10 million cases and all them in the wrong airport
sort of makes holidays a bust,
but maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick
maybe this is about the sick cases
faces hidden behind a mask,

I'll ask Google.

yep
it's due to Corona and not down to Stansted or Orly,

from Banstead to Chorley
points North and South,
a good idea is to cover
your mouth,

don't be one of those cases
in an ambulance
or an airport,
stay safe, out of reach,

unless you're one of those tossers
who toss trash on the beach
then you're doomed.

They're still smoking crack and thinking Woodstock's come back but it's the music from their pipes that they hear.

did you listen to Hendrix?
no
but I drank lots
took microdots
tripped out.

and then there's the letdown
you
find you're hustling across town
and the festival's far, far away.

Back in the barn
and spinning a yarn
but before I self harm
someone closes the door,

everyone wants to get out of it
and we'll all go because of it
isn't
this what we're waiting for?

I've done it before
inside the barn and
flush with the floor,
it's no great shakes
everything breaks with
the dawn
and
then we are born.

How splendid we've become and what a race it was, although I think that we will find, when the day is done ,that we never even ran, we walked.
We talked the race, got off our face on whiskey and on *****, ** hum,
we burnt the sun out long before the light had faded, shaded eyes and hooded face,
no, we never ran, we walked the race.

You eat quickly
pick me
I am delicious

an unhealthy obsession
give it up at confession
you'll be saved
and
stuck in an album
for others to pick from.

Transparency is only as transparent
as we want it to be,
but can you see through me if your
eyes are veiled?

Access to info'?
the answer is
no, not available in paperback.

Sinking in subtext
where the
*** and drugs drug me
and you hug me which makes the
nightmares disappear,

what year are we in?
what did I miss?

Nothing matters
we're being irradiated
sifted, sorted,
graded
outsourced.

Somewhere in the ruins of a
desperation
a salvation army hostel rises
giving breakfast if not hope
to the sinner.

The reset
like Dorset
but preset,
press play and go.

Saturday night
reigns,
sometimes it rains,
though
it never stays long
just long enough to
wet your whistle and
whet your appetite

Sunday
contrite
full of apology
a promise never to be
naughty again.

It's one eighty on the speedo,
I can almost touch Toledo
and the train is melting steel.
I feel
alive.

It's been a long time
Albert,
since we sat in the
Yorkshire House,
chatting and
having a sherbet
aye
Forty seven years
if memory serves
which is more than the
barmaid did
when she found out
I was sixteen.

That was sweet beer
but
I'd swop an ocean of it
if you could be here.

hugz.

Did I tell you how I prayed
on knees before the morning came
and listened to by bells that rang in mighty decibels
and fell to crush and stay my uttered syllables.

Where in the singing of the psalms did blood appear to flow from palms
and calm this torture
played out as a platform game on X box three or was it me
who could not grasp the significance
of an abeyance I would deign make
what if fakery was the order of the day and would then the bells ring out to say in sixteen chimes or as many times as I could bear
Would the lines that led to crucifixion day be written any other way?
Did those legionnaires despair
or on the darkened unlit stairs did they rejoice at choices made?

And we fade as thus we shine and in another time we'll do it,did it been there and bit by bit we bid this happening to reoccur
so we the unfit,unloved,unwashed,unholy,outcast ones can join in and share
the melancholy felt by those the ones who knelt before the cross
in the loss of things
or in the losing and the grief it brings another lonely bell rings out
with heartfelt pleas and once again I'm on my knees
and giving thanks for these the moments when the light has flashed
and bells have crashed to smother me with talk of other times
the chimes
the chimes
and would there ever be the time to hear them all before the call was sent
Did I not rend the air with blasphemy and would he see the truth behind the curses that I spat into the gutters
when in utter abject poverty
blinded by those who could only see
the misery and not the man?
I wonder if that was in his plan to make the beggars saints and vice versa
or could it have ever been the plan to make a man who felt so bad
that man who knelt would go quite mad
and wrap into a bundle tight
to trundle off with head down in the night.

I kneel before the altar
altered irrevocably
I don't need to see what others see
I now see me in my many faults
for I have walked and talked deep within the vaults of introspection
and selected only those the pieces suitable for my inspections of my soul
and now the hole there was is filled
and stilled the raging mind
and stilled the storm and tempest
instilling what is best and disregarding all the rest
I go to take my rest
and am at peace.

