In the midst of thoughtless sand
Just off the coastal road
Where systematic palm trees
Provide just about the only distraction,
Ronnie runs a run down hotel
There in the gulf of Aqaba.
He knows his job well,
He's letting the place cool down a little.
He often sleeps in the day, at reception,
And he's got a glass eye that doesn't blink,
You can book yourself in for one night only
Unless Ronnie has know you,
Has seen you before,
Someplace shady, perhaps,
For it is said that,
Ronnie's tanned for several lifetimes..
Stay a night and
He'll treat you well,
For he's always up for a drink
And his pocket holds more than one light,
He says he used to be Egyptian royalty,
But now he's got his own cabin here
A bit out of sight.
But that's not where he keeps his things..
His cupboards are blank
And his blinds are eternally drunk,
They never come up.
He says he's known this bunk a while,
About the time fame went  aside
And the rain got into the swimming pool,
And now  you can watch it bloom with niffy pride.
And so half a bottle goes
And midnight it arrives,
And Ronnie sits you down in his dimly lit back room
And begins to tell you about the kind of people he can find:
Those who want to bring you luck,
Other who'd sell you gold at half the price,
No muck,
You may shrug
As he claims to know where the good times dock
And the bad times kept at bay,
And though he admits that he never had a close shave
You notice a scar on his cheek.
He was a minion in the spice trade
Before that war in Mozambique,
A model soldier he was
Credulous & meek and
Conveniently stupid,
So he raged and looted
And his ***** got him booted
To sunny California,
Where he got Cupid tattooed on his upper arm,
He drank with philanthropic truckers
Smoked with greedy hippies,
And he still wears these bracelets
That look like the end of a shredded sleeve
And a pinched fedora
that had its ex head murdered,
It was down town LA that instilled in him a feel
For rough bourbon
And sweeter-than-perfect promises,
He says he'd known love
Real love too,
And sank with it
Bottomless.
He watched dreams become skeletons
And skeletons become dreams
In the cities that took shape of parodies of yore
Upswept.
You notice that he's got almost no nails left,
But he swears he never stole
And he never wept
He says he begged in his bead,
But his pleas weren't quite potent enough
His visions too misty to get handcuffed
And put to work,
So he scuffed for joy
In the midnight murk
And morning slumbers,
Safety in lascivious female numbers,
Action in cursed bottles & pills,
Castrated wonders & faceless thrills that meant nothing but fills
Merging into chaos
He was disappearing fast,
Diving towards greater liberty of thought and speech,
Skedaddling from basic options,
Throttling in gaudy plastic oceans,
Without a map, without an anchor,
He says he finished school with rancour,
The only thing he took to end..
He takes a swig before he brags
That even death might overlook his self
Eventually..
Potentially, maybe,
But you know for a fact that actually,
He's 16 years to live and that is it.
And 4 years after that nobody will remember ****.
And when you tell him that,
the morning comes,
But he doesn't **** or argue,
He smiles, puts up his thumb
And calls it a fair bargain.

