Swimming

We stand around in our trunks

Uncomfortable at baring our bodies

Bellys hanging over

Fat arses squeezing into lycra

Nervously we start to chat

About the times when we all swam like dolphins

Please don’t make us prove it

Eventually we get cold

Milling about by the glaring poolside

Goosebumps start appearing

Our scrotums the size of walnuts

Splash!  He dives.  Big torpedo.

Down the steps gently for some of the others

Front crawl, breast stroke, back stroke

All different yet we’re all swimming

On the Psychological State of Dogs

I watched a cat

Returning home

It ignored me and

Slid through the flap

Specially built,

Ruined a door

Just for him

I met a guy

Walking a dog

It sniffed me and

Licked at my hand

Craving my love

Pulled on his lead.

Dogs are needy.

Scotland's Heatwave

This has just been published in an anthology called "A Book of Dreams"  will update details as and when I get them.  Enjoy.

Dishevelled by the sheer numbers

Faces shining from the heat

Of all the other shining faces

We multiply the temperature

With gasped hellos

All gulping at the thick humid

Vapours, guzzling down a drink

Or maybe escape with a smoker

We look for a solution

To cool outside

Disappointed by the fiery

Clouds retaining clammy

Low pressure systems broiling

We wither under heavy skies

And cannot sleep

Un

Run out of reasons

Looking for a motive

For anything

For everything

Every ‘WHY’ shouts back

Another giant question mark

And in creeps

Everything must go

Either that

Or I will

The world’s not big enough

For me

And my unanswered questions.

Indulgent One

In an old space

altered beyond recognition

as two floors, three at a push

become one

and a huge shark is replaced

by a great white plaster wall

and a DJ, one-eared at his phones

sways where once

a crocodile swam

with a chipped face

as it bore us on its back

inexplicably halved

by an old oil drum.

Yet I recall the emptiness

and the atmosphere

before the revellers come

sitting like a regular

waiting for the rest.

The newly fat

and recently bald

or greying

reminds us

that it wasn’t yesterday.