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.

Saw you descending from Alpha Centauri
Coming in weightless on Geminid halos
an ice bow of swan cry, indelicate nova,
a meandering circus of flame .

Your numinous vision run glossy with travel
surrendering spells of chaotic design
to palace the valiant
light years with presence,
your brigantine embers return.

Please,

explain..

Is there a peace,

a deep and swirling peace?

does that fabled light leave
the body ,released
from an anguish
of gravity

Can it be that you
are there?

Sustained,

outside these
small perceptions

even after all this time
the questioning

remains

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.

Mood

needs trimming,
handling,

thought

beseeches management,
preventions of digression

Yes,

I know these abled tangents,

-peculiar obsessions-

how they float up, moon- mouthed,
dream-lacquered vagrants,

Superlative deliverers
of profligate insistence

Their cool what-ifs
pontificate,

the vacant-eyed
rhetoricals,

excited by this delicate
existence

"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.

So you identify
as a cat,...

I'm alright with that

come in through the flap
in the back door ,

eat jellied meat from a bowl on the floor

crap in a tray or lay
cables in neighbours
back yards

Shouldn't be hard to tell

you're a cat

Beeline to your feline kin, slapping
the thatch off a whiskery chin
and yowling like grief

treating your mates
to a corpse of a bird
that you hold In
your teeth

lie on the sack
with your tongue in your crack

and I'll back you're a cat

But I think you'll change

in fact,

I'm willing to bet

When you're not so busy,
oh, little Miss Frisky

We're taking a trip
to the vet

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.

he sounds
her name..

it resonates

it focuses
on all she is..

this
love betides
her guiding speak,
her plainsong, warm
philosophies,

inseparable
and binding...

and what
she gives is
immeasurable

a
pleasurable
unweaving of
that self-perceiving
lie,
leaving him
stripped, yet
unashamed

but dying,

dying
to live like
this forever...

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.

To shake the powdered atoms
from the flaking cavern walls

That fossil horn
has summoned tribes
from different walks
alive tonight
Loose trousered hounds of pedal drums
are swilling bass for rocket fuel
All spastick in the rinks of treble,
  animating vertebrae
  draw talismanic creatures
rolling planets from
their shoulder blades.
Into the gathered sound

The ritual breaks a rip- tide sweat
A chance to wake the daemon
through those coronets of frequency
for stussy armoured Sufi
whirling
pneuma to humidity
A circled dharma rhythm-grasp
a knowledge passed from
Astronaut cartographers.

Acoustics of the standing stones
the hunting party hill-top chants
a triumph in the sacred groves
two hundred thousand years
of dance,

Have brought us here.

Love in Evolution

There is obvious futility
that lends a potted stoop
to the crippled angles of
our misadventure.
Full- fledged in low obedience,
we are marketed as free, yet
we stumble in the attics of the lost.

What can ease the burden
of our constant measured amble
as we strive for recognition,
or survival- God forbid.
Who can say what matters
in our endless daily questing,
also if it really matters
and if matters ever did.


There's love
in evolution, kid..

Be ******, if I can find it....

Slowly
it begins..

tiptoes down the bantam
skin, one bird awake

water holds both
cold and oldness
somehow fresh

and freezing air
grows, unaware

that yesterday
existed..

A lorry carries
off the stars

The barking dog

demands,

demands,

insistent as the car
alarming movement
at the window

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.

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.

A gunshot
splits the air

resounding
whip-like across
the back of morning,

milling rooks
erupt in flight
exploding out
the tall, thin, tree

assurance
has been tangled with,

a rabbit scarpers
for the warren ,
breaking, frantic
to evade
those hands
that shatter peace.

Those nameless
hands that claim the day
that rob the complex
of its store,

Those heartless
eyes that aim out life
that blackened eye
that flames the roar

What vow
knows iron twinned
with flesh,

what conscience
has this beast.

adept
in deprivation are

The hands
that shatter peace

The house bound head
had heard the news

old-money descant
dipped in dog-rose

Tuning forks
for goat-foot Gods
curating song
bedazzled zones

The crown
emblazoned sink estate
retained the annual Pilgrim's rite

where
roundelays
round every door
bore cherry blossom white

Time again
to notice things

glad galaxies
of primrose from
the window of
a taxi going back
to where I started..

to seek
the sound umbilical,
Spring lintels
at the hinterland

symbolic
of a simple need

returned.

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....

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...

Suddenly
December...


with a rueful
little smile,

swept the weeks
into a pile

of a year
gone by...

Overcome
by strange remorse

the sun-dyed pomp
of plaintive hursts
immerse
my soul in colour

Saint Lawrence
sheds his vehement tears
the axis
of the year is shifted,

watched our Swifts
on their way out

the charging weeks
are done.

