It can't be me
she said.
actually, she said,
it can't be you, but you
didn't rhyme with she,
so I wrote me
and
this allows me to
be,
me and you
simultaneously,

interestingly enough,
she also said lots of other stuff,
but now I can't remember what.

You're reading this post
which
I think is my post
the dog
sees a lamppost
and ***** his leg.

My eyes on stalks as
someone walks across
the sky and a star is born
in Birmingham,
Bethlehem being full.

Synchronising
pulling my eyes in
meshing the gears,
fooling the years into
thinking they're days.

The messiah got higher
and
the altimeter broke
'somebody spoke' out
we all tried to break out
but found we were bound to what
we can't make out.

The dog has the right idea
to growl
at the flea in its ear
is pointless.

I see trouble,
on my horizon I am yet again at
fifteen degrees bubble,slightly off key,not with the programme,ready to slam into,yet again I am through with the undersea,where the currents that ride tight against me,hold on and won't let me free,but I see
more than the gauge that prints out the age of this man,even in fifteen degree bubble I can,
hold my course,be steady on the line and as fine as any needle point,I know which way the compass point is pointing,
it is pointing due freedom who knows where I come from
and I'll go along with that.

We want to let a little light in
to a night in when we're out in
the dark,
but don't we love a bit of danger?
a beautiful woman
a handsome stranger
a creaking stair and
that awful wondering
who is there?

and who is there to share the burden
of the heavy heart?

Anemone
intrepid explorer
of the open
sea.
I want to be an
intrepid
anemone.

There's a million thoughts and reasons why,
the oceans appear to swallow the sky,

I wanna know where the moonbeams go when the
lightning strikes at me
I wanna see the depths in your eyes, where the mountains
fold into the deep of the sea.

I want to be your skeleton key.

I am
the snake hip man.
I think and I do the best that
I can, but
there's still a long way
to go.

What happened
in Afghanistan and Iran, Iraq,
will come back to haunt us.

If we're right and they are wrong
or
they are right and we've done
wrong
it really doesn't matter much
we've touched a match to a fuse now lit,

time enough to wallow in ****
and that's where we'll be
up **** creek
paddling frantically.

Troop carriers carrying troop barriers to block the flood of refugees,
(humanitarian missions if you please)

what a ******* joke
mirrors and no smoke without fires

well I won't fight
wrong or right
we've all got a need to live.

The sinking don't swim,
nobody tells them this as
they get on the boats for
a serving of bliss

heaven can *******
it's not helping anyone
or maybe it's home for
the new breed of drone
and droning on

Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq
are coming back to
haunt us

See what you want to see
some see a mystery
some see a majesty
some see an empty sea and
they sail alone.

Then as if to blind me
as I soared into the sun
your words came up
behind me, but
my mind was tied into the star
and so I couldn't find you.

One more dream to put in the rack
one more going and then coming back
and what was all that about?

Morning brings more than questions
that could be answered sometime
before noon.

tears drop, stop
drop, stop
dry,
why when no one is looking
am I so ******' sad?

perhaps relief is the thief of anxiety
run that by me
again,
perhaps the thief of relief,
the relief of a thief.
good grief,
are you mad?,
he said to himself.

I try
I do try
my trying is legendary,
said,
Tom to Jerry and Jerry replied,
I never once tried,
it's just a talent,

I inject a synthetic
become automatic
end up
psychiatric and
licking my self inflicted
wounds,

synaesthesia sounds easier
but it's a sod to pronounce

They've defrauded us
Lorded it over us.
A reason for divorce?
but of course
what do we do?
We,
like sheep in a zoo
put more pennies in their pound as they
pound us deeper and deeper
into the ground.

I'd love to be a banker
I wouldn't be a canker
on society,
I'd be generous to a fault
open the vault
become a philanthropist,
miss out on my bonus
give back the onus
to where it belongs.

Pipe dreams it seems
just smoking away
while bankers make hay,
they say,
even as it rains so shall we pour,
money makes money and money makes more.

My money under the mattress
is still worth more
than it would be locked up
in the banks that
we seem to adore.

Racing down the corridor past doors with
numbers I don't see,
past people who would rather be
anywhere else than
in the hall with me.

