As a Discarded Toy

A blaze aches in my broken shoulder
My dress torn, covered in dirt and mud
Fat and putrefaction bath my once stylish hair
Useless and forgotten
I sink, lower, cast aside
And I suffered, did I suffer!

Some, some
Can ascend and fly
Like a bird of prey
Swooping on those
Dying among the garbage below

I've despaired since being made
Looked down upon by everyone
As a plastic doll, a cheap plastic doll
Never treated with respect
Or assumed to have a mind
Always a despised artefact

Some, some
Can cry and sing
Safe in their cloistered grandeur
Despising those trite
Playthings of yesteryear

I'm broken, torn apart, cut
Never worth repairing
Forever at the back of the cupboard
Always that unwanted gift
That last minute birthday present
Always the discarded me, the forgotten me, the ineffective me

The Market Trader

I have a poor market stall
Selling oranges to the forlorn
They're juicy, succulent visions
And you can try one if you would
A one-off offer only available today

These oranges are a possible happening
A bright vision of equality
An appetising ripeness among the despair
Don't look on with bitterness
Or plunder pillaged desperation

The oranges come from the future
The oranges come from a possible
They're sun filled experiences
And you could try one if you like
A get-one-free special only for today

Hitherto the market has been declining
One thrust might have been our demise
Our graves already dug among the detritus
But a new fresh batch of oranges
Opens the faintest possibility of ascent

Why don't we make a world of oranges?
Everyone growing or trading fruit
A cultural of equivalence
Full of the aroma of promise
Where everyone tastes sweetness

You could join us selling oranges
Or some other delicious fruit
We could make the market thrive again
Becoming a delectable exotic vision
And spreading to neighbouring towns

Bright, Bright, Afar so Bright

As miniature suns shine
Dazzling in the night
Forcing their brightness upon you
Expecting, demanding, you shine back
And when the day emerges
The disgusting stain remains

The sickening flames of neon
Gaudy monstrosities of illumination
A vandalism of electrification
You cannot close your eyes
To the intimidating luminosity
Of the thuggery of neon

The neon lights the skyline
Like some discordant graffiti
Scaring the mind, abusing the body
Born again in ineptitude
A deathly silence of lies
No gift too trivial to discard

This procession of tackiness
Sanctioned by wealth and greed
Far more sickening than any spray can
More disgusting than any youthful scrawl
With no little army of street cleaners
No cavalcade to remove the repellent

If it was any worth there'd be no need to advertise
And with such flagrant a disregard for truth
Presenting one side only of an argument
Means always disseminating lies
Or deliberately indulging in fraud
And with no rain will wash away this vengeful stain

Never Ever

We now meet trembling with boredom
Nothing to say, all dull inanities
And depart desiring a forgiving lobotomy

We never ever were, are, nor could be

What was it with that red paisley scarf?
An unfashion statement?
A shallow mask for a shallow mind?

I never ever was, is, nor could be

I think I've had enough of your inconsequential ways
Your noisy inhospitably booming incredulity
Your trashy pop songs and superficial movies

You never ever were, are, nor could be

All we have left is a complete waste of time
It would be a kindness to forget that dull monotony
And destroy our tedious times, it all adds up to nothing

Because it never ever was, is, nor could be
Because it never could be, could be, never ever could be

Teresa

I can remember you the shy girl back at school
Sitting at a desk nearby
Not saying much, always quiet
Skinny, gawky and with so beautiful black hair
Always overshadowed by your so called friends
Me all afraid to say anything at all

I can imagine your life
Spotty, sitting at a lonely checkout in Tesco's, bored
Marrying young and pregnant
A husband that takes advantage of you
A husband that maltreats you
One tooth chipped where he hit you that time
And still taking advantage of your sweetness and lack of confidence

Would I have taken advantage of you?
I hope not, I do so hope not
I could have, should have, offered you better then that
You will forever be a memory of a beautiful possibility
Something wonderful lost forever

Have I got you right?
Probably not, I hope not
But I will always miss what we never had

Discography

The torrent crawls bringing raucous music

One day for live performances, bootlegs
The torrent stalls
Frustration is the greatest hits

Frozen for collections
A tempting flurry
The ratio disappointing, blocking
Chasing hours for rarities

The torrent crawls hanging on 99 percent

---

A little poem written, a few years ago, during the frustrating and long wait for a torrent download on my computer to finish. Was the wait worth it? NO! The artist appeared intriguing; but the try-before-you-buy download only proved them boring and the files were quickly deleted.

