I have
elemental
emblems,
tattooed
on my knuckles...

there are
days she loves
to feel the forces
stirring deep within...

The shock
and awe of
ordinary mornings,
saw me,
hat-in-hand,
plans slipped back
to the protein grain...

for
all my
false geometry,
the same
old pseudo attributes
exposed,

cloned,
sky-clad,
in this laughing gas
of dissipating
aspiration,

nothing more
than occupation,
poked in fear
and sold unease...




they never said,
the way would lead,
to any place but here...


but here
is where I'll stall
to find particulates
of dream.

Sometimes
when unoccupied
I hear the cries
of my lost legions

skin dispels
its drops of poison
to the tunes of lies
and treason....

Discomfort
pinches as regret
denies the liberty of
forgetfulness ....

It was there
we ran like
lambs to laughter,
loved by landscape
further faster,

faster than
a smarting starlight,
hoofed in dew-soaked
volleys from our meadow
kicking feet..

and onward, upward

beat
those tracks
of flattened rye,
then took the dry-stream
bed by storm,

leapt the dams,
with air-sprung ease,  
and wore our leaf-haired
voices wider

quelled our glare
in sky-torn ponds
at peace,
  
with
our surrounding....


so
where, to, now
the Birchwood boys,
our atoms split,
our cells dividing

chided,
from our
founding frolic,

gone to chase
the last day down.

Whist now, love
speak quietly,
and keep your symbol,
close about you.
Only meet in darkness,
while this zealotry
prevails,

for they will
raze the sacrosanct to
filth of unkempt alleyways,
in mutilated outrage of
their tyrannous brigades...

Pray,

stay your song
inside yourself,
go placid into nothingness,
say little of your learning
hood the wisdom of your word,

They will come,
these new Inquisitors,
with torches for their narrative,

our difference is a Witchcraft,

and the Witches must be burned...

Threw the pebble
into the sea,

a billion years
in to a billion years...

a stoop, a grab,
a swing of the arm...

thought nothing
of it...

It has to be
a lack of sleep..

Insomniacal thought-police,
could only dream this up


Delivered from
a rolled-up note,
that bug-eyed trope
of one-skin buzz,
runs ugly through
the neighborhood.
Some duggery of skull-top
lynching underground
resistance, thinking
every shot, a tracer
bearing names.

They are
out there, now
in no-man's-land,
that orange hell
of pictograms
and all of them
insane.

Shovel out
the rook-black rain,
best travel light,
a cause unlaboured.

slavered at
the kissing-gate,

for sights that pull,
these paper hands
through cataracts
of fuddled scurf,

a road to chance
misunderstood,
and all because
the footsteps hurt...

it's Love and Hope,
those well-worn soles

that lead us ever onward...

Myth explodes
in tinted showers
spectrums gather hidden forces
God-led powers coursing
through these vibrant linen layers.
 
Pith unloads
sweet minted flowers.
question matter, given sources.
Cadence laced with light, displaced
embodiment of prayer.

We breathed so deeply
we could taste,
expatriating emptiness.

We  siphoned dreams
from mere escape
where minutes passed
like centuries...

...and there are days
           when Imagine you
in ways, I really
          shouldn't do..

But, ****!.....
         it feels good...

Dark circles drew my eyes to be,
downcast by curse of present time

Bewildered, would I watch and follow
aching for the lost sublime....

She, is that flower unopened,
in quieter moments,
she washes him clean,
a theme behind secrets
unspoken,
not of ether, nor clay,
but of somewhere between.

He, with his pallid complexion,
loves nothing of Earth,
even less of the air,
for all that are given
direction,
are places or houses
that she cannot share...

"Helmets back on"

sighed, Fox to The Owl

"the lock-down is lifting,
they're coming back out...."

