Get me the telephone..
I need the fix in a voice like I once needed methadone..
..I hate being alone.

Get me the words in a book..
Give me a look at these things that are living.
Give me some giving.

Sometimes, late at night..when there's nothing around..the world's without sound..and I sit in the chair..
..it's like I'm not really there..
...like I've moved out in time..and I'm in a space that's not mine..and these moments go on..like the words in a song they run slow through the night where I'm sat in the chair and thinking I might not be here.

Fear is a part of it..a big piece of the start of it and Lord knows I'm not brave..I'm not the hero who could confront a dragon and save a maiden from death..I have to save up to save for my next breath but that's cool.
I see the face of the coward in the reflections of a fool..in a rock pool by the beach..and I'm still out of reach as I sit in the chair..
Not here or not there the chair is in nowhere..and as I ponder on this..

I think of a kiss that I stole long ago..In the old railway shed where the older girl led me and fed me her lips.
I can feel my mind slipping away..late at night as I wait for the forthcoming day..it's okay.

Sat in my chair I just go with the flow, wherever it is that my mind wants to go..
I go too.

Get me the telephone..
I need the fix in a voice like I once needed methadone..
..I hate being alone.

Get me the words in a book..
Give me a look at these things that are living.
Give me some giving.

Sometimes, late at night..when there's nothing around..the world's without sound..and I sit in the chair..
..it's like I'm not really there..
...like I've moved out in time..and I'm in a space that's not mine..and these moments go on..like the words in a song they run slow through the night where I'm sat in the chair and thinking I might not be here.

Fear is a part of it..a big piece of the start of it and Lord knows I'm not brave..I'm not the hero who could confront a dragon and save a maiden from death..I have to save up to save for my next breath but that's cool.
I see the face of the coward in the reflections of a fool..in a rockpool by the beach..and I'm still out of reach as I sit in the chair..
Not here or not there the chair is in nowhere..and as I ponder on this..

I think of a kiss that I stole long ago..In the old railway shed where the older girl led me and fed me her lips.
I can feel my mind slipping away..late at night as I wait for the forthcoming day..it's okay.

Sat in my chair I just go with the flow, wherever it is that my minds wants to go..
I go too.

John Smallshaw
26 November 2012 at 04:21 · West Ham


Absent friends.
Get me the telephone,
I need the fix in a voice like I once needed methadone
I hate being alone.

Get me the words in a book
Give me a look at these things that are living.
Give me some giving.

Sometimes, late at night when there's nothing around the world's without sound and I sit in the chair
it's like I'm not really there,
like I've moved out in time and I'm in a space that's not mine and these moments go on like the words in a song they run slow through the night where I'm sat in the chair and thinking I might not be here.

Fear is a part of it a big piece of the start of it and Lord knows I'm not brave, I'm not the hero who could confront a dragon and save a maiden from death,
I have to save up to save for my next breath, but that's cool.

I see the face of the coward in the reflections of a fool in a rockpool by the beach and I'm still out of reach as I sit in the chair.

Not here or not there the chair is in nowhere and as I ponder on this,
I think of a kiss that I stole long ago in the old railway shed where the older girl led me and fed me her lips.

I can feel my mind slipping away late at night as I wait for the forthcoming day it's okay.

Sat in my chair I just go with the flow, wherever it is that my mind wants to go..
I go too.

Knickers and sheets blowing in the breeze
Saturdays are made for moments
like these,
home is tidied,
washing's done,
time to
get out there and
grab me some fun.

There's this geezer in Stratford
think he's from Deptford
looks like Robert Redford
sounds like
Alf Garnett,
still
you can't win 'em all

They chew us up and spit us out
and us are left with sod all,
nowt.

things'll change
just wait and see.

Society as we know it
will cease to exist
until then
I
guess when used up
we are useless,
discarded,
empty
of
all emotion

and we'll end up in
some vast ocean
to float aimlessly
until eternity
decrees
another fate

and that other fate
is the wait and see
the beginnings of
a brand new society

I have waited a lifetime
and I may wait ten more
but the old guard
can't keep that door
shut forever.

Never give up as
the
spider has shown
or
a giant oak from
a tiny acorn

ideas are born
and will die
unless
and
I guess
our time hasn't
come yet.

I construct an abstract argument 
and for arguments sake let us believe
that an abstract is a viable construct.

This is an argument where any given abstract
is seeded from outside a circumference where
the diameter is greater than minus zero and the
resultant abstraction gives a positive result.

I lose the argument every time.

The validity lies in the lie we believe,
arguments that deceive us into
accepting the abstract as part of the
construct

basically we're..you know what
I'm not even going there.

Bone china,
there's nothing
finer
if you like
drinking tea
from the
skeletons of
dead things

Later in the morning when
stood by the fallen tree
it makes sense of the
nonsense to me.

