Unless you're Ken,
you'll ken where I'm at.

flat line green screen
and it don't seem
that way
I'm
skipping about gaily
on a warm July day,

no one warns you
that it's coming
to get you,

it just drops out from the blue.

Flashback to a tin shack
eating hardtack,
the menu is limited
we make do and
make stew,

unless you are
Ken,
you'll ken what I mean.

Not Superman
or Spiderman
nor Batman
I'm
getting fat man,
this lockdown
turned
out to be a
chow down,
you can
paint my face red and
call me a circus clown,

I
need to slim down
before I go down
for the count.

Out of town plates running
out crossing states and
no stopping me now.

Boosted some gas to go
down
to El Paso
I
boosted a broad in some bar

and then some silver star dude
imbued with the law
shot me

what for?
I cried.

I haven't yet come
to the best bit
but I'll write it
one day.

Monday
coming in quick.

Sunday was done for
what for?
I never got to know it
another best bit
waiting on the wing.

Past my bedtime,
she shines
anyway,

the moon and I are old friends

Sleeping policemen
not all of them
in the road
but
all of them
somewhere.

I slept once on a bale of hay
slept the whole of the night away
until the day and two field mice
nibbled at me,
still,
it was nice
to remember.

I don't sleep now or not too much
such a short time left before I touch
the finishing line.

Time's a funny old thing
lots of it when you have it
and not enough of it
when you don't
a
bit like money
but
you don't need that as much as you need time
when there's not much time to go

The more I know
tte less it is so and
so it becomes.

the singularity,
a
sub atomic
hypothesised electronic
peculiarity.
in theory anyway

and theories are what **** us,
ask Pythagoras.

They talk in millions
but
ride with the minions
trying to make more
of
who they've become.

I'm running interference
for a cross border incursion,
this
war may be static but the numbers
mount up.


No one wants to know
it's just the way that
things go and so
it becomes.

Have you ever considered that what we call life is just a clinical trial?
are we lab rats, boxed cats or factory farmed?

off the beaten track and looking back at the styro'
and I know that you're thinking, 'he's cracked, not plumbed in, wired up wrong, but you're wrong because I can see through the confetti that medical society throws in my face
and something's not right.

hundreds of billions for research?
what are they researching or what are
they searching for? a
cure?
yeah sure,
and if they find it they'll share it on Facebook?
yeah!
like **** they will.

we are what they practice on
not the dogs or cats or monkeys
that's
a smokescreen.

obscene?
well
we've all been there at some time
but
that's another story to tell.

in the meantime
I'm going into hiding.

I can be early or late or
I can go faster and hear my
heart palpitate,
I can drool as you wind me around
your spool,
drop lasers on ice cream where
light shows
in a dark dream

I can time out
jump in
stick pins in my eyes and see stars

or I could finish my coffee and quit
murdering these words

hip hip it's Friday
I will
slip into gear for the
weekend is here.



last thought.


a life sentence must be worth reading.

Colours, chameleons, snakeskins and the deer that dances across the white wisps of morning.
Numbers that weep, mass numbers that keep the isotope
asleep in a waking state, the meltdown, the run-down and the rich crowned in fine palaces uptown.
Fates and the muse the accusers and those they accuse, the racers, the chasers, the rhyming of grime in the dirt of the day, the way that time will hang me, maybe it wants to bang me, a male state of impregnation my fascination with sea horses.
the lay-by in shop doors, the wasting of drugged ******, the flight of the fancy, another dance of the deer.
The cars that fly by me, the people who try me, those who defy me and those I despise.
The bomb that explodes me and in diagrams downloads me, the workings of watchmen and the watch that don't work.
The young Turks, the old quirks, peccadilloes, worn hedgerows and another dance of the deer.
Robin and Batman both bobbing for apples, grapple hooks at the ready,
utilities all cut-off,
poverty unravelling, travelling slowly up through me making a desert of a fertile sea.
The des res for the wealthy, private care for the wealthily unhealthy and the rotting of yesterday's news.
All what I view is all that I know and now you know it too.

She uses Drop box,
I Xerox and wear
white shoes with black socks.

