you need to go deep, see
deep sea!
ha! you can’t get much deeper
than that    ..

what do I want played
at my funeral?
charades

the upstairs window
looks out across the city
a figure peers back    ..

city at night is like myself
as a child
afraid to turn off
the lights

got a kebab on the way home
could tell it was on the way home
it looked knackered

no one believes in objectivity
anymore
but that’s the thing is
the facts

suggested a picnic
she said good idea
I’ll make the sandwiches
I said no, let them
decide for themselves

oswald mosley, nigel
remember what happened
to him?

try writing about something
other than yourself
who actually cares?

caught a fish in the pond
although it later transpired
it had every right to be there

keats was a poet and a
boxer and a doctor and a lover
and terminally ill, mate
you couldn’t write it

sitting in a pub writing
a poem but it
wasn’t very good and the
beer was awful

she said
you must hate me
I said
you can’t make me      ..

love to walk alone
through the city
streets are not just for grown
ups a daisy!

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?

of course the earth might not
be flat
there are hills and valleys and
mountains of stuff to disprove
that
even though your globe and
your map
are as smooth as you like
as not it just
might be    ..

he bought
her a ring

but she
didn’t

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

the Charing Cross
Road

a raid
arrayed

around
abound

a bound
first edition

in quite good
condition

considering
his age        ..

a man of letters
who pens
upon
trivial matters in convivial inns
where his life is spent
almost invariably
in tatters       ..

you either see migrants as a
problem, or you don’t
depends where you’re coming from,
I guess

he said I don’t know why
I ever went out with you ..
she said but you didn’t go out
with me, we just happened
to leave at the same time  ..

greedy foreigners keep coming
over here, apparently, whilst
millionaire entrepreneurs are moving abroad
because of taxes, I mean, really   ..

we brush against each
other
than that there is
nothing  ..

the second hand bookshop has gone
and whilst I may have mislaid the odd
book or two, a whole shopful?

this was the very street
choc a bloc full of tightly pressed covers on
the shelves

wherein sad old men with aching feet
would often find ourselves

light is the lilt
of a flute
at dusk
in a quiet square

how long
has it
been
up to much
lately?

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

you hate foreigners coming
over here we go again  ..

anonymous, he disembarks
and heads
for any old london bar

and thinks, should I collapse
and die     ..
and drinks to each strange
passer by

so what if I talk to myself
when I’m alone and
how the hell do you know  ..

gran loved westerns
me too
we didn’t have too many connections
but that’ll do

I want to run down
hill and get faster and fast
er and faster and      ..

I’m drunk
feel your

contempt
so not

quite drunk
enough     ..

don’t always
understand you
incomprehensible
beautiful
woman, you     ..

old woman holding up the queue
as she fumbles for her purse
was once more beautiful than you
and far more fitting for a verse

he could not have imagined
how things would turn out
your
pockets, said
the store detective

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

it’s either light of touch
or else it’s best put down
if you don’t want to be burned
by the critics

this is where I live
I’d ask you in
but it’s a mess

there’s a few of us
going out tonight
if you’re interested

of course I am you
must tell me all about it
in the morning     ..

afterwards I
smoke
whilst
you fall back
to sleep

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

met her
  in the gents of the red lion
didn’t say

anything of course
        I mean
   you don’t in the gents    ..

just
        going
                    through
a don’t
                              want to
  write any
                     more
  of
        that
                     scotch
left?

under threat of the bomb
we all sit at home, some thinking trump will
save the world, the rest of us thinking
he’s blown it     ..

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

drizzle at the
bar grey
as muzzy
print

from your
morning paper
droplets of
ink

samuel johnson comes across to me
as somewhat nicer
than dickens, although I daresay johnson
could be ruder
and dickens
was no doubt politer     ..

couldn’t imagine coming back
without you