The terrier barks at the swan
but is wily enough not
to bark on,
the swan as swans do
swans off.

My toes are tickled by the slow stream
even as my eyes are tricked by
the jet stream
the world turns as the
sun burns off the dew.

If I buy a fifth and drink a fourth
will I still have a fifth or will I
have four fifths?

it's these questions still keeping me from sleeping free of the questions that keep me from sleeping.

a mind jigsaw
is a tough puzzle to make
sense of.

Nearly ***** time
which is anytime really
and anytime is still
nearly ***** time.

But it's not really *****
if it's
brewed in Warrington
by strapping lads with
hob-nailed clogs on
is it?

She has eighty seven
ways in which she
likes to **** me,

we're up to number fifty nine,
she says that on completion
we'll go another time.

She keeps me in suspense
past tense,
she kept me in suspense.

Portents:

the door that creaks
the pipe that leaks
the hole in the bedroom wall,
all lead me to wonder why,

she kills me but
why is it
I never seem
to die.

When something's itching at you
from somewhere deep inside you
and the need to know just what it is
is the need that just defied you.

It's there and I will find it
( I played Cluedo as a kid )

but
the pen that opens up the word for you to read
the mildly absurd,
is short of what is necessary

the well is almost dry
the nib is cracked and
I could cry

if tears would only form written words
I'd have formed a library of books..
but they don't
and I didn't

the itch is still there.

It tells me about pensions
mentions erectile dysfunction
there are
stories on countries,
despots
Trump
and
how not to be pisspot poor
and
I am sure that there are lots of
articles on
Corona, how to keep a *****
although that probably comes (no pun intended)
under erectile dysfunction,
investments
disbursements,
how to disperse seeds to
grow new trees, poetry, poverty
injustice
what an error is
how to avoid calamities
flashbacks of memories
it almost
has it all,
oh wait,
Youtube
Spotify
mortified (in production)
and
ten million add-ons to add to your life

what else could you possibly need to feed
your appetite?

my good lady wife
says,
dinner's ready and that's me done.

She says, 'stay calm' as
she wraps a strap around
my upper arm, the strap attached to
a sphygmomanometer which measures
blood and puts me under pressure.

I'd like to meet a meter that never tried to
cheat her of a minute from a busy day,
a sphygmomanometer is just another way
of tripping up my tongue and syst or diastolics
are another load of bollix
that the meter tries to charge me for.

Results drip out like lemon curds,
tired, tired
lazy words,
numbers slumber on the dial and
in a while
I sleep too.

There's more to it and more to come,
save your daylight
but
burn the sun,

I've run out of matches,
and
Lowry
painting matchstick men is unaware
of my desire
to torch and set the world on fire,

then
when this is then and now was when back then
I'll paint my life as matchstick men.

They've offered me therapy
because they want
a quiet me
but I'm not going to have it
I'm just going to rant a bit more,

I told you there was more.


Easter eggs.

Why we overindulge on these chocolate treats
beats me
and what do eggs have to do with Easter?

the juggling jester smuggles in laughter
as background to his show

and that's what it is,
a show
Easter  bunnies and upset tummies and
a long queue for the conveniences.

Killjoys are not always little whining boys
men can be them too
I can whine as well as anyone
except
the whinging 'Pom'
he's in a class of his own.

This progression,procession,accession to the throne and all so I can bow before,atone unto the greater law,if this is all that this life's for I'll give up the ghost right now or get the most I can, and how I will enjoy my day,though knowing one day I must pay.
The requests fly in,fly here to sin and have a ball but even i cannot accept them all and so I lay them down to you and if you want,you can sin too.
Today's the way the credits play,let debits all accrue, but we all pay in the end so if you're scared and want to mend your ways,
what are you doing here?

We can all spit on those tablets of stone,
the trinity's on hiatus,
the devil's alone,
School's out for training
it's raining hell fire and the bishops
are recording the antediluvian choir.

Noah's going to Goa,
A lot safer than here,
they say Indian beer's the best.
With his wood and an axe and
several packs of cool Cobra, he sails
into the wind and ends up in the Gobi.

On the edge of a rainbow
'jump Noah',
'don't go',
two people are shouting,
somebody's outing the sailor.

The choir got wrecked on microdot specks and
suspecting the worst, the bishops in Rome
all spit on the tablets hacked out from rough stone,
it was a quiet day in the Vatican, no miracles pronounced
in Perpignan, no Lady of Lourdes, no shroud of Turin,
only the blessing of Geneva dry gin.
Angels with harps all ****** as farts and
the devil sits alone.

