Brexit Music

Buccaneer spirits free flags up our mast, freedom at last to raise funds while we hedge,  to schmooze the investors with wookiest wedge.

Selling munitions to warlords dictators

Teaching their offspring to play up the game

Whether Eton or Harrow they'll all sound the same, with their,Factories in China,Hookers on yachts,Bentleys in Monaco,soon to be trips round the moon.

Fruits of free enterprise gathered by few, The global elite with a halcyon view

Have all but destined the rest, especially the ones who thought Brexit was best, to be minimum waged Amazonian slaves, as our trailer park trash, feeding the kids in a food-bank dash

But at least with her majesties face on the cash

Alpha Status

Alpha Status

With muscles in his spit,
prowling down the stairs in tight fit Calvin Kleins
is my twelve stone hairy baby, and he wants to claim
what's mine!
It isn't always like this and we get along just fine,
but his hormones and his biceps and his whiskers
and his braun,
have jogged to Freudian overdrive like just after
he was born.
Now he's stamping round the bathroom and he's
hosing down the loo, like he's taken alpha male spot
and I'm not sure what to do.

I'm a poet not a fighter and to harm him's not my way,
I'm his silver templed guardian with a slightly dodgy back,
rarely raised my voice in anger, raised an eyebrow once or
twice.
Told him not to swear in library's cause it  wasn't very nice.
Warned him not to flash his eyes at tender hearts with
fickle words.

He's just a Puck like careless Satyr, in his room on his guitar.
Belting out a tune and riffs, throwing back his hair and then
re-waxing up his quiff.

With fake nonchalant indifference, I trot so easy down the stairs,
we keep our distance halfway down, like hungry narkie Grizzly
bears. Flick our eyes and raise our chins in semi mock belligerent
stares.

In my baggy Marks and Spencer skids, I pad up to the fridge,
he's back into Vampire weekend, and he's bellowing the bridge.

As I fumble round the veg tray for my can of Carling slurp,
I hear him flourish his finale with a floorboard rattling burp!

John Watson
Kenilworth Feb 2016

Carved Asunder

Freeborn Johnny's, Wearside Jacks, villains heroes wandered dales
drank my rivers ales and spirits, planed her forests into ships
towered masts avast with sails.

Meandered northern river song,carved asunder over time, cloudbourne sisters, Tees and Tyne.
Durham miners gala days, laughing long dead Geordie colliers toiled down deep in veins of darkest anthracite, squandered youth enslaved their might, ruptured backs and coughed out lungs in scarlet speckled mist.

Dropped like pebbles twelve hour shifts, clattered lifts down wet pit shafts.
Winston's rats back down their holes and under sea, five miles outs no hyperbole.

My bloods flowed all along this stream and in my dreams are Jimmy Crawford 's hopes and schemes.
On Rokers rusted iron rails paint thick layers blistered summers gails, winter storms or twisted pasts, all amongst and within my prescient forms unveiled our presents.

The edge of the wild

After an hour of ascent we came to the edge of human interference.
Beyond was rough heathland up to Crags and cliff, stiff with the territorial energetic roaring of stags in rut. We stayed close to the fence and traversed the mountainside in case the stags decided to charge.
They were annoyed by our presence, tearing across the mountainside, each hoof-strike exploding into mist.

Karmic projection overkill

Getting back down south, driving into heavier traffic, getting back to work with all of the noise, mostly pointless. It brought me down with a bump and made me think about how quiet it is in Scotland.
After our climb up the hills at the back of the cottage, I sat a while reading my book, 'At the Loch of the green corrie'. It is an excellent tale of friendship, poetry and finding ones own ease and place on the Earth.
I was reading away, but getting mythered by the chickens hassling me for food or affection and I wished they would just nob off!

That night a young Pine marten got in and amongst killing four of them.

