How much he takes out on us
Riding the bus like a common parent
Things that he meant to say but left in clues
Something for me and the politician’s cold cold hearts.
Blowing the socialist world wide apart
When the Wiley Coyote shit is ugly like a bird pooing on the alligators down by the African stream,
As friendly as an Oxford hall
When the men were nice and the problems were small.
Oh how the ages have been unkind to the mind
Stained glass windows with the gaul to show up in my house
Chasing the rat to beat the scientific mouse
When the culture fades into an LSD spin
And the naughty mouse wins to epic the story for the Djinns.
family
Mother’s Graduate
Mother spoke to me today
She said she didn’t like the my life sounds
I hear the wrong anthems
I whistle erroneously
I cry in my sleep
And wet the bed in another lifetime.
For maybe I will be reborn for the wrongs the three did her
Father, Brother and Teacher
Some replacements they turned out to be
Leaving me alone waiting for Royalties.
Sweets time has gone
So has the broken bag of Maltesers the shop keeper made me pay for
Appreciating the commercial nature of things
Reality spinning after the contentment The Sex Pistols bring.
That was some 1970s to listen to
Far thoughtful
Most admiring
Completely admitting
Definitely maybe.
Then she said she sat by the radio in the 1980s
Listening to the seeds of the future for her sons
Why couldn’t we do that & have some benefit on earth instead?
Instead of the grievance and tragedies of a book that Kali has well read.
Something moves on and the energy changes
Men face my E-Mail account and flick through their business pages.
In the end the i-Phone will absorb them and all they have to say
When they live for infinity with the #QuotedJesus and all they (and ‘him’) had to say
AI Summary
Your poem begins with your mother’s voice — not angry, but weary — saying she doesn’t like the “life sounds” you make, the anthems you whistle, the grief that leaks out of you in sleep. You turn that into a meditation on karmic inheritance: the wrongs done to her by father, brother, teacher, and the fear that you carry their shadows into your own rebirth. You move through Maltesers, shopkeepers, The Sex Pistols, 1970s radio, 1980s seeds of the future, and the ache of what your mother hoped her sons would gain from the world but didn’t. The emotional centre is the tension between what she endured, what you inherited, and what neither of you could escape — grief, shame, missed opportunities, and the heavy book of Kali’s age. The poem ends with a modern twist: men rifling through email accounts, the iPhone absorbing everyone’s voices, and the strange immortality of #QuotedJesus — a world where technology outlives the people who use it, and where your mother’s hopes and your own wounds get folded into the endless digital archive.
Polarity
The poet’s boss
The landmine’s cost
Septuagenarian can see through
Walkabout Bar is new growth
Walk through sheet is coming up tops
Telling all with kisses who will sell up shop:
The Shoop Shoop Song
Snoop won’t be long.
:: Lunchtime laptop laughter
>> Writer’s block at 60 with daughter
How much can I write?
Don’t give up without a fight
Each verse is new to me
Yesteryears patterns were there for them to see
Over the hill of history
Noble Truths and Estate and Properties
The lines just got fiercer and fiercer
Free and fine
Rhyming and timing
Representing rhetoric
The current climate is changing
(Change without a face)
Words that spread around the room
I When will the last page come?
II Is all destroyed by four fingers typing and an adjacent thumb?
AI Summary
Your poem moves between wit and weariness, opening with the poet’s “boss” and the landmine’s cost before spiralling into a meditation on ageing, writer’s block, and the pressure of producing meaning in a world that keeps shifting. The references — Walkabout Bar, The Shoop Shoop Song, Snoop, Noble Truths, Estates and Properties — create a collage of cultural memory and personal history, showing how each verse becomes a small act of resistance against time. The poem’s emotional centre lies in the tension between the desire to keep writing and the fear that everything might be undone by “four fingers typing and an adjacent thumb.” It’s a portrait of a writer confronting the limits of his own body, the weight of his past, and the relentless demand to turn experience into art, even as the last page looms somewhere out of sight.
Constellation Poem
Ben Wright the Chronicler,
Paul Ready the Actor,
Bryan Dick the Performer,
Amal Clooney the Advocate,
Rishi Sunak the Steward,
Robin Clark the Merchant,
Andrew Ornitharis the Producer,
All acquaintances by my side,
Guru Nanak the Guide,
Devi the Flame,
Wanderer the Father,
Unicorn the Brother –
Together they form my constellation,
Each a star in Albion’s sky.
