I love you

from a tickle to a thrum

a bothered everything for now

for now is a time indeed

same as others gone

and others still to be

Sleight of hand combined with misdirection
so you miss the moth eaten crushed velvet
of my finest stage jacket,
the flop sweat beneath the powder
I gesture to the monument of worries
towering behind me

With flamboyant flare
Presto!
The monolith of my life’s troubles
is no longer there!

You are right to give slack jawed applause
and question my technique,
just don’t peek behind the curtain
beyond the mirrors where it
all still teeters

Until the lights go out, I’m cured

I play video games on easy.

Yeah,
I know how some folk will see me,
but now, here’s the thing:

I don’t thrive on challenge.
I grow from knowing
what I’m capable of knowing
and showing all of that
polished up

I get that people see mountains
and climb because they’re there
but me knowing there’s a cafe at the top
with flapjack, tea and Kendal mint cake
seems to make it fair

Better still if a tarmac track
or funicular railway
can get me halfway or more,
I’m all over that,
you just watch me summit

To return to the original sort of analogy:
if I can beat the enigmatic end of level boss
who tosses a second or third energy bar
in the mix
by spamming the same overpowered move over and over,
I’m doing it,
end of

When I stand in the ashes of the beast
whatever it might be
and take loot or XP
that might be not quite as good as on normal or hard
I’m good
I still feel the buzz of winning

If I have to grind repeatedly
and learn intricate enemy routines to evade or parry
and die
and die
and die

It’s not for me.

It could be because I cut my gaming teeth in eighties arcades
where I judged how good a game was
by how far 10p could take me
at a time when 10ps were limited

A forgiving difficulty level was a boon
(Yeah, I’m looking at you Mad Dog McCree
50 flipping *** a go and dead in 30 seconds!)

Anyway...

A little friction in life is fine,
no drama without conflict and all that,
but given the option
to up up, down down
left right, left right
B A Start
my heart will always take it

Mens sana in copore sano
so they say
which these days is a worry
as the sedentary blur
sees a time-lapse
of my fattening *** shift
marginally on the sofa
while the pallor of my skin
makes corpses wince
and message u ok ***?

Given my increasingly potato shape
what state will my cabbage brain be
when they finally give the all clear?

When we are once again allowed near
I envision sitting with my primates
grunting fear as the brave one
reaches for the monolith

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

You need to cook

to think about what tastes good
and shop with tastebuds, textures and time in mind,
challenge your palate
with things you might not like
but just maybe through salt, fat,
sweet and vinegar
you’ll begin a journey with no end

Start with basics:
pick a thing that as a kid you loved
and muck about with it
add stuff, take stuff
reflect on heat
(too high is the trap we all fall in,
or too low, through fear)

Most of all cook, as a ritual
make victuals that force a grin
that draw friends, families and lovers in
and with greasy fingers and chins,
grand sustenance and common guilt,
we’ll smile and rise

As a kid, I know I saw air shows
although none specific stand out,
I know there were skies that
buzzed and thundered
the sound of determined direction

at each one I know there would be pilots
who threw small planes in tight loops

everyday, pulling back on the stick,
taunting gravity to notice and push,
barrelling to a zenith
of impossible weightlessness, momentary,
before the nauseous crush returned,
over and over in front of an audience

and I know I watched and thought
“That’ll be me one day.”

Sundayish
with sun on us
remembered dishes
passed from smile hand
to hand

The love does not diminish,
immutable,
like all the good stuff

I’ll hold mine in reserve
for every one of you I miss

We try to sink into the crepuscular
as behind, another working week
picks us out of its teeth

we throw a couple of weaves
into the route to the sofa
for a headful of peace, maybe

though home has deaf ears too,
we love them
and through years of gaining favour
we’ll keep bruised hearts open there

beyond, you’ll see each aortal latch fixed,
each ventricular bolt slid
and each arterial snib
locked

if sweat and tears are the currency
you’d better ****** earn it

Hear those Friday beats drop
from hard to soft
as seconds elongate,
minim rests to pause
until all too belatedly
you are freed to remember

