What if they weren't sorry?
what if the inconvenience they cause  was deliberate?
what if this break or pause in service is what they intend?

We get used to inequality
and
if it doesn't bother you
why would it bother me?

but why not ask why?
or do we live just to die
in ignorance?

They're half asleep on this train
looking inward,
shadows
heavy under heavier eyes
more whys to think about.

and more noise from the tannoy,the old boy grumbles as the tube rumbles on.

We're not sorry for any inconvenience caused!
that's the truth of it when we're carried like cattle through the underground and the bit that worries me are the things we do not hear but can plainly see,
if they're fooling me why would you think they're not fooling you?

her kiss
always
and that's a
long time
by
anyone's reckoning.

They tried to dislocate 'Wounded Knee'  from military history and they tried to censure me when I spoke out about the deed done there that day.

The
cavalry not quite chivalrous
more like murderous to the
indigenous
who died that day.

She will think
I'm just a
video link
but I'm the light
on a
long dark road,
the cats eyes
on overload,
seeing
is believing
I believe that
though
never seen that,
I take it on
faith alone.

I remember,
I kissed her behind the bike shed
my head felt quite dizzy
fizzy
like lemonade
I prayed it would never end
that she would never send me away.

I remember,
as if it was yesterday
But I might as well try catching peals from a bell
memories  always sell you short.

But you know sometimes I get caught
in the drift
as if someone has lifted a lid on the past
that went by all too fast
and then,

I remember,
who I am
an older man with the gift of the gab
a bit more than I should have of flab
and too much time on my hands.

I remember,
she held hands with me
promised to be mine forever
that was never a promise that I'd make her keep.
In my sleep I can still see her face
with her eyes open wide
at the side of the gymnasium
behind the bike shed
she's still in my head
I don't want to forget so
I remember.

Still better because
because it's better than it was
and it was that bad.

'.I cannot recall just when,
but mum did say it were after ten...'

remembering the bay today
the fairground rides,
ghost train, slides,
and
the goldfish that I never won.

Listening to the gulls
always seems to pull me there
where I can
smell the ozone in your hair,

but I expect these gulls have
never seen the sea
nor stolen any chips for tea


just me.

The problem is,
no matter that I walk for a thousand miles or a month, or a year
I find myself back here
where I started from.
I am the karma reconstitute,the weak man or the resolute
but I always come back to the start
and it's the start that's the matter,it begins as I shatter another life that I live and goes on,
that's the problem.

I may be that hamster on a wheel,in a cage I can't see but I feel that it's there as everything spins,or am I the doll you stuck pins in
but,
then I think,if I was punctured
I would not spin and I'm back at the beginning,flat on the floor,what's more,
I do feel deflated,dried up,desiccated but the karma kicks in and once again I begin to evolve and to spin and the wheel feels so real as I turn into what you would want to believe.

When I was but a lad with snot on my sleeve and in my pocket of sweets where
I could then truly believe in some transitional state,I related quite well,
but I grew and it all went to seed
it's not hell that I need but it's hell that I get and yet
heaven's out there,
there are angels in Tooting, (like me) reconstituting and waiting for a share of the pie.

You're pinned to a notice board and you have to use your left eye as a ripcord and the right eye scans the night sky but you know you're a mile high and yet wondering how you're breathing and then you realise that you're dreaming until you hear someone screaming and the whole thing comes alive.

someone's stealing backgrounds and selling them to foreign gentlemen and I want to wonder why but the eye that scans the night sky turns a blind eye to these goings-on and I am none the wiser.

We're just treading water,
jumping on the spot,
we got nothing and
they've got the lot

very nice for them
(Said in a sarcastic voice)
when we have no choice
but to do as they want.

I'm wanting out of it
there's only so much
*******
that one can shovel
and I've shoveled
a shitload.

The road
if it is indeed a road
to recovery
is somewhere
inside me
and not a signpost
in sight.

If I am expanding with space then where am I standing right now?
It cannot be here because here's moved there
and where there was there is longer there or not here,
how very queer.

I like the solutions that Astrophysicists give,
it's like they live in a bubble, perhaps
in the Hubble,

Telescope me to where I should be,
in an hour or a day, in an
expansionist way,

My funny bone's deserted me
last seen heading past my knee
nothing's funny now and she
just laughs.

She spun her eyes
they came up
double six and
the dividend was paid to me.

She
made remarks as lovers do
when in the dark and you,
yes you
you listened to the honey sweet
dripping and you'd kiss her feet
stripping all pretension from her
lips.

