The dub reggae's loud as she relaxes
The drug-smoke hits our brain synapses
King Tubby* spreads my mind around the room
As we listen to the bass line boom

These are the times to be remembered
2017,  the first of November
As chilled out as it is possible to be
Yet, still be conscious, yet still breathe

Yes, nights like these are the good times
I scribble my words and try to think of rhymes
There are no words that need to be said
Between us, lying on this bed

The love is there, a living thing
With the bass-line's boom and the snare drum's sting
Yes nights like these should be remembered
2017, the first of November

My hundredth poem
On this website
I don't know what
To write tonight
.....
Perhaps something
I've never done before
A ****** fantasy
A victory roar

I don't feel like victory
Is on my side
I know I've no speciality
I've got no pride

I'm nothing special
Just another drone
No great ideas
To call my own

Just another no one
Nothing unique
Another boring no one
Nothing you'd want to keep

I know I'm nothing
No reason to stay alive
A suicide in waiting
No reason to stay alive

But I know I want to write
It's the thing that keeps me awake at night
I know there is nothing left for me
A writer is the only thing I want to be

So let me write, let me create
Now, before it is too late
All I want to do is make people think
Give them ideas, or make​ them drink

What is there left for me to do?
What is there left for me to say to you?

Life in a post - industrial Northern waste
Anti - depressants help us face our fate
Soap operas​ more important than real life
They offer resolutions and they excite
Unlike unending poverty
Where there are no neat endings
Wrote off by a government that just doesn't care
******* by corporations who want their share
What can you be but a nihilist?
What can you do but get drugged or ******?
I really wish I had a solution
The only one I know is Revolution
But, of course that will never come
We are kept isolated, sedated and dumb
Back to soap operas​ and anti- depressants again
Cheap off- licenses​ and drug dens
Anything to keep us sweetened and beaten
Life itself is bought, sold and cheapened
I really hate to sound so depressed
But I think that the working class is ****** at best

Shaking to **** in my suit and tie
Smoking cigarettes to make the time pass by
Hungover to hell in uncomfortable clothes
A job interview; yes it's one of those

I walk in shake hands, make eye contact
Tell them about myself, this and  that
Soon the awkward questions start
Beneath my ironed shirt I can feel my heart
               .            .            

Why do I put myself in these situations
It's not like I'm bothered about an occupation
Sitting smoking cigarettes and reading books
Noting down in rhyme my outlook
Keeps me happy more or less
No need for any of this trauma or stress
Money ? Sure I could do with more
But when I think about it, what for ?
I'd only start to drink to excess
And that's no route to happiness
Or the palace of wisdom, but I digress
And drugs turn your life into an unholy mess
So is it better if I don't try
Just sit and watch as life goes by
Making notes on it now and then
When I feel the urge to grasp my pen
Only too well I understand
The sorrows of a working man
If I don't work is it a life unspent?
And when it's gone, what had it meant ?
              .             *.             *

So I shake their hands and take my leave
Wait for the phone call I'm supposed to receive
That is going to tell me how
I'll be spending my life from now

This is fun, this is enjoyable
Mental *******
Sometimes ( rarely )
I come all over the page
But you don't notice
Or perhaps you do ?
Who knows ?
Who cares ?
Not me, I'm just freewheeling
Allowing myself to open
My mental encyclopedia
Giving it a little air
Seeing my most private
Thoughts, hopes, desires
Fears and dreams
Written out on the page
Can be a very liberating
Experience
It can also be pretty depressing
At times
But mostly I enjoy this SO much
It's cleansing
I can't understand why
Everyone doesn't do it
Miners, labourers, housewives
Thieves, prostitutes, dealers
Pimps, factory workers
Everyone
Just think of the literature
We could have
Instead of the mainly
Over-academic, limp
Tired rantings
That are classed as
The poetry of the ages
Just think of it !
It's a thought that
Makes me dizzy
What will YOU write ?

On T.V. I see the poppies grow
Between the stalks I see the ghosts
Acquaintances, lovers, enemies, friends
Strange that an innocent plant
Brought about​ their ends

Many times it nearly killed me too
Slumped, choking, pin-eyed, turning blue
But I managed to swim against the stream
Pulled myself painfully out of the dream​

Too many I knew didn't survive
Their families crying at the grave side
The earth fell to the coffin from out of their hands​
Because of a plant that grows in Afghanistan

Struggling farmers grow it to keep their families alive
Smugglers carry it across the waters wide
Every mile that it travels, the price it inflates
It ends up on an English council estate

Shoplifters and burglars walk the grey, rainy streets
When darkness comes the working girls pound their beat
Warily watching​ through windows​
The dealers do what they can
Selling powder from a plant that grows in Afghanistan

My God ! It's good to see the sun
Shining down on this housing scheme
It can turn it from a nightmare
Into something resembling a dream

Boosting all of your endorphins
Like a rocket right up your hole
Letting you know that after the awful winter
You're still in possession of a soul

Helping you forget the bad times
Reminding you that if you let her
Mother Nature has the power
To make you feel so much better

Yes, this life can be terrible
Full of pain and angst
But it's so short and it's up to you
To make the best of it you can

Why is it that those of us
Who have been so close to death
Are those of us to make the
Most out of life?

