We've built our church on the ruins of yours
It's always been that way of course
Sumarian Egyptian Hittite Inca
Reappropriation was what they were into
And rightly so
Can't waste that foundation
Took some of it with them
As they altered their nations
Through horror and peace
Some stone gets chipped off
The passage of time
Grinds down and smoothes rock
To a differing shape
Somethings lost
Somethings gained
But there's never been history
Without shouting and pain
So we'll build our church
on the ruins of theirs
Again and again through the
Cycling years.

Got that sickness
Makes you sweat and shiver
At the same time
Makes your bones ache
Like they might vibrate apart
Nausea rises and swells
Just like Noah's Ark
Delerium not Tremens
Adrift in the dark
Is it night or day?
Am I hot or cold?
Like the ills of childhood
Like the ills of old
It'll pass soon enough
And then i will not care
That I feel I've been poisoned
And thrown down the stairs.

Tilly licks her lips,when the vinegar hits the chips.
Don't you know? Now,
she does back flips.
She'll walk by your side
If you have some scampi fries
or perchance , a Cheesey moment,
when it comes to food
She'll brook no opponent,
Were I to die
She'd eat my components.

It's all on her terms,
She don't need you or no one else,
She has herself,
But what's that in your hand?
Could it be something she might understand
To be human food?
Always in that mood,
She will not be misconstrued.

Leonard said
Everybody knows
Now that he's dead
It'd be shocking
To suppose
That
God is dead
And all that
There all that
Would diagnose
In the long run
What everybody
Knows.

Where'd you get them spex?
Where'd you get them kecks?
Jesus lid yer clobbers off the chart!
And frocks for lady muck
Of prezzies there's a glut
The fences laughing
Play their part
But you've murdered trust so early
Gone so ******* Tory
Turning self obession into art.

When the detritus
At last
Gets too deep
When there s
No clear vision
Awake
Or in sleep
While
The candles wax
Melts
And bubbles down
The foul grey sands
Whip off of the beach
To  cover the town
The infection
Not stopping
To your system
A rout
Them things  
Held within you
Start to leak out.

I always thought
You could redo Pesci's" Funny how?"scene
In Goodfellas as one about poetic effectiveness

"What the **** is narratively compellingly about me?"
That type o thing
Give it a go. X.

Didn't the fella the Hollies ripped off
Rip off some classical fella?
Tell that to thom yorke
As he sues
Lana Del Rey.

Tilly licks her lips
When the vinegar hits the chips
Don't you know now
She does backflips?

She'll walk by your side
If you have some scampi fries
Or perchance a cheesy moment
When it comes to food
She'll brook no opponent
Were  I to die
She'd eat my components.

The mocking bird stands careful
Atop the cactus
in the heat
It drops its load
And flys off
It's yearly part in this complete
The droppings contain
A parasitic mistletoe seed
At night comes forth a tendril
When the host begins to breathe
It slowly wends its way in
Deep into the flesh
Reliant on the moisture
In which it sweetly rests
It's sits there near a Calendar
Then bursts out
In a Blossom
Of blood crimson red
Humming birds drink of its nectar
The cactus half near dead
Then at last the mistletoe
Bears its fruit
And the Mocking bird returns
To feast the cycle off once more
It's nutrition duly earned

Dustin's back in training
For Marathon Man 2
They've got him on the good stuff
Should be enough to see him through
They got Olivier in hologram
Roy Scheider too
A miracle of technology
And a load of fetid poo.

Your tongue will dig your grave
Yeah but  that will take awhile
And in the meantime
The displaced earth
Will roll back
Into the pile
From wence it started
So it goes
Like yer man Sisyphus of old
You'll die mid pisstake  baby
Just like you done bin told.

A ring of bright water
And one of
Guinness fire
Which one you wake up with
Depends on
Why you're alive

Every year about this time
We head to Dorset
For tunes and wine
And deep fried squid
From thyme and tide
Next to roast chicken
Side by side

At  le grand bouffe
Heartburn won't subside
With rising bile you are supplied
No pieminster on this site
The pie and chips is sold by Sykes
Smoking buns the burger gaffe
Will do you breakfast if you ask
And at Tibetan kitchen
The hungry crowd grows thick
Ask him to save me
A Yeti's ****.

How Duth thou
Go forth
Wence from ere
Thou did came
Thence thy sallied by
Twixst the lullaby
''Twas to blame.

Your friends
Won't read your poetry
Foolish to think they would
Unfair too
To expect em to
This aversion
Is understood
For you won't
Get a true reaction
It'll be tempered
With kindness
And tact
But there's
Always one
Who bucks that trend
As a matter of fact.

He talks of military intelligence
Two words together
That don't make sense
And the saleability
Of peace
This is the news
There is no relief
The freak show
That lives inside our heads
Soon comes the day
When we wake up dead.

