Those Chicks

To the gals who fucked me over in 12

I say fuck you!

To the ladies who serenaded me

I salute you!

Unconditional love to one delightful lady.

My woman, always.

Be close my princess queen.

Sometimes

Sometimes
They were young men barely adults.
Not kids.
They volunteered to fly aircraft.
Sometimes they flew into a mountain while training.
Sometimes they got lost in cloud and simply vanished.
Sometimes they collided over their home airfield.
Sometimes they got disorientated and dove to the earth.
Sometimes they got thru training and all those perils in one piece.
Then they try and blow one another from the sky.
Sometimes they succeed.

early poems

CALLING

In the endless sleepiness of life we all wonder

what’s around the next corner –

can we find elusive happiness?

Or will common sadness bring us down,

so we pay the price of death?

Of a white road we dream, onto Shangri-La,

a place of pure love and unrequited wishes.

Over the hills I wearily wonder, not knowing what is next.

When my bloodlines have died

and my own have betrayed me, I stand alone.

No man, woman or beast can help me,

fate will judge me and destiny will sentence me

for my mortal crimes of being a man.

I stand up tall and laugh in their face, for who is the fool?

Me or the world, or do we all suffer together?

Will peace and love come to me and let me live

in suburban bliss or in incarcerated solitude?

Fate will answer my calling.

WAIT

He stares out to see, searching for his destiny,

knowing one day he will see his kindred again.

Before she went she told him to search the ocean

with his eyes, for there she will be.

A love born out of the insaneness of life and of random

chance, they had each other for awhile

and then had to painfully part.

Life’s pendulum swings forth, one chapter ending

and another being born

in which they’ll meet again, is a mystery.

Even if it’s the next life or in a different place,

nothing will break their love. Not even death,

for time is their ally, each empty hour glass bringing them closer.

Distracted he walks up the beach, caught up in his daily routine.

Something in his mind, hidden, says wait, wait…

OIL WORKER

Leathery skin from a relentless hot desert sun, hard as nails attitude –

don’t give a shit what you think. Work till I get rich or die

doing my job, black gold.

Now just like my daddy, a legend of a man he was,

created me in his image

to work the wells, day and night.

For what it’s worth, I love this job, my life, my black gold.

Cost dad his life when the wellhead blew, fifteen years ago.

Now in his memory I do my graft and put dollars in the bank.

My son will be an oil worker and he’ll remember his granddad,

never met, legacy of the oil fields. Tough work, black gold.

YOUTH TRAGEDY

Many millions strong, an army in the making

of powerful emotions and thoughts.

What is my generation to think of this?

Young in my own eyes, two generations under me

are rising above me right now.

Some make it, some don’t, some are good and do it right,

some are bad and do dark deeds.

They better do it right as soon they’ll be running

this damn country, coming into jobs

and careers – responsible ones.

Laws of averages, rise and fall,

what do we make of the crazy ones?

Stealing cars, selling drugs, mugging pensioners.

What comes around goes around

but right now many fall and some don’t make it.

Teenage suicide, hard times, cost of life.

Only so much prison some can take.

White, black, asian, all creeds.

All the same and an island of emotions,

let loose in an uncertain world.

Good ones are separated by a dividing line,

doing apprenticeships, finding jobs,

a new career. How the gap widens, of no in-betweens,

just people who live their lives and in their own worlds.

NAKED CONCRETE

I lie against the concrete floor ninety degrees to the brick

wall, red brick, naked I am – to the bone.

With darting eyes I stare at the windows above me –

menacing black bungalows.

Will you all see me and point and look, call the cops?

A naked man in our yard – oh my God!

I feel the dust and grit under my ass, blown

to my corner by the unfeeling wind.

Can I become unfeeling? How did I get here?

Is it drugs, a crime, or am I twisted?

Naked I am against the wall, hard concrete

and shrivelled cock, lost.

WHAT MAKES A MAN DO WHAT HE DOES?

