Categories
political

Ruby’s March. Rockwell’s Reckoning.

Six years old, yet burdened with a nation’s pungent breath, she walked through hatred’s furnace as if fear itself felt death. Four marshals flanked her footsteps, their badges cold as rocks while stones of slur and vicious eyes erupted from every block.  . Walls smeared poisonous graffiti  racist curses, perfidious lies the kind that stain […]

Categories
Song lyrics

The Thrill to End all Thrills (song lyric).

I don’t have a nerve in my body, left to get excited they’ve been burned away by the angst and pain I’ve had to live with. Life has treated me so hard, I never get scared and I never get mad, I’m just waiting for the thrill to end all thrills. Waiting for dawn’s songbirds […]

Categories
political

Humphrey Dumphy, M.P.

Humphrey Dumphy, M.P., sat on a wall, Humphrey Dumphy, M.P., had a great fall from grace – with some predatorial men who preyed on boys for fun. so Humphrey Dumphy, M.P., jumped from favour, not law; no trial, no cell. He jumped before the reckoning fell And that was THE END.

Categories
Poetry

April 1865: Message from Clover Hill

In a grave for the living, rationing my breath I guard comrades fighting within themselves to stay in the tiny sliver of death we call sleep. In wartime, sleeping is close to, yet as far from living as it’s possible to be. April’s sun lazes over the horizon, it’s anaemic light revealing life midst the […]

Categories
Autobio pieces.

Grasping the Nettle

GRASPING THE NETTLE. Five years old, suddenly alone; in a Childrens’ Home.He was cared for, as one of manywhich crushed and confused his identityand meant a little boy grew, without self-value. Eight years later and his mind is full ofself-loathing imaginings intertwined like bramble.Dispiriting thoughts, tangled; like the curls on his head,as if tousled and […]

Categories
Sport

Llewellyn’s Chair

When I was young, about twenty-two or three, feeling fit and powerful, there was no stopping me. At school Phys-Ed teachers said, “You’re built to compete,” said I had the body of a perfect athlete and I must admit, I thought the world was at my feet. Me and my best friend Llewellyn – we […]

Categories
Autobio pieces.

Aunty Con.

I was born in Cardiff in 1951. At 5 years old I was taken from my mother, to live in a Dr. Barnardo’s Childrens’ Home in Cardiff. Later, aged 9, I was transferred to a Home in Aberdare, where I lived until I was 16. However while in Cardiff (just prior to Christmas 1957) a […]

Categories
light verse Poetry

The Mrs. is on my Back

I piggy-back my Mrs; she feels almost weightless, both our kids are laughing uncontrollably riding on my feet. Their arms enfold my calves, and their giggling grins carve smiles on our faces too. Ahead, along the path, the gnarled, spirit hands of ancestors reach without grasping. I trudge contentedly.

Categories
comic verse political

I’m Gonna be Famous, I am.

I’m gonna be famous, I am. I’ve got it all sorted, gathered all the resources required for my master plan. No question how I’ll do it, I’ll improve myself as a poet; then, when the popularity of poetry surges; when light-shining poets emerge as prophets with clarity of vision and ways of speakin’ that elucidate […]

Categories
Poetry

One Moment

He emerged, undisturbed by the melody of babble and jabber, into silence. Mother’s moist, sympathetic eyes, harmonise with her caring crescent. Images, engendered from this gentle, somehow sinister, quiescence burden his innocent perceptions with knowing ignorance. White coats flutter; busying noiselessly. Machines, their dials awhirr with sharp jumping traces, vibrate rhythms to multitudes of peering faces. […]