The Coastal Robot

or On looking out of the East Coast train from London to Edinburgh


Incredible how the sea dispels alarm

Arousing joy without a cause



Immediate!


A sight of inevitable bliss so inarticulate

and yet replete with messages and thrones.


Then suddenly a monstrous thing

a squat and hideous robot,

square and brute

Sits on the coast line like an ugly toy left out by troll children

Blind to the ravishing waves.


A factory made of concrete blocks.

A nuclear power station?

What exactly is it?

Could one possibly say
Without initiation into madness of the bluntest kind?

And there and here beside the railway tracks

Vast cylinders and wagons,

making grey a frightful thing


Whilst the veiling mist attempts a kind reminder of the truthful nature of this
Heavenly shade... so close to silver and to dawn.


But peace;
the breath returns and someone with a gentle eye has now laid out the land.

A green field
of a generous startling hue


gives us a barn
with a long bright roof of red.


a white house by a fallow field
and a crimson post van in a country lane,


Its speed commensurate with human dignity
And a sense of pace of life.


Oh Lord protect us from the paceless things

That sit enthroned in deathless tedium.

Rip out the horrors that can never breathe

And fill again our earth with life that dies

And naturally expires in rapturous gratitude.


How wonderful that things ephemeral

Lift up our fragile hopes into eternity.

Whilst stolid robots, stiff with glass eyed potency

Will, changeless, fall entire into the night.

For Sarah and John on their Wedding Day

Performed before their wonderful display of Sarah’s Poems and John’s Photographs


Under the Poet’s eye
All things reveal their inner gaze

Return a look of kind enquiry
With an opening of the heart

A glimpse of mystery
Veiled
Until
The moment of desire for knowledge comes

For love is knowledge
In its purest form

And spiritual life
Unveiling of the sight.

And here displayed
Is God’s adventure
Evermore and evermore.

Under the Poet’s eye, the pen, the camera lens,
The world is speaking of its hidden core
Where all is yet to be discovered

We stand before the sea-shore

The boat laps at the lake
We’re on the existential edge
We cut into the cake!

And that’s why folklore senses
We should wish as the knife goes in

But we rejoice and pray aloud
‘Let a newer life begin!’

And under our Creator’s eye
We share the gift of Thou and I

We raise a glass as angels pray
To bless you
On your Wedding Day..

Freak Show

The Ring Master:


Don’t be afraid of the freak show

It exists for your relief

At being safe

from this

defect;



This spell of madness and despair

Is spared you



Don’t be too assured

That horror will not come.



The freak, the freak is here on show



But your despair is hidden

And in the closet dungeon

It will only stir when bidden



Shhhhh the freak show

Shhh the freak

Do not let it ever

Speak.



It must not call to you by name

Inside its cage it must remain



But you will pay the price to stare

And hurriedly flee in the cooling air.

Its chill is gone but the memory’s there



The freak still lives as you pass on.

Does one gaze linger when the day is done?



Off with the freak show

Off with its head

Only the perfect are raised from the dead.



Bring me the wonderful

Bring me a date

Bring me the freak on a spike from the gate



We must be beautiful

we must be free

Speak to me never of the freak in me.



Fear and loathing

Fear and pain

These are the items on the list of shame



Who will cross them one by one

Off the agenda

Till their day is done?



Who will look them in the eye

And feel their sorrow

As the world walks by



Come to me master

Come to my show



Only you can understand

How all the lines go.



You in the subtext

You in the stall

You in the balcony

You in the hall.



Come to the freak show

Come and hear me speak



All of me is up for view

But only you will weep.





June 6th 2012