One moment nothing and the next moment everywhere,
what and why and does it apply to me?

The new freedom is virtual.

Trying new positions, which is
trying in these conditions
but hey **
I'll give it a go.

Six of the clock and all is
all it can be,
I am
reminded that we are an island
not that Donne got it wrong
not that we got it right

I am hoping for a better tomorrow.

Shin bones aching
body breaking, but
I wear it well.

The lines of life upon the plucked bloom bleed,
nothing there I haven't seen and I will read it
in the stars now that the darker days are here.

They press me down conversely
I am lifted high beyond
the point of no return and my mind
no longer burns with questions that
I feared to ask.

Not taxed or tasked
no onus on me,
I wait to be consumed,
blooms
so beautiful enough to
die
and fulfil some prophecy
yet I
have lingered in the vase
breathed decay to keep
new life at bay or behind the bars
which my hand made.


Laid to rest they say,
I never saw a day that gave me
anything but work and strife,
lines of life?
yeah
okay.

If poverty's just an insecurity
therapy might cure it.

and that's the sort of ****
we get,
but we get used to it.

'trying to raise some cash and get a hostel bed?'
more likely buying hash or crack or ****** instead,

I don't pin my hopes on homeless soaks
or drug induced narcosis.

and anyway the wage is set at
minimum which is just a way to say
that we're not worth it,
and that's the sort of **** we get
but we get used to it

There is a bridge to cross
Where the river runs fast and deep
There is a bridge to cross
I see it in my sleep.

On one side grey,the other green
One side, waking,one side, dream
There is a bridge to cross
I must decide
To stay or cross the great divide?

It does not move
It's always there
The bridge is more than I can bear.

There is a bridge to cross
And many have crossed before me
It doesn't make it easier
To see how many there are
Or how far they have gone.

Upon my word, I'll cross one day
From grey to green
From waking to a state of dream like trance
I often glance at the bridge out there
More than I can bear or not
The bridge is all
I've got.

Someone I think, dealt out the
idiot link
and I appear to be chained to
the deck.

So
what's it going to be?
harmony or
mutiny when you're disputing me?

trying to see both sides of an argument
hurts when it's my neck that gets twisted
and not my words.

the sub plot being
you hold the aces
but
I got the deck.

She spoke in pigeon patois
but I knew what she meant as
she leant over me and I could see
what she wore next to her skin.
'Begin',
she said.

I began and I ran through the reasons why this was such fun
and she laughed
like a draft of fresh air that comes through a door
and I saw even more.

Her teeth gleamed pearl white in the red light of the harbour
my ship had come in.
and she said,
'begin'

Heading west from La Pesa to the streets of Calabazar for a trip to the markets,
a dance through bazaars.

The lighthouse in Cayo Guano lit the way to the end of the day as we snorkelled deep off the archipelago.

The night filled with Hemingway's stories being drip fed a litre of ***
as the moon slipped behind old Havana awaiting the birth of the sun.

Christmas is coming but
Santa's in Spain
there's no ****** toys but
who do we blame?
Easyjet is
a very safe bet,
they get everyone
in the end.

The shepherds were accused of rustling sheep
the three wise men kept schtum
the short stay hostel closed its doors
and Jesus didn't come.

Another day down Christmas way with beggars begging bread and junkies on the corner lights,some high and some half dead.
Oh joy of joys and kiss the boys goodbye for me,
I'm setting sails across the setting of the sun
and Jesus didn't come.

No crisis here,all is well
we've all got used to this living hell,where the living dwell among the past the 'sell by date', and what's the creator or his son got to do with this?
****** all
we rise and fall under our own steam here and at times when it is clear we can even glimpse the sun
and Jesus didn't come

Ding **** merrily oh my,
I hear the cash tills ringing
wondering what I'm going to buy
and what is Santa Bringing.
Gloooooooooooooooria
in Chelsea,
they're all singing.

Salvation army bands march past
trumpets at the ready
I was in the hostel once
the Sergeant Major fed me.
Gloooooooooooooooria
IN Chelsea,
they're all singing.

The elves are sat down in the bar
the reindeer are lunching,
accountants sat at home in fear
Christmas number crunching.
Gloooooooooooooooria
in Chelsea,
they're all singing.

Does this Christmas feel real?
do you want to deck the halls
or deck the local copper?

is it merry gentlemen
or doped up mental men?

and is Santa just a ******?

