Searching For Blue Sea Glass

First Light

2008-06-20T09:45:00.001+01:00

It’s been going on all night
Make no mistake
Don’t be beguiled by the innocent look
Of those trees hanging about,
Hands in pockets, in the fields
Still pooled with darkness
Don’t be misled by the silver light,
The anarchic flight of sparrows
Or the crows practising tai chi

Don’t be fooled by the rising safety curtain
On the moon-clean stage
After the first act’s carnage has been cleared
Or the warming up of the orchestra
Now missing its woodwind section

This is not a fresh start
This is no new dawn

Drowned

2008-05-04T13:26:00.000+01:00

Death on the level crossing
Not hit by a train
But crushed beneath the gate

Death by poisoning
Not rat killer or agent orange
Ate a lozenge past its sell-by date

Death by chocolate
Not the cocoa content or overeating
Slipped on a choc-ice at the match
And landed badly on some metal seating

Death by drowning
Not in the oceans mighty swell
But in the tears I wept
When you said farewell

Family

2008-04-14T19:52:00.000+01:00

A roaring log fire
In the kitchen corner
A large old oak table
Where the family gather
Loud and hungry
For lusty sausages
And salted pork
Cooked on the embers
Home-made tagliatelle
Pasta cooked in cheese
Melted on the stove
Wild asparagus
Flavoured with truffle
Tobacco and woodsmoke
Hustle and bustle
A game show on TV
Leggy brunettes
Keep the men happy
Wine and Limoncello
Coffee as thick as a Sicilian hug

And we are turned out into the cool night
Above the villages of tiny lights
Where we wander amongst
The burning white stars

Loneliness

2008-04-08T11:27:00.001+01:00

Loneliness
How physical is that?
It’s a flying paintbrush
Aimed at you
That paints a hole
In your head
That daubs a smiling face
That smears a purple sky
With grey

It’s an eraser
Found in an old address book
A magnet
And your favourite cassette
A pencil stub
Too short to use
A missing score
A landscape, wild and untamed
No frame will fit

And when you finally
Hang the portrait on the wall
No one comes to look
And who can blame them?
There’s another, and much better one,
At the exhibition next door

Newcastle Serenade

2008-03-27T17:58:00.003Z

On the train to Newcastle
I can hear music
A five-piece band
Guitar, sax, bass, drums
And a silky female vocal

I look around
Ah! There –
In the luggage racks -
Musicians
Giving the train
A syncopated swing

The conductor
Sways down the aisle
With the microphone
She sings
Money makes the world go round…
I am tempted to join in
But instead
I point out to him
That we are in
A dedicated quiet carriage
And suggest that he takes his band
To the buffet car
Where customers might enjoy a little cabaret

Bob Wolf - The Quest Begins

2008-03-25T16:21:00.002Z

by Roger Stevens and Michael Leigh

The sky was as blue as a blueberry fool
The fields were as green as peas
The smells of Autumn drifted through
The decayed traffic lights and trees
Reminding Bob of cheese

Bob closed the gate and walked away
With scarce a backward look
His mother watched and bit her lip
And as she hung the beetroot on the hook
A tear splashed on her library book

Oh, Surrey wastelands -
Once green belt
That held life's trousers on
The empty houses, broken dreams
Once so alive with children's song,
And the merry click of Playstations, all long gone.

Bob walked along the dusty streets
And whistled as he strode
A favourite song from years gone by
About the Highway Code.
From a drain, a robin crowed.

But what was that?
Bob's heart stopped.
A ghostly sound. A soul in pain.
Like hogs loosed on a frozen heath
Like rats run-over by a train
(Bob's heart began to beat again
And he sighed with great relief)

On the road there lay an upturned van
That bore the legend V
Cautiously Bob tip-toed past
But then, a breath, an icy blast
A monster was upon him fast
Its mouth a hole of blackest black
Its head two hippos in a sack
Its claws as sharp as brie

Bob drew his trusty sword and then
He threw his pencil down
For art would not discourage it
Our Bob thought with a frown

The ghastly thing towered over him
Like a tower towering high
It's shadow whiffed of sulphur
And its feet of dead-dog pie
What do you want, vile creature?
Cried Bob, fearing the end.
When all at once the monster hushed
And said, its voice a silky sigh,
I only want... a friend

So, Bob felt sorry for the beast
He asked, What is your name?
Some call me Ice-cream-of-the-soul
Others call me Shame
To many I'm Death-upon-a-stick
My mother calls me Slim
In legend I am Discouragement
But you can call me Jim.

For many years I've been alone
Like a watch without a strap
Lying forgotten in a drawer
As Time drips like a broken tap
That drips all of the time
Upon some long neglected, faded map
The creature sniffed
The creature sighed
And then committed suicide.

