prophet trousered poetry

LINKS TO CONTENTS

 

surprise encountanka with my aging muse

symbolist  head lines tanka

RAINBOW DRAGON ALPHABET

CAECOB FARM IN MAY

WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN

MULTI STORY HAIKU

SENRYU COBBLED FOR FRANKENSTEIN'S POETASTER

BALLADE OF THE INVISIBLE MAN

FALL OF THE HOUSE OF THE OVERREACHING ARCHER

NEW DEAL MILLENNIUM RAP

GLOBAL ROTATION

BEARDED LADY OF MY DREAMS

green world wars song

THE AMAZON'S REVENGE

THE RETURN OF THE BIG BAD TWO-TOED STEREOPHONIC SLOTH

LONELY HEARTLANDS SONG

A GUTTER SINGING IN THE RAIN

GRANDMA

BREAKING THE ANCESTRAL CODE

ON RHONDDA MOUNTAIN

unknowing riddle song

RAINING IN HEART

DUSK WOMAN  OF THE PRESELI MOUNTAINS

HUMAN KITES IN THE SKY

THE MADMAN AND THE WRESTLER

A CELLULOID PARANOID FROM  BUNUEL

white bird

COSMOS FIELD

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD

LATE NIGHT MEDITATIONS

A BIG BIRD HATCHES

seven songs before midnight

a shadow puppet theatre

TORN APART BY THE HUNTRESS

an unknown walker in a country lane at night

THE MOMENT OF FOOTFALL

THE GROUNDS OF PARADISE

CHIN WAG

bardic dream song

heavenly spring haiku

vee deevahn dusmun song

SPOT THE SEASON WORD

salvation army haiku

THE POET MURDERS

IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICA

tanka after seeing lorca's play

abroad thoughts from home

RETURN TO AN AUTUMN TOWN

the contents of an average barrow

ODE TO NOTTINGHAM TOWN

TEARS IDLE TEARS

dada dole blues song

A BABY BIRD FOUND DEAD ON THE PAVEMENT

it be t'unemployed grave digger song

SHIP OF DYING BODY ELECTRIC NOTES

high craggy peaks song

GUITAR

MANDOLINE  TIME

a phantom fiddler's mad tune

ATLANTIS SONG

ONLY PHANTOM FRUIT

SEA SONG

river tees poetaster 1968 vintage

keats waves

are these migrants


surprise encountanka with my aging muse
                

                              

the girl draws near me

a soft focus siren as

        we meet on the swing

bridge in the harbour

                                   mist

                                            lines

of verse appear on her brow

 

 

symbolist head lines tanka             

confusing babble

from live pillars in nature's

temple

                he moves through

dense printed trunks of symbols

tracking him with knowing eyes

 

RAINBOW DRAGON ALPHABET


Through a spidery tear blurred library window,

         Morrab Garden drinks

Her veil of rain

         (Juggling emblems yet again,

Sad eyes smudging liquid, coloured inks,

         A rainbow alphabet of dragon's teeth).

I form this paper chalice, it contains

         A single crystal tear drop from the misty rain's

Soft adorning of the dragon trees beneath

         My jewel-cobwebbed window.


[Cornall, Penzance in 1977, the Morrab Gardens, Autumn]

 

 

 

 

 

 

        CAECOB FARM IN MAY

It is only late spring, and summer has come

Already to Caecob farm. The temperature

In the mid sixties, the hardy earth is dumb

And indifferent to the assaults of rake and spade. Nature

Has exploded the magnolia candles, loaded down

The cherry trees with white blossom clusters.

A willow warbler chirrups.

                                     Out of town

I might learn to shrug my shoulders, when my ego blusters.

Does the poet's persona disappear for good,

Planted in some black hole in space?

A woman gardener caresses a tomato plant,

Stroking its lovelorn leaves. It is understood

By green fingers that plants need tea and massage.

                                                                      This place

Conjures a glamour from Cuckoo:

"Too true!" the chant!

                                                                                       

 

         WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN


This country garden is running wild. I hack

At the weeds and knotted tufted grasses. My tool

Is a mattock, fit for a medieval villein. My back

Complains, but I don't reply.

                                          I lose my cool,

When a gaudy pheasant rockets out of a bush,

An inter-hedgerow missile.

                                        Shocked I need drink!

