On the streets are many sounds and sights.
Like,
dragons jumping traffic lights and busses buzzing through the long and lonely nights.
In the stable where I stay
some say that,'I'm unstable' well they would wouldn't they?
I lay me down but get no peace
the sirens from the local police begin to blare
How they love to share that noise.
A different place another poise
escaping from that awful sound
I start to burrow underground.
Lie down in a box and smoke cheroots
while watching daisies lacing up their 'daisy roots'

I'm waiting but there is no evidence of anything vibrating
it's very still and dead
even spiders stop the spinning of their webs in wonder
then the thunder of the day above
hand in glove
with the cacophony of that lunacy
I often see
spread all about me
finds me out
and digs me up.

I take that cup of old Laings building site
where once the labourers might have dream't
of men unkempt in ***** rags
begging for some food and ****
and a bit of work to pay their way.
Not today
or any other day
I heard them say it
watched them spray it on the walls
and as the failing hope falls down
the ballgown that she wore
is worn again as second hand
by salvationists from the army band
who try to fill the dragging days
with songs of glory
hymns of praise.

What's the use
we suffer more than shock, abuse
and yet we stay
where we as dinosaurs
no longer play but plod.
Life's a sod laid on the Earth
we animate and give it birth
and then it bites us
on the ****.

Life and its ups and downs..
..towns
Becoming cities
Growing into
Monstrosities.

People pushed together
Like storms and weather
They grumble
Rumble
And in this rabid dry tumble they come out
All creased.

At least in the countryside where I reside
We have fresh air that fills the lungs..
..not forgetting the smell of fresh dung which they put on the crops
And then sell to the shops
Where the folk in the city can buy..vegetables to fry.
Stirred?..I could cry.

Abominations of regulations..the world is insane.
Takes in a deep breath
And looks once again..it still looks the same.

Men in the banks..those corporate tanks..it's a war
We fight on each and every side
Even in these hamlets where the gentlefolk reside.

There's not a hope..no release..
..from the unceasing march, of the shiny suits
Who would with their boots seek to trample and tred..
..and that being said,
We should surrender?

Tender our resignation and in utter frustration go home.
This is the New Rome we have built
Guilt you can keep.
I'm going to sleep
Tomorrow is only a dream.

It's getting to be posh
all these new folk
with their dosh.
buying up the property
leaving nowt
for you and me.

It's not the same
not as it was
because,
our street's got
a brand new name.
'Petunia close'
sounds like a dose of something bad,
awful sad,
that it's getting to be a bit posh round here,
next year,
I won't recognise
the pie and mash shop
the garage pit stop
it will all be gucci,reebok
smoochy bars,
fast and frantic tarty cars.

I'm moving out to Birmingham
at least up there they still
eat spam,
I may move further North to Carlisle
they'll not change
not for a long while.

Anyway
I made a fortune
holding on
not selling too soon.

(The problem is,
not the solution
or gentrifying
or more pollution
it's the weeding out
and in their place
making space for
evolution)

Take these tears from yesterday
And kiss them all away.

In the shuffling long, long line..
..stood men from another world..another time
Dressed in linen shirts and boots and kipper ties
Men with tired sad..grimy eyes.

And in the Labour exchange a man would say
Ninepence ha'penny...unemployment pay.
This..
..for men who had gone to war
And evened up the score...crushed the fascist state.

Why do they call this country great?

Those men who sat beside the Thames..
..and with one stroke from Sheaffer pens destroyed us all.
But these proud old men..did heed this country and its call.
Left the fields and left the ploughs..the pits and mills
The rolling hills where they were born
A forlorn hope..for a brighter day
Kiss my tears from yesterday away.

Why do they call this country great?
This Island state
The ancestral homes
Of dead mens bones.
Expletives long deleted..hope depleted..future boarded up.
We will not drink a cup and sing to..
Auld lang syne.

