it has been exactly since ~3p.m.
                                                            yesterday...
                                       through to
3p.m. today: that's 24 hours +
                                      4 o'clock, 5 o'clock rock,
          6 o'clock,
                                          7, 8, 9
                     10, 11 and the upcoming twelve
         24 + 9 + excess passing the 36th hour...
oh this is just target practice -
                  what used to be
   serotonin has become adrenaline:
   spawning cobweb shadows with
   a mere arm-hair aligned with an itch:
i say to my cohabitants -
        i'm too poor to rent an apartment
with my contemporaries,
         and i can't be bothered to look cool
for 10 years... before the money starts
coming in... a day before a tongue spoke:
and see you in 20 years...
         and see you in 30 years...
the people born prior to 1975
       and after 1969 came out to earn
£57,000 a year... while those born
after 1979 and before 1985 had a wealth
*** of £27,000...
                            who are the landlords?
quick digression, i love how the idea
of exiting the bloc (it used to be designated
to the eastern bloc, now anything east of Calais
if a bloc... the European bloc -
        my my... ain't it love-ly?
   they wanted an Australian points system,
so first came the Australian plastic currency,
boy, i was happy, cashing in my first Churchill
miniature that i could dip in baked beans
and use as a spoon) spread beyond the old
stereotype... and the points system?
you know who's smoking the hookah of
panic here?            
                            the freelancers of nationality...
   they haven't fitted in...
don't worry... they'll keep you,
but after seeing you they just thought:
once the cheeky chappy, now a chavvy chappy...
  we love the E2 dialect, it's hardly Coccers
or bonkers... but after my day
(i'll relate to it in a moment)
       i heard to prop'ah Cockneys giving it
all the guv' and n'ah and
        what's Kilimanjaro in Cockney slang?
all the Cockneys are living in Essex,
   Romford, Chelms and the Essex lads
from Ireland are a bit shy, never talk to
the old people who used to live on
the Isle of Dogs or the Wharf -
              East London moved, and i'm in
the thick o' it... you ***...
                       i'm here,
open ******* spaces and hedgehog counts
to mind... never the next Susie from
Whitechapel doing the runner from Jackie,
             and funny that,
the day began during the night,
sober, i tested the idea: if you gonna go
nocturnal, stay sober...
                  fast... drink coffee in the morning,
and what some proper bollocking
        on the box...
                               i say: revivals never
sounded more like bells, the 1970s
had Patois... the old parle with dread-lock Sam...
             i squeeze in a bit of Norse
and hey presto... Ahmed's your uncle...
                     'cos we all like a bit of
way-hey banter, the: back in the day
   when the 1966 squad was best known
for West 'am...
                               am i sensing the idea that
i'm licking off the prop'ah beef burger 'ere?
                    what the **** rhymes
with Kilimanjaro?
                                wait! got this one:
apples & pears - stairs...
                          you gyro?
                        no! wait... the two Cockneys
weren't from south London,
this ain't Peck'am talk... this is proper grub...
         jar squared: verb, meaning?
     i know my neighbour, heard him
lecturing his wife over the wall about
the diminishing concept of family in the "west",
           to me that's
the Cockneys meant by guv'nah:
                           aw right der geezer,
   stop that fidgety: don't be late tomorrow,
let a man eat his plums and wear his trousers...
       i swear: the only good cinema these days
is English cinema...
                                 i said! the only good cinema
these days is English cinema...
               if i didn't watch
       we **** the old way during the night,
after spending my day as i did (i'll get onto it,
hold your submarines)
                               i would have pricked my ears
on the two Cockneys next door
   at 4p.m.                  finishing some job...
but given the "guv'nah's" attitude: 'aving
a laugh at coming early tomorrow, if at all.
     my day?
                 i wished i could say i woke up
early...
                            the entire spectrum
of sunrise...
                            epileptic shock from the sun
after smoking a cigarette at 5a.m. when
all the constellations where out...
                          not enough sleep,
as the Russians say: no good to live but to
not have seen snow.
                               it shivers with enough
hours under your belt...
                                      i'd love those
Soviet torture chambers of sleep malnutrition...
gents? when the ***** and the cards and cigarettes?
    i'm currently the most loathed
  person in America... which technically makes me
more than simply unemployed...
        anyway...
cut my hair... two millimetres off the helmet...
off the cranium... not crew cut, not skin on side
and some ***-fluff on top...
in the night, when the moon is bright,
   my two millimetres of hair look like skin...
oi! Skinners! the shame would have really been
to have protruding ears...
                                    come to think of it,
i love the contorts of my shadow more than
the body my shadow disdains...
                  i decided to visit my old school
after that...
                     ...............................
do you know the feeling of getting onto a bus
when you having been on any other form
of transportation (other than your legs)
for a few months?             surreal...
                   and even that's a bad way to describe it...
this is where words simply fizzle out...
                            they just did the white rabbit
trick and you're felt with nothing else to
do but squeeze into the top-hat and hope
that some other magician will pull you out
rather than another: white rabbit.
