It came
It went
we spent a lot.

Went to the grotto
gambled on lotto
got absolutely blotto
then I puked
Oh fun and games
Called grandma names
gave presents to the kids.

Watched the Wizard of Oz
Because, because,
fed turkey to the cat,
tortoise didn't like that and
went back in his shell.

Jangled no bell which is just as well or as well as I can see.

How was your Christmas?

I'm thinking my thoughts in whispers,
only I can hear them,
but they still make a terrible noise.

And through the veil of my eyelashes
I catch glimpses of today.

If getting away is out of the question
when we're not being kept in the loop,
what's the answer?

What is reality?
incredulity
wonder?

I occupy myself by occupying the inner self,
it's usually vacant.

We never saw it coming
how silently it crept
people dropping everywhere
it's no wonder 'Jesus wept'

Only the hands of the clock
move
and that tick-tock
that tick-tock..
(writer's  block)
..we're in a headlock,
'Billy Two Rivers' could
win by a technical knockout
tick
tock
no one remembers him
except for google,

watch google?
I do,
that creeps up silently
too.

Everything's out there to get us
and most of it we never see,
tick
tock,
the blasted clock makes me sick

(20 minute poetry)

Wish I was there in the clear where the light casts no shadow behind me,
wish it was so that if I could go I would.

But nothing good comes of wishing,
ask genie he's been listening to wishes for years .

I'll remain in this limbo wondering if time dies then where does it go?
When I know the answer I think that I'll know it all.

On the seventh colour run when the sun throws a rainbow glow over the wet pasture be sure to take a fishing net,
get an early start.

I see them
ten times ten of them
MARCHING up to York
and
If the glory of Rome could talk
what would it say?
' lions to the left
Christians to the right
someone play the fiddle
there's a barbecue tonight?'

These random scatterings are only the
Chatter of a loose tongue
Wrapping rhythms in bubbled gum
Shadows dreaming in the noon and
Soon the sun will go
The budget of my day will be spent and my descent into the rambling of night will begin.

From what I've seen
no one
seems that keen
on
Wednesday.

Wednesday looks grim,
I'm closing my eyes and
not letting it in.

It'll soon be the end of part one,
what comes next?
part two would do nicely
but that's up to the almighty
I pray to him nightly.
Wednesday's still grim.

I sleep and I wake
still feeling tired and
I ache,
for Christ's sake
give me a break.

I haven't checked the lottery
it might yet surprise me
it's still ****** Wednesday
and it's still looking grim.

I,
the transponder,
the dot,
moving the signals.
receiving,
a spot in the air, sometimes here,
sometime there,
emitting,
cutting through silence,
the dot.
It's not what we are or where
and not that I'm bothered
if anyone cares,
I,
the transponder,
sometime like alltime
responsive,
the dot.
The program reprogrammed
initialised and so far so good,
knock on wood because a
bit of superstitious belief
can't hurt.

Rain,
thinking it signifies the end of the Summer,
I root out my galoshes, my raincoat
and sou' wester
one time a Beau Geste in the hot sand,
but now best to take a hold of your cool hand
and go splishing and sploshing
and maybe some splashing as well.

Autumn is upon me and
the fall rises before me,
I'm going home for my tea.

Yeah
well I sat in the barbers chair while you walked up and down the crowded aisles in a half deserted Tesco store
I wondered why
what was it for?
The freezer stood alone at home
freezing cold as was its wont but it was stacked with want me nothing more at all
for it was full up to its freezing chin
with something brought from albuquerque
and two fifths of London Gin.

The barber gave a weirdly grin and gave me one of number two
I should have fekin known that's what the little *** would do
but you just wandered round and did you see that skinhead passing by the deli' counter?
that was me
I waved atop my fresh shaved head
but I was dead meat on the cooked meat and it shook me wide awake
I need to take a breather
might even leave her
she would not care
she's got Tesco's in her brain and not to mention in her hair with apple summer fresh smell,how much dumber can one get
well if I stick about just watch this space
look out for the smiling vacant face
that will be me
taking her
to do her hair
just like mine.

There is nothing that really scares you
when the monster lives inside you
and eviction's not an option

power's a trip
when it has you in
its grip,
the problems come
when it won't let go.

Have you ever sat in front of the TV
and someone asks,
"What are you watching?"
and you reply,
the TV

that's me.