Small Muslim children, blown to bits by bombs
But our normal, Western lives go on
We read it in newspapers, we see it on T.V.
But  to us it means nothing
It doesn't affect you or me

Red hot hatred
Red hot sun
Roadside I.E.D.s
But to us it doesn't mean a thing
It doesn't affect you or me

Planes dropping bombs all night, all day
Destroying homes and lives, but what can we say ?
We read it in papers, see it on T.V.
To us it means nothing
It doesn't affect you or me

Young men swearing Jihad
Willing to die for a cause
But we don't understand it
We never will because

To is it means nothing
It doesn't affect you or me
Just something we read in the papers
Or see on T.V.

A Saturday night, I'm all alone
But I don't mind being on my own
I listen to the music I love and
My wife is out visiting her mother

I sit and drink, listen to The Fall
No, it's not a bad night at all
But some parasites are​ on my back
They would love it if I cracked

The dealers text, the dealers phone
I wish they'd leave me the **** alone
Like a shark can taste blood in the water
They think I'm a lamb easily led to slaughter

But they are wrong, I can be strong
I'll ignore be their advances all night long
I turn up the music, pour another drink
Yes, I'm stronger than they think

Tonight I may end up a drunken mess
But I know I will have passed a test

Pages, pages!
Lord give me pages
Effervescent sentences
That last through the ages

Lord, let me spin a web of words
That entrances all, like those I've heard
My heroes fought with pen not sword
Brandished rhymes​ against the hordes
Who would have slowly caused their deaths​
Boredom, not sword would have stolen their breath

Pages, pages!
Lord give me pages
Effervescent sentences
That last through the ages

Poetry, novels, short stories plays
Send the words upon which I graze
My food, my drink, the air I breathe
Words mean as much, so send them please
Not silver or gold, I have no greed
Let me feast on poetry, that's all that I need

Pages, pages!
Lord give me pages
Effervescent​ sentences
To ring​ through the ages

A writer's prayer
Is a simple one
He only wants to
Get his work done

Feel the light come on
I feel the strength returning
Once again, I'm me

I wish I was back
In the 1950s with
Jack, Neal and Allem

We  would be beatniks
Smoking tea and travelling
Grooving to free Jazz

But I'm here alone
Stuck in ****** Stoke on Trent
No cool​ beatniks here

No one cool at all
No jazz on the radio
No one cool at all

Cheap cans of beer and crap T.V.
Seem to stretch in front of me
My wife's been gone for just six days
With her mother on holiday
I'm already flagging under the pressure
Sinking down into depression
Having nobody to look after
Is making me sink that much faster
Having no money isn't helping me
Beans on toast every night for tea
But it's having no one to talk to
That is really tightening the screws
The shop does 4 cans of beer for two pounds
And I keep on going down
Yes, cheap cans of beer and crap T.V.
Is all that is in front of me

All my family
And my wife, they are abroad
I'm so f**kin' bored

It's 5 'O'Clock, the night's hardly begun yet
And already I am almost out of cigarettes
I tell myself I'll only smoke one every two hours
But, I'm kidding myself, I know I don't have the willpower

As every serious smoker knows
A cigarette every 10 minutes is the way it goes
If you have to pick up other people's dog ends
It's easier than letting your habit end

I love to smoke, I smoke to love
This addiction comes from God above
I would smoke the devil's greasy fingers
If I had to, that's how bad it lingers

I know that smoking will **** me
But not if I **** myself you see

On such a beautiful sunny day
Seeing gangs of kids on their bikes​
It makes me think of the way
Me and my friends used to be like
Huge, day long adventures
Going to God knows where
Avoiding the censure
Of our parents, and their squares
Like older brothers and sisters
Who would tell our mums and dads
Where we'd gone if they'd missed us
Making it seem like we'd been bad
But it was just curiosity
To see what was out there
A massive world for us to see
We just had to find out where.

