Have you considered the owl?
Excluded from days
like a diabetic warned off fudge

Is the carob of night enough?
Sure, it’s dark, possibly smooth
and those tasty rodents move there

But look at the day
with a head that can turn right round
you’d see every rotten thing

Every bad stroke and selfishness,
every creaky knee and thumb
in clarity, loud

Oh to be the owl

The traditional pattern
of a set to for Nomark is this:
against the backdrop of the giant grift
perpetrated by the grand smug *****
he firmly grasps the wrong end of the stick
which, to be fair, is waved at him enough

A poster child for impotent rage
he’ll berate the checkout staff
about a voucher that’s either expired
or, mired in labyrinthine small print,
doesn’t amount to a free diddly squat

Without the words, the means,
the agency to upbraid the bosses
he huffs home on an overcrowded bus
where not a single other ****** wears a mask

A sideline:
Nomark stands on a horizon
governed by others
and has no fingers of his own to point

Every misbegotten instinct
tells him to run
from these verbose prigs,
but instincts are felt
not read or heard

Nomark squints as there is sun rising,
in colours that chafe
like eighties underwear
that didn’t breathe

He tries breathing
on his own awhile

The problems with grilling
aren’t clear
until you choose to clean

Claw to scratch
itches that you can’t identify,
as if I could ever stoop so low

Nobody told me so
is no excuse, buddy boy,
so stop playing the silly goose

I hate you, bambino,
your stupidity sticky
like sad celluloid
held too long in the gate

We’re through

#done #disappointment #end #humans

Today I began to hem,
rein in the threads that grow free
when left unstitched

I ticked a set of books
and, though I love my charges,
my heart hurt

My language is another,
my experience of this globe
unutterably different,
though geographically the same

And I want to help them play the game, I do,
but I don’t trust those
telling me how to

My instincts,
honed by humans I trust, unless
I’m lost in my own Truman Show,
show me the right way to go,
divergent  from this current shitshow

The pedagogy of care
is somewhere way, way
over there

The limited palette of the January riverbank,
#nomakeup #nofilter
just the burst capillaries and thread veins
bare

A tired earthy visage,
still allures the blackbird and wren
who never truly got the hang
of saying when
and feast past decency

The idea is to recuperate
and re-emerge fresh and green
but truth seems more like this molasses mud
that hold boots firm

I feel it all collapse
and wrap around like normal
with a wire wool hug

the chafe is on

I know which fat bells are tolling
with “Pupils come first” on lips
like a benediction spoke by those
whose fingers dip the collection box

But it can wait.

Piles of marking like ancient pillars
meant for Samson to do his thing
remain upright

Because a little tight in this metaphor,
Samson is for cooking a roast
playing video games
and watching the last gasp of TV,
anyone with me?

If I state I’m going to do something
then don’t, as often happens,
then I’ve planted a ***** seed
that’ll grow into a choking vine,
not free, or wise

So dark January resolutions
might help Calvinists,
or masochists, or both,
but for the rest of us
comfort in our skins is better

I have no preach for you
to do this: just listen

Your own heart cries and sings
all day, every day
and you will beat yourself
far harder, over cheese and *****,
than anyone who loves you would

So go inward a while and think,
and even if your conclusions
don’t match the zeitgeist,
love you, as we do

First footing towards
what could be bridge or precipice,
hard to tell in the usual mists
of another spin round the sun

The groundhog sting
has left us wary of what’s to come:
with an alphabet begun
how many masks need to be worn
before omega calls?

But the sun is shining
and it’s abnormally warm,
so that’s good,
isn’t it?

The fat, the grease,
of these in between days
stills my pen a little

So even if I wrestle
with another monumental year tick,
like the crack of doom

I look at the stuff in the fridge
and shrug

The existential crisis can wait
til the brie is done
and the crackers
have gone soft

You know that noise
they like to use in the movies
right now?
The one that sounds like
discordant foghorns falling
bwaaaarmmm
as the big bad arrives?
That’s 2022 that is,
bring the popcorn and watch

What’s in your glass, huh?

What’s your poison
with the noise and the noise
in and out of the head?

What swirls, has legs
and kicks like a mule?