Today begins the Tenebrae
The extinguishing of candles
The gradual diminishing of light
Then a loud noise in the darkness
It's not practiced much these days
You need the requisite clergy
And the will to witness after midnight
the desire for which deserts me
It seems older than Christ
Redolent of the Egyptians
Like Sekhmet in her Karnak chapel
Unlit
Against time
Resistant.

Liverpool can be a lonely place
On a Saturday night
And it's only
Thursday morning.

I've just seen a pigeon
In the heavy rain
Clinging on to
The surface
Of a sheer brick wall
I didn't know
They could do that
I was waiting for the fall
Was this fellah
The Alex Honnold
Of his feathered breed?
Or do they do it all the time
And I've just never seen?
He flapped his wings
Now and then to adjust his grip
But he hung right in there
With barely a slip
Then I saw it
He motivation anew
The bird feeder was busy
He was stuck in a queue.

With faith in our souls
We skip toward the light
Singing blithley together
Songs of truth and joy
And *****

To left stand the illiberal
To the right the funny men
Both will badger
And deride you
Herd you to their
Favoured pen

And them that have no eyes
Will ask why you seem so shook
And you will have to explain yourself
To a dog shown a card trick look.

In the garden of Eden baby
In the room above a pub
In the valley of the shadow
That's where I found my love

When dinosaurs ruled the earth
The day the Earth stood still
When a river ran right through it
That's when I got my fill

Something in the way she moves
Some day my prince will come
Some enchanted evening *******
Some kind of wonderful

Who watches the watchmen?
Whose side are you on?
Who are you peter Townsend?
Whose heavy head wears the crown?

I strongly remember
My first football experience
My uncle Pop kidnapped me
And tried to make me Evertonian
Took me to Goodison
On Boxing Day
1976
That's my memory
It could have been so
My auld fella Lacking
in making me be true
he quickly countered
With my Anfield debut
Gainst Middlesbrogo
With Souness in tow
But all of those could be
Centered in months
And years
Hence
My memory is not
What I used to believe.

In the movie
There would be the sound if a projector starting up
And then grainy overexposed
Happy family memories loop
Not the darkened smokey room of a spy thriller
But something
Seeming light
That turns into
A chiller
The solid crate of love
That's is family and friends
Gets slowly emptied out
You don't notice at first
Regular Sunday dinners
Turn into Easter and Chrimbo
You loose a lover
And all those they were into
Some friends move away
Or just into themselves
A suicide
Handful of weddings
Familial pools
Unavoidably spreading
An ensemble cast
Dynamic and connected
Turns
Dour monologue
From Self pity
Reflecting
And then a great flash
As it comes off the spool
The celluloid *****
In the empty room.

I keep listening to and shaking my wristwatch
Yeah,that will make it go
Winding it lasts just a few minutes
Times unconcerned flow
Like that movie with Grodin and Deniro
Came out in eighty eight
Same year as that REM album bemoaning the worlds state

I've got one them old printers typeface drawers
******* to my living room wall
The kind you put keepsakes and momentos in
A lady made me install
But I am barely in it
It's all trips she took alone
Or nods to friends I've never met
The separation shown

When she left I put a couple of my own in
Then quickly took em out
Felt like a performance
What was that about?

So it clings there
All concert tickets and folded menus
Bithday badges blood donor pins
And I heart Amsterdam
Don't know why she didn't take it with her
As to the future she ran

So maybe I'll take it down
Deal with the brighter paint
Forward the tiny relics
Stop being what I ain't
Take a few new readings
Assess the things I lack
As The Duke said to Jack Walsh
I don't think she's coming back.

If you've been dealt a bad hand
Perhaps the game you play's
Unsuited
Peruse God's grand casino
Find a chair that fits
Get rooted.

What's the best thing about
Switzerland?
It's hard to quantify
But it's flag's
A big plus!

Bus poem
Bus poem
How I wish
I had
Your ma
To go on.

When the lightning
Strikes the eruption
What is forged in the smoke
Will fall immediate to earth
See it rolling down the *****
Bouncing off of boulders
Striking sparks in the gloom
Creating filaments
Dark gossamer
For the coming terrible loom.

When you in a hole
Stop diggin
I've heard a lot of late
Made me think
What if I didn't?
Shovel through
The earths great plate
Where would I end up?
Which is the antipode I seek?
Once I've dug around core
When my journey is complete

I would surface in New Zealand
Well... the South Pacific sea
The nearest town is Papatowai
Its population just forty
I could talk to the ghosts
Of Moa
Tell em of the Liver birds at play
We could watch the world's
Last sunset
As the ocean drains away.

I implore you to listen to
Tyler Ballgame
He's the essence of McCartney
And a bit o Lennon
And a lot of Orbison
In different songs
At different parts
He's a big man
With a lot o soul
And an even
Bigger heart.

I've just been offered a job
General Director Of Business
I know not of the nature of
this queerness
In terms of the
The direction of
This business
Wether general
Or not
The new year wind
Brings a chance
To slough and shake off
Anything that you want.

You don't have to go home
But you can't stay here
Do your talking
While you walking
Drink thy beer
Be gone
Beyond my sight
And my ear.

