Not a hair out of place
nor any lines on your face
time
has yet to write your story

It's all about being ready
getting set to go,

I don't know
what all the rush is for,
we've all been here before
we all know the drill.

Born
crawl
stand and walk
open mouths and talk,

age.

the stage has been  the things
we have seen and done
and then the sun sets,

we'll be back to rush again
forgetting all the pain
ready to push through again
we all know the drill.

They'll put it down to you
forgetting who you are.

I don't forget
I remember.

August 3rd
1989
too much wine
so many songs
****** in the air
righting all life's wrongs
but we were young men
young then
anything
was possible.

We never thought
we'd get this old,
old as in
stories being told
about us,
but we did and we're here
listening
with one ear
the other
on the clock
tick
tock
rock of ages
because we all pray
in the end.

I can do Monday
done it before
will do it again.

It's always after the weekend that the fun ends
and the work begins,

although if one is unemployed perhaps it's always the weekend,
this point is weakened by the lack of finance available
.
I should thank those lucky stars for giving me some work to do.

..and now I'm wondering if all stars are lucky or just the ones that I wish on and if so how do stars know?

****
I should have another coffee.

Should I dig the garden
or
dig for treasure?

there used to be gold in the old days
but it was sold off to China along with the silver,
Long John was none too pleased about that.

So
the garden it shall be
just me and a *****
and a fork
and a rake
and a strimmer
I'm already thinner just thinking about it.

She tells me to grow up
ha
hardly likely when I'm nearly seventy
but who knows
it could happen.

A sprinkling of wrinkles
and a twinkling in the eyes.

Spring
that thing
yes
the spring thing.

When you're going to share a post
and think
do I really care enough to share this post
and
what's the most it'll do for me?

Sunday in the cotton town
downstairs in my dressing gown
thinking
do I really want to go to work?
share and share alike
or rather
shirk and shirk I like
but no
keep to my routine
or I might wake up and find
that this has all been a dream.

I'll make breakfast
make it last until
lunchtime
which as chef says
is no time to be eating.

What a busy day it has been
so fukin busy it made me scream
and the girls in the cafe cried with me.

it is done now
and so am I
but
I have a Nigerian Guinness
and that always perks me up.

Uninstalling
forever falling
and now
I'm floating free.

The Unexpected
the misdirected
the unsuspected
we are
being perfected
and
it's under control,

we can roll with the punches
put up with the pinches
and
adjust the cinches.

I go fishin'
wishin' it
wasn't so
complicated.

If there's life on other planets which orbit different Suns they need to invest in a cloaking system because Earth if it ever finds them will ruin them.

I'm speaking as I see it
we're a cesspit
and overflowing.

Aliens?
and I wonder who are
and are they far away
or are we them?

Friday and the Blues attack
I'm
back at work tomorrow.

When your body wants to weight-lift but your brain is in a slump, when someone clumps along the hallway with such a noise that makes you jump
and you know that it's a Friday but the boys will have to wait, it's only been a week but look at me in such a state and I'm tired right to the bone, want to stay inside at home and eat crisps, watch Netflix and drink Darjeeling tea.

Me, me, me and me, it's always me that ends up making tea
She says a real man would drink Assam or even Lapsang Souchong,
( which I thought was a Martial Art but apparently it's not )

The chewing gum bubble goes pop as I stop at the edge at the top of the mountain and Sisyphus says, 'you again?'
and it is me again, but I can explain. It's a dream that's recurring at thirty-three and a third, so I'm sharing it with you.

Then I wake and shake off the feeling that life's full of knocks, as there's a ring at the door. I think, a wedding? I untangle myself from myself and the bedding, but it's only the postman, and his name's not Pat.

The bathtub fills slowly as I swallow the pills
that the Doctor assured me would ease all of life's ills
and the chewing gum bubble goes pop.

Anyway
I mistook him for the crook in
Great Expectations
turned out
he wasn't Magwitch
at all.

Estella
was beautiful
enough to make a young boy
tearful.
I never mistook her
not once.

We're not there yet
so
stop your squawking
or
you'll end up walking

he drives on
they go on and on
whiney
whiney
time he
got to where
he's going.

I'm going
my age is
showing me
the way,
dining on the years
getting fatter on my fears
but
I'm not there yet.

