Tales surrounding Halloween
That gullible time of year
Hauntings in the neighbourhood
Promoting awfulness and fear
Dating from those pagan days
When all of nature was suspect
Inventing plausible explanations
Allowing folklore to correct
Wildlife where the wild collect
In search of blood and guts
Molar’s razor-sharp to slice
Through flesh and bony uppercuts
The sculpted pumpkin is a warning
Of empty stomachs on the prowl
Where the dusky glow of moonlight
Resonates a shrieking howl
Human beings finding patterns
Understanding repetitions
When this, then that, occurring
Can confirm precise conditions
It’s not enough to know what is
A human being seeks out ‘why’
Interpreting by studying
Experimenting to comply
So, why does life exist at all
Once all that’s past is gone
Does a planet care at all
One is left to carry on
In the end the human will conclude
In one single dawning word
The ways of human’s deathly games
Strange it was that feeling when
Something unexpected heard
Catching sight of movement
Indistinct and vaguely Blurred
Wispy streaks and doorway creaks
Scant and smoky evidence
When addicted to suggestion
Overcoming common sense
At least a hundred thousand million
Have been around since we began
So that proof of revenant bodies
Suggests there is no haunting plan
Why on earth there should be spooks
Apart from shadowy spies
One must contend that in the end
The life we had just dies
Observing trails of comet dust
Bursting showers in the night
Interstellar messengers
Carrying spores of life in flight
Astrophysical encounters
Relating what was once, now past
Fragments of phenomena
Retold in grains of fractals cast
From the churning of our universe
Where the vacuumed pieces scatter
Widely circulating streams
Recycled strains replenished matter
Living in a jam-packed world
Where the known is hardly grasped
Confounds a basic understanding
Of precision barely clasped
So, what we say and how we say it
Is nowadays a free-for-all
As accent brogues and dialects
May well pervade your local hall
Street-talk slang and natter-wags
Tripping off a slithered phrase
To make it up among your few
Is at best an old malaise
Discourse slanted by a tongue-in-cheek
Equates a Nod as good as a wink
Where the yammer strikes a hammer blow
Brings understanding to the brink
Is language an opinion
Where common sense has lost the will
To reinvent as more mysterious
Portraying difference as swill
Do be brief when talking blether
Dump the dunce and leave it out
Let pigeons coo and owl’s hoot
Plainly speak no need to spout
Looking for bones to rattle
The wind began its prowl
Invisible chops and punches
In the ring with weather most foul
A blunderbuss of fiery fuss
Insistently out of hand
No regard for a pretty backyard
Turning beauteousness to bland
Swirling shrieked bewilderment
Among small moments of respite
Trapped inside a mighty whirlwind
With no escape in sight
Putting on the la-di-da
A smidgeon of je ne sais quoi
Make your point to réfléchir à
Alors Confondre double entendre
A well-planned feast of mirepoix
Une assiette mélangee
Je l'arrose de pinot noir
A well spent life embarras de choix
Accrochez tout in the old armoire
And not demean de haut en bas
écriture on my escritoire
enregistrer my bête noire
So many have the same idea
To briskly get to work
On time not late or early
A worldwide traveller quirk
Trains are packed, roads are stacked
Too little room to get them there
Yet every day they’re queueing up
To receive their compressed share
Haunted stares in deep despair
In the powerless mainstream show
Back-to-back and nose-to-tail
Fighting hard to beat the flow
The cut-it-fine commuter trail
Demands a lonesome price
An each-way bet each day beset
Not once a day but twice
Writing with my eyes closed
Using images of words
Painting Talking pictures
Clearing scenes when heard
Eyes tight shut and watching
Shapes of stories newly told
Amazed at possible ways to go
Letting futures now unfold
Eyelids sealing secret dreams
Undisclosed until allowed
To test on pages telling all
Idle fields as yet unploughed
Let’s go to Carolina
Where the light is bright above
Let’s go to Carolina
Arm in arm in love
Let’s go to Carolina
To a most melodious moon
Let’s go to Carolina
And play our favourite tune
Let’s go to Carolina
Where desire shines all around
Let’s go to Carolina
Lay the blanket on the ground
Thermometers hydrometers
Evaluations in the mix
Discovering by measurement
In fact-defining tricks
X-Rays and oscilloscopes
Defining accuracy in kind
To see beneath the surface
But not inside the mind
Accepting skills of robots
When building confidence
With outcomes for good reason
Scraps of once-important stuff
Smallest hints of power
A piece of something caught the eye
In fickle minutes of an hour
Ocean drops of undertones
Barely noticed threads and strands
On the brink of small collections
Finding diamonds in the sands
A gradual state of interaction
That continues unforeseen
Invisibly the pressure builds
Returning all to smithereens
In the beginning, was the smithereen
Grim Art@GrimArtGroup Neighbours (Watercolour on Paper) by Avril Paton (b.1941)
Of all the things that went before
And the many things not yet
Best to shun the wishful likelihood
As most uncertainties guessed bet
The future is not written down
Like the last page of a book
Skipping stages is impossible
No way to sneak a shifty look
Those stars up there so far away
May not be close enough to call
And those who are still lingering
Speak how yesteryears befall
On a planet forged from turbulence
Like cataclysmic happenstance
Hot and cold eventualities
That caused confusion's jerky dance
Almost there but not contained
Half-finished portraits in the hall
Ideas once new are now fatigued
At best resemble lazy scrawls
Movement causes dust to fly
As though pointing out the loss
Where energy’s powered pinball
No longer gathers vital moss
The air is full of farewell scent
Where clocks no longer speak of time
History books once written here
In the meaningless sublime
Politicians talk of censure
And changes one must make
Having sidled with the dubious
Floating with their give-and-take
Power is the be-all beast
By playing games, they cannot lose
Secreting Offshore unfair gains
To play a tax-relieving ruse
We citizens are nothing more
Than self-propelling puppets
A bunch of bleating irritants
Rubber headed muppets
Jeffrey is a Staffy superstar
With intellect and verve
A Dog Star shining brightly
Will uncannily observe
A British breed remarkable
Bi-lingually astute
Mind reader top interpreter
With abilities to compute
Jeffrey has a heart of gold
Devoted friend and tender heart
A loving loyal partnership
And above all that, he’s smart
Written from a brief interlude at Lanzarote Airport by
That moving month October
Gives hints of many changes
Longer sleeves, draughty eaves
Lesser sunshine rearranges
Hesitantly planning slowly
Reflecting loss of light
For soon our sunny freedoms
Will become a smattering sight
Shorter days and longer nights
Bringing briskness to our stride
Taking cover from harsh winds
Spending winter months inside
