Were you missed off the list,
did the Queen forget you too?
I expect that she's got a lot on her mind
and could find time to remember us all.

But we all deserve a medal for
keeping our foot down on the pedal
and not giving in.

I ate one coconut ring
then another and suddenly
it was three rings,
( could have been the postman,
but he always knocks, twice )

Garibaldi's are nice but since Brexit,
no biscuit,
and it's the same with Battenburg cake.

I'm sticking to Pontefract cakes
even if they are from Yorkshire.

Brave New World and the youngster sat opposite who looks slightly like Ginsberg is flicking through its pages.

I see two red iPhones, but you get nothing for a pair, not in this game, ( that reference is for David Jacobs who's been immortalised before )

Now we're jammed or possibly dammed, not enough room left to swing a cat,
incidentally the Central can be quite quiet at times, this is not one of those times and this is not the Central, it's the Jubilee.

Thursday and the day begins again, almost as if I'm in a loop, Brave New World man got off the tube at West Ham, brave indeed.

Canary Wharf and I could change here, but I don't like change so I'll stay as I am.

She's not asleep, she's only dreaming, when she gets to Stanmore she'll know what dreams are for,

I ignore the look from the man who looks like me and silently curse him for his effrontery.

Off soon
not switching off
getting off
jeez
do I have to explain
everything?

Bit part.

A cameo,
I play
the pin on the
brooch,
sharp,
so
grip tight and
let's smooch.

Bit part

Slam me against a brick wall and pour me a cider
I could have died there but for you,

Remember that advert for a carpet cleaner,
" nothing beats better?"

breaking news
try the birch or a leather strap,
beats that hands down.

she saves me again
from going insane
but
the balancing act
goes on.

Bits n Bobs

#amwriting will unravel
travel along old
familiar ways

this day of all days is
a good day
and
#amwriting

fights with the alphabet
inspiration feels just like
sweat
on my brow
but
#amwriting

somehow
I am writing.

Eden's overgrown
Adam's gone and
God's been overthrown,

Eve sits on the throne now
with serpents at her feet,
her world almost complete.

a bit like this piece of almost
but not quite done.

Dawn,
a time to mourn the passing of a night
or celebrate
the coming of the day?

#foreverfalling

Shoot me down Babylon
take from me
Jerusalem,

I'm dying to give life free reign.

Same as the same is
we get nothing in
show biz
shoot me down
Babylon
before I get on the stage.

Out on the West Bank
sat in the drunk tank
talking
as if I'm the King,
but Solomon faults me and
Babylon bolts me
looks like
I'll never be free.

My name wrote in her diary
why me?
To take me out and telephone me and
what terrors could befall me
then?

When the stars fade in the morning sky
she puts me back,
I don't know why,
I
guess I'll always be
just another entry in
her diary.

Is it the culture of vultures or the vultures of culture that carries us away?
dress down or if you want to impress, don't dress at all,
a place guaranteed in the hall of fame,
name?
no worry,
we'll jiffy one for you in a squid's arm or two which is shorthand for quite very soon.


If the TV don't get you the radio will, one or the other will interrogate you
'til you crack and you'll go out and buy the latest rack for the records you no longer own,
an Englishman's home is his own Barbara Castle but that was forever ago and lots of John Snow have flowed under the bridges since then,
Why,
I remember when beer was only two and ten and for those of you who don't know that's 2/10p in slow mo'.

eat drink, be merry
I shall,
with my feet on the pouffe  and an old trusty pipe, have a small tot of sherry,
the culture
the vulture
my life.

There's a few things in the night that I don't like,
dark being one of them
bogey men and
monsters
under the bed,
carpet creatures with frightening features
red eyes at the window
and sleep.

This is why I try to stay awake
I don't want to take the frightening
things from what they're doing,

I'm not new in
the game of fear
I've been here
a long time
and
if they tell you it gets easier with age
they're lying,

I'm still trying
to stay awake.

Spend a lifetime
wondering about
the lifeline
on your palm,

what a waste.

Meanwhile,
the hot water tap is running cold
the gas board has been told
but
feeling bold
I shower anyway,
get the shivers
phone up work and tell them
I'll be off today.

