Snow and Jalapeno
hit them hard but
take it slow,
them things kills you
don't you know?

and Grammarly puts up a flag
makes it **** instead of kills
but
if I've been killed a thousand times
that's a lot of kills,
init Grammarly?

I rolled with the punches
****** up lunch through
fat lips
and
skipped down to the river
to
strip off and swim

the only bully here
is the weir
and I steer well clear
of that.

On a summer day like this
where a thought can
kiss me awake
I
take a break from routine
and hop back to the dream

we
all need the time machine
to remind us of why
to look back and recall,

and now in my Fall
before the curtain comes
down
as the crowd
calls encore
I use the time machine
more
and the more that I
use it
the more I confuse it
with
reality.

It's only me
on the shore
by the sea.

It's
only me counting grains
of sand
that trickle from a liver spot
land
from an outstretched
hand.


What becomes plain to me
is the more that I look
the less
I can see

it could be hereditary.

at least it's quiet here
there is
only the sound
of water
flying over the weir
and
the valves in my heart
squishing
wishing
tragedy hadn't waged a
war on me,
the city picking
fights with me
but not today,

today I lay and
let ghosts rest.

There was a shell upon the shore
a shell I had not seen before,
it exploded.

I should have seen that coming, but I was past the point where redemption has a point to prove and now there is a groove upon the shore, one which wasn't there before.

A bit of fancy, flightless, free, a kiwi is another thing which I believe that I once saw, somewhere upon a distant shore, but I can't be sure, the alcohol said pure, distilled by monks who lived on seven hills, which may be Rome, but anyways it was far from where I call my home, another fancy, I declare is, I'm not sure if I was ever there upon the shore, playing war with shells I thought but never saw.

Imagining I'm wandering and wandering and squandering my day in search of images to fill me full of stars just like the milky way and I thought that was a bar of chocolate.

Sunken
submerged in the bed
and then I woke
scraped my eyes from
the back of my head
and thought,
no!
thought isn't the right word because
before coffee there is no thought
there is just an automatic response

it's the system in play and even though
Saturday looks fresh and fun and
full of a Sun we don't see too often
I need coffee.

Prayers travel light in
the vacuum of space and
some wandering God
picks them up,
spits them back in your face.

In the cynical zone
a miracle goes home
with a thorn in its side.

Send me Wells Fargo
I'm off
to Key Largo to call upon
Bogart and
blow kisses at
Bacall
after all it's
what
dreamers do.

The revolution is a part of the Matrix
and we've been fixated with the idea
that it's real, but it's a piece of the dream,
something we need, something that's fed
down the battery lead,

We don't bleed anymore,
we only exude.

And,
because I like and,
we're fused into the mains.

Of course,
this is a nightmare and
somewhere wherever we are,
we are unaware of that fact.

They use us like pipe cleaners
discarding the daydreamers,
they want us
full time and we have no time
to register anything
other than
the web we are in.

Crushed
pushed from pillar to post in a carnival of microbes that play host to a germ of an idea and I'm back here on the underground wondering if the trip's worth a couple of pounds at all.

Call me a cynic it's better than calling me a taxi.

Smelly in here
legs feel like jelly in here
but I'm lucky
a seat becomes vacant and
I plant myself on it,
who knows
perhaps I'll grow bigger.

Programmed to slam head on
into walls, to crash against the
barriers, why give me eyes and
leave me in the dark?

Wednesday and some say
hurray,
but it's always Wednesday
somewhere
and it won't go away.

I think of today as a portal or
porthole, a way out to get in,
an exit or entry of which there
are plenty about
you
just haven't found them
yet.

Thus feeling this way
to blame any day
in particular Wednesday
is a waste of my time.

two more stops
removing the chocks
and
rolling down the runway
I don't care if it's
Wednesday
or not.

She's playing piano on the
car keys
and
the lights have turned green.

Seen anything you're looking for
I said,
I was looking for
the rear door and
the exit.

The man in the Bowler hat
had been there and done most
of that and he was
unimpressed.

I guessed as much as she pushed the pedal to the floor and I know because I've been here before.

Thelma and Louise couldn't squeeze a lemon and find a drop of juice,
so what's the use?

There are always the ghost stations that play on in your mind
the ale house of drunkards,
the channels you find when you look at the ghosts in your mind.

the lying deceivers
the truth
the believers
the inlet and outlet
things to remember and
more to forget
nothing is harsher and
nothing as kind
when you switch on the
stations that play
in your mind,

ghosts to remind us we mustn't forget.

