At times when the daylight jumps in
through the skylight and night,
skedaddles through the floor
I can hear what I'm thinking,
also, I
hear her breathing which makes me
believe in
something more.

There'd be a built in safety feature if things hadn't gotten so bad, but the safety net is now a thing of the past.
We should all have been moving on and yet here we are in the middle of a nightmare going nowhere.

Politicians are like colonoscopies
a pain in the backside
and
on the bright side
there's an eclipse.

That is no excuse to be sad
it's not all bad
it only seems like it.

Watching her thinking about getting a cat and it's me having bleedin' kittens.

Later when she settles down
she tells me she wants a Llama
I ask her if she means the Dalai
and she gives that look
that tells me to go,

( I thought '*** off' would have completed the last line,
but I chose not to use it)

I'm in the doghouse now
bow wow.

'it ain't me babe..'
it couldn't be
I have a certificate.

All we do is rearrange the letters
in the alphabet
to get to where we are.

The belt that you wear is tightening
Rishi the ruler is frightening
you can't afford to let light in
because you couldn't pay the bill.

It's a bitter pill but they sweeten it
by pretending
that sugar tastes just like ****
but they'll erase every last little bit
of you
and pretend that you didn't exist.

Getting a sick note is sick
they want to put you in irons
and quick,

Rishi the rich has the gall,
to sit there and watch us all fall.

I'm wearing braces to face the new future
so I can catapult into this culture and feed
on the poor like a vulture.

The supermarket self-checkout
is apparently not  the place to
check out permanently

unexpected item?
well
**** 'em
because
they're expecting me in eternity.

Making time for forever
wherever that is.

If it's a mountain to scale
some of us climb it
and
some of us fail.

I sail off into the distant blue
looking forever for you.

The freckle fairy flew past me
I think my thanks go to Peter
but I like freckled faces

How dare they/them or he/she
fly past me.

In the olden days when gender was the plural of gander
no one would say boo to a goose
but these days
look sideways and all hell breaks loose.

all the hops were picked by the hop
pickers in Kent, yep, that's where they went
and I was left with only a skip and a jump
it's no wonder that I've got the ****,
but at least I understand why.

If you gave your Father cheek
he'd give you a thick ear
which never seemed like a
fair swap to me.

Teaching what teachers teach reaching for a textbook because you have to practice what they preach and having not one thought of your  own and when they put you in a home?
why ask why?

'Do or Die' a motto in a seaside grotto because we're not allowed to fight anymore and riding the ghost train in that frame of signed In for duty Sgt Bilko.

A slip and we all make then try to unmake them
and they break men for less.

The stunning suburban
the middle class businessman
with a wife on prosecco
by the way
who is Sgt Bilko?

Another slip
the cord rips and the parachute deploys
oh joy of joys
it's not grim at all.

Gypsy Rose knows,
but which Rose?
there were so many to
choose from.

There used to be hundreds
down along Morecambe Prom'

I wonder if they saw in their
own palms
that era coming to an end.

I think,
oops
no
that'll come later.

but I have to get up and go
there are things to do
and some places to go
and
now I'm thinking I'll get up and go.

See how it flows
like me, downstream
back to the dream,

I'll wake in a while and get dressed

the bathroom mirror looks impressed
and to be honest
I can't fault it,

vanity
will be my undoing
but the tea's brewing in the ***
so my undoing will have to wait.

Local councils
cannot stand you if you move outside the estate, cannot wait to drag you back in to the orange bin for food waste, green bin for the bottles, I could flamin' well throttle 'em, pay your council tax as you lay down on your backs and think of England, I'd ****** 'swing for 'em, aye, high on the gallows.

listen up buttercup
they'll dress you down and tuck you up
to ******* up and keep you in the system,

they're on the radar
and come the revolution,
the local council won't get far,
we'll be watching.

I refer you to my previous
when life was tough and living serious
but you may not even read this.

Nothing's quite that simple
not the pimple on your cheek
or
solutions that you seek,
try not to dwell.

It's Friday night and there's no sight nor is there anyone around
I'm here but I was bound to be.

I believe that I'll reach my peak next Tuesday at three.

Oh wouldn't that be cute?
some aeons old geezer in a grey demob suit
tripping over the light fantastic.

In the real World which is flat if you believe pancakes
or pixies, someone picks these pearls of wisdom and restrings lyres with them.

In this house of harpies he's at home on the sea
but they steal his food and he's constantly hungry,
I pray to
Zeus who's of no use at all,
but next Tuesday at three and at my peak
Zeus will see just who is what and where.

Getting lighter,

She says
No, you're not
You've got to lose some weight,

but wait, what if I run on the spot
and drop a few keys,
what if I eat Slimcea?

She chimes in with
give me a break
take yourself off to the gym
and start exercising

I'm guessing that she doesn't mean
my imagination.

I'm already tired just thinking about it.

Someone left the light on or perhaps it's that the night's gone and the day has broken in.

I was in a dream but I'm not sure whose,
the thing is one cannot choose who dreams of who, but there I was.

