(20 minute poetry)

In the book of revelations where more is concealed than revealed
I find a piece of the jigsaw of his law,
what more could I need?

And what is hidden behind the dumb and the bond of the blind they won't say,
If I looked and I saw one more piece of the puzzle it would puzzle me,
If I see and don't see he won't mind and the mind is a convenient escape clause.

This secret in secret is held by the elders,
I never know who the older one's are and if I take another look at the book,
Revelations
or put another piece in the jigsaw
I saw only, wore only my heart cross stitched to my sleeve
I would leave and never return.

It wasn't all that long ago
and for all I know it might
be yet to come,
it could be an inherent memory
of laughter, love and fun,

I do hope so
and I did that not so long ago.

The casting of the spell
this tangled net in which I dwell
an ocean of my nights and days
and memory plays her tricks on me.

The sea combs gently through my hair
Sirens everywhere
singing in the stinging spray
and memory plays her tricks on me.

Tomorrow will open and take her part
in ten thousand secrets of my heart
and within there shall I dwell
among the cast in
one more spell.

The Duke and The Duchess
such as they are,
live in a mansion and own a
large car
while I, in a garret
turn over
another tarot
card.

The archangel is friendly
though a deadly enemy
of his arch rival
the devil.

I met him in the local market hall
with that fellow from Scrooge who
was still chained to the ball

it seems that time
doesn't heal all

I'll be tickety-boo
if I can wangle
my way in through
the pearlies

hey
if the Beverly Hillbillies could,
for me
it should be a piece of cake
and
palming Peter a fifty
will I hope
lift me
into that hallowed place.

Everyone wants some moolah
even the cherubs want in on
the act.

Tie me to timelines that tie me to you and tie me to rivers that flow,
tie me to dreams and I'll dream about you but tie me or else I must go.
This is the kiss and a reason,
this is the season to love,
this river that flows to the ocean that knows that this is the timeline to tie me to our time,
tie me before it all goes.

A little shut eye
shut eyes,
but
eyes are watching
me
constantly.

I dream in a constant camera state
commensurate with my own state
which is no known state.

this is fukree or so my
yardie friends tell me
and no state to be in.

I think it's Saturday
I always did.

Shall I think no more of the terminus,
of the ocean or of need,
of the rushing of the mountain stream,
of its depth or of its speed?

Of what then should I think?

never knock the sheep that joins a flock
when the wolves are all around.

Let me think of Jesus
who is said,
to walk among us
or of Daniel,
when in the lion's den,

and when the faith is strong
we think along the infinite,
the lines that may define us
thoughts that then would wine us
until we're drunk.

Potato milk?
the big thing for this year
or so they say,
well
I'll drink it when it's distilled
and comes from
Vladivostok or Warrington.

the sad thing about this fad is,
some will fall for it and
the coffee bars will reverberate with
calls for it.

think I'll sit this one out

Eight lines.

Scratch out your name for me
in a heart on the old oak tree.

The forest was cut down to make way for the bypass
bypassing the needs of the heart.

I wanted a new start and got six lanes of traffic
I wanted her name in my heart to remain

and so I crane my neck forward to get a better look at the past
she passes in front of my eyes.

Copy cats by which I mean not copying cats
but doing your own thing,
like
dancing down the landing
and singing in the hall.

Where is this leading me
if not to be?

reading in the pantry
sleeping on the floor
lighting fires in the wardrobe
but
I don't do that anymore.

a pox on xerox
canon too,
don't copy anyone
just be you.

Have you manned up and wised up and opened your eyes up to what's going on?

This ain't the 'Beverley Hillbillies'
there is no Jed
there's Boris and we're being led
by the nose into who knows what,

being savvy to the street
doesn't help when you meet
what's coming down the track
right atya,

I betya won't even see it coming because of the **** or the sun in your face,
place your bets now and let's all see how you do.

