Imagine all the things I could have been
And all the places I could have seen
I should have married that girl
From Bethnal Green
A beauty queen
So serene
Until the day alcohol ruined my life

Imagine all the books I could have read
All those words now left unsaid
I went out and got ****** instead
Fell down the stairs and broke my leg
10 pints and I’m ready for bed
The day alcohol ruined my life

Mad for it Mondays
Two for one Tuesdays
Wet your whistle Wednesdays
Thirsty Thursdays
Back on the razz on Friday
Just some of the days
Alcohol ruined my life

I could have been professional footballer
One of the greats
And the League’s top scorer
Up there with Bobby Zamora
Sponsored by Adidas and Diadora
Scored an overhead kick
From a ******* corner
Until the day day alcohol ruined my life

I should have been a movie star
Champagne and caviar
Me and Arnie in the Terminator
Sunset strip and the boulevard
*******, hookers and fast cars
Enough money to fly to Mars
Until the day alcohol ruined my life

The day alcohol ruined my life
I lost my kids
And lost my wife
I woke up in East Fife
On the day
Alcohol ruined my life

I have looked upon the latter
but much prefer the former.
Memo:
take a letter
to my parliamentary candidate stating unequivocally
that this life's not the life for me
and could he see a way to see
a brighter
lighter
future for me.

But my candidate can oft' be seen
at Weatherspoons in
Bethnal Green
supping on a pint of ale
(and then I wonder why I fail)

So it's down to me
to make a future I can see
the storm clouds brewing.

Chewing on a blade of grass
I pass the hat around.
Opportunities abound and I must leap
to keep another date
with some politician on the make.

The doorbell chimes a memory of better times
the postman brings me several letters
one from 'Zetters'
(8 draws on the football pool)
I'm off to celebrate.

The parliamentary candidate can kiss my ****
he's just a fool
and now I'm as rich as Midas
you may find me somewhere by a sea
where I once pinned my dreams upon those flowing streams
just to see if they would float.
but now I'll buy a boat and sail away
this is my day

And as a postscript I must write:
I've never been happy with the man they chose
To represent me behind closed doors
and plan my life.
Now my life is planned atop the ocean's wave
and so I wave goodbye
don't cry
I won't.

Lymm, limerick, limerence
nine top ***** of salmon- one dropped, still remained.
I'm curling my spine in pain
Isabella shifts into action- double entendre
Happy birthday to me
Thank you for the bubble and tea James
Telephoning, beeping, buzzing and dialling
Can’t catch me babes, i’m on the tube
She said she doesn't remember a thing but
My number is in the emails if you so need it

(20 minute poetry)


Stood up?
I have been, but this time I gave my seat up and stood up.

It's a long way to go when you're stood and you know there are eight stations left before you get to your stop.

I count down and spit out the stations I leave believing it will bring me good luck,
Does it?
Does it ***
I'm still on my feet at Liverpool street
Nearer to home
tired to the bone
But I am nearly there.

I've just referred some **** to the sign that says that, this is a 'Priority seat'
By Bethnal green, stood up though I've been I now have a seat by the window, no view, and there's sod all I can do about that.

Two newspapers
one book
look some more,
Mind the gap
opening door.

on the Central line
having a fine old time

coats with spots
scarves with dots
and I've got lots
to ponder on.

I've got a feeling
that this tube is going
to Ealing,
but
I am not.

Gipsy take me

Away away

Far from bethnal green

Ten years old
wanted away away

Near sixty lord
let me go

(20 minute poetry)



Another journey underground
below this city,
underneath the glitz and clamour
but
no glamour to be found when
you're travelling underground.

It's freezing cold
the tube train's old
almost as old as me

an announcement
or pronouncement,
Bethnal Green is closed!
I'm not surprised
it should have been closed years ago,
but this is due to staff shortage
a bit like in the
Wizard of Oz
because
because
there's millions unemployed.

London Underground is like a mill stone around my neck,
a windmill going round and round grinding the people down and down.

Into town and they never close my station
now I need to disembark
park my carcass down at work for eight more hours.

If the powers that be could only see this brew of discontent they'd have sent me a limousine.

Well
I can dream anyway.

i touched something....
it was bethnal green and i thought it was a mermaid

it bit me!

so i went back to normal girls.

but they bite harder.

at first it's fun; things are removed.........
then you realize there's nothing left

you can't move. or speak.

you're just 2 eyeballs - watching the party go on.
must it?

(20 minute poetry)


Barking!
mad?
No,
but I could be.

This is my journey
London East.
Into the West, an ending best left to the author.

I bought a ticket, wicked.
So I'm going back in time, travel for 1/9 ( that's in old money, real money when money weren't funny money)

Bethnal Green,
I've escaped from greener places,
tower blocks, take aways and sweet shops.

I lean towards Liverpool street where the ancient meet monuments which the City awaits.

Now to the bank, rank outsiders in the honesty stakes,
someone should put the brakes on them men.

Off to St Paul's a majesty of halls, Wren had some ***** putting a dome atop that.

Last stop before Holborn is Chancery lane, lawyers to blame and they're just criminals like all the rest.