These sweating faces, dripping hands, fingers
filed with golden bands in jewellers drawers,
down and in more corridors where faded pictures
***** their looks, past the racks of dusty books which
no one reads,
more beads of sweat
I'll get there yet or in the evermore
and another corridor.

Who makes these things?
who brings the corridors to entertain
me and the ******?
The pictures look at me with eyes, I
once mistook as being full of piety but
devilry is braided in their frames.
What names they call as I race headlong
down the hall.

At the end where all points lend themselves
to what we would prefer
I will no longer race through there, instead
I shall take some air
in the garden
with Maud.

The reflection can with the help of this man
look rather tame and
tame is the name of the man that I see when looking on in the mirror that looks on in me,
in my bathroom there is not much room, indeed not enough to swing a cat not that I've ever tried doing something like that
although it could be said when my head gets too big to fit through the door,
a swinging cat is that which I am
tamed by the feline that lives in the man and yet much more than this I surely see as the reflection looks on in the mirror at me.

The stars in the skies
are made small enough
to shine from your eyes
and heaven's on earth

So we walked into a rainbow of the stars that made us stop and look in awe at what we saw
and I could see you in the coloured lights that floated through this ether light and somewhere this somehow seemed alright.
We stopped to picnic on a dying Sun and talked of when we would become a part of this creation
hesitant I kissed your face
which in this place was backlit by the moons that spun around your head
and you said,
'kiss me for the night is short
hold me and we'll move until we're both caught up',
and the heavens silent in their expanse watched this dance.
of two solar flares
two solo cares that came to life.
Though passion heard
through movement not a word was spoken
until the spell being cast was broken and the fading of the morning came
how could daylight ever look the same again?
In this the other pain I bear
I wait for her sat on the stairway going my way
and anyway
what else can I do?

Must not give up
must not give in
must not fail to start living.
If mantra's work and I'm assured they do
I'm sure that this may see me through
those times
when all is bleak
when I am weak
and all I want is to streak away
but like the fastenings of the night to day
I know that I must stay
to see in words that mimic me and mock at my endeavour
if only then to free my thoughts and
whether they would rise or fail
would sink or sail
I could not know but have to be free to go and find this truth
or pull it out and inspect it like some rotting tooth
black and pungent smelling
like some telling of a nursery rhyme back when in the time
of wolves and spells
and trolls in dells
the truth was not so clear to see .
If I were me and I'm sure I'm not
I'd find a little spot hidden far away in some place where I could call and say this here is mine and I would stay
secluded from the rush of people pushing past and I at last could start to cogitate upon this state of who I am
well that's the plan
but of course another pipe bursts into smoke and I can't even smoke the joke of dreams that fire the sky above
and If I love then who,
who could fathom all the deep that I myself can only sleep above,
another love?
it's a battle to keep my head afloat or keep a coat on
go on to see and what is left but me and another me in mimicry.
If in all of this,
in all of this life I could but only be a copy replicant not free but locked into technology
and who could not but fail to see a form of ideology or idolatry
psychology
a branch of yet another tree that grew out of necessity
and that is yet another faking of the free chained into some solitary cell
encouraged to scream and fekin hell
I screamed
streaming curses intervexed and supertexted them into the padded wall where swear words fell but I being on the ball and mindful of recycling picked them up and sang them,rang them out again until I myself was wrung out dry.
Why Is it then that I should feel that being peeled like a ripened plum and waiting for 'Jack' to come and stick his thumb into my eye
is wrong
why is it written in the fables that poor men wait on rich men's tables and drink porter watered down while those that sit with crowns upon their head would in any case be better off if I were dead
just a thought to think and in the blinking of the middle eye it joins its brothers in the sky where all thought congregate to die
another why and another after that and flat out,shout out,can't read enough about or write the words to set me free
one more branch
one more tree
one more me
one more me
ideosyncrasy
ideas of being free
immortal in mortality and death to all banality
I see nothing really
except the cornflake box
a pair of sweaty socks and my life whistling down the plug hole.

behind a laugh
and beyond the autograph
where the tears fell free
when the ink was me
and the pen
was the hand that I held.

..and then she flows to me
in her
I see beauty.

I watch the fall and rise
there are tides in her eyes
high and low
they come and go, but
she always flows to me.

