Glimpse

A round flash of colour -
Maybe blue, maybe grey -
A small dark centre,
Darkened by the depth
Of the world of which
It is only the beginning.
Sparkling somehow,
Reflecting beauty,
Reassuring friendship
Flashing a warning.
To catch her eye for a second
Is to see so far into her mind
That you blink
And look away,
A little scared, in case too much becomes known. 

 

15 February 1972

 

Mine Is

Getting dressed on a cold winter's morning
As the snow slowly whitens the ground
Making breakfast and lighting a fire
Crouching close to the warmth of a flame.
Smiling at faces at work when when I get there
Wondering what they're thinking and why
Opening a file and writing on papers
Trying to work hard when your mind wants to wander
Feeling hungry and parting with pennies
In return for a brief but hot meal
Sitting back for a moment to let it go down
Then waiting for 'time to go home'.

Watching the sky grow dark in the window
Seeing the moon grow bright as I leave
Listening to night's slow fall all around me
Hearing the rush-hour crowd rushing by.
Getting back to my room and one comfy chair
Resting in please don't disturb land
Writing that must write a letter to her
Reading it, folding it, just sitting holding it.
Closing your eyes at the end of the day
Dreaming of tomorrow and what it will bring
Hoping it's good knowing nobody knows
Sleeping by accident, dozing on pupose
Waking at dawn to an early bird song
Musing the mystery of mist on a grey day
Til sunshine bursts through once again.

15 February 1972

 

Break even

Gold
Is what you find
When you lose your heart
Then get high again.
Gold,
Just enough to pay
For the trip.

 

---

 

High -
ho! -
Silver!! -
Lining. 

 

---

 

The root of all evil
Is beneath the
Tree of Knowledge 

 

May 1970 Three little notes when things seemed good but weren't really after all.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen ...

I awoke that morning
To the smell of bacon
And trudged downstairs.
'Hello," I said, as
I sat down
At a bare table.
A joyful shouting drifted
Through the wall with
That smell of bacon.
I tore at a crust.
'Happy Christmas,' I said .

December 1968

 

Perhaps

Every morning
At the same bus-stop
At the same time
The same girl
With the same boy.

Another looks on,
Yet another talks
To the one looking on
Who's not listening.

One girl, three boys.
One talks, one looks
And the other talks
To the one looking on
Who's not listening.

The same bus arrives.
Now one girl, two boys -
One looks, one talks
To the one looking on
Who's not listening.

Perhaps one day,
One girl will talk
To one boy
Who's not just looking on,
But listening.

March 1968 Waiting for the 322 bus from Abbots Langley to Hemel. Carole Young in the queue.

The Fool On The Hill

Bulging eyes stare,
Fingers search abysses
Of toothless mouths.
Middle-aged women
With the voices
Of 90-year-old men
Pick their noses
And play hide and seek.

Then someone shrieks.
Someone else laughs,
The first falls,
The second runs.
Men flood in
And, one at a time,
Tear at the body.

Later, satisfied and bloody,
They fall to the ground,
Fast asleep,
With yellow grins
On mellow faces
Of 6 year-olds.

They won't sleep for long,
No-one ever does.
They can't.
There's always someone -
Laughing, grinning, mocking
at the man in the house
At the top of the hill.

He's frightened to come down, they say.
He's built a wall
So that he can't get out, they say.
He plays music
So that they can't hear him, they say.

He has windows
So that he can see them coming, they say.
He's different - queer, weird.
He has weird, queer things
And he grows
Things
Behind the wall.
They say. They say say say.

He looks wrong:
He has two legs
Two arms
Two feet
Fingers
On both hands
And other things
Other things
They say.

Yes, there's always someone
Laughing, grinning, mocking
At the
Fool
On the hill.

January 1968 Influenced by The Beatles' track of the same name on their newly released Magical Mystery Tour EP

It's a free world?

No law was broken
No advantage taken
No offence committed
Except one, admitted,
Improving the bank balance
With too many advertisements.

But their freedom was curbed
and although quite absurd
They were forced off the air
By men with white hair
And oaken walking sticks.

So now on two sixty-six
Just a fuzz of air -
No there's nothing there.
Now's there's just two four seven,
And that stops at eleven!

In protest at the curbed freedom of Radio London - thus disbanded 15 august 1967

Psychedelia

Purple
Deep Purple
Deeper purple
Dark purple
Darker purple
Darkness
Blackness
Black clouds
Velvet shrouds
No feeling
Ceiling reeling
Vision and hearing
Light that's searing
To a brain
But no pain
Don't blink
Don't think
Just realise
That your eyes
See. see lights
That your ears
Hear. Hear sounds
Sight and sound
Exist for a second
Every other second.

Heavy rock playing at a disco. August 1967

Nothing

Swirling patterns,
Black discs revolving,
Grooves spiralling
Never endingly
Towards a centre
That doesn't exist.

Velvet blackness
Unable to darken
The room completely
For flashing patterns
Of discordant colours
That don't exist.

People moving
To an individual sound
They only can hear;
No reason, no feeling,
Just grooving around,
No love, no fear -
They don't exist.

August 1967 about people on drugs at a disco

Another World

A cool breeze
Wafts through fields
Green, gold and brown.
What he sees
The country yields
To the tourist from town.

They can't realise
The pace of life
Is slowed right down,
Nor why those eyes
Are focussed on the wife
Of the tourist from town.

