Road Trip: Thinking it's about time (find yourself within II)

This particular poem was born as a one line response to a message.  But in many other forms, half written, it exists still, un, unfinished, waiting for the next burst energy, the next holiday time, to reach a new finish line.

This is a different but similar to a poem posted on June 2nd, "Poetry Round (find your self within)"

Any error of omission is unintentional, but know that this took many hours, until fatigue won. If you never told or revealed to me your location, know that you will be called out, to and unto me, in another poem, called "your banner is my flag."

Fact about me:  You design me.
-------------------------------------------------------

th­inking it's about time for a road trip.

create an excuse
(reasons, I got a plenty)
to stop by,
to show you another side of me,
for a drink, a meal,
and some kind
of exchange, of
form and fluids,
manner to be determined.

to come to Minneapolis,
watch you create a heated sensuality,
verbally, from melted snowdrifts,
a hot time to be had
by all the poets
of the mini-apple,
I want to meet
and celebrate ann victory.

travel to Thiruvananthapuram,
tour the treasures
of gold and diamonds,
from whence come
the bejeweled poems,
that have earned visits from
thousands upon thousands,
pilgrims, devotees, followers,
to partake at that, his,
special temple.

Gomer, Gomer,  & MJJ,
I am in your Florida,
no, sorry, not in Ocala,
near to your homer,
and I feel you springer
ten times in the
November sun rays,
that have me locked
in a full Nelson,
your productivity,
endless,
a sea of orange sunburnt words,

Tennessee,
The Carolinas,
Georgia,
The South,
I rise with it,
now, again,
that I will need a slow
sunny all lazy summer long to
learn y'alls ways,
see the wolves,
in your forests,
helm the riverboats,
navigate the quaint tides
of Charleston,
the special places
where they heal, le ville,
where the ashes of
burnt children,
retuned to be whole.

learn y'alls ways,
walk in your boots,
of seeing poems
using your special
southern saber words.

missed the original
Thrilla-in-Manila,
but rest easy, assured,
that hotbed of creativity,
where I check the
PH of the mc waters
to comprehend its
wisdom and now, it's sadness,
will be an illustrious destination
on my itinerant itinerary,
stopping by Makati City,
after all,
it is writ in the good book,
this island,
the PhilippineS,
is the birthplace
of the letter S,
Samples: samson, sally,
and So many others?

in Nevada City,
which is of course in
krazy California,
wager philosophy, romance,
be available for
succinctly seeing
works in progress,
from which I
will imbibe,
so **** deeply,
may have to
stay awhile for...

while I am there,
will need to do
a search and
Hug Mission,
to find a special man,
his unkempt prose,
his mortal rhymes
disguise not his holy worth,
even to the grassy
cal-stratosphere,
to the mesosphere,
will I high fly,
to find his sweetest spot,
then and thereafter
going looking
further on to
Humboldt County.

in Leeds, in West Yorkshire,
(Hamphshirians, Northamptontonians,
patience please)
built foundries and factories
over the magical forest of Loidis,
near to the river Aire,
yet still hides a
magical sorceress of words,
casting spells over
men and beast.
no one has seen full
her half-turned away face,
but when she summons,
do I have a choix
other than obey?
even if I get lost,
my sorceress,
you know,
I am on way too.

to get there,
will fly I must,
to Heathrow hell,
will do it,
just for you,
faithful friend,
a man da gotta do, what
a man gotta do...for you,
but first a stop off at the
London School of Economics,
Hampstead as well,
for a tutorial about sonnets,
or sams in wells,
even if I come
in my bare feet.

even in New York Upstate,
a man da gotta do,
what he mulls over in his heart,
be not surprised at a knock upon
your door, to make comparative notes,
about each other's tattoos.