I pretend over and over pretend, that the electricity humming on the underground is the sound of a Spanish guitar.
Mind the gap,mind the gap is some gangsta man rap designed only to trap me.
Hold onto the strap watch what I see
the tubelines are burning the brains and in trains we're on fire,
Finsbury dark in the park and Marylebone is a stop on my way home at the end of the track.
I hate it
I hate it but tomorrow I'll take it again
one more refrain from the strings
one more rap from the man and his gap
one more station to see,
in pretending I'll be
in a sec,
Tooting Bec.
There are shoals,not of fish but of moles,blindly
digging their way to the end of each day and the tube is the way they will go.

We shall call his pig Bismarck,
because Grandad's humour was awful dark,two chickens he kept were called,Burke and Hare and a duck he kept was called Guinness.
But the pig got big,a sod of a sow and Grandad tried which way and how but couldn't quite tame it, and was sorry he gave it such a name,
The moniker Bismarck, fit the pig quite well and in this warzone where he dwelt he felt at home,
Grand dad,once a jack the lad devised a plan to get said pig upon the table,with apple sauce and if able an apple or two to stew.
He led the pig, not very far,just to the local abattoir,where Bismarck sunk without a trace and if you'd seen the smile on his face,you'd think that he enjoyed his trip to crackling land,but he looked good sat on my plate and notwithstanding Bismarcks fate he went down a treat.
Next week I hear it's duck.good luck,ducks can fly,Grandma's buying in some pie,just in case,
dear Grand dad falls flat on his face.

Under the stretching of the skies where clouds surprise migrating swans and swallows swallow hard,she came to me with open eyes and arms and took me far away.
We landed in an Island sun to coconuts and Navy *** and before the day was done and the moon was on the rise,I looked again into her eyes,
she nodded her assent,
We kissed so silently her breathing deafened me and there upon the sand beside the moody sea,
I made love with her and she made love with me.

They flit through this phantom and each
ghost lights a lantern that shines,
even molecules mock me.

I rock back and forth and
mentally scribble
then I dribble things out
through my mouth.

Sigh?
I could cry with the torment,
lend me the wings
let me fly.

She could cannibalise me as
she flies in with the ghosts
and surprise me
with lights in her eyes.

Sighs,
I could leave all the torment behind.

In the doorways of regret where the cold winds of disappointment and let's not forget debt,reside
I have hidden thoughts and notebooks,there inside the darkened,unlit space,afraid to face and yet I must decide
that where these things reside, do I also want to live.

With nothing left to give or choose and holes in both of my worn out shoes,cardboard for a comfy bed,I am being slowly led into my own impoverishment.
Intent on keeping from the workhouse door and wanting more than what I've got
I spot each opportunity and score accordingly,
three points for a no hope job placement and being lent on by the job centre,who seem bent on placing me,somewhere where I should not be.
A point each for all charities and gold stars for the few who try to please the many,I haven't any words that can express just how the streets can mess you up.
Soup runs get a special mention for delivering to my attention,beef and broth and crusty bread
so if is that I am being led into the downtown streets, at least I'll go well fed and with company,
so many folks like me
down and misunderstood,both bad and good and some who could be so much more than
the man you'd rather not run into when out with friends and they ask you to,dig deep and
contribute
you, in your suit cannot explain
why it is you give and don't complain to politicians sat in high court clubs
and you,sat in the city pubs with colleagues,leagues away from streets which pay
no attention any more
to regrets inside the darkened doorway.
Here I stay like yesterday,the day before and like a hundred days or more,
if providence prevails
one day for sure all ships will sail into the harbour
and these thought I harbour greedily as I lay down to drink my cup of tea and sift through countless memories
and try to make some sense of it.

The priests could not be bothered to talk to me..
..as the Bishop took them off for tea..in their finery
Eating roast sham and drinking champagne..
..down by the river in the refurbished winery.

And this I felt as I knelt down to pray.
Religion is dead
It just doesn't pay.

And the rosaries become hypocrisies..
..this I understand.
It was never planned but the pomposity of ceremony..
..and the incense they burned
Turned..me cold.

I believe that God does exist..though the richness of the clergy..
..is like an allergy to me.
I want the church to be free for the saint and the sinner
And dinner for everyone.
Let charity begin from the place where it started.
Charity..alas has become so hard hearted..
..and it tightens its belt.
All this I felt as I knelt down to pray.

