10,000 Poems: Recent Episodes
Mike Bell
My daily writing is a 30-year (+) experiment to see if writing a poem a day offsets dementia & other cognitive failures associated with my Parkinson's Disease diagnosis. By then, it will be over 10,000 poems - found at www.mikebellpoems.com
My inspiration comes from daily events, connections, interactions, and small things, which all seem to demand bigger attention from me.
These poems form a narrative to my life, politically and emotionally, which I hope to find engagement with other individuals who are also just trying to get by, with, or without any diagnosis.
Summary: – It is not what I am paid to do – It requires a daily commitment – I cannot complete a crossword, but I will attempt to complete verse complexities – my mind needs engagement beyond paid work – my children will need something to fill the vacuum we all create when we pass – these words help me to cry out, cry, and work out why – I am not political, but poetry removes the politics from my words, a reduction in a good way – If I make someone respond, then I will have lived a life worthy of life.
I have been published in the UK & USA, although submissions often are not possible as all my written works appear on my site.
2,635 I am aulder than my fatherI am aulder than my fatherever was [for good] – for allmy rest-of years [until thattime when counting halts]& I regard all he never sawhere now – What would’vebeen his not-said remarks‘bout smart phones & actsof too-smug influencers? –A loose tooth grin – ‘is too-occasional unfix of guard –set across his gaunt face &years of slog & nightshifts –four kids – one debt – onlythree channels – a wife & areduced life to being quiet[with his loaded shotguns]
https://mikebellpoems.com/there-is-more-to-know/#2,597 There is more to knowby MikeBellPoems.com20 January 2023There is more to know after this time& I would swipe left with that armourof hindsight –we share disasters & allour summons of thoughts –I can plotour conversation[as if a map –my lifeof ever less meaningful lines] –A mantalks –his hands-free chat broadcastsacross this cafe –no hangover here –afew other light grazers look across tohis loud chat –his builder-voice roughabove snipes of mellow ladies seatednearer to me –but I am alone with thisphone & poke-types to re-confirm mybeing here –in this time –swiped right.
Poem # 2,187: Flood Warnings
by Mike Bell
1 October 2021
Multiple Bézier curves switch underfoot – runnels – streams of banked up fallen leaves – a foul rain played overnight – a
storm – near-monsoon – was labelled [by a meteorologist] – Now wonted pummellings & flash floods [no longer weird
events] – Rewrite of rulings of all countryman acuity – cattle & skies sow a faux reading – & AI threats of rain will be reset
& new perils forecast – I cross mown fields silvered by flood levels – my annals of seasonal knowing cannot be entrusted
to my children – we are willing them weather-warnings in our wake of blown purchases – I’ll slowly wade in a risen freshet –
a brown eddy – mud & shit will rise from below us as if a sign – as Noah rises from his tomb to eschew his covenant with God
I will not learn
by Mike Bell
I will not learn another language - nor drive at speeds to Nürburgring in a Maserati - & I will
not make love to three others at once [instead escorted nearer a 60th year by time’s whores]
& I’ll not be aligned to right wing sympathies [as is ageing’s want] - I stand apart [from that
boorish fall] - Perhaps baldness will not call - My chances of being a grandfather are less as
my kids’ futures crowd with quiet fears - all we had was Armageddon - a quick death - not this
leaden slide into a dire future of resentment & constant adjustments - Earth was home - I will
not know how it works out - I will cast my vote [with care] to fix what I can see as a mendable
whilst my children say it will not be repaired - I’ll not know how it all falls apart - far too old
to learn anything new or useful as this world endures every inanity we imbibed [to profit]
