Wanted:-*
One good woman to give the man that loved her, a second chance. Preferably seeking the woman who he gave his heart to. Tomorrow may be too late. Contact ASAP. I’m not buying or selling anything; only one heart to give: one good-hearted woman to forgive the imperfections in the man who loved her. Wanted – just ONE chance to tell her how much he still loves her. And how much he will give just for her to talk to him, and give him a second chance.

I hope she comes back, when she reads these words.
Number: Well, she has it in that little book somewhere.

From If French Fries were Fat-free [and other longings]*

Well, I made a ******* mess of my life
And like usual when I realise
Where I should go
It’s too ****** late.
Ad I see the door slam
And you thunder down the corridor
I press my head against the plaster.
If only French fries were fat-free
That would be one less cause of heartache
And if the whiskey really helped me
You’d see me smiling endlessly
The more I think about it, you know
The more I realise you were right.
So I raise my glass in a toast
Over my bowl of curlies.
They taste so good and yet I know
Deep down in my heart they’re so bad for me
Can’t I have one wish at least?
You back or French fries fat-free.

Hey girl where you going?
I’m very much a talker
Cos I can’t dance good
And I never been a stalker
Where you off to my l’il lady?
Hop in my left seat for a ride
Wind it up or slow it right down –
I can get you to the other side
I’m just a country boy
And I can take you up city streets, country roads
Just a poor l’il redneck
But I’m sure I can get you to where you want to go
I got a full tank of gas
I got an all-terrain SUV
You sure do look good
Buckled up next to me
I can take you up the fast lane
I can drive you round the cones
I can take you slow through the forests
I can take you fast through 30 zones
I got air conditioning in here
Chamois leather seats as soft as babys butts
I can take you across the smooth asphalt
I can take you through the deep ruts
Putting on my aviators
Just let me know if we’re getting close
We can slip on out
Or we can take the main roads.
Just listen to the music
And i can listen to you if you like
I can rev the V8 and take you there
Be it day or be it night
I got fully automated
And a nice little gear change
I got super beam headlights
With a three hundred foot range
I can go on the straight and narrow
I can take you down winding roads
Nothing’s a problem for us; we know where we come from
And I can get you where you need to go


Yeah, I don’t dance so good
But I’m a country boy,
A nice little country boy.

Look at that ***
Just one more look
Before you walk away.
I thank God
That we have women
With blue faded skin tight jeans
When I’ve been breaking my back
Working like a dog
When blood sweat and tears
And violence are so gratuitous
With people sinning gratuitously
Don’t we deserve to sin a little?
To indulge in a little flesh?
When there’s drugs and violence
On the streets, people dying everyday
And not even making the news
We could do with a few more
Blue faded skin-tight jean cowgirls here today
A few more cowboys showing how the West was won
A few more days of reckoning
And a lot more hell-to-pay.
People have little respect for others today
There’s nothing to threaten them, and nothing to fear.
It’s good to see the bad guys finally on the run
We could do with a few more blue-faded skin-tight jean cowgirls
Here today.

One thing I love to do
Is write letters to Grandpapa
Because
You never know where it’s going to take you:
Octogenarians are a real wildcard
And that makes life interesting.
For example, I was writing a letter
To Grandpapa and he likes to imagine things
Because he can’t get around much
So I give the cat meat to feed on.
I embellish a little my romantic situation
And I tell him about M; little M
How she reminds me of my little mama
And that boys tend to look
For someone who is like a mother figure
And we grow into this role
We become more dependent on the girlfriend
Til she becomes like a second mother
But it never starts out that way.
So I was telling him about little M;
And when I receive a letter back
I notice a rather odd sentence
That I cannot help but laugh at:
“Dan, you say M; is smaller than you
All the easier to back her into a corner”
And then it follows on with some
Incongruent sentence about ‘me driving a car’
Now I’m not sure if we got lost in
Translation
I don’t know whether Grandpapa is thinking
I’m going to run M; over (she’s not that small)
Or whether he’s suggesting I invest in a booster seat?
Or whether in fact, he has made an unwholesome
But wholey funny link
Between me staying up all night
And my young ****** prowess
(Which is the same thing I suppose)
But I’m not quite sure why I’d be backing her
Into a corner
That sounds like outright pressure
But I have to laugh
Ah Grandpapa
Maybe one day I’ll show M;
Or maybe not
She may develop an irrational fear
For tight spaces
Which is something
I will never have a problem with...

I am the first to admit
I’m not God’s gift to women
It’s more like a penance when I’m involved really
And I am certainly a little rough around the edges
But there are certain things you can do
To make yourself more respectable to the fairer ***
Like: be wary of your weight and what suits
Don’t loaf onto a bus with your gut
Hanging out, wearing a stained Hawaiian t-shirt
Sweating like a hog in the midday sun.
I know ladies make allowances:
Ineptitude
Dickishness
Bravado
Rudeness
Even arrogance.
But even our fair compadres draw the line
At sheer disregard for personal hygiene.
I wonder what people think
When they go out dressed like that?
They’re either one of three things:
Very ignorant to what women want,
Femo-phobes,
Or they think they got something god-**** special
No woman can resist.

He may love himself
But every man has
A weakness,
He loves his face too much
And a broken body
Is not a good one
For modelling
Cashmere scarves
And playing
Waterpolo.
This will be
Your downfall Adam
One day,
A guy’s gonna
Land you one
Right on the chin.
It’ll be like
A Magnum Colt going off
It’ll send you reeling
And even death will wince
Before taking you.

To Tory and Lucinda, you finally got your poem*

Ok honey, I’m about to go
I’m about to blow a gasket
I’ve been working all day
Like a regular dog, got up
At the crack of dawn.
I’ve been saying yes Sir
All day at work and
I’ve been saying yes
M’am all the time to
You and now I’m
Ready to go. You
Can only push a
Man so far before
He loses the will
Or the effort
To try and please
Someone who
Can never be
Pleased. I
Need to get
My things
Together
And jus’
Reacquaint
Myself
With Jim Beam
Because I’ve been being
Good for much too long.
Now a good boy's gone bad
I’m now taking my time off
For bad behaviour.

