You crack and spark
Bonfire heart
November smoke and heat that
Pulls the night apart
A ghost, translucent
Painted echoes
Leaves slowly tilt through black
And red
And gold
I blink but you’re already gone
As fireworks move the sky
A silhouette
Glowing embers
Floating stars
A burning constellation
Briefly aligned
Then drifting Apart
Tall Jemima falls in love
Half a dozen times a day
No two times are quite the same
And each one hits her in a different way
With some, we’re talking basic lust
Inspired by bumps and curves and such
Others, it’s the way they speak
She longs to listen, not to touch
Some people make her want to start
To be a better human girl
Some are nerds, and she just wants
To be part of their complicated world
There’ll be a girl who’s mind will spark
With firework thoughts that turn her on
Or some guy with a great moustache
She longs to feel its bristles on her tongue
One woman, with the world’s best smile
Inspires in her no greater plan
Than just to walk and talk and laugh
And hold her gaze
And hold her hand
One boy will serve for laughter.
Antics daft and matters frivolous
Another is for wine and and fire
And darkness, and all things carnivorous
Jemima’s love is true and fierce
And needs no place to call a home
The fire within her burns and dances
Twice as bright for half as long
Tall Jemima falls in love
Half a dozen times a day
No two times are quite the same
And each one hits her in a different way
Tall Jemima falls in love
And every time is true
And if you see her, be prepared
She’ll see what makes you wonderful
And fall in love With you
You brown eyed
Photogenic
Shaggy haired and energetic
Border Collie Family pet We were pups when we we first met
Not a cat
Like all the rest
Of our weird family’s stream of pets
Not a cat
Something else
Better manners,
Weirder smells
Black fur
White patches
Chases ball
Never catches
Kind of stupid
Quickly fooled
No I can’t take you to school
Barks at gloves
Jumps at lights
Ignores burglars
Never bites
Not so good at chasing sticks
One day you took at single bite out of every
individual biscuit in a pack of 48 Weetabix
Hopeful eyes
Dopey face
A massive tongue
You basket case
Off to uni
Me, not you
I love poems
You love poo
Longer hair, though,
In both cases
Hungry looks on both our faces
Another town becomes my home
I get older
You get old
And when I’m back, you still go mad
Bark to warn mum and dad
But now you can’t jump quite as high
Black fur turning grey and white
Brown eyes glow a little dimmer
As they gaze, with love, at my - my - dinner
One day I’m back and you’re not there
Well, if you don’t count all the hair
That covers every chair and rug
Enough to make a whole new dog
Perhaps that’s all you really were
A massive ball of fluff and fur
And when you’d shed enough, you went
And disappeared, nothing left
Just memories and photographs
And now these words, an epitaph
To the maddest hound who ever barked
Your crazy face and dreadful smell
Will live forever
In my heart
I am waiting in the car
It is early
And it is cold
The vents breathe lukewarm air
Against the frozen windows
A patch of clear glass is slowly revealing itself
Through the ice and condensation
The radio is on, but quietly
The burble of noise,
Fades in and out of the remnants of dreams
Nibbles at the edges of my waking mind
As the warming air gently erodes
The borders of frost on the windscreen
Streetlights and amber houses
Glow gently through
This dissolving glacier
This ice white cocoon
Fractal diamonds
Crumbling to reveal the world
I like the slowness of this
The gentle changing of states
Watching the frontiers of Winter weaken and fade
Silver crystals soften and drift
And melt away
I hear the muffled thump of the house front door
In moments you will be here
I turn the heater up full
Warmth crawls swiftly across the remains
Of this melting battlefield
Fingers of heat spread out
Tearing apart the last of the night
Footsteps approach
You open the car door
And my day begins
My name is Cesare Lombroso
And I have something to say
You have bumps on your head
And they won’t go away
And it’s bad news for you
‘Cause to me they’re a sign
That your key disposition
Is inclined towards crime
I can feel, if I stroke them
The shapes that are formed
When you let bad ideas
Wander into your thoughts
I explain criminality
Through the wisdom of phrenology
Like a word makes much more sense
When you know it’s etymology
My contention is this:
People vile, wrong and predatory
Can be traced through their genes
Wickedness is hereditary
I’m Cesare Lombroso
Don’t wear my name out
For my science will make me
A man of renown
I identify vagabonds,
Ruffians and thieves
With my map of the scalp
Where a lump or a crease
Is a sure sign of villainy
Of virtue defective
My fingers are like
The world’s greatest detective!
I’ll teach you to judge
With the eyes, not the mind
My determinist credo
Might be cruel and unkind
And borderline fascist, I guess,
If it’s racist
To judge people’s souls
By the look of their faces
But it’s easier, you see
To judge moral intent
By observing your arms
And assessing their length
Cesare Lombroso
Just let that name ring
Of knee jerk injustice
I’m surely the king
My science is wonky
My methods unsound
But the echoes of my
Flawed conclusions resound
And it makes me feel good
That a hundred years on
My discredited thoughts
Will find comfort and home
In the minds of a tribe who
Should be more reflective
Who should know that rapscallions
Can’t be detected
By the texture of skin
Or the length of the neck
Who should trust in psychology
Appreciate context
But instead put their trust
In my glorious name
Cesare Lombroso
It’s not the bumps on your head
It’s who you choose to believe That’s to blame
