John Edward Smallshaw

John Edward Smallshaw Oct 2024

Scroll down
roll your eyes
scroll again
repeat as and when necessary,

if you feel the need
read your Facebook feed
and believe.

Before Facebook,
to know
we had to look and see
or sometimes go to the
library
and now
it all appears as if by magic

and that’s the trickery
we
are ****** in and blown out
into the vacuum
and when the vacuum’s full
Facebook’ll pull another one out from
its hat.

John Edward Smallshaw Oct 2024

Now playing

If the world spun a bit faster and we run a bit faster it might get a lot lighter earlier, but if that doesn’t work I can always eat carrots, Dad always said that eating carrots helps you to see in the dark, Mum contended that eating fish gave you brains, neither one did it for me.

Friday and the jury’s out
probably on the ****
and we have to slave away?

something amiss in the state
of Denmark
( Shakespeare nailed it and I just failed it)

John Edward Smallshaw Oct 2024

The flip

Sepia seeping in
and thinking
I don’t want to go
back to begin again
to go against the grain again
or to feel that crushing pain again
so
I paint the walls in red
the ceiling cyan blue
the doors, I leave as they are,
ajar,

the colours might do the trick
and stop me
from picking at scabs.

Only the windows still rattle
which has nothing to do with
drugs.

John Edward Smallshaw Oct 2024

The last of the shoemaker

Their voice bangin’ on in my head
and believe me when I say that I’m
hangin’ on by the thread that’s
attached to the last of my sanity.

Noisy dreams are the worst
eyes poppin’ out of the bed
blood vessels ready to burst
but now I’m awake,

Today
I’ll take the pink pill
because I’m not ill
the green pill is for when
I am ill
or maybe today will be
special
it could be different
I might even be social and
talk

I’ll see how I feel a bit later.

John Edward Smallshaw Oct 2024

Kashmir

You
no longer
show up in my history
what happened to
you and me?

John Edward Smallshaw Oct 2024

Over and out.

,

We lose friends
and the older we get
it never seems to end
and
those friends
are in short supply
I hope that the rest
of my friends
never die,

John Edward Smallshaw Oct 2024

'... and we shall have snow...'

If you want to pursue them
well do then
nothing is stopping you
except for you being you
doing what you do
and dithering.

I wonder,
is there laughter in the hereafter
do they sing songs
go for long walks
and
talk to themselves

The spiritualist in me
who’s been absent
for centuries
believes it is so
and then
so it is.

I’m not going to be late when
the coachman comes
that’ll fool him.

But the evening will dawn on me
and the warmth of the light
will see me
and I will be again
the ocean
I once was.