Stick your head above the parapet and
get shot.
There's not a lot going for you
it's like the cuckoo has flown
but you've known that all along.

What's wrong with society that it
would treat you and me
like targets to be hit.

**** rises and I
have seen that
in countless social enterprises that
are rotten to the core.

I have worn the coat of many colours
been filled with the treasures
of many little pleasures but
it has to end.

Time to spend and time to save or
waste it in the grave
if the mind is set then
that's what you'll get,
Accolades like Lucozade,
sweet
but they don't meet
the mission statement.

Ever watchful,
the third man
and we knew
there was one
that
always followed on
behind

snow blind,
but able to see
the future paths
laid out for me.

book
is screening us,

what our
political affiliations
are,
what
we subscribe to,
who
we engage with,
the person or people
we live with,

something's
not right about that,
it's
like nineteen eighty-four
is knocking at the door
and we let it in.

I'm not going to write tonight
I thought I might but there's nothing left inside of me,and
nothing there that I can see,can use and so I sit and lose myself in conversation with some long lost place that I can't place where faces from the distant past pass by and say, hello to me,
a place where conversation's free and small talk is the currency,I've spilled my pens in drinking dens and ****** I've had a plenty, but not for forty years or more,I knew I'd been here once before,
when I thought that I might write but never did and so put the lid back on the well, where inks are brewed deep in this hell and sometime when I climb out of the shell I hide beneath,
I think I'm back there on the wild and windy heath with nothing left inside of me,and
she, who is nine tenths my inspiration and one tenth sweat and dedication stands beside me using words for currency,I see her now against the moonlight,I thought that I might write tonight
but it seems it's not to be.

woke up
feeling doped up
lit a smoke up
and had a ***.

After washing my face
it was easy to see
that this beautiful
morning
was made just for me,

..and now I've hit that writer's block
it must be time to knock off
clock off or possibly fock off,
he said
with a plum in his mouth

Shots in the dark
or
a kick in the head,

we're being led to our slaughter.

Bleat like a sheep
but
we'll go out like lambs,


Never thought we might miss you
didn't bother to kiss you goodbye

on our own now

granny said,
it's a fine kettle of fish when
you get what you wish for
and granny,
God bless her
said lots of things about lots
of things

and again
it's when the fat lady sings
or a fat man in the train forces
you to squeeze past
that you understand
it will only last for a while

the shots missed by a mile
but
I was felled by the kick.

I dream and life dies,
poppy seeds in my eyes,
and the mountain fields lie in
my bed.

If death it be,
and I am sure that it will,
first
let me fill my eyes, with
the sea and the skies.

I dream and life dies.

You go with life to see where life will lead you,
but it cuts your throat and as you lay there bleeding you wonder what the hell this life is all about.


Do we grow a second skin, put up a sign, let no one in?
It's on my mind.


Do we shout it from the mountain top? I need no leader,
would it stop?
It's on my mind.


I go on endlessly or so it seems to fulfil my nightmare, but in some half baked crazy dreams which I won't share here I'm freer than I've ever been.

I didn't sign the declaration
and I didn't
after due and careful
consideration
which is legalese for,
I tossed it in the bin.

We've all seen the writing on the wall
uninformed gibberish
misspelt *******

youth!
send 'em down the mines
oh wait
Thatcher closed them,
send 'em to sea
oh wait
no ******' navy
and less of an army since
Napoleons days.

I turn sour
like last weeks milk
a proper grumpy cat
and
I don't like that
at all

perhaps I should take to writing
on the wall,

#Killjoy was here

rows upon rows that stretch down the street
they butter shop windows with cold shuttered steel,

ever feel that you're not wanted?

and what's inside?
is it so valuable?

The sign says
welcome
but
It's so impersonal.

It cuts both ways
we close ourselves off
from others
and
move through the days
like the living dead.

It's no use saying,
are you ready to rock
to a rock.

just exercising the pointlessness is a pointless exercise.

It's Thursday
and
if you're living the dream
it's time to wake
don't you know they've got
you wired to the mains
and the system's going
to blow?

Welcome
step inside
feel free to browse
all breakages must
be paid for.

Looking back gives me a pain in the neck,
perfect vision eludes me
society deludes me into thinking,
wrinkling my brows,

but the whole thing stinks
someone in the corner winks at me
I give him a black eye
because I'm not
that kind of wink at guy,

still got a pain in my neck,

too much stretching
the wretch in me
fetching and carrying

I shall retire
build a fukin big funeral pyre
and wait 'til the end,

The day before a workday
is no way to spend any day.

