That’s the way you made me feel
Forget about it
Outside is inside
What’s mine is yours
It’s time for the Tower of London
Treat me like a forsaken child
As I imbecile the hours away
Seeking things that my mother would say
And never getting past 11.30 without some tea and biscuits.
Subordinate this and control me later
I may quit this job and become a waiter.
Settle some debts and pay karma back appropriately
For some skull drudgery
Before the Druids come back from lunch
I have a hunch they know where I hide.
No Time For “Rawhide!”
Will things settle down as I dine out at lunch
Coerced by the conditioned Church
In the centre of Colmore Row
Things my Ego should know
There’s not much rowing going on here
As I eat my sandwich and gobble down my fears.
They seem to know I am all mouth and ears
Handling my sob story about being so single
It’s just because they want me to compose a catchy jingle.
Jingle all the way to the bank, however
By the end of the month I sum up nicely
“I’m so clever”!
birmingham
Saturday Afternoon at a Friend’s House
I walk the familiar road,
a soft December sun leaning over Weoley Castle,
light pooling on the pavement
like a blessing I did not ask for
but accept anyway.
The afternoon is ordinary –
a friend’s house,
a knock on the door,
the warmth of a kettle coming to life –
yet something in me moves
as if this small journey
were another chapter
in the long autobiography
I’ve been writing with breath and memory.
I carry no incense,
no mantra,
no visions of Maya or Albion today –
only the quiet knowledge
that every threshold
is a kind of pilgrimage
when the self is listening.
Inside, laugher rises,
cups clink,
the world shrinks to a living room
where stories drift like steam
from the mugs in our hands.
And I sit there,
not a a fragmented hybrid anything,
not as a mythic figure,
not as a seeker breathing in the world’s sorrow –
but simply as Rohan,
arriving,
present,
held in the gentle ordinariness
of a Saturday afternoon
at a friend’s house.
A small moment,
yet it settles in me
like a stone in a riverbed –
quiet, grounding,
part of a long story
I continue to walk
one step,
one breath,
one visit at a time.
Flat Cap Mirrors
That’s not the way they said it would turn out
The men, the spies and the roundabout cameras
Roundheads (in their heads_)
It’s all in their heads now.
Some of the things they said
Anyhow.
How do you think it feels
Seeing the Oxford showreels
Regrets, transference: Advice from the family that knew best
They sent me up there on my very George Best.
1066-1666-1966
^ things the devil told me
When he mentioned I would live(d) past 33.
Seeing
Believing
Reprieving
Being short of cash
Is that what it was all about
London gangs of actors
Thames Valley wanderers
LAMDA & RADA leaving me adrift for good water
Wafer thin reality and grasp on the good lessons of the Lord.
Where is your sword?
Is that the ‘twas a Word, melud
I cannot believe it is anymore between us.
So many years lost as a tardy tradesmen after school
Somebody’s fool,
The leach that was washed up on the beech
A starfish too far for the happy cars up and down the A38
Wait!
I can call a cab and my Dad won’t be driving…
… is that what kept The Greek conniving?
Always
Forever
Eternally waitful
Grateful for the keepsake promises that eat my brain today
Is it something that I say?
Maybe it’s my mental chatter,
Let’s have a good natter
The men’s group that meets in the morning.
Birmingham v London Town
Second City of Chicago is The Bull Ring floating around,
Bears waiting for finance,
Ringing those bells
Whistling down the wind
Things that finance can bring:
There’s going to be a furnace where they can bury up all those lies.
John Lennon was one of those guys
Chairman to his own board of contention
Invention
Imagination
Historical protection
Mao, Hitler and Father Joseph Stalin
We won’t be seeing those starlings around any time soon
For the sake of the room where the codes have been cracked for mushrooms
And the odd L.S.D.
