Nan,
being slightly Victorian and
very old
would decant a bottle of Mackeson
into a teapot and
pretend to us children that she
was having her
daily cuppa.

We knew though,
could smell the sweetness
of the alcohol even through
the odours of Number 3 ***** and
macassar oil which seemed to
be an integral part of
Nan
and her Lodge street home.

Oh no
it must be *****..

After we ******
a bit
and she
said
I ****** at it,
deflated
I wandered off home.

But I realised much later
she needed me to cater
to everything.

Shaft me side on
with a tuning fork
she's long gone,
destroying some
other
poor soul.

The Lego Man in his Lego house
Made Lego love with his Lego spouse
While his Lego cat Caught a Lego mouse
And all was well in Legoland.

The Island of a thousand smiles
a thousand miles across the sea
waits patiently for me.
I row as fast as I can go
but influenced by wind and tides
that guide me in all different ways
I am at sea a thousand days.

The smiles wear thin waiting for me to sail in
and
the Island sits so patiently.
Its pearly whites sit tight for me
but I am all at
sea.

Infinitely and often nightly but very quietly
I creep into the garden shed
and make a bed among the flower pots
where those dainty blooms with purple spots
spot me
and open up their eyes to see who sits among the rakes and spades
and somewhere in those dappled glades
my eyes will rest upon a cur-ved apparition and entirely of an auto responsive
suggestion
I will greet her with a midnight smile taped on my lips
and when my heart has done its forty skips and my body settles down
I invite her to come a little close and sit beside me by the oak tree
she
smiles in a light to brighten any night and any day I know would be proud to say
go with the moment it is yours to own
but on my own trapped in a shady place
I face the fact that
this place in the garden shed is only pictures in my head
and I retreat
beat it back indoors where the thunderous snores of all my many days
come back to haze me in some juvenilish way
it's the way of it
it is the way and I have bitten off more than a piece or two
and flown too close to sit upon the heat
of the sun
burned my bridges
burned my ***
and never learnt to hold my tongue
but it is the way
and one day the way will become oh so clear
the potting shed that's in my head will disappear
and in its place
the face I look to meet
will greet me
deferentially I shall shape my tongue to fit around the words I want to say
It is and always has been
this way.

I like rocks and great big granite blocks
But the question remains
Do rocks talk?
( My phychiatrist said.."What do you think"?)
I think this;
Rocks walk and talk in the night when they're out of our sight
And during the day when boys and girls are at play
Rocks are just rocks and are locked up in...Erm..
..Rocks.

It's
bleeding rain,ripping through and
dripping out of the sky again
anyone got a
bandage?

Don't plagiarise my lies,
get back to your roots and
lie to your own truths.
Mine are set to deceive you, to receive
you with arms open wide
don't plagiarise my lies
they're my own truths.

I have work to do
have work to do
work to do
to do it well I must concentrate my thoughts upon this task in hand
and
I have work to do
to do it is a chore
a bore but beggars are not choosers
just losers
but
I have work to do
to do work at all at any time
is fine for me
on being homeless I could see
the workings of the work
priority
a majority of folk I know
don't go to work
go to work
to work is but another reason to go on
and go on I will
until the work is done
and my Sun sets overhead
and I am dead sure that
it will.

Babysitting
for grandchildren yapping
and yipping and grandpappy silently
slipping away.
To bed at nine and out comes the bottle of wine,which
is ever so slightly
a bit out of line and
grandpappy's silently slipping away.
Then it's up at six
for hot milk and two weetabix,then some film show
on Sky or Netflix and
grandpappy's silently slipping,with red wine surreptitiously sipping
away.

Up in the crows nest with the hawsers,a steel vest that ran up the ship and fastened itself to the West wind that blew,
sat, Tamale the blue,
so named, because of his dour expression,that was compressed on his features like a cold North depression,
and he wailed at the gales,the unfairness of being, a hangdog of a ****** who saw nothing worth seeing.
The salt etched in deep and slept in his face though the vessel awake,raced on in the night,
Tamale saw nothing until the Bosun cried, 'land of the starboard bow'
too late then, when Tamale awoke,the ship hit the reef line and the hull broke in two,
and Tamale the blue was thrown down to meet his very first day in the depths of the deep.

