TIM SANSOM-POEMS

LONG LONG DAY

2011-04-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

Chocolate and all the apathy you can squeeze into an afternoon.
Starlingrad yet again from the red army's account.
The sun sinking dutifully changing nothing.
I suppose we'll all come to define ourselves very soon.

TIM SANSOM 30TH APRIL2011

THE BUS RIDE

2011-02-02T13:46:00.000-08:00

THE BUS RIDE
　
You know when you find yourself in a crowd where the public’s common purpose to congregate is the usage of a provided service?
You mean like in an escalator or on a bus?
Certainly on a bus
Yes.
And have you ever experienced the contented silent amusement of individuals who have witnessed of another something comic and unplanned?
You mean shall we say for example a sudden loud ring tone of a mobile phone, that phases its owner not merely regarding the alarming volume of the not yet familiar melody but the specific whereabouts of the thing that curtly awaits answering?
Your example illustrates my gist perfectly!
What of it?
Well…….all that stifled chuckling and looking the other way of those real life people who amidst a public audience relate to but have no business with the occurrence.
Yes?
That interests me!!
……………………Yes I think I’d say that interests me too.
　
TIM SANSOM 10TH DECEMBER 2010

THE FRENCHMAN AND THE STONE

2011-01-30T12:02:00.000-08:00

THE FRENCHMAN AND THE STONE

A great mind in a great man loses itself in a relentless endeavour.
Spending his mammal heartbeats wisely he at least has feverish purpose.
Olfactory bliss transforms him through the scent of mummification to a gone age.
A Frenchman and an Englishman race to unlock the wisdom of those who seem to have resisted the deluge.

And a subterranean prodigy of architecture with its endless outstretch of rooms and corridors is a microcosm of one’s journey from this life into the next.
The Frenchman , stricken with persisting ill health perspires and perseveres onward in awe through this cavernous crafted world wishing so vehemently to understand and to understand further.

Hushed in the desert for over three thousand years the secrets of our ancestors are revealed to the wand of curiosity he wields while in London the Englishmen pours his sober logic and arithmetic onto the seized and guarded stone.
The taught ropes choke and fray round the colossal stone slabs rolling slowly in this pounding kiln of heat to their steep ascent driven by the will of glistening toiling ebony backs who working hard into the afternoons of the ancient world are contrary to the conjecture of the modern one, well fed and well treated.

The afterlife silent and poised sits in a darkness awaiting whilst the stars never disloyal exact their poles of immense white light towards the shafts of tombs of Pharaohs of Egypt lying amidst glittering and abundant treasures in their exquisitely sculpted and ornately decorated tombs. An immortality of sorts has been born.

In his tenacious malady the Frenchmen sees these images as vivid as his colleges before him.
But are these hallucinations or apparitions?
　
TIM SANSOM 24TH NOVEMBER 2010

TIME

2011-01-30T09:18:00.000-08:00

　
TIME
　
How science behaves is an enigma still
And perhaps time is going faster?
Both joy and ennui evaporates now in genie puffs to the wall!
For as a boy the summer days were an eternity of sorts………..
Or is this all perception?
I had supposed it might be a notion and that alone
But the Cambridge man says it bends
And if it bends its real I ‘d say.
But I can’t see its significance
And begin to doubt its existence
When all matter is removed from the equation.
All things that measure it are matter
Whether they are a clock or a star
How science behaves is an enigma still.
　
TIM SANSOM 30TH JANUARY 2011

IF SHE RETURNS

2010-12-19T08:37:00.001-08:00

IF SHE RETURNS
　
If she returns what will I say to justify myself?
Her belligerent and crushing, crashing blows whip up the winds of war and woe
If she comes here again what then?
　
As sited so often the piercing beauty nests up next to the lethal risk and the awesome threat.
And beads of sweat like peripheral disarray gets on its way , in its way, oh mercy!!
　
The aqua shades on bobbing waves and all her gentle temperament
Was heaven sent near jasmine scent
And cinnamon the same so long as she stays tame.
　
And anglers perched on stilts appease, a silhouetted twilight sea ,who rolls
And plops her rhythmic hands so delicate on golden sands.
Stand up and gaze the paddy fields alight all for a toenail moon
Hydrated by the known and understood monsoons.
　
But these look like the tears of babes compared to those colossal waves who’ll sweep away a passing train with effortlessness and disdain! Its true the cracking crust had spewed the vast sea up and up in crude anger.
　
Those, homeless, orphaned , dead, bereaved would surely not it truth believed this tear shaped island’s
forma peace could fall to such catastrophe.
　
If she returns what will I say to justify myself?
Her belligerent and crushing, crashing blows whip up the winds of war and woe
If she comes here again what then?
　
TIM SANSOM 25 TH SEPTEMBER 2009

IN OUR GARDEN

2010-12-19T08:33:00.000-08:00

IN OUR GARDEN
　
There was no jarring ascent as such.
But with stealth senses began to sharpen.
I focused on his eyes and rhetoric
Whilst the periphery around his face danced gently.
　
Idle candidates for hostility lurked to the left
And seas of green trembled to the right.
The discourse flowed with a pleasing vitality
Then in we went to play some ‘Jerry Lee’
　
Senses overlapped as they will on these occasions
Jerry, John and Elvis washed the spacetime in the staid bed sitter
And we were opportunists to philosophise.
　
In our garden we sit cross legged
And we go through our societal motto
It always the same
Though we don’t chant as such
All open land that the public have access to, we own
And we do so for our access to it is as unlimited as it would be
Were we paying taxes on it, which we are not and are all the more grateful for it !
　
A group of Kenyan lads play basketball and smoke joints yards away
The occasional jogger passes the occasional stooped old man
Its all fine and dandy with us.
And who ever mows the lawn?
Twenty-five years earlier
Alan Emptage while marvelling at the ever flowing
Sea of traffic surrounding this same quilt of fields said distraughtly
‘This kind of pollution just can’t go on much longer!’
He meant the world not the park
He meant ‘compare this to eighteen eighty!’
　
I’ve shown my boy what a close scrap world war two was
By pointing out to him the railings round this place
And how every fourth or so one has been trimmed off
To make bullets.
　
　
　
TIM SANSOM 5 TH JULY 2009

KIAGWARE

2010-12-18T10:02:00.000-08:00

KIAGWARE
( Kee-a-gwar-ree)
　
Two hundred miles from basic roads at West Kenya’s first light
Are the Kiagware hardships of the Kiagware plight.
Malaria unrelenting kills ten children here each week
Their diagnoses comes too late their prognosis too bleak.
　
They cant afford the bed nets and they cant afford the drips
And they cant afford the medicine to soothe their arid lips.
The village quacks and herbalists have failed to cure their ills
Untrained, unschooled they blindly fool with boiled bark and pills
　
And as another child dies another starts to ail
‘Their lives are in the hands of God!’ their grieving Mothers wail
The policeman, mare and social worker is all one man the same
He watches pained and helpless, Peter Kombo is his name.
　
Peter asks that four young men will take this latest child
By stretcher cross the mountains, the four men look beguiled
He gives them ready bills for drinks and bus fare on their trek
The overcrowded hospital will not accept a check.
　
For two days they walk in the sun and no one makes a fuss
Their voyage has really just begun, they board the battered bus
It snakes along the Kissi roads, the boy lays quiet and still
They need to reach the hospital, he’s now severely ill
　
And finally on arrival his mother takes a look
Saying ‘Please admit my Walter now!’ ‘We can’t without a book!’
A medical book they must buy before they can come in
But all their funds are spent and gone on transport fruit and drink
　
This hospital sees patients here of five hundred a day
And its one practicing Doctor had had to go away.
He left a far less qualified medic to take charge
Who took one look at Walter and he opened up his heart.
　
‘I’ll let you pay me at some other time’ the medic said
And had he acted differently poor Walter would be dead.
They took the boy onto the ward and treated him to health
He grew into a strong young man with gradients and stealth
　
And now in Kiagware malaria has waned
Because Peter’s appeal attained some mercy for their pain.
But think of Kiagware a mere pin prick in a sea
That’s God’s majestic Africa, whose tide is poverty.
　
　
TIM SANSOM 20 TH MARCH 2009
　

BEDREST

2010-12-18T09:50:00.001-08:00

BEDREST
　
Sometimes I catch a glimpse of my feeble input.
I vegetate in front of T.V pulp.
I go to bed and get up and go to work to hide from having found no real or meaningful outlet
But loneliness has changed from adversity to normality.
In solitude we have no need to impress.
I have become a being who is content with a torment free existence.
I am content to be content.
Where are my massive appetites now?
　
All my life I have been motivated by cinematic notions .
Practical and sensible plans leave me cold.
If I buy a car its because of the associations evoked by its dashboard or bonnet
And nothing whatever to do with fuel consumption or performance.
　
When I was a soft, round boy I had a psychedelic sloppy Joe
But I don’t remember who knitted me it.
I was more resolved then to both do and not do things with a nails in the palms intensity that stealth has robbed me of. There you see neurosis is our Damon, our inner and guiding light and to be well rounded and evenly balanced is apathy and atrophy.
Hale the barking mad. Hale!…Hale!……………….Hale you feverish and frantic souls you!
　
Being alright comes to us all if we’re not vigilant
Some of us know where we‘re coming from and where we‘re going but that doesn‘t last.
We mostly end up muttering trivia to those woolly, bar propped individuals we set out to wake up.
Watch out .for bewilderment. Watch out for the epidemic of mediocrity.
And run from bed rest like you are fleeing from the talons of Harpies.
Always keep a belly full of butterflies.
And check the power of your punches and kicks like an air guitarist but don’t get caught because its important they think you’ve become a Morlock.
　
　
　
TIM SANSOM 10 TH DECEMBER 2009

BACHELORS AND MADNESS

2010-12-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

BACHELORS AND MADNESS
　
　
I can’t gaze too long into the pool of inspiration
Or the immediate doctrines will swamp my inner essence from being
And I will degenerate into a satellite who moves lumber and states nothing.
But dare I peep so as to be reminded of the sweet lawlessness of expression?
Yes and no and all those other things.
　
Now I remember what those flickering hand gestures betray
The tinge of autism being itself the sanity and the directive.
The panic I felt during wet playtimes or on school’s first dreary day
It felt so very right being friendless then, the solitude was an agreeable sadness.
Losing my spirit was the cost of my interacting and then I forgot me
Until moments like this.
　
And now as a bachelor unable to be pared
One gets to take time to consider all those played out roles
And ask yourself is there a me or are there many?
And why should it be a revelation
That the earths noises go on regardless( from the crooning pigeons
To the angry lady whose dog wont behave) , of ,for example my current and altered status?
But it is to me in truth it is.
　
　
　
TIM SANSOM 9 TH AUGUST 2009

BAD DREAMS

2010-12-18T09:10:00.000-08:00

BAD DREAMS
　
Bad dreams when you were a kid
Went on ages, help you!
Probably driven by the id
Help you all! Wake you up!
　
Witches, ghosts and empty streets
Shone so lurid, help you!
Piracy in ceaseless fleets
Help you all! Wake you up!
　
Mum and Dad not knowing you
So convincing, help you!
Ordeals you keep going through
Help you all! Bring you round.
　
Dreams you’d dreamt then woke to tell
Then you realised, help you!
You were still in nightmare hell
Help you all! Wake you up!
　
Episodic themes of fear
Bad as soaps? Help you!
Then came the adolescent years
And swapped your mind for mindless balls!
Oh help me! Wake me up!
　
　
TIM SANSOM 29 TH MAY 2009

