Steel like teeth set in a jaw
the law becomes
the feral dog.
Cogs in machinery to grind us down
spit us out and in my town
the law is everywhere.

One thing I've noticed through the years,
is that the criminal
no longer fears the long arm of the law,
he's more afraid of the taser and the radar trap.

(the feral dog always get the cat)

Me,
as honest as the day is long,
I do no wrong
I do not fear
the clamping of these steel teeth
near.

But,
when the criminal gets caught,
caught short by the long arm of the law
and the law,
still wet behind the ears
still green,
and of only nineteen years it
brings me near to tears to see
those steel teeth chomping uselessly
on
Farley's baby rusks.

Is there life on Sars,
not Bowie, but you know he
could have sung it,

we're all ****** superstars now.

Ned Kelly?
well he
would be
but she
got there first,

ask to be masked
attend the *****,
socially distanced waltzes
in
ornate chandeliered halls.

you couldn't make it up
but
they could have faked it up
like the
Moon landing

oops.

It was the full English breakfast with extras that did it,
Wetherspoons got rid of the evidence, but my gluttony hung like a tyre around my waist,
at last I was sated but I still wondered why I hadn't ordered some potatoes with a hot shepherds pie.

Holidays become me
and the blimp in my tummy
reminds me to go on a diet.

But it's back to earth with a bump
as I jump out of my bed
and instead of the beach
it is work
I must reach before nine.

A morning lays in her eyes,
as she breaks me
she takes me into
the surprise
of
another day.

It's now again
as opposed to
then again
but then again
it's always now
and when
you least expect.

They huddle together
those clouds of a
feather,
familiar and content.

I've been awake
and been asleep
living in suitcases in
which I keep
deep thoughts.

and when it's then
or just now and again
I pick up a pen
and write.

and now there's only empty space
lonely eyes
haggard face,

mothers ruin in a mug
I take a slug and
though not lead it
smacks me squarely in
the head
which is the
empty space inside
the haggard face.

All this and more and yet not me
not sure and never was
or was it forever meant
if ever to be
and empty space is
Schrodinger's preserve or
so
I'm led to believe.

This is Londonn.com where the cons rule the roost, boosting cool cars and booting up gear.

You want to learn?
then learn how to fear.

This is Londonn.com where the Babylon fly, Londonn.com where the poor kids die
on the street.

Silver foil, silvered knives, snorting up and snuffing out lives, this is Londonn.com and you'd better beware.

It'll end in tears
and
a five to ten
up and down the tiers
in a correctional facility,

'oh the humanity'

oh wait,
that was the Hindenburg.

..and talking of snow which you know I adore
I went out snowboarding
with the old lady next door.
She came out all dressed in a parka and trews
and wore green spangled stockings with six inch heel shoes.

We raced along alleyways which we made into trackways,
then she turns and says,
'where are the brakes?'
I said,I don't know
and so we carried on skateboarding the snow.

I know the violence of drugs and the silence which cracks open stones.
I've seen the bones of the solid and sold and those who have died before they got old.
Don't you tell me it's not true that the lure of drugs will not get you,it's a trap,another line on your rap sheet,another magistrate to stand and meet and another dark and one more nameless street,
that you'll walk on your own.

All we can do is what all of us do and that is to try,
try to build bridges and tear down walls,
remove glass ceilings to disprove limitations,

set the scene for what
you mean to do
and try to do it.
and try to do it
and try to do it
until you do it,
but you're never done doing it
never through with it,
because
there's always something new
to try.

What they're taking away
Is
what my father worked for
yesterday only
Forty Years ago,

and I know that they're at it
it seems obvious to me
that they're switching the
labels to gild the lily.

Karma will teach them
that they can't ****
with poor men,
they can't duck out of that

Light for a Saturday night,
but it's all subjective.

To try again
to go back to then
and give it a go again,
who'd like to try again?

I thought about this and
decided I'd give it a miss,
once was painful enough.

So
to plod on our way
through each age of the day
where progression is slow,
even the wind shuffles being
too tired to blow,
I know
how it feels.

