Ladies and gentlemen!
To you, this seems a simple set of stairs
mildly vertiginous perhaps,
but no real challenge
with careful steps
and grip upon the bannister
even granny still manages

But I, The Great Fearlesso,
for one day only will attempt the impossible:
down the stairs in a sleeping bag!

Yes, your frightened gasps are suitable
(at least I assume that’s what the sound was
as it was a bit like tutting)
but I will not be dissuaded

I ask my glamorous assistant/mum
to help me into the bag of doom
with as much grace as a baby elephant
on roller skates

And here upon this precipice I pause,
my life flashing before my eyes
Look! There’s last week!

I peek through my fingers at the drop
and though my bottle is challenged
I, glorious I, commit!

I go, and the bumbled blur
of carpeted steps is lost
in the howling hiss of synthetic materials
I am tumble dried to an almighty
thump...

And dazed, I rise
to the thunderous applause of the cat
I stand and take my bow

Then do it twenty more times

Acknowledge: the infinitesimally small chance
of any of us being born,
with utterly no choice
regarding shape, size or colour

A quirk of an elegant double helix
mixed by the hand of years and years
leads to our underbite
or sticking out ears
or skin

Imagine then: some folk in this long odds dice game
are deemed by implicit consensus  
to have lost at birth
and the cost is constant denigration
and a knee on the neck

That any of us from the species **** sapiens
could have hearts that are stopped
by the cruelty of blind chance is ridiculous
and should be seen and felt by all,
and rage should follow

Sometimes there’s peace
in this restriction,
you get gifted a lucid
memory trail that you can wander
with a heart that sings back
to the echoes within

At other times it’s fibreglass
or vitriol under the skin,
prickle-burning every thought,
flaring angered embers
that refuse to chill

It’s a sickness
that infects our wishes
and snuffs the daily ebb and flow
of our earned minutes
as we yearn for the next high point
where we can
just
let
go

No escaping
this fickle, clumsy spectre,
just a recognition
that its patience wears as thin as ours
and it will pass

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

Bubbling in summer’s bouillon
my vegetal notes abound
leaf and fruit under glass
swell quick but threaten

as a base for my tin *** stews
it’ll do in a pinch
but I already yearn
for the inching roots and tubers
colder autumn brings
when sweats are chosen
and frost rimes
glamourise my grin

I’m thinking of The Orb
and the crusty, mucked crystal
of the transition from child to adult,
scored and soundtracked

excoriated by blunt first loves,
first lives lost, tempest tossed,
into oversensitive abysses
from which there’s “Never loving again!”
except after growing and knowing

Lo-fi made it easier and harder
than these cheeky bleeders,
at least, I know my bare cheeks on film
would take weeks to get back from Boots
and not be broadcast to Kuala Lumpur
in seconds

Age beckons
always
in a way we revulse at
but blunder and succumb to

You becomes we becomes us
as no bad thing
but we must honour
our custodian status
and not impose

The stupid vine grows
where it’ll grow,
we demonstrate this
wonderfully

We fight a hard wired self-hate
perpetuated three generations deep
a shut-factory broken-toothed anger
that finds no solace in shop work or service

they had more, once

so kids get to swallow it too
drink it deep and let its grim bloat leach
into blood and skin and hair

we fight hard as hell
with teeth and tongues of tolerance
and claws to catch and hold
to pause, not patronise
to see that inertia is owned

Sharing a lost freedom
you gave us a fleeting,
distanced touch of colleagues,
friends, your girls

free laughs flowed in honour
til you passed us for the last time
in this grey world
and we choked a little

but even then, the technicolour
of next time rained,
irrepressible as red laughter
and leopard print

Geese fly by in a V
watched by laid back clouds
coloured flamboyant pink
by a sun that says
“See you tomorrow.”

Fat snow tickled us
and we forgot all that
for a string of heartbeats.

Night
a nugget of slide virtuosity
sings clear in the dark
that from the usual velvet hand
somehow has been forgotten

Your brass-burnished touch
has been nothing but felt

Sleep on, whole rest

With mixed and barbed emotions
these thick and heavy days defy physics
individually grinding
yet weekly whipping by

But in this treacled maelstrom
Friday’s unique frisson
still brings a cheeky tickle

Just one iota
of that teenaged brio,
utterly fearless in the way
slim life allows,
would power our souls for
whole years

fears, as they come,
are whispered on sharp minutes,
on slow hour memories,
on broken days, lost
in an oubliette
desperate for a single glimmer

youth can be reckless
self-sabotaged and trite
but by god,
there are lessons in the might of it
in spite of it
if we stop,
look
and listen

#emmaraducanu #youth #joy #riskreward #thrills #liveloud #rageagainstthedyingofthelight

To Friday five I apologise,
to my profession and charges
I weaken and give mummers tales,
avoid holes of attention
that tired souls give in to

I love my responsibilities hotly
but there are ends to means,
so weekly turns have starts
which Mondays begin

Out on the ice as the season turns
the lake groans in leviathan language
and I understand, I do

But routine decides the route, not me,
and this floor might spiral fracture
as a passing thought
to those dark waters

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

Bone tired, petal and stem
still crave the light.