I’m not letting it stop me,
I’ll just carry on living my life
he said
treading dog **** deep into the ****
while under each arm
were many bags of bog rolls
puy lentils and spelt flour
that within the hour
would begin their months long spoil
at the back of a damp garage

Us writ large

exposed by this little
biological *******
which, let’s remember, does not think

Just because Dagenham Dave
or Portia
don’t either
does not make us sparring partners

Evoke Dunkirk or the blitz
if you want
but please
do it getting off your ****
on the 1995 bottle of ouzo
from the back of your drinks cupboard

at home

#dontbedicks

Yearning for frost sharp, gaudy lights
in November seems apposite in a year consistently blighted with dull, pedestrian horror

The itch to raise a tree and string lights
to no and every god
could be scratched this time

We can pack our proud sneers
in the loft or attic in exchange for
electric hope and cellophane cheer

As nights draw in
we’ll bluff metaphors of closeness
until a wellspring comes to right us

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

There aren’t many jobs
where Sunday night
cold grips your guts
and has you palpitate

while midwives are called
and antiques are roadshowed
every inch of will is bent up
in figuring the impossible

if we all know how leading horses to water ends
then can we not give the stable hands a break?

As I watch my own digits shake,
stable hands seems like a joke
no one lets me in on

Cold white numerals
from the Teutonic-honest dash:
9.5°C

Not so cold, I guess
but not the weather to press the button
for the windows to drop

I do while accelerating
too fast for the road,
the fresh air has volume
that angry-loves my tired,
house-cat skin

The wub-wub-wub pulse in my ears
has a cause I control
for once
as the next curve beckons

On the cusp,
heat on heat on heat
breaking to snot ridden storms
and hoarse, blasted throats

the following cold front
isn’t ideal
but in its heavy blue resolve
lowered pressure leads
to a duvet covered peace

Remember every now and then
to redress the balance and acknowledge
that there are hedgehogs,
cooked breakfasts,
stomach aches from laughing
and the dumb comfort of an afternoon snooze

The words we say to you
aren’t strictly true
as much as they do
what we want them to

shaped and spun
with hidden gears
so when they reach ears they fit
K-chick!
neatly settling
without drawing attention
to the shabbiness
and moth holes

Look here my good man!

Hand shadows dancing
on a bright screen
hiding meaning
in dumb show gestures
of duck quacks and rabbit concerns

In Oz, the wizard’s heart came good,
behind our curtain
you’ll just find avarice
and certainty
that a brief, gout ridden future
means more to us than you

On the news
the language on the vehicles changed
from the ignored alphabets
to those we sort of got:
to ambulanza
then l’ambulance
to ambulance
to ambiwlans
to carbad-eiridinn
to otharcharr
to ours

Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
We’ve all earned our time in the sun
to let tense necks and foreheads unfurl
and remember that even though it’s a bit busted
there is a world

For the love of heck, turn off the laptop
stretch legs and do you
even if it’s tricky to remember
there are plans outside of planning

Your role is essential, even while
fat white men who went to abusive schools
will tell you otherwise

You need your energy to lift the eyes
of those who feel low, forgotten and rotten
so please
recharge

Here’s my thinking:
Sir Kevan probably gave a decent plan
with solid foundations and associated cost
not loss
and all the Ricardians could see
was that it wasn’t all me, me, me
and so slashed away and thought:
those dumb enough to teach
can eat the **** sandwich
it’s not like they do anything that matters,
****** chattering classes,
now, how do we get them to do childcare
for the next six weeks
to stop the knived dead
and angry, apoplectic kids
and make sure their drone folks are on the lines
to feed our fat, fatcat selves?
I’m sure that Portia works for Ofsted...

Panic buuyyyyy
paniiic buyyyyyy
go on!

Then none of us
worth any of us
will get anywhere

douches

I shot the breeze today
with crickets, beetles,
spiders and caterpillars,
we held a moot.