So,
you went to get tested
but instead, you got wasted,
common mistakes are all that it takes
to make more and more common mistakes.

anyway, Saturday and what's on the menu?
shopping and cleaning and have you seen me in
a pinafore before?

Well,
when the bomb drops
the house will be spotless.

I could do with more days like these days when she stays with me.

We never think because we never do, we just assume that we'll all pull through, almost as if the needle and thread are all in the head,
one day because I can't multitask I will ask the right questions, put sixpence in the slot and get lots of answers,
but not today, I can't afford to fritter my money away,

do fritters remind you of spam?
my mam made lots of them back then
in the poor times when we were richer.

paradox, odd socks, even numbers, more questions, the giant slumbers, Arthur in Camelot trotting out his knights, totting up the nights spent with Guinevere, we're lucky we don't know where dreams go when they fail, Tintagel and the holy grail, British Rail, Leyland? just a memory that floats in British steel.

I got the feel for living with the dead
the needle and the thread
sewing it all together.,

Desperation fueled by insecurities and I'm sure that he's aware the camera's watching him,
pin a label to a person and it could be you.

She's watching me watching him watching her
but
she's always there, in front, behind me or it could be her inside me,
getting deep?

On a train and once again it's Monday, the start of things to come and go,
just so you know
I don't mind finding myself,

work ahead or someone said,
I only see the station.

And it's getting chilly
winter's blowing in
although I
look at him in
shirt sleeves
and think he still
believes
it's summer time.

There's a spike in the graph
or a glitch on the screen,
laying back
I think of England
trying not to scream
and
so I pin my eyes
listen to the lies
check my heart rate
take my pulse
yes,
I'm still among the living,
living amongst the dying
watching the spikes
knowing somebody's lying
and it's still
Thursday
or maybe
Thursday's the glitch.

No biscuits in?
it must be Christmas in
the empty biscuit tin.

What goes around comes around
true words on the circle line
London Underground.

This is war

slammed in
crammed in
clenched teeth
it beggars belief
that
people do this

But
we do
to get to
where wer're going.

and it's worse in the heat
old people don't get a seat
anymore
they
stand by the door
and all that they hear
is some old dear
saying
move down inside the
carriage please.

The way out starts with
the way in
and as I have to begin
somewhere
I'll begin there.

she's doing the crossword
he's looking over his shoulder
no fighting
I'm older than you
sometimes
being close is
too close
but
on a packed tube we
don't have much choice

the voice again,
'mind the doors, this
train is ready to depart'

I take heart from this
kiss the crucifix
and pray
the day goes well.

With a Hamlet in the
Shakespeare,
a local
quite near
and
it serves a good
beer.

There's a play on at
the theatre
near to here
supposed to be
'not one to miss'

but for sure it'll tour
and I might see it then.

give me a cigar in a bar
and I'll say, ta
very much
(that's a touch of Lancashire)

The deutsche mark turned Euro
but you know
that,
and it's okay in Denmark
too
except for the smell.

Her eyes were as dark
as blackberry blue.

I loved her
she loved you

her eyes were as dark
as blackberry blue.

Try and you try and you still get it wrong because the learning curve is so ******' long and the nights are much brighter on the dark side of sin
knock,  knock and
we'll let you in.

The telephone wire's stripped bare
electrical impulses no longer there
no voice to control me and my
mind's free to run free,
I should shout yippee but
I won't.

I want to be a woman like you.I want someone to say,'wow you look so good today'and to take me away from all this,to kiss me and hold me,to be bold and so sold on me,I want to be,
it's not possible
I know, I only grow as I am and I grow as a man,but I dream of the day when a man holds me the way
I hold you.

In a world of thanks or no thanks where each grumbling tank fires a shell to remind you that this isn't hell and the street corner dwellers,those newspaper sellers try to hawk you the news as if their views were their own
and in the window displays that lay out the facts,that you ain't got no money and can't pay your tax
where the odds are stacked against you but you knew that anyway,
there's a sunny day arriving soon,a good tune playing on the wireless set,just have faith we'll get there yet.
Thanks.