I have seen these leagues I walk spread out and life,about which is true,I once knew upon a time,a long long time ago. depleted now, almost deleted how?
I still walk,breathe, talk,the mirror stills.
The stone that breaks and dust that blows in wind that blows and who knows who'll be next to break?

The old one,the wise man, a shaman
defies the tongue that speaks and ushers me
into a tent, a teepee
'See,
when the blue river of pain has crossed over the plain and we lie in the dust like all buffalo must,
it will end', he said,
let us tend to the dead,willing the spirit to fly,the old eyes saw it all and what was denied me before came quite clearly now,
how the wind would shift mountains and the eagles would cry as the people of peoples would die and yet live,be taken but give,
on the hill in the sun stands the shaman,the old one,the wise man and I am in mourning.

When the sun came crashing from the sky
we knew why the oceans all ran dry
and we,
like harum scarum lunatics watched all this, believed it was a magic trick and later it would be alright.
But the night grew strong the longer it went on and we were wrong to laugh and play while everything we had,
faded into grey,then black and we realised it would not be back at the click of the fingers.

Some vestiges of a memory lingers on and fables told are of a day of gold and light and might we hear the story one more time,as told by the old man with more time upon his hands,about the distant lands where men could see,it seems an eternity of gloom has left much room and yet not to expand but contract back into caves, and slaves we were to ever think the madness could go on without some form of retribution,
some divine or godly intervention
an architect whose own invention had been superseded by  what those whom he had invented needed?

It's all too late
we'll have to wait for another spot that turns up in a universe,where nothing worse than this could possibly occur
and though the candle is unlit,a bit of it will fall into another lighting of the sky
and once more I'm sure we'll wonder why
the magician always spins a double zero and wins.

The dreamer can see and understand how the mountain may hold out a welcoming hand to the climber who wishes to get to the top
and as the dreamer sees this he also looks at a flat piece of land and sees castles with shimmering towers made from sand.
But the dreamer becomes the dream that's within the fin of a fish that swims by
and the tortoise that sits high on the hog
or the dog with a tick.
Take your pick
there are so many dreams given free
what dream do I see as I look in the toothpaste?
A wasteland and more towers growing out the sand with fingers that tickle me
another fish swimming by in the sea
and golfballs where nobody dances
A room full of romance where the lights all burn dim
one more fin on a fish
I wish it could last
but the best is what passed on the wings of a shirt
or the long flowing skirts of Victorian dolls.

Gangsters and Molls and big Packard cars
Jelly tots that play on the moons circulating like blood round the planets and Mars which is red(so it is said)
even in dreams can't get that into my head.
The dreamer and know it alls
and poets that fall into fantasy and wander free through the white picket fences
offending no one
and offering scope only for white horses and unicorns in freeforming ballet scenes with Jack and his magic beans
have seen but a part of the heart of the matter and that's no matter at all.
Drop off the edge and take a fall with me into a meringue of sheer lunacy and let us see what we see and if it isn't really there
why should we care.
To be fair some people can't understand how a castle made out of sand stands the test of time
with the tide that eats at the feet of the chair but we know it's not there
just imagination and the patience to look and like the words in a book that can conjure up a genie or Jack with a beanie hat or a cat that never sat on a mat but a throne.
These things I have seen and have known and have grown fond of the older I get and the mountain I climb is even yet getting taller
or perhaps it is me getting smaller.

I ramble so slightly
twice nightly
and three times on Bank Holidays
at time and a third.
One day I don't hope to recover my senses
leave me to the horses and white picket fences
I'm happy.

Dissolving from community
abrogating all responsibility and
finding in the inner me
all I ever need to be.

I shall cancel my subscriptions to
the doctors,
**** prescriptions and
elections,you won't
***** monuments to me
but I am all I ever need to be.

drip fed,
being fed on drips and dregs and how many campylobacter in six dairy fresh eggs?
raw meat, diced, sliced or crushed and
pushed through,
acts by the government *******, nothing's your own,
go it alone but the eye in the sky, on the wall, up your **** always follows you,
what's the world coming to and how many bacilli in the ideas that you see in your minds eye?

fed up to the back teeth? rip them out with the pliers and you get no relief, not from the welfare and you share and share and only when no one is there do you get your sweeties and treats from the N.H.S.

