The best vintage
red wine,
her lips
drinking in mine.

We flipped small coins for fun
and like Apache arrows flew into the morning sun
calling curses on the day,
this was the way we knew.

Ceaselessly the air swirled round the sacred ancient hunting ground until we found the buffalo and John Crow said,
'better dead than being brave,we are the slaves of appetite'
and then the night of death rained on and soon the buffalo were gone.

Bones and stew make bedfellows too and this is what we've got
the empty stomach
empty cooking *** and not a beast seen anywhere.
No happy hunting ground,no arrows leased,no feast,not least no children born,no warming sun,harsh winters come and we must run away
this was the way we knew.

Soldiers blue and few we were
rifles,gunshot,
did we dare to dream tomorrow would arrive,could we,would we learn to live and survive on reservation land,live hand to mouth,or would we move on South to Mexico
where peasants till the soil and shattered spirits go.

This was the way when plainly night became our day and pipes of peace were smoked no more,
ruled beyond a different law
the rule of handout,get out,turn round about and cry
the way of life we knew did die
but we the children are living on, in stories told in elders huts,where cuts of jerky hang on skin lined walls and voices hush as the old one calls for spirits that he's known to rise
and cries again at so much pain and so much lost
and all it cost him and his tribe.

Describing monuments to men,is like paintings of the mists and when you think you've got it almost right
the swirling buffalo moves off again into the endless night
it's difficult,impossible,I can't explain except to say,
'that, what is pain but loss and heartache'
the breaking of another lance and one more agreement,one more given chance,
One plain speaking man of breeding
leading
his people home.

Who is to blame?
who are the giants who manipulate the game?
corporations ******* our lives dry and desperation, plastic bags,
deforestation
it's given me an inflammation
what in tarnation are we going to do?

You and the Who may be one and the same,
we all have some part in the terrible game
and I'm in the frame for it,
done for a little bit, sat and
watched people ****
all over nature.

The visionary drones on like he sees it with headphones on reading a script while the planet's being ripped out from under our feet,
a bit like, 'meet the Flintstones' and it's in bedrock we'll build our next homes and another generation will fill the forests, harvest vegetation, and the corporation will rise again, tell of its corporate lies again and we'll all believe that they're all sane men.

Who is to blame?
the blind men who read the bible and curse which the deaf man can't hear, but which is the worse.

Rant for a bit
and cogitate,
wait for a bit
and rant a bit more,
bits and bobs and the 'nobs hold the aces
the deck was rigged
just look at their faces.

Welcome to Landfill where they bury your free will,
please
hold tight to the handrails we're all going in.

Passing through fallen arches past the smashed dreaming warriors into abandoned stone quarries,
taking time for a tea on the way.

Welcome to Landfill where they still fly the standard although at half mast.

Reserve a place for the saviour
he's playing a card game unaware that his fame has spread out like confetti and is whetting the appetites of Satan and his acolytes.
Here in dystopia where hope's hoping it's fooling ya the lights are being turned off one by one.

It's the sore you keep picking,
the doors you keep kicking
and
the clock that keeps ticking,
just
picking up points in the
game we call life

Let me guess my way into the everness of a today or fade
come kiss me in the shade
come raid my heart,
take me to pieces and rebuild me part by part, because apart from you I number only one of two,an incomplete,
come kiss me quick and delete my memory
make of me an anonymity
or kiss me oh so passionately that I would be unbound
and set free.

When the last of the daylight kisses the feet of the moon and night becomes the dawn of the rising,surprised I awake on the lakeside of sorrow where tomorrow sheds tears for the time allows nothing to stand,
I obey laws of physics though consult with the mystics and the doyens of the beer hall only watch as I call to my maker, thief taker,partaker in ******,to **** dead the silence that roars in my ears.

At the bottom of this glass sits the truth that I search for,but as I reach the finale I find only the floor,it's like the dawn of the rising and no less surprising to me.

If I talk with the shadows that shiver in the doorway,they only say to me, 'spare some change for a cup of tea?'
questions that bother me bitterly, I so agree with the Government policy to ignore everything that doesn't look right to me,
and night even more looks surprisingly, like something I wore once on Wednesday.