I watch the hawk like a hawk
and the hawk watches me.
I wish,
I could fly free
then perhaps I would see
what the hawk's looking at
when the hawk's watching me.

My feet tread the stones and my bones write the words which in other  words hurt and the hurt that I feel can't begin to conceal what I try to reveal but I can't.
There's a layby I walk by, but people don't lay there, don't stay there so what is it there for?  
is it there to confuse me with more words written freely?
In the precinct, so succinct, standing tall like an old Sphynx is a monument to testosterone, they call it the old folks home but there's no home for me there, I'm out in the town square, an old square in my own hole with a large hole in my right shoe and a bigger hole in my stomach, getting through it is easy, practice makes perfect and I've had plenty of that.
The stones become spongelike, the longer I write the softer they get, the softer they get the more that I write, it's a rite for me, a day and a night in the life of me where eternity is got to by catching the 3.43 from Euston to Peterlee.
If I sleep, I sleep lightly, frightened the monsters who fight me might win.
I see an end in the end or it may be a layby I pass by, shaking my head I go on wondering why.

I write when I'm happy
I write when I'm sad
I scribble when I am miserable and am flowery when I'm glad.

I write through the sharpening of pencils in the night and I blunt several visions,even then it may not come out right and so I blunt some more.
I write upon the bathroom walls,paint words across the door
I wish this house was bigger, then I'd write even more.
It makes my fingers sore to hold the pencil so but I must move in rhythm to where the words would like to go,
and go they must
before I crumble like the dust that drifts out from the cracking walls.

Daybreak calls me,
to put my pencils to one side,
I hide my ears under an old grey hat,can't be listening to none o' that
my lead is leaking from the pencil point.the point being
I am seeing words that line up one by one and when they've marched off,gone,
I shall pencil on and on.
No eraser or erasure
though to be sure some sentences are so obscure in meaning
with meanings that could only seem to be a meaning incomplete to me
I complete them anyway
and some nights I write through the day as well
my life is light and dark
a pencil park
a stop and slide
a ride across the graphite trail
at snails pace.

I want someone to shake me
to kick me and wake me
and make me
shift.
Or is it a tonic I need?
something like 'Fisons' **** feed
I really don't know
but I want something in order that I might just get up and go
then
she slaps me
traps and kidnaps me and takes me away to some place
it's okay
but she want's to use me
to enslave me
please won't somebody save me
I promise I'll never complain ever again.

She comes back all dressed in black
and I on the rack am quite stunned by the look
please put my name in the
'I'm staying here book'
I promise I'll never complain ever again.

What really puts my nose out of joint is not knowing at what point we are at,
in this virtually unknown expanse are we stationary?
yes, we're spinning or that's what we're told but are we moving?
if space itself is expanding and we are standing still,
where does the expanding space come from?

there are probably answers, there always will be
and we are free to accept them as facts and just as free to challenge them.

If God did create everything
he must be working overtime
on making more space
for all the time to fit into.

which begets (or baguettes) another question,
how much time does time have before time runs
out of time?

Maybe
it's not the Van Allen belt
but a conveyor belt
leading us towards a furnace
who knows,
not me.

Is it
getting in your hair,
is that
feeling still with you
of going nowhere,
nothing to do except to
see out your days,
are you
set in your ways,
do you gaze at a star
only to see how far you
can see?

The light years get heavier.

Panorama,
not the programme,
but what can be seen
with my eyes.

Some young ones won't get this
a bit like black and white TV
they wouldn't understand anything
before manned space flight
and that's alright
I don't understand
'Minecraft'

but it's all pixels now
and the more you have of them
appear to make the biggest of
the smallest men
there's
something dark about that.

I look out from the window of
a twenty first floor flat and
see,
not everything but most things
which brings me back to the
panorama.

Hot?
not so you'd notice
and if you don't feel it
you'd not notice it more

Seventy four degrees
at midnight
jeez
that's hot.