in the South African veld,
hid in the highland grasses,
crouches the poetesses and tigresses,
waiting to ambush you
with words that must be seen
to be heard, to be well understood.
perhaps I'll come at ester time,
under blue indigo skies over,
a golden landscape,
seizing all the gems
that can be seen
only at 3:00am

leeward,
north to Canada,
must I, transgress,
country of my momma's birth,
fly from Montreal to Toronto, Calgary
then over to Vancouver.
Canada,
a dangerous place for me,
cause there are beautiful
souls up there,
and maybe even a
warrant to
repossess mine,
they want their
poets back.

double down by ferry,
me to Seattle,
to see a man about river,
in the Pacific Northwest,
where I have happily
drowned so many times,
that The Lord is complaining,
am hogging all the baptismal waters,
but when reminded that
nothing lasts forever,
here tomorrow,
gone today, walk on,
I add my tears
to that river,
before hitting the road.

on that river,
gonna drive me a kayak,
down Daytonway,
on the Yamill River,
see a gyreene marine,
watching me do a beach landing,
in Willamette Wine Park.
he will teach me to salute,
I will teach him how to
shake hands,
and learn from him,
it's ok,
to stand down.

man o' man
there are a lots of poets,
in these here parts,
this grand
Pacific North West,
looking for one in particular,
who will be quite easy to spot,
as he is my very own
soul brother.

will be easy to find,
though we have never met,
he will be on his kayak,
I on mine,
tho when he paddles,
somehow he manages
to hold
never letting go
of, his lovely bride,
his best half's hands.

this will a problem,
for I must teach him how to
shake two handed souls,
while hugging and paddling,
even bailing,
with an old dented pail
simultaneous.
but you can teach old dogs
new tricks, even the ones,
that can't spell
rhymers.

have mercie on me Ohio,
like a mother has to her daughter,
done a three year sentence in Cleveland,
but no jail can hold an NYC boy,
but if requested, yes I will return
to set fire to the *Cuyahoga,
again! he he he...
but do not s mock me!
(now you know why the FBI loves
my poetry, my biggest institutional fan).

souls in torment,
where you be,
where you hide,
matters not where
you physical reside,
for we have found
each other
in each other words.

You, who live in
your very own
personal hell,
I think we met there,
because
yours was
mine too,
tho not found
on any map.

maybe I will meet the
Empress Josephine Maria,
rowing on the canals of
the Netherlands,
no longer will she be
alone.

but then again, some
very special things,
like
the purest of love
are on no map,
they are everywhere.

while in India,
will seek the many musings of many lips
of aged rhyme men
and complicated charmers
so I may kiss them
with spiced humors
to pour and pour,
more and more,
upon this western soul,
mysteries of the east,
to Kashmir, Bangalore,
wherever I must,
even take a praDip in the Ganges,
I will go, find you,
un-hide you,
among the
teeming millions,
millions of
jokes and rhymes,
that make the
world spin brighter.

in Germany,
all the university students
speak English,
in Wiesbaden, they know
poetic beauty is not in the format,
some in Bamberg,
with a peculiar
Missouri accent,
which is nicht gut Englisch,
so study hard the real way,
speak the language
the new yorka way,
which will require
study abroad,
which is quite funny,
now that I think about it.

but in Mo.,
the native drums roll,
long and slow,
making words
I know
better, different,
in a way never saw before,
leaves me asking for,
mo', mo', please?

to get there, to Allemagne,
land of my forefathers,
a ship I will take,
from Southampton
across the Kiel Canal,
before I depart,
will have my hair cut,
my words reworked,
by her Ladyship,
whose keen eyes and
maternal instincts,
see the joy of life in every
Livvi little thing.

Watt am I going to do if
I need to find a Tecumseh,
taker of my naked poems,
and enlarger of them,
so truth by her,
all revealed,
we are all naked
at least,
twice a day?

