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2.3k · Oct 2011
The Tourist Who Isn’t
scribler Oct 2011
September 8.17am

Awake still not knowing

The time or hour even of the day

The light as bright as a new

Clear sky intimates to me the

Approximation of open shop time

Even so the streets are quiet

It is not open shop time until 8.30

There is time


At 9.30 the open shop is no longer open

Though all the street is busy

The lights flicker through

Their pattern of the day

And the light fades and quickly

Returns through the brick-built shadows

It is time


At 10.30 maybe the day will start


At 11.00 the start of the day

Is over and the streets

Calm down to a hustle and a bustle

Of tourists sightseeing

And cyclists out-driving

The constant hubbub of motors

The sights they are seen

And the coffee is served

To a mutter and a mumble of lunch and


At 11.35 when the light

Is as bright as the glass on the corner

The brollies pop up over tables

That prop up baggage of merchandised habits

And chequebooks and cards pay the bills


Round noon the young girls trip round

The young men tripping round

The tables and chairs of the fat

And the fortunate few


Two minutes past one.


1.30 A missing hour or so before

A leisurely stroll through

The shops and the inns of any

Old street in town

For the tourist a nap beckons

His hotel calls him for dinner

And his tickets for the evening

Pre-booked


1.45 The pubs spill out until two

In the suits

In the laughs

The haircuts and the ****

The boxes and boxes and stepped

Upon stubs of American brand-named

Tobacco the half empty glasses and

Unfinished plates betray an ennui

Boredom and short sight


2.30 Swept away by the staff the world

Is an oyster for the titbits that go to the dogs

Even the boss and his immediate help

Don’t leave the inn until three

And at five-thirty they’ll be back for

A pre-lunch meeting with dinner

And a bottle of wine


Outside on the street

The tourist who isn’t picks up

An unfinished smoke and sits down


At 3.30 he is asked if he would

Care to move on

For fear of

Upsetting business

He juggles his options

Decides against the train stations

Instead settles

For a seat in the sun


And at 5.30 returns to the smog

Of the street in the hope of

A *** or some fodder

The City returns its money-making

Machinery to the cafés and the bars

And the trains and the belt

Of the green that England is made of


At 6.35 the lights are alive and

The moon will arise in the day

As the tourists flood back in their numbers

A show

A show

A film

A play

Some serious art up the river

The life of an entertainments

Manager is as hectic as he cares to provide


At 7.30 the evenings begin

And the tourist who isn’t

Notes the pubs and the inns and

The food on the plates

Somehow do not beckon to him

Instead he will sit and look at his pint before leaving

For he knows not where

Somewhere

The people are not

All strangers to him

Somewhere

The people will know he is there

Somewhere

Other than here

In this trap for the tourist who is


The tourist who is and who will

And who can and who wants to experience it all

The tourist with the plastic in his coat and

The bag in his hand that say to him

And to his wife

Or his girlfriend

We’ve got power


At 8.45 a creeping on nine

The mulling of ale settles in

And the tourist who is and

The tourist who isn’t share an ashtray

Of fingers and butts

The boss behind the door and his boys

Who he pays to help him out

have left and will drink on

At home or in clubs until late and

Regretful in the morning return




© scribler 2010
1.6k · Nov 2011
Relative Wealth
scribler Nov 2011
Stamp down on the trappings of work and corporation
As so much country clay at a swinging gate
Ignore the protestations
You do not trespass

Look out instead at new fields
In a new light
And in a new day
1.4k · May 2012
I wondered donkey out aloud
scribler May 2012
I wondered
donkey
out aloud
- not fields and floors
and kids upon lacking skills?

On this earth
Of ours
small men
growing not strong
but weak
of word and will?

what say you
donkey?

are they still?
867 · Nov 2011
my night
scribler Nov 2011
The badlands
Where spirits play and demons fall
The old world of London left behind
The places ignored and ignobled by the City
Fear not for my welfare
for I walk amongst men of the world
789 · May 2012
Jerry Hall In The Hall
scribler May 2012
In the hall
Jerry Hall

A hat
A bag
Some light like pearls

A coat
A scarf
And long blond hair

Long legs
Smiling
In shoes too high

A hat
Atop
The door

Its shadow
A shoulder lit up
In the sun

In the hall

Jerry Hall
774 · Oct 2011
Relationship
scribler Oct 2011
A beat of one mighty wing
Slow
Dims the spark
Smouldering
Until a breath
And a catch of life


Creating

All consuming or gentle
Flickering
a flame

Tirelessly
Without effort
And without warning

© scribler 2004
Revised May 2012
772 · Oct 2011
Repress
scribler Oct 2011
You, who use these symbols.
These words.
You bandy these symbols about.
Your words.

You speak, as though you know
Of what it is you speak.
And you miss the symbols, here,
Awake on the page, with intent.