The psychic was in any event
surprised, she looked into
her crystal ball, cast
a line of Tarot cards into
a deep blue tablecloth,
took my palm, to
read
between the lines of this life and
the silver sixpence which was insurance
for the things that happen
unexpectedly,


She read between the leaves
which formed a  leaf or
page
of
history and detailed things that only she could see but things I knew and told me of a drought to come, a plague, a heartbreak and some fun and Julie Hargreaves in the sun but that was back in '61 or maybe '62, she knew but wouldn't say and sixpence doesn't go so far,

The time declined my offer of a further reading and the psychic never said if
I'd upset or if there was some road where it was leading me and if so would it all end there.

Spend a moment and one more and every moment is the core of a moment yet to come, each minute moment as foretold, bold as brass and the psychic, such a pretty lass though she didn't see that herself and
couldn't tell me or wouldn't say and afterwards the passing of my day in Colliers Wood, felt good, felt fine, even though time had declined to interpret what was shown written in the lines upon my palm or in the bottom of the cup of cards.

I'm sure that time had meant no malice nor no harm, it's just a case of wait and see and what ever was and what will be and psychics drinking cups of tea and me minus a silver sixpence and none the wiser for the loss.

Whales in a wall forever
I bet
they never saw that coming,
probably too busy basking
to ask in
Wikipedia
about climate change.

We either learn
or die
and however we try
to avoid it
when it's it
it's it.

Do not forget the outcast
for they'll outlast us all.

I'd still be in a rut,
but for the intervention.
and not by Jesus or his
acolytes,

but by normal folk
who know how
to make and take a joke
and tell you straight
just like the lady did
in 308
( a previous address )

In the beginning
as in the end
we need to find
ourselves
sometimes having
a friend.
helps,

Everything cedes to obscurity
eventually.

All the greats of history
will fade in the fading
of memory.

I'm wondering why
are we here just to live
only to die?

That's not quite true
because I know
that you and I
will never die

abstract?
possibly.

Time meets space
and your face is
unchanging,

I
persevere
and it is clear
that we are points on the compass
and true North becomes your
warm caress in the darkness.

A princess and her suitor

as long as shooting stars scoot by

we will never die.

The words I spoke were broken open on my cracked and bleeding lips
and any meaning they once held fell screaming to the floor.
In the furnace room where temperature hit bodies like a train and the noise was so magnificent,
I lean't on Iron works to steady legs that would not pull and pulled away from foaming steel
and the flaming mouth that swallowed bridges whole and spewed them out as ingots told its own tale.
Jobs or jails when all else fails and the furnace takes the rest,it took the best of me,messed me up and chewed my brain in temperatures up on that train.
In my dream I lean on iron works when nothing works and work at being far away.
In my dream I dream of yesterday and wish it was today or any day away from furnaces.
In the end the heat beats everyone,one day the heat will dissipate or we'll be gone
I wonder if the furnace will then linger on
or will that be gone as well.

Untied
the ribbons of a tired out Sun
and one more day to die
has just begun.
One more night has flown away and I see only this,
what follows are the pits and hollows that carve their way and slice through minutes of the day
and time will chew us,
cough and spew us out.
Another day begins but the dancing feet of hands that meet the hour line are designed to make us fret away.

A worn out,torn out,busted and it's borne out by what I see
it's just another day to me.

Blink and they're gone
proves to me
that another no-one
never existed.

It's the spin of a coin
or the turn of a card
either way
life is hard
get used to it.

They're
lying
cheating
conniving
ducking and diving
sticking the knives in,
life is hard.

I have a soft spot
a bit like Achilles,
it gives me the *******
just thinking about it.

I've also got an iron will
and will have until
I
am melted down,

this happens to everyone
in this crazy town,
life is hard
get used to it.

Well
if the dead did care
they'd be here and
not there
in the other place.

I face oblivion the longer I go on
and who but the I wonders why?

Raining in Mile End
and
pouring in Northolt.
this is Central line British
Summer time
broadcasting on
forty foot waves
at the Home Service.