They've sent me on a course,
of course
they've sent me on a course

They're feeding me the need to learn,
tastes just like egg and beans.

they have the means to do it and to
force me on the course and so
I'll do the course
of course I will.

Euston has so many lines to pick and then
to choose from,
to go to or to come back from and
I'm stood here looking like a plum
that's dropped down from the tree,

the station attendant smiles and asks me,
"do you need any help sir?"
I swear
she thinks I'm senile.

They're sending me on a course and of course
I know where I have to go:

Too many night times
too many dawns
too many roses to
bed my crown of thorns,
too much to remember
and
more to forget
too many lovers
and who would
place a bet
on me?

My head is full of
lead shot
it weighs my shoulders down
thinking
there aren't any heroes
in this old northern town,
there are
only old men coughing out
the fine dust from the mill
as they stagger up the high street
and mope off down the hill.

reasons to stay
and
reasons to flee,
but who would
place a bet on me?

There is no open space
just the blank look on the haggard face
which mark this moment of a man
the
'five year plan?'
the
'ten pound Pom?'

all gone.

Bushed, beat
half dead on my feet
what a day.

'He's moaning, Minnie',
but Minnie's asleep
she had the same day as me
rushed off her feet.

What Captains?
what industry?

We make little for the few
and the few who do
are invariably
self-employed making
little,

the industry has gone for you,
for me and as the silent shells of
men file past the factory gates
into the dim and distant, the bells
toll mournfully

The Captains,
slipped away with enough cash stashed away,
although
in tropical climes, it won't be for a rainy day.

And now,
we wait tables
make coffees
serve patrons
hand napkins,

'Master and Servant'
are you singing it now?
.....................................
Interestingly
the song was released in
1984.

Depeche Mode.

A tent's over me,
oxygen?
could be
and tubes coming out
of my veins.

I
suppose Spain's out of the question?
the nurse nods her head and sends me instead
to a convalescent home
I wanted Benidorm
this is more like a reform
school

on my oath as a gentleman
I will not be getting
sick again,
but don't think that I think that
thinking being dead is a better option,
I don't think that I'd think that
at all.

The pupils
contract or dilate
and that depends on what
kind of a state you're in,

we become eyes
pinned,
locked into
to look back through
and we do
depending on who we are.

Other pupils sit in geometry,
geography or chemistry and
laugh at me for being weird.

At Eton
pupils are Masters
to Butlers
even weirder.

but Covid's a different kettle of fish or is it that horse of a different colour?
whatever, it's different and that is all I need to feed the monsters of my imagination, but if it was a horse I could at least ride away, ha, knowing my luck it'd be a flamin' rocking horse, real horses are rarer than rocking horse **** where I live.

Wednesday, that neither here nor there day, what could possibly go wrong?

The curtains are opened and the light
such as it is at this ungodly hour
stitches lines across the ceiling.

Last night I dreamt in Nomad
(which is like technicolour
but not quite as bad)
and I wandered through
scenarios
where sunshine goes when
it's tired
last night was wired to an
electric fence
(note the use of past tense,
I am still learning)

Today drops its weight on me
atmospheric pressure compresses me
until
I can't stand anymore,
Sod Newton and sod his law.

More?
bellowed someone from the china shop on
China street
seconds away from China town

in an old dressing gown I stood
and picked fluff from my ears,
years ago I would have replied
years ago I was young
now I'm just cranky.

Because you're psychotic
because of narcotics,
oh
you're a ******!
I've got it,
there's no need to go on,

but
we do,  don't we?
because we like to see them
the broken down people,
because we are the
He-Men, the,
we wouldn't be them men

and yet we are them,
we're locked in our own worlds
the same as being locked in asylums
medicating with alcohol
because drugs are bad for you.

Then there's the Home Office register
which I think is quite sinister
names in a book
take a look
is yours there,
do you care?

and the church view,
do you take religion ******
or is it just the Oramorph
and
is that morally wrong?

What do I know?
I am all of them,
all of the lost and the lonely men
wrapped in the trappings of a
'broken pen'

which by the way,
is my
tribal name.