Once
Love handles
Now
Just grips
Unhandled.

Why should not one not play cards
Upon the the African savannah
And northern Iraq?
Too many Cheetahs.

Went yesterday
To the funeral
Of an old friends mother
To a new ancient church
That morning discovered
The fine cut sandstone
Fogged in incense
To its core
It's sacred symmetry
Unnoticeable worn
When Eddie's dad
Took the lectern
To emote
The previous
Spirituality
Somehow
Seem mute
He spoke of their meeting
The birth and growth
Of their son
The break in his voice
But the strength to go on
The depth of the love
So unpretentiously spun
When you think
Of false sentiment
So readily spent
The decades of devotion
Is surely what the lord meant.

I can hear the gulls
Through the rain
Such a soggy refrain
And the Broken rhythm
On my sill
The rotary swirl
Of the wind
As it bothers the bins
The monster that
Empties them
Draws near.

And Alexander seeing the width
And reach of his domain
Wept
For there were no more worlds to conquer
But Alexander never wrote Rocky Raccoon
So he can go and **** in his hat!

He fell out of the poet tree
          And
               Hit
        Every
                   Branch
                                 On
                           The
                       Way
                  Down.

The biggie of course was Fredo Corleone
Betrayed his blood
Cos he was passed over
He had plenty o time to think what he'd done
Till he didn't on a rowing boat
At the end of a shotgun

Joey pants in the Matrix
Did it for wine and steak
With little  time to contemplate
His moral mistake

You can hardly blame
Lando Calrissian
They threatened his people
With total destruction
And he made up for it later
When he led the attack
That threw the empire
Down into hell's crack

When eagles dared
Richard Burton let Colonel turner
Jump out o the plane over the frozen tundra
Some say he cheated the hangman's rope
But Burton's logic is easy to scope
Flying low over snow
It might not have killed him
But shattered his body
So in agony freezing
He had some time to
Mull his betrayal
Maybe he felt some regret
Before his eyes went pale

And at the Hot Gates of Thermopylae
After the slaughter and terror
As Leonides hailed Ephialtes
MAY YOU LIVE FOREVER.

In the universe nothing's above the law
Yes
But on Earth nothing's stronger than love
That's my case sir
There in that tear drop
Gripped in a rose's glove.

The Mars Opportunity Rover
Conked out in 2018
After fourteen years a wandering
Across the dusty plains
Over fifty times
It's life expectancy
The plucky little *******
Rolled on
Finally succumbing
To a massive dust storm
Separated from the sun
Of course
It never uttered
It's famous last words
They were gleaned
From the final data dump
But the internet got hold of it
And in its throat
It had a lump

Oppy didn't
Self anthropomorphise
She did not know what that was
She just died
Scared cold and lonely
In service to her god's

When Arthur C Clarke
Talked of the ancestor of sadness
It was largely time
That was the prime factor
But in the age
We are in
What is the impactor
As all that is expands

When Steve McQueen
Bounced his *****
Off the wall
When Butch and Sundance
Defied time's
sweet  call
And then Bill Murray
Made sense of it all.

Took my old dog for a limp
We balance each other out
He keeps looking up
Imploringly
Arthritis/Gout
We don't go too far no more
Round the park and back
I let him eat what he likes these days
It's days that he lacks
The ones to come I mean
He's got plenty in the past
I saw him wolf his first sausage
Soon I'll watch him eat his last.

I remember seeing my first Greebo
It was on the bus to town
Swaythed in crusty denim
He lived by his own sound

I must have been 7 or 8
And was with me ma
Casting furtive glances over me shoulder
At the great gallah

His hair was strident
His beard was fierce
He stunk of hippy juice
My god i thought
By his lifestyle
I am preternaturally seduced

I'm guessing through
The mists o time
He must be pushing 70
I hope his life was happy
And his rockin was aplenty.

They always start
With a disembodied radio voice
Over a black screen
That fades up
To a blissful domestic breakfast scene

The voice is halfway through
A mundane story
Then another that hints
At how things
Might get gory

But at the moment
All is serene
This house is where love is
And has always been

It unfolds slow
Stopped clocks
Missing signals
Distant screeching brakes
Then unlikely explosions
As humanity shakes

What is it?
What is it?
What is it?
they cry
Along with the viewers
You and I

We the audience
Know the template
Yet the nervous expectation
Makes us contemplate
If it was me what would I do?
Succumb like a *******
Or survive through
The gloom?

She was set to wander
Born to learn
Over many
Lifetimes
Reinventing
Anew
You know?
Like the Highlander
Only this being true
Once Sumerian
Now suburbanite
Holds the knowledge
Of all
She thinks she'll
Get off of this planet
A bit before
The fall.

The blue shadow
Of the purple forest
That Antoninus sang about
Foreshadowed
The doom of the oppressor
Though by then
He wouldn't be about
For they would rule
Five hundred more years
But when just one man said
NO I WONT!
Rome began to fear.