My finger plucks
a tune from a
blue Monday
morning.

In this night of swords and word
I've heard stories told by trolls and listened to them rigidly,sat on a log while fires burnt,and around me later,
learnt that all stories are not the same,do not come from the falling stars nor from the acrid fumes that spill from gaslit rooms or garrets where the poets and tellers of tales would groom their pens and sharpen wits
but rather from the little bits of life that we pass by
forgotten
and yet blink the eye and they appear again
quite clear
and here the ink runs dark like blood across the written page,stark and bold
more stories, listened to be read
and held tight in the whispering of the lightest breeze
as if I should sneeze, it would blow the words away
I stay forever
in the stories never heard
the unwrit of the spoken and not a word will pass me on the blind .side or pass wide of its intended mark.
More stories in the dark
more logs upon the fires we light
and more of more of things to
read,
just write.

Arthur or Uther,
the truth
somewhere out there,
let sleeping gods lie while
we wait here to die
and
the maddest dogs
howl at the moon.

Have you pried inside me and
found secrets that have tied me
to the Cartels?

All's fair in love and wishing wells
but
don't push your luck,

**** me
even Xerxes has broken the pact
he's in on the act
that's the dealbreaker

I take a
minute to digest this
kiss the cat goodnight
and head back
to Camelot.

(20 minute poetry)

A window scratched
the door unlatched,
Inlaid
with a thousand fears.

These reminders deliver me
with the thoughts that one
day I'll be
Scratched out and unlatched
like that
too.

But today drugs me
and the
sun comes
begging to hug me,
kissing
things better.

I met her on Tuesday
one long dream ago, but
I told you of that once
before
when she came through
the skylight to drown into
my eyesight
and Tuesday was not the
same
any more.

I could go on,
could go on
repeating
could go on
and why is it
I ask
why I should?

she gives me the answer
every time.

I dance to her music
but
the melody's mine,
time after time after
Tuesday was fine and I
knew she'd be coming
again.

It seems I want to write at night
To spread my words like Brie on toast until..
..the daylight wakes to me
With that strangeness of reality.
And once again I never slept
I could not keep or never kept
My eyes tight closed.
Now I tire and doze all day..
..again to write the night away.
What devils that do have their say
To twist and turn my life this way.

I implore and beg the pen
Please release your hold and then.
I can sleep.
But its silence tells me more
Than words upon a toilet door.
War then?
When pen?

Trains arriving day and night,no rest for me but I sleep light along the sidings,hiding dreams among the cracks between the rusted railside tracks.
Tracking back to sit inside,a cup of coffee split open wide will hide the stains that hide beneath the figure of the man.
The 10.27 can and will spill more than me upon this sea we call our land,I raise my cup to British rail it never fails to give a clue when trains arrive on platform twenty two.
I am blue with cold,my eyes feel older than my face,no lace in my right shoe,I do the right thing,slink and sink into the subway,underground the sound of night and day where only rats and madmen lay,out of sight and out of mind to leave the streets above unmarked,unlined as if these were the better times that we were fed upon,
but we're not gone or gone or gone away and you can say it,say it,say we don't exist,it doesn't make it true or so,so go and take your first class,second,third or any other class you may have listened to and never heard and remember this,
Trains arrive here day and night,some will make the grade others might struggle and yet others will juggle with life and longing and I'm not wrong in thinking that some of them will end up slinking,sinking under the sound,under the underground,hoping there's no one around to see them fail.
Only I and British rail will ever see,who will swim and who will be a footnote on the footplate in our history,a city write,another night and one more train arrives.

I should have braved the inferno,
should have gone there where
they go
but I stayed
in the safe of today minus one,
I should have gone,
but I stayed,
the future
displayed all its wares
but I stayed,
I should have braved the inferno,
they didn't know that fire could burn and
I, in turn, knew all too well,
the inferno, the hell, the wish in the.. and
..sell your soul to me,
set this entity free on the way
to the stars,
but I stay,
I should have braved the inferno.

Eventually
or even before then
there will be a
reckoning.

When
will be for the Gods to decide.

I continue to ride in the slipstream of dreams
picking off cherries and that's not innuendo
or euphemism,
this is not rocket science or hypnotism
it's just a way to prepare for the forthcoming day.