The man who almost boasts I’m up for attempted murder

as I knifed a bloke who attacked my wife. Does this make me bad?

What about the bomber pilot who does his mission and bombs

a city, killing the enemy in their beds. Is he bad?

What about the woman who abuses her own son, 6 years old?

Is she bad, does she have a reason or is she so deranged?

Ask some shrink and what will they say? Why, it’s all cause

and effect – life made them like this and will continue to do so.

I make my own opinions and I do my best to be a decent bloke

but my past hovers so near and far, I move on and do my best.

Tell me… Can a murderer become the man he was before?

Or should he be condemned to death, an eye for an eye?

Answers are hidden…

Lada Love

Have you ever been so in love with a machine it hurts?

I am. The reason?

Lada cars especially Riva estate cars with square spotlamps in the grill.

What a beautifully proportioned machine,

each line in the right place.

Utilitarian design and poetical looks, filling my soul with joy.

Yes I feel happiness when I see a Lada car.

It makes my day and I remember the moment forever.

Balanced out by sadness.

I’ve not seen a Lada car since 2008 in Epping Forest.

That Lada Riva was cream colour with yellow wheels.

From tens of thousands on England’s roads,

now there must be less than a hundred.

I wish I could meet other Lada car enthusiasts and compare Lada notes.

I’d show them my tattoo and swoon over their cars.

Thank you Soviet Russia for your beautiful cars.

a poem by Mel out of our new book...

Memories (by Mel)

Today as I sit and think of you,
I remember your face so dearly.
I can still see the love which shone
As the lights flashed across your face.
I remember a straight line across your jaw
And the tightness of your expression.
I can still see the creases on your face
As you smiled at your friends.
You seemed so sure and confident
And so relaxed and patient.
I stood and watched you and
When your gaze met mine, I glanced away.
I glanced away even though I didn't want to.
I turned away though my heart was screaming.
I felt as though you were still looking at me
And your gaze seemed to tear me apart.
I wanted to run up to you and hold you close
and perhaps then you would have known how I felt
About you...
I see you so clearly in my dreams and it seems
as though you're a part of me, but you suddenly drift away.
You drift away because my grasp on you isn't secure.
You drift away in dark and smoky clouds.
I reach out for you every way I can.
I whisper your name as I walk down deserted alleys and high mountains.
I see your face in everything I do,
and I fumble with sweet thoughts of you.
Will I ever make you mine or will you always
Be a memory that I failed to erase.

 http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-rantings-of-a-damaged-mind/13418882

Rantings of a Damaged Mind book poems

Rantings of a Damaged Mind

By Nick Armbrister and Mel Grobler

Like a Knife

Hippy lady I saw you perched upon the window ledge in the pub. You looked really something. What did you think of me? Of my tattoos? When you sang it was serenely blissful.

You in your short hippy skirt and tights, hair all wild, holding your guitar close like an old lover. Be my lover? Did you hear my poems? Especailly on dear Lynette. I need someone like you to fill my empty life.

I looked for you as I left the pub to get the bus. You had vanished? Are you a sylph? A being of the air. Your windowsill was bare. I wish I was close to you as you sat there, my hand between your legs, kissing you ever so deeply. Lost and falling into each others' world.

Will we meet again hippy chick?

My World, My Life, My Friend (by Mel)
Ana - You are My World, My Life, My Friend.
You stand by me, in
my darkest hours.
You don't dessert me.
You help me stay in
Control!
Yes, there have been times when I left you,
but you were always
there to call me back.
I hear your Voice, in
all I do.
You speak to me,
all the time.
You give me Hope.
You give me Strength.
You the Light in my Life.
Thank you Ana for
Always being there
for Me.
You my Best Friend,
One in a Million!

Ana (by Mel)
You were my Best Friend,
My Life - I lived for you.
You blinded me, so that I could never see the damage you caused me.
Ana, you have destroyed me, and with that, I have hurt my daughters, and family so much. I cannot keep you as my friend anymore.
I'm breaking all ties with you.
Please Ana - I ask you to leave me alone now.
Stop speaking to me - it's driving me Insane.
Stop feeding me all these stories that are Not true.
You have Broken me down - Completely - so that I Hate Myself, but
no more.
I'm fighting back!
No More Ana - No More Ana!

