydon store.

Scorpio

You decide to stop
thinking about anagrams
and sort out your file.

Sagittarius

Year of good fortune.
Not once do you encounter
Jeremy Clarkson.

Have Yourself a Brexit Little Christmas

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

Have yourself a Brexit little Christmas
and fill your days with fun,
because we know our troubles will have just begun.

Have yourself a Brexit little Christmas
and drink your days away.
From now on, our troubles will be here to stay.

Here we are as in olden days,
so-called golden days of yore.
Failing those who are near to us
for they are dear to us no more.

So just say auf wiedersehen to Europe,
au revoir and ciao,
then hang a tattered flag upon a lonely bough,
and have yourself a Brexit little Christmas now.

Hygge if true

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

These are the hyggelige days we live for,
dark afternoons brightened by simple things;
pumpkin soup bubbling on the hob,
logs crackl – sorry, my phone just pinged.

Today we crochet socks.
We swap knitting patterns and tales
of meandering pine forest walks
and the frail beauty of a nightingale’s

song, as the scent of fresh rosemary clings –
I think the wi-fi has just gone down –
to our fingers. We shall bathe ourselves
in hygge’s warmth; it cosies, it surrounds,

and wraps our friendships like a blanket.
The soup is ready upon the aga.
I hope to heaven they will all leave soon.
I hear the call of Candy Crush Saga.

In Search Of Lost Tomes

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

I had forgotten that —
for a long time — I went to bed early,
seduced by Proust,
who so often had le mot juste
about affairs of the heart
and the nature of art,
and all that stuff.

But life and things passed,
gave way to armchaired collapse
in front of a screen,
scrolling through memes,
watching videos of cats.

Until one evening,
when retrieving the remote,
I found you again, on the shelf,
as if stumbling upon a swan’s nest
amongst the reeds, hidden,
your pages like fresh linen.

Written to commemorate the death of Marcel Proust, 18th November 1922.

Christmas Commercial Break

Assorted Poems, News

These days
I head for the mountains,
safely out of reach
of the avalanche of campaigns
for new perfumes and TV tie-ins
or someone’s latest book.

Up here a stillness surrounds me.
And, in the solitude,
there hangs a kind of poetry,
which, incidentally,
can also be found
in the book mentioned above.

At peace now,
I watch as the winter sun
melts the mountain snow,
in much the same way
as a collection of poems (£12.99 – available in all good bookshops)
can unfreeze a heart,

and I think about the rock beneath us,
and the wonder of us,
our singularity,
each of us unique
like a book with its own individual identifier,
(e.g. 9781783523054)

and Christmas
becomes magical once more.

An example of the kind of book you might find featured in the first stanza of this poem.