Who says dandelion clocks can’t tell the time? - Spring 2020
The radial symmetry,
The perfect blast of tiny filaments,
Ever more beautiful
The closer you look
Under the microscope
The Awesome Wonder of Evolution’s hand
That crafted this weed
And I hear You laugh.
“Just wait for my next trick”,
As He pulls back the curtain.
So, as my own weed takes you in her tiny hand
And rips you from the Earth,
Pop,
And she blows your precious children to the wind,
It makes her giggle.
Her eyes shine with a beauty you could never comprehend.
I wonder if you realise that your death had meaning?
Probably not.
But I wish them well - with a paternalistic blessing
Only a foolish and sentimental father would understand.
I hope on your behalf.
May one of your (100? 1000?) seeds bear fruit.
Thank you.
Dandelion Clock.
Tick Tock.
“Does it really tell the time?”
“Not really. You need a watch for that.”
So she throws it away.
Such a worthless thing,
That nub-like thing
Where the seeds once stood -
The soldiers on a wasted ovary.
Dandelion clock.
Tick Tock.
Later that day, I mow it down.
The blades and the engine drowning out,
Like a flood of noise,
Before peace descends on the decimated landscape
And I see your body lying there
Torn
But, even in your death throes,
Still Beautiful.
Dad - Winter 2014/15
You’ve crashed in like a beautiful juggernaut,
Increasing the complexity of life exponentially
Like an unknown constant in the equation
No Einstein can fathom.
How can I teach you how to be good boys,
Good men, good fathers, when I’m still
Fumbling for wisdom from hand-me-down
Cut-out memories from my father... his father... his father... his father?
What snipets will you take from me?
Probably the ones I hope you’ll forget.
My deeds, both black and white, will ring clear down the generations
To the beautiful grandchildren I pray I live to meet.
So the challenge I face is the impossible.
To live as the perfect inspiration of divine father
And to be a biological muddle of flesh and blood:
That sacred mystery that divides Christianity.
Actions speak as clearly as this pen
So every word must be forever framed
In this overwhelming awesome responsibility to you:
This frightening love I feel
For Jonah and Aran.
Being a Corner of a Square - Spring / Summer 2014
You speak to him as closest thoughts depart
And he returns with those amazing eyes
So every dream of day and night comprise
Of his sweet name - now pinup in your heart.
Like star-struck lover all consumed, adore
The moment he was born, halleluiah
For love at first sight, angel and a star,
A force of nature, love you can't ignore.
To be bowled over - such a trinity -
Of father, son and holy mother me.
A love triangle in a family
So sometimes I can feel a gooseberry.
Just weeks until the natal ward is nigh,
The day the triangle becomes a square,
I wonder how our precious time will share
To fit this crowded space we occupy.
Gender Equality - Spring 2014
You first ask: "Is it a girl or boy?"
Is it pink or blue? Slugs or spice?
Fannie or Willie? Roy or Joy?
You ask without thinking twice.
This pre-natal classification of identity
That existed before the birth of our genus.
Three thousand thousand thousand years of sexuality
That resulted in a sacred grainy scan of a uterus.
You will not be born equal and unequal you shall live.
Exploring, maturing, flirting and fumbling to discover
That medical tick-box: gender. How simple and deceptive
Is that first question: Daughter or son? Sister or brother?
Small Step for Man - Winter 2012/13
Stand. Sway. Smile. Fall. Giggle.
Crawl crawl crawl crawl. Giggle.
Stand. Sway. Smile… Step.
Step. Step. Step. Fall. Giggle.
The gigglemeister has, at last,
Stepped those brave first steps from babyhood
The giant leap from mankind’s past
Began with such a game – when crawling ape first stood.
So all life’s challenges should be thus
Approached, with smiles and a gigglefest.
For the pride we felt in Jonah was, for us,
In the casual fun with which he faced his contest.
Edinburgh Leave - Autumn 2003
The autumn sunlight lifts the city’s pulse
As books and bits I bag into my pack.
A day like any other but I lack
The spring like step that seems in others false.
The land of Wallace, Bruce and Burns and streams
Of forests, nightclubs, bars and living free.
I will return but never will it be
As I am now - with this guitar and dreams.
Did more in one than many do at all.
A year? I step back to the train and track
And traveling, as if through time, back,
Back to where I was before it all.
The night descends slowly like a knife
Reluctantly closing this chapter in my life.
Jenny and Limo’s Wedding - Spring 2006
The weeks and months and years fly by so fast
But Limo’s eyes meet hers and time stops still.
He says the words just whispered in the past
But eyes, as windows to his soul, are shrill:
They scream - those eyes; they embed everything
And speech, though softly spoken, booms out loud
So for a moment Limo is a King
And we must bow as truth is spoken proud.
Most gorgeous sight that Limo’s ever found,
He swears his love until the day he dies
For Jenny Clara. Spellbound, those around,
As time stops still, can see with Limo’s eyes.
The words are said and time runs off at speed.
What happens now? What is the protocol?
A nervous laugh; a pause; hands held or freed?
Something has changed - the lives are more than whole.
Forever in my mind that moment stay
That Caterham witnessed something great today.
Returning to York - Summer 2006
My memory unmarked though years have fell
I step into the past - amid the throng.
The Lazarus like town alive with smell
And noises; half forgotten, like a song.
