If
I am the image
you see
just before sleep
takes you,

seek help'

Did you know
that when I swore it wasn't you
that it was?

it was like fifteen came true
every day
every night
every time I caught
a sight of you

but I couldn't say it to you,
did you know?

I find it so
that the women who are rounded
grounded in reality
suit me,

shoot me now,
but She says,
I'll wait.

I got my hopes up,
nothing more,
thought
this one to someone
in a locket I wore.

To stay and pay one's dues,
to understand that
life doesn't owe you a living

Oh Lord,
hark at me
preaching positivity.

If there has to be a cloud on the horizon
let it be a silver one,

She says,
carry on like this and I'll have to kiss you
I
'Carry on Regardless'

which is just a film of tears over my eyes.

We are at the place where parcels go
when the drivers couldn't be arsed enough to deliver and just shove a card in your letterbox to let you know that you were out,

well if I was out
I'd fukin know it
but I was in
and they never
came a knockin'

lazy *******.

and now I have to go out
to the place where parcels go
you know the rest.

When the water from the tap runs faster than you and the glue in your bones begins to undo and it all starts beginning when you thought it was through
it must be
the weekend,

in the sun or in the shade
watching the shadows reform and fade
but
sun or not
things have got
to be done,

'the Devil makes work for idle hands'

Artificial intelligence?
ha
it's been artificial for years,

the schools were clapped out
long before
the nurses were clapped in
and now you tell me
this is the axe that will fell me,
well
you can all fxxccceesde off,
sees how artificial
intelligence really is.

She, dark-skinned,
pinned me to the floor,
what more can a man do
but
enjoy, a little bit more.

Episode 1
of Black Mirror Six.

ifya get it
you're in the mix
or the *****!
Catholic Church offended
( but when isn't it?)

Here I am chillin'
seventy five.
willing
it to be cooler.

I'm skimming stones or that is what it feels like, watching the ripples spread out only to dissipate, anticipating the one stone that will break records and who'll see it?
no one but me.

my own private victory.

Nelson had his and by Jove, I shall have mine too.

I keep my cool by dipping my toes in the rock pool, mindful of things that might nip me.

She says,
stop daydreaming
but She
is the best part of them.

'running in'

this is what engines in cars used to do but not anymore,
they're all
ready to go, up to speed, all that they need is a driver to drive them and some don't even need that.

It's Friday, thankfully,
and I've woken,
score one for me.

running in, please pass
a sign
for when things are slow.

Sometimes
when you're not looking,
the shadows are.

I don't even think that they sleep
they just keep looking
from the shadows.

see
the sun is heating up and one day it will turn into a poison dwarf or a one-eyed giant,

now
when we were kids
we could play out in the sun for longer,
today,
as the heat from the sun is stronger
you can hardly play out at all without
sun factor ten million smothered all over

seems like game over to me.

(( FACT CHECK ) the sun is unlikely to turn into a poison dwarf)

Put your time in
and retire in
fifty years.

If you can't stand the heat they'll tell you to stay out of the kitchen, but what if you can't stand the kitchen and yet love the heat,
where do you go?

perspiring, I hang like a sack of potatoes
oh, does
pride go before the proof of the pudding

who knows?

but I do look good in
a certain light
that certain light being a broken night light.

Jeez
I'm tired,
feels like my brain's fried
and I'm wired into the chair,

sleep's not what it used to be.

A small voice inside me squeaks,
it's Thursday, hurray,
and that voice can **** right off,
it's early and I'm cranky.

Now
Friday's a different kettle of fish
but it's not here yet
so I'd better get used to this.

..and then we grew into  
older more cynical

everything is dissected
and it all becomes
clinical.

studying the runes
or
reading the tarot
handing over a
fortune in fees
to all those
Gypsy Rose Lee's


and what did it bring?

questions and questioning
overthinking and anxiety
when all I want
is to wander off quietly
into the rising of the night.

Getting a sweat on
because
the weather dropped a thermal bomb,
well
it's Summer and we were not ready
but
we're dripping wet now and how.

I have to admit
that I do like to sit
in the shade
under the apple tree
watching the bees raid
the blooms.

But I've been told
that the heat's not for everyone
so to those who can't stand it
come sit in the shade with me.

She is hot
and I mean
like smoking
puts every bloke in
a dither,

that one at the back shouts,
what's dither?

sometimes
I don't know why
I bother

and while I'm puzzling over that
she's still
sizzling.

