Future Thoughts

My favourite day of the week

Is tomorrow.

And, if I should find myself there,

One day,

Stepping from a time machine,

I won't wake up,

But walk on regardless.

Facing Up

Spent the day on Facebook

Checking out the sites.
The past won’t feel the same
Without you.

Each image hides a clue,
Virtual or actual.
False or True,
Fate plays our tune.

I sometimes feel
The dark side
Of the mirror
Is where we live most.

So then, it’s no crime
To be out here again,
Wandering the streets
Of Cyberspace.

Second Thoughts

Remember that chap

Who fell asleep,
And woke to a world of the blind,
Where Triffids ruled?

This story might never be written
Without him.

A bit like prophecy:
We wake in the dark
To a world only we can see;

And spend the rest of the night
Checking the room
For monsters.

Γέρωντος

for my Father

How must it have been for you,

Growing up all those years

When truth made sense,

Despite war, chaos, death,

The stuff you’d read at school;

The turning of the spheres,

Like some vast cinematic reel,

As time swept by;

And, later, love.

Gazing at the screen,

You saw the years implode

Into a storm of doubt,

Obscuring the past;

And soon the walls of certainty

Came tumbling down:

Truth, power, authority, respect.

You took your sword stick from its case

And marched the streets

Scowling at the young.

We scoffed at your vision then,

As you might gaze on ours:

Caught up in novelty, like tourists,

Clicking away at every world of choice,

As if photography

Will save us.



Angel Heights

for Peter

Remember the day you almost died
in that disco in LA;
or how, the next week, we climbed
those sharp hillsides,
dodging snakes and God knows what,
hauling ourselves up through the smog
into the double Os
of Hollywood?

Not owning a camera then
makes sense,
as I think back
to hidden days:
cruising to siren choirs
on distant freeways;
trailing Mulholland at night
in love with the downtown lights;
brunching at dawn at Schwab’s,
acting lost scenes from “Sunset Boulevard”
and  “Day of the Locust”;
half-drowning at Paradise Cove,
as we took on the Pacific;
then, half-way home
on 101,
our last spare burst;

Or when,
burnt-out round the pool
in Burbank or Van Nuys,
dining on Coors,
our pot-luck finally turned:
sneaking gourmet-garbage from bins
by Valley stores;
panning Venice streets for crumbs.

Everyone needs to eat, they say;
so, just the other day,
when I called your house on stilts,
high over Cahuenga Pass,
and you answered - for once,
I knew from your voice,
despite its claim
to sanity and fame,
no matter how far we ride,
hunger for moments lost.
the best and worst of times,
is all we really had
and have
to guide us.

Odyssey

I long for an A-Z of darkness

Reason can’t sense;

Tales not found in brochures;

A land without memory,

Where real shadows meet.

Why wait

In this half-world,

Sifting caution for answers,

Flinging daydreams into a skip?

Let’s jet off to nowhere:

Tour nonsense; try on the hats;

Live as we mean to die, unknowing;

In some resort, where madmen pose as waiters.

Dream the impossible,

And wake up to breakfast,

Knowing love is absurd.

Message from Porlock

In 1797, Coleridge’s great romantic poem “Kubla Khan” is said to have been interrupted for all time  by “a person on business from Porlock”

There never was a Xanadu, as far as I can see,
Despite the great man’s ramblings as he ushered me in;
No explanation or offer of tea.
Poets, you think, would have better manners.


His papers were a mess:

Scribblings about dancing girls and caves of ice.
I inspected them, nonetheless,
A thorough waste of time,
And left without more ado,
Since I had come on business.

On the way home, I felt a lurch.
My horse in fast thick pants was breathing -
On account of a broken shoe -
Nothing more alarming.

Back at Porlock, at my inn,
No damsel with a dulcimer followed me in.
I slept in the same room as always.
No wailing troubled my sleep,
Not to my knowledge, at least.

It isn’t that kind of place.

Double Trouble

My doppelganger rang me up today,

Asking for money, which I don’t have.

I pointed out he doesn’t have a phone,

Or even an identity

To speak of.

He claimed I’m an imposter;

He’s the real me:

The self I’d be if I were smart.

He must have problems telling us apart.

The mirror says

I’m better looking.

It should know.

Now, when he calls, I’m not at home,

However much he shouts my name

As if it’s his own.

Though, each time I watch him go,

Shabby and wannabe,

Silence returns like an echo.

Home Fires

Does anyone believe,

Returning home,

Your tale of different worlds?

Because you weren’t dreaming near them, maybe,

Sharing their relief on waking.

So why care now? you ask.

Perhaps you were never there at all.

Their eyes say as much:

Always somewhere else.

And now?

A stranger shocked to find the fire still burning.

News from Nowhere

Turning the page, one is

At ease, in a practical sense,

Preserving one’s distance on trains:

Reliving events as told,

If not as they really are,

In places we rarely go.

Words that don’t speak for us

But strangers everywhere;

Absorbed in our sanctuary

As the bus rumbles home:

Disaster and war,

The plight of stars,

Politicians whose power

Attracts,

While raising the tide of fear;

Each headline a litany

Of lives unshared,

Making awareness safe

For readers whose fate,

Despite all that's known,

Remains a mystery.

Clueless

That dark cloud passing could be a sign

Of thoughts drifting back

To the scene of the crime.

The clock says three,

Though time’s a mystery;

And the cops as usual

Are clueless.

Fiction won’t change your life,

But it could hold the key:

Pages lead us to truths

We should have guessed.

Days like this, I stay home,

With murder in mind.

Sifting remains,

In bed with PD James.