A Distant Conversation

An intermittent conversation occurs between two ladies, somewhat aged, in a covered market café near the centre of a small town. They are sitting at a small round table near the counter; a few thin bags of shopping are around their feet; the other tables are largely empty. It's a cold spring day and they've kept their thick coats on. Each lady is picking at her meal, beans with two slices of toast, and occasionally sipping from a mug of tea.

Quiet words come from one, admonishing the other.

Quiet words from one, admonishing the other.

Omitted words from the other, the younger.

They sit, finishing their mugs of tea. The café is almost empty – the tables wiped, the chairs all neat – and waiting to close on this tranquil late afternoon.

One woman, the younger, slouched back in her chair, is quietly humming a discordant tune; an imitation of some forgotten pop song.

One woman, the older, fiddles with the cutlery on her empty plate and scowled disapprovingly.

A Clear Nocturnal Sky

I walked through the vacant city streets
Among the cold and desolation
And saw freckles of fascination
All incandescent speckles of mystery
The luminosity seeming to drift away
As I tried to clasp upon it

I walked onward though the devastation
The loneliness of broken lives swimming all around
I gazed upon tiny smudges of enchantment
All above me this spellbound sea of stars
The brightness apparently superficial
So far away to be unreachable

Now lying in my bed, the curtains open
Eyes shut in the darkness
There I see within the stippled granules of stars
All burnished bright I know their form
The flecked candescence of the unknown
I've caught them, I have them, they're inside me

They're internalised to my being
They're lustrous within
They're all I want or need
(With eyes averted to the horrors just outside)

Dissolution

You dissolved
Into a desire
So I melted also

You beaconed to
Another world
And suggested I depart
The humdrum

You unfastened the
Entrance of desire
And I meekly followed

You unbolted the gates
To my inner being
And I willingly
Pulled them asunder

New vistas opened up
And before I could grow familiar
You declared you were departing

You'd dissolved into another desire
So I my life froze

Dark Shadows

The darkness envelops
The cold bites

It's just the way the shadows fall

The stifling blackness almost complete
Here discarded among the detritus
Abandoned outside the city

Unaccustomed to the annihilation
Listening through the anxiety
As the unknown bodies crying

It's just the shadows of regret dancing

Fear enfolds
Nothing remains
The lurid illusions multiply

A thin moon flickers through misty clouds
I struggle onward, forlorn
Towards an unknown allegiance

It's just the sorrow among the shadows

Renunciation

Rejection, rejection
Always rejection
Is that all you have – renunciation?
And I did so adore you

However:

Did you experience it also?
Did you understand the faithful?
The intense, demonstrative
It's you that's disgraceful

And then remembrance:
The provocative contact
The manner of your embrace

Also:

Splutter, splutter
Forever your splutter
Is that all you possessed – verbiage?
And that forlorn inclination

Whatever:

Now trepidation, the anxiety of innocence
The concern for impression
Now doomed to oblivion

And then memory:
The incendiary connection
The rousing of your acceptance

Remember:

I renounce, renounce
I renounce you

Florescent Nocturnal

Such brightness I saw at midnight
The emergence of another
Looking back in envy
Pervading the breeze with desire

Your soft folds envelop me
Covering the sensation of your contact
Then the pure dreamlike instant
The moment of utter elation

Let me look upon your lovable significance
Let me delineate the sweet suggestion
Let me survey the expression
Conveying your meaning to my existence

The hour ends in dissolution
With an impression so enlivened
Something always of remembrance
Enveloped in your grace

Too soon you rise and
Slowly glide into absence
The aroma of joy still hovers
How I ache for you to persist

Let me look upon your angelic essence
Let me trace those sweet tremors
Let me watch the effervescence
Effuse your substance throughout my being

Eyes closed, remembering
I long for your recurrence
Opening my eyes in the darkness
Lonely inattention is what I acknowledge

Alone now at sunrise
The dead day all non-existence
Awaiting another night of apparitions
Only then can I experience your ambience

Let me await your angelic essence
Let me await those sweet tremors
Let me await the effervescence
That gushes around my very being

Ashamed

Are you ashamed
Of me? So,
Do I not live up to
Expectation?

I'm proud of you
So why
Are you
Mortified by me?

Your embarrassed
By me, so
Stop demanding
I follow.

Your humiliated
By me, therefore
Hack from my soul
What you will.

Depart forever, if
Your so
Ashamed
Of me?

