April Fool
After twelve, a hazing over
of shadow on the sundial.
I had wanted abandonment,
admit, for sharpening the wit.
*
A marzipan life of sunscape
near Arles, too freeing to escape.
They are the finest of Van Gogh
before he became fool enough.
*
Harvest at La Crau (The Blue Cart).
A rook flock mystery landscape.
April 2nd
Albion Foul, or Howl
A country no longer worth living in
will harbour reaction therein.
Those caught on the grinding wheel
can do a lot more than squeal.
The ruling elite has failed to heal
squandering time, in betrayal.
*
The young are brought up to fail,
too frightened to hit the nail
with thought cordoned by a rail.
Futile browsing makes them pale,
nothing game to any scale.
Martina wants to just wail.
April 6th/ April 14th
Call To Arms after Waugh
The dissolution of a Realm
can be cause for Revolution
particularly if driven
by the traitor class at the helm.
Land the blithering idiot
rule of the cabal chariot,
out for destroying the formal
to render gibbering normal.
On The 214
On the bus, alien screaming
and primitive-shrieking children
for whom order is barely known
barring a perpetual frown
and their teacher, beyond barking.
Their one future job, drug dealing.
They, incoherently stupid ;
they will never hear of Cupid.
April 6th/14th
When Good Men Sleep (Sonnet)
Giving way to the enemy :
a retarding the lyric day
or infinite moment, sunny
claiming holocaust ended play
for all time.
Counter argument :
an extending of more torment,
with everyone feeling guilty
instead of again asking : why ?
Stalin hated the lyric cry.
The Mongol taste is for nihil.
Beyond terror, Rilke, beauty
the tulip risking boll-weevil.
Again, I at Lady Bingham
who in Hampstead loved Spanish ham.
Fifth Sunday in Lent April 6th 2025
Deja Vu Posit (Sonnet)
after Montale
A warming, fragrant afternoon
in Sussex, an infinitude
of unclouded sky blaze blue :
young, everything lies before you
and a be-jeaned girl, with chemise
loose on her, shadowing naked,
sunlit ; and is she beckoning ?
plus elegante, almost circling.
She, more than erotic aura
in lieu of the ideal. You want
her there, without war, forever
and in your text, never never.
An idea of grieving fever
is not of the question. You win.
April 7th
Who Sounds
like a third-class Bank manager ?
( worse than a Liverpudlian ).
A jesting at the Point-to-Point
before carving a salmon joint.
April 8th or, at Tweesledown
Passion, or Holy Week
after Herbert
Statue hidden by dark purple
drape of linen, or enshrouded.
I cannot see Mary beaming
a love early in the morning.
We know agony is dawning
on a Cross, but not for people
who insult, ever offended.
They monster, rejecting life
and fine art, skewered by a knife.
I had entered this argument
long ago, whatever it meant.
April 10th/15th
Barrow Hill Heights
What is a bijou apartment
if she within, having no jeu
for soul-bonding, after loving
is scratchy on Saturday ?
It haunts, staggeringly empty.
From the carnal, to animal
her personae gone to a tent.
The white marble mausoleum
for grandeur, love, a museum.
Such a good rhyme with tedium
as if they never had freedom.
Did every courtezan wear tights
to begin, on Barrow Hill Heights ?
It would not do to hear the fights ;
never a light on during nights.
Love, a glitzy department.
April 12th/April 15th
The Trap
Unable to travel, soon things
begin to unravel. No-one rings.
All day you have nothing to say
with but a few records to play,
on a machine made in China
for a production line minder
in charge of the starving nimble
who once threaded with a thimble.
They thrive, to enjoy vertigo
looking deep down from their condo
towering above a village
destroyed by the Party pillage.
For America, they build cheaper
than screwing in Virginia
to the rock music of Springsteen,
and encouraging the has-been.
The lost had an afternoon nap
hoping to fix a dripping tap.
I am nowhere. My couplets scare
the living daylights out of Blair
and company, and Ruth Padel
who put Derek Walcott in hell
for form, and trying to seduce
but it was he who could produce
bravura. I miss Aquitaine
and her, on a dune far in pain.
I have not received a letter
in years. They claim to know better.
Failing to toe The Party line
can lead to the ultimate line.
April 12th/16th
Leadership Maxima
for Terry Eagleton
Those not speaking proper English
deserve to be in with rubbish.
Parents have to be trained in speech
and how to behave, out of reach.
Deportment and elocution
are the stuff of Revolution.
Rule to set a good example
a way of dealing with the rabble.
The dread enemy of The State
will be escorted to The Gate.
The fox staring at crow flapping
a hint many will be dying.
