She sleeps in the lake
wakes when I dive
when I drown
I survive and I die
wondering why
she sleeps in the lake.

The day slopes slowly into the rising night,
it's still light though so I think I'll go down to the stream where I can dunk my toes in and dream of those liquid delights,
I'm not thinking of alcohol, that solves no problems that I know of,
No!
I'm thinking of a saturated universe full of prose and freestyling artists and what if so what?
it's my dream and it goes where it will,
and it's still light,
I'm going

Remind me to give it a miss,
this is purgatory
which apparently is a choice
I made
whilst under the influence
obviously.

The Central disassociation
dislocates me from communication
and that's no bad thing
but
it can't get no worse.

Wednesday and I'm on the way
and 'appen it's not the Appian
but
it's close enough for me.

Just showered the week off me,
I do it daily, but it only works
on Friday
and
I do not use 'Camay'
because it's probably
a registered trade name
and I won't get in a lather
for any of their fame,
unless they pay me lots of
money.

...and then she hugs me closer to her
where her scents intoxicate me,
fate decrees and I agree
its been a lovely
day.

(More than in the mire from the central line poetry tube)

Well, it was *** for a tat and a tidbit that was the last draw for the last straw and the camel looked on.
I've gone and happy about it, the pills help me out just a tiny bit, but the Toby jug thinks that I am the mug, so it's *** for tat and oh how I laugh and the camel is there looking on.
She takes me to water, the Devils own daughter and forces this man to partake,
but
the man is his mountain, his cataract, fountain, from whichever who wants to will flow.
So a tidbit a tat for a bit of all that seems a very fair price I should pay.
The camel walks away with the ****.

She pushes and thrills me and every time she does kills me but the man inside wills me to go on.
She calls me John boy, to infuriate me,then initiates me into her womanly mystery,kisses expertly to end this man's misery and who would I be without her beside and behind me?
She pulls me up closely,holds onto me tightly,makes me feel mighty and gently we sink into what each other thinks and we do this thing nightly.

Taking me beside a becalmed sea on an afternoon estate,
but I wait for the atoms to smash and the storms to arrive,
I
survive only in a half forgotten melody that mother used to sing to me.

And yet these cartwheels I turn,
turn me about to race the wind.

Time travels slowly between the lines on my face
and I age silently
with,
I hope,
some grace,

given that charity exists
some will take pity and
others will go by,
it's a lottery as to who
and when and if I'm here
again tomorrow,
I survived.

I tire of gnawing away
and.
not knowing

Yet to be confirmed
continued on the next
page,
I stopped reading the
' extra '
and settled for the regular,

less stress.

In the Morning.

I thought they were tears in her eyes
but
it was candle wax in mine

the light is an imp.

Watching as more breakers lower the bar
the tide's coming in
I feel like going,
but I gnaw away
not knowing.

Thinking it's time to bail out
get the next train and hang
on the rail,
doubt I'll get a seat and
no doubt the Westminster
crew will.

Krill
they are acting like krill
as if they're immune,
but soon
they'll be the migrants
eaten by whales
or Ireland,
Scotland,
Sunderland
I wonder and
think it's time to bail out.

You can focus freestyle on a tightrope for the last mile but you can't balance on the tips of your little fingers, an interesting observation of no visible value,
I make it anyway

and making it any way is if anything something.

These are the days when 20th Century Fox couldn't be bothered to update their name so what chance do we have?

Rerunning shotguns to undercut the current trend of hand held mayhem, it's a blast if nothing else.

I'm fighting inertia with a dame nicknamed Porsche or it could be a light headed moment
whatever!

Did you guess it was Sunday or were the visions in your way and was the lady from Harlem still on your mind?

Pixies or pixels we dance through this star storm until the music arrives at the end.

I got old yesterday and if I let it
it will get in the way

I think old is the new candy floss
tripping up to be whipped up into
a high chair
a bib and some tucker
(and here ****** would rhyme)
but
I'm a sucker for politeness
so
I tighten the belt on my language
and don't use ****** at all.