A MAN IN HIS DEFINITIVE MOMENT

2010-12-18T06:48:00.000-08:00

A MAN IN HIS DEFINITIVE MOMENT
　
How old is this enormous and towering tree?
How many weary heads have rested here upon this grassy spot in autumns and summers, to look up to these wise wavering branches?
　
I had a certain steady ability about me as a youth.
I’m not sure I can describe it.
I’m not sure I can prove it.
I’m not sure I can put it over to you in such a way that you could relate to it ,either cerebrally or viscerally.
I’m not sure when I gained it or when with hoodwinking gradients it slipped away.
But I’m a telling you there was a certain unique spring in my whole conceptual step just about the time my balls dropped and I was a right rank Herbert!!
　
If you buy me a ruler for Christmas then I can start off with superb and clipped new year resolutions.
I have to say that on that very premise why not get me a compass and a protractor and some irritating coloured felt tipped pens too?
　
Yeah we were the last generation to play ‘Man from uncle’ and ‘The Saint!’ using cap guns and stationary brought back from the general post office.
　
How old is that fair ash though!? Old enough to be your this’ Says the voice of tired Tuesdays and old enough to be your that !‘said some other mediocre week day looking for some form of comic place or identity. And so the keen and eager assembled audience had to accept that the vast tree was as old as it was , not a second older nor an ion closer to peachy cheeked youth!!
　
This week on all the television channels the recession was said to have worsened. Apparently the main reason for this had little to do with economics and was much more linked with the stuff of bad dreams so to speak………………Cricket… and the West Indies did this and that and Pakistan have sold some high flying bowler to the other team whom I know and understand very little about! So these tainted constituents of a semi important tapestry continue to revolve about ones psyche because there is no veritable union to oppose it to be so!
I stood over a large dark round hole in the ground. This was wasteland situated not far from the end of a long and dense wood. I saw myself there looking about me right to the woods and directly ahead of me deep deep down into this vast and peculiar pit. It could have been a dream, it could have been astral projection, it could have been the memory of a forma carnation and it could have been the prophecy of one to come. I did not see outward or perceive in a way with my senses that is the usual way, rather I see myself in the same way I see the woods and the hole. Then, as I look further down into the hole I see layers upon layers of grey upon brown upon black and these are the sinking fathoms of depth and as I do so my senses return to their proper place as the woods vanishes. Then I look up to a tiny circle of light which is the top of the hole which I am now at the bottom of.
　
I loved the smell of paper caps. We used to hit one whole packet with a hammer. The packets were cylindrical, they made a really decent bang. This is not what they were made for. They were made for tet tet tet and not for BANG!! And this was the very beginning of the exploration of the concept of alternative uses.
　
　
　
Magnolia walls and torn aging Bowie posters bringing it back as it was when we first got our grubby mitts on gigantic headphones. Arthur going down the lift every morning and over to the newsagents for half ounce of old Holborn and a copy of the racing times. What a lovely uncle and what a lovely man as handsome as his Maltese D.N.A, he used to love a flutter with Rene backing the outsiders. Here in these stinking towering piles of Ealing and Acton borough council brick, and underneath a skin of growingly alien graffiti is me and my reflective contemplations and here is where it all happened, our growing up that is! Why am I telling ya ? Well its just that these times these places, these events they had something about them I can never quite define, and trying is fun. Some years earlier my Dad carrying me as a toddler had me watch on while he gave a narrative of reverence to the first crude stages of these two towers being built. The foundations were dug and the vast opal stone was being erected. I had a small hand full of large metal imperial money and listened to my Father as he explained what these buildings would be. Then Rene and John left the East Acton prefabs at the end of the late sixties and came here in the early seventies to reside in the sky, looking out from Heathrow to the Post office tower on a clear day. These were the towers of ‘Rebel Rebel’ and ‘Goodbye t Jane’.
　
There was a great deal of trust between me and Alec. We took turns to lock one another in a cupboard under the stairs at his house. Whoever was locked in was completely at the mercy of the other to let him out after. We composed this game whereby the person who did the locking in would lock the door and run out of the house across the road and touch a parked car then return and unlock the door. We both did it numerously and we never failed to unlock that door. That felt like a great friendship.
　
　
When we see what time really is and what before and after really mean then we find ourselves there again looking up at those wavering branches.
　
　
　
TIM SANSOM 3RD MARCH 2009

THE CHIMNEY

2010-12-18T06:25:00.000-08:00

THE CHIMNEY
　
A proud fat chimney squats on the roof of the house opposite.
It’s my chimney because I’ve noticed it.
It will become a point of reference for me for my having noticed it.
In its stillness is a large feline attitude.
It’s been watching the soap of our lives here for seventy years and it holds its judgement.
Crowned with generous rotund pots of dark orange it sits in a majestic dignified silence.
This morning its been watching me watching it watch me.
Indifferent to ennui and non-event its self contented demeanour sets an inspiring example.
People who prefer animals to people ought to try the inanimate
Its even less intrusive.
　
TIM SANSOM 4TH DECEMBER 2010

THE WARM AND THE KIND

2008-05-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

THE WARM AND THE KIND

Labouring to assert itself
A tame electric light
Made an opal cotton curtain
Amber in the night.

Outside it was superfluous
As summer raged and bloomed
And all this touched my soul
So that my infancy resumed.

It took me back to caravans
And all which paints the theme
Of being cared and catered for
Under a kind regime.

TIM SANSOM 16TH MAY 2008

WE THE PUBLIC

2008-05-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

WE THE PUBLIC

We the public
Paint our nails
Turn in circles
Chase our tails

We the public
Send our faxes
Sit on crappers
Pay our taxes.

We the public
Wash our faces
Flush our faeces
Tie our laces.

We the public
Kiss our spouses
Rot in factories
Dwell in houses.

We the public
Go on line
Send our texts
And read true crime.

We the public
Drink in dives
And break up with
Our modern wives

We the public
Do our best
To earn more money
Than the rest.

We the public
Forward notions
So as to attain
Promotions.

We the public
Hope all see
When we tend
Our Bonsai trees.

2

We the public
All invest
We plan ahead
We feather nests.

We the public
Ail and age
Lose our zest
And quash our rage.

We the public
Roam round lost
But always keep
Our fingers crossed.

We the public
Trust and vote
And swim the
Party leader moat.

We the public
Pass and die
In the public
Turf we lie.

We the public
We the public
We the public
We the public
We the public.

Some of us
Walk other ways
Do different deeds
And solve the maze.
3

Hymns and things
Help us hope
We’re resolute
To never mope.

Prayer can’t hurt
The hard try game
Pause to reflect
Be done with blame
For me the Man
And you the girl
And him the soldier
And them the cousins
And we the public.

TIM SANSOM 17TH MARCH 2008

BUT NOW IT'S AN ARCADE

2008-05-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

FORGOTTEN CAFÉ

Here Nosegays got dragged on by dishevelled spivs
While intrigued historians observed how one lived
And bank jobs got planned over fowl cups of tea
And the loveys came in from the theatre at three

But now it’s an arcade.

Overweight ruddy faced ladies guffawed
And drunks spewed expletives as coffee pots roared
And tobacco smoke billowed to form a dense cloud
So that even eccentrics got lost in the crowd.

But now it’s an arcade.

Mods aired contempt here for old die hard Teds
With a quid’s worth of blues they’d be bombed off their heads
Sipping on cokes telling bum pinching jokes
Their Vespas a gleaming from mirror to spokes.

But now it’s an arcade.

Old girls with beehives would moan at the prices
‘Is that all the change from ten Bob for two slices?’
Occasional vagrants came in trying it on
‘ Giv us a tanner son and I’ll be gone!’

But now it’s an arcade.

Everyone listened to heavyweight fights
On a crackly wireless on Saturday nights
They’d congregate with an at tentative ear
And in wonderful unison hollowed and cheered.

But now it’s an arcade.

This was a place to come in for a warm
And where lasting and meaningful items were formed
This was a haunt where we came to be sane
In that pleasantries could be explained and exchanged!
But now its an arcade.

TIM SANSOM 20TH MARCH 2008

LITHE GIRLS AND SUMMER BALLOONS

2007-04-07T00:54:00.000-07:00

LITHE GIRLS AND SUMMER BALLOONS

Halcyon seascapes shimmer to the optic nerve of now
While such a breadth of fragrances pollute the giddy lanes
Boutiques with acquired tastes will not throw in the towel
Up at the Marina throb the tycoon’s mid life pains.

Let them wield pounds Stirling all at pseudo happiness
Each one comes accompanied with wide eyed callow Janes
Janes and busty Julies who invariably know best
Their indifference to substance disappoints but entertains.

“Let me try it darling” “Oh its so last year!” she jibes
Call into the Cricketers and Porter’s place of play
Look down from The Dials feel the nauseous “New Age” vibes
Watch the West Pier wither because pink money won’t pay!!

Who would chose above this aqua place an inland life?
When all at once auld organs wheeze sweet crotchets from the fair
Though by The Sussex Arms I took God’s vowels and gained a wife
And only sad confetti fell upon her short brown hair!

A stone’s throw from The Hand In Hand I dwelled then Lansdowne next
With a view to reinvent but both times headed home
For I was impecunious and solitary and vexed
And finally at Montpelier we felt equally alone.

TIM SANSOM 7TH APRIL 2007

YOU CAN TELL BECAUSE OF ALL THE SCARS

2007-03-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

YOU CAN TELL BECAUSE OF ALL THE SCARS

The Ivy brogues and Crombie ring
Cheekbones high and sharp protrude
Blakies scrape and spark the pave
All this mood he must exude
He needs it to be known he’s brave
And you can tell because of all the scars.

The very way he strikes a Swan
He’ll tilt his head and cup his hand
To toque the snout then spit and swear
Established now as without care.
He glamorises broken homes
And speaks proud of his court summons.

Alleging that he won’t conform
He does so very surgically
He does so very carefully
Acknowledging that given code
And whilst an audience watch and see
Competing in delinquency
With other rogues to see who’ll win.

He knows the slang he’s been around
But on the contrary most profound
He’s been nowhere nor heard no sound
And you can tell because of all the scars.

The truth that lies beneath his trick
Is emptiness and want for love
The rules will not permit this known
“Bravado don’t allow it guv!”
And so the days and years go by
With him living out a lie.

Deep inside he hates the sin
He’d love to change and chuck it in
Embrace hi friends and kiss his kin
And you can tell because of all the scars.

2

Me? I turn to philosophy
And opiates like imagery
I kid myself I’m not the same
But in the end I’m in the game.

I might not claim a tough veneer
I’ve other ways to cope with fear
But in eventuality
I mould my personality
Around my current company
An equally sick conformity
The world’s a stage we’re all agreed
And you can tell because of all the scars.

TIM SANSOM 1987

THE ANIMAL

2007-03-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

THE ANIMAL

I loathe the fowl taste of losing control
When dignity dies as the animal thrives
For he who’s composed is in tune and is whole
Whilst when rage takes its hold virtue never survives.

Arrows of viciousness roll from the tongue
Blood pumps and flows through the vascular routes
One feels invincible holy and strong
With the waving of fists and the stomping of boots.

It is then we exact those regrettable acts
Which say not a thing of the ethics we hold
It’s as though we’re possessed as the impulse impacts
By an inner impostor remorseless and cold.

We relive the child in a tantrum of gold
It gives us the permit of visceral zest
This licence expires as life’s norms tales are told
I loathe lost control; yet I love zeal the best.

TIM SANSOM 21ST MARCH 2007

A LINE OF URBAN STEAM

2007-02-25T03:21:00.000-08:00

A LINE OF URBAN STEAM

A gentle line of urban steam
Drifted from the ear
Of the house that’s opposite
Forty yards from here.

It made me think of Larkin’s sighs
And Coronation street
And all those contemplations
Evoked by feline feet.

Though zoomed in far too closely
To see the neighbourhood
I just know it’s a weekday
Their maths I’ve understood.

The auditory Sabbaths
They give themselves away
And even with the sound down
Their logo won’t decay

The roads fill up with clouds of guilt
And rain severity
The retailers recoil a jot
And play at piety.

A gentle line of water vapour
More now than before
Made me introspective
I watched me watch for awe.

It made me think and reckon on
Life’s Tuesday afternoons
Whose kindred Wednesday mornings
Spill unique shapes and tunes.

TIM SANSOM 25TH FEBRURARY 2007

CERTAIN OF ASYLUM

2007-02-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

CERTAIN OF ASYLUM

I’m climbing the breeze of home welcome
Amidst the philanthropist’s charm
They will not do deeds that would help them
They’d rather indulge in self harm.

The whisker between two themes racing
Can hardly be said to exist
So kindliness means “ self effacing!”
And charity’s purpose is missed!

Feasting is ample escaping
It offers deliverance and calm
From all things routine in the making
We’re back on the opiate farm.

Shouting and laughing and guessing
We’re rueful when we reminisce
But phantom wounds heel without dressings
They are mended with time’s silent kiss.

So warming and savouring the invite
We hope we can do the same back
The flavour of mercy gives insight
Which is something that most of us lack

TIM SANSOM 22ND FEBURARY 2007.

GAMBLERS SHINE

2007-02-20T12:24:00.000-08:00

GAMBLERS SHINE

Loosen until buzzed lips numb to Zen torpor
This should suffice to provide the escape
Flop to full weight taste the wine of the pauper
Dare to have dreams beyond all this red tape

Won’t it work that way? Won’t it fall in for you?
When its all spherical then the drone flows
Have you forgotten just how not to think and do?
Try much less harder is how the tune goes.

No one can take away memories of skipping ropes
Its all interned all experienced all earned
Most of what drives you to dice are unwitting hopes
Joined to grey matter they add to what’s learned.

Yes but I’m predisposed yes but I’m ageing
These are my fletches all feverish to fly
I’m not caught up with the act time is staging
These changes are smiling, the smile is wry.

TIM SANSOM 20TH FEBURARY 2007

VILLAGER'S VILLAGE

2007-01-29T11:08:00.000-08:00

VILLAGER’S VILLAGE

On a quaint Sunday morning in villager’s village
An old man gazed out cross the green
So pleasant it smelt, being mowed short as felt
And his Bassett hound fronted this scene.

Then morning mass called for the Mothers to flock
And the sparrows gave up for five tolls
And villager’s village was so much the stage
As the pigeons cooed soft in our souls.

This flew me back home to satchels and autumn
And Cumberland Avenue’s leaves
Where the odour of homesick bullied our bellies
And childhood fled to the trees.

