never saw red sand before,
but it was red on the beach
back in '44.

Friends who ended their days
looking at me with a
startled gaze as if it was
all make believe
and that later
we'd meet for a cigarette,

not for me yet,
but I never forget that
it could have been me
watching with eyes that
could no longer see

on the red sand
back in '44

What pants?
hot pants?
not pants
really.

I steal a look
she
stole me away
but
It's Monday
so
what can I do?

Much too early for the hurly burly of the morning crowd,
If I could cotton wool my ears, put blinkers on my eyes, find a seat in the corner
I might not despise, not that I
do, this jolly handbag brolly crew.

What I have to do to earn a crust, we all must, but I really, really want to shout quite loud, get outa my face, I want to run from the crowd and where would I run?

It's this city,
full of oh so pretty things
shiny,
buy me
take home and try me things.

This city clips your wings
nobody whistles
nobody sings
no one has time for the
simple things.

The things I have to do I must.
I must have things to do or die before
I'm due or try before I buy and take another fall and break my neck.

They're ramping up the volume
to drown out the impending doom
and she says,
room for more on top,
but the bus sails past
it doesn't stop,

we'll walk it to obscurity
which is a day-centre for
the elderly
somewhere West of
Beacontree.

How old is old
we do not know
until we get old
and start to slow,

is that relevant,
relative or just the
elephant in the
narrative?

Refreshed, though not possessed of the ability to cut away the debris and set myself free,I go out into what the day may be.
Work,rehearse and rehearse the work,a perk of life they say.
I go again into the day,
unleashed
re-released
ceasing to care.

Willing though I am
I am not the 'full shilling' of a man.
You can stuff me full of worms and watch which way the earthworks turn or burn me on the stake,take your shot,make your play,willing though I am
I haven't got all day.
It's time you see that captures me and ties up the dandelion clock and there's no **** a doodle ****** me to wake and set this old man free,All
I see are mad old hens with fountain pens scribbling in the sand and the farmers wife who never had a life to call her own, sits and hones the carving knife,willing though I am she won't be carving slices off this old piece of ham.
What's normal now may tomorrow be somehow sanitised by experts who'd then advertise me as the fresh young thing and bring me to some underling who'd work in order just to pay the madnesses to go away,but
I remain,
the stain you can't remove and I turn again into the groove,another disc reminds you that I am
not quite 'the shilling'
not quite the man.

It's seven hay hem or ** hum
the day already numbs me,
numb as in numbers
he
slumbers on.

At least it's light
if
millions of sunbeams
are to be believed,
right?

Relative?
most things are
you can never have enough
relativity.

and it's Wednesday
not too shabby
it could be worse,

I'm getting ready
don't know what for,
I go out of the door
to discover.

In time,
we all become the pearls
until then the
swine have their way.

Oysters and clams and man's desire to rule,
the opening and shutting of mouths
oh
the fool of it,
blowing perplexities like bubbles of gum
chewing on daydreams hoping some truth
will come from the eyes of blind soldiers who
fight for a King to bring home their blindness
who then will sing of
the beauty in war?

only the dead for the quick get away.

Stay awhile Sally and tell me some more of
the why and the wherefore,
art thou the scribe who writes legends on skin
tattoos the bullets that rattle on in and in a moment
of madness draw pictures of children asleep
in the fray,
stay awhile Sally and write me this death of a day.

In time if time allows the why and the how of it
will be written on tombstones and in this place
of dry bones filled with sorrow and grief,
a relief
is surely on the way.

AmericIran,
not a bad plan
for peace.

Trust is a
must
trust
someone
sometimes.

Eyes on the landing
eyes on the hall
eyes from the dark side
my eye's on the ball.

Rats on the sinker
the ship's clinker built
deep in the mire
downed in the silt.

I flew with Wilbur
Orville stayed behind
Kitty Hawk didn't talk, she sang,
and someone rang the president.

We built the future on wooden spars
aeroplanes and racing cars

no one said it was wrong.

