There was a chap called Charlie.
Who lived in separation.
In total world of degradation.
Father left when he were nine.
A raging alcoholic.
Charlie, his brother and his mother.
Sent off to the workhouse.
In the land of Lambeth.
No palace.
The family were ushered into areas of segregation.
Mother and children apart in our apparently grand nation.
Product of shame documented by satirists.
Dickens's favourite topic.
Poor folks made poorer,

In workhouses designed to embarrass.
Those already destitute,
Not by choice for sure.
Only crime being poor.
Dignity stripped.
Destroyed of heart.
Wrecked in health
To reduce their being even more.
God help you if you were not fit.
**** of the earth, you were purged.

We the Brits now get benefits,
Be grateful that we do.

___________________­____

Charlie found extreme success.
When as a film star of the silent kind.
With a plaque on the wall of his once posh house in Vauxhall.
His surname it was Chaplin!
By ladylivvi1

© 2014 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

Good on You (a love poem),
this one, is, good, on you.  

phrase uttered, measured, apace,
each comma,
a paused breath of:

admiration, enveloped by
a secret pleasure coating,
saucier prepared,
the base, the pleasured secret in this
mans minds eye unseen.

each comma,
precisely the carbon copy of the
comma curve of dark hair that
falls from a forehead down to the chin,
in a museum quality photograph,
as if it was intended to hold, contain,
your sly blunt moody,
and full plated whimsy,
when that half-smile poesy is in place.

good on you,
slow please,
not
goodonyou.

did you think, I did not have, a special bottle,
a Grand Cru,
a pinot noir, in the reserve,
inside the locked cellar of me,
to be used to anoint mine own
English Duchess of Burgundy?

well and proper aged,
but unlabelled,
till you provided
the appelation, the domaine,
good, on, you.  

the bottle dusty, the feelings, not.
if we never meet, matters not,
the gentility, tous les bons mots,
good in you,
hid in in all of the
astounding incredible poems
I well-addicted need,
those archeological mounds of a life,
I excavate and well heed,
going from one to the next,
me, the bumbling bee,
pollenating, following the path of the
watermarked tracks of
the King's Cross,
alas, they do not offer a couchette,
from Terminal 4 to London Bridge

unlike a teenager
happy to confess,
I am even younger,
an old fool, a geezer,
in love with a museum quality smile,
as he totters down to the Tottenham Hale station,
to catch the blue colored line, to the station after Vauxhall)
(oh dear, what's it called again?)
walking 10 to 2, saying ta to all
who assist his
two hands on an old man's bent feet,
steering the wheelhouse heart through its tubes

this is an undedicated poem,
retuned and returned,
addressee unknown, yet I know
by the greening dew droplets decorating faces,
that come so easy,
not a one wrung out,
you know
the who's of the true ownership,
the clarification,
in the bread crumbs,
fully disclosed,
left by me,
but for me,
in order to retrace my steps,
to find the railing,
when the steady on need arises

some Tuesday next,
will disembark from a riverboat,
at the old Tate,
spending my afternoon,
staring at an imaginary museum quality photograph,
till the guard surly reminds the pesky Yank,
its past closing time,
the man who will not be moved,
for already he, past overcome,
so why be thinking on why leaving,
for he will only be back again tomorrow.

so different.

mine, simple declarative sentences,
typically matter of fact,
so **** presumptuous,
those ill mannered,
know it all Ameddicans.

yours, lace doilles,
in a pub, with Hilda and Bill,
drinking pale ale,
from a porcelain cup,
and I am laughing,
Why?

It is all,
Good on Us,
a, love, poem,
indeed,
no kidding kid.

By the time he got out of the front door the morning sun had fully risen. Surrounding it lay a sea of blue sky, light coloured and peppered here and there with trails of white left from distant airplanes. The birds sang in the trees, all in harmony, and a light breeze whispered, left over from the night before.

