Paper Dreams

Two headed horses climb the walls

The panther stalks the bubbled balls

Dead flowers grow across my bed

Ten fingers crossed by hand that bled

Glass tigers gamble in the stream

The unicorn rides through a dream

Blue thunder clouds roll cross the sky

Beneath the watchful wizard`s eye

The bottled gold, unwanted stands

Untouched by mortal human hands

And silent standing all around

Toxic tubes rise from the ground

The light above will soon grow dim

The time will come to sink or swim

The dolphin smiled, the angel cried

Certificates for those who died

In crystal castles on the hill

They’re blind to all the blood they spill

In pidgeon holes, in shadowed rows

Where heroes hide between Death’s toes

And china lemmings on the edge

Stand in line to take the pledge

The infant smiling on the dead

The Devil bearing words unsaid

And on the moon the sleeping clown

Dreams of stars and falling down

Picture formed in empty air

Fades above the empty chair

White coat drifting through the door

Floating two feet from the floor

A fleeting pain beneath the skull

And once again the world grows dull

The face behind the glass looks on

Until this paper dream is gone..

Nemesis

Looming shadows drawing near

Darkness borne on wings of fear

Foot-steps echo close behind

Conjured spectres plague your mind

Lurking in the endless night

Stalking you as you take flight

As your nerve breaks start to run

Race of Death has now begun

Icy breath, spine-chilling touch

Blood runs cold, cadaver’s clutch

A tightened grip, you can’t break loose

You’re hanging in a rigid noose

Your chest is tight, your heart expands

You’re clawing at those vice-like hands

You know your heart can’t take the strain

You’re blinded by its bursting pain

You feel your soul is fading fast

Your life’s events are flashing past

There is no need to struggle now

You know this pain will end somehow

With open arms embrace Death’s bliss

You can’t escape your Nemesis

Mice or Men?

You may call this life a rat race

But to me the only rats

Are the ones in spangled uniforms

Or suits and bowler hats

The rest of us are only mice

All chained to life’s tread-mill

While the rats ride on the gravy train

And eat and drink their fill

They are living in the manner

They have grown accustomed to

While the masses pay in blood and sweat

For the lifestyle of the few

They enjoy all of life’s comforts

Never wanting for their needs

While the masses live in penury

Victims of their leader’s greed

To them our fate is just a game

As they play dice with our souls

The masses are expendable

To their power crazy goals

And when the final war arrives

They will be the first to hide

In concrete bunkers down below

While the masses burn outside

Don’t you think it’s time to show them

Whether we are mice or men?

We should put the rats back in their cage

And then try to start again

A Painful Video...

 My first attempt at a video poem.

A Painful Truth (from Apocalyptic Visions)   >>>>> WARNING <<<<< 
Content Advisory

Contains some disturbing imagery so do not watch if you are

 of  a nervous disposition or easily upset by images of death

>>>>> +++++++ <<<<<

Pulvis et Umbra Sumus

A numbness fills this earthly shell

As darkness fills my mind

My eyes are open wide and yet

These mortal orbs are blind

A distant rhythm, soft and slow

Its echoes gliding past

The future slowly fades into

Old memories that don’t last

The fading but persistent beat

Not easily ignored

Attempts to bind pure thought inside

This shell that never soared

The echoes slowly fade away

Forgotten for a time

The silence settles like a shroud

As chains of thought unwind

A key turns in a hidden lock

A darkness shrouded door

Now opens bleeding golden light

The shadow starts to soar

Then suddenly that distant beat

The pile of dust it calls

A shadow beckoned back to pain

And walking dusty halls

(Pulvis et umbra sumus - We are but dust and a shadow)

Savage in a Suit...? (More like Savage in a Hoodie!)

Here is a poem I wrote many years ago in the early 90's exploring how easy it is for so-called 'civilised' society to slip into savagery. After watching the news all evening and following #londonriots on Twitter I think I should rename this piece 'Savage in a Hoodie' instead, although these mongrels are not fighting for survival, they are 'fighting' for Nikes and plasma tv's!

Some people consider my poems to be too dark, morbid even. Maybe they are but I only tell it as I see it. I see nothing to be gained by sugar coating the truth, even when it is a painful truth. When you add it all up; the financial crisis, the food crisis, the climate crisis, the water crisis, the energy crisis, the resource crisis, the population crisis - is the world not a dark and morbid place? Still, no need to get depressed about it. I'm still an optimist, even though I know awful things are going to happen...

Some-times it really sucks to be right...

