Once more I dream of Istanbul where light perfumes and Eastern tunes conspire to set my sleep on fire
in my dreams this city seems to sparkle in the evening sky and as I wander by Topkapi,
I see treasures in the architecture
and jewels in the very stone that builds into the home of artefacts and in times gone by, this building was the East of many men who desired to steal what was within.

I always dream of Istanbul when my life is not as full as I think it ought to be
and I see it as a mental therapy that helps me sort the wheat from chaff,and
belly dancing girls who laugh and serve up raki , I see pearls that peep from midriffs bare,
a kind of reiki for the mind which I don't mind at all nor care if this is not politically correct
in my dreams,I elect the law stands silent to one side so I can ride the currents of the night that flow in cities of delight.

I wake to drizzle,one more grizzle of the day in which I get up out of bed but should really stay and replay Istanbul once more.
In the palm of my left hand I find a pearl (which is not good) a memento of the Eastern Hollywood
tonight, I'll have to go back there and find the girl who shared this treasure and has stolen at her leisure
my heart away.

The wilderness

The absolute emptiness.

Where cries are not heard

Prayers not answered.

In that solitude

I mused.

I miss

The orbital turn

And even if not,

I would spurn the helping hand

The kindly smiles.

Yes.

The wilderness was a walk of many miles.

Moses must have known it in a dream

An ending where no ending’s seen

Just the places where we all have been

A silence within the silent scream.

An eternity of pain

Without the rainbows end

No promise of gold

When we grow old.

No lease

When all your life’s been sold.

Just Awesome night

And the wilderness.

The sign said no entry,it meant me,I know it,I rode on right through it and thought that I knew it
all.
The policeman in a court date said that I, just would not wait for the lights to go green and he'd seen me do eighty in a thirty mile zone.
I was sent to a home for the wayward and flighty,a light sentence upon me,could not believe I was not free.

See me, on a saturday and I'm back on the racetrack,known as the M thirty motorway and I'm clocked at a ton by the feds in the lay by,who with sirens mad blaring came a tearing along after me,nicked,apprehended me and again,I could not believe I was not free,
I got four months in Dartmoor which get a poor recommendation,it's no picnic park for the youth of this nation,released in September,though it should have been May and soon after that in a 93 Fiat with go faster stripes,I was striped up quite rightly by the boys in blue and tightly,
handcuffed and roughed up and locked up again.

The day shook itself, sniffed the air and sprinkled sunlight on my face
I woke,washed,said grace and breakfasted on hand caught trout, which had rested in my summer house down by the lake.

I took a moment to spread my eyes and fell upon this freshly fried and salted feast I had made from scratch,as indeed I had made the thatch which kept the house cool in the middle of the noon.

Very soon, my roving mind opened up to find a trial to test and undertake,would I bake some bread for the later evening meal?
In my zeal I did not see the winter creeping up on me,before I passed two more full noons the moon had shed its happy mood and food was in a short supply.
I used to cry at this awesomeness that left me in an awful mess,
but I learnt to do and mend and tend what needed tending to and now the summer's through,my larders full of food enough to see me through the roughest stuff,that the season which is about,will throw at me.

I see an end,a beginning too,the stories we are told run through the central core,
we want ,then we must do much more
we need, and what is needing for? but to fill our fears with sand and stand alone with bellies full of stone,solid,stolid
in the thick of things that seasons change to bring we fend off everything that hurts the soul,
and in the maypole time when spring is feeling kind of fine and the larders bare,
Mother nature's there to fill it up again.
A bit more planning a bit less pain
less to lose and more to gain
the same each year as it has been
for ever.

Just another crazy dream,
a third division sub routine
one more throw back,go to nil,and filled with images of course

Riding the China white concourse on the riderless pale horse which cost me plenty,twenty,maybe more,
don't remember keeping score
or how long the ride went on
or even if I was the one
sat there.

Dreams don't share this information just fill me with such consternation that I wake up in a sweat,
don't yet know what dreams do show me if they show me anything at all
and if I fall,
I fall alone through paper bags and tag alongs and uncaring of the rights and wrongs,if I hit rock bottom hard,it's my hard luck,
I took the first step on the stair
but still don't know if I'm sat there.

Flashbacks, needle tracks and red hot trains in coal black sacks and stacks of stacks that won't lay still and will I ever settle for the bottle or the pill?
and if I do,I lose the will I thought was mine,
traded off for one more time and one more line along the China white where walls of self delusion stand and fight illusions of my potency,
Important though it may be, there seems no synchronicity in actions I have taken,each action on its own as if it was a skimming stone that sank somewhere,
I wonder if I am sat there.