And yet I don’t belong, this place and time,
Intruder in a memory or dream
And faces that I knew down every line
Are absent from the places they were seen.
So is it, then, for Jorvik I feel sad?
No longer living in this ancient wall?
Or do I link the bricks with times I’ve had
Those endless three short years I spent in all.
For I have changed since treading Yorkshire soil,
Its recollections lurking in the shade
But now they pounce and flood into my soul
The genie free - like yesterday they’re made.
And so my young head turns on older spine
But how much worse for those returning who
Lived in this place but wasted precious time
And, guilty, wish they’d have their time anew
But Cornwall calls my heart back to its arms
And leaving York behind again it’s true
That one should see this world with all its charms
And leave this life without regrets run through.
So reminiscing happily I’ll sing
I wonder what; tomorrow; life will bring
Paul McWalter
The years still yet to come are blankly paged
And pension payments have no relevance
And thirty’s old with forty middle-aged
And death’s remote as space – a foreign dance.
So when our hour’s up and someone dies,
Is fleeting insight gifted to the blind?
Does life go ‘flash’ past newly opened eyes
That closed, could only see the daily grind.
Did Paul look back, that night, on what he’d done,
Or forward, picturing a future day?
And did he know his sands had almost run
Or think, immortal youth, he’d be ok?
So isn’t life a short and busy call,
And age is just a warning sign for duals
With Death. It comes, surprising, to us all.
We all die young like unsuspecting fools.
But years are a poor measure when we go
And no death comes at a convenient time.
So should we learn to accept death, to know,
To trust and even love our final line?
Cornish Sonnet - Winter 2004/05
When Mother Earth produced proud Alpine flocks,
Sweet soaring peaks with crystal lochs of old,
Tectonic tumbles bumped with bubbling rocks
And magma freed from Hades’ soup turned cold.
Far from mountain splendour, humble land
Of granite - proudly testing Atlantic hell
Or hiding wealth of tin and copper sand
Or basking in the Caribbean swell.
The stoic study surrounding sand and sea
Is broken by the shriek of children’s play.
The poorest part of Britain’s riches free -
And London’s rats and emmets flee away.
This rat has come to stay with future wife
To build, on this peninsula, a life.
Racism - Summer 2007
We’re animals that eat and shit and play
And lust and hate like monkeys in a cage.
We recognise our fears in hunted prey
And share the hungry thrill of lion’s rage.
We cannot flee innate biology.
Our cultures dress and camouflage that base:
That core of Pavlov dog psychology:
Our naked evolutionary face.
We’re wildebeest with herds belonging near
And though, to other creatures, we’re the same
We harbour curiosity and fear
For brother’s tribe or language, creed or name.
From nature’s heritage we can’t escape
But though we’re beasts of earth we see the stars
And though I’m little more than naked ape
Organic mortal shell my soul discards.
Our species shares divine humanity
And though we war like animals, I know
That one-day we will recognise and see
We’re all one people with one field to sow.
Our instincts look for differences around
But what’s important is the common ground.
Three Months After - Autumn 2007
As an intimate outsider, I can only imagine.
The rock upon which is built the image of what a man should be is gone.
The unconditional love of a man, a real man, a real father is gone.
The reassuring and permanent presence as familiar as the seasons is gone.
The genetic link to a past before your own is gone.
The vividly imagined future moments as father and daughter are gone.
The arms that, with a hug, quietly assert that everything will be all right are gone.
Replaced with emptiness.
Replaced with a deep sadness that will never disappear.
Replaced with fear.
And although everyone says they care,
Although everyone says they'll do anything to help,
Although everyone says they understand,
They don't.
Apology - Winter 2007/08
The past events are playing in my mind,
And I am forced to watch it all again
Through my own eyes. I see that I was blind
Last night and now I hate my stupid brain.
For I was selfish, arrogant and proud.
I took for granted those I love again.
The world revolving round unworthy loud
And childish me. Regret and shame.
The man she fell in love with was replaced,
Like Jekyll, with a Hyde and yet she will,
For better or for worse, forgive this waste,
This blessed unworthy fool. She loves him still.
And that’s what makes me want to change what’s been,
For I don’t care what ‘people’ think of me,
But shame on letting down the team.
I’m sorry, team-mate. Drinking’s stopped. You’ll see…?
Innocent Eyes
They shine mischievous, like stars.
And twinkle like two chocolate seas.
The loving, laughing eyes that shine
Like beacons in a world of sleaze.
So is it hard to meet those eyes?
To see reflected back what’s best in you?
They gaze upon you as a guide.
To emulate and mimic what you do.
Did you see those eyes?
As you maliciously designed
Your sinful sinister
Scandalous scheme
Of missed calls, mobiles,
Late nights and lies
To satisfy a snake
That should be zipped away.
Your phallic fantasy’s finding and phoning
And f...ing some female while blinding
Those innocent eyes with faking and lies
A devil disguised you’re f...ing their lives
By flouting their cries to failing their trust
And f...ing their faith to finally fracture
Their former fulfilment with family f...ed up by .....
Those young eyes will age and understand with time.
But will they have the strength to forgive the crime?
Hard to Leave - Summer 2009
Don’t think that it is easy to leave our loves behind.
Don’t be blind - seek and you shall find it’s there,
Delighting in the times we shared,
Inviting you to know we cared,
Writing to you - know, we’re scared
To lose you snoozing through
These two confusing years we choose
To use pursuing views of horizons new.
