In the mortuary

where death is quite acceptable

but not compulsory

I

resist the urge to abrogate responsibility

and learn my lines.




There are times to breathe and not believe and times that both are true

as a rule

I choose one of the two,




the hand of fate would make a date but trust is not his name,

ask him where's his other hand or are

they both one and the same?




..and if I lay down on a slab

they'll say,




dead?, but he looks fab




I have to say that I agree

when I am in

the mortuary.

Racing down the corridor past doors with
numbers I don't see,
past people who would rather be
anywhere else than
in the hall with me.

These sweating faces, dripping hands, fingers
filed with golden bands in jewellers drawers,
down and in more corridors where faded pictures
***** their looks, past the racks of dusty books which
no one reads,
more beads of sweat
I'll get there yet or in the evermore
and another corridor.

Who makes these things?
who brings the corridors to entertain
me and the ******?
The pictures look at me with eyes, I
once mistook as being full of piety but
devilry is braided in their frames.
What names they call as I race headlong
down the hall.

At the end where all points lend themselves
to what we would prefer
I will no longer race through there, instead
I shall take some air
in the garden
with Maud.

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.

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.

This link did not work..probably due to my inexperience in moving files..But this is a poem written for my Mother's eightieth Birthday and is well worth a look....Search under Gelderberry on Vimeo and click on Pic...And hello poetry if this is against your rules then I feel sure you will delete this post..and no hard feelings.j.

The next station is where you want to go
I'm happy to know it

as far as I'm concerned the underground's a hit
but to be honest
I don't give a ****

some lady on the tannoy is saying,
' thank you for travelling on the Central line'
Well
darling
I don't have a choice

the Central line

****** if it's fine by me
packed in like livestock
we're just
cattle for the abattoir

are you getting me?
as far
as it goes
and who knows how far
that will be

the Central line
is
One more death of mine
I hold in abeyance

Catch me
In the next seance
You attend.

How I wish to bathe in sleep
to keep my dreams in
waters deep
and swim through images so bleak
then wash them all
in waters deep.
A clean slate some would say is good,I'm
not so sure but if I could,
I'd wipe away the yesterdays,to gaze upon
a new blank page
and write on it a story new where
each chapter
would begin with you.

My eyes are closed
I cannot see,
this sleep forever eludes me
until I get to chapter three
and all becomes
what is,
will be.

Dreams uncut
Dreams that are raw
Dreams that always seem to come
From out of the bottom drawer
.

Imagination takes a bow
It appears to know exactly how
My dreams will start and end.
Sometimes a friend
Sometimes a foe
But sometimes they start where...I don't want to go.

The choice is not mine so I don't spend my time
In worrying.
The hurrying dreams will dine on me..fine by me..
..Nothing I can do.

If I stay awake the dreams cannot take hold
But in sleeping they fold me
In cold hands they hold me
Until I cry out..
..'what on this earth was that dream all about'


When I die..will I dream?
Or is death just a dream that I've dream't of before?
Is the dream uncut..but a memory..a part of me?
Something in the heart of me
says,
'yes'

Talking thoughts.

I love the way this Woman makes me feel..haha a bit like a gerbil running in a wheel.
No..
..That's not true.

But she whips me with her eyelashes 'til I am black and blue.
Again..
     ..Not true.

She makes me feel that I have gold..more than enough for me to hold and I have told her several times I love the lines set on her brow.
I can't help but notice how she smiles or piles her hair up in a bun.
I tell her that she is my sun.
The fun is when I start to taste her shoulders,legs and round her waist which is expanding but I have not told her so.
I love her but I'm not daft you know.

I guess the joy is just in being two lovers seeing through two pairs of eyes which then give rise to conversations and the wonderful union of relations.
The laughing hours..the taking showers together..however tired we feel
I think we're the spokes within the wheel..
..and we roll on.

Must not,must not,will not,got not choice the inner voice persists,
insists on having things its way and I have got no say in that.I am
trapped in the flat monotone of a drone in my head and everything that's said
I have to listen to.
My ears are turning blue with suggestions based on baser instincts,I think the
whole thing stinks but there's nothing I can do.
The passing years has not mellowed it,it still gives me a lot of **** but if I sit and hold my head between my hands and pray it doesn't have a lot to say but I can't stay like that all day.
I have no choice but to move and listen to the voice.

