I'm trying hard not to think of taking a drink
at this time in the morning
but the day's like a chasm that I cannot bridge
and there's two pints of electric sat in the fridge,
voltage for my tonsils,

how to justify this trying defeats me
and the drink's sat there leering,
saying come on
get the beer in.

Monday is a dry day I hear myself say
but the voice sounds from a long way away.

Wait
like a lead weight.

Sunk in a seat
it's a Tuesday treat
the jubilee is almost
deserted.

This is like
'watch with mother'
nothing is real here
not the
old dear with the white hair
not the French maid
she's definitely not there
but
suddenly and quite matter
of factly as if the factory
****** has blown
I'm thrown into a maelstrom
of workers on their way
into the business of a
working day.

Now it's jam packed
stacked to the rafters
and
filled to the roof.

I haven't got room to write
no space to breathe
think it might be
time for me to leave,

I'll be back.

We,the childhood delegation arrived at midnight in Lapland, to ask for the resignation of Daddy krimbo.
Only three months to go and the toys are not done,he's as drunk as a skunk and his helpers are having our Christmastime fun,
It's not fair on us kids,we've been good,we've been kind and didn't swear or go behind,any bike
shed and were not led astray.
If our prezzies don't come Christmas day, we're going to torch his sleigh,set the reindeer free and see how he likes it,not one little bit I should think.
Just
lay off the drink and get cracking,start racking up points,collect a few stars or we're coming back,some of us with iron bars,
You have been warned Santa.

Somewhere it must be 3am
I want to be somewhere at
five before the allotted time,
first in the line
head of the queue
just behind someone who's
stood behind you.

Just a step away, a tingle
of breath away
I want to hear someone say,
'I want it to be you'.

Somewhere it must be 3am
and
then....

Leaving the light on, keeping the  monsters that dance through your night on their toes.

It was dark, even so, I could see, that the dragons breathing fire were out there to
toast me

and when you're sixty five, closing your eyes and hoping the night things won't see you doesn't work.

We met
in the heat of the discotheque
they played the sixties
all night long


afterwards
I jumped the queue for kebabs
and you had Shish,

Later still,
the hesitation before a kiss
frightened I'd miss the moment
but never
did

and confirmation
of a further assignation
at the discotheque
where we met
next Saturday night

feels like
a hundred year wait
until we get back on the
dance floor
and gyrate once more
to the beat

I can still feel the heat
of your lips.

It's not wishing on a star
that has brought me this far
it's the red vauxhall viva
my fathers old car

she
sits
under the hanging dice,
I think
our names on the windscreen
would look rather nice
she
says
no
and I go along with her.

I listen again to the why and the when still expecting the outcome to come out differently, but it is the same again, a never ending game where the odds are stacked in favour of the facts.

Tuesdsy
and so it should be,
not so sure about 2021
that,
though here, still seems like
a long time ago.

Well
looks like we'll be here
for a while,
think I might learn how
to knot pine,
make wine
take time
to
knit no exit signs.

these are truly the times
of our lives.

In the solution
am I
the strength of the mixture
or
just the dilution?
Does osmosis occur
even
when I'm not there?

questions to take me to task,
I ask
anyway.

Dancing
on the edge of reality
and
falling into your arms
means to me
sanity

I have lived and I've died
so
many times I have tried

still dancing
with the lady
in love.

Lady,lady,lion mane
growling down on Dalston lane
weaving here and in your hair
weaves that weave the morning air.

I wanna stay in the night
just a little bit
longer

to lay in you arms
feel a little bit
stronger

I just wanna look in your eyes
and see the Sun rise
I wanna stay in the night
until I die.

Do you remember
how you wore that
sari loosely?
and how my breath fell
loose upon you?
do
you?
I do and I
wanted you, but you
knew someone else in
the biblical sense.

All past now
still tense though
you know
how it is
when
you're fifteen.

Hurtling is probably faster than falling.

Forever's that time when the clock doesn't chime and the Sun disappears from the sky, it's the time in-between that has come to mean more than its constituent parts.

watching sunrise after sunrise until my eyes have turned blue and the sunrises that I've watched for years became you.

All the wild goose chases lost causes, missed chances no longer cast shadows through these chattering windows only the circles of hours that pass remain to disturb me.

There's a rattling on the window frames
a clattering at the door,
what more can the wind do,
what more can it say?
but
call me names on
a blustery day.

Does it do it for you
when you read in the
varsity rag
just who's doing who?

or should that be whom?
there's
no room for error
in the people that
mirror
your life.

Jesus is safe now
we can call off the search,
he's appearing each Sunday
down at your local church,

(because you have to have something
that makes everything
worthwhile)

Egypt,Iran,Saudi and Afghanistan,who is the man,who was the man they killed somewhere in Pakistan,
groaning,droning,mark them down and then home in,children dying,Mother's blown to bits crying.
U.N set the talks,
the Russians baulk,the Chinese walk.

