There's a bonus prize
when you close your eyes
and let the world spin,
I win
and usually three lemons.

it's all relative, he said,
but he's dead,

proving his theory.

They called them skirmishes
shots fired
across the mud between
the vermin ridden trenches where
men could almost walk on water and
I thought that only
Jesus
could do that.

There appears to be little evidence
of all or any of the Saints in attendance
and this surely is the day for them.

The Devil I know
lays low
just in case they
turn up.

As the iron bars that wrap the night
creep in they hold me tight
a prisoner
and for what delight pray tell
should I spend these tiring hours in hell?
The windows laugh at me as they see me looking through and out into the gloom
and all I smell is doom
my bedroom is small and the evening is as tall as any giant
with foreboding
I stay quiet and wait.
Late.
It is late and there is no rebate to come from the warmth and joy that was the Sun
and it is cold
this terror I feel is not the least
for this night's no friend to man or beast
it is the cheat that plays the cards
the feral cat that like a baby howls in the back yards and alleyways,
and fat
the night is fat with jowls that sag
and drags its feet
across this man's back who failed to meet the sandman with his bag of sleep.
I weep
slowly
how slow the second hand takes to sweep around the dial
and slower still
the night creeps up and down my spine.
Even so
the night will go
I bear this thought in mind.

Listen to the background sound
the one that turns your life around
chill out the buzz, unlight the burn
listen in and maybe you'll learn

even a dope like John can hope
and hope has a sound all
of its own.

Watching too
on the peripheral
heading to the middle ground
working my way through
the background sound
turning my life around.

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.

I have heard it comes
to those that wait,
well
I've waited and seen
reinstated
and been
disappointed.

There's a wind blowing in
I would say
and
it's already well on the way,
that
take, take, take,
can take that as read.

It interests me,
the duplicity
but
not that much
because
they're amateurs.

I give and know
that when you get
what you give
and what you give is
**** all,
you get what you give,

head in the sand
or head up your ****
it all reminds me of
a Brian Rix  
farce.

I'm heading to the 'Harold Pinter'
off Piccadilly,
where the performance
will be hopefully more
Professional.

Softly she shakes me
wakes
invigorates me,
makes tea
she
shakes me.

Just got the last one, gone are the worries, gone are the cares, I jumped over the turnstile aware of the stares, the chase through the tunnel ways, the magnificent leap and praise The Lord I landed aboard the last one, they call me the fast one and now you know why.
Give me wings and I'll fly.

Incubate
activate
wait.

Robotic
predictable
psychotic,
indictabl­e for crimes
committed against the
state of my well being.

Deconstruct?
****** by a word plucked
out of the air

over on the other side
where the wall drops off
and the wide open space
looks inviting,
she looks enticing

that's my five cents in
what do you say?

Now
in Spectrum mode
with
block graphics that
overload
and I rode the highway
for this?

There are not many folks that I know who identify as a stick of celery, probably not controversial enough which is not necessarily true,
who knows when the lights go out, what celery gets up to.

I'm still identifying as myself
not so much off the shelf
more like off the scale.

It's the twenty-first century
and I'm waiting for them to
pension me
off.

She always comes too soon.

the moon and I are old friends

We were so busy
killing time
unaware
that time was
killing us.

I saw a black crow through a cracked window
and I don't know what it means.

I am stitched into superstition and the older
I get the more salt I throw over my shoulder.

I wish I was wiser or had a wise owl for an advisor.

But what does the crow know that I do not and
why?
and why don't I mend the window pane?


I'll see the crow again and wonder what again, throw more salt again, cross my fingers though the arthritis gives me pain
I'd do it all again and again.
I wonder what the crow knows.

(20 minute poetry)

Nothing here now
'cept the shadows that pass me,
Summer was a postcard pitch and toss,
the taste of candy floss that melted and yet stuck to uncouth lips.

Oh,
but that summer when I made a dinner of my youth and what a serving that was,
it was the blazing of a sun on unsinned flesh,
the findings in the fine mesh
so delicious,
I remember.

The darkness comes more frequently to bide with me,
old age is not all that it's cracked up to be.
Do I regret the many of my mistakes,
the paths I took or
the times I never looked at
the bigger picture?

You betcha.

I still catch the taste in what became the waste of me and at times I wait and see if I can be at one with it,
but the bullets that I loaded all hit home,
I
am alone,
just memory,
nothing here now unless you count the view from the cemetery?
I never do.

Where it takes me

South into the Sunlight or
there into another night filled
with dreams.

Repeats

She beats me every time.

I go with the scarecrow
and vote for the straw man
the tin man
the bin man at the
crossroads
anyone who promises something
and nothing

only to drop with my blood pressure and
find it doesn't ring in my ears.

But I'm home now and safely to find
home suffocates me
satisfaction is not guaranteed.

If I can feel
I can see
I can taste
I can be
philosophy.

It used to be much worse than this,
we'd sit beside the open fire and listen to
the choir of winds that sung outside the
kitchen door
and Dad would give us kids what for if we
wished that there were more of it.

The seasons all roll into one
and each one mirrors
the one before,
poor robin's beating his red breast
trying to figure which one's
best.

