What do sunflowers do at night?
When darkness, all around surround…
And silence loudly embraces,
From head to ground,
Feeling all alone in the still of night…
Desperate for a glimpse of light
Holding the soil so tight…
Hungering for the day.
In the darkness they don’t see…
The other sunflowers standing with them and me.
Trying to stand tall and see,
The coming of the sun.
At night, all the sunflowers turn their heads to east.
Towards the hope of dawns coming sun.
Hoping soon this night will be done.
And as morning breaks
With morning warm yellow tone…
The sunflowers see they’re not alone.
All the sunflowers facing together that waking day.
All together they follow that warm suns ray.
When the sun sets, and darkness comes for hours.
When there is no sun. They are not alone.
They stand with all the sunflowers.

A poem for https://sunflowerssuicidesupport.org.uk/

I didn’t expect it to shake me
The passing of a Queen
Your many years of service
A symbol of dignity you have been

In a time of uncertainty
A nations rock you became
Your passing shakes us
The country not the same.

We expected you to live for ever
As stupid as that may sound
A national sense of loss
A nation rocked at its ground

Rest in peace Your majesty
The British people will sing
Good bye your majesty
God save the King.

At times the road just seems too much.
A vertical climb too steep
When you just want to let go
And not wake from this nights sleep

Afraid of the new dawn
The coming of the day
When it all seems too much
In bed you wish to stay.

The black dog barks
Snarls in morning light
Keeps you locked in
No more will or fight.

With all your might and energy
You try to face the day
But the darkness in your head
Keeps you where you stay.

When depression holds you
Keeps you locked inside
When the world is daunting
Your face you want to hide.

This fight is common
In people we all know
A mask of happiness
Inside they feel so low.

Don’t advise them, or push them
Saying “you need to do that or this”
Yes they are broken
But that’s not how we fix.

We’ll get through it eventually
This ever bumpy ride
We just need you
To journey by our side.

Goodbye warm glowing blood red sun
Your work today, here is done.
Watched you descend out of sight
Welcome you, warm summers night.
Crescent moon reflects your now set light.
As it has been, so is now, all is right.

• 

I didn’t know you
But your passing hit us so.
I didn’t know you
But your passing, hit our family so.
Extended brother,
In our family of blue
Some of us didn’t know you
But we know you, for what we do.
Those outside our family
Will never fully know the pain
Bonded by our service
Twenty four seven, in sun and rain.
Our hearts sink dear brother
Fellow servant of the crown
The words we never want to hear
“We have an officer down! “
Rest in peace dear brother
We salute you as a sign
That we will always remember you,
One less in this thin blue line.

• 

It was the first day after lockdown
And I ventured out my door
And I was ever so glad
I didn’t have to stay home, no more

And rushed I did, to choir practice
Where our conductor, silenced with his baton tap.
We sang with glee and thankfullnes
And boy did we sound crap.

For months of no practice
Took a heavy toll.
But it mattered not
For we sung with heart and soul.

We sang the national anthem
As our conductors arms did fly
God save the queen but…
The Welsh sang Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau

But as the rehearsal continued
We sang You’ll never walk alone
We appreciated each other
That made the Churchdown choir tone.

We sang to thank the key workers
That made it possible to sing once more.
To come together to practice
Through the community centre door.

A world in union we sang
An anthem to this world pandemic fight.
Our gratitude to the NHS
That put an end in sight.

And after the last note was finished
We sat in quiet still
And thought of our nations fallen
That lost lives to this greatest ill.

Please don’t give a shit!
Please don’t abuse your roll!
Please Think of others,
When you only think of your hole!

• 

What ever I write now
Are the words of my moment
That am I, that are me.
Life I chose to see,
That is I, that is me.
Am I me or the words that make me?
Give me a moment to make me the antithesis of the time before. Leaves me thinking more.
Was I me before?
Or the contradiction of my hypocrisy?
Delinquent dichotomy disorder
A sponge-like viewpoint hoarder.
A foot across the boarder.
I place another order.
I get my salted crisps.

I don’t know about wind
Apart from the hot wind I speak
About the toxic gases
Wind turbines allegedly leak.

