Perhaps some of us
should be put in cabinets
and
labelled as curios,
who knows maybe then
we'd get some attention.

Twisting round and bending in
but where or when
does the seven-coiled serpent
begin or end?

I have been constantly turning
in the winds of change
and chance,
the serpent, always with me
and
though thy rod and staff protect me
I am fighting all alone.

I found the end of the rainbow
at the start of the rainbow's end
and the end of the start is where
we take our leave and depart
only
to begin again.

It doesn't matter that the pitter-patter of rain woke me, I was awake and that's what counts, not the sheep I counted before sleep overtook me, not the dreams you starred in which I admit shook me, but I should be so lucky.

Winter,
and we're approaching
I'm sitting in coach
She,
is in first class.

The stars align
yours and mine,
and not before time
I might add.

In her eyes I see sunshine
there is warmth in her smile.

Another one steps to the left of what's left of me,
but
there's always the third man, the one I never see,
the one who's coming after me, the one who went
before me.

Have you been disappointed by the ruling political party?
if so, you may be entitled to condensation,
ha Compensation would fit but you're getting *** all from this party.

If there's no picture then how is it real?
feel like you know the answer?
Sudan
Ukraine
Gaza,
pick any three from three,
and three more will pop up
but what's a war between friends?

it has always been obscene
******* for the masses
the working classes
the uneducated,
and this is what we waited for
another fukin ***** war?

I'm going to sleep,
and aren't we all?

Then and now and we all fukin know
how
that turned out,

we should have jumped
and gone over the edge.

here we sit, bit between our teeth
ground
and around about now
they'll smile and tell us how
it's for our own good.

None the wiser than I was
when I was wise beyond my years,
but now I'm older and I'm greyer
and the days are so much shorter,
my shadow seems to linger
I admit, I linger too.

Liver spots and little dots to match
I have to catch my breath at times
can't do what I used to do

and that's okay
I'm here today
you
can thank me later.

The lid's hanging off
the door is askew,
we're all a bit loopy
and that includes you

whatever pills you take
be they blue, white or red
you know you only take them
because you're going off
your head,

and I'm sitting here quite sane in the rain
waiting for the sun.

We could have been
more transparent in our conversations
if only we were more aware of our own conditions.

We could have drawn aside the curtain.

But here we are
still
so far away

and it's raining
not surprising
but
welcomed
like we'd welcome
an old friend.

I rock
in a rocking chair,
but
I really want to rock
on a rocking horse.

The older we get the more we get set in our ways,
yeah right,
I'm getting set to get ready and go
to go and throw snowballs
write graffiti on church walls
and then She calls to ask
if I'm making the tea.

Sure as **** you're feeling the pinch
this lot is tightening the cinch
well
they work us like horses
don't they?

Here we are again,
a new pain in the ****
but aren't they all?
and
for the sake of argument
let's call them
politicians

robbing *******
in the olden days
they'd have been branded
as malefactors,

as I get older
anarchy attracts me
even as the odds are
stacked against me
anarchy
attracts me,

She tells me to behave.

Nothing out of the ordinary
it was just another day at the seminary
and later we did magic tricks for the peasantry
eliciting oohing and aahing from those who had
bought into the plan,

this seems like a dream and might well have been because I think attending a seminary for someone like me is definitely out of the ordinary.

It rained cats and dogs through the night here although in Springfield I'm guessing it didn't.

still raining now and how you may ask am I supposed to go out in it,

well I'll dress up in oilskins ( asif)
put on me pith helmet,
apparently
they're trending in
Merthyr Tydfil,

him at the back
who's a clever ****
shouts
don't you mean a pit helmet
I tell him to pith off.

Tear stains on the pillows
other stains on
the sheets
the maker greets us
notwithstanding
who or what
we've had a hand in

Pretty gruesome then
but then we grew some
now
we
don't know what to do.

Tracy Emin
feminine

and made us
more aware.

Today was really trying,
trying to **** me
with boredom
I
should have kept my
pyjamas on
and stayed in bed.

but I did my best to stay abreast of the tidal if you know what I mean.
everyone looked sullen, almost inevitable in this climate.
and
it almost finished me but see me
I'm not that easy to finish.