It's no easy thing for me
to look back upon
the reasons that I
turned my
back upon
a life
fuelled by heat
and the seasons
that
beat me down to
the floor
and
any more
than I
could
remember then
is lost in the recording of
way back when
the night was a penlight
that wrote
on the starlight

how tight these ancient
memories
hold into me,
how cold when I hold
on
the old, but I have the key

it's imagining then
when I go back
and when,
it's so hard for me
to turn away again,
like a screen on the screams
that revolve
in my dreams,
recording though it seems
that the tape has run
through the
echoes of what
was ever said
never done,
it's not easy for me
to look back upon.

Each little death,
she breathes
life
into me.

She breathes me in
and I begin
to live.

The build up filled up with
will they, they will or won't they,

what a carry on, the fan get merry on
the beer and waccy
and it's coming home?
well,
that just sounds tacky,
but
I hope it's a fair game
a foul free game to give
football back its good name

and the final score?
Google doesn't know yet,

the power of the internet,
impotent in the face of the
future.

The build up filled up with
will they, they will or won't they,

what a carry on, the fans get merry on
the beer and waccy
and it's coming home?
well,
that just sounds tacky,
but
I hope it's a fair game
a foul free game to give
football back its good name

and the final score?
Google doesn't know yet,

the power of the internet,
impotent in the face of the
future.

So far from home
so far from Rome
and still they comb the countryside,
yesterday's not so far away when you're history.

Celts and Gauls
each widow calls upon a saint to taint your offspring,
each song a dirge to wipe the scourge of Romans and their army from the shores of dear old Blighty.
I confuse these words I use and transcend time
each time another time to tell of conquests.

Have you seen the Book of Kells?
liabhar cheanannais as it's known,
or maybe in Rome,
the book of Columba,
I never did and
I never did the Dublin trail and never noticed
widow's wail about that either.

Each time brings its own tomorrow
a cycle down the paths of joy
where sorrow lurks to catch the unwary,
each time gets more scary than the last until
tomorrow's past and the rest is just the best of history
that we can make.
Some say fake, but I don't believe that either.

I always think
emergency
when she sits there
and stares at me
but she then says
she cares for me
and my heart rate
goes up.

Like a spot  that I keep picking or
a wound that I keep licking
I've got something kicking
'round in here,
something's buzzing in my brain
like flies, it's driving me insane,
picking, kicking, sticking to the lining,
I'm refining it,
digging through the flies and ****,
refining it.
Filing it and in a bit it will be clear,
something's
kicking 'round in here.

(20 minute poetry)

Stop me and try one
but
the ice lolly man
pedals on.

I shout for a cornet,
he cannot hear me
where once he was near me
he's now far away.

No ice cream today then
and when will I get one if
the lolly pop man
won't stop?

Greensleeves and
ice lolly memories
I wonder if Shakespeare
were here would
they stop for him?

This is fantasy
a Central line
romance for me

nothing to do but watch
faces
expressions,
shoe laces
undone
stop me and tie one
hold on I might buy one
the tube rumbles on
in tune.

Silence may be golden,
but down at the assay office
they won't pay for it.

Sir Nigel Gresley,
preaching like Wesley
approached Piccadilly
puffing like billy-o, but the
age of the steam loco
was drawing to a close.

And it always seems to be that way
tomorrow supersedes today
and the voice of yesterday
once so near,
calls now from far away
I hardly hear it
anymore.

Fortunes and fishermen
drowning in helium.

We should be priority
but we're
numbered
wings clipped
put behind bars as if
the sky has been ripped
from our grasp
and remains only a memory
in the aviary.

The word was boss,
top dollar diving
then hung on the cross
the word was still boss.

Along came ***** in pictures
the new pixels they sell us as scriptures,
but
nobody bothered to read
they just looked.

They'll celebrate revelations
drunken
besotted with their demonstrations
of faith.

But christ's on the freeway
doing eighty and
there's no way that he's
coming back.

Fortunes and fishermen who
hold tight to the talisman
praying
It'll be alright.