It’s been twelve years
Since I refused to sell my soul
To the devil
Not for all the wealth
Not for all the gold
He slid a piece of paper in front of me
Eyes bulging He said,
Boy if you want to make it here
You better listen to what I say
What others say matters
It’s the word on the ground
Do you need that wife
Do you need your friends around?
And I said:  no, that’s not me
I can only give so much
I am who I am
I’d never sell myself
To please someone
Who can never be pleased.
My friends have always been there
My family laid down for this land
I’m not going to be what you want
I’m not going to whiten my teeth
Or lose a couple of pounds
Because a country boy is all I’ll ever be
A rattlesnake in the grass
Saying: ‘don’t you tread on me’

There are a lot of misconceptions about Uni
Such as we all live lives like the ones off Hollyoaks
And that in order to survive
You need to be three things:
Beautiful
A party-animal
And an iron liver.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Those things are all nice:
Much like a free side with your sub
Or a red-letter day.
They’re nice –
But they’re not necessarily vital.
It’s not vital you fall in love with the first person you meet
It’s not vital you get with someone within Freshers
Like it’s a race and you’re Lyford Christie.
It’s not vital that you down half a bottle of Jager
To prove to your flatmates you’re a god
It’s not necessary.
Some of my best friends
Are quiet
But they are good
And I wouldn’t want them any other way
When we come together we have nothing but fun.
Without alcohol
Without drugs
Without 2am walkins
I know...
What’s this world coming to?

Let me tell you something
About life as seen on TV
It may appear ideal
But that ain’t the way it should be
The goodie has no end of ammo
The baddie is never in with a shout
But in our world today
It’s always the good guy who loses out
He loses out to the *******
The puff with the SUV.
The girls drop a nice one instantly
For a flutter of profanity.
The ***** always get laid
While the dude’s  left out to dry
And for all that goodness he’s got
He’s alone a lot and why?
It’s a question I asked myself
For years and years to come
To the conclusion that all winners
Are deadbeats, jerks and ****.

I remember moving in to my old flat
Down in San Jose
It wasn’t much to look at
But it was all I could afford
I was studying a 6 day degree
Hoping it would get me somewhere
It was only dollar twenty five
In the rag
Because we all sometimes have to pray
For small mercies
I had just paid out for another hidden cost
Turns out there are a lot of them
When you haven’t got much money:
$13.02 to get my room key
Or the landlady hits me over the head with a baseball bat –
That’s how a democracy works, we elect a leader
And then they milk us for all we are worth.
A dictatorship works the same way –
Only they don’t bother with voting.
This hunny came up to me,
Lips that could devour a man
A body so voluptuous
It could make a man go insane.
“Excuse me, there’s no toilet roll in the cubicle.”
****, what small hells we make for each other
Even the cruellest of men should be able to wipe their ***.
At times of seeing such beauty
We become all gushing
And promise things that are simply beyond us,
In a hope of being rewarded with a mouthful of beauty
Or even better –
A bed.
So I went downstairs and had a near fatal run-in
With the Jamaican landlady
“You won’t be having no pieces of *** in your flat
I-s can be a-telling you that now!”
I returned with the toilet roll
She puckered her lips
Winked and said she would see to me tomorrow
So the next day I went round and said I had
A bit of ailing at the back of my throat
She turned her nose up and said:
“There’s nothing that could be done for me.”
And with that shut the door.
It is such a shame when such beauty gets prissy
But that is the human condition
The more generous you are
The less generous you can afford to be:
Just ask Timon of Athens.

I like the days, when I just sit
Staring vacantly at the ceiling
With a book of Bukowski upon my head
Serious Osmosis going on.
I go back, to days
Days when we would just steal a traffic cone
For the Hell of it –
When being young was just doing
What you could
Because you could.
I remember eating Nachos and apple crumble
At 2am.
Then watching a friend of mine
Eating icecream one night with a ladle
The next night screaming in the shower
Out of apparent ‘excitement’.
I remember when we would sit,
You and I,
Drinking and if the atmosphere wasn’t more
Frosty than the arctic wind
Then Dave the drunk  added his two penceworth.
When I had to fight off Dave and his  Bovverboy.
That was rather humerous
Particularly by the fact that you nearly crapped yourself
It was a good laugh
I wish there could have been more times like that
Ah well...
Unlike most great works of art, this has no theme
That holds it all together.
I guess, like most undiscovered artists
I just thought I’d write **** down
And see where it went.
Clearly, not very far.

When you come away from home you can be one of many things:
A ****
A partyanimal
A geek
A talker
A listener
A doer
A drinker
A social recluse
An alcohol abuser
A hustler
A bustler
A fanatic
A panicker
A best friend waiting to be discovered
A great lover in the cupboard
The list goes on
But we are all one thing:
A fresher
A newbie
A greenhorn
Streetfighters
Run up quarterbacks
Soldiers of Fortune.
And I realise it can be hard
With everything going on
Trying everything new
Trying to make friends
We can sometimes get caught up
And lose our field of vision.
If I could give one piece of advice
It would be:
Be who you are.
Standup for what you believe in –
People always come round to respecting that
If you don’t do shots
Drink beer
If you don’t like ****
Pass on it in a dignified manner.
I once knew a guy who lost his field of vision:
He ended up firing a rifle out of a second-storey window
Trying to hit the centre of the O’s on roadsigns.
It might have been the exuberant amount of alcohol
He had consumed that night.
I just don’t know.

