Dream with the lights on
it scares away dark corners.

and yet
we look into those dark eyes
thinking
we have won the main prize

somewhere in Berkeley square
a pigeon sighs,
" it was such a romantic affair"

until disappearing like Houdini
into thin air.

I wonder where the light switch is.

I saw only
one ship come sailing in.

Christmas,
an anniversary
that we
choose
to believe in
and no, it's
not Santa's birthday.

I'm busy cracking peanuts
because I thought they were
walnuts,
who's nuts now?

They're fiddling the figures
they're cooking the books
they think nobody notices
because nobody looks,
but I see them paper traps
odd
numbers like
springing traps which
wraps it up
for me.


Fire in the hole.

We drink tainted water
they drink margaritas
the world teeters on,
on the brink.


High heels or hobnails
fishnets or tails
they've all got their
snouts
in the trough.

It goes on 'til it stops
when the cops come to
nick 'em
and who picks up the
pieces then?

House comes to order.

Chew
chew
that's what they do,
gnawing away at
the man's working day.

We call in the rat man
a fat man
from
Clapham,
he's no ******* use
to me,
things will be
or they'll not
I've got time to
watch it
and see.

You are ******* if you do but
who the **** are you
to complain.
Put the blame on the shoulders of
your olders and betters
men of letters that fall after their name but
you're ******* all the same because your face
doesn't fit,
it's a load of old ******* they spit at to ***** you,
don't fall into the trap of there's no way because that
is a pile of pedalled out ****.
Don't do what they do and **** what they say,do what you want
and do it every day.
This way of the cross is a ******* dead loss so do it and let them all hang,
bang open the doors and **** on the floors,let the management manage,do as much damage as you possibly can,
in the end,
every woman and man will be flushed down the pan with the tampons and Johnies and tell me life's bonny,
I'll tell you it's *****,
My eyes closed to light and the ******* of a night tries to **** me,
I'd die happily if it wasn't for you,if I wasn't about to get ******* once again,it's only the pain keeps me going, stowing away vitriol and paying my toll to the man,
Gods plan is as bankrupt as the mistrust we feel,when every deal that is set is a certainty bet and the betters have lettered it all with a press that can print for the poor and the skint
and ain't we sorry ***** having a ball.

Boiling in oil and roasting my nuts
shuts out
the shout.
At times I need to relax in those
panic attacks
it makes me,
who I am.

I am the indigestion of man,
the hiccup that won't shut up.
The attitude that chews me spews out only to abuse me.
I call it the shout.

That's why I need to get out or need to get in
to stop or begin,finish or start,it's
all
in the heart of me
or in the oil that roasts the nuts,the if's and buts
but that's what
shuts it up.

On the road
the tarmac
bubbles
just like a load
of baking soda,
a little observation made
while I sit here and drink a
glass
of sparkling water,
it should be lemonade
but
I
forgot to buy some.

Dear olive sitting in the tree
please make some olive oil for me
and I will be
eternally
grateful.

You think someone's coming to save you
but I know, that someone's been and gone
I watched her shake her head in disgust
because you wouldn't dance to her song.

The graveyard's full of believers
keeping the strawberries ruby red light
and the church is full up with sinners
who are destined to walk with the night.

I'm polishing my halo for J.Lo,
looking my best for the show
hoping someone will come save me
hoping it might be J;Lo

The sunlight sits astride me
like a sumo wrestler
perspiration drips
moistening my lips,

I think it's time and the
sunlight slips away
leaving me to cool off
another baker of a day

in the bathroom
rips off clothes
showers
icy
nice he
showers more
cooling towers
are what
Summer's for and
ice cream too

The time in point and space where it is alleged that we stand
is like some foreign land that only travellers know
but that place in space
moved on a million years ago
and we are no longer there
should we care?

In the endless magnitude of stars,planets and comets,meteors and quasars
nothing is still.
Everything moves to some greater will
until the place that we knew becomes just one in the queue
of discoveries we make and friendships we renew.