She just told me to finish what I'm doing and I had better do that or I sense there'll be trouble brewing,

life is tough
we
just have to be tougher.

It looks like I'll be canoeing to work today,
I had a kayak but ate it ( old joke but so what )

In my mind I've already finished and am back at home, that's in my mind, but it doesn't make it so and so which is not a needle pulling thread although that too is in my head it'll be off to work I go.

Rambles on and on as if the record's stuck.

There is more to do than can be done
so little time and what there is revolves around me,
the earth around the sun, the bullets in the chamber
lining up within a gun.

Do I know?
I don't know but the answers are there
everywhere you look,
obvious to me that
I don't look in the right places.

Sunday not sundae
sweet or sickly
both are crying out
please pick me,

I pray for guidance
to the satnav
she tells me to
go straight
for four miles.

I wonder what she means
by
go straight.

Remember the interview
no
and neither did you
because
they wouldn't allow it

and yet
I sat with you
told you secrets
let
you know
things

You
told me more
in the light that
shone
from your words.

We see her
pretend
not to know her,
but
she is the shadow
in the valley,
far below us.

I look nothing like the old me
or so She told me,
but I think her prescription
needs looking at.

this is from the last will and won't it be Sunday tomorrow.

Interesting
when you realise that you're the only one who can do anything and do nothing.

sting in the tail?
and
that's the reason we fail when we try to try because we don't try at all.

I wanted chips but didn't want to peel the potatoes
who knows
I could have had chips if I did

and that is the want in you
you don't want to
and wonder
what would happen
if you did.

when you're near enough and fear enough I shall tell you stuff that'll make you quake and then you'll know what fear really is.
but maybe not
maybe
the black spot
will remain
in Blind Pew's
hand.

Would you sail off with me across the sea for hidden gold
and forget everything you've ever been told about the skull and
crossed bones?

would you head inland on an island or would you stay within reach of the beach listening to the waves?

does serenity suit you?

when the only way out is to get right back in and make a splash
wait for the dark and wait for the sharks

nothing ever leaves you it just goes away for a while.

I wanted to go to Butlins
but ended up here at
Pontins
and not even the
contipontinental
one,
no,
it was
the one at
Camber Sands,

the camber was obvious to me
the beach sloped down to the sea
the sands were sandy which was handy
for building castles,

that is it
glad I got that off my chest.

It's long john weather said Long John as he put on his long johns and his pirate crew who were shivering their timbers as crews do when the weather turns your fingers blue agreed.

My wife shakes her head
and tells me to come back
to bed,

I reply
aye aye, Captain.

writing alone is a
dangerous way to pass the time
much better to pass go and
collect two hundred.

But I'm just a seam in
this place,
are you
dreamin' of me?

She,
says maybe
come be my baby,
tonight

looks alright
to me.

Who thought a Caledonian sleeper was a lump of wood under a Scottish train track?

come on, don't hold back

oh
just me then?

listening as the cracks appear and another notch gouged in my ear to remind me that nothing is now as it was
but I'm still here,
still me in the mirror,
or rather
an older version,

the original was lost,
it was
a bit like me but not me

Things we
outgrow and sometimes we don't know we outgrow
because we don't miss them,

how can I be the only one
tell me I am not
because the Caledonian sleeper
has got me worried.

I got here to this year
don't ask me how
but I have a cracking view
from my bifocals,

the locals call me Methuselah
and that confuses her
because she thinks I'm only
thirty-four.

It gets tiring
need to get the pliers in
and
pluck out my expectations,

working the weekend again.

I run the gauntlet of options
but not many options there
what's going on John,
what's going on?

I shall let you know when it's done
which will be
about sundown on Sunday

head down and I head in
so silent
I can hear a pin stop.

Just do it,
isn't that what they tell us?
do it and don't make a fuss.