You'll either read or dismiss this
and it won't make a difference
to
20th Century Fox.

Footpaths and footpads
pickings for bad lads

and the South Bank
the bank they all
banked on.

On piazzas  and plazas
they all dress in pyjamas,
it's high fashion they say
to wear out the night
in a day.

and I wore out my welcome
on a day just like this

no kiss goodbye though Lord
did I try

a cold handshake
was all that it took
and more or so I
thought that
I could possibly
take.

There's a sting in the tail
always is and
without fail
I fail to admit it.

When time had stopped,
I dropped out from this realm and took the helm of one more ship that sailed across some universe.
This hearse was all I had to gather memories,filled with dust from scattered galaxies and ill at ease,I ploughed on through the starlit seas.
And night crashed darkly on my skin,cursing me for being in the way,destroying what was left of day
and then destroying me.
But long before the moment when, time had stopped and then the night came in and popped the thin membrane that kept men sane, there was another time,
some place of mine in mind I know,where gentle people used to go and rivers ran so slow below, the racing of the towns above,in love with this,I look back longingly and blow away a tear with one more kiss,
standing still until time starts again

This impotency
where lockdown shows
no clemency,
will most certainly be
the death of me,
probably.

Hedging the bet
because
I'm not there yet.

The new Jerusalem
City men,
gentle not so gentlemen
and full of them.

Jump ahead,
watch the cracks appear
see where we're being led.

The wilderness
we are lost to tractless waste
and I can taste the irony
slipping off my tongue from
deep inside of me.

The new Jerusalem,
millions of variations on
the themes of modern men
but no one sees them and then
they disappear.

My words take wing
like birds they fly and sing
like bees
they sometimes sting.
My words bring me to understand the hand I have in understanding others.

In the gallery of statues
men with granite eyes
think granite thoughts
on marble floors.

When you're heading into the unfathomable deep
it's hard to keep a perspective view.

There's a hole in my shoe dear Liza,
but
you've got me mending the bucket.

The old songs stand the tests of time
I sit and take mine.

Stopping at
Lancaster
Preston
Wigan
and
Crewe.

all aboard.

It was around about two
when the lightning rod blew
and the cavalry came in with
the charge
I think the horses all bolted
as ten thousand volts did
me in,

they
used a trash can
to pick up the ash
of the dead man
and that was at twenty past three,
which didn't affect me as I was
no longer there.

Rain,
like beads of sweat
rolling down the window,
same as it's always been,

dripping almost silently
to
flow eventually
into the greater sea
from whence it came.

So,
I catch up on the news,the views,the who's doing what to where and when,
if only then to disseminate,to punctuate the lines with laughter,after all I'm no one's fool,
though school was often on my wish list,
I missed it more often than not.
I got my education off the streets,elucidation came my way each and every day I struggled through,
nothing new in that,there's many more out there to bore you rigid with their tale of how to and how not to fail.
Somewhere in the wind behind me you will find me dancing free,how easy now to read and sit and go to seed,
I need the news like I need rain,I need to feel that touch of someone else's pain,it makes my own seem somewhat less.

She crossed her legs and dotted the i's
I drank Bacardi neat.

In that dream she seemed unassailable or
perhaps it was me being incapable,
either way
I opened up the page of another day.

When times are tough and the tough get going,
I'm staying put,

Chapter five was a revelation
a celebration
Bacardi again and a gin for the Dame
(she's American you know)

And the day heads into a Tucson sunset
scattering shadows on the sands all about me.

They used to stand on
street corners
selling their favours
for a few dollars,
yes
vending machines are
from a bygone age,

everything's twenty four seven
guaranteed by that heaven you're
unlikely to see,
because
vice is like popcorn
you love it at night
at the cinema, right?
and come the morn'
it's all popped away
quite neatly.
and
you forget.