When it's time
and if it's time
it will be mine.
Time has a habit of creeping up on you and peeking into you
then staking a claim.
Fame you can keep it
I've seen it and spent it on even more time
that is the hourglass
a time that we save and time that we waste
all a matter of personal taste and of circumstances beyond our control
controlled by the clock I am constantly in shock
when I look at how time flies yet stands still.
I am reasonably sure that sometime in the future I will look back on these minutes with a grimace
and a smile
meanwhile time takes a break with some tea and a cake
and I sit by
watching the clock
still in shock and in awe
because it just passed three thirty and it's a quarter past four.
I can't even sleep got to keep my eyes on the tick
and the tock makes me sick.
Think I'll pick up a pickaxe
smash the clock and I'll relax
but in the twilights of midnights where the demons of mornings and in the yawnings of men it's already ten after ten
can't escape
I shall wait for the winding it's grinding me down
and I need a pick me up
a tonic to buck me up and I should just shut the
clock up.

I count the seconds out,each second counts as time lends hands to me,to sweep but momentarily across the fresh face of my youth.
Truth be told,
time makes me old before my time has come, and my short time in the sun is at an end,
lend me wings not hands and let me fly,but time goes by,
deaf to everything.

I woke at three to see
darkness tied around me and
in the blackened knots
I spot
a dot of light.
It might be a morning hidden there inside the knots but would I dare to try,untie the ties that bind and blind me so
if I don't I'll never know
Will I?

Unpicking and sticking to a formulae,I try my best
but these knots would test the patience of a saint and I ain't got no time to waste,
In haste I take a kitchen knife to cut what remains and find I'm right
Morning is inside
tightly bound but I have found
the light.

When we sleep,
together or not.
I've still got her,
she's still got me
sometimes we
don't sleep at all and
when the morning comes
we fall,
erase the light
hug each other tight.
when she says, 'I'm greedy',
she's right,
I always want that little extra,to
touch the texture of her skin,
whether we sleep together or not
I always win.

Hard cheddar cheese to the beggar on his knees and I'll have another truffle, James.

We'll put a spin on poverty
grin and call it 'honesty',
it honestly wouldn't bother me and I'll
have another truffle. James.

By names we know and names we go, so it's
hard cheddar cheese to the beggar on his knees
and I'll have another truffle
James,
Please.

I use these views to choose the words which follow on
and if no views then it is if that I am gone
from memory,
remember me?
addiction free,
except for alcohol and nicotine and some things best not talked about,some things I think are best unseen except by me and
she,my Queen.
Amused by views I sometimes lose perspective and get far too big to fit my boots,but
I come from humble roots and humbler stock and so have learnt to lock my vanity away,yet
this I say
(because no one else will,)
I'll write until my blood turns blue,I'll write with ink and water too and if you choose to not take peeks or views
you lose.

White light
burning in the back room
watching late night TV
sitting on the chair.

A full moon
shines on
this October,
Winter's coming
I can feel it in the air.

I become
tidal in the tropics
I am mangrove growing
by a Southern sea.

Hot sand
running through my fingers,
on the islands that is
where I want to be.

White light,
Winter,
I watch Summer
splinter
and
wish I had saved some
for me.

I am being whipped into shape
by the side
of the altar and fate
is the mistress
that handles the tawse,
of course, she had to be,
only she knew the answers,
not I.

When I feel like I'm cracking and thinking of packing it in,when suicide is no more than a sin and the only thing I'm likely to win at,and the rat that I am becomes less of a man the more that I think,I sink into depression, my expression shows nothing and nothing can help me.
I see dark brooding clouds overhead,with my head in the ground,I can scream not a sound will be heard by the herds of humanity,insanity it may be,nobody sees me and so,down I go, to the rapture of the rhapsody show,where the mad moans of inmates grate on my nerves,which all serves to send me more herds of humanity,
and they trample me down even more,
when the train comes I crack and the track looks inviting,fighting is pointless,the darkness is endless,and
silence.
white noise for bad boys, and the steel lines chime as they mark out my passing,mass said at the graveyard for the man who tried so hard to put on a smile,missed by a mile though and sometimes that's the way that things go.