Wednesday
and it's creeping up on me,

if we can't stop the day from rising
we may as well be a part of it,

Wednesday and
I thought I'd be shining
but the gleam you see
is caused by
constantly
rubbing me up the wrong way
and
getting on my nerves.

I'll
wait awhile
and then get up
which on Wednesday
is not a bad idea.

When you think you've got a hard-on for a Nikon
and realise then that nothing is Instamatic
but you're going through the motions which is
like dropping depth charges into the deep,
and dying oceans
where you'll only **** the plastic.

Kodachrome ain't home and
home ain't Kodachrome
no more

where did it all go wrong?

the summer of sixty nine?

Tuesday and
already flagging,

inside
a nagging feeling,
what have I forgotten?

but no
all's well

well probably
but you know me
I'll find something to
forget.

The sun's getting ready to be sunny
and I'm getting out of bed soon
yes
all is well.

Something is dragging me somewhere
somewhere where I don't want to be
and I have no choice in the matter
I am chained and I cannot break free.

that's history
the back of my mind tells me
and I listen to that voice in my head.

Not sure about the construct
but **** it
I'll give it a go

and the hourglass drops down
two more grains of sand,
and whadaya know
it worked.

They're building pop-up houses
in pop-up towns and pop-up people
pop-up like clowns and everyone laughs
in pop-up towns,
they pop out for dinner and sometimes tea
pop into the neighbours so the neighbours
can
pop into them
and they're all popped out
by a quarter to ten.

Moan
moan
another weekend blown.

Monday
never smiles at me
Monday's like being lost
at sea
where worse things happen.

We used to have goggers which we looked upon as treasures because a gogger was worth two marbles at least and sometimes as many as four.

they don't know what goggers are for today
I
don't think they play marbles anymore

health and safety I suppose
a misplaced marble
could break your nose
and
I know that it's bonkers
but they even stopped conkers,

what is the world coming to?

Beer with a chaser
and
she's been chasing me all day
can't seem to shake her
no chance to get away

and now I need a ***
ha
she dare not follow me

and
I'm out of the window
losing my shadow
hoping she doesn't know
the way to my house.

A croissant
a flamin' croissant?

where's the bacon and eggs he begs
where is the start of the day
what will a croissant do for me?
put bacon and eggs on my tray

it's for healthier living, my darling,
she says, though
not saying that I'm getting fat
but
a croissant
a flamin' croissant
I ain't having none of that.

They cried as they fell from the piano
leaving notes that just hung in the air
and She kept on playing
slaying the keys
I know
because I was there.

Stop complaining,
it's sunny and hot,
get under a parasol
and get over it,

when it rains complain
when the sun shines
don't whine,

have a spritzer
walk the schnauzer
think yourself lucky
that you can.

I've already been out twice
almost overdosed on gamma
almost but not quite,
did you hear me complaining?

Spicy
and that'll do nicely.

this is why old people dream
but enough about that,

it's Saturday
hip, hip
must get a replacement hip
hurray.

I have a stand-in that stands in for me
when I can't be arsed to get off the settee,
I use him to change the channels on
the black and white TV

he doesn't seem to mind
seems almost blind to my
laziness,

I call him slim
which is what I used to be
when I wasn't glued to the settee
watching the TV.

I hyphenate my name just to be different but everything's the same and even when you say senior citizen or spit the words out like a cobra I knowya don't want the elderly to be thought of as anything other than old otherwise that would make the young people the old people in waiting

breaking,
you are
and you will age
and you'll get cranky,
deaf and shortsighted
should shortsighted be hyphenated?
*** knows and who cares.

Long live the King
although
he's friggin' ancient now and
it's time for him to go,
if he'd have been a Henry and there were more than enough of them then he could have lasted
but a Charles?

Charlies have had bad luck
but Long live him anyway
and long live old people.

Back in the driving seat and almost got the week beat, only one more day before it's time to play at being children again, the ice-cream man has the right idea, fill the van with cornets and play Elizabethan music through the speakers

one is on the home run even though the day hasn't yet begun
or maybe it's just peculiar that I'm sitting here in the East in an old string vest waiting for the sun to rise in the West and for the kettle to boil,

anyway whichever way we choose to look at today
it still feels good to be alive and even more when the
alternative is, it could be Monday.

It's about time
that the London Underground stopped blaming incidents on the line for the abysmal service that they give,
not enough drivers
not enough trains
they must think
that our brains have gone soft

this train will be pulled out of service because of a faulty door
but the doors close when the tube's empty, *** all wrong with them,
what the ***'s wrong with these men
those men
the men who look down their nose men,

but we're *******
we have to use the tube
the bus is a standing joke
standing room only
even for old folk

cycles are a menace
scooters are too
can't walk without a tug
from the boys dressed in blue
and the uniform, by the way,
is paid for by you,

*** it
I'm going fishin'

One day
that'll all belong to you
and what will you do?

