Cod liver oil with malt extract is not something we lacked as children.
the old ones still had memories of rickets and didn't want us kids to suffer.

I liked the taste and the texture. the dark jar that it came in  the big spoon that I dipped in and licked clean.

I don't think I would have liked rickets as much

Only She knows me like She knows me
and I know that She knows me so well.

Poetry and it's the sixties.

I miss the permissive society,
I miss the flowers and
wearing flared jeans,
I miss the intoxication
of incense and
Andy Warhol's tin of baked beans

but back in the sixties at fifteen
girls were a mystery to me
and the only permissive that I got
was a permission
to have some more tea.

Cockle picking
*******
skinny dipping
drinking
Tizer and
Cream Soda
boating
floating
out in Morecambe Bay,

so far away
but
back in the day
it was then and now.

..and if we did have it all.
we'd worry about everything,

every time the doorbell rang
we'd run and hide
we'd never dare to go outside
our world would become smaller.

You have the time and think things will be hard but when you have no time at all they're going to be harder still and still we'll think that we still have the time to think that things will be hard.

I think that most of us or most of me can see that.

And there's always a true story

She said you're fit

I thought to myself
yeah
fit for *** all

I still told her that she didn't need glasses.

It took you
less than a moment to murmur your magic in my ears
but the spell that you cast on me lasted for one thousand
years
won't you whisper again to me
give me more centuries with you
and be who
we are.

As Victor said,
'I don't ****** well believe it'
but believe it I did
because I had to
when I knew
it was true.

Facts are like that
and sometimes it's hard
to concentrate
when they hit you
like bullets
exploding
your belief system
and
giving you
indigestion.

living and learning even
as my stomach's still churning.

'if you don't ask, you don't get'
unless you steal and then you get
but
you'll get into bother when the
Bobby Rozzers
collar you
and I'll bet you a dollar
you won't see them coming
because
you'll be having fun in
the Hood,
Robin won't even get a look in
he's already been booked in
for vagrancy.

They've started scratching out our names
next they'll do our photographs and burn the picture frames.

I suppose it has to be done if only to make way for others to come and take our places then
there'll be new names, new photographs in new  picture frames and sometimes I wonder if we'll remember the faces.

I hope so
those things are worth remembering.

Well,
dip a duck
and pluck my luck,
it's raining
which they tell me
is due to
Global Warming,

I'm warm in bed
and that's where I'm staying

for now.

Drowning is nothing new
it's what drowning people do

and people drown in situations too.

I sat and watched a sad movie and it made me cry
so I went out to the offie and bought myself a Mivvi
and a three-litre bottle of dry
cider.

It feels like my life is being played out
on old cinema reels,
weird eh?
but that's how it feels.

anyway
I put on a highly-rated comedy,
it didn't make me laugh,
but the cider soaked my trousers
when I knocked a full glass over.

Sometimes life's a replay but I don't remember when
and so I sat and watched a sad movie and it made me cry
again.

The clock stood at 6:43
which it always appeared to be
but that was last century
and time has moved on

the cuckoo still cooks but now
we call him the chef,
I still call him a *******
because I know that he's deaf.

I became unemployed, but is
that better than being unattractive?
chance is selective
I know that now.

That shift from Winter to Spring when the promise of warmer days and all those leisurely steps we will take, that new ground we break will make everything worthwhile.

We should celebrate, a glass of wine, a tête-à-tête but perhaps conversation can wait and we could just soak up the sun.

Once again,
I **;d my breath and think myself to ten again,

that look back when you know that
someone else was living your life,

it's okay
just a knife I cut myself away with
and what I wouldn't give
to
rearrange the molecules that turned
this boy into such a fool.

the portcullis screaming down
wakes me to the fact that
I'm now an adult living it
in London Town
until
I hold my breath again,
and think myself to ten again.

I went out
but someone lit another match.

The town is full of kids
school trips
nature rambles
no blackberries
but plenty of brambles.

I did the shopping lickety
household's good for
household goods
moved along the
I'll be looking for single cream
double's my dream but I ain't
got one yet.

