Out on a limb and listening to Cohen wondering to myself, do I know him?

and the answer came to me through the words which he sang to me, words of melancholy, words of God above, words which invoked in me a feeling akin to love.

So I knew him
but
too late now
to tell him
that I knew him
perhaps
I'll tell Marianne.

Some people get off the train at the wrong station
and think well, I'm here now, *** it, I'll stay.

Leave nothing behind you
or others may find you
and if they do
you will have to leave again.

Some people hang loose
some
like to put their heads in a noose
I like pomegranate juice
that was probably
of little or no interest
a bit like
my bank account.

The days are rolling on into more days the longer I go on and everything's becoming a blur, it's all so fast-paced.

A need to step aside, to get off this mad ride and take a long deep breath.

Monday and why not?
it was Monday last week so this is probably a repeat.

I'm not complaining,
really.

We're here now so,
are we there yet?
becomes redundant.

...and then she said that she liked girls,
oh
just like me then,
and I don't like men
again just like me

we were hitting it off
but I think that I'd bitten off
more than I could chew,

she said, but Bro'
I like you though
and
I liked her

we shared lunch
and that's all.

President Turnip
approaches the onion
office

orange
in hand.

Hide but not seek
look
and don't peek,
some things we put away
and when that rainy day comes
we bring out the umbrella.

They give affirmations
have high expectations
and wait..

..and wait.

What went before them becomes a talking point on some forum where crusty academics dissect limitations.

I'm sitting in Suburbanville cutting pictures from magazines to stick in a scrapbook and thinking, I wish you were here.

Sunday
and still working away
no praying today
no new lamps for old
just a constant cold.

She tells me
that dreams can come true
but
only before midday on Sunday
and that
makes it all worthwhile.

Nighttime
or
Nightmare?

pictures
or
you weren't even there.

In a luxurious setting
getting the best
and a duckdown duvet
easing my rest
but
not satisfied

this is where the pied piper comes in
fluting his tunes
polluting the airs
more fukin nightmares

what can one do against a zoo of monsters  but feed them, pretend that you need them and then discard them.

Last seen
heading thataway
Saturday
on the lam.

Head it off at the ravine
Dean
said, Jerry.

Back to the land of one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing, nothing changes except change and that change is being short-changed by the money men down in the city.

The Dollar and Sterling
when we need a
Grace Darling to light us the way.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul
puts food on the table
but tarnishes the soul

note: it could tarnish Saul too.

For those who didn't make it
take it from me
making it isn't the be-all and
end all
it only feels like it.

All work and low pay
makes Jack a....

The passage of time is lit by the lights of the night shift
which waits for the morning to come.

Lucky?
I could be
but *** me this government
doesn't make it easy.

...and so
I sleep because dreams are
cheap entertainment.

They said
we were there even when we were nowhere near, which made it quite clear to us that they disliked us being among them.

I spit in their eye
who needs men like that

let's have our own party
politics excluded.

Juan who likes his own company is the one we watch.

But Juan was one too,
one of the elite
a little effete
but the effect was stunning.

There's not much to see anymore
not since the war, moaned Maud,
if I could afford to move, oh!
wouldn't that be lovely, she said.

But where would I go? asked her husband Tom
who was eighty-one,
you could stay said Maud who had once adored him
but now hardly noticed him,

it's my age. he cried
you think I'm dried up and shrivelled he snivelled,

I've found another she said with a smile
better looking than you by a mile
and younger too,

Tom demanded to know
who

The man from number twenty,
you wouldn't know him
but I do.

On this seventeenth day
a Friday looms
and yet I see no mills.

My reflection looks at him as I look in on me if only to see what I look like and I look like a dog-eared book.

Turn a page
open up the cage
and I could escape this chapter.

Laughter in the auditorium
when it should be at the crematorium
when they remember
me.

That won't be happening soon
as the dish said to the spoon,
I am not sure what was being referred to
and don't care to know.

She says,
that's a bit morbid for you
and I reply,
love you too
sweetheart.