I had to wake of course
even horses need to rest and I think the dream was sent to test my fortitude or steadfastness,
in the face of nothing where another mess awaits and nothing states the obvious more than the blank look,like the first step that I took and the empty stair which is obvious to me leads me nowhere,
was I sat there
was that the third division sub routine
was this life nothing
but a crazy hedonistic dream?
but if it wasn't me
then I have a twin
either way
we never win.

I should have gone to school
not fooled around.
I should have settled down to algebra
Nah..
I enjoyed my lazy days on river banks
I enjoyed the walks through ranks of butterflies
and fish that looked through fishy eyes at me
where I could be the master of my destiny.

Oh foolish child
what wild ride did I take?
I broke the hearts of tutors preferring roller skates and scooters to the formality of education.
No dried out formulae or calculations could tempt this boy
to attend a place where joy sat silently on the back row.
What I didn't know I found out the hard way
the way I knew
too late now to do
anything about it.
I should have learnt to sit and learn
not learnt to swim
or burnt my bridges.

Furrowed ridges on my brow
Now I know why education
should have been
seen as number one.
But life goes on
another lesson learnt
another bridge that wasn't burnt
but crumbled
under years of weight.
I chalk upon the blackboard slate
'could have done better'

On the subway seat
feeding her needs
through long slender fingers
pop the rosary beads and
each bead a bullet
to load the gun.

What son of man decrees this?

She's twenty looks fifty and
has the eyes of a sorceress
which is probably so.

Every age throws up a sage
some sayer of truths.
Some say that it's her on
the seat,
she beats time to the beads
feeding her needs,
bullets for the gun
and one for
her son.

The time has come to hit the road,and
make some tracks
in shutdown mode.

It's easy to be put upon when you're just one and have no heart to fight,right or wrong it's so long chaps
we've had our laughs and there's no more to come.
I have spun new shoes to fit these feet and now I'm heading off to greet what's in the next face that I meet, I fear the milk of human kindness has run dry,its teats are shy,my lips are parched.

You'll find me underneath the arch that runs beneath the viaduct,****** or not,shutdown's what I do and one day you might do it too,'til then when Big Ben strikes the hour at nine and I dine alone chilled to the bone and when you find me,be kind because I carry a weighty load which make more tracks in the shutdown mode.

The first love for me
It was always the sea.
Being lovingly caressed
Being slowly undressed
By the deep oceans call.
Being caught as I fall
Into Kingdoms below.
Where I flow
Into gleaming ravines
Into Davy Jones dreams.
And on the network of tides
I slide into rides
And slip into waves
Of mermaids and slaves.
I glide upon stallions
Sail in lost galleons
And float in with the breath
Of those swallowing death.
As the seafarers are pounded
As schooners are grounded.
And sink into the deep
In silence they keep
The first love for me
It was always the sea.

John Smallshaw 2011.

Hanging on
with my teeth
in a hurricane
that's grief.

Rushing through
crushing me
breaking you
is there any more that it can do?

Power lines and taxi ranks,high street schools and country banks all in the air
where the hurricane brings nought but pain
and it always seems to ****** rain
when the winds outside decide to ride on the wings of daemons.

Then
the silence booms out ,shouts out to a waiting crowd,quite quietly
as if another decibel would bring the chaos back from hell,
and the people crawl like wounded ants
with feelers outstretched, looking for their habitats and listen to the
growls from dogs and smiles from Cheshire cats and budgies wearing pork pie hats
the world goes quite insane every time a hurricane
comes storming through
I think it's time to move away somewhere,say like
Kansas.

init nice
init grand
init the new language
init this land.

init so sweet that they can't even tweet without init being in it,
but I've had enough of that init in stuff so stuff that in your pipe and smoke it,
init.

Look upon the shanty town of plenty town
where 'those'
people live and those who have will
seldom give,
In shanty town we  barely survive on
humbleness and outright lies.

Look,
now comes the infantry,
marching three by three.
What is it that they see ?
but more and more,
they've seen it all a
thousand times before,
poverty in every doorway.

No gay hussars ,these infantry,
they come not to set 'those' people free
but to shoot them down.

The don in his board and gown may
be bright and know a deal
but this is the place where his
hypothesis is real and lives are at stake.

In Oxford where they take a break from studies
which the privileged make their own,then
go home and make some English tea,
I guess that's being free, for a fee, but
we don't want no chi
We
Just want a chance to fly as high as others ,who
in shanty town would want to do the same?

