DOGWALKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE .. .

Posted on January 6, 2023 by edenbray

Dogwalkers of the World Unite (and take over) .. .

dog whisperer

Learn to love me, as I walk your dogs
Now, today, tomorrow and always
Although I have no dog of my own
And they are only borrowed
Do not despise me, I always carry the can
Take full responsibility for each one
My only weakness is
Oh never mind, never mind
Oh precious dogwalkers of the world
Unite together and take it over
Don’t forget to hand them over
To their owner, to their owner
Your pooch is their pooch after all
Just remember, hand them over, hand them over
Love me, love my dogs, in so many different shapes
Now, today, tomorrow and always
While they lead their doggie walkers around
Like they are aliens and we are only hounds
My only weakness is when I can’t find
The mess that they have left behind
At that moment I am blind
Dogwalkers of the world
Unite and take over, you must
Hand them over, hand them over
A heartless hand upon my shoulder
A leash, yet you must hand them over
They are not yours
Try living in the real world instead of in a dog pound
Before I even began I was bored
Now I never can be bored
Working as I am, as a dogwalker
Your local, loyal dog worker
Dogwalkers of the world
Unite and take over
Dogwalkers of the world
Unite and take over
Dogwalkers of the world
Unite and take over
Dogwalkers of the world
Take over
….

©edenbraytoday02.01.2023

..

after Morrissey of the Smith’s –
‘Shopwalkers of the World Unite’ – circa. January 1987

..

..

Author’s Note:- 

This is included purely as a piece of flotsam and a jibe of fairly acerbic fun – ‘after’ the songwriting of Morrissey and more especially his – ‘Shoplifters of the World Unite’ composition from January, 1987 – The Smiths caught the changing mood of youth during the 80’s and became a cult-band within a cult as conscious younger people became increasingly unsatisfied with the level of opportunity that the seemingly ‘got it sorted’, ‘say no to drugs’, ‘make the most of what we’ve got’ sub-culture of that day assented to and therefore exuded. Morrissey tried to look one half-level deeper or maybe sideways and would explore anomalies and wander off-track from accepted limits and therefore he appeared somewhat randomly more subversive and less easy to categorise than the basically ‘safe’ or acceptable side of that Oasis/Blurr Brit-pop generation. He managed to find a darker, possibly a ‘puce’ core that eventually made him something of a maverick anti-hero within that era and among ‘alternative’ thinkers – ‘a loose cannon’ you might say and the song I have borrowed for my poem exemplifies this more clearly than many.

edenbray 06.01.2022

..

HERE ARE THE LYRICS of
Shoplifters of the world Unite .. . to compare notes

Learn to love me, assemble the ways
Now, today, tomorrow and always
My only weakness is a list of crime
My only weakness is, well, never mind, never mind, oh
Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Hand it over, hand it over, hand it over
Learn to love me and assemble the ways
Now, today, tomorrow and always
My only weakness is a listed crime
But last night the plans for a future war was all I saw on Channel 4
Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Hand it over, hand it over, hand it over
A heartless hand on my shoulder, a push and it’s over
Alabaster crashes down, six months is a long time
Tried living in the real world instead of a shell
But before I began
I was bored before I even began
Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Take over
..
..

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SERGEI .. .

Posted on December 27, 2022 by edenbray

SERGEI .. .

sergei

Remember well full histories
  homeland, where we learned
  and lived as children born
  to cultures sworn both Russian
  as the czar, severe the priests
  incense-driven, strict religion

I learned to play piano for you
  astride the mercy-seat un side-
  saddled like Catherine the great
  ply the wounded soul of a nation
  harmonise musical notation to
  parody character, pain and conflict

Romanticise, canonise our history
  illustrious, full of slavic mystery
  paint pictures in the air with sound
  dark red the colours of the ground
  where bloods and passions mingle
  hearts, hands, severed senses tingle
 
