Put the clocks back
and don't forget.

I'm putting mine back,
time is aware of that.

we
take from Peter to pay Paul,
and what's it for?
because later
we take from Paul to pay Peter,

and just to remind you,
we are all on the meter
and it's ticking away.

The oxygen's escaping
heat evaporating
this vacuum is a cold room
error 404.

back to building mud pies
don't pretend you never do,
in the movie we're a part of
I am waiting for the cue.

I never got a Valentine
guess she didn't have the time
to buy one get one free,
this must be
error 403

if disappointment cannot ****
she will.

Thursday,
what say you?
shall we drop down to the underground
the way old soldiers do.

It might be Christmas somewhere
on an island out at sea
or it could be Easter,
which is a bounty for
the mutineers like me.

I shall wait until the clouds dissipate and
sit on the three-legged stool
watching my coffee cool
because it's Sunday
and Sunday is a day of rest.

She has other ideas
and to be honest
She often has those
I suppose,
but then I always do.

The long and the short of it is,
at the moment
I don't give a krap if the
World's in a tiz
I'm in my cocoon
I'm growing and soon
I'll be able to fly far away.

When the economy heals and
the scab starts to itch
just scratch it and sniff and
you'll smell
like you're rich.

So
you wanna get back to your labours
to those hours in the week that enslave us?

listen,
the government doesn't do any favours
we're all going to pay in the end.

Everything crumbled away
the evening before and
Christmas Day went back
in the closet .

Nothing holds fast and
nothing will last
so you've got to take minutes
and process into pictures the
memories before they are lost

Santa is not getting thinner ,
too many mince pies
the guy's on a winner

But I'm plum duff and so lucky
that somebody loves me
the best present that I've
ever had.

The questions that
have glued us
to the
the answers that elude us

if we go downhill
will we still
get there?

Momentum
means we should go on
like we mean it
even if we haven't seen it
all.

Alone,
I write poetry and perform on my own
honing my skills and if it kills me,
let it.

What use to me the audience?
the polite applause is an
inconvenience.

I need the solitude to magnify
the things that flit through
my minds eye.

But the readers feed me
as I bleed into them
ink from the tip of the
ball point pen.

Curse me then and
if you dare
perform
for the audience
you seek out there.

I need none
I perform
alone on the stage
I call my home
honing​ my skill
until
it kills me.

Poverty,
food in the reclamation yard.

Life's tough,
it's hard to be  full of energy when
the meter is empty and all you see
are the toffs who scoff at society.

Poverty,
cardboard caskets in the cemetery.

There's a niche between the have and the have nots,
the place they throw away food and it rots,
bread, bread but not for the dead and the mould
we can give to the weary and old,
it's share and share and **** them, they don't count
and we don't care.

Circumstance gives a fat chance and the fat cats get the fat other than that all is well for the poor and the needy who dwell in the dark because the meter is empty.

Poverty,
in the park, on the bench, what a stench,
why don't they bathe, why don't they shave, why don't they save the pittance they get or better yet why give them a pittance, give them ****** all?

Poverty,
call for ticket number forty three, your benefits have changed please come to booth B.

We are being outsourced to be the dampcourse in some old Etonian duck pond, all expenses paid by another raid on the 'workshy' who in any case will get by
because we're all in this together dontya know.

Poverty
is just a name they use to defuse the ticking bomb,  
castigate the poor, exonerate the rich,
build another workhouse and life's not such a *****.

We know differently, we who live poverty, we who see inequality but we still and will
**** for a dime.

I break into pieces
so
she rebuilds me
refills me
and
installs in me
a new operating
system.

No signs here
or there,
I wonder.

But after the wonder
I realise it's gone

so if life goes on
can you tell me
where?

I searched high and low
in the graveyards of woe
off the cape of no hope
and still couldn't see.

What if what if is not to be
and
no signs to see?

'Are you mad?,
they ask me
I nod
and shake my head
slowly.

The light began to dim because
the oil was running low and the
morning came a creeping up
as if I didn't know,

never meant to be the stranger
I am Tonto to the Sunshine Ranger.

Invincible
I am the storm
reap me, read me
in the early morn.

In spite of me
I write of me
my protestation is but
the denunciation of
previous wrongs

and the megalo' in me
dressed as Romeo
sees the spotlight on me
as I put on
the one man show.

Behind these masks
there are certain deeds and tasks
of which I shall not mention.

Against the rule of
Isaac
Balzac
vitamin A and
Prozac
I would tack this to the end
but the end is yet to be and
in this the truth could be
nothing more than
ripened Brie
( nice to spread upon your bread,
but fit for nothing else)

I would be a Jane
but I am John
also a Christian
and how do I carry on
this thread?

What I see inside is
beyond me
as fathomless as a
bottomless sea
I never understood
how could I?
the third eye
is blind.

Between the cemetery
and the library
a sign that reads,

here lies my poetry
RIP.


.