From Belize or from Tobruk,Brighton,Glasgow
we don't give a flying... tuck your
wings in guys and watch the bullets fly,
watch your dreams die
hear your kids cry
nothing's changed except
the rules.

In the small of the back garden I have pitched my little tent and it's down to the penny pinching of this and every other government that I'm here and can't afford a proper place to live.
It's supposed to be some give and take but it looks like it's all take to me and I will never see the inside of a proper home,can't get a loan,ain't got employment,a tent is no place for enjoyment and no one wants to know.

I could go to the council,try to beg a hostel,a bit like pass the parcel and not everybody wins,but I keep my chin high,shoes clean,eyes dry,and that lot won't have a clue about how blue I really am,why give them jam as well,**** 'em all and they can go to hell.

I could go and sell my body,make some money,nothing funny,the medical fraternity would have a ball dissecting me and putting my bits into jars,and with the money I would earn,I could advance and get a turn at living high upon the hog,
Or I could get a dog,teach it to sit and beg,raise its leg and **** on parliament which I'm sure never meant for me, to end up in a tent.

And Macmillan said,
we've  'never had it so good'
but he would
wouldn't he.

If I lose track of the track
play the Beatles,
'Get back'
I'm back on the right track
a dip through the light shack
where I once belonged.

'Lola'
was the King and Queen
sat on turquoise
a harlequin,
chinks in his armour
'Kinks'
in her hair
it's always
'Dead end street'
somewhere.

I lose the plot
quite a lot these days,
the music plays
in stereo
can't get away
nowhere to go
trapped by the ' slow hand'  
in
Clapton's Pond.

I sit on my **** by the fireside chair
and talk the mill talk to the calender man
but he doesn't care
he just watches his gauges and pressures
how precious he is
to the factory owner who allows him to live
on a pittance each week.

And while he clothes the World
in his mind he would seek
a botany bay
where his ancestors lay
and put roots in that ground.
The sound of the press, blocks the sound from the bell
just as well
because that ringing in his ears is not the bite from the future
but the teeth in the fears of his past
and another bolt of cloth has been passed by the foreman
and ticked off the list that he keeps in a book
to read to the crook who works in accounting
and pushed to the double entry
in another book amounting to
daylight robbery
but the snobbery of the age is another page set
in the mill town you get
****** all.

The fine hall's for the Master and all you survey
are the ruins that lie in the ruins of another day.

Get away
to get away and walk through a gateway into a better day
but the Devil you know is the Devil you pay and what would he say
if you jacked in the mill
and worked down the mines
better times indeed?

I am concubine in another time
and another I am serf.

What purpose fate,
but
to make men wait
and to change the role
we play.

The highest market town in the land
and
I've been there,
sat in the town square
looked down across the valley and marvelled at the peaks,
wondered how the sheep survive
so high
in Hawes.

The summer pours its Yorkshire sun on those who come to visit Hawes,
ideal for those who like to pause amidst the scenery
**** in the greenery
and just be still.

I will return to watch the seasons burn the land in colours bright
and I,
hold tight to this my dream
for I have seen
Gods handiwork
at work among the dales.

She raises the temperature,opens the aperture and once again I have captured her.
There are hints of her blushing,the lights flash past rushing, pushing me to the end of the film..

There are tears that fall in the ocean
and tears that fall from the sky
there are tears on the faces of loved ones
don't ask me
I can't tell you why.

In this bltzkrieg I see only compulsion
and the desire to see so much more
In compulsion I see my destruction
Tell me
what is it all for?

I look but can't find
perhaps I am blind to what stares at me in the face
but the forest's no place to play hide and seek
it's so dark and so bleak
and the creaking of trees become the creaking of decks on lost ships on high seas
and I am so weak
can't be bothered to hide or to seek any more.
Tell me
what is it all for?

Is it the lust that burns deep within, for a pipe of tobacco and a pitcher of gin
and do I win when I win or is it the gin?
I lose some
choose some
confuse many
any one could
which brings me again to a knock on the wood for luck.
****..
..superstition time
yeah that'll do me real fine
let me throw down the runes in the ruin that I am
let me talk to the man up above
let him lend me some love
let it fit like a glove.
but send an umbrella
the tears will come
they always see
another self fulfilling prophesy
that ties me in knots and would haves and could haves and I have lots of excuses and ruses
and time on my hands
life's metal bands have put me in chains
Link by a link of the words in the ink and bound by a round about
where I never get out
to begin again and to sing again
caged birds
caged words
tired lions
in irons
all in the mess of a life.