I'd like a replay of the last 51 years.

Now as things stand that is about as likely
as Fulham winning the cup.

Pull up a chair
I'm waiting for next week
hoping time flies
or at least gives me a little peek
into the future
and that's not looking likely either.

******* and soaking wet
can't get a signal on my
wireless set
perhaps it's me that
can't get a signal,

my life
lived in a tunnel.

if that was so
then I'd be dry

just trying to trick myself and
I don't know why,

I know all of my tricks

Daffodils in a sawmill with the will to survive can thrive.

And I do cartwheels when I don't get my own way!

What has today done to me, has it made me a miser, a scrooge like skinflint?
I hear operas from angels only to complain about the noise.

The choicest cut,
but I want that one
and as time goes on
I want it more,
the butcher has other ideas.

seek and ye will find
well
I find that behind me
others seek too

nothing unique
and when it is
it's patented.

So soft the rain that gently bathes my skin and underneath the darkening sky I climb the drops to enter in.
A winter here,
but Summer never far away.
I wait for Spring to listen to the daffodils that sing and bees that hum.
Yes,
another Summer will surely come before the end of day.

It's a bit windy out on the balcony, but I stand here watching clouds form funny figures in the sky, I'd like another coffee which is warmer than the balcony and that means going back inside,

so I did,

hair looks like a crow's nest and I do my best to comb it straight,
am I still allowed to say straight?
a voice from somewhere says,
'yeah, too right mate'

It's funny what you think of when you're not thinking too much and there's too much of not thinking, I think that we should stay in touch, send a letter, send some flowers, say hello, how do you do..and now I have to run, catch the tube-train, work a day again, hope it doesn't rain again,

windy on the balcony sounds very good to me.

I never wanted to go splashing and crashing over the top of a rainbow..
So..
Julie and me sailed off across the jellybean sea to a land..(and here I'll agree this sounds a bit grand. )

But under nursery rhyme trees where lollipops grow out of grandmothers knees and lemonade pop,pops up out of the ground with a lemonade pop popping pop kind of sound and where chocolates galore can be found on the shore by the lakes of cream cakes..

..here we will stay to play every day...and the night never came and each game was brand new..

Wouldn't you want to stay?

Well..wouldn't you?

But the time finally arrived though we had hoped it would not and wiping snot on my sleeve (because boys do that)
We built a matchbox boat and got ready to leave...ready to sail on the sea of despair
I will,I will be going back there to the land of sunshine,funtime..

..and whether it's the jellybean sea or an ocean floating in marmalade tea..
Julie and me will cross it together..

..eating love hearts and living,
Forever.

Coffee one, gone,
number
two on the way.

They
told me that this day would come,
that the sky would fall in and the sun
wouldn't shine,
but Tuesday at nine?
that's a helluva time for their words
to be true,
although
in fairness the greyness has beauty

Rain,
Rain,rain,
Drip,
Drip,drop,
Pop.
Wish it would stop bursting the bubbles
I have enough troubles without the
Rain,drip,drop.
Pop.

If even smells cold
a bit like ice cream smells
on a sunny day.

Winter should be
a place far away and
we
shouldn't have to put
up with this.

Jack Frost says it in
Icicles
and it's written on the
window panes
well
he can kiss my crystal *****.

Inside the tube it smells of
desperation and Cologne
no one speaking German
though.

Not much to do except get
through this day
so I go on my way
as usual.

She's rubbing her hands
I don't think it's in glee
and he looks colder than me
and older by far.

Plenty of snuffles and sniffs
it still whiffs of cologne
and no Germans
perhaps they're at home
where I should be
( my home and not a home in cologne)


And the tube's slow today
I'm wondering
if the driver's forgotten the way.

nothing's easy when you're in the dark.

Almost there at
Soho Square
where a warming glow
from a house that I know
greets me.

She sticks her tongue out
wilfully
I make her laugh
helplessly
she
gives in to me
endlessly
but we both know who's the boss.

How many stars did you wish upon?
I wished on millions, but
the magic's long gone and
who do we blame?
who's gods name do
we curse now?