Will the saviour save me from
the DWP?

A friend sends me a Christmas card
a picture on it of a crib,
some yard in Bethlehem
with some very clever men stood by
I don't know why he sent it me
perhaps he thought I'd like it.


But it's not like it used to be
would you agree?
well
apart from the nuts and
there's plenty of them
merry mental gentlemen
about.

No snow
just pretence and
'a good deal hence'
from the days of
Wenceslas.

God bless you merry sentinel
you keep watch on the day
you laugh and cry
I wonder why
you're here
and why you stay,
though we are safe and well secure
I'm not so sure you are,

oh
tidings of comfort and joy.

'tis the season oh by golly
let's get drunk and all be jolly
when we wake we'll all be sorry
tra la la la la,la la la la.

Christmas trees and poison ivy,broccoli and lumpy gravy
is this what 'he' saved me for
one more drink and then one more.

What's on telly,what no jelly?
custard tasted like the gravy,
think I'll maybe have one more
tra la la la la tra la la la.

There are no ghosts
no Christmas past
only flashes we can't
recognise
because they go to fast.

There is no present
underneath the tree
because
we sold the future
in order
to be free.

This conversation's for one,
a solo
operation,
an under occupied
occupation
it's always a vacant
situation
when the empty cab's
for hire.

And then there's dire warnings
about floods and global
warming,
'no harm in that',
says the cat with nine
lives.

I become the pessimist
in trying to be the artist
and
day by day I age away

time is very cruel to
the wise man and the fool
in equal measures.

The funfair on Sunday
and who's going to pay?

Her ex beaus post photos
I don't think that's fair,
and she in a state of undress
couldn't care less.

He's not an angel
unless it's a fallen one

another memory wipe

swipe your card
falling's not hard
it's the climbing back

and I've climbed up mountains
swam oceans
drank potions, but the
fountain of youth never
gave me the truth,
old, be it
magic or not
I did the lot.

so
who's for the ghost train?

I want to see what the
butler never saw.

The fall back is spectacular,
almost unique
where the
'straight and the narrow'
is only
the highwire we walk as we
seek
safer ground.

I know
I've been around.

In the 'eyes in the back of my head' mode,
talking in code to the wind-walkers and
hearing the shallowness of success,
falling back is only a party trick,
a look and make you feel sick kick

I know
I've done it.

Not too proud of it that I can't speak of it.

But it ends making friends with myself.

I suppose that to be true.

Breaking out of the loop
taking a step away
and
and
enough for today
I will leave breaking out
until tomorrow,

see,
I took that step away
still in the loop
though.

Come do it nightly
bite me lightly
squeeze me tightly
remind me
I'm a sprightly
lad.

Sanded down,
handed down
heirlooms
for boardrooms.

Directors prospecting for
antique positions,
commission based,
cyanide laced contracts,
small print that annihilates,
dilating the pupils ,restrictive
and
pencils that scribble out names in
a ledger.

Forever indebted,
a debit individual.
All residual profit
reinvested,
future proofed
heirlooms.

How sad
that this tube
smells so bad
this early in the
morning.

It'd be nice
if it smelt of spice
or lemon and thyme
but
it just smells bad.

It is
even at the start
the end.

Fifty thousand reasons why
it's not a good idea to die
a hundred thousand more
to try
before the clock strikes twelve.

Waiting is the thing we do
and we do the things we get used to.

Thinking we could advance
some move up to take a chance
and
others stay where they are
preferring the Devil they know to
the future they don't.

If it's a far, far better thing
why wasn't it done before?

Fifty thousand questions and
a hundred thousand more.

A chasm yawns, though not yet tired
I yawn along in sympathy
we call it
polite society.

where does terminal velocity
begin?
is it really the slow build up when being filled up with life we learn to sin and what is sin anyway?

The word on the hill is that taking a pill is
the easiest option
I'd like a second opinion before
pinning my hopes on that.

Rambling again
I think it's stale air on this
underground train
acting like
ether or should that be either?

I'm none the wiser and somewhat confused

'All change?'

If only that was possible
but it seems to me unlikely
when I'm taking time
twice nightly to check the
rhythms of my heart.

It ends at the start
fifty thousand reasons why.