In Nepal I will purr at the words
gleaned from the markets and
train stations where
voyages from Lalitpur to Katmandu,
start and end,
where there is a miracle almost
sixteen years young,
where they call their schools
future stars and little angels,
so why should poetic miracles not be
as common as its subtropical clime?

though I despise the
Dallas Cowboys,
not my  America's team,
nonetheless there is a young woman,
a true rose of Texas,
who waits and writes
so lovingly of her airman,
in Afghanistan, I have placed
their names first,
in my nighttime prayers,
hoping to be there,
schedule my visit,
to witness his safe return
and their
joyous reunification.

there are no Mayans in Maine,
but poets of similar name,
kould be, mae be,
Julia's in Jersey, new,
in Auckland,
there are poets
who don't know it,
and Down Under, too,
where getting high is easy,
getting high at
and on words
well marshaled ,
but **** sure I will be
peering and prring,
all the way.

Oregon,
don't be gone,
those wide eyes shut,
when I come by,
who knows when I
will pass this way again...
on my way to Phoenix,
where sunrayes bend to the
desires of dessert breezes.

Kentucky to Korea,
one long road to travel,
but middle son,
if you can do it,
so can I, and,
I will follow.

in a beautiful city,
unsurprisingly called
Belleville,
the leader of the band,
still leads us in belle 'noise'
and when he finishes
fall leafing us in song, he still,
rises up in the mid of dark,
prayerful haikus to write.

off to Rogers, Arkansas
to meet an Italian from Mexico
who specializes in skinny poems,
something one day I will be too.

maybe I will go to
places it snows,
there are so many,
but your photo,
and tattoo trail,
clues, will follow,
no matter how hard
you make it a mystery.

you, who live in just
the world,
don't even think,
that crazy dotted lines,
unstraight,
or huge plains,
are sufficient,
to hide your
moody dust trail
from me!

somewhere in the USA,
roses grow in ground
that needs the
watering of tears,
though this place
is hard to find,
ha, turn around,
that is me,
tapping you,
on the shoulder!

will find you,
as I am searching for
a lovely pair
of stockinged ankles,
each with a heart tattoo,
but I sure could use
a clue,
before this hobbit searches
all the shire,
derby hatted,
to find your
heart real, and the real you...

my mode of time travel?
why I am just
a dude on a rocket ship.

Wisconsin,
look for my ruby message
in the snow,
in the dust,
in the sand, the skies, the sea,
but will you answer me?

Pittsburgh,
patient, you've been,
you thought I forgot
all about you,
chimera  at the intersection
of three rivers,
all you need wonder,
upon which one
will my ship arrive
and why you still disbelieve
you are not a poetess!

ME oh my,
you too, a hidey hole got,
but, we are strange, we humans,
we would gladly bleed to please,
If we could but find
a combination of
new words that
would your heart gladden,
your eyes tear,
your lips wear,
a smile of pleasure
at our offerings poetic!
but still I know not,
the where!

Lagos,
where
I shall climb the tallest skyscraper,
calling out in Yoruba,
where is my Temitope?
where is mine,
worthy of thanksgiving
so I may carry my Popoola,
my pole of her of
written wealth?

Mombasa, Singapore,
Maryland, Rhode Island, Kentucky,
Huddersfield, Connecticut Joe, Ireland,
South Dakota,
where the merry elders
well ken somethings
about a moon and tattered clouds,
something about children and dogs,
and something about letting
tomorrow's wait.

Milwaukee, Atlanta,
chuck, in *PA., friend to all,
to all those scattered across these
United States of America.

can we dare not mention
"The Shaq" of Malaysia,
South Sudan, Pakistan,
of course not!

Suburbia,
beautiful, black San Diego, Detroit;

The BBB's -

British Columbia, Brazil, Breendonk, and
B'kara!
the goodness of *Boston,
flipping out in Flipadelphia,

did you think I would forget ya?

those of you hiding among 64 stars,
the groves of L.A',
on the lanes,
the special land of I-sia-Bella,
fellow citizens of Neverland,
those of you 'at home,'
in the land of nightmares,
concrete boxes,
those who post without a doubt,
and in the box,
this who think your birth year
is an identifying mark, not,
you never fooled me,
will visit each and everyone.

even and especially,
the grays of crosstown
NYC,
the red writers of my hood,
the tylers too.

