don’t know if I can make tomorrow
how about the day after
I’ve had a little more time to think  ..

wanted to write something upon
westminster bridge
but since wordsworth had already scuppered me
completely
I went back to the pub    ..

we’re both getting old,
but she still has dignity and desirability
and a demure sensuality and
all I have is a cough

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     ..

no good at talking
with strangers
so perhaps we should get to
know each other

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

the older she gets the more
beautiful she looks at me growing
older too and gives a most
conspiratorial wink

sharing sandwiches
in the park
will never stale

holmes knew every alleyway,
every insalubrious inn,
every criminal mastermind,

all the best clubs in london
and yet, he didn’t know her
but oh, she knew him    ..

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

got a couple of tickets for
the theatre if you’d
like to go? yes I would, actually.
goodbye

tend not to write ****** verse
not that I’ve anything against
the innocent fumbling to find the right words,
but why on earth
would I tell someone else   ..

trying to cross the road
seems a greater obstacle than ever
in my head I’m thinking
I’ll fall over  ..

“I’ve had enough,” you
said, pushing away your plate,
but looking at me     ..

reading yeats
during my breaks
at work

of course they laughed at me!

dressed to ****
and well yes there was
blood on her
skirt but I know
that’s not what
you meant

like reading thomas love peacock
(worth googling)
don’t understand all the words
but that isn’t a reason to stop

see my poems as
just notes on the poems
I would like
to write but don’t

why should I care, it’s not
as though I know you, I don’t
know what you’re like, for instance,
how you wear your hair, why you’re here, I don’t know
anything about you; I merely hope
you’re alright

london borough of greenwich,
there was a second hand
book shop, not that I
suppose it’s there anymore than I am
hoping
the books found a good home

asked where I’d got those
bruises on my face
I said my face

you’re making it up
beatrice cried
and dante said
yeah, well this stuff
don’t write itself   ..

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

wasn’t there for long,
it seeped into the soil
and then, it was gone

things seldom
occur the way
one expects too much,
of course

easy to be amusing
that you think so
whilst I struggle in my head
with every ****** word

only writing because
like bukowski said
only if you have to
will it be any good

p g wodehouse and
john betjeman made
life seem worth living
just to read them    ..

she said you’re a
bit of a cold fish
I said which bit  ..

and the city
like an older
lover
gives one oh, so much
more
to discover     ..

you get that little puff
of air
as the tube train doors
open

it’s no wonder they
gasp
those ghosts who drag open
the doors

old books are like old friends
a bit crumpled and smelly and
one forgets how it ends   ..

we are
not what
we were
we ever?

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      ..

to the house where samuel johnson
had lived, near the inns of court; leave your
bags down here if you’re going upstairs,
snapped the woman behind the
counter yeah, he’d have loved you       ..

love museums full of stone age
artefacts, the odd roman sandal or two
and victorian pottery, and all
those insects skewered beneath glass cases
not solved by pulling faces
at what our ancestors got up to

want to tell the world your truth?
truth doesn’t belong to anyone
it’s about facts
how you feel is something else

but if nigel farage is a
national treasure I
think we should bury him

writing is like
going to the dentist
it hurts shortly after
you open your mouth

met my wife at work
said you forgot your sandwiches  ..

lived in lewisham for a while
it was alright  
but then she grew bored and I grew
bored with her growing bored
and staying out all night
and south east london ain’t the end of the
world

don’t get me wrong
I like trains;
it’s just getting on

when she came to his flat
he said shyly
you’re the first

touched she said that’s nothing to
be embarrassed about

he quickly added
the others will be along
shortly

apparently the geese in russia
are bigger than the pyramids in egypt
now that’s proper gander

she says last night was a bad
    idea
well in that case thank goodness
   it’s over
he says
    and yet, she says, you’re still here      ..

always wanted to be ordinary
of course, ordinarily, audenarily
I could never be a poet such as
he was just extraordinary      ..

you were crying and shaking as you tried
to explain you’d spent the night
with somebody else
well, as long as he makes you happy    ..

watching you pull up
your tights as I
lie beneath the quilt in the half
light of the morning

not only basing his whole
political career on hating,
but having the effrontery to want to
be loved? oh, my dear   ..

old bloke in the pub says
buy me a pint and I’ll be grateful
for ever mate, neither of us
have got that long       ..