Unexpected item?
I think we've all found one of those.

Not too keen on it
won't be seen out in it.

It's not only tigers that tear your skin.

chill?
take the pill that only works when you're not ill
wheel 'em in
wheel 'em out

of course,
everything's a revolving door.
it's another place,
but you've been here before,

it's not only tigers that tear your skin
wheel 'em out
and
wheel 'em in.

Ten cents on the dollar?
follow me
for more updates.

Interference in the earphones and static in the air. the wavelengths are all shrinking,  things are happening out there.

I'm locking all the windows but I've only got one door so I'm triple bolting that one. I won't be going out no more.

If it's aliens I'm ready
if it's not I'm ready too
and if it's just a solar flare
I'll look a proper charlie.

That lonely haunting piercing cry of the eagle as it spirals above the canyon.
I'm thinking that it's looking down, shaking its head and thinking. look at that dipstick with his head in the clouds again.

Finding shade in these cathedral canyons is tough, the going rough and water in short supply

I wish I was that guy, that Indiana Jones guy who always has his eye on the way out,

perhaps the eagle is right,
take flight and get the hell out of here.

We'll either be
chart-toppers
or
toast toppers
and according to
my bruvva
it'll definitely be
one or t'other,

my bruvv's older than me
by about two years
which in real money
is half a century,
so
he should know.

I woke up again
which is
good news for me.

Monday has an uncanny way
of making me think that if I blink
it'll be Tuesday,
but it never works

I try to make the best of it
the worst of it is done when
realising it's raining and today
there'll be no sun.

If you love them
you love them.
no one can tell you
what you already know.

whatever the outcome
the sun will still shine.

and at a  time when it's done
you'll still remember the fun
still recall
how you fell for
the charm.

This
turned into a **** city,
they gave all the creditors
chitties,
bang bang
they still shot you down.

She told me that I had to exercise more and that looking longingly at the door only counted as an exercise for the eyes,

She has spies everywhere.

When walking to town wears me down and going out for the day wears a bit more of me away it appears that I'm between the devil and a dream,

wish I could wake up.

They're either a ****-head
or a crackhead and this is
what your government has
brought you to,
the Desmond Morris
human Zoo,

and
I read the book,
looked at the pictures
took a look around me
and ****** off back to sleep.

But what when it ends
as everything tends to do

what happens to me
what happens to you?

do we really think things through?

I thought of the ice age.

When you're going to seed
the need for need becomes less,
but
the wont is still wanted.
.

The fruit salad
the black jack
the sherbet saucer
the mojo
in the sweet box
we'd all go
on pocket money day.

it was four for a penny
and four was so many
when I was a boy.

It's all a bit, Jack,
and you know
that once
over the cuckoo's nest
there is no coming back.

Buying off eBay or Etsy
or
is that a touch to schitzy
to follow with?

but we're all a bit para'
and I don't mean the regiment.

it's still Jack,
even when you're looking back
with your head up in the clouds,

a case of
can't see the mist for the mountains.

We've all been flat,
either
on our feet,
broke.
out,
on our faces,
yes!
I suspect that we have
all been in one of those places,
but we move on,
get up
and get along
somehow.

The human spirit
is much stronger
than that of
the alcohol variety.

It's at the point of no return
when you have to decide
if you'd rather
bury your head in the sand,
or go forward and ride
into the storm.

The signposts all splinter
and Winter is lost
turn on the heating and
bugga the cost.

If
I'm crying
blame it on the onions
that I'm peeling
or on time
that is stealing me away.

Smoked salmon
soft cheese and dill
you can try one
but you'll have to buy one
first.

Cheddar's better
with onion and pickle
you can get that at
the 'hammer and sickle'
which is a public house
down my way.

One egg and brexit macstuffing,

wiv coffee sir?

nah, wiv nuffin.

what do people eat to break their fast?
shiyte,
ya can't beat a steaming bowl of porridge,
right?

and if you're a real one
you'd have it wiv salt on.

