There’s a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail’s ready to depart,
Saying “Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can’t start.”
All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster’s daughters
They are searching high and low,
Saying “Skimble where is Skimble for unless he’s very nimble
Then the Night Mail just can’t go.”
At 11.42 then the signal’s nearly due
And the passengers are frantic to a man—
Then Skimble will appear and he’ll saunter to the rear:
He’s been busy in the luggage van!

He gives one flash of his glass-green eyes
And the signal goes “All Clear!”
And we’re off at last for the northern part
Of the Northern Hemisphere!

You may say that by and large it is Skimble who’s in charge
Of the Sleeping Car Express.
From the driver and the guards to the bagmen playing cards
He will supervise them all, more or less.
Down the corridor he paces and examines all the faces
Of the travellers in the First and the Third;
He establishes control by a regular patrol
And he’d know at once if anything occurred.
He will watch you without winking and he sees what you are thinking
And it’s certain that he doesn’t approve
Of hilarity and riot, so the folk are very quiet
When Skimble is about and on the move.
You can play no pranks with Skimbleshanks!
He’s a Cat that cannot be ignored;
So nothing goes wrong on the Northern Mail
When Skimbleshanks is aboard.

Oh, it’s very pleasant when you have found your little den
With your name written up on the door.
And the berth is very neat with a newly folded sheet
And there’s not a speck of dust on the floor.
There is every sort of light-you can make it dark or bright;
There’s a handle that you turn to make a breeze.
There’s a funny little basin you’re supposed to wash your face in
And a crank to shut the window if you sneeze.
Then the guard looks in politely and will ask you very brightly
“Do you like your morning tea weak or strong?”
But Skimble’s just behind him and was ready to remind him,
For Skimble won’t let anything go wrong.
And when you creep into your cosy berth
And pull up the counterpane,
You ought to reflect that it’s very nice
To know that you won’t be bothered by mice—
You can leave all that to the Railway Cat,
The Cat of the Railway Train!

In the watches of the night he is always fresh and bright;
Every now and then he has a cup of tea
With perhaps a drop of Scotch while he’s keeping on the watch,
Only stopping here and there to catch a flea.
You were fast asleep at Crewe and so you never knew
That he was walking up and down the station;
You were sleeping all the while he was busy at Carlisle,
Where he greets the stationmaster with elation.
But you saw him at Dumfries, where he speaks to the police
If there’s anything they ought to know about:
When you get to Gallowgate there you do not have to wait—
For Skimbleshanks will help you to get out!
He gives you a wave of his long brown tail
Which says: “I’ll see you again!
You’ll meet without fail on the Midnight Mail
The Cat of the Railway Train.”

i write for an injection of a venom, for a sense of disorientation, poetry shouldn't be about the skill of narration, a clear Renaissance painting of some school, it should invoke a ******* random macabre, a sense of disorientation, there's no real technique to practice with poetry invoking a tarantula's venomous bite... poetry the art of disorientation and a fulfilling disillusionment, nothing else, nothing more... to prescribe disorientation... upon charging into a blank page... the brute of squalor and slashing of grime, marbles and marrow!*

as quoted by Bonaparte (oddly enough
a psychology student and former
girlfriend of mine who i lost my virginity
to, while she got drunk and slid into my
bed at a party, and asked dreamily for condoms
scolding me about the three pictures adorning
my student room: marquis de sade, Bonaparte
and Plato) - quicker the goat in the frying
pan than on the steep cliff face - mooch kiss
you Isabella i would a second time,
you remind me of Annie from Masterchef -
the way the stiff upper-lip is missing: signature of
french girls, the curling and cuddles -
ooh mooch chuckles and mushy peas -
p p p - belinda carlisle melted cheese goo in my heart;
stony ******* i ain't, but my drinking habits
are not boyfriend material, sorry... try next door:
se vie se la - the french know their eccentricities,
and therefore exploit them in the grey -
the english stiffen up and exploit the same
but to a too obvious exploit: bowler hats and umbrellas,
nothing will make this London gloom repent
even if you're donning St. Petersburg's architectural
multi-colour... did i mention Bonaparte the patron
saint of the Duchy of Warsaw?
over here there's Adolf with a heretics hat
never bothering to read history twice,
history you read in a blurry haze of being drunk:
reminiscence is hardly nostalgia, but sure as ****
history save Moscow from the French and the Germans
but not the Poles and Mongolians...
the Russians know this and hush thing over,
sweeping stories under the carpets using
a babushka as an excuse for the prime propaganda
technique - go on babushka ride the Ferrari
on the stairway! canapé mit crayon caviar?
yes, Isabella, if i weren't a ****** i'd move to
Grenoble - sheriff's honour.
                                                  you weren't
the first, you weren't the last,
i need bragging rights - and a hot colt to shoot with...
then the lacrosse initiation ceremony -
Lycra tights, drank a whole bottle of whiskey
of Glaswegian whiskey, stumbled into
Isabella to my shame parade of whatever that was
lad banter etc etc. - pleaded on my knees, my knees...
apologies for the inexperience,
she was seriously into Japanese cartoons,
studio Ghibli;
                          so she scolded me over Bonaparte,
and i said: it's not exactly Piłsudski - in my town of
birth they praised him, raised statues,
later with communism desecrated them, then later
raised new statues - but what's bothersome is that
she didn't mind the Marquis... a psychology student
after all... she wanted native speakers for a little
psychology experiment, that got me,
learning from scratch aged 8,
pitch-perfect elocution and she didn't bother to use me
in the experiment... that ****** with me...
hey! i'm hardly a cockney! coached croquet pears
ready for a beating... what's the rhyme, ah yes:
apples and pears = stairs... seriously, musically
cheese sometimes works, they had a Monday cheese
night at the union - all the usual buggery of
a mid-life crisis...
yeps, that Annie from the current Master Chef reminds me
of Isabella - dracul - RA!
a bit of high culture (Ezra's cantos) and a bit of low
culture (marco bailey's Enter the Dragon)...
while sitting on the throne of thrones (a toilet)...
it's like my dream... although better... Ibiza two-point-oh.

Her loud voice echos inside my head
Tears pool spilling off my bed
And her hams can, and laughter fled
As life goes on, shes still dead
Just a rewind video I replay
Before sad sleepy eyes go to bed
Weeping, sleeping,dreaming seeming
Try to find the right words to describe
She was the only one I could find
To stay up and create, art, color, life
A garden to a picture drawn in crown
She was the only one around
Who found what I found
Art is the heart of family
Love and life
She found me, in the darkest nights
She helped me understand
The human struggle, to experience
Complexity, she was her inevitably
Embarrassingly, intoxication in both
***** and personality, fatality being
She never took care, her loud voice
Tinny in her last moments here
Her brave soul
Trembling in fear
Grandma don’t be scared
I'm here
Just like you were
Im here for better or for worse
Her heart beat beat beating
Tell its run its ran its course  
and when its done ill run some more
Grandma my heart beats for you
that's for sure