What did the angel say?
Christmas '96

People drift like snow
to tinsel fronted shops
with automatic doors
open and shut Christmas
felicitations merry yours
Yule tide logs lie
where sleeping dogs would never dare
risk the trample of booted shoes
reindeer hooves
Santa on foot to reduce overheads
G.P.O. help with extra delivery
postmen with red noses
and sacks full of power bills
to remind of Herod's extortion
its not that the inn was full
just the rule — No children in the bar
upheld
outside on frosted streets
where the homeless sleep
and gaze at tinsel tarnished stars
stuck to shop doors
just as well camels now in
packs of twenty
or would exceed carpark max. headroom
supermarket sold out of myrrh
but local corner shop have plenty
of frank incense while
department store sell chocolate money
covered in gold foil
to shoppers wearing 100% acrylic
and wonder shepherds can't find
No silent night on late shopping eve
who would recognise the first noel?

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I threw my watch away and saw time fly

I know not the time
it is unimportant
until such time
I need to use it again
I have an appointment
with a train
but no rendezvous to clutter
the days in between
perhaps some would say
"Woe is me, my diary's
collapsed — what will become of me?"
I am learning to untie time
to use my time
not time use me
time I have spent in Brighton
waiting for the right time
lost minutes
wasted days
hours spent in boredom
instead of enjoying Now
this minute
time taken for what it is

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And where was Donald?

My lilo was the same colour as the sky
a little piece of heaven broken away
another hole in the ozone layer
fallen floated to the river
so I could float on air.

Leaving a door in the sky
was it going inside or outside
I think of this door while I float
on my lilo sky
my magic carpet of a door
my raft on a shipwrecked voyage.

I was Marco Polo discovering strange
exotic lands
I was Darwin exploring the origin of species
I was getting carried away
floated to the middle of the river
crocodile slides on either side
vacant
and were was Donald?

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Matilda says

We stop at urban meadow
lawn of drifted daisies
fluttering a mantra kite
a red admiral butterfly.

We look at carpet wings
I pick a daisy
it says: he loves me
I think whoopee.

Matilda drags her eyes
from butterfly and says:
'Don't pull the petals mum
the flower will get cold.'