I wanna it to be
Christmas
and I wanna see
a
Christmas tree.

If I'd have screamed that in February
when I was
child,
I'd have been slapped into the middle
of next year.

If you've got an antenna stuck up your posterior
it may send a message
but it's doubtful that you'll get
good reception.

The things that doctors and nurses see,
mind bendingly peuliar
and the more peculiar they are
the more popular they seem to be.

I'm glad that I'm a plumber
just a number you call,
when all else fails.

'if you build it
they will...'
order you to demolish it,
planning permission required
for everyone wired into
the system.

time to step outside this landfill
there will be another place.

If you think that
tying one on
hitting the floor
when your balance has gone
is a good idea.
go ahead,

but if you feel that you're being
overlooked
in this era of giants
buy some stilts.

He mumbles about the assembly and I can see that he doesn't remember me but I was there in the valley when he towered above me and I remember it well.

Time passed so slowly in Eden. apples were what we would feed on.

Time reopened one portal and through it I could see we were mortal

I worry as much as anyone could
that there are billions of bibles
all made from wood

the foresters jobs are put on the line
something else in the orchard of time.

The House now
quiet as a mouse now
and nothing stirring,

no whisper of crinoline
from the stairs,
no
rustling of papers from
Bazelgettes lair,
no
moaning
from Marley,
no
clanking of chains
and
it pains me to say
that
only the ghosts
are left today.

but deep in the walls and
hidden in picture frames
are the names and the faces
of those souls who had places
and somewhere that they called
their home.

I've never seen a chicken lay a nugget
I have never found a nugget of gold
but I married a peach of a princess,
when I was sixty years old.

So,
an axiom isn't what you use to chop through a synonym,
I live and churn.

things that confuse
eating what I muse on,
it's
calorie controlled or
should that be free from?

She still likes me
even though I'm getting cranky
I think She should thank me
but She'll probably ****** me
if She reads this.

if the end was to come
and the sun expired
and darkness erupted
but the spires kept on dreaming
you would hear me screaming
from coast to coast
but I wouldn't be the only one.

That steaming rock that keeps us warm
will one day be gawn
or so a Cockney friend tells me

I asked them for Tramadol
they gave me some Panadol

you don't always get what you want.

but I subdivide while waiting for the pain,
to subside and now there are more of me
than ever.

anyway
the doctor said,
can you *** in a cup
and I replied,
yes I suppose so
but I usually use the
toilet.

The bell will ring soon
either for playtime
or praytime
I wonder which one it
will be.

The doctor's still laughing
the patients are waiting
they'll need some more staff in
to manage the queue.

It's Sunday
the sky's looking bloodshot,
someone took a potshot?
or perhaps it could be
my eyes.

I see a glitch
and it's not in the matrix
but in a picture that's hung
on the wall,
it's of W.G Grace holding a bat
and a bowler minus a ball.

As the light floods out from the bathroom and the moon slips under the door  you're left there alone and idly wondering who designed that jacket she wore
and the sirens wail down in Shoreditch like they've wailed so many times before
and you're still left alone and wondering
who designed that jacket she wore,
it's time to move on
time to move on

and so you move on out to the islands,
build a hut from the driftwood you find
then
line the floor with coconut matting and
the memories dragged out from your mind,
and you're still wondering
like
you've wondered before,
who was it designed the jacket,
that she wore as she left through the door.

In the interval nature takes over,
as we go under for the last time.

No one walks along the chemtrails
no one sails through the sky
the yellow brick road ends at Dartmoor
and Dorothy is asking me why

I have no answers to give here,
no pearls of wisdom to share
I have only an old shabby greatcoat
and a pair of trench boots that I wear.

...again they're selling the future,
we know it's really pork belly
but they'll call it if it suits you
haute couture.

you fall again,
get lost in the past again,
then you cast out again
and reel it in,

Call it monotony or is it Mark Antony?
the knives are dulled over time.

We get on a tube
which is a train, not a tube
to go through a tunnel
which
for all intents and purposes
is a tube,

I think that I'll go
and wash the breakfast dishes.