Sergei, come home now darling boy
  where we may plant your embers
  foster life, nurture furrowed seed
  whereby sentience and reason bleed
  shall we ever return to former honour
  expunge the deaths of evolution’s terror

©edenbraytoday27.12.2022

. .. there are good people that live in Russia and outside who lament its sad, moribund, recent history as should we all regret our own nation’s frailties and atrocities however small or large but hope must eventually seek to find a pathway, however painful, to a peaceful restoration, if only for the sake of the children and future generations  .. . I believe Sergei Rachmaninov regretted the political directions his homeland took during his lifetime but never failed to love his country or to support those wounded in defence of his nation who finally did play a major part in deterring the nazi threat .. .

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THE TRAINS GO THUNDERING BY .. . .. .

Posted on December 24, 2022 by edenbray

The Trains Go Thundering By .. .

Escher_Reptiles_1943

The trains go thundering by
  it is a figure of speech
  I sit at the corner of a dusty road
  forlorn of much hope

The tanks came after
  then the larks sprung forth
  and the shouting of the soldiers
  in the gutter of the shortest day

When I was a child
  we stood watching those
  steam-snorting leviathans
  as they go thundering by

Who believed in our future
  while we sang ditty songs
  in the classroom of learning
  assumed mothers always know

Washed our hands in the snow
  thought that we would never die
  until memories of things transparent
  appeared deeply with invisible ink

They, who lived twice as much
  Saint Sebastian and all the rest
  many have hung from a gibbet
  who lived with slimmer hope

As trains go thundering by
  below or above the highway
  the tales we told ourselves as kids
  fresh out of newspaper cones

Up on the stoney parapet
  we then learned to whirl
  the rattle, beat the drum
  sing out loud our favourite songs

When Mr Harold came to play
  on our front door, red-tiled steps
  where come the RT busses
  always travelling in threes

Those trains still thundering after
  I lived inside my box room
  middle classed in suburbia
  cul-de-sac inspid with inertia

Believed in something then
  but nothing anymore
  not since there was HiroshiThe trains go thundering by
more a figure of speech
I sit at the corner of a dusty road
forlorn much of hope

The tanks came after
then the larks sprung forth
and the shouting of the soldiers
in the gutter at the shortest day

When we were children
standing aside to watch those
steam-snorting leviathans
as they go thundering by

We believed in our future
while we sang ditty songs
in the classroom of learning
assumed mothers always know

Washed our hands in snow
thought we would never die
until memories, things transparent
appeared deeply as in invisible ink

They, who lived twice
Saint Sebastian, all the rest
those who hung from a gibbet
who lived with summer hope

As trains go thundering by
below or above the highway
tales we told ourselves as kids
fresh from newspaper cones

Up on the stoney parapet
we learned to whirl
the rattle, beat the drum
sing out loud our favourite songs

when Mr Harold came we played
on red-tiled door steps
where come ‘RT’ busses
always travelling in threes

Those trains still thundering after
I, inside my box room
middle classed in suburbia
cul-de-sac inspid with inertia

Believing in the something
but then nothing anymore
not since Hiroshima, 9/11
the rape of common man

The antecedence of horror
the antipathy of truth
the rush of man’s desire
to conquer different tribes

Who tampers their genetics
play gods with other lives
who wrestles leviathan
controls the march of time

Watch then with your child eyes
watch the loyal soldier
watch a father die
as trains go thundering bye rape of common man

..

.

©edenbraytoday24.12.2022

my christmas pome – 2022

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, ,, CLASSIC INNUENDO .. .