Borrowed time after time and the time's getting on and the day's not so long now the Autumn is here.
Interesting,
but only as far as it goes and it don't get to going much these days.

These days become those days so quickly,
the old days were quite new some time ago,
some time to reap
some time to sow
some time to stay and now time to go.

Borrowed and returned,
etched on my skin and burned deep within
time only lets me win
some time.

They piece me together and it's a Wednesday whether I like it or not.

Got a seat for a change then it's all change, this train terminates at the next stop.

She's wearing sunglasses or what passes for sunglasses, but
I see no sun.

And he's got on a trilby
( nothing to say about that )

The staring man with eyes like a frying pan looks ahead.

Mind the gap at the bank
not sure if they mean the
deficit
( if the cap fits )
back to the trilby
and this time
it will be
a rhyme.

The start is when I start
to fall apart
but
they'll piece me together
again
and tomorrow it'll
be just the same
with a different
cast to cast my eyes
over.


The further I go into a Wednesday
I know that a Thursday is around the next bend
and that makes it worth the wait.

It's kicking off,
you know the score,

Political vultures.

they've sorted out the small print
and they're starting one more war.

The moonlight,silvery,garnishing the sand
and
I
working at the lime pit
hands caked white,
a negative in a night of negatives and
wondering about the
what if's and if I might
flow,
like the lime in the kilns flow,
hot and steam through a tropical dream.

Breakfast,
an ordeal of a meal when my
mind
already full
can take no more.
I want to be under the moonlight
on the silvery sand
on a tropical shore.
Is that
too much to ask?

It was never as dark as I thought it might be,
the light from your eyes seemed to set the night free
and the shadows I felt disappeared from me
it was never as dark as I thought it might be.

One hundred thousand fireflies could not match
the light from your eyes,
though they'd try
and oft' in vain
their light could never be the same as
the light that lit the path that lit
my day.

I tinker with her engine, until
she's firing on
all cylinders.

Friday
and the sun pops up
which is a good omen
for an old 'un.

The sky's a bit Simpsons
but
so is Stratford,
at least
it's not South Park
and Kenny
won't die today.

She turns her eyes
I vaporise
and realise
everyone dies in the end.

I tend to carp and criticise
it hurts
I see that in her eyes
I vaporise.

I die in my lines and
bring death to the rhymes,
at times
it hurts even more
than the eyes
I adore,

she turns her eyes
I vaporise.

Some things we lose
but we find other things,
sometimes as good
sometimes even better.

It's different though, isn't it?
when you've lost something
and you look for it.

Youth is the only truth for the young
and it's no good
the old folks looking back for that,
and if they do
it won't be the same.

this is why we have a kitchen drawer
to put those things in which we don't want to lose
and then forget anyway.

Jade
green
a Chinese murmur
Burma
mining
refining the trade
conditions laid
bare
but the fare
is
Jade.

This really is
the dead end,
you can call it
the West End,
that doesn't
bring it alive,

shadows dance
for
bought romance
where dreams once lived.

Through the lens
I lean to cleanse
these spectres,
expecting yet again
to fail.

the desire
to set a fire,
a self immolation
but
the motivation isn't
there.

Depressed
stressed
an unrest that I feel
as if my skin is
being peeled off
one layer at a time.

not even six yet
time still to remember
that I must forget
who I am,

and if I depart
it is only to start
in someone else's
arrival,

survival of the quickest.

I hyperventilate in
this mental state,

rate that on
Trip Advisor.

My advice is
no advice is
good advice.

Got to go
reached my stop
but
It never stops
does it?

We gathered up the corpses and in boxcars transported them,
home,
to their place of calling and
we called on the powers that be to leave well enough alone.
They paid no heed,
to feed the war machine a dream has to be broken and
words spoken are never as powerful as lead or explosives fed into tubes,
lubricated by the spittle of the dying.
I'm trying to understand why some would bomb the **** out of any land but the answer will not come.
too much sun?water on the brain?whatever the reason it's destructively insane.
We washed the dead in formaldehyde and it made us die a little inside.
Home,
to the place of calling.
Tall men and tales of dead men,
I see them when the light goes down
I see them on the edge of town,
they wave me home.

Permission to enter inside
is denied.

We're ******* on stones to get water to live
no one
wants to give us a break so we take.

The council estate.

These palaces built to house Kings have become the
playground of criminals among other things,
things occur.