I am exhausted,
forgive me well,
if thy locale,
I did not explicate,
for the hour is very late.

yet thru subtle fissures
in the clouds,
look for a tired old man
on the wings of a
chariot drawn by angels,
bringing you a dictionary
full of new words,
a present for you,
but truly,
a present to himself
for from it,
your future poems
will come.

*but the sun has come up,
so now I sleep.

Let's Sit Down And Have Tea On A Massif
Let's Revitalise Around Some Herbal Leaf
Find A Nice Spot In Hampstead Heath
Recite Words Of Joy Under A Sheath

I

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
                              But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
                        Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

II

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
                                          Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.

III

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Desiccation of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.

IV

Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher’s wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

    The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

A boy in jeans,
A boy in trousers,
A boy in braces,
A boy in blouses,
A girl who smells like summer sweat,
A girl whose makeup hasn’t set,
A boy who swears,
A boy who doesn’t,
A girl’s shoulder,
A second cousin,
A girl who smells of **** and beer,
A tattooed boy with a silver sneer,
A skinny girl who’s got T.B,
A boy who daintily sips his tea,
A girl’s left leg – bare or stockinged,
A boy so cold his knees are knocking,
A nasty ****,
A suede-head killer,
Kate Moss,
Sienna Miller,
Vivienne Westwood’s crazy teeth,
Bow-legged loons on Hampstead Heath,
Blue eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes, green,
Cold eyes, big eyes, sad eyes, mean,
Darling sweethearts in flirty skirts,
City-Boy ******* in well-pressed shirts,
Elbows, throat, wrists, knees,
A consumptive girl’s chainsmoking wheeze,
Blonde girls with their hair in plaits,
Skinny boys, short boys, muscular, fat –
Girls with pink lipstick like strawberry frosting,
I’m telling you man,
It’s ******* exhausting.

******* trail leads to factory on hampstead heath ( photo link ) 18.10.18







i was out snorting
but not cold for october
was going to do reporting
ended up as high as kite hill and not sober.
who dropped the stash
easy one kilo
quickly scooped most in flash
now going to to flatten runner like filo.
have my suspicions
last week 72 new running teens
they all signed terms and conditions
got to count return see who up screens.
consequences will follow
my reputation is at stake
will need lessons again on how to swallow
me not delivering is not trump news fake.
factory unaffected so lets shush
or else running boy would have grief
we all no i operate from second green bush
no one no's the true pure beauty of hampstead heath.








https://ibb.co/jA0L0f

When first, descending from the moorlands,
I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide
Along a bare and open valley,
The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.

When last along its banks I wandered,
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border-minstrel led.

The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer,
’Mid mouldering ruins low he lies;
And death upon the braes of Yarrow,
Has closed the Shepherd-poet’s eyes:

Nor has the rolling year twice measured,
From sign to sign, its stedfast course,
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source;

The rapt One, of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth:
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth.

Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!

Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers,
“Who next will drop and disappear?”

Our haughty life is crowned with darkness,
Like London with its own black wreath,
On which with thee, O Crabbe! forth-looking,
I gazed from Hampstead’s breezy heath.

As if but yesterday departed,
Thou too art gone before; but why,
O’er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered,
Should frail survivors heave a sigh?

Mourn rather for that holy Spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep;
For Her who, ere her summer faded,
Has sunk into a breathless sleep.

No more of old romantic sorrows,
For slaughtered Youth or love-lorn Maid!
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,
And Ettrick mourns with her their Poet dead.

In that telepathy where the tincture of you flows across into me
and two minds are as one
and the linguistics could be any language they please
where we understand everything
amid the teasing of the tone
and where the home I have made
is the bed upon which we laid
there is a playing of games across the Ocean whose name I no longer recall.
but no matter of that, in my mind,in my flat you are here
with me.
telepathically speaking until still seeking connect
I elect to a meeting
a fleeting of faces
a mouthful of places come up for a rendezvous.

