Writing Poetry in the Rain

Throw yourself
headfirst into life,
like a child
into deep water;
like an infant
from the tumultuous placenta
into a world of open air,
infinite.

And maybe you'll end up
writing poetry in the rain, feeling
the doomed romantic pain.

Throw yourself into life,
deep below the flesh
with the happy knife,
each wound healing over
with laughter,
and you'll never be the same.

Love Song

I stole a kiss from your lips,
disappeared round and out into
a darkened corner,
left you a powder trail,
and though my lips had
spittled and come unstuck from yours
you still felt them
connected to your own,
threads, webs, the silky fibres
of two moist slugs.

Milk and honey -
is that what you want?
Or a dark shadow to cruise
across your mind
like a sweet fell wind?

I took you in the darkness,
in my grip,
floating on the wind,
your eye drawn to me
like a car crash
or a wounded beast.

But come lick them, please,
my wounds:
they're all yours,
my hound; hound,
come lie at the altar
of my Moon.

Come gather roses,
your lips the petals red
that bled at my thorns.

Femme

You're very cute, she says,

I'd like to lay you out.

I'll play the tune you toot, I say,

and give back all you shall.

I'm very dangerous, she says,

sapphire's my favourite colour.

And once you're burned and cherry-red

you'll never love another.

But I knew more than her, you see,

because my heart's a coal:

I played her games, and, jealously,

she set her sights on me whole.

I wouldn't mess with me, she says -

I'm the belle of the town.

And if you give me less, she pledged,

I'll have to shoot you down.

Some call me a deathly rose, she says,

my hair a silken black;

blacker than all those, she says,

who say their souls so lack.

But she was white and pure, I knew,

I knew that; take my shame.

And on her candle flame I blew:

she'll never be the same.

Mr Black and Mr White (and Mr Grey)

Mr Black is as black as the night,

Mr White's as white as flour;

and Mr Grey? Well, he's just grey,

though he's not at all dour.

Now Mr Black thinks this,

and Mr White thinks that,

but Mr Grey sees neither

because he sees between the stacks.

To Mr Black all's bleakly black;

to Mr White all's deathly blank,

and each of them will swear down that

Mr Grey has broken rank:

'How can you not see?' they say.

'And what, oh what must you think?

To see the world in tones so grey -

it might as well be pink!'

'No, not pink,' he says,

'though rosy it often appears.

It's fine when you don't pledge

yourself, but hedge - and never fear.

One day Mr Black

struck Mr White so blunt

that Mr White attacked

with knife in hand: 'you dirty, silly c**t!'

And Mr Black returned

with a blow to Mr White's skull.

Now each cannot unlearn

what brought each one to null.

So Mr Grey stands there,

his shoulders raised in confusion.

He leaves the scene in fear

into the panicked night,

the chief suspect in this murderous collusion

between Mr Black and Mr White.

Cultural Mixing Pot

Some are the meat

and some are the spice

and some don't contribute anything nice,

because some are black

and some are white

(but most are actually mixed).

Because race is not something fixed,

not like a boxing match:

the sliding scale is never static,

our blood a contaminated batch.

Because some are the rice

and some are the peas

and some are the naan

and some are the spuds,

but most of us are the rub,

and some of us the salt -

a pinch, violence a cinch,
to sting fresh wounds without thought.

Because to all of us this is England:

no one's land, 'our land', embarrass land,

beauty land, dead land, life land, homeland,

up-for-grabs land, to-be-had land,
the have-nots' land, never-ageing land,
always changing land,  politician rhetorician land;

and we all sing our nation song,

this multi-coloured throne

a seat of many treasures:

an ever-inked manuscript, an unauthored tome.

Some Day

Most of the men she courts think they're it,

but most of them are full of shit.

But me? I'm empty: I like it that way.

I don't spout noise 'less I've something to say.

But arcane and heartfelt she does not want;

she does not need true love to haunt

her darkest heart, just arms to lend:

just lips to kiss, and ears pretend.

Her life is fancy-filled, waking dreams

play her mind, she don't need screams

to chill her peace or fright her dove:

her wings float on draughts of airless love.

She fills her nights with drugs and drink;

rum and Mandy tickle her pink.

His fingers run the nape of her neck,

but from her K-hole all means heck.

The ocean breeze is softly stirring,

the world is wistfully cycling, whirling,

and love is prey to love's decay;

yet I pray that she'll love me some day.

Love Changes Everything

Two querulous voices in love can sing,

two wintry hearts summer can bring

and thaw and tease the ice to wing,

because love changes everything.

And any two, no matter who,

are changed in love, in growing grew,

an education for a few;

because love gives changing its cue.

And no matter what relationship -

from ardour to something still in pip,

from family ties that never slip;

love gives unmouthed words their lips.