A foggy, easily forgotten Friday night
No hope and no redemption in sight​
When depression seems like a good idea
And suicide loses all of its fears
I walk the dark streets alone
It doesn't matter to me where I am going
North or South or East or West
It doesn't matter to me, I've got no feelings left
I feel old before my time
Like a disease has eaten away my mind
It's scary to feel so without feeling so numb
I wonder if it means that my time has come
I have felt depression before, but this is worse
I feel guilty for everything, even my birth
All the pain that my mother went through
To end up with something of such little use
I have had depression before but this is much worse
The way I feel, being alive is a curse

No, I don't feel happy
I don't think I ever did
I used to be an Angry Young Man
Now I'm just a grumpy old ***
I think​ that discontentment
Is all there is in life
We are unhappy being single
Then we're ******* with the wife
If we were always happy
And all we knew was bliss
There would be no need for drugs
And we wouldn't get ******
So to protect the trade of dealers
And of the breweries too
We should accept unhappiness as our lot
Well, what else can we do

I hear the dominoes click
As they begin to fall
All set up, a perfect trick
Just like life, as I recall

A set of scenarios
That you all go through
Blindly you will follow
The trail set up for you

Birth, school, work, death
A few small variables on the way
No time for you to take a breath
Until your dying day

It's all been set up for you
Way before your birth
What family you're born into
Decides what your life is worth

Yes, I hear the dominoes click
As they begin to fall
All set up, a perfect trick
Just like life as I recall

I've been in detox, I think  three times
Each time the idea wasn't​ mine
I did it because of what others were thinking
Me, I wanted to keep on drinking

It will never work if it's not your idea
Penned in by others thoughts and fears
Then one day a moment of clarity just hit
I realised I was sick of being sick

From that moment on, it wasn't so hard
Although my past has left me scarred
I still like a drink now and then
But now I know when to say "
"when "

Give up the ghost
Pour water to try to put out the sun
5:47 am, take off my glasses
Rub fingers on​ my face
Woke up aching, half on
And off my bed
Stretched, screaming
Awfully upon the rack
" I have pains in my heart which
Have taken my appetite "
Go bow down to Robert Johnson
Godlike
Poet extraordinare
" I have stones in my passway
And my road seems
Dark as night "
Ended up dying on his knees
Howling like a dog
A hellhound on his trail
Well I guess it finally
Caught up with him
I hear it's terrifying
Footsteps, padding, panting
Slavering, enslaving
80 years on and
Little has changed
" I have pains in my heart which
Have taken my appetite "
So, go pour buckets of rain
On the sun
Steal the moon and
Stash it in my backpack
Then run off drunkenly
Laughing
Laughing
Laughing at death
Laughing at life
What else can you do?
When there are;
Guilty lying tombstones
Obscene newspapers
Dead T.V.
The poisoned glass of whiskey
The dying mother
The weeping boyfriend
The creeping boy fiend
Drugs and alcohol
" Stones In My Passway "
Living too slow
Dying too fast
Stealing the moon
******* on the sun
The young girl beaten
And ***** in broken glass
The poisoned death
The poisoned life
5:47 am
Stretched upon the rack

To be so humiliated
To feel so desecrated
And to be left in tears
Belittled and put down
Just **** on the ground
To be overcome by fears
Months since I last cried
Felt close to suicide
Life's machinery all against me
Wanting to run and hide
Nobody on my side
So lost and so lonely
Never felt such burning hate
Wanting to punch, kick,  smash face
You ripped apart all of my dreams
My rage, I feel it coming
But I can't hit a woman
Self - restraint falling apart at the seams
No, turn and run away
Don't know what to say
Self - doubt and self - hate
But
I"ll get revenge some day
Yes, I'll have things my way
And I"ll laugh right in your face

Women are crazy
Totally ****** in the head
Look at my girlfriend

I'm full of hatred
I want revenge on the world
I need to calm down

Whilst in a dark night cemetery
A strange feeling did come over me
Was it illness,a summer chill ?
Or the undead who won't lie still?
An eerie creak,a sudden breeze
Brought a tremor to my knees
I turned and at once did see
A spectral figure come towards me
A body like that of smoke-filled glass
The head a terrifying vision from my past
A man to whom I once did wrong
When my heart was full and strong
I lied and stole his true love away
And left him slowly to decay
With her affections I did you
Until she did herself destroy
One year later, he died too
Of a broken heart, aged 22
And he now mysteriously glides towards me
At midnight in a cemetery
Beside his ignored, unruly plot
What horrifying plan has he got ?
My knees they shake, my eyes do leak
As the phantom began to speak
" Oh you who stole my love away
And mistreated her most every day
Now is your turn to pay the price
And feel your heart turn into ice
I will not drive you to your​ grave
It is your cold heart that I crave "
His icy hand plunged into my chest
I saw my heart depart from my breast
" You will forever live from hereon
But feelings you will have none "
With that the spectre disappeared
Along with him went my fear
As longer and longer I roam the earth
I realise the phantom's curse
Intolerably my life goes on
But feelings, emotions, I have none
As time goes on, all that I crave
Is the comfort of the grave