First they decentralise
secondly they marginalise
then they criminalise
and all the lies make you
believe
that you're the
bad guys.

Nothing changes what is and can be,
democracy
was a pipe dream in
Ancient Greece
which was sold on and we hold
on to the dream.

Criminal records play a very poor tune,
the sooner you realise that what lies
ahead is not what you thought of,
you'd  be better off dead, but
the triumph begins when our sins are absolved by the abolishment of parliament and the reinstatement of choice, what choice do we have?what more do we need?

How about enough food to feed the family?

If I could weave you a story then I'd spin you a yarn.

The potter and his pottery,
dull clay on the wheel
can you feel how the spin turns and starts to begin
when a shape takes its form and
is that not sheer poetry by the potter
and his pottery?

No one kills you with kindness, but with kindness they will and the World will become a still place ruled over with one face, stern, unartistic, sick and pliable the people are liable to fall under the wheel again,
can you feel again,
is this not another poetry by the famous,
is it some adultery by the nameless,
add 'lise' on the ends of all words and
are they not shameless?

Blameless?
I don't think any of us are.

I found it in the way my name stumbled out of your mouth like it had weak ankles.
Almost like it had been stuck in the hollows of your cheeks.
But it wasn’t stuck.
Just lingering.

I found it in the way you unfastened the brass buttons down my spine and slid the tough skin off my shoulders, like a wool sweater I never grew into.
Almost like I never knew how sticky and hot my woes were.
Until I saw them piled on the floor right at my feet.
The chill of the air hitting my bones.

I found it in the way you unraveled my grief, and used the same tattered thread to hem patience into your heartstrings.
Almost like the fabric of my intricacy kept you warm.
You and I.
The same cross-stitches of unvarnished truth.

I found it in the way you uprooted the weeds nestled in my soul to make light for the marigolds.
Almost like you always believed in my potential garden.
Despite the monsoon rain and my uncanny inability to tend.
There was always room for growth.

I found it in the way my hands extend towards you, until my fingers coil into vulnerability.
Almost like I sought solace in the holes of your palms.
Being entirely, immensely, forever
Tangled up in you.

I found it in the way the fog draping my irises lifted when your kisses graced the corners of my eyes.
Almost like you unveiled a galaxy of color I never knew I painted.
Brushstrokes of clarity.
A reverie of us.

I found it in the way you delicately dismantled all my fragments to polish them.
Almost like you salvaged me from my own wreckage.
All this time, I dreamt I was wandering.
But I was undoubtedly misplaced.
Tucked away in a wrinkle of solitude.

Until you, my love, unearthed me
And in return, I found my heart;
A vestige of our pearl in the oyster.

You painted gloss on your face
pain in your eyes,
you left your lips because
they were chapped,
but the audience clapped anyway.

You kissed them too and afterwards
you smoked a cheroot with Bert the
artistic director.

He married Maureen from
the chorus line
there was a time a long ways back
when you and Bert flirted,
but it never went anywhere,
what with you up there in the spotlight
and him in the wings,
you'd given him the nod,
he'd given you a **** with
the lines he mistook
for those on your neck.

It's over now
the curtain fell,
the actress
her role
an empty
shell.

Farewell
to an audience
no longer there,
the lights have gone out
the billboards are bare.

And Bert doesn't care
does he?

I've been choking from the moment
I was forced to let you go
I should have spoke it out of poems
so that you would ever know
that I am bowing out & broken
want to unlearn every bone
until my heart re-bleeds the reasons
I keep sleeping here alone

so won't you
untie all my finger-tips
& hand me back my lungs
I was the fool that glued my heart to you
please can't you see what you have done ?

Winter was coming, cold, cold
His coat was full of bullettholes
The sky was transparent like ice
He pulled the trigger with madness in his eyes

The wind was blowing, wild, wild
Every warm body stayed inside
A freezing blizzard had begun
A blizzard of bullets from machine guns

Winter was coming, cold, cold
The house was full of bullettholes
She held his hand as he closed his eyes
Just another bullet, another life

The wind was blowing, wild, wild
The snow covered those who died
They pretended no one died in vain
Pulled the trigger to **** again

Winter was coming, cold, cold
Their hearts were full of bulletsholes
History repeated as no rules applied
Only hatred reached the other side

The wind was blowing, wild, wild
The shots echoing in the air outside
Why cant we ever comprehend
That nothing is solved with the blood of fallen men

You can choo cha, doo da, hula with a hoopla,
It's all an oil on canvas by the man that they call Dali and you go sail away like Raleigh with the Queen and off to Bali, but your Sheila and the Children wait for you in
Basildon.

It never makes a rhyme when you ******* every time that the debts start mounting up and it shows in the starved faces of the cold and golden places in the eyes and on the lips you leave behind.

You,
the star now
going far now
and forgetting who you were,
are you aware in some false state that this love can turn to hate?
are you bound so tightly to the dream, does it make you happy, can you hear the scream of fate?

The kids are still in Basildon
but Sheila met a soldier boy and moved away to Warrington, long gone the Queen and dream
you're getting old, can't hula hoop, but you seen it all and now you fall into a reverie.

With Dali
and
a cup of tea.

Crash and burn is good,
return to crash and burn like firewood.

I am kindling to the fires of the charlatans and liars,
likely a moth attracted by the roar of flames.

Any names that you could call me have been often named before by the crash and the burn which I have come to adore.

At the end in the ash where the burning is the crash and the fire wood turns back in on itself,
I am left alone to ponder in the wandering of smoke and wonder if the flames will ever come again.

If I did believe in karma or a charm to grant longevity I'm sure I'd feel much calmer as the years are rolled from under me, but that's not crash and burn or bread and butter, wait, return the life that's owed to me and let me cut a little honesty and crash to burn again.

In the grooves where sounds collect dust, there's a just a minute before you must and you spin it and it turns on the table real clean.

Music's been good to me through my adversity, lyrics to challenge me at every turn.

But the table still tortures me when deep in the mortuary where the silence plays loud on my nerves.

Cash me a coupon,
it's cold,
I need some soup in my thermos,
I won't make it through unless you do this favour for me,
He told me,
The coupon's done, out of date but not by long
So I went home and hungered for sustenance.

Providence pats me and cuts me a slice of tomorrow, sleep is the main meal in everyone's eyes
I wake to a giro from
the ministry, a
man called Tom and he sends me his
kind regards.

Pardon me waitress can I have more servings of pancakes,
hunger takes more than I know and then I settle down, can't afford to go to town and I cut more coupons from magazines.