What we need are peace accords,what we get are bombs and swords,all we want's a little space
all we need is face to face,
communication is the key, the only way to set us free
but until then and as and when
we might as well forget the pen
Bombing runs,bullets,guns someone tallies up the sums.
One more *****,Ambassador,another vote lost on the floor
stop the war
stop the war
we don't want it any more.
**** em all, just play ball
and call the whole thing off

I had her heart in my hand
but she held my breath in her wonderland
attractivated she motormated me
and magnet-ied  my eyes
laser beamed with just one goal
that
touch me,please me,feely feely
Really it was very nice
an understatement
even if said twice.

I saw some distant planetary system
when she kissed me and I wished then on a star
which fell
and far from being here
she had taken me out there
to share with me
her luminosity.

How could it last
the fires that burn so bright
still cast shadows on the wall of my desire
but she took me high above
all thoughts of love had taken leave
I believe she was angel or a demon
but she led this man into
her Queendom
and when done with me
she loosed me like a cannon ball
which is an entirely different kind of wall
like an illusion
a colliding of materials
in colour sorted serial codes.

If it bodes well
I'll find she came from heaven and not from hell
but at the moment I can't tell
and to tell the truth
It doesn't worry me.

I came back from the dead too
lots of people do.

the Romans were not impressed.
they guessed incorrectly that
resurrection was a fallacy.

Jesus
proved it could be done by
the Son of Man and promised
we could do it too
which in lots of cases
turned out to be true.

I'm going to fry an Easter egg
I did try boiling one but it melted.

Boys and girls
with spindly pins
jogging their little
hearts out,

my good lady and I
were out for a stroll,
it was ****** freezin' cold,
the gloves were no good
my nose started to run
it must have thought it was
a jogger
oh what bleedin' fun
but
a bit of fresh air
does you good
in fact
it's recommended.

Home again to the pain
of thawing,
toe tingling
gut gnawing
and a cup of tea in
the kitchen
which in
this home is the hub.

(20 minute poetry)

Begin as follows
watching
hollowed eyes
they'll
despise your face
the
dimples in your cheeks

seek and you will find
unless the seeker's blind.

Do you see me
on the periphery?

Not content to be a footnote

acting out the final scenes  
unsure if
a life is living in my dreams
and I have some small part
to play.

Today
is Monday
I bear this in mind
as I follow through on
these things that I must do.


Even so
I sway slightly in the morning breeze
to please, albeit unconsciously myself
and if or if it ever seems that a switch occurs and dreams become
a means towards an end
I will begin again.

Down in the poor quarter where
no quarter is given
where there's no life in the living and
the dead are not missed
I sprawl out in the shop doorway and
get ******.

No one here cares about that,
the shop has been closed since the riots
no one spares me a second look and
I'm getting more ****** so
what the ****.

There are reflections in the broken glass and
they pass by me, like butterflies
the colours make me realise that this is
not a home
that this is me being all alone in
a lonely place where the broken face in
the broken glass
is me.

In the poor quarter
all I can see are the prostitutes
among the destitute and
reflections of me.

Never been to Camber
or walked along its sands
and never been to Rye
I
don't know why.

Places always places
those I haven't been
but seen them in a
thousand lights
each in a nightly dream.

part 1

Wow
imagine that,
in
no time at all
we had
no time at all.


part 2

No time for those we should have loved
no time for those we did
no time to take a
five minute break

and in no time at all
they nailed down the coffin lid.

A fragrance ja vu
fragments of you
pieces of pictures
and in
each picture I picture
a picture anew.

Joseph Bazalgette knew
about things people did,
like pooh
and to that very end
he built the great sewer
which apart from moving the pooh also
alleviated London from the stink
of the rich as well as the poor.

On the engineers seat
in the House on Greek street
he drew up his plans to
do away with bed pans as he
laboured alone in the night.

Thomas Crapper came to fame and
hardly because of his laughable name,
but his name became his fortune
and in the music halls of London town
people were soon to put a penny down
to spend a penny in the lavvy,
a savvy lad was Tom.

And they made old Joe a knight
for
funneling waste out of Londoner's sight,
they even had street lights that ran on
the gas
that floated down tunnels through
which the
waste had to pass
on its way to the sea.

It was a jolly good show
and a spiffing great plan
carried out quite imaginatively,
I can imagine the man
and his men way back then were
flushed to be
a part of
London's
lavatory
story.

(20 minute poetry)

Eccentric?
I can be,
a composition of me and him and anyone else that found their way in.

Generally speaking, I'm a model citizen that goes about his own business taking no heed of the madness that feeds on street corners or of the dogs that **** up the lampposts and trees, he's a model citizen too, Airfix I think and stuck together with glue.

We're all flaming citizens in a country so critical that you can't pass remarks unless there's 10 or more likes on your social media page.