A coat hung carefully on the rack,
an empty space in space and
he's not coming back, no
baccy smells to come and go
no one to ask, because he'd always know
the answer to the question in my mind.
A long ways away, leastways as I recall
we were young and he stood tall and now
he sleeps forever free
no more the baccy smells reminding me
of dad, but he stays within my memory,
a constant
ever present
as he always was.

(20 minute poetry)

I'm in league with the Devil
and the Devil takes the lead.

I don't think I need him
I could go it alone.

Rotten to the bone they say,
I would be
If the devil had his way,
but I'm looking to exit this
pie eyed relationship, can
someone show me
the way home.

I am tired
half wired to the mains
and I'm weary of this fighting
so I punch in the key code to let
some light enter in
to a peaceful state
outside the, or
at any rate near to
the pearly gate.

And it's always the holy book
as if I ever gave a ****,
but
the older I get I realise
there is more to this
yet
I abstain.

You wanna know where the dark clouds flow in their fluency,
look at me and
you'll see.

Nothing to see here, nothing for sale, nothing available not even jail and I'm out on a 10 dollar bail, the crime being small, the fact is I ****** up and took nothing at all.

dead metal, but
settle down
it's only me
rusting away
out on the scrap heap
counting the black sheep
no bother at all.

..or maybe not,
I've still got a little time to make some time to get to work on time and everything will then be fine,
just time enough to get my stuff together, but looking at the weather vane
I see it's pointing to Insane
or maybe not.

I'll have a spot of tea and consider what time means to me and if it means that much
I'll get in touch with my inner child, the wilder one, the one that everyone had thought was gone, the weather vane says five past two, I knew it was insane,
or maybe not.

As long as you go on you go on
until
you and your slipstream become one
and the night turns into a Mardi Gras.

These painted masks, he asks,
are they for sale?

pale faces, stale places
there is no mask for the wicked.

This ability to remember and recall instantly the conversations between you and I frightens me,
some things are best left to the pages of history, dusty and dark and somewhat of a mystery, but sadly it doesn't work that way for me.
It's a curse of many a day and this constant replay although replayed through the net curtains of my mind gives me no rest.

The test of time marks time itself, no invigilators here to wipe away the hours when time cries a tear, no minutes to weep or fancy seconds to sweep me away.

I put my hands up to the great one above,
enough,
I surrender, but that was also said on the 23rd December 1985.

I survive in a handbook with a preface for a quick look and I'm stuck in the binder,
a ringtone reminder that I'm not quite as kosher as I should be and that frightens me too.

(20 minute poetry)

Part of the underground underground
do not confuse this with the overland overground it's not quite the same,

fir trees don't grow down here in the dark,
the carriages are light enough
packed tight enough
trolleys and cases right enough
but it's different up top
there's a buzz
usually from the saw mills at three mills and not forgetting the rolling hills which are in my opinion much better than rolling stock,
better than being cooped up in a cattle truck although to be fair
cattle get more air to breathe
can you believe that?

In just sitting here and writing I see from the corner of my weak eye a young woman biting her nails
I guess if all else fails and you're a vampire,
higher, I want to say
but I don't and pay attention to the writing again.
another thing that's not quite the same

I realise that everything's copied even imagination
and that brings me into the new Stratford station
home again
home again
we all want a home again
a regular place
a loving face
to welcome us in.

Nothing works here anymore,
not me,the lamp bulbs and the door is bust.
I must do things to put them right but
there is no light,
just hoping that the floor is there,and
one more but,
no floor,
there's just a space that's filled with air,
(at least that works,I think)

Everything seems to disappear in here,
the ceiling's falling in.
I thought it was but now because of the
impermanence,
even of what I'm feeling,
the ceiling's gone and disappeared.

If I'm a ship
my keel's not fitted right
I'm going round the whirlpool
and vanishing into a night
of permanence.
In the impermanence,the permanence
raises a glass to me and
I drink deeply
of the sea.

Little robin redbreast
sings best before the dawn,
sings to me a song of joy
I'm glad that he was born.

The iron bedstead creaked and the buckets underneath the leaks up in the ceiling gave us a feeling, of being on a movie set,
the flicker of light from the candle,waxed magnificent across the film of grime,a window to another time,a line up in the make up shed,the freshly made up bed,everybody said,
'down in the Hacienda where the cockroaches defend ya, against the desert rats,where nocturnal bats then eat the desert rats,you'll feel at home,

No coffee bar,no public phone,no concierge,you're all alone and feeling tender and that is life down in the Hacienda.