When this became clear to me
problems so near to me
dissolved.

The all is much greater than me
I see
the circle defined
in degrees of my mind.

Another universe expands into more foreign lands
which we travel beside
ride trails astride of it
we've laughed till we cried with the joy of it
and understood not a bit of it.

In aeons of atoms
we have merged and we have parted
started and ended
defended our right
to look into the wonder of night
and
Dream.

Don't plagiarise my lies,
get back to your roots and
lie to your own truths.
Mine are set to deceive you, to receive
you with arms open wide
don't plagiarise my lies
they're my own truths.

They're cutting the throats
of the working class blokes,
oh!
and dividends will be next.

The great depression in cahoots with a recession,
some find this distressing, but
this is the mess that we're in.

The aye and the nay
of the donkeys in bays
down in Westminster
always
win
or lose
the day.

The time machine was just a dream and
never real at all and
the unravelling of this travelling tale,over coffee,
under sail upon the ocean known as 'fail'
is one big disappointment to me.
I wanted to be there in Red Square when the flags came down,I
wanted to dance with Nancy Astor,
wanted to watch the disasters of wars,
watch Beethoven sweat over scores.
What a waste to be given a taste and have it taken away,
you say,
'yesterday is gone'
I think it's waiting somewhere to mess up our hair and blow through
the streets like it did once before,
one day we'll open the door and let it back in,
it's all in the mixing,
this fixing of time and
one day
today
the machine will be mine.

Replica
in the hall of reflection there's
a slight surface tension,
a rippled distortion
an imperfect perfection.
I look on through the widening circle
until the circle is gone
and I am alone in the hall of reflection
a distort
imperfection.

Oh no!
not that day today is it?
but why?
and I just looked as
Monday booked him in.

Nothing's as grim as a
Northern town except
perhaps
London Town when the
sun goes down on
Sunday night.

and FYI
why Sunday.
when there's no sun?
just call it the day before
that day.

Working things out in my head when the bed looks more inviting and the windows are letting the light in and I'm working things out in my head, exercising mentally to keep my mental faculties on top form.

it's a bit like long division when you're sitting on a logarithm and algebra drops in for tea and a chat about this and his cat and my mind wanders off into the wilderness.

The weather doesn't help me to find that place, tranquility is just a sea up on a moon upon a long time ago.

Her eyes a steelyard grey,watched me in the bar today,saw me drink,made me think there'd be hell to pay if I said hello and offered to buy her a bourbon or rye and then she swaggered up to me and said,'anytime you're free hunk, you're welcome to take a chunk ,a slice,I'm nice, of me,be my guest and don't be shy,you're not shy are you guy?'

I left rapido, head held real low and ears turned red by other things the steelyard grey eyed woman said.
I'm not a ***** but she was downright rotten rude and anyway what would my mam say,if I took a girl like that to Mothers flat for tea?

She'd say,
I'm mad,that girl is bad, best get shot of that bad lot and there's not a lot that I can say
except she was kind of **** in a steelyard grey way.

(20 minute poetry)

A wedding band and
I
say,
'I do'

Blue sapphire,
the fire that lights on me,
diamonds that cluster,
must a
man always
make the first move?

I do and I will until death stills this heart.

A speech they beseech,
I defer to her,
'I will and I do',
she says it too.

Every height that we scale, every ocean we sail, every time that we touch means much more than so much.

Emerald and ruby, tin, silver and do we remember how long ago each anniversary was?

The band stays and plays on,
we still thrill to the music we make.

First moves are for amateurs and novices,
tortoises, though,
often win the race.

I have no idea what's written down in
Matthew,
do you know the bible well?

I do believe that somewhere there in
parables or else elsewhere
a note was written in between the lines,
stating
times like this will come and go, it bodes you well
to know the foe that hides behind the mask of
many eyes.

In a book of many faiths it only seems it's right that we keep face and
take face value as the currency,
but
I'd rather sleep with rattlesnakes than rub shoulders with some that face the wrong way on the right way to behave.

