One last kiss before
the meteor strikes and
the lights go out.

Watching the night sky
knowing not the why
and
with no understanding
of how deep it is.

There must be a pattern
coded into each system
but
it's a mystery to me,

I see seasons in the shadows,
shadows of long dead stars,

the event or should that be the
non-event?
will be the last thing we see.

If I had a dime for every time,
for every time,
and a dime for each time after that,
I'd be a rich ***** like Croesus
with more friends than Jesus,
If I had a dime for every time.

But I shot out my dough on
the things
I now know
were a waste and the wasting of me.
If I had a dime for every time,
for every time,
I'd have enough dimes to buy time
to set myself free.

Feeling like a thousand
wondering
should I put my blouse on
or could I stay in bed all day?

I'm told that coffee is an 'upper'
but I am on my second cuppa
feeling down.

This is how it will go.

I'll pray for some enlightenment
while tightening my leather belt
when
Jesus is on furlough
there is nowhere else to go.

Fed up with the lockdown
I might decide to shut down
get under the duvet
switch off and tune out

Single file but all the while moving down the path,
past the cottage on the hill
down the valley
silent still and not a smile between them.
Holy, holy, wholly men who haven't got a clue,
just do as all the others do.

No one tells you this
you have to feel it for yourself.

The darkest hour is just before you're born,
the rest is
history
herstory
binary and non-binary
and digital is fine by me,
but you don't know that and so you go ahead
into the bright lights.
sleepless nights
angst and grief
worry and dread,
all thieves of time
and you think that it's tough
but
there are galaxies being created in your eyes
and it's only when I look into the darkness there
that the stars shine for me and yet you don't see,

what souls wander through your spirit?
how lost does one become before being
lost becomes you?

If I am to be found wanting
it will not be for the lack of love.

Words pass by me in a blur and I'm not sure if they were ever there or just the mad imaginings of things that deafen me or sights that frighten me like monsters far out at sea or underneath my bed.

Who said what and in what order and when did that interest me?
because it's me, me, me and me, I add the extra me just in case I left one out and there's always something one can do about leaving me out,

are you getting this?
does it feel like static?
does it tingle?
are you single?
oh
sorry
old chat up lines never die
they just pass me by
like the words.


I'm only here for the sarsaparilla
or until a
genie comes along.

it really is a crying shame that
you can't go back and try again,
me, me, you, me, we, you, you, we
and eventually
far out at sea
the monsters get us.

I rather like the idea
of me
sitting down here
quiet in thought.

I have ideas at times,
like
gripping the hands of the clock
and ticking off rhymes
picking off lines
believing
I am a ******,

I type a typo
but
it's no one I know
so
I have another go
and another and
I rather like that idea
of the end
never coming near

me sitting here
quiet in thought.

We are jumping to conclusions
like some jump off random buildings
I think it's time we took a step back
to decide on what we want.

Some take knives to do the deed
some takes wives to fill a need
I take Rover on a lead because
he loves his nightly stroll.

Some are rolling with the punches
bells are tolling and the hunch is
Notre Dame's not far behind.

Pray to Jesus if you have to
throw the bones and
both will shaft you
look inside and you will find
the thing that we're all looking for.

(20 minute poetry)

Nowhere to stand and nowhere to sit
rush hour on the underground
I wouldn't recommend it

and no one questions the 'rush' or the 'hour' as if the powers of deduction had deserted them.

When and in who's universe did six until nine become an hour?


zone blasted two and trying to get to zone friggin' one

too far gone to care
going to work and
I've got to get there

I really wouldn't mind it
if it was bright and cheery
but
It's krap.

They're not wired up right
that's why we get uptight
one day I'll see the light and
pack this **** in.

It suddenly got very cold,
death walking over the
very old
which shouldn't worry me
and yet,
I can't forget that years have
flown by
shown by
the lines that crawl across
my face,

it suddenly got very cold.

This be the wandering through the maze of the mind,the thoughts to forget are the ones that I find,the distinctive taste of a waste and the waste in the taste of it.
To the left and the right darkness blinds me, unbinds and unwinds the light until the light becomes strands which are held in my hands and with this light I move on,through rooms I thought gone where lay the remains of the memory,disdainful,resentful but pulling me through to more rooms I do not want to see.
I wander no more,my feet blistered and sore but my mind crystal clear,in the twist and the turn there is something I learn and I turn back to see the maze within me.
Unwound now I found how to navigate the paths that I take,through this maze we can make it alone,
but alone's not a home that takes two.
I wait here waiting for you
to arrive.