Two minds unmatched in knowledge cling

to each other like limpets, entangled string;

and never do they break the sling,

because love changes everything.

The Crowd

Do not seek consolation

in the crowd:

weak minds are drawn to strong

like a cloud

of electrons to a nucleus.

The crowd is destruction, pain,

loss of identity:

skirt the crowd,

laugh at it:

the crowd has brought us to our knees,

and yet you wish to save yourself

by the poor consolation

that comes from large numbers?

No, avoid the crowd:

too many minds make the totality numb,

mouths drown each other out.

Truth, objectivity, might make us lame

as chance brought mind from madness.

Use your lights:

shine brightly, lest you should be crowded out.

Carry on, seek solace, peace:

keep your mouth silent, your lifeforce loud.

The Voice

The voice keeps me in check,

a little father in the back of my head.

A curled hard fist to the back of the neck.

The signalman out there watching ahead.

There's nothing wrong with it, you'll see:

we all need a little something to give us shape.

And if you're open I'm sure you'll agree

that life must be dealt with, and never escaped.

The voice is constant, and it makes one laugh

at oneself, at one's humour and spirit.

If it ever grabs hold by the collar or scarf

fight back with vigour and bloody well kill it.

There's nothing ill at work, 'tis nothing to be shamed:

whenever it's at work, listen and act.

For if you don't, you're only to blame,

and that's all there is to it. Matter of fact.

The voice can be heavy, it can draw blood.

It can cough up pure whiskey vomit, charred lung,

the rags of childhood, memories of earth and mud.

But let it show the light: let it be your sun.

A Farm

A farm is the Earth

attached to an iron lung -

the industrial ones, anyway.

Agribusiness has it wrong

if it thinks this holds sway

in the proper scheme of things.

A co-operative venture, they say,

with independent shops, giving wings

to newer ways of living.

But things scroll, they don't cling;

it'd be a sincere misgiving 

to assume there's not a better way.

So come, live in realm of day.

Night is cold, the sun tires not of giving.

The Earth must breathe:

farms aren't natural - wouldn't you say?

When You Think About It

When you think about it,

the birds' flight is utterly pointless,

but we're not the ones to decide

what's what.

Once you've shot it down,

you'll see the work behind God's hands

and the sky will seem to peel away

revealing an emptiness you never saw before.

The Earth is but scabs and scars,

the trees bristle like hair,

oceans are eyes, simple in their

monochrome blue.

And when you think about it,

thought is just a barrier to action.

Look, think, see, feel.

Then comes a distraction.

The Machine

We are all plugged into

                         the machine

but the machine is now

                         the Earth.

Its furrows are now areas

                         of low bandwidth,

its rivers the confluences

                         of cables.

But all I want is to be

                          a voice for it,

become the beauty, the suffering

                          the variety.

This grey machine still thrums

                          with colour

if you adjust your eyes to the light

                          so very carefully.

Strange

The television is a cardboard box of nightmares

dreaming loudly, and in three dimensions.

It screams its colours into our heads,

puts our own thoughts in suspension.

The telephone is a plastic bone

for human dogs to chew -

it rings at too high a pitch

to make sense to you.

Cars are metal ghosts, 

possessed by poltergeists,

their phantom electric circuits humming 

and brimming with unnatural life.

Craig Raine was a Martian,

his eyes frozen ochre rock

that freakish birds with massive wings

would idly perch atop.

Humans are sacks of cells

loosely held as one,

moving in terrifying patterns

(chemical reaction + chemical reaction = love).

Living is Dangerous

Living is dangerous,

and death is the price we pay for our lives.

Life-death is the worst:

it is not just the flesh that quivers its last -

so too can the mind.

Shuttered in in office blocks

and bars in cheap hotels,

with whores and tramps in crowded rooms,

the mind blooms like a night flower

into its poisonous bed.

Life can get put on the backburner,

death can go to your head.

Movement gives the illusion of movement -

you move whilst standing still.

And pills can make you healthy

if shell or shill's your thrill.

Weapons are burned and dismantled,

but your silence still flays and kills.

Words are breaths of wonder;

silence makes all nill.

Yes, living can be dangerous -

extending out, pressing in like a blade.

And round the bend you'll find, my friend,

the headlights have you staid.

Death, great redeemer, great equaliser, black sun,

come not whilst I'm living - 

dying's dangerous when your living's not done.

Metaphor

I like my metaphors to be violent,
as if I were punching a woman in the face.

I like them to defamiliarise,
to put things out of place.

I like them to be dead and clean,

an unsolvable murder case.

I like them to shuttle off


into linguistic outer space.

I like them multi-shaded,
like the naked human race.

I like them like my friends;
but I like a new, strange face.

And when I'm all metaphor'd out,
put a statue in my place.