No one knows windmills
As much as knowledgeable me
They go round and round
Sometimes on land, or sea.

They make them in China and Germany.
In America they make about none  America makes a president
Where everyone can have a gun.

Twas the night before Christmas
And I’d not bought a jot.
For my entire family
Presents were still to be got.
So off to the garage
I flew like a flash
Hoping id been paid
And had enough cash.
24 hour garage,
A god send indeed.
For practical gifts
Like charger and lead.
My bestest thinking cap
I donned on my head
The first item I purchased
For Uncle Fred…
A can of lynx,
A choice of all two,
A quandary,
What would I do?
The wide range of choice
In this 24 hour spar
And settled I did,
On lynx Africa.
My mother, my father
I still had to buy
This seasonal pressure
I wanted to cry.
I paused for a moment
And took a deep sigh,
And readied myselfFor the next Christmas buy.
And off on a frenzy
I continue to shop
Onward and upwards
Shop till I drop.
My mother some hair dye
To deal with her roots.
My father some kiwi polish
For his very fine boots.
Aunt Mable loves allsorts
Plenty of things,
So into the basket
A reduced DVD of Mary Poppins.
Then last of all my sister.
The perfect item before my very eyes,
Best before the 24th, A six pack of mince pies!
All smug with my purchases
This Christmas shopping aint hard
And to top it off, a 99p extra value Christmas card.

Millions of years ago this day
A jurassic time indeed
There was an ethical dinosaur
That insisted on ethical feed.
The climate, it was changing
The food supply was low
The weather was getting different
With this new jurassic snow.
Tony the T-Rex decided
That climate change to beat
He’d switch to nuts and berrys
Cutting out triceratops meat.
The other Rex laughed at him
Picking nuts with tiny hands
Whilst the other Rex continued
Plundering the changing lands.
No one listened to tony
With his radical new found views
The word fake wasn’t around then
So they called it erroneous news.
Then came the extension event
Qicker than a raptor blinked
No more were the dinosaurs;
Deceased, mortified, extinct.
65 million years later
New dinosaurs exist
They ignore the lesson.
The point they totally missed.

Fake news, fake news
Oh what to be believe
A political narrative,
From their political sleeve.
Conjuring reality
Spinning a line
It’s OK people
We’ll be fine
Then when the end has approached
The environment raped
The aftermath
Of our political date.
When the poor are poorer
The elite are full
Sat on the toilet
Emergency cord to pull.
It snaps in our hands
No rescue to come.
Fake news fake news
Doesn’t fit what I believe
My rules my reality
What I perceive.
Fake bullet, fake trajectory
Lined with my head
Tell me fake gunman.
“why ain’t I fake dead?”

Fake news, fake news
Oh what to be believe
A political narrative,
From their political sleeve.
Conjuring reality
Spinning a line
It’s OK people
We’ll be fine
Then when the end has approached
The environment raped
The aftermath
Of our political date.
When the poor are poorer
The elite are full
Sat on the toilet
Emergency cord to pull.
It snaps in our hands
No rescue to come.
Fake news fake news
Doesn’t fit what I believe
My rules my reality
What I perceive.
Fake bullet, fake trajectory
Lined with my head
Tell me fake gunman.
“why ain’t I fake dead?”

Illusions of powerful men
Behind smoke and mirror hide
Rampant rhetoric roar!
Delusion by their side
Hidden that they lied.Grasping of powerful men
Tred the innocence under feet
Devious devil’s devour!
Blood stain throne, their seat
Down the innocent beatConscience of powerful men
Absent from their mind
Nothing, nil, nowhere
No moral can they find
Leaders of the blindSilence, still, steady
When the will is ready
To cry injustice loud
The martyrs meet their fate
We were just too late
And go back to watching telly.

http://www.churchdownmvc.org/

In a little town
where dreams died
There are a few
From failure hide
They dare to hope
Refuse to die
And look up
To see the sky.

Black widow barbie

Plastic parasitic predator

Waiting, watching, in snaring

Fake smile, eyes uncaring.

Angelic demeanour

Polymorphic rapport

Killing things of beauty.

A rigor mortise whore.

