That lasted forever
she said quite unconvincingly
convincing me
that I could be her lover.

But what's a building
it's
just an empty space
that someone's filled in
with bricks.

The wishing well's a con
that's sixpence gone
down the drain

I won't wish for Friday on
Sunday again.

Happy Monday everyozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

sleep the rest'll keep 'til later.

She could turn a conversation
on a sixpence,
( sorry ) past tense
she still can.

What chance does a mere man have?
little chance, no chance, last chance
oh,
she can lead me on a merry dance
and
at the same time play the tune.

When I grow up
which should be soon
or as soon as the moon sheds a tear,
I will wear a tiara and see what she
makes of that.

Her lips told me they're dynamite
her body said the same
I moved across the dance hall floor
and then
I made my claim,
but that
******* Fred Astaire got there
and he was more than deft
so
I finished off my pint of mild
put on my coat and left.

On the beach
by the Punch and Judy show
under an umbrella
and
watching the tide go out.

Life's about an ocean wide
deep and dark
and sometimes,
but only sometimes
there's ice cream inside.

When furlough becomes a memory
working is once more a necessity
and the term redundancy is only found
in the dictionary
I think I might go fishin'.

The need to lay on the sand
hold some of that golden
in the palm of my hand
is often overpowering.

White light
burning in the back room
watching late night TV
sitting on the chair.

A full moon
shines on
this October,
Winter's coming
I can feel it in the air.

I become
tidal in the tropics
I am mangrove growing
by a Southern sea.

Hot sand
running through my fingers,
on the islands that is
where I want to be.

White light,
Winter,
I watch Summer
splinter
and
wish I had saved some
for me.

trapped in a cube
where
the numbers are jumbled
and add up to six

all combinations that make up a lifetime and add up to six

Infinity
is but one place I see
on the journey out there

eternity is a place inside me
but I don't know just where

it
adds up to six
pick
any numbers
on the cube.

Two little skips to
form a smile
upon the
shadow of your lips

and I'm floating
on air

eternity includes you
don't you see
I'll be waiting out  
there?

and then I wake
shake
the numbers up
again
and chance once more picks
six
which is not a chance at all.

When you divorce from reality
and she gets custody
what is there left,
but the fantasy.

Thrown on the scrap heap
before they've even begun,

What has this world come to?
What will the young do?

They can always pick through the scrap
there must be a living in that!

At the top of the tree where
the easy live free on the backs
of those far down below
they **** on the young
and
of course it's great fun
for those kind of folk.

It's
no joke for the young though who
know that one day with a choke hold
they'll
strangle the roots of the tree.

for now the easy live free but
when now becomes then
we'll see
how easy free is.

You buy on the streets
you buy in the square,
you get high on effects
but
you ain't getting nowhere

and you come down
wanting to be up there
so you buy on the streets
or you buy in the square

and the message arrives
in the fog of your mind
but
it's twisted and curled about
the words,
you don't mind
until
you're searching again
and the dreams become dramas
you are in your own play
writing the script
until the pain goes away.

That's odd, although
I would never have thought it when I bought it
how odd this sock would become.

If I had a second skin
you'd still get under it,
still get in,
and so surrender seems to me
to be the only way that I can win.

I raise my hands and arms to you and you
come through to hug and kiss me,
hold me tight and
so slightly change me.

If I had a second skin
knowing what I now know
I'd let you in quite willingly
and never let you go.

She nudges him and he smudges lipstick on his chin,
she can't keep the clown from within getting out.

Playtime to make time to explore yours and mine.

If they label you redraw it
be the bella you'll adore it
because it's just a game
isn't it?

As I kneel to feel the force
a force awakens inside of me,
something akin to poetry
where the lines we write
make eyes at me.

The parable becomes the rhyme
in time
I shall
become that too.

Who knows
where life would take us?
we are the seed that grows
some wild
some not so
we grow
anyway.

Sunday is a habit
I wear like a nun
some accept
others do not
I've got
nothing to worry about

prayers are prayed
the execution is stayed
life will take us where
it will

it would still
be adventure
for me.

The future's couture,
are you sure about that?