Disposable face-masks
make excellent hammocks
for Bohemian hamsters,

perfect for them to unwind,
while practicing their music
on those little hamster flutes

So, take it easy..
shin back and smoke out
those sunny afternoons
with the haunting
scuffle of hamster-jazz..

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....

A bartered dark
of full shone armours
gallowed brooks in
shins of alder
trod the clays of stilted copse
that crest the low slung chestnut rides

To inglenooks of scuttled hamlets
strung in river- maiden's hair ,
a haven for the last ascendant
flinted from the steeping turf.

A subtle art of arcane movement
starboard cupped
in stone- pocked pewter

sparks the grailed pain
of foxes harrowed
in that sudden wood.

Here
she had been
put to music,
candles lit to memory,
the room now empty
lifeless quarters,
dull, ghost-less periphery


Some greater part
of learning wondered,
if each unites
or all unties,

what riches but old rags
were plundered,
if nothing lived

before her eyes

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.

To She
who whet
the corven wing,
her skin pulled back
an open firth unraveling
her scarlet mood

the first
among the thirsting.

To Her
that swallowed whole,
the rye, the blade
that clipped the startled shoulder,
carpal deep in gleaming brine,
who shivered time a potent pleasure,

Garlanding
the golden hurt,
that life was
never hers..

Beholden to
a tethered ransom
rivered in her stars...

Seen
them change,

as I have done,

this pace
I cannot remedy

let the
the slow, insipid
disconnect, bring
something of
it's incidental
tenderness
to hand..

(run far enough
to understand that
days ahead are fewer
than those days played
out behind)


then
maybe I'll
design a way,
appropriate
a fantasy..


sat, watching
all arise and fade..

transforming
into poetry...

Ah,

You've pressed
me to confess,
so, yes,
I guess,
I want
my ****
served shaved,
dished up wet
and open, splayed
on beds of platform heels.

Got
love-to-feel
that sweet-meat dribble,
glazed and gasping,
leaking gruel, impatient
jellied-tremble bursting
spittle-clustered
clitoratti.

Feed
this greed
for lacquered nuzzle
lusting parted, finger drummers
busy down your gutted muzzle
animal intensity.

Gone
horrid-hot to
hit the sweet spot
lap that fatted crown besotted,
crush me to your sobbing lips,
when eeling on beyond minora..

Call your
gorgeous tensions in,
indulge this flagrant avarice,
unbuckle on this stubbled rim
of gorging suppled suckle..

Come!

Soak me
in your gabbled tantrum,
lather me in mosh-pit froth,
berate my deepened questioning
with everything you have...

Go!, ride
this wreck
of chinstrap madness,
****, this mess of upturned
tongue and grab this gin-trap
rapture with both hands..



All glory
be the dying kind,
who speak to creatures,
long denied, expand
the breadth of human
mind, with epic liberations...

Becoming
husks of things
hollowed out and sickening
for nourishment

mystically redundant

raised to graze on empty calories,

spineless fluids puking
endless effluent
of chosen pronouns

Influence biology

Identity a bracelet taken
on and off at will, by
Pop-up preachers,
screeching out
their digital misogyny,

Narcissistic troglodytes,
who, prancing in their
echo-chambers,
jettison the Suffragette

there's no such noun as Woman,
Helen Reddy-or not,

Forgotten sacrifice of troops
has stooped to this..

Time to decontaminate

shall I tell you
of the Snowdrops
that are showing,
by the garden gate?

Leaning more to
Winter now,

I set a silent
time aside

become a thing
crepuscular,

led in and out
of twilights.

This vintner's loss
of glass-blown height,

too intricate
to comprehend,

like promises
we occupy,

leads meaning
to an end.

.
In this
asphalt
halitosis,
growing tired
of my kind

noting doltish
bovine, influence
as drivers of despair,

I fair
impossibly


To think
my smaller feeling
called the villagers
to prayer,

two hundred
miles East of here
In wealds of hop and apple..

How
I wring these
calloused grapples, well,

aware of my atrocities

confiding to be someone else,

sometime away from this

So I gave Bob Dylan
a Greylag Goose

( for his wildfowl collection)

I phoned him and asked
what the bird was up to
and he started to reply,

" The Anser, my friend..."

- get the folk outta here, Bob!

With
all those
Russian tanks
advancing

why are boys at
Lockheed Martin
popping corks
and dancing

like there's
greenbacks to
be gained...?

No such
thing as weeds,

only wilderness
where you don't want it..

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.