The manufacturer must live in Disney land,
what a god can do with a twisted hand,
who makes mice and calls them a marching band?
yes
the manufacturer must live in Disney land.

The men with plastic heads live in some dolls beds and
the munchinkins, (no kin to the other 'kins), friends to
Dorothy, see it all.

In the Disney town when the sun goes down and
the night turns pink, you'd think the bars would crawl with cartoon
characters, but I've seen them all on a picture screen, they don't bother me,
watching ITV,
I feel like Dorothy, yellow brick and click, back to Disney quick.
If a god could only be like mickey mouse, eat green cheese in a popeyed house or the rainbow girl could curl me round her hand,
I'd like to live right here in this
Disney land.

I've been thinking it's time I retired,
acquired a rucksack to ******* my back
and returned to the slow track.
Hitting the road and taking the load off my mind,
with many needles to thread and a hay stack for my bed
I'd be content with it all,
to drift into the colour of fall and ever so slowly disappear,
never here for long,never there or anywhere but everywhere
I would be,
free from the trap laid by polite society.

When the day comes for me to lay down and be free
I want to be reincarnated and
come back as a tree.
Tall and strong and smelling of pine and living again for a very long time.
In the summer I'll dress in a cool suit of green and give homes to the squirrels who nibble my cones.
My roots will be stable and deep and though unable to walk, I am able to talk with the winds and the birds of the air.
And who is out there and able to see that being reincarnated as a wonderful tree is a beautiful thing?
I shall knit with my needles a song to be sung and sing in the spring when the winter is done.
What fun it will be when I am a tree and being a tree in such good company with the Ash and the Oaks who are such marvelous blokes will be good for me.
When the day comes for me to lay down and be free,I will reach up to the sky and come back as a tree.

Milky white and silky light and this
is what I see within the eyes
that look into the night
and in the night where visions come and go
where who would know has yet to learn
and with no concern for etiquette
I move to get a better look and what a sight
then I behold
and should I ever be so bold
to reach out and to touch
or to take her in
but perhaps that is too much and to touch is
but a sin
if so
then I will be the finest sinner
as if I was
the innocence of a new beginner
and depending on her point of view
she might sin along
who would dare to question fate
and relate a narrative of give and take?
Not I.
In the moment standing by she washes carefully
I dare
to peek
the sneak in me just has to know.

what it is that I want so
that interrupts the constant flow of
these the places that I go
and one day
when it all is clear
we'll disappear into the dying sun
but oh what fun
we should have had when we took the run
through good and bad
but everything there is will settle down in time
but now is the time
this I see
for you
and me.

I sit passing time wondering why
I see time passing me by
an optical illusion?
delusion?
confusion reigns in the house of no names
and time does play games with me.

It's only time
it's only time
and if it passes by that's fine
but I wish it would spend time with me
a minute would do
a second or two.

But time blew on the dandelion clock
In shock I stood
blood ran cold
before I knew it
I was old
it's only time
it's only time and if it passes me by
well that's fine.

The cranes flew and the city grew and what did I do?
put my head in the sand,
so I could no longer see the change that was happening all around me.

A land fit for heroes,city tycoons and wannabe Nero's and now't left in the stew *** for me or for you lot,
and how do you feel about that?

More money than sense and scant recompense for the builders who toil,who make the monsters that rise and eat up the soil, despoiling the land,more heads in the sand but holding out hands for that scant recompense.

Reconciling the bile in their throats with those city gent suits in their trilby's and coats and soldiering on until the earth is all gone.

A legacy indeed for them who would scramble in scrub land and grow things to feed the dysfunction of family,
what seeds we have sown,how defectively grown we've become and all for the buildings that greedily search out the sun,
somewhere up in the heights.

She
moves her
hands around my face,
in her
I see my
time
passing.

Up through the chimney
out of the stack
heading for space and
I ain't coming back.
Curling and whirling and blown by your sighs,
I
creep through the cracks in the grey clouded skies.

With heavy hearts the lightened feet march up on Whitehall
take a peek,
then down below the trenches go
light up a woodbine,
'dontya know this is the show that we'll be late for', Says Scouse.
'Gor blimey mate' says cockney Joe, 'let's have a look at all them toffs'
and ups the periscope as scouse scoffs bully beef.

