For Colin, a poem

With North-East wind,

A broad man strides,

Though hickory docks,

Down Jarrow lines.

 

The pave is gold,

Soot air picks clear.

Past Wear-side reeds,

Who up and cheer.

 

By mounts’ t’ west -

Comrades f’ t’ fixed.

Lush locks lavish

Quixotic gifts

 

With oaken will,

T’ward smoky settle.

Wi’ coal-tressed feline,

In canny fettle.

 

Maple necked,

‘neath smile, now inked.

‘Bove lowly pitches,

Sage acorns wink.

___

His step ne’er swayed,

Nor flounced, nor flittered.

It swang, like us,

Souls’ stout, not bitter.

 

Three, four times stitched,

Us gathered cast -

With charm, not needle:

Raise life’s thin glass.

 

A gentle-man, allus,

Hence, now an’ afore.

Wi’ heart the size

O’ the Roker Roar.

A Worker Bee's Tryptich

Worker Bee's Triptych 

The apis jacket sits,

On bentwood orange chair.

The neatly coiffured spits

Colombian everywhere.

A headline screams out wild:

Of injust 'over there'

While some poor bastard child,

Makes socks for him to wear.

A Paul Smithian malaise,

Spread thin on life's biscuit.

On this, our bee does graze.

Transformed, away it flits.

The insect flies atop,

Through humid altitudes,

Striped Everest of cloth,

Surveys the horrid view: 

Two-legged creatures fuss,

An' toil, cross bloodied tracks.

Through biohazardous,

For queen and export tax.

The queen, they say, she does:

Reign o'er them lot too.

Her golden hive a' buzz;

Grey workers out of view.

These stately 'olidays!

Won't stop the sweatshop truck.

She "works so hard" they say;

Our insect friend is fucked.

For who to be our bee?

A pin-up for the daft?

Or potent allegory:

Six-legged god of graft?

This shallow grave-ed soul

Kept their tootsies warm.

They now turn blue and cold.

Beware the coming swarm!

Performed at Peoples' Republic of Poetry

2015

We Got W.

We Got W.

Catkin-coated

Knock-kneed willow

My coquettish fetish

This patented Brillo 

Auburn strands

Of sixties bands

Dress that shifts

Tectonic plates of 

Sta pressed lands.

For stands,

Here.

Still... to be

Long agos

Worlds apart

Observationally.

2016

A Girl made of Squares Rattles on the Bridge

A girl made of squares rattles on the bridge

She wears a dress all thin 

From the house of knife thrower

With tears to let the wind in

Our beneficial daggers 

Keep Miss

Miss

Missing

The whip-crack sound is left

A coin sized button or two 

Could shield the river's breath

The two sides of Velcro do

Not match

Match

Match-O

This pale black ringmistress

Stands tall with empty hat

The fat seals clap in judgement 

The 10 scores acrobat 

Her Back

Back

Back flip

Anonymous splash in wavy capitals

As tourists snap to remember

Stops breathing to forget

The deathly clowns last tear

From ear

To ear

To down there

Just a cardboard name plate left

On her circus office door

Headstone t' bereft

Read aloud folks just once more:

Out

Out

Out to lunch

2015

For Rachael, a poem

A branch near fell

Where good friends sit

Wit' hand you shook

I whittled it.

To call and form:

A bravery stick.

And measure all

Of else with it.

2014

Afore a' knew

Afore a' knew

I sank a seed

Aft it grew

A poetry