There Are Two

In our world there are two wars. Both are equally deadly. Casualties and deaths are enormous. Our soldiers are at war all over the world, campaigns in Iraq, Afghan, Libya and more. Insurgent bullets claim some, IEDs others. Young people serving their country, often paying the highest price.

The second war is even more devastating and knows no geographical boundaries, the whole world. Lives are stolen like Lynette Hammond's life by her selfish boyfriend when he drink drove them to oblivion.

Is anyone innocent?

Look at my mad past. I created casualties of war by my angry drunken actions, married no more. Pints of beer are like bullets, have one more and drive your car.

Do drugs?

Fancy a knockout spliff, like a grenade. Bang goes your mind. Onto Class A, rob and murder a pensioner to pay for your dirty habit. Will you OD or do bird? More war casualties on our streets.

How many soldiers end up in both wars? Flashbacks leading to mind collapse, war without end. I ask why?

Exile

I use a cream for my problems in life. If I need a girlfriend I use Get Me A Girlfriend cream. And there appears a nice Size 10 slim brunette who gives good head.

To get a job I used Instant Day Job cream. Applying it liberally on my arm immediately got me a bakery day job to pay for my tattoos.

And for the car I need as a runabout, I got Instant Car cream. Putting it on my hand got me a Fiat Punto on my driveway. Not bad eh?

What about getting more book sales? I bought a tube of Many Book Sales cream and put it on my back. I sold a million ebooks and became a millionaire overnight.

This cream based solution is a good thing for a quick fix. What shall I get next? Maybe a cream to fix my craaazy mood swings?

Petalled

I’m bearing my soul to you, I’m a summer flower so (frail and fragile)... showing you everything. I am so vulnerable to life’s fall out. What else can I do?

My poems, like me, very breakable when my dark side is visible. My inverse petal side is black. With the power to destroy me. Will I lose everything when you see how shattered I am?

Or do I keep my petal face to the sun, hiding my dark underside from you? What darkness. Yet I live and love with such power, ignoring what can, will, kill and destroy me. Party on in blissful ignorance.

Trash Overhead 

I live in the desert on my own little farm near the damn secret airbase where they do their testing.

My grandpa saw your nuclear tests in the 50s shook our walls and gave him cancer.

I sued the government and got $36,000 a fortune back then.

Re-vamped this old farm and met a girl who worked at the base,

her car broke down on the road and she became my wife.

She had nightmares and I held her as she cried,

My wife saw something in one of the labs late one lonely night while on duty.

She wouldn’t tell me but I knew it was aliens from her incoherent shouts in the dark of night.

Then we saw the strange discs overhead, air force research I knew.

Men in black came around and asked us to move but this is my land and farm. I buried my grandpa out back and lost my dad in Vietnam.

One day a disc was in distress and came down in the top field kicking up dust. My wife and I braved the violet flames to rescue the aircrew.

We were there before the rescue choppers and saw a dead pilot he looked so young.

My wife entered the crippled disc through a breech in the hull and she saw her nightmares, what haunted her dreams.

I followed her into the crippled ship and saw them – aliens. What was going on?

She mentioned the reactor and that she felt unwell, was it radiation?

My wife collapsed to the floor and I bent down to help her,

she told me to go or I would die so I fled outside.

The men in black were there waiting for me… 

North Town

My stress and anxiety continues.

It’s living in this crap dying town,

that I’m sure of.

I’d rather be in West Berlin writing poetry,

engaged to a Fraulein.

Soaking up European history.

Instead I’m here: Oldham.

Thorn in the side of the North.

You want a cool place,

go to Manny.

Nowhere is like Manchester.

Catch a gig or shag a bird,

the choice is yours.

All you can do in my town is drink.