From the firelight and shadows that play on the edges of darkness
someone prays for forgiveness
but there's nothing to fear
no demons live here
only me.

One day to die
one to ask why
one to make sense
one to get by
one to make friends
one to tie up loose ends
and on the seventh day we
rest.

I look through the keyhole to peep at eternity
and wonder
what the **** are these people feeding me?

The Antibiotic does not cure the neurotic and
the cow doesn't know she's been born.

I have worn on my face each and every place that I've ever been,
I have seen things I would never believe,
but the snot on the sleeves of eternity leaves me quite cold,
now I'm old I don't care what they feed me,
they can cook up a storm from the cow yet unborn,
it's genetics and antibiotics won't cure that either.

We're five from the bomb
I guess this is adios
so long.

and yet,
all you seem to care is
should you wear your hair loose.

When your head's in the noose
I think you will find
that whatever you've done with your hair
I won't mind.

We're five from the final.
Played live on blue-ray
'cause DVD's are old hat
and vinyl's
passe.

I suppose the bomb is the krap in the fan
that hits us full on
but we still have a chance
we can quit
we're ahead.
Never fancied being deadweight
or 'what a state'
don't want to wait
for the final kaboom.
I just need some more living room
don't plan on dying soon.
Just one more shot at the moon
while you do your hair.

(20 minute poetry)


You were never really a touchy freely kindhearted diet lite sort of person were you?

A man who digested fat like it was fashion and that was the limit, the outer ridge was the fridge which you raided at midnight, getting tight on you, down out of sight and you
believed it was alright, but being alone is a minus it's time the two of us got together.

We have so much to learn,
if I burn with desire I want it to be you stoking the fire with a smile on your face.

A place and a time?
how about
over at mine at around about
Six.

Hey,
It's midnight over on the other side,
the beggar slides down the underground like a bloodhound in search of its prey
whoever said begging doesn't pay is in denial.

I keep my head down, eyes on the screen, but the beggar man has seen this type of behaviour before.
At the last stop which is my stop and the beggar stops his accusing,
I'm using true lies to avoid looking at his eyes,
But he knows
Beggars
Always
Do.

The moon peeps out and she's just about home,
the day was so long without her,
on the phone, she'd said, 'soon',
but that was ages ago.

I watch the clock watching me
watch the clock and
she'll be
home soon.

She might blow away
she's so light and
it's windy,
it was windy earlier today
I didn't worry then
wasn't waiting then
when she was
indoors,
chores,
you know.

Watching the watch
clocking the clock watching the clock clocking me,
she'll be home soon
the moon winks
the key in the lock turns and
I blink
my eyes.

I should have driven away
but tomorrows are just the same as today
so I stay.
I could only become what I am,
what I see is what I'll be and what you want me to be is not what I am
but a man for all that
where the fat from the grist is dismissed as a fad.
I am glad I have grown and have changed on the trip, for to slip into old ways,go back to the bad days and chase dragons through walked ways where demons lay eggs
only begs me the question,
which to answer quite clearly is that
we're all nearly scrambled,
as we ramble on tracks made by ill informed facts and if you're in the know ,why then is it you go to the back of the pack
are you smoking some 'crack' is it a pipe that you lack?
let me look in the dustbin, we've been there before,let me pick up the droplets of rocks off the floor.
I talk this to myself as I go slowly insane,it's something to do with drugs effects on the brain and it pains me to say
that tomorrows will be just the same as today
I just can't get away nor can I escape from the greed of the grasping of the cold hands of fate.

So I wait for a break in the train of these thoughts that bedevil me,
wait 'til I see the whites of my eyes in the blue of my face as I engage once again in some riotous revelry,and in case that I think that I'm thinking to much and the thoughts that would touch me would rush to a clifftop
I stop.
Full stop.
Turn to look around at these things that confound me
astounded I am,
am I?
I am
I must be that man that would make me a liar as higher I go
up my nose goes the snow
and the warmth reappears.

Girl in a shop.

After the brandy and Mandy and Rita and Faye Dunaway,
what did that girl in the corner shop say?
'you'll be sorry
you'll be sad
you'll wake up tomorrow and you'll be feeling real bad'
she was of course right
I should have put last night on the back burner
and turned over a new page.
She is my sage,
her name is on the door above the shop
she's licensed to sell tobacco and the alcohop pop
that I so like.