Thiefs of body, thiefs of friends,thiefs of time and there is a belief in some older men,
that this is a time when we remember 'them'
No words need be conveyed
no tears for what they gave
just a sober, sombre silence
like when the guns fell silent
one hundred years ago.

I have witnessed this upon the shores
the ****** of morals,causes,mores
and scores of promises
made and broken by
trip tied tongues with words yet spoken
in the days of heraldry
when men could be
the killers in society and still
be free.

I saw it too when dreaming in a tree
Peru I think it might have been
but every scene was set for me
in the quicksand by the sea
and I side stepped them each and everyone
now it all is gone and faded as the past will do
into another image
who could believe the tale
that men in chain mail suits set sail
to set upon the citizens and sit by while the slaughter fallen
the fruits of hell with chain and ball on.

Hard but even harder still imagining that men still will
bang the drum
so hungry for
another moral ****** score.
it's war
and that is what we got
so take a *** of ale put on the suit of chain link mail
and go and meet
your season of no reason where the only reason you will find is the unreasoning of the deaf and blind.
War.

A just war
or
just war?

In the silence that follows the storm
when the cormorant cleans her wings
and the chaffinch in the tree sings,
I'll be there
weaving my words through your hair
and blowing kisses in the wind.

Dear Lord,
now I'm bored and go to bed
and with not a thought within my head
I know you'll think of me
of where I fit into your eternity
but please,
send me some raunchy dreams
I'm not that old and it seems to me
that between here and that other place, infinity
there's lots more I would like to see.
Amen.

Take me to the windmill
that revolves around the sun
let me feel the air move
as the music carries on
hold me as we turn and turn
and never let me go
take me to the windmill that you know.

Fastened to the gentle breeze with
filaments of fun
laughing 'til we cry as
we revolve around the sun
music playing moodily that just
goes on and on
turn and turn and
never let me go.

Take me to the windmill
let us spin in our desire
winding through the universe
we set our world on fire
hold me one more time and turn
the music lower still
take me to the windmill that you know.

The glory of failure.

It’s just **** with sugar on

Jam and cream without the scone.

Because when I’m begging out in the street

And my eyes happen to meet those eyes that look down

To me on the ground, and you put a coin in my cup,

Just remember you’re looking down I’m the one looking up.



And for those who pass by while shedding a tear

Don’t worry yourself none I’ve made enough for my gear

And more than enough for a couple of beers.

I know what you’ll say

You’ll say, I waste life away

Like I’ve wasted this day.

But I’ll say, I made enough to pay for my addiction.

The seduction which leads me to say

That’s the glory of failure.



I saw an advert for a job and this job was paying quite a few bob.

But I wouldn’t have got it…no sugar just ****.

So I didn’t bother trying

I went back to lying on my bed

I went back to getting out of my head.

When all’s done and said I’m just a no hoper

A drug fiendish doper.

That’s the glory of failure.



If I could have a chance, a second chance, a last chance

To get my brain round to thinking

To think I’ll stop drinking.

I could get off the gear, I could get off my rear.

I could send my C.V to employers

Those employers who are known as the unemployment destroyers.

I could have a meaning instead of this leaning I have,

Towards self destruction.

I could get a job on a site become involved in construction.

So many things on the doorstep right here

But really

I much rather prefer getting ****** on the gear.

Oh yes that’s the glory of failure.



I should get myself well move out from this hell

But what the doctors have said is, in six months I’ll be dead

So I’m going to make tracks.

No,not those made by the needle

I’m going to wheedle

My way into a hospice which could be quite nice.

I think that’s the glory of failure



But what the hey I’m a guardian reader

But unlike other guardian readers those centre right bleeders

I’m totally anarchist, often totally tanked up and ******.

But in reading the guardian I just cannot lose

It makes such wonderful padding for the holes in the soles of my shoes.

And I’ve had plenty of dates with several girlfriends of mates

But when they’re looking down there and they see nothing stir.

That may be the glory of failure.



Perhaps when I’m old and I’m ready to die

I might cast my mind back and I might wonder why,

Every time I have failed the boat seems to have just sailed.

But I was never a sailor.

I was just a participant in

The Glory Of Failure.

When my mind is feeling
like it's floating underneath a painted ceiling
and the windows crack
to take me back
into another
dream
and the ceiling's just a scene that's crayoned on a bathroom door
but the beauty of the dream is that it shows me so much more
than I would know
that's where I go.

