The retired major came by most days, weather permitting.
he spoke of times past, when he had served in the sub-continent.
now his concern was far from those incadescent times.
he brought, on most occasions, an apple, or at least a lump of sugar,
to offer the cow dubed Vera-Lynn by her master,
as if a cow can havr a master,
the retired major would countenance;
'at least not in india'
where cows are revered,
and farmers choose crops first,
cereals to feed the blossoming populace.
and Vera-Lynn formed thoughts,
unbeknownst to the retired major,
that, maybe, she would go to the sub-continent,
where and when and if
such time and place could be attained.

so as the major came by,
Vera-Lynn felt urges grow strong,
until she realised it was no whimsical predisposition,
but her destiny!

but trapped in the paddock was she,
until, as luck and hate would have it,
a luftwaffe pilot
went astray
through foul or folly
and crashed headlong into the drystone wall
thus freeing his brains
and a cow called Vera-Lynn.

So the middle-aged cow set off for hope
and time left itself in the barn she never
glanced back upon.
perhaps, she thought, i could just wander the nearby pastures green,
and gnaw the cud and sip the stream,
but Vera-Lynn had something inside,
touching her four stomachs
and tickling her glam udders
for the rightening
the brightening
the god-damned sharpening
of her bovination had
it seemed
arrived.

ha ha, she snuffed, as she belched again,
fresh grass for all, for me,
for the journey and beyond.
what was it the major said,
in purest ignorance of my
cognition?
oh, to the sun,
as it rises each day,
until it hits the roof
of the sky,
then rest, dear cow, and chew the greenest of pastures,
and fast when needs must
and forget your past master.

Eyes gouged by nature’s vulgar numbers game,
As silent echoes sealed this barren tomb;
Cruel sun casts only shadows on my face -
How, God, did I affront you from the womb?
To thrust injurious defects such as these
Upon this captive servant beggars sense.
You soured my sensual pleasures as you pleased
But left a chance of love as recompense:

From nowhere she came waltzing to my life
Arriving like the spring’s first celandine,
Aromas hard to place, swift to excite,
Refreshing stale existence with the fires

Of passion I desired so much it ached,
Far more because I’d never see your face.

I’m deaf and blind but neither shy nor dumb;
I learned to talk with one hand on your throat.
Each word you spoke erupts like Shiva’s drum,
Invoking Tandava: we danced in hope.
Perturbed and yet you held me in your arms,
The breaking through of barriers to our lust.
Through faithless tears, I’d not abide your qualms
Our leap to condemned whores from families’ trust.

Religion made your conquest hazardous,
But lying breast to breast in tender thrill
The fairer sex encapsulates Argus,
I sensed you watching over my deft kill;

The jolting blows I struck, from that time hence:
The birth of love, the death of innocence.

Emotions: until then time would forget,
Locked deep within my catacomb of pain,
Released, unleashed enlivened to caress
The beauty of your fears and youthful shame.
I cannot see but I can make you come:
With a flick of wrist or twist of tongue.
I would not hear but I shall make you scream:
In pleasure, pain: or something in-between.

Each time you called my name I felt your need
For furious zeal that surely can’t be faked,
But those three words you dropped like serpent’s seeds,
Caused me to loose my hands from noose to nape:

‘I’m leaving you,’ I drank your breath as draught,
Then squeezed you hard, and made that breath your last.

The door ajar
Leaking time again
Casked and banked
Before the sabotage
And breathless we ache
Dizzied and amused
By the horse-rattled
Make-up cart
Drifting through
Wakefulness
Jacobean matresses
Folding in unison
Straining the stains
Of fours years and a day
As the onlooker gestures
And life splits life
Like axe on ice
Or atoms spliced
To fuse mankind
Into a jellied feeling
Dribbling pointlessly
Until morning

You awaken with a blindfold over your eyes and handcuffed to a bed, disorientated in the extreme. To hear the familiar sound of your front door first unlocking then opening then closing initially reassures, but as the light draft from the door's movement passes over your body, you can sense your nakedness and feel suddenly, helplessly exposed. You dare not utter a sound, for memories are lost to you and yesterday, as yesteryear, cannot be found in the recesses of your throbbing brain... you remember drugs, plenty of drugs, but when, with whom... you know not. You shudder, the handcuffs clanking against the wrought iron to which you are bound. You hear the footsteps, creeping, tentative. You remember the woman from some time ago - the notion of the temporal dimension is lost forever - and you picture her beauty, her angst and her desire. You work out she had probably nipped out to get some booze, or condoms, and become aroused. The footsteps get closer as you feel yourself get a hard on - then a scream...
Then you scream, she screams. The world spins. You feel lost. You hear the footsteps again, this time urgent, stopping, clomping away from the bedroom. The front door opens, closes, with a slam, no lock. You are still blindfolded, shackled, but now also disgusted. You have heard that scream once before. When old Mrs McKinley was startled by a mouse that ran out from behind the fridge as she was sweeping the floor. You regret the day you arranged a cleaner to come round on Monday mornings. Which means as well, you are late for work. You wrench at the handcuffs. It's no use. Your phone rings, you jiggle like a a fitting child, though unable to break free. The phone clicks onto the answering machine:

'Hello, lover boy,' you hear the voice of the women with the drugs. 'Sorry I left you all tied up, but I just had to ensure you wouldn't get chance to stop me getting the reports into the late edition.'