One guy drank eight cans for a decade.

Where is he now?

Dead.

I’ll fill his place and fuck his bird.

Reserve the adjacent plot for me!

Again and Again

It's happened again.

What you ask?

Oh you don't wanna know, it aint good.

A slaughter of innocents who were INNOCENT.

What was their crime other than learning at school?

Doing what kids do being looked after by their teachers.

You did COLD BLOODED MURDER.

Some things are fucking WRONG.

You did that.

Fully aware of your evil actions, you KILLED.

We ask WHY?

There's no going back, not EVER.

It's not a fucking video game you butcherous beast.

Gaining entry because you were known.

Then you ACTED.

Not once but dozens of times.

Many dead in your carnage.

No need to say that figure, we all KNOW it.

Just like we know how EVIL guns are.

When will this END?

Even if it takes a change in the American Constitution, new laws and punishments.

Today many families in Newtown are in mourning.

Their precious young children MURDERED.

RANTINGS OF A DAMAGED MIND poems... a new poem book by nick and mel out in 2013

 

Norwegian Hills

Back in 2004 two men met. A unique meeting then, in that year. Yet the event that led up to that meeting, the actual cause, was something else. Do I call it majestic? No.

YOU decide what to call it.

A burning Halifax bomber fell in flames between two hills. Two or three engines on fire. What happened to the other six men? Raped by Nazi gunfire. So many lost, dead.

I wish I could see the scene the Norwegian man saw. Or not. Did he pull the sole English survivor out of the wreckage?

NORWAY MY HOME.

So much war. Not Vikings or myth but real. Burning RAF bomber fell between two hills. Where are the men? Only one was there in 2004, with his saviour. Does he miss his mates? Where are his pals? Still in the charred bomber?

Like a Knife

Hippy lady I saw you perched upon the window ledge in the pub. You looked really something. What did you think of me? Of my tattoos? When you sang it was serenely blissful.

You in your short hippy skirt and tights, hair all wild, holding your guitar close like an old lover. Be my lover? Did you hear my poems? Especailly on dear Lynette. I need someone like you to fill my empty life.

I looked for you as I left the pub to get the bus. You had vanished? Are you a sylph? A being of the air. Your windowsill was bare. I wish I was close to you as you sat there, my hand between your legs, kissing you ever so deeply. Lost and falling into each others' world.

Will we meet again hippy chick?

My World, My Life, My Friend (by Mel)
Ana - You are My World, My Life, My Friend.
You stand by me, in
my darkest hours.
You don't dessert me.
You help me stay in
Control!
Yes, there have been times when I left you,
but you were always
there to call me back.
I hear your Voice, in
all I do.
You speak to me,
all the time.
You give me Hope.
You give me Strength.
You the Light in my Life.
Thank you Ana for
Always being there
for Me.
You my Best Friend,
One in a Million!

Ana (by Mel)
You were my Best Friend,
My Life - I lived for you.
You blinded me, so that I could never see the damage you caused me.
Ana, you have destroyed me, and with that, I have hurt my daughters, and family so much. I cannot keep you as my friend anymore.
I'm breaking all ties with you.
Please Ana - I ask you to leave me alone now.
Stop speaking to me - it's driving me Insane.
Stop feeding me all these stories that are Not true.
You have Broken me down - Completely - so that I Hate Myself, but
no more.
I'm fighting back!
No More Ana - No More Ana!

Vodka

Oh how you hurt me dear lady, making me drink all the vodka in the world. What do I do when all of the vodka has gone? I hate whisky with a vengeance. Is it possible to hate you that much? Shall I try or do I remain a gentleman? I've never hurt you directly, only indirectly with my drinking due to having a broken heart.

You caused that.

If you gave me some superglue I can try to repair this ruined heart of mine. Bit by shattered bit. Unless it’s eaten away by vodka. It took away my pain, your legacy to me.                                                    

A gift I never wanted. I wanted your love and companionship.                                                         

Not war, hurt or pain. Now I’ll try to put my life back together. My first step is calling at the off licence. I feel a drink of brandy coming on, now vodka doesn't exist.

