Breaking News

Assorted Poems, Some poems

We interrupt this poem to bring you reports
of an explosion

of wild untruths and other signs that the news
is broken.

Early indications from those who were first
on the scene

have led to widespread fears of another Sweden
or Bowling Green

and that peace might erupt at any moment
in other places.

It is believed that amongst the rubble of reality
were found traces

of humanity and an understanding that stretches
beyond borders.

Many experts predict this will lead to a new wave
of presidential orders

for such trumped-up charges form part of
a familiar pattern.

But back to the poem: we’ll bring you more news
as it doesn’t happen.

Every Song on the Radio Reminds Me of You

Assorted Poems, Some poems

Every song on the radio reminds me of you,

I hear Anarchy in the UK and think about the time
you established an anarcho-syndicalist commune and led
a bloody, but ultimately unsuccessful, uprising in Merthyr Tydfil.

Bohemian Rhapsody comes on and I remember
the episodic, integrated, free-flowing work you composed
whilst holidaying in the Czech Republic.

Like A Virgin reminds me of the day
you got your new Virgin Media TiVo box installed
and you touched it for the very first time.

I listen to I Am the Walrus and recall those stupid
bloody Tuesdays when you would sit on a cornflake
in your corporation t-shirt and wait for the van to come.

An Oasis song plays and I think about that wall
you used to have, which was not like any other wall,
the one that used to fill me with wonder and still does today.

Other memories fly to me across the radio waves.
Your strange and wide-ranging CV: a waitress in a cocktail bar,
private dancer, boxer, taxman, joker, thief, lineman for the county.

There was that time you laid your hat and declared it “home”,
and that party we went to with a special atmosphere,
the one when you kissed a girl and then let the dogs out.

It’s no wonder I still think about you;
you and your beautiful, bright, sexy, gypsy,
Betty Davis, brown, green, baby blue eyes.