I confess it's not good
in the forest you'd think I'd at least see the wood
but blind again
I find again
only the dead bits that fell onto dead ground
and round and round I go again.

Birds came and pecked through the silver top,
popping their beaks in
for a dribble of milk,
it was cold then,
back in the old days
not so anymore.

And the slow light of the glow worm that could turn a bird in mid flight would send sparse light, but enough light as if enough light was a feast.

The snowmen in the garden that stood under the clothes line looked perfect with two buttons sewed into their eyes until the thaw came and they melted like our hearts did when they went away and the days grew even longer after that.

The frogspawn burst into tadpoles became black comma's in the pond and the herons flew like spitfire aircraft,
how daft we laughed and gaily played as if the season would last forever and tomorrow would never come.

Mr's Brown is Bobby coming out to play today?

Then Bobby went away,
taken by leukemia that crept in silently and took him quietly and still we squandered the fading sunlight.

On the dullest of days when the bagpiper plays and a darkness comes into my heart,
I stand there, out on the foreshore, waiting for emptiness
and wanting no more.

It all goes tha' knows
the memory loss
the failing sight
the sleep at night and
then they put you in a home.

Can't find my own testosterone, it's probably gone as well, but each day reminds me, occasionally,
that at times it's better to look and not see.

Under each rock you will find the place where the enemy sits with a smiling face, the memory key on the odd occasion relents to set me free.

Pontefract cakes and rhubarb wraps, designed to taste nice, are life's little traps.
I fall into it and them, time after time, and after more time I fall in again.

It's getting late too and I can't wait to jump through the mirror that opens the way.

The first love for me
It was always the sea.
Being lovingly caressed
Being slowly undressed
By the deep oceans call.
Being caught as I fall
Into Kingdoms below.
Where I flow
Into gleaming ravines
Into Davy Jones dreams.
And on the network of tides
I slide into rides
And slip into waves
Of mermaids and slaves.
I glide upon stallions
Sail in lost galleons
And float in with the breath
Of those swallowing death.
As the seafarers are pounded
As schooners are grounded.
And sink into the deep
In silence they keep
The first love for me
It was always the sea.

John Smallshaw 2011.

Yeah
well I sat in the barbers chair while you walked up and down the crowded aisles in a half deserted Tesco store
I wondered why
what was it for?
The freezer stood alone at home
freezing cold as was its wont but it was stacked with want me nothing more at all
for it was full up to its freezing chin
with something brought from albuquerque
and two fifths of London Gin.

The barber gave a weirdly grin and gave me one of number two
I should have fekin known that's what the little *** would do
but you just wandered round and did you see that skinhead passing by the deli' counter?
that was me
I waved atop my fresh shaved head
but I was dead meat on the cooked meat and it shook me wide awake
I need to take a breather
might even leave her
she would not care
she's got Tesco's in her brain and not to mention in her hair with apple summer fresh smell,how much dumber can one get
well if I stick about just watch this space
look out for the smiling vacant face
that will be me
taking her
to do her hair
just like mine.

Brexit
wrecked it
for the ones
who wanted to stay.

Colours
blending me now,
sensing,sending me,
how do they know
what I feel?

There are some words to describe what it seems like to slide down a rainbow or what corn hears as it grows in the field,
I don't know what they are,but
ask me how far it is far and I'll tell you,it's as far as the length of a thought.
when you think that you know, in the time corn hears the **** crow, that thought will be longer and further away.
I've never slid down a rainbow but I bet it is soft,like a hollow of hedgerows and the **** crows......doo,
and I will.

Still these colours crowd in on me as
If there's something that they can see
and I can't.

Perhaps I'm being fixed up to pick my bundle of sticks up and carry on,
red means I stop but then amber will pop up and make up the green in me,
seen in me,sensed all about and,
me,
often blind
cannot find the end of my nose but the signpost always shows me the way.

I will chop up the firewood to warm up the blood in me,
do something good for,
I am tired of this selfish destruct in me,while
empathy selfishly laughs at me,
it seems to be always the me in me that can't see the wood for the fire that burns in me,
I should try to be
something I am
something of a man in me tells me that to be free,
it is this I must do.
The **** crows and
I will.

Lanky,cranky,old and stiff and full of modern aches and pains which always seem to rain on me,
I wake to face a Wednesday which some would say's a bonus play for one armed bandits,I would say,
'Life wasn't meant to be like this,how I miss the salad days, when tossed in oil and mayonnaise,my joints were free,my bones were lean and green.