Thursday
that's a fact
there's no denying that
in two days time
I'll have a lay-in
no lying
that's the truth.

Trip over the feet of the man at 'Marks', fast asleep in the doorway, a pretence of a lay-by on a street where the days fly away
a cardboard canopy for cover,
we don't know how lucky we are.

Familiar sounds of the family around me,
turkey and the trimmings, brimming with joy
toys for the children and the Queen on the TV
we
don't know how lucky we are.

On the morning of the Nazarene in
the shadows of the halogen
I see him again
in the doorway
which seems so far away from
this Christmas day.

And how lucky I am not to be
the 'Marks' man
in the cold of December.

I only remember in fragments the
guttural and statements made in my haste
or in moments of stress,
the man at 'Marks' is not well
does not dress well
or smell nice, but it would be nice if
we could be nice to people like him
who are people like us and if they cuss you
and curse you then more fool you to think it's
aimed at you,
some do
I don't.

No need to make a song and dance about it
just stop for a bit and
offer a smile, a sandwich, a tea,
we don't know how lucky we are
but he does.

Down town in the torn town,
the pit town with no pit,
no coal and life's **** but we
got nuclear not far away,
across the bay,
the dead bay so the fishermen say.
What a way to carry on,
the men tired out
the youth all gone,the
pit town's no place to be when you're young
but don't believe you're free
it's in your soul.that
big dark hole where boys and men slaved from
6 am 'til the lights went down in
pit town.
Remembering now
how Grandad looked when he came home his
back all crooked and
dirt that clung onto his lungs like an
extra skin,
He never put much hope on coal or on the job or in the hole
and all he got was a silver clock for forty years,
his life in hock and then he died.
We all cried until the whistle went and other dads with backs as bent as Grandads was set off to work,to work and cough while some bald headed toff marked cards and paid them for the shift they'd done and
now pit town's done and
best forgot what
Thatcher's hatchet men done, a shady lot of (they'd say gentlemen) but
******* all the same,
across the bay, the fishermen say is dead
is where our future's led us,
where the ******* bled us dry
where one day
we all will die.
without a coal fire in sight.

Wow,
today felt like the sixties
with the temperature in
the seventies
and I felt young.

The sun does that
strips off the top layer
lightens your hair
and
gives you ideas of
putting it out
there
but
I'm happy where I am
the
twenty/twenty-one man.

As if a monk at devotions
he sits
watches oceans of
traffic,
it stutters
he mutters along with it.

The prayer's always the same one
to the same one with no name.

He calls him a god, but he would
he was taught that he should and
he wonders aloud
shrouded in incense,
where did his innocence
go.

Being put in a correctional facility
would more than likely ******* me,
but they could stop the delusions from
tripping me
up.

If your cup runneth over too
they'll think of a facility for you,
they don't like differences.

Try to fit in
sit in on the classes
but always wear glasses
they keep out the glares.

There is nothing in the media
and **** all on the news
someone somewhere must
know something
someone must have views.

Lines are drawn in Palestine
and crossed
and drawn again,
lots of places just like that
all of them the same.

The media will feed to you
the best bits so
you'll drool, and
the papers
though we call them news
are of little use and
take us all for fools.

We are seeing it through a shattered lens,
the viewfinder is
a kaleidoscope that tells
of broken dreams and
forlorn hope.

I hope the radio comes on
with something more to say than,
'thanks for tuning in and
have a lovely day'

Slice me and running through me you'll find,
printed in italics
the words,

'are we there yet'

and I bet
I'm not the only one that's got this going on or through them.

The last man standing had a hand in
the destruction.
God willing and it seems that's the case
we'll all face Armageddon on our own,.

and who will we turn to when the home fires burn through the walls that we've built?

A Jerusalem of sad men and an Eden that will feed them
and who here can say it's not so?

Just been to have a haircut
felt more like I'd been to have
my throat cut,
****** expensive and the thing is
everything is.

I blame decimalisation and the demise
of pounds, shillings and pence and
the gas board, electric board,
the school board and now
I'm bored.
bye.

Oh no
it can't be.

So
Monday like a wheel
rolls in again and
I can feel
the week ahead
turning my poor
feet to lead.

On the plus side
life
is a bus ride
always room for
more
on top.

