I will ride the elevator
later
when my feet touch solid ground,
I will travel to the outer stars to find that
man exists beyond the frozen fringe
or mists
of Jupiter and Mars,
Yes,
later will be fine.

Time to pack a book
and build a dream,
chapter twenty-two,
asleep beside a placid stream.

A canteen filled with yesterday,
jettisoned along the way
and a valise to release the stress.

Mother says,
do not be late but
I can't wait
to elevate
so
off I go.

Later,
never knows when it will come or if the sun will shine in some mean or meaner time, meanwhile with a smile that lights up steam,
I dream.

(20 minute poetry)

11am
tube is jacked
packed to the rafters
no sound of laughter

only the dismal wails as
we go down the rails
on the trail we have travelled
before.

I'm stood in the aisle
surrounded
by a perch full
of people
a pike load of tenseness
that waits to explode.

jeez
this road keeps on
getting  tougher
Why should I suffer it?
why not opt out of it?

But I am bound to it
a dog in the pound to it
gnawing away
as it too
gnaws at me

one day I'll be free of it
if only to sit and spit or
whittle some wood
into pegs.

Legs are giving me
gyp
tripped over the case on the floor

did I give that person what for

ha
she took not a blind bit of notice

and just flew into the seat
I was eying
she being firty years younger than I

I want to cry.

Is a vote no a no vote or a vote to remain,
I leave her with that note
hangin'

cross my fingers hope to fly
before my heart stops,
and I
wonder why some birds have
wings but prefer to walk,
nothing to say and yet you talk
must be
something in the water.

If I catch the dawn before it can break
would you take me to your heart or
sit there in the dark
complaining?

I need automatic tracking because
I'm cracking up and have the need to know
just where it is cracked people go,

well?
as John Wayne said,
'the hell you are'
in that drawl he had.

excuse that flashback
lost my track there,
where am I now?

You did that on porpoise
said Popeye to
Pluto,
it's Bluto not Pluto you Dumbo,
said Bluto.

when the cartoons come to life
it's time to get a life
or at least a stronger
coffee.

The man with the *** Aitch Dee
university educant,
not like me who was
dragged through the secondaries
and modern too,
not much education, but
what can one do?
when the riverbank calls you and the
corn starts to wave and the wind is the music
to which you can rave.

The man with the *** Aitch Dee
earns more than me,
but I have more memories,
like sailing off to the sea
like catching fish for my tea
like swimming naked and free,

is educant a word?
and that's the education of me.

You're there
editing the highlights
of the lowlifes
on the pavements,
but what sidewalk are you on?

hey
I saw the princess with no knickers on
the harlot who just wanted me gone,
and you're still waiting for the marathon
it ended years ago.

I've got the beer in to see the night out before I put the lights out, I'll be half-cut, but in dreams, no one seems to notice.

Friday for lost souls and all places to...
the tannoy squawks,

someone talks to me but I'm talked out,
there are no words to come out
so I remain silent.

*** it
forgot to pick up the dry cleaning,
too much dreaming I suppose.

Try again
why again?

do it and do it and
we can get through it
to try and break through,
the old habits make me
want you
even more

so
what's it for then?
to try again?
why
again?

The answer's always the same
try again, and
I feel **** Whittington's pain
in the trying
the doing
the toing and dying

why am I here?
what is it for?
old habits and want
and I want you more
then ever

it never rains
but that's a lie.

Sunshine's just a climate affair
one minute there and
the next
wonder where.

ah but we live in the Hubble
and telescope trouble
that's of our own making

I'm staking a claim on
Whittington's cat
let him feel the pain,
try again
turn again
burn at the stake
why again.

Should I dye my hair?
try a different colour?
get a fuller, but what
kind of figure would that be?

Stay the same
melt with the pain
try again
what's the name of
the Doctor that locked
ya in here?

think it's done for now and
so I take a bow
and leave.

She was colourful and as
cool as formica,
I liked her.

And I thought just if,
contact adhesive
would work that way,

I found out that day
it did not.

The plot thickens along
with the lip and then
eventually
I gave her the slip
and limped along home.

Bolan sings Dylan,
Dayan's on the Golan
the radio's howling
"Caroline"

Back in a time back to front
where the future we hunt
shoos us away.