The tavern at noon saw villager’s village alright
For stout, ale and sup
Deerstalkers tilted as gunning coats brushed
And salad and pickles were up.

Too quick came one and short after two
Then true it was three o’clock’s heart
Top lips were buzzing, ankles were wobbling
“Gentlemen, please now depart!”

“Love to the family” “Next week then Norman?”
“Next week or so help me God!”
Now to the cottage and in it, its parlour
So to the sweet land of Nod!”

A quaint Sunday evening in villager’s village
As nocturnal beasties get cheeky
Field mice are fine not inhibited now
And they never knew the Blacksmith!

TIM SANSOM AUGUST 1990

THE WORLD

2007-01-14T22:56:00.000-08:00

THE WORLD

Filled with wondrous golden miracles
Is this magic world of life
Each day through its curios noise
There is uncounted happiness.

TIM SANSOM 15TH JANURARY 2007

HOSTILITIES

2007-01-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

HOSTILITIES

Each underlying nuance breathes
Its acrid breath as to repel
All broken and defeated thieves
With hostile stenches they know well.

Those dressed up Toms, those vagabonds
Heed swift the Mars beneath each smile
For subtle warlords wave their wands
Before their prey has any guile.

If violence drips from every leaf
And manifests in plebeian plot
We are our stronger neighbour’s beef
They’ll skewer out eyes no matter what.

And loud charades like bright facades.
Would have us sold on goings on calm
But as we prance down promenades
The hidden will exact its harm.

TIM SANSOM 9TH JANURARY 2007

THE FIRST SOUNDS

2006-12-19T14:25:00.000-08:00

THE FIRST SOUNDS

Women in their early thirties.
The apex of Horsington Hill.
Bright pictures on the wall of a creche.
A troubled young man.
The after thoughts of today's pulinory embolism.
Learning through play.
A dutiful reconicense flight.
Forced tranvestisism.
The abolition of lead toy soldiers.
Gumbo.
Learning through play.

The ions in the warm droning womb deliver you to the first sounds.
It's a compusory journey.
You have to care about your existence.
You are unequipped to abandan whatever it takes to survive.
Only death in it's overwealming you pardons you of your compusory assignment.

The ridiclous nurse and everything she's caught up in.
Learning through play.
Through play.

TIM SANSOM 19TH DECENBER 2006

IMPASSE

2006-11-30T04:53:00.000-08:00

IMPASSE

Haste on the Tickford Bridge.
Sarah in ‘The Dolphins’ shinning.
Another charade of subservience
Racing to the splash for peace and an upright rosette

The West or Central dilemma recurring
Overcast and with a costal people
In a cold hearted hurry.

Razors of disapproval
From an inconsolable Mother
Wielding her wretched dominion
As her only option.

The rolling road
Donning an autumnal beehive hairdo
All year round-And rolling!

And nothing’s for gratis
And no Dickensian deliverances yet.
But a boy needs decisive guidance
And doleful demeanors reassure no one!

But I’m an egg that cracks without fragmenting into smithereens too soon after.

This blue anorak has fused with ‘Me, the shadow’ for now.
Time spews up trivia and welcome sighs of relief.

The rolling road heaves to and pulls me through
One Stratford into another.

It’s a wet and bilious loss……………Oh!
I’ve heard of luckless paths enduring beyond comprehension.

History has been permitted to summarize itself here
To amuse all those with a crude or ill informed guile of it.

Incidental pedestrians play their part
Inside and out of shops that aspire to aspire.

The rain is loud and discourteous in interrupting
The gossip of loiterers so that there is always something good to be said for
The rolling road and yes I like to watch those vast dutiful trees upon its straights
And hamlet bothered bends courtesy in our temperamental wind
Under that all too familiar charcoal poisoned sky.

TIM SANSOM 30TH NOVEMBER 2006

FURTHERANCE

2006-11-24T07:29:00.000-08:00

FURTHERANCE

Learned lessons in the meadow’s hours
Of married ones and all kinds too
The sages judge who justly cowers
But in so doing bleed to blue.

They grasp the silk that consummates
And mar the gifts with lover’s stains
The ritual like the vowels await
And stuffy decades stun their brains.

Dances prior and dances post
Earnest promises of trust
Today display is loved the most
There’s seldom furtherance beyond lust.

TIM SANSOM 24th November 2006

UNDERNEATH

2006-11-20T04:43:00.000-08:00

UNDERNEATH

Underneath his bleak and icy skirt
Want and ignorance in their common plight
Cuddle up together for bodily warmth
While the spectacular black and overcast sky
Is the cloak of this world

But the final wave of change is done
We are a specie risen and fallen for the final time
And the final canapé is splitting
The impending annihilations are the final birth pains
to a paradise never yet envisaged

And from every nature of ashes, debris and hurt
Will flutter into flight
The golden birds of joyfull hope
For the forma things will pass away.

TIM SANSOM 20TH NOVENBER 2006

SOUND AMBITION

2006-11-13T03:00:00.000-08:00

SOUND AMBITION

It didn’t come in premonition
He simply knew through intuition
That nothing was of greater worth
Tween death and birth than sound ambition

He there resolved in solemn word
To rise above the common herd
So at his burial folk would know
He was no ordinary Joe.

For what else is a mortal’s goal
Than have tomorrow’s children know
Of he who walked and breathed now gone
By words he’d wrote and deeds he’d done?

Not disappear into the pit
Of mediocrity one bit
He knew his purpose on this earth
Meant more than food and sleep and work.

So he stood university
And took strength from its adversity
Of every thing that laymen say
Of our homogenous today

He thoroughly believed it true
That book alone’s where wisdom grew
And ten years on he in the courts
Became a barrister of sorts

And five years more a judge then next
The Lords convinced of his learned text
He’d rise up in society’s
Remorseless notoriety

He judged through squinted austere eyes
The ill informed whose broken lives
Had brought them to account for sin
Degradingly in front of him.

He now empowered held their fates
Like marionettes on threads of lace
His sentences were always harsh
Intolerant of low life trash

The country girl whom he had wed
Became as distant as his friends
He wondered what was wrong with them
He wondered what was wrong with them

These friends moved on and in due course
His wife insisted they divorce
She said she’d found a man at last
Of humble means but warm of heart

And when the Judge grew old and grey
And finally come to pass away
The whole town paid their last respects
To he whose life had been but text

Indeed the Parson like the Priest
Knew of course he had achieved
Status standing wealth and power
Such meaninglessness at this hour.

TIM SANSOM JUNE 1999 INDIA

WHEN I WAS

2006-11-13T02:17:00.000-08:00

WHEN I WAS

When I was a boy aged five with pensive scrutiny
I looked and reckoned at Horn Lane’s unceasing flow of cars
Apocalyptic fancies though a thought mode new to me
Soon corrupted how I heard the birds and saw the stars.

Calculating patterned growths and broken oaths I felt
Doubtless that we faced a vast impending wave of change
I sensed the cards of disregard which we mankind have dealt
To soon be shuffled by the earth and dealt back in her rage.

Then aged ten complexities placed next to me had grown
With accelerations of unprecedented pace
Ruining at leisure tools to measure man was thrown
Into what appeared to me to be an alien place.

A place where inconsistency insists to be a pest
By smashing into smithereens our ethics goals and faiths
With morals made like lemonade we’re fed and without rest
Subliminally a clueless viewless few indoctrinate.

Then aged sixteen I first sat a different school of lessons
Innocent of truth that well intended kin hid well
My eyes opened to the present’s calibre of weapons
I was weak with disbelief their ease to unleash hell.

I loved being thirty and if given Godly choice
This I would have crystallised in time forever long
Balanced between spring of limbs and having found one’s voice
I could watch earth’s rising seas and choking trees whilst strong.

In a twirling giddy month or two I’m forty-two
Weather’s jarred behaviour has the seasons bumping heads
Arsenals aren’t permitted to be owned by those who do
Order peace and kindliness hang on today’s frayed threads.

TIM SANSOM 24TH APRIL 2006

LOOPS EXPOSED AND JUDGED

2006-11-13T00:41:00.000-08:00

LOOPS EXPOSED AND JUDGED

The day we walked the dog in the waning woods we decided time was more hallowed than riches.

We resolved never to be owned by the meaningless again.
We would forsake the prestigious window dressing so as to be in no hurry or fluster and we would consol ourselves with second hand paperbacks and beautiful walks like this one.

But indoctrination moves with insidious stealth.
I think I’m entitled to a week of annual leave next summer.

TIM SANSOM 13TH NOVEMBER 2006

CASCADE

2006-11-11T06:49:00.000-08:00

CASCADE

Sequences of dancing hexagons like they use in westerns cause me to squint and consider sneezing in the early morning. That’s better than an overcast sky.

They say there’s a gland located in the rear lower neck that responds positively to light. It’s said to drink up the pure rays and beams and then react by distributing uplifting chemicals into the brain. It feels like a plausible notion this morning. If we depend on light so much then I suppose the process would be another confirmation that we’re from the stars.

As I shave I marvel at the stealth of lines and wrinkles that form upon my skin. Today I notice how they change the look of my throat. I remember noticing that look on older men when I was younger. I didn’t know it happened over night. In a way I quiet like the look on me I think. All these things are beyond our control and I take comfort from that. Sometimes I’m alarmed by it also.

I once enjoyed a toy called Cascade. Alan Smithson or Paul McColin or some other kid that lived in Horn Lane had it and it impressed me so I asked for it and Mum bought me it. I was a lucky kid.

My first real fisticuffs fight was with a kid called Robert Ryan. I didn’t know when we blooded each others noses that his name was the same as a Cowboy actor.

Sequences of dancing hexagons.

TIM SANSOM 11TH NOVEMBER 2006

IN A KIND OF PRESENT

2006-11-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

IN A KIND OF PRESENT

The whirring of a florin dropped
On auditory tiles
Peeled shrill until earth’s small hands stopped
For what man calls a while.

The peopled world froze static
And thoroughfares were filled
With sights quite cinematic
Of motion rendered still

I walked among the waxwork herd
And wondered as I stared
Into their locked unknowing eyes
What past or future cared?

In mid gait girls were statuettes
In mid flight swifts were held
Until after eternity
The weary florin fell.

TIM SANSOM 9TH NOVEMBER 2006

THE UNCEASING FIRS

2006-11-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

THE UNCEASING FIRS

The barbaric cold wages an old and familiar war on feelings of safety and rhythm while walking. Hale the dark green shadowy Harlestone.
The firs, unchanged and imposing block aid from the warming sun.
He looks to have misjudged the elements today.
He takes up my offer of a drive to Rugby belatedly.
Inside the warm car we can both sate our contemplative nature.

TIM SANSOM 5TH NOVEMBER 2006

BRAIN CHEMISTRY

2006-10-30T14:19:00.000-08:00

BRAIN CHEMISTRY

My friend’s basement flat.
The luminaries.
Difficult decisions.
Ill health panting on.
Vice and youth culture all round the room.
Good advice and a switched on buddy.
A kind of comfort.
Galaxies of form and details.
Brain chemistry adjusting.
Contemporary stand up.
Dank and subterranean refuge for a wounded fellow from another.
Hospitable in mind and culinary magic.

The earth turns.
The tongue poking clocks go back.
They make no concessions.
Leap forward and spring back.
Shorter days good and bad then.

Glaciers slide inches.
Cold blooded critters migrate.
Synapses are firing helpful and crippling potions into my reckoning.
The cosmos expands.
A child’s heart beat can be heard on a monitor through her Mother’s belly.
A custom wares thin.
A structure of values stealthily evolve.
A sage is undocumented.
A kind lady is forgotten.
The temperature drops.
An economy prospers.
Another stagnates.
Plates groan beneath impudent continents
The telephone rings.

I value my friends.
I need this new job.
I’m anxious.
I want peace.
I love watching black and white films.
I let the phone ring.

I look up at the stars.
I remember that up and down are our own invention.
I see that day belongs to the sun.
I see that night is the constant and the objective truth.
I see that gravity pins me to this blue sphere.
No up and no down.
No beginnings and no ends.
Light only thanks to stars.
We have invented many ideas.
We believe them on a daily level.
They are inventions.
We are in the cosmos.
I am comfortable.

Dates and units of measured time.
Morality.
Civility.
Success and good fortune promote agreeable brain chemistry.

All elating neurotransmitters welcome.
The telephone rings no longer.
Some people collect beer mats and others enjoy debate.

I can smell that its rained while we’ve been inside.
It’s a beautiful smell.

TIM SANSOM 30TH OCTOBER 2006

.