As he jumped into his car, a dusty red little Citroën, he realised that in his rushed efforts to get ready he'd put his shoes on the wrong feet. A little while ago he'd seen a documentary based on people with abnormal deformities, and there had been an American 30-something year old with two right feet. Right now, looking at his shoes, he looked a little like him; all he needed now was a group of cameras and a well-spoken, polished presenter pretending to care but really just thinking about the paycheck at the end of night. He figured all TV presenters were pretentious, fixated on climbing up the great showbiz ladder rather than helping those in need.

He grabbed them off, scuffed black business shoes to match his tattered jeans and faded blue shirt, and swapped them over. Once both shoes were on correct, he lit up a smoke and set off down the road.

Ahead of him was Lancaster Road, a sprawling stretch of asphalt tarmac that served as the primary mode of navigation through Manchester. If you were to turn left it would take you all the way into the main city, and also a stodge of backed-up traffic, and, if you chose right, to the quiet town of Penitence which was where his works was based. Going right would technically be quicker, as the road to the left led to a series of zig zag-like curves where the road layout had been forced to compensate for the huge cliff several miles to the north. That being said, Will almost always chose left, as the dual carriageway that branched off Lancaster Road was always jammed up with traffic, comprising mainly of angry motorists and haulage lorries driving in from the east. Choosing right would easily add three quarters of an hour onto his journey, and quite frankly he'd rather stare at a wall than be surrounded by blaspheming mouths and ugly red faces.

This time however he went right, joining the steady stream of cars that were already beginning to slow down. There was no apparent reason for this, for over 4 years he must have consistently turned left every morning, but today his mind had thrown a curveball - albeit a stupid one. Already running late, it had chosen to go on the longest route possible.

Good work there mate, brilliant.


50mph - 45mph - 40mph

The speedometer slowly crept down, the shudder of the lower gears gradually increasing. Clouds had now gathered in the sky, not quite bloated nor dark enough to threaten rain but it was enough to dull the sunshine into a pale, white, glow. He was now going slow enough to see the bits of clutter and ******* - discarded newspapers, cans, broken bottles - littering the pavement. Then it suddenly gave way to a rudimentary dirt road and steel crash barriers as he approached the dual carriageway.

35mph - 30mph - 25mph

Sighing, he fumbled for the radio and flicked it on, momentarily averting his gaze from the road to the numbered buttons, tuning for a station.

--- Ssssshhhh ---

Nothing but static.

**** radio! If only I could -

When he glanced up his heart nearly stopped - directly ahead of him, on the highway, stood a man. He stood with his back toward Wills car, shoulders slumped, stock still.

What-?!

Will froze as the car lurched on, the distance between the bonnet and the mans body rapidly closing. No thought came into his brain, his legs distant from his body as if untethered.

Nothing but numbness.

The future series of events played like a stop motion video inside his mind; finding the brakes and jamming them down - only too little, too late. The old man would first lean as the bumper pressed into his lower back, then snap sickeningly in half, the momentum of the car causing his body to jackhammer up the bonnet and roll over the back of the car. There he would fall once again onto the road, spine splintered and blood soaking through his shirt into a puddle on the tarmac.

STOP! Will stop the **** car!!!

He smashed the brakes down and closed his eyes.

Although the first thing taught in driving lessons is to never close your eyes, particularly during an emergency stop, the overwhelming panic threw his nerves into a spasm, and in that split second everything he was told - brake hard, clutch down, don't let the car stall - was forgotten in an instant. He knew what he should do, knew that if the wheels were even slightly turned he could cause the car to skid, or worse, flip.