We took a walk through tumbleweeds and in this town that leads us to despair,we found we did not care,we two, were already there,at the end,where cockroaches could not defend against the things that lived within,the sin that kept us pinned against the ropes,the hope we had against all hopes that somehow we'd escape,be free,could settle in obscurity.

This Hacienda is the place where you must meet your demons face to face,unearth the things you'd rather not,
down in the Hacienda is where we learnt a lot,stopped the rot,oiled the bed,noted what was said,
but it's hardly worth it going to, the Hacienda just to view,you have to go and do,to see and be the changes that are made,
and as the Hacienda fades into another scene and plays into another screen,I lean across to her to share a kiss.

Not a light
nor a mouse that
skittered 'cross the floor.
it was a silent boot-black
damp wet night and
the Moon,
under an umbrella of stars
shone dark.

On the horizon, a
day hesitates to begin,
even as the night sheds its skin
and the thin wakenings of
bird calls welcome this morning
in, not a light as if
there had never been
anything.

God fearing
dog eared and
hard bitten,
used up and chewed.

I allude of course to myself,

but God fearing?
good God above
one does not fear love

I expect this was explained
by theologians at the
seminary
to which I wasn't invited

imagine how delighted
that
I would have been to
have sat in and maybe
set the scene
for
further discussion

perhaps they think
I'm a Russian
or worse
an atheist.

We may as well do it,
give them a treat,
throw them a bone
let them eat
something sweet.

I used to think they'd all gone
became extinct
after the meteorite bomb
how wrong was I?

everywhere we look
there's  diplodocus
eyeing us,

(is the plural of diplodocus, diplodocii?)
if not, why?

Pterodactyls **** on window sills
worse than pigeons ever were
and ain't it the truth that I'm scared of the
sabre tooth
(or should that be sabre teeth?)
tiger.

feed them popcorn anyway
until the day has worn away
and say your prayers.

(20 minute poetry)

Laid down low and there's nowhere to go, but the nowhere you've been many times and so you rock to and fro hoping the pain will leave,
it does.

You know it does,
all things do
eventually.

In the here and now still wondering how you'll make it through when the faith inside deserted you,
You knew that would do too.

And so the pain becomes a friend, you carry on
is there no end to this?
Mother used to kiss us well,
now I'm too old for that.

I have fallen flat
rolled out and thinned,
pinned my eyes on many things.
Fruition is a seasonal affair and I'm not
nearly ripe enough to gorge
on any fancy stuff.

I'll get up soon
older,
none the wiser
eyes still pinned on distant dreams,
thinned and ragged around the seams.
I carry on and
nowhere in particular
tickles me like it used to do,
but that's okay
the pain can stay
as long as I keep moving
Into
through
each and every day.

When I feel like I'm cracking and thinking of packing it in,when suicide is no more than a sin and the only thing I'm likely to win at,and the rat that I am becomes less of a man the more that I think,I sink into depression, my expression shows nothing and nothing can help me.
I see dark brooding clouds overhead,with my head in the ground,I can scream not a sound will be heard by the herds of humanity,insanity it may be,nobody sees me and so,down I go, to the rapture of the rhapsody show,where the mad moans of inmates grate on my nerves,which all serves to send me more herds of humanity,
and they trample me down even more,
when the train comes I crack and the track looks inviting,fighting is pointless,the darkness is endless,and
silence.
white noise for bad boys, and the steel lines chime as they mark out my passing,mass said at the graveyard for the man who tried so hard to put on a smile,missed by a mile though and sometimes that's the way that things go.

Light headed and
headed to bed
switching off
in the dark I'll be led
to those magical sites
of
Arabian nights
light headed and
headed to bed.

With barely a curse
the workday has gone
and I've gone through
much worse than this.

At home now,
a kiss from the lady
who makes me
so cheery
no matter how weary
I feel.

Now
showered and spruce
think I'm
looking like Bruce Lee,
but then I see in the mirror
that I'm not,

still cheery though.

Things you're not comfortable with, but you live with and never write about,
things that fester which you should shout about, should let them out, but we keep them internal, note them down in the journal which is hidden away,
things we keep for the rainy days to add to the gloom.

My eyes are accustomed to the sepia edgings of my room in this building where I'm lodging,
like dogs in the manger, we tenants, scratch at the lottery tickets hoping for the instant win and yet haven't got a penny or a *** to **** in.

Things will get something and something is better than nothing and yet I've  got everything,
but thinking of what I don't need is another need is it not?

Blue glass cat
black glass fur
grey steel claws
eyes everywhere.

Pets are what we make them
if we treat them right
kittens in the daytime
or monsters of the night.

