Human state poems
Gene products
We are but products of the products of genes
They control from deep
The colour of eyes
The extent of thighs
The ability to tell lies
Whether we love or despise
Genes switched on and and switched off
They control from deep
Whether you get a cold
Quickly grow old
Do as you are told
Are weak or bold
Hidden genes with hidden themes
They control from deep
Sabotage the human kind
Pollute the mind
Make us unkind
Make us blind
Genes make no excuses
They control from deep
The prediliction to cancer
To be a romancer
Make a good dancer
Find a good answer
Genes have their way
Genes control from deep
The fear of God
The love of a dog
The love of god
The fear of a dog
Genes cannot be thwarted
Genes control from deep
Genes have been feeding
On randomised breeding
All that gene seeding
No effort at weeding
I will say no more
My genes might make me a bore
They make me snore
Make me want to write more
Buy junk from a store etc..... ad inf
Chocolate things
In one local corner shop
Of which there seemed to be hundreds
Where I lived young
The smell of chocolate pervaded
It yelled eat me
Visually the thousands of jars beckoned me
And the sound of hard sweets poured
From a stainless steel bowl
Into a crackle-hard brown paper bag
Thrilled and caused my three pence piece to lurch
My limits then
My choice was a commercial kind
A stick of caramel in chocolate
Four squares of sheer pleasure
Now long gone
Old age
The inevitable victor entropy
Old age when organs wheeze and grind
Destroyer of the equilibrium of the mind
When sight and sound blur the world
Frustrating attempts at communication
Making you a frowning clown
When taking a comfortable crap
Is governed by constant laxative sap
Softening motions to ease pain of the rectal gap
To pass gnarled haemorrhoids without the sensation
Of a perineum-applied chain saw.
When joints swell to give cabbage hands and knees
When shoulders seize
A stiff body and a never stiff dick
When skin folds over folds over folds
When your face slides over your chin
When long dead veins bulge-map your thighs
When cataracts fog your eyes
When caring to look at tits is a long gone exercise
Old age begins when the body ends
In some this can be early in some much later
But it is inevitable, the denominator
Irreversible and immutable
Rich men do not want to believe
Seek remedies to relieve
Cosmetics will never be enough
No good covering up the rough
Poor men have no other possibilities
Philosophise instead
Enjoy more bed, alone
Old age the fact the only killer
In a hospital bed, untreated pneumonia, a bloody pilla’
Or quiet at home with dementia
Regrets
Where are all my women?
I have missed them all
But I must be forgiven, for I never knew
Must there have been even one?
God I hope so, and another and another
Who would have liked my kiss
And warm body
My smell about them
My smell in their nostrils
Nose
Clothes
I have not run away
Not at all
I attended the ball
A jester on an elastic rein
I admit most times in pain
With thoughts of other shapes and size
And thighs
But I was not afraid
As my teeth are good and
I am cleaner than some
Weak though
It must be said
For who can be strong alone
With thoughts unsaid
No other to listen and be purposely
Attentive
Demonstrating loving control
Not craving but receiving
Through their attention
Me
Alas even I can see that my free
Is not free
Alternatives - Luxury
Alternatives are the luxury of the middle classes
Alter your face or your arses
Choose a Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari
A dress, a suit, a wig, a sari
Holiday in Morocco or in France
Play roulette, heap loads on chance
The very poor are not so pampered
With choices they are not hampered
Water in a well six miles away
Food is rice if you’re lucky day after day
When your son or daughter is dying
All you can offer is your is crying
Doctor so and so s is really good
A cosmetic surgeon in Hollywood
Choose your nose and your lips
Lipo suck to augment your tits
A village starves without a choice
They have ceased crying now, they have no choice
They exist only from day to day
Life or death the only play.
Elastic Time
I can see the placid church from here.
It has an old clock with a constant gear
Which gongs out at each of the hour's quarter.
It seems to me they are getting shorter.
Morning was here a moment ago
But now night , where did the afternoon go?
I am getting old that is for sure
But why must I times speeding up endure?