That easy chair,
yes
the heavy one that was hard to move,
not so easy now is it?

I'm on the lounger
trying to scrounge a
cup of tea.

She's on the sofa
calls me a loafer
and says
make your own,

and a home's not a home
without putting some
work in.

ditched the idea of a shipping container
going to get me several big tents
one for me to live in
the others to rent on
LandBnB.

I'll have to nail them down in East London
things go walkies around here.

Footnote.
I toyed with the idea of getting some Yurts
but somehow the word yurts hurts

I have things to do
but I'm not sure what,

I got an early morning fugue
trying to find out who I am
and it's not yet breaking dawn
what was my name when I was born?

the fog lifts
the fugue departs
hell and all the handcarts
have rolled away
and today
I have things to do.

She sees through me
I must be paper-thin,
think again She says to me
and strokes my double chin,

but we are as we are
and to be fair
as we are has got me this far
so
no complaints from me.

Wheee two days free
but I'll still be up at five
watching the day crawl in.

Thought I was sorely tempted
to find I was only sore and
it was a real letdown

but I'm alright
two days free
why shouldn't I be?

She says
the bathroom needs tiling
those papers need filing
and before I can get a word in
She gives me that look.

thought I was free
alas
not to be.

Gullible's travels?
well
we're all fallible
aren't we?

There I was
because I was
there's no changing that,
but now
here I am
because I am
in a constant state of change.

Flux, which is not a swear word,
that's just a random additive
which they may put in your food.

Some succumb to it
I **** my thumb and
get on with it,
we all get wound up
some get crushed in the
round-up
some succumb to it
I **** my thumb and
get on with it.

It's just a page filled
with rage
or
is it
unrequited love?

forget what I wrote above
it's half a page
and only that
everything
pales into
flatline
pulse gone
having
a
hard time,

organising
the origin
so
to begin
it's just a page
and I've turned it.

The sunset
filled with hope
for tomorrow
and regret
for
the past.

Hmm
I'll get there,
one day
I'll be able to share
the truth.

Today was tough going
but knowing how tough
things can get
I got going too.

'We have never had it so good'
oh
please tell me if you could
when was that?

I'm thinking about buying a shipping container and shipping it to Saltburn-by-the-sea
I could make it quite habitable or comfortable and good enough for me and at high tide, I could go off floating to end up in the place called Shanghai or it could be I go off to that other place where containers go when they die.

Dreaming Spires don't make this no Oxford
but dreaming of you makes it right.

Self
corruption, destruction,
must believe in the self.

If I'm going to hell
I'm taking the detour.

Sunday and the prophets arrive
but
only nine to five and
double time too.

It all has a price
and it's sometimes so nice
how can I refuse?

They'll not be happy
until we're living in tents down on
Hackney Marsh,

Cold Weather payments?
not a chance
harsh
but true

and even when we're lined up for our nightly gruel
they'll not give us any fuel for our fires.

We've been ejected, evicted, victims of a scam.

There's never a minute goes by
when I don't wonder why
the minutes go by
as they do,

clockwork?

If someone forgets to wind up the universe
we'll be stuck in this moment forever.

A sea horse gallops
beneath an arch of anemones
as turtles march slowly
along the line of the shore.

Okay
bedtime
work early
no play
Sunday
is not a day
of rest.

Deep woe and sorrow
yes
I'm working tomorrow
but only if
I can borrow an Identity card.

life is hard and some
and sometimes you got to run
from the law,

Border control?
no control at all,
see
they're not on the ball
people will come and
more people to run
the law has fun
keeping people under the gun.

If this is where I want to be
even with a foreign identity
I don't see the problem
but I see that you
have a hard time
accepting
what washes in
with the tide.

Who's pointing the finger at
who or whom?
no room at the Inn?
well,
it depends upon your
point of view.

I point at you or
you point at me
pointing out the obvious
that anyone can see.

It's the weekend
and I'm working
I can't seem to put a perk
into my step.

