That first encounter,
the
'take me to your
leader'

I should read a
different book,
before bedtime.

Well
this is a fine how do you do
a four-day week unless you
count the weekend

Another Bank Holiday, please,
and make mine a double,

the barman ignored me.

Tuesday
and with a pinch of salt
I make my way into the day,

not old, just seasoned
.

Don't they just
have to build it bigger and better
rock outside the box and
add another letter to the
alphabet,

it's always
get set and go
nobody worries about
anyone being ready,

Premature gesticulations
meditations are meaningless
you're
looking good but we're in a mess
get set and go.

I want to know
I wanted to know a long time ago
and still know nothing,

are you ready yet?

Off days
The bed looks like a bomb site after last night
and this morning I look a right fright,
I must go to shower and shave.

I spent Saturday in a rather kingly way,
dismissed the butler, shot the cook,
did something with the parlour maid
and read a very good book.

I write of the light that
She shines on me,

She
sees the best in me
knowing the worst of me
always hoping there's more to see
She shines her light on me.

I swear, it's Sunday,
sometimes
most times
I swear when it isn't
Sunday.

Troubled sleep?
not me
I close my eyes and drown
under an ocean of a duckdown
duvet

and
I hear her,
'Sia'
singing,
or perhaps
I'm just imagining.

the crowning of the thing?
King?
but thing has a nice ring to it
dontya think.

I'll be in the ****** tower
if you want me.

Get a tan
be a man
think of all the things you'll be
as you walk down Facebook memory
( which is like an avenue, but full of you )

buy things unexpectedly
see what people had for breakfast,
dinner, tea, if you're bored
read some poetry,
have a petty argument on
someone's thread
go
to Facebook marketplace
and buy a camera, take a picture,
see a bed, get a bed
be ahead
of the curve.
Travel meta-universe in style
photoshop a grimace or a smile
get a tan
be a man
unless
you'd rather be
a stay-at-home sort of chap
a bit like me.

She said,
that I was slow!
whoa,
until
I know her
it's the only speed
I go.

It was all going well
until the penny dropped
and like the penny we fell
but head over heels and not
head over tail,

a part of success is knowing how to fail
and I've been down that beaten track
beaten back and carried on
lost and won and lost and some might say
he's had his day
but an old dog can learn new tricks
whatever people say.

Bank Holiday
I'll be
in the Kings Arms,
not sure
Charles,
knows that.

Walk
don't run
today will come
and
teacher was right
it did.

The curtain comes down on old London Town
this theatre closes its door,
the night falls through the cracks in my eyes
and suddenly
there is no more,
until tomorrow.

What is to come, is there
no one to say?
he thinks of yesterday
and
these are the worms that
will eat him away.

Set the places at your table.

In the background is the waiter
but we only notice him when the
service is too slow or the soup is
cold and thin,

and sometimes
him is a her,
the waiter standing
where
yesterday
was stood a day ago,

Thursday and the weather looks like Summer
but smells a lot like gunsmoke,

I think I'm getting old,
he still thinks of yesterday

Now it's
nearer to then than it is to when,
but look
at the knowledge I gain
from knowing it over and over
what pain
but
all the same
I wouldn't change it
for the world.

Someone took my hitches that used to hold up my britches
and now I'm wearing a
'Jethro Bodine'
belt.

She said,
I was being silly
when I said,
people will call me a hillbilly,

She,
maybe right
but I know what I'm talking about.

You can be the actor
the curtain
the stage,
the page of a book,
the look that she gave,

you can be
a minute
a moment
an hour together that
lasts for forever

or the foghorn
crying
lonely in the
night.

I'm falling under her duvet,
some say,
falling under her spell,
but I know what I'm talking
about,

sweet dreams

Well
I could be here for several more years
listening to King Charles through
the wax in my ears,

they used to make wax records
just so you know

Oh God
there'll be bowing and scraping
videotaping
and blasted cheering,

should put my earplugs in
and Charlie Boy grinning
like one of the Toby Jugs.

Long Live the wotsit.

This four-day week malarkey
suits me
I could do with more of them,

and they're making Chas' the King
I'm hoping that Dave'll come along
and prop up the bar to sing
with him

another four-day week to look
forward too
and now it's half past four
nothing more
there
seldom is,

When they tell you
which they will,
that you sabotaged your own life,
tell them that you went through it
wearing camouflage
because
you never wanted them to know
where you were.