Poem #2,185: That wooden bench
by Mike Bell
29 September 2021
For F
That wooden bench [positioned by Comité des Parcs et Loisirs] offered
you temporary rest in Nice – there a hundred-ish squawks of school kids
pulled at recalls – [language welded by distances & innocence among all
those players of known games] – we share unspoken rules in all tongues
until childhood naïveté is worn out – See [from your bench] a hundred-ish
future committee members – they’ll fix our f*ck-ups whilst we sit in parks
Poem 2,184
Exile Nothing
by Mike Bell 28 September 2021
We must first agree to exile nothing – I find myself all alone under ancient
remnants of scaling canopies [dumb among oaks which enfold thickness –
a century in a grasp] – I’m not myself as I travel among trapped shadows –
Underfoot that stick-snap will alarm nature’s easily-frightened [I’m not of
that species – not any more] – A hum – this woodland reverbs – timbres – as
I press upon pressure-put-on paths – I’m alone & ready to be brutalised if
I meet my own face in these woods – This time-slow-mass grinds under its
growth – I lay on mulch & crawl as if a fungal proliferation – a damp skin – in
shade I bloom as a capped threat as I burrow between established roots – a
shadow of myself by moon-dousings – As my auld self rouses my corse – My
voice is lost as I dig deeper among it all – giving up nothing to sow myself
wide below a wild festoon of buds & beams [I’ll stay low in Lincoln green]
That second-hand wedding dress
That second-hand wedding dress [on a headless bride] stands too upright - a Whit Sunday parody of fashion -
donated - such investment in marriage short-lived - as an echo of failure to restate auld avowals & loud denial
of any betrayal - as if stood in that charity shop - as if it would appal & warn off any other fool from tying knots -
don’t advance through any portal - any-where - in such a dress - don’t wear this - it should be stated on a label
www.mikebellpoems.com
Poem #2,146: Here will be houses
by Mike Bell 19 August 2021
Among moulting thistles & below lengthening shades formed by summer bloom [auld urges commissioned
by time] – it’s here I shelter from a deluge of showers – that pissing-off overhead – I could lie down [now] – go
native in this meadow – I’ll have no company & still be crowded out by memories [Leave ’em be – Michael] – I
will sleep well tonight with a dry stomach – count each blessing out – I was regaled with more horror stories – A
circular walk across land to be built upon [brick work & debts piled up] – This won’t relieve those auld recalls of
flirted-at tradesmen bent to hammering overhead – I will move away before this field is filled by tarmac – our new
ghost-estates – before I stay mired in this inbred town in need of distraction-fucks – I see wives lie with open-legs
& husbands strapped down by porn & alcohol – My walk will lead me back to where I left from & where I’ll depart
without reminders or reverb of too-long wed – to depart from grasses & ignorant ants to find my settled single bed
Poem #2,142: Of Being Fathers by Mike Bell
13 August 2021
For WM
There is a sudden urgency among my things – my son is here – my youngest – not an ours – he brings his cold
& sniffles [tested okay] – to sit with me [& his device is flicked at – phone & game] & my day is tacked toward
one of value – I interact – to head into that thing I have been good at – for some – a career as a father – as other
parents bury themselves in other parents & dismissing fortuitousness to head into that thing [of being fathers]
Poem #2,139: I miss that cruelty
I miss that cruelty – it is a curse [it is fixed in my blood] – bruised dignity was my grisly swelling –
She told me things that would make me sick – a vomited response to all her wins – Only from her
lips were cast such stuff [of unbelievable songs] & thrown up [again] as olid slicks [they’ll crawl
across my bared skin] & I am listening to crack & snap of her whips – Hear her now repeating it all?