Then they tell me if I do repent that I'll be saved, but I once lent some kindness and it never was repaid,

Afraid?
not me,
so wearily I trudge along but do not see
the terror that waits wildly in the wings.

What do you see when you're looking at me
a mass of contradictions?
a life on the tiles
all hidden by smiles
and twenty thousand miles to go


I never know when if I've been there and then
I'm not sure if I'm bothered
I'll go there again for the hell of it when
I get some motivation
or
I might stay in bed with a girl I once led
down
the garden path.

Restless in her sleep she wrestles me, in dreaming deep of what is and what is to be, she takes hold, I see her fingers white and clenched, drenched with sweat,
and cool her brow, wonder how she has the strength to fight.
This night is like the other nights when we have fights and in spite of that the night is always spectacular for me,
in her dreams I can be her superman, not the 'desperate dan' I really am,
in her dreams I fly to her, take her where she wants to be,
she wants to be with me.

Then she wakes and wonders why, the tears I cry for her and I would die for her,
and tonight she will wrestle me and I will nestle close,
and close the light out
one more night bout.

There's an ice cream man
with an ice cream cone
in an ice cream van
outside an ice cream home
and
an Ice cream wife
make his
ice cream life
with a
I, scream
moan.

(make the rest of it up yourselves)

What good does
a Tuesday do?
to man or beast
I wish I knew.

Ignorance may be
the stepping stone
that gets me home
safe and sound.

The day starts dark and
gets darker still,
someone should make
a lightness pill,
bright idea
number one.

Anyway,
I get up
for a cup
of hot sweet
tea
and see
Tuesday
looking in on
me.

I need a shift,a move,a lift to lift me out of this,to raise my consciousness and unless I get it and get it quick,I'm going sick,I'm sick of it,it's a crock,a lock me in,a shut me down and shut me up,strap me tight and ***** the night,***** the day and that's the way of it.

I need a lift,need to bridge the rift that's opened up inside of me,the chasm that threatens to swallow up and hide me,
I need a lift.

Failing that
I'm heading back upcountry,leaving all and sundry in my wake,breaking ties,leaving lies as hostages against my non return.

In the heartland where I roam where my solace is a home and where Satyrs sit and sing I shall bring myself to book,take one hard critical look, and then decide if I'll hide in gaping chasms,swallowing in spasms whilst licking tics and twitches from my eyes,or I might surprise you all.
I may take the vow of chastity,live my life in poverty,flagellate in privacy but what the hell,I may just stay and wait to see
what happens
next.

Annie Walker was a talker
Jack, he didn't care,
Ena in her curlers
sat down on a chair
and Martha with a half, a
glass of Northern brew
Minnie feeding Bobby,
Elsie Tanner getting gobby
but it was all go on the telly
back there in sixty-two.

Global? we are not,
we are and always
have been
Tribal, it's in the DNA
holstered as a memory.

Freedom is the slavery that
governments will let you see,
voted in
democratically by blind men
who were always free, there
is no hope for you or me and
history is written in
our chains

Could you ever have
felt dumber
when they said, you were
just a number

It turns out
that you're an
accounting error.

There's a robbery in progress
who's going to confess
to that?

They've stolen you and
what can you do
if you're just a number?

(20 minute poetry)


Them can scoot fast when the last seat's available,
don't worry about this old rhymer
he can spend some time a
standing
he's had plenty of practice

but in waiting for the opportunity that  I'm sure as **** is due to me
I keep my weather eye open.

Them's still young,
got years left to sit
years for their dreams
to come untrue.

And it's nothing to do
with it being Friday
this is everyday

sometimes I think
if only the wheels of
industry moved as quickly,
but that thought fades away
as this day will
and
them's still young

It's no fun but it's bearable.

Switch
it off and switch it back on,
life is
chemical distortions and they won't
last too long.

How long can long be?
someone asked
me
as if I knew,
but I said,

nothing's as tidy and nothing so sweet
as short is and neat
which is too short to be long,
I hope that I'm wrong.