We hire the consultancy firm,to firm up the prices which we're going to charge you,and charge you we will,
Charge you until your pockets squeak,charge the poor and the weak,the old and the sick,and we might get it into our head to charge the incurably recently dead.

That's what we're hired for,to hike up the prices you charge at the front door,no one comes through who hasn't paid through the nose and those who chose not to, simply do not get through.

The consultancy firm and with a firm hand, will show you a profit by turning and biting the hands that have fed it,through the thick and the thin,all it takes is some spin,
and we're good at that.

If we do build Jerusalem
people like you and me
won't get a look see,

we couldn't afford to live there in
the rarified atmosphere
we'd just be a
nuisance
to the gentry

elementary my dear Watson,
******* Sherlock,
was my reply.

We reach the crescendo and the lights blow
when the world fires a fuse

I use my flashlight
she holds my hand tight.

I have the handle on tonight
candlelight
fixes everything
right?

I never heard the waves
crashing to the shore
no orchestral score

I thought that there was more to it,
well
a little bit more than this.

The mirror talks to me,
it is
a prerecorded
valedictory
from me to me
head to head
reminders of the
lies being fed.


Well Hell,
I knew it, but
Alice got through it
so
why
can't I?

Who has the right?
not to be confused with
who has the might.
There are decisions to make
boundaries to break through
and minds to
get into
do you have the right to decide
who governs,
and who governs the governors?
if they are given free reign then
freedom and slavery become one
and the same to
the subjugate.

It costs more than money
staying in when it's sunny

and another piece of me drops off and dies.

Blue skies
blue eyes
everything's grey.

How to proceed
to succeed
without ****
(ha
I don't smoke that)

but we have to get through it
together
apart
distanced,
does it break your heart too?

There are no reflections to be seen


a long brooding look at a face I once mistook for a Gods

and no channels into an afterlife as if life had no other purpose than to drain us

no reflections here along the corridors of mirrors
only the silence to remind me
of the way to some long forgotten walked up avenue
I remember that was where I met you but it's difficult to recall the year

no reflections here,

Worn away but
wise now to the wind and rain
if I had to do it all again
I would abstain

" invest for the future"
but what if
there's no future in which
to invest in?

I think that they're testing
me
trying to fake me out
taking the best of me
to invest in
the catastrophe
that has yet to arrive.

It's just trading
forbade in the temples
and yet it's done undercover
the deals with each other

is nothing sacred at all?.

Trampling through the essays which were written one tomorrow and you know you'll never read them,
why is life filled with such sorrow?
but you keep on walking through them 'til they're fallen men on battlefields and it makes you feel so hollow when the echoes sound inside you,when the words join up around you and there's no one left who knew you but the essay stands on sentry call to catch and if then you should fall there's always one tomorrow and another entry wading through your soul.

The lights go on in somewhere but you've been there far too often and there's nothing left to keep you as you wander through the weeping and you know it's the beginning but the ending is no secret it was written on the exit signs that hung drunkenly in doorways and you've been through those same doorways many times.

Direction West
birds back to the nest
I need a rest so I'm
tagging along.

A V formation at every
station
but
some still jump the queue
I don't
they do.

a hum of quiet conversation,
the rationing of words on
this journey of birds
while
others squawk
loudly.

I wonder if
' Lonsdale'
is near
' Emmerdale '

Farmers travel too.

Bearded man with
a Vespa shirt on,
no sign of a scooter
or come to think of it
a razor either.

There appears to be more
earrings than
wedding rings
perhaps this is the
singles carriage.

And now a seat is available
so
I make myself comfortable
and try to close my eyes.

OCD becomes normality
wash
rinse
repeat
wash
rinse
dine on 'mince and slices of quince'
dine on 'mince and slices of quince'
because my dear it's all a bit Lear.

I can do serious
seriously I can,
see
Covid-19 is the
doings of man.

serious enough?

...and no nearer to thee, from what I can see
the future's receding fast,
the past's just a trap that claps me in irons made
from chains interlinked made to last.

If the sun burns the sight from my gaze and the dew on the ground of the days of my days starts to evaporate, will the state of my being become the unstate of not seeing or is unseeing a state of not being.

Ah,
thank goodness for crayons to colour me blue
without the said crayons what else would I do,
but fade.