Posted on December 14, 2022 by edenbray

, ,, classic innuendo .. .

bali_bomb_blast

Six minutes or three of daylight every day
zipping away closing in
it is a bird of wings and flutters
a bird of prey surrounding caustic phobia
caught in traffic going nowhere
deadlock cannot be unbroken
as the bond between peoples
as the nimbostratus
the light is fading suffocation
withdrawing from our gazetteer
entwined in convolvulus weed
stifling the life of free speech
and honest living in retirement
as we forfeit giving to the really needy
while the Bezos’ and the greedy
absorb more of the daylight
bundles of notes and cash
oodles of noodles
cryptos of currencies
digital manna in the new world
of the new – new testament which
falls by the day not by night
in the creation of another age
by avoiding the constraints
of the next neo-capitalistic sensation
the tyranny of the masses
the endless titanic struggle
of the poor and working classes
throughout the middle ages
until the day of the dawning
technologies revolution
denying pollutions solution
like a second-hand sun appearing
on the horizon of change
which is a water melon in Sheffield
it is an iron lung in Shanghai
an orange mist in Honolulu
a puddle of warm blood
rise up rise up 0 mighty oceans
spread your banks you raging seas
it is these people who must arise
rebuild the nations of honour
taking back your frail humanity
from earls and barons
modern day financiers
charlatans of terror in a chair
who have taught themselves
not to care – hard-nosed
closed-off to compassion
I am maybe Watt Tyler on a blistered road
a subsiding camber
warning the lights had changed
long since from green to amber
festooned in armour of a different kind
you red-eyed charmers
have made me blind to real need
I hear starlings fall in their chirpy
even domestic animals are alarmed
they hear the silent call of nature’s warning



©edenbraytoday14.12.2022

 

authors note ~ I had to write this – it is not doom and gloom but my reality – pity me but do not laugh me out of court – a new and darker middle ages is fast upon us – we have become too used to the ‘fantasy’ of a post-apocolypta to recognise the bomb exploded way way back and the fallout only just descending .. . 

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featuring NICO .. .

Posted on December 3, 2022 by edenbray

nico

featuring Nico .. .

Around this woollen ball, this puff of life
jangled strings zip, zang across the bridge
echoed voices caught tap tapping on the backboard
white noise an alternating love song

Did you get inside Picasso’s head or Blake
Hockney’s swimming pool remote and lonely
emulsioned out for all to see, not for posterity
who knew the tempera here was set politically

I heard voices in the wild wind ever closer
then revolution was not so a dirty word
violence, obsequious, fabulous, absurd
ampersand the currency of other lands

Safe, narwhaled from our pleasant sundays
village greened, cosied into thirties constructs
like cricket whites b-4 adopting denim jeans
markered CND’s upon angst-filled dreams

Hardwood stage, the age, loose-fit abstract
queen Nico, minimalist, name-checked as an entity
symbolism birthed, seeded by some advertiser’s junk
boys q’p’s, girls capital V’s, coin-slot teasers

Happy to be, therefore I am, persuaded by a Cambells can
or a gym shoe, art’s pale face peroxided over
who took up the mantle or a cudgel to the head
these were artist’s who by art systematically bled!

We were constantly drifting, our life-raft listing
leave me with my bands, my ties, my addictions
I was once like you, a son, fair full of constancy
my meat hung low but rose to all occasions

Now I am meat for the wagon that can never know
where it might end, discarded like a banshee’s wail
in sunny climes, Andalusian, stoned, harpooned
washed up, in the year of getting your shit together

I am a statement written out in purpled blood
shored up by virtue, consecrated, left for dead
I float east where the water turns mauve to angry red
and yellow, orange, white, psychedelic blue

We together formed forever the perfect group
remembered by our perfect name, our Dada beat
icons signatured at Caffe Bizarre on West 3rd street
audiences dazed and damaged when then departed

©edenbraytoday03.12.2022

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. ..WE SACRIFICE BEFORE THE BRONZED MOON .. .

Posted on November 25, 2022 by edenbray

. .. we sacrifice before the bronzed moon .. .

..bronzed moon

..

..