Mike, her old man looks at me dead pan
he knows what I come for
and it's nothing that's written above the front door
Cor..
but she's sweet
I'd like to treat her
meet her socially
but that's not going to ever be
when she's wed
I'm fed up.

Cracks the water child
to run through heather, bracken wild and down the track ways to the chiming of the sea.
The tears of summer day , a lost one somewhere down the way of all the Autumns I have seen,
water wears it all way as if it never was a day, but I remember it that way ,as if the smack of water and its lips would leap before my eyes and spray me till I, the droplet on my sunken treasure of a cheek would sneak a smile,
from this point of unsung singing brook it took a while to shuffle down the catapult of greens and browns that swam like trout, but in the getting out of midstream, where I dreamt this was a great dream,
I meet,
The splitting of the rush strewn banks where swans are graceful. I again give thanks for what was such a summer day,
now gone.
Autumn will not last so long that winter will not knock and I,
the rock
which water has worn down,
erode and melt away.

He carves a little piece from me
a tiny bit of fleece and he
seems satisfied.
The tallyman comes knocking with
a rent bill that's just shocking
and he carves another tiny piece,
soon there'll be no fleece to carve
no food, no money and
I will starve.

The sticklebacks make fast tracks darting
here,everywhere but there's big fish
in this lake, who take
no prisoners.
Jack pike and perch like you
would not believe,bream and dace but
what seems out of place is the shark.
I know a shark in a lake in a park is quite rare
but it's there all the same.
A game fish indeed just itching to feed
on the small fry.

(20 minute poetry)

When it's done and you're on a run to the cryogenic laboratory
I hope you think of me as I think of all humanity.

Once wasted twice
dry, ice us
and we'll live fiercer than forever could ever be.

I'll return only when the house of clowns burns down and I'll dance in the smoke, but it's mirrors I see in the eyes, are we ever really
free?

If death untied is true
where and when and what would be the point to hide in the nib of a pen? only flowing when the lights are low and the type in the margins is green inked to go?

I know no more than the kiss that brings me alive.

I can see the Eastern night even when the light is low and I didn't know how sweet it looked and all they want is to
refrigerate you.

I think if this is the farewell kiss I'll miss it all.

We didn't see that one coming,
a curved ball out of nowhere

'there but for the grace...'

but
let's face it
we knew they were titanic tossers
dealing
off the bottom of the deck
*****
low down
double crossers,

doling out
reeling more in
they're getting fat

we're at the thin end
of the wedge
all
hedging bets

let's face it
we run out of words to describe
the lie they use
to justify

just why they abuse.

The greed of them is becoming legendary,
human decency goes by the board while
the board in the boardroom are *******
with my life as if
it is I
that's
the bride and
the longest suffering wife.

well
they can do what they like,
but I don't have to like what they do
and if they're ******' with me they're
sure as hell
******' with you.

We don't have time to live,to die or even give living a try,so what's it all about and why or what are we here for anyway?
In the year dot when God had a soft spot for Adam and Eve who didn't believe in anything at all and before Eve's fall from grace,there was a place to be in harmony and not some grotty dump like today where we pump our misery,carried away by tanker truck and no one seems to give a,
hard luck story's ten a penny.

Where are you Maud?
we came into the garden at three and now it's time for afternoon tea,has it come to pass that you'll be found in the long grass with some son of a gun?
'come into the parlour' said the fly,I don't know why because fly's don't talk and neither do I.

I walk through dormitories thinking long bed rows of stories and sleep in paper boats which float me on high seas,high teas,no Maud.

Which all amounts to diddly squat,slightly more than what I've got and what I've seen,
but I have been to London and I have seen the Queen who stole the tarts,while Jack was busy stealing young girls hearts,
and all my life is one cartoon,one dimension,oh but soon, there are inventive men who'll wrap me round a reel again and off I'll go.
A push and pull me,random figure on a top,spinning circles into carpets 'til I stop and pop goes one more weasel,
written on the board in chalk which in turn is stood upon the,Lord have mercy,save me from this nourishment,
Maud lent me her key,where is Maud? it's time for tea.
The men in coats come down for me,they're as nice as nice as nice men can be and work in the infirmary attached to the asylum.
I'll be back.