She was a ten
but that was way back when
before decimal coins
and long before the seams and several joins started to unpick
and now she looks sick.

Sick of the days
ticked off with those nights when she sits alone
frightened
so frightened if the phone starts to ring
or the doorbell chimes.

Not like those other times when she stood out in a crowd
her beauty (albeit plastic) would shout it out loud
'look at me
can you see you how good I feel',and still I would kneel at her feet
to me she's the sweet little lady
who one night in a Javanese bar said 'maybe' to me.

I see her now like never before
like today was the door that we came through
and if I knew then
even when she was a ten
that I'd still love her
a score of years on
when she is ill
I would still have gone it all the way
would still be here in love with her today
and that's the reason I believe
she'll get better when we leave
to count to ten
again.

(20 minute poetry)

You know you don't count when you're not counted in.

Let me begin where it starts at the breaking
if hearts can be broken at all.

I give my all, but still fall before the finishing post and the most I can hope for
is a beer,
nothing too dear as the price index shows.

But I don't get a look in and those ******* are drinking the good gin, the one they keep under the counter.
I don't count for **** all.

I won't let them win because I have the will to survive, **** their eyes if I don't and whether I count or do not I have the hand that takes the ***,
so ******* lot.

I'm told I'm too old to complain, I should be thankful for what I have got,
**** the lot of them.

Gentleman scholar I may be, but ****** if I'd follow that crew.

You know it
I know it
this situation is fuelled by
*******.

I escape now and then from the pen' not much to keep me there anyway,
no share and share
no one to help
do I ****** care?
I don't count,
but
neither do they.

I don't remember a day if it was a day,
life they say is for the living
can't say that I noticed.

But to be rescued when you don't know that you're dying,
******* in knots and you're not even trying to escape,
that is fate taking a hand.

I take today
picture a way to proceed and each day a new seed grows.

memories play poker and the joker runs on wild
but
the child in me runs free.

Faces appear
some near
some dear to me
and I see
the unknown
but
If happiness is the key
and the lock's somewhere
inside
then no matter who we are or were
It cannot hide forever,

I take these thoughts as a signpost
which is the most I can do

picking the right road takes the load off my back
puts me back on the right track
and
sometimes I'm glad that
I can't remember a thing.

With my eyes on the Sun
I see
fun
just over
the
horizon

In the hardening of an artery where the blood once flowed, eternity stares me in the face but between that place and here which the Devil holds dear is a sanctuary, a get away with it all before the last knockings call kind of place.

Hard walls and white walls, no satins, no lace just a safe kind of place that I like to call home.

Outclassed by being by-passed and the surgeons don't know my name but the game is the thing and the living bring hope or so it's said to the dying,

We're not dead, we're just trying it on for size, they say through the bloodshot of eyes that can't see,
I see it all in the arterial wall
you can't fool me,
eternity

Old bloke
got through the night
must smoke
anyone got a light?
but
nothing fell off, I don't have smoker's cough
and the coffee is hot in the ***,
She's humming a tune in the other bedroom
anyone got a light?
I'm stretching a bit because arthritis has hit
but it's not so bad, could be worse,
coffee is done and she's calling me 'come'
has anyone got a light?

They have a community garden there
where the old Abbey once stood
and where prayers were said long ago
people now go
to see the flowers bloom.

Room for religion and roses.

Manna from heaven.

It was lightning,
Krakatoa

and the gun blast
so much slower
than expected.

a minute for a moment gone
that echoed off the black smoke
sky.

The ache that takes your time away
the pain that brings the night to stay
so much of me within the day,
but slower than expected
why?

Stay connected
in
groups of up to six
only,
any more and you know
where the door is,

A butler counts as one
of the group
open your own Moet,
send the help home
with pay.

In asylums
we know them's not mental
they're not playing the game
just working the system.

and the street is a shill
plodding uphill,

the homeless,
why should we house them?
and the needy
why bother to feed them?

Greed then?

Let's all be the pigswill
the shill
plod uphill,
take what is there
because
we do not care.

