For St George's Day

When the world around you is hatred and greed and we bleed deep inside when the innocent die and however we try we can never make sense of the sickness of man, there’s no master plan in this madness called life but one thing is true, when you’re sad and you’re blue, you’re English my friend and I’ve got your back when enemies attack, together we’ll stand, if we fall then we fall but we will have died well and we’ll not go to Hell when we tell them that we did it ‘FOR ENGLAND!’

The Embrace

A poem I wrote some twenty or so years ago which was published in a poetry book which can be found in Waterstones.

The Embrace

With faltering, unsure weary hand

I grasp the insular sands of time

Seductive, soothing ebbing tide

Sends forth it's burning heart.

My raft of shattered bones and dreams

And all-important little things

Is mesmerised by troubled eyes

And the reaching out of earnest men,

Who call like ghosts, evocative

Great promises of life they give,

And so my person will not lie, or die,

So restless in it's vacant state,

For I know not what I must do,

So i gently drift and think of you,

A current born not of the sea

Bites and burns and beckons me,

The figures standing in the light,

Wave away my passive fight,

As skin and bone and will grow stronger,

Pulling me back from over yonder,

With longing hearts, they bid farewell,

And return my soul to mortal living hell.

Poems

The following are little poem type things I did for a skinhead photo book.

Chapter 1: People & Crews

Like fists that read both love and hate,

A Pit-bull at your garden gate,

A paradox both feared and hated,

Misunderstood and underrated,

Knights among the living dead,

Steel capped boots and shaven heads,

Holding dear the things that died,

Like loyalty and truth and pride.

Chapter 2: On the booze

Take me to a pub where the music’s loud,

There’s an ice-cold pint and a skinhead crowd,

Where nobody reckons I’m the missing-link,

Take me to a pub where my mates all drink!

Take me to a pub that remembers Slade,

And nobody’s drinking diet-lemonade,

Take me to a pub where a fight could start,

Take me to a pub we can tear apart!

 

Chapter 3: Skinhead Girls

She looks so good, a skinhead’s dream,

The toughest girl on the housing scheme, 

Nobody’s fool, she’s a work of art,

You’ll find her name in a tattooed heart,

She don’t take shit from trendy mugs,

She’s singing in the stand with the football thugs,

Show her respect if you see her tonight,

Coz she’s a skinhead girl and she loves to fight!

Chapter 4: Tattoos

It’s in your soul, the blood and ink,

It’s who you are, it’s what you think.

The pain you hide, you can’t disguise,

It’s in your heart, it’s in your eyes.

The symbols that you wear with pride,

Are testament to what’s inside,

They publicize your very core,

Upon your skin, forevermore.

Chapter 5: The real world

On a bus, on a train,

Trudging off to work again,

Drunken nights, building sites,

Canteen hospitality,

In the city, in a town,

Got no time to piss around,

Another day, work rest and play,

Welcome to reality!

Chapter 6: Bands & Gigs

Drinking warm beer in a beat-up van,

Another long road and ten more cans,

Another good day to be on the piss,

Another damn gig that you couldn’t miss!

You reach the pub and it’s full of skins,

The jukebox stops and the night begins,

A skinhead band powers through their set,

It’s the times like this that you won’t forget.