I blink as I rise
wipe the sleep
as She sighs
unaware,
make the tea
just for me,
She,
when
She's awake
will take
coffee and then break
her fast.

all roads lead to home.

When you think you might tank
when walking the plank
you're probably right.

We're all
buccaneers
or
privateers
with an eye patch
to catch the attention
of
maidens
or
mermaids.

Those ladies from Tortuga
could **** ya
and you'd be happy that they
looked your way.

The tap's plugged into the meter
water spits out and that's what
greets you,
time's a tough lady to live with.

Dying with curiosity
my greed as it is gets the better of me

She looks on uninterestedly
I am filled with uncertainty.
time's a tough lady to live with.

That old saying..

like lambs to the laughter

think I missed out on a consonant

a constant reminder
of my imperfections.

Everything is being shut down
and we're all being put down
and down here in London town
we can see it's coming true

they're taking away our rights
which is wrong and not right
sending us back to poverty street
and that lot are gobbling up Quality Street.

We're drinking porter because the water is ****
do they care?
no!
not one teensy bit.

This government must be on Laudunem
I look but see no oomph in them
they prattle on like little childeren
and I can't spell.

Though we will die here
it is here that we try here
for we are
nothing if not for
the want.

I want for nothing
and
that's what I get.
and yet
the treasure within her
was gifted
to me here...
..lucky?
you betchya

Sunday
and someday
it won't be
and then you will see me
without.
but I've been without many times before
the times when you never answered the knock
on your door

jeez
sounds a bit Bob M
oh
'ardly says the Cockney
and
Bow Bells start chiming
sounds better than me rhyming

I'm going fishin'

I have hunted for the treasure of history
most of it passed by me
but some
I caught.

I am now officially a detectorist,
wonder if I can get a certificate
bet I won't but that don't matter
and I know it should be doesn't
but that don't rhyme.

Sunday and it's sunny
which is funny
when you consider that
I'm in the North
and the North is generally
at the end of the queue
when its got to do
with the weather.

On the last leg of the journey
Yes!
remember me
I was sat next to Abraham,
No
that wasn't me in the pram
I
was the man next to the pram

Well
I'm almost there where the beef is leaner
the air is cleaner
where
the grass has been concreted over,

The afterlife ruined
someone call my lawyer
but that someone called
someone
called Tom Sawyer

they'll write a book about him
or I'm not a cabin boy named Jim.

Nothing is what it could have been
it's not anything we've done
but we'll get the blame
we always do.

We still get balloons to blow up when we grow up and the sun still shines as bright, but the day gets shorter and the night lasts longer,
I like red balloons the best.

If you messed things up like me
you tend to appreciate the
little things we see,
even a daffodil after a chilly start to the year
opens its eyes to wipe away a tear,
so why not I?

As age takes a firmer grip of my hand and the castles I made all fall back into the sand
I can see those balloons floating free
as if the balloons that I blew up
were in fact ~
actually me.

Everything's fluid
the ebb
the flow
the balloons that we blow,
where does it all go
when
the Sun sets?

I never went to Woolworths to buy wool
I went for the pick-n-mix
broken biscuits
and
to see Julia Higginbottom.

Next
wasn't even a shop then
it was something that came later
and Jigsaw
was a thing we did

they got rid of the old-school high street
and the old-school price of things
even
Ratners which sold krap rings
went to the dogs.

well
we can't stay locked in the past forever
the future always comes and they'll say
it frees you to be the you that you want
to be

personally
I prefer nineteen sixty-three
and things as they were when
I was seven.

Has the day gone already?
must be time for beddy why's
the clock telling 'porkie pies'?

jeepers sleep as a rest cure
is overrated.

it's still light out there
that's
if I use my imagination
and a thousand lumens
of illumination.

but I'll lay me down as best I can
and be a man about it.

Let there be light
and the
power company said
alright
pay the fee
and you'll be able to see

so
Will I stay in the dark then?
become a shadow
hiding from the night then?

She said,
six?
I heard what I heard.

need my hearing adjusting
my eyesight too
but this is what getting older
does to me and you.

It isn't easy
to navigate from that
sleeping to the waking state
sometimes
you do not want to open
your eyes
and see what the day has
in store
sometimes
you just want
to sleep a bit more.