Thank the Lord the morning came
because I was bored with the weird little game that the dream had me play,
but to be honest it wasn't all bad,
I've asked to go back on Saturday.

Press home and girls appear, skin and bone, men like supermen and that happens when you press home, but press a little further on and find out where real folks have gone.

What a trick
Google picks your brains
which run at twenty four frames
and suddenly
your thoughts are on the screens
happiness it seems
is not just smoking a Hamlet.

Goodness knows I've seen shows
but
I won't go into that here,
I'll just think of having another beer
and Google will show me the way.

What's a little rain between friends?
well
wet for one thing.

But don't be a drip
the sun's on the way
slip on your shorts
get out there and..
what day is it?
..oh yeah,
Wednesday
so
I'm checking the lotto
before I go
to bed,

one cannot sleep on an empty wallet
nor an old wooden pallet
believe me
I've tried.

They tell me to
follow the headline
but I have a hard time
believing the trash that
they print.

I'd sooner follow the blind one
who hasn't a clue what the hell
is going on.

Reading the leaves in the bottom
of a cup makes my mind up
it also allows me a nice cup of tea.

When a Facebook feed
is all that you need
you'd better season it
with a pinch of salt.

A dithering
I will do
sometimes
pottering or
a tinkering too
and you
thinking me lazy
absolutely crazy.

Today
the stepometer
blew a fuse and
tried to accuse me
of cheating
but my feet don’t cheat

Okay
not everything has to rhyme
like that time I set off to Blackpool
and ended up in Hartlepool
that wasn’t cool
or was it?

If X marks the spot
it's a dot on the card
that finding the X
will most likely be hard.

I laugh at such treasure maps
as often as the government
craps on me
and that's quite frequently
because we all know that
they're full of it.

But if that’s what you think
I’ll drink to it.

there’s a ***** in the curtains
where the light sneaks on in
I’m beginning to wonder
if this is where I begin,
but
I’ve begun before
opened the door marked
No Entry
knowing that no entry
never meant me
it was just a warning to those
who had wanted to pose
beside me,

something else never meant me
to be here nearly seventy,

It’s a case of
three score and ten
and I wonder when
I stopped counting.

If systems can be worked within
I think I’ve worked myself right
into one.

It’s no longer add two,
divide by nine,
that time’s gone
we are the one
the one and only,
the miss me quick hat
the scroll past, like that,

and that’s batshit crazy if
you ask me
but of course you won’t
because you don’t want to know
unless it’s on a catwalk
or
a south suburban sidewalk,

no
you will not talk to me
I
am that future that you dare
not see,

you think that long ago
was twenty-twenty three
so
what’s the flamin’ point?

There’s something of the
Sierra Madre about her,
tall
begging me to fall
within her
forever.

But
I’m in the Sierra Nevada
at Fredonyer Pass
heading South towards
Tehachapi
and our paths
will never cross.

Does the Sun rise when it’s cloudy
and if so how would we know?

Have faith said the vicar
who always moved quicker
when passing by Nero’s,
something to do with
what Romans’ used to do with
nails and wood,
but to be fair
the coffee is quite good.

I’m conferring with Merlin,
the wizard, not the engine,
trying to figure out
how to fly.

I was thinking
that’s there’s too much thinking and not enough doing.
and
if the average is what we’re averaging there’s still not
enough doing.

I’m doing sums in my head
Pythagoras for the well read.

But it’s Saturday so why hurry?

Decision time and that means it’s twenty past nine
or it might be time for coffee,

I’ll have to think about that.

Steel grey streets in the boxcar brown Town and slashes of red somewhere off Soho Square.

The Thames runs muddy too as it fights its way to the sea.

Splashes of light appear like bloodstains on the pavements at night and somewhere a scream ( probably off Soho Square ) I think we all know what happens there.

At two a cleaning crew, Westminster council on the go,
I wish they'd go and clean Westminster up.

How polite we were when the air wasn't so polluted
or when the roads weren't so congested and the rivers
didn't have to be tested every day for cancer-causing
chemicals.

Even as Aesop was writing his fables
time was already turning the tables.

No room for Battenburg cake
no rooms for the homeless
and what do we take from that?

Politicians promise but seldom deliver.

It's six he said,
a quarter of the day gone,
and still in bed,

I'm going for a walk later
to the kitchen
and I'll bring back a coffee,
I'll pretend that I'm a waiter,
oh wait
that'll take forever.

I took forever once
but the judge took pity on me
and only gave me one to three,
in Leavenworth.

I can almost reach out and touch that light at the end of the Carpal tunnel
though I suspect that's not the tunnel I should be going through.

On those long Summer days
sometimes we'd sit on the hill,
until the train came
and we'd wave,
pretending
we were 'the railway children'

and now
I'm as old as Cribbins and can
barely remember,
how fine
Jenny Agutter
looked.

