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.

Must go and do a few
hours
at work.

don't want to rust away.

When global becomes your back garden
where the parsnips are doing quite well
but the carrots need lifting
then there's the broccoli to consider
wither thou wilt
or wither thou grapes on the vine,

in the back garden,
there's time to
ponder.

Grandma said
that the Germans dropped incendiary bombs on the green, during the war, but Grandad joined up and told her, I'll give 'em what for and off he went back bent from years in the pit and then the army went and straightened him up a bit,
he came back ramrod stiff
medals on his chest and
remembering the coal dust on his vest
he asked
do I have a change of clothing 'Pet'
'Pet' was a term of endearment

his demob suit was hung in the wardrobe
and his Homburg was retrieved from the closet

they closed the casket at the closing of his day
and Grandma's memories faded away as she faded too.

Trying to concentrate
but it is too late for that now,

She asks
how can you look so vacant when
your eyes are so blue?

the day moves along on the sidebar
the door has yet to become a jar.

he pads along the landing
opening door after door
stops now and then to wonder
what is he doing it for?

Long before being tired started trending
I was bending around sunbeams
making merry with my daydreams
and full of life

but hashtag #oldlag has a
certain something about it
and I need a shave,

old has nothing going for it, those
ancients moaning about how it used to be
groaning when they have to get up in the night
to ***
and me
full of vinegar
or *****
it all tastes the same
and I can't bend my knees

so bending around sunbeams
isn't going to happen anymore.

Energy prices are set to rise and I cannot
for the life of me believe my own eyes,
jeez, can't even afford to be gaslit
so it's candles and not four of them
only one that flickers.

The end is, Sigh,
administration crushing
taxes pushing you to the brink
still think you're lucky?
*** me
what will it take to open your eyes
to the lies that they peddle?

Too old for fighting
but the light in me
won't surrender that easily.

In ten years which is nothing
we'll have less than nothing
they'll still be fighting
I'll be much older but will
always carry the light in
my heart.

Watching the breakdown
which turns out to be
the societal takedown
so now
I'm guilty by association?

*** my luk
which is Icelandic
for have a good night

I think.

We think that we're all sitting in the theatre watching a show, but you know what, we are the show and we're not a good one, if things were normal we wouldn't have been put on at all.

We, the outcasts who think and even those who do not, know absolutely that we've all lost the plot and we're wandering aimlessly
wondering who we are and where we are going

it is definitely not the show in
the theatre that we're thinking,

sinking?
oh yea
titanically,
the band playing?
more than majestically

I'm not watching anymore.

Those with two faces
think they hold all the aces
forgetting that there are jokers
in the pack
and looking back
to see where you're going
never got anyone
anywhere.

Words of wisdom
or words from a fool
I
never went to school
read
Wisden's almanac
so I know about cricket
and little else.

In the closing
when the day reposes
against the pillow of
the night,
it is then that the dreams
see the light.

It's a nightmare
running around in
a dressing gown
when the country
is burning down
and that clown
in Downing street
says
that we're safe with him

oh yeah
******' grim and
getting grimmer
not a sausage for dinner
*** all for tea,
I
am so glad that we
are in this together.

Where the wind powers turbines and
old men still smoke Woodbine's
there is little to gain from any future
promises and pain is as plain as the
nose on your face.

Those who knew it
wonder now
what was done to it,
how did things go from
bad to worse?

You're still asleep
and I know it's Monday,
but that info' will keep.

Grammarly's on at me
to look in the dictionary
and take my cues from
the words set within.

What a malarkey
out in the dark he
looks for a sign and
can't see a thing.

When you've had that holiday when you needed a holiday to get over the tiredness that you needed a holiday for only to find that you need a holiday to get over the one you've just had.

sad?
I'm flamin' crying
back to work and trying
to look happy
and feeling grumpy
yeah old joke
Doc' says I'll get over it
or go under with it.

Keep on taking the tablets
and give Moses a break.

As foretold or so they tell
the stars imploded and then they fell,
I dwell in the hope that they will reappear
before December or early next year.

It rained today
or perhaps I cried.

Wandering off to the horizon waiting for morning to come, believing it'll be raining but hoping for sun
stood at the horizon waiting for morning to come.

Light
cuts sharply through the remains of the night and seems surprised to see me, so surprised in fact that it goes around me and bids me good day.

There are whispers here,
ghosts telling stories to the ghosts that still live, ghosts rustling through the ferns, everything turns about and at the end comes the roundabout and there's nothing we can do about that.

Again the horizon
here in the Amazon
where the marathon is
waiting
for the morning to come.

I love this
the reminiscing
almost but not merely
missing the past
not getting the last
of that
grape on the vine
remembering
kissing
that girl
who became
the one.

Not bright
Not dull
but the pull inbetween
that serene thing and
the sorbet and cream thing,

deck chair
no deck
only
the garden
grass being cut
and
shakefork being shook.

Old fashioned is the
'New Jerusalem'

Saw a Robin too
it saw me and
flew away.

The owl was early and I was late, it couldn't wait and screeched away into the coming of the day and I, reborn to another dawn drank coffee and looked at the moon.

In the snap of my fingers and the crack of my bones the tones from my body tell me to take care, everything will still be there however slow I become.

Time told me the truth in the rush of my youth
I have no need for the clock anymore.

Stars and there are lots of them and there are men who'd give all for them, live and then die for them.

I lost count of the countless, tried again, almost died again then lost count again.

Stars are not for the counting when a hundred million or more can fit in to an iris.

What rules there are to bend and
don't we all have a friend who'll bend them?

My imaginary friends won't invite me to the party they're throwing and so I'm throwing them out and finding new friends, tough decisions like those have to be made or where would it end?

Yeah!
around the bend
and don't we all have a friend who is already  there?