Trekking the fields studying
the grass and
sleeping in hedgerows waking
in the night to test your
knowledge of the constellations
and Orion tracks from south to west
and this pleases you although the
night chills can challenge the blanket of
recycled magazines and news rags
and old clothes daringly taken from
the Salvation Army’s recycling skip
and foxes run and stouts scamper
and geese call and ducks quack
and cows bay and horses neigh
and moles
are new friends
and you go through a Ted Hughes moment
you stare at trees and see the myriad
of life forms in the bark
with Hughsian drama you imagine
stalking rain horses
although only truly find
staring sheep
and the sky is cast with ***** cumulus
the track is covered in broken stone
and smashed bottles
cans and plastic packets poke out of bushes
old refrigerators scar the edgeland
watertight but
dangerous places to sleep
as you skirt the town a refugee
before your time
perhaps timeless
in the everlasting now of
rural vagrancy king of
the farm track and
the dog walker trails of
muddy puddles and scrappy corn
burnt out tree
rusted household appliances
random pieces of clothing
a focus point for camp fire drinking
gather up the splintered kindling
rip up the news on already damaged paper
laugh with a deep throated abandon at
the chaos in the world charted there
and watch the stars feeling captured by
the night
but still very much
alive

‘Great big skies tumbling down to earth
it’s like that in Norfolk,’ says Barb.
‘That I understand,’ I say, ‘but where do you
stand on crying when your young dog dies?’
‘Been there and bought the tee-shirt,’ she said.
‘What about thinking of the human as a machine?’
‘I think of the human more as a ghost.’
‘And where do you stand on Easter Eggs?  Are they a travesty
of the most sacred of Christian festivals?’
‘I stand by Easter Eggs as the most glorious
statement of Pagan intent and will always eat them
naked, sat on a bed of ferns.’
‘For such is your want Barb, of that I am aware.’
Yes dear Ben, that is my want and why I like to collect
crystal owls.’
And in such ways, mysteries are solved.

The debt collectors usually rang
about 6.30 and I was
always ready for them and
sometimes I would just ignore them
others I would squeeze a horn down the phone
at other times I felt like having some fun
last night I’d listened to the spiel
that inane spiel
yes, I was aware of my debt to
corporate mammon
then I asked the caller
what she was wearing
what colour lingerie did she have on this fine evening
then I explained that I was sat there
naked
the call soon ended as they
always do and
tonight I feel in the mood
for some more sport and
I ask the caller if he is happy to live a life
without shame
and he pauses
the line goes quiet
and I pause too for thought
deep in contemplation as the ether fizzes
and he says
‘I do feel shame it stalks me
in much the same way
as Lelantos stalked the parched groves
of Phrygia’
and I nod slowly then wince
as Stella upstairs throws a bottle against the wall
but the spell is complete
ah
a man of the classics I say
and I can sense a shrug
the matrix of the instantaneous universe connects us
for a brief slice of time
we all have to get by he says
and that we do I assure him
that’s really all we can do
all we can do
is get by

Stained asphalt
flickering sodium lights
pavement art
ambulance chasing
motorway drone
crushed cans and ripped pizza boxes
kebab debris
scared cats
gum scarred concrete
burnt out ******* bins congealed plastic
dripping
overflowing bottle banks
used condoms hung on a line
fox ****
streetscene collapse
bottles arranged along a wall one two three
one lone shoe
in the road
sealed up letter boxes one with a message
written in black felt pen on brown parcel tape
‘If you are bothering to read this
you a *******’
kicked in door
steel shuttered shops
burnt out wheelie bin one lump of plastic
very impressive
smoking employees behind the Co-op
one knows Barb thumbs up
I return the thumb
walking
a woman shouting at a priest: ‘But all he wants to be is
a woman’
torn pages from a ***** mag ****** up arses
***** in mouths
piles of brochures newspapers flyers dumped in a doorway
a few quid scammed can’t get the delivery help
these days
someone parking a Audi nice and shiny
looks up and down the street
wary
kids slumped smoking skunk outside the library
a derelict sat on a wall grinning *** in mouth
tells me I have a happy face and offers his bottle to me
I take it and have a slug
trudging
dog crapping in middle of wide clean pavement
someone walking past muttering
‘never in Peru’
I stand opposite my flat and think of bombs
and a cacophony of alternative universes
and small candles shaped like eggs
a bald headed postman drives up to the letter box
techno blasting from his little red van
Molly Upstairs shouts something unintelligible
before throwing a small package down
the postie watches it descend from the sky
and catches it
without a smile
these are the days of unwholesome atmospheres
but it’s all I have so I don’t mind
it’s better than being kept in a box
with the lid
sealed tight.

Chasing Pegasus deep into the void
hurtling like Sagitta the arrow
Cassiopeia my soul mate
the depths of the Hyperion shallows
paradoxically gnawing at my
heightened perceptions and
out there I meet Neil Armstrong
I have a feeling we may be passing through a place
where souls gather and he tells me
all he needs is
information all he wants
is knowledge
and we connect and shake hands
[well as best as we can do being in
spacesuits, you know,
all things considered]
and then Elvis appears and tells me I’ve
come a long way
and I laugh and say tell me about it
and he is more interested in Old Earth
he tells me he could always sense he
had a affinity with Ancient Egypt it was something
that had preyed on his Earthly perceptions
dancing around his peripheral vision
like some demented djinn
then he told me
not to worry tell them all back home
when the right song comes along
I’ll be back
and the glories of Ra will be bestowed upon us
and everyone will be entitled to free access
to the best burgers
angel can produce
and everyone will live in a world of song and applause
everyone will have their own spotlight
and beds will be made of marshmallow
with rice paper sheets
just imagine
and I did
one arm over Elvis Presley’s shoulder
deep in space.

Spin the stick in the hollow of my heart
light that fire of devotion watch the seagulls swoop
on a sand blown beach the dunes full
of ***** bottles and crisp packets and *****
easy-wipes  the tankers plough the reach not too far
from shore
rigs bristle with impatient intent ready ready ready
they will tear and snap Neptune’s net
the arms of the Irish Sea not so much opened in glee
as distractedly numbed by the freezing breakers.
Fire up the grill with some stolen petrol
eyebrows singed throats torn with acrid smoke
impressive fire ball tactical nuclear assault on
pork sausages cider laughter Moroccan haze
keeps the midges away even in a refrigerated spring
they like to bite in sight of Liverpool
so crackle and combust and fry and grill
lest this not be the haughtiest of places
where upon my poor heart
doth spill.

To chart the apogee of whimsy is to tie
oneself to the mast as the sirens call
and Babylon Sisters allure and the ale houses
sing
an ode to the failed politicians past
and I drag my broom behind me
imagining it is a sword furring the damp morning loam of Avalon
but it does not, because
I am but a stray
in a jaunty northern town
nothing less
nothing more
nothing lower nothing higher
nothing as the substance of being
nothing as a wet rag
held tight
as I rock myself to sleep
dreaming of galactic empires
and the moorland
where the widows of war
walked and wailed
and if only my lottery numbers
would come up
then I could happily deal with the enigma
of
Nothing.