But Bob took pity on the beast,
Reviving him with mouth to mouth
I'll call you Fred, he said. And we
Will do the thing that we do best
Have adventures on our quest
But first we'll have a little rest
And a cup of tea

And thus it was
Bob found a friend
Some one to talk to as they strode
A companion for his journey
Along the Surrey Road
And as they walked they talked of spots
And why giraffes explode

Suspense Haiku

2008-03-16T21:47:00.001Z

It's unexpected.
Midnight. A knock on the door.
You open it.

Oh...

Big Questions

2008-03-16T21:44:00.002Z

I’m in Hereford tonight. There’s a festival going on and I’m visiting schools over the next couple of days. Taking the time to sort through my notebook. Here’s a not-yet-finished poem.

About to eat a pizza in a Pizza Express
A Sloppy Joe, classic base

Remembering gazing through the train window
The rich dark greens of waterlogged fields
Water sitting and sparkling like grey ice
And red-brown rushing water

Thinking, it’s only pointless in the long term -
Life, its brevity
The final un-witnessed
Blinking out of time

But plenty to do in the short term
Excitements to plan or capture
Or turn loose from their iron cages

Loneliness,
It creeps up behind you when you’re away from home
And you realise that human connectivity
Is invisible at best
Running along fine wires
Tiny explosive electrical charges

And you ache for the illusion of human contact
As you move in so many directions
All at the same moment
To get precisely nowhere

Getting There

2008-03-04T18:41:00.003Z

Some say it's better to travel than to arrive. But actually I'll be glad when I get to the finishing line of this new-look blog. I've decided to go with Last.fm for the music section. If you click on the strange Wonky Finger thing down the left-hand side you should be able to hear some of the tracks. I'll be adding more...

When it's all done I'll be visiting everyone. It'll be interesting to see who's still around and how my friends and acquaintances in blogland are getting on.

I'll be getting some more poems up too. I'm slowly getting another book of "grown-up" poems together.

New Blog Look

2008-01-29T21:53:00.000Z

Look! A new blog look. See the new blog look. Look, what does it look like? Do you like the look? I'm not sure really. What do you think?

At the Meeting of the Earth and the Air

2007-12-02T20:10:00.002Z

Well, at long last, my new album is finally finished. It's based on some songs I wrote with a friend of mine, Ralph Emmett, at Art College, way back in 1968. The CD features Rob Barrett and Karen Moses singing and Michael Whitehead playing the tabla. I mostly play everything else.

If you click on the little album picture whizzing about to the left you can hear and download some of the tracks, as well as hearing other odds and ends of my music.

Should you wish to purchase a copy and share my musical experience of the sixties visit www.rabbitpress.com

Pizza Express

2007-10-13T19:02:00.000+01:00

I am in the Pizza Express
Opposite the British Library
Writing this poem.
But where are you
As you read this poem?
And where am I
As you read this poem?

Maybe I’m in another Pizza Express
Wondering how much time has passed.
I bet it’s no longer April.
Maybe the year 2007 has left us
For the new, exciting 2008
Or the scary two tens.

Maybe the poem has made it into print
And you're sitting on a grassy slope
Wiling away a loose half hour
Before the concert commences
Or you’ve come across it on a blog
Or maybe you're reading it in its original notebook form
Which you found in a suitcase of precious things
Recovered from the tumbledown cottage
Where I spent my twilight years
With only a young and attractive, and devoted, female nurse
For company –
Where I raised many a glass of good, red wine
To the setting sun.

Or maybe I am sitting opposite you
At some other Pizza Express
As you read these lines
Raising a glass to us
And to wherever we may be
In future lines.

Bournemouth Hotel Morning

2007-09-25T16:43:00.000+01:00

When wallpaper
Is stuck to the ceiling
Is it ceiling paper?
The gaps where it’s unglued
Catch the dark

You tap out Morse
On your Blackberry
I listen to the whistle in my ears
Fragments of traffic
Rustle of starched white sheet
Pad of your feet
Your cough and spit into the bowl
Electronic hums
Click of light switch
Clump of distant door
Indeterminate shuffling
Someone seeking breakfast, maybe?
Turning page
In the Labour party
Conference Guide
Soft scratch
Of this uni-ball eye
Manufactured by
The Mitsubishi pencil Company

Creak of bones

Fjords

2007-09-25T16:41:00.000+01:00

What are you dreaming?
Your hot hand
Rests on the fold
Between my stomach and chest

Are you still in the fjords?
Adrift in Flam
On the deep, deep waters
Below the silent mountains
Watching for absent birds
Listening to the thin waterfall
That jogs down the slopes of the moon?

