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?

There's no mystery,
you know
that the history they feed you
is the thing that you need to
believe in,
and believing is a part of
the fantasy,

get me or not
it's a part of the plot
that we face.

Drugs that pull
drugs that lull you
into a false sense of security,
you
can be sure he'll try them
buy them and fry his brains
with them,

some men do
women too.

I'm eating roast chicken
no drugs in that
well
maybe not that I know
what they feed livestock,
or fowl
before they're in the crockpot
cooking slow.

each to their thing,
my thing's clean living
and
it's been a long time coming.

99% accurate
but
if you're the one it didn't work on
it becomes 100% inaccurate.

giving it a rating of six on the chaos scale
and six for me in anything is an automatic fail.

Happy Monday said glumly at twenty minutes to six
and six factors in quite readily when you're thinking
about next Friday.

If you can
so can I
said the weird guy,
the girl looked
shook her head
wondering
what was wrong with him

not sure what that's about
anyway
I do know
we're all about something,
what that something might be
is
up to you as it is up to me.

Sunday
did you pray for me
again?

I want now what's for offer
in the evermore
but
quite sure
I won't get it.

Looking forward to Monday?
yes me too.

They'll have a ceremony and that'll be the end of me and then they'll forget me and go about their business.

They're all the same
they put your name on the payroll
and think you'll roll over,

pull over and stop the world
I'm getting out and then they'll
have a ceremony
do you get the gist?

you'll be missed until a new employee arrives
but that lot will survive whatever happens

and whatever happens, is not my concern
I work, I earn
and when they play me out of the game
I'll still be here or somewhere else.

I tried to seal the crack of dawn,
but it didn't work
unlike me who has to work
if only to keep the algorithm alive,

being in time doesn't matter when
you're almost out of time
when the clock wants to knock you out
but you come back fighting

and the light floods in.

Those restless limbs
torn
by future talk of psalms and hymns

they crooned and sighed
then crucified

Neighbours talking over the garden gate
headscarves high
late sixties on the council estate.

I'm going shopping
said Mum
and off she'd run to
catch the bus
which came at twenty past and twenty to
the hour.
I miss her.

If you have not received a card
don't be sad
please don't take it hard
after all it's just a card

the referee's got more.

Oh Fauntelroy you annoy me take the images only you see
cast them in the bright sunlight
and me in the midnight of my dream.

you never really knew me as I, never knew my identity but your camera sees right through me, apparition that I am,

She gives me love quite freely
Oh really?
YES
quite freely
someone up there deals me
an ace of hearts

So many tears
Sears and Roebuck
were my contemporaries,
Methuselah was my secretary
so many years ago.

..and here we go again
him
bleating out more pain
it
makes me sick.

These are trying times
if you're not doing lines
or smoking some 'horse'
but of course we have
shouldered those blames
smouldered then burst
back into flames.

It's a chess game
knight take bishop
pawn checks King
and the Queen is in
the counting house
bathing in inheritance.

I try,
tried, died a few times
and not doing lines
of course that rhymes
but mostly it's true.

The platform fell through on Level fifty two and that was unexpected, the way I fell for you was unexpected too.

Changes for the better,
brush my hair
take care of my skin
look after my diet
so
why am I not thin?

Thursday tends to the business at hand as I tend to
myself.

Dreams and the reasons behind them,
with men, it's easy, sometimes graphic,
something to do with,
well,
I laugh at it.

With females
more
intuitive
they know much more than we do.

When I stop dreaming my world
becomes silent
please find me a plot
because that'll be my lot

I'm getting on with it
loving this life
a bit more.

They're tightening up their bible belts
to belch out one more lie
we should ship them off to Alcatraz
give them juice and let them fry

waddaya mean
Alcatraz has closed
and bible belts
aren't real
you say
there's no electric chair
well
Jeezus I don't think that's fair
you'll have them wearing monitors
lizards that they are
yes
giving them their freedom is just a
little step too far.

I'm complaining to the free press
which is another flamin' stretch.

You never say
but how are you
today?

I miss you,
miss, you
but
you will do
what you do

will you miss me too?

There is no refuge here
because we refuse
to have them here
oh!
it's we is it?
I never signed that contract

First contact
a young man from Addis Ababa
had a drink with him
bought him a Guinness
because I thought he was thin
but he was bright
made the stars in the night
his own

Lancaster University
'71
and look ye now
how it has grown
some have not.

I have crumbs on my T-shirt and my fingers are numb,
one has nothing to do with the other,
no!
That would be dumb

I'm ecstatically happy he said quite dramatically
tomorrow I have a whole day free,

She tells me
that there's washing to be done
that the dogs need a run
and the cats need a bath
ha
that's a laugh
we don't have cats.

She pats me on the head
and says
be a good boy or
you'll
wish you were dead.

I wish
She'd stop talking about washing the dishes
but the Genie tells me
you've had your three wishes.

Jiminy whispers into my ear
that
I'm freer than I've ever been
but when you treat her like a Queen
you become the subject.

Push,
said, chef
I'm tired  
replied Jeff
who was a demi something or other

the ****** in the kitchen
couldn't spell
but could recite Pushkin.

Bishbosh the potwash was Polish
or Presbyterian
but he never said much.

Sat down in Alice's
with Guthrie
he trusts me
don't know why,
but
it's a nice place
and Alice serves up
good food
when she's in a mood to,

Arlo was rabbitting on about
some sort of a song
which was more
like spoken word
to the sound of a guitar

and then the cop car pulled up.

Another day to ****** away
work is okay so they say
but what use to me

never mind it's only a moan
not to mention that intention
of being good and not whining
one more resolution fails.

I dine on the past as if each moment is my last
always saving a memory just in case it might not be
and in that, I will never go hungry.

how far, you ask, does a willow bend
and what makes it weep?

Monday came on the same day
so
that's another bet that I lose
but
I win when I wake
and
take a look at her face

She sleeps on.

Only the shadows change
so being naked and
using that as an excuse
is,
well it is being what it is
that makes us unique,

I prefer antique
but
I just wanted to let you know
that classic will do.

She said,
Hot,
but she was talking about the
saucepan
I, as a man misconstrued
ah
you can't choose who you are
only what you will become.

She and I first said
Hello
a dozen years ago
today.

the future
is being written.

The first day was the worst  because we never knew
and when we knew the first day was through and we got through to the second day which was in no way better than the first day, we became better at knowing how bad it became.

it goes along at a pace
and we face the future
as the future recedes,

I'm tired now
She'll say
not so
but I know
that
I am.