I have started to wake in the middle of the night,
Not knowing the time, in the dark I can't see.
I lie there in the gathering half-light
Reviewing my life and it's inadequacies

Torturing myself, tying my mind up in knots,
Thinking of the problems I've caused for myself.
Agonising over each, and there have been lots
Exercising my poor mental health

As the light grows at the edge of the curtains
And outside in the world, the day it starts
I finish my examinations​, and I am certain
That in every failure, I played the main part

As I hear the neighbour's cars take them away
To work. My mind with nothing learned
Forgets it all for the rest of the day
As my tiredness suddenly returns

The day it passes, my mind is okay
No problems at all, everything is alright
I get ready for bed at the end of the day
Then wake up again in the dead of the night.

I know that's not you
A marble headstone
On a scrubby patch of grass
Trite rhyme chiselled into
Cold, black stone
Always feeling grey and cold
Even the summer sun
Cannot permeate
The ghost of grief
That hangs around
But, I know that's not you
A bag of bones in your sister's dress
Six feet under cold, damp mud
Where's the warmth? the ***
The vitality, the laughter
The love, the insane jealousy
That's what's left of you
That's what lives on, always remains​
Not remains
A piece of meat on a coroner's slab
Or the blue faced ghoul
That I tried to breathe life
Back into
No, I know that's not you
But
Your spirit, the brightest I've known
Burning with a sweet intensity
All of those beautiful times in bed
Yes, great ***
But not necessarily
Laughter, easy, nothing between us
No need for clothes or self-consciousness​ now
The most relaxed I've ever been
Life had a sheen
A confident glow
So, yes
I cried, almost died
At your funeral
The thought of you rotting
Under *****, black earth
I've almost died a few times since
Struggling to go on
When life's light has gone out
So yes
I'll come to your grave
And leave flowers
A holly wreath at Xmas too
Walking back to the car
I'll stifle a sniffle
Try to stop a sob
The tremors in my chest
But also I know that
None of it matters
Because there in that graveyard
I know that's not you

When times are hard
When you're almost starved
Your £70 a week dole has gone nowhere
And all of the cupboards​ are bare
And you've only​ got £1 for your electric
You have to go
Into the mystic
Into the mythic
It's time to get
A little bit cosmic
If you only thought about
The here and now
You could easily
Lose your mind somehow
If you only thought about this one plane
You'd be sure to go insane
So you widen your brain
Ignore all the *******
World of authority
The bills, the debts
The license for the T.V.
Send your brain into the stars
Out past Saturn, after flying past Mars
Out into a different reality
Where none of Earth's problems worry me

Corn dogs, burgers, American trash
Chrome, neon lights and huge panes of glass
But they taste amazing, so what can I say ?
American imperialism has once again got its way

A tired, street-walker beaten down
From working her beat in this ***** town
It's thirty quid to you or me​
A cheap enough price for dignity
Yours and hers both are lost
Too high a price for me at half the cost
Her back is aching, her feet are sore
As she goes through the motions just once more
Just one more time, for one more score
Then she'll quit, this time for sure
Worriedly waking in the early afternoon
The shivers will be starting soon
Phoning around begging for tick
Cold sweating now and feeling sick
She's got to go and turn one more trick
She's got to go and **** one more ****
Just one more time for one more score
And then she'll give it up for sure

I've got to get up
So early in the morning
But I cannot sleep

When we're lying in your bed
In the dark carnal midnight
I might say that I love you
But in the cold light of morning
When we look at each other
We both know there's nothing
Further from the truth

I know you don't love me
But you could put up with me
At least then your child gets a daddy
I know I don't love you
I don't know why I pretend to
It just seems the polite thing to do

We're not getting any younger
And being alone seems so frightening
So we live this lie and hate each other
More with each day
There's no love, there's no passion
We don't even care about the ***
But we know it's the last chance we might get

Sometimes life is good
Sometimes it really is ****
We just deal with it

Let's celebrate the 25th
Try to forget all of the filth
That surrounds this time of year
And all of the things that we hold dear

All of the ads we see on T.V.
And all the perfect families
They always have enough money
And have no difficulties

They have no depression or anxiety
No worries at all, life is so easy
All of those perfect white-tooth dreams
Where life is not how it seems

But we have to face reality
Where life isn't so easy
Poverty and mental distress
Are as familiar to us as our address

So what can we do but try to see
How happy  we are supposed to be
Life is hard,. no one said it would be easy
But why is it quite so hard, is the question that bothers me

My wife's 50th Birthday
We're drinking cocktails
Vermouth, Bols blue
Amaretto and lemonade.
There is a name​ for it, but
I don't know what it is
And I really  don't care

So we're drinking
Smoking cigarettes
And wondering about time.
Wow! I can't believe that
Karen is fifty, and how is it
That I can be forty - five.