Brake down, clutch down, engine off, a mantra his instructor had once sang on one of his first lessons. Will had a feeling that if Ruth Carotene could see him, see this, now she'd have some sort of coronary, or maybe an aneurysm. She'd always been set in her ways of teaching, starting each lesson going through her seemingly endless list of checkpoints, and this right here smashed every single rule she'd taught him.
Break, clutch, engine off -
Eyes, open your eyes
He did, the windscreen before him doubling for a second. His heart was pounding away, nervous sweat lining his forehead and arms. The car had stopped, and in his dumb paralysis he hadn't the faintest idea how much it had skid. Safe to say it hadn't flipped over though, unless he was upside down and didn't realise it.
Nope, the sky is still above me, he observed, and it was then he also saw the fat bald-headed guy rapping his hands against the drivers side window. The world washed back slowly, the sun white and the air filled wit beeps and the Ssssshhhhhh static of the radio. He lowered the window, allowing the honking horns to fully enter and consume the inside of the car.
"What the hell are you playing at? I nearly ran into the back of you!" the bald guy barked at him, his pudgy face both pale and angry. Will glanced in the rear view mirror and saw about a dozen or so more cars behind him, scowling faces and gesturing hands sending out messages far from morning greetings or amicable hello's.
"Sorry... There was someone in the road," he croaked, pointing to the blank space in front. Empty, nothing there.
Can't be, he was right there! Stood right there! For a second he thought the figure had been an apparition, or maybe hadn't been there all along, merely a figment of his tired mind. That's when his gaze shifted to the opposite side of the road and the mis-shapen entity clambering over the crash barrier. Whoever it was, they had crossed the road while Will had been in his daze, and it was now he could fully see it in it's ghastly glory.
"I must be ****** blind 'cause to me there ain't nobody there -"
Grotesque was the only word he could think of to describe it. Under the pallid glow of the sun its skin glistened sick-white, partially covered by a tattered grey t-shirt that billowed in the wind like torn flags. It wore shorts, also grey, it's long stick-like legs poking out like splintered tooth picks. And it's face, oh God that face. He only caught a vague view as it glanced over its shoulder, but what he saw reminded him of the ghouls that would creep out of the crypts, the nightmarish beings that stalked late night TV shows such as the Twilight Zone seeking fresh flesh to feast on. But it was human alright - it's normal, albeit disintegrating, clothing the only sign of its former non-twisted self.
Oh God -
"Hey, are you even listening? There ain't no one there *******!"
Will faced the guy, now stood so close his flabby face nearly poked through the window, and then back to the crash barrier. The fiend was gone, much to his relief.
"Sorry it must have been a bird or something, I'm really really sorry mate I thought it was a man, or a kid."
"Yeah yeah whatever, just get going and get out of my way." With that he stormed off, only stopping briefly to exchange disapproving looks with the car behind him. He drove a black sports-like car, probably a Vauxhall, and Will briefly wondered how such a small car could carry an overweight ******* like that.
*******, he muttered to himself as he restarted the engine. Turns out he'd let the car stall as well.
Back to school I guess, what would dear old Ruth say?
Setting off was easy, the fat guy overtook him almost instantly, slamming his horn as he went, but looking over to where the misfit had been was not. He wanted to look, to check in case it hadn't really gone away and was instead lurking, contorting it's swollen lips into a grin.
Grinning at him.
"Gooood evening listeners, this is RADIO XFM!"
Halfway down the radio finally clicked on, interrupting his line of thought - quite mercifully, if he was being honest. The sight of that thing not only made him feel uneasy, but he also couldn't shake off the feeling of foreboding as well. Like it was some sort of warning, a sign.
Of what?
[smashing glass smashing]
He didn't know, didn't dare to think, and as he cantered down the carriageway in the steady stream of traffic he sat silently, the radio singing out its tunes like an uninvited guest. It was an oldie that was on, maybe Boston or Bowie, he wasn't sure, but as it played on he sat in silence, the shadows in the car cutting harsh lines into his face.

By the time he got out of the front door the morning sun had fully risen. Surrounding it lay a sea of blue sky, light coloured and peppered here and there with trails of white left from distant airplanes. The birds sang in the trees, all in harmony, and a light breeze whispered, left over from the night before.