Each representative, a voice:
words in the clamour
to be heard

In these lands of
many common grasses,
breeze told anecdotes,
arachnid needs
and insect calls for attention
often get ignored

Stopping to sit,
look through clutches of eyes,
sing with rattled wings
and chew cud,
can help retune the din
to be cleanly heard

Put your ear against the day
lub-dub beat slows
throttle hand gives
deep breaths release
kinked shoulders
and the tears that come could be
for anything

A deep pulse of spinning waltzers
burn electric thrills
while pre-teens buzzed on sucrose
and fried dough
scream hot: they want to go faster

back on the promenade
Renee and Don, eyes on a horizon,
warm themselves reminiscing in circles,
minds dancing under glitterball embers

further back, gapped tooth shop fronts
shelter ripped tents, cold on concrete,
meagre piles of trash bagged jetsam,
of those stopped here by memory’s
pernicious tides
and forgot

I seem to have missed the lesson,
or maybe it was a paid seminar,
where being a ******* to folk not like you
is seen as cool

A staggering self-belief, or indoctrination
into a way of thinking that excludes
the workers, powerhouses, batteries,
seems insane in a way
that only limited lineages
seem genetically capable of

But now I’m stooping, so I’ll stop

Let’s all stop
being in thrall to noisy *******,
rugger-buggers who had charmed and broken youths,
who knew no hunger except in minds
and no kindness except paid for

I would feel pity, but these bred monsters
are parasitic,
so to let them survive,
******* and spouting lies,
kills us all in the end.

Britannia rules these waves

September heat to melt the
sealing wax, closing off summer
as grasses, golden as they die
still whisper with insect thought

the trees reply in kind
though the greying of their temples
can’t be hidden
reminding of the irresistible slide
to winter’s wide silences

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

But always leave you wishing
For less bitterness

Intent on the final bell ring
declaring spring for reals
as we feel every inch
a bag of hammered turds

You will have heard the crack
in every colleague’s voice this term,
felt the glut of panics
that the journey home may be in a hearse

Still, it could be worse,
and when the rear view
shows a dwindling, darkening school,
we’ll spend two weeks pondering how,
exactly

When I first heard the word
existential
I thought “Ooh that’s posh
perhaps I’ll pepper it in conversations,
Bosh! and figure out later
what it means.”

Twonk I was, I only slowly
saw the word existence hidden
in the cleverness of syllables
and then I thought I got it

But not until a maw
began to daily swallow
more than a thousand souls
of families and carers,
teachers, truckers, nurses,
loved
did I become aware

And I was scared.

Not just life being lost
but existence
the whole ****** swirl and fanfare
of little faffs and laughing drunken,
first chuckles, first kisses, first footsteps,
Sunday roasts, broken hearts and ecstasies

The nail-clutch of my anxiety
floored me
but underneath an ember burned
and a fire-question unfurled and grew:

How did we let this be?

Can you see how much
we need each other?!

All this “I am a rock
I am an island”
solipsistic claptrap
exposed
cos we need Joan and John
at the supermarket
and the folks at A&E
and the techies
streaming lifelines
while we figure how to be

Now, behind our keyboards
we might not be warriors,
but worriers who realise
how close we are to crashing

and yeah, some **** cash in
but let’s not forget
so when the panic lifts
we figure novel penance
and say our goodbyes

So hugs are currently virtual,
but our care for once
is real

Maybe that’s the virus deal

Maybe we’re done with
u ok ***?
so when we re-emerge
we can see clearly
**** sapiens
are one species
and switch on to each other,
sisters and brothers alike

Being nice is for life

I got bitten by a spider,
but this is England.

A certain arachnid
politeness is expected,
holding back on venom,
for example,
or moving at a predictable, parochial pace
and arranging eyes, legs and hairs
to not offend.

Hanging out in bedside sleeves
so an early morning stumble
is accompanied by slow burning
pin ******
leaving mild swelling and discomfort
is just not cricket.

Don’t get me started on
those chirruping buffoons.