Now or never
whether we want to or not
they've got us by the *****
and though we built walls
to defend against these invaders of free will
we will need to be stronger
build our walls bigger and better than ever before
and let them kick out the windows and doors
we'll just brick them up and no one gets in
and no one gets out
and no one but no one knows what this is all about.
but the walls stay because they want us to rot
they've got us by the ***** and all we can do is build more and more walls
and who wins in the end?
when we're all sent to Coventry with bags of cement so we can lend some authority to the people up there
and they don't give a ****
they jam us into categories with the same krappy old stories
that it's good for our health while they're spending the wealth that they stole from the miners and while they're dining on beef
we're starving
good grief
and they've got us by the *****
in glass coloured test tubes lubricated,dedicated to the rise of the monarchs
and it can't be for real
we'd never allow that
but laying flat on our back and winking eyes at the sun
is where this begun.
In the minds of the merchants and in the pockets of wise men
in the back alleys of bigots and bigshots
and what have we got?
you know it,
A box full of sawdust and a whole heap of ****
so the walls get a little longer
a little stronger
but they'll break us one day
and take us away to a recycle plant
and they'll plant us as seeds to service their needs
and their needs will get greater the later they leave it
there's a whole load of ****
a coming our way.

I think if we get rid of the power grid and junk the pylons
pitch out the guidance systems and ditch the bombs
bring back discussion as a means of persuasion
things might turn out okay.

We can pick peonies until the cows come home.

nothing can grow unless you first let it go,
but there's some have to hold on
I
think they've got gold on
their minds.

The forty-niners,
now
they were miners
and some were minors who
looked into mirrors
and saw themselves growing old.

The flowers look nice, dear.

state a case
any case
and some will pull a face
others will pull a double shift
some will jump ship
slip off the radar
but
they have one thing in common
and that is
they all do something.

I do occasionally do
and
others do too
people like me are only people
like you in a different package,
damaged
repaired
invisibly mended
leaving
only the scars to hide
deep inside.

Being unique is like hunt the thimble
where Jack's so nimble
he often as not
gets away
and
tomorrow's just a step in
the right direction.

The change you find when you change your mind
and not meaning the change in a cup,
the sun that's there and has always been there
only seen when you want to look up,

even creatures of habit
see a chance and
then grab it

that's change too.

for some it's a gunshot to
the head
the difference it's said
between the living and
the dead,

hands up for change.

What's to understand?
we've broken down
let the engineers sort the
problems out,

On the one hand
I see that as a solution
but on the other
I think
why bother?

why not crack on
move along
broken,
( reminds me of a game )
coming busted or not.

You got a choice
You can protest
use your voice
or
remain broken.

I'm undecided
six of one
a bakers dozen of the other
they're all cheats
so
why bother?

Enterprise,
nine lies to a truth.
I work
have a roof over my head
try to understand on the one hand
and with the other one
cover my eyes.

If you can't see it
it's not there,
right?

( reminds me of another game)
blind man's huff.

Breaking apart is the start of it
falling to bits sits quite well with it
I'm going to go on for a little bit
and a little bit's better than none.

What's to understand?

we've broken down

let the engineers sort the
problems out,

On the one hand
I see that as a solution
but on the other
I think
why bother?

why not crack on
move along
broken,
( reminds me of a game )
coming busted or not.

You got a choice
You can protest
use your voice
or
remain broken.

I'm undecided
six of one
a bakers dozen of the other
they're all cheats
so
why bother?

Enterprise,
nine lies to a truth.
I work
have a roof over my head
try to understand on the one hand
and with the other one
cover my eyes.

If you can't see it
it's not there,
right?
( reminds me of another game)
blind man's huff.

Breaking apart is the start of it
falling to bits sits quite well with it
I'm going to go on for a little bit
and a little bit's better than none.

(20 minute poetry)


Rush
Rush
pushed in and crushed in
I'm standing
no seats.

It beats me every time
I'm good
I stand in line
I queue
It's what polite people do,
but these morons with blank looks don't play fair.

I care less about them than they care about me
any fool can see that although squashed flat against the door I'd need eyes in the back of my head,
that being said, albeit quietly,
don't want them to hear me.

I get to where I'm going without once throwing up.