Oh fucking hell, you think. That fucking bitch. But what you really mean is;

Oh fucking hell, I'm a fucking idiot.

The shit will hit the fan, and the world will never quite be the same again. Perhaps.

look, he said
I'm dying.
But it doesn't matter
As it won't
when you die too,
as you will.

but look back
at how I lived.
That matters,
as it will
as you look forward
and decide how to live.

Remember:
look forward
as you hope,
One Day,
to look back.

What is there left to believe in?

Religion becomes evermore irrelevant as it meanders aimlessly through the wilderness, dodging each scientific or political pitfall with the same old answers: faith. But to have faith in something, it must give something back, and religion seems to give less and less back to communities and individuals, more comfortable in peering down from the moral high ground than hauling unfortunates 'up' to their level. Indoctrinated children preach mindless words they are taught to recite but not to understand, to please their parents who fear, as their parents before them, that any other path will lead to damnation.

Politics? It has, too, become less progressive, at least in much of the western world, than at any time since the Renaissance, with Gordon the Clown vying for positions of toughness with an eton muppet who is out-Blairing himself, learching so deep into presentation-politics that he's forgotten what he should believe in. And therein lies the problem. These people we (or perhaps 30%) of the population have voted for are ducking the resposibility vested in them: to make decisions based on their beliefs. Except when a politician shows any semblance of real opinion, perhaps because someone daring to go against 'party line' is so rare, they get shot down by a lazy-daze media, many of whom use Google where once real journalism may have been.

In patches, humanity is the only thing left. But the patches are being spread further and further apart like dots on some giant consumer balloon that is expanding endlessly, making any real community, evermore difficult to organise. Even as populations increase across the world, the ability of communities to organise and control their own destinies is being ever-diminished. Perhaps the powers that be feel that allowing communities to decide things for themselves spells disaster for them. Which is porbably true, and so it should be. For a small group of people having the power to make decisions that affect the vast majority is fine, as long as they have the interests of the majority at heart, and not the bank accounts of the few.

So what to do? Fuck all, like everyone else. Or, perhaps, sue your bank. That's always fun. www.consumeractiongroup.com

Eyes gouged by nature’s vulgar numbers game,
Silence echoes within this barren tomb;
The sun casts only shadows on my face -
How, God, did I affront you from the womb?
To thrust injurious defects such as these
Upon this captive servant beggars sense.
You soured my sensual pleasures as you pleased
But left a chance of love as recompense:

From nowhere she came waltzing to my life
Arriving like the spring’s first celandines,
Aromas hard to place, swift to excite,
Refreshing stale existence with the craze

Of passion that I felt so strong it ached,
All the more because I’d never see your face.

Distension in the gutteral under-jellied belly
Of the source of your demise
And how surprised you look
Though you found out
Through the looking glass
That grass you smoked
Had passed its sell by date
But what the hell
Its purple tinged amusement arcade
Catered for your times of woe
And gleaming windows to your soul
Would bear themselves
And shelve all plans
For that rainy day that never came
Along to wondrous philistines
Who likened you to gristle
As the cardamom would fizzle
With the cinnamon and skag
All the playground whistles drowned by
Gunshots from your water-pistol
And the teachers turned eyes blind
Ducking their heads in the sand
As they play at weekend soldiers
And forget to read the headlines
If they're not above the beauties
Who have nothing real to say
So I say this to you,
Dormant, crawling, something in the making
Wake your soul up from its slumber
And skin up another joint.

The most amazing thing in the whole of the world
Arrived for you today:
Packaged with exquisite care
And discernment
That you stood in awe
Speechless and amazed that this thing
Could hold such beauty
That you'd never seen before
Despite it being there right in front of you
For longer than you could believe
For you had cast the shadows
That you've just learned to dispel
Like some mystic reawakening
The feelings of the heart are flowing
With the melt-swell of your pain
As you gaze into the eyes
Of the one you know deep down
So wholeheartedly completely
Can begin to cleanse your soul.

She thought it best, my mum,
For all concerned, and she should know,
For she had suffered more than most.
To hell and back she lumbered on
Committed to an endless cause,
With little help and no reward.
Perhaps it was a causeless end
Instead.

When the night arrived
And I was lost
In mind and body and soul,
As they dragged me off I didn't kick
Too tired and dazed to understand
The walls I faced from there on in;
Injections daily,
Stifled dreams
Meticulously transcribed -
As if they would have helped
If I hadn't had visitation
Rites of passage
Checking up
On broken little things, like me.

The papers signed
That took my life
For I could not believe
In a life where all existence
Was sucked through a baby's beaker
And the stodge they served
Could well have been
Packed full of all the nutrients
But choice and freedom were denied me
Drugs and beatings were supplied me
Until the night my strength belied my
Wasted body and I glided
Effortlessly past the guards
I leapt the fence
Then across the yard
I sprinted like I'd never done
Before
The road I hadn't known was there
The foghorn, screech and lightning glare
The impact that I'd never feel
The mess upon the road
That had become my life
And the tears my mother cried
Until her dying day.