Do you know where the flowers grow tall by the hot dog seller next to the bandstand in the parkland up at Hampstead hill?
You do?
good
see you at three twenty
and I have got plenty to say.

Later in the day after hot dogs and soda I told her let's move on,the evening has brought on a chill
will you come home with me?
I waited to see what her reply might be,
'that could be good'
and I knew that it would
so we
tootled off scootily
and she tootled quite beautifully
and on this bed that we laid we made
another nightshade.

Down Cricklewood and Hampstead ponds
eyeing au pairs from France and Germany
wheeling  their ******* -
madam's pram.
They can hardly wait for their rest days.
Ride along King's Road and smoke Gitanes,
listen to May Blitz on eight track
you don't need Einstein to see your right.
Burning September sun
hot pants a la mode
said the tawny Owl.

From the Thames, I snake along the black
Serpent taking the Tube, London’s rack
On the Northern Line, the night lays ahead
I remember the town’s name at the top of my head

Camden is like a classy underground broad
Come along before you’re again on the road
I was a chick when I first came to Camden Town
At eighteen, now a woman I’m downtown

From gothic ***** clothing to Hare Krishna
Camden is kind of like Gingsberg’s California
It’s shabby and mystical, silly and lyrical
When I’m there please don’t give me a call

Camden is like a drunk crow looking for Poe
In between nails and leathers that glow
You would grab a dude and he’ll be beneath
Jack the Ripper roaming at Hampstead Heath

My New England, Camden was and is
Not because of bars and hashish drags
Camden possesses underneath her rags
The sweet scent of a quirky release

Deliciously deviant divine
Line up at the looming line
The black Northern Line inked
All throughout London, linked…

December 20, 2015 9:26 pm
London, Victoria

We burrow where they lie, our fallen brothers. Old sweats and fledgling crow bags, both. In death as in life, they have our back…and so we plough on into the abyss by the light of a caged phosphorus flare, hot metal spraying the midnight hour like some vengeful fay’s buckshot.

A human scaffold supports us for the distance of four miles. That’s Piccadilly to Hampstead; Circus to Heath. The length of a lifetime…of  hundreds of lifetimes. In the winter when the rains come and the trenches run like a quartermaster’s latrine, the soil sloughs away to reveal the ossuary within. It is then that I, in my now customary delirium, imagine that I can reach out to shake their hand again.

Rebecca  likes to  tread in Hampstead Heath's duck pond.
She's got her white leather boots on.
Impervious  to the green scaly algae.
One of inherited wealths important players,
her lightning decesions have consequences.
Md's are expected to decide
if it was her breech birth
that led to her revolutionary esprit
Her moon cycles will miss someone,
equally as caring
but conditioned to good behaviour.
Is heaven toast in bed after a fight
whose to say who is right?
but finding your own class is neigh impossible these days

Moonlight lit the room casting shadows that stayed.
I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise into midnight's hour.
Nine hours to go.
Nine hours to wait.

Nine hours to remember,
remember the night,
that Easter Sunday.
That pub in Hampstead.

Why did you tell me that you loved me?
When clearly it was untrue.
Why did I love you so intensely?
When a single punch from you, took the life growing inside me away.

The clock has struck 3am
No mice have run down.
Just me, a table, cigarettes and the moon.
I'm not mad, that is true, just too passionate for you.

5am and a weak dawn is breaking
Just 4 cigarettes left, one an hour, if I'm lucky.
I called your name that fateful day, twice.
You ignored me, carried on looking for your keys.

Keys to a car that would not be needed.
You can't drive to where I sent you.
A .38 calibre Smith & Wesson Victory model revolver's
bullets were your last ride.

