Dean Meredith

My Mother is seventy-five today
And still alive thank God
We could have lost her many times
But she would never abandon us
...

On a dreary day too poor for a name,
He dragged himself down to the little café,
Flat white and a paper, always the same,
He fumbled for coins and something to say,
...

Her good eye
Saw me coming
Her bad eye
Saw something else
...

Just write
And it will be
Just right
Not for critics
...

We all break
In different ways
The stone chips
On our paintwork
...

The slow motion farce
It has me by the throat
All those mindless forms
Closed door meetings
...

And yes I smelled the paper
Of the letter that you wrote me
It started with a saying
That at first I couldn’t follow
...

The desperate midnight clawings
Laid me wasted, blue and black
The constant sand-paper gnawings
Exposing me bare, unclad, off track
...

There go those happy endings
There they go
All those lovely happy endings
There they go
...

What was that?
The wind said
As it breathed
… Death
...

He offered imperfection
And said it was for free
I settled for deception
Knew he wouldn’t see
...

The city’s his sheet music and lights his notes
And at the end of every line there’s a bar
Where rain pisses razorblades on a cat tin roof
And he punches drunk through fresh chilled mist
...

It is night and the jungle lives
Excited monkeys chatter
Birds call and answer
A full moon colours leaves trees grasses - green
...

war crimes
propaganda
...

On the beach
It was beautiful
We walked and talked
And forgot everything
...

She is packaged
Carefully by some
Not so by others
He is packaged
...

Another day
Down the mine
And up again
The hole grows
...

And she says again
Fool, my fool
What are you waiting for?
...

Oh the great man made pendulum
How it swings long & slow & hard
In its triumphant arc above us all
From left to right and back again
...

She was death brightened up
With interest
White beyond the pale
Red lipstick
...