Beware the Shadows

Beware the Shadows

Do they frighten you like they frighten me
these downcast sons of low-caste mobs?
As you lock them away and lose the key
their parents sweat in low-paid jobs.

These downcast sons of low-caste mobs
fuel rebellious-dreams with drugs and beer.
Their parents sweat in low-paid jobs.
They chant coded-prayers in a football-jeer.

Fuel rebellious-dreams with drugs and beer
to ease the day-long searing pain,
they chant coded-prayers in a football-jeer
in the gloom of a dark-slum-lane.

To ease the day-long searing pain,
as you claim the dues for their squalid-lets
in the gloom of a dark-slum-lane,
pale parents wail and rail against the debts.

As you claim the dues for their squalid-lets
children scream of cruel-oppression.
Pale parents wail and rail against the debts
as they spiral through depression.

Children scream of cruel-oppression
trapped on a treadmill-track from womb to grave
as they spiral through depression
training for the life of a low-wage slave.

Trapped on a treadmill-track from womb to grave,
youth stolen by forsaken-school,
training for the life of a low-wage slave
in lawless-class where bullies rule.

Youth stolen by forsaken-school
dull-eyed masters screaming at sullen-mobs
in lawless-class where bullies rule
churning-out fodder for the low-grade jobs.

Dull-eyed masters screaming at sullen-mobs
whose minds are brutalised by stress
churning-out fodder for the low-grade jobs.
Dream-escape is a drug's caress.

  

Whose minds are brutalised by stress
seek false-pity from none nor spare a friend.
Dream-escape is a drug's caress
for there is no prize at this journey's end.

Seek false-pity from none nor spare a friend
where honest labour will not pay
for there is no prize at this journey's end
and brute-frustration rules the day.

Where honest-labour will not pay
the deprived will study the plumper-breeds
and brute-frustration rules the day
when the fat-one flaunts what the lean-one needs.

The deprived will study the plumper-breeds.
The game is called accumulate.
When the fat-one flaunts what the lean-one needs
cruel-rules are there to contemplate.

The game is called accumulate
where they dirty-deal for the master-share.
Cruel-rules are there to contemplate.
When the winner-takes-all none will play fair.

Where they dirty-deal for the master-share
beware the shadows of the night.
When the winner-takes-all none will play fair.
Paupers leap-out to snatch their right.

Beware the shadows of the night
as you lock them away and lose the key.
Paupers leap-out to snatch their right.
Do they frighten you like they frighten me?

Fashionistas - Haiku

Fashionistas

Hijabs storm catwalks.
Beards takeover trendy chins.
Fashion worships faith.

Mirror World

Mirror-world

A life ago my father said, “I saw

your plane pass overhead; stood alone in

wind and rain and watched you go.” I shrugged and

went upon my way, “Choose the way you waste

your day. I've hay to make and seed to sow.”

Then, amid the hours of feeding pets and
tending flowers, I saw the vapour-trail
bisect the sky, a tear spilt by the bluest
eye as you went out to set-about a
world I'd left undone – to sing the songs I
couldn't hum, and all my love was on the
wing in tender wistful thoughts of you that
day. My father must have felt this too but
couldn't say, and I, the one with life to
find, wouldn't pause to read his mind. I know
it's much the same for you, just doing what
you have to do, but if we never say
or show, how can the other ever know?

The one is always unaware as at
the other's heart they tear. My sorrow as
you speed away is full of words we did
not say. Maybe one-day you'll feel this yearning
too... in the mirror-world of me and you.

To My Friend

To
My Friend.
Such numbing
news is all my grief.
For at the height of that
God given day, grim death,
yon callous thief, broke in my
heart and stole your life away. All
my thoughts are disbelief. So short
ago I felt you pulse within my hands;
saw passion flaring in your flashing eye.
I rave and rage against disease and rant
at all who failed to save the focal point of
all you meant. And what of me, who reassured
you to the end? Your really very fickle friend, who
shied away from stretching hand and frightened
child you hid within. Emotions well and choke
remorseful in my throat as
bitter
tears
come
scald~my eye.
Your ashes now enrich the ground; your soul, in smoke, floats heaven-bound; but still you pulse in this – my heart. A part of me it was that died.