The time bomb is ticking
take your stock and
I'm
sticking
on twenty one.

Italy
is not a walk in the park,
it's a country in Europe
my hope is in the knowing
that after ninety minutes
they'll be going
back home empty handed

( changed that from empty headed because I didn't want to upset my many Italian friends )

Finally.

I heard that Jesus is at the bottom of a glass and you see him just before you hit the floor, you won't remember when you wake, or not until you take another drink, self-fulfilling with the spirit in you does you no good at all.

He thinks that he's Jamie,
but
Oliver's at the door
asking as he usually does
for more and more
and again you hit the floor

At this time of the evening
I begin to unwind,
clear my mind
and relax my eyes
self hypnosis is key
to becoming the best
I can be,

not worked yet
but
it's early days.

I said,
'I love you'.
and there it was
declaring all and all because
I love her,
and there you have it in a nutshell.
Well,
will you answer me?

..and now
which is almost then,
but when wasn't it?

I'll be asleep
soon
knowing that
the Moon and I are old friends.

My credit took it hard and turned into a debit card,I never read the small print and now I am decidedly skint.
Cash will dash, if you don't keep it on a lead,or on a reign and money after all, is just the same as any other thing in life,it will knife you in the back or hack into a circumstance and given half of half a chance will run away and leave, like it left me today.

I could be brave and save but interest rates are very low and I don't know if a rainy day will ever come and sometimes money's just for fun,
I shall spend,send my money,bend it round a bar or two and in lieu of any saving grace I shall turn the Queens face on my notes,burn my bridges,sink my boats and have a riot of a time,

when I've bought a five minute slot in the bankruptcy court you can come and see what money did for me,
but until then,another ten will go on *****,a fortune on a midnight cruise and twenty quid will buy me high,
did I tell you,money's sly and slips away when least expected,I should have, or did you suspect that's why this man is wrecked and broke.

Money spoke and money speaks and money leaks away and no money means you have no say,
spending,saving,blowing it and raving we all need that touch of having not enough or as much as we need,
money feeds on us as we feed on it and slowly but surely a bit at a time,because a bit ain't a dime when a dollar only buys you a small tin of tuna, and the old lady would sooner thread needles than sew,
we'll all go quite insane.

If you looked like I feel
you'd be begging to kneel
and asking
for someone's
forgiveness
unless
you don't believe in
the power of a prayer.

When the frown lines become
the down times
and no smiles are produced.
you might as well give up and
go home.

Sometimes it's quite different
I dress up like a Gent and
slap on some eau de cologne

I feel good then
like a man amongst men
fooling only myself in
the process.

I find that I find I can't find what I'm looking for,
it happened before when I've looked high and low,
and now
I find that I find even less than I found when nothing was lost.

I am lost
I admit it,
up **** creek
without a map,
krap,
(pun intended)

I'll find a way to find the way to find my way out.

I cannot be sure anymore of
what comes after what
went on before,
but I know
life will flow on long after I'm gone to
my ancestral home,
long after the words that I wrote have
been thrown out as waste
but
whatever comes after the love,life and laughter
I'm sure I will still
taste your lips upon mine.

Remembering,
I miss,
looking in your eyes
your touch
your kiss
and I remember all of this
as time leads you away.

Memories, like wool,
we knit them in and pull
the threads apart,
I hear the needles click,
remembering,
I lick my lips,
slip a stitch,
I'll drop a line, things,
I'm sure will work
out fine.

Remembering is part of this
is part of me
part of our kiss
do you remember anything
at all?

I thought I was lost
but
that was not so
I opened my eyes and
found where I was
ergo
I was not lost.

In thinking too deep
I wade into a sleep
to ripple in dreams
ever outward.

Back on the Central
this week's
been temperamental
here and there or
up in the air
but
at least I'm not lost.

The girl sat beside me wired up
to the wifi which by
the way
doesn't work between stops

and he's in..
..My God!
it's a Crombie,
must be a zombie
or a throwback.

09:20 and still plenty of
rush left to fill up the hour.

I'm not late but my eyes are closed
so I'll excuse your mistake in thinking
I am.

This is a different class of passenger
suits and shirts with ties that match
and I watch spellbound
magic on the underground.

The driver sounds Eton as he speaks over the Tannoy
plummy is what I would say.

Thursday
the rot's set in
waiting for tomorrow
and the weekend to begin.

and to go on
or to call it a day?