We live in the cesspit and they smell of roses which in turn look like dog **** and we're still being drip led by the rich and the well fed and it's doing my head in.

Skeletal?
I want to go back to pre-foetal
before fertilization was an i or the dot on some distant horizon,
untapped as potential and potentially dangerous.

A morning lays in her eyes,
as she breaks me
she takes me into
the surprise
of
another day.

No social *******
no discourse on current affairs,
on who's doing what or where or to whom
and that's why you will always be
the silence in the silent room.

In aluminium doorways where the sun's rays reflect
I have always suspected a hoax,
japery that capers about my head,
is it me or the sun that is dead?

Victorian cobblestone paths made from grandad's dry bones
and shells off the front line on the Somme
meandering,
Picardy's never that far from me and
Tipperary just goes on and on.

I sit here in reverie and the world
pebbledashes me
I am becoming a scroll lost to history
a paint *** full of scenery
the brush with the bristles
all gone.

A doubt appeared
Crept into mind.
The doubt of malignant cancerous kind
That harried forth the snap decision.
And upon examination
Would force oneself to self derision.
She lay before me long and slender
I naked stood
Stood and if was tender
Could have kissed her **** and walked away
Should have dressed and walked from yesterday.
I begin to break.
Dissolve
Into dissolution of resolve.
I take her tight into my arms
Wrap my legs around her reedlike waste  (sic)
And I could taste
Raw *****
From within
Within.
Within the hypodermic ******.

John Smallshaw   2011.

We all dance on the edge of obscurity, some
fall to their fate
while
some always wait for the last song
to play.

Today
I waltzed in a world's insecurity with partners who weren't all that sure of me,
a curiosity to be handled quite carefully
and still I'll free fall
to obscurity.

A scattering of leaves.

In the house of the greatest of charity
through the corridors, passing the sacristy,
into the chapel where up on the balcony
the Sisters of Mercy chant
prayers for me.

I sit humbly,
no coins for the offertory
a poor man in search of
a history,
in the house of the greatest of charity
I find hope in the
sisters that pray for me.

Still waters reflecting the worst of me
where the savage of time's
not been kind to me,
in the house of the greatest of charity
St Barnabas  is there
to encourage me.

A little bit of Emile Zola.
“They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.”

They thought he was pithed that man with the lithp but
he fooled them all.

He bathed in the midnight of madness and dried on the reason of hope,he sang with a voice forced with gladness and feasted on cakes made from soap.

A name that he knew he once carried was the same as the woman he married but he mumbled in metaphor and I wondered,
what the hell for
as he crumbled away into
the end of each day.

You saw a closed door,
I saw a building that wore on its skin a way to go outwards,a way to blow in and let me begin to show you that a,
blue is but colouring, we mix it in dreams
greens,reds and yellows that float upon beds freshly made, where everything laid down is painted a dull brown,but here's a surprise,
pull out the dyes from the eyes that see closed doors and open your mind to the buildings that once wore,
once swore,
one more spell in bedlam,
well,the madman and comic books,given comic looks by quizzical people who can't understand, will stand by the opera house with a cap in his hand and beg programmes from top hats and mink wraps,
and morning slaps me in the face as if the lady had a place to test my theories when I'm weary.
Back in bedlam the corridors with more than doors that hold the screamers,dream of leafy suburb lanes,
suspecting that they're not the same as pisspot crazies,daisy chain the locking gates,automatically prostrate and the man with pentothal will come,we'll tell it all,of how the colours came to call,and we sat down to tea with ice cream cakes and made by me I'll have them know,they always do.
They will go and leave me in another hallway filled with evening primrose blue but smelling antiseptic red which ties me back into the bed.
Tomorrow ,
what the building wore will definitely be a door and nothing more,
I'm getting out of bedlam soon,no more laughing at the moon or seeing things that are not there,
In the end we all turn square and block out dreams,inferrring that, the world's not round
it's bleedin' flat.