The Barmaid

Manchester – in the final days of the smoky old town.

 Listed buildings, monoliths, stand amid the rubble of demolition,

tower-block flats and new estates…

The Barmaid

The bar lights define her, a pale girl
and thin, puppet playing in a booth.
Alert for the long shift she watches
the shadows hunched at the dark tables,
selectors, tacticians, experts reliving irrelevant
games. ‘Do these people ever get real?’

Her mind flees through the window
where, in twilight, rubbish filled sites are gestating.
Her young eyes, unaware, see rain come sweeping
the long empty yards and weeping on derelict firms,
glistening the brick of the devil-dreamed towers
in hell-seeing streets of steel-shuttered shops
where a base-born baby cries in grandmother's arms.

The bar-bum accountant, aged beyond years
with worries of fees, scrapes the price of a pint
from his pocket and shuffles towards her.
She finds herself pulling a pump
in a monolith pub, spared bomb blasting
balls and bulldozing jaws in a mad-architect's
dream of a traffic‑choked scheme – pavements
of vomit and pampered-pets’ shit ochred
by lamps on designer-frame posts.

(Around her, forgotten, the ghosts play the
game‑with‑no‑rules in the dream where the
strikers who ran for the reds were beaten
and blooded by penalties forced by the blues
but dreamed of the goal they would mould
and then leave for descendants to score).

The sages, oblivious in red and blue blindfolds,
watch her sway at the pump. Without knowing
she sees them as losers who funked the one match
that was fixed in their favour – and she
has a baby that cries through the night.

Death Spell

   

Sorry about this one. It’s a bit depressing – but that’s all a part of life's rich tapestry

                        Death Spell

Icy mists of shame enshroud my blackened-soul.

Harsh klaxons, blaring from my heart, proclaim all

squalid thoughts. Flares, illuminating caverns

full of nightmare-fiends, reveal a frightened child

lying sobbing in the dark. Metamorphose

walls flash me naked at the world. Pride deserts

as gutting-scalpels fling self-loathing-roots and

innards to the judging, scornful mocking mob.

Flee this terror of exposure, flee your dear

though unearned-love, bolt rabbit-scared through
black-night woods on menace-ridden hills. Run,
forever-banished in misery's driving-rain, stumble

bleeding on the flint-hard nettled-fields of pain.

Reality dissolving, sombre-brooding roots,

Zombie-float through mirage-days of chilling

vapour-dreams, curled up tight in flimsy-veil of

shielding-shell, tried; condemned; exiled within a

self-made cell, impotent to melt the fangs that

freeze the bonds that bind the death-wish in the spell.

Poison-seeds rain soft on fertile gardens of

a troubled-mind. Flowers bloom, in whats? and whys?

and awful rows of fearful hows? Answers ring –

crystal bells – from secret-lakes of tear-blood dew.

Help-cries garble, sane outside... death-mad within.

Talk ‘morrow-talk with me ten-million-miles

from you, engrossed, obsessed, cocooned within a

dreadful plan. In here there is no coming-dawn,

no more, no us, no anything. Who loves you

so, would go and leave you with this mist of shame.

You found my shame and beamed into my soul with

rays of healing-truth, dispelling mist and vile

veiling-shell while thawing out the frigid-spell.

Caithness

 

This one needs a glossary

It’s an attempt to portray the passage of time on the landscape

Glossary

dead-brochs                         = plundered  Pictish  towers

sepulchral  weals                 = burial mounds

ghostly druid-stones             = standing-stones (stone-circles/menhirs/megaliths)

Clearance                            = Highland Clearances (removal of inhabitants to make way for sheep)

flimsy boxes                         = new pretentious housing

fresh and eager crop            = refers to both youth and crops

peaty-flows                            = Flow Country (Caithness eco system}

foreign firs                               = alien trees - planted by speculators (also human incomers)

                                                 

CAITHNESS

(Pantoum)

He falls and snuggles like a lover to the floor

dreams spilling from the bottle in the weathered-hand.

Beyond the door dead-brochs lie buried on the moor.

Forebears are but sepulchral-weals upon the land.

Dreams spilling from the bottle in the weathered-hand

where ghostly druid-stones gather for the moon-dance.