Tie me in pink with a cool gin sling
or a pint of Courage Best,
I'm the common man with a tongue as
dry as a fishwife's pan and a thirst as
needy as the greedy *******
who have it all.

Not empty, not full, but pull me another
and another for my good friend the road
and one for the ***** underneath the street lamp
who carries a much larger load.

Let me sink into the apathy of what
a good drink should really be and
imagine, that there's got to be more.

I believe in nothing therefore I believe in something even if that something is nothing.

this is like politics
word ******
mind tricks
skating fluid on the oil slicks
nothing sticks and that's something.

I want a beer
she wants De Beers,
diamonds or porter?
we water it down and go
off into town.

The final resting place, was
somewhere cool and dark
until the planners planned
a trailer park.
Now
it's more like Disney land
Trucks and sand, and
diesel spills,
it gives me the chills.

I'm moving tombs,
I hear the catacombs
have a vacancy.
I just want peace
why can't the planners see,
a trailer park is just
not me.

Here,
it's meaner,
a scene of mayhem,
the mantra of tantrums assault my ears.
Here,
is the place full of worry and fears.

Over there,
it's cleaner,
the grass is lush and much greener
a scene of tranquility and harmony.

No harm in me looking or booking a day trip,
trip,trip,trap
and the trolls are back
under the bridge
on the attack.

They laugh at tranquility,guffaw at harmony
and they're out to get me,
that's what I see.

This scene is a set but I'll get there yet,over the bridge,through the long grass or I'll pass away in the trying,
because dying has got to be better than this.

Someone spoke to me of a disconnect
and I recall or recollect
a moment in another time
when fast of mind
I paid no heed nor had a need
of anyone
a disconnected one?

I'm not sure and that's no surprise
can't see myself through my own two eyes
but that too is quite alright
if you live in the night what can you expect
but to become and be asked are you
disconnect?

So the answer
I cannot tell you,
who could
who would willingly be as disconnected as the disconnect in me
and what if anything would they see?

I do wonder though how could you tell
or how could one know
just where a disconnect would go
to get plugged in to start,begin
to reselect the connection
to reach perfection?

Someone should tell me
I want to know
get myself undisconnected
and though not quite perfected
I am a work in
progress.

(20 minute poetry)

Sensory.

It's only common or garden said someone,
' I beg your pardon'
said me.

So easy to be submissive, but if you disagree be like me and tell it like it is.

In the master plan, we are what we am and I am in agreement set solid in my cement won't brook no disagreement with that.

We all take a stance be it hate or romance, fear, love and loathing, we all wear the clothing we're comfortable in.

I'm just wasting more time on one of London's underground lines,
meridians stretch out like Gideons tracts eating away at the distance, the day, in a way this is easy, submissive, but cheesy (ouch) it only hurts when I'm using a brain cell or snoozing.

Try and tell that to the Doctor who's reading the Dummy's guide to diagnosis.

Hypnosis?
It could be,
said me.

I am heading now into the
somewhere and somehow and
I may be a while.
Call it madness
call it style
call it what you will but
I'm still heading there or
I'm heading there still and
until I am sure of a connection to
the cure,
I remain outward bound.

There is a noise in my ears,
a sound that one fears when
the evening comes in and
the night catches up with the sun.

If the dark was a friend in
the somehow it might end and
the somewhere is where I might
find
peace of mind.

There is a curvature to my spine
due to old age and time.

The darkness will find me on the horizon
of history,
bent over the pages and watching the mystery
of myself.

In the mirror,only me,solitary,
playing chess with the toothpaste and
wasting the light.

I am or I was
because someone once told
a serf or a King and
so I bring to this Coventry where
some reflection has sent me another picture to paste in
the windows that chase across the oceans that roll and toss
and again I am at a loss
to explain
what anything means.

On the production line where time is wrapped in cellophane and no two times look quite the same,
where no one bothers to explain
I complain.