2137: It shall return to me by Mike Bell 7 August 2021
It shall return to me without portent [no clear signal] – I let a contraction settle & command all grips –
all workings will not be set by my adjure – It is time to roll into a ball to deal with a wash of discomfort –
Among my bones is a constant ghost [& soon I will become my own spectre] – & my day goes down –
led to a lower point among drownings & up to auld hangings [a ripened carcass & entertainment for a
baying crowd of ale- sucking witches] – A brief respite is a test of my mettle – pause of spasms & daggers
[but then back] – If a marriage has a value there is expectation – it ‘ll thrive – but one set by greed will fail –
& other learnings as my body burns [with its own insurrection under my skin] – See how disease patrols
our past & future – It is not treatable – she said it could be [as a counting of cash set souring tears to run]
& my body aches for auld ways of sex – of extremes allowed by working fingers – see me break apart – see
me fail & how failure affects my senses – a tightening of muscle [not for show] – a pull at my tightened soul
Before l Go
by Mike Bell29 April 2021
I’d have to use Blackfriars Bridge – London – if asked to name it [I cannot recall when I last crossed by it] –
I swam benign widths [in my day] – slipping grassy banks in Surrey – My last view would be of a tower
with OXO emblazoned on it [as I drank gravy-brown water – best spat out – but not optional if drowning] –
I would have climbed up a parapet & jumped with my arms flung wide – crucified by that drop – not killed by
that shock of cold water on my body from muddy flows of crumbled cubes – sent to a cool morgue by drowning
Carnival Rides Walls of Death ask to be peered at [leant in over shoddy welding]
until a howl of breath then provokes a spin into a swirl of vertigo
So sleep - sleep alone [shoot-em-up carnival clamours don't count]
In Super 8 minutes of thrill-rides roll her tale [fat men turned on by
her lickerish quartets & spools flicked upon her jerked-off screen]
Ride & orbit her hoops painted red & 360-odd tyre-rattled pine planks
Your fitted door shuts too tight - no rider will get out of there [alive]
St Margaret rode on a Yamaha motorbike - a 2-stroke affair of 49cc
No one dares mention Acapulco [not drugs or death of La Quebrada]
You won't have vitamins [but you'll always eat up fantasy in script & lines]
& motorcycles will idle - as that next show is set to rewrite poetic rhyme
https://wp.me/p6YRFN-43A
Bluebirds Over by Mike Bell Poem 1829
Your bed whiffs of miserable sex [& urine’s drip-drip]/ I’ll shove you away once your ill Queen is dead/
I am sailing to Sealand where our border is an irregular confusion – [there they don’t crave our House
of Windsor – Edward has no work but earns nicely – lucky him]/ This country stinks of supremacist talk
from unapologetic men & women/ Superior sneers are easy masks & filter their words/ Dame V is dead
& white cliffs fall [with our weight of greed] – bluebirds do not live on these islands of myths & sung lies
How I Am Doing
A red heart beats in my tall bin
it trots out subtle thud-a-thuds
[no one will die tonight]/ It is a
struggle to talk about 'how I'm
doing' - I attend a playground-
bait of held-back & brave boys
don't cry - hold it off - greeted
endings won't happen - as that
[round battery] raps descants/
I had plucked it from my pup's
toy & left it to wither [& expire]
https://mikebellpoems.com/how-i-am-doing/
Elder Respect
Cloudy cordial – it was too soot for my tongue – inbred-sweet & all sugar-buzz – Grandma’s own & she is an amazing woman [no proof given] None ‘fess that she should add in a splash of bitter- truths/ I’d tie her up – then off to a rest home near Kent [she was born from French blood – Boton – & would feel at ease in sight of Calais] Aye – Grandma – fuck off
https://mikebellpoems.com/elder-respect/
A Taste of Honey https://mikebellpoems.com/a-taste-of-honey/
Dear Steven Patrick Morrissey – mononymously known by your burly surname
I fell in love with you in nineteen eighty-four – or maybe slightly before – when you sang a lullaby –
Yes – it was just for me – played on an ache-laden Scouse-spun John Peel Session
You were Alan Bennett – on a sweat-rinsed riser – taking straight boys with your stirring words
A glimpse of your chest was enough to doubt girls’ shapely tits had enough to give up
Then you spoke out from your tooth-whitened America whilst making those Mexican boys doubt
