..and I thought about the sabotage




paper, rock, scissors,




the triage




a triangle,




**** me with a right angle




I thought the thought away and




some day I may think that thought




again













suicide's the ever present theme




the ****** in my dream




the primal meme













and I think the deed into my Facebook feed




which is cathartic




but just a crazy trick because I know the




deed's still there.













even pimples become mountains in the potholes




which are eyes




and I despise these weaker times




when neither rhymes nor reason can




recompense the lack of common sense.













If this self fulfilling prophecy




is tattooed on my skin and just another




part of me




what kind of god is he?













but if God's a she then it's a payback




for my lack of decency




morality













somewhere in the monastery




the monks




kneel




the bells peal




sadly













I'm still trying not to think of sabotage




maddeningly




I do.

You are free
to choose between
love
or hate
but
wait too long
and one
will choose
you.

A mad ride,landslide always surfing,never reaching, never beaching on the shoreline,
waves and cosines and the sum of my times are strewn across the ocean floor,rising,falling always calling me on and on,
summer's gone the storms are here,three cheers for winter, splintering the dashboard of the sky,looking reverse as I stop to converse with back to back and Jack, the frosty chap,doffs his cap at me ,then freezes up the sea,my home.

Foam and latte are the order of the day,the words are set,I'll get the tab you get the cab and let's go somewhere for a mad ride,landslide..
and so it carries on.

I still see
even though
they've blinded me
with science, smoke and
mirrors

and
I'm looking at all the old
places
but
these are different times
and they are different faces
that look back on me,

it's like watching shadows walking
until they disappear
and to wonder why they are
or if they are still here?

So easy
to fall again
and to recall the
pain and then at times
perhaps that's
not so.

I don't know.

An Arctic char
is far tastier
than a sea bass
although
the sea bass
sounds better.

Locked in a Minotaur mode
bull head and key code
hauling the overload
getting down to some serious
business
on the B road.

eating the miles and
watching the dials
before eternity gets me.

The china shop beckons
but
my heart isn't in it

a new start
a new day
a hundred ways to say it
and
only one way to do it
the
right end of the night's end
and
the sunlight for the off ramp.

They don't sell second chances at the last gasp cafe
only coffee and stale croissants with sugar in a sachet
and you pay,
how you pay every day that you go
because there is no place that feels
quite like home
than the last gasp cafe when you're all
on your own

And the jukebox plays the top ten from
before you were born, there's
oilcloth on the tables, stained and badly worn,

Marvin who's been there since before there was even there swears it gets quite crowded, but when I go there's no one there,

it's Mandy's life, she's Marvin's wife of forty years and more
and not once in all that time has she ventured through the door that leads down to the sea,
I guess she's scared
might be she's heard
that
they don't sell second chances at the last gasp cafe.

What can I say?
I woke up,
it was Saturday,
seems the weekend's underway
and I am under steam.

I'm shipping out on the noon tide
across the ocean
deep and wide,
dreaming of a sunlit bay,
what can I say?
I woke up,
it was Saturday

Lights out
pay your fares
the last ride's begun
now
say your prayers.

If the time of revelations is upon  me
I need another fifteen minutes for a look-see,

you can call me Thomas,
but I've been called so many names.

Sheets of lightning
bolts of blue
and
where are you?

busy on facetime
under the stairs,
down at the market
flogging your wares?

beware of
Peter Piper
he's an army ******
and
Old Mother Hubbard
has a  38 snub nose
in the cupboard,
nothing is what it seems.

The stars fade
it's looking grim
if the reaper knocks
don't let him in.

Pooh said,
'I just couldn't wait
so I had him for
breakfast between
two slices of bread'

poor Piglet,
but he tasted
so nice.

My life is ****,
he said,
but not so **** that he couldn't see how **** it was not compared with those who had got **** all.

I'll stop swearing I swear (another promise broken)

Guilty of feeling hard done by,
I try not to feel that way.

We're the chipped bricks they use as building blocks, we take the knocks, work our socks off while they get their rocks off on the fruits of our labours,

hate is a strong word
perhaps it's the wrong word
but
I don't have the right word to
express how I feel.

The ***** in the doorway
said no way
would I work
for someone who got pleasure
from watching me sweat.

I don't get it
but
she said it.
and in the church of our father amen
who am I to argue?

Spit out a kilowatt
light up
or shut up
and
stay in the dark

I am a part of the movement
that challenges
incessant torment.

Nothing as quiet as the dead when
the dead of the night is unsettling.

Every petal you pull and tell me it's a love
is a petal that dies in your hands

fatally injured
I bleed into your arms
where you hold what is
left of once magical charms
do you see them now?
the low down as I go down is
there's only one life
you live or you lose it,
but do no confuse it
with living.

Is this what we've been waiting for?
this
is like being stood up at the altar
when the 'bottom drawer' is full.

She says,
pull yourself together.

I say,
lockdown is one step up
from the grave
and
no one is going to save you
but yourself.

If balance is the bling
then there's nothing we can do,
but balance on the midnight of the things we
want and wonder when the daylight will break through.