I never stopped to ask her why she stole the sky or
hung my scalp upon her belt
but I felt the sadness of the day when
my life became more dark than grey.
Some
would say, I was to blame for playing such a
deadly game with her
but Some would say that anyway
wouldn't they?
She took the sun and popped it in my eyes and
tied my feet to the autumn breeze,
' an easy man to please' ,they say,but
they would say that.
For
Some the world is black and white,no day or night
no wrong,
just right and that world seems so flat to me,
I'd sooner be
a loser
occasionally.

The monkey agrees with me and hands
the hat 'round in order to be
sociable.

I shot it dead but it won't die
I am effin sick of apple pies and Kentucky fries
and MacDonalds tries to **** me in to happy meals,give me some gin,let me get ******,wake me up if I have missed a thing.
Burger King is on the phone,please put me down or in a home,I'm effin sick of fast food quick Krap,slap me please,don't give me burgers with cheap cheese or onion rings or anything,give me some gin,something quick,Nando's getting closer and I am feeling sick again.

Why does it rain on my parade?
I played the eat well,get well game but it's all the effin same to quick fix.sticks and stones and chicken ****** bones that fill the effin air,fast food effin restaurants appearing effin everywhere,I'm effin sick of it,filling me with effin effluent,I'm effin getting effin fluent in talking effin ****,
give me a gin
let the effin gin work its effin way right in
and let me go to sleep.

The silence of violence
piston knocks
absorbing shocks
not a whimper,word is heard
third time this week
tomorrow she'll seek
a safer place
save her face.

Her black eyes don't cry even she wonders why she put up with it for so long,how could love be so hurtful,
how could she have got it so wrong.

Yahweh Yahweh

Hear as I say

A crumbling rock is I as I stand

All points of the compass lies the sinking sand

And as bits of I fall

Jah, hear as I call.

For the Saints and the Angels

The knights of the round table

The prophets of old

The wise man with his gold.

The heathens the sinners

Enslaved cotton spinners.

The trumpeteers

The cannoneers.

The old blues players

The Christian slayers.

For Peter for John

I need not go on

And as they arrive

To watch this demise

Hear me.

Repentance I cries.

Yahweh Yahweh.

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'Done up like a kipper'
by
Osborne the stripper
who is a right wrong 'un and we're left in a bare drum and no one can save us,not Labour or Jesus,because
we are taxed to the hilt,they have built walls that surround us they dog us and hound us until they catch us and latch us once more to the imperial measure.
I measure the length of the cut of his cloth and it measures quite well until the division bell sounds and once more he hounds me and when he has found what I owe
he blows me away until the next budget day when there's nothing to commend because we're all at the end of our tether.

I did not want to write tonight
I wanted to drink and drink
Not having to pick up a pen and think.
I thought I'd get wasted
But I tasted the ale and it was sour
I did all in my power to make it taste right
I did not want to write tonight.
Tonight is off key and that means for me
I can't get the lines to fit into my rhymes.
Perhaps I'm to old
Just some grime in the time
But if that's true it's fine
After all I'm nearly as old as the Maginot line.
I did not want to write tonight
I wanted to be drunk and to look at the Moon
I wanted to savour the taste of my doom
I wanted to be alone
Alone in my room.
But here I am pen in hand
Trying to staunch the flow of ink and
Failing.

I knocked on the door of a saint
Shouted..
Let me in,let me in
Help me paint over this sin.

It was never the same after puberty came
And childhood turned into much more.
Yet.
I know there are Saints and there's definitely paints
So why don't he open the door?

Lifeskills and the willful ways of Men
Not something you'd think would fit together but then
We're all made from pieces and parts
From good or bad hearts and we have to make do.

So I knock again at the door..this is getting a bore
If he can't forvive me
I've got more living to live see..
..the time.
I could climb over the wall..into the window and down that long hall
But I think I'll go home
I might go to Rome...they've got Saints over there..enough and a plenty.


This is what's meant to be..no undercoat or fresh gloss on me
Gee.
Can't wait to see
Heaven.