The 21st century is hidden between billfolds of misery
Lancome hanging on by her nails while Dior roars along
doing 90,
so long to my jeans and the tank top
I'm swapping them for something that's real hot.

Suits lined and silk shirts for me
while she
dons the latest sensation
fresh from the catwalk
a fabulous creation.


But there are pitfalls of that I'm aware,
and being aware, I tread
carefully there.

The 21st century
full of mistakes and
it takes only one to
bring me down.

I heard the rain
didn't need to see
to know I was indoors
and
it wasn't raining on me.

These are the long days
the wrong side of the track days
no one is safe.

secure? for sure
we could be,
but
one day
we'll grow too big
for our hearts and
have to set them free.

Inside of me
memories of factories
legacies
of old mill towns and
cotton faces.
Iron lungs and
all those places
I'd prefer to forget.

This poetry's for you
it's written in love
can't you see what
you do?

I have been far away on
a road that was long
writing words in the winds
because for me being strong
was the storm.

In the poetry
I find only insanity
which
must be a part of me
but
for the life of me
I don't know
which part that is.

The Moon watches over me as
I cross the timeless sea
of dreams.

In narrow shafts of silver light
that lay bruises on the gentle night
I sight the ship to carry me in time to
cross that timeless sea.

The scatter of dreams
scattering shadows it seems that
rise,
open eyes and it's clear that
morning is here,
Summer has come,
I sit watching shadows run up the wall,
fall back and rise,
open eyes and they're gone.
I shatter what matters and scatter more dreams
and it seems like
yesterday.

Her breath tastes of apples,
splashed by the sunshine on
a midsummer day.
She is the May in the August of
my life.

I remember that sense of her perfume,
pictures that float through the bedroom to the kitchen where coffee was roasting, I took the toast out, she buttered it thickly.
the newspaper rustled as if alive with the news
her dress rustled too as she put on her shoes
and here I lose the image,
the connection is lost.

Dreams must be the price that we pay.

time to sit and stew
to think of everything
but mostly you
and me,
make some tea
leave it to brew
sit and stew
think of you
and find the
tea's gone cold.

Correct me if I'm wrong
but
nothing matters except matter,
without matter
we would be scattered
to become untied and
unlit atoms
unless atoms are matter,
then nothing matters,
correct me if I'm wrong.

See
whatever we sit and brood on
life still goes on and the
circle
continues.

Not anything now or maybe just maybe a smudge on the horizon or more likely some dust speck on a screen.

I've seen tomorrow in her eyes when filled with sorrow and it looks a lonely place, but even as I speak today my own two eyes can't look away at what is sure to come.

I am wreckage on the shore being picked clean by the *****.

Dead on the beach
but
they teach wood to float
don't they?

under a grey sky
we all die
a branch at
a time.

I have sunk and I've swum
been there and
I've come
ah
but that's for
adults only.

We spend most of our lives
preparing to live
and when we arrive
there's nothing
left to give

The old Queen would've known what to do,
the new one we know hasn't got a clue,

I keep my calm in a tin box
it stops it evaporating.

It's about anatomy.

You might think,
  
An atom, me?

But that's not what I said.

Astronomy is nothing to do with food
nor gastronomy
stars.

We have. sat together in too many taverns and isms to get tangled up in the anatomical caves and the caverns within 'em.

At sixteen I was rampant and now I'm almost dormant.

A Zimmer frame by any other name
is as heaven knows not only not a rose it's not a babe magnet either.

I am driven by demons that hole up inside me, the joke that they see is me, but there are saints sent to guide me
while the Vatican city sleeps.

If I felt one death
I've felt one hundred
what more can death do.
you live so
why cry?

I saw the beaten and tortured
in courtyards that weren't even
known
saw the blood running dry
you live
so why cry?

I exhume the fumes
of ancestors
anchored to memory
and there is the
mast,

aye
you live
and you last
you live
so
why cry?

You didn't want to know when I was young,
slow?
I could have grown grass quicker,
but now you're older and much slicker,
hair tied in a bow,
oh,
time
you were so slow.

When it finds me
you'll find me
up there
on the roof.

Truth is,
I don't like the truth
it hurts too much.