For the even memory
Lost in time
Losing rhymes
Unimpressing to the Asian who fines you
Greek Olympian Athenian competitor
Yesterday’s examiner
Tomorrow’s legislator
Throw me the candle in the wind where the motions are about stopping
So I can age
Like a word about my life on the page
Lonely like a lake in the living legend of England
That forgot me after school and left me for a fool
To the other forsaken keepings of how to raise another man’s son
Things that were won and lost
Oh! The true cost of living life
Beyond the Self Help strife…
.. alone and helpless, my Mother watched me drown
Youthful in ageing with her emptying make up
Draws a frown
Black Hawk scowling down
The USA is all around
Centricity
Ego City
Things from the past
Nate Dogg and time to Regulate
My mates
& the Harborne Mile
Life before the Harborne Ashtanga Yoga Studio
How my blood did go
Stomach cramps
Breathing like drawing water to the castle up a ramp
All the head in a twisted twirl of memory fogginess
What the friends did when they got their chances to impress
The special Empress’s new babe
I would like to Rave
Review me please
Don’t make me write awash on my knees
Believe in salvation
It is the healing of the narrator’s nation.
Silas is Islamically prepared,
Emptiness is seemingly apparent to the visions of air …
It’s going to be another adrenaline rush
To make up time for scoring goals with Ian Rush
Liverpool F.C. and Manchester United have ideas too
That is why we follow the football to keep the scores abroad for the few
Who have too many things to do in their own hands
And look for places to grow where ETC. ETC. is something a person’s culture understands.
Our Lady of St Lima
In Northfield’s quiet heart she stands,
A lantern in the Midlands air,
Our Lady of St Lima calls
The weary pilgrim into prayer.
Her walls are stitched with whispered hymns,
Her alter breathes the green of spring,
And every candle lit within
Becomes a star, a living wing.
She gathers silence, folds it whole,
And offers it as healing balm,
Her voice is liturgy of soul,
Her presence is a steady calm.
O Lima, mother, saint, and guide,
You root the mythic soil of land,
Through you the estranged are sanctified,
Through you the broken learn to stand.
Pilgrimage Poem
At Five Ways I learned discipline,
Study became prayer,
Questions became scripture.
The classroom was my chapel,
The assembly my liturgy.
What began as grammar,
Became gospel,
Preparing me for pilgrimage.
At Oxford I walked among spires,
Philosophy became psalm,
Poetry became prophecy.
In cloisters of silence,
I wrestled with faith and doubt,
each essay a sermon
each lecture a hymn.
The scholar’s lamp burned,
yet beneath it,
the Spirit whispered.
At St Brigid’s I first learned hymns,
Childhood voices rising in chant,
Ritual shaping memory,
Catholic flame in Northfield’s soil.
Brigid watching me with healing eyes,
Preparing me for testimony,
For prophecy,
For Albion’s renewal.
And then I returned,
To Birmingham’s churches,
To Elim’s Pentecostal fire,
To Alpha’s questions,
To hymns remembered at St Brigid’s.
I read the Bible entire,
Guided by Got Questions,
East meets West,
Krishna’s chant met Christ’s gospel.
Renewal sang through me,
And I stood not as seeker,
But as guru,
Bearing light through rupture,
Chanting testimony into England’s soil.
Shree Geeta Bhawan
Shree Geeta Bhawan,
First flame of Albion’s Hindu soil,
Church reborn as a mandir,
Renewal carved in stone.
I shall walk its halls,
Guided by Nanak’s vision,
Chanting not as a seeker,
But as guru,
Bearing light into Birmingham’s heart.
Chant of Weoley Castle
Weoley, stone of memory
Weoley, ruin and root,
Weoley, whisper of Albion,
I walk your ground, I bear your fruit.
The walls are broken, yet they stand
Silent guardians of the land.
Children’s laughter, sparrows’ flight,
Renew the day, redeem the night.
O castle of the wandering flame,
You hold the nameless knight’s name.
Estrangement bends, yet roots renew,
In every fracture, light breaks through.
Weoley, chant of soil and sky,
Weoley, prayer that does not die,
Weoley, echo of stone and bone,
I seek, I sing, I am not alone.
The gardens bloom where battlements fell,
The bells of Birmingham weave their spell.
The seeker’s path is never lost,
It rises again, whatever the cost.
Weoley, ruin, Weoley, home
I bind your spirit to your loam.
Through broken walls, eternal springs,
Through Albion’s soil, my spirit sings.
The Unemployed Ball
Ideology is the word that makes me mind my movement
It stood taller than Leningrad in school for self-improvement.
