It ends
when your workplace becomes a place for
friends of old friends
and the old guard is discarded.
but hidden behind the veneer
we are still here
watching the sun and
the **** going down.

They have shot away the enamel
with their lies and their
flannel
and think it's plain sailing,
I
think
that they're failing in their duty,
responsibility
is not on their menu.

But it ends as all things tend to do
I wonder who'll they try to do next.

Cook up another **** up?

We sew rainbows on peacocks and then call them hens which is
good for the writers, pen makers, the papers and not too bad for the peacocks either.


I'd rather be a father to the atoms in an atom bomb.

This is the age when age is everything and
everything's about the age,
like the ice age was all about the ice
the stone age was all about..
you getting the drift?

I'm trying to sew these rainbows on
a twenty six mile marathon,
but there is no point to this or
did you miss the point?

I don't know if pyramids go through the eye of a needle
but do camels?

and watching the apocalypse on Netflix is no fix at all,
the peacocks do not call to me, there's
no new tricks
just the usual sleight of land
but on the other hand
there's nothing new in that.

I think I'll take up croquet,
crochet,
anything to get away
or
just put on my pyjamas
and close my eyes
to sleep.

Twenty years locked in this cell.
well
unwell
but what the hell I could have done another twenty more behind the safety of that door and that being said,
I could have done it standing on my head.
Dead is just a state of body and not of mind, a cell that's lined by circumstance is not a cell in which one wants to dance,
but one can think as one sinks into solitude and your eyes stay shut,glued against the lid that's put upon the day.
Twenty years,enough to pay,I paid and I get out today,break free so I can break away,
well
unwell
what the hell
we're all inside
locked in the cell.

This is the clock that stood stock still
as you swallowed
and took up a job down at t'mill
there was the time when your dreams were like mine
and not folded away as they were on the day when you signed on the line at the old cotton mill and there's no time to go back and alter what's done
what was fun is no fun and the sun will not shine
like the time that it rained on the day out in July
when it was there that I wondered and wondered and why
you didn't try
to kiss me
bless me for I should have known that you hadn't grown then
some men are slow men and some men stay boys
and toys for the taking
but making the move to the mill is still the lamest excuse that I've ever seen
we could have been
good
together
whether you believe it or not
I have a lot to give
you'd rather live in your bolts of cloth
but I am a moth that is after a flame
and if you won't light me
I'll find someone else
to join me in my game.

Fly away childhood
'fly away paul'
I'll find another one and we'll have the ball that you and I should have
and life's not so bad
if you have the the life that I should have had
It's a mock turtle soup with a loop round the group and a fix on the past and getting passed by the mill is one more or less bitter pill
that we ought not to swallow
and if swallows don't make a season then that isn't a reason to despair.

ps..I love the way you wear your hair
I like the way you dress
wish that I had impressed you more.

At the end of your tether
don't know whether to go on
can't  decide if you're sick of hearing
that same old song?

Find some solace
look in the face of your fears
and kiss them goodbye.
Get high
better than being low
because then there's only one way to go
and that's straight to the doors of the place that you know
where the fires burn bright
and the music's alright
out of sight out of mind
and in that place you will find
all those friends, who roamed off and left you
and went off to view
their own personal hell with a view from the windows
of their own private cell.

Well are you at that end
can you really decide if you want to send
yourself there
are you in a fit state to care?

I've been and come back
been stretched out on the rack of indecision
blocked with precision
by the walls of derision
and now..?
..now I'm a regular guy slightly shy
but I get by.
I no longer cry for my God to come and take me
to the woods out the back
and then to cremate me
I have burned and in turn I am whole.

There's a whole lot of living
just got to give
giving it a
chance.

Living the dream
giving it up for the dream
some don't even dream
no
REM.
no
blue curling smoke and
no crème de la when
she's tra la
which
is as
frequently as she wants to
be.

(20 minute poetry)

Jeez
is it cold today
'just feeling your age?'
No way.

I'm tucked up like an Eskimo, (loves),
hat, scarf and overcoat, long johns and gloves.
If this is global warming you can shove it, (love).

I'll get to where it is that I'm going, no knowing though if that'll be soon and there may be some heat there, some thing more than down beat there,
I am done with this chill in the air.

I imagine a wood burning stove in my heart for a start and a pile of hewn lumber by the side, this wild thought remains as heat flows through my veins,
I should have imagined the Caribbean, an isle with just me on waiting for her to come home.

Email
Gmail
Hotmail
what makes for a good male?

Just tootling along on the Central
Line
gone are the early day blues.


Not even thinking about anything
not trying to link in to some daydream
or muse.

