Poems
by Keith Woodhouse

 

 

When The World Cries

 

It rains when the world cries,

Those poison lips and broken skies,

The universal shift of mainstream thought,

But thought was caught,

And tried in court,

Dad's on the mantle piece,

My hair is the flaming yellow of the sun,

And watched in fire by everyone,

Time's tight bun has come undone,

Eyeballs goggling, melons bobbling,

Ships on the water,

Lambs to the slaughter,

What you bloody ought'er,

Have a son and a daughter,

By now, the holy cow,

The apple tree, the apple bow,

The muscling tendons of a worried brow.

 

 

 

 

 

Animal Metaphors

 

I'm as blind as a bat,

as deaf as a post,

as weak as a kitten,

and as warm as toast.

 

I'm as slow as a snail,

as cunning as a fox,

as slippery as an eel,

and as strong as an ox.

 

I'm as high as a kite,

tasty as a fig,

sing like a bird,

live like a pig.

 

I'm as fit as a fiddle

as a butcher's dog,

wise as an owl.

and as hungry as a hog.

 

 

 

 

 

Love In The Fields

 

                                 Jeanie, restless creature,

                                     Your eyes are your greatest feature,

                                       Take my hand through daffodil fields,

                                   In separate ways our spirit feels.

 

 

 

 

 

Mental Hospital 2.

 

I am still mentally ill because of the pills,

I spend my time thinking of film stills and staring at window sills,

The planets are moving round,

In each universe of sound,

It is the half an hour build up to tea,

Never a borrower or a lender be,

Old Nessie's crashed out on the lithium,

The clock ticks by the sterile tedium,

There's no parole we're on the dole,

An exorcist, a medium,

Two psychoes and a manic,

A car mechanic, somewhat Hispanic,

All doing life,

For acting out of character

Drama queen, failed Actor

 Stick a needle in your arse and call it love.

To solve the riddle of God above,

The nature of sin,

Thought or deed?

Or too much weed?

Is it innate or LSD induced?

You've got to admit there's something wrong somewhere,

Five doctors the diagnosis deduced,

Hosed him down and shaved his hair,

A Lion in a Lion's lair,

He overdid the whacky backey,

A tragedy tantamount to Nagasaki,

Altercations inevitable in institutions,

Rudely obstructed morning ablutions,

Bored patients constantly torturing eachother,

Provoking violence from a brother.  

 

 

 

 

 

Cornish Memories

 

The wind scattered moor in which the engine houses stand,

Testament to the once central industry of this Cornish land,

With bracken and heather and gorse the moor is thick,

And Madron chiselled into the hill side, granite not brick,

A black hooded mare stands in a fields, surrounded by its own shit,

Tractor loudly ploughing at Gulval, the whole rural bit,

The fields and lanes and roads, all travelling in the sun,

Photographs of onions coming and buttons being undone,

A layman's land, the statues in mid horizon, set square furniture,

The house where the rag dolls live, all naked vaginas in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

Death

 

Dying, and revelling in poetry.

The last leaf I've written on is fluttering away,

My last and blackest day,

Black as night,

I won't go down without a fight.

The insanity of self exaltation,

Megalomania until the last exhalation,

The sun goes round my head,

As I lie in my hospital bed,

"Not long now" The doctor said.

Life is a spiritual journey,

And mine is ending,

Trussed up in the gurney,

The morphine is mind bending

 

 

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