This distinction in class
makes of one
such an ***.

If the accent's on accent and
what we call social breeding
it's a bleedin' disgrace that my
face doesn't fit.

I never went to Uni'
so sue me,
the secondary modern was ancient,
the teachers deficient and they relied on the
lies that had been told long before,
by year four I was outa there
in the big wide world and
thought I'd get a share,
but I got bugga all
(which is not a big house in the country)

It boils down to this,
born with a silver spoon in your gob
and the job's yours,
when the onus is on a plummy voice and
you've none,
you're *******.

You rang?
who?

Television
black and white
half forgotten
images
come back to me
in the static of my night.

And the test card was not hard
just a test.

Yes mi'lady
aha
another sixties fantasy
fab.

but Parker had a darker side
or did I dream that too?

I'm clambering up from a fitful
sleep and fixing my eyes on the
bullets I keep in the chamber

the day brings with it danger
I'm used to it.

Sheer nylons on legs as
long as electricity pylons
but I think I dreamt that
too.

as time slows down and it all goes
faster
black and white becomes the
new master or mistress
( mistress being said under duress)
as
she watches over my shoulder
and
I'm getting older,

..and you know because you've done it too

looked in the mirror and thought who
wouldn't want this chunk
this fabulous looking hunk of man

then

wonder if my *** looks big in this
look at the pecs
get yer specs on for these
don't
don't
don't look at those knobbly knees

krap

so you spend some quality time
putting your clothes on
composing a rhyme

no one will see those knees.

It all becomes clear,
it's like lightning has struck me and
the moment I see her
everything falls into place.
The face in the crowd, a
voice,
I'm allowed to dream it's
in the contract.

5x5 day 2, number 2

The glass mirror sea
sinks into her as she
sinks beside me and we
drown together
looking at the sky from
where we lie under
a summer Sun.

Joined at the hip
they both slip into
the same old routine,
it's
God save the Queen
but we go first.

The longer this goes on
the shorter our fuses
become
and..?
and that's the question to pose
but
I don't know
they don't know
no one knows,

feels like I'm in Whateverland
and I want to get back to Neverland,
but I can't even get there overland
and they've cancelled all the flights.

(20 minute poetry)


Numb,
struck dumb and deaf to it all
I go silently on to watch as
I fall,
there's always two of me
the one that you know
and the one you can't see.

when I lock myself out
I can let myself in

Try to subjugate
imagination?
it's
an impossible task

be the one with the incredible
dreams that mirror the moments
of improbable dreams,
let everything go and go.

questions to ask and answers to give to the me and the me who both want to live,
but we fight each of ourselves
thinking that ourself is right.


already it's Thursday
and the sand's running low
I am quite worried
he doesn't know,

even in my head
some things are best
kept a secret.

Domino fall and I recall that
it happened before,
the butterfly wrecked,
cause? not effect
nothing is perfect

The rhetoric pick
I'd
talk to myself only
that makes me sick,

but the images come
and god only knows why
portraits in cages imprint
on the eye.
domino fall.

If there is anyone there
where flat wings beat the air
and can hear me,
tell me
why,

and
what was the question?
what is the connection?
is it the Amazon
domino fall?

A portrait of the
late...

..In the Tate
modern?
maybe?

A self assessment,
seeing myself as the artist
sees me

easy to criticise
because
when painting myself
I see me through the eyes
of the artist,

to be subject
to be master
a recipe for
disaster

In cyan blue
I measure my
two
eyes
too wide
set far apart

in the name of all that is art
(who will rid me of this ancient ****)
and
put in his place
a prince
with
sturdy limbs
a youthful face

the artist under no banner or law
paints what he sees and
not what i saw,

inner workings and in her working
sketches
wretches like me

I see,
the artist
sees me,
we
in the end
concur.

Nothing will ever be fair.

What we need is an escape pod
painted blazin' red like a hot rod
to ******* out of here.

can you smell that fear
feel it tingle down your spine?

one more time
what we need is an escape pod.