I go into the kitchen for a glass of cider. As I push

The door open, there's a fluster of wings ...round the sink ...

At the walls...panicking madly at my intrusion, a bird

Flies straight in front of my face and thumps a window.

A redbreast with white speckled belly lies

Jewel-eyed and stiff on the floor.

                                              I suffer an absurd

Guilt for my role in his death: I don't know

Why I live, and the garden robin dies.



MULTI STORY HAIKU

     

 

5 

           

  stage directions for a walkway

 

     dim seated hunched by

  doorway as abandoned child

     split black garbage bag

 

 

  4

 

the aeolian banshee

 

    howling through the frame

 of my metal window the

   flats sing to themselves

 

 

3

 

staring at a flat wall reflections of window migrants

      

        

      reflections in my

 glasses a flock of birds i

      wheel glimpse now they're past

 

 

2

 

the nature of vandalism below the block

 

     lone black boy under

a may tree he strikes with a

     stick white blossoms spray

 

 

1

         

love thy neighbour on thy landing

 

     i sleep i wake to

hammering door neighbour screams

    he'll firebomb my flat

                                                                  

SENRYU COBBLED FOR FRANKENSTEIN'S POETASTER


  1 

  media distortion   

   

horizontal hold

cannot centre anarchy

        tv anarchy

       

  2      

discreditable tanka

  

would you credit it

not without a plastic card

and a regular

salary i'm just a heel

spurned snake in consumer hell

 3 

clockwork conscience haiku

    

   mechanic soul search

cannot abide a machine

 that breaks down with guilt


4

sensuous clapped out cz motorbike haiku

  will her piston seize

as i mount her saddle her arse

  weighed down with my gear

 

5

demands of the amalgamated haiku poets and undertakers union in brief

    a fair days pay at

  the book fair living wage

     for a dying art

A H.P.U.U.

 fighting for the rights of dead and undead alike!

   

 

BALLADE OF THE INVISIBLE MAN

(OR DEATH OF THE BENEFITS CULTURE)

‘I’d vote for any party that  would say, “I won’t allow people to throw garbage all over me”. But none of the parties seem to be particularly interested. That’s why I formed the World Domination League.’

E . L. Wisty              

'garbage in, garbage out   (hacker's proverb)

 

I tried to write out my life, but found I'd lost

My Mind. My inmost self had done a bunk:

My Soul had buggered off, and to my cost

Without me in it, my autobiography was sunk,

My Character missing, an eloping monk.

The keys of this typewriter were not mine to rap

The Vaults of my hollow Skull  seemed to entrap

The nagging of a Moneybags I'd never want to meet

In a crowded room, or sitting on my lap:

The Invisible Man perched on my Judgement Seat.

 

'Justice belongs to those who claim it ...' and are tossed

Like stale bread to pigeons, or buns to the trunk

Of a lobotomised Elephant, whom Fate had double-crossed

By cutting out his memory. This computer had drunk

From the River of Death, where all past lives are junk,

Where Fat Cat Greed rots down to slimy crap,

Where Strong Leaders panic where scavengers flap,

The Winner's stink, the Victim's corpse smells sweet

As fresh barned hay before the thunderclap:

The Invisible Man perched on my Judgement Seat.

 

I searched for my Ego in my mousy flat. I glossed

On laundry, questing the Id, where the worn socks stunk.

I searched ancient pants for my  Libido. Then I flossed

My Unconscious, as my teeth were strangely gapped. I slunk

Out to the toilet and dived into the bowl for a chunk

Of Sensibility, that I could call my own. Not a scrap

Of Aesthetic Value in my shit! Such moments sap

Self-confidence, so I went for a walk in the freezing street,

Where the half-moon hung, a Freudian skullcap:

The Invisible Man perched on my Judgement seat

 

By the frosted roofs of cars I made a snap

Decision; never try to turn yourself on like a tap

Or a frozen Old Man, ice dead for lack of heat,

From a thousand cuts by the True-Blue Rattle-Trap

(Who cashed in his precious life to bribe the Well-Heeled Chap)!

The Invisible Man perched on my Judgement seat.

FALL OF THE HOUSE OF THE OVERREACHING ARCHER

(Ballade concerning a New Deal in  hell's estate, by courtesy of the New Tory Dole Cheats)

 

Vegetables chat in the wok,

Noting the fuchsia's fading prime.

