the evening air is ripe and falls
to the ground and floats on the thames

you sip lager alone by the
open door and watch the harvest

at the bar and on the tables
fruitful words are piling their aims

into neighbouring laps and wait
to be watered with compliments

the kings road ripples unnoticed
you’ve not been picked by mistake? arms,

hands out, you pull the tide forward
and drink its juice without asking

                     …  

you drift through a wood of tourists
the blue tint in your hair the sky

penetrating through their branches
to the undergrowth of world’s end

where less than trendy natives drink
without bright clothes to catch the eye,

like petals, of the tourist bee
and so are never seen or picked

as all the punks and poseurs are
but simply hang around to die

an unromantic winos’ death
in winter when the migrants leave     ..

afterwards I
smoke
whilst
you fall back
to sleep

one gets to the point
when you’re old
that you no longer ask

you just know if they
don’t when they decline
to wipe your ****    ..

have you ever met louis macniece
in his birmingham
dare say you might well have missed him of course
there is so much going on      ..

the clouds are onion gravy
and mash
quite absurd  
but don’t you just love ogden nash

old bloke in the pub
says you can’t throw me out
for topping up my glass of

whisky from my hip flask
how do you know
what’s in my hip flask     ..

when I saw her I fancied her and
thirty odd years later
after we married I still do and
******* woman I still fancy you