I woke up *****
And went to the shop,
I got corn, peas, chopped gherkins,
All canned,
I raided the reduced section like mad,
Got some cheese
And some ham
That I won't allow to go bad,
cause I'll make a ton of salad
Out of this myriad,
For breakfast, munch and evening feast,
It'll last a fortnight at the very least,
I can top it up with this
Foul smelling liquor I brought from the east,
Among the other mementos in my cellarette,
I could have a party in my ******
In my kitchenette,
My flat is so hot I could sign post it
'sauna to let',
But the swingers here don't speak a word of
English,
One time they took their ya-yas out
And called ME a delinquent,
As if I've got a funny kind of pigment
They can't live with,
I've tried to put my finger on it
But I don't want it to get stinky,
I think they simply haven't got an inkling
As to what and why they're thinking,
But never mind those pinkies,
Let us go back to my shopping
Just as it was getting *****:
Before my skimpy trolley glided to the checkout,
I got a ticket for my pfand,
Which measured fairly to my pleasure
Of having my alcoholism,
Which is confess is merely leisured,
Redeemed into a form of solid ******* treasure.
Throughout the years my drinking
Let me celebrate the fear
Of lack of meaning,
It made friends out of strangers,
Lovers out of friends,
Ex lovers out of lovers,
Clowns out of boring people,
It made a clown out of me too,
My drinking took my money
And gave me a suspicious act
To cling to,
It made me a legless athlete
In a race against the future,
It excited me with waterfalls of chaos
Bursting through cracked normality,
It pretended to bring Arcadia
Into the ruling technology,
It invaded Scandinavia  
With lawless Somalia,
It put peaks and crannies
Into the dull landscape of
Nord Rhein Westphalia,
I have a whole worthless encyclopaedia
Of what my drinking did to me,
Page after page of random numbers
Makes for a baffling read,
I don't know if I should frame it,
Burn it,
Or get some ****,
My drinking always gave me an excuse to smoke,
I puffed my hours into nothingness,
Laughter & loneliness,
A condition of no ambition
Made life itself seem like a superstition,
But I don't want the repetition anymore,
Boredom is but a bed sheet of a sore old *****,
A stifling breath of a handicapped mind;
But
Being now so temporarily poor
I find it easy to smile
As the cashier counts my pennies
Making the citizens in line
In their Jack Wolfskins and denims
Very uneasy,
Men & women of the Rhein get seriously queasy
When they see a foreigner like me
Simply taking it easy,
You know I had to break my piggybank just to get here,
I crossed a red light when it was all clear,
I have no bike lights - I just disappear,
Who knows what is it that I do inside the night?..
Could be something good,
Might be something bright..
Anyway,
I got my receipt,
Said my 'schön Tag' alright,
I should have said 'schön Abend'
But I guess I'm not polite,
Then I rode in the street,
My bags dangling left & right,
Balancing my act
Under the waning Eurodollar moon,
Some react badly
when they're given **** to spoon,
But my lack of money
In fact makes me feel immune
To superficial cravings like
iPhones, clothes, perfume,
shavings, shoes, tattoos;
I'd rather spend a fortnight
In the arms of David Hume,
Than stopping by at Rügen
On my way to Cameroon,
On a beastly ocean liner,
With pommes and Pauliner
Supplied ad infinitum!
I don't know my own mind,
I's time to take a trip down the ol' cerebrum,
While tickets are at a minimum
And the season is at a premium,
I'll tame my tantrums without ******,
I'll let my maelstroms guide me to a podium
Of perfect equilibrium,
I'll get a glimpse of wisdom
By watching my own delirium,
I'm serious about this.
I don't reminisce about the years
I dismissed by watching television series,
Dumbing down with the Big Bang Theory.
I feel so blessed to be weary
And out of breath
From the long hand of entertainment
That wants to tickle everyone to death,
It's an epidemic worse than crystal ****,
But it's not hard to shake the fever.
Only a ****** was born to be a ******,
Man was cursed to be a dubious believer.
So kiss my feet
Or chop me with a cleaver,
Nothing will stop me from becoming an achiever,
Nothing but the habit pattern of my own demeanour.

On an early Monday morn
Into this world my mother bore me
Although I never asked her to
But still she bore me
Into a hospital
A patient
Out of the train
Onto the station
The light, the air,
The Decompression,
No wonder that my first impression
I can't remember,
My mother thought I had a temper,
The nurses watched my massive member,
They put me down as baby boomer
Yeah, I was born to be consumer
But when I'm in my old age
I hope to be if not the driver,
Then at least the passenger

Aren't we going somewhere?