Vision's colours, black and white, stock       

Images of sick culture ... slime

They had for mortar. Tower Time,

Smash your headstone 'gainst harder skies!

Techno babble ... our systems mime

As Chaos sings: a planet dies.

 

Normality is culture shock;

The heartless make a killing rhyme,

Flog poor fools a false rainbow crock

Of shit... self-legalising crime

Of power snatchers, see them climb

With smirking reassuring lies,

Steal your life, overwind the clock

As Chaos sings: a planet dies.

 

I hoe flower beds, oil the lock ...

The frail gate must check vandals. Grime,

Spite's arrows, target my house! Block

It all out! (Buddy spare a dime ...

Dole queues in  fat cat heaven ... !). I'm

Learning clarinet to be wise

As a musician.  Please don't mock

As Chaos sings! (A planet dies).

 

So eat well, feed the Autumn cyme

(Nights draw in before old men's eyes).

Who heals the millennial zyme

 As Chaos sings? A planet dies.

    

 

 

NEW DEAL MILLENNIUM RAP

 

the sun is bloody, the sky is holy punctured above north pole we don't feel melancholy in the ultra violet rays we got genetically modified soul

 

smart bombs swarming in the global warming

  uranium shell tip fun

we all go jogging in protective spacesuits

  in the new clear midday sun

 

our reassuring vulture on the digital tv

  an hologram an angel of death,

says open your throat and spew out your vote

  you haven't a voice, you can't sing a note

no choice you're grounded , they clipped your left wing,

  hip hurrah, we're on tv

 

we're heading for the last celestial bedroom

  our final duvet in the clouds

so wrap a fool up in his cotton wool shrouds

  he'll be laughing all the way to his doom

 

the happy torture victim spends our generous vouchers

  on the tasty fast foods of the west,

dodging racist bullies, limps off back to his hostel,

  we've laid his bad memories to rest

a power hungry smiler with the image of a nice guy

  tells us we're all middle class,

poverty is now called something for nothing culture,

  in our clever fat cat farce

the haves slam the door

  we speak  third way bollocks  in the face of the poor,

hip hurrah, pie in the sky

 

 

a high tech pimple on the banks of thames,

  a brand new millennium dome

it's a concrete mission statement, glorifies our aims,

  it's our new deal ideal home

 

you won't be missed, if you're excluded and object,

  middle england plays to win,

our trump card in our pauper cleansing project ...

  if you can't pay, you can't get in

 

virtual fascist leader figures stuck to the levers

         of power, sticky fingered super glue,

we run down the infrastructure, tax bribe wallet voters

         hard boil the underclass

in  media spin stew,

         if you were on our gravy train, you'd smile full time too,

hip hurrah, we're new deceivers

 

two thousand years after the crucifixion

         we party, as we hammer in the nails,

join us in our new deal, or face incarceration

         In our profit-making overflowing jails!

                                                                                                                                               

                                                       

GLOBAL ROTATION

(dedicated to the MP, whose "cost effective" solution to environmental Armageddon was third world national parks financed by tourists)

                                                             

1 ecology for the taxpayer haiku

fear not thy planet
may be sold out but thy tax
burden shall be light

       

   

2 computer death virus tanka

    maltese amoeba

screens william blakes the

    auguries of innocence

then erases your hard disc

prophet in garbage nowt crash



3 root map of gender sadness tanka

      i read today men

have sad thoughts on the left side

     of the brain while

women generate sorrow with

the whole content of their skulls

4 weary of time elapsed haiku

motorway boredom

sunflower grows on central

reservation joy

 

BEARDED LADY OF MY DREAMS

 

It is a distraught landscape. It could be night

Or day; sunbeams and moonbeams cross swords;

Wild elms sway.

                         Next a shaft of light

Beams down from the very centre of the sky.

                                                             (Words

Throw up your syllables in despair!)

                                                    Two men

Are watching this tunnel of light. One is inspired

To envision what lies beyond the zenith of heaven:

Women in machines, naked to the waist, are wired

To skull-shaped silver helmets.

                                           'O shit!' says his friend,

As a bearded giantess slides down the light-shaft. Her hair

Switches colours, from silver to black. She tries

To strangle this man, but he's saved as he struggles to bend

Back her wrists, by the seer with his magic wand and prayer,

Who shape-changes her back to a baby, which cries and cries.

green world wars song

 

 

If you would travel to Africa,

    Be sure to catch the high tide!

