I always thought
Selsey Bill
was a pirate
in league
with
Long John,

thanks to the
shipping forecast
that notion
has now gone.

how could this day get
any worse.

It died anyway
caught out in the
heat
and this day was
not for worms.

We rocked it on the surf line
swam for a short time
lazed to the slow beat of
the transistor
raised a glass and drank
to pass
what remained of the fun.

When the shadows stopped dancing
on the grains of hot sand
we all gave a hand to clean up
got up
moved on and
each in his or her own castle
battled the evening ahead.

Russet red skin and sweet was the sin
if it was
so
then it was.

We moved quietly together under the
eiderdown of stars that brokered
softness and light

and
kissed goodnight

Someone is peeling the skin off the sky
the baked sun has begun its scratching.
I am hatching a plan to escape if I can
and to bathe in the sea
the scratching of skin never bothers me
if it's flaky and dry.
I want fins,want to swim to the end of all time
I need to find out what's there,what people would dare to reside
at the end of the tides,at the turn when times bides its time.

When the weather is fine and I'm feeling spot on
I feel I belong to the cosmos
because I melt into light where night never creeps through but with fins I could do
so much more.
I could bow and dip down to the ocean floor
I could knock on the door which Davy Jones locks
with a shock of blond hair waving here,waving there,I could meet up with Poseidon,try on a trident for size
I could open my eyes and could breathe underwater,could sort out the pearls from the shysters,those oysters that dive and make jewels out of grit where they sit and they filter.

I have built this dream from vanilla ice cream and am slowly licking it away
a cornet they say
plays a very nice tune
and Neptune agrees
as I float in the seas of the shore of no more and the sharks mill around as if they're knitting the sound of my death on their breath
which by the way stinks of fish.

My wish and I wish it comes true
is to sink into a heavenly bed
and to sink in it with you where the truth always lies
and the someone who peels all the skin off the skies
dies into the day
If I had my way
my wish would be your wishing too.

Sometimes beside the sea
where the sand tickles your toes
and our thoughts can run free
we become Kings of the castles
or buried by our children.

from steep cobbled streets
sails look like sheets
drying on the line

The fresh wind we knew that was millions of years older than me or than you,blew
stiff against the boulders that formed padded shoulders against the grey chalk cliff.
A conservation effort by the council and crew to save for posterity,the guardian of land and of sea.

The cliff wouldn't care it would wear down in the end,erosions's a trend ,you can't stop it,just slow it and the cliff seems to know it
as it slowly slides to its mother,
the ocean.

When you look like Punch because Judy’s given you a battering and the audience were watching but only gave a smattering of applause which sounded as weak as this did.

At least when I am falling I know where I’m heading.

Et Tu, say what? said who?
I am
leaning into a history
with the youngster ( that’s me )
and we have a long way
to go.

These that say cheese and those that just smile.

death on the sidewalks while people walk past
and we all walk a bit faster from this waste,
this disaster,
try to cover the cracks with cement or a plaster,
the cracks remain underneath the stains
of a life that never tasted the fare.

But it's not if was or what became
or how and why the insane
came to rule.

It's about the school
the way we learn
the way we turn against our brother and
fostered by the foster mother also known as
the state of one another.

Sanity,
just a piece of mind,
kind people do it all the time.

And while the rebel rebels there
are more cells in heaven
than he'll ever know.

While it is and then
we
could grow up into
fine young men or
throw cautions aside
and slide into chaos,
which may suit them,
but
not us.

When you cannot imagine
because you've never been there,
but
what is imagining, if in that
you cannot share in the
being there?

It was midnight at two
no blue sky
I would have wondered
but know the reason why.

When the seagulls start screaming
I again know that I'm dreaming,
it's the chips
and how they fall.

What is it but for the things we see
that we
could endure and long to be
in symmetry
with nature and its fragility.

Should we beside the wayside fall
then let the call we hear be of a nature
unsullied by the waste of man,
if a wasteland was the plan
then let it rule in city centres and pedestrian zones where empty shops are filled with pay day loan accounts
and when the fountains of our hopes run dry and curses rain up to the sky
perhaps we'll try another plan.

Let the nature of the beast be tamed,let man reconquer what was lost or given to the winds
what would it cost? and we cannot lose what we have not got.

A shot in the dark.