Old,
rocks and I do
declare
I'll know for sure
when I get there,
'til then
a bit of Zen, not too
much, a touch of hair restorer
and
some ginseng and then
I'll bring them to the Xerox
where she'll Drop Box,
and we'll go
home.

Well
it could be or not what you don't want you got and what you need is the need to get more, but the shop shuts at noon which is far, far too soon so you make do and mend, I'm not defending the right for the greed though I might if the money was tight and I needed the rent and that's the bent thinking which sets me off drinking, work at four, drink some more, a cycle I try hard to break, but the wheels keep on going as I keep on throwing the beer down the back of my throat.

Shall I get my coat?
shall I?
or wait because my mouth's dry, do I do it or not, is it want what I got and do I need another monkey to feed?

Put the restraints on
hold me back
I'm heading off grid
and I'm on the wrong track.

but I'm only joking as
I soak in
the Sun beating down

did you ever wonder if
Dow Jones
knew
'me and Mr's Jones?'

it's all the same to me
an air or a melody
she
would disagree
and I would stand
corrected

disconnected?
not plugged in?
short of a wire?
where do you want
me
to begin?

When she shows me
she needs me
I show her
that
I need her more.

Knowing when and how to
is half of getting to where
you want to.

It takes time to learn and you
have to burn a lot of candles
read, digest, scrape the wax off your vest,

I had the option of burning the midnight oil
but didn't want to spoil my good looks
by reading bad books and losing out on
my sleep.

Moral:
if you turn things down
make sure it's only the blankets.

I tattoo your name and the results look the same,
on each finger a game is being played,
splayed out long and thin, like a cool whispering
you stay with me every night and each day.

For life, for life,
If I get me a wife
I hope that her name starts with
my queen of love hearts,
and is the same as the name
on my fingers

We slumbered through the Summer
and then wondered where it went,
who was it spent our sunshine?

In the Winter when it comes
there'll be gumboots and glum faces
and who's to blame?

It's only seasonal adjustments
for politicians
and the malcontents,
which may be true.

Next Summer
I'll stay awake,
watch the grass turn brown
and bake
take time to watch the sunsets
and
save some pictures for the grandkids.

We're not even halfway to wherever and we'll never get there if we don't start moving faster.

Rastaman from the Pentecostal down on the coastal road
says, come in, take a load off your feet,
another Jesus in the making of a spliff that I'm not partaking in,
which is no sin to me or to him,

and Jimmy who's a cruiser-weight, a bouncer down the ****** says,
come in and have a beer on me,
but I stay clear of bruisers, boozers, and cruiser-weights.
the fates align to take my time
and
I'm still not wherever that is.

She does not hesitate but manages always to arrive on time quite late
and what a state I get into
at two thirty three
when she should have been here with me
she's not even got dressed
I am so depressed
but at four forty four I once again soar as she opens the door and steps in.
She tells me I'm thin (and who's fault is that)
I get frightened of missing her and so don't leave my flat
so, no I'm not fat
but neither am I thin
I fit somewhere in between
and if you've ever seen a lady like her
you'd be where I want to be.

She cooks me a meal but I neither taste nor do I feel like eating just now
I want to talk to her
how
do I say these simple things
she brings in the heart to this home
I don't want her to leave
can't face being alone.

At eleven thirty seven after she's shown me a heaven
she goes and takes my heart with her
and she will get home
after midnight I'll phone
just to hear her voice.
my choice
my cell
and I locked myself in as well.
she has the key
she sets me free.
I wait once again for two thirty three.

He's scratching his head
I always am
she's with a young child
the child is calling her Gran'

What fun it can be on
the Jubilee.

I get to see in the early morn
a Wednesday as its being born,
squealing and squawking
it's quieter walking,
but
I catch the tube
religiously
and mostly on
the Jubilee.

And what have we here?
a girl drinking beer and it's
not yet half past five.

It takes all sorts,

Now
there's a woman sat on the floor
( should be more seats )
it could be a protest or
she might just be drunk.

Nobody notices
they're all trapped
by devices
logged into some
internet weaver,

I think we're weaving a shroud
for what's not allowed
we'll be wrapped in it
anyway.

Wednesday
Dontya just want it to go away
I know I do.