The fug has muted us
putting aches where shines were
but the yearning for the thorn and burr
of every normal day persists

My skin is ready to be kissed
with burn and nettled rash again
to give me pause for actual thought

To peddle-spread hateful ideas
for those ignorant, well shaped ears,
I’ll give my soul and principles

I get paid
if I write about interest rates
or incite racial hatred,
means the same to me

the same commute,
the same sheets and pillow
the same hollow darkness
that saw me lost

I get one chance in fat font
to grab the weary and scared
so I’ve gotta make it count

Where’s the sweet spot
that I can tap with a
keyboard shaped geology hammer
and bust out the fossilised feelings?

My skill is to polish and shine
‘til their thoughts are mine
to sell with ill intentions
and a voucher for money off a burger

Rest as a remedy,
forced to stay put,
instead of filling my head and feet with
a million next steps
and very necessary jobs and concerns,
I have to sit

the normal distractions
I covet in the pell-mell of things,
box sets, deep cuts, long reads, levelling up,
lose lustre fast
I glaze-stare at the fictional tree line
ticks trickling to tocks

From deep below I hear the slow plod
thudded footfalls of ‘those’ thoughts,
sensing a weakness in the barricades,
heaving down the drawbridge
usually bound firm by chains of daily grind,
LED light show and the world’s digital caterwaul

My busted foot has robbed my nimbleness,
unable to glance, sidestep or dance aside,
our eyes catch and fix,
like the titans of the twilight
their inexorable, gargantuan tread reaches me

I put up a pathetic wrestle
before I am pinned by the weight
long past the three count
frantically tapping on the mat
my morse SOS growing weak

Please Doc,
just give me a dose of elixir so they’ll retreat
and my broken *** will ride
a frivolous winged horse
back to safe and anxious ground

Friday night fleeing from the scrum
like the last thing on our minds
are other people’s kids:
the outrageous, hysterical bashing we take
hour by hour as
we
just
try
while each successive boss quickly forgets front lines
and asks for ‘evidence’
of piling into the meat grinder

Then something tiny reminds
why we’re even here:
a flood of tears perhaps as dogs have died
or that kid who says “I’m a microwave
bzzzzzzzzz”
and despite our glowering frowns
we smile so hard we cry

Buckle-eared, sitting,
the ditch giving shelter
against a trying spring,
a hare with no immediate worry

just the usual stuff:
fox, buzzard, kestrel even,
the background mix of dread,
while to the left
snowdrops shine

and behind, carefree daffodils
begin a brief, incandescent grin
to draw life from

leverets will appear,
new-normally
on sugar paper cards,
if through our hurt grip
the ditch will hold

Hawthorn breaks a smile in the hedgerow,
whispers a truth
that, easily forgotten, delights again
and the indoor pain is lifted a little

The green is almost angry
demanding attention like a fat toddler
or peacocking buffoon
that somehow still wins hearts

I cried yesterday
despite spring’s giving relief as backdrop
anticipating a warmth
that still evades my fingertips

I heard that Dr Johnny Bananas
signed off on a letter on herd immunity
and *******, I’m in

Last seen fleeing a beat up
Chunking Mansion room
after a deal for python skins
(needed for his surefast oil) went bad,
his mad streak nearly had him

This was after that narrow squeak in Singapore, when peddling stay hard pills to rotten expats got dicey, as they realised his concoction
was more talc than tungsten
and some Salakau took a machete interest

So the enigmatic Dr B has resurfaced
in Great Barrington, Mass.
to add his voice to the Ivy League Profs, homeopaths and khoomii singers’
hard nosed exhortations
to stop worrying and love the fever,
persistent cough,
anosmia

If life has taught us anything
it’s that when Dr Johnny B spins
fresh from Whitehall or White House
with advice for living well,
you can take that to the offshore bank.
I’m sold