Eccentric I should be in this wack community or would be
if I could get in.

Madness they say is curable, I find it okay but uninsurable, the risk assessor prides himself on figuring the odds, but won't take a risk on the outcome.

I'm here now
where everything ends
and being sent around the bend
is just an occupational hazard.
a bit like asbestos
or Paraquat,
It all turns to poison
in the system.

I want a selfie
but what they do is
crowd me.

She holds me
then shows me
that a selfie is
we two.

how true
and why did I forget?
blame it on the dream catcher
caught up in its net.

The mirror only sees I see, the things that I
want it to see, perceives the things
I want to do and copies me,
I wonder does it copy you?

I look from out beyond the glass to
where it is that visions pass,
the mirror sees the things
I won't
and
never can
and
I don't
blame it,
being a man
that's
quite a feat.

Poverty is the ready reckoner
the finger that beckons ya
when
you count all your blessings and
come up a bit short,
it's
a dis-ease ****** upon you
where the richer do not trust you
and only the poor will assist you
and they can't even help themselves.

Such a short time,
this fine line
twixt
life and death,
only marked by
a breath or two and
those who
paint the sky so blue
would do well to
remember
the mortal in
the man.

The eyes would haunt and follow me
through the abattoir, quite solemnly and then they'd
close and wink at me in the fields of
the self harm facility.

But the eyes were mine all the time they were mine and you can't escape from the looks from within and if suicide's a sin,
tell me why so many want to cut off and get in?

Society must answer too,
to the many who believe they're just the few
I guess that's why
they do what they do
in the fields of the
self harm facility.

Half a candle burns full light and flicks shadows on my wall tonight,
I raise my arms and make a face
and somewhere out in time and space
a star explodes.

I wonder why it's called the butterfly,
just for effect?

So,
I put my life out on the line and
time after time
people say,'for what?'and
I say,'why not? it's who I am and what I've got
and if you don't like it don't read
my life will still bleed
and I,
(though it's hard to admit)
still need
validation'

The heart of the matter
is out of our hands
or so we believe,
but suspend that belief
for a moment or two
discover
that
all which we do
all that is true
is in you.

The slipstream.

high tech or low tech?
we take things on spec'
and
it's getting harder to decide.

I look for the hand clasp and
it's taking its last gasp,
friendships
end quietly.

Always the crux that ***** me
the crucial call
or the ten twenty fall
double the odds for
a place.

The heart of the matter
is
nothing matters at all

do your research,
find
a common denominator
or invent one
because
normal service
will go on
because
normal service
will go on
because
normal service
will.

Got an NVQ in the blue whitener
and I become
the washing machine dream.

Thinking
when it's on fast spin
what would it be like to
jump in?

dizzying
I expect.

The figure only screams
because
people will not stop looking.

imagine life under such scrutiny
hanging around in a gallery.

I imagine the coffee is ready
which is about all I can manage
these days.

No less angry now than if a tomorrow never came

losing the plot
only to find
I was not in
the game

**** the blame
I take it on the chin

you
don't let me in
you
are keeping me down
you
blew away my house
in an industrial town
and
what the ****
have we got anymore?

Service industries that only serve industries.

Where does it end?
Is life just the sub-plot
for the ways I must mend?

How long to keep praying
keep paying
keep saying,
I'm sorry?


Dead on my feet,
but there are things
I must do
people to meet
and find the *******
who killed my street
in an industrial
town.

less angry now and I'm down with it
realising this world is full of ****
time to do my own little bit
in this stinking rotten mess.

It was like seeing Schwarzenegger,
but a bigger version in an ill fitting suit.

I only wanted cough drops for a ticklish throat
she said,
get your coat we're going out for a bite to eat.

The waiter and that's who looked like Schwarzenegger
took our orders
as if we generals and he was on parade.

After the meal I tipped him
told him
to get a better tailor,
the man who looked like Schwarzenegger
wasn't impressed
but he was in a suit that wasn't pressed
so
neither was I.

The day looked like Monday,
the way that days do and
Monday looked through me,
has it
looked through you?

Today,
I feel redeemed,
sorted,
sifted,
I have been screened.

I'm in the fold where I fold in two
being redeemed means
I do what I do.

Oh joy of joys all you girls and you boys
and the ploys of men can wait,
today
I am stately
not
a johnny come lately.

Today
I feel redeemed.

I can see me
in 3D,
my eyes are a
stereopticon
my outside becomes
the skeleton and
I dissolve in
the inside.

We all wanna be
he-men
G-men
but
some of us are
just ordinary
men.

and some are an omen.

Amen.

In the sand that runs
through the quiet of my mind
where the hourglass empties,all I can find
is a grain of hope.

And it carries me along to the end of the way
in the warehouse of woe
at the end of the day.

Where the winds cease
Where the night makes a peace
where the treaty is signed
on an old and lined skin
it is here
I begin.