They say that this madness creeps up on you and the way it attacks is like it's fukin you,as I've never looked back at my retinue I can't tell if the last statement is true or not,
but you've got what I consider to be the utter truth, as I fly downwards and climb to the slate grey roof where the owls there will greet me with beaks set to eat me,
I wake and sleeps beats me again.

A story as of yet untold
a tale that's waiting to unfold.

Inside the bubble where I was born and grew, that few if any know about
the skin that wrapped me from within
without a wrinkle now begins
to scrape against my bottom jaw.
The torque that kept me wrapped inside
unravels as I slide outside
The bubble bursts and opens wide.

A scream that rasps against those broken hasps but I'm alive.
I'm out not in the skin that kept me as I slept
in dreams that kept me washed and bathed me.
In minimum I hum a tune
born too soon, too late
It's just another state of mind or is it just the tuning fork?
The torque that doesn't talk
The baby walker that cannot walk alone.
The rosetta stone could tell another tale
a Holy grail?

one more sentence
one more line
one more minute of your time
and I will pay the ferryman his due.
Two for one and one life gone as one waits in the wings
The waiter waits and sings this song
but we're not here for very long so I guess it doesn't matter.

Pitter patter tiny feet
I raise my eyes
look up to meet
my Father looking down on me.
Maternity
Motherhood
it must be good look what they've got
A little snot nosed baby boy
the joy of it.

I sit again and listen to the band that plays on Bank Holidays
and Saturdays excluding the first Saturday in Lent.
And I get older
bent.
Intent on living for at least as long
as the waiter in the backroom sings the same old story from the same old song.
But getting longer in the tooth
the truth is
It's all the same to me
I've seen and done it all
Had a ball
some revelry,
Devilry.
Peculiar I maybe
A baby I am not
that snot nosed kid left years ago.

(20 minute poetry)

On the ride
underneath the underground
to or into a wonderland

'move down inside the cars'

cattle trucks without the bars
a wonder under ground indeed

I need a break

an arm will do
a leg or two
I
I
I neatly forgot the plot it almost had me in a spin
but jammed inside this travelling tomb there's hardly any room to swing a cat

HaHa

I remembered that was what my father used to say on a Saturday back in the day at the football match.

But this is no fun

No sun to see
no friendly faces
******* where there should be open spaces,

seats,
a sea
disharmony
blank looks
no books
only mobiles
trials and tribulation

dirt poor ventilation

Methinks this tube train stinks.

Shakespeare, had he not been dead would have said?

my kingdom for a horse, but of course he did say that,

I wonder if he ever swung a cat.

Gotta go
Loads to see
Tottenham court road
is calling me.

moving down inside the car.

Double jointed
disappointed
that you are
not too.
I bend over backwards (no really)
I do.
Today,
anyway or any day you pass along my way
drop in, take a gander and
see my body slander.
geometry

I wondered if we'd live it slow
I wonder every day I grow,
what's the deal with living fast?
life is finite
it will not last.

In that shop atop of harbour hill
they still show prices in old money
it seems that time just passed them by,
it's funny,
but it makes me cry.

Feeling that an even keel is the only
way to bring to heel the
fast and loose,
we fashion nooses from the castaways
and hope for longer days
or longer lives and shorter days or
maybe longer nights, better lives, shorter
wives, taller men and never satisfied
I write it all again,
in my head this time.

Youth unemployment
youth unenjoyment
a loan to destroy them
paid back by old men.
Old men are the best
eating kippers for breakfast and
burying themselves in the Readers Digest.
Their day is done, let the young ones
chase after the Sun,
but
the young ones are done ones as well
no chance in hell of securing the gift,
that lift that work gives you,
it's no wonder they're blue and
don't know what to do
except drink and blow dope.
Work shy? shy of hope? some manage to cope,
some do not.
The government's got some explaining to do after
their summer recess,
meanwhile,
in Malibu where the ocean's so blue
and the party is on,
all thoughts of the jobless and homeless are gone,

A goldfish by the name of Sam
swum and swum and then he swam
and then he ran out of the sea,
learnt to walk like you and me.
Then he got into bad ways and as we know bad ways don't pay.
The day Sam turned into a man,he no longer swum,no longer swam
he learnt to run and how he ran,
but now he wishes that he could swim or swum or swam and
ain't that just the way of man.