Newton's law of gravity
has nothing to do with
Gluten-free
but if you
eat healthily
and drink copiously
Newton's law of gravity
will find you
falling.

Turning blue with the cold when I should be turning right to go home,
chilled to the bone and my bones are chilled to the marrow, but not far to go now.

Tomorrow I shall put on thermals.

These are my trials,
people with eyes on their mobiles instead of watching where they're going, blundering along, it's just wrong,
electric cars on the street that are silent, not even a beep, it's enough to make me weep.

Tomorrow with my thermals on I shall be warm, but I'll still find something to moan about.

On the tenth day of the first month in the year of our good gawd is that the time?

tame yourself Grammarly and stop moithering me with suggestions.

Everything wants to chime in without putting the time in to stop and think of how I would feel,
but I feel fine.

It's another day and I shall ****** away until the day is done and then back home for tea,

She asks me
what are you making?
taking a liberty
I say,
love to you.

The ocean was not me
nor was I the sea.

I was drowning on dry land
and
gasping for breath,
that's when I saw her
She appeared out of thin air
and was suddenly there
to give me a hand.

It doesn't take a genius
to
figure out the rest
just
someone with imagination.

You want to connect but the wiring is wrong and though you long for the day that the fault is corrected you do nothing to make things possible,
all things considered when you've considered all things and find no one to blame but yourself,
you take the stamp album off the shelf and realise no one is coming to see your collection.

Don't be fooled
it's not the war that we're fighting for,
it's the battles and the blood and gore
and we always, always want more.

I was in that queue
you were too
and we never knew each other then,
but ten years down the line
we're having a fine time,

sometimes
hello is all it takes.

there was sleet and I was
shivering, my fingers tingling
and my eyes sparkling,
my breath almost freezing,
but I breezed on home knowing
that I'd get warmed up by her smile.

Laser vision
razor sharp
lets me see you
in the dark.

She uses a gold crested quill
writes in copperplate
leaves me notes on the window sill.

mothballs in the wardrobe
fly paper on the ceiling
a slab of lard in the frying pan
all make me feel like an
old fashioned man.

She says,
sell seashells,
but
hells bells
I want to spend
more time with her.

Watching the riptide
about a mile wide
racing up the bay.

I did that yesterday
about sixty years ago
but one doesn't forget
wonder and awe.

Up there on the wing
in the light of a Summer day
swallows played tag with the wind.

Monday
it was a day
but it is best to forget it

Tuesday Tomorrow
and who will you borrow
off then?
#
Homeless men
who can't pick up a pen
to write you a cheque?

There are wrecks
and they're out there
willing to swear on the bible
that it wasn't their fault

#hashtag me too
add me to that list.

Are you feeling it yet,
has that
spring in your step
sprung?

Does twenty-twenty-five
make you come
alive
or
just want to sleep?

She
puts the wrong things
right for me
and
makes the nights
come alight for me.

It's still raining
and
I blame it on
all that dancing.

And one more government promise that someday might surface,
and they may make good on their word,

'A Handbag?'
oh dearie don't be absurd.

The Oscar goes to Keir Starmer for a fine bit of acting.

January
the month of sorrow
filled or so you think
with a better tomorrow,
hey
think on
those tomorrows
have gone

I'm quietly happy
the doc'
prescribed for me
a happy
tonic.

Not payday
but Sunday
let us pray.

At the church of 'the blood of our saviour'
that denies you the favour of free thought
and we thought,
it cannot be that he died for me
but supposing as we do that it's true

let us pray.

All this time
and there's still time
but you say
there's no time for this.

Reluctantly I digress.

Time is not the tissue of lies
nor the Kleenex we wash our
eyes with.

Oh
not digress
I mean suppress
thoughts that depress me.

Nearly Sunday
I want it to be Monday
or any day.

Happy?
I am
a happy man,
She says
you should be
you're married to me.

Dull and grey
but the body wash will
clear it all away,

the weather?
Oh
I don't know
they keep predicting snow
but
it hasn't yet come.