The wallpaper peeling by the door,
the wardrobe painted but
could be so much more than
brown,
a dressing gown slung down
socks that walk on walls but
hung on tacks, twin stacks, a
bra and pantyhose.

Intimations of a mystery
who could live with me?
She,
it
has to be.

Lay your head on the pillow of my yesterday
and hear the whispers in which
I say
I am sorry for the pain I gave
and sorry that I could not save that special thing that you would bring me every night the kissed that tucked me in real tight
the stories told under the passing light of the moon which all too soon became the Sun.
Mum
did I ever say that yesterday was good
did I ever say that if I could I'd make it better
did I write that to you once in a one off letter
Did I write at all?
can't remember now
don't know how I fell off the edge of the universe
don't know if it could have got any worse
but now it has passed
the rashness of the wildness in the wilderness with me no less becoming grown
you had known it all
seen the future come to call and leave with me in tow
before I go
love you
Mum.

She who
birthed me
bathed me
nurtured me
saved me
from myself
is resting with the angels.

Happy Mother's day Mum.
***

Mother was the lawmaker
the love giver
She
took our pains away
from the childhood ills
and hurts
of yesterday.

She Provided for and brooded over,
soft and stern in equal turn
no favourites there.

We were her children
Her pride and joy
Her girl
Her boys

Then we grew
flew the nest as
grown ups do,
but Mother knew
that we'd be there at
the closing of her day.

They speak your mind when you've no mind of your own,
vote for the shysters and they'll take your home.

don't be afraid to speak for yourself.

they say
seek and you shall find
but that's just them
speaking your mind.

We know that the system ain't right,
but who's going to mend it?
not them
they'll defend it to the end.


and the end is where we all will be
if you let them speak for you and me
get real
if you feel it ain't right
it ain't right.

Downstairs
there's a day
creeping up.

I've often wondered why
days creep
perhaps it's because most
people are asleep
upstairs,

Sometimes my thoughts creep
into thoughts that you might be
asleep and unable to hear them
but not often
and then I think that's creepy.

Saturday
and lots to do
coffee
being one of them.

Lightning strokes the greenery,
flashbulbs
and the scenery shifts
the curtain lifts
and brings on the rain.

All this from a bedroom window

it's like a book once read,
but
the character assassination
is only you killing you and
you're still in bed,

'the show must go on'
'yeah,
on trial',
the audience screams,

and it's often like that
in dreams of greatness.

It's between the alcohol or under the duvet
one will win
I don't care
because I'm on the gin
ha
actually it's..
I was going to say ***
but
that ******* fly flew by again
and
really ****** me off.

So
now it's absinthe
and since
it looks likely to be
a long watchful night
for me
I'll
take two or three
just to settle my nerves.

Electric Ellipses.

Eternity is
frankincense and myrrh
to me
and she is gold

I hold her
tenderly for
another
eternity.

the time grid is slow and as we go
time follows us on and then
in an instant of thought,
we've gone from nought to sixty

(so glad she picked me)

I want more than the war I became,
she wants the same

so what if we collide with the stars on the way
each day that brings us closer together
is her piece and mine of lucky heather.

But I need no wise men, be it one man or three
to travel the world to come and tell me of a saviour
I know her.

A final thought.

eternity once frightened me,
but
not anymore.

Whatever day it is
we pay, it is
the way
but not the light
because
we've not yet got it
wired up right.

Are you losing track?
do you meet yourself
coming back?
is everything a blur?

I'm there with you
to share with you
the pain
of lockdown again.

The key is that we
are here
the lock is the place
we must go

it's hard to find it though
and I don't know if we
ever will.

I'm still looking through keyholes
at lost souls
and in market places for familiar
faces.

Did you ever feel like
Jonah under sail
in the belly of a whale?
( asking for a friend )

Second chance syndrome
a name by which I'm
occasionally known
is fitting.

It's a malady
foisted on me
by the company

I'd prefer a final warning
a turning worm
or an early bird.

Each day I cross a Rubicon
I gather strength and
move along
the new way.

I pray a while a small white lie
diffused by saffron coloured sky
the sulphur rises by and by
and
I die again.

I cross another Rubicon.

Redacted
constricted
contracted
restricted.

We are all being closed down
it's a drop out
a cop out
and we are the objective.

We the collective
disintegrate
under the mighty weight
of the state.