It comes in easy

this
espadrilled hegemony
that nibbles through
the idle clag
of unimportant
words...

the first
acerbic adjectives
drag sadness to these surfaces....

run, tampering, with dials
of a slow,
                   unworldly,
                         progress.....



enrolled
b­etween their  cursive loop,
we live a life in service
to these no-uncertain terms.....

was a costly equanimity
I scavenged from the wars...

a lifetime spent, inventing ways
to close revolving doors...

yeah,
locked-down
but loaded,

got me
go-to beats
of Thievery



..... ain't no such thing
as too much sunshine.....



Snowed-in by
the blue-sky walls

apparently
the coast is clear......

time redefines reality
and drifts on outta here....

You remove the joy
then as sure as endings
faith will follow..

It takes time to beat the boy
the young can mend,
are resilient
but persevere
the cracks will
widen.

Fill that space
with fear,
shame
ridicule,
despair

let that
fatten.

Marinade
in isolation.

There you
have him.
Have him
beaten...

So kick him out
as Man.
Out
into the plan-less
waste of living,

Then watch the fruit
of all achievement
cast from your
own spiteful holding

rot beneath
the tree
from which
it fell....

Gone sparingly
about the lane
as I have laid some
cause to rest

had turned
the tide of thought
to leave me grateful

then I look to you,
as if I could,
to find you there,
the where, you would

alive,
among the latter
days of April......

There are flowers
on the railings

guess the place is
coming up for rent,

one wonders
where the love goes,
once the locks are changed
the doors repainted...

no locus
for the laughter
over Sunday tea
and homemade cake..

they scrape away
the old base coats
and blow the flecks
into the past

ah-ha,
my itty harbinger,
of all-means-green,
All hail!

(a voice not heard
since Woodcock fell
on cusps of wet November)

Your two-note declaration
comes with umpteen possibilities

emaciated yesterdays
disintegrate in sound...

Of course
it has to end
one day,
it always does..

but not like this...

so, now is not
the time to lose,
that bright and burning
will, that serves you well
beyond the quarantine
of rich imaginations.

And, should those
feral torments run,
then face them down
assured, for you are
stronger with this love
that coves, your everything
and more....

Of course
it has to end
one day,
it always does

but not like this..

then,
to the sound of bells
we'll tell of days we braved,

together...

" It's why
these things
will always be
bigger than us"

        ......

In truth it's been
a long time coming

Something only seen
beneath the scrutiny
of microscopes
has found us out,

undermined
our house of cards
and sped us to
our place
of fear

Now
fighting
over pasta
milk and money
we appear no more
than primitive....

So far,
the voices rally
from the vortice
of an underpass.
Endorsed by cavilled
penury, more yesterday
than newspaper.

but nothing here, can
change the course
of rivers.

Bent-double
in their algorithm
fixed within their fiction,
though, a sheathing of
their tar-skimmed blade
played life in minds
of old unplenty..

Winter-kin
they were,
come carapaced,
lenticular

Sat where
the startled couple char
that narcoleptic zinfandel,

untrammelled, in their
moon-trashed subterranea.

But when the Sun
is done with us

and dust has
earned its Earth,

I will meet you
in the morning tree

when we come back
as birds......

It is difficult to define
With no black dog to lead
this pressure dropped familiar.
No symbol/ fetish/ effigy
to incorporate a misery that drains
the joy from all that I hold dear.
.
How does one trace the contours
of an abstract exhalation?

Somewhere near
a pendulum is stilled.

That which I loved one minute past,
that filled this hole of borrowed time
is laid apart her spent electric
body washed in turpentine
Her outline drawn.

Estranged.

                        .........

I follow where the way grows small
Where disembodied voices pull in
strange degrees of separation
I flow toward their thin remains
shape, ill-defined, subliminal
An acquiescent aftermath of
calculus unknown.

I am pressed italic, hither sent
to comb the sear of cloying strand
for relics of the days worn down
by nothing in particular.
There is no anthem or lament
no ornamental sentiment to wrest
the quickened lacks that sand
the shores of Anhedonia.