*** 'em
fight the machinations of
****** corporations and bent
politicians

and
W.H.O. won't help you
they're out to scalp you
they'll inject you and tell you
that it's for your own good,

but to paraphrase Mandy
'well they would say that wouldn't they'

It was past its sell by
I could tell by
the smell
and the date stamp too.

needs must and a mans gotta do
so I threw it in the dustbin.

When the sky is washed blue
when the clouds are bleached white
and the light in your words shines out in your eyes
my heart and my soul and my whole being cries
for one more hour.
Sixty short minutes so I can show you and shower you
with love and those last sweet kisses.

My everything misses you
When the sky is washed blue.

They'll never tell you
what it is
when they tell you,
it is what it is

so what is it?

I think it's a field
where
the bulls are full of it.

Time after time
we get ****** in by their lies
and end up on the breadline

not for them
The six-to-two
or
two to ten
they live the life of Riley

and who pays?
the sick?
the needy?
the pensioners who cry
who'll feed me?

when they're ******* down the lid on you
it'll be too late then
to realise that they've been kidding you
all of your life.

What?
it's at least an hour before breakfast
the sun might rise before then.

There is something in the way it wanes
that freezes the blood within my veins,

The evening song.

she is the lover that leaves me bereft
and suddenly
the night has left and daylight comes
we sing again.

But wait!
it's Wednesday he said in dismay
or maybe that was last may
and
now it's September,

this may hurt and it probably did.

Before now it was now
and now it's still now
so
what happens
now?

Some days I burn and
other days I smoulder,
it has nothing to do
with my age
although to be fair
I am getting older.

She says,
you're smoking
sizzling on the grill
isn't it time that you
took another pill.

Sometimes
She kills me
by setting me on fire.

Dinosaurs still live
there's no doubt about it
I have just stepped in
some dinosaur ****.

Not relevant
and not a fukin elephant either
I know a dinosaur when I see one
and he goes off on one
which he tends to do more of
these days.

They know what we don't know
and we know that they do
they like to
keep their little secrets secret,

it's almost as if they're in a society
and a secret society too.

It's all gone a bit ******
a tad barking
too much dooby do you
take sugar with your tea
Frank?

Chaos is
when your mind becomes unglued and you're body is being abused by the constant pounding that it takes and you know that you're becoming detached from social ******* with everyone and no one understands that sometimes silence is the key,

oh
and where is the key to silence?

of course it is,
it's in amid the chaos and it laughs at us and our endeavours to get a hold of it

and your eyes come out on stalks when nobody talks
and nobody notices and if they do, would they tell you?
the hell they would.

They work you until you drop
and when you stop
they dock your pay

I'm working today
it's a bit of a *******
if you ask me
but
they never ask me
they only work me to death.

and then
when the dust settled.

oh
clarity
what did you do for me?

ignorance is preferable
when
you don't need to know.

But you did
didn't you
hid your light
under a bustle
oops sorry
bushel.

but I spied you
and
cried out to you

do you
want me
to tell it all?

Do you remember that grin
when he looked at you
and you smiled at him
well
he's still here.

Oh
Jesuus and Joseph he thinks
that he's Moses
taking more than his fair share
of tablets
and
look at them grin
when
they think that they're in
with the in crowd.

Miles and miles
broken by
and lit up by
your smiles.

Journeys are and will always be
full of joy or anxiety.

I played top-notch hopscotch
to pass the time
waiting for that moment when
we became ours and mine
was that pronoun for the singles bar
oh
and that didn't rhyme.

bussing a swerve
and
that hit a nerve
must remember to take it slow
go where the verses go
be led to the spring
drink in everything
think on most things
and
see what tomorrow brings

meanwhile in Morecambe
the cockles are thriving
some believe
it's the place to be alive in
and
mostly they're the ones who are
skiving
off work.

On the day I was born it was raining
the wind coming in from the East
Dad was toasting marshmallows
but
It wasn't me having a feast
I was kicking and screaming
and
Mother was beaming with pride.

Memories are oft' manufactured
to lessen the pain of this life,

This is how people die
they work late
go home
get some shut eye
and start early the next
day.

If they're going to slay me
they'd best fukin pay me
a living wage.

On the offchance
that there is a chance

I'll be taking
it.