Category: General

Children fight,
Call each other names,
And are branded racist.

A grandmother
Protects her home against a mob,
And is arrested.

A couple
Oppose taxes used to promote the pink vote,
And are branded homophobic.

Oppose ID cards
As curtailed liberty,
And be branded a terrorist.

Raise you voice
Against “The Word”
And the Thought Police knock on your door.

Public servants
Demonstrate major incompetence
And are promoted.

Murderers and rapists
Are set free
To re-offend at will.

Politicians rail
Against modern immorality,
And are caught with their trousers down.

Walk in the street
And a thousand electronic eyes
Watch your every move.

Your thoughts
Your life
Are not yours.

The Word is everything,
All else is heresy.
Big Brother wears a suit.

Truly, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
 

©Alan McKean
  May 2006

A brew
A mash
A pot
A mug
A cup
(and saucer)

A help
A placebo
A poetical prompt
A loooong drink
A quick slurp
A calmer-downer
A picker-upper

With sugar
With lemon
With whisky
With joy

A receptacle
Of liquid gold

It’s yours
It’s mine

enjoy

©Alan McKean, April 2025

We’re just sitting,
Watching the world go by,
Watching people
In posh frocks
And clean suits.

Top hats
And rolled umbrellas
Dance across the lawn,
As my tea cup 
Sits snugly in my hand.

Crisp military uniforms
Mingle with begowned clerics
As their harlequin colours
Cover the greenness
Of the damp grass.

And the band plays

Yellows, greens
Reds and blues
Overshadowed 
By the grey
London skies.

Blue hat and coat appears,
And walks the line,
Greeting the great and good,
Who’s egos
Are bigger than their hats.

Us?

We’re just sitting,
Watching the people,
Watching the world go by,
On a July afternoon,
In the Queen’s back garden

While the band plays.




©Alan McKean


After our visit to The Queen’s Garden Party, July 2009

Stepping out of the grey day
Into the moonlight,
I dance
With the ghosts 
of my past

beneath the moon,
my life and old friends
swirl and dance,
to the sound
of tintinnabulating moonbeams
as they bounce
off old memories
beneath the starlight
of the shining dark

Dreams?
They can wait,
The future
Will turn them into memories
When the time is right


 © Alan McKean February 2021

Her time has passed
Those days are gone.
She is seen
As just an old lady,
A burden to be shrugged off,
A silly old fool to be patronised
A grey cardigan
Shuffling 
around the shopping aisles.

Few will have seen
The night-clubbing
Disco dancing
whisky drinking
pill popping
All night raving
Mini skirted
Sports car driving
Young girl
Of sixty years ago,
And none will care

Ah well…………………. their loss

Old man sits
Looking out of warm window
At the approaching storm

Cold, grey skies
Roll off the Pennine tops
Into the valley below

Swirling snow, wind driven,
Blankets the village
With white innocence

Parents smile
As they build snowmen
For inattentive children

Children laugh
As they slide down
The hill in the park

The old man
Watches the winter
And sips his whisky



February 2018