RAJASTAN

2006-10-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

RAJASTAN

The fruiters in the humid street
Are islands in the rickshaw sea
Their hopeful faces understand
As we move on through Rajastan

Their lucrative industrial sense
In constant quest of recompense
Warms swift to the Caucasian man
As we move on through Rajastan

The camel, goat and holy cow
Free as the bison and the sow
Decorate the roads unmanned
As we move on through Rajastan

A vast kaleidoscope of trade
Is manifested every day
In this impoverished holy land
As we move on through Rajastan

An earnest warmth that England’s lost
Is commonplace here void of cost
It warms that heart and shakes the hand
As we move on through Rajastan

TIM SANSOM 18TH JUNE 1999

MONSOON PALACE SUNRISE

2006-10-27T10:40:00.000-07:00

MONSOON PALACE SUNRISE

How can we moan about the flies
Neath orange sunburst morning skies?
When Monsoon Palace high up can
Behold the hills of Rajastan

Their countless shrubs of darkening green
As ornate as the eye as seen
Consume the mist which dawn omits
And plays the tunes of crickets lisps

The driver quaintly offers tea
As fluttering bats and angry bees
Dwell high in ancient ceiling traps
Whose ‘ horror film’ walls won’t collapse

The windows nearly Mexican
Of peppered broken wood slats tend
To radiate an attitude
Of India’s long forgotten moods

Those moods which soaked with Gurker’s blades
And ‘Slaughtered Sultan’ accolades
leave but a ghost that haunts the stars
Which twinkle above Udaipur

The white and dusty ‘Death Trap’ road
Climbs high and winds then finally finds
The stained fawn towering devil doors
Of Monsoon Palace Udaipur

And he who once upon his throne
Knew well these staircases of stone
Who sipped The Ganges near his tomb
Took refuge here from old monsoons

He with his servants watched the flow
That drenched the settlements below
Though in his time and still today
Disease is surely cleansed away

How trite to talk mosquito bites
At these majestic wuthering heights
To Rangiwas we head instead
To gather thoughts about the dead.

TIM SANSOM 25TH JUNE 1999

GOA

2006-10-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

GOA

We came during the June monsoons
And found a cheap Chapora room
The restaurants and bars and streets
Were half awake or sound asleep

So keen to see Arombal Beach
And reticent so far to hike
One Hundred and fifty Rupees
Acquired us a motorbike

We didn’t mind that we’d be soaked
Its not like ‘Catch-Cold’ rain at home
The ‘Water Bucket’ sweeping storms
Whilst plentiful are freakish warm!

A thumping Enfield would be nice
Although our Yamaha sufficed
Its hundred cc engine smoked
Along the chalky winding roads

So on our way to Siolim
To make a quick ferry crossing
We saw through rural Goan sights
How Goan folk live Goan lives

Their ancient agricultural ways
That one may still behold today
Were decorative on sodden grass
And typified the fields we passed

Lines of ladies kneel and reap
With babies on their backs asleep
And as they bundle crops for miles
Their weathered faces squint and smile

Their brightly coloured saris blow
While cows drag ploughs and seeds are sewn
And palm trees too bend in the breeze
Near chapels of the Portuguese

The wind comes first and then the rain
How hard? How long? No one can say
Compared with next month these are showers
When India wields torrential powers

The ferry reached the island bank
And on we rode with our full tank
Past paradisic palm tree shores
And fruit stall fronted liquor stores

Starving gaunt dishevelled hounds
Blocked the roads by lying down
While long broad cues of holy cows
Trundled slow beneath the showers

Turned left by a peculiar school
Our journey wrapped up by the beach
I parked the bike and asked at once
For ice cold beer and garlic fish.

Both Jackie and myself knew then
We wanted to come here again
Its nautical euphoric air
relieved the soul of Western care

The restaurants here used candle light
Because a monsoon in the night
Had taken out the island’s power
Would beach room renting make us cower?

With no bath or electric light
We still resolved to stay the night
So we could wake to hear the waves
Next morn and in the ocean bathe

In view of the Arabian sea
We chatted with the Europeans
Then strolling back we learned quite soon
We could not relocate our room

The old adobe white stone huts
Were perched upon the jagged rocks
Up which the ocean’s waves were spewed
The black of night made blind our view

And thanks to our Norwegian friends
We regained enough confidence
To climb the rocks and brave the tide
For their room they believed near by

The four of us searched for our rooms
Beach paddling through the sable doom
We found our door then said ‘Good night’
And lit a tiny candle light.

Then Jackie who observed our doors
Had not got locks felt insecure
With our location so remote
She dreaded theft and feared assault

At two a.m the howling wind
Brought my slumber to an end
She told me her anxiety
Which had not yet occurred to me

Because she’d spooked herself with dread
She hadn’t dared to leave the bed
To check for bolts upon our door
I did. Then she was reassured!

Relaxed enough now to enjoy
With only bed bugs to annoy
We listened to the majesty
And roaring of the Goan sea

Its timelessness rang in our ears
And soothed our most subconscious fears
We took that swim at dawn’s first light
And showered in the rain alright!

We saw the tiny beech hole crabs
And striped small fish in the lagoon
And watched the busy fishermen
Work from their hollowed out canoes

They typify the vibrant feel
That makes Arombal hardly real
We feel the resolution burn
In high season we shall return.

TIM SANSOM 13TH JULY 1999

UDAIPUR

2006-10-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

UDAIPUR

The small black rocks we thought we saw
Upon the lake in Udaipur
Were noses of the holy cows
Who swam a width then walked ashore

Their glistening sable leathery backs
Were vivid by the white flaked walls
And opal dome topped habitats
Which sat beyond the mango stalls

The arches of an ancient bridge
Dipped deep into the dark green sludge
A myriad of flies and tics
Were dancing on the bank side mud

We walked past piles of dung and straw
With full back packs of heavy load
To board a stray auto rickshaw
And head toward Lake Palace Road

Past narrow winding trade filled streets
Its straining moped engine smelled
Through traffic circus lunacy
To Rangiwa’s Palace Hotel

The atmosphere inside was charged
All with the ethos of The Raj
With well kept gardens so ornate
We marched in through its iron gates

Its pristine sky blue swimming pool
Is something we’ll no doubt explore
As we enjoy a transient feel
of this more tended India.

TIM SANSOM 24th JUNE 1999

THE ILLUSION

2006-10-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

THE ILLUSION

The filling station near the county cricket club has gone.

It used to be there but its gone now.

It was there for as long as I can remember, for many years but now in its place is level concrete and very nearly fresh air.

Introspection becomes immediately operative. I marvel at the size of my own reaction to its absence. Can it be that this disgruntles me? Surely this is not something that bothers me is it? It would appear so. Why am I surprised by a regular building reform? Why am I feeling a vague discomfort, why? Why is my first reaction to the vast majority of all change negative?

The filling station is gone. It used to be there but it is not anymore.

In the very same way the entire infrastructure of the man made world is as vulnerable. It is here now but that is for now. It all affords an illusion of permanence but it is very temporary. The man made world as well as the natural world about us as we know it is renting a location upon the indifferent earth. It is all transient. We know this. We know it and we know it by the time we are developing children. But the illusion of permanence makes us forget it.

The filling station just there on the left was there since my youth but today the spot on which it had bonded with as a mature landmark is a pale courtyard awaiting the spoils of enterprising minds. I had better keep my mind on the road as I’m driving.

I think of human aging differently lately. It is not the same as the wearing down and the attrition of a stone or a coastal face. It really doesn’t matter if one looks good for sixty or moves sprightly for thirty. Looking or performing well for ones age doesn’t mean extended longevity. Inside of us is a clock that ticks its finite ticks and then time is up. Gravity and radicals pull and bombard our skin so that it wrinkles and sags but that is not getting older so much as something that happens as we get older. Getting older is the depletion of ticks as is the change that makes filling stations vanish.

Change is necessary.
Change is good as often as it is bad.
Change is life.

TIM SANSOM 24TH OCTOBER 2006

I SUPPOSE

2006-10-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

I SUPPOSE

I suppose you could look at it that way
With your nails in your moist callused palms
That the mottos you smoothed out of hearsay
Found their way there from fables and psalms.

And that whilst you would like to believe it
That the values you think are your own
Like the truth as you clearly perceive it
Are both steered by your peers as you’ve grown.

But the measure of ‘Do unto others’
How great thou art!

TIM SANSOM 22ND OCTOBER 2006

SECURITY

2006-10-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

SECURITY

When I was a kid I wondered about the decades leading up to my birth.
I especially was fascinated and haunted by the sixties. I was fascinated by what I’d learned and haunted by the thin and few memories of it. Paradoxically they were the least vivid memories and yet the first ones. Memory and attraction to youth culture fused into a common obsession. The obsession was both a reckoning and a reverie.

I always wondered what people were like in the forties, fifties and sixties. Were they like us lot at school in the seventies. What did vulgarity and expletives mean? How much did people expect from life? Did they look at what was then the present as an unwelcome modernity? Or were they able to recognise the magic as I and my generation suppose of it in hindsight?

I read and talk and ask and surmise and even accumulate facts that progressively add to my understanding of the history of sociological affairs and social mood but I still won’t ever really know. I cant judge how accurate a drama is set if the period is before I was around.

I look at the street I live in. It was built in the thirties. I’ve lived here on and off since I was nine. I remember dreaming with questions into the facades of these houses of their forma years. What parties had gone on here? They evidently occurred. There were less cars on the road and they had more style. I begin to see that I have a leaning to believe that the changes which have buried the past with the present are seldom an improvement. Imperial money. I prefer it’s weight and the sound it makes when dropped. I’m not going to give another example.

When Teddy boys walked up here the night sky above was as crisp and fresh and unspoiled and as real as the one I look up at tonight. To think that in addition to the clement feel of this street as it is now there was the joyful semi consciousness of a being in a world spinning much slower.

‘Hey bird dog keep away from my chic, hey bird dog you better………..’
Think of the smell of the leather seats inside those early Jags. No seat belt law. Just ‘You wanna lift darlin?’

The present is pointing different weapons of anxiety at us now. In memories of memories I find security.

TIM SANSOM 21ST OCTOBER 2006

A CASE STUDY

2006-10-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

A CASE STUDY

I saw an actress on television.
She was being interviewed on a tea time chat show.
She was noticeably consumed in her own self importance
She was kind of spoiled by her acclaim.
I thought’ You’re a tee-shirt.
In the grand scheme of things you’re a blip.’

Then I thought ‘I’m another tee-shirt’
And moving on ‘All society and all humankind
is a subliminal flicker nothing more.

People are so consumed in the present
And in trifles. They have to be to have a sane purpose perhaps.

Chat shows eh?

Antarctica and its one true real specific topography
Exists and in that Buddha consideration It exists independent
Of any man perceiving it.

Every crevice and every mountain on every moon
in a myriad of galaxies exists the very same.
It is all real. Just because its not being perceived doesn’t mean its not real and palpable and out there right now. The intricate details of all these places are unique.
Every detail is what it is and nothing even marginally different though no living thing may ever see it.

Chat shows though?

TIM SANSOM 19TH OCTOBER 2006

CHURCH ON SUNDAYS

2006-10-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

CHURCH ON SUNDAYS

The din of bells is beckoning and heard throughout the shire
So Prim, prestigious Mothers flock to Sunday morning church
Whilst gentle, warm and dignified in smile and attire
They feverishly evangelise of bringing back the birch.

(Well that’s as may be Mavis) dons a brand new floral frock
Then Hatty from the corn exchange is dowdy, peeved and flush
The smell of rain on pavement is a gentle, welcome shock
Though their vulgar, black stilettos are not used to being rushed.

But rush they will with voices shrill to have their peers approve
Although the downpour dowses them their sanctuary waits near
With sickly, camp sobriety and pigeon chested piety
The theocrat gesticulates that all are welcome here.

The shuffling and the tilted hats, the handshakes and the pride
Are orchestrated by the reed organ’s deep and vibrant hum
Whose ancient, inane melody lure all into the lair
By accessing their reverie of guilt and fear of fun.

The rigid wooden settles face the humble learned man
As stained glass Saints froze still absorb the reading for the day
The ‘Gloating golf club social ladder’audience applaud
As the ‘Gloating golf club social ladder’ speaker as his say.

And all that’s good in scripture and that wills we love our neighbour
Is nodded and approved of by all present it appears
But all on the condition that it meets with their tradition
For otherwise its teaching seems to fall upon deaf ears.

But with those dull red tarnished leather hymn books up they stand
To sing for their salvation and their dreamed of promised land
Quite apt the service ends in a procession from the doors
Of prim, prestigious mothers out into the dank mid morn

TIM SANSOM AUTUMN 1998.

STAN

2006-10-13T06:08:00.000-07:00

STAN

His unkempt inky raven coat
His shy rheumatic trudge
His gentle knowing chocolate eyes
His, heat, his breath, his touch.

His snowy mouth, his wet jet snout
His regal solemn moods
His reticence, his earthy stench
His tranquil attitudes

His one side worn uneven claws
His standing still and blocking doors
His filthy teeth, his air of peace
His love of being yours.

His caper and his booming woof
His vestiges of youthful play
His nasal prompts for tactile warmth
The world ordains can no more stay.

Not recondite essentially
Was he without a voice
And in my mind and heart shall stay
Man’s best friend and best choice.

TIM SANSOM WINTER 2000

THE BUZZARD AND THE CHEVROLET

2006-10-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

THE BUZZARD AND THE CHEVROLET

Before this desert cooled she must have scorched the feet of beasts
And drove God’s creatures underground from Phoebus’s cruel eyes
If others she had sent to live in exile neath the rocks
Then others wisdom filled ascended up into the skies.