Written down in black and white and so we
think that what is wrote is right.
As if the pen had honesty to call its own and
the scribe had no agenda.
How tender is the mind, which believes the written word is kind,
a mind I'd like to think was some bridge between myself and some ancestral link,
alas
this can't be so,
because I know the cruelty of words
and fools with nibs instead of teeth who bite with ink
and bring the bitten grief.

I write,erase and write and struggle through
the maze of right and wrong.
I shall and do intend to carry on
until the writing disappears or
until my fears are overcome.

Riding in the sedan
wishing they stood on the
running board
thinking they were gangsters
back in nineteen thirty-two

in different news a foreign time
some hallway clock.
begins to chime
Pope Clement gives another sign
the first of several more.

Ethel Merman gives a sermon
serves them fresh fish with their bread
some queue up for second helpings
others have to be force fed.

Broke

In the broke of shattered night
You light me.
Guide me home and fill me with hope..
..that the morning will come.
And the Sun will shine.

In the broke of the night when in breaking...I might
Cry.
You are close by..to hold me.
In your eyes in the light I see fluttering wings
The dove that sings me to sleep.

These thoughts I will keep in my heart..
..as I relax in the blackness that drifts far away
Will you stay?
Go away?
If I pray you'll be here when I wake..
If the light goes away...will you stay?

As a boy I hid under the bed
Afraid of the dead in the broke of the night
Of the ghosts and the demons that hold on to you tight
And never let go.
How could I know that the delight in your light was waiting for me?
How could I see that far ahead..
..hid under my bed..eyes shut.

As I grew I knew you were there
As I grew I hoped we could share
Something great.
Won't you wait with me tonight?
Won't you stay to see the sunrise?
Let me see the morning in your eyes?

It's the black in the broke of the night
But it's alright
Her light
Is on.

Broke.


This feeling of kneeling on glass
will pass
the pain will subside and the tears
that I cried
will dry,
I'll get by
it's what I do
but
how could I forget you, the way that you've forgotten me?
how can I be happy now that you've gone?
why can I still smell you
when you're no longer here?
and why is it that memories linger on?

When my knees begin to heal will I still feel you standing there
or will I look and wonder where it is you are?
will the gentle touch of morning that creeps up light across my skin begin to compensate
for losing love and my only true soul mate?

I'm still kneeling,feeling pain and thinking that I've been a fool again,waiting for the tears to dry,
wondering why.

I don't know the
ins and outs of it
but ins or outs
so many doubts

Lost.

some voted to remain
and lost
never mind
we can have that vote again
until you win
and then they lose out
but stay in!

more ins and outs than
a red light district.

this is the democratic way
right?

Down in the crypt where humanity's stripped
there's a smell of decay in the air, where
they wash as they will
or just have a quick swill and
I really
don't want to be there.

There is no wizard
there never was
and the state of
Kansas
is not in
Oz.

I'm going fishin' with Huck'

She spoke to me through empty eyes, and like the chafing wind her cries lacerated my skin.
But her pinprick slick tricks did not fool me
for I was free of her coil of steel and could feel the sense of impermanence that emanated from her words of woe.

I would go
I had stayed too long
She was wrong for me and I could now see what would become of me, if I didn't leave this temptress,with the windswept smile and hands that undressed the thoughts in my mind.

What lays between the sheets,lays also between the lines and memories of better times come flooding in.
She tries to stick me once again with the poisoned pin so I will stay,will lay,
I pray this night to end.

I hesitate to defend again,against a female who would bind me in chains and take me to her lair,strip me naked,leave me lying bare upon the earthen floor.
Once,
it's true I did adore the rough and tumble,juvenile and fumbling bumblings but now,I must escape and anyhow or way I can.
If I should wish to be the man inside,the one who rides the wave.I cannot allow myself to be her slave any longer for I am
stronger.
I think.

Mp's and peers will have to be relocated,
the houses of Parliament are to be
redecorated

I'm calling on Crusoe
to get this second rate show
onto his island for an extended
run.

The country's gone to the dogs
too many wheels and
not enough cogs.