Machinery?
We are the cogs in obscenity
but does it bother me?

I am a tree
growing wild and
think I'm free
'til the man with the axe
comes again
and redacts me.

When I become the colours of the sun that shine through Autumn and her hair
I will be there in every rainbow watching rain blow with the wind.

Willing back the sand that drops so casually from the glass she holds within her hand,
I stand with my arms outstretched, my head bowed as if in prayer,
but always there
always where
you are.

In the realm of fantasy where imagination unfettered can wander free
is where I'll be,
should you wish to drop by
and call on me.
But
beware of hobgoblins under the trees,they'll tie you in knots and do just as they please.
Cats will chase mice and mice will eat cheese
but hobgoblins do neither
they just do as they please.

They have their fingers in the pie
and wonder why we're quite upset,
well
some are because they didn't get
some are because they wanted more
and
some like me look at it abstractly
as if it's just a thousand-year jigsaw.

In my pocket. a lucky rabbit's foot

Unlucky for the rabbit that this hunter had to grab it

lucky though
I think for me,
that I don't limp like
poor
bunny,

you see the
Irony?

It was about twelve hours later and the sun was on the wane
I awoke to find i'd slept the whole day through again.

nothing new
but nothing good ever comes from tardiness and sloth
both
of us know it.

I fastened to my tie pin a hint of her blue eyes
and in my heart a memory of the night and of our cries.

A man must do what a man can do
if he must then so can I,
but I'd die for a dime
to spend one more time
with the lady of my dreams.

Through portholes of morality we search for immortality and fight for our own sanity against the turning of the tide.
Chide the weak who fear the end, for them we'll send a sedan chair
to carry them off somewhere there,
where mountains melt into the sea.
To live forever
I would be invincible but mortality is  not for me
for I exist in second phase in parallel to all the days I spent,repenting of my sins and never winning first or second prize which went to heathens who told lies and pretty girls who fluttered shadowed eyes against the shadows cast out by the sun,
and anyone with half a brain, which counts me out because, I never was the same as clever clogs,forever bogging down while running on athletics fields,
who could have told me,rolled me up and sold me in bazaars and market halls,if only they had,had the ***** to make a stand against the pious and the hypocrite who never once thought to give a ****
for poor men and girls who swirled the waters by the dock and those with pockmarked,stark and staring faces trading several places to shuffle lowly in a line as once again the tide will turn to drown the scorned and those who spurned the helping hands
and the hand of fate can kiss my **** and wait for me
I'll stand with those and shuffle slowly to the end,
send a sedan chair,pay the fare
make sure it's at the end where I can see
that mortals and immortality are a crock of **** and we're only here for a bit of fun,
more shadows cast out by the sun and left to haunt the alleyways
and all the days I live I would not give a **** or seek out weak men just to help them pass beyond the pale
let them find a holy grail that suits their needs as Moses too was found among the reeds and stolen by a dynasty
A mortal,immortality still eludes the holy man who scans the heavens for a sign and yet shuffles slowly down another line
we'll all get there to share the silver chalice, if only to find that Christopher Robin divorced poor Alice and run off to where the piggy wig stood
Nothing's good that cannot last
and one more shadow casts a spell
we're going to hell get used to it.

Give me some Tramadol
Panadol
a laxative
a fixative
just
give me some peace.

Give me a new lease on life
a wife
a home
a new hip
(just thought that I'd slip that one in)

Oh Christ on the cross
how do I live with the loss
how does one start
when the heart has been shattered
and what does it matter?

Let me be drip fed on a bed
and out of my head
give me indemnity
against
whatever I've said or am likely to say
Give me
Today.

This government are digging
their own graves
the main drawback is
that they're using teaspoons.

I'd like to see them
permanently housed in
an out of town
mausoleum

and mausoleum
is an anagram of
aol museum

***.

At times it is hard to sail on
when the sirens sing songs to me
and the depths of the dark blue sea
call out to me.
In the fearing there is wonder
and I wonder
how come?
where was it written in the heat of the Sun that my Kingdom will come
in the fathomless deep?
Would I sleep my eternity in this, the fraternity of pirates and slaves
whatever happened to Jesus saves?

The sirens sing sweet things that bring me to endings
and the doldrums are here
pending a sharp wind and rescinding previous posts
I host one more party to start me on my way
to slip into and down through the beckoning spray
and when the waters close over and cover
will I then live to discover a meaning to all this
will the bliss that I have in mind be the bliss I will find
or will I disperse
in the teasing of tides that would ride out my bones across waves into more temperate zones.