How you turned me off with your racist complaints My Dear Steven – you no longer interest me
Pleasure Demolished
They'll solicit obliteration of our old theatre [not heeding complaints from preservers & old-way-fixers with books referencing how long those stall & circle dream pits sat in our gist]/ Homer was not one for such revery/ I lost a phone in Paris - among 200 tipped-up seats - it rang as I searched - unusual acoustic tricks did me/ Acts spooled on my Walkman - fast fwd & that mechanicalness [we no longer degust]/ Our mobiles rewind our playlist of screw- ups & messages from those whom we kicked back - that ruinate of old performances with no awards [or encores]/ Bingo halls serve less balls - those so-monotone tenants of unwanted playhouses are on a list - to be ever-emptied with a similar blow by C-19's twistings [best played online]
PHOTO:Image by Bob Williams from Pixabay
News at One
Time will not be adjusted [to suit your needs] - that's my assumed forecast of less-assured futures
Histories - that slip of shadowed kisses & us [such burden of love is brief - emptied skies less rare]
My cadaver has a fixed contract in ink [& yours too] - parchments are furled close - like a clingfilm
stretch on & as gripped/ Oxygen will be kept fresh [for three days] & then my watch will turn to rust
[in your rivulet my timepiece rots to orange - do not drink it up]/ Sit at your gloss of pool & prod fast -
to ferrugo my cogs & pendulums 'neath running spring waters - so decrease my minuted remnants -
[watch parts] sink in Jarvis Brook & fritter more - in no time - at that confluence with R Medway's rush
off - via printed tidal timetables - & with a nod to rainclouds - forecast flood - reports read - News at One
Quadrophenia https://mikebellpoems.com/quadrophenia/
Shingle/ Vinegar/ Under-pier strokes of cock - undesired [pills were not dropped after a fuck]/ Complaints by age- weighted sunbathers - youth scum/ Sing to me [when you can] 'bout zoot suits & sharp creases [being a Mod wasn't about anything honest]/ Gull calls & chip wrappers - upper litter still blows into seafront trippers [they used to ride on scooters]/ Old Mods look on as girls bare too much - hard times of under-pier I-love are lost - There should be a sign - Here is Brighton's least costly room [a consummated place] & let every Jimmy there-ever- was return to savour old spray [but - I gotta get running now]
Christmas Island https://mikebellpoems.com/christmas-island/
Their trams still ran [in Hiroshima] - among all of their loss of 1945+/ As if precise modes of public transport would [still] rotate in a flawed country like ours/ Time has moved for Britain's schedulers ever since - since a bomb dropped on Christmas/ One-nil/ We twitched - us kids/ We saw a darkness [of life] sat outside a bank [a shock - of imprecise truths - of hitokage no ishihi]/ There are grim shadows on our maps of cooled off craters & green atolls/ As kids it was a joy to ride trams in Manchester - delays forgiven - never forgot
PHOTO:Image by Hitesh Choudhary from Pixabay
Devices & Desires
.. we fail to realise how unnecessary many things are Seneca - Letters from a Stoic
I may forbear fingering magalogs of wants-not-needs - buying hope on our poking 'phones of popping offerings/ Mutterings are greedily overheard by AI [I'm replacing our barbecue - a B&Q ad appears - its
pop-up perturbs us whilst we view Love Island's insta-brigues]/ I can navel-gaze all day/ I am a shoddy commodity [mine not so desirable unless re-figured by an airbrush in Photoshop's too-mendacious bag]
My weight drops off when I bezzle less - mathematics of fact - Money don't grow on trees - Mum's mantra from 1982 - Use of public transport a sign of failure - Margaret's lie/ My first kiss was so cheap [still - it sits
on my tongue - that sort a' buss - it was false] Cash was a way to sex - porn - not free-to-use [shame rarely fell away] & kisses ad-libbed - atop bus #72 - impurity among us teens [on snogged trips to better shops -
one after another] & invigorated by a weekend of expectation - parties & bars - fingerings & fumbles - fags & drugs - waking up numbed & lost in off-girl sweat in unknown rooms/ Street signs guided me back home
with my thirst - but not desiring my night's before/ Shops locked up for one day of rest - unless you craved tobacco or red top headlines - such days - could we survive them now - in this miniaturised world of want?