******
we are creatures of habit
alarm clocks we turn off
things that we cross off
lists
that we make,

the sleeping state.

Yeah, he shouted as today trailed away into a distant future, which, as you all know, is far enough away from Friday to make you cry.

but yeah for any day I wake up,
yes
waking is a victory
and history will mention me
as a victor

someone shouts
yeah!
as a Victor Meldrew

ha
little *******.

to when we all thought
that this life
was infinite

Lots of pain, he said,
I'm in lots of pain
I looked at him
and said
say that again,

pain
what does it mean?
was it
written into our biology
and brought into the
scheme of things?
is it what heartbreak brings?

I know that he'll never know
but I do.

Sunday night and the air is blue
cigarette smoke emanating from you
curling into a darkening sky
no wonder now
that you don't wonder why

but I do.

You look but don't see
that
the universe
and we
are one.

We're not getting there
because we're not going.

someone decides
no free rides
pay
or you get no say.

and we're stuck here in the mud
someone else shouts out good
I like mud

well
so did I
when I was five

grow up.

However bad things get
they could get worse,
you could be reading rhyming verse.

Down on your knees Mephistopheles
and beg for your life.

Where did that bomb come from?
Faust?
Proust?
I jest
they joust.

it's all Medieval
or Evel Knievel
it's
all just a stunt.

Saturday glee
so
how is it that we
are not smiling?

piling into the underground
only the tube rumbles
and
we make no sound.

Of course, we have to work
to pay our forty per cent in taxes
so
those lazy sods in Whitehall
can shirk.

I can't wait for the horse
so
I rock to and fro by myself

and what?
they'll come to lock me away?

Finally

I am bigger
than the triggers
that trigger me.

We could have kissed
but
I missed that boat.

If we ever get to the stars
and if anyone ever lives on Mars
it'll be a miracle

pipe dreams and cleaners
seen us trying in the dyeing
of the tapestries and
wove us into the woke.

So much in the news
Putin shootin' from the hip
Trump giving sane people the pip
and..
..and then
I slip into my subconscious
which is dangerous
even for me.

We used to play rounders at school and it always struck me as odd that the pitch we played on was square,
or maybe I was odd, 'not plumbed in' as the saying went,
Susan would say, 'not wired to the mains'
sadly
Sue's no longer here,
she's practising her ballet somewhere beyond the stars.

I spent too much time thinking about how much time dragged its feet when it wanted to and too little time thinking about how little time there was.

Not known
as the cleverest monkey in the cartload
but savvy enough to understand
that the road ahead
is a dead-end.

I ramble on
mostly to myself and find comfort
in the abstract.

The season is turning
and Spring is coming,
it usually does at this time
of the year,
I'm waiting for the Summer
which is waiting in the wings.

Still fighting against the war within
getting fatter where I used to be slim
but
it's six of one and a half dug plot against
me,
I am content.

They're up there,
in space,
looking for planets
we could live on

we can't even live on this one.

Night
and I toss and I turn
wake up cross
and I burn
with angst?

jeez
what am I,
fifteen years old?

someone once told me
something
but I forget what it was

the beauty of becoming ancient
is in the memories you cannot remember.

Eggs are in the pan
six minutes hard
soldiers standing
at attention
two of them on guard.

I like em runny 'gunny'
said the Yankee in the pack.

There's always one
and
sometimes more
who wonder why you toil
and
some who keep watch on the pan
waiting for the water to boil.

Random 03
A kaleidoscope of chaos
hidden away in all of us.

Madness is a colour too
revolving deep inside of you
probably red but could be blue
madness is a colour too.

Sunday and the bells ring out
within the steeples tall and stout
and people congregate to pray
but tomorrow
will still be Monday.

It's time for bed
oh ****!
am
I getting old? he said
to the bathroom mirror
and the mirror replied,
in my eyes, you died
years ago

but what do mirrors know?

They disappear
then reappear
the
meaning
made clear
as we
see right
through
them.

There may be inferences
because
we have differences
but not at all,
She
has her views and I have mine
She
respects my thoughts as
I
respect hers.

it's about the shared
the loving and the cared for
and
if I disagree
I can say that She is She
and entitled to her own
opinions.