Dad
he says
without hesitation
as he looks upon a century
of total devastation,
I'll fill in all the cracks and
rebuild the two up two down
council housing shacks,
if it didn't work the first time
it could do this time
or we'll all be doing hard time
in the state-run penitentiary.

The palm oil industry
ruining it for you and
ruining it for me
them sheikhs ain't none too happy
about it either.

Everything's destruction
try your hand at seduction,
error 69
malfunction
greased lightning ain't slick enough
and I m not quick enough
thinks
I'll pack up my stuff and
be on my way,

that is what happens on Wednesday,
tomorrow's that other day that they
spoke of in velvet tones
or was it in velvet trousers?
either way
it's that other day
and if Freud had his way
it'd be Mother's day.

I'm still jogging on
trying to be at one
but
often at sixes and sevens.

Wednesday,
well it would be
and it
wanders in quite
shamelessly,

I'm wondering
endlessly
when will it be
Friday?

You know it's true
we've all been here before
we were the things that crept out of the sea and onto the shore, we were the lounging dinosaur, the Troglodyte, the Neanderthal, the bones of us bleached in the passing of time, all these great things we've been and now?
now we wait in line for the food banks to open all hoping they've got plenty of *** noodles,

we're
pressing send and wishing we were there
oxidising because of the iron in the air
and
you know it's true
it's
written all the way through you
it's
incorporated in
your DNA
whatya gotta say about that?

Watching the peas grow
and wondering if they know
that they'll end up on my plate,
if so
would they bother to grow?

it's the same with cabbages and corn
wondering why they are born
if they're going to end up in the ***.

I wonder a lot
but I'm not planning
to end up in a ***
though.

When
I opened my eyes
why was I not surprised
that
it's Tuesday?
well
it was Monday
yesterday
so
that gave me a clue
and it'll be
Wednesday
tomorrow,

just
call me
Sherlock.

What
I need to be
is a better me
but the me
that's not better yet
says

'****'

I remember playing Pachinko
at a small place in Noshiro
not planning to win
just passing the time.

Could have been...

A long time ago goes so soon and was I really there in a bamboo room drinking Saki, making merry or was it a dream that I dreamt?

woke up to a Geisha by
the name of Felicia
under the apple blossom,
which is
Japanese primrose tha' knows

and then I knew I had dreamt it

Monday grey
although the weatherman did say
that the sky would be blue,

not sure about you
but I'm still waiting
for the punchline.

time on my hands and yet
the clock's on the wall

falling out of the bed
combing the last of the
few hairs left on my head
wondering
what was it the weatherman said,

She passed by on a moped
hmm
a biped on a moped,
perplexed
I thought what next
centipedes on velocipedes
raptors in copters?


but no
it was Sheila on a
two wheeler
showing off.

If only Saturday was an elastic band we could stretch it out a bit more, the Lancashire in me says now, that'd be grand, but it's not and it's Sunday. a hangover's not a fun day and yet being sober, industrious and boring I am not suffering at all.

In my dreams, she often wakes me and takes me on journeys as she glides across my lips, I am a ship on her sea.

That sense of peace and wellbeing
could well be due to the drugs that
you're taking.

the non-prescribed variety only lead
you down the road to anxiety
be like me (now)
and say no.

if you've read the contra-indications on
some of those medications!
would you still take?

I take
cinder-water for the stomach ache
and
a cold compress for a headache
anything else
and I grin and bear it
swear a lot
and get over it
unless it's serious
and then I cry.

If this is a game and we're in it
we should give it our best and try
our damnedest to win it

someone in the back row shouts,
there's only one winner
my reply to that
is,
yeah right
like there's only one sinner

what a ****.

wonders if I'm allowed to say ****
but I said it twice and that's that,

my Facebook ban is in the post.

You know it makes sense when Thursday's past tense and Friday stands at the gate waiting to wake you.
here we are
and
what to make of it

oh the weekend
shall I compare thee to a...
..and Shakespeare climbed over
the garden wall,

coffee isn't working yet
the brain just needs re-jigging,

She calls and says
do I look big in
this?

I pretend to be deaf,
better safe than dead.

Flamin' June
and so soon,

six months into
and six more to go,
talking Christmas,
and snow
because
it's Thursday and why not wish
upon a faraway Christmas day
on Thursday?