I could ****** each second in under a minute but the infinite clock ticks on.
Every hour overpowers me
and as if by some humorous trickery
each day seems much longer and the line becomes stronger.

Time has seeped into my bones
destroying what's left of my few chromosomes
and in monochrome tints
time hints at my death.
Is my last gasping breath to be on the line?
Has everything got to be about time?

And every day I get sicker the line gets much quicker.
My ticket to ride is about to be cancelled.
Denied.
They lied when they cried that we'll all live forever
I never believed it anyway.

On another day at another shift
I lift up my face and catch a glance of the grin.
Time has got into me now
it's too late for me
how
can I escape?

How I loved those harbour lights,
as shipwrights, we worked through those long and lonely nights and laid keels for Queens that rode the sea.

She was one,
The S.S mv Lexicon, a giant of a lady she. would leave her lipstick marks upon the sea and we just loved her, built her dream in funnels square and clean and launched her late one Monday Eve and when steam had scorched the boilers, we've seen our Queen go sailing far away.

That day has gone now, steam no more, a passing fancy but I adored the smoke and grit, the wit of Bosuns as they spat at this and that and harried cabin boys who touched their caps out of respect, I expect it's for the best.
And tomorrow what will be is a lack of joi de vivre and the sea will look so flat.

Watching the clouds,
they seem to stop and
to start,
as if they are scared that
The sky's falling apart.

The wind whistles  erratically,
it's  a drama Queen,
emphatically.

I'm tucked up in bed, but with wild
horses for brains I'm being led to the conclusion,
that I need a rest.

(20 minute poetry)

All fine this time though next time who knows.

I am Stuck inside a rhythm,
is there a name for that?
A schism?
and would they name it after me?

I want to be famous instead I am nameless
one of the drones which society
in their kindness homes,
they give me employment and say it empowers me,
but there's little enjoyment and
I get little of it.

And yet I am thankful that I am not in a bank full
of thieves with a grievance and that is a bonus, it seems the onus is on me to find a middle ground yet still be
Decisive.

So
that's how it plays out
I forget about schisms which are not in the music nor rhyming or rhythms and I lay down and die.

I sit and I spy with this Central line eye something beginning with?
And she thought I was looking at her and the clothes that she nearly wore and the bore sat beside her,
I never spied her at all.

Down there in Knightsbridge where the dead rich rub shoulders with the dirt poor and the older I get,the more down there I am.
And I go bummin' around,around old Strutton ground and even with New Scotland yard on the doorstep it's hard to feel safe, and so I shave off a minute or two of my breakfast, so I can get through the turnstiles at the station (though they call them barriers now) they're no barrier for me,I like to travel far and free.
But I'm lost in this city where the people don't see me,don't talk,they disturb me,it's like living in a cemetery among the dead and the disinterred and I am disturbed by the lack of affection that's shown by some sections of society.

I am the cream of the crop and once was the best of the best that this country had got but then I turned sour
and every hour that passes,every hourglass amasses more ammunition to fire at me..and stupidly so stupidly I insist I am free.
Someone is failing me and I should be sailing someplace where I could be free but I'm rubbing shoulders down in Knightsbridge and getting older every day.

Monkeys,flunkies and corporation junkies
fixing in the alleyways
dripping down the drains
floating through the chemicals that race around their veins.
It's one more night in needleville
one more chill to chase away
one more package to unwrap
and one more slap to bring me down
another cost to needle town
another bag of bobby brown and  you may frown but here's the proof.
addicts jumping off the roof and flying,
trying not to burn and crash
not earning any cash and smoking too much hash or ****, we need a calculator later to tot up those who chose in altered states to alter fate and change,
Oh yes
we'll change the running order of the day and chase the monkey ****** far away so he or she can swing and sing somewhere,
where anyone who cares don't care and no one but the corporation bears the cost and all is lost.

In the translation of men to mice and dipped in deep into the spice of easy living
someone is dealing wild cards
giving out some favours in back yard drinking dens where mice and men sit eating cheese
and crumbling biscuits in those special teas that make you think you're drinking honey
all it costs is more than money
more than hope which coils around, and if you can cope with that,
a cat
matt black and growling starts to howl and drools at schools of playing cards and mice,tasting spice he moves in for the ****
will you wait?
will fate single you alone and don't you wish that you were home in bed and this was all a dream?