It's so ******* weird
Growing older, I don't really
Feel any different from when
I was 25
A little more tired, a little more
Cynical
But basically still me
Effectively still a child

I always just assumed
That once you hit 35
You'd feel automatically
Grown Up, and know
How to survive
Not only that but
How to thrive
A professional career
And a beautiful wife

Just like the lives you see on T.V.
I expected someone to do that for me
My own stupid naivety

But no, I've got to take​ control
Of my own stupid life
I don't​ know if I can do it
I think it sounds​ difficult
Too much to take at one time.

I've spent nearly all my adult years
In awful occupations​
Hundreds of jobs, hundreds of tears
Years of sheer frustration
Terrible employment
Cooking sausages, bagging salt
Absolutely no enjoyment
But it wasn't always my fault
Leaving school with no qualifications​
No career to look forward to
You have to take any occupation
What else can you do?
Miserable jobs, minimum wage
Always the first to be ' let go '
Working all night, sleeping all day
But nowhere else to go
Throwing heavy boxes about
Loading massive lorries
On the bottom rung and no way out
I've worked in so many factories
Now I have tried to educate myself
Qualifications of which I'm proud
Training for a job in Mental Health
Yes, that's my way out
And for about 2 1/2 years
I've been working voluntarily
Helping people with their troubles and fears
Now I have found the right job for me
Now I have found the thing I want to do
I have found my real career
It helps me to be be helping you
And I will always be here

It's a curse that affects those of my generation
The constant search for new sensations
New drinks, powders, potions and pills
Feeling better and better until we fell ill

It's that old, old story of drugs and addiction
But I thought it was probably 50 % fiction
Peddled by the authorities to scare people straight
I thought I was clever enough to avoid my fate

But I'm not much smarter than any other smackhead
Just enough to avoid jail and not to be dead
The consequences are there for the rest of my days
I have to stay in control of my actions, my ways

It's there all the time and it won't disappear
But I got off lightly, at least I'm still here
I can't say that much for too many of my friends
I've still got a chance to say how my life ends

I miss my grandparents, they lived life their way
They wouldn't even understand life today
They would never accept benefits
Even if they were owed it
They were strong and stoic, they lived through Hell
And came out the other side doing well
The great depression, two World Wars
They lived through it, they lived through more
My grandfather was a wild one in his youth
I loved him for it, and that's the truth
The best people I've ever known
I hope that they are in Heaven, on their thrones
There's no poverty​, no rationing there
No depression in Heaven, they haven't​ a care
Enjoying each other, now the hard times are done
Dancing together, and having​ fun
Yes, I miss my grandparents and their way
They just wouldn't understand life today
They were too level-headed for the way things are now​
They would think that the World had gone crazy somehow
No, I'm not sure, but I think they would be right
They would not understand it, so let them sleep tight

I'm glad that I am an older man
Being young was rough
Between the ages of twelve and twenty one
I suffered more than enough

The usual​ petty stuff, like spots and bad hair
With it being ginger as well
To the depths of existential despair
Feeling that I was living in hell

If I could go back to myself during those times
I'd say " In time it passes, really just look "
Young me would say " F#*k you and your trite rhymes
Stuff your platitudes, you make me puke "

The me of back then would hate the me of today
And I'm sure it would be reciprocated
Both of us right and wrong in our own ways
But, to be honest I'm glad I'm antiquated

As you get older you get more mellow
I'm sure some could see it as ''selling out '
But with me now you can always say ' hello '
And know that in return you won't get a shout

As I grow older, I keep feeling better
More and more comfortable in my own skin
I'd love to write the younger me a letter
Saying " You'll get there kid, just keep hanging on in.