Every tensed muscle
Relaxed in the green
And, oh, what a pity
That amid all the bustle
Only grey can be seen
By men in the city.

A country lane
Twisted to a sign
Where two tracks parted.
He turned to the right
Then came back again
To the very same sign
Back where he started.

Yes, those fields of green
That form our countryside,
Where pastel colours flow unfurled,
Are by many people seen
Not as a place to abide -
But quite another world.

You Cannot Conquer Time

The rocket was prepared,
Everything was polished,
Everything was streamlined
To the last rivet head
Or menacing tail fin.

Just climbing into the cockpit
Was the gallant Professor.
According to his theories
If one travels round the earth
At twice the speed the earth
Is revolving, then after two days
One will be precisely two days
Ahead of Earth time.

Those who couldn't understand,
Those who wouldn't understand,
Those who dare not understand
Had told him
"You cannot conquer time."

The countdown began:
10 - 9 - 8 - 7
6 - 5 - 4
3 - 2- 1
Zero!
With a fiery blast of red and yellow
Followed by a thunderous roar,
As if Nature herself were rebelling,
The rock took off.
The Professor set out on Tuesday
On his journey
To conquer time.

He was alone up there,
Haunted by the ghostly stars
In the silent blackness
And by his thoughts -
Other people's warnings -
"You cannot conquer time."
Echoing round the round room.

Soon people began to realise
That if the professor landed
Two days ahead of them
They would never see him,
never catch up with him.
His prize for conquering time
Would be to be alone in their future.

On Thursday people said
They saw a shooting star.
However upon examination,
A round cockpit was revealed,
Encasing a shrivelled burnt body.

The Professor had avoided the sentence
But couldn't
Or, perhaps, dared not
Conquer time.

Time Span

I wandered
Across the hard, monotonous, concrete yard,
Past two modern, indifferent houses
And past their immaculate, boring gardens
Coloured, not by blossoming flowers' colours,
But by litter, or children's toys, new,
But unnoticed while newer ones were free;
Through a gate painted a conspicuous green.
Perhaps, three years ago it would have blended
Into a background of green trees and meadows.
Now only a noisy butcher's van
And the occasional drainpipe were green.
Then I came to a bridge -
Not modern and angled
But old, very old, and delicately blessed with moss
Whose gentle curve was just slightly slippery enough
To catch unawares the well-dressed young man
Who, in a hurry, had chanced the short-cut
Through the uncivilised to civilisation.
Here I stopped, but my thoughts wandered on...

My thoughts wandered
Across a muddy, ever water-logged field,
Past the ancient ruin of an ancient house, waiting,
Waiting to be put out of its agony,
And past its overgrown, yet still bright gardens,
On whose tangled growth no litter dared alight,
Through a gate, broken down yet still a gate -
It kept foes out but let friends in.
Everything was brown or green or shades of these.
Then no man had dared spoil Nature's décor,
Only Nature herself,
Who had made the sky and waters blue.

Then suddenly a new colour had pervaded the scene -
When the sky turned grey
And the waters turned grey,
Bright yellow streaks shot through the sky,
Straight and angled, fast and fierce,
Followed by a noise that rumbled and terrified.
Perhaps Nature had seen into the future
And predicted, only too truly, to man
The angled shapes,
The bright lights,
The noise.
Life,
That was to come,
And to stay.

A Day In The Life

A boy woke to the patter
Of rain on the window
But that didn't matter -
He was already feeling low.

He got up out of bed,
"What a terrible day,"
Was all that he said,
But his thoughts were of  another day.

Such a day - he'd never forget
When he went for a walk...
The pretty girl he met...
When they started to talk...

It all came out. He'd seen her before
And felt she was the one.
Their hours couldn't be more
Filled with laughter and fun.

Hand in hand they strolled.
Together through the town
Neither really very old,
She in blue, he in brown.

Both about fourteen
And perfectly content.
Age. What does it mean?
What had it meant?

That day was timeless
Or so it was seeming
That first caress -
Surely he was dreaming?
But it was real
And it was true
But they knew and could feel
That the day would soon be through.

They soon decided
That they would meet again.
Let their age be derided
They felt no shame.

Yes a perfect day
That seemed to stop time.
They could have stayed all day
And lain in the sunshine.

The sun was just sinking
Later behind a night cloud,
Alone the boy was thinking
How to dispose of the shroud
Of disgusted glances
That were shot at the pair,
The shroud that enhances
And hangs in the air.

Why can't those who've lived long
Try to understand
That there's nothing wrong
In holding a girl's hand?
Why this segregation
Of teens from adults?
Forcing separation
Like two different cults.

Yesterday was fun -
My spirits were high,
And happy I'd become -
Yes that boy was I.

I had often dreamed
Of that special day -
A day that seemed
To, come what may,
Dispel everything bad
Or, rather, just delay
All that was sad
Until today.

May 1967 About the first time I actually went out with a girl called Gillian Hawkins in Hemel Hempstead.

Boxes in the garage

I've just found some boxes in a garage. Inside there are all sorts of things that I thought I'd lost years ago. The things I'm especially pleased to have found are poems, school homework and drawings from the 1960s and 70s, with another pile from the early 1980s.

There are hundreds of bits and pieces and this is me starting to publish them all, well, most of them. It's going to take ages but brings back so many memories that I get completely lost in the past, remembering how happy, mischievous, sad, in love, angry, frustrated, confused I must have been in my teenage years and, indeed, later years too by the seems of things!

I hope readers will enjoy some of these too.