I have seen graffiti,written on the wall which mocks me,locks me,spray can flaying,prayers slashed across the stones
and my bones creak,wreak havoc with my stature.
It's natural,
or so I'm told
to ache somewhat when one gets old
I hold on to the thought that I still might
once more trip lightly, be more sprightly
instead of being so tightly wound
with legs bound up,
they're so unsightly,unseemly or so it seems to me
I do hope that it's salad for tea.

.

I survived Cameron and his band of hatchet men

remember when Thatcher took the axe to school milk?

but you ******* voted her in
as smooth as silk
but we see her now as the sows ear she was.

I won't vote for Corbyn
he never went and yet he's already a has been,
never seen that before excepting Jeremy and they named a park after him.

Thorpe.

Once
when I drew a breath in Toxteth
and the carnival was the riot
I got a bit
but that's censored.

Anyway
in Lancaster it's raining although it was cool down in Blackpool with the Duchess and only a slight breeze and a sneeze or two passing by Blackpool zoo.

Goodnight y'all
don't fall asleep
before you've said
your prayers.

She sits there on a chair
brown eyes
brown hair
where opposites attract
and attacks me with familiarity.
I modestly avert my eyes
her ****** tells me more lies
and I have no reply to this.
But should I kiss and comfort her
the chair that sets a demarcation line would be
but just a simple waste of time
and I in time could come to see
her ****** is not for me
but for her sense of
femininity.

I couldn't care less
my bedroom's in an awful mess
I'm going to strip off to the buff
jump out the window
I've had enough or not enough
stuff this life
I hope out there I find an equilibrium.

Like a wayward sheep I follow her
but does she care?
she doesn't give a hoot
gives me the boot and says I'm just a stalker
but she knows she's trapped me in this baby walker
and if I the baby catch her eye as she wanders slowly by
what does she do?
but ignore me and I abhor that.
She's like a wild cat sometimes between the sheets at bedtimes
but those times are few and far between.
I've seen the writing on the wall
she's calling time
that says it all
I should have jumped
stopped the pumping of my heart
I know I'll never be a part
of her.
She doesn't care
she doesn't give a hoot
I think I'll shoot
myself.

Exterminate
repopulate
overcompensate and
so exterminate

There are submarines in Tottenham
they're watching every woman,
man,and moving slowly
underground they make no sound but have no doubt
they're watching what you're all about.

Ransom to pay for every day
demands to be met

one day I'll get a free ticket
one day I'll tell the day to
stick it where the Sun don't shine
one day it'll be all mine

in the meantime
I am held hostage by
unfriendly weather and
whether I like it or nay
there's a ransom to pay.

It's early and the wind is whistling
clear in the dawn
a fawn in the garden
(must have lost its way)
another ransom?
not for me to say

one day
there'll be graffiti to
meet me on the towpath
a Banksy I could chisel off the wall
but not today
today's just a ransom that
I must forfeit.

She sleeps in the lake
wakes when I dive
when I drown
I survive and I die
wondering why
she sleeps in the lake.

Soaked with our toes poking out of our shoes
but the fuse is alight and
one day,
one day soon,
things will turn out alright for the people who walk in the reign of the night.

When that tomorrow has come and the sun always shines,when hard times are the words on a book you once read,when the bread isn't stale,
what a tale you will tell
what a hell of a time.
I should be glad that they're your tales to tell and not mine.
but I share in your pain,share in the streets and will share it again and again until the rain stops.

The underground monastery,
a feat of such majesty which imposes on me a sense of tranquility
until the Koltsevaya line to Komsomolskya tube rushes in,
they
push past me quite brusquely
as if I'm just a part of the tapestry
while they're making history in
the underground monastery.

I woke into my perfect day.
Another day.
When the spiders who built castles in my head
Appeared to say..
"You and a perfect day....No way"
So I left myself behind
Bent my bones and walked off to find
The light that shone in burning fingers
And had once touched my face.
But then I lingered and saw a cat atop a crumbling wall
Holding a kangaroo court for one and all
And in Cats eyes
I was surprised to see reflections of recollections of glee.
And again the spiders seemed to say to me
"Go further in your weave of day"
I sailed into a long forgotten bay that I once knew
And sunk into the waters which were oddly red and blue
And down below where only fools and madmen go
I sat upon a turbots knee
Which pleased the turbot but did nothing for me.
I drank the seaweed in my cup of cakes
And hitched a ride into that which make the greatness
Of the greatest lakes.
And there I sat and ate the sky.
By and by on railway signs
I thought of life and life's hard times
And my Headmaster gave me one hundred lines
"I must not get up and go away however perfect seems my day".