Up in the Yukon
they use gold ***** for ping pong.
Heavy duty.
I wish they'd
re-route me
to there.
Down here with Babylon
truncheons and
helmets on
I wish that I was gone
elsewhere.

The ways I do not comprehend and will probably not 'til the end of my days
but in truth
there is this,
A kiss
is a mountain of gold that unfolds like a rose
and those who are fated to live life without such
are the ones who would not know much
about love.

Nothing stands above the heavenly touch of lips upon mine
nor can wine or whiskey diminish
the lustre that lays upon each kisses finish
and should you not fall upon this way which is open to all
then you have my pity
as I watch as you fall
for what is it that is not
but a sweet kiss then forgot and only remembered
in the slumber of old men where the dreams are oft painted
with the taintings of youth.

Kissing each truth as presented tasting the fruit
when fermented
getting drunk and demented by
unrelenting desire
that the lips set on fire.
Fleeting.

And on meeting these musings
accusing myself of an understanding I lack
I go back for one more kiss
to decide if I did miss
the mountain
the fountain
the rose.

I got home at ten to three and she
has waited up for me
to see
if I was capable or not and I forgot what love was for
until she closed the bedroom door after dragging me inside
nowhere to hide now and did I want to hide anywhere anyhow?
wow
a night like seven summers rolled in one,the heat of it still lingered on long after she had left and gone.

The milkman knocked at ten to eight, a bit late for him but I let him in and made some tea,
inconsequential but you see,
I'm coming home at ten to three to see the summers come and go and throwing cautions all aside
I won't hide from her,will share her wild abandonment and this is what is meant by marriage vows and how's a man supposed to know what makes a woman tick just so?

I think I'll go and join a clan become a wilder sort of man or just stay meek and mild,
but I love her more when she is wild
and she knows me well enough to cuff my ear
say,
get over here and kiss me,
I miss her when she's gone but not for long because she comes home and I am like the dog that chews the bone
woof.

Horus without his eyes could see
the lies that told untruths to him
but
felt the seed grow deep within that
pinned hope to his heart
and sin?
the many or the few
knew what the riddle was,
the sphinx not being one of them.

I was one among the many men who
travelled chaotic in the now and then it
always came back to some beginning.

Legend has it that,  but legend always did
apart from that which Arthur hid
and who knows where?

I skip
I prance to lead myself
a merry dance
at times it seems
the thing to do.

Horus knew
and now
I do too
you only have to see.

What the hell is going on in their heads?

I wanna be a zombie
I wannabe a ghoul
I wanna paint my face white, don't wanna go to  school
it's a sing song tag along let's play deadmen and it's wrong.

There'll be enough time later on to waste away so please don't rush and try to beat the reaper to the push
I can't understand,
Zombies are abominations ,quite frankly they're not good at all
they walk abroad and..
..well I wouldn't really call it walking it's more like they're dragging lumps of wood instead of legs and deadpegs put into brown holes
and souls who can no longer see
except to see that they're not living just like me.

Why would you want to be like that?
A flatline in a deadmans hat it's 'not my bag'
call me old fashioned but I think I will lag behind
go through the grind of life
death's not for me
don't wannabe
a wannabe
Don't wanna be a zombie.

If this Winter lingers just a little longer and the nights are drawn in tight about my shoulders, will you hold me just a little closer, take the candle and with flames of passion,
fashion me a blanket and snuggle under to see the winter disappear, and if the Summer wakes us with a nudge and winks a light into my eye,
will you be shy,
shall we wander down the avenue, just me and you and several hundred pigeons looking for a place to eat, breakfast and the heat of toast upon our lips,
If this Winter seems too long, will this song we sing bring unto us the joys of Summer?
on the bus?
the city dwells and in all seasons, well it would,
wouldn't it?