Another book for bedtime
and that's fine and dandy
books come in handy.

In gothic script
I ripped through those pages
with stories that told
of soothsayers and sages and went to sleep with blood on my lips
torn from my trips through the history so real it had to be true.

Do you know how it feels when the hurt never heals
but bleeds out every day in the same bleedin' way
and the scar's never far from the tongue in your mouth when you want to shout..'******'
but your upbringing demands that you sit on your hands and do nothing at all
and you look through the wars through the bolted, barred doors that you've gone into quite willingly
when the satchel you had on your back was filled with a stack of blank pages to write on
and you wrote what you saw but that wasn't a lot
so you penned in some fiction but the friction of lies that struck fire in your eyes burnt it all.

Do you know what it's like
when the clock starts to strike and you wonder if you'll be around for the next round of hours that burst forth like flowers ablaze in the sun.
Was it fun
can you remember when we shivered in the condemned house in December and January and November and all those other times when we listened to the chimes and the clock was just that
was time really so flat then
did we care about if and when and the what will we do when the Summer falls through the Winter's embrace
could we and did we face things together through the bitter cold weather and the nights when we cried wishing that we had both died and had gone to some better place?

To stand up and face what the face never tells and to hell with convention
A mention to my Mum
who never closed me out.
A mention to my Dad who knew nothing about anything but knew everything he needed to know
and here's to happy families and the crowing of rooks
and to beggars and crooks
to those outcast by design or by the looks of the honest and pious who trip by us with never a thought that we could be them
dead men and donkey tales
dead men trapped in the sails of those ghost ships
and my lips are ripped once more by the stories read of horror and gore.
Another book at bedtime and the dreams that follow are fine
for the dreamers who are few and far but between the morning and the dusk where the musk of ladies tickles my nose
I know
I'll read some more.

One more casualty.one more war
don't know what they're fighting for
why won't they shake hands,make the peace
why don't they just agree to cease.

When we played as boys with guns for toys and shot each other dead
how could we know the real foe was
bullets made from lead.

Some of them would take your life while others
make your life a better place and
to realise that friends are all it takes and
if you'll take a tip from me
and make friends every time you see
a stranger looking for the same who may be
pleasantly surprised that there are more who've realised
that friends are all we get,be friends before this life we have
decides to end.

On love,
I could say an awful lot but will not,suffice
that's the one friend who lives in the heart
and we all have one of them.

The way is clear,the road is long have friends they make the song seem sweet,to travel lonely on a street is no travelling at all,have a friend to call on you,to call upon,one more sweet song,one less lonely road,less of a load to carry on your own as you wander home.

An evening to do what seems so right
a wrench from the *****
who
thinks it's alright
to stagnate.
I wait for the morrow to come,
for the postman and some
statement
of intent, but
I am bent on the track and
there's no looking back,
I am set
for the fight.

Where did that evening go, when I being under your spell danced
real slow with you on the ballroom floor
and you told me more in your hips that I ever knew?

How time flew,
those jewelled minutes flashed and waved me goodbye
and now I remember,try not to forget
how we met
under the clock at Waterloo.I felt like a film star
did you?
and in the Strand at Lyons corner house,
me, tongue tied and as quiet as any mouse you'd ever met
I try to remember,sometimes I forget.

We walked in the park by the palace, until it started to get dark and then quick off the mark in case you were thinking of going
I, pretending to be all knowing said,
'I know of a place where we can dance cheek to cheek'
I was thinking of dancing and looking into your face 'cause your smile was enchanting,my heart beat fast until at last you said,
'that's a good idea'

The place that I knew was quite near,quite dear
but I'd have paid an awful lot more
how could I put a value on you,the dancefloor and me?
we danced on and on and then it was midnight or gone one o-clock
I try to forget but remember that look of surprised shock which narrowed your eyes.
We said our goodnights but not our goodbyes for we were to meet the next time that time flies
and I took you to the taxi rank
where you thanked me
with the most beautiful kiss
and this was just the start.