On a night like this it feels good to be out
Watching my dog as she scampers about
It's the type of night you need to remember
To help you through the cold December​s
Gulls swooping through the clear blue sky
Sunlight glinting off windows as you pass by
The air is warm and to feast your eyes on
Green melts into blue on the horizon
There's not a cloud to marr the sky
I swear I feel a natural high
The world reveals such beauty before your eyes
I start to wonder : was this devised ?
I don't believe in a creator
But can I really relate to
The theory it's all an accident
Never planned and never meant
I don't know, but I am filled with happiness
And to be alive is to be blessed

Reading a slim book of poetry
Of life and it's mutability
Poems from inside of
A safe, cosy middle class cocoon
The words have no sharp edges
To burst the balloon
Poems about flowers
To while away the hours
Between the visit of the vicar
And the next *** of tea
Not poetry for you and me
Or anything like reality
Poetry as a gentle hobby
Like baking
Or flower arranging
Not poetry from the gut
That comes​ raging
Like fists planted upon the page
Poems of love or loss or rage
But tenderly placing
Each word on the page
Like a delicate flower to be arranged
I don't hate the woman
Who wrote this stuff
For her this obviously is enough
I envy her easy life
It's lack of struggle
It's lack of strife
Perhaps one day it will be me
Writing of such superficialities
When I'm fat, well fatter
Rich and content
And all of my life- force has been spent
I will sit in my garden and smell the flowers
Then while away my hours
On my hobby, writing poetry
Between the visit of the vicar
And my next *** of tea

Standing in the hospital
Hungover, feeling jittery
Ward  93
Drug and Alcohol Dependency Unit
I finger the squeezy lemon bottle
Hidden inside my boxer shorts
Full of second-hand ****

Ward 93 operates as a strict regime
3 strikes and you're out
That means that every time
You give a positive sample
They give you a warning
More than 3 and your
Methadone is stopped
I'd had all 3

After a phone call to my
( only) clean friend
I met him in the pub
3 or 4 beers later
I hit him with it
He took it reasonably well
It not being every day
A friend asks you to ****
Into a bottle for him

So......
There I was, hungover nervous
With a squeezy lemon of
Someone elses​ **** in my shorts
Hidden just behind my *****
To keep it at body temperature
If you handed over the sample
Bottle and it was cold
The Nurse might become suspicious
Or think that you were dead

This required sleight of hand
And nerve
The Nurse would stand right behind you
In the cubicle to watch you
Anyway
It worked
This time
The next time I couldn't
Get in touch with my friend
So I had to resort to
Trying it with tea
Amazingly they said
That this sample contained
Opiates
And I was thrown off the programme

Either their equipment was faulty
The bottle was contaminated
Or something
But just in case
I started to
Drink a lot of tea
Well, you never know
And I guess
They've got to keep
Sales up
Somehow

Just a few hours ago, I felt so good to see sun instead of rain
Now the wet, grey skies bring melancholia back again
This winter has felt eternal, blizzards from Siberia
Is it any wonder that the sun brings on hysteria ?
We are not a nocturnal species, we need to see sunlight
We need at least occasionally it's glow to feel alright
If there was a sunshine drug, I'm sure that I'd be hooked
I am ginger I do not tan. It's not about how I look
It just feels so good to feel that warm, orange glow
With being British it's not something that I have had much time to know
I'm cold turkeying for sunshine, I'm rattling like ****
I wish my celestial dealer would sort it out, so I can get a hit

Well, it's my birthday on Monday
Then I will hit the big 45
And what, in my own way
Have I learned about this life

Stay away from drugs and their dealers
They will bring you nothing but strife
I know it's not much, but I feel that
It's an important lesson in life

As for women, I don't know
Just try your best to find
One that won't leave you feeling low
Try to get one who is kind

I know this isn't​ a lot to know
But it will have to do for now
Hopefully I've a lot more years to go
To work out the rest, somehow

OK, so I guess that I'm a poet
I'm told that it gives me responsibilities
I don't even want to know it
The only person I write with in mind is me
People should just look out for themselves
No! That makes me sound like a Tory
I'm a Socialist, that's important to me

But, art is different, it's not life
I could never write for someone else
I've only got time for my own struggles and strife
If you want to, pick someone​ else off the shelf

Just for today
I have to admit
That I am scared
******* scared
Perhaps I am being
Paranoid
But
But...
Trump in the White House
Trouble as ever
In the middle East
England as poverty stricken
As I have ever seen it
And after the early 90's
I didn't think I would
See it worse
But now it is much
Much, much worse