No ballet steps or needles dancing through your skin
No pins to ****
no rod upon your back or yoke to drag you to the ground
no swooping sound of crashing monkeys
no flunkies,corporation junkies
just you
through and through and written in the final chapter
a bit of life
a bit of love and laughter
a touch of sun.

While running in the outside lane we have to smash into some pain or crash into the barriers and trash ourselves a bit
it is just the beings that some are, to drive through life but minus car ,imagining we'll get as far away and wish,
I wish on every star,not wanting to waste a chance or two to shine
and could you shine so bright to lighten loads that carry us on in the night
and if you can
then shine on
shine to help your fellow man.

I tinker with her engine, until
she's firing on
all cylinders.

Never thought to think and place the link to join the dots,lots of time to think of that right now,the fattened calf became the cow which gives no milk,'a sows ear made from silk' ,you say,
as well you may and I agree,wasted opportunity and chances  seldom come along the worn out way old way.
I pay my dues and win or lose it's all the same,the piper played a different tune and I being antsy danced too soon which was another time I did not think.
Now seeing dots before my eyes,a sign of age and no surprise,I try to separate them one from one and each dot carries me right on and to another,
I think and
this time I took the time, that seeing dots before my eyes is punishment for all the lies I told and ****** all to do with getting old,I may be wrong like many times before,but like pips wrapped round the apple core they grow.
I know that dots turn into spots and spots turn into one big blotch and so I watch,dots.
If dots are all I'm going to see and to join them makes another me,give me a pen so I can start,
and if I start to start again with coloured pen to join the dots there's lots more time to think,
I think.

In the darkness of uneasy streets where bodies meet you head on,fed upon disease and crime
and all the time you look behind to see just who is following,
and hollowing a place to hide,inside a doorway,
beggars lay with sleeping dogs their minds fogged by the turpentine and cheap red wine and stinking of cheap cigarettes.

Debts of honour written on unease and ladies of the night who offer such delight but for a price you cannot pay,
then soon the night turns to the day,like sinking rats,rats slink away and you are left alone,left to scurry home
and feeling right as rain again,forget the pain that marches through the mews and views that pass like gashes on a sordid skin,tattooed sin will leave its mark,
skin on skin within the dark and where or what was evident,you lent to prosecutors,who prosecuted ******,another sin and one more in,into the darkness of the street,one more follow,one more meet.

Cheats and harlots,charlatans,cut-throats,turncoats all are here,running ragged through these wolves that see a sheep and bleat you may
but day backs into night
where light fades with the rights you thought you had
and 'it's bad' is just another way to say,
you've got it wrong again
you're marching through the mews of pain
and wake to find you've lain
with beggars
and with sleeping dogs.

I'm old fashioned enough to remember when turquoise was not for boys, a nice enough colour and with healing properties apparently, but it's not for me.

I dress in grey,
battleship grey to
match my face on
any given day
and
it seems I've been
given
lots of days,

She says,
that I should mend my ways,
wonder if mending the car
counts.

walk the streets of homelessness
step into my shoes
lose the swagger
homeless folk are drunk and stagger
a worthless band of beggar men and
when you think like that,
like the world is flat and
all lines are straight
you'll make a politician yet.

Whether it turned out good or it turned out bad
casting back through the memory I have to admit
He
were a bonny looking lad, a reet bobby dazzler
as gran used to say.

But everything went wrong or went to Hong Kong and everything else came from China.

These days.

Huddled in corners to have a quick smoke where we spoke of Formosa which always seemed closer than Taiwan ever did.

Those days.

We bid at the auctions to buy friends for the weekends and then we go home on our own.

Self sacrifice is a heresy,
ask them down on the front line
where time wages war
on the poor.

He were still a bonny lad,
mum said,
'takes after his dad'
who
were a bonny lad too.

Butterfly's in my belly sink down
and turn my legs into jelly
She just smiles.
And she watches me shake.
Then she rises and takes hold of my hand.
In the dreamland of ecstasy
where dreams come true
my dreams will always be
of you.