The passengers now are a different kettle, if fish are so used to being used,
there is chatter and clatter and laughter, which comes at the right  time as I poodle along on this underground
which again is fine if you like it.

I find that I like it much better at this time
the time being going home time,
( you can't go wrong with a Sekonda on your wrist )

So what makes for a good male
when a good woman can make him
much better?

I'm only guessing at the ghosts of these questions that mist over my mind
now and then

But
ten out of ten for trying.

(20 minute poetry)

In and on to the meal
the last of the suppers
the big reveal.
the greater the meal
the bigger the deal
and that sets the seal
on the big reveal.

I steal a prayer to say to
'old Nick' but
the devil I know is slick
and fast.
the last of the suppers
goes on.

The day though no longer than the last has lasted long enough for any day that lasts as long,

Epsilon
which I thought was a printer and not a Greek Number
had me musing about how confusing things can become,
and thinking the sum of all fears was the same as the sum of the interior angles of a polygon had me thinking again that something was wrong,
I think too much
sometimes doing is the cure, but I'd have to think about that to be sure.

Does it feel like Sunday to you?
cucumber and ham sandwiches for tea
and trifle too,
it feels like Sunday to me,

Memory spread lightly.

we used to have crumpets for supper
toasted on the fire by Papa
and sometimes spread sparingly
with brambleberry jam,

happy days.

Sister where you going to?
don't you know it's me and you?
Sister don't you be so long
I need your company.

Tell the preacher
that I met
my maker and we
had a bet,
that you'd be coming
home to me
because
I need your company.

Sister where you going to?
if there's someone else
then who?
Sister don't you be so long
I need your company.

Singing blue,
it's freezing in this morning air
any heat I drop
is
frozen on the spot.

'where
have you been to my blue eyed son?'
up in the mountains without a coat on.

Then the smell of garlic brings me back
overpowers me in this underworld,
fingers curled,
I should curl them round his throat
garlicky
old bearded goat.

But I renounced those violent ways,
says he and not believing it.

Her eye shadows disappears underneath black curly hair,
everywhere I look
everything I see
all that I do
reminds me of
me.

A memorandum to the man then,
take a note or two
I took
did you?

Spare a thought along the way for silence which has lots to say
or spare a copper for those poor souls
who came a cropper in their quest to be much better.

I still smell garlic,
though the seller had long gone and yes he did
have a big coat on,
fingers curled John?

still better to be this way when all ahead is what it is and that's a Monday in the city,
such a
pity really.

The ideosyncrasies of the cities are not
found in the small towns,
the dirt poor brown towns,
the twitching of curtains and dressing gown towns,
but the **** pulls us out of the towns and into the city where the
sewers are home to the rats and the mountains built up on
the streets are a home for the cats,the fat cats,the purring cats, the sharing caring who am I kidding cats,
they are the leeches
weekdays in suits and the weekends in knickerbockers,breech loaders,the feeding free loaders,the gum boot brigade,tea,toast and marmalade,raid the pension accounts and they get an accolade brigade.
The small town mentality will be the death of me,I can see this is wrong but go along with it,up to my neck in it,with paddles I row in it,
the city is full of ****..


The cranes,
new age pterodactyls, chomping their way through the last of the daffodils,sending them downstream to a landfill in East Cheam,sometimes if I dream,I dream in black and white and the city then looks alright but in my heart I know it's crumbling,falling apart at the seams,held together by nightmares and more dreams from the townies,cub scouts and brownies,I don't dream a lot anymore.

The long evening with its strident call
harries me
the night became a bed in which to carry me
as I become the setting of a settling sun
stripping down
toning up
I drink a cup of kindness
for auld lang

When the doorbell rang I was almost asleep,
eighty seven sheep at the last count.
I answered dreamily as the candle flame wavered
wearily towards its end

Friend or foe?

You never know
who calls at the mid of night.

The morning slept as late as I
and so I rose with the rising of
a red faced sun.

Who knows
why
the crimson in the sky that makes the
day blush
makes me rush

guilty conscience?

Well
***** me sideways on
weekdays
where I'm trapped on the
treadmill of time
and notions of freedom
are lost.

Motionless
emotionless?
the emptiness is
bottomless and
appears to be
endless

Frustrating when you're
waiting
with Friday in the wings.

It opens,
rising pink.
A rink on which to glide,
I slide
into the day

It's only what,
Tuesday?
04:22
you gotta be
having me
on.

it's true,
you were right,
but it still feels
like
the middle of Monday
night and it don't
look like Tuesday
at all.

What a pantomime
or will kids ask
what's a pantomime?

he's behind you!
he's behind you!
but Zoom blinds you
to the obvious.