I’m a country boy, girl
And I don’t usually act this way
But what have you gone and done
To make me hope you’re crying today
What have you forced me to?
Now I got nothing left to say
I’m locked and loaded baby,
So you best get out the way
I’m armed to the hilt
I’ve got lead up till the teeth
Guns cocked on the table
Rhinestone boots with high-riding heels beneath
I got my aviators on, stubbly
I tug at my neckerchief against the dust
Of that love that we destroyed
Now point-scoring replaces where once was trust
You’ve got me to the point where
I just want to see what can **** you off
How did this all get so ugly between us?
Call somebody who cares, enough is enough.
I hope you’re lying awake tonight
I pray that you’re scared to sleep
Because that’s how you made me feel
Leaving me feeling so shallow when I got so deep
I hope you don’t know where you are
I hope you don’t know how far you have to fall
I never want you back again, he can have you
You never saw this coming? It was writing on the wall
Baby, one day you’re gonna realise
It doesn’t matter who was right
Because at the end of it all
Nobody ever wins a fight.

To John – who always told me, ‘I’m fine, it’s the rest of them’

You know that
You’re kissing life’s ***
When a girl chooses
A weedy
Airheaded
Pompous
Obnoxious
Nothing
Over you.
You, with a big heart.
A warm touch
A sense of humour
A sense of love
And not just carnal desire.
That, no man can do without
She will not love you
Nuh-huh, no way.
And you’re thinking,
Jesus:
It’s either something he’s got that I haven’t
Or indeed  that
They’re lacking something I’m not.

We don’t smoke Marijuana
We don’t take our trips of LSD
We like to just live right here
Where the air’s fresh and life is free
We don’t make lovin’ to make a party
We don’t need to get with to get some fun
We just prefer to hold each other’s hands
And go fishing in the sun
We don’t go round bare-chested
We don’t wear skimpy clothes
Roman sandals are a nada
Leather boots are still à la mode
We don’t need to go out getting drunk
Here even Squares can have a ball
Going to the shops is still an event
White lightning’s still the biggest thrill of all
Down here football’s the roughest sport
Long, shaggy hair definitely won’t be seen
A large patch of open land is our campus
And Kids down here respect the village dean
So please forgive me if I don’t understand
Forgive me if I feel a little out of place
I’m just proud to be an Oakie from
Down there we slow the pace.
Yes I’m just an Oakie from Muskogee
Yes I’m proud to be an Oakie from Muskogee

“Adam Kieslowski,  I want to punch your face in, with all due respect.”

“Dan! Don’t do it! Don’t go there!”
“I’m gonna, do it Megan.”
“Don’t! You’ll **** him!”
I was at the point of snapping
No man scared me
The blood was pumping
Through my fists.
Mike Tyson could have
Walked through the door,
******* Gargantua
I would have got froggy for
Megan.
Silly cow could never even love me
Back, but alas, tis the work
Of lust and ******* desire.
I am by no means a good fighter
But a ***** one,
A tactician,
Teeth an’ claws are no bounds for me
******* Oedipus him if you have to
I had a bellyful of beer-*****
And I was ticking over
Idling
Thinking, teasing
Working the jaw.
The door opened and I pounced
Throwing him to the floor
I could feel Megan pawing at
My back
But it was futile
When a man is pumped, even
The God’s can’t stop him.
I threw him back against
The floor
Gritting my teeth
His lip swelled like a melon
And tears filled his
Watery eyes
“Oh my...”
“What the **** did you say, buddy?”
“Dan please...”
“What the ******* messing Megan around for?”
He mumbled, blood oozed from
Every orifice and his mouth
“Answer me!”
With that, he did something
No man expects,
He burst into tears!
Floods of tears, not just a trickle
A ****** fountain.
We nearly had to call in Moses
To do his party trick with the
Red Sea.
I let him up, as Megan’s eyes
Burned my head.
With that he ran out of door
And drove off.
Puff.
Safe to say, I now had to get
Out the room
Without Megan killing me
Multiple ways.
I didn’t return for several days
Like one doesn’t return to
And aeroplane crash site.
I saw her one day, and she
Said nothing
She came up and
Kissed me on the cheek
And walked on.
I guess Adam never
Bothered her again.
I returned home
And continued to write
And drink beer.
I didn’t think
That situation was
Too bad for my
Soul.

I hadn’t seen you for quite a few days
And instead of ringing up the search party
I called you up on the phone;
Hoping you’d chased your dreams
And would come back and
Realise how much I loved you.
You whispered sweet nothings
Down the phoneline
You told me,
Quite frankly
Bitter-sweetly,
I could go to Hell
But honey, why would you want
Me to go down to the fires down below?
With the Hell I’m living here on Earth.
I hung up the receiver
And saw shadows of your humour
Firstly on the fridge door;
A post-it read:
I’m having the house and the cat
Your favourites, lychees
Are on the top shelf.
I didn’t want them.
They’re so bitter, so sweet.

Haters
They are everywhere
They are like a contagion
Infecting everything in their path:
And that is the worst of it.
It’s not the death of morality
But the slow dying
The crumbling of it.
This is what the human condition has become:
Good people
Eroded
Worn down
By **** boring people
Boring people populating the Earth.
It’s a two faced monster
Vain
Drunk
Horrible to look at
Feasting on good looking girls
And boys
But there will come a time
When even Death will wince
At the old hags
Before taking them.

He’s standing in front of me
Wearing a ten-gallon hat
And I think, take it off
You’re in the city, you look like a prat
But it’s only when you get a talking
That you really begin to understand
He may be an old cowpoke
But he’s really worked the land
Sweating in the midday sun
With a little cowgirl on the side
A smile flashes across his face
A knowing that he can’t hide
Yes I’ve drank in smoky barrooms
I’ve taken a few hotties on the lash
I’ve seen clear mountain mornings
I’ve even railed with Johnny Cash
So don’t judge me by the tatty hat
Or by my faded wrangler jeans
Because looks can be deceptive
When everything’s not as it seems
I’ve seen the world, I’ve been to town
I’ve know the love on a woman’s breath
I don’t mean to bone, but leave me alone
Now while I collect my redundancy cheque.