Where were the planners and was this all planned, did they build these prisons to house all the ******?
I'm ****** if I know and will be ****** if I do.

Way out to the East.

Old Street became the new street when the new kids came to town, buildings surfaced like great white sharks, eating history,
making pock marks, but no green parks.
The starkness sets a nice trend,
we spend a fortune on lucky trinkets and
the Sun sets on
London town.

Sit pretty,
think how wonderful the City that makes
many dreams come true.

But
thinking is the poor man's way of claiming that which is not theirs, it's the doing of the dream you dare that makes you want to be out there, in here you sit,
pretty for a bit and then you fade.

Pull the wool from eyes where sight's been compromised affecting every other sense like common sense and see the sense in telling no more lies,
you're caught, betrayed by indiscretions,
how loose the wagging tongue to run which buys a truth in tales it tells.

Conversations (half forgotten) is where email comes to get a shot in and to throw away remarks where those remarks would count as currency to make the case is quite beyond me.

You
sit pretty and
think how wonderful the city, but
I am busy being busy
busy, busy with no time
to sit at all.

.

Trying to organise my eyes,
make them pay attention,
but it's early and
they're out of focus
barely able to see,

she
sleeps on
with her head upon
the bed of night.

I strike a pose
resist the urge to
pick my nose
and
having chose my morning
pick-me up
make a cup of
peppermint

skint
I might be,
but I like my tea
full of flavour.

I'm dressed.
the flying geese
are not Impressed
and sounds of laughter
float in from out there,
(windows share)

(critics everywhere)

I expect as I so often do
that the tide will turn too
as I turn to you and leave
a kiss,
a miss you until later kiss.

and then
I steal a way to work a day.

The counter spins again
you win again
or lose,
you choose again,
complain
the number's just the same and
who's to blame?
Lady luck will tuck you up
give you promise
give you hope
then let you swing
hung by a rope.
We keep on spinning anyway
some say the counter's cursed or blessed,
it stops and comes to rest on
double zero.

When you spin the wheel on a Sunday
it always comes up,
Monday,
someone put the fix in and the house wins
every time.

The wheel must spin
the fat become the thin,the rich take on the poor man's garb,the gossip monger feels the barb of their own tongue.
It is done,
the wheel stops,
thirty on the red and all who have too much are being bled of what they do not need,those in hunger feed and those who want shall want no more.
All this written down in chapter twenty four of some great book which I never took the time to read,
when upon a tireless time,I thought it was the action, not the deed that mattered most and to boast of such accomplishments that meant the world to me was in effect a greater heresy.

The wheel will spin for it is writ that everyone
deserves a bit of happiness.

Once in awhile an unguarded smile breaks through
and it's at times like that.
that I love you.
One more breaks through
I love you more
each lift of your lips picks me up from the floor and 'rocks me baby',
(How I swore I wouldn't use that phrase)

but maybe it's because I'm in a constant daze and I can't avert my gaze
from those lips I want to smile at me,
and I feel dazed so constantly
for day and days and I'm amazed that I want more,
once more you pick me off the floor and smile at me.

Those lips I see,
I want to kiss and taste the smile that drives me wild.
One day you'll see me smiling too
'here's looking at you
lady'

I'm being
eight tracked into the spooled tape,
rewound,
it's too late,
I'm going in.
Circumspect would more than likely press eject
but I have never been perfect
and so I slowly wind.

As the days go on
I find I get along but wonder why
so many things go wrong
when all I do
is right.

Perhaps
the light I see is bent along
the eight track
symphony
and I
will be
perpetually moving
in
the dark.

We walked in the rain
I showed her my scars
She showed me her pain.

We kissed in the mist of a late spring downpour
I wanted more
she told me to wait
It got late
and later still
Until I could stand it no longer
our kisses became stronger
and we made our way into the break of a new day.

She became shy
I asked why
told her, I had died in her passions
she said, 'old fashioned'
and she gave me that look
that took me away
I wanted to stay.
Without her I'm lost
tossed like a ship on the uncharted seas
She will do as she wishes
Please wish for me
Hermione.

Some stories just have to be true,
the one that I told you
not necessarily so,

pages turn into new
chapters
and we adopt
different characters,

we are
after all
only actors
waiting for parts
to play,

In the story that has to be true
I
am scripted and seen in
scene three
with you.