Tightening your belt
is the new enlightenment

That is the matter
we're getting thinner
and they're getting fatter

sticks and stones
will break your bones
you have to learn how
to dodge them.

She said,
be home by ten
but
She didn't say by ten tonight
She might have meant by ten
tomorrow.

good to know
good to go
good for nothing
pick a good,
any good.

Games to play when on holiday,
or on any day when you're feeling
lucky.

I'm falling into
the nearer to you
that I get.

I came
I saw
I concurred.

What it comes down to
is
did anyone know you?

Debatable
but
relatable
it sounds incredible
it could be true.

I never knew
neither me
nor you
and I tried
to
but
failure comes at
the price
we pay.

'Shake hands and come out fighting'
it does my fukin head in
and I'm talking about wrestling

I wrestle
with my darkside
trying to keep on the rightside
by keeping on the nightlight
sometimes it even works.

The merry-go-round
not so flamin' merry when
it never comes around,
it's like the gravy train
and you know what?
that never came.

I'm not fussed anymore
they can cuss all they like
I've been cussed before
ha
cussed is a quaint word.

I'm going on
and not the rollercoaster
or the Waltzer,
I am just going on.

and fairgrounds aren't really fair anymore
are they?
*** me,
a days pay for one ride
jeez
you'd think you were on the dark side.

Today is
World Poetry Day
it's also
Thursday
which has no bearing
on what I do or say.

People:
I thought there were a few million billion of them
or a couple of billion million but I didn't have the time
to count them all so I rounded them up into a giant
basketball and someone called time-out, but you cannot
call time-out on the March of it, not even stop for the time
when it doesn't care who you are.

So
here's the thing,
bring to the table what you can
a hungry person will always be grateful.

What friggin' program
and why do I need
to get with it?

I was almost with it in
the sixties
I
was definitely
with it in
the seventies
but
I never once thought
I
was in a program.

So
I'm asking again
what friggin' program
and
why do I need to
to get with it?

Yesterday,
bread and drippin;
cod liver oil
boiled sweet for a treat
we
didn't know we were born.

Today,
almond milk latte
fer **** sake
frappé,
can someone out there
shoot me

I really wanna go home.

In the unlikely event
which however unlikely
it seems
occurs,
She swears
that I'll be taken care of

oh
shades of Jimmy Hoffa
and the meat processor

but I tell her, that
our union is not the teamsters
just the joining of two stars

She settles down
and googles hit men for hire

From years in the making
to
I don't know what I'm doing

all in the blink of an eye.

There are many such moments in a minute and a moment there are many more, not to mention seconds which are secondary to the moments that have gone before.

Ask me the time and all it can be
is but for a droplet within the great sea.

She says,
'spit spot'
and the chalk drawing opens up for me.

I will never forget the sound of that foghorn
that cut a path through the fog
of those long ago nights,
or the
stars like the whites of my eyes
twinkling as they danced across
those Morecambe Bay skies.

I must go to visit the lighthouse
I might even give it a hug
for making my childhood
so special.

A semi-pro
improving though
but
still a way to go.

But Facebook folk
know most things
about everything,
they are the
scientists
dramatists
professional escapologists
and
they're all here,
in someone's Face..

the ...book becomes incidental
to the plot..

I liked her but she's
gone
barking mad
which is sad
because
she used to be such
a ***** cat
but
enough of that,
lock the loony up

tough love is tough

global something
is doing something
and they're blaming it
on cows farting.

And now
they're telling me that the results
came back negative,
I hate to say this
but
what did they expect?
it's a fuking X-Ray,

But things are never straightforward
that's why I take a step back
and ask for a second opinion.

Haha
Facebook is fun,
I've just been looking at a game
and it says,
it's harder than it looks

I don't give two flying ducks
I'm not playing it anyway

Spare ribs are not really spare
when the animals they come from
wear them
or am I missing something?

wear them?
where did that come from?

but don't we all wear our bones well,
well,
don't we?