Her treasures she shows me and they ******* away
In her night she is day.
She is so strong
I long to be
the one who'll see
the other side
she bids me slide
under the sheet
she has cold feet
I do not mind
I think I'll find
her heart is warm.

And in the morning when I wake
at twenty five before the hour of eight
she's left a note.
It smells of her
I read it there
beside the bed
I read it twice
there's no mistake
she's coming back
She wants to take
a little more.
My heart begins to soar
I change the bedding,sweep the floor
put on some clothes and wait beside
the open door.

At five sixteen
she wanders in
and she gives me a great big grin
and we begin.
The music plays she stays
The music stays she plays
The music becomes the background of the playground
and the only sound
is sound.

I will not wake,nor take a moment from my night in order to, search out the light and in any case it never shines on me, but pours out slow and stings me like a bumble bee.

I will not see beyond my nose or go where everybody goes,I go my own way,make the day as night with me.
I will not see
will not see
not see.

See.
The devil take me, and who would make me whole,
who would save this tortured soul?
and I will not wake, nor forsake the comfort of the night when eyes are blinded to unkindness.
In this I find a comforting,the soothing thing that beckons me
and sets me free.

No
I will not wake or take the lifeline of a moment in the daytime,let me sleep,
deep
in darkness.

A rose wine sky
an eagles whine
a clouds floats by, a day so fine wrapped in a shawl
and I shall hear the buzzards call.
Thermal draughts,hyena laughs
Lions roar.
My spirits soar,
I am set free,
the day becomes a part of me.

An air of resignation that
we breathe in every day
but
wanting things to change
doesn't mean that things
will go away.

deal in futures here and now
as if somehow we have
second sight

there's nothing like the dead of night
to remind me
monsters hide in all these places
where the darkness hides the
many faces of regret.

We still have this
the undiluted pleasure of an
early morning kiss
and
unless I've missed something
some things like this will
never change.

I do not resign
will not give in,
when weary you breathe me
when lively you tire me
if helpless you help me to
get a grip,

I let reality rip through me
to tear and reassure me
that
this is no dream.

I come from the shower, dripping and
you're slipping into bed,
nodding your head,is that
an invitation, will I
measure up to your expectations?
murmuring sweet exhultation
I guess that
I did.

Some mornings are as quiet as the grave
cold
save for the body heat
which keeps one warm in the mist through the dreams
where we woke and we kissed
but listen,
no sound.

A silence tempting in its silence
capturing romantic thought
and dressing
caressing whispers of the heart.

Where are you in this diagram I built
from sweat and aching joints
and ****** imaginings
and do you see me
swimming through the sea with my lungs on fire
and coughing fire that dissolves the night
Were you on the shoreline
biding your time to make an entrance
did my wanderings have doors?

Do these awakenings break some saintly glass
where only good men's lips would ever pass one goodly word
and if that be so
why do my lips seek out this chalice?
in which the diamonds shine and solace can be bought from
the bones of another yesterday.
Where once again I say.
some mornings are as quiet as the grave.

A morning not meant to be
in undercover
tucked down deep
inside a memory of some other day.
A morning where temptations are too strong and the road to glory far too long
where it's easy to lie back upon my back
and stack the reasons one by one in which each reason has no reason to go on
and still,
A morning such as this morning brings
sings to me
of love in its infancy and cradles me
in softened light.

Some mornings are as quiet as the grace
save for the trumpets sounding in my ears
and the dancing of my eyes across her thighs
and when she wakes and sees me
reaches out to me
smiles,
it doesn't matter how many miles it is on that road to glory
I walk them on my knees
quite willingly
and she is this reason
and if there is a reason after all
not some grasping image in a crystal ball
that would only clutch at me
and not so tenderly
she must be that.

I wanted to do it,
she knew it,
I saw by the smile that she gave me,lord save me from sin,
but I just had to knock and she just let me in.
And she wanted to,too,
I knew.
it went on this way, through the night and next day,full of shame lest she blame me for taking advantage,
I gave her my number,she gave me her name,not what I expected,not quite the same as two ships that pass,in the nights when no questions are asked and the heat of the thrill is all that will keep us in answers until the day makes its way through the smouldering kisses and the lingering perfumes of untidy bedrooms.