Always the way is the way that I go when I'm going the way that I want.

But never quite certain if the Central's  a curtain and somebody's hiding behind it.

I never knew what it was that I wanted, but now I do,
to queue, to queue, to stand in a queue waiting quietly for you and as the queue snakes it breaks and reforms and takes the form of a snake and the best bit is where the start of it disappears into the end.
As I bend and writhe the snake comes alive spitting but missing hissing and hitting the mark, in the dark you can't see who's in the queue, but you hear them,
old men, young men, men when  the ale house turns out and lots of females too join the queue, I can sense them among the old and the young men, their perfume leaves little room for doubt.
And who knows where the queue goes, but we queue anyway, one day we'll queue our life away and
I'll be in the queue for that.

Sometimes I walk with a lantern to light up the darkness within,
sometimes.

But too often am I troubled, too often am I torn,
the boy inside me sits and sees me
chewing on an ear of corn
and from the day that I was born
thoughts have followed me, made hollows in
my bones and built nests of tangles in my hair and
some would say they're homes for wayward thoughts
and again I lose myself.

The islands have gone, short-sighted planning from a myopic
maladministration and
these islands were my thought galleries where I could wander through the wasting weeds,
everyone needs a sanctuary eventually.

sometimes I light a lantern

Is it that we choose to lose ourselves in reverie,
devilry, comedy, the patriarchy of society
or do we not have a choice?

I hear those ladies that grumble mumbling into their handkerchiefs
and yet those same handkerchiefs in a bygone age were given as a symbol of marital fidelity.

Men moan too, not very often, though usually at the slightest things.
I keep quiet, it's safer.

Something knocking
one time dead,
something knocking
in my head.

My eyes open wide and that
something slides inside
and the knock, knock,
knocking fades away and then
it dies.

Baby cries deep in the crib
Mother cradles one more nib
and Father writes of sights
he's seen.

King of parlours, Queen of hearts,
no matter who
the knocking starts,
knock, knock, knocking,
baby rocking,
eyes tight shut
but
the knocking
waits.

She was cool
so I sipped her
like a delicate
rosé

Kiss me Hardy and let's be late for the party,
this one system state can wait.

More than Chinese whispers, he whispers,
and 'why these dustbins?'
turns into Siamese twins!
aha
and he grins with a knowing grin
knowing that Victory is more than a ship
but,
yes it's another but, but that's okay,
a but is my way of saying
what comes next?

and if nothing comes to mind
never mind
they're going to stone you anyway.

'They'll have your guts for garters'
and that is just for starters
they will then take your fears
marinade them for fifty years
and serve to you
out of the blue
your pension plan.

who's the Man?
well
not me.

I pick a string or two
on the bluegrass
banjo
practise rolls
several chords
and all the time
they're waiting with
sharpened swords
to cut me down,

who's the Man about town?
well
not me,
I can't even afford some company
I'm a stay at home,

a couple of riffs
a strum or so
me and the banjo
a bit like
me and the wife
a bit like
could this really be life?
I have to sit and ponder
on this.

wake up doped up
slept too long.

my body's the apothecary
needs to move it on
I rise
a prima gone to seed
needs weeding?
I need none.


Forty minutes in and
I think
that I could win the day
if where I'm going
goes the way
I'm going.

I'm going
going
slightly gone
but first
some clotted cream
and I might have one
more scone.

If I have tea for breakfast
and breakfast for my tea
why would it bother you
it doesn't bother me.

The census is a gun
and every  ten years for a bit of fun
someone
pulls the trigger.

The body count gets bigger all the time because once a decade's far from fine,we all know that we want a little more
but just who is keeping tabs on us and what's the  score?

If you're more than willing to fill in and tick the boxes one by one
we'll carry on the same and be just a figure getting bigger
reviewed by counters
mounted in the book
and taken down
looked and read
underlining, numbered in red ink and thumbed,fed into ,computerised until algorithms
drip from and dot the eyes with postscripts slipped upon the page which mention dates of birth and gender
this is the age of the want to know
and we're being counted
like sheep we go through turnstiles,smiling,clicking,sickening in the need to feed the ever growing need for information,technology will be the death of me and in a census yet to come
or when my numbers up
I will be done
shot full of holes the census gun is indiscriminate but there's no fun or sense in that,they'll tamper with the workings,lay them flat and reassemble parts until we're part of some vast assembly
in a Wembley stadium,the gun's the game
we'll be numbered until the final whistle blows and someone goes to tally up the score
and in the counting they'll count more and more
as if in some final lunacy
the lunatic accountants see there's numbers coming out of their ears
and say,
'thank God it's only once every ten years'

Data will as data does and do
and who would count the countless where the few are many and any mistake means you have to start again.
Censuses
another pain and millions more
and someone will come knocking on your door to give you forms and envelopes
all hope's lost
so be counted and don't count the cost
let the ones who get paid for this
kiss their sanity
goodbye.