 

We vowed to meet
  at the grasp of night
under robes dressed
  with starlight golden
your auburn fringe tinged
  bequeathed so cliché
neither angel Malakh
  or JFK did appear
in the clearing, in the ebony
  of the cherry wood
while the crimson burning
  his face appeared alarming

I brought the ceremonial
  sharpened blade alone
altar cloths heavy stained
  the ones we saved
customs we have not seen
  through need nor any
measure of how much feeling
  viola moon might bleed
we garland rosebuds
  shamed of our awful deeds
laid our purest thoughts
  upon the forest carpet

the planets voices heard
  rumbled at the sacrifice
complained ’twas unfair
  as pelicans and pixies fly
against yon moon-slit sky
  yet did they stop to think
he would know, care one fig
  if in this age we proffer
at the yin-yang moon, talk
  again of gemini’s true gender
our masks are sock and buskin
  on the dark side they are runes
 

I pressed the platinum blade
  against his brazen, lava chest
testing my resolve as Abram
  his head turned away sharply
the canopy of earth’s splendour
  desists to render its regret
an intelligent assumption
  for who has greater need
should moon’s heart bleed
  or leak into earth’s oceans
a tsunami of treasons hid
  within the blade within my fist

Dinghees bob in half light
  no forest’s there to see 
pioneers search other lands
  who happened upon America
search long for space capsules
  950m southwest of Hawaii
or ‘pon the sands of Dungeness
  have you seen that coastline
in the sun of springtime zest
  or by the sea of tranquility
I deigned to change my mind
  put up my sharpened sword

Fair we love the august moon
  watchman at the highpoint
whose limpid eyes disguised
  see all, tell none, reflect the sun
within the darkened valley sunken
  his understanding face traces
tears of all the lost, the lonely
  disenfranchised and comely
unable to explain cries of pain
  filtered to his wizened brain
my clenched fist, my human blade
  my vengeance at his masquerade




©edenbraytoday25.11.2022

..
..
..

 


You always hurt the one you love
The one you shouldn’t hurt at all
You always take the sweetest rose
And crush it till the petals fall
You always break the kindest heart
With a hasty word you can’t recall, so
If I broke your heart last night
It’s because I love you most of all

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THE LONELINESS OF THE ITINERANT DOGWALKER

Posted on November 23, 2022 by edenbray

THE LONELINESS OF THE ITINERANT DOGWALKER

..

NIGHT SKY STICKNEY

..

Out by the east fen plains
  where muck, stones lay precious
  splendid of dereliction
  a silhouette in green stoops low

Piebald mystery, friend in tow
  shuffling, stumbling, his hindquarters
  rheumatoid, lassoed to his leader
  lone dog walker leads aliens yonder

Fens, Monyash, Downs, Mendip Hills
  walkers park n’stroll, cajole
  paws collide, stride wi’ master
  doting, not dotard, running edge o’ water
 
Out where starlings scatter stone walls
  pitter-patter another soaking due
  fur sure as sheep’s wool bustle
  muddied boots plough, leafs rustle

The conjurer, his thoughts
  wrapped in frames of war
  armies sang marching songs
  dreamt of home, mothers, bitter beer

Hare’s, sentinels, long as august corn
  fields, darkened, battered hopes
  calloused, frosted, tractor’s cleuch 
  collected rain, blood, memoirs of the trench

This stench of muck spread
  rhymes I share wi’ panting Bessie
  or any mutt, pooch, bitch, cur
  straggled fur, they stare, belly’s bare

By lanes, rivers, lonely bridges
  carts n’horses travelled
  laden with collect of crops
  my eyes strain beyond these hilly paps

Remembered Lindas, Alisons
  warm kisses, places in my dark
  xmas perfume, nylon wriggles
  makeup smears, heath’s purpled skies

I treasure thee sweet Bessie
  aside thy mercy seat
  play fondly with your ears
  upright your head turns slowly

Was that a smile or sommat’ better 
  spaniel, beagle, yon’ red setter
  murmured trust, desire to please
  sweet Bess lays head on my knee

Out there on winter’s trail
  blood-berries garner, Bo’ sniffs
  his signature graffitied in a flourish
  language not known to me lest I whisper

Against this faded light
  a crouched shape, night-green
  there is an early moon tonight
  tall stories enough to tell out walking

Cross my palm wi’ silver
  yet to whispered secrets only
  do my canine ears listen, in the half light
  upon the heath where owl-eyes glisten

˙©edenbraytoday16.11.2022

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KEALING .. .

