Save Weekley Hall Wood

Take a walk with me.
A walk into the woods.
Trees tall, proud, solid as they sway.
Walk this way, walk that way.
Any way you like.

Waking woods to walking woods.
Wishing woods to wind down woods.
Wordy woods to wonderous woods.
I’ll meet you there woods.

Life is here.
And not just its creatures
Found within its growth,
A life of mine is here,
Yours and mine both.

Here you will find woods to fall in love in,
Woods of escape.
Woods to reminisce
A fresh breeze that scents the essence of near bliss.
The woods here be spell casting.
Magical slow trots and drift off woods.
Deep talking and worlds colliding woods.

You’ll find a track here.
A track of memories.
The field, the other side,
A field of old sunsets once set.
Textured trees stretching
Their shades of green etching
To the sky.

And now it’s under threat.
But they’re going to have to fight us yet.
When the world we’ve had enough of
Catches up with the world we love.
Puddled seas swim upon concrete beaches.
Pallets, slicing fences, industrial waste.

Each bend, each tallest tree
Each and every, I’ll race you.
One, two, three!

These woods are where people fall in love,
With each other, with themselves,
And with life again.

They’re worth more than any metal structure
Any profit or product turning infrastructure.
It’s priceless and it’s ours.

Boarders traced
A landscape braced.
An artist’s impression drawn up and showcased.

Erase to replace
Our beautiful woods.
The modern industrial world
Poised and ready to encase
The world we love.
A world we’re already fast running out of.

Greens vast and the eyes dilate.
Open and spaced.
Nature embraced with each footstep.
Each intake of air
Enlaced with the rays of its coming sunset.

It’s minutes away for an hour’s escape.
An escape from the very same world that’s trying to take,
Trying to take this place.
We won’t see it disgraced any further.
Some already grinded up, built upon and lost to the enforcer.

We will not exchange breezes through trees
For industry’s bitter aftertaste.
And the vast array of waste it leaves and makes.
The capitalist, development disease.
That gives hardly but a grace.
We don’t want it remade, fenced and shaken.
Leave such roots where they’re based,
It is not for the taking.

This is our Weekley Hall Woods
And it’s for Kettering.

 

 

She Has No Idea

She has no idea
Of what she is.
No idea of what she brings
Nor of what she gives.

No clue of her beauty,
Of the power of her eyes
No clue of her smile
How it’s so completely idolised.

She has no sense
Of the lust of her shape.
No sense of her sexiness
Of the hearts it could break.

No idea of her attraction,
Of the appeal of her hips.
No idea of her charm,
Nor the incessant pull of her lips.

She has no clue
Of her potential, nor capabilities.
No clue of her intellect,
Nor one of her thousand possibilities.

No sense of her wonder,
Of her laughter, magic and awe.
No sense of just how effortless
She is to adore.

She has no idea
Of the soft tone of her voice.
No idea of its comfort
And how listening bears no choice.

No clue of her strength,
Of her fight and her fire.
No clue of how wildly passionate
Nor of her power.

No sense of what she’s worthy of,
Nor of what she deserves.
No sense of what I see in her.
I wish I could find the words.

Emma

I'm going to tell you all about her.
I'm going to tell you how she could hold the moon in her hands and make it look weightless.
How she multiplied the smiles across peoples' lives and saved those lives every day.
I've never known anyone to care like she did,
To give like she did,
To package up her love and hand it over to the world like she did.
I haven’t seen it or felt it since.

She wasn't even from what she became.
If childhood luck and chances dictated,
She'd have been just like her, just like him,
Just like we all would have been.
But she saw something different, knew it wasn't how love and life should be.
She set a higher bar.
It was the only way she could be.

We followed her example.
She taught us right, she taught us wrongs.
And she always played the best, best songs.

Men adored her in ways she'd never fully believe and her smile and sheer gleam had my sisters sing 'Heart Breaker' over the slamming of the door in boys faces.

They say the eldest gets all of the best and she did,
Intelligence, grace and a wit of humour that made the warmest of tears crease down our faces.
And when she laughed, the world ached to be a better place,
And it was;
Each and every time, just for that short time,
But pennies to pounds,
It added up.

As soon as she could, she did what she could
And she set up away from the recurrent nightmares of those childhood walls,
Her door never closing to us.
She studied, she worked,
She wore a nurse's watch that shone nearly as bright as her eyes and built a life,
A kind life,
A life full of friends, travel and laughter.

Christmas morning, I'm maybe eight years old,
Seven AM was when all were expected by that tree.
They should've been grateful; it was six AM last year.
She's late but she rolls in, head in her hands, make up down her face, desperate for water.
I had no concept of hangovers back then,
So why I unwrapped my Action Men to the sound of her distant vomiting,
Was a loss on me.
But oh, how I get it now.
She made it though, she was there,
Would never have not have been
By that early morning Christmas tree.

She remained the solid one,
The run to one,
The one that kept us all standing.

She answered the phone calls of starry hours,
She answered the door to panicked pyjamas.
And dealt with the tears that flooded her home,
And always, always before her own.
She was the rock that propped up us pebbles,
Kept us from being washed away with each tide.
There was no way we could ever live without her.