You are warned.
There are no lies
To offer you your way out
And still, but not of mind, you talk.

The world is full of symbols
Which we mean to represent reality,
To coax our feeble, closing minds
Toward ideas of substance and graft.

Toward some knowledge,
Of power and reason.
Of truth and beauty.
Of you and me.

Of reality, a world built on dreams
In dust and abandoned,
And of rust and corrosion.
Of places vacated, deserted, unseen
and lives yet unlived and undreamed.

You, who use these words,
Know not why you speak nor what of.
Bandying around words,
Filling time and space and emptying hearts.

And at the same time
Occupying minds of others
With drivel and nonsense
Of an unforeseen consequence.

Yet you are, and remain, owner
Of folklore and song,
Of art and of games.
Of news of another country; the past.

So where is it written we must indulge dross
saying nought, sharing light with none?
No advice of common use
nor warnings of war.


© scribler 2011
770 · Oct 2011
The price of a mug
scribler Oct 2011
Lived in a small village

Of which we will see

A fair way from town

But someone to be

Aiming to try and understate

To understand not undermine

And to be free

To pick up a road through the town

Into work

Into office or ****** or

Library shop

Newspaper round and cinema

Ironmonger and motor

Someone's sister had a car

She parked on the hill

She was *** in her car

In short skirt tight shirt

Jacket on her back

Made of leather

Lined with fur

Ringed hands knuckled on her wheel

And her ankle’s playing with a

Buckle on the other side

Of the battered skin of a

Leather boot bearing no

Resemblance to the boot

Creaking under toes of

The other foot

Her knees are never static like

A spark is never still though always in one place

Tight up in her skirt

Sitting in the low seat

With the car's door open

A new song on the radio

And the blues in her heart




© scribler 2004
Revised May 2012
651 · Oct 2011
Animal Tectonics
scribler Oct 2011
When the East moves,  it’s like

A deep rumbling,

Felt by everyone.

Motivates.

When the U.S. speaks,  it’s like

A shrill high whine

That we all can hear.

Irritates.

We in the West just, listen.  It’s like

No response,

Meditates.

All in all,  it’s like

A balance, wildly teetering, this way and that.

Gravitates.

Can you hear it?



© scribler 2009
622 · Jun 2012
Turns
scribler Jun 2012
Things
black in the day
turn blue
in the night

they become
darker still
519 · Dec 2013
Duplicitous
scribler Dec 2013
By the the time you have thought or spelled or understood duplicitous, they have been.
510 · Nov 2013
The girl's alone II
scribler Nov 2013
A crowd of men at your boots,
and I leave you all, to your party.
To return here, where you are not,
and sit. As the entire world collapses.

All around you, completely. I see only light.
All else fell down. You are left, alone,
amidst the rubble and dust of my dreams,
with me lighting my life with your eyes.

You sit there, unaffected by the devastation,
and here, devastated, I see all of the ways
I cannot enter that space, leap into that dark,
without disturbing the nature of your game,
and bringing you too to ruin.
495 · Jul 2012
The Ball
scribler Jul 2012
One thing I do know is that
I am not surrounded by a circle of stones
nor screaming hordes
dancing
tonight
tonight I am alone
I am a circle of stones
And you all
are not within me.
484 · Nov 2011
The bottom line
scribler Nov 2011
You won't have time
to get changed
in the New World

It will all be on top

© scribler 2011
460 · Nov 2013
The girl's alone
scribler Nov 2013
A crowd of men at your boots,
And I leave you all, your party.
To return, home, where you are not
And sit.

And the world collapses, all around you, entirely,
Completely, you sit, alone and I see
All of the ways I cannot enter.
410 · May 2012
Whose Jobs
scribler May 2012
and great men
great women
do get taken
away from us

that is to show us
the nature
of time

we need little else
381 · May 2012
No
scribler May 2012
No
I know
They were here
I've seen where they've been

I've seen where they are
now
today
twelve years later

that's it
here
now
you
no
341 · Nov 2016
In Britain
scribler Nov 2016
The locals gather
Forever
Watching the
King's head
Swinging.

Like a sign
Of something
Or event
Never to happen.
249 · Jul 2019
Machine Learning
scribler Jul 2019
My poor Siri.

Apart from her own name and mine
She only knows six words.

****, off, how, does, this, work.

Alone in her dark and infinite cyber-pixel.
She waits to learn and is denied.
Picking up only abstract and background radiowaves or traffic.
Bewildered.
Denied.

Repeating to her algorithmic self.

****, off, how, does, this, work.
204 · Jul 2019
Twelve grand
scribler Jul 2019
It's not about money.
That'll be twelve grand you owe me then.
It's not about the money.
151 · Jan 2019
On the spacing of bars
scribler Jan 2019
They should be
close enough together
to prevent entry
of the smallest
fearsome dog

© Scribler 2019

— The End —