Nothing good ever comes in
the daylight when the sun's
refusing to shine,

me and mine
mine and me
let kingdom come
and I'll still be
on the roof
that's the truth.

Truth is
It catches
scratches deep within
makes the scars
marks the skin
and
when devils dance
I get roped in
making more scars
marking more skin,

when it finds me which
it surely will
I'll be on the roof
until
I'm not.

Horus without his eyes could see
the lies that told untruths to him
but
felt the seed grow deep within that
pinned hope to his heart
and sin?
the many or the few
knew what the riddle was,
the sphinx not being one of them.

I was one among the many men who
travelled chaotic in the now and then it
always came back to some beginning.

Legend has it that,  but legend always did
apart from that which Arthur hid
and who knows where?

I skip
I prance to lead myself
a merry dance
at times it seems
the thing to do.

Horus knew
and now
I do too
you only have to see.

It was in a bad dream
and
craving nicotine
I smoked
the pipe cleaners
which dreamers do.

Have you ever been where
the air's metallic?
or seen the steel light
before the dawn?

At the point of impact
as
the lines converge,
I emerge quite drunkenly
from a tortured slumber
and wonder what
is going on.

As in all good bad dreams
there's a message given,
but is it taken? which is
the question.

For the faithfully devoted, the hopeful,
motivated, the lost and disenfranchised
you can listen to the truth or lies depending
on your point of view and
who am I to disagree with your beliefs?
I have my own Gods to do battle with.

Lard
that's what it was and that's what it is that makes us Northerners so hard, as tough as old boots my dad used to say and he had his Lard every day, sometimes it doubled as Brylcreem as mad as that might seem, but we were poor then even though a pint of brown only cost a shilling and a night on the town could be had for half a dollar.

Follow lard lad and you can't go wrong.

The train's approaching
encroaching on my quiet time
beside this railroad line.

and it's raining
draining from me all hope
of Summer.

Can't autocorrect the weather
and wouldn't want too.

There's a whistling on the track
taking me back and yet moving me on and then it's gone replaced by a squeak and a squeal making me think that the brakes maybe feel like I do,
wet through because of the rain.

Down on Liverpool street,
everything comes down to Liverpool street
people I've known and possibly still yet to meet
wasting away down in Liverpool street.

Anyway I'm here to sit the test if time be that
and here I'll stay until they take me to some universal university.

I notice notices and try to make some sense of them,

the things men do
when they're soaking wet through
I do too.

Half the coffee's gone
and
I'm feeling more switched on,
but won't switch the light off yet.

October smells of things to come
I'm glad it's here
and even though
its been a year
it looks the same,

things that I have fantasized
I wonder did she know I lied
when I told her
never you.

I can remember diving into the book
and then everything went blank,

hours later because I'm a slow reader
the torch batteries failed,
anyway
the day was tramping through the curtains
and I got up for school.

Running along the banks of the canal
thinking it'd be fatal if I fell,
I dropped into the classroom
and imagined it a ballroom,
but
it turned into a battleground

round after round of tedium
then a medium sized lunch
and back again.

I have another book I took from the library,
it's begging me to read it
which I will do
when I get some more batteries.

Doing nothing
drinking coffee
somewhere off some
Rue or other.
along comes senorita,
I
asked her name,
she said,
I am known as
Juanito Juanita

It suited her.

That was then or one time when I had the time to spare, but now is where I am and that is one more memory for me to know and for you to wonder at.

Red wine and that's another time
slowly sinking
thinking it,'sa spell
easy mistakes, but
that's all it takes.

It's the old look in the rear view and
the road ahead is the
new you.
Twists and turns and bends but
all the ends are knitted into one and
we go on.

The headlights cutting through the fog
and the cog cuts through new teeth.
If a belief is all I've got, a satchel full of dreams
is not a lot to carry on my back.

The track, pristine,
another dream and
one more belief.

Sunday is done
it has been and
was fun
tomorrow
is Monday
that too will
pass and it might
be fun as well
but don't dwell on it
if
it isn't.

I never wrote
I went shopping
never bought anything
I should have wrote

today was a cheap day
fun but cheap
keep that to yourselves
like
I left the shopping on the shelves

goodnight
I might write now
but
I won't go shopping.