Forebears are but sepulchral-weals upon the land –

grey-tombs blending with the plunder of the Clearance.

Where ghostly druid-stones gather for the moon-dance

frail farmer huddles in the shelter of the dell.

Grey-tombs blending with the plunder of the Clearance

as flimsy-boxes march in fashion on the swell.

Frail farmer huddles in the shelter of the dell.

The peasant wearies of the burden of the toil

as flimsy boxes march in fashion on the swell

to shoulder for the view they one-day will despoil.

The peasant wearies of the burden of the toil

just as a fresh and eager-crop spring from the seed

to shoulder for the view they one-day will despoil

aware the time has come to take the misty-lead.

Just as a fresh and eager-crop spring from the seed

out on the peaty-flows the foreign-firs take hold

aware the time has come to take the misty-lead

with roots deep-nourished by the corpses in the mould.

Out on the peaty-flows the foreign-firs take hold.

Beyond the door dead-brochs lie buried on the moor.

With roots deep-nourished by the corpses in the mould

he falls and snuggles like a lover to the floor.

Charlie Gregory
Caithness

Gifts for Elizabeth

New town, new job, strapped for cash.
It was her birthday and this was all I could afford.

         

          Gifts for Elizabeth

Look into the sky tonight and travel

back in time where diamonds light forever-

up beyond the Milky Way, and if you

know the stars by name you'll never be alone.

See Lunar, queen of all the nights, a-glide

with silver smiles; lingers while the morning

mist shimmers-all with dew then hides among

the vapour-screens to watch her lover rise.

How mighty rides the Sun King, Midas of

the morn, transforming leaden-sea and sky

to sheets of dazzling gold; red-carpets lie

on cloud-scapes of plains and mountain-passes.

Purple-anvils forging hailstorms, thunder

clapping lightning flashing. Buddhas billow

then dissolve in peaceful islands floating

high... now yellow skies of driven rain-squalls.

Flooding fields send swollen rivers rushing

to the sea, where they boil and steam in the

tropic-tides then leap on the wind and flee –

to return in tears to their native hills.

Such glory is the earthly-engine, where

sylph-rainbows float on fields-of-flowers that

mirror back their subtle hues while starry-

fish flash in inky-seas of ever-night.

Deep forests whisper secrets to the fields

and jungle-hedgerows where busy insects

drone. Fisher-folk of spiders spin beauty

into webs that find jewels in the frost.

Savours of the planet are bound into

a whole by the pulsing of the hours in

the rhythm of the days that circle in

the seasons of the spiral of the years.

There's a presence and a theme in the beat

of the never-ending dancing of the

ocean on the shore – where a gypsy-wind

croons love-songs to the birds that pipe and soar.

To melt into this music is to blend

into the motion and form again the

beauty of our truth, where minds are laughing

ripples on a stream that runs for ever.

Find succour in the knowledge that all of

us are one, and the substance of all things

is the universal essence of the

                         stars... and see strife as but a passing phase.

Man in a Burger Bar

Man in a Burger Bar

Man in a Burger Bar: Pale and thin
already in love with the dark girl
shovelling fries, guides his tray to
a table viewing the world outside.
Free as the fish that roam the seas,
can come and go wherever he please,
but lives his life inside a sigh
watching the screen behind his eye.

Forsakes the wimp in the grim brick
school, meekly complying with bullies'
rule, to watch young mothers usher
brats towards their dose of soothing
fats; transfers them to his morning
bed, all cuddled-up soft beneath the
spread. But now, inside his cinema head,
a wide eyed youth and anxious lass
have sown a seed that means impasse...

Shop-tired girls drift off the streets,
move chattering by a man who eats.
He yearns for solace, their touch, their
kiss, but images rise to blur the bliss –
a wife's tongue lashing through the
day as a baby shrieks her life away...

Two teenage dreams come sit nearby.
The blond one smiles and takes his eye.
He nods and winks but wants her friend...
Camera tracks – star in the pub
playing the clown for the rowdy mob.
He blinks it away, will it never end?

But the shadows fight back. A
metallic crunch in a drunken fog, a
distorted face and bitter eyes; the bonnet
bent, night air rent by a woman's cries –
the body slumped like a refuse bag...