I'm still here
and
in the scope
so whatya gonna do now.?

we surely are,

most of us
lay submerged
in our own
thoughts.

Sunday
and the Sun pokes holes in my plans for the day.

what a way to make a getaway but he had a way with his rocking horse
he also had a way with the ladies who tended to stay away from him.

I'm reading penny dreadfuls from sometime way out West,
Wyatt Earp and Cassidy but I like Jesse James the best

and now it's time to make my move
to
slowly get into my groove
and
set about the day.

There were lots of butterflies back when we went fishing,
the 'Ladies Walk' signal box stood like a sentry
and
although we watched, we never saw
who was it they signalled and what was it for,

the diesel shunter would shunt on past at a quarter past the hour  to the power station where we supposed it
went to get its power,

all we really knew was that the water was cold and the fish were asleep, but we splashed about to wake them up which only woke us up more,

across on the islands, we played 'Swallows and Amazons'
until Tommy's canoe went and sank  
then we drank Vimto and watched the sun go down.

Oh,
it's you again.

it could have been me
but
She still
slammed the door in my face,

later,
She,
kissed me better.

It's Friday
said
Crusoe
to which Friday replied,
and you were expecting
someone else?

you know that we're all fantasy
and that
nothing we see is for real,

imagining a scenario
thinking
shall we go
and we're there,
that must be paradise
when we're  thinking that
everything's nice
or
is it the drugs that we take?

If we don't work
until our backs have been bent
and our bodies are misshapen
and the joys of this life are all
but taken away
how
will we pay the rent?

Oh,
a long weekend,
a Bank Holiday,
if only
you can get through today
we can go out and play for
ages,

I don't mean
old ages
dark ages
middle ages
not even
rock of ages

just ages.

..are you doing anything, darling?
and that, to me, always sounds alarming,
but her tone is disarming
and so I say,
not at the moment dear,

and now?

I'm doing the laundry
cleaning the floor
She wants me to paint
the bathroom door!

I should have pretended that
I didn't hear,
shouldn't have said,
not at the moment dear,

it's going to be a long night.

If the cards fall right
then tonight is just the prelude,
I allude of course to Friday
which as far as I can see
was made solely for the peasantry

give that man a weekend off and
we'll take it from his salary,
give him social media and
tell him it's all free.

Food,
before you fry it
they modify it,
don't bother to cook it
and you know the rest,
second coffee on the way
I'm sure that I am too.

Neuroses is just another one of the seas we sail on,
Grammarly tells me that it's ( 'are' and not is )
but if you say 'are' at sea,
they might think you're a pirate,

I managed to get here
but it was
touch and go,

it's that Wednesday thing.
you know the one
where you're surfacing from sleep
and the dream carries on,

anyway
I shook my head
got out of bed
and here I am,

coordination
point A to station B,
don't wanna spill coffee
so I make some tea
and
success,
almost five hours in and,
and
and?
there has to be an and
ah,
and here I am,

forgot where I was then
which is often the case,

the face in the mirror
the coat on the rack
the shoes on the floor
yes
I've done this before
so
I know I'll be back
before the day ends
before it all ends
in tears.

Starting to get ready for round flamin' three,
the first thing is to sleep which is no mean feat
the second is to hear the alarm clock ring,
and then
it's seconds away and into the fray
which for argument's sake we'll call
Wednesday.

if only there was a spell to cast Wednesday
down into hell,
well, maybe not hell,
but far enough away so that it wouldn't come back
in a Month of Sundays.

I was being quite lazy
so
I thought I'd post a memory
but that
fukin' Facebook wouldn't let me

and now
I'll have to write something new.

Never found a colliery when I went to Colliers Wood and the wood had been turned into charcoal which I did not think was good,
so, basically, a wasteland, a waste of a space on the map,
I'm not going back to Colliers Wood,
I think that place is krap

We could try to cross out the lines
erase the writing and
bring something else in to fill in the gaps,
but
it won't be the same and yet
we'll make the same mistakes
over and over and over and
again we could try
to cross out the lines
that were
those times in our lives
that we'd rather not
remember.