Parcels fall through front doors & a momentary high of fresh unboxing - an art for product-placed vloggers/ Hopes are unwrapped & set buzzin' [a buy-it-now drug]/ China will fulfill endless shite - 'til we gripe - sucked off & broke/ Kick me back to '86 - to
those top decks of tongues & tits - I lived a simple life without Byzantine choices to tug my eye/ My return to nothing much to do would follow my shutting off purchasing in my palm/ It draws on us - until we are drained/ Perfect knowledge? Let it discharge
Poem by Mike Bell
Phone Only
For S.L.
My braiding-into-shuddering swirls off your words - my reddened eyes rub to wetness - sweat - squeezing & grabs - your scuttled sofa inches across your tenebrous room - mine scrapes to make underlinings/ Our roles - story writer & finer artist - in spoken minutes of type & hatching [by my swift stylus & your staining] So we couple [no apparent contact sitting x-miles asunder - forming a coupled hollow mould by whisking our word-dipped tongues across a twin heave of breath - 'til we come] & then to morning's reunion in light when my recall sharpens - not soft markings but laid words & artwork heavy enough to leave love's scars
https://mikebellpoems.com/phone-only/
Phone Only
For S.L.
A lost braiding-into-shudder comes off your words - my reddened eyes rub to wetness - sweat - squeezing & grabs - your scuttled sofa inches across your tenebrous room - mine scrapes to make underlinings/ Our roles - story writing & fine artist - in spoken minutes of type & hatching [by my swift stylus & your staining] So we couple [no apparent contact sitting x-miles asunder - forming a [hollowed] body mould by whisking our word-dipped tongues across a twin heave of breath - 'til we come] & then to morning's reunion in light when my recall sharpens - not soft markings but laid words & artwork heavy enough to leave love's scars
The Amber Light by M.A. Bell
I was caught staring at the amber light - the pause - the stop - the pushed brake before the collision - before the crush of border patrols upon the quick-shift
of dream-skinned people in frail boats - none suited to such a rolling exodus - all ferried by the free-traders of prayers - they place a high price on such reveries
And now I can feel the white-grinding of ice masses - of quickened melts - of glaciers' hurried abrasions on hills - that accelerated ablation of fixtures
We will become the low-down migrants without any possessions - of land or time - as the seas rise to match the price-per-head of our negligence - then my children will cry
and they will look at me - my poor pledges - and try not to believe that I too plundered - that their mother stole - the last lit chances - to stop the incited rise of sea levels and lies
West Pier
It may have been the 1970's
it may have been Brighton
but no one can confirm when my father saved a pier
I was railing high navigating the gaps in the planks with a slender fear
a cheap thrill as you walked above the sea
and below
under the bolted timber
waves hypnotised the iron work
the tang of salt over candyfloss was taken up like Friars Balm through your head
As we passed the rides Dad saw smoke
a daft smoulder rising up from the deck and we stopped
bent
to look for timbers
for them burning
but it was just a cigarette butt still curling
PC883
as he was at work
called out to an attendant and the fag was drowned with a red bucket marked 'FIRE'
Special Measures
The text you sent was brief about that bastard the man who is paid to stare in teachers’ meetings
This is how they keep you in your place that senior leadership team who throw daggers
To deal with it you picture him squatting over a hole in the ground squit-struck still staring
St. Catherine’s Sniff
I do not need to Travel to California To be struck by the low reek From skunks,
Those striped creatures Condemned by Jesuits as: ‘Not worthy to be the dogs of Pluto.’*
Here that crepuscular Scavenger of the dusk Lifts its too-proud tail To squeeze
A malodorous attack Upon us both: ‘The sin smelled by Saint Catherine Must have had the same vile odor’**.
‘Hold your nose,’ I suggest to my wife, But the foulness Is already there, Inside.
- **Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. (1633–1634). The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610—1791. VI. Quebec.
Trust Nobody
All politicians are liars, the priests are hypocrites, those estate agents sell boxes to meet their sales targets.
Some doctors can’t be trusted, as your dentist drills for gold, the copper’s lot is valuable, cells ready to be sold.
Kick the state-aid scroungers, the devious thieves of pounds, rip those leeches from the books and claim the moral ground.