Get a bellyful of bubbles
And watch them form one by one
As they come to the surface
All your troubles are just gone
They just pop. Pop.
I will pop some for you
There goes another
Look, it’s so easy to do
We could do this all day
Just you and me
All that time spent worrying
It was a waste, don’t you see?
They were really nothing
It was nothing to hold back?
It was just little bits of nothing,
Air. One by one, in a stack
I see the bubbles floating up
I see it in your eyes
They become so blue when you let go
Of the bubbles of hurt and lies
These tiny little bubbles
They’re the things that held you back
When you just wanted to have fun
They didn’t cut you any slack
And so they’re really nothing
Blow them away and say ‘don’t come back’
The worst thing you can do is bottle them up
Because then the bottle goes crack.

Written with Josy in mind.

There comes a time in life
When we cross the River of No Return
We have to go and move on ahead
We have to leave the bridges that we burned.
There are bridges over troubled waters
I guess that’s what good friends are for
But sometimes the bridge just crumbles
And the foundations hit the floor
Into the River of No Return it goes
You get whipped, you pay the piper
But in the end you get to call the tune
And then, my friend, you’ll be so much wiser.
Maybe you’ve got your finger on the trigger
It’s a hard, hard lesson you’re going to learn
You’re gonna have to take a beating
And you’re on the River Of No Return.
It runs on and on through the Jungle
You don’t look back; you don’t know what you’ll find
You’ve been there and you’re past it
Through the wastelands of your mind.
It’s the law of the Jungle my friend
The Nature of the Beast
Lying in wait for all of us
Save yourself, to say the least.
It’s a hard, hard decision
To stand and watch your bridges burn
But it’s a hard, hard lesson
That we all have to learn.
It’s not easy; I know it’s not easy...
Everything you had, everything you believed
To see it go up in smoke, fade away
And finally accept you were deceived.
Once in your life you will see
There’s no where left to run
When you cross the River of No Return
And your heart comes undone.

To Lucinda*

There you stand in the door
And after all the fights we’ve been through
When the-you-know-what hit the you-know-where
You still can bear to look at me
I see the tears twinkle in your eyes
I see the hands on your hip
And I dread to think what you’ve got to face
They way you’re working over your top kip
You never shout, you just look disappointed
Your eyes say: ‘back down that stony road’
And now even though I hurt you
You helped pick your girlfriend up out of the road
Because there was a ****** old truck coming
She just broke down to bawl
And yet after all that
You’re a proud woman standing tall
You sit down on the bed next to me
And you speak ever so slightly
I feel your warm breath on me
In the cool of the Texas night
You say, ‘Oh Dan here we are again,
I thought we talked about this.’
She’s out there crying in the other room
You should know nothing goes amiss
And if I get caught in here you know
I’m going to be dead meat too’.
I apologise profusely, counting my blessings
You just look at me like you always do.
‘Now, you know I got to go console her
You know I’ve got to go and get supplies
Of tissues and Kleenex and toilet rolls
But please just give it time
Let everyone cool down, storms always blow over
It’s the only way a friendship can be saved
With that she left, back to the toilet a girl bereft
And as I heard the sobbing I know I’d take that to my grave.

That one song
You hear with loved ones
That one moment of bliss
Of the infinite
And you never meet again
That moment you will never live again
Seconds of bliss
Before the **** hits the fan.
Hey I’ve just met you
And this maybe be crazy
But I think I love you <3
It’s like I’ve know you for years
So let’s meet up again one day
Friends
Lovers
Reconcilers
And sing this loud and carefree again
Let’s do it. Maybe?

Well I tried so hard
And I still  don’t know
How to turn the page,
And let you go.
I’ve read this book
And I know how it ends,
It brings me back to you
Again.
It’s like a movie
Where I play the part
Of the guys who’s imprisoned
By his lonely heart.
And for the first time he’s where
He wants to be
It’s just that way
With you and me.
I used to think
I’d never need someone
Like the superhero
Who comes undone.
As the part unfolds
And it falls into line,
You’re my someone,
Who I want with me all the time
Like the caped crusader
Needs his boy wonder
I need you
To steal my thunder.
I was so confused
Two weeks ago
Whether I really  loved you
But now I know,
Happily ever after
Like a fairytale...
That’s just how it is
With me.
A story that’s true
And real,
That’s exactly the way
That  I feel.

My life story.










You say that love
Love baby it takes time
I won’t give up
Not until I make you mine.
I’ve just found out
That when you take me home
You push we away
With your heart of stone.
Which one of you are you today?
Do you want to hurt me
Or are you coming out
Out to play?
There are so many ways
So many ways to fall
Guess I’m an easy touch
And you don’t care at all.

Jesus, lord above
We got a bus full of Christ’un girls here
They got rose perfume and windswept hair
We got blonde bombshells with **** glasses.
Jesus, why do you tempt me so?
I bet they’re all off to pray.
All off to do some good in the name
Of our lord. Raising their button noses in reverence.
But I think God was having a ***** joke
When he made girls so good looking.
Pearl white teeth, plush and kissable cherry lips, Salvation T-shirts
With the Good Lord Jesus Saves belt buckles
Man, oh man, I go to church and light candles
Praying, lord please oh please
If these girls are going to Heaven
Save me a place in the Pearly Club.
So that we can dance the night away
Watching those saintly hips swing...
Watching her play with her pinna earring
Watching her ****** with her Ichthys ring
All those lovely girls,  up from the Bible Belt
Nibbling on their pink-chipped nail polish
Driving me crazy, torturing men forever.
Just my luck, I’ll bet I’ll be in Hell
While the party’s going on.