The sensual blond fades back in view,
wreathing a straw with fulsome lips.
He wants to stay but is clawed away
to complete the film in a dingy cell
amid rattle and slam and echoing yell.

He leaps to his feet, must make a dash,
scrapes his life in the bin along with the trash
then goes with his show to the lonely street.

In Cardiff Jail

In Cardiff Jail
In Cardiff Jail, grey dawn breaks on
razored walls and living-blocks of stone.
High barren landings amplify harsh slamming
gates, and emphasise the echoes of the
bosses' yells and rattled keys of doors that
only ever bang behind.
Alone I trudge the long dark tunnel of
my ''time'' – caged bird, spiralling inside the
wasteland of a mind with nothing gained and nothing left.
Pleasure is the hotplate stop for porridge slop
and morning shuffle round a yard with obscure
friend of bully-boy and baron – grass –
and those but barely sane.
Hear torment in the traffic roar. Is she
some minute blended part of that?
sharing lungfuls of this fitful breeze?
I flee from gulls that scream and soar and
laugh at me, - ''come see, we're free!'' –
and merge into my daily chore of sweep and swab;
then buff the polished floor amid the clanging steel
and shouts; dream my boredom; cry my shame;
or grind my hate and shift the blame.
Again, her ''Dear John'' crashes in my brain,
so blacking out some distant light.
For she's out there somewhere with him,
and I must stay within this wing of rusty bars
and bang-up cells, in my grey world of
yesterdays where tomorrow always
stays some distant unknown-life away.

Natasha

Natasha

Russia at the Collapse of the Communist Era

Hotel Saint-Petersburg

Natasha

She descends from en-suite and the balcony-shops;
sways down the stairway, leather-mini concealing,
sometimes revealing, lace stocking-tops;
carries her bruises where nobody sees.

In the hub of the foyer the faces are probing,
sharp as the glare of the night-patrol's lamps,
some fantasizing, others disrobing;
”Where has she been? What has she seen?”
Edge ever nearer; want her but fear her.

From the shelters and hides of their devalued lives
the other girls know what she carries inside;
science-degree; career that tumbled
when the shaky foundations of Motherland crumbled.

The Westerner sits and weighs up the scene,
wealthy vibrations of pleasure and ease.
''Are you looking for fun?'' almost a prayer,
crouching before him, hands on his knees;
smouldering eyes hide the pleading inside;
bleak deserts of poverty stretching before her,
murk of the tenement, queuing and crying,
pauper-line selling, pauper-line buying.

''How much?'' he demands. Heart skips a beat;
will he be the one to be swept off his feet?
Will he whisk her away? New York maybe?
Somewhere… D.C.?

''Two-hundred,'' she blurts, ''American-bills...''
She suddenly chills. Pitiless tips of cruel icebergs
drift-in from the Muscovite mist to rip-off the fees
she must squeeze from the floating-unfaithful
who crawl through her knees.

''Too dear,'' he waves her away.
It's me! She's crying inside.
It's me – every-man's bride.
"What am I worth?" she wonders aloud.
"Seventy-five," he replies, "one of the crowd."

She rises before him, standing head bowed,
defeated – not cowed.
The girls turn away, back to their chat.
At the bar, double Scotch-on-the-rocks
is served to a rat.

Charlie Gregory
St Petersburg
1990’s

Aurora…………………………………KGB HQ
                                 Pitiless Tips of Cold Icebergs
W

Memories

AW

Memories

White mist on a mountain,
grey mist on the sea;
vapours of the time-mist
are the men I long to see;
just the knowing of them
made a better man of me.

Spring is in my song today,
fields beside the sea.
Robin, from the tractor,
waves a hand at me.
Gulls, churning like a sea-wake,
follow on the plough.
Donald, trudging homewards,
after milking of the cow.

Peter, in the neap field,
leans upon the hoe,
dreaming of a girl he loved,
many years ago.
Geordie’s in the seiner,
butting up the bay,
heading for the haddie grounds,
over Orkney way.

Summer feeds the fields of hay,
moist winds from the west.
God is in a summer day,
men and land are blessed.
Comes along a bonnie lass,
children at her knee,
breathing nectar in the glass,
giving love to me.