If you should make it to Africa,

    Be sure to see my lady!

Tell her the White King swept the board!

    Tell her the war is over!

Tell her I'm waiting by the sea,

    Trying to find an answer!

 

 

CHORUS

O the days were short and the nights were free

    In the Green Queen's court.

And the dancing girls brushed the tapestries

    And beat their tambourines.

And then the White King made his move,

    Sent in computer mercenaries,

Cut through the palace walls of oak,

    Felled the green towers with laser beams

Then giant bulldozers razed  meadows into dust

    And the countryside was squared in barbed wire grids

And the badgers were all gassed inside their earthy lairs

    Because the White King won

 

 

Meeting the Green Queen in Africa,

    Take her my ocarina,

As she dances to the talking drums,

    Give her my farewell story.

Tell her I live in damp sea caves,

    Dodging the robot cliff patrols,

Watching the sea birds skim the skies,

    Crying for peace like freezing souls.

 

CHORUS

O the days were short and the nights were free etc.

                     

So now the tongues of men will shrivel in their heads,

    Their twisted heads will hang with no words to tell,

Of the sea cow or the dolphin or the great blue whale,

    Because the White King won.

 

 

 

                     

THE AMAZON'S REVENGE

The python hangs from a rain forest tree,

     Yawning in front of a glistering black

River. The moon is a tapestry,

     Undulating, taut then slack,

An image re-woven by random ripples, a fool's

     Moon in the waters; the one in the skies

Is full, bulbous, massively tropical, it cools

     The humid Amazon, with her animal cries.

     The forest interior echoes by the river's side:

         The big cats prowl,

     The screech of a night bird, a scream of pain, a growl,

     Crescendo to kill as hunter and prey collide.

     Continually. the incessant, high

Pitched vibrations of the crickets underlie

     The grunts and shuffling rustles from the dense

Canopy. The jungle's wait is tense,

'Till howler monkeys deafen the canopy.

For an alien, threatening sound invades

     The Amazonian evening. The distant noise

Of drunken men in chain sawed glades,

     Brawling and bellowing in fun with the boys,

After a bruising day's work felling trees,

     Building an highway into the heart

Of this delicate ecosystem. Multi-nationals seize

     Raw resources, fast bucks,  and depart.

The highway will form a dustbowl which will spread

     Eating the giant trees.

 Tribesmen and pigmies contract the white man's disease,

Losing lands and livings, where the sheltering forest is dead.

The treeless soil is exhausted after a few

     Years. The shanty-town poor will find,

A cornucopia squandered by the ethically blind.

     Plants expire oxygen: one of the great

Lungs of the planet will collapse. The settler's fate...

Deserted, where their tiny crops once grew.

 

The python hangs from a rain forest tree,

     Yawning in front of a glistering black

River. The moon is a tapestry,

     Undulating, taut then slack,

An image re-woven by random ripples, a fool's

     Moon in the waters; the one in the skies

Is full, bulbous, massively tropical, it cools

     The humid Amazon, with her animal cries.

     The forest interior echoes by the river's side:

         The big cats prowl,

     The screech of a night bird, a scream of pain, a growl,

         Crescendo to kill as hunter and prey collide.

The python goddess stirs: green worlds revive.

     She sinuously sheds her tired old skin

And visits the destroyers, in woman's guise to begin

     Alluring the fools to the forest for fun;

Night after night, she'll have them one by one,

Embraced in her lusty coils, and swallowed alive.

         

THE RETURN OF THE BIG BAD TWO-TOED STEREOPHONIC SLOTH

                                      

                                       (nonsense song with jaws harp)

 

 

the two toed sloth he stunts my growth

         and never sleeps at night

he hangs from trees while eating leaves

         and never rights quite write

he's slow and clumsy on his feet

         and couldn't run a metre

 

Chorus

but i'm very much afraid he is destined to grow

          WOW WOW WOW   CHA CHA CHA

like a tropical orchid in a bowl of snow

         like an atomistic mystic in a Amazonian jingle

 WOW WOW WOW   CHA CHA CHA CHA

         and never rights quite write

 

my uncle had a tin robot

         who used to cook him dinner

this fine machine fried bacon 'n' eggs

&nbs