It's all becoming
digital
or
dermatological
either way
it's
making my skin
itch.

the thing is
we dive in
and
thrive in
no terms or
conditions
attached,
thus
we become
detached,
then
we'll complain
because we're not
complete
without a complaint.

I'm nearly done with it
now
the fields and the plough
look like they're out of it
and that'd be me
in a little bit
but a little bit lasts for
an awful long time.

He said,
you should walk a mile in my shoes,

jeez
I don't even walk a mile in mine,

but there was a time,
can't remember when though.

I thought that I'd never been older than when I got hold of this pen but that was then and now I'm older still.

it never seems right that when I'm sitting tight time whizzes past me on some flamboyant trajectory leaving me behind and yet when I look behind me time's there and I find me watching time whizzing past me again.

Grammarly tells me, get a grip
Grammarly doesn't half give me the pip
but
like an old friend, it'll be there at the edn!
spellchecking.

You can't do that mate
you can't park there,
and
don't call anyone
anything at all
because that's not really
fair,

yesterday they didn't care and called things as they were
we got along as long as we had lots of love to share,

but about today what can I say?
**** all apparently
without upsetting someone.

The best times of our lives are being lived at a subatomic level in a parallel universe,
so
I'm applying for the job of a 'stand in'
and I am hoping to stand in for me.

Earth.
overcrowded  
shrouded by constant gloom
not enough room to swing a cat
but it's not that
I just feel like a change.

Aw *****
everyone's looking fukin' ancient tonight.

I suppose it could be my eyesight
my foresight
or
these bifocals that are fukin with me

I've been invited out by the crew
She said
I can do what I want to do
which means
I'm staying in.

getting old is like being in Spandau
***
ballet twice a week
what a flamin treat
But
She looks out for me
and after me
I suppose that it could be
more than
love.

Are we at war
is that what the church bells
are ringing out for?
or it could just be Sunday
and they're going like the clappers
waking up the old nappers
so even they can pray.

I'm using Vicks
I haven't told him yet
haha

nose blocked
like I'll be
when I tell you all
that this is poetry.

.and what if I won the lottery
the taxman would take the lot off me,
fukin skanks.

he rants on unaware
that the boys in blue
are waiting out there
to catch him unawares
fukin skanks.

aw
shoot me from a cannon
straight down to the demon
who at least is upfront
about
what you get.

My local council
posting asinine polls
which I have to pay for
through my council tax.

for instance:
how many wild animals
are killed
by litter on the streets?

not as you might expect,
how can we make street cleaning
more effective?

just
join the council collective
rake the money in
spread the manure out
and hope
nobody notices.

ICU.
I had to stop and dab my quill
into the *** of what will happen next,

to break the mood
She texts me:
LOL

She's testing me
even as I'm going through the dictionary
to find what LOL means
She's laughing at me.

Current entertainment?
wait
let me think
current entertainment
blink
and yes it was
but
the lights went out


I'm waiting again.
for the lights
to begin
and I know that the
only e n d is to win

If it's lunacy and
you're wanting me
why don't you
set yourself free
from desire?
Resonate
on a higher
frequency

take your selfie
and
be a Rockstar

There is a pulse
an EM one
everything being lost
but
they've already gone
and now they're on
the stage.

Those were happier times,
when I was sleeping
apart from the nightmares
and the monsters
and the clock that alarmed me
and yet
the coffee that calmed me
sent me off racing to stand
somewhere facing a firing squad.

Perhaps looking before I leapt
might have kept me awake
and
allowed me to make more,
of those days.

I'm
starting to believe that
' April  is the cruelest month '

tired with a hacking cough
as if sputtering and spitting
wasn't enough
time to call the Doc

He'll give me pills
She always does
they always do
her and him
they and them
fukin pronouns
beat me again.

Still no Michaelangelo
so
where do I go now?

I think it must be obvious
that I must be hallucinating
but
considering the awful state
we're in
it's
probably par for the course.

Up at the crack
looking back on the night
Dawn looks so bright
in comparison.

In the right light
I look bright too.

She looks
but is not fooled
nor taken in
by how I begin
each day,

To be or not to become
inspired by some
and
ignored by the rest

but we're all a bit yesterday
all fading away
until only
memories remain.

More words spoken
promises broken
it
must be election time.

we get one vote for free
but buy two
and then you get three,
oh!
that might be cynical
of me.

I never trust a politician.

They're calling the Mayor of London's election
a two-horse race,
all I can say is this,
they must be thoroughbreds
well housed
and
well fed.

I'd rather stay in bed
but I will vote
instead
for a steward's enquiry
because
whatever the outcome
it'll have been fixed.

The train slides slowly
out from the sidings,
sliding because of the leaves
on the line,

that'll be delayed then

when will they bring out the canoes
it's a river out there.

I'm feeling better
although
you might disagree

the 'flu that floored me
has flown.

If it's true
then work
is the best way
out of poverty
for you,

but they'd tell that
to anyone
who was on
the breadline

I got no time
to waste on
soundbites
from those
fuckall governments

I'm signing on
and at the same time
signing out
of the system.