When the hallway drifts into a serene sea
I'll be
there.
In the shaking waking hours of dawn before I'm born again
when the night becomes some distant fix upon an orbital
I absorb it all
and put it in a cardboard case.
In case I want to look again into that other realm
that overwhelms my senses
and makes less sense to me
every time my mind floats free
underneath a painted
ceiling.

Tucked inside ducts and they wait to erupt,
like ******* volcanoes and not one of you knows
until they spew out their tears.
I don't cry anymore,
my dad used to say,
'cry and you'll *** less'
I guess that's what dads do,
strangle you with words that you can't understand and
you're ******* your pants but you find you don't cry,so
I guess it works both ways.

We tend to grub in the dirt today and blub on some skirt today but it wasn't always that way,
men used to be strong and to cry would be wrong,
we got soft by holding aloft these ideals of what it is to be really a male.
I blame Charles Dickens for making men cry
for destroying the stiff upper lip.
'I spy with my little eye'
which is full of glistening tears,
something that's been happening to the male population for years.
Oh cry me a lake and I'll take a swim,
come in and join me,together we'll both be
wet.

Did we then sit beside Zeus and talk of men
was Hera there,when we talked of
the ****** Artemis,who with a kiss to thrill, for a kiss to ****,for a fire that Hestia lit upon the mountain top.
While Iris painted colours on the rainbow bright,Persephone and Hades lived a permanent night in their underworld,where all mankind would fear to go,
and Aphrodite trod lightly among the strewn flowers of love, with beauty and the wisdom of Athena
I wish I'd seen her face.
Apollo painted her **** on the bed and Ares went to war with that picture in his head and all the Gods said,
'what is but a wonderful sight,that we see our good people being slain in the night',for the old Gods were callous and jealous to a fault,thinking nothing of sending a lightning bolt to destroy what man made.
Neptune and Poseidon had tried to be nice but with water in their veins that ran cold as ice,they gave up and went home to the sea,saying,
'the mountain is no place to be for us seafaring deity,and with duty being done at the set of the sun and when the moon  crooned slowly against the still of the sky,
the Gods slept.

It became patently obvious to me, that
the more that I looked
the less I could see
and I looked a lot
because time's all I've got
but still couldn't see
what should have been obvious, to
the looker in me.

Ostrich news.

Subtract twenty hours and where will we be?
a contract for the jobless
is all that I see.

Minimum rates
dictates from the top,
we plant the fields and they get the crop.

No education,no vocation,vacations
just vacant stares, where ability's a disability and an IQ a liability,
better keep your head low
and it'll all go away.

So,
now they want a debate after
they got us in this hell of a state.
The knock on the door,
'Labour does more'.
'Preserve the Conservative, go with the flow',
The Greens don't you know want the whole ****** country to grow,
biodiversity?
are there no limits to what we can be?.

Well,
you can all **** orf
take your policies and shove 'em
I've made up my mind to grind up manifestos
plant them in pots and see what grows from them.
Probably tulips or grey men

Nothing will change whoever gets in
whoever's first past the trough they all stop to
dip in,
they're all of the same, using us by
confusing us by using a different name.

But I'll wait and then see on the BBC
Who's going to be the new 'pope',
whoever it is
there's no hope,
I'll still be poor.

In a hologram
I am the man you would like me to be
not real
but you see
it is me,
so
why do you want to know
who that I am?
but the man that's an image
a man you would pillage
and keep for your own.

Pictures that grow up and slow up,then show up just who that you are
an image that's far too inconstant
a solent
a side by the sea
aside from you and me and the oceans that we see
there is only a halogen lamp which tramps out these scenes and in the inbetweens of our dreams
I will be forever
the screens on the doors of the more that you want, and the more that we need,
the more we will seed the cameras with film.
and developed could it be
that we see so much more?

'Tell me a story', she said and I said,
go to bed it's late, but wait,
here's a tale about a place called 'Windscale'
but they don't call it that anymore since they had that problem with the nuclear core.

I wish there were fish off the Cumbrian coast or at most some colours other than grey,
back in the day before they set up the plant when the sea was fertile and the fishermen would perspire and pant as they pulled in the catch it was a fine place to be,
then they killed off the sea,
dead!