The hand of time has simmered her though she still beats with fire
For those who’ve tried to conquer her, the buzzard knows their bones
She spread that yellow skirt of hers upon the fertile earth
To find mercy within her is to squeeze the blood from stones.

The demon, dead eyed, tombstone buzzard sights a distant dot
All shimmering in petroleum haze, all parched and cooked and bashed
The long chalk line up which it climbs is just as feeble as
Itself, the 57 Chevrolet about to crash

Its dusty bonnet concertinas at a road side rock
That belts the smoke of its grill with such a sudden stop
Its radiator hisses like a cobra’s dying gasp
Its days of poppy red and gleaming chrome have breathed their last

No more “Jim Bob” white wore tires or cruising down on fifth
No more high school sweetheart dates or back seat “Making out”
No more playing chicken by the “Drive in” near the cliff
The buzzard circles closer as the driver staggers out.

He stands then reels and falters and then falls as if to pray
Kneeling in the glistening kiln he parts with light of day
His full and heavy head of hair lays point Blanc in the sand
His very last expression is a spasm in his hand.

She glides and stares with scrutiny at he her feast and find
Majestic, regal, enigmatic, stream line shaped she dives
And hacks into the cooking corpse for now its time to dine
The buzzard and the Chevrolet’s fait now have been entwined.

TIM SANSOM APRIL 1999

SUN UP

2006-10-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

SUN UP

Sun up dealt out five emotions neatly
One for you and one for me the same
I picked the first card deftly and discretely
I saw that it was joy and knew the game

My second card was jealousy in buttons
The eyes upon the knave were piercing green
I learned this was unshakable and cutting
As my opponent played the diamond queen

Sundown saw him show his harboured feelings
Like a fan he spread a peacock flush
Numbness wrath and dumbness faced the ceiling
No one drew a blade or spoiled the hush

Then I laid the maiden of confusion
She wore crimson silk and faced away
All at once we knew shame was illusion
And sunrise gave us yet another day.

TIM SANSOM 10TH OCTOBER 2006

OPEN SAILING

2006-08-17T04:46:00.000-07:00

OPEN SAILING

Down a different ice shoot is a new uncertain fait
The unknown is alarming but I’ll dive
For one thing is for certain and that’s here I will stagnate
If I don’t take this risk I won’t survive.

These are the cognitions of a brain that knows attrition
The unknown is inclement but I’ll try
Doubtless if I stay I will decay and grow deficient
My ambitions and purposes will die

Grit my teeth and clench my fists and board the ice shoot’s lip
Throw my jolly bodyweight to slide
Feel the fear of failing meet the joy of open sailing
And let the laws of chaos be my guide.

TIM SANSOM 3RD FEBRUARY 2006

ONE MAN

2006-08-17T04:45:00.000-07:00

ONE MAN

One man’s meat and all that stew
One man’s fixed perception
One man’s voice and point of view
Is one man’s self deception

He starves isolated from
Fruits of foreign schools of thought
Does he know what’s going on?
Life’s so short so very short!

Becker’s norms and culture’s forms
Etiquettes cross time and place
Daily rains her stick of bombs
Screaming “Nothing’s commonplace!!”

One man’s flavour, taste and cut
His choice and his persuasions
Leave another unmoved but
Bad taste tries one’s patience!

TIM SANSOM 27TH MARCH 2006

THE CHIMNEY RIDDEN ROWS

2006-08-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

THE CHIMNEY RIDDEN ROWS

The chimney ridden rows are watchtowers for the crows
And cages for the factory girls who serve their old men toast
Who use it as a dunking biscuit, puts their minds in play
Prepares them for the day, a right repulsive ritual I’d say

Still where they’re poor they’re characters and my nose ain’t turned up none
And I’m looking at the laundry wondering how it all gets done
Should props ever be absent it would make it all hang low
Along with mugs it conjures up a sweet suburban glow

We’ll all drown our sorrows and punch out some old tunes
On the old honky-tonk that’s ale stained through and through
There’s no one here ain’t welcome and don’t it chill your spine
To crash your sweed after a feed and court a wench like mine?

The smog of industry played knickknack on their knees
A clocking in card chemistry that stinks like gone off cheese
But I’ve no bone to pick; I know what makes them tick
And if I paid it lip service you’d probably be sick

But where they’re sheep they’re just asleep and I’ve worn wool at times
So who am I to chuckle at their sacred Auld Lang sines?
There’s work shirts on the hangers in the wardrobes in the rooms
Out of the reach of infants who’ll be wearing them soon

We’ll all drown our sorrows and punch out some old tunes
On the old honky-tonk that’s ale stained through and through
There’s no one here aint welcome and don’t it chill your spine
To crash your sweed after a feed and court a wench like mine?

Amongst a mush of soaps transmitting similar folks
Take note a select variety of accents from Land’s end to Jon O Groats
They’re bulletins of who are nagging bloody who
For bread and butter reasons that drinks wit out of me and you
But this type of complaint you’ve heard a trillion times before
And who am I to poke this festering old hat through your door?
You’re probably happy in your ways far less complex than me
As long as your aware your three score years and ten are sweet

Then you can all drown your sorrows and punch out some old tunes
On the old honky-tonk that’s ale stained through and through
There’s no one here ain’t welcome and don’t it chill your spine to crash your sweed after a feed and court a wench like mine?

TIM SANSOM SPRING 1986

THE CHASE

2006-08-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

THE CHASE

A gent and a scholar vexed by injustice
Took to seek vengeance and saddled his stallion
His blunderbuss seething to vomit its pellets
Deep into the crown of his once close companion.

For traitors must learn and traitors must burn
And this mood soaked his brains as his wrath gripped the reigns
He cantered and cantered, he galloped and galloped
But fatigue stunned his vigour and forty winks happened.

The next day was likewise, the next and the next
His venom was wearing, his luck wasn’t blessed
The very first signs of forgiveness were breathing
He tried to ignore them but second thoughts seized him
He trotted back home in his now drowsy calm
And let it be said he was tamed.

TIM SANSOM SUMMER 1985

MODERNITY

2006-08-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

MODERNITY

Each tooth and each talon, each tentacle’s sting
Brought to us through homogeneity’s cloud
Have made us forget why we dance laugh and sing
Instead we are boastful prestigious and proud.

For all things homogenous is today’s way
Respect and resolve have been damned to dissolve
The prophets weren’t scheming the scriptures are screaming
Us meaningless primates could not have evolved

But the barely clad babes of this insipid age
With their texting and sexing and shopping at Next sins
Present to have brains just like vacuous caves
As all skills are ignored to applaud new effects in

TIM SANSOM 1ST AUGUST 2006

HYPNOTIC

2006-08-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

HYPNOTIC

Ageless, a regular man looks above to his ceiling
Cracking in atlas like rivers he thinks of his rent
He can’t quite grab that all colours each have kindred feelings
He tastes the temporary flavour one tastes in a tent

Kopecks and Roubles alike live no more in his vase
Promptly the thin flaked door will be knocked thrice every week
Three floors below out his window he watches the cars
Droning along with no purpose of which no one speaks.

Walking is good angels talk to such men someone said
Pass London’s juggled designs and its epochs of brick
Some are still smothered with new tacky posters not shed
Others are big banks and regal stone pillars feet thick

All have an air of belonging more apt in their pasts
All glow with greys and a most austere solitary shade
How many times must the Edgware road find a new mask?
How many changes of clothes before Notting Hill fades?

Here flock the homeless from Cardiff and Glasgow in quest
Looking for work or miscellaneous ways to be saved
How many more coats of paint before Chelsea’s at rest?
What next for Whitechapel till she’s permitted her grave?

TIM SANSOM 14TH AUGUST 2006

GOD

2006-08-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

GOD

Life prompts us to consider death
The erudite, the ignorant
He granted us our thoughts, our breath
Being no less than omnipotent.

From clay he sculpted us to form
To gaze the stars and chalk on slate
From mud to blood he made us warm
To trust, to doubt, to vacillate.

As cousins, friends and Fathers pass
Emphatic chimes strike those bereaved
Saying no buffoon or sage will last
To hoodwink his mortality.

A panoply of dreads and dreams
Which filled the heads of virile youths
Are now mere sighs of shinning ghosts
Who watch the living bend their truths.

Death prompts us to consider life
The affluent, the indigent
He limited our strength, our sight
Being no less than omniscient.

TIM SANSOM AUTUMN 1998

BEARDED WEATHERED MEN

2006-08-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

BEARDED JADED WEATHERED MEN

Vagrant bearded jaded men
Your theme first sours and saddens me
Why do your refuse antics then
Emancipate and gladden thee?

Your skin is smoked and yellowing
It wraps around your gnarled slight noses
“A sovereign Sir?” begged bellowing
Another pale chapter closes.

Do you choose your Skid Row Blues?
You puppets of demonic rule
Are bearded jaded weathered men
Bow’s Feverish dishevelled fools?

You don’t approve of artisans!
Librarians or toiling knaves
Indifferent from where art descends!
Your hands are held out till the grave.

So lead us down your garden paths
Eat all our figs, don’t clean the dish
But if mad as March hares you are
I’ll close my eyes and make a wish.

TIM SANSOM 23RD JULY 2006

THE IMPULSE TO TELL YOU

2006-08-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

THE IMPULSE TO TELL YOU

The impulse to impart to you the advances of science
And knowing you would be impressed to watch that progress ride
Still ignites within me an involuntary defiance
To accept or comprehend in truth that you have died.

Since you’ve altered form an angry storm of change has rained
Appliances evolve along pale paths which bend and wind
Not in those directions where by innovation’s gained
But rather aimed at produce made aesthetically refined

The day you bought that “Blue Spot” radio for aunty Elma
Was explained to me in Neath Hill’s yard by Billy Wright
The impulse to sit on your lap and kiss your neck and tell ya
Like the many ways I miss you Dad will never wane in light.

TIM SANSOM 23RD JULY 2006

WHAT IS A JOHN?

2006-08-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS A JOHN?

It does indeed go on
I thought the game was up
I have no rational
I’m kept alive by luck.

I’m rich in intellect?
It isn’t worth a groat
I’m starved of common sense
No wisdom shapes my vote

What is a Gary then?
And why do themes exist?
It does indeed go on
Think hard, what is a kiss?

Will you still walk with me?
If I confess to you
I love America
Its ill press makes me spew.

I don’t quite understand
How expletives maintain
Their power, edge and stab
Used so much this should wane.

TIM SANSOM 8TH JULY 2006

DIAMOND OF FIRE

2006-08-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

DIAMOND OF FIRE

The plague in the kitchen was all in a frenzy
The maids with their rolling pins said
The black rats we’ve clobbered just won’t see the cupboard
Kosher for blue cheese and bread.

And what will the Dukes and the Duchesses say
When they glimpse at the scullery tiles?
Why, they’ll draw out their canes and rasp out our brains
Then old hags will cackle for miles.

Now a man with his chin wedged on his violin
With red hair and boots hung with bells
Came to the home in all aspects of love
Swirling around in a drowse.

He said “I’ll play a tune that’ll perish disease
And rid you of all of your woe.
First throw a ruby deep into my purse
Make a wish then tie the bow”.

Well now Glyness the head of the chefs and the gofers
Explained of their absence of wealth
Said he “Seeing I’m handsome and seeing I’m tragic
I’ll stun the blighters for nought!”

He glimpsed to the left and he peered to the right
With his bow resting calm on his strings
And everyone stared through a strange anxious air
It was just one of those things.

Out came a tune that the pied piper new
T’was melancholy and inane
But know rodent heart ever beat in the dark
In that curious dungeon again.

“Are you a demon Sir? Are you from Hamlin?
Are you a miracle born?”
“No I’m the spirit of good deed and merit
Summon me when you’re forlorn”

Well the months passed away and a dozen in all
Had gone but the harvest bloomed not
Bellies got thin, frowns replaced grins
Duchesses, Dukes, maids, the lot!

“We must make call for our harlequin now
Else death will knock on the door”
So in a chant, wailing with faith
They made their plea with before.

And just as a flower’s head pokes through the snow
As indeed just as the first hint of spring begs to show
He reappeared with a brandy shot glow
Asking “What are your troubles this time?”

“Well this time we fear that our plates are but bare
Play that our lives may sustain”
“First throw an emerald into my purse
And I’ll flower magic again”

He glimpsed at the rafters and measured their hopes
With his bow resting calm on his strings
And everyone wondered as outside it thundered
For a storm had brewed up in the winds.

Beef, ham and chicken, salad and pickles came and then drink followed suit
There was wine for the lovers and wine for the moaners
And wine for the tellers of tails. Who asked he might stay
To avoid the harsh rain and sleep off his excess of ale.

No but he vanished there into a goblet
And just before doing so said
Call me again for the third and last time
When you’re near something you dread.

One large array of harmonious thanks
Rang round the room and was meant
Glyness was rotten drunk out in the kitchen
Sick stomach plus pounding head.