Or in the Domkirke,
The Stavanger cathedral,
Where the august chill of Christmas
Spreads through the dark, ornate carved frames
Of skulls and saints
And bare-skinned angels
Sat upon grey-green stone
Like candlesmoke
Where the man cleans the candleholders
and sweeps the wooden floor
of candle shavings
with his red brush and pan
In the manner of a Viking

Moonlight Market at Descartes

2007-08-14T11:11:00.000+01:00

The scruffy old clown
And his slightly bored wife
With the half-hearted puppet
It’s a transient life
Before darkness falls
In the moonlight market
At Descartes

The couple who avoid
Each other’s eyes
The young John Travolta
And his virgin bride
He sups his beer-blonde
She stares at her phone
They sit in the crowd
But they’re both all alone
Before darkness falls
In the moonlight market
At Descartes

The pony-tailed chanteur
And his accordionist wife
Struggle to keep up
With the rhythm of life
The philosopher smiles
Perhaps he knows why
As the exquisite light
Seeps out of the sky
And darkness falls
In the moonlight market
At Descartes

Monday Monday

2007-07-01T17:57:00.000+01:00

Monday Monday
The Litter God retreats in his
Grey boat
Tuesday Tuesday
I wake alone
Wednesday Wednesday
I worry about the alarm clock
Thursday Thursday
Judy Dog is expecting
A more exciting day than it turns out
Friday Friday
There are no reservation tickets
In Carriage B
On the Newcastle to King’s Cross express
There is much confusion
And a hint of annoyance
Saturday Saturday
Suspense is a four letter world
Sunday Sunday
Time for the repeats

The Eric Clapton Dream

Eric Clapton
Sits in the corner
Of the school hall
Guitar in hand
The children
Are waiting
While I search
For the poem
I am about to read

After a long time
The children
Get fed up waiting
And a teacher
Plays them a song

Finding the poem
Has taken all day
And the children
Have wandered away.
I apologise
For the delay
And promise to come back
For free
Another time

Meanwhile
Guitar god, Eric
Sits in a corner
Of the stage
A small group of children
Huddle round him
And he plays them a tune
On the electric piano

Two Poems

2007-05-27T11:44:00.000+01:00

Back Seat Driver

As life moves relentlessly
From frame to frame
I watch it from the back row
In the dark

The detective
Knows who the villains are
All he has to do is catch them

Soon a few loose ends
May or may not get tied up
Someone will make a witty comment
And the credits will roll

Then maybe I’ll watch the prequel
Or stumble out into the cold
Streets of reality

I'll stroll
Along a wintry beach
My sun hat at a jaunty angle
To catch the rain

But I’m tired
And even though these seats are uncomfortable
I’m going to have a snooze

Wake me up when it’s all over

Now and Then

When my soul was whole
Before my voice was broken
And the mirror cracked

When the now of then
Before the pipes were frozen
Before melancholy came

When the universe
Gathered like a starry cloak
Before the first star

Collapsed. Before the moon
Waned. When the black hole joked
Above its horizon

When we were alive
Before time clicked into place
And Death’s staff was slender

When my blood crackled
With blue fire. When a cuddle
Was all that mattered

Now we wait. For what?
The sun to consume the Earth
And an early frost.

Vigil

2007-03-30T18:04:00.000+01:00

You sit by your father’s bedside
In the hours of darkness
Protecting him from doctors
And their fanciful theories

We fly him home
From England to France
Where he sits in his own clean hospital room
With a remote control for the blinds

And you translate his complications
And the doctors’ misdirection
And again sit by his bedside
In the hours of darkness

Protecting us all
From the bogeyman
Of dirt and negligence
And the NHS

In Le Gare du Nord I Sat Me Down to Wait

2007-03-02T21:12:00.000Z

Feeling good
Two days spent in Paris
Feeling bad
As you were not here with me
Feeling good
To be alive, to have my health,
My mind, to not be sitting
On the dirty concrete begging
Feeling bad
That my feet ache from yesterday’s
Walking marathon
To the Pompidou Centre
Which was closed
As it was Tuesday
Feeling good
That I will see you soon
Feeling bad
That I have to wait until this evening
To catch Eurostar home
Feeling good
As these scribbled notes in my book
Begin to make sense
Of the sights, sounds, smells
Of Paris
Feeling bad that upon my arrival here
I was taken for a mug
And gave sixty Euros to a con man
In the Metro
Feeling good
Sitting on this balcony
Sipping a coffee
Overlooking the station’s comings and goings
Feeling good
That I am not a pigeon
Although it would be useful to be able to fly
Feeling bad that my phone credit has expired
And I can’t call you
Feeling good that I will see you soon
Feeling bad that I will not see you soon enough
Feeling good that I will see you soon