Only twenty minutes earlier,
when the lights were out and I was dreaming
countrywide somewhere
deep in leaf-strewn south suburbia a
man appeared and seemed to me to be
another elfish, presently
and when gyrating as he sang, a
mobile West of Memphis rang, of
course I knew that these things
do occur, in dreams when I am
everywhere, but finding elfish in
my dream seemed to me to be
somewhat of a
mystery and then I
left the building.

iF
pOETRY is the gun with bullets flying off its tongue
to run like streaming traces
chasing through the open faces
then
i Am armed and dangerous,
a telescopic sight on the armalite and a red dot
hits the spot
every time.

In the confusions which pass through the glass of my eyes and where the smoke puts a choke hold on me
I wrestle with my identity and if it fits me or not.
An Illusion which goes by the name I am known but never shown to the people at large, there's a hope I'll inherit a spot of humility and become the man that I  knew I once was, but when the doors are all shut on me and that humility deserted me for the fresh fields which lay over the way, I pay no heed to the need that lays in me and confusion just leads me astray.

When I look at the stars far away and wonder what is it that makes me this way and the lights start to blink but I think that they're winking at me
I see the souls in the sky which fade out and then die, I see the fall of it all and in the seeing believe I know why.

A woman tall and slim
Walks within
This man who is a man.
He looks at her
Longs for her hair,
Her lips
Her hips.
Oh what it is to want and yearn
To be each other each in turn.
And to face inside
To slide
Into her dress
Put on her shoes
And in confusion lose
Oneself.

John Smallshaw  2011

There's a room in me where Rumi sits
and spits out apple pips,those
seeds that grow and
words that flow and
wonders never cease.
I find that in the room,
it is Rumi
gives me peace.

Peter Piper was a ******
working for the crown
he never picked a pickled pepper
just shot poor people down.

You never saw the inequality, or the folly of chasing a rainbow,
woe,
while you were eating bread and cheese and lusting after mammon
the fat cats in their white maybachs
were chewing on lean gammon,topped with creme la more
and the more you chased, the less time they wasted on you,
boo
how do you feel when you've been down at heel, and they're wearing shoes by choo,skin cared for by la roche,
did you ever feel that posh?

Well it's just a waste of feckin time,I'll only ever get what's mine by kicking down the built up shells wherein the rich man sits and dwells while counting out his ill got gains,
and me,poor me wrapped in the chains of misery and have not got,
I'd have all rich men shot,
but who would take their place
who'd be poor in my master race? not I
but then I'd die as well
I'd be locked inside the shell counting gelt
opening one more notch upon my belt,I'd be fat, a cat,another rich man, rat man, take what the man can
I can imagine it
drowning in **** and surrounded by money.

Ain't life funny when you've got it all,you've got sod all and in some big hall,you hold small *****
and that ain't a laughing matter.

Growing tulips for her lips
to kiss
in this I see a master plan
tulips become the man and the
man the bloom.

Cultivation
the seat of responsibility
the destination

I
have an assignation there
in the rare atmosphere of
education

tulips are my currency

learning for life
and life can be

sweet.

It's 3 pm she sees me when
she can

She calls it
her
Mistress plan

I have plans for later.

The mask of night surrounds me
with a cloak of anonymity
but I am nonconformity
and rip the mask right off.

designed for interaction
I type into an attraction
and the mask rips off
again.

you thought you heard me breathing
but
I was leaving you reminders as
the mask of night surrounds
me and we touch type
to the evening.

..and off they went
those who'd spend time, those who grabbed  hold off and held onto the lifeline, but
in the palm of a hand where mountains begin, grow and turn back into sand
a lifeline
means nothing.

If I sink so be it, I shall hear the soft calls of the siren instead of voices so full of **** as to make Bethlem seem normal.

I have wasted much time drinking dregs with  bald beggars, supping cider beside human waste and now I taste fresh air, for the first time I'm aware just how strong strong can be.

This bond that you're so fond of is but the link that links into the way that you think and you think that you know it all.  
You may hold all the cards in your hand but the next call or the next time is mine.

A lighthouse stands
solidified on
the shifting sands.
Alone,
at home with wind and waves and braves the storming of its battlements by sending messages of hope that scope across the hidden rocks
to light the way of merchantmen
and show the paths of safety to
the shipping lanes where they'll be
safe.