When your heart is strong but your eyesight's weak and your hearing's gone and you're called antique and the ladies smile because your fly's undone and then death crawls in and he thinks he's won, but the clock goes on and the day's begun so your feet start to ache and your nose starts to run, tinnitus kicks in and it hits the spot and the bells start to ring so you head back to your place where the budgie calls you king and it's all a case of deja vu,
it's all been done before there's absolutely nothing new,
you put the TV on and all the channels are the same and the ouija board spirits out another name and you know it's been a krappy day,
the night will take it all away or Jesus Christ
someone will pay and it'll
probably be me.

Facebook
is a bit like
'The Hotel California'
check in any time you want
but it's never free and never will be.

there'll always be the ghosts.

Her eyes were a shade of
shoot me down blue
and you know
that
she shot me down
with one look.

They said there's nothing to fear
so why is then when I see her
I tremble and shake
my ears start to ache
my legs turn to jelly and
my tongue turns to stone?

If I was a warrior
I'd carry her
away, but
once I had seen her
I fell into the trance and
became the dreamer.

The lover or the poet
would know how
to show
love and affection
oh
mine is the affliction
mine is the woe

and the lonely can only go
so far alone.

'fear death by drowning'
and yet Cohen sang
''only drowning men can see him''

a grim reminder
that someone is always behind you
ready to pull the rug out from under
your feet.

But someone saved me
and
gave me another chance,

it could have been
Christ or his brother
I can't think of anyone other
who would have bothered.

Finally
and quite locally
in a overgrown cemetery
I lay
for what seems like eternity.

Sometimes
you feel more alive being dead
with nothing and no thoughts getting into your head
no books to be read
no more getting up out of bed
just to hear someone say,
'not today'
and you don't have to wake at the break of the day
you just lay
and
stay where you are.

There will be some things you miss
like
a kiss
but if as suspected we're all resurrected
we'll not miss it for long.
Life goes on
even in the
graveyard.

There are butterflies in the Amazon
no
tree will fall today
but we fail to see tomorrow
and what tomorrow will have to say.

Be excited for when the worm turns
and when spring is in the air.

I'll be ****** if I know what is wrong
but I know it is time I must go
and I'll be ****** if I do what
I do know is wrong
sometimes it feels like
I have to say no.

it's just a reflection I see
it bothers me, but
so what?
others I see have got less.

But your eyes tell a story of something
and that something is
I don't know where,
it may be the worm's ready for turning
or it may be that
Spring's in the air.

She said last night that if I wished I might kiss her,
she's very kind like that and
doesn't like to leave me feeling flat or
deflated.
So I wished and kissed her tenderly,
she responded quite
magnificently,
elated,I
went for more,it was then she went inside and
closed her front door,
and I went home
alone.

Negative,
live and live or die and slave to sieve your life through the fine light wire
where the buyer controls the market and the product is factory made.

I was conceived in a small town East of the city of spires,
one of many in the land of Shakespeare and Shires and fired in the kiln with the clay from the pit
hardened and *** red with pebbledash dreams setting suns in my young head,
for a bit it was fine and the wire didn't cut,
but when you're dead you don't know that the way it is so is not the only way to go,
sold out and told off and mixed up I coughed up my penny for the guy toll which rolled into the gutter, a puppet on strings to stutter his way to the factory where scissors are polished by steel wool to finish the job.

The old man, my father knew better than I who gets by on a wing and a gallon of grog and the dog doesn't mind being cussed by the master, just as on the Dansette we go round and round and the stylus is us being stuck in a groove.

I move on in tandem with me and my random collection of thoughts and things I have bought though not factory, there's too much of that stuff and it bungs up the works and clogs all the gubbins.

Here's enough time to live and to live it right here or the engineer may turn us to burn us once more,
the overseer sees everything, hears the 5 o-clock bell ring and me with a wing and a gallon of grog.

The rain is ripping down through the curtains of the dawn

I'm dripping wet and need a place to get dry.

Everyone looks soggy, saturated.

The man in shorts might be a sport
but he's looking awfully angry,

no umbrella and what did mother tell ya?
'look before you leap'

She blows her nose
I hold my breath,
germs are not particular.

Folded arms
lots of those
she
blows her nose
again.

The underground
a breeding ground
why do I bleedin'
use it.

The vintage was old vicarage
the label was old spice
the taste was new, peculiar,
a touch which I thought nice.

But I'm spinning rings
a hoopla stall
the fairground's gone,
what happened to it all?

Everything goes
every one grows
everybody knows why
except me.

Then there are times when love underlines everything.

'I want the one I cannot have'

a line from the 'Giant in the beanie hat'
and there is in that a great truth.

The clock ticks along unaware of its song
and we,
unaware that time will always be there,
but sadly
not always for us.

She makes small talk seem huge
every molehill a mountain to climb
and that's what makes it worthwhile.