My pet's a glass one
can't go wrong
with a glass one
no mess to clean
no mean looks
no glass cat crap
**** on my books.


I love my
blue glass cat,
I watch her glare
because
blue glass cat can't
go anywhere.

If you say you won't stray,
you must stand by your word,

Cats don't talk
nor do they stand by their word
he purred,
absurd?
ask Louis if you disbelieve me,

who's he?

Wain,
as mad as a crab apple and vain,
knew his cats like the back of his hand
and
knew they played a hand or two
of whist or poker.

only spending the time of which
I have a small amount.

(H. G. Wells said of him, "He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.")
(Wikipedia)

(20 minute poetry)

She sits on the corner seat putting her make up on,
I wonder who she's going to meet.

Next seat but one a Jamaican with headphones on,
dreads hanging down past his waist.

Then a newspaper girl with a half tin of beer,
hoping that no one can see her.

A young kid
off to get rid of his energy not to mention his pocket money,
funny and not.

Two Asian men talking ******* about Khan,
but I don't understand them, them being Asian gentlemen which doesn't surprise me at all.

A group holding hockey sticks, dangerous objects
no one objects to them, well maybe the Asian gentlemen, but I wouldn't know about that.

And a guy in a football kit who looks like he had a bit
too much to drink
yesterday.

The lady with the black eyes is eying me
maybe she wonders what I'm writing,
I don't think I'll tell her
just in case her old fella
clobbers me as well.

This is the zoo track
going and coming back
feeding times by prior
arrangement.

How strange to feel estranged
when change is upon me.

I head off the crowds at the pass,
the hockey sticks
alas
take the lead.

We'll kiss and cuddle and laugh
about it
about the way things don't
always fit right
and you'll say,
it's alright
and
I'll say,
it's alright
and we might
kiss and cuddle some more.

When it's all over and done with
we live with it
give with it
sway in the glow of it
laugh a bit
cuddle up and kiss a bit
and
fall asleep with it
deep in our hearts.

It was midnight and then it was gone
and Sunday looked in on the baptist
called John.

Come Salome and show me the veils
piece together for me a map of the
males you have danced for.

Incantations tell of the spells
she had cast.

I passed her by
a sad old has been
queen of the dance floor.

Is it true I ask of you
and you say
'it says so
in the good book',
but
I read a good book
once, a work of fiction,
an authors fantasy
and to me
the answer had
proved some point
at some point unknown.

And now I'm under the cross
at a loss as to how to behave
I can't save myself
perhaps Jesus can
although
It'd be a bleedin'' miracle
even though
he's good at doing those.

It's all a camera trap
krap

slap me sideways and call me Bill,
I've had enough, more than my fill.

I wait to see what tomorrow brings
Easter eggs?
good things,

feeling sorry for myself
and
this'll not do
after all
it's only the 'flu

caught in the act
when all that I need
is an interval.

My eyes looked
stained
like two saucers, or
Art Deco coasters,
I knew she knew that.

Back at the flat I
made coffee,
she drank slow.

I knew that she'd know
I was watching her drink.

Sat down to a meal,
too much dressing
on the salad
I think,
she knew that and
said nothing.

These eyes like saucers stained, strained to see more in the fading light,
night always comes when I least expect it,
as she flew away I knew that she knew that too.

(It's Tuesday underground, where for every minute that lives sixty seconds have to die,
I remember every one and like the ones that come after them,
I respect them all)

It's raining here, but my mind is
crystal clear and I am sharp,
looking glass smart,
I see, record, remember.

1, 270,564 neurons fire simultaneously
each one a rocket ship that arcs through me
and into my memory.

I resound with the sound of the echoes all around the
falling of the drops and as it starts it just as suddenly stops.

In my eyes which become cameras catching images, making more memories are the galaxies and behind each retina a patina put there by age.

It's raining and then it's not and the memory is what I've got for a Summer day, hot out on the clay, just a reminder that behind a curtain of dust and decay is where we all will lay one day.

Uncertainty is death for me and
ignorance gives no peace,
I release internal chemicals
firing on all particles
and sign my name in
the articles
of faith.

And if faith is all we are to be
shot by a random shooting star
we might as well retire
and let the neurons fire
away.

As each ball falls
I juggle less *****
in the end there'll
be none left at all.

Try to do right and
keep perspective,
my sight
is injured by the
onset of night.

And you lot harangue me,
you'd strip me
and hang me if
you had your way.