Opening my eyes,
I try to shake the cobwebs from my brain
the week has almost gone and Friday rears its head again.
So,
here I am waking,shaking like some madman and its all that I can do,there's no coffee in the jar and the shop seems far to far away,I've got some tea and that's okay but I forget to get milk yesterday.
and
the toasters up the spout,I should have got that sorted out but there's always a delay,thank god the week has almost gone and tomorrow's Saturday.
but,
these things are sent to try my patience which by now is wearing thin and the only thing that I have learnt is,
this too shall pass,I shall rise,paint on a smile go outside and walk the mile to the store,buy some coffee,milk and bore the shirt off Malik's back when I attack the price I see at Malik's supermarket,I know that nothing comes for free,but jeez I'm only buying things for me and not for all of humanity,
thank god it's Friday.

Boiling in oil and roasting my nuts
shuts out
the shout.
At times I need to relax in those
panic attacks
it makes me,
who I am.

I am the indigestion of man,
the hiccup that won't shut up.
The attitude that chews me spews out only to abuse me.
I call it the shout.

That's why I need to get out or need to get in
to stop or begin,finish or start,it's
all
in the heart of me
or in the oil that roasts the nuts,the if's and buts
but that's what
shuts it up.

Culture,
sits on my head like a vulture
pecking my brain,
I'm being driven insane,
horse and cart style and each peck is
a milestone.
The bones of my skull become null,
numb and void,destroying reality the
vulture of vanity
and I become the insanity
I see all around me.
If being crazy is madness
and madness is crazy,
then put me out of this misery,
won't someone erase me?

The underground experience
which has become
my marriage of convenience
in that
every single day I'm beat
can't get a seat
and
them young un's with their bursting lungs still
full of a tomorrow
look at me with laughter in their eyes
albeit also with a modicum of sorrow,
the little *****
I hope their Nike backpacks fall to bits
and Adidas can kiss my ***
there's ****** sometimes on my mind.

It's okay
I'm only wed an hour a day
although if London Transport had
their way
it'd be for a whole lot more.

It was ten hours in when I opened my eyes to watch Christmas begin,
Santa had been with presents galore
he had come down the chimney
and not in through the door.

And it was fun being there watching as Santa and sleigh flew here and away,
It was Christmas
I knew it would come.

Mary had a little lamb
she pushed it under a lorry
what she really wanted was a Barbie doll and
for the lamb she was not sorry.
Action man who had a tan because he'd been in Afghanistan was upset by this and would not give to his true love a kiss,
she blamed it on his battle fatigue much less than post traumatic stress but all the same she knew he knew her game.
She was a murderess in a cotton dress,he was a soldier of the crown and his only thought as he walked away was,
someone should put her down.

Mr Singh who does not sing or carry a tune too well is six foot six and has a beard,a little weird but I won't tell ,sells the most amazing things,
like the 'arrows and slings of discontent' and pent up frustrations by the score all sold in boxes from his 'Singh can't sing cash and carry superstore'
A lovelier man I've never met
with a set of false teeth that makes me smile,coloured blue (he says it reminds him of the Nile).

He made a pile of cash from some South sea bubble crash but is generous almost to a fault.
Worth his salt? I'll say he is
His name is known both far and wide
and that woman standing by his side,looking rather gracious with her eyes so green,has been known and seen as, Mr Singh's majestic Queen.

They're a lovely pair and very fair,
please let me introduce you.
Mr Brown meet Mr Singh and Mr Singh,Mr Brown has a carpet shop here in the town,his brother is a Draughtsman,
Craftsmen of a different breed all have a hunger and need to feed so Mr's Singh bakes little cakes which she sells on Sundays at Church fetes and car boot sales.

One day I'll be like the Singh's
I can't sing
can't carry a tune just need to stop gazing at the moon
and wishing my life away.

We are the waxworks that melt in the sun
the colours that run through the day
we are what's left when the days work is done,
the last colour of crayons that melt in the sun.

In the explosion of thought and ideas
the second sight of the seers goes blind,
the lion seeks comfort in the woolly coat of the sheep
and in the fallout shelters where the cast offs weep
the followers sleep.

I weep not for the waxworks nor for the sun
but for the colours,
for the colours will run and they'll run
anyway when the day's work is done,
we are the waxworks that melt in the sun.