The mission bell was rung and the villagers were running,someone said,there's tall ships coming from the Islands 'cross the seas.
The padre bade us all to pray in the hope that God would save the day and they would pass us by,but the sky sat silent overhead as men and women were shot dead by pirates seeking to get hold of jewels and silver,food and gold.
They shot the padre as he knelt,he felt it as the touch of God and went to heaven with a smile upon his face and in this place of slaughter,sons and daughters,manacled to feed the trade in human flesh,fresh and young,green shoots taken from the sun to spend their days as slaves of men.

These pirate men with guns,
with ships that run before the storming ocean waves,have no saving grace and no place in maritime or ancient lore,spore of demons are these ****** who sail the human cargo, traders,raiders laying off the shore line,picking off the bloodline,destroying what is yours and mine,it's time we blew the lot to kingdom come,see how they run then.

The day will come when bigger ships with bigger men and bigger guns will run faster than the pirate brigantines.

A delight,
when the topping of night hits the **** of the day,and later
I lay,
where the curl of the blue as each morning anew,
like the twist of a snake brings me wide awake in the barn full of soft in a loft full of hay,and
today the old owl which was earlier a pest
sits now in a brood,in a nest and is silent, 'cept for the odd bit of whit, to tired now to sit watching shrews in the grass or the mice that would pass under his wizened,clawed feet,
like me he feels beat but he'll rest and the wise always win for it's them that know best.
A delight,
the first bite, when the cream pie of the day is there for the taking,slowly snaking away across the hours that we play
but we play anyway 'til the day snakes away into the distance of night.
A delight.

She comes to sit with me at dawn
her hand is warm, but
time is cold
just born it seems and now I'm older
time gets colder
she comes to sit with me at dawn.

Random impressions,
suggestions of faces
places I've been to,
haze me, amaze me,
it's like getting lost once again in
the mazes I've been through.

New images fly and in the
blink of an..forgetting things like
where was I?
what was I thinking?.

Random and fleeting and
soon I'll be meeting old friends
it always depends though on
which way through the maze
that I go.

Perfumes that float in
that heavenly..forgetting again
as more impressions assail me,
the memory fails me but
they never do.

Lady won't you stay here tonight
and let me hold you
Baby won't you tell me alright
and let me hold you,
I can think of nothing so good, as you smiling at me and then saying that,'you'd think about it'
baby won't you stay here tonight,you might like me,
Oh lady won't you stay here with me and hold me tightly,
tonight could be the starting of the you and me.
tonight might see
two hearts enjoying one another,
oh please, baby won't you say that you'll stay
lady won't you say that you will,
until the morning reminds us of the night time that we left behind us.

Say you do and I will say it too to you
oh say you will, and stay with me until the daylight sets us free, and let me see the sunrise on the hillside casting shadows over you and me.
Oh baby won't you stay here tonight.

Sing me a song of a sailor gone wrong and I'll show you a song of the sea, where pirates walk planks with no thanks to the skipper, a crew full of cutthroats, Jack tars, jack the ripper and grog for the boys who sail wild on the main to nail them rich galleons, poor Philip of Spain.

Sing a song to me, sing me terror on the high sea and we'll all fall at Newgate, we'll swing for these crimes but these are the times of our lives.
Sing me a song of a sailor gone wrong and I'll sing you a song about me.

The Cape of storms, bay of Bengal,
the southern trades,
I've sailed them all.
I
drank in dockside taverns,
met ladies by the score, been
picked up from the gutters and
then I've sailed some more.

Can you tell me what it's like to get old
Can you show me that page in the big book of age
Can you tell me what it's like to get old.

In your ten thousand nights can you show me the sights that you've seen
Did you love all the girls of the day?
If you did I'd be tempted to say
'these things are only told by the folks who have gotold and I'm hoping that one day, I may
age too'.

Will you tell me the secrets you know?
Whisper them sweet and real low.
If you can tell me what it's like to ride a penny farthing bike
I'll leave you alone and then off I will go.

But will you tell me what it's like to get old
When your dreams have all been borrowed or been sold
For a cold and lonely flat with
a pension and a hat, a one ring stove and a lazy cat
Did you look forward to having all of that?
Can you tell me what it's like to get old.