There must be an evolutionary basis
For the elasticity on times, should be, stasis
Eh now it is morning, when did night slide away
I am off to bed to begin a new day
Getting ready for creation
He readied himself
Took the best papers
Creams and blues,
All textures, all hues
He bought canvases
Rectangular and square
Paints, a smock to wear
Spatulas to layer
He bought pens
Pencils plain and colored
Charcoal of different densities
Two easels for his intended propensitiies
He bought a dictionary
A thesaurus, sticky tape
Brushes by the score
Squirrel, badger synthetic and more
He bought soap for washing his hands of oil
He bought basket making material
He bought a fret saw and marquetry wood
He thought that all this would be good
He amassed his treasure in a room
He glowed and tingled deep inside
His studio for creation
His head swam in artistic elation
Before he created he thought
He would have a coffee
He made it and sat to contemplate art
But really it was not in his heart
The studio is still with his stuff
Pristine, never used
For materials alone do not compensate
For someone where art is not innate
No matter
Unpicking my woollen sweater was a remembrance just now
The long sleeves with their edges of catharal crust
That dare I say tasted good when eyes darting
A finger ran from there to my cherry fat lips
Pulling the thread and almost hearing
The ping ping ping of my anti-knit force
It did not matter then
The sun was always out
Warmth was mine
Sweat was not a threat
Dirtied underpants were my norm
My smudges but I never had to wash them
Handed over to come back the khaki
That approximated to the white where I lived
Pain was every month when tonsils flared vermillion
A chef’s knife across the throat
And liquid bread fed
Until the offending flesh was severed
In my first time alone in a new bed
With strangers over me
Ice cream erased most memories
And my new throat functioned well
Until fifty odd years later
The freedom of a dog released
Always rises
When I muse like this
I have poem’ed this before
The unteathering
The heaven of a dog’s freedom to run
In tall grass
In nature
But always in the end back to me
Lovely
What a great texture
Like an old oak’s bark
Furrowed and dark
Dry and brittle
All oils gone
Stretched tight on bone
Round arthritic joints
Cannot open nor clasp
So neither offer nor ask
In the last days of autumn
Like the final brown veined leaves
Transparent
Fragile
But hanging on
When you breed another
Be prepared for anxious love
A man can never be a mother
The father’s role is hard to prove
He looked in the mirror
He did not recognize the man there
This was a pink-red face
Presented cold
With a deep pock marked skin
And redder cheeks
Blood shot eyes
Someone in disguise
He felt the face
Saw a sudden fat hand
Crooked fingers
Hairy backed and nicotine stained
They ran up a bulbous nose
Past deep pits of flesh
This was not him
The face frowned back
The tongue mocked him
White with fur
With yellowing teeth
I disown you he shouted
He turned away
And found an abandoned shoe
He brought up the heel
And smashed it hard into the glass
Which splintered
And reflected
A kaleidoscope of wicked
Smiles
Sewn remnants of memories
Most ill-defined
Organisation unrefined
Any pattern established
At arms length
A paradox of squares
No colour matching cares
Some parts worn thin
Greying and fraying
Thick enough still
To cover from a cold chill
Stitching old
So toe nails snags
Too old to wash
Alternatives - Choices
There are choices which can be pleasant
Whether to eat duck or whether pheasant
To take red wine or maybe white
To eat early or late at night
Can be bad like with my father
Which treatment would you rather?
It makes little difference either way
Might make him live another day
Leave him untreated to slowly die
Or bang in chemical to make him cry
Alternative ways to problems solve
Thousands a day to resolve
A butterfly flaps its wings
Vibrates the air and alters things
Nothing is static, nothing controlled
A book bought or a book sold
A tramp begs, you offer a token
He mutters thank you, softly spoken
You ignore him as if he’s dead
A choice offer rejected in your head
The police come and take him away
Beat him up in fun horse play
Your money would have made him rise
Go for food or booze supplies
Too late now no going back
You took the arbitrators trap.
Alternatives - Sex
So you slept with him despite your qualms?
Yes, I was rather turned on by his charms.
So, when did you first do the act?
Well, at first in a taxi, in fact.
Then on the stairs of the hotel.
Did no one see you?
Not as far as I can tell.
Then in the doorway of the room.
Amazing, and so soon.
Pardon me what are you saying
Nothing much, except it was turbo laying.
Well we did it again, this time in bed.
It’s a wonder he was not half dead.
We rested then, he was a bit spent.
I should think he was rather bent.
Anyway it was a funny game
I never did get his name.
Tears
Crying is the last gasp in an effort of control
It is the loss of the lubrication of the soul
An outward admission of abject pain
Held back, held back to avoid some shame
Tears the last defence breached
The heart reached