As he jumped into his car, a dusty red little Citroën, he realised that in his rushed efforts to get ready he'd put his shoes on the wrong feet. A little while ago he'd seen a documentary based on people with abnormal deformities, and there had been an American 30-something year old with two right feet. Right now, looking at his shoes, he looked a little like him; all he needed now was a group of cameras and a well-spoken, polished presenter pretending to care but really just thinking about the paycheck at the end of night. He figured all TV presenters were pretentious, fixated on climbing up the great showbiz ladder rather than helping those in need.

He grabbed them off, scuffed black business shoes to match his tattered jeans and faded blue shirt, and swapped them over. Once both shoes were on correct, he lit up a smoke and set off down the road.

Ahead of him was Lancaster Road, a sprawling stretch of asphalt tarmac that served as the primary mode of navigation through Manchester. If you were to turn left it would take you all the way into the main city, and also a stodge of backed-up traffic, and, if you chose right, to the quiet town of Penitence which was where his works was based. Going right would technically be quicker, as the road to the left led to a series of zig zag-like curves where the road layout had been forced to compensate for the huge cliff several miles to the north. That being said, Will almost always chose left, as the dual carriageway that branched off Lancaster Road was always jammed up with traffic, comprising mainly of angry motorists and haulage lorries driving in from the east. Choosing right would easily add three quarters of an hour onto his journey, and quite frankly he'd rather stare at a wall than be surrounded by blaspheming mouths and ugly red faces.

This time however he went right, joining the steady stream of cars that were already beginning to slow down. There was no apparent reason for this, for over 4 years he must have consistently turned left every morning, but today his mind had thrown a curveball - albeit a stupid one. Already running late, it had chosen to go on the longest route possible.

Good work there mate, brilliant.


50mph - 45mph - 40mph

The speedometer slowly crept down, the shudder of the lower gears gradually increasing. Clouds had now gathered in the sky, not quite bloated nor dark enough to threaten rain but it was enough to dull the sunshine into a pale, white, glow. He was now going slow enough to see the bits of clutter and ******* - discarded newspapers, cans, broken bottles - littering the pavement. Then it suddenly gave way to a rudimentary dirt road and steel crash barriers as he approached the dual carriageway.

35mph - 30mph - 25mph

Sighing, he fumbled for the radio and flicked it on, momentarily averting his gaze from the road to the numbered buttons, tuning for a station.

--- Ssssshhhh ---

Nothing but static.

**** radio! If only I could -

When he glanced up his heart nearly stopped - directly ahead of him, on the highway, stood a man. He stood with his back toward Wills car, shoulders slumped, stock still.

What-?!

Will froze as the car lurched on, the distance between the bonnet and the mans body rapidly closing. No thought came into his brain, his legs distant from his body as if untethered.

Nothing but numbness.

The future series of events played like a stop motion video inside his mind; finding the brakes and jamming them down - only too little, too late. The old man would first lean as the bumper pressed into his lower back, then snap sickeningly in half, the momentum of the car causing his body to jackhammer up the bonnet and roll over the back of the car. There he would fall once again onto the road, spine splintered and blood soaking through his shirt into a puddle on the tarmac.

STOP! Will stop the **** car!!!

He smashed the brakes down and closed his eyes.

Although the first thing taught in driving lessons is to never close your eyes, particularly during an emergency stop, the overwhelming panic threw his nerves into a spasm, and in that split second everything he was told - brake hard, clutch down, don't let the car stall - was forgotten in an instant. He knew what he should do, knew that if the wheels were even slightly turned he could cause the car to skid, or worse, flip.