Mortality's a dying art
once we start
there is an end.

Most tend not to think of death
even when
every breath they take
takes them closer to the
close.

Who knows
things may change
or maybe not

I've got a soft spot for
the doubters
the hand wavers
the shouters,
but
living's still a dying game,

anyone want to play?

A pulse is
something you can put your finger on,
but an impulse is something you go on,
an idea that takes you from here,

I was there once on the off chance
that here was a chance
but in the end there was
no chance,

I take no risks,
my finger's always
on the trigger,
safety off.

We have to be and play safe
this is no place for kitty cats
or scaredy cats
that's as plain as day.

Some breathe fear and
some breathe fire
I do neither,
ice folds itself in and
my skin is **** frost

nor am I lost or found
and
the only sound
is you telling me
another
crossword clue

the answer is in five letters

counting down from now
finger
trigger
some things are bigger
than
the moment.

Lancaster Castle, partly built in the 13th century and enlarged by Elizabeth I, stands on the site of a Roman garrison. Lancaster Castle is well known as the site of the Pendle witch trials in 1612. It was said that the court based in the castle (the Lancaster Assizes) sentenced more people to be hanged than any other in the country outside of London, earning Lancaster the nickname, "the Hanging Town".[18]....(nicked from Wikipedia)


I am skint
bin t' bank
'and not a Franc or Sou for you',
they said,
but
I'm not fussed,
been bust before
just have to work and
earn some more.

Thee can't be hung more than once tha' knows.

It's that self fulfilling prophecy that
hunts me down and stifles me,
if I could only stop projecting,start
collecting stamps of fortune,
take rooms with a different view,
who knows then what I could do.

On the rotting planks of
thanks but no thanks please,appeasing all
I fall and fail to see another self
fulfilling prophecy.

Peering through, another
what else could I be or do,
I wonder who
I really am.

In the space between my lips
and your face
unwritten words wait
to be spoken in
tokens of
love.

An Amazon,she
towers over me.
I want to be
an Amazon
too.

I sit counting each drop
each spot of rain
that drips off my umbrella
I'm rambling again.

Passers by
pass me by
I sit counting drops
why?
wonder why
I don't
why?
I don't,
then I don't wonder at all.

A spider is spinning a carousel web
and I watch and I watch
and
Robert the Bruce pops up in my head,
'try, try again'
(bet he wasn't out in the rain)

The Sun, an old friend,
who I knew many summers ago
puts on a flaccid feeble type show,
no applause from me this time,
the spider and I are getting on fine
both in our own space
both living at our pace
spinning, but never
winning the prize.

February fell in again and so
I begin again, but
it's always yesterday someday.

Yesterday where I burn and today
they say I will learn,
perversely
yesterday's where I turn to for
some heat
and February beats me again.

I lose it somewhere along each line and
some time sometimes loses me
age has no friends.

See,
I like the feel of good jazz on my skin where
the trumpet blows in
and a good mood can begin, but
yesterday follows,
like a hollow faced stalker and
some time when February comes calling
it seems like it hits me and I'm
always falling.

The way that thing are
I won't fall very far
bent as I am
by the years.

I should be up there reaching for the sky
Douglas Bader knows why
instead, I'm kneeling feeling foolish
praying,
saying things like
forgive me.

God give me strength and at length
I think somebody does.

Then what shall we call them
if we are to become men?

shall we say,
'another day is as good'

It's a mystery tour around the graves,
the dead, only
Jesus saves,
the living can rot

they paint pictures
I've got some
Old Masters
and then some,
a mistress in waiting?

It is time and a bit
to ponder on it

reflections in mirrors are
scissors that cut me,

but it's not me anymore
that I see

is the door locked?
is the dog in?
these
questions begin when reality sends
me a love bite

sit tight and hold on
to the one if it's your
one
and let the world spin.

My battle,though not in Normandy is the landing beach inside of me,but
the war zone.
becomes a DMZ, as I and I cease hostility and come to an understanding.

You see,
I finally reached the beach when the tide had swallowed all those within reach and the Moon was on the wane, and understood that the battles like life were just a game,and as the good go on, the bad will wither away.