St Oswald’s Church, Liverpool

Earlier this week I set off to have a look at St. Oswald's church in Old Swan. When you glared at the map it does not seem that far from Liverpool Lime Street station. In times past I would happily have walked this sort of distance – I often walked from Toxteth to Liverpool city centre. On this day I was exhausted long before I made it to St. Oswald Street. Along Edge Lane you could see the St. Oswald church tower beckoning in the distance and all to imperceptibly getting closer.

Normally I don't have much time for either church or religion, neither mean more to me than a vague curiosity value. So why this trip? Later this year I am starting an Open University module that consists of a rapid romp through the arts. One topic is the architect Augustus Pugin [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugin ] so it seemed a good idea to have at least a peek at one of his buildings; a peek all close up and personal. St. Oswald was built in 1840 and only the tower remains of Pugin's original. Here are a few photos I took on the day.

Overall I was a little disappointed by the church. With what I'd read about Pugin I was expecting some stand out architecture but what I saw was little different from hundreds of other such buildings. It was pleasant enough as architecture but little more; it must be enthusiasts that put all that effort into writing such books and like – only to disappoint the amateur like me. Still I'm glad I've seen it. The church was locked so I didn't get to see inside.

On leaving the small churchyard you could see the Victorian graves, the neatly cut hedges, you walked under the shade of a thriving tree; behind you was the empty locked church with its about to crumble façade; ahead was a small archway, adorned with moss, leading out onto the empty pavement; in the distance was the low hum of Edge Lane and the traffic making its way to or from Liverpool; just below this hum you could almost hear the chatter of a few local sitting outside a nearby pub. But there, across the road, dominating everything, was the aggressive utilitarianism of a Tesco superstore; it rammed its functionality and commercialism in your face. At this time of day a steady trickle of traffic meanders in and out and all the surrounding pavements and walkways are forced to conform to its monetary demands.

Was Catholicism, or indeed any church, any less demanding of uniformity? Probably not. But even a lifelong atheist like me cannot help feeling a little twinge of nostalgia.

I got the bus back into Liverpool – I was now minimising the amount or walking I needed to do – and onto an all-day-breakfast at a little café. Frankly this was the most enjoyable part of the day.

Can You Imagine?

Could I imagine you?
Striding, tempting
More than another’s
Vain enticement

Could I anticipate you?
With so zealous a fortitude
Greater than others could
Ever foresee

Should I envisage you?
So desperate as being
Unable to endure
Separation from you

Could I perceive you?
So despairing
As if to wither
Apart from you

Did I imagine you?
And the fearful
Ineptitude of these
These impossible lyrics

Could you also imagine?

Hinder Us Not

We need no assistance
We shall to set ourselves
Free

We refuse your help
And will educate ourselves in our
Endurance

We renounce your pretended support
And the hidden
Chains it brings

You can watch from afar
Festering in your own
Authoritarianism

Our struggle for freedom
Shows how we all can be free of your
Tyranny

Will You?

Please remain
Remain constant
Constant in us

Do delay
Delay awhile
While I compose myself

Detain yourself
Myself in admonishment
Of my misdeeds

Here loiter
Loiter and renew
Renew our feelings anew

Please linger
Linger with me
And I with you

Stillness in the Wilderness

A calm is every last dream of recollection
A calm surrounding my distant being
Nevermore making any noise
Nevermore uttering any tidings

Inhibition is my whole existence
Nevermore to be acknowledged
I exist in absolute inhibition
I am my infinite inhibition

Stillness is my disgruntled acceptance
Stillness perspires into my deepest psyche
Nevermore desiring any tidings
Nevermore accepting acknowledgement

This New Wine

The bottle pops open
The fresh aroma fills the air
The camaraderie fills our lungs

And that longed for union:
Do they gulp or do they retch?

What will be the response:
To this syrupy draught
To drink deeply
To imbibe with gusto
To swig it down
Or sip so sweetly?

The liquid spills into the glass
Wetting the sides
Sparkling in the dim light
And the most beautiful of fluids
Touches their glistening mouth

And that anticipated delight:
Do they gulp or do they retch?

The moment is almost upon us
To answer that deepest question
Of our unity, of our conjunction

And that quandary all must ask:
Do they gulp or do they retch?

The Dryness of Language

Still, derelict, non-existence, words
No words to tell you how
No words to feel

Silent, neglectful, inconsequential, words
No words to tell you what
No words to tell of the pain

Tacit, negligent, unimportant, words
No words to signify the failure
No words to express the hatred

Inaudible, remiss, immaterial, words
No words at all to convey the loss
Of what might have been
Of what should have been