Into the West,
an ending
best left
to
the author.

(20 minute poetry)

They're either sleeping or they're dead
no heads stuck in iPhones today
no make up being made up on the Central line, take up a collection, let's hear it for the deadpan men.

Even at Mile End they'll come to a bad end but the East End was always like that,

stopping at Bethnal which sounds just like Bedlam especially if you've got a cold, well
it's green and I've seen it so time to roll on.

Liverpool Street
hot dogs
old meat
dont buy one
don't try one
I don't want to die
none of that krap for me,

the Bank
be Frank
it's a cesspit
a tank full of sharks,

hark
to St. Paul's
what big bells
what big halls
(Did I write halls?)
never mind
the ***** fall down in
chancery lane,
who plays tennis anyway in
the royal courts
where only justice is
served?

Holborn is
old and smells of Catholics and
tobacco,
the next stop wil be my stop if I stop off and step off this train
but I could go round again if this was the circle line
but it's the Central Line

Wednesday disappoints so many.

Pink tights or they could be stockings,
here's to 'knocking on wood'

but it's all good or do as she says as
I ramble along with the ghosts of
my days.

There's a sign that reads ' assistance from staff'
I think that's the Central line having a laugh.

When underground,
Bethnal Green does not look green
It looks kind of dark except for the lights which only add colour to the cut of the nights I have seen.

Looming ahead is the dawn of the dead which some people call the
West End
I
'Mind the doors please'
as I unbuckle my knees from the
seat,
it's as if I'm the dearly departed, not
only delayed but not even started and they're writing me off.

Not nice versus nice and
that's not very nice when the show has to go
on the road.

now I've arrived
I think I survived
but you know
I can never be sure.

(20 minute poetry)

Eats a baguette for breakfast and gets crumbs all over her dress,
this underground journey impresses me less the more that I take it.

He's on a major journey through a mini iPad
which is more than I had at his age

there's a bald man turning the page of the Times, it must be the early edition, a bit late though because the  ticket inspectors get on at Bethnal Green and he's taken off

and the old girl with the persistent cough spluttering, spluttering, I gave up complaining at Liverpool street leaving the others to mutter under their breath about pine boxes and death.

Some will change here for the DLR which is an acronym, it's also a light railway but I couldn't bear the weight  of it, had to rest and sit a bit, getting on in years see.

It will **** me in the end and in the end we all go underground I'm just practising,
news just in
due to a fire alert at Holborn Station
London will be closed for today
hurrah
I think that's what the announcer said or maybe just wishful thinking going on in my head.

Nearly there
glad I had chance to share with you the tube with no view except for what you see which are
crumbs all over the floor.

I should sit and listen to
the people who've been there
and passed back through
living on to tell the tale of life
and death.

But there never seems
the time to take a moment,
and call it mine,
if you find one
can you kindly let me know.

It's a rush,
rush here and there
getting nowhere.

Snowing
white and cold
feels quite soft
I'm becoming old
and it's covering the multitude
I
allude to sins.

Back to Wednesday which
never goes away
always waiting in the wings
it brings it home to me
that this is what
I love the most
continuity.

Bethnal Green and Poplar High
under the East London sky
and I'm here on the Central line
wonder why that's so.

Among the coughs and between
the splutters
the tall guy mutters,
something
catching in his headphones
something
creaking in these tired bones
something about a Wednesday
that I really like.

Picking me up from Bethnal Green at 8am in the morning after I've had another crazy night out
Feeling lost and alone
Mind wandering and heart endlessly racing
Unable to go home and the only person that I know and needed there to save me was you
It was tasteless of me but the taste of comfort really was priceless
And even though we didn't speak for hours while I lay there filled with regret
You regretfully on my mind again
wondering what you're thinking
It was really sad because even though we weren't right for eachother you were always right there for me
3am
8am
I am -
thanking you again for just being there.

(20 minute poetry)

There's a nip in the air
which reminds me of an old pun
however
I'm not in the mood for fun,
too busy trying to keep the heat in.

As cold as brickwork
thin as tin
life only gives what
we put in.

I survey a grey area
a great sea of humanity
trudging endlessly
to who knows where

and I'm at Bethnal Green
between here and like nothing
I've ever seen,

someone has to be.

There's a radio
static, low
don't they know that on
the underground they
impound music
except for songs by
Max Bygraves
which don't count.

I fall oblique
into that which I seek
and miss in the end
the mess of the
West End

no bad thing
but actually I think
Max can sing

Then
the hypodermic needle
of St Paul and his
cathedral
such a busy place.

barring any mishap
or anything like that,
In
nine hours I can repeat
this experience
in reverse.

What's on your mind Facebook?
find anything?

The girl at school led me behind the bike shed,
I thought to look at her bike
if I'd have known then what I know now
I'd have pressed 'like'

That was sometime in the last century but memory mentions me
now and again.

Ps
I'm on a train which is going quite fast
heading no doubt to the dim and distant,
just passed
Bethnal Green.

The city rears up like a tiger on heat
I get to my feet and scarper.

Tube full
weather dull,
Bethnal Green
looks grey
but
it's Saturday
and you can't
win them all.

#foreverfalling