Today at work, my colleague, joined me on the same job and whacked on radio two. He is a nice bloke who has been at the same workplace for far too long and part of his Stockholm syndrome is soothed by the same, bland inane loops favoured by, Ken Bruce , Steve Wright and the like.
 I briefly seethed some bitter karmic thoughts, but I hope he manages to not get mauled by any Mustelids this weekend, he doesn't deserve that

How the west was won

Just back from a trip up north, to the Scottish part of my country.
We stayed in Glen Orchy and it was sublime. On Sunday we drove east for three hours, taking the Corran ferry to the Ardnamurchan peninsular and the lighthouse at its western tip, the farthest westerly point on the British mainland. A sunny and rainbow illuminated schlep, with about thirty nine blind summits.
Here is a shot of the old foghorn.

Pelagic Camino

I spent yesterday afternoon lazing in the warm sunny rays, trying not to be annoyed by all of my neighbours noisy garden power  tools. Mowers, blowers and jet washers.
Eventually It quietened down enough for me to throw this poem together. 

I am trying to express how much I  enjoyed a recent boat trip in Greece.

In the golden days of a warm yellow June

bare brown feet astride, humans in tune, a rock and roll ride

we skid and slide with the glide, over wind sculpted

wild oceanic hydro planes.

Toes and heels curl and dig at the sand course teak

fold and uncurl in rhythm, a salt briny rhyme

bunches of herbs, sage marjoram garlic and thyme

sway in the lines and rigging above.

They flavour our fortune, ward off the grave

appease forces of peril as we pilgrims

forge our pelagic Camino

Feelings of homesickness

As I age, a strong desire to feel a sense of place is growing ever stronger.
Having grown up in a migrant workers estate in Nineteen Seventies Coventry, I do feel a sense of affection for the city. Yet always tempered with a sense of detachment and remoteness.
Now forty Eight years old, I yearn to commit to live and grow old in a place with some weight to its character.
This is Glen Etive, just down from the battle site in my story.  

Scottish independence

This last year, I have been busy writing.
I have fleshed out the body of a novella, which I am still working on, and finished a long, short story.
And the good news is that it is available to buy on kindle.
So if anyone is up for a bit of resurrected vendetta and live action roll-play, based upon the Scottish independence argument, then have a read.
My Dad has just read it and gave it ten out of ten, he could hear the poem Scots Wahey playing in the back of his mind as he read.

Moving to Greece, or Scotland !

This time, last year we camped and swam near this lubricious spring fed quarry in north Cornwall.
Today we were stuck in the Midlands, so we headed west, had lunch in Hay on Wye. Then we walked around the old bookshops, quite a few have closed down since we were last there.
Well.. then we drove down through the Golden valley towards a swim at Backney common near Ross on Wye. The car park gates were locked, as were some of the access gates down to the river.
Lots of PRIVATE signs up and people out shooting in the surrounding fields.We met some locals, who told us that the common has been sold.
We drove around a bit, looking for paths down to the Wye. We could see it! flowing alongside the fenced off fields.
Even more signs saying ACCESS TO FISHERIES ONLY!..
So I am ashamed to admit that we gave up and drove home. Ended up having a dip in our big paddler in the garden.
I did tear a few of the private signs down, low level anarchy stuff..

Happiness is the way

I had a lazy evening last night.
We watched gardeners world, and he talked a lot about composting, which is one of the most weirdly rewarding of my pastimes.
I drank some wine and then we watched The grand Budapest hotel.
What a magnificent film!
This photograph illustrates everything that is scruffily magnificent about Greece.

Lost in wild surging seas

Mandraki beach on the wild and windy western side of Skiathos.
Where most of Xerxes european invasion fleet ended up after being defeated and scattered by the Athenean and Ionean navy. Lots of surging currents around the island.
 I imagined being an exhausted persian galley slave, as our barque burst its shell against the jagged rocks. Chained to the oar as the timbers around me started to shatter and split with the foaming blue surging in.. grasping my last breath as the tyrene wallowed ever deeper.
Lungs burning as I watch my fellow oarsmen scream the last terrified oxygen bubbles from their wide open jaws.
Probably a Greek prisoner, maybe even from Skiathos in the first place.
Reminded me of T.S.Eliot. From the Wasteland.

