Almanac

Like a wurlitzer almanac
taking down the decorations.
So, that's it for another year.

Days some of us may never see
she said, in anticipation
of chiming bells we'll never hear.

Unexpected curtailment of
obligatory celebrations
observed by stalwarts far and near.

The darkest nights and shortest days,
symptoms of our ruminations.
Another year, another year.


Capability Red      Jan 2020

Writers Tears

What do you do when you're preoccupied
and your head has run out of ideas?
Do you shut out the world and stay inside?
Take heed as you mop up those writers tears.
Squeeze out the sponge that you saturated
with the anguish, awe and angst from your fears.
Kid yourself that it's all over rated
but the cloud of gloom never disappears.
And a poet without inspiration
is like a saloon bar devoid of cheers.
Count your steps as you walk to the station
in the rain, to disguise those writers tears


Capability Red          Jan 2020

There is Another Spectrum

Slate grey stillness, balanced on it's fulcrum.
Sparks shooting away from grinding wheel gloom.
Can you see; there is another spectrum?
Stalking in silence, inside of the womb.
Another spectrum. Another rosette
worn by disciples of dark confusion.
The fulcrum rests on it's stillest point yet,
the grinding wheel creates an illusion.
Such fragile illusions that wax and wane.
On the horizon ; a distant mirage
sanity lost but, the disciples gain
from lending nightmares without any charge.
Another spectrum exists all around you.
Grinding wheel gloom cocoons and surrounds you.


Capability Red            December 2019

I cut myself

Yesterday I cut myself, you know how things are.
Next week when it's healed, I will still have a scar.
Now, the cut's bleeding, so I'm wearing a plaster.
If I was a wizard, I'd make it heal faster!


Capability Red           November 2019

The Green Table

Saturday afternoon at the Green Table
where sunshine mellows a sharp chill from the east,
and it's a pot of tea, rather than a feast.
The poet asks: But when will it be our turn?
People listen but feel they're still unable
to grasp the nettle. When will they ever learn?

You'll find a micro climate, over there, somewhere.
Families discuss buying a windbreaker
and gasp at the cost of an undertaker,
avoiding revealing how much they might earn,
but openly compare standards of Au pair
as they set out the stall for when they return.

Someone is busy drying out wine glasses.
This could be England in Nineteen Thirty Eight,
The Green Table is neither early or late.
But meanwhile the Estuary Arms far away,
hosts regulars for whom time never passes
as they revel downing pints of yesterday.

Woe to be in England, in Twenty Nineteen.
This green and pleasant land that I was born in,
where sun rises in the east in the morning,
but hope sets, and the children are unable
to glimpse a future beyond those shifting screens.
The poet loads his pen at The Green Table.


Capability Red               May 2019

Dawn

No cockerel crows. Goodness knows!
It's morning, I'm yawning.
This is as good as it will get.
Dawn.


Capability Red     aprox'  1972

I Wrote a Postcard

I wrote a postcard at a moment in time.
Wherever I was, is now another place.
It made no sense and, the words didn't rhyme.
But, when read it echoes, somewhere out in space.


Capability Red          May 2019