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

the pub at lunchtime
is quiet, he says,
I’m eating

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     ..

asked the bloke in the
market
where his apples were from
he said trees
said I just wanted to
know if they’re local
he said
they’re trees, mate
they tend
not to travel

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

what’s with this whole twenty
first century internet
thing about having followers,
I mean I feel like a stalker

wrote a poem once that was published
in a little magazine and for which I received
a cheque of five quid and ****** happy
I was to have it

and there was the one that was
published in another
magazine for absolutely nothing
and that’s it, my career as a poet   ..

this is all knew
I’d find it odd
my dear

she said I wonder
what you look like
without your glasses

he said I wonder
what you look like
without my glasses    ..

I want to read
my book
why are you
looking at me
like that ?

I’m not a poet
not even a minor poet
just one who writes silly things
you are
to think otherwise

people often say “less”
when they mean “fewer” -
it’s not important, I
guess, it’s just grammar    ..

always been timid
or not here I come!

can’t see a way out at all
     wherever one looks there’s just wall
    and yes, one solitary gate
      whereby they gather to await
    the old fool

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

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 ****    ..

the wind is stronger than me
I’m a weakling
blown about in the air
without an inkling of where this is going
to take longer than I thought
for such an unimportant poem

why is it the wise fool
is well regarded
in shakespeare
and now not at all     ..

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

write poems on beer mats in the pub
they’re not particularly good
but it passes an afternoon

why call murderers butchers,
    when we get our lamb chops
from the butchers, and very nice they are, too
    few, those old shops   ..

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

went into the second hand bookshop
I said hi, what’s new?

hid a poem in a tree in
the woods
but they cut it down
to just a couple of words

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  ..

well if they get me
don’t try to get them back

why the hell would I want
them back?

only writing this stuff online
because I haven’t a typewriter
and my handwriting is
awful how quickly things change   ..

losing again went
to the pub they said sorry
we’re just closing he

said oh I’m the one
they always let in, in the
last minute or so

do conspiracy theorists get out
of bed of a morning thinking
what if that’s
what they wanted me to do     ..

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

looking back
on our old haunts
me still    ..

frightfully british but
also roman catholic
ate no meat on a friday
was always fish and chips

out walking
this evening
is grey

grey buildings
grey rain
bows

drained rows
of veins
flow

with
grey    ..  

out walking
this evening
is grey

grey clouds
in our eyes

and I smoke

telling lies
and you choke -
and the flies  ..!

out walking
this evening
is grey

as she closed the
door behind her
mind was made up

want to inhale
the very scent of
of the city?
try the back seat
of a taxi     ..

used to skive off school
and go to the reference library
to read quietly to myself
until they caught me,
said I was wasting my life   ..

this morning I find myself
out
of deodorant and mouthwash
I give you fair warning    ..

he wished trains were still steam
and films were black and white
knights to the rescue and all that
****, had he really turned into this   ..

berwick street market
watching with my son
as a pigeon
pecked at and dropped a grape
on the kerb
over and over again

I called him
sisyphus
but my son said dad you’re so
****** pretentious   ..

hey mister,
didn’t I see you
on the telly
last night?

well you look
like him,
if you don’t mind
me saying

hey mister,
what d’yer wanna go
around pretending
to be him for      ..

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  ..

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  ..

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

only ever known two women whose
feet I found attractive
and one I married -
don’t know what happened to the
other three     ..

beauty is in the sigh
of the beholder     ..

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

I want to write anything
but love poems
tend to get in the way

has trump cancelled that bit
in the bible about the good samaritan yet
I doubt that he’s read it

the united nations just sat there
and took it
as trump talked
*******, I thought someone should have laughed

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