Posted on November 4, 2022 by edenbray

kealing .. .

istockphoto-640057166-612x612

I was John Betjeman
I was Mata Hari
executed at dawn
thieves to the left of me
saints in red robes to the right
absorbed into the darkness
today you will be with me
you will kiss my cheek
thirty dollars
release Barabas
killers all go free
send me to the gallows

I have this obsession with freedom
with wild-west guns and slaves
their sweated, black faces
with justice and righteousness
with emancipation
decolonisation and absolutism
where the intellectual wins an argument
for once in his goddam life
before some ayatollah waves his wand
some totalitarian fuck-stik
and some freaky human parasite
changes all the rules…

©edenbraytoday04.11.2022

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HONESTLY .. .

Posted on October 28, 2022 by edenbray

honestly .. .

Green, yellow, red rasta flag. Rastafarianism grunge background. Colorful backdrop for decoration work in reggae, rastaman festivals, posters, promotional items.

..

I wandered by my hometown station
no trains run anymore
they dug up the track
there is an antique dealer there
he opens up on three days a week
to sell old things
not chicken wings
but down the road a mile or two
I found peoples throw outs
by the side of the road
two emptied cans
a used diaper in a bag
I would have reckoned it was sad
except I was tired
and nothing means anything
any more
except you are a writer
and then you feel it all

I am not sure how to be
when around you
I lost my place in the book I was reading
you know I need to talk
not sure you need to listen
we have a busted piston
it’s not just the beginning of the end
the engine is not working
we are drifting in a boat
with no rudder and no oars
listening at the keyhole
to a silent conversation
that never happens
walking down an endless road
that leads to nowhere
pick up the phone
and tell me how you feel
for very soon we die…

©edenbraytoday26.10.2022

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VERMILLION LANDSCAPES .. .

Posted on October 21, 2022 by edenbray

                             

Vermillion Landscapes .. .                                                                                               

vermillion war

It settles on a tree near a hostel
which holds a perfect view
of her hill called serenity from
where seven, cold rivers run
this white bird flew, one of two
a pair of ermine gyr-falcon
when sun-haze had lifted off its lay
ethereal and o’ so quiet
those birds forever circling
closer than the death of night
beige, soft bellied reflections
illuminate her moon-flecked flight

a herd of grazing, golden antelope
blushed of rhubarb sun
where lions sleep at night
deep friends upon the Serengeti
beneath vermillion sky layered
a child’s angel cake with creme
which cake is shined by sandstone light
an eggy, coppered glow
burrowed stains, stretched taught
‘cross nature’s plains that thinkers stow
animals there are my lucid thoughts
they travel on like circus cheetahs

fanfared soldiers exposed of duty rigour
awake to sounds of bloody terror
metal armadillo’s in a line advance
toward vermillion hills of splendour
orange-red, the chaplains have arranged
the dead according to their size
lest by subterfuge they disrespect
their surrender ‘neath cinnabar skies
the generals, commanders, captains
propagate their putrid red disguise
it is always the innocent who die
or dying, be blushed of leader’s lies

vermillion tunics of men who desired
freedom from tyranny of their race
not every garter, armband worn
is apposite to order – some do rebel
whether cloistered of the arctic sun
crying birds or dancing springbok
faint hooves may skip on Yahweh’s
forgotten graves most every nation hides
till orange streaks of blanket sea roll east
those sands of time desist
to squander one more useful life
another raped wife or infant dying

  ©edenbraytoday18.10.2022

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