One more crack in the sky and some poor *******'s wondering why or how he'll get by,
workshy? by no means just no means at all and the means tester calls,well what a surprise,more ******* cracks in the sky.
Someone lied and covered their tracks and now our backs are against the wall.
I wait to see which way the cards will fall,a man with no chance who is gambling on chance,
This City we live in,London,iconic,
how ironic it is then that its full of the poor, when it's so filthy rich.
If life is a ***** then she's a miserable mistress
leaving us in this **** mess
of debt.

I can see what's new in
what people are doing
who's watching
who flew in
and all on the internet,

no need now for real interaction
I can just plug in and play and
that
is the attraction,

one day we'll all fly solo
with everywhere to go and
no one who'll know us

and that'll be a shame

A Saturday night
special
or zip gun
takes all the fun
out of a
Sunday.

You have the key
just
in case you didn't know.

We are all
locked in
something or somewhere
mental or physical
aching to be free

take it from me,
use the key
move on.

War paint
but this ain't
the
last stand
this is England
no
hostiles here.

We dream of the prairie
because
our lives our dreary,
I dream of Revere
no hostiles here.

Sheer pluck alone can cut to the bone
if you're an artist and most of us are.

Sing?
well that's a hit or miss thing
if
'Britain's got talent'
they are keeping it hidden.

As you may see I go off on a tangent
and sometimes it's two
it's what I do
It's who I am
angular
irregular but
a man all the same
and if war paint's the game
and it ain't the last stand
count me in.

Did you bring your umbrella?
well a
plastic bag will do to
cover your head.

Rain
what a pain
and we know now
it's summer
because the rain's
here again.

we know it'll go
the Sun will peek
through
to dry all our tears,
how about you
did you remember
the umbrella?

It doesn't rain on the underground
( union rules )

there's lots of long face
sat in a line
should be hung in some galleries
like the National or Tate
wait
don't forget the Guggenheim

why faces so long?
if I'm not wrong but I
usually am
we're out of the rain
and
not stuck in a jam

it's probably the steam
rising like cream
perhaps the cat's
got everyone's tongue
maybe that's why
everybody feels numb
( union rules, claws forty two
glum is a right,
spelling is optional)

I'm almost there
Soho
how square,
I shall try to rise above
the lack if love is lacked,
open up the sky a crack
to let a little sunshine through
but carry an umbrella too
because
One never knows.

Minimum hours
minimal powers.
let the pennies shower down on those in the new age 'workhouse'
we're back to the slums where the bosses toss crumbs to the masses and
what passes as good is as good as it gets, when the greedy get all and the poor get sod all.
The cries of the City,unheard since Victoria,I mean the Queen,not the place and that is the pity of it,
trapped in this sea where only the successful can be seen as being smug,
We should heave out the plug and watch them go down,give back the town to the people who share in it,those who care and those I swear will win.
Unless the cheapness of gin begins to rear its head and the poor all get hammered instead.
When the **** hits the fan we forget the soup van and it's bottles all round and around we all go.
If the cold doesn't **** us we'll be buried in snow and they'll cover the cracks
with more minimum contracts.

What would you do it for don't we both know the score are we not friends 'til the end?
It was,
'til death do us part, but you started early while I was still stood at the post.

Now alone all I hope for is he was worth leaving for,
you still have a place in my heart.

No more tea at the Ritz while I'm falling to bits,
what on earth would you do it for,
Dora?

Monsters leak from the creaks that you make when your bones are old, they have no need to hide under the bed, they are the new colonists, moving in on the old ones to feed on their fears.

but you don't have to believe me, you only have to look under the bed, see, no monsters.

I stick a crucifix to the bedroom door, one on the Zimmer and several more around the room,
they'll have to say their prayers to get to me.

On top of tower blocks that stand like shot blast rocks we have pigeons preening,they strut like ***** and breed like rabbits,
but they can fly
rabbits can only try as they're trapped in the glare and they stand still and stare as if the light's an old friend,
boom and that's the end,
shot to the *** and off to make do,
man has to take and rabbits will stew.

The movable feast day
moved far away,

the table almost bare
nothing there
but
an Easter egg.

A passport to where,
Pimlico?
well
that was done very well
by Ealing Studios
but who knows
it could work again.

and
if you're not old enough
to remember that
it's not a crime,
time will get you there
in the end.

When they **** you for a
ten dollar bill will you
ask
for a receipt?

Along parquet floors in
stilettos
through doors into
rooms like the last room before.


What changes a day makes
to the dark left behind us
when the night cannot find us.

But they're all ghosts in grey
all passing one way
with nothing more to say
to me.

It's hard to know the truth
when they tell you
'Future Proofed' and you know
they don't know
their **** from their elbow.

I'm giving up trying
concentrating on living
until it's time that I
die in
your arms.

Buying on Amazon
dying in Babylon
more than in Epsilon
less than a Marathon.

what rot sets in
with rotgut gin
when senses take
their leave.

don't ask
I don't know.

What we are
and what we see
are already known
in the universe,
She
knows everything

I know only the
three
F's
Friction
fission
Fusion

Or is it all a stage
and we're just
a conjurers
illusion?

I write to remember and write to forget,
I write to break my bones and then write to make them set.