On 20 June 1955, Number One Court at the Old Bailey, London,
before Mr Justice Havers, I said;
"It's obvious when I shot him I intended to **** him."
I'd shot you dead.

Now it's my time to go meet our maker
Nearly nine, and a drop of 8ft 4 awaits.
As I told the Bishop of Stepney
"It is quite clear to me that I was not the person who shot him. When I saw myself with the revolver I knew I was another person."

8:59, with 30 seconds to go I take my glasses off
Won't be needing those anymore.
I know what a drop looks like.
15 seconds is all it took, my feet dangling toward the floor.

Predicting the unpredictable,
that's not on the timetable,

dressed up to the nines
at
sixes and sevens when
Siouxie's with the banshees
and
screeching in my ears.

it takes me back to punk rock
smoking barrels and the lock stock,

crocodiles and tears they cry,
I spy
but nothing much.

Stripping down the skyline
revealing underneath,
racetracks up in Hampstead
horses on the heath.

Trams and Trolley cars
rotting hulks and broken spars
time delivers everything
if we
have the time to wait.

Far from nothing clear
when the night falls quiet
with the morning near,
the cat prowls proudly
tail *****,
one dead sparrow
and she
a likely suspect.

when it's all a matter of degree
and gas mark seven is all I see
because the microwave has
waved goodbye
come the crocodiles and
the tears they cry.

The tube terminates at Kennington which is nice but it's not Wimbledon and it's not as bad as Paddington,
the bear will bear me out on this.

Say your goodbyes at Kensal Rise because at Warwick Avenue they'll ****** love you unlike West Ham where they don't give a ****.

Little Venice, Hampstead and St. John's Wood are all very good, Sloane square for the toff, Knightsbridge where they'll rip you off and
Brixton station where gentrification has changed the atmosphere,
the map tells me
'You are here'
but I can't see you.

.to never waste a good prose-esque (prosaic?) impromptu on a stuttering for rhyme: all in all - to never waste a good impromptu on a constipation of rhyme - knock-knock... no one's there... comes the cascade, that the impromptu has a mind of its own - that it has stolen my fingers and my hands... i'd sooner choke on a rhyme than "think" it might ease the digestive process of reading - such that the eyes see first - which implies the tongue does not necessarily have to elevate itself beyond its genesis status of an oyster in the shell of a skull - plenty of riches surround it - all these pearls tightly clenched into a grin... that i would never waste a good enough impromptu on a constipation of rhyme...

'by hampstead heath'
    the teleprompter, might have said
and thus began:
    by hampstead heath no sign of tomorrow...

but truth be told: that only sounds
all buttery and pretty and daffodil *******
a hyacinth sort of pwetty...

i've seen further afield and turned my gaze
away from the scarred sky
of the gargantuan lung that heaves
as much life to live
as much as it tramples said life
to a mush of murk, soot,
                               and phlegm...

enough to take my shadow my dog
on a leash of thought
    and these legs as aporte
   up noak hill toward and through
ingrebourne way: a horizon of hiding,
teasing, tilting and foraging buttons
   of focus for the eyes...
    a canvas such that is -
a most organic england...
     where ghosts of a people have
been frolicking to the demands
of pagan nudes and smoking barks
of acorn and of oak...
     an angevin england a tudor england...
before: how ready or not the world
might have been for the later guise -
the umpire and his tourists...
before... now... an inorganic england
with its imported mosques
in the urban shrill of scratching metal
and gluttonous concrete bulge and crackle...