As I say
Perhaps it's me
As people get older
They begin to think
Automatically
That the world
Is going downhill
Looking back through
Rose coloured glasses
At their perfect past

I hope that this is
What this is
I really hope
That is what this is

But 10 years ago I had
Never seen
Food banks before
Not in my time anyway
I'd seen pictures of them
Back in the '30's
The times​ of the
Hunger Marches
But I never thought
I would've had to use them
Myself, relying on the
Charity of strangers,
When the Government
Has become too vicious
To feed the people who
Pay their wages

And yet, progress
Rolls on and on
The gap between
Rich and poor
Grows wider and wider

Before too long
They will just
**** the poor
And make
Uncomplaining robots
Too cater to the rich
People's every whim

Unless they don't have to
Unless they don't have to.....

Sometimes I think it's  best to  be alone
Other people just bring you down
When their intelligence doesn't match my own
But what's the point in being the leader of a one man town ?

Anger and frustration, if it was just my nation
At least things would be done right
But even in my mathematical equation
I would be alone tonight

And if I am so clever, how come I am alone ?
The drink and drugs are an illusion
My thoughts turn themselves into stone
And become an endless confusion

What can I say? What can I do ?
Don't ask me I just don't know I'm all alone just an old fool
Who has nowhere to go

All I have is my poetry
To keep me​ warm tonight
At least it's something that I believe
And in which I know I am right

I sit and watch the walls
Of loneliness slowly closing in
Drawing in like a cold
Windy, rain-filled night
I can't ever remember feeling
So utterly alone
So completely adrift
From everything
And everybody
I think of all
The opportunities untaken
The abilities wasted
People shrugged off, blanked
Nonchalant
With all the flaming arrogance
Of one who thinks that
He is born lucky
Special
To whom the rules do​ not apply
The kind who thinks he will
Win the lottery
Without even buying a ticket

But I wasn't born lucky
And I'm not special
Failure hits me just as hard
As anyone else
And it keeps on hitting
I'm like the boy who cried wolf
I pushed people away
Not thinking that one day
They would take me at my word

And now it's like I'm on a ship
Condemned to drift
Upon a sea of nothingness
Unable to dock at any port
Whilst food and fresh water
Steadily run out
Holes appear in the sails
Water slowly seeps into the hull

I have to choose, either
A sad slow lingering starvation
Or swiftly and sadly
Walk the plank

I sit and pray
Up in the crow's nest
I keep watch and hope
Someone please calls
The coastguard

As the night it falls
And the  bright streetlights turn on
My heart lights up too

I stand in my garden and look around
Who knows what happens in these small towns​
Behind the curtains in suburbia
Who knows what really happens there?

The mild-mannered man you meet on your stroll
Could have 5 Japanese, plastic *** dolls
Behind the curtains in suburbia
Who knows what could happen here?

The fat, jolly woman to whom you say ' hello '
Her husband could be under the patio
Middle class suburbia
Anything can happen here

My next door neighbour's curtains twitch
In her back room she is a witch
Pentagrams​ in blood on the laminate floor
As she chats to the woman next door
She leaves a note out for the milk-man
Then she sells her soul to Satan

Behind the curtains in suburbia
Who knows what happens here?

It's not like the rough council estates​
Where people are driven by need and hate
The sheer boredom of suburbia
Breeds evil things that happen here

It's the sweet sundown of a a summer's night
Children finish their games in the last of the light
I'm alone, I'm lonely nothing feels right

The air is full of birds on the wing
Or nesting in the treetops you can hear them sing
But I'm oblivious to it, I don't hear a thing

The sky is growing darker, the night starts to unwind
The stars are beautiful, see how they shimmer and shine
But I don't see them, I might as well be blind

Courting couples wander, walking hand in hand
Strolling through the park, kiss under the empty bandstand
I'm lonely and I feel like a poor excuse for a man

I need that special someone, who can make my sun shine
I need to find a woman who'll be happy to be mine
Until then there's only ugly winter thoughts in my mind

I'm glad I'm not that guy anymore
I'm glad that I've rejected
The guy who thought that fun
Could only be inhaled or injected
I'm glad that now I'm
The kind of guy
Who can be respected