She was
fascinated by the way the beard floated across his face and disappeared without a trace into his ears and thought it was a camera trick.

The camera doesn't lie is a lie, though we still believe what we can see,no longer polaroid the humanoid is now devoid of all reality,
the photoshopper shops and crops,lops the tops and bottoms of his pics,sticks in bits that don't belong,digitised, giving verbal to the lies in view and finding few who disagree with the elements,reformed and shaped, the new caped crusader,tints,tone raider,
I saw Douglas Bader with two legs but peg a negative and hold your tongue,I like to watch the colours run on the drip dry line,processing time.
I don't like the fact that numbers attacked this art in forms of decimals it makes us vegetables
relying on the cut and crop of photoshop must stop.

I told her that it was no trick,he had the beard but the camera was sick,she listened to me in disbelief and from her briefcase took out a camera and snapped a picture of his face,
and now I'm fascinated in a way as to whether we can photoshop a rainy day and turn it into something good
I wonder if we could or not,must
take a look at
photoshop.

Them tell I, and I just is res' up
but them babylon beat me toratti
and this blood done have to be fess up
but I innocent,
this is a fit up.

The boys in the yard pay softball
but hard
and the radio crackled
a laugh from the ghetto
a death we do not know, but
babylon burns me,
I learn from the brief
that I
is got grief because
them in the Met'
got a room with a view
and won't let me sleep 'til I write
down in longhand a statement to
hang me.
In black and white between the
day and the night,
I res' up
confess to all
fall in love with the thoughts that I have
conquered

Ten megaton and
it hit us head on
and that was the
start of the war.
but it was as before
when the last war was won,
dead on both sides and
both sides taken for rides
on the armaments train.
Someone's got to gain and
it has to be them,
those out of the picture
those who get richer
every time a
bomb drops.

In the eye where I am
where there's peace,(so to speak)
I take out the album which I carry in a telegram and in those few stunted phrases,
my heart again blazes with desire,full of fire and of want.

This is punishment for me and I see retribution in these lines,
times though be far are near as I wear out my eyeglass making pass after pass at the words on the clipped sheet in my hand,
telegram and the full of memory man and the eye carries me on to the storm that levels all in its path,
I shall weep for this no more,bring the winds and let them bore through me and the rains to swallow my tears unshed.
I am led like the goat to the pipers of Pan.

I am the telegram becoming the man and the album's a plan to destroy me,though the Devil employs many vices it seems that nothing is fixed and there's a swirling of voices which melt into one,(am i to be that one?)
This saxophonic cacophony within which I am caught teaches me, what once before I was taught,
I'm a prisoner in the dock and the black cap is on and the 'beak' up ahead says,'you're going to swing John'
And the beggars and tramps and those bums that you meet on the islands of midnight where the ne'er do well greets you with,'lend me a dime' all make some time to come to the show where I swing to and fro and...look at my face all bloated and blue,
(it's only make up,but what can I do,poor ******* I am)
and the eye winks at me,winks at me as if I could see the joke in this,it is funny though, that one feels so tall as the trapdoor opens and you begin the fall
but then it's snap, crackle and pop
full stop
dead end.
telegram sent,

I'm going home.
stop.
end.

Tammy,Tammy,call your mammy
daddy's run away.

Buildings built of stilton cheese and Wilton rugs,bugs that run round in my head,silver diamond ten gauge thread to tie my eyes up.
Tea leaves tell no lies,
I've seen them in a broken cup where broken people all look up to watch me fall.
I call the Master of Ceremonies,also made of Stilton cheese,eaten slowly by the mice,made from chocolate covered rice cake crisps and baked in ovens,gas mark seven and ask him,
where did daddy go?
he doesn't know and never did and slowly drops off from the grid,
in hidden thoughts behind veiled red eyes where riots run with teddy boys,who ride Italian imported scooter bikes,
twenty thousand Facebook likes for what,
a **** *** underneath the bed?
more bugs that run wild in my head,
another silver,sugar coated thread to wrap me in when I am dead,
but I'm not there yet
I've got to shift the fuzziness,the interfering laziness,be blessed twice by his Holiness,undress the dressings I am wrapped in,bleach my skin and reach inside to clear my mind.

(20 minute poetry)

This day,
what day?
Monday
that day!