To Tory, Lucinda and Brioche. The poem you deserve.*



She’s no good at being phoney
She never tells a good lie
She knows when I got to be alone
She tells me when I’m too high
She always walks beside me
Never too far too far behind
And whatever I seem to do
She stays in that good place all the time
Because no matter what I say
And no matter what I make out to believe
She will always be a special lady
Especially special to me
She’s got that heart of gold within her
She’s got the ability to keep the pace
She doesn’t take no crap from me
She’ll **** well put me in my place
And yet at the same time she’s gentle
She understands why I am like I am
And I know there will be soft words
Whenever I need a helping hand.
I think these women are one in a million
Richer than any gold or diamond ore
And I hope in the future that
Their boyfriends won’t want any more
Because they’re good women as they are
It’s quite plain to see
They invite me round to play cards
And let me watch Eurovision on TV
I’ve never been welcomed so much
I’ve never felt less alone
When these girls are around me
I don’t need to wander cos I’m home
And when I blow a fuse over something
That’s really been driving me round the bend
They just smile and shrug their shoulders
When it’s time to start over again.
She is so good to me, it’s true.
I know I have many faults as a man
But when I see those eyes, I’m not stupid
I know how lucky I am. X

There’s this guy
I once knew –
He was called ---
And every night he would frequent the local
He was ****** as a ****
But me and my mates felt we had to talk to him
Out of sympathy.
I could reckon that --- was quite intelligent
But he just drank too much
And people gave his a hard time
Apart from keeping us amused
I thought how he must
Each night
Reach his angle of repose
The moment when he began to slip away
From reality into drunkenness
As if we all haven’t?
And when I look back
I think of those fun-filled nights
With his new interpretation of ‘The Lord of The Rings’
And his philosophy of ‘the end of the world’
They were poignant evenings
And somewhere in between the alcohol
Was method in his madness.
Cheers, here’s to you,  ---

I wonder what this world is coming to
When we have to overcomplicate everything
All I hear on the TV of late
Is ‘bare craic’ as my northern Irish friend would say –
“I can’t understand this  credit crunch,” she said
Poignantly, (neither could I) “I think I’ll take
A dander down to the shops.” And so she did
We were out of milk
And living off salami
I picked up the paper
And I realise nothing is without a price
Or a fate
They are the two certainties
So is death
And the price is not so hard to see either.
The American bigwigs sit round a table
Complaining what is to be done about the financial crisis?
Each eating a $16 dollar muffin with their $8.48 coffee
Wondering where oh where can money be saved?
And they’ll get back in their private limos
Drive past their second addresses
Back down to Bel-air
Lock themselves in their villas
Count their bonuses
And sleep happy
After doing jack ****.
While Greece is going down the crapper.
I can see the solution
Can you?
Or is it just me?
Or can you see it to?

Grew up down a back road you wouldn’t know
Grew up on an old country homestead
In a town of 20 never needed much
Just some place to lay his head

A drifter he won’t give you
Gifts of diamonds and gold
He’ll give you a good story
And he so hard to hold

Brought up alone long enough
To function without anyone else
Some family, two friends
Just the world and himself

Mamas don’t let your babies be drifters
They may know about the world so much
But they shy from daylight, shy away from people
They don’t look for another’s sympathetic touch

Drifters don’t need relationships
It’s just a tie that doth bind
They don’t need anyone much at all
Just ride off in the world see what they can find


Mamas don’t let your babies be drifters
People of great minds and a great love of a drink
They’re not going to try and impress you
They’ll just go ahead and let you think what you think

Drifters are free-living people
Is this really someone you want to choose?
Freedom is just another word
For nothing left to lose.

I have figured out the lay of the land
I should be a god
This information is worth the price of gold
For those who know it
Are you ready?
It goes like this:
Lawus Soddus (that’s Latin) has your telephone ring
When you’re at maximum pleasure
Every fool in the neighbourhood rings
About insurance
About the cat
About you
But when you are alone
And in need of someone to talk
Will they call?
No
Not one.
Of the 6. Billion. *******.

The telephone has not been kind of late
It’s not from new found fans
Who have suddenly started praying for me,
Or from publishers
Wondering when my next book is going
To be finished
No –
It’s much closer to home,
Friends of mine crying their eyes out
Because some long-legged stunner has left them
“Dan, I don’t know what to do, she
Was a little girl from Sweden,
A real supermodel,
I bought her a diamond ring
And now she’s gone!”
A  crackle down the end of the phone
“Come on mate, pull yourself together,
Why did you buy her a diamond ring?”
“Because I thought she loved me!”
“How much was it?”
“£5,000...”
“And how long have you known her?”
“3 weeks... I thought she was the one.”
I hang up after my apologies and realise I can do no more
I’m no snob, I try and assuage their grief but what can I do?
I can only talk to them, and the girls –
They must figure the rest out.
I decide to go and talk to one of my best and longest friends
She is one of those ladies I have always felt my friend
And a good one, but nothing more.
I talk to this elite selection of women, because
They surely must know what it takes to get women.
I turn up on the farm, she smiles, just finished butchering a pig.
“More fool him is all I can say. Tell me the only way
He knows whether a girl will play him honest, is if
He looks beyond the beauty and is she there
When he needs her the most, through thick and thin –
That’s the testament of a women worth having.”
God bless, Hannah – she had a way of putting it so eloquently
And I don’t believe I could do the speech justice.
That night I ring him up
“What did your friend say?”
“Nothing man, just leave it.”
“What?”
“That’s how you learn: the girls that are good
For you are there all the time. Whatever happens –
Soon as you mention money or start throwing money
At the long legged, the *****, the blonde. You’re dead
In the water. They know they’re beautiful.”
“Thanks mate, you’re a pal.”
I hang up and the phone ring again. It’s Hannah.
“So what did you tell him?”
“Just what you told me, but in language he gets. Man speak.”
“You’re one in a million. You know that? I love you.”
I hang up the phone and smile to myself:
Everyone’s gone away contented.
I’m rather pleased with myself,
They both got to hear what they wanted to hear
With the minimal amount of damage.
It’s a hard act to balance
It’s a hard lead to follow
But I’m mastering it.