Fool juice, nana called it,

but **** me
I could use some fooling

I know this stuff
is gloomy sad at times,
but hiding the fact there are few rhymes
and I laugh at poops and farts
most of all
is part of my poet’s call x

Gee officer Krupke
my memories hold nunya well
dug the early grave and stood above

my soul still holds tunes and counter melodies
and my heart bleeds
it bleeds ooblee-oo
ooblee-oo it bleeds

pools like knives
belts and rocks
still bleeds buenos
noches

The rains come heavy
often every side
and you might dance
like Instagram cushions suggest
or you might just gaze
through eighties music video panes
I ain’t missing you at all

Afterwards though
the sodden ground dilemma,
paths erased
muddied water
that flows regardless
while your boots lose home

Christmas
as usual, buttered
with senescent conversations
this year fizzed with a citrus dialogue
of scrunched ears, hot water bottle hugs
and altogether too much hair
on the smallest head

No pressure to be up today,
blessed or cursed, hold on

the hands in yours may be tiny,
of passion, steady, familiar,
frail or memorial

they touch the same
and need you here x

Christmas past
is always framed
with melancholic gilt
though its broad strokes show
no love held is ever truly lost

Christmas present
as the Polaroid is shook
takes time to reveal itself
best when pressed in the pages
of the whole story

Christmas future’s binary
seems pixel cold, clinical,
bed-ridden fears looming
but, my dears, don’t fret:
we’ll get what we deserve

Just resting my eyes
as the lights in the tree dance
and some well trodden narrative
of Christmas redemption plays
in gloss on TV

the grey pull of January
is at bay for now
held off by cellophane wrappers
and the smells of a decadent kitchen

though not a Christian
I’ll be thankful anyway,
aware of the drop either side

I’ll let my usual pissy niggles rest
til next year

We’re waiting for you, little pearl,
not that we need you to rush
take your time as the arms to catch you
will cwtch forever

Your mama has laid layer and layer
of love on you,
egg-shell cautious love

So be rambunctious on arrival
and we’ll mostly forgive sleepless nights

Just come little pearl
come in little girl

our world awaits x

For every craven decision
undecided, so chums can slide,
callous in pursuit of cash,
kings of the UK trash pile

Borders discussed through arrogant huffs
on last minute deadlines that always die
rolling from meeting to meeting
indicated by all that foreign wine and cheese:
such is the country, such is the disease

Today’s slow cooked ragu
has a lot of familiar ingredients
but spun a little different

The devil in the pork grease
gave me such a wink
I lost my place in the recipe

Liberal with salt, chili flakes,
zest and anything,
this quixotic cook’s hand
throws much freer than weekdays

I only lack the fat slack
of pappardelle for this,
as they were out at the supermarket

Penne will have to do

Having dispatched the sound rabble
with mostly love,
our already flaccid balloon
deflates with a final raspberry

a fitting fanfare to a term
that left its markers marked,

the shared mirth,
across eyes and hearts,
at a **** noise
proving once again:
we are why we’re here

Winter nights, long
like the light is lost in thought
I sometimes think of you
and the equation of our loss/gains

even though I’m **** at maths
and numbers are for squares
the outcome on the page
is positive

Call call callous
all wretched all broken all

hear the melody call
discordant heart
arrhythmic

choked, abysmal
abyss, abyss

while the clock still ticks
are we

Here’s plan B:
you gather your duplicitous *****,
dash on a bus with another
erroneous statement, like
“Competent Leaders”
and leave us

Seriously
a shot of your plinth
with a placard that read
“Just do what I wouldn’t”
couldn’t be worse than this

And every karmic drip,
from every lone last breath
or lost tear of an apartheid
volunteered for others
will be a harsh tide to wash
you stains away

Forgive me if the fatigue means
my eyes cross
and I lose the thread of your beauty,

it’s in your words, see?
Always has been,
a bit like me

And now my head nods,
we’ll say in affirmation
as you’re a patient person,

though my snort-start awake
will give me away

I’m desperate to stay awake with you,
but these days, y’know?
These days.

Hearts are funny things
I feel mine rise and fall, jarred
like captured summer fruit
fat in syrup
some days
others, pickled sharp
and tucked away in acetic darkness

A moment of that child’s voice
tattoos a grief
permanent without ears to hear

my fear of hating humanity
inches nearer
while my loves try not to fade

Before the storm, the river had all but given up,
the guttural roar of wind and deluge
rattled all souls, except her
and in the aftermath she swelled
and bore delicious weight again
and my eye-contact
with the pageantry of the green headed drake
told all the muddy truths:
to underestimate is to lose

Iscariot behaviours mean
this never temple body
sometimes struggles to hide
the weather roll
that the eager might hail
pathetic fallacy
with smug misrecognition

Listen to the twitch and thud
as you get older, sure,
but hold off on fearing the worst

