WELCOME

I hope you enjoy reading from this collection

as much as I enjoyed writing it.

(more poems in 'SAO' by Michael Amor on Kindle -

an overland adventure journey around all S. America)

BLOCKHEAD

'No-one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money'

                                                            Samuel Johnson

OK so I'm a blockhead.

What makes a piece of writing a poem ?

If there isn't any rhymme or at least repeating rhythm

it's just pretentious shredded prose and not a proper poem.

I went to brush away down on the wall

a piece of debris, I don't know what -

some bit of fabric, some wool ball

but before I could touch it I suddenly got

a shock when a largish spider appeared

beside the thing as  if out of nowhere.

Now I quite like spiders; they're not to be feared

though I know they give some folks a scare

so I didn't do it any harm at all

and assume it just went back to its nest.

But now I also protect that web ball

and in that corner give the vacuum a rest.

TWEETS 28

 CIVILISATION

Better to be admired for the number of goals you've scored

than for the number of men you've killed.

GIRL

The face of the moon

causing heat of the sun.

PRETTY  WOMEN

I go to the gym and pose

hoping for pretty women;

I go to the disco and carp

watching the pretty women;

I go to the band night to dance

and partner pretty women.

APOSTASY

Itching to get away

I abjured tanning skin

seceded from sun worship.

Quite often at local band nights and discos

a young man mixes with just us old churls

so it made my evening when yesterday

he left hand in hand with a girl.

UK A66 car crash

Did they want to kill police

seeing it as some video game ?

No sympathy for stupidity

but pity for the blame.

Why does it have to be so difficult - dying ?

Why does it have to be such a grind

trailing the trials of sad old age,

impaired mobility of body and mind

foiling escape from life's prison cage ?

With hearing failing, sinusitis,

regardless whether pleb or royal,

limbs being tortured by arthritis

pain encouraging quick withdrawal.

And dreading some sort of cancer or stroke

leaving one incapacitated,

an animal vegetable bitter joke,

living but incarcerated.

Why not some sort of fixed term contract

knowing in advance when we're going to die

but staying healthy till the final act ?

Come on, God, let's give it a try !

HOARDER

For some decades I hoarded things

that must be useful before long

but the passing of decades brings

the realisation I was wrong.

Dozing

Before I sleep I review the day

searching for anything I did well

hoping a sense of achievement will quell

the worries and keep depression away.

The new English national anthem

God save Jude Bellingham

so he keeps scoring 'em,

helping us win.

Send him victorious

happy and glorious

long to win games for us -

God save the king.

Cyrus

Cyrus was king of the first Persian empire

and rightly termed 'Great' for extensive conquests.

But also great for conquering vanity ?

No terracotta army for him;

no huge pyramid like a pharaoh;

no ayatollah's flashy mosque

and who knows what the arab Mohammad

would have doe if he'd had the resources.

A simple structure of weathered stone

not grand enough for a tourist attraction

Cyrus' tomb still stands in Iran.

Nobody else got out of the van

but I walked and stood and honoured the man.

Tweets 27

Life ?

I've tried it.

There were some good times

but I don't think I'll bother again.

NO  KINGS

What sort of democracy is it

when the elected 'parliament'

can't restrain the president ? 

If it's not the slugs and snails

then it's little boys with footballs

wreck my plants.

Is being addicted to phones

any worse than being

addicted to television ?

Will I get any poetic inspiration?

Well if I do, all good and well

and if I don't, so what the hell?

ALMOST  UNBELIEVABLE

A young girl walking along the pavement

reading a BOOK.

A QUESTION OF SIZE

I'm always pleased when I get some small matter right;

it helps offset the larger I got wrong.

Novelists write to please their readers;

poets write to please themselves.

GIRL

The face of the moon

causing heat of the sun.

Family life

Boys brawling, sister crawling,

baby bawling, eldest scrawling,

husband trawling, promise galling,

night falling, dreams calling.

TYPICAL

The bird fluttered upwards vertically.

Watching I waited for its singing

but it just flew away. Typically

Shelley got skylark; I got starling.

At the top of the plots

I sat here at sunset a week ago and bemoaned all vanishing Nature.

In past years I had watched bats hunting along the allotments hedgerow

but last week there was nothing flying except a partying blackbird.

Today I enjoyed the glowing sunset, silken sky and a single cloud

and as the land darkened, the sky above the streamside trees exploded

to a distant forest fire enfringing the whole width of the horizon.

The lonely cloud evaporated and Venus edged slowly eastwards

narrowly missing a collision with a plane from the nearby airport.

Then suddenly a twist and a turn in the air above my head !

A bat fluttered by and then another - relief, Nature ascendent.

PEACE PLAN

We'd clear the rubble from bombed buildings

and build some new ones, re-span bridges,

renew power and water networks,

re-create whole cities from scratch.

But what we can't do is raise the dead,

or heal the hurt or calm the hatred.

PUZZLING

Tell me why does America worry

about a nuclear weaponed Persia ?

They're presumably managing nuclear threats

from Russia, North Korea, China.

Iran would be such a distant threat

to the USA ( but so close to Israel ! )

BIG BIRD

I'm not amazed by the skylark's twitter

or the nightingale's melody.

What does amaze me when it's flying

is hundreds of tons of machinery.

GOODBYE

Leaving I gave my love a rose

fragrant, royal, red

saying "Take this flower from him

you barred from your bed."

Glaring at me, proud in parting,

sharply she said

"What am I to do with it?

Why give me this?

I don't want your gestures now

or farewell kiss."

Just as I'd thought she might -

a chance not to miss.

"Just let it die." I said,

"wither and die.

Don't ever water it.

Cover the sky.

Just like my love for you,

just let it die."

Turning she left me with her smile

dazzling, royal, red

saying "I will keep your flower

though love has fled.

Having no root it must of course

quickly be dead."