It's
the little
things,
my Liberty..

that day we caught
the train, you pressed
your lips against my
startled ear, insisted
you were soaking....

...laughed
at my confusion when
I said it wasn't raining,

your impish
observation ceded,
light, for me, dawns slowly..

...waited
for the tunnel thrash
to sit astride
and show me....

Shake
the beach-combed locks
and how this Spanish Plume
becomes, a vaunted
posturing of poppies..

The way is high
and undiluted.
Office blocks have melted
to a salty insignificance,
their oscillating convolutions
baked, on oven -cambers....

Catch,
her sorbet-samba glamping
apricot in sandalwood,
a paper-chasing chatelaine,
gone, daisy, down, the dockside pan.
Our Painted Lady tumble-dries
the bramble-crab, peroxide.

Her ox-eye, Andalusian tours
to rhapsodies of ice-cream vans.

Took, passing, as
my chosen word
a comfort-food of preference,
celestial confectionery,
indulgent mewl of movement.

It's a prudent lie
I stir myself

this spoon
of porch-light parable,
a home-brewed benediction
simpers, intimate angelica

infallible
as love....

Hooking
bullets from
the muscle, I
took just enough
to get me out,

out of these
discipled digs
of occidental artifice.

Saw virtue, as
a patient bound
found floating
with the carcasses,
in oceans of our
artless composition.

So sickened by
my part in this
repulsive codependency,
I'll charter me another sleep,
usurp the gutless drone

to shave my head
the stillborn dream
I open up my arteries
the garters of my
cartilage and bone....

am conscious
of the ticking clock

how
the bleached reef
of a window frame
intimidates,
says
something
of a heed untaken,
propagates the
cloud-seed doubt
with lightly spoken
fallacy,

recoiling
on a layman
tongue.


Am
aware of where
the sentence stops.

where syllables
of rhinestone rain,
call sibylline ,

reverberate

in thick
galactic suburbs.

How
soporific
doppler-shifts of
moving conversation
played me, staring
down the outpost
of my unbecoming
walls.

The poster read:

“Gone Missing”

The come-back-kid
has failed to show.
The Old Man saw him,
******* by the Rainbow Factory
wall, against the wind,
like a prayer no longer given
to the prism-surfing life.

He said,

“The come-back-kid, might
Not come back”..

He wrung his
swindled heathen, left
with haversack and Macintosh,
hummed ballad in a Sea-King crown,
the colloquy of shepherd lore.
head far too full to sing,

Caught riding
in a burnt out car of
rude December archetypes,
an engine feathered Westerling,
to think.

He went
to where they bury boats,

Where mud larks perk
for potsherd farthings,
red-shanked in the gallon slob
oblivious...

Far off the Ness
He’ll watch them go..

... on meteoric dawn patrols,
a contrast to his built-in
obsolescence.

In provinces
of platitude
He’ll form no evanescent tie,
invoke his tattooed waxwing
back against their lactic
saccharine, to beg
the notion die...

But leavened light may carry,

A bold ceramic dialect
that skitters off
the short-sun marsh

dissipates in linnet banter
winnowed from the winter barley
crossing out the county lines..


The come-back-kid
will not return,
a blue-eyed, fell, Promethean.

Disfigured by the absolute
He’ll beat his way
unrecognised.

Swallowed
by Andromeda,
an alcoholic heart
bleeds neat particulars,

( Spun one spring round
the maypole Star
and even now
the grief is green)

A common lean
to Eden-seeking
hovers on, ridiculous,

preserved between
the pages, in this
Little book of Lost-Things.

Might as well
go one more round,

it wont be long
before they find
our deck of
haggard rafters,

all laid out
like body-bags
and facing in
the same direction.

Work it through
in pencil, in the margins
of a notepad.

They'll see
in tree rings,
years from now,
us , squeezed into
the sixth extinction,
fungal-spore
anomalies
in ice-core.



So, we
might as well
go one more round

got little left
to lose,

Come sand me down
those dancing shoes
again.