On Wall street,
stars are 4 points down on the day
if Science had its way
they'd all crash and turn into
some
formulaic equation
easily explained in the classrooms where
they groom children for a future filled
with boredom and monotony and they wonder
why this dull old World is full of greediness
and gluttony.

I'm still wishing anyway so
bollix to the lot of them.

He pulls out the plug and he severs the link
opens a tin and swallows a drink
and the sink estate which is a little less great every day fades away,
he switches on the telly
well he
would
if he could find the remote.
In his coat,several bills,final demands,outstanding accounts for amounts he can't pay,
well he would
if he could
but his life is in hock and he's locked into the sink where the council estate tenants never think of tomorrow and what might occur,
if only his life wasn't there but somewhere less indifferent
where he could be somewhat more, or at least somewhat more confident that this wasn't the river of excrement where his paddles were lost,
remote found and back on home ground
in a while he'll
meet Jeremy Kyle and
be happy he's not been caught in the net,
he has yet to appear
on that show.

I thought that
Chief Dan George
was born in
Chad Valley

something torn from a cold childhood memory

it was a game if hide and seek was ever such
a sorely needed and much wanted finding of oneself and where one's ego would know no boundary.


In the Chad Valley forge when the sweat ran
where a man can if he's of a mind look and find
Dan George

steel rifles off rollers making dollars,
reservations from some
palaces for others.


I must go back to Chad Valley down some dark memory in a dead end alley

If Chief Dan can so can I

The system breaks
disintegrates
the walls come crashing in.
the damage done
repair men come,
fit new plates and it once again
disintegrates.
It needs a complete new overhaul before the system kills us all or that being done the repair men come and fit new plates.

I arch my back and watch it go, cool cats you know have nine lives so
I watch it go again
again.

I watch the system come to its end and I pretend the system that emerges from the dust will and must be better than the one that went before, but it's just as I anticipate another break and disintegrate.
Lies designed to disenfranchise, built in comfort for the nine to five, six lives down and three to go I watch it go and go and know the last plate left is the one that's so
predictable.

Semantics,
conjuring tricks that
spring up like fleas
jumping off a dead dog.

I shall presume there is a room
filled with people of learning
burning the midnight oil or
perhaps they're burning the books,

breaking the glass to sound an alarm.

There is no harm in the trying
less life when you're dying and
no one is dying to do that.

late night orders.

when wracking my brain
thinking of
cracking *******
I'm wrecking my chance of recovery.

On a three day event when my time is ill spent
on the windings of lanes I once trod
only two days in and I'm looking to sin,
'there but for the grace of God'

It's sleep time in Stratford
and Catford
and all fords we must cross
will just have to wait until
daybreak.

One isolation ward, a
metallic cord attached to
the monitors that monitor
how
isolated one can be.

One infirmary
concrete pylons wearing
steel plated nylons, some
fancy shades,
cutthroat blades
uniforms and uniformity,
I will be
in the isolation ward
listening to
the machinery
alone.

I used to listen to Winehouse in the greenhouse and the windows cried in pain.
I had Gillespie in the conservatory and Kitt in the kitchen, but I saved Brenda Lee for the bedroom see 'cause she was the queen.
I had them all running recordings in my head, Dave Dee, Fats Domino, Bono, Callas for a touch of class, Des and Bygraves, slaves to the sound spinning around in my mind and now I can't find a song that's familiar, can't make out the words, don't know the artists, missed out along the tracks, no vinyls, no needles, no tables just racks of CD's
oh please tell me it isn't so
this can't be the way to go,
where's Slim and Kim and Marty gonna go now that the party is over?
In the greenhouse where I listened to Winehouse and watched the pickup pick up the beat,
I take a back seat and eat a tomato while nothing else is going on.

Can you recall the
'bread of life'
mission
down in
Mississippi?
I can.

saw it in a film once
like
a film over my eyes.

but legitimate.

Stopping strippers on the sidewalk
buying 'Henry'
from the small talk
Just another horse
some say.

I run
away
because
I'm scared.

About that time or slightly before or it could have been later when she came through the door and the radio was playing some tune from Berlin, an orchestra special, what a way to begin.

I could hear her words but her eyes said much more although that could have been later when she came through the door.

So I sat sipping champagne which was really white wine
and that time was sometime or slightly before,

You think they can't hurt you but I know they can
so I dream that it's memories that make me this man
and about or before
in front of
or behind
I find the door
opens.