(So amusing news shall not be refused!)
Don’t think that it is easy to miss how children grow,
To listen and to know
The high points and the low,
To reap and to sow
In the gardens of their mind.
Seek and shall they find us there,
Featured in their dreams tonight?
Don’t think we travel light.
We worry out of sight is out of mind.
Don’t be blind to what we do
But we have our own dreams too.
Don’t think that it is easy leaving family and home,
Leaving places where we’ve grown
And people we have known,
On our own - so use the phone
When we miss an idle chat
On this and that.
Don’t think that it is easy to land on foreign ground,
Foreign sight, foreign sound,
Trouble might be around,
No delight to be found,
Is it right to be drowned
In a sea of regret?
When you’re home, don’t forget
We will miss you. Believe
Though it’s hard to arrive
It is harder to leave.
Elephant Watching - February 2010
Eden’s patchwork of water and land
Is spread below like a painting of paradise.
The stage is lit by the scalding sun,
A vengeful warmth. A vulture’s vice.
It beats its endless rhythm so
The water, defeated, retreats in the heat
To greet the traveller’s eyes with a treat,
Beneath their feet: Mother Nature’s seat.
It pounds on, brother sun, to brilliant browns and blessed blacks.
Its god-like power perishes life as it breathes another fresh,
And so life cowers in the shade of desiccated trees
That bravely, patiently, await the first tears of rain squeezed from sky’s mesh.
And then the ships emerge from the mist,
An animal ridiculously named by jealous Adam,
The “elephant” strides confidently in God’s own image.
They materialise like His angels instructing humility to puny man.
This biblical landscape is its kingdom, its power and its glory.
The greatest beast on this slice of an Earth has supreme decree
And, yet, it doesn’t bully, persecute or terrorise.
It plays, like a puppy, in withdrawing cooling pools for the world to see.
It, the noble lord, wallows in the mud
And happily blows bubbles with its nose and its arse.
It frolics freely finding childish fun
And laughs at the serious nature of dying grass.
Where the king is dead does nature cry “long live the king”?
In another clime the wolf is dead – the tiger, thylacine and buffalo too.
Man the emperor. Beware tyrannical ruler – use your power wisely.
Watch the gracious elephant before you kill the final few.
Organisational Development (OD) - Spring 2010
The cultural car crash in my mind
As Deloit and Bolga headlong collide
So I pick up the shards of shrapnel from the road
And piece a report that has already died.
Injecting this potent exotic process
Into the delicate vein of Regional GES
This NGO junkie - addicted to their money.
It’s forced to OD and is left with a mess.
This pilot is flying blind but trying to open eyes
Navigating skies full of surprise
Trying to summarise, categorise and institutionalise
Before my brain fries and my ‘tool’ nose dives.
The partner’s sharp teeth and long claws of apathy
Overwhelms the OD defences of this fragile guinea pig.
Naive, I believe I can achieve with no ‘T&T’ up my sleeve,
But my committee all leave - the predator is too big.
Anger - Spring 2012
You cannot know love. Until you know anger.
Anger is a dangerous emotion because it is so devious.
It disguises itself as hate.
It manifests itself, occasionally, as hate.
But hate is not the opposite of love.
The opposite of love is apathy.
Love and anger define one another.
You cannot love something without being angry enough to fight for it.
Hate is absent from the conversation.
I have no hate – only a deep and angry love.
11 Weeks - Summer 2011
Before your corporal organs form the shell
In which, like an egg, your soul can occupy,
Before first breath, first poo, first smile, first cry,
I wonder when we hatched your life’s great spell.
When were you here before which you were not?
The point that you, whoever you shall be,
Shall be the freshest bud on life’s great tree,
Of generations lived and loved and forgot.
The tree that’s rooted in the mystery
Of life’s conception in primordial wells,
When earth first felt the breath of life’s sweet cells,
That seed that’s blossomed into what you’ll be.
So has your soul been born as body will?
When did or shall the concept be conceived?
What is this thing I love but’ve not perceived?
My child’s unborn being to fulfil.
18 Weeks - Summer 2011
That moment “it’s” replaced to think “a boy”,
Finding fantasies of futures fine
Like popping corks of hopes and dreams all mine,
They fizz inside my mind that’s drunk on joy.
The eggs were tied wit’ Ys and not the X.
The coin tossed and landed puppy tails
With all a boy entails - slugs and snails -
The holy grail’s flesh and blood and sex.
19 Weeks - Summer 2011
Drift away to another world,
Bathe in the feeling you unfurled.
Step out of your situation.
Be part of the bohemian global nation.
Subvert and tread a risky road
For our world will turn all the more sweetly.
Convert from the conventional load
And you’ll see yourself more completely.
Oh give me peace, money, fame, food, water, whiskey, shelter, power, children, sex and happiness.
I know you’re lying when you say that I’m wrong
But I lack the knack and can’t exactly go back.
Crack the whip and write the song
Ten years too late - I’ve left it too long.
Life ends at thirty - now I’m living a dream
(Don’t wake me up if you know what I mean).
My queen is growing an heir to my throne
Miles away on the end of my phone.
Cross mountains and deserts and seas open wide,
I’d fly through the sky to be by her side
But I’m fighting a battle we know must be won
Against forces of philistines who want nothing done -
Who fail to see how no one’s above
One children, one people, one world, one love.