A walk in the park where the breath of grass would not pass unnoticed,
sweet smelling
spelling out the tracks we make
take another listen, look
the sound you hear is the babbling of a brook,not the rushing of a crowd out loud
but the gentleness that gathers pace
as we must also stop and face
the fact that nature is the only way to go
like lovers that we are,we show
the way.

I would have preferred
to have my sentence deferred
and not be suspended as I am
on the long rough rope
supplied by the kindly old
hangman.

The judge never saw it that way.

We direct them
half dead men
who
walk at a funeral
pace
and the other men
I've seen them
riding shotgun on
the outside
at
the dark side
of the sun.

Then the credits rolled
at the folding up of night

These deep fissures which are eyes
prised open by the cracks in dawn
remind me that
half dead we're born into this life
of misery
which serves to trample me and
my day down.

But the Kingdom and the crown remain
God bless the Queen,
I've seen them
the other men
on a golden carriage
pulling guns to Woolwich

is nothing sacred anymore?

half dead men to procreate
the building of an
Empire,
state the obvious
how can this be?
we're all ****** in the end by misery.

Four fifty four on the third of the second?
this is not a sign.

I’m awake
about to rake the ash from the grate,
oh! wait,
that was years ago,
the mind playing tricks at four fifty six.

Time for coffee.

watching the *** never stopped it from boiling.

what makes Thursday so special?
ah,
it’s the day before that day,
anyway
it’s still early
not nearly late enough yet to get
rushed off my feet and so
I’ll put them up for a while
and relax.

It's time for a new magic word,
abracadabra is useless.

The genie on the bottle makes no sense
think I'll take him to a drying out clinic,
the cynic says,
why bother, brother, let him drink another
and maybe he'll grant you unlimited wishes,

The magic lamp's out of oil and it's a
hundred dollars a barrel
and now
they've got me over a barrel.

Abracadabra is useless.

Have you ever noticed or stopped to think that the second cup of coffee has a bit more ish than the first one has, not that I wish that the second cup was the first one, that would be greedy and no one likes greediness except for the greedy, but the more that I savour the ish the more that I wish it was so.

cue Picard.

Freshly roasted, two slices toasted with jam and butter
sets me up
and that third cup looks so inviting.

There's a madness in the human race
people see you but won't look at your face,
they prefer hurtling e-mails warbling into cyber space
and it makes me feel, so
slight-ly in-sane.
it's not a game, I know but
I like to show just what is going on inside
while those others want to hide away.
Why can't we start the day again ,
it looks so plain and boring but then it always seems so long

What the hell is wrong,
won't somebody tell me
what the hell is going on
are we becoming another dis-located race?
won't you tell me
face to my face.

I really don't why I worry
it's not so very good
but knock on wood
I hope, I start to understand
just what is happening here and instead of my anxiety
I can be a one non entity
and then I'll chop myself a home and just be me,see
it doesn't really matter if you worry or you don't,
if you hurry you won't
get a golden medal, just a place upon the treadmill and the only will you'll have is the will to have a tea break,then it's back to walking,round and round we go it's just a ****** circle show and
It's making me insane again,it's just the blasted same again,why can't the piper play a different tune or I'll soon be carted off to some quiet  restful place,
and the only face to face I'll get, is when the therapist sets the clock right, back to zero.

I'm not a hero,superman,just someone who, that does and can, see what is being dumbed down and it makes me angry.
The plumb line isn't hanging straight
it's crooked and it's that I hate
there's nothing that is true and I really hate that too
but what can I do?

I think I might go slightly mad
it doesn't really look that bad
three meals a day and
locked away
in my own private
world.

It is the little things we see
that turn us into giants
one day I'll be
a giant too
and so will you.

We can gather moss or rolling stones,
each have homes,
a place to be
but not in this society,
ignore them if you will but
they're still there.

The cemetery is full of dreams,
unfocused light
screams in the night where
giants fight,
stones and moss and
one more loss.

Every separation
that I have ever known has grown into
a giant too, as if the giants always knew
what I did not.

In the inner of my inner self
I reach up and take a bit more
off the shelf
where my heart beats
where each end meets the beginning and
the beginning is the start of the end and
continue.

This,
the giants always knew
One day,
I'll be a giant too

Wondering who the pilot is
and where is he taking me to?

