..and we breathe
begin to oxidise
tears that run to rust
dry on the eyes that see
a boom and then a bust
but
nothing untoward that comes towards me
only Destiny and she's no angel.

People come and go
some I know
some I've known
and now outgrown
childish ways
'not so much
'the good old days'
seen in an alcoholic haze
but
just a phase.

Places
pass or I pass places
faces
wanted posters
more rides on
the roller coasters

what happened to the
brand new?
an engine heading to a fire
two cops sat in the
black Maria and the telephone
boxes that really work

redundancy is the new brand new
and someone knew but it was not me.

I want to laze
but then again
I want everything
with mayonnaise
or cream

do I have to dream it?

am I to be
forever stuck
reading some lines
in a fairy tale book?

I wish
pro-active
was a pill one could take
to take away the ache.

It's that time or this time depending on
which clock you're looking at,

I'm looking at my body crock (..oops I mean) clock,
it's telling me that the time's well past uncertainty,

But
I am as sure as I can be
that
everything is working
satisfactorily.

The poetry came from a dream which in itself was quite obscene and the rhymes reflected that, but times being as they are, anything taken beyond the edge is considered as taking it too far,
so the admin' host removed my post as is his right to do.
but
life isn't banal
it's carnal,
feral,
frightening.

Still, it doesn't do to cause offense.

I could send myself a memo
but
to where I do not know,
never knew a place I stayed at
didn't know a place to go.

I can remember most things mostly
but
there's others slip the net
I do
wish I'd wrote that memo
as an aid to not forget.

being old is no excuse
for the man who's not obtuse
????????er
what
was I saying?
help me out here
oh wait
there's a memo in the tray it
says
I have a place to stay,
now I know where I am going
this must be my...

**** I forgot again haha.
it's not the end of the world until it's the end of the world.

We become critical
analytical,
what we need is
something magical

the hunter in me hunts within me
while the gatherer prepares
the feast.

One coin
with two sides
but
we always seem to be
on the edge,

I can't tell what time it is
the clock has stopped
and it's dark outside

So
it could be midnight
just before first light or
half way through,
if
I had some candle light
I might see.

The radio conked out
and
after listening to the crap
that was put out
I'd be zonked out
too.

please message me
with the time
if you have the time,

I never did.

No one in particular
is not very particular
about the things he does

I adhere to the principle
that  to be a prince
and not a pimple
one must have a purpose.

If I need fine tuning
they'd soon put me in
or put the boot in
and that wouldn't suit me in
the slightest.

anyway
being particular has had its day
and what I do
or not do
doesn't bother me
it shouldn't worry you.

But
if I had OCD
would the dyslexic
see
me as a cod?
nothing odd
just peculiar
not the OCD,
me.

don't get upset, it's only poetry.

I told her don't worry,
no hurry
we'll get there and share each other,together, and if it's bad weather outside,we can stay in and hide,under the duvet,
'okay' she replied,'let us ride through the storms and make some of our own'
she ,
makes me groan in surrender,so tender,so meek and so mild and yet, she is wild,under the duvet where we hide away,making hay,
and today she is friction,she is real,not some fiction of mine,not some time on my own,not some duvet I've thrown in the lonely of night,
If I'm wrong,she is right and as I hold her,as I told her,
love is for keeps.

The clock ticks on
you think the alarm's
a bomb
and it blows up in your
face.

That's how it feels
if you make your deals
with the Devil or his son.

Must run
got a train to catch
got to patch in
to this day and
its sin.

In the spectrum
if ** hum
is light
I got no right
to complain

the clock ticks on
just the same
and
I still think it's a
bomb.

How the day drags
dragging your home in two bags and
your life in a rucksack.
Look back if you will it is just one
more hill that
you climbed.

The stepping stones
crossing boundaries
exchanging homes,
hanging on by a thread.

If I'm to be dead
I will live on
in the rising waters
when the stones have gone.

Lick my lips
she slips right in,
is this where
the beauty of
life begins?

Kiss me later
kiss me soon,
kiss me under the
sparkling moon
reflected on the
stepping stones where
the light
hones
my appreciation.

If I am failing,
if that is what's ailing me
then I sit uncomfortably
with death at my side.

In the ruins where I strayed
where I played
I have stayed for too long
and
time has abruptly erupted.

It's Sunday
and I am practising
my shining
just in case
'Jesus
wants me for a sunbeam'

(20 minute poetry)


She
crept through the spyglass and into my eyes where looks passed between us that made us both blush,
no rush, she said
somewhere inside my head and the evening lit up like a firework bursting way up in the sky.

I couldn't die a worse death now if I didn't taste her lips how I have longed for this moment to come.

The sun rose before we had satisfied, what she said was true and to me who has lorded over a continent, if ladies are such as can be islands to me could see that this maybe was indeed the fine lady I had spied through the spyglass so long ago.

Many years at the oasis have caused me to kiss many a more toad and this new road I rise on is the road I set eyes on and with good hope in my heart I go on.

It's a parable,
A take on misfortune and the men who die too soon and a true love that pulls through in the end.

(20 minute poetry)


Where the chamois go
out along the plateau
to where the winds blow and the Sun sets with that special lonely kind of golden glow

and silence undercuts the thermals.


It pleases the eye to wonder on high,
the eagles, another golden in the golden sky wonder why
I am here.

Away from the chaos of life in the city,
to absorb what is seen
to ponder on what will and if will
will still be.

On the spiral staircase and we turn about face
but the staircase is still there on the rise going nowhere

it's a ruse of no use to me.


The plateau is where we stow all the memories we own
the plateau is a home to me.

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.

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.

'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.

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.