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The Grand Old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men
Then he had another pill
And had them all again

Lessons of the past

Santayana said
Those who fail their history
Course must repeat it

Views of matrimony

To some men marriage
Is just a word, and to some
It is a sentence

Cut and paste

Imitation is
Sometimes the sincerest form
Of sheer laziness

The thesaurus of love

Carouse
Shiver
Arouse
Quiver
Often
Quicken
Soften
Thicken

Contrive
Repeat
Arrive
Complete
Laughter
After

The Painted Desert

My magpie mind hunts for dreams to steal
Takes them, confounding what is real
With tales of miracles in distant lands
Until they merge, like mingled coloured sands

A stag-headed oak

Once it towered above the land
Its thick leaves shadowing the grass
The sap no longer feeds the branches
They slowly rot while the tree
Relinquishes imperial dreams
Falling into sleep

My son the farmer

I (1996)


As I carry him up to bed
We pause at the window
To look out at the night

"Why is the moon little?" he asks
I try to give a sense of distance
"Can I fly there in a rocket?"
"Yes," I say, "One day."

Returning, after he's nodded off,
A shiver of dread runs through me:
I resolve to interest him in soil and trees.


II (2005)

Stomping off to bed in a sulk
He pauses to look at the moon

I mention it, he shrugs
"So what?"

I try to interest him in soil and trees
Yeah, like that's going to happen.

Cri de Couer

"Est-ce que toi voix dont m'appelle?'
Alfred de Musset, La Nuit de Mai


Is it yours, the voice that calls me?
My gentle siren, is it you?
Or is it the susurrus of the sea
Whispering what may be true?
Is it you whose heart is grieving
Crying out across the waves?
Or is it the sun, now leaving,
Dragging the hours to their graves?

It is you, my instinct tells me
Not some other quiet shade
For today I heard it clearly
Above the sounds that nature made
In the quiet, though far apart:
The beating of another's heart

Entrained

The erotic lilt
Of the railway carriage leads
To uneasy dreams

Inspiration

Beggar's sign today
Made me smile to see - it said
"Will work for world peace"

The nerd's farewell

Got my anorak
And got my ticket for the
Last train to Geeksville

Progress

I used to suffer
From indecisiveness, but
Now I'm not so sure

The last word

Jean-Paul Sartre said
That God was dead. Then God said,
"Jean-Paul Sartre's dead".

Cuts both ways (song)

You asked for a promise, I gave you my word
But now it seems there's something I heard
They say you are playing a game with your days:
Don't you know loving cuts both ways?

You said you were mine, I said I was yours
You closed all my windows, then you walked out the door
They say you are searching for the way from the maze
Don't you know freedom cuts both ways?

When I was with you, I was on top
I feel like nothing, now I've been dropped
They say you are walking around in a daze
Don't you know hurting cuts both ways?

I try not to be angry, I rarely succeed
You are so brazen, all gone to seed
My mind has got broken, it's all out of phase
Don't you know a dagger cuts both ways?