And still this heart of mine beats fast when I remember the look that you cast as the taxi drove down the cobbled street
I think we'll meet again, and very soon, as soon as I wish again under the wishing well moon.
I try to remember and when I forget
I make a bet with myself that when time is right
I'll remember again and
remember again
all through the night.

A tiger lily crept up on me and bit my arm.
I tried to calm it down by using my tin of Tiger Balm.
Did it work?
No such luck.
I'm going to give up gardening and go on Safari.

The past does not last,it cannot because I blew it up,threw it up.used it and chewed it up and now I'm immune to it,forgot all that ****,albeit due
to a tot or two of the devils brew
but you knew that,
you know how I am
you have kissed and tasted the lips of this man
but now I've began and can act like a man in my very own show,but you know that too,I know that you do and you know I love you.
Getting on through as best as I can
getting on through as a man
and I am
my past.

Out in the backyard where I discarded the old bard..
..I take a moment to think.

This is not the first time I've been on the brink of a change and maybe it won't be the last.
But I have put what is past into a polythene sack..
..let the archaeologist of the future rummage through that.

If this change is a bust..then so be it..I must..
..change the change that I'm making..
And change is there for the taking..it's free.
This is the way that I want it to be.

If it's not done today..the change will not go away..
..It will wait in abeyance.
A conveyance for me when I am finally ready.
I'm still out in the backyard with the remains of the old bard.
Finding it so hard to leave things behind.

Pictures on the bare brick wall that
fall into the atmosphere
surround me with a lifeless glow
and I don't want to be in here,but
the angels will not let me go and
so I stay alone in fear and
settle down to watch the show.

I see the young the old,the few I knew,
the Titanic in its infancy,the music playing
mournfully as it sank beneath the
cold grey sea,
the eyes that shed their tears for me,
the beggars in their poverty
the lines that took the trains away
the burning of the books that night,the
ash of bodies burned that day
and still the pictures come to me
on bare bleak walls they run to me
where air guitars still strum to me
these brick walls hold no fun for me
as if I'm the one who's falling free
and painted on a picture frame in
Gothic script
I read my name.

No entry,
they're putting sentries down in Whitehall
and snipers on the roof,
the truth is, they don't want to see
how they've ****** up
society.
They'll be shooting us like mad curs
there's no reasoning with them and
they'll be laughing with the bankers.
This is the ministry of gentlemen!

My heart is but the souvenir
reminding me that you were here,
but now you've gone,
my mind plays tricks with stones and sticks
my eyes see you,
the image sticks,
but now you've gone.
If only I could wind back time,
take back the words
then we'd be fine,
of this I'm sure,
but the clock goes on its tick-tock way
each day takes you so far away and
all I have's this souvenir,
a broken heart reminding me that
you were here
but now you've gone.

When do I start this love affair

When do I find someone to care

To hold me tight

In the stillness of night

I hope it might

Be soon.

I’d be over the moon

Will I know it when I see it

Will I feel it, will I be it.

Will I fall at the first hurdle

Will she wear a playtex girdle

Or whalebone and wire a sixteen inch waist.

I do know that I will want to taste

Her breath

Her hair

Her legs

And then the question begs

What’s for dinner

Please forgive me I’m just a sinner.

But I could make her feel like a queen

Do things that she has never seen.

Write love songs about her poetic face

Dress her up in satins and lace

Take her back to my place.

And just in case, I forget

Tell her I love her.

I would make her laugh

Have her in fits, take her out for tea at the Ritz

Teach her to dance and do the twist

Go out on Sundays and play some whist.

And Lord forbid that she should cry

Then I would dry with my lips her tears

Allay her fears

Nibble her ears

When do I start this love affair

When do I find someone to care.

I take a look on Wigan pier and not a single ship is here,which to all intents is rather queer,so I peer a little nearer and see an albatross that tossed his beak into the air and declared,
'it really is so darned unfair,to build a pier where the sea's not there,I think I shall complain',
and who's to blame, old Georgie boy? you toyed with our perspective and tried to give us oceans where we knew was only mills and grit,
but I'm thinking that you hit the nail right on the head as Northern productivity is all but done and dead.
we might as well be all at sea, the albatross and me.