Savage in a Suit

You think you are so civilised

But it is time you realised

How easily cracks can appear

In your so finely groomed veneer

We’re just a couple of meals away

From anarchy, so experts say

I’m sure you doubt this can be true

So I’ll try to enlighten you

The basic instinct in us all

Before which all the others fall

Is that to keep yourself alive

At all costs you have to survive

Imagine now some future date

When all the world’s long pent-up hate

Erupts into the final war

The Establishment exists no more

The things you take for granted now

They are no longer there somehow

No petrol for your fancy car

Well, am I getting through so far?

No food will reach your local store

Your power and water flow no more

Gangs and looters roam the night

Now there is no electric light

But things will go from bad to worse

With worthless money in your purse

No matter, there’s no food to buy

And anyway, the end is nigh

Soon shortages will start to bite

Out on the streets the people fight

For any food that does arrive

Remember, they have to survive

At first the law enforcers try

But soon they start to wonder why

They bother with a fruitless quest

They’re in the same boat as the rest

And that is when the end will start

When our society falls apart

No-one to keep the mob in check

The rats have left the sinking wreck

They talk of concrete jungles now

But they just don’t compare somehow

To millions of our charming race

Competing in a real rat race

Countless starving millions dying

On the streets the corpses lying

And those unlucky ones alive

With only one thought, to survive

Could you survive this brave new world

Buy Ebook here

When anarchy's flag is unfurled?

Or would you just curl up and die

Cowering as your children cry?

Special bonus for my Twitter followers...

As a special thank you to my growing list of Twitter supporters I have issued a 30% off coupon for my anthology of dark poetry, Apocalyptic Visions, available from Smashwords.com as a multi-format ebook. Any-one wishing to take advantage of this offer need only click HERE and then enter the code when prompted.

               30% OFF COUPON CODE:-  TK69E

For any-one unfamiliar with my work you can read some sample poems from the links below:

     A Painful Truth
     Morbidity
     Prosperity Calls
     Two Eyes

Once again, thank you to all tweeps who have commented, mentioned, RT'd amd otherwise tweeted their support.

Two Eyes

Two eyes are still closed tightly

To the beauty of this earth

A face still glistens brightly

From the miracle of birth

Two eyes, a flickered movement

As a new life is unfurled

But the wonder of this moment

Is just wasted on this world

Two eyes begin to open

And in wonder gaze around

Youth's bud begins to ripen

As those eyes grow big and round

Two eyes born out of innocence

See the world with rosey hue

Still blind to all the violence

And the evil that men do

Two eyes are filled with anger

As they open to the truth

The mirror holds a stranger

Something missing from their youth

Two eyes now disillusioned

And ashamed of their own kind

In a torment of confusion

Now they wish they were still blind

Two eyes have now grown cynical

Against this world of pain

They've reached and passed life's pinnacle

And soon will close again

Two eyes are quickly dimming

And their light is fading fast

The world about is swimming

As they look into the past

Buy Ebook here

Two eyes now close forever

At their owner's final breath

In that face like wrinkled leather

Lying peacefully in death

Paperbacks now available

Paperbacks now available


My anthologies of Dark Poetry are now available as paperbacks from Lulu.com aswell as being available as mulit-format ebooks from Smashwords.com. Previews are also available from both sources along with the free sample ebooks on Smashwords.com.




Apocalyptic Visions                              Beyond the Mask

Free ebooks now available

       



Free ebooks are now available for download at Smashwords.com. A Glimpse Beyond... and A Prelude to Apocalypse can be downloaded free of charge in 7 different formats or viewed online in 3. They are provided as an introduction to my work in a way that allows some-one to read my poems at their leisure rather than having to visit my websites to view them.

Waking Nightmare

I feel my mind is slowly lifting

Through hidden doors dark shades are drifting

Last ghosts of quickly fading dreams

Retreating forms of silent screams

In momentary silence lying

With unseen nightmare spectres dying

My drowsy sleep-thick mind is idling

Why is the air so warm and stifling?

I open up my eyes to see

But all is black, how can this be?

How can there be no shred of light?

My god, could I have lost my sight?

Why do I feel so stiff and sore?

Why am I lying on the floor?

So hard to move my arms from rest

Why are they folded on my chest?

I raise my hand to test eyes flawed

My knuckles graze against rough board

My elbows knock restricting sides

With horror then I realise

Like half-remembered memories

Nghtmarish echoes surge with ease

From dark recesses of my brain

Where they were locked to save me pain

I hear the grieving mourners moaning

The distant solemn voice is droning

Of how life can be so unjust

Ash to ash and dust to dust

But these spectres are from no dream

No-one can hear but still I scream

My heart is filled with icy dread

They’ve buried me, BUT I`M NOT DEAD!