I got somewhat older somewhere
along the way,
the days become much shorter and
I feel the cold today.

She keeps the thermostat on high
she knows that I'm that kind of
kind of guy.

It used to be much worse than this,

but
it gets better.

7
and a long time ago
I used to be seven,
but now it's seven in the evening
this is
not the  time for memory lane

remember when you thought that you were in pain
well think again
because those were the best days of your life.

14 hours
does the clock care that all its hands ever do is
go around the dial while you watch?

is this what it has come to,
you watching me watching clocks ten past three?
I didn't see that in the small print.

Death's a disguise
behind the tears of dark eyes
and her cries,
heard by so many
are few.

We do as we do and some
make it through while others
fall away from the pack, try to
cheat the system but
watch your back,
death's a crack shot
with the gun.

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

(20 minute poetry)

They think it's the old me and they see what they want,
continuing on they believe in the old one, the one that's long gone.

I can't disillusion them those see what they want to men and so I live up to their own view of who they think I am.

It's a slap in the face though that they look to me first when things start to go wrong.

They fear what they don't know and I'm not saying it ain't so, but trust goes a long way.

I am still king if the mountain that was is still me and whatever they see it's not me that they're seeing.

Being realistic
they just ain't artistic
enough
to understand.

It never used to be
what it used to be
we
only imagined it so.

You see the clouds and I see much more,if you see the sky then I see a door to go through and explore,to see what's behind the grey lined clouds that you see.
Unfettered and better than that,if you see it cluttered and round then I see a flat open space,the grind of the ground upon which feet would pound and if you hear nothing then I hear the sound of excitement.
Unencumbered by notion of time as if the existence of time had no time,my time is my own time and no time,in no time at all the pendulum swings and I fall
like the grains in the hourglass I pass into the chamber,on a camber I slant,if you pant, I breathe slow,antithesis I know but
anaesthesia to me.

16:15 express

The train goes on,
the steam whistle making
a sad song and every time
it's a new one,

in my dream

the trees still scream
and the mountains still fall
the rivers are dry, but the
train goes on.

Mainline?
I've done it
run the gauntlet
got the scars to
prove it
but
they don't give gold
stars to
self-centred
fools.

And now I'm past it
thrashed it and the
engine blew,
few make it
more fake it
I take it
one day at a time.

Turning a key and in turn turning free all the thoughts that then fly, they could flee but then thoughts that fly free have no need to flee or am I missing something?

Bring me my ideas in a box filled with sand and I'll show you castles built not with the hand but the mind and then hand me the key to let all thoughts run free, hand me the sea in a sieve and I'll give you gemstones.

Backpedal.

See how we're home free with the domes of Damascus that would stop men to ask us, how do they do that? we answer them using Aramaic, using ancient and archaic chants planting seeds before the harvest.

Beating chests and tearing hair and where the answers lie for us in the old markets of Lahore we wore stripes on our bedrolls and tore strips from our skin, we didn't win that one and that's for the best.

And Beau Geste in the legion somewhere in the region of a beach, out of sight out of reach and he wasn't real really just someone's idea of an ideal and we fell for it.

Turn me another brother, turn me a key, spin me the wheel and let the numbers fall free.

We all see in the end as the beginning starts to wend its way wearily home and for some the end is another key to set free all
the beginnings we knew and could never see.

The book of Laments.

Lamentation
is a three sided occupation
that we're all occupied with.

Triangles are a turn on
for this Pythagorean.

I find connections in the unlikeliest of places
I always have done, though
this third son of a second son never made it past
the seventh grade.

Sometime time expired when the meter reader's tired
and the perimeter is the limiter and the brain goes into overdrive
then it's difficult, but I will survive and the
black and white is cruising
down another memory lane
and hearing a blast from the past,
thinks it's a gunshot.

It runs on under steam and in the steam
the fogs of dreams, I've seen
where ***** grinder's monkeys grin

In the unlikeliest of faces where a kindness lurks,
good works have been orchestrated.

I take another look
go to the book and
turn back a page

nothing's changed
the story's the same

and written in Indian ink

no connection that I can see
but I take another look to be
sure.

accusing a muse of being confusing
confuses the issue,
that's if there is an issue which
issues from a union

I confer with confederates
preferring the South as I do.

I take another look at you,
the view is amazing.

One hundred million reasons why
and each one is the same,
to breathe is but to breathe your name,
one breath before I die.

What glory then in fallen men?
tell me
tell me
tell  me
What glory then in fallen men?

At the speed of light the need for light is redundant.

a flash of inspiration just to ease the darkness of my situation and I am vacant in the columns that march on Gaul.

So much passes, past and what time is it now?
am I nearly there?
should I wear a suit, a shirt and tie or why would I?

take me
as you find me
and tell me
where
I am.

poetry about roses smelling sweet
and
what street are they on?
not
my one,
but someone
says
they are
and I am
as you found me.

Waiting five more months for the Sun to shine,
only five more months and we'll both be fine,
but only five more months is
a long,long time
away.

To the end of the fields where they meet the sun
and the blood runs up to the sky
where the youth of our nations fell in death,
100 years on
we're still wondering why.