Author: gorgeousgael

EVEN IF I HAD NO HANDS

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LOOK, NO HANDS

Even if I had no hands

I would be ambidextrous

Ac-dc in a strange sort of way

Though women would still be kings

Or should that be queens?

Even if I had no legs

I would still walk tall

Play legless football

If the fancy took me,

Roller-skate differently, that’s all

Even if I had no mouth

I would still speak out

Words would continue to pour forth

I would not be silenced

I would speak from the heart

Even if I had no eyes

I would still see plenty

Believing would be seeing

And if only in my mind’s eye

My vision would still be twenty-twenty

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JESUS FREAKS

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JESUS FREAKS

Jesus on the streets

Satan under the sheets

Why do the heathens rage

When we don’t keep sinners in a cage?

He that sits in the heavens shall laugh

When he speaks to them in his wrath

Hear me when I call, ye sons of men

How long before ye turn glory into shame again?

Stand ye in awe and sin not one time more

For your pillow will be a hard rock

And your bed a fiery brimstone floor.

THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEIGH

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sunset-birds

THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEIGH

The end of the world is neigh
Said the sandwich-board vendor
The word is ‘nigh’ my friend, I replied
And anyway it’s not due until next November.
We’re all cowboys on this burnt out lump in space
Searching for a spark in the dying embers
The world has already ended many times
The latest one was in the dog days of last December.

JOHNJO – an extract

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MY NEW PLAY – JOHNJO – IS NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK ON AMAZON

download

JOHNJO EXTRACT

 scene one

A darkened stage. We hear the sounds of a busy building site.  Then a voice…

VOICE:     Jaysus, Blondie…that’s a…a…

Then another sound – an explosion.

Silence.

The light’s come up, to reveal JOHNJO sitting on a rock on a hill.  The hill looks down on some windswept, craggy fields, and, in the distance, faint outlines of farm buildings (unseen).  Johnjo is in his fifties, weather-beaten, but well-dressed…(suit, polished shoes etc) He is singing softly at lights-up.

         

JOHNJO:                               (THE ROCKS OF BAWN)

Come all ye loyal heroes and listen on to me.

Don’t hire with any farmer till you know

what your work will be

You will rise up in the morning

from the clear daylight till dawn

And you never will be able

For to plough the rocks of  bawn

My father was always singing bits of that song.

I don’t know, maybe he didn’t know any more of it,

but those are the only words that stick in my mind…

(pause)

I suppose, though, they had a certain ring…

Plough…Rocks…Bawn….

(he gets up and looks around)

I mean, look at it…

More rocks than bawn…

By God, if I had a penny for every stone we picked…

For every furze bush we cut down…

(imitates his father)

Fifty acres, boy…and five of them is a hill.

What good is a lump of limestone to a farmer?

You can’t feed beasts on rocks. By God, if I

had my way, I’d blast the whole lot to kingdom

come…

(laughs, sings  I AM A LITTLE BEGGARMAN)

I am a little beggerman

and begging I have been

For three score and more

In this little isle of green

With me sikidder-e-idle- di

And me skidder-e-idle-do

Everybody knows me

By the name of Johnny Dhu.

That was his favourite song

He would sometimes sit me on his knee…

Johnjo ‘hears’ a woman’s voice calling.

‘VOICE’:   Johhny, Johnny where are you?

Out there in the cold with the child!

Come on in now and milk the cows… Continue reading →

DOWN SCRUBS LANE

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WORMWOOD

Wormwood isn’t here

The sign said, rather waspishly.

It wasn’t the Wormwood I remembered;

Scrubs Lane on a wet Sunday

The outback in West London

No buses, no cars, no people

Just limp grass, acres of the stuff

And, oh yes, the finest redbrick edifice

Victoria’s henchmen could construct.

No rotting bodies in here, my friend.

Not Newgate, not by a long shot

Though debts must still be paid

And some may still get laid

Lord Alfred Douglas lay here,

As did Charles Bronson,

Keith Richards, Leslie Grantham.

And  George Blake

Scurrying along in his traitor’s gait

Till the day he pole-vaulted to freedom

More or less

Before waving goodbye

To his English life,

His liberty and his wife

And all those Wormwood scrubbers

 

NEUROPLASTICITY

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NEUROPLASTICITY

You can teach an old brain new tricks

Neuroplasticity is its name

The mind is what the brains does – they say

But the reverse may be true, just the same

There are no lights, sounds, colours

Or smells inside the brain

Only patterns of electrical information

And our sense receptors

That help the brain to sculpt itself

To rewire itself, as it were, and keep you sane,

By conscious habits of thought and action.

They say machines can’t fix themselves

But what of the power of mind over matter?

I think, therefore I am isn’t just idle chatter.

THERE WAS A TIME… my unfinished symphony is now finished

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stand1

A couple of days ago I invited contributions to complete this poem.  I guess is was an experiment really to see if several different poets could find the same emotions to make sense in a joint effort.  I am delighted to say that Michaelnjohns did just that, and he finished my poem  better than I could have done myself. Thanks michael

THERE WAS A TIME…

There was a time which was                                                                                                                                                        Much better lived than told                                                                                                                                                         There was a time we were much younger then                                                                                                                        And growing up held  more sway than growing old                                                                                                                  Then one day all that growing was done                                                                                                                                   And the long slide down that                                                                                                                                          Imaginary hill had begun…

I’ve slid, lost my hat, what’s worse, I’ve gotten fat,                                                                                                                     But if, at the end of it all, I could choose,
I’d say it’s been a good slide; I’d go again-
Through every bump and cut and bruise.
And I still reminisce now, of life back then

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

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39689eebcaf20579d32828e454990a4d

This poem has always hit the spot for me.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN  by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

unfinished symphony. THERE WAS A TIME…

/ gorgeousgael / 2 Comments

THERE WAS A TIME…

There was a time which was

Much better lived than told

There was a time we were much younger

And growing up held  more sway than growing old

And then one day all that growing was done

And the long slide down that

Imaginary hill had begun…

I have,as you can see, not yet finished this poem. Anybody who feels like contributing some lines to finish it please feel free!

PUT ANOTHER LOG ON THE TV

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FOR_ST~1

PUT ANOTHER LOG ON THE TV

Talking gets harder each day:

Smokeless zones and telephones

Have killed the conversation

Now our lies, laughs, truth and tears

Have all been swallowed whole

By another monster

In another shiny console

Rocking-horse to rocking-chair

And somewhere in between

The fireplace has become a flickering screen

Glowering at the world

Insisting on silence as it reward

Granddad spat in the fire;

I spit in your face;

Old lies die hard.