On holiday, perhaps?
Where birds of paradise dance
In savage colours
And sing in dazzling trance,
Where man's institutions are far away,
Where banks don't feed on our flesh,
Away from roaring trucks with pigs
Set for slaughter,
Away from downtown Bangladesh,
Away from ugly neighbours
And their children,
Away into the sweet fresh air
With no wifi
No zombifying TV,
No bling-bling chavs with one beat one key one theme music,
Where the weather is tolerable
And the scam of social media is no more,
We will leave the choking fumes
And strange wars...
Except we won't,
Cause that isn't where we go.
Let's be realistic,
We like postmodern world
It's lovely masochistic,
It takes out minds off questions
That probe beyond statistics,
Questions we don't even know how to phrase,
But fools are always one step ahead,
Delays make them enraged baboons,
When I am in my old age
I expect to see banners on the moon
And clouds shaped by advertisers,
Robot womanisers
And insect appetisers,
New ways to use fertilisers
On human brains
Making us none the wiser
But great at analysing market value
And levels of offensiveness.
I hope you don't think that I'm implying
That you will have something to do with this.
I know you're all good people here..
It's the corporations, of course.
Those classical psychopaths:
Self interested
Manipulative
Always the best
They prefer not to compete with the rest
Nor accept responsibility,
They suffer no conscience
Feel no remorse
And present superficial versions of themselves
To the world,
To the good people
Who take on their traits
Day by day
Year by year
Generation by generation
Because .. you know ..
Market forces and ..
Hunger .. for .. something..
Progress something !...
..it's the right way!
So what would you like to change?
Is this really your pimple?
When I am in my old age
I would like to be simple
I'll have my special armchair
That will be the envy of all people,
And I'd like to hope that something will be done
About climate change
But for that Israel needs to cease to exist
As well as all the other countries,
Old and new,
And national symbolism must get relegated
To the domain of underwear, swimming trunks and bathing towels,
Where washing machines will eventually bleach it into oblivion,
And the world must become truly global,
Entering the space age
United under redefined humanity!
When I am in my old age,
I still expect to see insanity on a global scale,
People fishing in empty oceans
Sailing their way to French Polynesia
on raging 20 metre waves
only to find French Polynesia
somehow not there anymore..
I hope not to be a bore in my old age,
I hope nostalgia won't be classed as a
Disease
And heavily medicalized.
I hope suicide will be legal like bread
I hope my head won't have the texture
Of a woman's inner thigh,
I hope my neck won't look like an accordion,
I hope I won't be making involuntary noises
Every time I lie down,
And I hope to lie down between women's inner thighs
From to  time,
Yeah, I really hope this can be arranged
When I am in my old age
Even if I smell of old people
I hope the smell of old people will be ****
I guarantee it will get very messy
If they won't let me
Take my pension money out
all at once,
I intend to own the stage
Until my very last breath
When I am in my old age
I hope impending death won't make
Religious, or spiritual,
Whichever's worse..
When I am in my old age
I fully expect hats to be in vogue again
And smoking in airports
And free range drugs
When I am in my old age
Maturity will triumph
Over the teenage bugs
With naked ankles and baseball caps,
And the myth of youth will rightfully collapse,
And I will order and convincing martini,
Drive a convincing car,
Snap a convicting finger at the waiter
To the rhythm of swing played at the bar
Somewhere close to the equator
On some not-too-distant star
I will be my own dictator,
I'll be my own tsar
And all will be jolly!
Apart from all this
I really have no worries.
So let me get drunk and let the world laugh
For there is a remedy for everything
But death
(and burning cathedrals)
And as long as we are laughing
We do not weep
About the roses that we picked
That even the sweetest showers
Won't make grow again.

I never called her by name
In fact,
the last time I said 'darling' to her face
was 10 nameless years ago
when I misused her
like a habit;
And now I can't even remember how
her ***** looked like,
although it was the centre of my concern,
and her ******* are now bereft
of that exclusive bounce,
as perfect as they were...
I just about recall her stomach,
I see it now as an inverted bathtub..
After three years of haughty pull-outs
I got pregnant
at a 5-star hotel in Turkey;
there wasn't much discussion,
the first adult decision that came my way
felt formal,
It did trouble me a little how dry
and ready
was her 'No.'
It felt like luck that I concurred;
And though I keep forgetting more and more
I can't forgive her
for not being delusional enough in my regard
the same way that I am now of her,
for she spoke like a fish
and she ****** like a log,
but still she clogs my veins
and reigns over my sleep.