'The night of the long knives'

The cutting of life from the bough,we are leaves that will fall,hallmarked gold,assigned to be loved and to hold onto this,
we kiss like it's our first and our last,our future and the past slowly devours the remnants of...can anything last,would each day that has passed since we met fade away,who can say?

We are Olympia.


We are the races we run,the discus that's flung into the air,the javelin thrown and we become all we've been told and have known.The medals we wear, bright on our vest are a chest full of treasure,the pleasure we take,the records we make will belong to the future that goes on and on and we will rest on the laps of the gods.

Epiphany.

It was never to late to be replanted on the shady side,to be reinstated,able to grow well beside those who had grown well before and to sit out of the sun seems to give me more of a perspective on the times I have run through.In the gardens of grace where each face meets a face of the faces he wore,
if there ever was a war
I see that the shore is now silent.

In the DeLorean
down on
the autobahn
out in the fast lane
with a girl named Berlin.

She's riding shotgun
on the eastward bound
carriageway

And then fancy makes us
and we take a hiatus.

But we always remember the ending
not
the battles we lost on the way.

Tea stains on the table and
a wafer on the floor,
the balcony door is open,
what do I live here for?

No one cleans except for me,
to put it succinctly,
and.
In the sink a lonely cup
looks up accusingly.

Three units
Three places
Three empty spaces.
Me,myself and the other one who likes to carry on
But he's getting old and will have to be told
To cease these shenanigans.

So I speak to the other one when the other two
have got up and gone
And he agrees
Seemed quite pleased
Said,'the cold made his bones ache and the old
shouldn't really take
Such liberties
Make people feel ill at ease
and that his knees were going
So it was time to be slowing
down'

I told the other two,
his brothers in arms who'd decided to
leave me to explain.
Sometimes it's a pain having a brain like mine
Sorting out problems and sometimes three at a time
but it's cool.

They too were pleased
and peace came to reign.
It's not the same though
Not sure if I know
just how things became different but now
we watch daffodils grow
watch the river and its flow
count raindrops.

when life stops this is what remains.
Chilblains and gout,medicines and milk stout
And it's all inside out.

There is no Peter Pan
To transform this elderly man and turn him into a boy
That is the realism
That is the joy
Of getting old.

I have eaten red stars for breakfast,feasted on moons and drank comets in cups,
black holes were my doughnuts,quasars my quavers and I never wavered from the thought that
inside me,in front and behind me the universe was there just to blind me from some truths left untold,
I shall eat many more moons before I get old,see stars explode,load lunar eclipses,gallop along the galaxies,expand on my theories and stand on the rooftop of it all,
if I fall it's a long way to go,if I fail it's because the universe won't let me know,won't tell me the truth and that being the case
I will wait on the roof 'til
the end.

I put a face on to make a place on the night shift for me, but the darkness sees through me into the shadows that await me when the morning breaks into my door.

**** it
I'm sore, been beaten and shanghaied,
cried out to my God and
he did not want to know.

Below me
Beelzebub
in a hot tub
I'm dripping while God's
ripping the contract
apart.

All heart or he could be
if we all believed in the
final solution,
E=Mc
and it's
finally
Squared.

Yes,
the sea too is here
in the sand on the shore
on the rising of the tides
in the very air,
I believe
as I
breathe
that the sea is here.

I reach up
to the bell and it sells me its melancholy still tinged with the smell of spice from some distant shire
and the whispers of smoke that signalled a welcoming fire, the owl hoots as if in sympathy for the sightless.

If I am blind then I have touched upon ancient mystery in this foreign land which feels like home to me.

In the heat, in the haze and wandering through the winding maze
I see a shadow or maybe a figure, never sure which one is bigger, but nevertheless,
I see.

It is of course, a trick played by the sea upon the albatross, a mirror into which It takes its reflection as mine.

I came upon, sometime in the early morning, an elderly giant who told me, that each movement of each grain of sand on the shore is one more than the movement of one grain before and it appeared to me to be true.

The steps march ever upwards,
making furrows in the whitestone, a million tired limbs coloured by the days length and the clock move slowly.

Mozambique cuisine, no finer table have we ever seen and
sounds from a radio behind the green doors of number 32, the street name like the radio station unknown, but the music plays melancholy and I am back to the toll of the bell and the smell of spice.

