Ode on Celestial Music – by Brian Patten

It’s not celestial music it’s the girl in the bathroom singing. You can tell. Although it’s winter the trees outside her window have grown leaves, all manner of flowers push up through the floorboards. I think – ‘what a filthy trick that is to play on me,’ I snip them with my scissors shouting ‘I […]

Eyes Closed

Shades

I wake, with slumber fogging up my head And turn to where your sleeping shadow lies And stretch my arm across the half cold bed And miss your eyes, and miss and miss your eyes Coffee for one, and while the water drips The light moves slyly and I watch entranced, Upon the kitchen floor, […]

The Blackrow Ballads – songs from a mistaken pilgrimage

From the Preface: This is the secret no one Dare discuss:The final voice that sings and calls to DustAll who are called upon to Dance upon the dayThat foolish piper blows the Dream away. + The Tryst All fondly I recall the dayThe sun shone down, a gentle kiss,Your endless gentle courtly way,I smile in […]

History May Not Repeat, But Often Rhymes

Those old men in their towers, rich in gold and oil and powers Will never cry ‘enough, I’m satisfied’And they send out their town criers, and their skilful journaliarsAnd they cast their spell so trusted and so tried See the other, over there? What they’re doing is unfairAnd their ways are wrong and evil and […]

Bare Handed

Every empire falls and there’s not a one that’s lasted,A state has an expiry date, and yours has blown right past itIt happened to us once and soon you’ll join us in the wreckageYour influence is fucked your credibility is lessenedMade enemies of friends and you suck up to dictatorsYou brag about your bombs but […]

Helping Hand

I clean the shop, I mend the shoes, I help the downcast maiden choose Her future prince, her future bright, her perfect brave and charming knight I bless the baby that she bears, I honour every oath she swears, I prophesy of days unborn, of trials to come, of oaths foresworn Of fallen thrones and […]