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,

Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell

And the profit and loss.

                                   A current under sea

Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell

He passed the stages of his age and youth

Entering the whirlpool.

                                   Gentile or Jew

O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,

Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

Flat out of Hethel

I had a bit of a flat day today.

First day back at work and a long old drive across the fens to a new job in Norfolk.

I met some old mates, had a health and safety talk, had my photo taken. Then found out that the hours, rate and rigid rules and conditions were not as I was told.

So I said cheerio and chugged my way back home. Ah well!

This isn't Norfolk, it is nearby to the setting of my soon to be published Story.

Just north of Glencoe, on holiday last August.

Tartan Clash

This is a screenshot from the artwork of my short story.

It is quite a long short story, and will be published on kindle next weekend after its final edit this week.

It is about professionally orchestrated violent encounters. Using ancient vendetta and grudges from the past, and playing them out wild and vivid in the present.

Salty Nutsack

We didn't go over to the small Banana nudist beach.
 We stayed on the Big Banana, non nudist beach for a couple of days.
But I do like a good skinny dip as much as the next person.
I have thought of a good name for my new beach boys tribute band if anyone wants to join.
I was inspired by my uncomfortable speedos that are past their best.

Thinking Global

Just got back from a week in Skiathos.
Swam all over the island, thoroughly immersed ourselves in the fresh salty Agean sea.
Staring out at the curve of our azure blue globe on a boat trip, I wondered.
Is that the actual curve of the Earth, or is it the curve of my eyeball?
I put this to my new pal Yannis, who attributed the phenomena to the strength of the Sangria that he had made for the trip over to Tsougria.

After a lay off from the blog. And an industrious last few years working in central Bohemia. Buying a house, mowing my lawn and all kinds of other domestic drudgery.
 I have just returned from a swimming trip up in Scotland. Bathing in the Glen Brittle Faerie pools on the isle of Skye. And in the river Etive near Glen coe.
And I have been writing a bit of poetry too.
This poem is a look at what happens when the oral tradition is replaced by the written and recorded.

See What You Think.

Oral tradition brought to line.
Structured into geometric angles and loops
looping on lines, rhythms and rhymes
from ages before, an archaic prosaic,
quickly forgotten time.

The storytellers art, quantified and objective.
Homogenised, examined and taken apart.
Re-combined into lingual score
re-construed into print. quickly tran- slated
as the franca-de-lingua power planes shift.

Easier to censor than tales told, soft by a fire.
Eyes all wide as outside, elements and oceans
battle and clash..

Wide eyes follow as lips, shifting ideas,
exposing morals tell of
Dragons hot teeth or
Lions with wings.
Allude to the weakness of Pharoes
the double standards of Kings.

Powers greatest weakness!

It's human crave for applause
ignore all the flaws and allow our media masters
to draw for us..
Our own simple conclusions

present memory

On Sunday I went to the Tate modern. My Dad came along and he was interested in a short film installation by Alejandrlo Cesarco..
The Artists father was filmed and shown in a short loop of flickering film. He has just being diagnosed with a terminal illness.
My Dad had picked up the accompanying booklet and was keen to know what I thought of it all..
I have been diligently reading it and trying to comprehend..This paragraph contains the nub of the essence of the piece..
" The photograph is literally an emanation of the referent. From a real body, which was there, proceeded radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here; the duration of the transmission is insignificant; the photograph, as Sontag says, will touch me like the delayed rays of a star.
A sort of umbilical chord links the body of the photographed thing: light though impalpable, is here a carnal medium, a skin I share."
I love it

Alien life forms

Had another walk up the Pennine way. From Beckermonds up to Thwaite in lovley Swaledale.

Just south of Hawes, my son spotted these amazing jelly fungi.