Defenders of privilege won’t compromise.
They’ll watch as yet another baby dies,
Or worse they’ll turn and avert their eyes -
Teaching their own precious offspring their lies.
Now I’m called like Abraham, knife in hand,
To offer libation for grains of sand
And stars of the sky and a promised land.
Let it pass me by - don’t deal me this hand.
The chalice is overflowing with wine,
The blood of the masses mingling with mine.
I’ll drink long and deep to keep the memory
Of a refugee born into poverty -
My child, fleeing the front line
Of a fight that’ll last to the end of time.
So sleep, little one, close your eyes tight,
You’ll wake soon enough to all that’s in sight,
This stinking unjust world - you’ll see
This nepotistic philosophy.
Rebel, little one, be good against bad,
They’ll call you crazy, call you mad.
When I’m withered and old and you’re young and free
Know there’s no sweet fruit on the money tree.
21 Weeks - Summer 2011
Tell me, oh wisdom, what is your cure
To this, my conundrum that baits at my brain?
That though we are all born with feet on the floor,
Our ideas transcend to beyond the insane.
Tell me, oh mirror, up there on your wall,
Who is the fairest throughout this land?
Lie to me, mirror, tempt me to fall,
Like oceans of water atop of dry sand.
Don’t tell me that everything’s going ok,
When vultures are circling, sensing your blood,
When dogs are picking and temper can fray,
And lash out with words telling, “Nip in the bud”.
Tell me, oh calm, how can I explore,
All roads and paths and chances, free
Of all the endless wanting more?
That highway leads to hell you’ll see.
Tell me, oh logic, what ‘more’ do I want?
Now that happiness dangles like carrot on stick,
Bidding me to toil for our Queen like Ants.
More what? More carrot? We’ll eat ‘till we’re sick.
Tell me, oh madness, should I comply
With weasels snaking their oily spines
Through infinite coils of who and why
When everyone else is heeding the signs?
Tell me, oh culture, how should I behave?
How should I think at each place and time?
Like all good seabirds, I’m following the brave
Who wave with the trawler to cover the crime.
Tell me, my son, what man am I now?
I’m barely a buoy bobbing off the beach.
A baby can float to waters unknown
Where dragons can pull the sun out of reach.
But the anchor is firm and the parrot is dumb.
The good ship has sailed with no turning back.
Full steam ahead and a bottle of rum.
Tell me, oh ocean, what bags should I pack?
What lessons should I, with my limited supply,
Supply my child with as he grows into thought?
Tell me, Sweet Jesus, what seeds should I sow?
As my boy becomes man armed with all that he’s taught.
He’ll come out fighting - first for breath, then hope.
Hope for shelter, nourishment, dignity and peace.
May these battles hard fought on that slippery slope
By his fathers before not be lost or deceased.
Tell me, oh oracle, for it is no game.
I’m worried that flesh is weaker than soul.
The little body like flickering flame,
Dancing with forces I cannot control.
Tell me, my navel, I need to gaze high.
My umbilical Eden was cut long ago.
A man must work - there’s no free supply.
My head’s in the clouds but my feet are below.
The War on Poverty - Summer 2011
A poor man and a richer man did fight
For all the golden treasures in the earth.
They battled from the moment of their birth,
From the lowest vale to mountain height.
They struggled in the city and the town,
They skirmished in the fields and countryside,
They hated one another’s foolish pride,
They lived for putting one another down.
Their uniforms displayed them friend or foe:
The labelled suit for rich, the rags for poor.
The rich man barricaded gilded door,
Citing law that only rich men know.
The poor man swore that he’d improve his lot.
He slaved in snow and sun to simply serve
Obesely rich man more than he deserves,
Whilst praying God will smile on what he’s got.
But God had left the poor man to his fate,
Delaying justice ‘till His Judgement Day.
The poor man gazed with envious display -
Surely rich man’s happiness is great.
But rich man needed prozac to get by.
He gazed from castle ramparts high on fear
Of falling out and back from highest gear,
Of slipping class and slicing smaller pie.
That fear consumed the rich man’s every act.
He threw some crumbs to sweeten bitter pill
And fenced his kingdoms, spending all good will,
Broke and terrified of being attacked.
Then, one day, the rich man ventured out,
He strolled the dirty street and dark alley,
A world removed from rich man’s own country,
And found his brother living there without.
“What world is this?”, the rich man asked the poor.
“What do you think, you know, you love, you sell?”
But poor man couldn’t speak the language well,
Removed from rich, his brother, a voyeur.
Neither brother understood the other,
They’d fought the war so long they both felt shame
At all the heartache, misery and blame -
Their hate was deadened by this silent smother.
With hearts that heaved with sadness they engaged
In this, their final showdown - live or die.
They locked their horns and took an eye for eye.
They dragged the world into their war enraged.
So when the dust had cleared and peace resumed
They saw that neither man had won at all -
The rich man bankrupted through costly brawl,
The poor man feeling more perpetually doomed.
The riches of the world were nearly spent,
Both men, now poor, they tilled reluctant soil
‘Till new rich man did interrupt their toil,
Stirring up a stale-fresh discontent.
“I can deliver riches, joy and fun.
I’ll bring you all that you have always missed.
A liberal democratic capitalist.