Wish I'd had that last Rolo.

(20 minute poetry)

In the beginning it ends and the ends all tie in and the way we begin denotes the way it may end, but that's not always so.

We can fight against the constant flow and know it's a futile endeavour or we can gather our strength for the battles ahead,
in the stillness of time we shall all be dead, but it's how we begin the ends which we win that count.

I jig along jog along
untangle and right or wrong I get along, no worry, no strife, it's not such a bad life, but it bores me to tears.

I want excitement and fear, I want each passing year to be one to remember.

The truth is youth is overrated.

I have no need to go back there and feed on hard tack there, age is a wonderful thing to begin, to end and begin and to win is the prime objective.

The coroner with a warrant to
open a
tomb
finds no room
in the inn....

..and the fables begin
long before the end.

We cut out  
the bull
pull up a chair
wondering where
the story will take us.

If justice is served
the service will be
by the poor *******
in chains
and that'll
be me.

And today I am
the 'Ian' in
sexagenarian,

I've never been
Ian before.

Don't let that
stop you
from dropping
the bomb on who
you
want to seek and
destroy.

This toy vibrates
if you're mates
y'all know
what I mean.

Colder still
when will it end?
this tube is driving me
around the bend.

There are many corners in the
circle of life,
if you ask me

sad faces,  long faces
going off to work in places
I know nothing of.

Yellow jacket man
definitely hi-vis
but the lights are on
a case of overkill
if you ask me.

In the glare of that
high visibility
she
sits there
exuding misery
not
a happy bunny
if you ask me.

However
no one is asking me,
I just open my eyes
and write what I see.

No one
not even you
will ever know
beforehand
how things will go.

Practice may make perfect
but perfect is no guarantee
of success.


The council sent a wrecking crew
which is
the sort of thing that council's do
and knocked the brick wall down
because the writing that was on it
didn't fit the image of this
Town
and it could have been
in
Camden
Kentish
or even Highgate Village which
is not technically a town but it
has lots of walls

Walls remind me of ghetto's
no go's
and,
'Halt who goes there?'

But it's just word association
like
council aberration
normal situation
and who pays reparations
to
the future generations
when we've used the whole
world up or washed it all
away?

They blame the sick
pick on the weak
seek out the poor
I'm sure
they'll blame the junkies,
the gays,
the homeless

my day's full of **** like this

They don't want to see
that's positive negativity

they'll definitely blame the old

"You've sold us down the Swannee"
they'll say

and them still wet behind the ears who
don't remember the 'hungry years'

scrapping for scraps with the rats
making do
**** all new
all second hand,

"This land is my land"
Guthrie
throaty
don't he make you feel proud?

But we're not allowed
it's against the law

I guess that's what the voting's for.

Bordering the shoreline
I sit and waste some more time
in the filigree
of my soliloquy.

I say,
I want to be freed from the need
but there's only me
with the sea
and it doesn't listen,
If I could only be stone cast up on the beach
out of reach of the ocean
with no thought of emotions.
Just a stone
my throne would be the sea that does not hear
does not fear the income of another tide.
I could ride like a King as the Northerlies sing
songs of heaven and hell.
All would be well.
But I am flesh
I am bone
born to wander and to roam through the restlessness
where there's always less than there is more
unlike the shoreline where I sit
where I wallow in self pity
and unless things start to change and get better
this will be
my final letter
to you.

When the sky is drawing clouds across the corners of my mind
and my eyes are being assaulted by the pictures that they make
I take another moment to myself
think about self help and then dismiss the thought.
I have bought in welts and scars the tradings of my days
spent idly in the seedy bars spread out along the ways I took.
Roads may lead to Rome
but for this man ,flesh and bone
mistook the meaning of returning home and rambled on into the brambles of another ambush
another rush into that place where angels do not tread.

One day when I am dead
I wonder if you'll remember me.

The sea will not forget
it will turn again to land and take me by the hand.
With the other I shall wave goodbye
to the shoreline,
my baseline
and the wasting of
all time.

One day,
they'll lay me in the cemetery,
where I'll discuss with the other
internees for all eternity,
the ins and outs of
poetry.
And what it meant to me.