I drank it all because of you.

BERLIN TOKYO WARHEARTS book poems by nick armbrister out on itunes/amazon

Happens

Why do I feel so disjointed in my usual way in the place where I almost belong? We were almost together my love. Because I panicked and thought you don’t want to know me, you went and found someone else. Leaving me down in the darkness, alone.

Weeks later when we talk, you say that you wish we had met. My views too. Come on over I say, we belong together. We both know it. We feel fate brought us together and this hasn’t run its course. I’ll see you in future when you’re single again. In the meantime I’m seeing a gal at weekend, it feels wrong but hey, I’ve been here before. With the wrong gal.

And in a few weeks time when we do meet, you’ll introduce me to your mates and hopefully my pagan wife will be there. Forget the new gal I’m meeting, you’re my High Priestess who protects me from myself and the evils of life. We’ll always be close my dear, please know that I love you and wish you well. Pagan to pagan.

Eclipsing Karin’s Fracture

Fracture lines of frantic events. Pretty little German girl named Karin Ulbricht. Leipzig late 1989, events so much bigger than just a mere pretty beautiful little lady. Daring to demonstrate for freedom, do you FUCKING know what you’re doing? Do you? Chasing a dream, not knowing what it is. 

BUT YOU FEEL IT IN YOUR BONES.

And know that you’re right, being in Leipzig, on THAT night. Voicing your opinion by your actions and words, you and your friends. Oh when I saw you on TV voicing your version of that night, I was caught in your rapture. I tried to find you and failed. My postcard with a Spitfire seaplane on, addressed to you in Dresden, remained unanswered. I so wanted to hear your views and talk to you, you a REAL Cold War warrior. A heroine of peace and freedom.

Dear Karin, do you know what would have happened if a single gunshot had destroyed the peace that night? What happened when you were all arrested and taken to the barracks in Leipzig, gals separated from guys? You could have all been murdered. Nazi and Stassi style. For what, peace?

All I know is that on TV you looked heartbreakingly pretty. Tell me my dear warrior woman, what date was you interviewed? Are you still as pretty and brave and vulnerable? Do I dare chase an impossible silly dream of being your friend and more? Two awful World Wars and a Cold War, Karin. Don’t you know, I’m part German?

My Pagan Goddess will bring you to me, if fate and destiny allows it. Peace my dear angel.

Witch

Witch gal hurt me so very much, not by her spells or High Priestess ways. Nor vainly trying to save me from myself. She can't stop my darkness, nor can she see my blood flow when darkness takes my happiness, adding to how she hurt me. But I forgive her, totally and unconditionally. I'm no longer a Nazi nor do I break people’s legs if they wrong me. I never once did a spell to hurt a fucking soul.

I left my Craft alone for so many years, became a real lost soul. Like the ones I write on, in my dark poems. Crossing lines. I never asked for so many things. Oh what a joyous list: being born, being different, being misunderstood and having war fighting ability with fists, weapons and words.

Above all, I never asked to live in a world of selfish people who are fucking cunts, where nations go to war and kill thousands for oil, where my life is a tragic ash filled ruin. And I never asked for the gift of writing so I could share my shit with all of YOU. Do my new spells stop my rot, guide me from my path of destruction, where SHE helped me on my way?

SHE filled the fuel tank on my broken warplane when I flew off on my suicide mission. Oh, I hope she remembers me after I blocked her for being like all of the others...                                                                                                                                          

Bleat

I blame you for all my maladies                                                                                                       

and strife in life.                                                                                                                             

Have a nice day.                                                                                                                         

Bend over and meet Mr Meat.                                                                                                              You fucking sheep!