Oh, and would you like to buy a gun?”
The radial symmetry,
The perfect blast of tiny filaments,
Ever more beautiful
The closer you look
Under the microscope
The Awesome Wonder of Evolution’s hand
That crafted this weed
And I hear You laugh.
“Just wait for my next trick”,
As He pulls back the curtain.
So, as my own weed takes you in her tiny hand
And rips you from the Earth,
Pop,
And she blows your precious children to the wind,
It makes her giggle.
Her eyes shine with a beauty you could never comprehend.
I wonder if you realise that your death had meaning?
Probably not.
But I wish them well - with a paternalistic blessing
Only a foolish and sentimental father would understand.
I hope on your behalf.
May one of your (100? 1000?) seeds bear fruit.
Thank you.
Dandelion Clock.
Tick Tock.
“Does it really tell the time?”
“Not really. You need a watch for that.”
So she throws it away.
Such a worthless thing,
That nub-like thing
Where the seeds once stood -
The soldiers on a wasted ovary.
Dandelion clock.
Tick Tock.
Later that day, I mow it down.
The blades and the engine drowning out,
Like a flood of noise,
Before peace descends on the decimated landscape
And I see your body lying there
Torn
But, even in your death throes,
Still Beautiful.
Dad - Winter 2014/15
You’ve crashed in like a beautiful juggernaut,
Increasing the complexity of life exponentially
Like an unknown constant in the equation
No Einstein can fathom.
How can I teach you how to be good boys,
Good men, good fathers, when I’m still
Fumbling for wisdom from hand-me-down
Cut-out memories from my father... his father... his father... his father?
What snipets will you take from me?
Probably the ones I hope you’ll forget.
My deeds, both black and white, will ring clear down the generations
To the beautiful grandchildren I pray I live to meet.
So the challenge I face is the impossible.
To live as the perfect inspiration of divine father
And to be a biological muddle of flesh and blood:
That sacred mystery that divides Christianity.
Actions speak as clearly as this pen
So every word must be forever framed
In this overwhelming awesome responsibility to you:
This frightening love I feel
For Jonah and Aran.
Being a Corner of a Square - Spring / Summer 2014
You speak to him as closest thoughts depart
And he returns with those amazing eyes
So every dream of day and night comprise
Of his sweet name - now pinup in your heart.
Like star-struck lover all consumed, adore
The moment he was born, halleluiah
For love at first sight, angel and a star,
A force of nature, love you can't ignore.
To be bowled over - such a trinity -
Of father, son and holy mother me.
A love triangle in a family
So sometimes I can feel a gooseberry.
Just weeks until the natal ward is nigh,
The day the triangle becomes a square,
I wonder how our precious time will share
To fit this crowded space we occupy.
Gender Equality - Spring 2014
You first ask: "Is it a girl or boy?"
Is it pink or blue? Slugs or spice?
Fannie or Willie? Roy or Joy?
You ask without thinking twice.
This pre-natal classification of identity
That existed before the birth of our genus.
Three thousand thousand thousand years of sexuality
That resulted in a sacred grainy scan of a uterus.
You will not be born equal and unequal you shall live.
Exploring, maturing, flirting and fumbling to discover
That medical tick-box: gender. How simple and deceptive
Is that first question: Daughter or son? Sister or brother?
Small Step for Man - Winter 2012/13
Stand. Sway. Smile. Fall. Giggle.
Crawl crawl crawl crawl. Giggle.
Stand. Sway. Smile… Step.
Step. Step. Step. Fall. Giggle.
The gigglemeister has, at last,
Stepped those brave first steps from babyhood
The giant leap from mankind’s past
Began with such a game – when crawling ape first stood.
So all life’s challenges should be thus
Approached, with smiles and a gigglefest.
For the pride we felt in Jonah was, for us,
In the casual fun with which he faced his contest.
Edinburgh Leave - Autumn 2003
The autumn sunlight lifts the city’s pulse
As books and bits I bag into my pack.
A day like any other but I lack
The spring like step that seems in others false.
The land of Wallace, Bruce and Burns and streams
Of forests, nightclubs, bars and living free.
I will return but never will it be
As I am now - with this guitar and dreams.
Did more in one than many do at all.
A year? I step back to the train and track
And traveling, as if through time, back,
Back to where I was before it all.
The night descends slowly like a knife
Reluctantly closing this chapter in my life.
Jenny and Limo’s Wedding - Spring 2006
The weeks and months and years fly by so fast
But Limo’s eyes meet hers and time stops still.
He says the words just whispered in the past
But eyes, as windows to his soul, are shrill:
They scream - those eyes; they embed everything
And speech, though softly spoken, booms out loud
So for a moment Limo is a King
And we must bow as truth is spoken proud.
Most gorgeous sight that Limo’s ever found,
He swears his love until the day he dies
For Jenny Clara. Spellbound, those around,
As time stops still, can see with Limo’s eyes.
The words are said and time runs off at speed.
What happens now? What is the protocol?
A nervous laugh; a pause; hands held or freed?
Something has changed - the lives are more than whole.
Forever in my mind that moment stay
That Caterham witnessed something great today.
Returning to York - Summer 2006
My memory unmarked though years have fell
I step into the past - amid the throng.
The Lazarus like town alive with smell
And noises; half forgotten, like a song.