The have-nots have not
while we have and we've got
but
what should we give them?

good advice would be good,
if
only we could
take it ourselves

However advice doesn't cut it
for the outcast so let's put it
on the back burner

take a pick and unlock
the hot shots that you are
buy a burger or a pizza
have some eats there
in the doorway
it's a great way to get into
helping others who are out in
the cold.


Streets once paved with gold
now carpeted with homeless
who are told
'no room at the inn'

well
if that's not a sin then save me
from do-gooders who'd enslave me
or drop me in a grave and cover me
you should have smothered me
at birth.

I'm accruing words of wisdom in a garden shed in Wimbledon where good advice is sneered at and the only thing that's put upon is word written here in Wimbledon

I see it through the half filled glass
half full with hope and half
with gas
it always seems to make me laugh
just before I cry.

When we kissed I knew for sure
her heart was kind
her soul was pure
she was the cure for what ailed me
but what failed me and this she knew,was my fear
of seeing dreams come true.

There is always some twit who looks down his nose and thinks that he knows me,I think he knows **** all and the harder he looks the harder he'll fall,
but he is of no consequence to me,I'd tell him he's a **** but you see,I must be polite,I must put up with his **** otherwise I might give him a right hander,the only thing that he's right in, is in knowing nothing, the *****.
Who knows how I tick? not that twot, he hasn't got a clue and wearing a cheap Primark suit he thinks he's Cat Ballou but I just get on with it,take no notice,not a bit,but if he ***** with me I'll slit his throat.
the little ******.

I go off again,
a bit Jed Clampett,
wrapped in my blanket
oil on my hair.
Hillbillies everywhere.

Millionaires the lot of them,
mountain men come down to town to
spread their money,
***** brown hair,long lank greasy,there's a one
with no shirt on.

I go off again into Beverly,
it's very
loverly,
Ma,
is making tea
in china cups.

She fires another love dart
and it pierces my loveheart
and for part of each day
you will hear me say,
ouch,
but in a nice way
because that kind of pain
is kind of nice.

The postman or postlady is late,
but I can wait, I'm used to waiting,
I have waited for a bus and a train
I've waited on tables, I can wait again,

not that I'm expecting
ha
now that would be a tale.

It's Friday and most things slow
not that I really know,
just guessing,
although
it's taken me ten minutes to put
my shirt on.

He was rocking to and fro
so he had to be
Jewish or crazy
or was I being lazy in not asking?

Multi tasking
not my forte
not even at sixty
when
I'm in the slow lane
waiting in line for
a Zimmer frame
invented by
(and here I'm just guessing
but
with a name like Zimmer)
Someone who's Jewish
and probably from
Indiana.

Strikes on the jubilee?
It must be nineteen seventy three
or am I overthinking this.

Action by underground staff?
well that's a novelty.

Monday some day and that
some day is today.

In London
we blunder on
blindly,
moles
digging holes.

Head phones
and ear phones
my bones are creaking
sneaking a peek at the girl
with the bottle red hair
and the blonde sat beside her
a bride if the ring tells the truth.

This ritual is a speciality of
being mental
the Central only proves to me
I'm not on the jubilee
nothing more.

In the mirror with her back to me, she was
naked,
and though not looking
I could see
just how wonderful it would be,
to know her
more.

Is it agreed then that we
feed all hungry children
educate them
and teach them without trying to
preach,
then
perhaps there will be a world
fit for the free,

Steppenwolf at the door
asking if
I wanna score.

When stocktaking is not
a criminal offence,
but shoplifting is.

But
the music plays along
with the words I make up
to my song.

Who can I blame but the ghosts who dismantle my brain while I sleep,
if I wake they're not there but I know where they'll be and that's behind every person who is laughing at me,
anxiety?
who's anxious?

At the most peculiar times
when Jupiter aligns with whatever
planet there happens to be,
stars fall about me,
the ghosts leave and
I believe in Santa
Monica.

Pine Flats,
that's in Colorado
and this I know though not
because I've been there
but I've seen it on a Western show
a long time ago
and towns like that don't change.

There may be mountains in Montana
there may be lots of moles
I heard a lot of people there
are busy saving souls.