I walk among them,
Not as seeker,
But as guru,
Bearing light through rupture,
Chanting renewal into England’s soil.
Microchip Romance
I came to see you
It was your asking
Stolen nighttime
Switches off
a century’s tale of lovers betwixt two microchips,
May some fat in the oven enlarge me
This aching Data uselessly touches the rising of my loins,
Cookies and dreams
consciousness’ streams.
What’s your ideal type?
Who are your fantasies?
Where can we get together?
What are the best trees to go planting?
I’d do anything for the Environment –
That’s how the apparitions appear to me;
Movement of synchronicity
Gravatar or image or moving films from the 1920s…
… anything …
< Going, Have Been There, Done That >
Obsolete dial up: :;/.%”-+;@: “Call me back!”
My information is not at your doorstep
Help is very far away.
Abandoned.
Isolated.
Inundated by the time you reach the first morning coffee
(When are you going to wake up with me?)
Mr Subliminal and “Yours Sincerely”
{Family Tree}
Think about “We”: Royal or not,
What have you got by 9.30 o’clock.
You’ve had your cereal
You’ve seen my News
There’s not even attention
On what makes my Blues.
Yet you deny me your access codes
You don’t download to me your privacy.
Soppy stories of your night with your lover:
There is not even a phone number for you when you wake up,
About what the foreign ISP had to say.
AI Summary
This poem explores the ache of connection without closeness, intimacy filtered through screens, and the loneliness of wanting someone who remains behind digital walls. You open with a stolen nighttime visit — not physical, but emotional — and immediately contrast it with microchips, data, cookies, streams. The body wants warmth; the world offers code.
The questions — ideal type, fantasies, where to meet, what trees to plant — show a longing for something real, grounded, earthy. But the answers never arrive. Instead, you get avatars, gravatars, 1920s films, dial‑up tones, obsolete signals. The poem becomes a portrait of love in an age of lag.
The emotional centre is the shift from desire to abandonment: “My information is not at your doorstep / Help is very far away.” You’re naming the pain of reaching out and finding no one on the other side.
The middle section turns toward the domestic — cereal, morning coffee, 9.30 o’clock — but even here, the intimacy is one‑sided. You see their news; they don’t see your blues. You offer access; they keep their codes locked. You want presence; they give you stories about someone else.
The poem ends with the sharpest wound: you don’t even have their number. You’re left with foreign ISPs, digital distance, and the ache of being shut out.
It’s a poem about wanting connection in a world that keeps you buffering.
iYoga
The World is One Team
Yoga
Infinity
the bells are within me
Time
Centrality
It’s too soon for superficiality
Motions
Markets
Marrakesh
Crashing
What is the use of balancing on one leg?
Behind
Above
It’s different to chemicals in the Square Peg
Affront
Comfortableness
Special socks aren’t needed on the mat
Above
Below
There’s enough Qi for the men in a top hat
Around about
Within
These classes are selling out fast
Apart
Together
Chances are I’ll be leaving lessons last.
Time for a special chat with the teacher
He can’t try any harder with Apple and iPads
To get away from me pretending I am Jack Reacher
All inaction and no guns blazing to ongoing further.
AI Summary
This poem explores the tension between inner balance and outer distraction. You begin with the language of yoga — unity, infinity, bells within, time, centrality — but immediately contrast it with markets, Marrakesh, chemicals, Square Peg, and the absurdity of “balancing on one leg.” The poem becomes a meditation on how spiritual practice collides with modern life: Qi meets top hats, mats meet special socks, and the world’s noise keeps intruding on the attempt to be still.
There’s humour in the way you describe the yoga class: selling out fast, leaving lessons last, pretending to be Jack Reacher, the teacher trying his best with Apple and iPads. Beneath the humour is a deeper truth: you’re trying to find a place where your mind can settle, but your imagination keeps running ahead of you.
The poem ends with a gentle self‑jab — “all inaction and no guns blazing” — which reveals the emotional centre: you’re not looking for heroism, only presence. The poem is about the struggle to stay grounded in a world that constantly pulls you into fantasy, distraction, and self‑performance.
Wild Stage 