She smells like summer
And you sir smell like smoke
She smells of butterscotch and raspberries
You smell like a man who’s broke
And can’t afford to shower too often
You’re just a filthy *******, yes you
But it’s ok when she gives you a light
This beautiful cowgirl smokes too
She hands you a Marlborough Red
(Nothing But), and helps you understand Jack
She’s stitches you up when life plays rough
She’s straightening the crick in your back
So you can walk upright again,
Wow she says You are very brave
Let’s go down to the town and fit you out
Let’s go to Bradley’s Barber and get you a shave
All warm and smooth, all lathery
And a warm flannel on your face
I’ll give you a buttery kiss on the lips
If you’ll just pick up the pace
Us cow girls are strong ya know
We bail in the fields 9 til 3
But you’re a heavy thing
Guess we ain’t as strong as we used to be
But  please don’t think that
We’re all lipstick and gloss
She begins to laugh softly
We ain’t afraid to go into the moss
And get our hands *****
No sir, it will never be that way
As long as there’s a Bud at the end
That will be the perfect sort of day
Do I have a suitor? Hahaha oh you
I think I scare them all out of town
I just like riding in old pickups
And watching the sun go down
From mama’s veranda on the porch
I will go *****-tonking all over town
But as much as I like a game of pool
I don’t need no man to hold me down
I just liking living in nature
And I like just living free
And if a guy can’t take that
Well that guy ain’t for me
There’ s a lot I want to see
There’s a lot I want to do
And do I need to be tied down?
No, said the old man, it’s true.
There’s very few women left
That think the way you do
Oh stop it she says, your flattery
It’s a nice try, but coffees are still on you.

I
I thought that it would last my time –
That children would always read books
There would always be fields and farms
Where whippersnappers would climb
Where they would run and play in brooks
I knew there would be false alarms
II
But I never thought the malaise would spread this far
Kids not knowing what it is to be out in the air
What it means to use their mind and creativity
Just plugged in to their DSs and their Ipads in the car
Kids rooted to sofas, couch potatoes in the chair
Somehow I always thought their innocence would be free
III
There is always another day, just
As there will always be another excuse
Why we cannot go outside to play
Just sit glued to the idiot-box if you must
Passively watch this world of abuse
As our generation becomes stupider day by day
IV
Don’t write a poem or read a new book
Don’t go and sit out in the sun
The malaise is spreading and infecting us all
The crowd is young and beauty, but rooked
Rooked of their youth, it’s done
As they sit and stare at a screen in a stall
V
This really is what Orwell said, 1984
A world of computers and screens
Before I ***** it, the whole boiling will be bricked in
Nobody wants to play chess any more
A logged on generation, logging up through their teens
First cyber slum of Europe, a role it won’t be so hard to win
VI
Facebook, VK, Kikitalk, Instagram – a world that doesn’t exist
Just a world of fast past insubstantiability
****-eyed spelling and refute of grammar
And yet we let these kids get on with their imaginary bliss
We buy them the latest gizmos just for pacivity
And when we ask what’s to be done? You stammer
VII
We, the older generation, who knew a world better than this
A world of trees, and parks and streams
A world of old values, an idyllic pastoral
But with all pastoral, a world that can no longer exist
A world that can only reside in our dreams
Today’s world is ‘fast or nothing at all’
VIII
And I feel sorry for those kids, really
They never got to run around with a stick as a gun
They’re just getting angrier, as the malaise takes hold
Manifesting itself through boredom so easily
And then they go out and buy an AK-471
Oh well, most things are never meant, we’re told
IX
It seems, just now,
To be happening all so very fast,
For the first time, somehow
I feel that good values aren’t going to last.

Through the blue smoke
I see your eyes burning a blaze
And I feel my heart jump
As I negotiate the roadhouse maze
This isn’t just any piece of ***
Any idiot can chase that
But what I’m chasing now
Is a hurricane across the flat.
You’ve had your share of pain
I can only see those brown eyes burning
I can’t take my eyes off the three dots
By your eye that has got my soul turning
Your finger curls at your blonde brown hair
The ringlets fall thick on your shoulders
And every time you pucker your lips
I always feel my nerves smoulder.
I see you tapping away to the evening beat
The long hot Tequila nights before us
The world is playing at our feet.
I see you draw up on a cigarette
The smoke encircles my heart
Now sitting in the barroom five years on
I wish we had taken it back to the start.
I wish we had started again
On that Tequila night
Can I just ask you somethin’, mon amie-
Can you see the light?

The emails have not been kind of
Late –
It’s not sadistic publishers
Or die-hard groupies
(well, mostly not)
No it’s people getting in touch
Wanting a taste of the good stuff
Their mouthful of meat
What they believe is theirs,
A weight I should carry.
Sometimes it’s about poetry,
I only wish more of it was –
But mainly it’s people
With nowhere to turn
And no thought for my situation.
I try and assuage their grief
But it’s no good
I cannot do it.
One day I can take no more,
I am staring at the ceiling
And I hear the telling ping.
I hit delete
It could be Jesus gone viral
But I doubt it,
Even He knows
I’m past saving.
Then I know it’s a diehard,
My phone begins to make
Continual pinging noises;
An ****** of woe.
The buggar then begins to
Ring.
I could fling him across
Main Street
But I only bought him
Two days ago.
He’s not worth it,
And goes away,
Before I can blow.
But sure enough,
There is no peace for the wicked:
Beep, beep
Ring, ring
Ping, ping
I picked it up, primed
“What do you want?!” I bellow.
“Oh... I’m sorry Mr. Hinton, just
To let you know this is Nurse
Georgia, reminding you about your
Appointment this Friday?”
I told her I’d be
There for her.