He prays for absolution,
but settles for alcohol,
they both have that
numbing effect.

Hooked up to the diodes at
the crossroads turning right,
ramping up the amperes and
bouncing off the light,

It feels that way for most of the way
perhaps one day
it
won't.

Nothing suggests a protest more,
than the smashing down of one more door
and the picking up off one more floor of another fallen crown.
Smash things down
let them be rebuilt
(one more tilt at a windmill)
still
it's nice to dream.

I seem to dream an awful lot these days
cast my life away into a gaze,another one thousand yard stare
but no soldiers there just prison guards that walk around with us in our prison yard
and don't we take it hard ,when the door is smashed and we realise that what we see is just the same as it will always be,
the dumping ground
make no sound or you'll be targeted and found another place and in your place someone else will step into your prison cell.

It's nice to dream?
like hell,excuse me I don't feel so feckin well
we've all been *******,used and abused by selfish men
who promise freedom but only when and if they ever decide to decide and in the meantime hide away on south sea islands
where they play the altruist,
well it ****** me off no end and no end to this I see
no confiture for you and me
we'll have to eat the crusts of bread,dipped slowly in the bowls of gruel and how could fools like us be taken in
and fools we are for learning krap in krappy schools where education is dumbed down and more fool than that
we then went cap in hand to ask employment of the man
who lapped it up
slapped us down and paid us half a crown to make believe that we were Gods, able to buy those odds and sods and settle in for one more Winter night beside a fire that barely lit, and an outside privy where we would sit and shiver.

The only joy I ever had was poaching on Lord Sefton's private river
and who gave that fat swine the right to steal a river as if a river might be ever owned.

I moan a lot and groan a lot but never seem to have a lot
the cooking *** lays empty on the range
not strange
just the poor of days we're in.

One more grin
wipe behind my ears
pretend that I have shed no tears and go out to the tally man, to tally up and he can tell me what is due
I am the few
the many of many who haven't any
won't get much
a touch upon my shoulder,
'Excuse me sir, there seems to be a fishtail poking from your bag,come with me to jail,become one more old lag'
more than enough of them and more to come
start smashing doors let's have some fun
God knows we don't get enough.

Talks about equality
while eating caviar
and that's about
how far it goes.

I don't write like Donne or Byron
and they do not write like me
probably because they're dead.

no axes to grind?
we must be lagging behind
someone should be shot.

Sometimes I am aware that
there's absolutely nothing
out there and at other times
I am blind to this truth.

Bishops on pulpits
and today is their day
drop to your knees
let us pray.

Rejoice
and with one voice
give thanks, because
where would we be without
the capitalists and the high
street banks?

I'm still looking for that lady
who feeds pigeons at St Paul's,

Sure as sure
we're not as poor as some
but poor enough to know
it's a long
long way to go
until we find that *** of gold.

and if I'm old as I am told I am
don't worry
when you grow into a man
you'll be old too
unlike females
who use a different equation.

A ticking bomb
a Sawyer,
Tom,
a ride down the old
miss'ippi.

I read Twain
twice.

a bite of mom's baked apple pie
helped the Summer down and the
days go by.

Picket fences neat and white
stretched perpendicular
to the night,
not knowing wrong
the ticking bomb
knew what was right.

Tom had none of nothing
but
plenty lots of everything
and
that's a fact.

i.
The rich man.

Somewhere where the shingle slopes up to the shore and the sun scattered
patternlike diamonds on our skins and the costumes we wore were too tight to fit in
we frittered away the beach and the day in soft talk.

Sweet words once were spoken but now they lay broken between the sea and the tide line,
somewhere in time.
ii.
The beggarman.

Unshaven,
who will spare me
the price of a tea and would
that save me from drowning
in the depths that we
used to be?

Now behind me, the diamond patterns still blind me and bring tears to the jewels in my eyes,
if I could unsign the times which time lent me, which ultimately aged and then bent me, would it set me as free as the shore and the sea?

iii.
The thief.