If this is a heresy
if this is my curse,
if words are what I carry within the casket in the hearse,
then let it be,
it could be worse,
this affliction can be knitted into another lonely verse.

I write to eat
I write to sleep
I have written bitten fingernails, of the squeakings in the night,
in the bedroom of all sorrows I have penned and taken fright, at the onset of a dawning in the melanoma day
I have taken up another quill and wrote my life away.

And now the ink is running dry, perhaps in the congealing of the words I find a healing,
it may be so.

In All of its entirety
infinity is the one place
you can reach out to touch me,
but
don't expect too much.

As far as far can be and deeper than a bottomless sea
we like to think ourselves the masters of our fate
and thinking this we think infinity can wait
however, an expanding universe moves
the goalposts every day.

I could try to stretch out time
to wrap it around these
fingers of mine
to intervene
but the everlasting dream sounds
so inviting,

to be safe
I'm spending the night in
watching the static build
until my head is filled
with white noise.

When the time
comes to go
you
will
know,

Don't stop at the red lights
not even in Amsterdam.

In my yachting whites
on a dinghy at
Millwall Dock
because
we all have to start somewhere

I am waiting for a twenty two.
Two eleven's have past but they will not do
from Piccadilly to Putney
home in time for ham,cheese and chutney
and here it comes.

Humming along brum brum brum
get on the bus
swipe the card
not too hard
taking a seat take the weight of my feet
and in the air from up the stairs the smell of food
someone is chewing on chicken
******* on bones
the women in front are gabbling in phones
and the child behind cries
I've dropped my fries
then an old lady slips on these crispy fried chips
and the bus comes to a halt.
The driver jumps up
screaming this isn't my fault.

Not my day at all
just wanted to get home with no smell of chicken
no phones in my face
but now I'm stuck in the bus
face to face
with the realisation that Putney and ham with cheese and Chutney
is slipping away.
No
not my day at all.

No social *******
no discourse on current affairs,
on who's doing what or where or to whom
and that's why you will always be
the silence in the silent room.

In aluminium doorways where the sun's rays reflect
I have always suspected a hoax,
japery that capers about my head,
is it me or the sun that is dead?

Victorian cobblestone paths made from grandad's dry bones
and shells off the front line on the Somme
meandering,
Picardy's never that far from me and
Tipperary just goes on and on.

I sit here in reverie and the world
pebbledashes me
I am becoming a scroll lost to history
a paint *** full of scenery
the brush with the bristles
all gone.

If treasure's a pleasure then I'm feeling pleased.

Five words are all it takes
to make a story
tell a story,
ten are better
so are
twenty more
but we start little
and
start slow
and work our way up

and on the second floor
behind the third door
is what we all aim for.

what's your aim?
peace on earth?
financial gain?

the same as or
different to
the person who's
stood next to you?


A Tuesday muse
to infuse the mind
or tequila to make
it spin.

Lidocaine
I lied again
not novocaine
but caning it
a bit.

Rolling up a dollar bill
to get my fill
of instant thrill.

The flash back drill
the door caves out
the cops come in
watching with a stupid grin.

In the 'nick' again
******* you
lido,novo, pro no caine.

She convinces me
and the night slips
into bed with me.

The warrior worries
that he hurries too much
perhaps
that's a touch,
touch too far.

We are heads on the block
and the guillotine's stuck
stock in the ***
and no one gives a ****,
let them starve or eat cake
how I ache for a crust
and just when
we think we are men
we're convinced that we're not.

Night wraps her arm tight around me
I make no sound,
but my mind screams no more.

The allegory,
the flaw
hurts
but it's war
some of us won't
survive.

Tonight there are lights in your eyes,
now I'm wise enough to read the signs
and catch the drift between the lines
it's time to rock and roll.

Eyes so deep and inspiring
that light fires in
my thoughts,

if I was castaway
I wouldn't last a day
and
couldn't make the night
be what it should.

Well,
that's it,
my body don't fit
or
the mirror is telling me lies.

There are cracks in my eyes
the sun looks up in surprise and
turns its back on the
joys of the night, but
in spite of all this and
despite that last kiss
if my body don't fit
that's it.

Twenty twenty-two
is the year of Deja Vu,

Is omicron
on the periodic table?
it sounds like it should be.

Can't hide anymore
frightened to go outside of the door
and like a ghost at the window
you watch your world go by.

Order in food and order in wine
and in time
we'll order in more food and
order in more wine
but we'll be safe from the plague
that's plaguing us,

until the locusts arrive,

A vast expanse of trees and plants
an umbrella that shields,

fields of forgotten
sown
to beget or begotten
by the one you forget
in your haste.

And today?
we can copy and paste
cut and select at a
dot com
where everything's perfect
no need to sow
or go
anywhere
do
anything other than switch on the screen
to make up the dream as you like.

I dreamt in my dream she
was dreaming of me as I dreamt
the last futile attempt to connect

you've got to plug in and switch on,
practising does not make perfect
it just takes time.

one more eruption
a data corruption
reset to forgot
and beget
or begot?
which
I forgot
in my haste.