I remember once a day at school
I will never forget
She was called Storm
It was not so much what she said
That was memorable
But how she drove some
Guys insane.
It’s amazing what a piece of ***
Will do to a guy’s reasoning.
There was this one Belgian
Called Timothy
He never really said much:
Girls ignored him
And so did the bully’s
Because he wasn’t worth anything
The only thing I remember is
That he used to share his potato chips with me.
I didn’t want to be his friend:
I just liked his chips.
You realise when you have nothing
You’re out for all you can get.
One day when our English Teacher Storm
Came in
Showing all the leg
I think she knew how much to reveal
And to leave us guessing
Just wanting a little bit more...
But not ruining the dream for us.
It’s true we wanted to rip that spray-on dress off
She pouted her rose lips
And tossed her bountiful brown eyes
Her grey-blue rimmed eyes were framed by magnificent lashes.
A photo in the making.
Every boy was willing to pay for her to have her nails painted
And her eyebrows plucked
Well, it would start every English Lesson
Storm (Mrs. Goodwin) would cross one leg over the other
And there would come this noise,
From the back of the classroom,
Quietly at first
Then...
Thump
Thump
Thump
It would continue all through the lesson
And Timothy could continue
With mute persistence.

Girl, why don’t you kiss me like that?
Is it because I’m dirt poor?
Is it cos I love to chase white-tailed bucks
Country ain’t country any more
And it’s fast becoming that way
I can’t see anyone on the country dance floor
They all want something from the city
They all want something more
Everyone’s looking everything
They’re locking their windows, their doors
It’s a shame that a way of life is fast disappearing
Country isn’t country any more
I’m sorry if you don’t like riding up in *****
Riding with my dog up in the trailer of my GMC
Business in the front, party in the back
That’s the way it has always been
What’s going on with the world today?
They’re cutting down the trees, off go the deer
That was our livelihood not our blood sport
Old Tony’s Gut Rot has been replaced with import beer
Here comes the cheap and the easy from the city
It all just seems to be happening so very fast
And despite all the green land left free
I somehow believe that it isn’t going to last.
As the houses goes up and the trees go down
I feel that my patience is wearing thin
Don’t kiss me, I won’t miss you, baby
First slum of Europe, a role it won’t be hard to win.

Who needs to be loved?
I do.
I do.
Who’s fed up of lonely nights?
I am.
I am.
Who’s sick of TV dinners/ tears?
I am.
I am.
So who will love an honest gent?



*Silence

I sit on my own in a restaurant
And at the table next to me
A guy’s grabbing a hunny’s ****
And giving it all the googly eyes;
He smiles.
It’s a first date.
He’s done her already
And she is a stunner
Eastern European
A body built like an athlete
A body you’d **** yourself for
Just for a sip of that amber nectar
The body of a woman that puts fire in the *****
And gives way to sleepless nights.
He was grinning
And I was lost in my Vichyssoise
But as the evening wears on
The passion disintegrates
Into mindless rote
They were onto eating sandwiches
And I was onto the lobster
I know that you shouldn’t bring a sandwich
To a buffet.
The guy with the Bulgarian hunny learnt that too:
As soon as the guy looks up and begins to give his order to the waitress
The Bulgarian hunny interrupts him
“I would to order...”
“Bradley, don’t you look at another woman –
He’ll be having the salad and the tuna steak.
You know you’re not having a **** steak
I don’t want you dying of a heart attack before you’re forty.
And I’m certainly not going to be left to feed 6 kids!”
There was an awkward silence
Every time Bradley tried to get a word in the
Hot Bulgarian fluttered her big brown eyes
And shrugged  her shoulder.
“Boy, save the charm for the ******* your arm.”
God, if I were him
I would sleep with one eye open.
And I know if they had a bunny
It would be on the stove by now.
The conversation gently continued,
Poor Bradley couldn’t look at another woman
Throughout the evening
It was decided:
3 boys and 3 girls
And not one would be thought to be called
Bradley Jr.
They had to graduate
They had to work five years
And have full dental plans
All this was going on before
The salads.
I have to laugh
Hahahahahaha
When one is faced with a beauty like that
That’s a maniac
I have to think:
You can’t taste the milk
And then not put a down payment on the cow.

There’s one thing you must learn
About women,  it is just this
They  always call you –
Whether it be to make-up
Or break-up
They let you know where you stand.
It was some time after I fell out with Josy
And I dared to ask her flatmate
The droll question:
“Josy holding up ok?”
She clearly wasn’t because
She hadn’t called me.
The short answer I got
Was a cold
“Yeah, she’s fine”
Women too are full of contradictions:
“Fine” means she’s not fine
She’s probably been crying,
The short answer is teasing
They want you to ask more
To suffer, suffer, suffer.
The fact the flatmate was reserved
Means that Josy has told her a lot.
The fact  I thought this was gonna be painless
Is testament to the fact it’s not.

Justice is one thing you should always find
And it’s something not so common today.
If you step out of line
There should be hell to pay
We need a little more retribution
And throw a rope of that tree
If we put a few more in the ground
All those bad boys would think more carefully
Before assaulting that person
Before doing somebody wrong
And once the gun smoke settles
We’ll all meet in the saloon for a victory song
Back in those days my papie said
A man had to face up to what he’d done
We’d either find a great oak tree
Hanging them high or put them to the gun
There just ain’t any deterrent any more
We have to raise our glasses up against evil forces
We got too many gangsters, too much corruption
Order whiskies all round for the men and water for the horses
Today we need to show them who’s boss
The law needs to put a few more bodies in the ground
We need to fins the tallest oak tree and a length of a rope
Let them meet their Maker, that’ll settle them down.