Monday's no fun day since Sunday bowed out.
now't I can do 'cept jumping the queue and
I'm too old for athletics.

where her eyes should have been
were two jewels through which I have seen continents appear
and when she smiled at me the sea opened up and swallowed me,

in those lost islands of men where I wandered
I squandered time as if time was forever,
wasting minutes in the shallows casting arrows at the minnows which in turn become the mirrors that turned against me.

But her eyes were always with me
sparkling like the sea and
inviting me to dive in
once again.

(20 minute poetry)

We're supposed to open the air vent,
cement ourselves to the oxygen supply?
and pray tell me why?

I want to float in the endless avenue of an infinite space
live in the vacuum with enough room to manoeuvre.

But we've been conditioned to breathe and think it's an automatic reflex,
an impulse they say.

Sour thoughts to start and my day starts this way,
they're ******* the life from me
and keeping me in poverty

in the underground sea we all drown together
tethered to a millstone
ground into bonemeal
fed to the slaughter
wholesale
and
when those rivers of Babylon run dry they'll **** on the sand,
landed gentry they may be
but no touching the forelock for me,

just leaving somewhere which is just about anywhere
and everything I am,
sticking to a plan which is as yet unclear
holding on for dear life even though life is cheap and
somewhere is just where I weep.

Her essence
I breathe in,
she exhales and
it's pleasing.
We exalt in the
teasing
of minds.

Personal columns do not support
glass ceilings
newspaper headlines sometimes take
more out of time than the time we put
in
to read them.

As you can see I'm waiting for coffee
my brain's running sluggish and slow
if you throw me a tow line and
make it a headline which
takes me back to the breadline
wasting more of my own time and
isn't it time the coffee was done?

Wake me up on Wednesday
let's say around about four,
I'm
going back to be
a ship in a bottle
afloat on the sea
to be
found on
some
distant shore

Apoco.... what ....tic?
some are sick by design
some just pretend,
but most of the time
they're not fooling anyone.

I don't do
apoplexy
but
if I give it a go
it might suit me.

As I said to Rik
on more than one occasion,
'it's all ******* anyway'

(20 minute poetry)

They're either sleeping or they're dead
no heads stuck in iPhones today
no make up being made up on the Central line, take up a collection, let's hear it for the deadpan men.

Even at Mile End they'll come to a bad end but the East End was always like that,

stopping at Bethnal which sounds just like Bedlam especially if you've got a cold, well
it's green and I've seen it so time to roll on.

Liverpool Street
hot dogs
old meat
dont buy one
don't try one
I don't want to die
none of that krap for me,

the Bank
be Frank
it's a cesspit
a tank full of sharks,

hark
to St. Paul's
what big bells
what big halls
(Did I write halls?)
never mind
the ***** fall down in
chancery lane,
who plays tennis anyway in
the royal courts
where only justice is
served?

Holborn is
old and smells of Catholics and
tobacco,
the next stop wil be my stop if I stop off and step off this train
but I could go round again if this was the circle line
but it's the Central Line

Wednesday disappoints so many.

Rolled up in a ball by the summer come the fall
I am deflated.

If I say I hate the fall you needn't worry
not at all just
wait 'til winter hurries in.

snow and I've seen icicles hang wild upon my eyebrows
sleet and rain and winds that pain my ears.

I think I like being a ball
Summer after all is sand and sea and if you're not as old as me a bit of *** as well
but don't let my age fool you
I am cool with it and get my bit of
' how's your father' anyway I'd rather not be speaking
of such things,
I'm an antique in
modern parlance.

Spring will spring me back to bring me back into a ball and after all
Summer is what this thing is all about?

Cold and thin but the razor goes in and it's hot when you win but you lose and in the losing you grin because you're going out with the cold and the thin going in.

We escape by the skin of our teeth and in escaping the relief that we feel by escaping the thin of the red hot cold steel is palpable.

Do not boast that the weak only do it to seek some attention because in the attention they seek you may be attending next week the passing away of some light that was light in your day and don't say, no never not me, I see it everywhere the razors fly through the air, cutting and shutting out life bringing death and
You,
are only a breath away from the edge of the razor each day.

Is it a sin when the razor goes in or is the way that things are,
have we come so far that we can't go no more is the razor the key that opens the door on another place,
is that place any different to this?