It makes me think of
drowning when I'm down in
this underground clowning
about
as I usually am

but in thinking of you
and that which you do
I
always come out
on top.

There are places waiting for those,
who cut off their nose to spite their face,
a place for the heretic, the lunatic,
the sick individual with a dual personality,
a place that would be utter heaven for me.

A rest is as good as a cure?
not sure about that, but this
is a kiss to a kiss starved man and
I have a plan to get into
that place,
just
cut off the nose in
spite of my face.

Hanging around,
walking the same old ground and
doing the same as I did the day before last,
if the future holds fast
I might get there someday.
I must wave goodbye to what is the past
cast in my lot with whatever's in store for me and
move ahead with the times.when
if what is,is to be
then the store holds such promise for me.
We shall see with our own eyes whatever surprises,
whatever prizes there are,
if we can look that far ahead,
which is only tomorrow after a nights sleep
in bed.
It all comes back to a dusty old track where I've walked,
where I've talked hell with the demons and argued with angels,
and feet in the dust,
I've stood stubborn ,unyielding,shielding my
ignorance under a veneer of ineptitude.
Just me and the moon beams,
a gleam and a glint
in my eye.

Haggard and worn,
was your heart ripped out
or merely torn,
dude, did you wish that
you'd never been,
but were born?

Tanks on the streets
(they're coming)
food banks,
and who's running them?


We'll kneel and say a prayer
thankful to a God
that we're not quite
there,

and there is just around the corner
hiding in the shadows
because that's what monsters do
to scare you.

Coming up on the outside
because pride keeps us out
from the inside
more monsters that hide than
the monsters we know
and now we know.

Her lips strip lies bare and my starting point's there where her eyes cast a shadow 'cross me.

She takes me on trips and her lips show the way, but
her eyes are the beacons I see.

And a man only can what makes woman is man and the woman's all woman to me.

She keeps me in shape, puts the food on my plate and the words in my mouth so to speak
and she brings me the home where I'm never alone and my starting point's there where her eyes cast a shadow 'cross me.

Tubeless poetry presents
Friday on the central line.

The weather is changing,
should he?

but if cooler fools you
that's okay too.

Low key Loki laughs,
should he?

It's that day
the one that's halfway
through the..
..yesterday was nearly
but clearly not.

Equidistance
for instance
is the scale by which we can
see if we succeed or not.

Sorting out the wheat from the junk
in the woodpile,
do median lines make you smile?

But it's Wednesday
a day for lovers of odd things
and for odd things who love,
even
I'm odd at times,

median lines?
the comedian whines
and says
that's not funny.

One day I will become
an institution
or be in an institution,
the jury has yet to decide.

We can think what we like
and if we don't like what we think
we like something else,
what are we like?

The day begins and how it ends
depends on how it went,
but the way it goes
might be quite different.

She is the tinsel on the Christmas tree
the angel who looks down on me
the present that I want to see
each morning when I wake.

A tube full
they may be smarties
they're different colours
so I suspect they are.

Don't give me your sympathy
empathy
a cup of tea
don't give me anything.

Self sufficiency is what I could be
if you let me be
and to my own devices,
but you interfere,
well
*******
I don't want you here
I have no need
of what you offer.

And to think
that you could be
a remnant of
hospitality
don't you know
politeness
****** off
long ago,
we're in the dark and heading to
the middle ages
dog eared sages turning ink stained pages
well,
it must be ******* that they're reading
bleedin' know it all's know sod all at all.

Sympathy?
I need chaos and the death
of hierarchy
a level playing sealed into the
the fields of,
just because I'm saying this does
not mean that I think it's true
you
might consider that instead of being
such a ****
and
pigeonholing me.

and now I'm back to being me
accepting charity on streets
where Salvation Army bands have
yet to go,
know this,
it only took one kiss to start off what
became the biggest con game in the history
of the world.

Jesus loves you, but me?
well
he offers sympathy.

further expletives deleted by the angels
who've completed an NVQ in
mind control.