The hearse always takes a while
for those who hear its stately glide
daily

#age #health #anxiety #peace #steady

It felt cold again today
as I scraped a little ice on the car
for the daily journey

my fingers ached a touch as winter spoke,
but no brine soaked my skin to crack,
no frozen gun barrel bullied my neck,
forced my unready body
to a too small boat,
crammed where fears of all ages merged,
and hope drowned

It felt cold again today

We sat and sounded beliefs
as the leaves chose to dance
with an almost panic
as if the chance wouldn’t come again
and the floor would be cleared

Clarity, for now, only coming
from this brittle winter light
that in high contrast picks out sad details
that murky days hide better

I will cry, I guess, tomorrow
or another day that would’ve been ours
the hours will let me know
I’m sure

Rattle the cassette
with the biro etched “Car Mix”
grab the keys from mum’s bag
“Fill up what you use!”
“…Ok, can I have a fiver then?”
scuff to the car in unsuitable boots
slump in, adjust mirror, checking stupid fringe
which then existed
snap in the tape so the first bars
of G-Funk, grunge or B*Witched pulse
then it’s off to pick up
shotgun

autumn drinks heavily
slides into winter black
singing old songs in the dark
of loss and lack
and imperfect memory

these months weigh more:
grit under the eyelid
cold **** in the soul weight
that scratches and suffocates

but the coals will glow
and windows steam the same,
inside from time to time
and safe

The lies that autumn tells
it hides in these leaves,
like a sleight of branch
you’ll be misdirected
from the dun, dying land
as you revel in amber and gold
falsehoods

With leaves fireworking
their last defiant blaze
against grey skies and the mud,
once again I forget to remember

the muted tannoy announces silence
for customers and staff
and the surreal descends
among the tins of peas and carrots

where the absence of the normal clatter
suddenly roars, catches in my throat,
the plaintive, Sally Army bugler
scoring the sadness in these aisles,
these isles

with two minutes passed,
the cacophony of the tide
of plant based diets
and too early Stollen returns
to wash over, to forget

Off the daily cuff
blood pressure rises,
no real surprise
when this number over that
seems to dictate it all

For it to fall to a level
where there is no dread
of a sudden clutched chest
or brain wildfire
requires time for self care,

And though there’s the rub,
your work will never love you back,
so feel no guilt stepping away
before you crack

Time ticks down as we gouge,
burn, eat and smear this planet,
all the while avoiding eye-contact
as we line our graves with cash
for a soft and pointless landing

Standing knee-deep already
on a rented doorstep
the next in line rightfully curse us
as the fat get fatter, fit to burst,
but never fit for purpose

The kite arrives and the others scatter:
a chatter of malignant magpies,
muscle bound gulls,
fat, idiot pigeons
and scheming, knifing jackdaws

Even together, they can’t thwart
the obsidian eye,
the span and solid beat of russet wings,
the kingpin

That tattered *******
they all fight over
is his

#redkite #forthebirds #life #living #humanity

Dusk inside, sometimes

Sometimes out

A heart shout, above cloud thrill

Given infinite patience

Standing still, still, still

The slapping second hand wakes
to the mute, orange-dark room
of a life again crepuscular,

commutes before dawn, after dusk
and the yearn for vitamin D
become the norm

in the near distance
supermarket music tickles
glitter and tinsel

the bright idiocy of Yuletide
before the treacle dark inside

Eyes snap like Polaroid:
that memory is captured
flat
so superficially it holds truths

but look more carefully at those colours
and the tunes they sing,
they make you think
something

something close to fingertips
on glossed pages
where other people's lives live
and mean little

but this is yours, ours,
and I’m holding the hours
holding on and shaking

October butterflies
game against blue skies,
wind that gusts indifferent

fading buddleia’s
purple sashes
give one last hurrah
to the peacock, admiral,
as the lowering sun
sees through wings that were

#autumn #fall #october #butterflies #turnturnturn

I’m invincible, unstoppable

until I stub my toe
and come a cropper
and the earth below me shifts
and sits on my chest with a manic grin

The gasp for breath
like a feeble request for one more chance,
******* properly in a bunch
as all avenues close

These are the swings and roundabouts,
the reciprocal motions
that see rise and fall as one

decades in you’d think it’d all make sense
but this viscous, thick emotion
is as sticky as always

I think
I think in buds
that root
and sometimes
blossom with you

but don’t get cute about it

Like pitch dark chocolate
Sunday nights are fi-i-ne

But always leave you wishing
For less bitterness

I rest in the quiet thoughts
that might involve tired arms
and unadorned hearts and faces

to fantasise boredom with you
is a new low/high to replace
my easy crippling everyday nowt

I currently know that
to fall asleep with you
unwashed and noisy tired
is all I think I need