Quality Street balanced the roses and some TV Times kept me busy
But I could not escape the great fire within more for all those pocket full of posies.
Poesy is not free. It is the settlement of eternity.
Rising in the morning is the depression of another warning:
Only two or three oblong white forms of L.E.D. criticised for no parched Hieroglyphs
Set me free from the Caliphate and the Islamic debate about R.E.M. and Papyrus tapestries.
Moods are about now the soul’ed have clout to out the gay
And mastery has made no choices after Krishnamurti told of freedom.
The wrong way has been spoken and pacts have been broken,
The new age is an old age full of dull adages to me.
Nazi history and the quality over quantity argument from gargoyles
In the new school rules of who belongs with the right tie and brogues –
Whatever they mean – chords on the scene for crying from wanking too hard:
St Giles and the empty streets looking for liking about porn from the playground.
Yardy in the café, still is not a gaffa. But the mention gets me far
When they watch me drive my car. Road ragers, page turners, old oil burners
And girls in shirt sleeve order. Order! Order! Drink is rising the RPI
The policy have class for “the evil eye”. One day a Hindu. Next two.
What is a Jew to do, with the camaraderie in you about Section 2.
In the mental health of my youth I spoke of Absinthe and alcohol proof,
But when I wrote to Formal Hall, you gave me a dirty phone call
So here is your retribution from R. is for ‘Repeats’: Fuck All is remov’Ed.
What is the Op.Ed in the New York Times for your Wall Street Journal
Dirty Colonels and General Spastics for those remembered ladders
in tights without pubes for the rights of a £100 jumper;
Can I jump off the roof of The Mail Box or is their proof of Harvey Nichols at Christmas?
That is how to spell a drink, I think, with a mask on my face
Brown after the 9/11 disgrace of No. 10 Bus Bombing
For all that science vs God debate: Islamophobia won’t win for God’s calling
When the rhyme is in the time for less than a million Dawkins dollars in retirement.
What was meant, Socialist, about the fashion of no money.
What was meant, Russian about the England when Trotsky was funny.
Do I need a mark next to my new face to question the human race:
Or is it that if you steal from Bhaktin you already killed my Ego?
So give it a go, the New Enlightenment and get some kicks on Route 66
But it won’t be long, the DWP song and some healed headlines for the blondes you do lines for
Working Class is no more!
The Number Two
Can you sing Hallelujah when others have taken credit?
For the ounce of flesh of your delivery and your comma:
You’re not with it!
Can you sell The Big Issue when the price is a foreign gypsy?
Would you sell the Free House of India if you were more than tipsy?
Topsy Turvy.
Do you think you own the language and the history courses without fees?
Of drummed up little students with the New Age I-Pad on their knees.
You’re number one baby!
Do you like to dress in Indian clothes but not know of Hindustan?
Could you ask your parents to remember better than Imran *F’Ing Holy Bloody* Imran Khan?
You’re the money, baby!
Is it dinner or a Diner when it’s a tenner for some exchange?
And does your diet leave you full with your Ego at the shooting range?
Master & Servant.
Can I join you down the Fabian Society and wear chords and a crap shirt?
Will you tell me if my English deodorant hurts?
Food glorious food.
Did Jesus live in England and did he know of your version of events?
So maybe one millennium of failure is what your future is going to have meant:
All in good time.
Were you a flag when a country made you feel proud and did you shoot another’s gun?
And what were your Sanskrit records when your drinking cost the country Number VONs?
We fought and died for our freedoms.
There is not much in the asking of fair exchange except some safety on some streets
When the British balance check books for some chips and fishy deletion
Of accounting standards with PWC and Birmingham FC
Still full of false rhyme & Shakespeare’s crimes.
I can rhyme too
‘T’ is for Two. Removed.
It Makes Me Look Back
It makes me look back
The track record of vinyl Birmingham
The lessons from school and skipped songs
Veritable fashions in rationed book cupboards
I don’t know what to see
All that music is about me
The times I listened the times I tried
Some of it even reminded me of when I cried.
TDK cassettes and a hairy CD Walkman
Items for the rarity shelf today if ever there was one
Unicorns of delight and sea nymphs of error
All sorts of enjoyment when the music was high school terror.
Wild Stage 