But each ocean goes on until it is gone
and when the sun drinks it dry at the
edge of the sky,
we are gone too.

If you were doing that easy to please me
forget it,
the mill and myself have been 'round the block
more than once,
we all end up here which may not be the end
but the end's very near whether here or not.

three score and ten then the rest is a bonus
they'll pay you a pension
and the Queen'll give you a mention
if you manage to reach the ton,

some of us don't care if we get there this time
because there's always another time somewhere
down the timeline.

Saturday
lockdown
London's
a funny
town
but nobody's
laughing.

When the mountain don't come to the man with the gun
he blows it up with some
plastic explosives.

This leap of faith
This placing of trust
this prophet who sleeps must be dreaming of Christmas or whatever it is that keeps Prophets from waking.

I keep taking the tablets, but Moses being angry at me
refuses to part with the red sea and so
left in the land of a thousand and one,
where the plagues of my forefathers
linger,
I go on.

No mountains for me,
No Messiah who'll be
a deadweight
no walk on the wild side of the water where fish glide so
effortlessly.

In a state of a state in which I am stateless I stare,
the prophet, a wise man who never goes there
looks at me with the eyes of the daughters of eons, through
the eyes of chameleons.

The mountains will crumble anyway
whatever the men with the guns do or say
whatever the prophet  and in who's pay he might be
The mountains will crumble anyway.

(20 minute poetry)

I write hymns in the breath that hangs in the air,
Winter
chills spill in and the cold's everywhere.

December plays havoc with the good and the brave and saves the best for the weather of which I'm a slave.

But I'm wrapped up, trapped in a thermal skin and I suppose that these clothes keep the chill at bay,
leastways I don't feel the touch of Jack Frost.

And the hymns become anthems of ice, stalactites or 'mites depending on your view.
and blue, they've got to be blue, it's the cold you see, you do see do you?

In this carriage which is just a marriage of conveyance, I never meet the eyes of the strangers that lurk by the doors, I mind the gaps, mind the spores that they're issuing, tissues and noses,
one supposes it's the cold,
they really ought to wear thermals.

Covid will obey the new rules
or maybe
the government's health advisers
are playing us for fools,

Pinged?

if you've isolated
one or two
maybe three days in a row
we're now being told
' we're good to go '

Monday seems to be the day
when the virus packs its bags
and goes away,
do I hear a hip hooray?
nope
I don't believe it either.

What if today is the day
what if this is what we've been waiting for
are you ready for it to hit you
and if it doesn't bite you
might you
be
sad
glad that you were left out in the outside
on the slow slide
what if today is the day?
Only one way to find out.

Wednesday,
half naff
having a laugh
think
I'll pass it on to
a friend.

However,
because a however
never hurts,
I'm still breathing and
that always helps.

I know how long a furlong is
but don't know how long a
furlough is,
I used to know when we called it a holiday
when it was
two, three or four weeks with pay
but
all this time on my hands weighs heavy on my heart
and there doesn't seem an end to it,

shoot me now I need to start work and
you can stick your furlough as far up your furlong
as it will go.

There's a reason why it's called an alarm clock.
it always goes off when I'm tucked up in the middle of the best ever dream,

alarmed?
well, I would have been if I had seen what might have come next,
but that'll have to wait until a future date.

Wednesday is enough to alarm anyone and anyway I'm awake now and ready to put the kettle on,
winter and the summer is long gone,
that's alarming me too.

This way is one way to go
and it may be,
but I do not know

But
I do know that I'm still stood here.

Cold?
yes
It's brass monkey weather.

The tube greets me like a long lost
friend
and there's not many of those left.


I suppose if I multiply the sixty eight passengers in this carriage by their average body temperature and divide by two pounds and forty pence i'd get as far as I'm going anyway
so I won't bother and in any case I don't have a calculator.

Inside this beehive of a mind there are so many gangplanks to walk, so many voices that talk to me and two eyes that can only see ahead of me.

Grabbing at straws is more than possible as the probability factor
shows.

I'll get a razor,

save a
wash basin
facing
West.