Through landscapes unfamiliar,
across sand and seas which all
look similar,
down in the valleys
up back alleys
along the streets of destiny
where
I am looking back at me,
I wonder who this pilot is.

In this maze of throw-aways,
take-aways and soak-aways
I feel drained.

What does it feel like to
kneel and to pray
like you mean it?

I heard him say,
'we all prey man'

I left the window open
hoping that the night would slip away
and the morning light would slip inside,

we all do as we do
and those thoughts that come in blue
come in many other colours too.

Wednesday
as if that makes any difference to
the daffodils that spill a little
sunshine on the hands that mark
out time,

I'd go fishing;
but
it's not allowed.

Her scarf's trying to catch the bus, but goody two shoes don't lose her chance, she runs to catch up, and the lady with the burqa that looks like it's trying to get to work before her catches up too.

The wind should be blue, it feels like blue on my skin when it gets in underneath my vest.
I think that the wind is some sort of a test to sort the weak from the strong as it blows me along.
I'm strong, but the longer the wind blows the more I get weak, I try to play hide and seek,
it finds me, I'm like a wind magnet and caught in its dragnet I bowl down the street.

The colour of wind should be blue and when I saw blue I'd stay indoors, comfy and warm
close to you.

Sensual?
that's what sold me on the bath salts,
but it was just advertising,
I looked the same under the bubbles
and
there was nothing sensual about that.

I always fall for the 'line'
time after time they hook me
and reel me in
I should have realised by now
that it's nothing but spin.

Leather suit,
they said,
wear it like a second skin
I wore it like a shell suit
( a fourteen pounder)
it looked more like
walrus skin, but they
reeled me in again.

Your shadow looks fatter on me
do I look big in it?

going off key and
playing my own song
you can
play along if you wish.

The man on a cart that came up from the bay
sold us pints full of prawns and that seemed like
yesterday,
in a parallel universe he's still selling his wares
cockles and shrimps and kippers in pairs.

and the knife sharpener who wore a sharp suit
and pedalled up on his bike
'sharp as you like' was his cry,

not forgetting the pop bottle man
who drove the streets in an olive green van,
but only sold pop and not olives.

I've forgotten most memories and that's not a bad thing
sing along, play along, write your own song. but in the
end they all sound like forgotten things, like foghorns on a
misty night, lonely
and alone.

She's playing jazz in the kitchen
I'm getting ready for a funky meal.

I imagine imagination
to be the train pulled by a dragon ,waiting at the
dragon station and
the carriages hold artists strapped in wurlitzers, which hurl me
into raptures of delight.
I imagine that it's going to be alright.

Tell me where it is written that
Spring's in the air or birds
sing on the wing,
Oh, there.

Well,
I'll read anything and do, but
the birds flew away
and Summer
sweet Summer
stayed for a day and then went.

Autumn becomes me
with its ashen grey light shades
that
stun me
though I don't notice it much anymore.

It is the splinter of old bones
and skin hanging loose
that betray me to Winter
and Winter comes only
to slay me.

It takes twenty three seconds
to free me
and immortality beckons me
to the reckoning.

I reckon there's still time to go and
sew a few seconds more into
a life
that I lived once before,
making two and two equal five
staying alive by
my reckoning.

..and yet again
the mirror's made an error
it shows someone much older,
I
must go and buy a new one.

Scene one
take two,
you awake?

he sleeps on
the world's gone to hell
in a handcart,

dreams of starting tomorrow
with a bang.

They
put the camera away
leaving the outtakes for
the wolves.

This is probably
the intermission
or a
nocturnal emission

here's to wishin'.

Nothing but wind and the pebbledash rain
and the squabbling cats outside the window again.

roll on Summer, I so wish that it was,
like a roll on deodorant and not just because
I like the Sun,
I also like the cold winter snow,
the glow of a nicely banked fire,
the smell from the kitchen and
other people I know feel the same.

Nothing but wind and the pebbledash rain and somewhere not far away the whistle of a train, ( I might have imagined that )
the cats have gone quiet, perhaps one got its way, but it looks awfully like the wind's here to stay.

I'm going dreaming or fishing whichever comes first.