Begin beguiling day
Let night rest in chambers
way beyond the lifting light
warm the Moon-chilled air
and there, conjure up
the down-closed eye.
Return dream pieces
to their space, while
prizing strength from
comfort's clasp.

Now at hand
the time to take
the awaiting day
to task.

Lord, help me please
to stay awake,

For I cannot
be arsed.

Still

And
Strangely so
It seems

As if
the splendid
Earth lay wait

Inert
in barefoot,
open-door
propensity
suspended


Then to
this end abide
by quiet rules

Take mind to ****
the unintended
word that turns
through all of this

But know

I miss you

Still

A quarter past
The afternoon,
back on the chair
of bevelled legs
Baffled
with the hex
of number
Tested
by the brooding
threat, incumbent.

Never been too
good at tables,
Better that
I eat alone
Seen, faceless men
in grim apparel
waiting for
a chance
to come,

Convincing
with their
bare contempt.

And, I
the part
of all my sums,
cannot explain
where it went wrong.

Sat playing
with the cornerstones
of new denominations.

Have
come to quiet
the voices
to wrap them in
sea-fret,  to set
them aside for a while.
Rest ankles in campion barrows,
to search for the wonder
we lost in the chase for tomorrow.
To smile with the guise of a child,
if the moment be woken,

And, should it arise
from my somber entwines,

exalt in the pleasure of being,
supine in the seconds
of mystical present. Alive
in the genuine time
of my life.

Have
come to quiet
the voices
To wrap them in
sea- fret  to set
Them aside for a while.

Found meaning
lost in empty rooms
The lump of my
impostor stare saw
time collapse
in pixel thought,
reduced to
liquid molecules.

I brought you
out to open water
kissed the lighting
from your head,

Sent fire- ships
to steer you clear
of awful loves that
look for you in places
you can never be.

Forever seems
a long time gone

and this could travel
on for miles....

"The rule of thumb,
is to cup the apple
gently in the palm,
then lift and twist
in one easy movement,
This avoids finger pressure,
which causes bruising.

Also, take the greatest
of care when transffering
your bucket to the bin..
Get as low to the base
as you possibly can
then release your straps,
slowly- not letting- go
so as to ease the crop
onto the wood...

Dropping the lot is
no good for anyone...

Your work
will be inspected,
daily. If there's more
than a 5% flaw in your yield
then we'll be saying
goodbye.

How d' ya like
them apples?"
he grinned..


He was alright,
was John.

Taste the fruit
of light and rain
admire its cured endurance
bite down upon the tender
skin, release the inner promise,
partake of all prosperity
completed by the seasons,
Such elemental lending thanked
for what this moment gains. Then
kiss the months goodbye once more,
for fairness has no reason
to stay among these changing tracts
while duty calls it South.
In an afterglow where shadows fall
as leaves, i know the parting,
So the taste of what i loved again
fades slowly from my mouth.

Of late
the sergeant thrill-to-burn,
remains, at best unorthodox,
a cutter’s stock of winsome blend
compiled in slim anthologies.
To date, an urgent threnody
bates, cider- pressed, impertinent
as bargain basement demagogues
renounce their crass belief.

Rude, canon-balled, eccentrics
venting, hurt- inflected metaphors,
unpoured memento-mori, cursing
absence of reprieve.
Misfortune flavoured pockets, line
the boxcar-lite Praetorian,
event amended anecdotes, plied
ammonite in grief.

Up wind- cuffed pathways

chanced and fooled

I saw her, briefly



Her briskly dress, a squalling maul

of last year's favourite maple, horned

in all jurassic passion, met me,

dizzy, by the lee-side wall

with gale-borne abandon.

There is regret for the gradual entrapment and brainwashing of the human spirit, via lives of quiet servitude.
There is shame, the recognition of
potential diminished and unrealised, trained and drained for consumerism which is sold as the illusion of happiness ..filling our spaces with needless clutter, shrinking the borders of
individual thought...that last bastion of freedom and the well spring of change.
We are profiled, labelled and categorized, predictable and easily manipulated by systems that govern.