Brake down, clutch down, engine off, a mantra his instructor had once sang on one of his first lessons. Will had a feeling that if Ruth Carotene could see him, see this, now she'd have some sort of coronary, or maybe an aneurysm. She'd always been set in her ways of teaching, starting each lesson going through her seemingly endless list of checkpoints, and this right here smashed every single rule she'd taught him.
Break, clutch, engine off -
Eyes, open your eyes
He did, the windscreen before him doubling for a second. His heart was pounding away, nervous sweat lining his forehead and arms. The car had stopped, and in his dumb paralysis he hadn't the faintest idea how much it had skid. Safe to say it hadn't flipped over though, unless he was upside down and didn't realise it.
Nope, the sky is still above me, he observed, and it was then he also saw the fat bald-headed guy rapping his hands against the drivers side window. The world washed back slowly, the sun white and the air filled wit beeps and the Ssssshhhhhh static of the radio. He lowered the window, allowing the honking horns to fully enter and consume the inside of the car.
"What the hell are you playing at? I nearly ran into the back of you!" the bald guy barked at him, his pudgy face both pale and angry. Will glanced in the rear view mirror and saw about a dozen or so more cars behind him, scowling faces and gesturing hands sending out messages far from morning greetings or amicable hello's.
"Sorry... There was someone in the road," he croaked, pointing to the blank space in front. Empty, nothing there.
Can't be, he was right there! Stood right there! For a second he thought the figure had been an apparition, or maybe hadn't been there all along, merely a figment of his tired mind. That's when his gaze shifted to the opposite side of the road and the mis-shapen entity clambering over the crash barrier. Whoever it was, they had crossed the road while Will had been in his daze, and it was now he could fully see it in it's ghastly glory.
"I must be ****** blind 'cause to me there ain't nobody there -"
Grotesque was the only word he could think of to describe it. Under the pallid glow of the sun its skin glistened sick-white, partially covered by a tattered grey t-shirt that billowed in the wind like torn flags. It wore shorts, also grey, it's long stick-like legs poking out like splintered tooth picks. And it's face, oh God that face. He only caught a vague view as it glanced over its shoulder, but what he saw reminded him of the ghouls that would creep out of the crypts, the nightmarish beings that stalked late night TV shows such as the Twilight Zone seeking fresh flesh to feast on. But it was human alright - it's normal, albeit disintegrating, clothing the only sign of its former non-twisted self.
Oh God -
"Hey, are you even listening? There ain't no one there *******!"
Will faced the guy, now stood so close his flabby face nearly poked through the window, and then back to the crash barrier. The fiend was gone, much to his relief.
"Sorry it must have been a bird or something, I'm really really sorry mate I thought it was a man, or a kid."
"Yeah yeah whatever, just get going and get out of my way." With that he stormed off, only stopping briefly to exchange disapproving looks with the car behind him. He drove a black sports-like car, probably a Vauxhall, and Will briefly wondered how such a small car could carry an overweight ******* like that.
*******, he muttered to himself as he restarted the engine. Turns out he'd let the car stall as well.
Back to school I guess, what would dear old Ruth say?
Setting off was easy, the fat guy overtook him almost instantly, slamming his horn as he went, but looking over to where the misfit had been was not. He wanted to look, to check in case it hadn't really gone away and was instead lurking, contorting it's swollen lips into a grin.
Grinning at him.
"Gooood evening listeners, this is RADIO XFM!"
Halfway down the radio finally clicked on, interrupting his line of thought - quite mercifully, if he was being honest. The sight of that thing not only made him feel uneasy, but he also couldn't shake off the feeling of foreboding as well. Like it was some sort of warning, a sign.
Of what?
[smashing glass smashing]
He didn't know, didn't dare to think, and as he cantered down the carriageway in the steady stream of traffic he sat silently, the radio singing out its tunes like an uninvited guest. It was an oldie that was on, maybe Boston or Bowie, he wasn't sure, but as it played on he sat in silence, the shadows in the car cutting harsh lines into his face.