Cyn

I look at you from across the ocean and wonder what are you thinking? Will you like my poem and my words when you read it? Would it be like a poem that you write, if you choose to do one? A collection of words, each unique as you are, all with meaning when joined together. Many things are different but many are similar. You like cakes and ice hockey. Part of your individuality. What else do you like? Music and films? Happy or sad? The years of your life traced thru a love of songs, remembering the good times but wanting to forget the bad. Just how I am. Do you think life gets harder as we get older, not easier? Broken hearts are for the young, not the old, as are hangovers. Tell me my friend, do my mere words do you justice? Wishing you well, my simple poem for you :)

Chemical Fire

Burn baby and give me some sulphuric hydrochloric acid smoke,

your fire gives me toasted testicles and crisps me up nicely.

Boom goes the roof when 55 gallon drums go flying and it’s all ballistic.

The money shot is when the boss’s office goes up like a fucking rocket.

He was sat at his desk and went to the moon.

Chemical Ali won’t be coming back anytime soon.

Question is where is his ten million dollar profit?

Was it hidden in an empty oil drum on a pallet of dangerous chemicals?

All the factory is ablaze, three workers died and two were injured.

They should have got blood money for working there,

no risk to life was greater and no boss more meaner.

As flames reach a hundred feet and smoke a mile in the sky,

hindsight is way too late.

Hot Day

It was a hot day in the Nevada desert.

Slowly in the distance, a dot trailing smoke came closer.

Minutes passed.

Above a faint jet engine sounded, no more than a whisper.

The sun was at its highest, burning mercilessly down.

An omen of coming events?

The dot was now a vehicle, an old yellow school bus.

Bars covered the windows.

Hands poked out of the gaps, as if asking for solace.

Rumbling along at twenty miles per hour, the bus eventually stopped.

Level ground arced out miles around it, leaving the vehicle naked.

Rusty hinges creaked and the front and rear doors slowly opened.

Nothing happened for a few seconds.

Then three dozen hardened criminals sensed freedom and left in a riot of arms and legs.

Some ran almost falling, others staggered unable to grasp that they were ‘free.’

Up above the jet engine was louder now, diving down upon its target.

With sudden ferocity the F-20 Tigershark opened fire with twin 20MM cannons.

TAT - ATAT - TATA - TAT! roared the guns.

Shells kicked up sand, bounced off rocks and exploded across the bus.

In a hiss one tyre burst, the bus leaned drunkenly over.

A small fire started inside.

Several men were sprawled on the ground, red blood soaking in.

Other prisoners now knew what was happening:

liquidation.

They ran for their lives as the jet curved round to re-attack.

It dropped a cluster bomb at a group of fifteen prisoners.

POP - POP - POP - POP! went the small bomblets when the case opened.

Most were killed outright, sliced and diced by anti personnel bombs.

One or two had arms and legs blown off, they moaned for their mothers.

A small hill gave cover for four men.

Rolling down range, the fighter came in.

The pilot selected rockets.

WHOOSH - WHOOSH - WHOOSH  WHOOSH! screamed the 80MM explosive rockets.

Like the cluster bomb, they were area weapons and the complete hill was blanketed.

Nothing survived the wicked explosions except drifting smoke.

Another gun run hit three men running over the open desert, cutting them down.

Two more men stood their ground and told the F-20 pilot to fuck off.

The pilot saw their raised fingers.

His remaining cluster bomb soon sorted them out.

Now it was time for his ‘dumb’ bombs.

Three tumbled free, aimed by computer, and hit the yellow bus.

BOOM - BOOM - BOOM! spoke the 750lb bombs.

A cacophony of sound and violence tore the smouldering machine apart.

Six men who had doubled back and hid inside or under it were blown to Hell.

With only a few cannon shells left of air to ground ordnance, the pilot spotted a lone figure.

A dive, a burst, a kill and it was over. Too easy!

Climbing back to altitude, the Tighershark went in search of his only airborne target -

a Boeing 747 full of 500 murderers.

Like the old school bus, it was remotely controlled with no crew.

Two Sidewinder missiles would take care of this beast and his underwing drop tanks were still half full.

Happily the merc pilot grinned. This line of work was fun and paid well.

And it got rid of scum.