And yet I don’t belong, this place and time,
Intruder in a memory or dream
And faces that I knew down every line
Are absent from the places they were seen.
So is it, then, for Jorvik I feel sad?
No longer living in this ancient wall?
Or do I link the bricks with times I’ve had
Those endless three short years I spent in all.
For I have changed since treading Yorkshire soil,
Its recollections lurking in the shade
But now they pounce and flood into my soul
The genie free - like yesterday they’re made.
And so my young head turns on older spine
But how much worse for those returning who
Lived in this place but wasted precious time
And, guilty, wish they’d have their time anew
But Cornwall calls my heart back to its arms
And leaving York behind again it’s true
That one should see this world with all its charms
And leave this life without regrets run through.
So reminiscing happily I’ll sing
I wonder what; tomorrow; life will bring
Paul McWalter
The years still yet to come are blankly paged
And pension payments have no relevance
And thirty’s old with forty middle-aged
And death’s remote as space – a foreign dance.
So when our hour’s up and someone dies,
Is fleeting insight gifted to the blind?
Does life go ‘flash’ past newly opened eyes
That closed, could only see the daily grind.
Did Paul look back, that night, on what he’d done,
Or forward, picturing a future day?
And did he know his sands had almost run
Or think, immortal youth, he’d be ok?
So isn’t life a short and busy call,
And age is just a warning sign for duals
With Death. It comes, surprising, to us all.
We all die young like unsuspecting fools.
But years are a poor measure when we go
And no death comes at a convenient time.
So should we learn to accept death, to know,
To trust and even love our final line?
Cornish Sonnet - Winter 2004/05
When Mother Earth produced proud Alpine flocks,
Sweet soaring peaks with crystal lochs of old,
Tectonic tumbles bumped with bubbling rocks
And magma freed from Hades’ soup turned cold.
Far from mountain splendour, humble land
Of granite - proudly testing Atlantic hell
Or hiding wealth of tin and copper sand
Or basking in the Caribbean swell.
The stoic study surrounding sand and sea
Is broken by the shriek of children’s play.
The poorest part of Britain’s riches free -
And London’s rats and emmets flee away.
This rat has come to stay with future wife
To build, on this peninsula, a life.
Racism - Summer 2007
We’re animals that eat and shit and play
And lust and hate like monkeys in a cage.
We recognise our fears in hunted prey
And share the hungry thrill of lion’s rage.
We cannot flee innate biology.
Our cultures dress and camouflage that base:
That core of Pavlov dog psychology:
Our naked evolutionary face.
We’re wildebeest with herds belonging near
And though, to other creatures, we’re the same
We harbour curiosity and fear
For brother’s tribe or language, creed or name.
From nature’s heritage we can’t escape
But though we’re beasts of earth we see the stars
And though I’m little more than naked ape
Organic mortal shell my soul discards.
Our species shares divine humanity
And though we war like animals, I know
That one-day we will recognise and see
We’re all one people with one field to sow.
Our instincts look for differences around
But what’s important is the common ground.
Three Months After - Autumn 2007
As an intimate outsider, I can only imagine.
The rock upon which is built the image of what a man should be is gone.
The unconditional love of a man, a real man, a real father is gone.
The reassuring and permanent presence as familiar as the seasons is gone.
The genetic link to a past before your own is gone.
The vividly imagined future moments as father and daughter are gone.
The arms that, with a hug, quietly assert that everything will be all right are gone.
Replaced with emptiness.
Replaced with a deep sadness that will never disappear.
Replaced with fear.
And although everyone says they care,
Although everyone says they'll do anything to help,
Although everyone says they understand,
They don't.
Apology - Winter 2007/08
The past events are playing in my mind,
And I am forced to watch it all again
Through my own eyes. I see that I was blind
Last night and now I hate my stupid brain.
For I was selfish, arrogant and proud.
I took for granted those I love again.
The world revolving round unworthy loud
And childish me. Regret and shame.
The man she fell in love with was replaced,
Like Jekyll, with a Hyde and yet she will,
For better or for worse, forgive this waste,
This blessed unworthy fool. She loves him still.
And that’s what makes me want to change what’s been,
For I don’t care what ‘people’ think of me,
But shame on letting down the team.
I’m sorry, team-mate. Drinking’s stopped. You’ll see…?
Innocent Eyes
They shine mischievous, like stars.
And twinkle like two chocolate seas.
The loving, laughing eyes that shine
Like beacons in a world of sleaze.
So is it hard to meet those eyes?
To see reflected back what’s best in you?
They gaze upon you as a guide.
To emulate and mimic what you do.
Did you see those eyes?
As you maliciously designed
Your sinful sinister
Scandalous scheme
Of missed calls, mobiles,
Late nights and lies
To satisfy a snake
That should be zipped away.
Your phallic fantasy’s finding and phoning
And f...ing some female while blinding
Those innocent eyes with faking and lies
A devil disguised you’re f...ing their lives
By flouting their cries to failing their trust
And f...ing their faith to finally fracture
Their former fulfilment with family f...ed up by .....
Those young eyes will age and understand with time.
But will they have the strength to forgive the crime?
Hard to Leave - Summer 2009
Don’t think that it is easy to leave our loves behind.
Don’t be blind - seek and you shall find it’s there,
Delighting in the times we shared,
Inviting you to know we cared,
Writing to you - know, we’re scared
To lose you snoozing through
These two confusing years we choose
To use pursuing views of horizons new.