'Tell me a story', she said,
I cried me a river instead.

I sit and watch a camel train go by and as it limps across the pale blue sky,shrouded in the clouds,I wonder if I could get upon a camels back and track along,could I learn the camel drover’s song?
A ditty,not so pretty,more a humpalong than any song I’ve ever heard with words that I can’t understand,though familiar in the camels land up in the sky,
Where I watch them going by.

Hip ,hop, clop, clump being a camel gives me the ****,how I wish to be a fish deep in the sea,like a whale.
I like a scale,a doh, ray, me,as far as I can see I’ll be a camel all my days and wander through a desert haze but my gaze is fixed as I roam free, on a cool and clear deep ocean sea.

Once,
I was a little thing until I grew and learnt to sing and now I don’t know anything,except
I want to be free,a fish in the sea,won’t some kind body please untie me,slip the noose and then un-sky me,set me on the coastal road,with my ****,without my load and let me smell the ocean breeze and slip into those lovely seas.
I want to be free and this you can see,before the clouds all break apart and with them goes my breaking heart and you could at least pretend to start to set me free.

A long time when I was ago when others knew what I knew not but now I know when the sun was just a burning place that stars itched in the night and the sketches made with lemonade which somehow came out right, where the sandwiches were filled with sand and the ***** did not have sticks and the tide marched up in two and threes and the deckchairs tricked our hands. that was the time when I was ago and the time I did not know.
Age rolled in on the twelve thirty-four, the puffed out billy knocking on my door, I wish I'd worn myself real slow
a long time when I was ago.

(20 minute poetry)

And then we split
torn apart,
divide and then
in a little bit.
a piece of time
we are fine
again to smile
again.

It's all about the odds and ends and really,
Yes really it's only time that bends the space we're in and
as it passes we stand tall again.

Time,
the
creeper,
Time,
the
secret keeper,
Time,
the
infiltrator,

Time disguised
and time the reaper.

And then we split to form,
to be reborn,
to live and laugh and
smile.

I wait awhile and time goes on.

..and talking of snow which you know I adore
I went out snowboarding
with the old lady next door.
She came out all dressed in a parka and trews
and wore green spangled stockings with six inch heel shoes.

We raced along alleyways which we made into trackways,
then she turns and says,
'where are the brakes?'
I said,I don't know
and so we carried on skateboarding the snow.

The party starts at ten to three.

On the second floor,room twenty two
two vicars who had come down from Crewe were wondering just what to wear, to the shindig going on down there.
They collided,both decided to put on crimson frilly frocks,this was not a 'do' for cassocks or for smocks.

Room forty four up on the forth,was Lucy Ann,a double barrelled name of course,a horsey type who came by invite to liven lively up the night.

In number ten slept teacup Ken,who had never once imbibed,the porter was slipped a twenty,but was bribed to keep his big mouth shut, as ties were cut and Ken found Zen in a brandy glass,
and discovered parties were a gas.

The police arrived to room fifty five and found Miss Sterling doing the jive around the severed head of Fred the cook,
poor Fred never had any kind luck.

There is no escape from the party at Lancaster Gate and those who come are those who'll die
but the party is so flamin' good I'll try to sneak in,got to take a peek in room number twenty seven,where it's said,that the lady there can show you several kinds of heaven before you meet your doom.
Got to get in, get a room,check in time expires at noon.
I shall no doubt expire,naked by the fire in
room, one o one.

In a creche,behind the mesh in Zanzibar or Bangladesh,kids are reigned in,chained up,emptied of the loving cup that childhood gives,
who lives like this so they can miss the fun of being young?
who sticks the chiv in,trims the day,who works them for so little pay?

Look in your high street shops at hopscotch clothes from hopscotch kids in hopscotch homes, on the skids and before you buy,before you try on one more suit born from some child's unlived youth,the truth is out there in the things you buy,'cry freedom'in your cheap t-shirts and cut price flowing patterned skirts,but
the truth remains and stains your heart as sure as if you were a part of sweatshops sweating out the lives of tiny tots and will high street shops, always be the outlets for this insanity?
I'm sure the answer will arrive
eventually.

Half a candle burns full light and flicks shadows on my wall tonight,
I raise my arms and make a face
and somewhere out in time and space
a star explodes.

I wonder why it's called the butterfly,
just for effect?