If I could save time in a bottle
my clumsiness would see me spill it

As memories soaked into the rug,
loves, losses, laughs and deaths
would mix as they spread,
to send remembering askew

Not so much a blank slate
as everything old and new blended,
same highs, lows, pains and leaps,
felt and forgot together,
so the never-neverland of you
is and never was

I know the autumn is waiting,
pensive to embrace the loss of heat,
sweats moving on to other climes
where they’re understood

I hold til the skeleton of winter
can be seen and read
by my fingers on the sorry bones
that please me, alone

My blackberry love
you stain fingertips, lips and tongue
bittersweet purple
grown on a summer of promise
to end by watching the day
retreat past equinox
feels like loss
and though the longer night has virtues
there are dangers too
behind the fairy lights
and dazzled trick or treat
the immutable cold waits

A bold and fattened fecundity
speaking truths to the dwindling light,
securing a covenant, a pledge,
as the molasses dark flows inevitable

The cold weaves it thick
so limbs and thoughts are held
and insidious suggestions have free reign

The hedgerows offer so that spring remembers:
after marshalling reserves, it must return

This hikikomori soul
seeking to curl up
in silent conversation with a duvet
and two fat pillows
as the petulant winds blow
arguments

How’s it going? Honestly?
C’mon, honest like 3 a.m. insomnia?

As the nights’ incremental dimming
draws us inwards,
how are you?

This idiot driven pantomime
of eighteen months
hit as hard as a guilt trip

So if you’re a little scarred,
a little scared,
it’s ok

They say that tomorrow is another day
which it is of course,
but the fear is it’ll send you
off course

But, my dears,
we’re all off course together

and who do I trust to help me
get back to happy paths?

Always, all ways
all of you x

The rain had stayed in the grass,
and as I walked my shoes got sodden

Then, I didn’t feel the chill weight
as each wet step took me towards you,
the cold, dead-leaf breeze
still thrilling

A coal glow of anticipation,
the drug-draw of your jumpered arms,
endless cups of tea in the earlying dark
watching the frost’s slow creep

The smell of you,
an impossibly intense run of ones and zeroes
converted to map your DNA
G A T T A C G A...
like everyone and no one

Forbidden skin folds, slickly hidden,
I carried with me
with some half lies that helped
keep everything off radar
‘til ready

Cottoning on to the lost in me
with fingers and caresses,
blessing a gleeful wink of grins
to an adulthood
that refused to begin,
and refuses still

Green shoots,
little shocks of brilliance
from mouths so oft distracted
tis a wonder they’re not more malnourished

the courage to give an opinion
on long dead white kings of literature
who speak Christ knows what but it ain’t English
is, as they themselves may say, lit

my tired soul has read the lines so oft
I feel peppered for all this,
so finding out Romeo is now a simp,
has the hot blood stirring again

I don’t want to open,
not emails carefully written
or texts with clipped care and sad emojis
or uncommon knocks at the door

I don’t want to open
because they’ll be about you,

not from you

the radioactive throb of their concern
will tear at my shut eyes,
try to pry at arms tight across my chest
and draw words from the thin line of my lips

I don’t want to open,
though I know it’s the start
and ‘the best thing to do’

it will trigger the tumble,
the stumbles, the snot-nosed howls,
crushed throat rage as I claw and wrestle,

but it will slowly begin to lessen
and I’ll lose the living you

I don’t want to open

Against the backdrop of a global catastrophe
witness us busying to fix the natural damage
heavily wrought
an endeavour in itself,
which ought to warrant respect
and the gift of time and patience

Our blood and sweat
a human resource
gladly spent to rebuild the detriment,
but not at any cost
not kamikaze squadrons
dashed upon the decks of a false progress

For each of us as batteries
are finite
and our spark will drain,
our light will die
unless the blinkered
see that trying is enough
for now

When foundations are rebuilt, safe
and feet feel steady
we will readily head skywards again

If lucky, we accrue the time
that makes us me and you
it is sublime
and wholly human too

Emptinesses
framed by inequalities
that sew the disaffection,
throw the disenfranchised into
blues sharp relief,
stark contrasts of
black and white
rich and poor
needful and needless cries

There should be no politicking
or filibustered unkempt bluster
in the emptiness of children’s stomachs,
nor grave injury from
the ignorant knuckles of authority

Hunger of all kinds
in guts and minds
brings pain
and a shame to even voice,
for there shouldn’t be cause
to have to

Hunger has a way of spreading
to hearts and minds
and when hurting enough
will drive change

But not alone

The comfortable,
careful, silent,
the full,
must give time,
use voice,
use currency,
and fight