But we've had to.
It's been well over fifteen years since I've heard your voice.
It's been well over fifteen years since you've made the underside of my ribs cramp in laughter.
Or pretended we were racehorses,
Racing to that golden carpet divide,
Just to freeze on it for a photo finish.
It's been well over five thousand days,
And I still miss you with a heartache, so heavy,
I can't quite believe I'm still capable of its carry.

I still can't quite bring myself to love Christmas again.
There isn't much I wouldn't do to just see you again.
Or hear the festive background of you vomiting again.

You've missed so much.
I have little faith in life above this but I cannot conceive of you not seeing all of this.
There has to be something,
Something that has allowed you to see your son apply to Oxford,
To grow into the absolute glowing man that he is.
To see your niece,
As beautiful as you, as clever, as cuttingly funny as you.
You'd be her favourite.

There has to be something in some way,
In some form,
You had to be needed elsewhere.
Otherwise, I cannot bear it.

I hope we do you proud.
I hope you're proud of my playlists.
I hope I help people half as much as you did.
I hope you love my dog.
And I hope you're proud of me
Standing here telling the world of your worth,
A worth you could never see.

And above anything, I hope you see it now.

Pam's Pants

I took Pam to Penzance.
Pam poured a pint of pinot in Penzance.
I properly penetrated Pam's pants in Penzance.

I wore Pam's pants in Penzance.
I pranced in Pam's pants in Penzance.
I misplaced Pam's pants in Penzance.

We purchased plenty more pants for Pam in Penzance.
A pound a pant for Pam in Penzance.
Pam picked pants of plenty in Penzance.
Pam prized over her precious pants in Penzance.

Pam and I then persisted to get pretty pissed in Penzance.
Pam and I partied and partied in Penzance.
We danced and danced in Penzance.

Pam got paralytic in Penzance.
Pam publicly paraded her pants in Penzance.
Pam, pooed her pants in Penzance.
Pam, poor Pam, then proceeded to puke into her poo-pants in Penzance.

I now won't be taking Pam back to Penzance.

Dick Day

I'm not a dick
But I do have I'm a dick days
Where I'm a dick in all the ways
Imaginable.
Not every day is an I'm a dick day
And I cherish those days.
But today was another I'm a dick day.

I get up, stumble over dreams into a reality I'm not quite ready for.
A reality already warming up my I'm a dick day.
Unlike my coffee that I've poured cold and I’ve put the milk away
In the cupboard as I plan the Wednesday ahead
Certain that it is but it's actually Tuesday.

Just another dick move to prove
An I’m a dick day is on its way
As I attempt to leave the house without my keys
and get stuck in the hallway.

Facing people throughout the day
And I need a banner across my shoulders
Just to say
I'm having an I'm a dick day
Please pay no attention to what I may do or say.
It's irrelevant today, as today has decided it’s an I'm a dick day.
And I'm not what I portray
Nor am I anything that I want to be.
As I say what I don't mean
Mean what I don't say.
Why I felt it had to be said,
It wasn't even funny in my head.
But today is an I'm a dick day
So, it’ll all spew out anyway.

It's not okay but I am okay
I am well adjusted to dealing with I'm a dick days
As I get in your way
Misjudging timings as we try to step through the same doorway.

Look, having an I'm a dick day is hard enough but I get by
So please don't reach out to me
Needing comfort and advice and fuck sake please don't cry!
I will only be able to give you a I'm a dick day cliché buffet
That will appear as an insincere cabaret
Of inaccurate, misguided Piaget.
That helps no one!

And don't come at me with your questions.
I can barely problem solve as thought processes delay and decay
Only coming up with solutions that pose shit and awkward foreplay in my airway.
Finally, half coming out of my mouth, disappointed and wearing really tacky lingerie.
But I'm afraid it's the best I can offer you on this mere I'm a dick day.

As the I'm a dick day draws to a close and I can lock myself away.
I can laugh and reflect at how much of a dick I was throughout the day.
Dinner on your face can be endearing.
A lanyard caught on a door handle; awkwardly artful.
Prague isn't the capital of Norway.
And that shoe scuff trip earned one hell of a downplay.

It was just another I'm a dick day
But I made it through
Safe in the knowledge I'm not always a dick.
Not every day.
And tomorrow, is definitely Wednesday.

Goodbye, Sweet Boy

To my precious, sweet boy
All I can do now is thank you.

I thank you for your loyalty,
Your limitless love and dependability.

I thank you for your time and unwavering trust in me,
For your patience, your endless giving nature and for every top of your head tucked right under my chin.

I thank you for every single time you tried in every way you could to understand me,
Be that an instruction, training or when my tears soaked your fur.

I thank you for every run and trot as I walked through the front door.
For every welcoming wag, the love in your eyes and your sheer need to greet me.

I thank you for every bark, every time you wanted to protect me and for you never letting me miss a parcel.

I thank you for each and every walk
Their greens and browns
Their sun and leaves and mud
For their fresh air when I thought I couldn't face the world.

I thank you for your tolerance of silliness,
For wearing a skirt and your gentle character,
For your energy, enthusiasm and your excitement in the smallest things in life.

I thank you for always being at my side
Especially when there was pizza or chicken.
For your wide eyes when your dedication finally paid off and for always cleaning up the crumbs.

I thank you for all your kisses,
Your head on my feet, your cuddles and for every salty tear you licked away.

Thank you for your wags and smiles, thank you for every single thing you brought into my life.
My darling boy, thank you for being you.