..and wake..trying to catch the zzz's before they vanish but they've gone, the radio's next to useless but at least the thing's switched on and the radiator's cracklin' cackling;like a..which wouldn't normally worry me until old sorry me's caught in the loop of eyelid droop repeat and...wake.

my day, in a nutshell, put so well
5 am again
rain again
moving on,
now
switched on
unlike the radio
which isn't
anymore.

Bach or back to where it all begins
"Who dares wins"
isn't that what they say?

92046,
who picks these carriage numbers?

Saturday nights are for music and dance
and who knows, maybe a spot of romance

Mozart or most art is a personal journey
I travel light.

Some guy's just asked,
if this tube goes to Glasgow
I said,
I didn't know but that anything was possible.


Guess I'm starting to tire
and the wiring is melting,

What flames they were and how they fought when under a bright moon down by the river we sought to quench our thirsts.

Our youth wandered off while we squandered or squabbled our way through that time and like the last time and the time before
we swore undyingly to die lovingly in each other's embrace,

but we couldn't face that and so we parted.

Don't let them
electrolocution you
speak as you do
and spell as you like

it doesn't matter
no one hears you
or reads it
anyway.

Friday,
his or her day
yours or my day
but Friday?

I'm not frying today
are you?
so
what wit decided to call
it Friday?

It's a workday
let's call today
workday
and any day that doesn't
begin with the letter S
can kiss my ***.

He acts like he isn't worth saving
she watches
his antics,
it's just misbehaving.

To care for
be there for
to share and
still want more.

He acts like there is no tomorrow
she watches and saves every scene
and in cinemascope they abandon all hope
as together they fall into
the dream.

Six years into recovery
waiting for someone to
discover me
She
pulls the bed covers over me
and whispers goodnight in my ear.

So it's another year of discovery
in the scrap yard that's where
they'll recover me
in the meantime
She keeps right on loving me
the way
I keep on
loving her.

You have to remember
that some members of a team
have star status,
they're
not like us
they don't lose out,
we
are the fractured
supposedly inured
to loss and pain.

It's the same over and
once more and
what's more there's
no relief.

It is my belief that everyone
should be treated like they're
the only one.

But we churn out the turn out who
turn out and in turn we never learn
so
who's cheating who in the
who's what and if you don't
understand it
you've
not been
listening.

And that's nothing new
you
never do
until the fat hits the pan
oh yes
then you're the man
the big five zero
the come and see me and I'll
be your hero

and that's a big if
if not a bigger ask.

I don't want to go through or out of back into
I just want to stay still.

But there's always the nagging fishwife thought that you ought to show willing
almost as if I should die by accepting the shilling, the King and his recompense, but I wasn't willing to do that so I go in and back through and out of and did you see the Stars last night?

I was alone at the end of it for a little bit
I watched the stars shine
bright
like a starling's eyes.

And the woodpecker brain keeps on hammering again
I don't
but I do and do you
go through it
too?

Alarms on cars not as bright as the stars
I expected much more than this from
the God given kiss of creation,
did I get what I paid for?
has the fire gone out yet?
do I have to get up now and go?

Three nitres, two screams and my toluene dreams  are dynamiting the start, in the heart of the heat
the architecture beats me and as I can't see her she meets me head on,then she's gone
and the buildings all crumble as the tri-nitro rumbles and I stumble back into the night.
Tomorrow's alright but it won't fix today and today flakes away in my hands,the hands that once held her, now hold only fresh air and there's nothing where she used to be,but me and corrosive,boom bang explosive with a fuse to abuse and there's nothing to choose but the easy way out.

You won't laugh as the night falls
when all blood in your cells freeze
and the nine degrees of Dante
seem so real,
how do you feel about it now,
hot and bothered
are you bothered?
I'm not bothered because
I'm down to the sixth and only
three more to go.

been there and done it
lost it and won it
but
there's no fun in it
anymore.