Lots
that's what's on my mind,

thanks for asking Facebook
but why are you being so kind?
anyway
I think I'm being abused
by the algorithms that
Facebook has used
but
what can I do?

percentage wise pound foolish
and that's what Joseph Addison
should have said
but he's dead
life is tough.

I'm still watching me watching me watching me and I think it's like being an echo an echo
of what could be and I wonder where do I go if I don't know?
I don't know.

I am framed in the future
lost in the post
which should be the past
but
what do I know.

hanging on by a thread
tied only by things going
on in my head

these things happen.

I should be out panning for gold
but
She looked at me and said,
I think that you're getting a little bit old
for gallivanting
so
I'm staying in
and reading a book.

I get it all out of my system
and then they inject me with
more of their poison
but what they don't know is
that
I have built  myself a chapel
of tolerance and filled it with
lots of forbearance.

let's see who quits first

I am not going to check the lottery
until I wake up and the morning has
spotted me
and I hope that'll be lucky for me
or
I might not wake up at all.

I see,
but you see more
and I would too
if I could see like you.

There is but for a there
nothing.

I have
and sometimes not
got
what I wanted
but
I did get what I need.

Oh no
this is what I show
and I know
this is what you see.

Sailors I knew
would say
any port in a bottle
will do
and that's sailors for you

a drunken motley crew.

Of course
when on the Spanish Main
you never had to use your brain
you only needed brawn.

In the main and not on the main
most people never use their brain.
which is nothing to do with me.

Remember that moment
we were supposed to be in?
no?
me neither.
I forgot
but it happened
as sure as the South Sea Bubble
and see what that trouble caused.

I've already sent my letter to Santa Claus
because I know how slow the post can be
actually
I sent two
one to the North Pole and one to Lapland
not quite certain where he lives, but I do
hear tell that it's one or the other.

Be prepared or
be prepackaged
as if anyone cared
everyone's damaged
and we still get on with it.

We'll never do it
but
we can try,
after all, we thought
tantric was somewhat
fantastic.

so
about  social distancing
keeping yourself safe
from being reeled in,
did it work?
did you work?
does housework count?

There should be a bounty
on the heads
of those who lied to us
those who pretended that they
were allied to us

someone out there must be out
there to collect it

You've seen the adverts
you know which ones,

'This could be you'

want a six-pack
look like Rambo
well
here you go
buy
our supplements
get ripped
trip up on your
own muscles
See,
how those girls will adore you
See,
how men will despise you.

Do you rate yourself
or hate yourself
only the mirror
knows and the mirror
never lies.

Thinking alright
I'll stay up late
and write into
the night
but
She has another idea

I shake in fear
because I know
She's going to say,
it's past your bedtime dear,

eh
I love her and what can I do
but
do as She says.

Playing Happy Families,
slamming their cards down
as if they're all drama queens,
nobody wins in this strife
or life,
my good lady wife asked me
to teach her the rules,
I don't even know them myself.

The country's almost bankrupt
and they like to tell us that
but they have enough to
warm their ducks
and I note
that some of them
are getting fat

meanwhile
we're all on a Slimfast
and
some of us won't last.

Cheating and conniving
they see a trough and dive in
they fill their boots
don't give two hoots
that we're hardly surviving.

I'd say *** 'em,
but why waste my words on turds
just,
flush 'em down the pan.

You drop down a ten-spot
thinking that's
a sweet spot
but you don't hit the
******.

game over.

..and you get a bit sick of it
of them being in the thick of it
but me too
and that's not a hashtag.

so much going on
how are we supposed to tell
right from what's wrong.

Facebook is ******' useless
the Press, well, they're *******
clueless
or pretend that they are

listen
and that means you too Yankees,
we're not that far away from
'Promis'
that we can forget what
can happen
when your senses are being sharpened
by the knives in your back

'Promis'
Google it
and
you'll get
Jack ****.
that's why I'm sick of it.

How far is
better by far?
because
I've got a ticket
to go there.

