The Old Bus Shelter, Great Longstone
- Mozza and Dazza and Moley and Gloom
- Long waited a bus on a late afternoon
- Occasionally wiping a nose on their sleeves
- Sat in the shelter midst litter and leaves.
- "Moley" said Dazza "your eyesight aint able
- To decipher a word on any timetable"
- But down in the litter was a notice that read
- Due to mergers and cutbacks this service is dead.
- They waited for ever but a bus never showed
- Though Moley and Gloom did a dance in the road
- And Mozza and Dazza complained that they must
- Because of the damp, be turning to rust.
- Then later, much later by the moons eery light
- They just floated away like a cry in the night
- Left scrawled on the wall of that terrible room
- Was Mozza and Dazza and Moley and Gloom.
CJ 7.12.01
Tragically, the graffiti has been removed but we know that they're still out there somewhere. Only its re-creation can release them from their entrapment!
On Finding an Ear Tag.
- Oh 645 where are you now?
- Were you sheep or were you cow?
- Are you painted on some fresco?
- Or in a packet down at Tesco.
Apr 2001
In support of Toads.
- Everybody loves a frog
- In a pond or in a bog,
- But nobody loves a toad
- See them flat upon the road
- Kiss a frog but do not wince
- For it may turn into a prince.
- But don't kiss toads where 'ere they come
- Or you'll find warts upon your bum.
December 2012
Incident at St Ives.
- While walking homeward with my fowl
- I thought I heard a woolly growl
- But no, it was a seagull nasty
- Flying off with my bird's pasty.
June 1999
Sailing to Antarctica.
- On either side the inlet lay
- Steep walls of ice in white and grey
- And on the beach were penguins gay
- Onward through the endless day
- Sailing to Antarctica
- Past rock and glacier deepest blue
- The Ocean Diamond bore us true
- Ice bergs, whales and petrels too
- Scents of seals and penguin poo
- Sailing to Antarctica
- When homeward scattered, sun or rain
- In city or on crowded train
- Those magic moments will remain
- We may not pass this way again
- Sailing to Antarctica.
February 2018
Fever Dream #27
Event #1 Gloom and Despondency
So this is my home? Drear and mould stained, the apartment block rises sullenly into the drizzly evening sky whilst inside, the urine-soaked lift is jammed between floors, abandoned by both engineers and cleaning ladies.
Vandals 1, residents nil.
I climb the stairs, grease-stained and littered, past the door leaking overcooked cabbage vapours, past the one redolent of curry, then the one with dogs barking and people shouting, and the one with dogs barking and music (or what passes for it) played too loudly.
At the landing, strewn with needles and other druggy paraphernalia I turn and climb again, next is the door with the six locks belonging to Mr and Mrs paranoia, then past them is the door stacked with leaking rubbish bags of fast-food containers, waiting for the rubbish fairy to call who, like Godot, never shows, until I come to my door, No 61. I unlock and go in.
Event #2 Awakening
I seem to be laying on the floor. I cautiously open my eyes, and gradually the gyre of the world steadies and I can focus on the be-cobwebbed ceiling. I struggle unsteadily to my feet, almost slipping on the empty bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 2003 and then, clutching the corner of my home-made orange-box sofa with the upside down legend that reads ‘A product of Nyasaland’ I stand, though a little uncertainly. No more home made tequila for me and the leaves of the Mother-in-Law’s Tongue plant are yet to regenerate.
I move to the window and scrape some ice ferns from the glass. Below, on the car choked streets, soft susurrations hiss and crackle like snakes from tyres on the slush. Between pollution and insanity the Beemers and the Range Rovers flash and honk their way home to their cosy chateaux in the suberbs where rosy cheeked children peek out behind the crinolines of the china lady on the mantelpiece above the environmentally friendly wood-burning stove.
Event #3 Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
- All shall be well
- And all shall be well
- And all manner of things shall be well
Mother Julian of Norwich who was an anchoress nunn, said that in 1373. Mother, the world is on fire and we're still waiting, and is there balm in Gilliad?
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February 2025
chris.jackson@zen.co.uk