I've been the best of it and the worst of it, I've
been blessed and I've been cursed by it and it
never knew me
at all.

On the plus side by the wayside, they've ignored me and it suited me,
invisible and yet there,
no one saw me,
I didn't care.

Now I'm ancient, almost a monument to the hard days, the back door through the yard ways and I am still a part of it whatever it can be.

When the time comes on the day that the sun bursts
I'll be first in the queue
looking at you
looking at it.

(20 minute poetry)

What zone be you?

They're homing in on me
zone three.

Sleep zone four
nothing here and

wake!
what for?

Zone two's the cut
why?
but
I go there anyway on the way
to one,
game on.

Friday
and the weekend looms
tunes to hear
pictures
beer
and I'll see her
underneath the clock at
Waterloo
zone two.

At any rate I won't be late
this form of transportation
takes me right down to
the station.

An inspectors call
'tickets please'
but Oyster cards are
all he sees,

I see kinks
thinks
Waterloo sunset,
game on.

Like two peas in a pod,
one of them me and the other
is me, but how odd,
I don't think like him,
I try to trim off the fat,
he doesn't like that and
he's critical, politically correct,
direct and outspoken.

But I have woken from nightmares like this,
many times I have broken the backs of
a problem,
how many peas in a pod if one of them's odd?
odd that it's me that I see
when I look,
the two of us took the pledge,
odder indeed that he jumped and I stayed
on the edge,
but the edge is a portal for this
mere mortal to shine through,
two
peas in a pod
how odd.

Sometimes that's funny is only that funny to those who might think that that's funny and the funny thing is funny's a funny old thing.

I'm not funny and that's funny too
but
funny is a funny word and it's funny
how funny makes you laugh at just how
funny it is.

Coffee time and that's serious.

On a rock out in this place forever spinning in one space but expanding or so we're told.
We start the race standing still moving inward and on until we find we're right back at the start.
When I get old, things will unfold where life's great mysteries are mine to hold
and in my hands the key unlocks the door that leads to other rocks that spin in place.
I set my eyes on distant suns and look beyond the moons of far away, my mind runs rings around the universe to find another universe,
the question is which universe is worse?
and if they're both the same
why play this game?
why stand and stare at something that is here and there?
if the answers lay in randomness
then I confess
I do not know.

I am diametrically : opposed to the closure of night shelters,those helping hands that reach out to the disadvantaged,the homeless and those who have been savaged by circumstance.

What cost,the chance of some warmth,conversation,the realisation that all is not lost?

But
'we've gotta picka pocket or two...' Tory blue and Labour too,both are guilty in the dock.
The judgement said, 'we only followed where others led'

We have a way today to pay and finance those in poorer circumstance,we only have to open up our hearts and give a chance to them,the Women and the Men who have hit the harder times.

I've been there,done it,read the book and it is ****,don't let the press steamroller you and make you believe it could never happen,it's true it could be you out there,
and I don't care who you vote for but I don't like you if you close the door on those less fortunate because you've got more.

If old is the new young
then
5am must be the loaded gun.

I was awake at 2
listening to you
fidgeting or was I
dreaming?

Coffee to revive me
to ******* alive
She says,
go back to sleep and
now I know that I’m
dreaming.

Wednesday has a way of doing things
which always includes me and for that
I’m grateful.

Do you remember when?
no, neither do I,
but I'm as sure as the shine
on a solicitors shoe
that when was when it happened.

The memory maze,
you can spend days in there
and it's heaps cheaper than
Hampton Court.

Captains of Industry?

someone should tell them
the ship's ****** sinking,

or are they just monkeys
hell bent on nit picking?

I'm sticking to what I know.

Tonight
I might
win the lottery
and wouldn't that be
rhyming poetry?

I'm not holding my breath
when every ball drawn is
a bit more than the death
of that dream.

If I don't win
I shall dive into the eyes
of the woman I love
and swim
until I am tired.

Is it his or hers?
or even theirs?

Monogamy
sounds a bit wooden
but
all of a sudden I find that
mahogany is a good 'un
if you don't stray

Hogmanay is okay too.

words and what to use them for
when you know for a fact
they've all been used before

everything's second hand.

BUT
and again but
when I am able to see
she amazes me
with something new.