Hypertension
not to mention
higher cholesterol

Stress?

I would think the older one got
the less one got it

sadly not so.

I go amongst the meek and mild
a happy child but wild inside where
mustangs range and ride
under my skin,

breathe, hold, release
repeat
until the voices cease.

yeah,
that'll work well won't it?
when you're ******* in dioxins,
toxins,
we're just rocks in
the pond and sinking, I'm
fond of saying it and
don't you know it,

London in its abandon has
abandoned me,
shoddy practise from the Metropolis
where they're adept at
*******,

did I mention hypertension?
a thousand phobias and 'isms,
spasms and a constant tic
it
makes me sick

Doctor's on the missing list
have missed me off the patient list
and
now I really am *******, but
it's Sunday and a day of rest
I'll try my best to smile and say
have a happy day today.

Misery was just one emotion he displayed and he did that very well,garnished with gold braid,black ties around his sad black eyes and his mouth a subtle shade of puce,
'what use'I asked,'to be like that'
he answered, flat and monotone with one almighty groan he said,
'I'm being fed on bread and jam and I am not a happy man'
but then he changed,arranged his face into a smile,
'I do misery only for a while,otherwise these sad black eyes look even worse'
Averse to any change I asked him if he could rearrange the feature on his face in some other place,he just said,
'No'

The last act of the balancer,
to dance across the rooftops bare
holding hands with Maigret,
dare we look?

Skyscrapers may scrape away, but I see
sunlight every day
hear every word they say,
as cold as concrete on pillows lay.

The last act does not detract from
the thousand and one acts
which came before
au contraire,
I even saw Simenon there,
dancing
with Maigret.

The music plays on but the band has all gone and I'm sat here in the back row writing the new manifesto.

They're laughing at us while shafting us and drafting us into some warm sense of well being,
and all we are seeing are the rosy red cheeks of those Whitehall antiques who are selling us all for a song.
So,
say so long and goodbye while they cry all the way to their pay day in Haiti,not Southsea 'cause that's for the likes of you and of me,where poverty's not viewed as some incurable disease and while those ******* eat peas with their forks we're eating bread with no butter,cash talks and it tells me,'have me to be free'.
Well.
whip me quite soundly there's riches around me and it looks like they found me,washed up and spent,
but I'm intent on my due and so I stand in the queue,
I guess this is someone's largesse but I don't really care and I don't want to share but I will and until I'm the one with gold by the ton and a castle made from diamonds and cream,
I shall dream,eating peas with a fork and with a plum in my mouth I can talk la di dah,giving it big with a blah ****** blah in a big yankee car which will guzzle the gas and again I won't care
because, I'll have the ***** like they have in big halls where they dance with the debs and say ******* to the plebs and give them no cake and shall laugh like a madman until my sides ache,
then I'll shaft and redraft the new manifesto release all my guilts and away I will go with the men from the ministry who will in the end,come
to love and to mimic me and with no demands for no tax I shall sit and relax in the warm glow of the feeling that all I am feeling is the feeling I'd get from getting better and reeling from this realisation while the whole ****** nation is down on its knees
I'll thank God for the fork and the peas.

When I woke,broke my fast,showered,dressed and then at last I leave the home minus keys and mobile phone I'm not surprised at all.
Early birds must wait their turn and I am third in line to catch the worm,the bus is full,I pull another cigarette,get the free tabloided press,with ironed words upon my eyes and once again I'm not surprised.
Stabbings,killings,patented pile creams for twenty shillings interspersed among the news,I amuse myself by seeing words that don't exist or if they do they're in the pages that I missed and failed to read.
At seven fifteen,bus stop C, alighting I call in to Joe's cafe for a tea,he's a refugee and doing very well,he tells me that he's getting wed,I tell him that I'm getting fed up with the daily grind and remind him to cut down on the gin,his eyes like **** holes in the sand and hands shake slightly as he hands the tea to me and then it's off to 143 ,ditch the tea,don the suit,look interested as if I give a hoot,which I do not.
I forgot,forget,give all and yet give in,I only win at five o shock when looking at the office clock,I lock the door,take off the suit I wore and turn into the early worm once more.
If Life's a bore then I'm the drill
fill me full of life.