....and yet I am here

'a dot on the card
he's drinking cold beer'
someone said from the back room

but there's always someone down on you
because they can't rise above themselves.

****,
I'm imagining things,
things like
conversations I never had
in my head
things like
Raquel whatsername
asleep in...
..see what I mean?

I don't think I'm receiving
it must be the aerial
and
I haven't got the wherewithal
to get a new one.

You can't remember the name
the face
the place where you met
the games you once played
and where you lived then
decays in the memories
you cannot recall.
I think that says enough,
says it all.

Passing your prime was the crime perpetrated,
a ****** and time is the corpse.

Gather your thoughts in and tie them around you,
they are the residue of all that you were.

The memories rest somewhere,
but you cannot remember and
you don't know if you
really care.

Bronze silver and old medals.
Officially worn out
and I'm
dog tired but still wired
to the terminals,

my eyes are watering
my hair is thinning
I think that time is
winning this war.

But
I'm not going to throw in the towel just yet
and in case
I forget,

I didn't pass go just to go and meet my maker
I am still in the game and ready to take a
long hard look at myself.

They're only dark clouds,
but could be omens
of soldiers marching
off to war,

ah
the thunderclaps of Odin
that echo through Valhalla
ringing in my ears,

only dark clouds blown along
the wind imagining
of things they used to be.

To wake a bit earlier
to see you a bit longer
when the daytime seems shorter
and the night wants forever

I count but lose track in the
bric a brac thoughts
of the number of ways that
our love grows.

She brings me back to the heart of things
where every one of her days brings me so
much joy,

If happiness is a game of chess
then she is the Queen .

I retire with dignity
to
play a bit
naughtily
after inviting her in
to the castle.

I was sweeping yesterday and its heartache under the mat
but I stopped when I got to that
part
where the pieces of my broken heart shone lightly in the morning sun.
Then I carried on
what's gone is gone and it's no use me crying now.
But how and why it ended badly
left me weeping sadly
I don't know.

One of life's mysteries that show up now and again
to drown you in a sea of pain
strip you naked like a jain
what a shame
I really like her lots
but she liked lots of other men
and that could never do
it was me and you or nothing
in the end it was nothing
and nothing I could say
would make her stay.
She'd just stray again
leave me sweeping yesterday again
I can do without the pain.
Shame.

In a hologram
I am the man you would like me to be
not real
but you see
it is me,
so
why do you want to know
who that I am?
but the man that's an image
a man you would pillage
and keep for your own.

Pictures that grow up and slow up,then show up just who that you are
an image that's far too inconstant
a solent
a side by the sea
aside from you and me and the oceans that we see
there is only a halogen lamp which tramps out these scenes and in the inbetweens of our dreams
I will be forever
the screens on the doors of the more that you want, and the more that we need,
the more we will seed the cameras with film.
and developed could it be
that we see so much more?

It's all about the memory
the time that took
the roads we
make
the paths we tried
the ones we walked
those conversations
when you talked and
I tuned in

seeing them now
in retrospect ,
constructing different
outcomes
and out comes
the handkerchief

the biggest thief of belief
is belief itself
believing as we do
that we're the one who
will make it through to
come out safely on the
other side

and everything I tried
I tried
and tried again
for what?
the pain?

calmer now though

just to relax
turning the clock back
as and when
it's what old men
do
and
I still believe that I'll
get through
because
one has to believe in
something.

If the beautiful pea green boat had been painted battleship grey,the owl and the pussycat would have stayed at home and not 'sailed away for a year and a day',but it wasn't and they did.
The story ends quite badly some would say quite sadly,the pussycat got rid of the owl,stating in his defence, that fowl was for the eating of and not for spouting like a whale in Edward Lear's fairy tale.
If only the boat had been painted battleship grey the owl might still be with us today.

Very soon, those in power
will move the clocks forward
by one hour,
*******, as if I'm not old enough
they want to make me older, thIs
is why
I rely
on a sundial.