Austerity and denial are the liars’ superior sneer, as our kids fare worse than us with their future full of fear.
Take on the Tory values of reduction and rebuke, give those holders of our fate a grip they’ll not reduce:
And in a year we will hear the sound of ten years gone, the birthing screams of Austerity will be the loudest ones.
As our kids reboot this island, set adrift by Brexiteers, they may ask of us, the voters, how did it come to this?
https://mikebellpoems.com/2017/09/15/trust-nobody/
London
I looked up and suddenly it was London, the one of terraces showing their scabby arses to us,
the London of bent sheds and blown clothes horses, of propped bikes and kids’ toys, and down in the ballast the litter of a thousand takeaways,
whilst in the distance, above the patchwork of tiles, sit the erect spires and dreams of the ever-dead empire architects, when God and the trains ran on time.
https://mikebellpoems.com/2017/09/12/london/
Eating Out
He sits opposite me in MacDonald’s,
my guest, for a moment,
in his curled hands he holds this country’s recent history,
not a minimum wage, no longer the gun for that war.
We could be anywhere in this fast forward world,
almost discarded.
https://mikebellpoems.com
The Hunt SEPTEMBER 10, 2017 Hunt down the ragged fox, reduce our long-earned rights, set dogs upon the immigrants, ‘claimants should be denied‘:
Praise The Mail’s honesty, share their Photoshop of lies, become a born-again Christian, to fight off Islamic cries.
Bitch about striking workers, and ‘those sponging socialists‘, stand up for landed wankers whose shined brogues you long to kiss:
Now you are a Conservative, voting for returning to the past, you will fight them on the beaches once our borders return to France.
And as your vast shares in disaster push tides and break up skies, your pension fund will collapse, and your children will ask you: ‘Why?’
On Duke St. SEPTEMBER 8, 2017
As I left the car park men hunkered down, in stain-greyed sleeping bags they bartered their pains:
I passed a young bride outside a loud bar, she was laughing unaware of the rain:
I found Duke Street, there for a book launch, a drink in a record store, to tip my glass to his.
On my way to the bank the black sky collapsed, and on my return I gave the bride a soft kiss.
Walk Back, Writing MAY 15, 2016
I am wobbly, walking home, some late o’clock, a trespassed short-cut over dampened grass
through this estate of town-planned care: No roads, paths only to lamp-lit porches
as cars sit, misted, braked on verges. The street light’s spill, a dry amber pool,
me, sense-struck by the waft of cuttings; I am re-routed, indirect, by a solitary tree,
it’s stillness shocked, split, by a pigeon’s clap, it disturbed by my standing, or my breathing?
The momentary effect, combined, then leading to my old flight to Israel – picked fruits, sun-browned,
lawn-fronted homes, of sprinkler’s ticker-sound: Same lives parked, people air-conditioned,
sat lamp-lit, the sole indication of life struck by us, flighted, but never leaving.
Not Northern Enough MAY 19, 2017
I am not Northern enough to be a radio poet, not a Hegley, a McMillan, or a Normal kinda bloke.
I am not street enough to holler as a slam artist, not a Sia, Poppa E., or even Kate Tempest.
I am not black enough to rhyme with the best, not MC Drake, nor a Kanye West.
I am not angry, outraged, able to bark, like Attila the Stockbroker, or John Cooper Clarke.
I am, Attila said, 'the opposite side of poetry' - in which case I'll exult in my quiet dignity.
A Path In Israel
It was a path from another time, Your close enquiry of an ant-marched line. Crossing the equally engineered rails, We both avoided the steel-trip trail.
You, eldest boy, chatting alongside, On the rough-route, where Ruti had cried: Your uncle asleep, in this blown-thin soil, Alone in this god-land: an empty black voile.
Unlocked the gate, metallic complaints, I showed you the place where your uncle waits, your talk is erased by the hand-carved curves, Our name cries out, among foreign words.
https://mikebellpoems.com/2016/04/05/a-path-in-israel-2/