You know, she’d got to thinking that on their third meeting
Her and the spirit should talk. She wanted to tell him how sorry they were
For not having stones they could give him.
Then after her statement she’d quiz if repayment had any place in mortal living!

Well soon came the need for this hat trick of deeds
When old Duke jemima crashed of his steed
He was lying there close to the grim reaper’s grip
Cursing and bleeding with stiff upper lip.

Damsels despaired and the sentiment shared
Itself with in-laws and friends
Whom there of decided to play their third ace
And they called for the spirit again

Fait’s wheel was steered and as promised appeared
In his fiery red waistcoat and cane
That broke in the middle and became his fiddle
He asked how he could be their gain.

“Well look where today has our fair Duke Jemima
He’s broken and bloody and torn
And the nag that has bucked him has run to the stables
So many loved ones will mourn!

So slither the hairs of the hog cross your strings
And give him the breath he deserves”
Harlequin, vision, magician musician
Stepped forth and these were his words.

The plague in the kitchen was all in your power
To remedy without my help
You had the guineas and you had the silver
And yet your poor staff wants for wealth.

The same as the day that you hungered for food
He had you believe there was none
But all of the gentry ate like the Monarch
Whilst Glyness and co sucked their thumbs

So far but the kindest thing I could do do now
Is to let this old man pass away
For knowing you people so bruised with corruption
You then will trial him your way
And not for an emerald, and nor for a ruby and not for a diamond of fire
Will I stoop low to Jimias low levels to inflict a crisis so dire!

TIM SANSOM MARCH 1990 C.A.V LUCAS ACTON LONDON

THE WOODS

2006-08-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

THE WOODS

The gilded trim of the linnet’s wing
Splay tapered to her feathered form
Whose delicate maths sway and swing
Each blissful breeze, each trying storm

Dawn’s warbling sweet cacophonies
Calm gently amidst glistening dew
Earth’s rhythmic fulfilled prophecies
So regularly ensure they do

Those shrieks and tweets from dense wet woods
Play sweet and real trustworthy scales
A music not puffed up but good
Our spinning sphere recounts her tales

Capillaries of unmarred streams
Like slim deft digits reach and spread
Descending dales, steps and steins
To quench life’s thirst and cleanse her dead

Our forbears knew the trees I’m told
No map nor compass was required
They read on bark the sap and mould
It told of rainfall, routes and time

Moist worms recoil from two for joy
With six for gold scarce next to us
Above behold each girl and boy
Our swallow’s airborne exodus!

Each morning cracks with leaps of light
Awaking mice, sedating owls
Then stirs of warmth replace the night
As black shapes change to grazing cows

And deep into the covert woods
Each fable dances with each myth
No soul can claim “They are no good!”
Nor that the Goblins do not live.

TIM SANSOM 25TH JUNE 2006

THIS IS MY SPADE

2006-08-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

THIS IS MY SPADE

This is my spade
It digs up dung
This is my blade
But I don’t get cross

This is my pace
It sees me through
My dear father’s face
Seldom got cross

I learned breast stroke fear
In unpleasing gradients
I learned that man’s sin
Can not be defined

My cousin toques Bensons
He splutters and bleeds
He gasps bursting veins
He is filling a need

A vast awesome need
An abyss of black need

This is my spine
It’s long thin and frail
It too is unpleasing
Like shirts not tucked in

That need to be neat
Is furious to eat
My towering form
Has fazed me to fall
I’d do allsorts me
If I had the balls

I look at cute girls
I crave their soft rump
I yearn for the warmth
Of all of their bumps

But they seem obsessed
With fifty k jobs
And thin swarthy Alans
Who’ll make them secure and feel snug in modernity’s winters!!!
The knobs!

TIM SANSOM 26TH JUNE 2006

WHAT WOULD SHE SAY?

2006-08-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

WHAT WOULD SHE SAY?

What would she say if she saw you like this as the gully flood tincture rinse moistens your mud?
No trim chiseled why? and no trim chiseled how? like dense wool cross her eyes could disguise bad as good!
Roasting your knowing with pale ghastly guesses she’d swiftly condemn and thus recommend mirth
Nursing those butterfly bolts in your belly with cherubic aura she’d ballet your worth.

Wet with the smother and trickle of birdsong our Church field road watches her buy you that ball!
Squeaky and bouncing in bright aqua turquoise the bond so unblemished of halcyon fall
Selfless she shone through a fine fork of light to the nerve in your waking which lets kindness breathe She’d call you defeatist with humorous expletives and in her embrace and her face you’d believe.

And what would she say to your uncertain gaze ? As it frets and fragments in analysis doom
Think how affirmed you would feel by her words as with mauves and with pinks she would brighten the room!

Feel the fulfilment to share like her silvery hair it’s a good sort of smile it forgives!
This anaesthesia can help you stop sobbing and tone down the drama and get on and live!

TIM SANSOM 6TH APRIL2005

WHAT THE MATTER IS

2006-08-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

WHAT THE MATTER IS

I am a fool and a buffoon
I am fickle and inconsistent
I never follow my plans through with conviction
I am not the real McCoy
I am insecure
I am ugly
I am a cretin
My attempts to emulate my heroes are embarrassing and unbecoming
I am a laughing stock
I am a coward
I am obedient
I am naïve
I am predictable
I am a nuisance
I am plastic
I am weak spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically
I fear everything
I am unshakably negative
I am forever browbeaten
I do not overcome any chrysies
I can not look people in the eyes
I am wasting time
I am unrealistic
I am pathos itself
I am vomit
I am excretion
The world’s objective is to kill me
And it will
And all it’s inhabitants will be the eager audience and deservedly so
I shall perish before them for their leisure
I abandon my most sacred principles
And I do so to keep the peace with those who perpetrate humbug
I contradict myself
I smell rancid
So offensive that people wretch in my presence
And I am as good and as worthy as any man who ever lived.

Tim Sansom April 1990

WHAT DOES WHAT MEAN?

2006-08-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

WHAT DOES WHAT MEAN?

Why is the twilight sky peppered with stars? What is their purpose and place?
Argue and think and ache finding a link or write sixty six books to placate
When time began did the small or large hand tick first and ignite the blast ?
Do failed attempts to find answers descend from the nature of questions we ask?

What is a reason when each needs another one? what mathematics are these?
How can an origin be absolute ? What does what mean to the trees?
Why does the graceful swift swoop dive and loop ? Why do we cry and make art?
Do failed attempts to find answers descend from the nature of questions we ask?

Tim Sansom 19th april 2005

TO A DEAR FRIEND

2006-08-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

TO A DEAR FRIEND

You don’t get off this nauseas and bewildering carousel
For in the small print chirping birds and azure skies state thus
You don’t think man has courage do you ? He invented hell !!
He builds houses , kids and spouses based on boast and lust !!

Let the Bens and Martins take their fraudulent ascent
Allow them the belief they’re in the herd of righteousness
And when they call you leper and pariah sigh with bliss
Knowing that their spite is born from fear and emptiness

Tell me what is freedom? And who should intern who?
Neither years nor miles can decide it would appear
For what is democratic about lasting points of view ?
Must our mirth take form and birth from other’s gloom and tears?

If a soul walks luckless lost for tutorage of worth
Where can expectation wait for him to know his slot?
Take from me this crisp white dawn a well wishing rebirth
Let us set your new found trek and watch self loathing rot!!

And then when next you agonise in claustrophobic shame
Of what you are or want to be or test the tides to know
Remember on your epitaph will only read your name
Those azure skies and chirping birds are yours not peers to own.

Tim Sansom 22nd Feburary 2005

THE TINY STAR

2006-08-11T13:29:00.000-07:00

THE TINY STAR

The place that sun confines us to
Is pure dependency
And in our hearts we know it’s God he lets us play dumb endlessly
And always overcast clouds smear
And make our doleful role
We crave it’s crude divinity it’s awe sustains our souls.

TIM SANSOM 13TH APRIL 2005

THE TEXTURE OF LUCK

2006-08-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

THE TEXTURE OF LUCK

The wet blue world blessed me with tallboys of toys
While upon it’s skewed axis it playfully spun
And a holy tumultuous love nourished me
As it poured from the hearts of the stars I came from

Not distant suns sparkling as Bare or as Plough
But rather a man and his bride joined as one
They twinkled love’s light as they each kissed my brow
Giving permanent strength to the man I’d become

Yes an undying sense of self worth I could draw from
They knowingly shaped and installed in my base
That I might endure what hard times had in store
That I could look unshaken into pains face

The texture of luck for the most can’t be felt
Yet dealt ninety three million miles shines she
Knowing ninety two million we’d roast to oblivion
And if ninety four doubtless likewise we’d freeze

Could that have been moulded with anvil and vision?
Was distance and scale placed by deity’s hands?
Or is it a meaningless drifting occurrence
Exacting the climate which meets life’s demands?

The moist blue earth gave me a warm blooded angel
She is my light and my book and my trek
I will aspire round our orbit of fire
To never forget that fine texture’s effect.

Tim Sansom 5th march 2005

THE REASON

2006-08-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

THE REASON

Why do you show mercy and compassion?
Is it to insure you ‘ll get the same?
Do you see yourself in those you pity?
And is it you who figures in their pain?

Do you aid those suffering for investment?
Why are you disturbed when others cry?
Would you want to free them from their heartbreak
If you’d never felt what it was like?

What is love and charity and kindness?
How is it that virtue came to be?
I believe that love lifts all such blindness
When in truth we serve our neighbor’s needs

TIM SANSOM 18TH APRIL 2005

THE HOODWINKED

2006-08-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

THE HOODWINKED

“Happy slapping” “Jackass” viewers
Video from mobile phones
They themselves as evil doers
For a media of their own

Each take turns to punch and kick
Those defenceless frail and weak
Marketing scenes warped and sick
Is their humour, pride and feat

In their droves and in their teens
They laugh at values of our past
Morals smashed to smithereens
Warmth and mercy waning fast

Tribulation rising up
Policemen disempowered and mocked
Neighbours know not who to trust
Windows shut and front doors locked

“Happy slapping” hoodwinked youth
Bought the whole fraud didn’t they?
What though when they see the truth?
Will that be on judgement day?

TIM SANSOM 21ST MAY 2005

THE GIBBON

2006-08-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

THE GIBBON

The Gibbon pounds the skin
Of the hypocrite he’s in
And he does so from within and through his tears

With heel and toe and prance
He dances out his dance
And imitates the safety of his peers

His honesty and love
Thump out in padded gloves
But don’t surface to his dermas it appears

He plays a cultured flute
But underneath his suit
He merely defecates and masturbates and jeers

Tim Sansom 16th march 2005

SEASONS

2006-08-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

SEASONS

Solstices and changing seasons
Prey upon our means to reason
By showing up a vast collective
Of paradoxical perspectives

We’re forced to hibernate for moons
In short day dank bed sit cocoons
With thinning memories of the sun
Like spores we bare the stretch till done

But passed springs and mutating seasons
Stretch beyond a literal meaning
Broadening in definition
Into themes of man’s condition

He looks toward the west and sees
Brigands who’d bludgeon all that’s east
So he prepares his swords to slash
Then finds his species is earth’s rash

He turns to books and cups of tea
And understands humility,
But soon as change directs new tides
He knows in truth we must take sides

If not, as neutrals we will fall
As sickening enemies to all
Do solstices and changing seasons
Necessitate our joining legions ?

TIM SANSOM 9TH APRIL 2005

SCRABBLE IN AGRA

2006-08-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

SCRABBLE IN AGRA ( For Jackie)

The hotel in Agra had grey jaded lockers
Stacked up in the dark indoor heat
As ceiling propellers through power cuts slowed
we instantly sweat soaked our sheets

If one can lower their own expectations
And live with what circumstance brings
Then you will have happiness said the graffiti
Penned as a proverb it seems

It sounded so Indian and humble and ancient
And so philosophically sound
And it’s hint of the virtue in keeping one’s patients
When one is oppressed was profound

The rock apes and rickshaws danced light through my slumbers
And our travel scrabble was played
And present so sweet became past so unique
And we left love forever and changed.

TIM SANSOM 18TH MAY 2005

RUN FROM THORPLANDS WOOD

2006-08-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

RUN FROM THORPLANDS WOOD

A clearing too deep in the woods and with my youth I sprinted through thistles and branch
My zest then so vital had saved me despite all the glistening talons of chance
The overspill project surrounding this forest enticed me and “Ginger John” in
Potential assailants in odd unctuous gradients came closer both radiant of sin

Decisive that each ticking second now reckoned upon my longevity’s fate
With primeval fright I turned and took flight and for “Ginger John” I did not wait
With shamed introspection I saw my protection meant more to me than did my friend
Our strong mutual loyalties meant as a boy to me much but not more than my end

When I reached the path by the lake I looked back as I fought to feel air on my lungs
Bent with hands on knees I gazed through the trees I was wheezing and panting and stunned
In stupefied stages I noticed that grazes and blood were in flood on my arms
This marked how much fear had propelled me to seer through the growth so as to escape harm

And my apex of guilt with a miniscule tilt would plough sea sawing down to dark depths
As my memory replayed the decision I made on that day and the ethics it kept
For events such as these shape the image we see of ourselves and sustain unless changed
And with wide doughy eyes we’re convinced of the lies that we tell ourselves at that young age

TIM SANSOM 13TH MAY 2005

RUDIMENTS

2006-08-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

Rudiments

The geezers midst the dewy tares spewed bilious tin from lower earth
And mutating to bubbling pus next curdled thick to ferment us
Us backboned and corrosive force amphibious for a transient pause
Went barmy high and rose to choice found art and worship , mirth and voice

We leaped up to the higher being with seminal immediacy
The fossils found betray this age as clear unprecedented change
No sooner than the chink of flint this wave a change was imminent
We painted caves , Adorned stone graves , and reckoned upon deities.

