Tennis with the net down

‘I’d as soon write free verse…’

Playing tennis with the net down
Are Bob and Emily.
The ball’s socked back – and forth –
Most unconventionally.

How utterly sad

How utterly sad when a theatre group breaks up
After years of working together.
Silent the hallway, costumes locked up,
The flyer from that last show they did.

The watched pot

I prayed in authentic prayers
For my love to be life-insured.
But next meeting, she looked the same
And behind that was invisible.

Berlin is the wonder

Berlin is the wonder, our city bore the brunt
Of Honecker, Christo, processions to theTor,
Of bombs, Nick Cave’s piano, of walls,
And emerged an epic playground, we the children drunk.

Exposure

Somehow a man feels that sometime
He will return to his mother’s arms.
Baby again, return to protected fragility,
Freed from frostbitten wanderings of the world.

The Microphone (An extension)

You are the strongest one
To lift this heavy device
In hands heavy with grief.
Poetry has made you strong;
For though there’s a swell in your throat
And pain from the light that shines,
You tell us a story, a story
With the clearness of watertight eyes.

For Louise Halvardsson

Success, a nursery rhyme

Dolores O’Riordan
Has forty children
All of them etheral
And paid for by pop.

Golden lines

Some worship the affections of the young,
And true it’s good to welcome their fresh loving.
But what gladdens me are kisses amongst our old,
Aged lions who caress each other’s faces.

Above the law

Kleptocrat Mugabe plunders Zimbabwe,
In which Lady Grace ably assists.
So tell me good people, why demonise dying,
Great healer who’ll remove power from their fists?

The Winger

Ryan Giggs on the left wing
Tortures the full back;
He is like a bottle of red wine,
Maturing finely.