Majestic giants of Peruvian air

Soaring gliding on thermal rise

Carefree canyon kings

Suncast shadows beneath them lies.

Free, untamed, spread their wings

They epitomise better things.

Paths we walk them.
Walk them day by day.
Sometimes along the path
We rest for a time and stay.
The gradient can slow us
Or accelerate our pace
Sometimes we’re rained on
Sometimes feel radiance upon our face.
Facing forward, backwards
Up, down, side to side
Reflective, ignorant
Sometimes we hide
The path we take
A choice from A to B.
Sometimes certain,
Other times don’t see.
Your path, may be different
From what others take
But sometimes they cross
Paths our lives do make.

Raindrops patter upon the playground pools.

The gangs of kids like monkeys in the zoo.

Fastinated, encapsulated, imagination unbound.

The boys play army with an armoury of sticks.

Tripping up each other, for thrills and kicks.

Clusters of children with idiosyncratic minds

Each their imagination open to unwind.

Free in the playground, playing out their life.

Where is that playground in our latter times.

Hidden, obscured, amidst the growing rules.

Conforming cajoling rules that prepare us well.

For working to pay the mortgage in the houses that we dwell.

Rember the playground where we left our unbound dreams?

The playground full of hope, potential packed in all its seams.

Stop this silly playing and put on this grey suit.

Forget your ambition, your child thoughts mute!

Join the race of rats and scurry well made runs.

Put down your sticks and pick up the real guns.

Dare you dream? With innocence of mind?

Who knows what future we may find?

Jump in pools of puddles and Muddy that grey suit.

The leaf falls from the tree,

When the time is right.

This is the story prior

To its fall from living height.

Twas the spring in sunshine welcome

That its birth and life did start

And breath and living

From its chlorophyll heart.

It gave the air we breathe

As spring sprang forth to summer.

Journey to another season

Before its final slumber.

And long, that summer’s happy days

Basked in such golden light

Then summer to autumn

Ready its fall from height.

In the senescence of life

Oh contemplating leaf

Bid farewell.

Leaving autumn grief.

Laid to rest on earthy ground

Autumn turned to winter

As gently snow was found.

Then as the circle was complete

Winter giving birth to spring

Something miraculous

Again a new born thing.

The new leaf born

At that very height

Welcomed by the new spring sun.

Basking in its light.

Dedicated to Nancy. “There is poetry in everything”

Poetry of every day

I wandered lonely as a cloud

“Oi” said the cloud with abrupt distain

“I don’t wander mate

But do occasionally rain”

The poet taken a back

A talking cloud

Was it in his head?

Or said out loud?

“Oi I spoke to you

Poet chap,

I had to correct your

Erroneous crap”

“we’re shoved around

Like sardines tinned,

Jostled, bunched

By natures wind”

“Pardon” speaketh

The poet perplexed

For that’s how its written

In E Olde texts.

“You heard” said

The not so wondering cloud

“It’s the wind

That determines where we’re found.

Not a choice

that’s mine to make

But predetermined

Where the wind does take!”

“HARDLY A wandering

More a shove

In the atmosphere

Way above.”

“we’re not lonely either!”

The clouds lament

“We’re often together

Where we are sent”

And Wordsworth

Not wanting a cloud to fight

Wrote about daffodils

That came to sight.

For daffodils are less philosophical than clouds.

A much more appreciative crowd.

Clear dark velvet sky

Thousand stars twinkling bright

One shineth intensely brilliant

On that Christmas night.

Shining compass like

To humble lowly place,

To humanity divine,

Upon a new born’s face.

Ox and ass witness bore

The miracle of birth

Hope of hope unveiled

A hope upon the earth.

What shepherds gazed

A story made

Was born

This Christmas night.

Smug sanctimonious satisfaction
As I rest at ease tonight.
For today I conquered the shopping,
Before the Christmas fight.
Sipping gin and tonic
Thinking I’m the knees of bees
Wait until Christmas day
When I’ve forgotten the batteries.

The eternal timer finally sounds
The final act of dying.
All alone with self
No tears no crying

It’s not sad to die
When sat upon the chair
Practical dying
The dying of ones hair

Dedicated to Mary

Who was dying alone this evening