But I say of this rise to guile , what forces of Darwinian trial?
Would cultivate an appetite , to learn ,make art and celebrate?
What habitat necessitates ? Or what process eliminates ?
To shape with time an ape who drives to realise dreams he’s visualised?

Tim Sansom 19 12 2004

ROPE BLISTERS

2006-08-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

ROPE BLISTERS

Seasons in the seasons don’t forget the walk to school
The ankle depth of leaves on Birbeck Road
Sweet euphoria in the reverie of Panacos and Beverly
Like transient deafness as one’s nose is ‘blowed’

The magic of the cul-de-sac at Essex Road’s far end
The fact its towering nettles were untended
Hear Ruby ranting barking mad and Vincent shouting “Timmy’s Dad”
A myriad of darkening moons transcended

Those infant contemplations of what Horn Lane may have looked like
Imagining Messa’s shop before my birth
To speculate of previous lives and know nostalgia by age five
Was paradoxically both gift and curse

Cleo Wayne and Hillary could just not tame their Christopher
The reckless kid was driven by the id
That Callahan was ignorant or Cheryl Powell pompous
Just added to the tapestry it did

Best mate’s little sisters as with skipping ropes and blisters
Filled the air before the go cart age took form
While flying saucer gun fights taking cover by the Zephyr
Made our sibling kinship closer and more warm.

Aged nine the epoch ended though it had been an eternity
We took flight from decaying London’s mess
To move into a greener town where traffic wouldn’t knock me down
And get to know the world of what came next.

TIM SANSOM DECEMBER 2004

THE PRIMARY MEADOWS

2006-08-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

THE PRIMARY MEADOWS

What began as the axis to all else
Endures as universal base
And all peripheral orbit junk
Will not attain that first formed face

Dad buys a bike you begged him to
Before an obscene life of toys
The later drown in futile sludge
The forma shaped the bolshie boy

You heard the old school bar flies warn
That luxury corrodes the soul
Then rationing sank into the age
Which spewed back poems and rock n roll

The teenager Teds gestated fast
Inside the wombs neath air raid blasts
With dappa garb their statement cried
That church and chores had aged and died

Their bad backed braces warring dads
Who wielded belts and swished thin dowel
In view of massive social change
Tried halting this but knew not how

They were no less than stupefied
That youth evolved it’s own found tribe
Unknown to aunts and police and nuns
With views and dreams which favoured fun

A fun that schoolmasters condemned
And threatened earned us ceaseless fire
Saying joy and mirth are void of worth
Who thrashed you for unkempt attire

But this is old hat post war pulp
It’s all been said and with more skill
And just as Zimmerman observes
Not ever will life’s change stand still

So values that we’ve toiled to learn
Like old, decay, abate or burn
And new and shocking taboo talk
Is just as dead as Lamberth walk
(SANG) Doing the Lamberth walk…..Hey! Doing the Lamberth walk.

TIM SANSOM 12TH april 2005

ON THE PERCULIAR JOURNEY

2006-08-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

ON THE PECULIAR JOURNEY

You looked at the birds and considered the sky, then in thick pensive torpor walked further a while
You came to the jetties, the brooks and the dales, drawing breath in upon setting further assail
You anchored then camped and rambled fresh lands, with rigor of sinews and vital clenched hands
You gave the horizon’s look, feel and form significant gaze and attentive free thought.
On your (Past present future) trek.
The place we mature.

You walked undetected a specter and learned, the cyclical feuds of the busying herds
You saw their damnations, their rubble and jibe; you heard contradictory accounts of their lives
When you were weary you drank from the streams that lead to the sea of their hopes and their dreams
You looked at the birds to rethink and reflect and hankered and yearned for a sage to elect
On your (Past present future) trek
The place we decay

Like gone apparitions which show Scrooge and we the people we’ve been and are likely to be
The lessons and patterns, the follies and falls of man’s finite moves time reveals to us all
You sat in the meadows and watched the sun sink, golden enough to make atheists think
But nearing your verdict resurfaced your doubt, when the agony cries of the wars bellowed out
On your (Past present future) trek
The place where we give.

Your saw your potential, your strengths and at length, came to believe that you knew what love meant
And unlike all others your own was no fraud, so you took her hand for the eyes of Our Lord
And neither your bride nor yourself were to blame for those raining blows struck by modernity’s cane
That sliced wheels and wounds till your unison waned and all your attempts to mend hurt added rage
On your (past present future) trek
The place where we take

You watch with alarm the new podiums of greed, in mass produced crass with stealth it feigns need
You’re dry and reserved when you count the reforms with your diffident look and your delicate form And on your peculiar journey you rest, you stand neath an ash and you pause to reflect
And you see that the infant’s simplicity wins and conquers complexity’s chaotic whims
On your (Past present future) trek
The place of our joy

You brave through the brush and the uncharted hush now advancing in years growing mellow as such
The circles are thin where the details dig in but you can not deny there are always fresh things
And you get to suppose your arithmetic owes you a new explanation for missing your goals
The beautiful horrible good and bad road begins with wax crayons then promptly explodes
On your (Past present future) trek
The place of our pain

TIM SANSOM 17TH MAY 2005

MOTHER

2006-08-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

MOTHER

So farewell has arrived bringing its stench of disbelief
You’ve joined the sea of quiet and unknowing
An unforeseen serenity has overwhelmed my grief
I feel no change nor end to your love glowing

The whole point about what you were makes death seem trite and lame
The whole point about what we shared has vanquished worthy heartbreak
Like the many you saw good in mans unceasing furtherance
Like the few you saw much more in embraces and handshakes

Grateful am I that your essence shines beyond your passing
I know what your rhetoric would hasten to convey
Were you interactive still within this transient movie
May I say you played your part more sweet than light of day

Tim Sansom 1 oct 2004

MASTERS

2006-08-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

MASTERS

If all born thoughts depend upon a common life of limits
Then there are finite permutations of original ideas
And so if those notions from the most eccentric bent and business
Were always destined to be with us then we’re powerless to steer

We are at the whim and mercy of the rods and vaults of Godless fait
We seer in random tangents as an acorn newly born
Lifted from the green lands safe from rubbing ,buckling plates
High within the eye of each unplanned tempestuous storm

“Masters of our destiny” some say of we whilst others
Visualise our spilling lives in snaking veins and runs
Trailing off and forking and chaotic pattern forming
In a meaninglessness tantamount to mustard gas and guns

But if the innovators and the torchbearers can mould
Techniques of a new dawn in unprecedented shape
If indeed they walk unchained from failed reforms of auld
Then history’s pendulum might be persuaded to gyrate

The punitive and liberal could then cease exchanging blows
As while circular and virginal the witches hat might turn
Slow enough to see and even learn and better know
A compromise that our tried past’s swift caprices won’t learn

We must believe that we can make a difference as we hurt
Our contemplative styles must be as thumbprints never duelled
We can not be a branded and homogenous exert
In a manufactured novel called the story of the world.

Tim Sansom 20 03 2005

KNEE HIGH TO A RECORD PLAYER

2006-08-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

KNEE HIGH TO A RECORD PLAYER

The Blaupunkt’s cresent mirrored room
With buttons punched for champagne glasses
I’d supposed the fifties knew
Oh how time passes, how time passes

It filled One Essex’s front room
With Holst’s harsh strings and Robson’s boom
Its crotchets and its minims shone
Into the adult I’ve become

I scared its skin with “Matchbox” steel
This was but curiosity
In over arm thrown fractious zeal
There was no animosity

With half a dozen forty fives
Impaled upon its spindle
The plastic trim grey el shaped arm
Ensured they were assembled

And just the same new ground type thrill
When lifted by your Mum
To post your first epistle
I switched that Blaupunkt on

My itching infant index finger
Pulled that black switch back
To watch this automated toy
Select my chosen track

The bottom disc then dropped and hissed
With turntable now spinning
The stylus and the vinyl kissed
And Bolan started singing

TIM SANSOM 19TH MAY 2005

HOW IT HOLDS

2006-08-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

HOW IT HOLDS

I feel most unsettled in disbelief’s arms
That I can continually exist in this peace
That time and place shields me from hurt and from harm
That circumstance clothes me and feeds me a feast

The rare blissful hand chance has dealt me I play
And once played it deals me another the same
I’m often concerned that it feels so unearned
When considering how many are sat in this game

Sometimes it ticks with implausible rhythm
All this utopian bubble of calm
By famine I’m pardoned by wars I’m forgiven
Deaf to the din of upheaval’s alarm

Dreamlike I quiz how it all holds together
But as I look closer a shape forms I find
That perhaps all this paradise isn’t so clever
For what it affords makes us totally blind

TIM SANSOM 4TH MARCH 2005

CORNISH RECALL

2006-08-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

CORNSH RECALL

The windy rambling through those high hedged walls of Crantock passed
Upon That Headland smuggler’s spectres haunted West Pentire
My nostrils sea salt cold and infant soul would never last
The Seagull and the Bowgie too were destined to expire

An ageless sand pan grave of boats near Polythemus caves
Sat soured in redundancy ashamed of haggard oars
But blameless all the same with gentle rhythms bobbed the waves
As the trappings in the trawlers made their trade a dying cause

Glitzy gaudy fowl kitsch keepsakes ooze from quaint boutiques
Yet dignified and ghostly moors like Arthur’s legend shines
Nubile chicks point skyward tits each jiggling sun blocked pair unique
Oblivious of piracy, insensible of time

The bowels of earth neath Bodmin’s turf have lay lines in their lungs
Uncanny windmill meadows peer at plaintive grazing cows
What knowledge may have died with all those ancient Cornish tongues?
What magical authentic speech? What consonants? What sounds?

And high upon Tintagel ‘s course defiant steadfast stones
The view unfolds to Delabole while I battle with vertigo
The lunar driven lapping waves spew up eternal foam
Thrilled kids and soaking Labradors play paddling in it’s flow

I have to say of Camelot I’m giddy with accounts
I’m weary with the theories which do not cease to abound
I can’t construct a reckoning but have no single doubt
This is a land of magic and it seeps up through it’s ground

It’s air is charged with energy and recklessness and cheer
It’s long dead peg legged scallywags are very much still here
It’s glistening sable flinty rock proves drift from Brittany
It’s pirates often became born forced into mutiny

At eight years old a fortnight told me all about this place
We toured those shores pre seat belt law and loved being alive
The radio sang out “ Crackling Rose” and then “Sweet Caroline”
It may have been Joe’s moo cow car or Rover three point five

Last year we bought a salmon stake from staid and friendly Bude
Delicious foiled with herbs my son and friends dinned as sun fell
And all in all Cornish recall evokes a joyous mood
That chicken in the basket, I will always taste and smell.

Tim Sansom 24th feburary 2005

CONFORMITY

2006-08-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

CONFORMITY

As though I’m an authority
On that which makes good cinema
My shelves fill up pretentiously
Instead of tulips in a vase

With wafer finger’s subtlety
I want my friends to know there’s age
To passions clearly dear to me
I’ve made my room a showy stage

To this I’m mostly without guile
Believing doubtless of my books
Useful and pragmatic things
“Drinking cups we hang on hooks”

But then when I pause to reflect
I see the lies I sell myself
I see that what is paramount
Is folk getting what I’m about

Rebellion is conformity
The moment cause enjoys support
Possessions are futility
The moment they incite no thought

As though I’m an authority
Or multitudes more just like me
On boxing bouts or politics
Within the herd we walk and bleat

It’s not the greatest sin I know
To leap and point from what we’ve learned
It’s just so damned unwitting though
“one has one’s own mind” feels so earned

I don’t say I approve of this
I likewise fully warm to that
I take aboard or turn away
And fate gives us the “Cadillac”

Tim Sansom 11 feb 2005

BREATHE

2006-08-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

BREATHE

Breathe as the pawn
Taking good stock
Of sensibility
When in the dock

Learn as the Rook
Observe from the street
All which can not
Be gleamed from a book

Pounce as the Queen
Relish the kill
Apologise
For nothing you steel

Trust as the king
Cromwells and ites
Stealthy and cold
All men can smite

Tim Sansom 1996

BODMIN MOOR

2006-08-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

BODMIN MOOR

With dim and feeble glow of torch I stood alone on Bodmin Moor
Encompassed in night’s blackest hour life’s loneliest most foreign shore

The earthy odours slapped my sneer upon the winds that stirred the turf
The monster clouds were shuffling form concealing sight of moon from earth

With neither stone or bush to guide I stumbled in the nauseous void
My suppositions flowed with ease of me the coward and me the child

What loathsome and demonic ghoul might lurk and sweep the pounce and slay?
And how my screams would peel in vain and how my flesh would thus decay!

