I miss all of them
those fine ladies
the gentlemen,
the ones who went before their time
the ones who were the friends of mine.

no coming back
except in memory,
some laughing
some haunting me
some just sit there
and stare at me,


I still miss them all.

..and who will you be today?

Today Mathew,
I will be sober and industrious.

that little known double act.

My eyes migrate from the back of my head
and opening slowly, see I'm still in bed and
it's Monday so I lay for a while.

There must be a fault
I want to grind to a halt
but my body insists that
I rise and make coffee,

if they could you know that they would
put a license fee on dreams,

no dreams for me last night.

Okay so they say is okay
but Monday?
okay
I can do several more before
twenty twenty-four.

I walked into Sunday night almost blindly, almost as if I was walking into the light.

Monday awaits the wakeful
and as near to dreadful as a
penny comic.

I'm being stoic about it
and I will wake and get through it
all it takes is a little patience.

We abandoned Christmas
in favour of Gift mass,
this was foretold and
did come to pass.

I once passed
wind
by,
er,
no
I once passed go
but the bank was shut
the teller who was outside
told me that on the inside,
it was utter chaos,

the mortgage foreclosed on
nowhere to go, son
we'd better find a stable
for the night.

The roar of the fire
neighbours knock at the door,
the smell of plum duff in the steamer
this is what Christmas was like before,

before?

yes
in the olden days
when you broke a tooth on the silver sixpence
but it didn't spoil your appetite
when you waited up half the night to see
Santa but then you fell asleep
when you have nuts and an orange in your stocking
and a florin for you to keep.

and now
Santa's on a skateboard
the fire has roared its last,
everything's run on a shoestring
( oh wait, that was those Christmas's past )

nothing's the same if it ever was
except for the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz
and he was a bit ' how's your father'

More turkey
Tofurky?
it's eerie,

I hum and haw
until my brain is sore
then remember that there's
*** in the pantry.

I dreamt of Anne bowling
I think it was supposed to be
Anne Boleyn,
but autocorrect poked its nose in
and that was that.

Well,
that's that then,
what's what when?
Zen,
the acceptance of it.

I've done that.
and now I go
to mow the meadow,

yeah,
you think you know what I mean,
I don't even know that.

Saturday
went South
or thataway
as the crow flies.

I rise only to sink
I
think that's what drives me to drink
that's not the same as drink driving
even if it sounds like it.

There's always tomorrow they tell me
I can almost see it on the periphery
I'd rather it was another Friday
but in the end that'll go thataway too.

Why and
what the hell are you worrying about today, tomorrow you'll forget and any worries that you had will be far away
( at least from your short-term memory )

it means nothing to me
my memory is shot.

Facebook spits out daily things I'd forgot and then I remember them until I forget them again and when I've forgotten them again it's back to the plain old sailing, everything's failing or falling apart but I can't remember what,

Facebook should have a spot weld for memories.

I can pretend that they're mountains the mist's hanging over or make believe that they could be the white cliffs of Dover but I know that it's Stratford that I'm looking over on a miserably cold Winter's day.

it's not all doom and gloom
the bedroom is lit
with an 80-watt lightbulb

I could stay in bed for a bit
longer,
but
not wanting to fritter away all of the day
I rise to the challenge and break my fast.

No thanks to that lot but I survived today
and now I've got a wealth of a weekend to
spend.

yeah
I know
this morning it was boo-hoo
what am I going to do
but whatever I did
did the trick and it worked
like magic.

Don't remember Friday
being this cold
and when did I get
this old,
what's going on?

jeez
if we're not bored stiff
we're frozen stiff
and if time keeps moving
I'll soon be a stiff,

Don't remember Friday.

Time to play peep-eye with the monsters that hide underneath the bed
oh but I need some shut-eye because I am dead
tired,

I'm sure that they'll understand.

Walking towards the light
takes longer in the Winter
and so I shall sit here and simmer,

the kettle's boiling,
unfortunately, I'm not.

They forecast snow at five past five,
I don't believe them.

The thermostat's kaput
but
made in Germany
it doesn't surprise me,
but the kettle did by
boiling dry.

I've been here before
at four forty-five,
more dead than alive
I hope to be here again
and feeling less pain,

although to be fair,
it's not that bad
I've felt worse.

This hunk that was
has shrunk because
of the weather
whether you believe it
or not.

She is not impressed
so
I shall get dressed
and
tootle off to work.

During the breaks at the primary school,
we used to play marbles,
not the Elgin ones,
these ones were made of glass.