- it's truly amazing not knowing:
why to begin, what to begin for (which
is nothing more than a fiddling of
the first why prompt) -
                                with what to begin,
perhaps even: to what end?
**** and **** again: another why...
but as ever:
there's always this persisting how...

to reiterate: why? why?! to whine!
or at least... to pretend to not be in a whining
concert(o)...
as such: this is apparently me...
not wining and dining but...
                     no... there's a simpler why:

why no. 1: because i was never much of
a d. h. lawrence fan (by omission)
        and now it is a fine hazy morning
and i've just read some of his... rhymed whining...

why no. 2a: it's morning, and i'm thankful
that it's not the afternoon,
    and that's a why no. 2b mind you:
probably never again... nibbling on the night,
past midnight, drinking feverishly,
convincing myself of "genius":
  as any drunk who has caught less
    a flu more a bravado cough ends up doing...
which is to say:
a cocktail of bravado                &
                    gusto...
perhaps some other time...
   when unnecessary laughter out of
blue-moon imminence is that last absolutely
necessary - stomach in stitches sort of shenanigans..

- and that's probably enough
of the why's: plural, question -
if (a) is the indefinite article...
and (the) is the definite article (v'eh point...
rather... no θank you very much)
then... possess me! O unnecessary
pedantry - raise me to a vapid polemic:
throw me a peacock of verbiage!
     - then the (s) is both a plural article
and a ('s) - apostrophe -
                 a possessive article:
                      an article of possession...

- which brings me to how...
              i suppose with language, on a spare...
i see no wrong with whining
   like so... if one can also be whimsical about
it...
  pretend one has an accent of ascent
befitting one to use such pronoun 3rd person
(i am a multitude of schizoid remains
safely mitigated in vitro)...
an accent less orientated in and around
essex or the extension of east london...
north-east loon & don...

and how else? 26 apparently necessary
tools - from which Na
                                       is a prefix for
   na-            +           -me
                  sodium / natrium /
                                     codex graeca -
    say... the alpha, beta croaking phallus junction
of p.o.w. machismo...
what war? oh... just a made up
war of words... props and grandists...
                          eat an E drop an I...
                  how... mein gott... the infinity
of hows and howls...
yet still finding only one suitably inoffensive
universal why...
as if a why isn't already too late
and is hardly justified...

as a student of kant might have put it:
oddly enough everything that's how is
a priori...
while the why is a posteriori...
             - do we need to muddle the words
further with that quadratic rubric of shorthand
i.e. synthetic a priori vs. analytic a priori etc.?
i've heard it somewhere...
mind you...
     having recently been injected with
a bug, a sickness for walking...
                        an incessant need as it were...
however much i fashion myself
with enough slow-burning grub...
at the zenith of 3 hours...
the blood sugar level drops to the point
where i can taste acidic metal in the air
and i start to chew: either my tongue,
my teeth together...
              a dignified discovery of
nostalgia in the form of maynards
                                   bassetts wine gums...
the chemical strawberry in that instance...
far superior to the real thing...
however i look at it...
it would be wrong to eat a strawberry
in winter... the analytical bonkers route of
imported from spain: a watery mush of
punched-up rouge...
   but this... synthetic taste of strawberry...
it's hardly...
                but it's its own variation
of: at best imitated - but at least not the worst
of an over-ripe original...

    - as such, the day can begin with its
slouching - its miraculously stitched together
humbling - that i can find a momentary
repose - exceeding expectations i'll demand
of myself later - or rather later forget -
bride of amnesia - memories for rent:
a hybrid of a cameo role
      and an out-of-proportion cyclopean
subjectivity that tease from
the omni- litany a needle eye's coercion
of concentrated blind spots.

Sighs,
the day before the day before the weekend which always flies.

I'd like a stewards inquiry into why we are the way we are.

A lady suggests
'Stand clear of the doors'
I need no second telling.

Well in
the mood for a bowl of hot food
porridge will do

and wouldn't you know
the world and its wife want
to go the way that I'm going.

the sign reads,
Doors will open on the right hand side
pointless'
for the sighted.

and now the sign reads,
Destination, West Hampstead'
that's a turn up for the books,
quizzical looks,
I might be on the wrong train
or the right train on the wrong track
or the sign could be faulty,
being me I shall wait and see

lazy is good when you're bone idle.

I awoke at three
made a choice between
coffee or tea
and drank cocoa.