A moment of clarity...

Apocalyptic Vision, the title poem from my anthology of Dark Poetry Apocalyptic Visions, has special significance for me as it was the first. It was written during the winter of 1990-91 as the world held its breath awaiting the inevitability of the 1^st Gulf War. At the time I was living in the attic of an isolated tumble-down bungalow on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, struggling to survive on little money and less hope for the future as I mourned a love lost. By night I drank and wandered the rugged Lizard Downs, often finding myself at the cliff top above The Point, by day I slept off the night before. I felt my life could get no lower. Then everything changed...

On a crisp winter’s day I aimlessly wandered the streets of Helston during a rare daytime visit to civilization, noticing the shoppers going about their day little more than they noticed me. I was pulled up suddenly by a strange noise that was not so much heard over the bustle that surrounded me as felt under it; a kind of throbbing vibration in my breast and temple that droned on and on, louder and louder. I looked about in confusion to find the source and saw that no-one else was reacting, the crowd simply parted about me with a mutter and a scowl at my obstruction of their vital journey. Slowly my gaze was drawn upwards as I realised the noise came from above, beyond the low hanging blanket of cloud, as comprehension washed over me like cold rain. I was hearing aero-engines, big ones. Some-where high above this small town English street large aircraft droned across the sky, bringing to mind US B-52 heavy bombers en-route to the Persian Gulf. The throbbing reverberation rumbled on, increasing to a dull roar that surely even the most ardent bargain hunter could not ignore, and yet they did, paying more attention to the obvious lunatic staring dumbly at the sky and blocking their path to the sale signs.

At that precise moment I had an epiphany. I immediately purchased a pen and note-book and boarded the first bus home, sketching out the bare bones of the first couple stanzas of my Apocalyptic Vision by the time I reached the bungalow. I retreated to the attic, my garret, and continued to write...

The contents of Apocalyptic Visions is a direct expression of that moment...

Runaway Train

Happy haddock, willow tree

Humpty dumpty, silver sea

Ping pong, bunny, apple pie

Singing haystack, purple sky

Little teapot, grinning cat

Talking horses, silly hat

Parcels, ribbons,tiny tots

Sky blue pink with polka dots

Roasted peanuts, candyfloss

Silver moonlight, springy moss

Rainy mondays, growing grass

Snakes in apples made of glass

Rocket, lolly, unicorn

Bugle, trumpet, rhino horn

Mary poppins, poppy seed

Bill and Ben and little weed

Wibble, wibble, blibble blime

Honey suckle, twist of lime

Silly sausage, carrot top

Pc Plod and Mrs Mop

Ivor engine, rousing song

Hanging baskets, Babylon

Wizard, fairy, crimson grape

Icy snowflake, sticky tape

Milky, milky, gooey cake

Yellow roses, frying stake

Choking laughter, falling star

Deafened by a bridge too far

Floating sofa, fishing gnome

Smokey bacon running home

Howdy doody Mr Spoon

Comfy ceiling, tiny room

Birdies tweeting, bouncing ball

River deep and building tall

Spotty toadstools, angel sings

Brainy badger, ravens wings

Giant beanstalk, puss-in-boots

Mother Goose in big black boots

Scented candles, ticking clock

Climb the ladder, on the block

Round in circles, chase your tail

Falling ashtray, sirens wail

Cabbage corner, smoking joint

Woven basket, needle point

Wedding bells for dusty bin

Bright confetti, creeping sin

Dancing oysters, pea green boat

Bright balloons, they bounce and float

Snowball fights in sylvan woods

Burning crosses, pointy hoods

Teeter-totter, swinging tyre

Metal monsters, spitting fire

Gaudy pennants, coloured plumes

Silent children, cloying fumes

Jingle, jingle, sleigh bell rings

Rising waters, acid stings

Test-tube babies, empty beds

Missing limbs and extra heads

Smiling faces, staring eyes

Crawling beetles, buzzing flies

Buy Ebook here

Mellow music, padded white

Baggy trousers, jacket tight

Platitudes, a bright new pin

Oblivion is closing in...

Beyond the Mask cover design.

Here is the new cover designed by Caroline Quin (Facebook profile) for my soon to be released book of poetry, Beyond the Mask.

Have a look at the sample poems:

The Jumper
The Treatment
No Compost Mennis

The new book is scheduled for release on 20th July, 2011.