STEALING WORDS

For oft when on my couch I lie,
in vacant or in pensive mood,
I think of stealing Wordsworth's words
but realise that would be rude!

ONE SEVENTY

One seventy
number of our address,
for sixty years our family home
but after a sad passing, for sale,
under offer, sold,
going, going, gone.


Nothing lasts forever,
why did we think it should,
when we knew it never would?

THIS MORNING

This morning I woke up
at 04.44
and then again
at 05.55.


Too neat,
too tidy,
nothing is ever
that perfect,
is it,
can it be,
will it be
that kind of a day?


Only one way to know -
let's go.

FOR BARNEY GREEN

This is one for Barney Green, not a friend, not family,
we'd never met and thanks to a bullet in his old back,
we never will.


He was eighty-seven. The picture in the paper showed
a contented face wearing glasses, and a hand-held pipe
ready to light.


He loved a pint of stout after working hard on the farm.
He loved a football match and cheered Ireland in the World Cup.
He died watching.


This dapper man in a three-piece suit in Loughinisland,
O'Toole's bar, Saturday night, June in 1994,
one of six killed.


A plague on the laughing assassins. Blame it on history,
find excuses to bleach out your sin of cold murder
and sleep in fear.


This is for Barney Green,
may he rest in peace.

THE DEAD BAG FOR LIFE

One minute I'm happy shopping,
the next a moment of dread,
one of the handles comes away
and my "bag for life" is dead.


It was a perfectly happy bag,
even carrying heavy stuff
but alas it suddenly snapped,
enough was enough was enough.


How long is life for a "bag for life",
how long is a piece of string,
how long before the handles of the next bag
decide to give up and go ping?

SCRATCHED RECORD

Back in the olden days, children, records were big, black, round platters that came to life when in contact with a needle called a stylus. The downside was that sometimes the record got scratched and the needle would get stuck and frustrated......


.....not again
.....not again
.....not again
.....not again
.....not again


.....the stylus 
pleads for help

BRING ON THE BOMBS AND BULLETS

Bring on the bombs and bullets,
we've run out of things to say,
bring on stretchers and body bags,
take the dead and wounded away.


Bring on the justification
for massacres and landscapes destroyed,
bring on the spin and the bullshit
to justify the methods deployed.


Bring on the bombs and bullets,
we've run out of things to say,
let's get this war completed,
there's another one on its way.

DAFF(T)ODILS

I wandered lonely in a daze,
the vales and hills a distant blur,
when all at once I was amazed,
some daffodils began to stir,
close to a lake, under the trees,
rocking and swaying in the breeze.


If only a poet was passing through
to describe the scene for me and you.

THE DAY OF SURPRISE

In the blue-black haze,
I see an outline
and I reach out to touch nothing
as shapes and shadows
play tricks with my eyes.


There is nothing there,
never has been,
but soon will come the day,
the day of surprise.

OLDE ENGLISH

Sometimes olde English fails
with all the strange words it entails,
so what about Chaucer,
was he genius or tosser -
it's Canterbury heads or it's tails!


(Boomtish! I'm here all week!)

STRONG WINDS

Strong winds
press human forms
to new shapes,
like reverse 
question marks.

DUBYA & CO

Politicians will never
admit a major error,
like the war on terror
that increased the terror,
that increased the dread,
that increased the dead.

JUST THE JOB...AFTER JOB, AFTER JOB.....

I found it hard to become a poet 

for I found no rhyme nor reason to it.

I tried being a man of the cloth for a spell 

but I hadn't a prayer, in the end it was hell.

Working in a coffee shop I tended to find, 

it was just the same old daily grind.

I tried teaching history but boredom blew it, 

as I couldn’t see a future to it.

I fancied being a doctor but soon withdrew 

as I hadn’t the patience to see it through.

I went to Canada with some lumberjacks 

but couldn’t cut it, so I got the axe.

Hired by a shoe shop for a little bit 

but failed again ‘coz I didn’t fit.

First day in the match factory, quick as you like, 

the entire workforce went on strike.

I tried oil drilling and exploring 

but things looked black and the work was boring.

So, I’m back as a poet, a blessing and curse, 

writing away from bad to verse.

QUIET ALEC

He lived upstairs with his three sisters,
a thin, bald man with a red face.
I would see him maybe once a week,
strange that I never heard him speak.


The night he died my mother helped
to treat his unstoppable bleeding leg.
I think he suffered in characteristic silence,
no pained words for his nursing audience.


For a while I missed the occasional nods
from one of life's peculiar bods.

LAST WEEK'S TOP 10 POEMS BY VIEWS

The top 10 most viewed poems on "Dropped The Moon" blog last week. Viewers checked in from UK, US, Sweden, Ireland, Russia, Canada, Germany, Taiwan, Brazil & France. Click and look, and let me know what you think. (By the way, the last poem's title is truncated - full title is "Minor Incident Between My Mother And The Reverend Ian Paisley.)