On my way,
the pilgrimage to
work,
It is a sacrifice
which I make
five days a week

and two days shall I rest
one more than God,
quite odd
considering we think
that he knew best
or am I mistaken?

If the proof is in the pudding
'let them eat cake'

we need no validation
for this is
occupation
an occupation,
the formulation of a man.

I wear my armour like
a decongestant,
am I not a contestant
sitting out the race?
spitting in the face of
evolution.

and who cares who wins
anyway?


(Wrote this on the way to work and promptly forgot I had) Doh.

I sit up there in the thin air where my focus is extended by eyes that feed on loneliness and lips that taste the awesomeness of pipe dreams in the sky,
A vision opens up to me, unreal, a trip out LSD, but no this is reality and here
in thin air flying free, the eagles seem to float as if on skis across a frozen sea.
I have abandoned all for self sufficiency, I want the eagle to be me and me to be the eagle, up here in the thin air where I grab at straws.

Two thousand floors down on the elevator to desperation in the nation of investigators they look for me, Up is not on their agenda or they'd send a scouting party to hunt me down.

In some era long before when I tore envelopes to lick my life and stuck them to the notice boards and no one cared, I cared more for stray dogs on the street than any one of ten or so of beggars that I met or those who came to meet the dawn with pleading looks, was it yesterday when my name, written in the book that details all? I began the fall that rose me to this place where I now sit, invisible but I am seen by clean air to be particle, to be this place without the trappings of a soiled humanity, I want to ski like eagles 'cross the frozen sea and for those who doubt me this was never LSD, this was the walking in and through a life that no one ever knew and a shout or two along the way,
In the thin air, I learn to grin, to remember what it feels like when you let the future in, some time ago I knelt to pray and being nearer to tomorrow than today. I'm sure that if someone watches over me, they'll set the skis, fire up the frozen seas and let me go.

I become my own General and watch over my army, but here in the thin air there is no one to harm me,
the eagles look on quizzically
floating by on skis.

Three artists for effect
a tower to direct the Sun
to paint the mornings when my mum
made breakfast,

now dear mum has gone
the paint has faded
the art struck dumb
the towers crumble one by one
and on and on
we go.

There is a disconnect
And feeling wrecked, I shall become
The drifting of a morning sun.

It is not enough being seen to be seen
To be a bit part player
In somebody else's dream
Everyone needs to be the one
That the spotlight lingers on.

Deal me out..it's not what I'm about
I dream alone and thus the disconnect comes home.

And sat here in this solitude
With time to burn and fingers chewed
I wonder who I really am.
This disconnected man.

They have a name for this malaise
Don't they always?
But I really,really don't give a toss
My loss is mine alone
Another disconnect comes home.

Politicians,churches,banks receive no thanks from me
Just greedy men and hypocrites
Who'd slit your throat for one more groat
One more soul to save,enslave.
Or one more baby in the bath
Drowning on the electoral path.

There is a disconnect..two trains wrecked
And somewhere down the line
A red light glares
Stares at me,
Should I be seeing something else in someone else's dream?
Have I been seen being seen?
In disconnect I want to scream out loud.
Get me out of here
Free me from this rock and roll of roundabout and turn around
As I hit the ground
As once more I fall
The only sound I hear is the disconnect
That laughs gently in my ear and whispers to me
'You never knew me'

And then the phone goes dead.

Must not give up
must not give in
must not fail to start living.
If mantra's work and I'm assured they do
I'm sure that this may see me through
those times
when all is bleak
when I am weak
and all I want is to streak away
but like the fastenings of the night to day
I know that I must stay
to see in words that mimic me and mock at my endeavour
if only then to free my thoughts and
whether they would rise or fail
would sink or sail
I could not know but have to be free to go and find this truth
or pull it out and inspect it like some rotting tooth
black and pungent smelling
like some telling of a nursery rhyme back when in the time
of wolves and spells
and trolls in dells
the truth was not so clear to see .
If I were me and I'm sure I'm not
I'd find a little spot hidden far away in some place where I could call and say this here is mine and I would stay
secluded from the rush of people pushing past and I at last could start to cogitate upon this state of who I am
well that's the plan
but of course another pipe bursts into smoke and I can't even smoke the joke of dreams that fire the sky above
and If I love then who,
who could fathom all the deep that I myself can only sleep above,
another love?
it's a battle to keep my head afloat or keep a coat on
go on to see and what is left but me and another me in mimicry.
If in all of this,
in all of this life I could but only be a copy replicant not free but locked into technology
and who could not but fail to see a form of ideology or idolatry
psychology
a branch of yet another tree that grew out of necessity
and that is yet another faking of the free chained into some solitary cell
encouraged to scream and fekin hell
I screamed
streaming curses intervexed and supertexted them into the padded wall where swear words fell but I being on the ball and mindful of recycling picked them up and sang them,rang them out again until I myself was wrung out dry.
Why Is it then that I should feel that being peeled like a ripened plum and waiting for 'Jack' to come and stick his thumb into my eye
is wrong
why is it written in the fables that poor men wait on rich men's tables and drink porter watered down while those that sit with crowns upon their head would in any case be better off if I were dead
just a thought to think and in the blinking of the middle eye it joins its brothers in the sky where all thought congregate to die
another why and another after that and flat out,shout out,can't read enough about or write the words to set me free
one more branch
one more tree
one more me
one more me
ideosyncrasy
ideas of being free
immortal in mortality and death to all banality
I see nothing really
except the cornflake box
a pair of sweaty socks and my life whistling down the plug hole.