The cardboard jigsaw,an eyesore but it's sods law and when you've nowhere to go and all doors are locked,
you have nothing to lose by sleeping on a box.
We're a city of flatpacks and the homeless with knapsacks are the ones who are stacked up,jacked up and cracked up and for the lucky ones who've packed up and moved on, that memory is gone,
(the one when they're cast out and last in the queue)

So they do what they do when the night closes in,some take to beer and some to the pin and no one can win when the odds have been fixed or the ****** mixed with bicarb' or brick dust,
this twenty five to one shot which the outsiders have got is not a chance,it's a kicking,a beating and they're being deleted,a rewrite and the new world might never know about the down and the outs down and out on skid row.
I say
God bless the Queen but I bet she's not seen the rough sleepers with rough hands and faces and no places to go where they've not been before.
The revolving door says, come in here for a beer or a pin,come quaff some dry cider or fix ******
you've got nowhere to go and all doors are shut,
there's no maybe or might do, you'll pick one of the two,the pin or the beer to forget that you're here where you don't want to be.
Me,
I chose both locks and both locked me in and only my dreams let me out.

When is
not much use to me
when
I used to be such
fabulous company and
who can compete with
what used to be complete?

I have a half life
like an isotope with
no hope for recovery,

I used to be
irreplaceable
now they use me for
spare parts

I'm holding my breath
because
I need something to do with my hands
when I'm not holding you.

In an unconditional surrender
I still bend to her will.

When I need to exhale
I hold on to the thought
as if caught in her net

she lets me wriggle
I giggle and
the schoolboy escapes
now and then.

We trap to feel the body slight
beneath the moon
is it alright?
you hush me,push me on,'til all illusion gone and what is there? two bodies without care,abandoned to the feeling set underneath the moonlit ceiling,
shall we dance through this or chance a seat beside the window pane,where we can trap ourself again in one more link that we will chain around our waists,
and did I tell you,you taste good?
I knew you would,you look so sweet,demure,petite and no less a giantess for wanting more,shall we stand beside the door and walk without,within the gardens you shall be another tasting test for me.
Or is it time to feast on what is most, and what is least is still the feast for me, the man
can you understand the need?
see the beads of sweat appear,nervousness,a touch of fear,and what is fear?but the moment when the time is near to consummate,a first date once more?
are we still beside the door?
I lost track of time
and we, now become what is yours and mine
and what is the time?
Time to dance again, to go but for the pain that does not release the chain and would I want to leave?
you can believe that I would not
being thankful in the nicest way for what I've got
I'll never let it go
so
dance with me again real slow and take me through the moves again,throw away the key and keep the chains.We are what is, and what remains will be
the two of us
locked into destiny.

renaissance
with
croissants.

Unlimited tea.

The Sun,
blood red,
led me to the evening
where on reaching end of day
it lay
tired,
waiting for the night to come and close the doors, but always some would pray for day to stay.

Never me,
I am glad to see the back of it, glad
to rid the day of light and flit
like a bat across the sulking sky
no skulking shadows there to bother me,
no Sun to tan the hide of me, the
night has keys to set me free.

Then
when morning hits me hard
one more
Marquis de Sade,
one more day fed
to feed
the Sun,
blood red
I wait
until
evening comes.

In the market place they are selling, pipes to smoke your dreams upon
and the coffee trader shuts up shop and yet decides to linger on,
the pots and pan man is making eyes at
the widow woman, who tells him,
go away and free your sorrows
when you come back bring the gin
and
the rain comes down in tinsel town
and
the streets all disappear,
it could have happened only yesterday but you
know it was last year.

It looks familiar
have I been here before
did I wear the same clothes
is this what I wore?

It's like a film on reels
repeating
or that's how it feels,
a revolving door and
a somebody kneels
to pray
is that me?

Quite easy to be
if you're nobody
it's only the somebody's
that have to go on.

Early is when
men don't care,
the world isn't in here
work is out there
and the reels keep on
spinning.


It could or it was
I question
because
I don't know

Getting old
becoming slow
where I used to come
I no longer go,
but it all looks and it is
familiar to me
remorseless like the waves
on an ever changing sea.

Down on the South side watching all
the wide boys,
plugging in on Electric Avenue
watching the streets and who
walks by, who stands there waiting and
wondering why.

Brixton,
easy on the eyes,
sifting through the lies they told as
worlds unfold before me,
Starbucks and coffee,
skimming news in the 'Standard',
just because it is free.

Taxman?, relax man
the money's in the post,
this is South West Nine and
there's plenty of time
for all that.

Wouldn't you be annoyed if you couldn't spot the asteroid when they're telling you that it's at least a mile wide?