We're pensioned off
but I think that we all know
that we're being ****** off.

one of the
if, one of the, can be,
privileged elderly

listen up buttercup
whatever I've done
I have done my time,
paid my dues
and they pay me a pittance
which I'd like to call mine.

worked for a lifetime
and they throw me a lifeline
but
it should have been a safety net

pensions ain't worth the lives,
they are written on.

I do not want a ritual
no prayers
for this habitual sinner,
but
I would like the mourners
to have a good dinner
especially
if they are paying.

go on a great train journey and
a travel across the wide open plains journey,

other things,

see more than stars in the sky,
to never stop wondering why
the
cry of the wind is unsettling,
to
find out where it is that I fit in,
to be part of the Greensboro sit-in
( yeah I know, a bit late for that

sit out on the Verandah
seeing her
and know that I still love her

just some but by no means all
ha
I need to hire Kilroy and a ******'
long wall
to write all of it down.

A Kingdom?
but it could have been,
'A handbag'
Earnest.

Those things that we might have seen, perhaps are the things that might have been if only we dared to mention them, but mostly we laugh them off as tricks of the light,

I believe that there are spikes in the energy field
I yield to the notion that there's something else other
than the one plane, the one singular existence.

tell me
because I know that you have seen what might have been
how did it make you feel?

I'm not selling you shamrocks
nor lucky heather
or a rabbit's foot for luck
I'm just mining for information
a bit like Facebook is.

What I wish for
is a kiss for
the journey.


In the blue corner
there's a shadow
in the red corner
the sun
in the centre
is the unknown
and
it is that
from which we run.

We
could try
to escape from this
but
I hope for that
one more kiss
before
I go.

The clocks are going forward soon,
it's such a shame that this country isn't.

It seems like we're stuck doing the Lambeth Walk,
minus a leader,
like
a school with no chalk

'All our yesterdays'
feel like today

‘The lamps are going out all over Europe...'
              ( Sir Edward Grey )

It feels and looks the same to me
the worn-out mills
the closed down factory
the smell of desperation
the council estates
and the corrupt corporation
and we're all being told
that everyone's in the same boat,

I wonder
how that boat stays afloat.

The barber is more of a cutpurse
another pound on the bill
less hair on the floor
what do I bother going there for?

But I have to admit
I look a bit tidier
even
a tad regimental
if I say so myself.

She won't recognise me.

hay or hey
neigh or nay?
anyway
yesterday was
International Women's Day
and I was going to say
something about it
but I forgot
and today
She's making me pay
for it.

The caretakers or are we the undertakers undertaking an impossible task?

I have asked myself this question but cannot come up with an answer and so I pose another question

and this is a problem  but  I'm sure there's a solution
the question is what?

I could do with a Shakespeare but the old bard's no longer here
all we have are pretenders.

I keep on going knowing that I am not the only one but soon we'll all be gone and then what?

I who have seen colonialism go
stuttering as countries changed names
watched only to see
the vanity that colonized me.

But we're old now and told now
it's of no concern to us.
,
ashes to ashes

Keep your distance!
so you can't see what we're doing.

they had their snouts in the gravy
and we were being told that they weren't shady,
but we were being
robbed on an industrial scale.

and now
they'll put me on their watch list
so when I'm sniffed out and snuffed out
you'll know who did it.

Dreamt of pins and needles and
woke up with pins and needles
so
I'm waving my arm about
this must be a sign about
something.

Aha
Friday this way
and that's what I like to see
signs that are in plain language
designed, I think, for me.

The budget as usual was crap
just when we think that we've won
they load us up with another ton
of *******
and we end up paying more
for it.

She,
tells me to keep calm
but I'm still waving my arm
and
not saying goodbye just yet.

In through the window and out of the door and isn't that what money is for?

adages, pages of history being lost in my memory occasionally resurface.

we used to have lots of sayings
and old wives tales
I wonder where they went.

if Dad said you'll get what for and you asked what for?
you got what for even if you didn't know what for,

the way wasn't the light back then
it was just the way things were.