April 15th/16th
Dead City 2
Many a rich, grander building
is empty, partially empty
of inhabitants, their scheming
and blazoning of luxury
for fewer of the world to see.
There is no trumpeting on street.
In Monaco, their Yachting fleet
and mostly, it is not raining.
Who was it, needy of training ?
End taxing by going waxing.
April 15th/16th
Carpe Diem
Matutinus, ad maturus.
Animulae ad angelus.
Latin Fundamentum
Creditor, et creditoris
ad creditum. Debitoris.
Ruin
Trying to avoid die Untergang
Schnell ! die Eingang zu Ausgang.
April 15th
===========================
Freight Train Coda
Edward Heath called America
the Locomotive of the world.
Enforcing Silence
The Labour Gang imperative
therefore, impossible to live.
April 15th/16th
===========================
Easter Week 2025
for St. Silas/ St Doms.
Agony leading to revival hope,
the best Tenebrae in Europe.
I heard five hours on the rope,
lamentation of a slope.
Fenton Octo Haiku
for The National Trust
Whiter than white apple blossom
the orchard at Lady Bingham,
kitchen garden forget-me-not.
Stockhausen for Burgh House
Such the scale of the grief, no note
could equal the funeral rote.
April 20th written Easter Sunday
April 23rd Quartet
It rained on the grey marble slab
and books of poetry thereon.
I mourned for cat Domino, dead ;
it appeared his grave lay undisturbed.
More Writing 2
What, indeed, of Estonia ?
Silesia is for Winter.
Is the writing on the wall ? Or,
is everyone at death's door.
April 23rd
Stifling, Young Plaint for Izzy
In a supermarket car park
in Chichester, I read Kafka
for The Castle, The Trial
and a long dying in the dark.
Wondered if I was going mad,
driven far under by the bad.
Sunlight blazed on the car bonnet
and I could not write a Sonnet.
The grotesque emerged with trolley
and a banquet, to be jolly.
Joan dear had gone to shop alone
and could not use the telephone.
I had yet to take broad Stane Street
and the road from The Roman Fleet.
April 26th
Gregorian Chant
Music in the shadow, plaintive
though heartening, wanting to live.
Cor, cordis, heart, mind or judgement
to copula pure Latinate,
destroyed by the barbarian
pillaging Romano-Britain.
Joan drove me to Greater Bignor,
the Dolphin floor in The Villa.
Once, the daily chariot hum
speeding north for Londinium.
Or, might one write strum, the zipping
to a way station just above
Coldwaltham, as it now known.
In deep Winter, their mosaic.
April 26th/April 30th
Rayner Warping (2)
The dunce will move to Aerodrome
Dunsfold, and a choc-a-block home.
There grew The Hawker Harrier.
They will be all the merrier
salivating on brownfield
with an X of beauty thereon
built over. No contemplating
ever, over a hot iron
to the sound of raging, shrieking
beyond a digital shield.
They want their potatoes peeled
to machinery, for chicken foam.
Yet another silly Sonnet !
of a damaging, thin ferret.
Verdict Of Isabella
She had me at my Sussex best
and saw me, selling, at my worst,
dealing with doom in Manchester.
After, skew-whiff at a minibar.
Drove in rain from my Motel,
sad, the next morning, a farewell.
Her telling advice, heartbreaker.
(In Cambridge, no cocktail shaker ).
I, pathetic, she prophetic.
Pack it in, leave the bathetic.
I believe keen Isabella
became a wonder Barrister..
you are not getting a couplet
and I never wore a doublet.
April 26th/April 30th/May 1st
Not Coleridge
A man haunted by The Muse can
hardly settle down, in vision.
The normal, obliteration.
Cyril had problems with a pram,
of having to bring in the jam
or, of bringing back the bacon
and life under supervision.
Better in Provence, with a tan.
Wild Marble, my Kubla Khan ;
Palermo, with a circling fan.
Death Of A Salesman for Izzie
What is America about ?
The Hunger Games, raw survival
of the winner and the fittest,
revival to the loudest shout
saying what it is all about
and the wealthy, the greatest clout.
Mad Men aiming for the slickest ;
The Drum Majorette, the sleekest.
The Ukraine Question
How can Ukraine de-mobilize ?
For Europe, perpetuelle, la crise.
Germany cannot trust Ivan ;
many step to keep conscription.
Our state of alert, amber
able for confronting Russia.
When can Kyiv, sore, rhapsodize ?
caught following a partition.
April 26th writing finis
May Celebrating
a redaction
You have to bow down before God.
Onward Christian soldiers
marching as to war ! your anthem
for Operation Overlord.
Stalin, later, put to the sword ;
about freedom, never a word.
I, meant for The Officer Corps
to prepare for the training tours.
Could I tolerate The Mess bores ?
May 3rd
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