(So amusing news shall not be refused!)
Don’t think that it is easy to miss how children grow,
To listen and to know
The high points and the low,
To reap and to sow
In the gardens of their mind.
Seek and shall they find us there,
Featured in their dreams tonight?
Don’t think we travel light.
We worry out of sight is out of mind.
Don’t be blind to what we do
But we have our own dreams too.
Don’t think that it is easy leaving family and home,
Leaving places where we’ve grown
And people we have known,
On our own - so use the phone
When we miss an idle chat
On this and that.
Don’t think that it is easy to land on foreign ground,
Foreign sight, foreign sound,
Trouble might be around,
No delight to be found,
Is it right to be drowned
In a sea of regret?
When you’re home, don’t forget
We will miss you. Believe
Though it’s hard to arrive
It is harder to leave.
Elephant Watching - February 2010
Eden’s patchwork of water and land
Is spread below like a painting of paradise.
The stage is lit by the scalding sun,
A vengeful warmth. A vulture’s vice.
It beats its endless rhythm so
The water, defeated, retreats in the heat
To greet the traveller’s eyes with a treat,
Beneath their feet: Mother Nature’s seat.
It pounds on, brother sun, to brilliant browns and blessed blacks.
Its god-like power perishes life as it breathes another fresh,
And so life cowers in the shade of desiccated trees
That bravely, patiently, await the first tears of rain squeezed from sky’s mesh.
And then the ships emerge from the mist,
An animal ridiculously named by jealous Adam,
The “elephant” strides confidently in God’s own image.
They materialise like His angels instructing humility to puny man.
This biblical landscape is its kingdom, its power and its glory.
The greatest beast on this slice of an Earth has supreme decree
And, yet, it doesn’t bully, persecute or terrorise.
It plays, like a puppy, in withdrawing cooling pools for the world to see.
It, the noble lord, wallows in the mud
And happily blows bubbles with its nose and its arse.
It frolics freely finding childish fun
And laughs at the serious nature of dying grass.
Where the king is dead does nature cry “long live the king”?
In another clime the wolf is dead – the tiger, thylacine and buffalo too.
Man the emperor. Beware tyrannical ruler – use your power wisely.
Watch the gracious elephant before you kill the final few.
Organisational Development (OD) - Spring 2010
The cultural car crash in my mind
As Deloit and Bolga headlong collide
So I pick up the shards of shrapnel from the road
And piece a report that has already died.
Injecting this potent exotic process
Into the delicate vein of Regional GES
This NGO junkie - addicted to their money.
It’s forced to OD and is left with a mess.
This pilot is flying blind but trying to open eyes
Navigating skies full of surprise
Trying to summarise, categorise and institutionalise
Before my brain fries and my ‘tool’ nose dives.
The partner’s sharp teeth and long claws of apathy
Overwhelms the OD defences of this fragile guinea pig.
Naive, I believe I can achieve with no ‘T&T’ up my sleeve,
But my committee all leave - the predator is too big.
Anger - Spring 2012
You cannot know love. Until you know anger.
Anger is a dangerous emotion because it is so devious.
It disguises itself as hate.
It manifests itself, occasionally, as hate.
But hate is not the opposite of love.
The opposite of love is apathy.
Love and anger define one another.
You cannot love something without being angry enough to fight for it.
Hate is absent from the conversation.
I have no hate – only a deep and angry love.
11 Weeks - Summer 2011
Before your corporal organs form the shell
In which, like an egg, your soul can occupy,
Before first breath, first poo, first smile, first cry,
I wonder when we hatched your life’s great spell.
When were you here before which you were not?
The point that you, whoever you shall be,
Shall be the freshest bud on life’s great tree,
Of generations lived and loved and forgot.
The tree that’s rooted in the mystery
Of life’s conception in primordial wells,
When earth first felt the breath of life’s sweet cells,
That seed that’s blossomed into what you’ll be.
So has your soul been born as body will?
When did or shall the concept be conceived?
What is this thing I love but’ve not perceived?
My child’s unborn being to fulfil.
18 Weeks - Summer 2011
That moment “it’s” replaced to think “a boy”,
Finding fantasies of futures fine
Like popping corks of hopes and dreams all mine,
They fizz inside my mind that’s drunk on joy.
The eggs were tied wit’ Ys and not the X.
The coin tossed and landed puppy tails
With all a boy entails - slugs and snails -
The holy grail’s flesh and blood and sex.
19 Weeks - Summer 2011
Drift away to another world,
Bathe in the feeling you unfurled.
Step out of your situation.
Be part of the bohemian global nation.
Subvert and tread a risky road
For our world will turn all the more sweetly.
Convert from the conventional load
And you’ll see yourself more completely.
Oh give me peace, money, fame, food, water, whiskey, shelter, power, children, sex and happiness.
I know you’re lying when you say that I’m wrong
But I lack the knack and can’t exactly go back.
Crack the whip and write the song
Ten years too late - I’ve left it too long.
Life ends at thirty - now I’m living a dream
(Don’t wake me up if you know what I mean).
My queen is growing an heir to my throne
Miles away on the end of my phone.
Cross mountains and deserts and seas open wide,
I’d fly through the sky to be by her side
But I’m fighting a battle we know must be won
Against forces of philistines who want nothing done -
Who fail to see how no one’s above
One children, one people, one world, one love.