Cockcrow harbour:
the gulls whining like tethered dogs
about rooftops
paliophobic cars and
grounded vessels..
Look:
on the hoary horizon
a glaucous strip
beguils
with backwater.
Not putting on a show
the frigid sea benumbed..
Easily,
with a tail of emerald jelly
skim a vanishing lane off that
lustrous sheet
and watch
the trailblazing mainland
scuttle.

Now,
Only scattered dreaming is possible.

In it's bachelor pad,
cradling over crinkles,
away from the meretriciosness
of validating the real by sharing it,
THE WIND
blusters off any veneer.
Here,
stale but spry,
fare your way around the inoffensive isle
to it's most shyest of harbours:
a mouth full of silver
saving it's breath.
The windows facing the sea
seem
black & white,
their wooden frames hooked to the wind,
the splattered gulls meow
your name
in a way
that's
personal.
Of course comes to mind.
The pines
are demanding a visit,
They're whispering
so you can hear them,
each as different as every snore,
these pines know
how to grow in the sand
and still reach for
the Nimbostratus with heads in unison.
The spaces
between their trunks illuminating
the blazing needles
raining down
painting the ground
familiar
to your lover's
skin texture:
Feel her closeness
from jilted borderwatchtowers
as she speads her mire
like no one's watching:
weedy and sugared
with bellflowers,
the waves in her shallow armpit
billeting a pair of white swans:
demurely they float
sometimes as pillows and sometimes
as question marks..
Go ask the seasoned locals,
they say the bones she parked
when she let her ice sheet melt
are portals
to her noble underbelly.

Hidden in the woods
reminiscent of your heart,
the red
tank-sized stone
is sealed,
but what the lighting reach cannot
the rain shall sluice apart
dumbly.
And though her hair has
come to be
the moss
black and hoarse
as sailor's beard,
there is still time.
The void says
her noisy neighbour is nothing
to die for.
The theadbear car with absent doors
incites
to drive her
in reverse gear
to the first few
days of holidays:
her golden locks a-blaze,
her arm around your
hind-sighted doppelganger.

All land begins
underneath these feet:
a merry makebelieve.

Jump
and catch a glimpse of Arabia
in red,
Birkenhead
in yellowish-grey,
Berlin's fading rainbow..
all lacking in depth like
floaters,
like foreign pain,
like your very first birthday.

Don't they?

Spend days in suspension,

don't you?

Well, look around!
You see ahead
and back
are much the same
when all is round.
And all IS round!
Unless of course,
you're
on the ground
where a single wave can
****.

Doubtless fun,
boundless thrill, all
but for a price!
Here
even cloudy sunsets imply
sacrifice.
And at nights
perfect darkness never dwells,
Some devilry always tells the time
in mocking ways:
Jump
and you're on holidays,
divorced from all necessity,
sleeping in the sun
for days an altogether different
beast,
electrified,
with sandbagged veins.

At least not dead,
I hear you say.
How cute..
Alas! the price you pay for
being oh so futile is per se
a snide;
So pick your cherries and throw them
in that tide!
You know the lights in this harbour never return
in a straight line
May craft and the shimmering power
not let you be
the fog in the rye,
or the rock's inside.

You are round and everything
is your equal.
So consider your battles well.

No beginning is good enough
I heard the sand grains say
repeatedly
They're blown about
unstuck their cover is fragile
They always remember being
some place else
vague and connected
loosely they're tied
to the stupid wind
by their own choosing
Restless they will be everywhere,
so they aren't picky.
Some get sticky
and buried
under stainless water,
and some mount up
thru seismic waves
into volumes of sandstone,
only to be trimmed into shorter sentence,
whipped into tenderness,
groomed into the latest
fashion,
those banded dunes that sulk
the passion.