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

The impulse of summer waning
sends an annual, yet always forgotten shift,
the hedgerows and fields conspire
to rewrite the scent enough
so the mind wanders to open fires
and comfort food
even though the sun still beats
scant weeks away we’ll swaddle

I think about you often,
elusive, the memory is,
a shape-shifter,
when I think it familiar,
amorphous it changes

Other times unbidden
it will rest fully formed on a quiet lap,
a gentle weight of warmth,
until distraction calls
and you’re gone

It’s not really difficult:
the golden rule,
walking in others’ shoes,
giving two ***** about
the lives of others.
It’s right there.
Has been since the days
of squatting in caves
planning mammoth takedowns

But the clowns have weaponised caring
to become a choice.

It’s not. Raise your voice.

I drove a raised road
which gave a view of fields
much different to home
though mere miles away
vast, dark-rich soil potential
where words couldn’t fail to grow
but in a syntax not my own

There, the syllables of rushes stood clear
arrogant, apparent
with no lost edges or liminal blur
where I would speak my words

Heading back, a driveway sign said:
ROSES, BEANS
and now, at home
I’m lost to what that means

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

Selecting the truth is easy:
pick the bits that make you seem great
and breeze them past ears
that have no time or desire to wait
for the imminent clatter of ****,
the torrent of bitter feces
that sticks
as all the parts suppressed spew forth

#politics #ukpolitics #lies #disingenuous

It’s only us that’s broken

these once unspoken words
reverberate around a globe
that doesn’t wait for us

gets on with growth and bloom
and spawn and gambol
same as always

as children we cry
and bemoan our lot
unjust and unwarranted

but the doublespeak
is busted by the healing
all around

Starting fires
and suggesting that they sit
in flimsy metal pits
from hardware stores or such
is all well and good
until flames remind you
they have no gods,
no morals, just free will,
while the smoke marks you its own

Sometimes, tides behind teeth get stuck
as if the moon, distracted,
looses its inexorable pull

then all the weight of water
sits stagnant
while each pescatarian thought
from the zipping, inconsequential minnow
to the ponderous whale bulk
sulks, sick and stuck

If you see these green gills,
or the overspill in the eyes of those
you know
maybe sit awhile, harbour side
and cast a line or two

One: my life spins in small circles
that very infrequently stretch
to somewhere as far as Benidorm

Two: that after 12 years married
she’s right about most things
so I’ll listen more

Three: a lot of annoying stuff
is dust in a much bigger wind
so look for the wins

Four: the kids are what it’s for
and all their silliness, fear and anger
is a handle to clutch on to

Five: we are here and alive
and we should forever
fight to keep it so

I think I know my breadths and depths
but the steps of these incandescent souls,
those that have given their whole
to muscle memory,
contusions, cuts and late night
doubt filled miseries
just to fight themselves,
podium or not,
teaches me that what I’ve got,
we’ve got,
is just unknown

Some days I don’t want to leave the cinema
I sit dead centre,
hope the screen will fill my field of vision,
each speaker will cover my ears
in numbing sound
allowing thrills and broken hearts
of others’ made up tales
to supplant my own for two hours
and change

The dark holds me anonymous,
lets me depart and drift,
try on the moods in lost safety
so when credits roll
choked tears and shiny blisses
are returned, rewound, reset
for what comes next

January will not be missed
but stubbornly,
mist it is

Leaf litter sheep ****
verdant verges
flowers that smell foreign but aren’t
wet earth telling truth
moves to concrete and tarmac
who lie often
and heat is turned to memory
steps from animal tracks to animals tracked
have tumble drier breeze
mocking those prior flowers
**** smoked appreciatively
to thank the peace
as if laws don’t exist
and the lick of car exhaust
to recall poison
and then home

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

the chafe is on

A day will soon come when you will wake
after a full, unbroken night
with no asides other than kooky dreams,
and materials for breakfast
will be at hand and in date

and your plans will be loose
and peopled with easy love
and activities that boost your soul

the weather will be just the way you like it:
that crisp, bright, balmy, bracing, intoxicating kiss
you’re perfectly dressed for

the memories you carve will remain
to glow in the dark
like the stars on your bedroom ceiling

a day like this will come again
so hold on my loves,
hold on

No anticipation is as great
as finishing seconds of a chicken pie
then looking forward
to what Paul will cook next year