Goggers were the prized ones
worth at least two of the ordinary ones
and sometimes as many as four.


We won or we lost,
we never drew,
a bit like playing conkers
except the marbles never got
smashed to bits.

it's chilly
definitely,
but it could be
colder,
it could be Polar

what we need is a
solar flare

failing that
Damart underwear

you may scoff:
but they keep the cold at bay,
note:
in  Spain that'd be the
Bay of Biscay.

Nobody minds the gap
the gap doesn't mind either
the gap
is just that
a gap
and the gap has been there
longer than most people care
to remember.

Not sure what came first
the tube train or the gap
perhaps it's an overlap
and they both came first.

There's a gap at the Bank,
no one is surprised by that,
the old lady of Threadneedle Street
disappeared down it years ago
at about the same time that the
gold standard went West.

Something dropped
I got worried
but
it was only the internet.

My nose is still running faster than I can.

Anyway
another busy day
and
I'm being worn away
like an old rug

trodden on
there is no love in
what I do
I only do it to get through
to the end of the day.

Press #4
for more options.

please hold
we are trying
to disconnect you.

The future looks terrifying
and they're still trying.

I got bogged down in binary
couldn't for the life of me
see the point,
and for what situation
would I possibly need a
quadratic equation?

quantum boredom
time to move on.

and now I'm digging ditches
my *** out of my britches
and still getting bogged down.

I'm so happy that they found yet another
Earthlike planet,
perhaps this time they'll go and live on it.

and what do they want another Earthlike planet for anyway?
they'd only build Penthouses for Parliamentarians and prefabs for the proletariat
and that is the truth.

almost the impossible dream,

I suppose that one day
not too far away
the milky way
will be more than a
chocolate bar.

Lady with the trenchcoat on perhaps getting ready to go over the top or maybe she's just preparing to get off at the upcoming stop

Hoodies everywhere I look
some staring at the ceiling
but he's reading a book,

and it's called,
How to escape from reality
I'd really like to read that too.

Children get on at Bethnal Green
a bit early I think for school,

but it's a normal start on the underground
people bound to routine
except for the kids from Bethnal Green
they have yet to learn.

Wake up
is Facebook feeding ya
are you ******* at the breast
of social media
do you have a page on
Wikipedia
is it this that's leading ya
to the grave?

one question Mark
used to equal two Francs.

they can joke
they can blow smoke up a
Franciscan Friars ***
but we all know that the banks
are to blame.

Midnight at Midday is not the way I thought this would go
it's like going home in the Twilight Zone
****** wet through and chilled to the bone,

you;ll catch your death my dad used to say
but even death had died this wintery day

there'll be no
going out
playing out
staying out
for me,
only passing out
on the easy chair
with her
beside me.,

Monday
get up
play their game,
come home
go to bed
get up
and do it again.
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
the same.
and
it's raining which is not surprising
just wet.

What did they do at Christmas
before Jesus Christ was born?

the wise men stood there awkwardly
Joseph twiddled his thumbs
Mary lay there screaming God
I hope this Kingdom comes.

They're firing hand rolled plasticine
turning out faux porcelain
the same thing that its always been
fake
and prone to break.

We cottoned on to
that old scam
but
knowing that they paid the man
we
know they'll get away with it.

Outcomes
and
incomes
and what goes around
comes around,

remember when the pound in your pocket
was worth a pound in your hand?

hmm
rationalisation
nationalisation
but
mostly decimalisation
killed that dream
and now
the pound is but a coin to flip,


if only coal was as cheap as chips.

The chants and the cants of the pious
sound like my cats when they're looking for food.

Those pious
might earn points from Jesus
but
they're getting no prizes
from me.

I'm sat here half hidden in shadow
the lamp
burns weak before dawn
I
watch as the sun slowly rises
a feeling
that I've been
reborn

Please hang up and try again.

If you did it right
you wouldn't need that advice.

The only windows I looked through
were the Windows operating
system 2
on an old PC
which was given to me
by an even older charity.

Sometimes at times
I wonder how many agains
before you blow out your brains
and at times sometimes
I don't wonder at all.

The oil slick
makes my hair stick
to an ocean of scalp
and I mutter away
as things fade away

the operating system
no longer
supported.

They would write of their freedoms
on the chains of religions and smile
as they cast the first stone.

To be clear
I have no axe to grind here,

just a whetstone
and willing.

Rudolph fell off the wagon
Santa is trying to hold on
this is not the past or the future
this is now and Christmas has gone

Aldi has sold out of egg nog
the yuletide log has been put on the fire
the autumn statement has been read to the public,
I fear that things are looking quite dire.

the turkey was scoffed for Thanksgiving
the cupboard is open and bare
Rudolph has the right idea
just get ****** and you won't even care.