Defenders of privilege won’t compromise.
They’ll watch as yet another baby dies,
Or worse they’ll turn and avert their eyes -
Teaching their own precious offspring their lies.
Now I’m called like Abraham, knife in hand,
To offer libation for grains of sand
And stars of the sky and a promised land.
Let it pass me by - don’t deal me this hand.
The chalice is overflowing with wine,
The blood of the masses mingling with mine.
I’ll drink long and deep to keep the memory
Of a refugee born into poverty -
My child, fleeing the front line
Of a fight that’ll last to the end of time.
So sleep, little one, close your eyes tight,
You’ll wake soon enough to all that’s in sight,
This stinking unjust world - you’ll see
This nepotistic philosophy.
Rebel, little one, be good against bad,
They’ll call you crazy, call you mad.
When I’m withered and old and you’re young and free
Know there’s no sweet fruit on the money tree.
21 Weeks - Summer 2011
Tell me, oh wisdom, what is your cure
To this, my conundrum that baits at my brain?
That though we are all born with feet on the floor,
Our ideas transcend to beyond the insane.
Tell me, oh mirror, up there on your wall,
Who is the fairest throughout this land?
Lie to me, mirror, tempt me to fall,
Like oceans of water atop of dry sand.
Don’t tell me that everything’s going ok,
When vultures are circling, sensing your blood,
When dogs are picking and temper can fray,
And lash out with words telling, “Nip in the bud”.
Tell me, oh calm, how can I explore,
All roads and paths and chances, free
Of all the endless wanting more?
That highway leads to hell you’ll see.
Tell me, oh logic, what ‘more’ do I want?
Now that happiness dangles like carrot on stick,
Bidding me to toil for our Queen like Ants.
More what? More carrot? We’ll eat ‘till we’re sick.
Tell me, oh madness, should I comply
With weasels snaking their oily spines
Through infinite coils of who and why
When everyone else is heeding the signs?
Tell me, oh culture, how should I behave?
How should I think at each place and time?
Like all good seabirds, I’m following the brave
Who wave with the trawler to cover the crime.
Tell me, my son, what man am I now?
I’m barely a buoy bobbing off the beach.
A baby can float to waters unknown
Where dragons can pull the sun out of reach.
But the anchor is firm and the parrot is dumb.
The good ship has sailed with no turning back.
Full steam ahead and a bottle of rum.
Tell me, oh ocean, what bags should I pack?
What lessons should I, with my limited supply,
Supply my child with as he grows into thought?
Tell me, Sweet Jesus, what seeds should I sow?
As my boy becomes man armed with all that he’s taught.
He’ll come out fighting - first for breath, then hope.
Hope for shelter, nourishment, dignity and peace.
May these battles hard fought on that slippery slope
By his fathers before not be lost or deceased.
Tell me, oh oracle, for it is no game.
I’m worried that flesh is weaker than soul.
The little body like flickering flame,
Dancing with forces I cannot control.
Tell me, my navel, I need to gaze high.
My umbilical Eden was cut long ago.
A man must work - there’s no free supply.
My head’s in the clouds but my feet are below.
The War on Poverty - Summer 2011
A poor man and a richer man did fight
For all the golden treasures in the earth.
They battled from the moment of their birth,
From the lowest vale to mountain height.
They struggled in the city and the town,
They skirmished in the fields and countryside,
They hated one another’s foolish pride,
They lived for putting one another down.
Their uniforms displayed them friend or foe:
The labelled suit for rich, the rags for poor.
The rich man barricaded gilded door,
Citing law that only rich men know.
The poor man swore that he’d improve his lot.
He slaved in snow and sun to simply serve
Obesely rich man more than he deserves,
Whilst praying God will smile on what he’s got.
But God had left the poor man to his fate,
Delaying justice ‘till His Judgement Day.
The poor man gazed with envious display -
Surely rich man’s happiness is great.
But rich man needed prozac to get by.
He gazed from castle ramparts high on fear
Of falling out and back from highest gear,
Of slipping class and slicing smaller pie.
That fear consumed the rich man’s every act.
He threw some crumbs to sweeten bitter pill
And fenced his kingdoms, spending all good will,
Broke and terrified of being attacked.
Then, one day, the rich man ventured out,
He strolled the dirty street and dark alley,
A world removed from rich man’s own country,
And found his brother living there without.
“What world is this?”, the rich man asked the poor.
“What do you think, you know, you love, you sell?”
But poor man couldn’t speak the language well,
Removed from rich, his brother, a voyeur.
Neither brother understood the other,
They’d fought the war so long they both felt shame
At all the heartache, misery and blame -
Their hate was deadened by this silent smother.
With hearts that heaved with sadness they engaged
In this, their final showdown - live or die.
They locked their horns and took an eye for eye.
They dragged the world into their war enraged.
So when the dust had cleared and peace resumed
They saw that neither man had won at all -
The rich man bankrupted through costly brawl,
The poor man feeling more perpetually doomed.
The riches of the world were nearly spent,
Both men, now poor, they tilled reluctant soil
‘Till new rich man did interrupt their toil,
Stirring up a stale-fresh discontent.
“I can deliver riches, joy and fun.
I’ll bring you all that you have always missed.
A liberal democratic capitalist.
Oh, and would you like to buy a gun?”