AW

Only We Know

AW

Only we know...

The stranger did not start the fight today.
New man in town, come looking for a job,
he prayed for God to take the gang away.

He’d find some digs, a place to plan and stay,
but found himself confronted by the mob.
The stranger did not start the fight today.

Demanding cash and cards, they barred his way.
When blows were thrown by devil-snarling yob
he prayed for God to take the gang away.

They classed him as a thing that they could slay
in mindless hate, a cur to beat and rob.
The stranger did not start the fight today.

Their feet and fists flew frenzied in the fray.
In fear he fought and felled a drunken slob.
He prayed for God to take the gang away.

Now, left alone with corpse as cold as clay,
a figure kneels, still choking on a sob.
The stranger did not start the fight today.
He prayed for God to take the gang away.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

AW

Wedding Reception

 

Wedding Reception

                       

        We’ll settle by the bar and watch
        the women dance, then split a likely
        pair, when we think we stand a chance.
        I’ve one eye on the bridesmaid, with
        the skirt that’s riding high – showing
        off the daisies, tattooed upon
        her thigh.

                      The groom is still hung-over;
        can’t find the pregnant bride. She dodged
        into the box room – best-man by
        her side.

                     Mothers-in-law are screaming,
        ‘war,’ handbags all-aflail. Uncle
        Jack is on his back. George is green
        and frail.
                    
                       So we’ll linger here and
        guzzle beer, till the barman calls
        the time. Then make a play for a
        pair who sway – join the pantomime...

        ...Hope you like the big one, with the
        bird’s nest in her hair. Because I’m
        heading for the bridesmaid, with the
        skirt that’s riding high, showing off
        the daisies...

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

Glimpse

Glimpse

I wander in the wild-wood
where Leap, my dog, would play;
rest upon some grassy bank
where I with Megan lay.
Time you thief who stole my life,
the years go like a day.
Leap lies beneath the laurel,
my Megan went away.

Re-membering

Re-membering

Mam's had a sex-change
Protest at the pissing-comp
"Rules mean proper pricks"

Dad's run away now
Living with a transvestite
Remembering mam?

Leap off a Day

                  Leap off a Day

Leap off a day full of struggle and toil.

Pleasure-power fuels freedom's few precious 

hours. Head for the cellar where solace is

found. Shoulder a way through the jostling crowd.

The thicket is wild and dense by the bar,

winter-branch arms shedding autumn-leaf notes.

Barmaids flick taught-aloof tails while they flit,

ripping off balls with their sharp little tits.

Machine-gunning speakers spray punters with

rap. Call for ''strong-ale!'' Leave the lager for

louts. Survey, edge away from the wankers

and drunks. She's got mad-eyes. He's pushing tabs.

Ocean of faces polluted by booze.

Snatches of voices wind-torn from the storm.

Crackhead is screaming about his bad hit.

Rodents are filling his skull full of shit.

Rhythm-girls bob up and down to the beat.

The one called Desire has wings on her feet,

legs and white pants like a rose in full bloom,

the one in the crowd who lights up a room.

Shouting and cursing and breaking of glass.

Fun at the bar... stampeding, girls crying,

chairs swinging, fists flying, then Exocet-

bottles-and-boots in an all-out attack.

Faces exploding in fountains of blood.

Shatter-glass windows ice-blue-psychedel;

game-beating police rousing quarry to

flight – any brace cooks-the-books for the night.

Scatter and panic, a jam at the door

as we tear and then pull and then kick and

butt heads, now dash for the street and the sweet

inky-black safety of swallowing night.

Find the fair-maid Desire, cute little sprite

whose ignoble-knight offers Vindaloo-

sauce –  plan for scalding her arse and covert-

ovens-of-love as we leap off a day.

Anorexic Girl

Samaritan Days. This kid called me very shift for 4 years. Then disappeared
off the radar screen.