Think of a number
any number
and I'll show you the colour
blue.

We should know all about it and have it down by now
but we're still scratching at the surface looking for a purpose,

if the end's not high it soon will be
and we'll be spinning in our graves
that's a certainty.

If it's money in the meter
you need to keep ya ticking over
you'd better get ready to meet your maker.
this lot will take ya
for everything you've got
and then they'll put it in
the Westminster plot

and that gobby **** with pomade on his hair
doesn't care, he thinks he's Elizabethan
but he's more like a crustacean.

we're not as poor as some
we can keep the wolf from the door,
but only if we have a door,

the 'some'
the ones on the concrete floor in the concrete streets
with paper for their blankets and cardboard for their sheets
don't have much of a chance

do they?

Tell me,
is it so good
to be stuck as a
'stick in the mud'?

amidst
all the deceiving
I know that
I just have to breathe in
and
out
to know that
I am alive.

In the silence
of silence
a heart grows
with vengeance

a dream and a life
are snuffed out.

Now is not the time to think of the eternal,
now is not the time at all,
the footman can wait at the head of the table as he watches us having a ball.

the scythe may be held high but the end is not yet nigh,
for the night is still young
there is still time to remember
the love and the fun
there is still time to bathe
in the glow and what sun there was.

no!
now is not the time

It's all out there to scare you
and you daren't look
dare you?

Coughing up phlegm
which should be
spelt flem
but them
just wanna make things difficult.

They were at a monument
or a mausoleum but I couldn't
really see them
they were more of a suggestion

too much blue cheese and
port
a touch of indigestion
and that was millions of
dreams ago

I question
my own sanity.

They come back now and then
as if to torture me
but therapy taught me
to ignore them.

they're still there though.

I went for a look-see
and there he was
decorating the tree,

a bit premature
says I,
are you sure
says he

tinsel tangles everywhere
in my ears and on my hair
I swear that fairy laughed at me
sat as it was atop the tree.

what will you put up for Christmas,
says he,
a flag at half-mast and *******
for Lord Sainsbury,
says I.

It doesn't feel like Monday
I don't feel that I like Monday
Monday doesn't like me,

that's strike three and I'm out.

can't seem to shake this cough and cold
my immune system's like the London Underground,
too flamin' old,

I am
screeching to a halt
them will blame me but
it's not my fault

anyway *** this for a lark
it's too dark
I'm going back to bed.

To be fair,
it always looks like
it's midnight out there
at this time of the year
and at this time of the day
on this day of the week,

I shrivel
due to the cold
and shriek,

Monday on the horizon
but I can't see it,

midnight's not a bad look
it seems to have what it takes

I'm still shrieking and shaking
thinking
Monday will be waking me soon.

I didn't write again,
spiced *** got me tight again.
I'm going to try again,
one more shot.

no truth in that
Saturday night was flat.

see
I thought about writing
fighting with rhyming
put some more time in
and then went to sleep.

When you find me concreted into the uprights on a flyover then you'll know that it's over but until then,
dream on.

the security services will have you believe that it was
suicide.
we all know that
Smiley's people have always lied.

I'm here to stay until they put me away
and that day will come.

hopefully
not in my lifetime.

I
just fukin love it
when loyalty is just a cross they add to the card and no matter how hard you work they want more, when hope is a word to be bandied about  by the bandits within

when you don't fit in but they won't throw you out
sometimes I doubt my own sanity.

Please hold
I'm reconfiguring
before they get more digs in,
I feel
so sick I could be pregnant!

but they'd want confirmation.

If what doesn't **** you makes you stronger
I should have been the Hulk a long time ago.

it doesn't work but I'm not surprised
hardly anything does these days,
as they say
you pays your money and you takes a chance.

I even touched wood at Scratchwood
that never worked either,

and now I'm moithered and you don't
often see that,
and now the word moithered is moithering me,

last time that I heard that word was probably back
in '63 on Coronation Street,

ps
a watched *** does boil
eventually.

..and I'm not even well
so
what's your excuse for
being of no use?

these silent self-conversations
come with internal ramifications
which I don't believe are in
the owners manual,
not to be confused
with the owner Manuel
who has a fish-bar in
Valencia.

I jest best when left to my own devices
but I'm not laughing about all this coughing,
a side effect of cigarettes and the weather

never fear though
I'm still here
though
some still think
I never was.