A coffee in Soho square
and in the best of traditions
we throw bread to the pigeons
of which there are many,

someone's playing ping-pong
and a radio with its sing-song
belts out some melodies
popular in the fifties.

is that a gingerbread house?
it should be, it looks like it
could be, but it's not
it is a shelter for the workers
who work for the council
keeping the square
shipshape and Bristol fashion.

(20 minute poetry)

He sits opposite
using those words
swear words
the words that dare you to say
keep ths **** outa my way

I think he's angry or
he could be quite mad
but
the words that he's using
are definitely bad

blasphemy,
he's taking the name of my God
and firing it into me
he
should be more careful
or
he'll get an earful
from me.

Tubes are asylums
shocks to the brain
passengers are inmates
we all look the same.

Just an early morning run again
with
the ****** too late for the night shift
the pick up artists with gamblers eyes
It doesn't surprise me that people are mad
you'd go mad too doing what these people do

I stay sane by pretending this ain't no train but a time machine in an old fashioned dream full of Miss Monroe's and each journey flows like the river.

Then it ends as it began
an escalator jammed
a thousand step to climb,
descend
and that depends on if
you're coming or going.

I'm usually going
I seldom come back.

Home ( less)
is where the start is,
when you become a magnet
for misfortune and a scapegoat
for those who would look down on
you,
those who'd pass you by without
a second glance

by some grace be it God's or some other
deities there are places
where though ill
at ease you can find a moment to forget the
trials, the tribulation, the awfulness of your current
situation.

The universe spins on a pin and things change,
you might begin to see the light
I said, might, it's difficult to alter one's perception
when the view you have is limited, but hope, that
which springs eternal is something you should never
lose,

Living proof,
A roof over my head
alive
not dead
working
loved
happy,

it takes time and sometimes a long time
and the magnet you became seems to
get stronger the longer you're down on your
uppers.

But you must engage even when disengagement
seems preferable or inevitable,
there is nothing more frightening or terrible than to
be totally alone.

It's not easy, but to be honest nothing is easy that's
worth anything and your worth is inestimable,
your resources are legend
you just need to tap in to them.

When you fly at 27,000 feet
you really don't need
to be thinking at
ground level.

Seven forty seven getting
closer to a heaven
if there is one.

I truly believe
there's a trick up his
sleeve,
this is the cross
that I bear.

But I'll get there
to Hong Kong,
gonna
play me some
mah jong and
sit in the Hyatt
Hilton hotel.

Of course, they're praying for peace, but having *** on the carpet,
don't they know about the burn?

each to each and each to turn, the clock never takes any time.

We
are running out of it
never had enough of it,
but it's
just a pile of horseshit
that the bull becomes
a bit jealous of.

That green-eyed god or goddess
(political correctness)
must be laughing all the way
to the
Churchill tank.

but they're electro plated fantasies
the once upon a time of when
we had the time to sit at ease,

I'm talking fairy tales
construction of excuses for
those
failures we have no uses for

snip and sew
nip and tuck
watch me change the way I look

the way you look at me
is another fantasy
but it's
my favourite one.

Sundown and now to get your head down
and at sun-up, bright and shiny,
shake a leg it's time he
got up.

Can't waste a minute when your
days are numbered,

But
it's a good job I lost count,
and I,
like a cat mounting the gallows
diving again into the deep
because the shallows are too easy.

Tomorrow,
may its name be a blessing
although
I'm only guessing
will come,
sun-up is such a lovely
feeling.

I was going to write a Haiku
but I didn't know how to

so I wrote this just to pass the time
because I couldn't find a parcel.

oh please, don't bother laughing

I want no prize for telling
the lies that you
wanted to hear.

I'm here
you're there
we are somewhere
in between.

Kings and Queens and
men of means
and ladies indulging
in leisure.

A pleasure,
he says,
to do business these days
with those whom I feel
are genteel.

Writing poetry is like
having a gun at your head
bullets for breakfast
blood on the bed

and few can understand
the words that you planned
would change the
world.

it's a suicide
****** on the inside
and it kills me on
the outside,

I write
even though it might
make me crazy.

the landlady has a baby and it's been crying for hours, the shower's on the blink, the off-license is closed so I can't get a drink, there's sand on the floor and more sand in my shoes, can't use the hoover because it's already being used,

the tide's on the turn, it's a quarter to three
and yet they all seem to love this place
all except me,

a ****** misery.