I smell decay in the rays of the sun
the light stinks
like some I can't mention.
I have become numb to the
death of this star.

Remember Supercar?
Troy Tempest?
I messed with him once a
long time ago
on a Saturday morning
matinee show.

The Bowery boys on the
East side of poise making
such noise,
all in decay
fading away
like me.

We could have gone there and done that and been one with Mozart, but you wanted ersatz
the cats in the cradle and don't we get the cream.

Punk rock,
we knock it, no better than the critic when it comes to it.

I prefer hip hop that stops at the last stop before I kiss you goodnight.

in the porch light holding you tight for the last dance before dawn.

Then
they'll put you in maximum security
and tell you
that society demands it,

and all that you asked for was a fair deal from them,
but them are tight-****** men, self-made men in the image
of mammon, not sure why mammon gets a mention, probably someone else in detention
and he cracks a joke as they crack open a Bollinger.

I drink for release
but the police aren't buying that one
they've heard it all before,

it wasn't me
what am I in maximum for?

Nothing here
but crisps and beer.

A hundred thousand reasons why
and I
have not found one.
Passing wind on the Central line
or passing time in the wind
it's one or all,
but we're all going to fall
in the final round into
the cold dark ground.

and there's nothing
nothing
nothing there
but stale smoke
and staler air.

Red earphones
black hair band
and
blue gloves

She shoves past me
and me
olde.

No manners,
back in the day
she'd have wanted to say,
'after you'

but that's how it goes
everyone knows
it's
dog eat dog and the
Underground's no place to be
if you're ancient like me.

Lots of long faces
but not mine
it's Friday and i'm going
places
haven't got time to mope.

If hope springs eternal
the well must have run dry
because some people look thirsty
some look ready to cry
I look for the way out
looking to go about
my business.

That which we anticipate in a heightened state with our feet on the ground is, at any rate, something we anticipate,

it's good to want?
I
wanted the fountain of youth
even at the font.

Thursday and I are not there yet.
**************
Writing the picture

2018


I saw myself from a distance drowning in
reflections
in a playground with my best friends
on a see-saw on my own.

I waded through the ripples and
found a girl I used to know
but
I don't think she remembered me
just the way that some things go.

I could photoshop some memories
but it would not be the same
for I need to see the whole truth
and I need to feel the pain.

On Sunday Jesus saves me
he's got quite a collection of me
but
I'd swop it all for a crystal ball
to see what I might see.

What keeps me ticking is what keeps me kicking,
sheer cussedness.

Awkward I might be,
but I've lasted and I
see the ones that did not.

my card has been marked and if not then I'm sure that it will be, punched by the men who break up the machinery,
all is set
nett equals zero.

Back to beginnings
where the end's not
so sure, coming back
to a cure,
that's inevitable.

On the flip side of a spiral
it looks just the same
rehearsing reversals
a player in the game.

"My name is Ozymandias"
he sings a dirge
I'm on the verge
of a mental prolapse.

'Is it safe', he asks
as he completes
the fourth of his
Herculean tasks
I reply
no
and it never will be
as long as insanity
runs parallel with
humanity,
he
ignores me
and carries on.

Wednesday
is a trap which we
willingly fall
into,
thinking as we do
that
the week's half way
through.

but it's downhill from here
which is a trifle bit queer
because it feels like
I'm in second gear.

I'll be awake for as long
as it takes.

I did dream
I do dream
would you dream with me?

and I try again
not to die again
but
you make it so easy.


Life is like the bag of crisps
that you thought was
a jigsaw.

Wednesday,
there's
nothing to see here
move along
about your business.

Bobby,
sat in a wheelchair
stares vacantly,
half of him here
and half elsewhere.

I knew him years ago
when he was a lad
running wild
liked a smoke
always good for a joke

now
sat in that wheelchair
after the stroke,
too weak to speak
he's still Bobby
though.

If you're fed up
man up
or
bed down,

shut up
and sleep
and don't keep
everyone awake
with
your bellyaching,