Ménage was a clever boy
his
scholarly pursuits
brought us lots
of joy
and
most things being equal
I liked him
e
v
e
n

i
f

h
e

w
a
s

F
r
e
n
c
h

I can see it all quite clearly and how dear to me it is,
the night drawn as a starlit sky, the dreams known
as we pass them by and shown only to the Tarot reader,

the seeds we plant that grow and in the winter go and grow again come spring, the birds that freely sing as they steal the air beneath their wings,

it brings an unchained memory fall
from a small boy to an old man
between the span of two hands on the
grandfather clock.

The pretty girls, the country girls, the city girls,
the girls who sought the cultured pearls,
the girls who bought the stories told them
by some men and lost them in their later life

part and parcel?
at times the living's terrible
but mostly
it's okay.

This ducking and diving is one way I survive in,
one staying alive in unethical times.

you can
keep your kudos for a keepsake,
praise
just makes my ears ache.

But think on
you'll give it all up to get on
and
You'll get on for as long
as you don't think.

It's beyond my ken
as to how
and the why
or the when does not
concern me.

But what burns me
what really turns
my stomach
Is
that it is
the way that it is.

No one leaves here intact
we all
at some time get broken,
battered, cracked, marked,
we try to fix ourselves
though it's a stark reminder
that what you might leave
behind you is a mirror that
others can break,

but we make our roads to
travel on, some to tarry on
before we go on our way,

I live today
if tomorrow comes and I am
still whole
I will play that role, that part
in the cast
until the day is no more.

Perfume,
I was naked
and wore some,
awesome but
not pretty.

Acting the goat.

...and what about the coming of age
when the whole wide world is one huge stage
only to find you're a bit part player,

say!
a fellow I know just got on with the show
what would you do?

I wait for the five thirty eight
which by all accounts should
be here by now

Oh!
and how was I to know
the train crews were on
yet another go slow?

But it's always on Wednesday's
almost as if the day's not
bad enough.


So
I'm sat on the jubilee
no joy here
can't swing a cat
not that
I'd want to hurt
poor kitty
a pity
the train crews don't use
the same
rule of thumb.

..and when you finally wake to find that you're down among the fallout  on the editing room floor
will you wonder why you bothered if this is what your life was for?

We're all someone's stills, pictures on the wall, director's cuts or soundmen's cues,
that's all.

Sold off to the studios or is it in our mind
the next find of the century and then you'll
leave us all behind
but
we've all been there and watched the screen
revolve about the wistful dream
sat silently in the cinema
got ****** at midnight
in the bar,
fell into bed and any bed
heads filled with the promise
of tomorrow
and cut.

if it becomes feasible,
workable,
let's give it a go on
the turntable

spin is the new parable
the story that is leaked to
the press

and we are disciples,
we lock,
load and aim rifles
to
shoot out the
centres and
move it on to
the finals,

they flip the vinyl
now
playing side B
nobody said
this was
easy.

Becoming that part of the mystery,
crossing over the boundary,
leaving behind all the misery,
I wonder if the secret will unfold for me.

I see transparency in the darkness about me
as if there's a bubble of light that
surrounds me,
all hope's never lost and that's
patently
true.

You who have never known what it's like to be
carried to safety by the charity
of the Saints in the service of one
that I'll never be,
don't know what it's like to be me.

It's a bust when
I'm just trying to live
and in the living,
I can't find any give, but
the boundary is clear to me
coming closer
approaching me,
I wonder if the secret will unfold.

A privet hedge..a broken gate the House with a roof tiled with Welsh slate,
a broken half open window from which the light throws shadows on the lawn..G'awn be off with you a Cockney voice shouts out.
The Camera pans.

A street,quite neat and real rare around these parts..two lovers on the corner sharing hearts..as if they could beat as one..
Move on there movie man the cop shouts from the black and tan.
The camera pans.

Traffic light that's stuck on green..a crowd gathers." I've never seen the like "..An old girls cry.."Someone will get hurt or even die,call the police "..as if they would bother their fat *** cans..
The camera pans.

It spins and spins upon its pins and captures you and me..and writes in Avatars of cars and flouting clouds of blues and whites,which balance out the unfilmed nights when cameras close their cyclop eyes and digitals tell no more lies.

I rise early like a bird..I heard a camera crew is coming down to film some scenes in my home town.
An expectant hush
An excited rush and then
The camera pans.

Dull as in drab as in get me a cab
because I want to go where the sun shines.

Somewhere in Stepney Green,
they must have a cloud machine
with its setting on grey.

And its Thursday
not that it matters,
it wasn't Thursday yesterday
but it was still grey.

perhaps it's she that fogs my vision
maybe there is no cloud machine at
Stepney Green,
this could still be the dream where
I'm actually living
but if that's true
where is the sun?

It Can't be Langley?
in the undergrowth
both
of them
men in black
bringing the aliens back
tracking me
it can't be Langley