Reach Out

There’s enough reaching out
To make the Four Tops proud
In these hipster Coffee shops
Trouble is there’s
Too much reaching out
Not enough Four Tops

The Beauty of Portraits

The beauty of portraits
Is you can make enemies of them
For looks y’ can mark then out 10
Fall in love in the 18th century
Get divorced in ‘37
Raise a toast eyeball to eyeball
With men who killed men
Then fall in love
All over again
With bar room girls
Flower sellers
Refugees
President’s wives
Survivors
Cellar dwellers
From places
With faces quixotic
And of anytime exotic
And like time
Only we will judge
And oh!
We will judge
While the galleries remain free
We will judge

Self Importrait

His neck a snapped drill bit
This interwar bore
This preposterous slick
On his opiate arse
For you he sits

His poison poise
Inoculates
The good space
Between your ears
A chalice of finery
He raises to you
And your common beers

But he’s been framed
By his own glasses
Caught by his own regard
Backed into a corner
By his own visage
And spread thin
As thin as his lips
On the canvas
By several accurate licks
This Count is out
You’re free to go now
So on you goes

Anni (Girl with a fan)

It’s naïve to think
The man
In Beckmann’s
“Anni
(Girl with a fan)”
Doesn’t have a plan
Her expressionist
Expression isn’t
Letting on that she knows
But she knows

Two large saucers
Thin line nose
Hooks bodice bones
Laid by butlers
On her pristine
White tablecloth
Of a face

Silver tongue and
Scarlet nails
Scratch cocktail tales
The ruby kisser whispers:
‘I know why I’m here
Do you really know why you’re here?’

It’s naïve to think
That Anni
The girl
With a fan
Could only have
One fan

Pots Pans DVDs - a Tanka

Pots pans DVDs
On the pavement
On the street say take me
Do with me what you want but this
Does not apply to people

Sea Spray

The blood supply
To his left arm
Was cut off by the
Weight he had to carry
His numb fingers
Still rolled one
With instinct
His eyes were bottle tops
His teeth razor blades
His whistle shrill
His face a gorse
Cut across the road
With one sturdy boot
His journey habit
The cat ran
The Jaguar sounded it’s heavy horn
From the North Sea of his beginning
The cold sweat up his back
Like riggers
He figures
It was written in the dog spray
There were doors for him
To knock that day

Education - A Bosnian Tanka

Lesson One: “if one
Man does evil we should not
Blame a whole nation”
. National identity class
. Survivors’ Education

Revisited - A Bosnian Tanka

Behind enemy

Lines that lie revisited 

The man remembers 

Those bitten by the snake are

Also wary of lizards 

A God’s Dinner

It’s not the lack of
Belief in God
That’s the problem
It’s the arseholes
Turn up the tin hat
Make it bowl
Add brandy
UHT
And what the
Americans call frosting
Over the top
Of hand torn cubes
Of God’s book
Then kick over your TV

And Justice For All

She tips

Old lady justice

A right arm of lead

A left of left behind

The odds are

The top brass

Make that

The inbalance

But it’s us brass necked

I bet

Who’ll level it up

Grab your gamblers’ pen

With tips of steel 

With ink of blood

Write words

Emboldened

Underlined

Draw a ladder on the wall

Detail the supposed

Bottom rung 

For without it

There’ll be no

Justice 

At all