Martha

Your kin still fly
uncaged and called

young November sky
                   scored countless

      For three high days they came
                                     great in massing
                       climbing, radiant
                       fire-milk lariats

           gaps in blaming
rain pursued.


When leaf-cull doors
                      low fruit to fall

                implores the motley
      parkland bronze



Your kin will fly
                     uncaged and called



Your legacy
lives on.

You, Sweet Wild, come evergreen, as
Ink-shake from the Book of Kells,
cleaned ivories of Egret vellum,
aspen mantled infidel, a pheromone
of elsewhere Islands, here to hand me
quarried gems of bold and bloodied
petulance.

In the long-room wait of
untamed reverie
you rise,
On apple cores of chalk cliff
laughter, hoist your storm-mad
urchin noise throughout the flag
of sickened orchards.

Emerald to this ruby thirst,
Bind fruitless words
to thoughtless choice


For you alone shall split my lips
cruel libertine of gorgeous vice,

Imperious,
Ephemeral

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.....

No wonder
ants have flown

a ***-full of this pitiful metropolis
has seen them blow
their savings on a thermal

made them dinner
for a ministry
of manic snapping mandibles
who,wheeling on the gables
of the capital amenities

cannot believe their luck..

reeling high in my eleven
is a one-stop- tuck- shop
no-*****- given

as I'm peeling
off the sitter
on a forklift truck

There is alchemy in  Blackbird song
an opal paean through early doors
of infant sensing
Sprung limpets of the broad leaf crowns,
Will, heliacal, from chimney spires,
A crocus bowl of canticles
unwritten in the Latin blush.
of uncorrupted eloquence.

There is prophecy in blackbird song
from red Victoriana glance
those rippled satin auguries.
Sloe philharmonic oracles
untie the mellow chords of rest,
to sing as they have always sung
in allegories of days to come
beyond the headstone houses.

Leave
in peace


this gull-bone light,
to beechwood feasting
vapours,

And may it be
a paper ship,

our languages
of liberty
borne sea-ward
by the falling water

thoughts
to mean the World
for those who languish,
foamed in contemplation

bending
from their tree-top
forts to bid the fond
farewell

Her innocence has depth

She is misinformation,
beyond her station
on the wrong train.

He is leaning to solitude
confused by the multitude
upset by the attitude
that someone's to blame.

          -------

In the transit of thinking
he takes her hand.
In the composite calm
she takes his confusion.

To commandeer
the common ground,
allusions to a moment found,
that stayed the course,
with hands still curled,

static in this spinning world

They paint their new horizon.

Bet you that
the jet-stream brings,
the split ends of
old hurricanes,
pensions off
their stroppy baggage,
coughing up their
weeks of rain.

Feels wrong
without the cold

without Siskins,
without Redpolls...

...no outside chance
of white-winged gulls
appearing down
the bay...

All I've seen
are legs

of the bloke
upstairs

believe me,
they are snappable

I've knocked
his door

he doesn't
answer

loots
my calm
with his
bass enhancer

Look,

I'm an affable
kind of guy,
but ..

this ******
is testing my
patience

I want him
to die

Not so he rots
in a puddle of snot

-I still claim a frisson of feeling-

plus I don't want the hell
of that festering smell
or the pain of repainting
the ceiling...

I don't try
to be mean,
to stir-up a scene
but the grinning is
hard to pretend,

so I'll sit on my hands
and mutter those plans
for that thin *******
to end.

Dear Viennese Art School Tutors of the early 1900,s

If a highly strung young chap turns up
with a strange flick haircut, a dodgy
looking tache and laden with canvass,

Please dont tell him his paintings are
****, and that, perhaps he ought to try
and express himself via another medium.

Could save us all a spot of bother
in the long run.

Cheers

Signed:

well....er,.."Everyone"...actually.

That we
are even here,
in this strange
existence, is
incredible enough

but of our peculiarities,

consider love...


You see,
I'll wager
love needs more...

and,
despite knowledge
to the contrary,

when our time comes,

when all
that I have shunned
and scorned, comes
home to haunt...

I will convince

myself, some part
of us endures,

that we go on,

reformed...

brought no bell,
or call-to-arms,
no rush of Prussian
blood to head
the ball into an
empty net, no change
in current sea levels...

no harm befell
the coppiced shoots
of brutal resolutions,
proving atheist
relationships are
worth their weight
to any fool...

and
no-one but
the very best,
would deign
to chance a
second guess
of getting into heaven

on this first day
of the year.

And I shall
flinch the brittle creature
from the rock face

proclamate,
proselytize,
with frightening
euphoria

to your glorious embrace,
I must comply,

perching
vulturine, delirious
impervious to pain

near that place
between excitement
and all possible regret

I will go by