(20 minute poetry)


Eight degrees in and
it's freezing
Winter is well on the way,
Summer's a far distant
memory
Thank God it's Friday today.


Some time to prepare for
the onslaught
Don't want to be
caught
in the rain,
think I'll stay at home
as dry as a bone
call work and say
I'm sick again.

Eight degrees in
and I ain't going out
there not much you can
do about
that.


But the foreman says
you're on the rota
you've
got to put in your quota
today
which is not very fair
I want to stay here not
go there

Just need some more time
to prepare.

Everything blue. Invisible.

Crashing, collapsing  
Gold swept away

The back again to stay the winter

Weathering stone to sand

Hand-in-hand to spring

*Soaking everything in gold
In blue

Does it make you tingle when a lovely young lady says,
hey are you single, do you fancy a night at the flicks?
and after a coffee at her place,
your face says it all.

what would you call it?

a bit of luck that the nip and tuck pulled your paunch in,
thin and lean
you know what I mean

a screen on the green and a salad dish.

Like a fish out of water
I caught a
bus to Hackney
sadly
she was in Putney and
I never saw her at all,

perhaps I will see her in
some cinema feature
at the Odeon cinema
next week.

What you can do
if you can
is get through this
as a man.

Easier than it sounds when the ground's
always opening up to swallow you
and you
want people to follow you?
you must be joking.

if you look good you'll do good
and I could believe what I've read,
if I sat with a bucket on my head
I really could believe it.

But we do as we do or
we don't
and more often than not
we shoot the messenger
not
because we don't like the message
we
just don't like the messenger.

What bothers me is
what part of art and I
wonder where do I start
to paint the
picture.

Making a stopover at the Bow flyover
finding a place for the night

a wooden seat to perch on
next to the
church on
Mile End road.

This may be a blessing
but
God keeps me guessing
and I feel I'm
no nearer to him or to thee
whomsoever him or thee
may be.

Next to the gravestones which are
weather worn and grey
( say! I look the same)

I am but a name in the register
to be struck out as I struck out

When your luck's out life *****

I only draw in a breath for death
to draw closer to me
I want to see it coming.

God and his crew always know what to do and send the sunlight to heal all my woes

I take to my toes and leave Bow far behind me and am sure that god knows if he wants where to find me
or
I may find myself.

Kiss and make up
from where we left off.

They shot the old man on the
steps to the Verandah
and grandma in her rocking chair
didn't hear
but old people seldom do.

A case of mistaken identity
they dreamt up a man
never meant to be
and shot him point blank
very casually
it seems to me

we should kiss and make up
from where we left off.

Waste colors on me
canvas with a hole

Prefrontal cortex
Unplugged

Pulled the last thread
Unravel

Travel through time
A nomad girl.
Smoke from the ashes:

A beautiful curl

The rainbow fell into the consommé,
the night turned the day and the
cards went my way
it was normal some say in
the madhouse

and then there was work
the foibles, the quirks
the bright sparks
the gormless
the sharks

and while Hawkin's talking of quarks
and quasars
all I get
is quizzical, looks from the
bar staff and waiters.

It's no wonder the soup's getting cold
and less wondering why
because it all seems so old
or could be it's
possibly me.

backwards to front and off on the hunt
for the unicorn

If you believe that they're real
then they're real
but
only the mad stop in Potsdam

she offers me tea and temperance
and in an attitude of complete
indifference
I down one more for the road,