In drips and drops until it all stops, when
the heat fades in the memories that shade you
from the harsher realities of this life's
inequalities and you'll think that you've won
until you take off the goggles and see
we are the waxworks that melt in the sun.

The minister of double Dutch and fettered speech
unlocks the educational establishments to teach
what's in the manifesto.
No deviations are allowed,
the minds of youth will be
tamed, framed,
chained and cowed.

We must maintain the status quo,
Free speech!
before you know
they'll want this government to go.

The minister of La di da, piped in
with a blah de blah,blah,blah,
the opposition,
thought this a speech too far and
convened a meeting in the commons bar,
where,
the minister of too much sound
bought the shadow cabinet
a round of beer.
It appears that free speech is much freer
when everybody's friends.

It was the hat I liked that Michael wore,
Micheal swore that it was him,
dim or what?
What I have got is definitely not for mike,
I like him but certainly not that way and 'she' the one I love would have something to say to me, if she thought that we were having a fling, she's got a thing about that,
it's only the hat I like
Not Mike.
jeez.
21st century please.

I drift
slowly
comfortably
the silence surrounds me.
The ocean around me,thus trapped I am wrapped in the Mother's embrace,a softness that fills me with salt and with the sea,and I am free from the trappings,unwrapped from the scratchings,released from the longings and drifting,
slowly
to and through the endlessness of tide times,silence in the way I agree with the ocean,the sea.
She lifts me to be
the drifter.

What's that you say?

wedding day,
who's getting wed?

She said,
Wednesday
but I'm so used to not listening

must do better.

He who walks with the dusk
in the elephant ivory tusks of his days
where the paths that he treads are like the old books that he read as a child,when the blood in his veins ran wild without the knowing of why.
Above him the sky as old as the earth which below him gives birth to his death.

She flickers in and out of me
like the movements
in a midnight sea.

One more time to check on one more key
and a dollar for the man who runs
a check on me.

A penny for the boy, who thinks he'll save a
hundred, joy, buy some drinks, more fool him,
more schooling?

I'm in my bed not armageddon, although quite sure
that follows on behind the blind and docile of which I'm one.

Open to suggestions, any questions but
no answers here I fear.

Jehovah, supernova star is never
very far from me but
if it's heaven that I see
I'll be ******.

Friedman's not a happy bunny,
'The next hundred years'
is not very funny nor is
it relevant to me, but it's
an interesting read if only
to feed the lines of this...
next..
...the States so he says,
will lead us in ways
we have yet to imagine
until Mexico rises taking back
what belongs to them, robots
and genes and Poland and teams
spreading out to look for new labour.

It is not a bright not a brave new tomorrow
not a light not left on and not a mother that
cries not in sorrow not in grief and not
for a belief that was stolen at childbirth,
for what it's worth,
not nothing for no one for the States
lost the union and the will to survive
dies.

We carry in our backs
the arrows from attacks by the big boys
with the crossbows
and that's how it goes.

I keep reading
feeding
on
words.

When at last she wakes, I'll make breakfast
and then
as we sit beside the window munching slowly crunchy toast with marmalade or cherry jam and drinking English morning tea,
she'll look at me and say,
'no eggs today,no eggs today,the chickens decided not to lay'
because she thinks she's on the farm where she grew up
but now grown old
her hold upon reality has slipped a gear or two
there's nothing anyone can do, it's just one of those things but I bring her breakfast everyday whether or not the chickens lay,
I love her everyway even if she wakes and thinks it's yesterday and what she thinks means everything to me.

She kisses me with lips of apple cider as
she lets me lay beside her,
her cheeks are blossoms of the summer months where we have wandered through the orchards, laughing at the fallen fruit and she has built my memories in barns of hay and drifting streams,she lets me lay again
and all the pain there ever was ,is in the moments when we part,like lines that cross upon our palms,we wander once again in barns and she kisses me with apple cider lips,that
slowly **** me and this life slips softly turning into dreams.

And now at 12.45 more dead than alive,
I offer you this.

If I could make in origami, a ten foot stick
of fresh salami
I would be happy,
although I may be considered
slightly barmy,because
I don't even like fresh origami salami.