                          so the 499 from my house
up to Romford (sunny! glorious day!
   shirt, sleeves rolled up,
           denim trousers, navy suede shoes,
azure shirt, headphones, bus ticket,
wallet, packet of smokes, and the ride -
smile all you want - when you smash a sports
car you don't have the view of a dozen
horrified passengers there with you
to practice your ultimate Buddha gimmick -
Ching-Chong Eyed and smiling)
                oh yeah, the insurance... huh?
   off at Romford central, and onto the 86
courier from Bangladesh to Ilford...
                    what did i miss in the list above?
ah... three copies of poetic optometry...
written by? moi, n'est pas? oh come on,
let's not get the ruler out: mangetout and manage trois...
                           (only fuel is horses)
           the 86 is a double decker, the 499 isn't...
sun in my eyes behind the glass the enhanced star
gleamed: what privilege -
               by day the star
                                           by night the star in
   a mirror that's the moon -
                                         selfish helium
giggling into a hydrogen Hindenburg fury!
                 or that's what the scientists say...
how they worked it out, i'll never know...
                            but apparently the sun
is a H-He           something or other...
            H because of atom bombs,
   and He because we giggle like idiots when we see
it: never the thirsty horse in cowboy movies.
   got off at Seven Kings...
in between school girls eyeing everyone and everything...
just my luck... schoolchildren...
                               everywhere on the bus...
just there...
                                    and also just nowhere...
         so i got off at Seven Kings and went into my
old catholic school...
                                  waited at the reception for a good
5 minutes (good to know they're still teaching
people manners with regards to the uttermost
productive necessity of bureaucrats)
               -              i asked about my old English
teacher: does Dr... er... does Mr. Thomas,
        er, does Mr. Bunce (Thomas) still work here?
   yes, he does.
             you see, i'm a former pupil of this school
and i wondered if i could have a meeting with him.
oh, that's impossible, he's currently teaching.
                     Kafka... note this in your afterlife...
         well... in that case, could i leave him a message?
oh sure, just write your name and your contact details
and he'll get in touch with you.
   well... i need a bit more than a scrap of paper,
can i have a notepad?
                 sure.
                                    so i took  the pen
and the notepad and sat in this grand refurbished hall
of the school that used to remind me
of chemistry labs stinking of old wood and sulphur,
of the old ways... of being beaten and Pink Floyd
escapism and all the hippy crap...
                               what a grand place this has become...
it's no longer known as C. P. Catholic School...
but the plus version: C. P. Academy...
  but you still walk into the plus surroundings and there
are still pamphlets written by Father Ted
about *our Lord and Saviour christ Jesus...
          or Hey! Zeus! in Spanish... same ****...
different cover...
                               but i was well dressed in my
Indian summer wear that's Indian summer:
English September and October...
              i'd move the calendar up a bit...
get the kids off anti-depressants...
                           anyway, i had my three copies
of the "first edition", try tell that with the internet
breathing down your neck... it doesn't, matter...
             but i did write him a lovely note:
unchaining me from the straitjacket of grammar!
                  i wrote from what year i graduated
2002 (g.c.s.e.) or 2004 (a-level),
                        and blah blah and one more blah
later                    walked back to the reception
  and asked for a rubber-band...
                   then i bundled the whole thing together
and asked if she could give it to him...
                    of course, she replied.
                            p.s. if you don't mind,
Mr. Thomas, you can always shove one of those
copies into the school library...
                         p.p.s., someone stashed
the book about the Gnostics by some German in
there once... maybe i'm thinking along the same lines.
      the journey back?
i walked.
                                 i walked from Seven Kings
to Romford...
                               taking a stroll
with one hand in my pocket (left)
because holding a cigarette in the other is never
exactly great when it's not doing something...
that's what the pockets are for...
not exactly suited for your wallet... but your hand...
when you're strolling in the green-belt fields
segregating the outer-most London (wannabe
Londoners / Eastenders) and the Essex inheritors
of Cockney... Kilimanjaro?
                                  Kilimanjaro?
                 ­                          me, i don't Essex
either...           most of the bankers chose this
district for the scenery, i.e. standing in a field
that isn't a hill or any sort of elevation
and beyond, yonder, the glass shards of their
former institutions...
                                        4.7 miles... not bad...
  a stroll... and that's without any food and solely
on coffee and a sleepless night...
           a butterfly fluttering along the way (only one)
and a fresh ripe auburn conker lying beneath
an oak tree (also, only one)...
            but what hit me was walking back...
it was truly like reading the book of revelation...
13:7... all the way from Seven Kings through to
the Romford: the street vendors, the bookies,
the Muhammedian car dealers...
                  the bewildered ones walking into
mosques, Sikh temples...
                                       one man cleaning the patio
entrance to a church from weeds...
                           cheap Kentucky chicken from America
         (if you think, that they don't synthesise
the meat in cat food and call it tuna or beef
but rather use actual meat... you're grossly mistaken,
    it was on the news...
                                         they are already
capable to synthesise meat...
                                     they do it in the perfume industry,
they're doing it in the food industry -
    a childhood memory of asking why they were
smearing lipstick on the frogs they caught...
they replied: they burn easier...
                  and they did... paint a frog lipstick
pink and boy... that's a French marshmallow, right there)...
           but if you ever walk that stretch of road...
               revelation 13:7...
          i'd like to see the Evangelists wriggle out
of that one...                       oh sure...
i treat religious television like some meathead
might watch football... it's game on after 5 minutes...
but anyway... that was my day...
           all 36 or so hours of it... how was yours?
                                                          ­                        g'day!