A selection of poems

Please enjoy these simple poems which form part of the collection
Postcards from Airstrip One


One moment in infinity

Just for today,
There is no yesterday,
No tomorrow.
Nothing outside this moment.
Nowhere else exists,
And there is nowhere I would rather be,
Than in this place,
And in this moment,
With you.



She made him do it

He told her once,
He told her twice,
A lesson to learn,
When he says it thrice.

Answering back?
She should know better.
But it takes so little,
To upset her.

He threw a punch,
Caught more than air.
She spat out her blood,
Just over there.

Now she cleans up it,
She wipes it away,
But shell remember her lesson,
For another day.



Urban Walden or Life in the city

Close your eyes.
Breathe the sun.
The air feels fine.
And so do I,
Underneath a clear blue sky.
The only ones we have to please
And you and me.
We walk between,
Glass-iron trees.
This city.
This forest.
You.
Me.



I walk out early

I walk out early,
Look at the metal skeletons
In the Sunday streets,
Which are empty.
A moist dew hangs low.
The sun hangs above,
And though cold,
It gives the place life.
In winters time,
We forget to look.
To take in where we are.
We look down,
Watch our feet,
Mumble insincere apologies,
When we collide with other lives.
Get from here to there.
Destination and shortest route.
Alpha-omega.



A moment

A line of birds,
Atop a roof,
Alight to the air.
Left to right.

A synchronized,
Aerobatic display.
And I am the only one,
To see it.



Here at the end of all things

Dark seas envelope crumbling land.
The last towers fall to time.
And the fires rise and fall.
The oldest eyes watch and then close.
A rainfall of ash touches down.
But nobody is there to see it.
The voices fall.
The plants turn brown
And then they too fall into ruin.
Little eddies of wind
Blow the last traces in circles
And then die.
These are indeed the last days,
As they are seen.
Not in the cataclysm
Of great screams,
But the soft moan of a slow death.



Pripyat
They say that there are no ghosts in Pripyat.
Not the pale white sheet kinds at least
Whoever they are,
They are wrong.
On every corner,
At every window,
With each rusting bike,
Or overturned shopping trolley,
Stands an invisible ghost of times long past.

The carrousel whistles its final tune,
As a wind blows through the holes,
Rusted into the dead metal.
No child shall laugh here again,
Not with the specter at their door.
Their toys abandoned,
To the legacy of the toy,
Oppenheimer gave them.

In the shadow of the cooling towers,
Bricks crumble and the tinnitus crackle,
Tells us of our danger.
I look through the broken window.
The floor has erupted and flowers are growing.
Grey and brown leaves.
But life, none the less.
Nature finds a way to survive.
While we find a way to die.

Beautiful in their sublime despair,
The concrete blocks rise around us.
I whisper Kurtz last words,


As a prayer for forgiveness and clarity
One day, long after my own time,
The children of those who were lost,
May walk these paths once more,
Without the sound of a Geiger counter.
As the soundtrack of their thoughts.

The ghosts are closing in on us now.
I can feel their anger.
I can feel their sorrow.
I can feel their fingers,
Cold knives of silver,
Creeping around my throat.
If I turn, I may catch a glimpse of them,
Disappearing around a corner,
In the corner of my eye.

We head back to the car.
Our time is up,
And we must leave this place now,
But it will come with us.
We can go but the ghosts will remain.
Years pass and the town,
Once of fun fairs and life,
No longer lives,
Yet cannot die.





1/100,000 of a second
The old man,
A widower these four years,
Lonely and invisible,
Sad in the silent rooms,
Sees the flash of light,
And the road warping into liquid,
Rising upwards into the sky.

Thank God. Thank








The paradox of dystopia,
Is that there is no hope of a better future.
Yet it cannot exist,
Unless somebody clings to hope.


Broken sonnet 2
Ere light through Capulets window breaks,
Lives hopeless hope fore the dreamer awakes.

Byronic sonnet, verse, couplet and word,
Were enamored by nature and flight of sweet bird.

Yet love comes not in the form on the wing,
Nor in the sweet tones of the thrush that doth sing.

It comes with the smile and kind word of a girl,
Which sets souls a fire and worlds in a whirl.

A man of money, is of security sure,
But a man in love, is of happiness more.