..and no nearer as yet or as yet is not ready to be,
the internal clock winds slowly away and
slowly as slowly as slowly as what I can see
this is the tickaway of the being in me.

If it's true what they say that every dog has its day then every cat gets a night on the tiles. I have skittered across rooftops when the sun drops below the horizon, someone with his eyes on tomorrow.

And the dogs do not worry me for there are too many sheep and I'd be just one in the flock.

He stated unequivocally,that they won't build a bomb,no one believed a word he said, though he stated it with some aplomb.
I've got it in my head that they'll build and drop the ****** bomb and then we'll all be dead.
However,he says that will never happen on his watch,it may be he understands, that the killing of the world at large won't wash off from his hands.

One day the pulse will come and all the information, held fast and in some vast hard drive without which the country seemingly could not survive at all,will simply not be there,it will dissipate and fade into the magnetics of polluted air.
One day the bomb they build which filled us with such nightmares when we were little girls and boys will be deployed
and everyone we knew or loved will be totally destroyed.

This thought stops me eating cornflakes and it's giving me the shakes,I wish the madmen of this world would apply the sodding brakes.

I was fond of frogspawn pond and the games that we played,with names I can hardly recall
walking tall,we as boys were so full of the joys as the light skipped on gaily through those games we played daily,
and the tadpoles played catch if you can.
As a man full of doubt and sad how we turned out
I go back now and then,remembering when it was simple to be,
so free without care,
and I often find there
some of my old boyhood friends,memory lends these gifts to me and once again I can be,
young, by the pond of which I was so fond where the tadpoles played catch if
you can.

Hanging on
with my teeth
in a hurricane
that's grief.

Rushing through
crushing me
breaking you
is there any more that it can do?

Power lines and taxi ranks,high street schools and country banks all in the air
where the hurricane brings nought but pain
and it always seems to ****** rain
when the winds outside decide to ride on the wings of daemons.

Then
the silence booms out ,shouts out to a waiting crowd,quite quietly
as if another decibel would bring the chaos back from hell,
and the people crawl like wounded ants
with feelers outstretched, looking for their habitats and listen to the
growls from dogs and smiles from Cheshire cats and budgies wearing pork pie hats
the world goes quite insane every time a hurricane
comes storming through
I think it's time to move away somewhere,say like
Kansas.

Saturday
late
timing
great
got to get on,
cheating fate.

In this state of almost weightlessness
where I've woken into one more mess
I look and really
I should dress and
have a cup of tea.

Never learn the truth
not interested in
the other point of view
there is only sin
and only one can win,

the lies that we were told
the days when we were bold
then winter came with cold,
now
it's
far too late and I am much
too old,

why did I hesitate?
when
fortune favours not
the cowards or the brave
and who can save
me from
this
life that seemed so long
but it is fact so short,

I never learn the truth
I find I'm always caught
between the strangers
on a train and something
I have bought

something I have sought for and
never found the way,
a path to lead the night
away from breaking day,

I only found the broken hearts
laid waste
and here I stay

there's only one can win.

You get what you're given
and
if that's life
then it's yours for the living

stop complaining.

The old and the new,
do you remember
December back then?

Stockings hung
bells rung for School?
fool,
no school at Christmas time.

What now?
Google invents the new advent,
twelve days and a million ways
to find everything,
Google
can even sing you to sleep
carols to keep you snug.

Bah humbug,
handbags are on another page
Google and see, but
we
remember the go out and look days
I guess
we
are set in our ways,
the old and the new do
what they do and
I do
too.

Dreams,
an odd reality

I sleep and see me
occupying
a space in space
and sometimes think
the dream I'm in
thinks I am dying.

Then I'm flying
haphazardly
exotically
******? me?
well
it's been known.

In dreams I pitch and yaw
dreaming of a thing I saw
forgetting what I'm dreaming for
and then I dream some more.

To differentiate between the
waking and the dreaming state
I keep a safety pin
to stick into my skin,

dreamers seldom do that.

The elderly
(not me)
need
crocodile tears
like
a ***** needs
a spanner.

One day you may
join them
(the elderly)
(not me)
even be
an octogenarian
and
what good would
a ***** or
a spanner
be
then?