My razor's sharp and ready
though my hands are
not too steady
and the coffee's long since
cooled down in the ***.

For hope to have a hope
there must be hope
and if there's not
we'll continue as we were,
balancing at midnight on
the strings that pull at
twilight
shaving off a little daylight
for the rainy days to come.

Couldn't even pen a rhyme
the underground was up the creek
and it took me quite some time
to find my way and get to town.

Shall we go pray
shall we?
shall we go to pray
before they take the praying away?

Here today and gone some say to
a far better place,
but here's a point,
when they put your
face out of joint,
West,,
go West.
Perhaps it's for the best if we all
go out and get a test or is ignorance
the bliss you seek?

Whatever you're given today
will
be taken away and tomorrow?
well
tomorrow you'll be back
begging for more
and
that's sod's law.

axioms to crack your bones
and taxes then
to take your homes,

cardboard's 'cheap as chips'
free
from local council skips.

Underneath a Croydon sky
watching the 747's fly by
why me?

Where do I fit in to this painting?

'you ain't in'
airbrushed and pushed aside
so
long and thanks for the ride

Roy rogers himself and you can make
of that what you will and
you will.

We wanted day rates
we got nitrates.

poisons are the new *****
pipelined or
mainlined, they are
chemicals chains that bind us,
we're looking to a future but
can't see behind us where
the wolves are grinning.

we ain't winning
we just think that we are.

Listen to the inner me
the one that sits inside
and shouts out
silently,
listen to the other view
the one you hide inside.

But it's like living with your lover
and she's
working undercover,
although
they say your mind's
more like a brother
which is neither
one thing or the other
if you can't hear what
the inner voice is telling you.

Not speaking out of turn,
but the worm will always turn
into the hissing of a snake
don't make my mistake,
one fool is more than
enough.

I watch myself in retro
going through the motions
growing up.

It's kind of strange
like
all the furniture's been
rearranged
and
someone's cut my hair

it never was that long
except the Summer
so it seems it was and
I was wrong
and
short pants.

sandals?
jeezus
we kids were vandals
one and all.

past life flashes fast
before my eyes
and to any question
why's the answer.

Set your sights and zero in
you're dying out,
it's kind of strange though
that your glow lingers on.

In the time
that it takes
for
a pin to drop

It all falls apart
and
the voices stop

but
it's the ripples of the
echoes that
******* me

and the waves that

move on through eternity

where the light returns
oh
so silently
across the visions in
my eyes
that no longer
see.

In the time
that it took
for a second look

and the lines
that we read from
a sacred book

It all falls apart
in the time
it takes.

I hear classical
magical
theatrical
and then the bell rings,
the alarm clock sings
out of key,

I ask,
why me?

There's a voice
not mine
telling me the time
and I wonder,
why me?

when I'm older
I will come back and
it'll be
sorry for bothering me
I mean the time'll be sorry
it'll be just it
as it always is.,

speaking Frankly as John,

I knew a Frankie years ago
he was quite different
which was different
then.

It's a government plot

give them a hot day
then give them one cold
tell them they're young
even though they are old
make them work longer
pay them less wonga
tell them it's for their
own good.

When making observations of the night sky
constellations
I am aware that patterns form, lights flick on and off and stars are being born even as I look.

I listen in quire avidly to the BBC light programme on the crystal set while waiting for the wireless one,
transistorisation is sure to follow on and who knows what comes next,
predictive text?

Haha that made me almost crack a smile.

but the speed in which we're racing to the future is in danger of overtaking itself and when the speed of light is left behind what colours will we have?

a million, billion pixels form,
another raging Sun is born
I find myself awake when
the earthquake
measures five point eight

Alert is one more state of mind
one more place to find
what I'm looking for.

dress up in satin
or ermine and lace
paint your toenails
mask your face

I'd know you anywhere
under any disguise,
I know the way that
your body tells
lies to me
and yet
flies to me
for security

dress me in impressions of you
that's what you do
and I don't mind.

A notebook full of undecided,
a flotilla of submerged ships
a carriage clock and a rifle stock,
this is what's left of dreams,

divide your attention, pay no heed, but your  livestock won't live without fresh feed.

A farmer, a goat herd,
a problem solved,
we're big boys now
we've come of age and think
we have evolved.

As usual this leads me nowhere
and we have all been there
filled diaries full of nothing
pages of fresh air.

The thermometer stalled at 39
and nosedived into a cooler time

somewhere between the evidence
and the proof that we were born
stands someone they call the
Nazarene
or was that a vagrant dream?

Words that drift with sneakers on
then
someone turns the speakers on
truth is such a carry-on and
I'm going for a takeaway,
which is a lie,

good job I didn't cross my heart
and hope to die
or I'd be done for
and
what for?

a whisper heard in China?
a second chance of something greater?
pie and mash down at the diner
something finer, glass of wi..aren't you
writing this down?

lighter than the writer is the man who walks
on water, but he scours the classified section
of the London Evening Standard looking for
the situations that require imagination.