It's love
she knows and I know it too
it's that feeling you get
when each other wants you and you know
that it's true because you
want me and
I want you
it's love
so sue me.

Down in snowman school where
they learn how not to melt,
well
what fool goes in there?
'Not I,'
I hear the snowball say, but
as I watch the snowball
trickles
trickles
effortlessly deathly
which don't
'alf depress me
away.

So snowmen go to school and
learn how to melt with dignity,
a touch of class, a dash,
learn to do it with panache,
keep your snowballs close at
hand,
be good, stay cool
don't be a snowball type of fool
go to snowman
school.

So true
So true,
I never knew so true,
true is always so
I never saw a truth that wasn't so
so, so. so
always
so, so, so.

I wish that so would go
just so I would not know
that so was just
so, so.

And so what if I knew that
so was just so true?
but that would never do,
just so
you know.

I need that disaster,
that chaos which runs through my head and the faster it goes the better I like it,the madness of mayhem that flows from my brain stem is all that I need,feed me flights of sheer fantasy,show me the sights of calamity and let me climb down into the tree with Alice.

If I'm Shot through with lunacy like a candy stick I will be,licked into infinity to play with eternity quick games of whist,twist,ludo and who knows the score when one is mad to the core and the maggots of knowledge are eating your brains.
How boring I'd be if I was just me,
but I'm not
I am Napoleon,Leonardo,Joan of Arc and Tristan da cunha..yes, I can be an island, in the crazy of my land it's possible to be,
the Island,the sea,the shore and much more.

There is trickery in the madness of lunacy,to some I'm quite sane,then again so are they,nothing's as grey as the black in the white within the light of a lunatic's day.

A clove of garlic keeps vampires at bay
keeps a cold away
wish the lady would stay, but
she goes too.

I'd ban 'flu
man 'flu
nothing new there.

A pillow
to lay low
and under
the duvet, eyes closed
a rainbow of light.

I read Tolstoy
oh boy.....

,,,,spotting a Beano at the end
of the rainbow
I read that as well.

Garlic stinks don't ya think
I don't think at all
as I fall
asleep.

All we get is rhetoric,they're just gobbing off and I'm sick of it
we ought to send the ****** lot down the pit
I'm so frustrated I could spit.

They're bearing down on me in Downing street, building
high rise homes but
tearing down the street where I grew up,it
makes me want to throw up,show up with a deputation to
state the case for conservation,but they never listen to the likes
of me,
that's democracy,a bunch of scheming hypocrites sitting in their leather seats and tearing down my ****** streets,the ones where I grew up.

Well,
**** me, fracking's got to be the only saving grace I see,they say they'll frack far,far below,
ha,
so
them ******* at the top will be the first to know
when the whole world falls apart and
the last to bleedin' go.

Another *****,
over easy on the ice and just  another would be nice, but it would then progress and mess my morning up
and so I dazzle and make a cup of tea,two toast,some marmalade and look at me,as
sober as a high court judge,which is just about as sober as one can be,when one sentences to prison and relieves a man of liberty.

What Identity this man,
who can decide a span of time that another would pretend ,and inside where the attitude of days is played out on the prison walls,and in the canteens where I have seen great mountains of men fall and go to waste,
I have also seen those other men of God,men of Satan waiting for the dinner bell,and as thick as thieves they all fell into fighting righting wrongs ,dinner gongs and more mountains fall in the dining hall,more wasted words upon the wall.

1... I never did what they said
2....I was framed
3....The cops are bent
and those these words were never said or spoken each broken head and blackened eye was another,and one more reason why,
I lent myself to education,got certificates,elucidation but it was all a waste of effin time,the judge was right,send this man to jail
and ticked the fail box on his score card,
Hard labour never did me any harm ,not that it did me any good but for some it poisoned and where the blood runs hot,eyes bloodshot,riots,guns and more blood runs.

The sums seem never to add up and so I make another cup of tea and think how fortunate it was to see the end game,to see my own name written on the hand rails and when all else fails,
it's head or tails,win or lose and only one can get to choose one's
final destination