It's motion sickness,mal de mer
this feeling that I get when you're not there,
like I'm floating three feet in the air
upside down.
When are you coming back to town?

I can be your entertainment for the night,put out the light, and treat you right
I can be your breakfast waiter,on a silver tray,
what do you say,
when are you coming back to town,
or are you going to let me down and stay away?
I want this sickness that I have to be kept at bay,want you to come and stay with me,
we could be a pair
instead of me alone, just floating in the air,
what do you say
why do I pray
when are you coming back to town?

I caption this
'The Kiss'

A greeting
lips that meet
anticipating
tongues that touch
arms around you holding tight
such is the kiss,
not a marble statue
not Rodin's
just a man's
imagination.

A privet hedge..a broken gate the House with a roof tiled with Welsh slate,
a broken half open window from which the light throws shadows on the lawn..G'awn be off with you a Cockney voice shouts out.
The Camera pans.

A street,quite neat and real rare around these parts..two lovers on the corner sharing hearts..as if they could beat as one..
Move on there movie man the cop shouts from the black and tan.
The camera pans.

Traffic light that's stuck on green..a crowd gathers." I've never seen the like "..An old girls cry.."Someone will get hurt or even die,call the police "..as if they would bother their fat *** cans..
The camera pans.

It spins and spins upon its pins and captures you and me..and writes in Avatars of cars and flouting clouds of blues and whites,which balance out the unfilmed nights when cameras close their cyclop eyes and digitals tell no more lies.

I rise early like a bird..I heard a camera crew is coming down to film some scenes in my home town.
An expectant hush
An excited rush and then
The camera pans.

Another copycat,don't do that it's all been done before and one more pretender shown the door,
swing out
swing in and another cat comes ring a ding, ding.
I need uniqueness
I want to feed on the sweetness of novelty,there seems to be less and less of that deliciousness and not much of that newness I can claim for my own,
I think I'm fading into the woodwork,full of knots and gnarlings and look at me darlings as I disappear.

No copycat here,
this is a first time,straight from the bread line into a basket case and how can I possibly face that which is new?
New is getting fewer and the few who do new don't know and never knew what few could be in this land of lots and plenty for me.
I was told that old is the new folding currency and that doesn't suit me,too many wrinkles,too many nooks and nannies with crooks,like little Bo-Peep,I wish they'd all sleep,
there is time for the sheep to try on for size,oh my dear Lion what gigantic eyes,
is that a bit new or just me cooking stew?

A copycat like folding currency folds flat and I'm having none of that,I like the chinking and clinking of real gold and that don't fold.
So beware if you share and don't credit the writer,who with meagreness in his pockets pulls his belt a bit tighter,one more notch he can't feel,,one more meal never felt in his gut,but
copycat see,copycat do,copycat never think anything new.
What are you?

A dragonfly flew on high chased gaily by
a butterfly on the fluttering breeze under a
deep blue sky,
and why is it that I can't fly?
I wondered why.
The dragonfly said, ' you're much too fat'
the butterfly laughed at that,
and I the fool
understood then how
nature could be cruel.

Injecting poetry and high on the verse in me,
I am ****** on the edge of free
and I want to jump.

If I break she will mend me
fight for and defend me
lend me her strength but
I bend to her will
if she is the writing then I am the quill,she
is the ink that links the page with the pen.
She is and I am
woman and
man.

(20 minute poetry)
Crying air
flying where
the ocean's spray
and the summer days
last a lifetime and that's
measured by
some heavenly hand
on my lifeline.

I breathe in only to drown.

There's a sanctuary somewhere
crying air's not allowed
there.

At thirty seven thousand feet
I looked for and forward to meet
my maker.

More than this the absolute when they shoot you down in flames,
more than names on a cenotaph or cursory lines on a graph,
more in a laugh than a tear
we are all and more.

This could take a lifetime but they've taken it away, and where our plan was laid upon the lengthening of the day of man does not apply,
it's a why so,why not no and never mind the time will go and go we will until our toil is stilled.
***** hands on dirtied lands and can we clean where we have been and if we can, what then the plan or do we carry on until the goodness of the soil is gone and if we do what do we do with all the waste we leave behind?
If we are blind then let us see.
The last boat sails at five to three and I intend to sail with all the best,
I leave the rest to you.