Understanding – for the first time-
Call it a willingness to grow
A case of trying to matter
And now I really know
That you were there for me all the time
You were really on my side
You let me be who I was
I knew I had nothing to hide
You could accept I was crazy
You made me fit when I was out of place
Or so it seemed to me
You managed to keep the pace
And what’s more you loved me
You gave me more than you ever had to do
You were there when I was alone
Sometimes it was just me and you
And you understood what others didn’t
You knew when I needed to be alone
And when I rang you at midnight
You knew just what to say on the phone
You gave me the pride I needed
When I was lost you showed me where to go
And when I was worn down by life
You gave me tough love, the only love you know
And now I’m understanding
Everything suddenly looks oh so new
Call it trying to matter
You really took the time when you really didn’t have to
I see everything so much clearer
You’ve really helped me see
Thank you so much Hannah
It’s meant so much to me.

‘You *******!
You *******!
You *******!’
It’s all I hear
Being shouted down
The corridor
Thank God I’m
Walking the other
Way.
I do miss those nights
At flat 33.
It’s another generation
Another guy being
Thrown out
On his gluteus
Maximus
Told to scram!
Get the **** out!
Because Delilah’s on it?
And he’s out.
Some of the best and worst moments
Have been endured on my bottom.

I sit on my own in a restaurant
And at the table next to me
A guy’s grabbing a hunny’s ****
And giving it all the googly eyes;
He smiles.
It’s a first date.
He’s done her already
And she is a stunner
Eastern European
A body built like an athlete
A body you’d **** yourself for
Just for a sip of that amber nectar
The body of a woman that puts fire in the *****
And gives way to sleepless nights.
He was grinning
And I was lost in my Vichyssoise
But as the evening wears on
The passion disintegrates
Into mindless rote
They were onto eating sandwiches
And I was onto the lobster
I know that you shouldn’t bring a sandwich
To a buffet.
The guy with the Bulgarian hunny learnt that too:
As soon as the guy looks up and begins to give his order to the waitress
The Bulgarian hunny interrupts him
“I would to order...”
“Bradley, don’t you look at another woman –
He’ll be having the salad and the tuna steak.
You know you’re not having a **** steak
I don’t want you dying of a heart attack before you’re forty.
And I’m certainly not going to be left to feed 6 kids!”
There was an awkward silence
Every time Bradley tried to get a word in the
Hot Bulgarian fluttered her big brown eyes
And shrugged  her shoulder.
“Boy, save the charm for the ******* your arm.”
God, if I were him
I would sleep with one eye open.
And I know if they had a bunny
It would be on the stove by now.
The conversation gently continued,
Poor Bradley couldn’t look at another woman
Throughout the evening
It was decided:
3 boys and 3 girls
And not one would be thought to be called
Bradley Jr.
They had to graduate
They had to work five years
And have full dental plans
All this was going on before
The salads.
I have to laugh
Hahahahahaha
When one is faced with a beauty like that
That’s a maniac
I have to think:
You can’t taste the milk
And then not put a down payment on the cow.

There’s all these people singing today
“Bless me, what a wonderful life”
But I’ve been around enough
To know that isn’t right.
I’ve felt loss and I’ve seen death
I’ve stared the gun in the face
I can see the smoke coming off the barrel
Just another casualty in the rat race.
My mama and my papa
Worked hard every day of their life
Laying down to save this land
Through turmoil, blood and strife.
I know about the struggle
How it’s best to take what you can get
But just live life being happy so
That’s something I’ll never forget
Suddenly it’s not about the
Price tag on your clothes or what you wear
Who even gives a ****?
Who the hell even cares?
Because when you’re out here
Any relevance to that is gone
You’re just another average Joe
The best you can hope for is to die with your boots on
It don’t matter about a grave
You’ll be too far gone to care
Just chuck me in a ditch
Please don’t cry, please don’t despair
Cos you work every day of your life
And when it’s gone it’s gone
And if you’re a good boy then maybe
You’ll be lucky enough to die with your boots on.

Some people say I’m sheltered
And perhaps that is so
But if that means watching slugs
To shelter I’ll happily go
That’s the way it is in Muskogee
It’s a trip to go and get the news
And the biggest scandal of all
Is when Mr. Scott blew the local fuse.
We just sit and watch the world go by
We still raise the old Union Jack
We still don’t know about foreign policy
We just think I can’t be too late getting back
Got to get the washing in
Got to put the food on the fire
Got to get in from the rain
Livin’ free is our only desire
And to go down to the freehouse
To have a tipple of ale
We know alot about the weather
What to look for in thunder and hail
We just cherish these  honest values
We just know no more can be done
When the dark sets in
And we start at the rise of the sun
It’s quiet but it’s nice
The last untapped reserve
Free to do as you wish
The Internet don’t get on your nerves
You just talk to your neighbour
When you want to know
What the sport was last week
And he’d say off to the shop I’ll go
Come back two hours later
With not much really to say
Other than about the chicken he strung
And that ‘rain stopped play’
Being an Oakie from Muskogee
That’s all you had to chew on
You sat and stewed over a brew
Until the rain was gone
Then you were back out and
Sure enough you’d get a laugh
As two old coots tried in vain
To back a tractor down a path.
I here people talking bad
Sayingthe way things ought to be
But life here is good
If they would only come and see
You don’t get no emails
You don’t get no one bossing you
The last place where you can be free
And do what you want to do.

I say do what you want to do!

*From An Oakie

I told her, I did
Megan, I said
I’m not taking the load
Not anymore.
You come to me when you
Want help with words
But you won’t give me
Your tongue
Or even, as a deposit,
Your word:
Yes.
So I’m saying no,
******* you *******;
And she is gone.
I do feel bad – a bit.
But what can you do?
Bottle it up,
The bottle begins to crack.
Do what you can
Because you can’t come back
That was the straw that
Broke the donkey’s back.

...And they’re ******* playing the song
Lucinda would sing to
Right outside my window
After she failed to return my calls
Two days ago
I laugh
It’s all that stops me from crying.
I have decided one thing,
Me and fate don’t like each other.
Perhaps cos I told him I never needed him.
I know this much
If fate was a person
I’d be punching him in  the  ******* face
Right about now.