Busy learning mandarin or peeling one
because it's Christmas and we all take time
to take time off.

Thinks about thinking about things
and then the morning sings to me,
things a new dawn brings to me as
I think about thinking about things.

July must be why but why I don't know
and not knowing's not showing me how.

She loves me, she loves me, what!!!

petals do not see the consequences
of their limited numbers,

still thinking about things he thinks
as he drinks in more of the morning.

Contemporary.

Con
Temporary,and
that conned me into believing that it wasn't forever,it, never is,is it?
but we learn to survive though they drive the drivel right though the middle of our urban sprawl,and
we learn to crawl,then to walk,to talk Spangalese,then it's back to our knees and dribbling,oh please,don't tell me that.
Adverts that pervert me,prevent and circumvent my understanding of fair play,oh contemporary is today, of that there is no doubt.
I should make notes of this,tomorrow may come and I might miss what is contemporary ,but for today.
I should play the contemporary game,buy some airtime,gain some fame,but contemporary goes so fast just blink once or twice and it has passed,
I cast a line to secure more time but it's no use and so
I hang free and loose
swinging in the noose and wondering what it was all about.

Did you have that dream
where little Miss Muffet
was a **** star queen?
and you of course
we're hung like a horse
because real men are
aren't they?

yes
I know that's a grey area
so I won't go there.

my dreams follow set routines
I find it easy to follow the plot
not a lot of **** queens
which seems fair
after all
I am a married man.

It's only then when you're being swept along by the hands of the clock and the song brings you back to the moment you first heard her and you swear that you met her in an Algerian café, only then you remember it was back in Montmartre where she left you a small part of herself.

The mind plays its tricks but the memory of the meeting sticks and you can't shake the feeling that something is missing and you've been looking for answers in a thousand chorus dancers that took your fancy for an evening somewhere,

but it's her and always has been because she's starred in every dream you ever had.

There are no lines here to mark where
pain merges in with the fear and again,
there are no lines here,
but somewhat scored by scars
I have a pretty good idea.

Life is razor thin
but death's no place to begin
so
let's start when the heart
starts to beat

you might cut yourself shaving
but I know
that you're saving the bleeding
for me

an edge on the edge and
I'm begging to fall
toppling into the abyss
and it swallows me
all
of me until
I become history or
even thinner
and
only death is the winner.


I sign on the dotted line
and let time
decide.

Contra's
introductions to rebellions
hellraising rapscallions
juvenile unthinkwits.
Delinquents
produced by the century destined to become the toe tags in the step up society.

Who would you rather be?
would you rather be you with all that we know and nothing of the things that you thought that you knew?
Would you rather be me?
I'd rather be him
I'd rather be her
I'd rather imagine that together we'd share some emotional turmoil,
coiling around each other, limbs moving in time and then together in time we'd be
linked to the universe,stars in the stars, corking the moonbeams in glass stopper jars.
Rebelling
telling the rakes
informing them
all that it takes is
a little patience.

Slowly suffocating
I am slowly
suffocating.
but
slowly is not quick enough
so they stuff my head into
the sand
and
I can see
Australia

Who could predict that the
convicts from ships would
have settled and made
their homes here?

I am ******* in
toxins from plastics,
dioxins are killing me

when you ain't got a shilling for the meter
do not expect the grim reaper to come
down and meet you
anyway
he's on holiday
far away from this poisonous place

I face it square on
like some punchie
who was champ but
now gone

and I read Donne
because
that's all there is
left.

She only knows where
she goes,when she knows she's
with me,and
I only want her to be where she wants
to be
when she's with me,and
we are both
happy.

Tell me again about flat earth, give me the spin again tell me we're static.

I'd disagree because what are friends for?

In through the window and out the revolving door, give me that spin one more time.

And don't I just love it when friends can talk *******
it gives living a meaning.

This poets society mostly ****** with an eye on me and me with an eye upon them,
tall men, young girls and women all with a piece to say, I wish I could hear them all.

Limited though it may be
my time is an endless sea
of faces and places of prose
and of poetry,
of you and
of me
on whichever planet
we're on.

(20 minute poetry)

Life's just a cram
hairy legs and
strawberry jam

bread waiting to be buttered.

shut up
shut in
cut out
we can't win.

The technology **** kids
the bums on skid row
the same sort of people
looking for somewhere to go

and where would that be?
not here
not in me.

If life is a cram
legs and jam
let's ram it all in to
the span of a lifetime

three score years and ten
back then,
I suspect it's a little bit
more these days

and these days?

These are the days
the modern age
we're still at war
there's still the rage

we want it all and
we want it now

how to equate this with
a peaceful state is
beyond my ken

easier back then
you knew where you were
with three score years
and ten.

point 2 of a gram
shooting the man is the plan,
a needle
a spoon
citric and soon
you're joining the moon
out in space,
a spaced out man
point 2 of a gram.

There is no light at the point of a 'pin', there's just night and you might bear that in mind the next time that you find a plan,
point 2 of a gram.

If you don't want to burst the bubbles
pop your dreams
blow the world to smithereens,

whatya doing here?