Quite unbeknown to all the swarm so snug within their well lit warm

I threw my garments to the soil and made myself a naked ape
My ancestors before me new through skin this taste of wind and dew

Then I remembered who was me lives and lives before the rush
I dropped my lantern as I run I saw the black I heard the hush

I felt the peace and relearned truth I shed my age and resumed youth
The solitude was absolute serenity of saints when mute

And just before the dawn arose the angel’s council vote and chose
That our almighty God above light up the moor with selfless love

TIM SANSOM SUMMER 1998

BEHIND THE CURTAINS

2006-08-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

BEHIND THE CURTAINS

Pale blue see through sun lit curtains never stop clocks ticking
In the street are decades, curbs and tar which they conceal
In the insight freed and lit up by one’s drowse, unwitting
Is a swoon that wants to know what is and is not real

I’m alive and pacing in my fraudulent routines
Clueless as to what it is I want or want to be
Ankle deep in stagnant and inert tinsel possessions
Hymns get sung and clocks tick on accept this and be free

Even now I still reach out to the switch that kitchen light on
When my fingers so recurring find it gone I feel
Just as though I’m trekking on an old familiar path
That veers around the curtains and the cross roads they conceal

TIM SANSOM 25th MAY 2005

ALL IS WELL

2006-08-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

ALL IS WELL

I think your sneer and viciousness is justified contempt
I think you self loathe so to shoulder burdens
Of neighbours feigning favours who unwitting and well meant
Thwart distract and miss your greatest purpose

For the loathing that’s been earned and is deserved attains no end
The Nazarene and then the gallant Indian they have said
I notice that the world does what it does and won’t relent
So put that guess that you’re to blame to bed

Yes lay to rest those heartache threads which wove your broken nest
But keep the reminiscence of the rapture even trite
And if those times were scarce and few then keep them all the more
And open up your eyes to the futility of fight

Look , we speak of providence but miss our story’s gist
That fait exists or no effects no change
For we live in a land in which we mutually understand
Enough and more of one another’s pain

Tim Sansom feb 28th 2005

A PAST PERSON

2006-08-11T07:06:00.000-07:00

A PAST PERSON

Seasons in the seasons don’t forget the walk to school
The ankle depth of leaves on Birbeck Road
Sweet euphoria in the reverie of Panacos and Beverly
Like transient deafness as one’s nose is “Blowed”

The magic of the cul de sac at Essex Road’s far end
The fact it’s towering nettles were untended
Hear Ruby ranting barking mad and Vincent shouting “Timmy’s Dad”
A myriad of darkening moons transcended

Those infant contemplations of what Horn Lane may have looked like
Imagining Messa’s shop before my birth
To speculate of previous lives and know nostalgia by age five
Was paradoxically both gift and curse

Cleo Wayne and Hillary could just not tame their Christopher
The reckless kid drove by the reckless id
That Callahan was ignorant or Cheryl Powell was pompous
Just added to the tapestry it did

Best mate’s little sisters as with skipping ropes and blisters
Filled the air before the go cart age took form
While flying saucer gun fights taking cover by the Zephyr
Made our sibling kinship closer and more warm.

Aged nine the epoch ended though it had been an eternity
We took flight from decaying London’s mess
To move into a greener town where traffic wouldn’t knock me down
And get to know the world of what came next.

I’m a present person if I’m crooning or conversing
I’m a future person when I dare to have a dream
But the Billy Thomas head butt has the sparkle of the fables
As the shopping trolleys poison all the streams

Tim Sansom 04 11 2004

WIRED

2006-08-11T07:03:00.000-07:00

WIRED

I’m stricken and blessed with a special unrest that pulses throughout my whole being
It drives me to pace and hyper orate and gives me my obsessive leaning
It seems whilst this twitching discomfort wont wane it cant be divorced from ambition
Inseparable too from my best points of view I’m loathed to curb where I’m efficient

Hypochondriacally , sleeplessly, feverish haunted by ceaseless cognition
I gaze at my shackles to all things foreboding on solitary nocturnal missions
Carbuncle trinkets and buttered toast mornings shade my corolla of dreams
Only when transient calm snuffs analysis long enough for my release

Wired to guile and distrust I walk out moved by the vast misty downs
Contemplative of the Artisans view of the blacksmiths view of our town
Random and inconsequential a pattern of sparrows peck crusts by the ford
Enjoying an unwitting absence of reason immersed in the present dear Lord.

22 09 04 Tim Sansom

ODDITIES AND THE LIKE

2006-08-11T05:46:00.000-07:00

ODDITIES AND THE LIKE

Here was a garden of clay pipes and trinkets
Copper colliding with mangles and mirth
Jooles’s kindness rare as Dickensian deliverances
Randomly distributed upon earth.

Send us your minims and crotchets we’re grateful
Want a black coffee? Just ask the fresh Karens
Just because they possess youth they’re not hateful
This town’s conservative! Not bleak and barren!

Troubadour Joe with his sparkling frets
Dancing his digits in patterns of rag
Croons John Hurt’s tunes through a tired cigarette
Cool as a Rolling Stone calm as a stag.

Then I’m on pirate dreams “My brown eyed boy”
Moving on swift so to sail favour’s tail
And placate punters with anthems of joy
I give to them what they know so they quaff ale

Public house, restaurant, antique shop, alley?
Here is a garden of peace and repose
Steeped with a keep of those yesterday ballets
Whose danced extinct pasts can’t play today’s shows.

Whether Fry’s chocolate metallic commercials
Voyeur the decades subliminal speeds
In such a way they can gage man’s changed church halls
Is mere conjecture but makes my heart bleed.

Every (De jeuner du Dimanche) Jooles yard Ian thanks
Buzzing through the scullery and unplugged here comes me
It’s good my cellulites didn’t tissue shrink my shanks
That may have just reduced me to a begging amputee

TIM SANSOM 29TH MAY 2006

WERE IT TO HAPPEN

2006-08-11T05:37:00.000-07:00

WERE IT TO HAPPEN

The presage of courting is far from an accurate hit
Of painting the shades and the colours of courtship’s event
For hopes as with dreads seldom bind to those threads we predict
But still we go on prophesizing our days yet unspent

Do you say that memory can give you the taste of ice cream?
Or is it required for us to taste ice cream again?
My gut intuition’s seduced by the latter it seems
The forma is merely a reference of what,where and when

Did you have fisticuffs with infant despots and rogues?
Ever that felt, looked or smelt like the brawl you rehearsed?
The landscapes near Flint and Detroit I had not presupposed
But Oak Park Chicago surprised me which proves I’d guessed first.

Oh it’s a fallible mortal involuntary trait
Forecasting much more than tempests tsunamis and hale
Only the Father knows when comes the hour we await
Till then let all men enjoy sweet uncertainty’s trail.

She said “Why not!” in reply to my asking her out
I rang her doorbell and froze as her silhouette grew
Through the smoked glass of her front door t’was her without doubt
With introspection I saw my most base point of view

Imminent giggling and glorious novelty “YES!!!”
Getting to know one another’s young nervous veneers
Over an hour or two she like I might confess
Warm complimentary words whispered in each others ears

Knowing deep down the imprudence of guessing what’s next
Further intensifies joy when ones hope comes to being
I thought we’d make love and touch one another’s souls sexed
But that we did never fooled me to think hope is seeing.

TIM SANSOM 4TH MARCH 2006

BENTHOS OF BEAUTY

2006-08-11T04:06:00.000-07:00

BENTHOS OF BEAUTY

When one becomes powerless
In saying what they mean
Verbose is the antonym
To each mute theme.

Oratory excess bleeds copiously
Like each Chandler’s candle
Snuffed out by spring’s breeze

And the fine jetsam booty
Of Jack Sparrow’s dead
Sinks to the depths of The Caspian’s bed

The benthos of which
Is a slight dulled cyan
Which all land loppers see
When they’ve set sail from land

Their guerdon is gold
From the merchants they’ve sank
Jeered as hobbledehoys
Whom they made walk the plank

Though through whiskers
And black teeth
They misapprehend
The worth of the recompense
Due in the end

Each cutthroat malefic
With improbity dripping
No pillage a mishap
Each coin, stone and Kit Cat

The were stolen with full
And aware hearts of black
And the floccus nosed pirates
Won’t give it back!!

In their rapture and disport
They retort to each man
Who asks “Why live like this?”
These three words “Cause we can!!!”

TIM SANSOM 2ND july 2006

THE FALL OF FAMILY

2006-08-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

THE FALL OF FAMILY

When browsing the rooms and ascending the stairs of this pebble dashed semi detached
Involuntary visions and linked suppositions abound as each door is unlatched

Of the look and the cut and the age and the stance of the family who might within dwell
Like lathe weary Fathers who call their wives "Mother" in love for their dear boys and girls

This oak chest of draws with its tired looking glass suggests wedlock most tarnished with years
Where she sits and grooms hair or sheds jewelry there so for slumbers she’s limp and prepared

And rugged and weathered her autocrat snores in a well earned respite from the roar
Of those cobblers and clickers and broken boot lickers whose circus is his factory floor.

This is a wholesome supportive abode where his spouse with delight will provide
And her dripping and lard like his clocking in card are the are the good ghosts that paint its insides

This is the table where ethics are able to live and respect to have place
By herding up brother and sister and mother and father to sit and say grace

And then after the earnest thanks with closed eyes visualized meditative within prayer
Cutlery clash into bangers and mash as they all feel what joy is to share

They all see no wrong in a sense of belonging they’re warmed by the hearth and the laughs
Yes this is a building designed to rear offspring and check on their progress in class

Built in and made when these bricks had been laid with an effort that’s now obsolete
Is a deep spacious pantry and a dresser which families alone could make use of or need

The banisters sculpted with pride now subsided needs care and the sink looking at
But the proud individual who wrestles this mortgage is caught in the overtime trap

The walls now within have watched many moons spin from those extended nuclear tribes
To a bleak day whose shade is homogenous grey where the "New Age" "Know best" loners cry

For that’s just what this house is in this day and age, it’s an unused and vacuous tomb
Where the bachelor’s life wastes and the man hater fakes independence in her solitude.

TIM SANSOM 5TH May 2005

DARK WINTER NIGHTS AND EARLY TO BED

2006-08-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

DARK WINTER NIGHTS AND EARLY TO BED

Hot settled dust made a hardware store smell
On my childhood lampshade’s red bulb
And It’s faint crimson glow
Was all magic you know
In my warm loving Acton abode

The Yearn to embrace at the peak of my dreads
From my nightmares was soothed by it’s glare
For I’m otherwise able to swear all was sable
Seeing no other light found way there

It’s grotesque flare like a snug Teddy bear
Gave me an ethereal calm
Like a sanctuary which kept out all paths to despair
And quelled the foreboding of harm

Yet with nothing for armour save paisley pyjamas
I’d cringe that the hot bulb might pop
And dish out it’s debris and shrapnel and get me
And worse cause that fragrance to stop

That staid and peculiar kind nasal joyousness
Just like Dad tucking me in
Gave me brow stroking peace till I slipped into sleep
Through the nursery rhymes in the wind

Like the loud colour shocks of my Mum’s floral frocks
My belly was thrilled with delight
To watch my tears change to amusement from pain
into optical thin sticks of light

Forgetting the curfew meant I’d miss"Star Trek"
With one lid shut needles of blush skimmed my feet
I’d swap eyes to shorten or lengthen these sticks
As I found it controlled their extent and retreat

And when I reflect on the halcyon effect
Of that bedside lamp’s comforting flare
I remember that smell just as clear as a bell
It’s as though I’m still then and there

It’s as though I am thirty five years back in time
With the same aspirations and plans
With my annuals and Lego and globe shelved above
By my unspoiled soft silken hands

It’s so potent and vivid and plain a recall
I can hear "The Virginian" next door
I can curl in retreat neath my mother’s starched sheets
As an innocent infant once more

I can lie there and dream that I’ll be a great man
And no one can say it wont be
For Im only a boy with my whole life ahead
And my wasted youth slate’s as yet clean

But mostly my focus of thinking to find this
Relies on a sub conscious whim
And it’s only a few times in twenty I’d say
That I find the success to tune in

But I find it regardless and when I relearn it
It causes my adult to melt
To an infantile lust of the bulb that might bust
And the feel of the frayed pimpled quilt

And the knowledge of "Toppers" and "Beezers" and "Dandys"
Are wet with new print on the brain
And the view that a bottle of"Tizer" is great
Can be known felt and loved once again

But it only lasts one or two torturous seconds
Before I forget all time’s tide
And allow 1969 back through my synapses
Into my neurons to hide

So if smaller or bigger you have one such trigger
Which taps into what’s lost and far
Remember your own dark nights early to bed
And you’ll finally recall who you are

Tim Sansom 20 11 2004