BROWSER
CROUCH END DAYS
RALPH McTELL
ESSENTIAL GOAL
TICKS & TOCKS
THROWING CHALK
WATCHING MY ONOMATOPOEIAS AND QUOEIAS

MOMENT
TWO DOTS OF SNUFF
MINOR INCIDENT BETWEEN MY MOTHER AND THE REVEREND ...

ESSENTIAL GOAL

I look beyond economic turmoil,
squint through war zone smoke,
wade my way through political bullshit,
get sidetracked by hatred, bigotry and hopelessness,
attacked by angst, by worry after worry,
knowing that goodness and decency still exist,
knowing that through these poet's eyes,
I must keep searching for
the marvellous,
the miraculous,
the amazing,
the astonishing,
the magical,
the impressive,
the awesome,
the surprising,
the wonderful,
humanity's pure heart and soul,
to keep searching, 
for that is an essential goal.

TOO LATE

He was holding the steering wheel
but it was desperation that drove him
to the secluded copse he knew so well,
to the last place he would see,
cold, mind made up, no turning back,
too late to care after the gunshot's crack.

CROUCH END DAYS

In memory of Paul Anderson


There was an air of menace on the streets of Crouch End
in those days when we went flat hunting in that strange land
of mixed races, backgrounds, lifestyles, reasons for living,
an air of the new, the unfamiliar to understand.


We arrived in trenchcoats straight from the Bhs Wood Green store,
two strangers ourselves, new friends for about a fortnight,
agreeing to pool our resources, to rent a place together,
to take on this new neighbourhood on a cold night.


But first stop, a drink in The Stapleton Hall Tavern,
more like a western saloon full of moody, mean,
odd looking characters eyeing our "police" coats,
in this old-fashioned drinking den, a sight seldom seen.


One leather-hatted, lean and charismatic boozer
stood out from all the rest, a man to send out a chill
warning to anyone who invaded his air space,
an hombre from that day known as Buffalo Bill.


He spent his days and nights in the pub we came to realise,
redundant cowboy, his life's work obviously done,
no need for buffalo hunters in Crouch End anymore,
the last buffalo long gone, the hunter's battle won.


Two flat sharers and fantasy humour stuffed with jokes,
more to it than the Stapleton and Bill, more to us,
passing influential days in the late seventies,
precious value in memory as I am writing this.


The buffalo gone and now you have gone too,
dead suddenly, unbelievably, too young to die,
second of November 1993, saddest of days,
but always good thoughts of heady times, of you and I.

BEFORE, DURING & AFTER

Before the war,
sons of bitches
drunk on power,
low on trust.


During the war,
bloody ditches,
ashes to ashes,
dust to dust.


After the war,
a man with twitches,
trying to forget,
trying to adjust.

TICKS & TOCKS

I cannot stop it

by holding my breath

or gripping the desk

or shooing away death.

Time, it ticks, it tocks.

As fast as the present 

becomes the past,

the near future

approaches fast.

Time, it ticks, it tocks.

As you read this,

it is live

but in a blink,

it's archive.

Time, it ticks, it tocks.

HOMING BIRDS

Set our course, follow the sun, the stars,
respecting the fickle winds,
taking heed of sea swells
and shifting cloudscapes.
Once our squinting eyes pinpoint
land shapes in the distance,
we will throw our faith outward
and trust the homing birds.

PSYCHOS ON THE LOOSE

There are weird people
in supermarkets, in bus queues,
in dentists' waiting rooms,
in all the normal places,
mixing with you and me,
acting the innocent,
waiting for their psycho moment
and their chance to change faces.


Over here, over there,
psychos on the loose -
beware, beware.

BAKING

The stone-floor scullery was our baking HQ,

flour on the boards, on the upper arms, on hands,

on cheeks, in nostrils, a kitchen snowstorm

with mother bedecked in apron to lead the way.

Trays of plain and fruit scones,

sponge cakes and muffins,

gingerbreads, Madeira cakes,

fruit pasties, jam rolls,

currant squares and apple tarts,

pancakes, teacakes,

shortbread and fairy buns,

all home-made and weighing heavy

on the Sunday tea table.

Over the years all those calories

acted like dietary muggers,

so its no wonder us kids ended up

as roly-poly but happy wee buggers.

LEAVING WORK (BELFAST, 1911)

He looked at the painting on the wall,
then stared far out into his own past,
to a distance that only he could travel,
to a memory of working-class Belfast:


"I left the shipyard at the usual time
and looked back beyond
the packed workers' trams
to a huge scaffolded shape,
another hard day, dirty day,
but seeing the results of your sweat
made it worthwhile, a great ship,
the Titanic, always worth another gape."

LEARNING TO SHAKE HANDS

Mine was the soft clerical hand
that never held a trowel or brick,
his the rock-hard artisan's bone cruncher,
tight, rough, double-thick.


One handshake was enough,
no more the moist palm and fingertip tease,
a lesson from my first working day,
the firm, gentle, friendly squeeze.