McGuire's in the evening
bleeding,
the Magic Dragon's on the run
Summer in the City is like
Summer in the Sun
only colder.

what now?
Telegram Sam with electronic spam?

Still busy reading the instructions
destruction's a hard thing
to master.
but I'll get to the burn out
worn out
and turn up in top hat
and tails.

Them shut the shops
them shut down the cops
them shut the cinemas too,
it must be ****** Sunday
because that's what them ******* do.

Them put a hex on you having some ***
them lot's a miserable crew
If I had a vote
I'd put them in a boat
'cause
I am a ******* too.

She puts the jingle in my jangle
the sparks that shoot like laser
lights to make the dark nights
bright
as day.

When I woke up it was raining
Facebook told me so,
but the Sun came out when her
eyes opened.

If happiness be a state of mind
look inside yourself and you
will find
it.

Even when it's Monday and it's raining
there is Sunshine
you only have to look.

And if you're fourteen points off
the starboard bow
how you got there doesn't matter
what does
is what you do about it.

the ball is in your court.

I hear the ocean more and more and yet can't hear what you say,
the shingle song carries me on and the tide takes me away.

I expect it is age related
ebbing as I am
or it could be that I'm saturated
with the stress of being a man.

I see equations in the atmosphere
where clouds appear as numbers,
it's like a bingo game
that I won't win
until they call my name.

I can't ignore the sea
the shore is calling me
and I must go.

Even
God forsakes this dismal place
preferring instead to show his face  in the bistros, at the music halls or the cinema shows,
they have a name for it,
Candy floss coating on *******.

I mean,
I'd have figured it out long ago that his plan was to blow us away,
on these battlefields no angel shields us from starvation and death, but I was slow, saving my breath, wearing my heart on my sleeve.

I believe the experiment was doomed from the start,
give man a heart and the ******* will break it.
the bankers will take it,
collaterall,
offset against the main bet which is a debt for us all.

Stood against the pock marked wall, the rifles at attention,
good God look at them all, but of course he's at the cirque de soleil drinking champagne and how does he feel?
******' fabulous.

The poets like friends that I knew
were just passing through,
and the night tasted stranger
as the
words that flicked fingers like flames
on my cheeks disappeared on the page.

The danger was in the remaining
in draining the last drop, but I found
I could not stop
and the cup of bitterness tasted sweet.

My secrets are trapped in this pen
which I use now and then
as and when
and at those times that I don't
the secrets won't be
told.

To draw one's last breath
one must be able to draw
right?
that lets me out.

I should pray but
not today,
it's too busy on the
hotline to heaven,
I can wait and god knows
I'm used.
to that

I took a photo
so I'd know
that Tinkerbell
was really there
but
now
although I've looked
both high and low
I can't find that photo
anywhere.

The bells rang for me
the choir sang to me
and the
angels wanted to hang me
from the ceiling.

I had a feeling that Sunday was here
there was
a smell of salvation as opposed to the bacon
not forgetting the incense of long
forgotten innocence that hung in the air.

Hymns are out,
something about
non-binary,
which worries me
but not unduly so.

The Sun, once gone, is resurrected
as the day goes on its way
to be perfected,

I take a coffee break
waking up is hard work.

I should have kept a diary to remind me
of the events which occurred,
but it never occurred to me,
how absurd are we that we cannot
remember when we need to forget
yet forget what we need to remember?

if I had put it in writing
those things
that we did every night in
our
younger days,
I'd remember exactly what it was
that we did.

it's just about the rain
and
not about you or I,
let's elect to go around
the World once again.

We're being weighed off
with a wacko
known as BoJo
who is not the full
shilling
but
plenty of pennies
are willing to
follow
him.

Politics, not my domain,
even I don't play that kind
of game, I
leave it to the criminally
insane,
no!
politics, not my domain.

I feel it now as I felt it then
when I knelt before the sepulchre
the sculptured face
carved from cold stone
so alone.

So long is such a long time
and a long time takes
so long.


I am no rock,
no island
here.
there is
only the fear of what
is to come.

Saturday in Saskatoon.
minus twenty-nine
underneath a bright blue moon
the 'Paris of the prairies'
wearies.

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.