The Things a Dog Has to Do

2007-02-10T10:26:00.000Z

Clean the kitchen floor lest tiny scraps of food should spoil the appearance of the tiles
Listen to the wind to mark a change in the weather
Watch carefully the cat, lest her nerve breaks and she makes a dash for the window
Guard the window lest the poodle over the road uses insulting barking
Remind potential burglars that she would make a fearsome adversary
Check, by sniffing, that other dogs have clean bottoms
Check, by sniffing, the four corners of the house for intruders
Checking, also by sniffing, the four corners of the garden for the same
Seek the remnants of dead hedgehogs or other small animals and mark by rolling in them
Watch the toy bone lest it move of its own accord
Remind her owner, by subtle means, that it is time for a walk
Remind her owner by less-subtle means that it is time to eat
Bark loudly for no reason - just for the sheer hell of it and to keep owner on toes
Puzzle over unusual configurations of clouds
Guard the front door lest the postman breaks in to steal a letter
Wonder why the strange man who gave her the tasty bone is coming in through the window and not the door

Why Otters Don't Wear Socks

2007-01-27T23:17:00.000Z

Whoops!

A million little dinosaurs
Having a good time
One fell over a cliff
And then there were
nine hundred and ninety nine thousand,
nine hundred and ninety nine.

Nine hundred and ninety nine thousand,
nine hundred and ninety nine dinosaurs
Having lots of fun
An asteroid hit the Earth
and then there were none.

A Shortage of Angels

2006-12-21T22:21:00.000Z

On Christmas Eve
Mum brought the box
Down from the loft
And happily
We tipped it out on
The rug and set to work
Upon the tree
A mess of tinsel,
Gold and silver,
Robins red and baubles blue
The lights were twinkling
But - no angel for the top
What could we do?

Dad was at once
Sent out to buy an angel.
He was well wrapped
Against the cold
The man in the corner shop
Was very sorry
No angels.
The toy shop, too,
had sold out.
Newsagents,
and Supermarkets
Everybody said the same
This year there's
An angel shortage
We believe Christmas
Is to blame

I woke that night
I thought I'd heard
Soft bells
I went to the window
And stared up at the sky

I caught my breath
As the dazzling stars
Blazed a halo around the Earth
Each star, I thought,
Is like an angel
Celebrating Jesus' birth

The morning came
And great excitement
Opening presents
All for me!
I bought Mum
her special perfume
And Dad a film
about Bruce Lee
But later
when the house was quieter
I went, all alone
With my thoughts,
to see the Christmas tree
And there,
upon it's top-most branch,
looking down at me
Guess what I saw?
That's right -
An angel

Two Poems

2006-11-22T23:04:00.000Z

Billy Elliot

When I was a boy
I hardly knew what was what
Unlike Billy Elliot
Dancing, spinning, spiralling
Through the heaven
Of the Victoria Palace Theatre
Bending the imaginations
Of the stalled audience

But are my tears
For a childhood lost
Or a life beginning?
And am I really any wiser?

For Paul

Your sadness
Overwhelmed us all
Drove us from the road
Upturned us in a ditch

Your new love?
You wrote songs for her
But she betrayed you, lied
Took all your loving
And sold it for a silver hammer -
Bitch!

Moveing

2006-11-08T16:22:00.000Z

I dreamt I was moveing
That’s how Americans spell the word.
Well, in this dream they did.

This dream was not of blood
Nor of swimming in a crimson lake
Of paint
Which in a dream is a symbol
For death
Nor was the dream
Of a blood-dripping moon
A symbol
For sex

The dream was of a word
The word that is a symbol
Moveing, travelling
From here to America maybe
A misplaced person
And then, as often happens, the dream woke me

I am woken by the letter e!

I travel to the bathroom
Try to get back into the house of Nod
The roosters are crowing
Even though the sky is still black
And Jill turns on the light to read
And this odd poem is nagging me
To be written down

There! It’s done!
Now maybe I can go back to sleep
And dream about
A misplaced f

Word Break

2006-11-08T14:00:00.000Z

Here in France
I am relaxing
And reading a poetry book

And look -
I don’t want to appear
A sanctimonious git but
I do believe that a poet
Should be able to spell the word
Ukulele

Et se laissant tomber
Dans une expression Française
Hors du bleu
Est-ce que c'est vraiment nécessaire?

Meanwhile
It’s nearly suppertime
And the smell of rabbit stew
On the stove
And scent of burning logs
And the lost beetle
Buzzing round the room
Looking for a new bolt hole
Pretty much
Says it all