Punters only buy into words
if they believe there’s worth.
I’ve been begging for buyers
before premature birthdays.
Let earth spin unaware –
never questioned its axis.
Hid from the anxious parties,
continued chewing table cloths,
then choked on the spike of a train stub.

Not much value in a decade thrice lived –
standing on the coast in yesterday’s underwear,
a teenage busker sits between hip-hop legacy
as new marble faces arrive in constant rotation.
I’m waiting for my estranged brother dance,
who ran out on me despite his free diary entries.
Desperate for reunion. Bitter for the jives lost.

I’ve stepped further than I ever pictured
but I’ll never walk away from the stalking wolves.
Cubs are warned but continue to ignore all advice.
Lions that scrap with the pack tell me to enjoy the plains.
So I forget the bites and burn this poem in my future face.

Body clock set to Vienna day trips,
walks atop the white cliffs of Dover,
avoiding sunburn in Roman forums -

only here it's flexed bare chests,
belly buttons pierce snail trail hair,
while tattoos sweat through skin.

Discount ***** hangs on booming breath,
headache-inducing marijuana stench
crawls up nostrils from inside pockets

like a chef advertising to the streets
via an air vent. Craving cartoon fantasy -
empathy in the world, even for humidity,

as we wait for a break in proceedings,
I pray the thunderstorms bring fresh relief.

I turn on the news
Scroll all day on my phone
The first words on my tongue
Are how can this be so

I walk down the street
And see those without homes
I ask once again
How can this be so

I hear people talk
Of our great country so bold
But still the words on my tongue
Are how can be this so

The people with power
Spit on those down below
I cry out the words
How can this be so

Those around me are bleeding
While their pockets grow
I beg them to tell me
How can this be so

The whole world is on fire
And still we work to the bone
I get tired of asking
How can this be so

They would fall from their perch
If we all threw a stone
The system is broken
That I do know

My theory was written on the other side of town.
Eyes that had only watched the world through
a single pane of glass, found reflections all round.
Where I used to see grey, crisp formations of cloud.
Even in the house, blocks of door painted one colour
were replaced with dreamlike figures cutting cake.

Anyway, yesterday a man wearing a Union Jack
flag on his waist and sleeve told me his worries.
Five or six cars parked, eight or nine bedrooms
lying cold and lonely while in the south of France.
To lose count of the windows in one's life, I thought,
as he asked me about the proletariat. Luxury indeed.

Mushroom promises swell into existence,
flim-flam miracles,
pristine plump “truths”
when uttered, swelling proud
alongside peach-keen
endorsing smiles

But the treacle of decay acts quickly
so even the casual observer
sees the rot before the ink dries,
smells rank mould,
and we decry ad infinitum

Let's take a dive through my home estate,
a place I've tried to escape since my first brainwave.
I'll show you flat roofs and wayward avenues,
shopping trolleys that become steeds at two in the morning
next to mowed down greenery lying abandoned due to overuse.
I used to deliver newspapers along this route.
This spot, right here, has a great Wrekin view.
Back in my youth, it reminded me of you -
new roads, new horizons, new people to meet.
Let's keep moving to the end of the street
where a house is sent letters from the wicked government,
asking a mother if she's recovered from her own ill head.
Like her bed is four-poster when she can barely pay rent.
Her pathway displays a name written in cement.
Our descent continues with the drop-offs at Maccies.
A clock towers over us while we're waiting for taxis
to take us out of this place and onto higher plains
with house party nights and endless summer days.
But our dreams remain chained like bicycle frames,
The keys are locked away, we pray
in cars under stars, they say
we can be anything we want to be.
Such as royalty, or prime minister of this great country,
if we work as hard as anyone who's born into money.
So we hunt for hidden weaponry, hoping they see our cannon fire
and where spirits only fade, there will one day be a parade.

Remember the sandwich of youth?

On a drizzly beach with actual sand,
the grit crunch making things somehow better
for the supermarket cheddar
and margarine on sliced white

Let the memories come

The loved ones flinging frisbees,
or playing impossible cricket matches,
grand unplanned architecture,
studded with dead shells,
monuments to a hopeful utopia,
collapsed by the heavy-heeled truths of vengeful siblings
or everyday tides

Sea air makes you hungry and tired,
content,
like life and years try

Away, not home,
this continental heat.

The air pretends
this North Atlantic rock
is worldly

The smiles of the natives
lean manic
as we clutch at multipack lager
and disposable charcoal,
grasp at the living myth
of a cloudless sky
and give ourselves to these gods

Our worship sees us sacrifice
meat and skin,
both burnt to early hours regret
and delicate, bathroom sorrows

A sporadic bacchanal
whose scarcity ensures
that be it working week,
weekend or holiday,
feverish
we’ll pay the tithe

Sunstroke and/or hangover
prove penance for our lapse
from the frigid, three bar
Protestant norm,

but these exotic gods will beguile again
even as the blistered skin still peels