Anorexic Girl

Sometimes she whispers in my ear,
a tapestry of pain and fear
whose warp and weft weave haunted days
and nightmare dreams through woeful sobs
and blooded screams, till phantoms from
a private hell enshroud me in
a chilling spell.
                       I’m on a tour
within her mind where those outside
are breaking in and every thought
accuses sin in saddest voice
man ever heard.
                         Midst grief defying
spoken word she can only run
and hide, cringe ever deeper down
inside, avoiding some imagined
threat from friend... or foe she’s never
met.
         I know more of her than of
my own, my wasted waif who walks
alone. I want to ride inside
her head and sweep it clean of all
its dread but will not know her when
we meet, walk past her crying in
the street.
                 But till she finds the strength
to lay the horrors of the past
and scream, “I’m me! I’m running free,”
there’ll be no woman sweet asleep,
but just the child who I hear weep.
Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

Orang Ulu

Orang Ulu

Orang Ulu ( pron. Uloo) = collective name for the up-river tribes of Sarawak.

Orang Ulu,
loping through mottle-green light of the jungle-track,
lighter than dawn-mist, nimble as wild-cat.
Hunt-hounds around-him are bounding and
wailing a death-hymn or baying for
deer-spoor or fat-ox or wild-boar.

Ulu-agape at the edge of a clearing,
proud ebony, ironwood crashing before him;
din of tree-felling and sawing and logging,
plundering into the land-of-the-lair,
filling the air-of-the-woods with despair.
Animals fleeing; no way of escape.
Earth-mother, naked and bruised by the rape,
bleeds yellow-puss in the pure-running-river
where bones of the forest now rattle down rapids...

Change; flooding the valley,
drowning the nestling, the gibbon and python;
feeding their life-force into the pylon.
Rain; kissing the forest her final goodbyes...
Lonely in grief, tears in his eyes,
Ulu burying dogs in the shade of bamboo.
"Sleeping in nature," the sandalwood sighs,
"dreaming forever of hunting with you."

Charlie Gregory
At the head of the Rejang
Sarawak

Thoughts in the Middle Watch

Thoughts in the middle watch

The devil's in the wind tonight,
hell is in my mind;
demons of the grief I gave
the girl I left behind.
For once,
just once,
in the grinding port of aching toil and din
I paid to weep my pain in a woman's
gentle arms, and didn't think it sin.

But God...!
Dear God...!
Why did you hide your virus
in those mother-loving charms?
Now the girl who once adored me
lies gaunt upon the sheet –
stricken by my loving –
with lips that once were sweet
drawn back upon her teeth.

A thousand miles away,
my lovely waits for death;
and a bitter prayer she murmurs
with every ebbing breath;
and the bitter prayer she murmurs,
soulful eyes repeat;
“I'll curse you out of heaven
if our paths should ever meet.”

Charlie Gregory
at sea

The Goat’s Tale

Puck Fair
Co. Kerry
(Where, in August, a wild mountain goat is crowned king)

The goat's tale

"There's magic in the Coolroe-stream, or pucks
weave herb into the browse to make me dream...

In Killorglin town I bowed before a
virgin-queen, who gave a crown to make me
king with vision over everything. Our
match remained unconsummate. For I was hailed on-high, engaged – though caged – in things of
state. There, phantoms, clad in cap and boot, waved
crooked sticks and mumbled strange in ancient
tongue, then bought and sold the living soul of
sullen ox and horse and colt. And at my
feet, the men danced women down the street, like
spectres borne on haunting notes of lonely
songs that sang of sorrows in the years: how
wanton maids, with torment-eyes, as wild and
green as Lough Lean's isles, and ringlets wrought in
purest gold, like wavelets caught in sunset's
mould, were, by their beauty, thus condemned to
birthing pain and living drudge. While boys, like
bumble bees, beguiled by nectar spilled by
girls, were led along a lane of toil and
grudge...

                       …Now I wake-up in the glen, running
free of 'Orglin-men, to gambol up the
giddy scree into the cloud where Mother
Earth becomes the sky; and sense a life set
out for me, of butting he and tupping
she. Then see the visions of my dream; hear
the laughing of the stream; and wonder - why?"

Charlie Gregory
1998

Sam

AW

                                      Sam.
            Poky dingy café;
         workmen shout and curse;
      she floats among the tables,
      tending like a nurse.
       She pauses when she sees me;
         breaks into a smile;
      skips behind the counter,
  lingers for a while.
     chatting while she's serving,
      shedding all her pain …
         then, when
                    I am leaving,
                     becomes
                    a nurse again.

AW