But today I'm the juggler,
the word
I'm the smuggler
the pirate that sails in
with the goods.

Rudolph is stuck to the roof tiles
Father asleep on the chair
Santa is having some egg nog
Mother is doing her hair,
the children are all on the iPad
something that I never had,
all I ever got was Scalextric and
that used to drive me quite mad.

All the mince pies and the jelly
have been eaten
by those
who have eyes twice as big
as their belly
and I'm sitting here with a
tin of warm beer
watching the Queens speech
on the telly.

But it's Christmas a time for forgiving
and forgetting the giving and not getting,
so I'll sit here awhile with more beer and a smile
and wait 'til I see the
Sun setting.

The Leonardo that came through the letterbox
rocks and
it fits very neatly on the wall,
the woman who's in it ain't that much
but
fair's fair
I never paid ****** all.

The bedroom could do with a Renoir
it's not often you see one of those
but
all I can afford is a Hockney
of
some geezer with ****** great toes.

The kitchen's the place for my Lowry
which
cost me a King's ransom
and her dowry,

The party starts at ten to three.

On the second floor,room twenty two
two vicars who had come down from Crewe were wondering just what to wear, to the shindig going on down there.
They collided,both decided to put on crimson frilly frocks,this was not a 'do' for cassocks or for smocks.

Room forty four up on the forth,was Lucy Ann,a double barrelled name of course,a horsey type who came by invite to liven lively up the night.

In number ten slept teacup Ken,who had never once imbibed,the porter was slipped a twenty,but was bribed to keep his big mouth shut, as ties were cut and Ken found Zen in a brandy glass,
and discovered parties were a gas.

The police arrived to room fifty five and found Miss Sterling doing the jive around the severed head of Fred the cook,
poor Fred never had any kind luck.

There is no escape from the party at Lancaster Gate and those who come are those who'll die
but the party is so flamin' good I'll try to sneak in,got to take a peek in room number twenty seven,where it's said,that the lady there can show you several kinds of heaven before you meet your doom.
Got to get in, get a room,check in time expires at noon.
I shall no doubt expire,naked by the fire in
room, one o one.

Few would argue
that what we go through on
a day to day basis to earn a crust is just short of
scandalous and as near to ridiculous
as makes no difference.

I'm one if the few are few who'd say to you,
'stop whining and start grinning'
It's Thursday and no one can take that away
tomorrow the weekend begins,
more grins and wins
so what's there to lose?

In this tin can shuttle heading towards the end
where the West bends me around its little finger,
my eyes stop a while to linger on the lass with a face
that appears to have mixed into the glass of her Galaxy,
and I don't mean a chocolate bar,
far from it

hair tied back and hands go clickety, there's a knack to it,
the keyboard on the mobile keeps a track of it
I get lost in the rhythm.

change here?
if I could I'd change into a barfly and have a drink of beer,
sleepy man looks like he's had a few, more than a can or two,
I'm stone cold and sober.

Headphones barges past
as if this stop is the last he'll ever make

hey
Mister take your time
this is just the Central line
there's several more to choose
from.

Can you tell me what it's like to get old
Can you show me that page in the big book of age
Can you tell me what it's like to get old.

In your ten thousand nights can you show me the sights that you've seen
Did you love all the girls of the day?
If you did I'd be tempted to say
'these things are only told by the folks who have gotold and I'm hoping that one day, I may
age too'.

Will you tell me the secrets you know?
Whisper them sweet and real low.
If you can tell me what it's like to ride a penny farthing bike
I'll leave you alone and then off I will go.

But will you tell me what it's like to get old
When your dreams have all been borrowed or been sold
For a cold and lonely flat with
a pension and a hat, a one ring stove and a lazy cat
Did you look forward to having all of that?
Can you tell me what it's like to get old.

Down along the hallway and in through the doorway to escape into another day a million miles away, but be careful what you wish for,
a door's not always the door that you're looking for, some lead to dark passages where darker messages pass before your eyes, some lead to your demise,

but we're living in the here and fear's a game like jeopardy, go on, he says, question me, and I have no answer to that.

Everything I paint gloss white to stand as beacons to the night, they'll tell you, he's not right in the head and head for the hallway and doorway instead.

..and when you get old
you'll be told what we are
being told now,

they will wear us down
erode our values
until
we have nothing left to lose.

..and when they've torn down
the old town
you
won't even know where you came from.


This much-vaunted renaissance
is in fact
a psychiatric hospital
and you'll be the patients,

don't let them fool you
with promises of gold
one day
like me
you'll be old
and poor.