Talk about polarisation,
It's not the ice caps,
it's
not space exploration,
this is the
Great British nation, but
turned out in new clothes
as
a giant corporation.

There are reactors that breed
self sustaining,
that's greed and
reactionaries in
missions with missions
to feed those on
the edges
those with real need

systems were meant to be hacked
codes to be cracked
fracking's not allowed.

what happened?
to fair play
was that only played by
people yesterday?

what about the tomorrow that
never comes?

guess what?
it's here now.

She rates at
twenty-seven degrees,
a bit of a tease
if you ask me,
but no one asks me
I am only the camera.

The minute I wake
I've one more minute to take another
to wash
One minute to dress
one minute to pray and confess
One minute I guess as I go out the door that my keys left behind me,for
one minute I swore.
One minute's as good as the next minute at best but the minute it strikes five o clock is the best.

Grandad did keep a pig and chickens also a monkey which was either sat on his shoulder or up on the clothes rack which was set high up in the kitchen..sometimes we would unfasten the rope that tied the rack, and did that monkey chatter as it fell towards the kitchen table..happy days.

My Grandad kept in the back garden ,a big fat rosy coloured pig.
Not the one that did a jig
but another
which was certainly a smelly thing.
Granpa would bring it bits and bobs and the pig would grunt in its approval
until the day came for the pig's removal.
It ended up in 16 dinner bowls and on one big serving plate.
I have to say pig tasted great with apple sauce
But of course
I miss him all the same.

I can still see Stan pulling his hair and
off there to the right, Oliver with his,
I can never remember if it was a bowler or a pork pie hat, but I kinda like that, like the haziness of a memory that comforts me, it's a
part of the comedy of growing up.

Once, like I was two or maybe three an eternity ago, on a trike, pedals and a bell, pedalling like hell was on nmy trail,
but
the word constituent, constituant, ringing in my head, must have repeated and said that word for hours and hours.

Mum Said, i had ABC, well that's waht it sounded like to me,

acronyms, CIA, RAC,CBI,

I went to the citizens advice bureau
the CAB, WHICH
if I really had OCD, would be the ABC, BUT YOU SEE the alphabet is what we get in tinswith tomata sauce and Mum OF course had the last
word.
They always do when you're two or maybe three.

I will become food for the worms
and they'll take it in turns
to feed on my flesh

I will be a creche for their young
what fun,
can't wait.

But
It won't be me there
so why should I care?

It'll be the suitcase that carried me
from point A
to point B

Still food for the worms though
and that's a thought to think upon
when I'm gone.

What are You wishing for,
more of the same?

I'm wishing for that gentle
kiss of sunshine on my skin,
for the night to let the day in,
for the summer to begin,
not forgetting
World Peace, because
one never knows
if one is in
a
Miss World contest.

I hardly started Sunday and yet soon it will be Monday, where's the ****** fairness gone, She says, John, get a grip, the week ahead won't trip you up and anyway, she says, work is good for you,
who's she trying to kid?

oh! but
this kid knows what side is bread is buttered on, oh yeah, and that means that I must go on and on until the horizon fills my eyes and on and on, guess I'm mumbling now and wondering how the day went so fast.

The chickens coming home to roost are certainly not a boost to self esteem,
I mean,
the past rears up its ugly head with words you may or might not have said and you can't remember what's true or not.
It feels like I'm heading South with the stock in my hands and the barrel in my mouth.
I did decide that suicide was not for me,a coward I might be but brave enough to ***** me out,hah I doubt that.
you can smack me 'til I'm blue in the face but I won't fall,I survive in the race and the chickens can peck as chickens will,
until they've had their fill,
but they are greedy *******,blood suckers to boot,maybe I should pull the trigger and shoot,but
let them roost and let them sleep and
I'll just keep the shotgun for fun.

Charles, you can
forget about the tar and just feather me
and I will spread my wings and fly free.

Weathering the storm which appears to be
the new ‘norm’
but no matter how fast you run or how far
you fly
time catches up with you,

by and by we’ll all go to sleep
if only to keep the dreams we have alive.

© 2020