16 Friday May 2014
‘Egil took a hazel pole and went to a rock facing inland. Then he took a horse’s head, and put it at the end of a pole.
Afterwards, he made an invocation saying: “Here I set upon this scorn pole and turn its scorn on King Erik and Queen Gunnhild”
13 Tuesday May 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
For Andy and for all who loved him and his music.
It’s just like when someone
Leaves the party before you,
And bereft you stand, the words
You’ve always wanted to say,
Rehearsed but still enveloped,
Inside your head.
Or when that friend who joined
Your trip to manhood, and you
Choose diverging roads,
And as he leaves, you hear
That minor third, and fear
What-if you’ll lose sight
Across the miles or years
of forever?
But more for me it’s like
A loop that never ends,
Of Paradise Lost and Found but Lost again
As he who made your words soar
And touch the sweet spot of tragic happiness
Has left us,
Has left us,
Has left us with that music.
08 Thursday May 2014
Posted in Fiction
Tags
Close to Cold
We were at the base of the staircase and walked the corridor gloom into the sepulchre. Glints of frost flickered in the stones, our eyes scanning. This was the moment the Professor had warned us about, when our resolve would be tested. Without question we had the knowledge, and thanks to him we had the kit. Even so, I looked down into my canvas bag, our eyes were still shifting between the darkness and each other, the cumulus of our breath emanating like ectoplasm. There it was. We had found it: a monolith, horizontal and menacing. We walked towards it. We felt its chill that threatened a cold that bites and burns. Behind us, a voice, understated but taunting:
‘Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.’
Then light filled the room with faces we knew. The Coors Stag weekend had begun.
06 Tuesday May 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
The clapping, tapping
Recitatives and zoots sound
Above the velour green chequerboard,
Full canopied by old gold and black.
This is a data-shed of shared memory
Of growing up
Or growing old,
Of breaking up or making up,
Of victory or defeat,
Of almost and nearly,
The boot and leather,
The nylon whoosh of air
The whistle and a roar,
A growing roar,
A crumpled roar,
A triumphant roar!
Champions now,
The hi-res jackets file out to witness the South Bank
And its noisy communion of sweet reward.
Replenished and recharged now,
The golden core glows bright once more.
01 Thursday May 2014
Posted in Poetry
The complex rhythm of life plays hard
And disappoints as much as it beguiles,
Or brings a sadness and only fleeting happiness to those
Who trip its accidentals.
But sometimes that music,
Streamed from gifted heads,
Captured and then scored
Has the magic to transform
Even bleakest moments,
To reverse the curse of time
And in its sweet progressions
Bring triumph over pain.
For we, in whom the sadness now abounds,
Well understand just why the music sounds.
30 Wednesday Apr 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Is Aix en Provence
Worth more than a glance?
Is effortless taste
Just cute cut and paste?
30 Wednesday Apr 2014
Posted in Flotsam
Tags
A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon.
24 Thursday Apr 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
For Cath Kidston and Becky
Cath Kidston
Kept her mitts on
To pluck rose petals
To stick on kettles.
She knew her chicks
Would love a mix
Of something borrowed,
Something blue,
Something old and something new.
Modern Vintage
Or cozy printage?
Real fashion hints
Or death by chintz?
O, Cath Kidston
You made real quids on
How you’re smuggage
By flogging luggage!
Oh ya…..
23 Wednesday Apr 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Your words just failed to rally me,
(though I admit it was a near thing)
The rain just dissolved them
But such things happen
When flatterers meet
Your tricks have stopped amusing me
Though it’s true you do try hard
I can’t compete with flattery
Lest you catch me
Off my guard
You’re far too smart
For your own good
Thought I suppose
You’d disagree
To fight the world is easy
But you try fighting me
New Inn Hall Street
Hilary, 1976
16 Wednesday Apr 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Farewell the summer did you say?
So factually? Without a thought for they
Who love you?
Tell me you don’t mean to lose
All we all enjoyed.
Farewell to gown and books today,
Put pen and ink and me away?
No more
The life of learning’s passion that
All we all enjoyed
Should the things that were us two
Fall into some void,
Abandoned empty skins of former lives?
I know a terminal urge grows
Within you now.
I must not need you
Till I don’t know how.
Farewell the vanguard of the day
My hand stumbles nervously on its way
Upon your brow,
Tell me you did not mean to lose
All we all enjoyed?
Flotsam and Jetsam 