Nothing beats being beside the sea
With a stick of Blackpool rock
My only company.

This crock is old
Can hardly unfold the deckchair
"Hey you there..
..young chap..give me a hand" "

"Alright grandad..keep your hair on",
..he replied.

The tide is still out but it's on the turn
I want to sit in the sun
And I still want to burn
Never learn.
I know that it's wrong..
but at my age..anything that lasts for long is a treat.

No.
Nothing beats being beside the sea
Just me on my own
Where the sand is becoming my second home..
..and the seagulls all know me by name.
But still krap on me all the same.
I think it is part of the game that we play.
Sitting and wasting what's left of my life away.

I stay for a while..looking up..looking down the old golden mile
Can't see any gold
Another tale I was told that just wasn't true.
But the sky is real blue and that's worth its weight..
..in diamonds..but I'll stick to my stick of Blackpool rock.
Should have got a sun block..my head's burnt red
Never..never learn
Time for bed.

Time to smother, time to love her
time to hate and create another time to smother.

I was told upon my Mother's knees that days like these were few and far between, but I have seen the sloping of the shadows bearing arms.

Time to **** your brother baby, time to **** another maybe time to **** some time and more.

I'm sick and tired of being wired to the bomb,
press the detonator
save some time,
I'll see you later when the dust has settled and
the noise has died away.

At ten minutes to eight in a state of weightlessness,weighing less than I did,having got rid of my soul,I am on the whole
dissatisfied.
Though I tried to hang on and prove that the devil was wrong,the temptation was great and at a quarter to eight I gave in,and
sold off my soul for a portion of sin with plenty of sauce and now
of course
I regret this mistake and at five before eight weighing nothing at all
I fall.

They want more of you for less and that's how it swings,
the pretty lady plays me a song, but I don't know the words so
I hum along,
they want to see and never hear, want you begging somewhere at the rear in the penny stalls and it falls into that they don't want you at all.

If I could play the banjo or maybe the ukelele I'd be sweet, I wouldn't have to meet the scowls of howling managers with jowls so slack they look as if they're going when they're really coming back and the pretty lady plays a song,
it's for me,
a little bit of harmony among all this insanity and tomorrow if it comes on time they'll be waiting there all prim and primed to shoot.

Do I give a hoot?

If they want more of me for less of me we'll see how much they get and I bet it won't be much,
I touch wood for luck and **** 'em,
that the way it swings and the pretty lady sings for me,
things are looking up.

The kettle whistles plaintively as if it knows it's time for tea
but the time is only five past three,
far too early
and she's the one who put the kettle on
but
she, went back to sleep
leaving me to keep my ears awake until I rise,get up and make a
brew.

I don't know what to do,
should I make the tea?
would she thank me If I woke her with some toast and tea upon a silver coaster?
I think not.
She's got me wrapped around her little finger,slinging me a crumb or two and leaving me to make the brew.
Sod the kettle
let it whistle on,
she chose the tune,she knows the song,meanwhile
this hungry boy is gone
to get some coffee and a scone, in a diner down the street.

Let her wake and wonder why
the kettle's dry,there is no tea
let her wonder
what became of me
but
she,
will take it in her stride
she's got her pride and that won't slip.
I think this as I sip my drink and wonder if she'd ever think
just how much'brew a man can take
how many tea's a man can make
before he cracks.

I keep my back against the wall
lest she should fall from a great height and beat me senseless,
it would serve me right
but this I do not let her know
I go
to work
whistling.