suppose if I ever came
up with a really
memorable poem I wouldn’t
have to write it down

looking back
on our old haunts
me still    ..

she says these poems are
****, but what if she’s right   ..

used to walk around
the city at night
with nothing on my feet
except myself

ok so I’m alcohol dependent
you got a problem with that ?

feel unsteady, seems windier than
it used to be -
don’t know if it’s a climate change thing,
or just me

rather write detective fiction
than poetry but I wouldn’t
be any good at it, and what’s
the difference? she says

I’d willingly take you
into my confidence
if I had any

we rented a room
so cold we went to bed
with our clothes on,
but not for long

that you keep on giving me
your opinion suggests you don’t want
it, either

ate our sandwiches sitting
on the steps leading up to
the art gallery
it’s a matter of taste, she says

where were you last night?
I can’t recall
and you expect me to believe that?
not at all  ..

used to think I’d like
to get to know you,
but I don’t, anymore

as she closed the
door behind her
mind was made up

writing a poem on the bus
and the elderly woman sitting next to me
says oh, is it about us

how long
has it
been
up to much
lately?

the american poet I most admire
is dorothy parker,
a drinker, a poet, a cynic, a writer
and **** it, I like her!

sitting at a pavement table
   of a turkish café
  near the gare de l’est

feel myself hunch
  like a dishevelled pigeon
over lunch, the waiter

asks for our order,
     naturally in french
and I ask “parlez vous anglais?”

     he enquires if we’re dutch,
               or quite possibly deutsch    ..
guess it doesn’t matter much

writing a novel
you know what that’s like?
it’s like a story that no one’s
ever written before
yeah, I’m making it up  ..

is the mousetrap still running
at the theatre, is there a donkey sanctuary
in st pauls
is there still the thames, the thames!
is this then how poetry
goes

it’s here
your
underwear
you left
it     ..

use a stick since my stroke
approximately four years
ago it was when I last ran for a
bus, but I don’t miss it

she’s always saying that I live
in the past
well yes, it is the only place I’ve lived
apart from now  ..

quite like the calm appraisal
historians bring to the past
supplying a little distance
to that which is actually vast  ..

glad I never met george orwell
since he’d have despised me for
being a weak liberal and well
yeah he’d have been about right

drizzle at the
bar grey
as muzzy
print

from your
morning paper
droplets of
ink

tattoos are like putting
ink on a  j m w turner
no one’s a blank canvas

poetry’s alright
but I’d rather
have a bike     ..

wanted
to cry
but there’s people looking

worse off
than I

a sunday roast
washed down with a pint
got back on the coach
and belched.
what more do you want     ..

most people around here
take democracy for
granted they vote for the fascist  ..

my wife gets annoyed
I don’t know why
but best just apologise

the merseybeat poets
made me realise that poetry
is for everyone
whether they want it or not

life can end
in a second, love
I’m just writing
a poem

wanted to knock on his door
and ask him to come out to play
but what if his dad answered
and what if he said, oh ok  ..

I’m drunk
feel your

contempt
so not

quite drunk
enough     ..

want to
play
by myself
today

don’t like restaurants
are full of people
who could have stayed
at home and cooked

sitting in the pub
thinking of my wife at
home half past
four in the afternoon

alas
a loss
unless
undressed
the poor old
chap was loved
I guess
her curls
in swirls
around his chest       ..

opened a bottle of scotch
“how’s that going to help?”
ever tried drinking this stuff
with the lid on    ..

in the pub, reading
someone says why would you read in
the pub
it beats talking

for once, think of somebody else
so he did
she didn’t like it

last time I wrote a poem that
was
any good was on the late lamented
deep underground poetry site about an elderly woman on the
bus who offered me a boiled
sweet,
I thought,
but no, thanks     ..

angrily get out of bed
saying you’ve had enough!
which for me was a first

got you a lettuce
hope you like it
it’s as crisp and green
as an apple   ..

sharing sandwiches
in the park
will never stale

she used to complain
that she never knew
what he was thinking

he said I hear what
you’re saying, but isn’t
that rather the point?

and it’s been said my
social skills are appalling
but that’s pretty rude

dylan thomas died from the drink
but that’s not what you think of
when you read his poems you think of caitlin,
swansea and soho and yeah, ok, pubs  ..