There may be blue sky in Montana
I really hope that's true
there may be ghosts of cowboys
just a moseying on through.

I gulp dry gulches for my tea,
my breakfast,
dime store books,
There may be these across the seas
Montana may put me at ease
I really want to know though
are there
Mountains in Montana?

(20 minute poetry)

This,
is like walking through glue and when you look at a book you all judge by its colour or cover and you look at each other the same.

Name me one or two who have not set with the Sun and gelled with the glue and I know there are many.

'If anyone knows of a just impediment' claws for the pause and the applause may cause you to bow.

How to recapture the lusting for living among the hard faced uncaring because between the giving and taking the wire's electric.

We get the scene set and ready to go, this is like formula one but taking it easy and warming up slow,
I don't know and I doubt you do too if the cover's the problem and if so who do we turn to?

I cram so much in my saddlebags and I water the horse.
West of the Pecos which could be anywhere,
if I try really hard and click my heels it feels like
I'm back in
Kansas.

Back in the home and I'm soaked through the skin to the bone, my teeth such as they are are by far the liveliest thing about me, chattering away as if this isn't a krap day.

She is there to take my chill and her will is stronger than mine.

Once upon a very late time ago when the snow lay thick and flick knives were the currency and I never imagined in my wildest and I have very wild dreams that she would be the one to tame me.
we never got to the end, the story full of twists and turns has many filters that run through it,
she knew it and I know it now.

And if the clock strikes at all when I'm banging my head against a solid brick wall it never strikes me,
she sees to that.

The new year's here or has it gone?
not sure if its been
or if it has
where it came from.

Memory though has been a friend,
but
like all friendships
had to end,
yet I'm still kicking
picking winners
eating breakfast
occasionally dinners.

no cure for this
no kiss me quick,
no, no, no
I am sick.

Dr Quack
said,
'strip down Mister,
on your back'
(not sure about that,
even less sure of
Dr Quack.

To have undone
what would have become
before it became
or
to undo who you are
and start over again.

Life,
playing the long game.

Once upon a time of gold
before the time when
I got old
when unicorns were born
and goblins danced upon
the field of waking dawn,
a rainbow lit across the sky,wrote
colours,
several mountains high and
all was well.

What did I miss
while I was busy kissing shadows moving slowly on the bedroom wall?
So busy I could not hear her call.
I hesitate to say,
she did not wait.
But
she,
did not wait

Now it's too late
Oh what a state I'm in.
Age is what I write upon the page that should be filled
with daffodils and words
of love.

But it seems the wild flowers cracked
and massed, attacked me
Now I'm backed against the bedroom wall
I can no longer hear her call
I've lost it all.
Too busy kissing shadows.

I've done it,
been in a race for
my life and I
won it,

you
can win it too
but
you have to enter

I spent a
long time
which was no time
and
now I have time
to relax.

When the pen dies and the ink,
so fluid,
solidifies,
what then?

But then is already here,
my fear is
digitised.

When this life flashes quickly across the lens of my eyes and all the truths that I've known,
(...the chickens coming home)
and the lies stripped away of my life in that day and I'm shown new horizons, with the lens of my eyes on the flash that always dies on the third stroke of three,
I wonder
what will I see?
Will it be angels with harps or cherubs and tarts?

Death must be like Christmas for some, the last
present to unwrap before the sinking of the Sun,
and the  newborn infanta is Jesus
dressed up as a Santa, ** ** **,  
Oh, is that ecclesiastically correct?

I direct several queries but the boatman, he wearies of the same old rock to the roll and he tells me to wait,
I wait but don't see,
I'm in a blindfold with a pin in my hand trying to stick it into the tail end of a promise that was the promised land and if that's all there is to it
I may as well wait a bit or at least until the next boat comes in

Count coup
that's what the Apache do
meanwhile
I'm counting Cadbury's buttons.

I am also counting on this ending soon
which is like counting how many buttons
make up Button Moon.

My sanity is holding onto my quiff
held by the wind on the edge
of this cliff,

Killing time doesn't make me a murderer
but the judge gave me twenty-five years,
time to take stock when I get over the shock
fifty two buttons in a pack not counting the
ones that I ate.