I'd be fuming, swearing at the moon in the most colourful choice of words, all too late when it touches down, annihilates the entire town and no developers left to shake their heads and frown,

thinking that's the plus side
the asteroid should be five miles wide.

it's coming and they know it
in Macclesfield, they don't show it,
but they watch the skies
all the same.

I am dying out here
trying to face my fears
but
dying out here,
can't seem to find a place
where I can find peace,
why won't crazy thoughts release me
why won't someone set me free?
dying out here
facing up to things
and dying out here.

Somebody told me I'd be dying out there
but
what do I care,
dying every day in here
is more than I can bear
I live in fear
I'm dying out here.

Into the city
into the night
into the groove and I'm sitting upright but
it's rolling me up and on the side I'm way
down
in the light of my bright star
I'm shining and now
In alignment my
confinement is over.

Living wild
filed under
Amazon or
animal
and I lived free,
like Houdini
I escaped. the chains,
I reigned
supreme.

They trapped me
unnaturally,
used a stun grenade
took me from the safety
of my stockade to
parade me
in front of
Royalty.

And they hounded me
no longer free
I bury inside and somewhere
inside there's another me
like Houdini
I reign again
supreme

Somewhere within the levels of the conscious
between the bowels of the deep and
the deepness of my thought
I am caught
in the secrets that I keep
in the darkness of my sleep where
I cry in waterfalls of tears and joy
the unhappiness of fears
employ and use me
in perpetuity,
or so it seems.

These dreams see fit to haunt me
and sleeping draughts have no effect.
This dissatisfaction that I feel
peels away and when the day has come
I wonder
wonder why the sun still lights the sky
and wonder why it does not light my heart.
Do I need to look upon the charted stars up there
to understand myself and know just where and when
I go to then
will that make me a better man
if I learn to understand the master plan
and is there such a map.

Mother says,
'I need a slap to wake me up' but I think that's a fallacy
dreamers like me need no such thing.

Each morning I bring a bucket to the well with wishes in my head
and these are fed up through the day
into my conscious thought
and once again I find I'm caught
my thoughts should pay attention to what is going on
before I even know it
the fleeting hours have run away
and gone.

The night would say,
'it serves you right you've got what you deserve,
I reserve the right to kick against the night
and rest my case.

I wonder what it's like to be her
to walk in her shoes
wear my hair like her hair.
I wonder where these thoughts will take me to,
will it be I or I as her who comes along to share?
I would care to know,does anyone other than a female know,and if you do,
do you wonder too.
I wonder
what she thinks when I think this
I wonder if she knows
that when we kiss
I wonder how it feels for her.

It feels like Spring and
I being me
wind up my voice to sing
of how it feels like Spring.

But
its got a way to go yet
before the sweaters are off
and the T-Shirts are on.

Winter's not gone, it's taking a break,
it makes me sick to feel this way
when tomorrow it'll **** it down
and Spring's only here for a day.

Ah
never mind
I'm going to find a den
pick up a pen and ink out
a line or two,
there's not much else to do
when it feels like Spring.

She can **** me with one Stanza
or make me live forever,
my poetess is beautiful
and
very, very clever

When daylight screams in through your eyes
when every dream of the long night dies
and waking comes as no surprise,
except for old men.

Down by the rough granite quay
where the ships and the sailors
stroll in from the sea
She'll be waiting for me.

I know it is time to go
to meet her
and greet her like an old friend.
I suppose at the end we all become
the knot that is untied.
Success is knowing we tried
we gave it our best
and the rest becomes the history
of you and me.

She waits by the quay so silently
where time does not exist for her
she shares tea with eternity.
She sees
me
and the wave she gives washes over me.
By the sea is where we all will be
one day.
Eventually we'll return on another tide
to take another side
and live another day.
Today she will have her way
and I will leave with her
leave all my cares behind
I bind myself
to
this.

The giants know it is not the journey they make but
the first step on the long road
that they take to immortality which puts them
on the pages of history under the microscopic lens
of humanity.

The giants may slip and trip over giants who have fallen before but
some rise with their eyes set on the keys of infinity,unlocking the lighthouse to light up the pathways for us all to be
giants.

We break the mould and shoulder responsibility,it's not easy to be
a giant,simpler to be a small man,tall men are targets for the ****** scope,the aim of dreams which lead the refugees that hope for new technologies to ease their burdens.
The giants are among us,the humble ones,ones that tumble,crumble,crumple and yet unravel mystery,unlock misery
to free the sad and the sick,pick a person any person and that person could be the giant,
see
it's not really how tall you stand but how you understand and where the first step is and who gives you the helping hand,
we all have within us the grasp of the genius
we are all
potential
giants.