I feel this when the wind blows from certain quarters.
and when the curtain is briefly lifted, and we can look out toward the deep mysteries of space,
I recall the "Earthrise" photograph from the Apollo 8 mission and, still, after all these years find it profoundly moving..." Beautiful" is a far too lesser word to describe it.
It truly is a breath- stealing image...and it's our home.
And what have we done with it?
We over- populate, fly our flags, bang our drums, peddle our religions, burn our forests, pollute our seas eradicate species with impunity,...how, on Earth are we evolving?
We have such possibility yet have traded it all in for a business model with drivers of profit and greed.
and where are the indigenous peoples? ..the, recognized wiser custodians of the planet?
Subsumed or displaced,..turfed off their lands( that also happen to be rich in mineral deposits or ripe for development) largely unmentioned and forgotten.....and yet i cannot help thinking that these are the apex of our species with regards to their understanding of the value of our habitat....their insights far more sustainable and rooted than the bilious reach of our ****** little empires.
What could they have taught us if only we cared to listen....to really listen....
We have lost our sense of wonder, of symbiosis, of reverence...we take our place for granted..not as something extraordinary to be treasured

What is our collective aim?
And is there a " collective"...After all, a communal philosophy that proffers an alternative could prove difficult to subdue, far better the divide and conquer strategy that panders to the subtle edges of an avarice, that becomes our modern way.
While we bury our head in the sands of social media baying for loves and likes, we are drip-fed endless propaganda and advertising..
Outside our window there is a green unpleasant land sprayed with herbicide, insecticide, devoid of natural diversity by the sweep of our constant chemicals..
Where now , the fresh air ?

The curtain falls and I’m back in my day job, paying over the odds , but grateful of income...enough to get by..i have sorted the bills and might treat myself to a couple of t- shirts i have seen in the sale- (less than half price- you cant beat a good bargain) ….Will have a few beers while watching the game and cheer on my team...there is a chance of silverware this season....
I am suitably anaesthetized and gently returned to my conformity.
It seems easier this way....


This isn’t the search for some utopian cloud- kingdom, more of a quest for a balance of sorts.
I do not consider myself hard done by...I am more fortunate than many and will always place laughter above tears
But I am of an island race encircled by powerful waters....as they appear to protect, then so do they threaten...

I have no manifesto,...I am the product of my age...and I sleepwalk through this gift of life , but as i sleep so too i sometimes dream
dream of a pathway through and out beyond the high rise, over the weather- won tides, that leads to somewhere different, somewhere we have never been...

Fast
too long in aspic,
antipathy for wind-chill
kills the arable concern..

Have
Listened to
the shipping-forecast-
victuals of an Island-race-
recur their little mysteries
from keeping.

Been
pacing off
the Malin Head in
fossil-fueled embarrassment,
deciphering a sense of self

and deepening.

Snap back
in the orange 70s
classic catch of
school- wall monkeys,
Kodak kids invincible
With everything to play for

Me, big- head and stick limbed
you, a bowl-cut- cuddle- incarnate

They say cheeky
wasn't half of it,

  But, naughty?...

..They knew nothing...

Then
This was us, as
Thick as fir- trees
scab- kneed muckers
of the womble- burrow
pockets full of “borrowed”
biscuits,

mischief
to be made....

Was told
they wheeled
your bed toward
the window for
your passing- that
evening when the
circled closed an
end on your beginning.
Now, we shall have no more
of all this talk of getting older

Return to something beautiful
to cure the fear of flying.

You
are somewhere close
yet dislocated, sheltered
in your centered peace
adrift beside all certainty.

We
turn as apron-ed satellites
in matinee of gentle speak,
our mundane, London-Saturday
the soundscape to your stasis.

Surrendered
to this bastion  of valiant
machinery. Your pillars
in this paradise of waiting.