Sometimes
with the battering ram of the be all I can,I can be so much more than the click of a latch on one more unknown door,one more fated conquest ,one more test of the man,is he all that he can be,is there more there to see, than the fumbling numbings of those ****** comings and goings.

Sometimes
With the stars in my eyes and her sighs on my mind I can find that perfection,a precise intersection where two lives are crossed and nothing is lost but the moments we waste.

How it was then and how it is now, is no longer a question to which there's no answer,she answers me all ways and always she questions,she leans on my answers,I lean on her shoulder
and we get older.

Inside the locket hung by a gold chain
she carries the picture of a face,
the name she can't remember but still recalls the thrilling touch
of the man inside the locket
and the one she loved so much.

I never wanted to
be me
I wanted to flow like
an ocean be as
deep as the sea
I never wanted to
be me

Converts from convicts and convictions reversed,
rehearsing conversations and
checking out of the jail.

The convoy unaware of the danger back there carried on,
strike one.

Rest breaks and more takes, is the cameraman ******?
reverse hold and conquer,
we will win to win will.

Strike two,
the best murderers do,
they usually get caught and
I thought it was Cluedo, but what
would I know?


'A handbag', she said,
I said,
'Oscar's long dead
and we broke down and cried.

Strike three and I'm out,
never thought that this failure
would send me back to
the jailer.

Prison ballet,
pirouette and
point the finger of blame,
rehearsing the conversation
not knowing my name.

Everyone seems to have an agenda, the fortune teller,the peanut vendor,the money lender,letter sender,cigarette sellers and some funny fellas, that they are.
Even countries have their say and cities like Kowloon,Bombay and continents,incontinent at least,would try to feast on the agenda,it's enough to send me round the bend as these things I speak of would defend their right to ply the people with their *****.

My agenda's on the wall,read it,bleed it,weep and fall apart,what is wrote is not worth a dart or the tending to a boardroom full of city farts,but it doesn't cost you anything to take a look and bring your wisdom to the table,set down in blood or if you're able write it with a pen and ink
but think on son
Don't buy the bullets if you have no gun or walk before  you learn to crawl..read the writing on the wall it's written there
and should you care to disregard, the penalties,severe and hard will come crashing down.

Make it simple
make it plain
erase mistakes and start again
We get it right
we get it wrong
but the long and short of it is
agendas as written are absolute ****
don't take a bit of notice,be a man,formulate,reformulate,accumulate a sincere need to want to write what people want to read
and take no heed of me,
I am history,been and broke,spoken of in those hushed tones behind sad smiles on mobiles phones and nods of heads of nodding dogs like multitudes of whirring cogs
or one of many unseen gods,
All I say is,
'sod the lot of them, let them spill out ink from wells and quills that slide across smooth vellum.
Hell'll have 'em all
and sod my writing on the wall, I'll knock it down and build a ramp,let the ******* trample over that and into the pit'

That's it,
I've said my bit,ain't got no more,had enough
so stuff your hidden leanings and intended words that have no meaning to me
I am history.

and in the corner, I hear the metronome click
I fill the kettle and yet still feel sick

my stomach thinks my throat's been cut.
but I cannot eat.

I cannot compete with or beat the metronome.

It steals the minutes of the day and all it does
is tick and click and tick away.

I want to say why don't you stop, but it catches me and mops another minute up.

I pour some boiling water in my cup and forget the tea,
the metronome has done for me.

I see each second die and give a little less for me to live
and still it ticks.

It picks a moment when I blink and makes me think that all is well and the ticking is but just a shell upon the shore where timeless endless oceans roar
and then it makes me think some more
and ticks again.

I close the kitchen door

The metronome sat in the corner clicks right on, before too long my life will tick its last and in the shadows cast there will be another metronome that waits for me to tick into infinity, once more I see that endless face and in the place of midnight's dream
where I shall rest my weary bones
I know there'll be
more
metronomes.