The Moment

I remember the time

I played guitar alone

on a beach in Limnos,

watching the sun rise

alone.

It was nice to be alone.

It would be nice to go

back to that moment

with you, maybe make

love on that beach.

But that moment has gone.

We chase after silence,

the clamour inside us chasing us to it,

but we can never achieve it.

But I'm close:

the thought spills a word,

disturbs the silence,

but the feeling hangs in presence,

emanating like ripples on a pond.

If there's one thing I know,

it's that there are very few

moments of perfection

in our lives, because we

do not allow them

to be perfect:

we must not snatch the moments

of our lives,

but let them be.

Learn from them,

live in the new ones -

each one a chance

to be free.

A Joke

Some people treat

life as a joke.

And then they croak.

Never woke up

until it was too late,

and by then

it was time to go to sleep

for ever.

So don't wait:

make living

your first exhibit.

Ribbit, ribbit.

Modern Man

I live for Wi-Fi
My music's hi-fi
I'm convinced I won't die

I've friends on the network
Nice guy, but a real jerk
I rarely cry, but when I do it hurts

I'm so loved, yet so alone
So much to do, the choice is gone
I'm right here, and yet miles from where I want

I am a modern man
I am a modern boy
And, occasionally, more of a
Postmodern android

In a world full of green
And a world full of grey
The concrete crushes my soul
And yet it's where I choose to stay

David Cameron's Pledge

Long-term economic plan
Long-term economic plan
Long-term ergonomic plan
Long-term ergonomic flan
Long firm ergonomic flan
Wrong firm ergonomic flan

The words coming out of my mouth
are meaningless, man

You'd have to be foolish
or blind
to eat our Tory spam!

---------------------------

Besides, how could you
trust a guy who's so shiny
it looks like he's just
swallowed a gram?

More like a key;
not the key to the city
or a key policy.
Just donkey idiocy.

'Cause Bo-Jo gets his mojo
giving blow-J's
to the Daily Maze.

But back on track:
could you stand
another five more years
of an economic plan

that has barely been able to stand?
It's weaker than an Eton elbow-licker
born-in-a-beaker
recycled sneaker-wearing
shiny-headed 
Tory poster feature.

But it's funny:
whatever happened
to the sneakers, the bicycle?
Did you shut them in the shed
when you entered office?

And whatever happened
to those green fingers, Dave?
Did they fall away
like autumn leaves,
with all your brown-nosing?

Mr Cameron,
you can shove your 
long firm ergonomic flan
up your arse.

I'm voting for real change on May 7th.

Fatherhood

I'm soon to be a father,
and now the wind seems
to cut through me like a razor.

I will soon have a daughter:
there is no greater fear
or awe in this world
than embracing the aura
of a newborn child.

My hands will shield her
like two great wings,
and I will protect her
always,

because there is no greater commodity
in this world
than innocence,
and hungry jaws savour the taste.

But if tyrants want to prostitute
the innocence of my kin,
they will find a rumbling mountain
in this man.

Come stand puny at my feet,
as this mountain flower
I hold aloft,
open to the light,
hungry for the sun.

Welcome to the West

Welcome to the West,

all the people here sleep slow

it's a twenty-first century irregular penitentiary,

we're free walking through our self-made creep show.

Come, be a fly on the wall,

drill a hole in the wall,

come join in our fetishist peep show.

You can hide in your flat whilst the walls fill with rats,

and they mate in a smoke-stenched-out meal-hole.

Outside, the world is tearing its flesh,

we all strip at each other, trying to gain what we've lost,

we tear each other apart, the rich eat the poor,

and now we're paying the cost.

There are many stripes here:

you can wear your colours as you see fit.

But don't count on things changing

if you're central-Asian, gay

animal, or have tits.

Welcome to the West,

you're in the front row of a freak show:

it's a twenty-first century irregular penitentiary;

oh, it's a cold, cold place, but we walk on water!

Look closer: we're heading further out into deep snow.

Ode to the English

We have an entire language
at our command,
such heights of precision
and specificity

and yet we blather and blunder
and blandish with bland
the towers of language that people
our cities:

We cloud them with 'dooberidoos',
'whatjumacallits' and 'whatsits',
replace exactitude with 'thing',
'thingymabob' and 'dohick'.

We are known to be charming,
polite and enquiring,
but behind the disarming
we are fearful, mystified little shirelings.

We are tied up in history
like flies in a web,
the future a lame mare
with one crippled leg.

We stumble into eternity
with a mouthful of teeth,
spitting and seething,
with arms outreached.

Oh, God or Queen or Country,
save us from ourselves!
We're beery, lairy - O Blighty!
What's becoming of your once mighty realm?

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time,
I had a muse,
a sort of female Endymion,
an Arcadian shepherdess.

But I tore myself
from that world
and all its ambrosia
of illusion.

Now I've got the real thing:
not the sort of thing
that's words
clothed in flesh,
brought into a world of sorts
by a wordsmith's brush,

but a thing
entirely woman,
entirely human,
who seethes with anger,
quivers at my touch.