A tube cubed,
what's the answer?

Losing it
or losing what little
that's left,
doors still open on
the right.

Now under
London Bridge,
construction
box girder and
****** by concrete.

no garages here,
I hope I'm not having
a breakdown.

I know I'm good for another
few years
crankshaft healthy
working gears
the clutch slips
probably due to the
oil drips.

I identify as a Model T
and call myself
Henry.

No one wants it
but
everyone gets it.

Tuesday comes and
it will go
sometimes fast
most times slow
but
the older I get
the more I let
it go.

I could terminate at
Willesden
and then what?

This carriage is like the marriage
of Figaro performed in slow motion
or
it could be if they were singing out loud.

the costumes are amazing,
someone's out to get their days work in
before they go out
on the town.

Hi-vis jacket man
wants to be seen
wonder if he terminates
at
Willesden Green.


Moans from her stereo
headphones on autoglow
blue light flash.

More sounds now,
a cough and
some sneezing
we're all being squeezed in

( Do I look fat in this? )

Haha
a schoolboy reads
' the picture of Dorian...
..storm clouds got their eye
on him.

She
opens up the deadlocks on
her waist length *******
dreadlocks
and
shakes her head in joy.

I get off at Bond Street
not to be confused
with
Pond Street
which as you know is at
Hampstead.

Catch you on the flip side
when I take the next ride
which will probably be
on the Jubilee.

i swear by the zoechurch 19.10.18

welcome to BB church
with water going to bless
got it all from her lurch
queen on board winning chess.
bring in a bridge
wise words from isabella
saddam not as cool as a fridge
still got WMD as i was the seller.
from zoe it was a freak
not afraid of any chemical
so surprised as not a single squeak
has she been speaking to anjem choudary now all radical.
loved this side
all was explosive
divisions have opened all wide
zoe and the bible is all inclusive.
got to now disappear
poetry and no attention is my dream
got a big shipment of gear
onto hampstead heath going to disappear like akeem.

june evans 50 year L plate 12.09.18

midweek driving
still got the L plate
news flash and lego thriving
got the highway code in hampstead highgate.
57 years of commitment
never any loss of hope or misery
to your two boys love obedient
but they added unnecessary theory.
at 60 love was unconditional
children wanted to lift
noing brians under thumb with provisional
that's why they got freedom gift.
not 1 or 2 or even third
number 4 is your lucky number
passing at 75 makes you a clever bird
going to local shops in BMW520i is strictly rumba.
30 years of writing
no pass arriving
lessons from june evans i'm inviting
passion and determination is cliff driving.

Composed on a walk between Hampstead Highgate (not too far from John Keat's house) late 1980's

It has been a day for wandering
beneath this sky of early spring
among these trees to freely breathe in an Eden Green
i can scarce believe the beauty of this scene
-the sunlight shines in through the trees
like bright gold blazing from my dreams
and sparkles just so that it seems
the sunbeams tiptoe on the breeze

In this my magic afternoon
of rambles over sleepy heath
I am bathed In cool tranquility
for here the world breathes out a breath
that stirs the child that weeps in me
and calls him to be free

Somehow it as occurred to me
that I will never quite completely be
at peace in the world of peoples schemes
but there is something in this scene
-that is in the soul and stuff of me
and this is the spring of my poetry

so cut me open when I die
inside me you will find the sky
and in my heart the mellow sun
and behind my eyes - the makers mystery.

Mark Hurlin Shelton

hampsteadTRANSheathpond 22.07.18

trying not to judge
understanding here is no jury
bigotry is set to smudge
can you feel the rage and fury.
the debate needs to intensify
fears need to be exposed
through poetry is the identify
ignorance will never be decomposed.
if someone is changing
as not right for the body
no compassion is deranging
your surviving with out a heart oddly.
come on hampstead heath
on rules and regulations no need to trim
trans-gender are the same underneath
show some compassion and the heath will swim.