Well
butter me biscuits and call me a taxi,
I can't believe it's not Friday,

and
if I had my way
which
I sometimes do
I'd call you a taxi too.

But
the weekend goes fast
Saturday and Sunday do not
last
and at this time on this night
I am past caring,

wish it was Friday.

Being wary of
things that scare me
I tread softly,
carefully weaving my way
through
every day,

aware of every danger sign
that's there

but even Angels
fall.

do, wah wotsit bop,

that's a line from a song but I can't place the singer, can't remember the line either, ****** it, my mind with its memory is still in the winter of a sand pit making mud pies and if you don't remember making them you weren't or aren't from way back then.

5 Park Drive
was never an address
it was a pack of cigarettes
and unless I'm mistaken,
Nellie from the shop
charged eleven pence
( in olde money )
for them
and those of us from back then
might still recall that,
I do.

Kay and her Bazaar
set in the old stables
at the bottom end
of Lodge Street,
gone
all
gone,
The Shakespeare,
gone
The Tramway,
gone,
The Yorkshire House,
gone,
The Blue Anchor,
gone,
but I know and you know
that these places live on
in the wild romances of
the memories that
we made in our youth.

They call in now and then
to collect
the bones of old lions and
the wrecks of old men,
I wonder
what do they do with them?

The growling is lost to
the roar of the winds
and the passage of time
becomes then the mime,
the
Marcel Marceau
and the silent dream.

Just a thought that whistled through,
like
a slow night train on its way to Crewe,
but
you don't find many vegan birds,  if any,  
do you?

the worm that never has a chance
hears in that great expanse of sky,
these chilling words,
die worms die,

that's why
they live
underground.

Time enough to review what we did
when the end has come
and they ***** down the lid,

you cannot hear the critics then
nor worry about the ink and pen
or what is the latest trend,
well,
not when the end is here,

and no one trying to bend your ear
just peace.

If Fridays were birthdays
I'd be about three thousand
and more of them
old,
which makes me glad
that they're not.

That place.

I've been writing nothing
and writing that
took me longer than I thought,
but then I thought
that thinking about writing
is halfway to morning and
to letting the daylight in
three quarters of the way to
nowhere and faraway
from nothing but nearer to
the somewhere which is where
I'd like to be.

Looking for?
I'm looking for
oh!
what's the word?
ah,
yes, a dictionary
to find the words to
motivate me,

I say a prayer to some old deity
to see what this day will throw at me
and as always
hope for the best.

Made it,
phew,
to Wednesday
woohoo
it'll be Friday
before I know it.

Anyway,
the radio's on
and I don't mean
on dope,
I hope not
anyway.

My mind's doing a
'Connect Four'
filtering out the
bad moves
before I go out
of the door,
done?
and she says,
you should be
but I smell the coffee
while she smells the
roses.

I checked twice and it's still Tuesday
and me,
approaching my best before
as it becomes another.
'let's sing the Blues day,

but all is not lost
I'm not all at sea,
never at sixes and sevenses
that is not me.

and it's still Tuesday

Jam and bread
then off to bed
or
Jack Frost will get
your fingers and toes.

ha
everyone knows that Jack's
vegetarian, it was
just mum trying to scare us
again
with tales of the bogeyman.

But
we carry on with the tradition
and
put the fear of Christ into our
children.
something is not right about that.

Slumbering, with a silent S, my way to salvation and realising that getting old is getting old, so, time for something different, time to wake these bones and jiggle,
I used to jiggle when I was little but I grew weary, now, my second childhood just gave me a good kickin' as it kicked in,
so, yes,
so what?
well, laughter isn't too bad a start
and foolish games play some small part
and really,
if you're young at heart,
the sky's the limit.

Sunday night
and
I wish I could say
that
tomorrow looks bright,
but
Monday has a way
of taking you down,
We are not Ozymandias
we are London Town.
anyway
whatever way
I'm here to stay.

Angels flew over the daffodils
I took the pills, but the doc, he
said take some
more,
and me, the dinosaur,
waiting for the light
saw only
a comet
and
I knew
we were ******.

Luck would have it
that ****'s just Shinola
and
I got over the shock of it.

Saturday and
all signs pointed that way
so
that is the way that I went.