She had a laid back played out face
exciting in a strange kind of way.

Time is as deep as the grave
and as shallow as a breath
but it feels good,
so we live it.

Her expression changed slightly
as I touched on her lightly
and said,
it was time for us to know.

I reckon she
will beckon me
but I could
be wrong.

So,
you're a physicist,
waxing lyrical around the stars but
being clinical about there being
life on Mars.

How topical, how very
short sighted and
astronomically speaking, how anatomically we're seeking something
similar to us.

The very chemicals of extra terrestrials are in our genes
(or so it seems)
we are just an alien, a species foreign to this shore,a
stopping off point to a world of more,
so you're a physicist?
You must have missed the last bus home.

What did I do on such a lovely day?
I
spent my time beavering away and
almost sank under the weight of
disinterest.

Time's moving on and I'm in the queue,
you can laugh but you're in it too
bending into the ending

like an origami swan sinking into
the sunset.

We're all crumbling like a 60's tower block
still thinking that we are the ones that
rock the casbah
blah ****** blah.

I hope the sun shines tomorrow
I hope I do too.

searching for my Souwester,
long Johns and a string vest, a
dab of Vicks and in forty licks
I'm out in the rain.

The Cumulus are accumulating
and like ladies dressed in white
they're waiting,
I'm waiting too
and the storm is brewing.

Are you the hotshot, two tot ***
kind of guy, the one who never
watches clouds
the one who likes to be alone
the one who feels quite crowded
in
a gathering of three?

Well
those cumuli are waiting
and they ain't waiting for me.

What are you all doing?
gardening
knitting
brewing tea
hatching plans to break out
and get free?

we're all a bit stir
and those who aren't yet
will soon be getting there

and isn't it wearing?
I ran out of expletives
and so
I stopped swearing

next on the list is
to stop getting ******.

I'm guessing those wishing wells
will be sodden with coins and
wished out of wishes to wish

All change
spare change
no change.

the destination appears in your eyes, between your ears
and you move towards the boarding gate, climate change, what change? can wait,

At the end of this century
someone might mention me
but
it's doubtful.

anyway
we could change the change to charge
by substituting the n for an r,

r for reactionary in the dictionary
and if you don't believe me
ask
Bernardo Soares

Time is the lizard that licks its own teeth and flicks out its tongue and
time runs away faster than you can say, 'hold it'

60 seconds a minute and every man is tied to it.
I am not on my own.

I was here in no mans land, no one to guide me or to hold my hand and I strayed.

I became an atomic array of lights and the clock struck and struck and I became exact to several hundred decimal places and the forlorn faces of so many grandfather clock cases where time ran into me and each second could only be
secondary.

Single
not single
no longer shingle
on the shore

the tide brings us too
a different view of the beach
out of reach
out of touch
not so much
anymore

no longer shingle
on the shore

I need that disaster,
that chaos which runs through my head and the faster it goes the better I like it,the madness of mayhem that flows from my brain stem is all that I need,feed me flights of sheer fantasy,show me the sights of calamity and let me climb down into the tree with Alice.

If I'm Shot through with lunacy like a candy stick I will be,licked into infinity to play with eternity quick games of whist,twist,ludo and who knows the score when one is mad to the core and the maggots of knowledge are eating your brains.
How boring I'd be if I was just me,
but I'm not
I am Napoleon,Leonardo,Joan of Arc and Tristan da cunha..yes, I can be an island, in the crazy of my land it's possible to be,
the Island,the sea,the shore and much more.

There is trickery in the madness of lunacy,to some I'm quite sane,then again so are they,nothing's as grey as the black in the white within the light of a lunatic's day.

This is what defines us as the human race,
the protocols
we put in place.

When the improbable unthinkable is the unstoppable tide that washes up on the shore and becomes the reality which some would wish to close and bolt the door on and others just stand by the well wishing it were all gone and still others who sit on the fence as if this was a sideshow,
stony-faced watching the constant flow and the ebb of the dead.

This is what defines us as the human face, the uncaring where the race is the same as the one that we're in, there are no winners here, no standards to bear, no medals to win to pin on our chests.

The boy on the sand in some far distant land,
this is home?
are we there yet?

We get what we are served, but who deserves to lay and die? and I reserve the right to wonder why the locks are on the gates to freedom, freedom, but only
for some.