The sirens fall silent and the night starts to sing
I bring up my collar and call to the Moon,
so soon
so soon and the sky goes to sleep
in the deep someone's calling
and I have to stop falling
I keep my mind still and in the stillness
I will
find my bearings and compass point
and that is the point
to read the map
to find a route
to sail one's ship
to not let go
to not let slip.

I should rip apart this sadness,madness
but what else would I be
could it be this is the one and only
long and lonely trip
we all must take?
before I break apart
I will start to stop again
pick up the pieces that lie in pain
and hoist the sails
put up the mast and hide from the rains
and in the distance in darkness
the sirens begin.

You can stare
I don't care
You can jeer
I don't hear.
I'm on the inside,
the track
where I ride out
the pitfalls and catcalls.
The **** crows and
he knows
what time means, and will be,
meanwhile
all that you do is
stare,
stare at me,
I don't care.

(20 minute poetry)

They tell me that no
news is good news,
my need is perhaps
greater than theirs.

I scan all the papers
read all the flyers
trying to ascertain
why everything
looks
the same.

My need is newsfeed to me
no news?
so where are my views?

who swept them away?

Of course we are slaves to a system
with many acolytes
I have kissed them
all

and now
I'm
expendable
an out of time
satellite
listed and waiting
to fall,

fall if I must,
but
It's so
flaming unjust
just when the
news hits the stand.

I open a tin
dive in
hit bottom and hold
then
come up for air
no news is good news and
there's no news down there.

Shifting gear into third
and heard that
somewhere
a story is breaking
It
makes a change
from my heart.

Subscribed to contradiction
and
torn apart by this condition,

there's a blue light flashing out there
and a wailing in the air
some circumstance has passed away
murdered by
the side lines of today.

but seeing miles of white stone crosses
brings me to a halt
in the cemetery of circuses
they laugh,
no one at fault.

I move along suspiciously
uncertain of the way
and
conspicuous by their absence
are the lights to light my way.

Dysfunction
is at the juncture of a
let's make do and mend.

Send me sirens
let us sing
send me harpies
on the wing
bring your demons
buy and sell,
free entry
to
this living hell,
drop your coins
and watch them spin
slowly in
the wishing well.

well
if it's happiness you're looking for
there's plenty at the five and dime,
the store that outlived time.

Paper thin
tightly wound
spare some change
here's a pound

can of brew or cup of tea?
or another fix of fantasy?

I cannot see the end from here
too many obstacles
not enough beer.

but beer becomes the panacea
the cure from colds and who
do you think you are to disagree
that what I see isn't true
and is in fact a fact of life today?

some will fail and fall as
the cracks in the wall appear

one more beer or fix some fantasy

This dream makes dreams seem real
makes all things feel alright
'help me make it through the night'

and now that song's in my mind
I don't mind if you do.

Not if you
but can you
and do you
want to?

If you can but you don't
and you do but you won't
where does that leave me?

Not in ecstasy
but you text I see,
'see you later'

Well okay then
see you then
when
after ten?

I look on the mobile
She says,
'I'll be home in a short while'
so I sit and I wait
it's a quarter to eight and a long way to go.

After an hour or so
I got bored
(don't you know)
and I put off the lights and went home.

If I hold my second breath and
you raise me 'til I fold
and the hand of God
reached out to me
to paint old into my hair
and my eyes were seven
diamonds on two hearts then
could we share
a love that finds a way
through
the fleeting tremors
of our lives?

I thought that
anyone at all could be
the mistress
I desired, but
when the automatic
element of imagination
was hot wired
it was not so

I am a slave to my
testosterone,

****-erectus,
did being so
wreck my dreams?

A scent of pine
a forest favourite of mine
a martin on the bough

the moon draws near
the night is crisp and
clear
the river runs away

I follow those who followed those
who followed long ago and know
not the destination
I know only a direction in this
beauty of a nature and perfection
is a word that comes to mind.

there are scars that cut down men and trees.
I pay scant attention,

these dreams disturb the ley of lines as
if
a rictus
fixed us forever
in a frozen farewell smile,

(20 minute poetry)

The postprandial
an occasional
after dinner.

I walk with Steiner
a one time hard liner
his time's past.

and then we pass away an
hour or two
over a game of chess
the way
that old men do

the wireless set
lights up with
a music show
but the tube needs
replacing  

a bit like us.
H