I jostled, crowded as a cloud
That crams around the vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host, of golden daffodils
In plastic pots, in sweety stalls
Sugared stalks, for brats to maul
Relentless as the feet that grind
Away the limestone of the hills
Hordes stretch'd in never-ending line
To taste the sickly daffodils;
A poet's vision, raped and sold
To line looter's pockets with tarnish'd gold
The waves beside once danced but now
Froth with waste from shoreview hotel
A "poet" could not help but howl;
What once was Eden was sold to hell
I scowled and scowled but little thought
What torment to me their sight had brought
For now when in the hills I stroll
I see scrawled upon them in their stone
"To let, to buy, to rent, now SOLD"
And four by fours around me drone
And then my heart with sorrow fills
And pines for Wordsworth's daffodils
if you need to, see the original here
Yesterday's Youth
It was just before Sunday lunchtime
that I opened the local gazette
Now limp lined and blanching,
once hot off the press,
Next door, they were having another -
no other way to describe it, a brawl
Yes, that’s right, honestly,
the things we hear when we put a glass against the wall
I settled down, flicked open the paper
I see they’re closing that 55 bus route,
Marjorie, I shouted, no answer,
Wives these days. Never even cleans my boots
Anymore, anyway, what else’s
Going on? Another wind farm up on the downs
Bloody liberals taking over
This country, I tell you, you know who it’s run by? A clown.
And what’s this? Oh, what a surprise
Teenagers, again. Knifing each other I suppose
Or texting themselves into cancer,
Or sniffing glue wearing stupid clothes
Last week, this same reporter, I think,
Was telling us all about how
These bloody delinquents, know what they’re doing?
Worshipping a crack addict now
I think to myself, this journalist
He’s one of the good guys. He knows
What I want to hear
About how these youngsters are killing themselves with beer
He obviously thinks like me, he obviously
Remembers his own youth
Remembers how he used to have a twenty nine inch waist
And have the laughing Lizzy Lonegan clinging to
His leathers. As they raced down Palmerston Avenue
On the bike that he’d borrowed from the laddish Jack McGabe
Remembers how in the Summer Of Love he danced to
Dylan, and was out of his soul on getting laid.
He obviously remembers the feel of his first kiss
The feel of muscles that work, the feel of unwrinkled skin,
The feel of the sweet caress of hair that falls past your ears
The ohsobittersweet memory of that night in the back bedroom of 5 Mornington Crescent
He’s obviously like me
Out of his mind with jealousy and resentment
At these young under twenties, in their tight jeans,
Hooded tops, daft fringes, studded noses
With their whole lives ahead of them
While he’s stuck there, in his sixties
Tapping out roll after roll
Of his mid life crisis
Into the centre fold
This journalist
Now I can trust him to tell me the truth
About the moral debauchery, the maddening delinquency
Of today’s youth
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