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

One side obscene in ignorance,
the other sanctimonious
to emetic effect

In the mid ground we most of us sit
whiplashed necks crying
as each rabid side bays allegiance

shut up, breathe clear air
drink tea
read
be fair

Man,
a glut of time
a surfeit, abundance,
embarrassment

for some,
the shackle breaking freedom
gives a new vigour
that’ll be forgotten
when the treadmill restarts

for others,
it’s the edifice,
the granite cliff to scale
to reach
the same old stuff
as always

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

An April fool
run to ground by a bug,
limited to roam a little upstairs,
a little down

I have consumed my body weight
in ones and zeroes,
which is no mean feat

I’ve streamed series,
beaten end of level bosses,
gone back and got mired
in the reeds
of the long reads

This feast,
long anticipated,
has not tasted as planned
and my multimedia catch up
leaves me wanting

When the time comes
I will cut and run
and plash my legs
in the sea to my knees

and I will not capture the moment
with an eye and thought
other than my own

To love when other people
feel happy in themselves
is the best bit of human

seeing other’s smiles
and feeling their confidence,
resilience, bliss or comfort rise
makes being alive make sense

The claws of jealousy,
covered in fibre-glass bristles,
can make you believe
that their gain is your loss
which is utter toss

Switch to embracing their joy
and you’ll employ your own

The bull necked man
with a single thought
could only muster one retort
“****” he said
and a million Wildean thoughts
cascaded in my head
and ultimately I said
nothing

I roll your name around my tongue,
try it on for size and fit
and note the heart-flutter it gives me
before a gulp and swallow ingests you

I ponder and digest your vitamins
as sense prevails
and I return to business as usual

You’re in our blood and marrow
guiding us each beat,
but more

through oral histories
smoothed by years and the telling
around later dinner tables
with warm wine smiles
sharp edges and harsh, too-sharp clarity
burnished and buffed away,

as our minds turn over each recollection
we feel the warm glow of worn gold
to hold us, linger-hugged,
or ride the swelling tide from a fabled talisman
as we channel your strength
to stand up to them

or we might laugh recalling pompous brass buttons
‘til stitch given tears pour
at the tenderness of your
remembered buffoonery
where wisdom dressed up daft
and sang stupid songs to love us

Aaaaah!
Understand that every thought you had
about adults knowing what they’re doing
rapidly disappears when you become one

So even the plush ******
sat at the Romanesque desk
preaching complex reasons and threats
…because?
is hideously full of ****

When the best toy is being threatened
in kindergarten, the fattest egos flex
and either with aggression
or diseased crocodile tears
will appeal or impel.

Well. Here we are.
Men get old, even me.
But unlike cheese or wine,
it is not fine, virile,
or true.

Do you know what’s good in this world?

You, you ****** idiot,
expending all your energy
whirling and worrying
about what others think
while your very industry stops them sinking,
you almighty dingus

You bally fool!
Your absence injures
in increments felt by each person
you vex for, who miss you
which add in mounds and scores
and you shaped piles
while they would run for miles
to keep you in their orbit

So,
you massive plum,
let yourself feel it

1.
A certain stasis of shapeless days
backlit a little by obscure sport
leave a lot of room
for double-edged thought

2.
I’ve bought two mandolins
one cut my fingers
the other cast them too fat,
what’s up with that?

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.

1.

I started in the shadow of one of God’s many houses,
fat plums on common ground offered themselves,
taut, bruise-purple skin still pristine
for maybe two, three more weeks

Walking on, a burst fig signaled
something
fresh green torn
scandalously showing fleshy insides
that should be kept private
for lovers, gourmands, gluttons

All the while, intermittently,
the straight line train drones by,
keeping Presbyterian hold
on passing passengers
who through unopened windows
cannot smell, hear or taste the divine

All the while the crickets sang of being

2.

All the while the crickets scored my steps
until ahead, nettle and dog rose conversations
conspired to thwart this man’s,
any man’s,
attempts to walk straight and true

A detour took me from the soft lost chaos of grasses
to tight lawns, hard front doors,
dark-ish satanic mills making wheat biscuits
and the ever sad chorus of a million tyres

Nearing home, a young rabbit’s boldness held
until too close, melted away

in the managed parkland
dragonfly truths called, m’ ducks
dragonfly truths called

A great deal of weakness
goes into the man I am now
indecision and a flurry of doubts
that make ways cloudy

But it’s fertile ground below,
this lack of surety
this endeavour to truly know

and if more would live here
how much better we would be