When we walk back to our rooms,
Talking about what we’ll do in our lives,
Once we’ve grown up and grown out
She says to me
‘It’s ok.
You’ll get a job easily because you are English
And you are white.’
I don’t have a reply
I want to show her the nights I spend studying, coffee induced, trying to make it to deadlines to get that grade
Believe me
There is nothing in this skin colour that can achieve that A, that job or that degree
Yes
I know I am lucky
My family history may not hold your exact pain
But tragedy is also in the ancestry of all of my forefathers’ names.
Does she know that her family earns more than mine?
That if our bodies were painted
hers would look gold
And mine would look off white
Like the old Vauxhall left around the corner
Broken and damaged
Doing its best to still run
It is spray painted white
Of course it works.
I am tired of being made to feel guilty for being the colour of milk bottles.
All lined up,
We are freezing into frosted shadows
Like we deserve the cold
We have been thrown into a snowstorm and told it does not matter if we are lost because at least we are not seen as different.
How can I tell her that snowflakes are all naturally unique?
All different shapes and densities and depths
I could only be whiter if I was dead
A corpse
Would I still be entitled to the world if I wasn’t even around to live in it?
We are told to celebrate difference
And I am in total agreement
But since when were pale shades considered nowhere near as important?
I can’t even be thankful that I was born in this gender
Because being referred to as a ‘typical white girl’ is a personal offender
Offended, offended
I know we are sick of political correctness
But why do manifestos of equality make feel like I’m worth less
In no way am I saying my skin colour makes me better
I am saying we should not target people for something they have to live in forever
We are all born into varying shades of brilliance
So why attack anyone?
Do not resist this
Do you think colour-blind people give a **** about anyones’ races?
It is not about looks or image or even faces
It is about heart and mind and love and affection
So why is my skin colour the only thing that grabs your attention?
Just last week there was an article written stating
That white working class boys were doing worse in the tables
Than any other race in the United Kingdom
Is this because we teach that white working class boys are entitled to everything
Except for an education, except for the freedom
To be proud of their skin colour, themselves, their entire culture
Instead we tell them
At one point in time
You had it all
Complete power and look what you did with it
How can they ever learn to trust themselves if we keep reminding them of what their great great grandfathers have done?
This article entitled them ‘the problem’ with British schools
As if budget cuts and institutionalized bullying isn’t what’s at fault at all
The villain in films often wears a mask – does he do that so you can’t see his skin colour?
So you can’t see that there is good and evil in all of us no matter how dark or pale you are
Do not make a villain of yourself
Do not make a villain of me
Please teach your children it is ok to be whatever skin colour they are born in
Tell them to wear it like their favourite dress or their favourite tie
Tell them they look good, that they suit it
Please teach them they are worth the world
Please teach yourselves, it is ok to be white.

Though sometimes at 4 A.M. I feel I cannot satisfy her needs I still love her
Though sometimes I feel that I'm not enough I love her
Though sometimes I look down because of those men with the veins and green eyes I love her
Though sometimes I cannot answer when she whistles I love her
Hard to explain
I know what I am and exactly what I could do
But she is just too beautiful
For I am sick, for I am bland, for I do not move like the froth of the sea
I am me,  and that's good enough.

it happened to me like it once did at the Gants Hill
Odeon, i supposed to see Jumaji,
instead i saw the Little Princess - with two old women
knitting - don't know how it happened -
the little girl got out of the attic like a revision of
Cinderella - somehow - later i ran skipping imitating
a deer hop home - i don't know, i must have been
10 at the time.

i said i was seeing Nabucco - but instead if was seeing
a version of operatic Goethe - (gef eh), read the work:
die leiden des jungen Werthers - the sorrows of youthful
Werthers - can everyone stop the ******* clapping
before the act is over, stop your provincial habits
like eating food without a knife only using the fork!
**** me... stop! you do it more so during ballet -
but in opera? please! stop that seagulls' flapping of wings!
mind you, that's how it goes these days -
tourists from home counties are seated -
pensioners - who apparently have no money -
i'm 30 this year, you think i wouldn't spot someone younger than
me in the oyster shell of an opera house dome?
a few, by a few i mean arithmetic of one palm of my hand -
that's about as many youths appreciating classics -
no more thereafter.
so i sat there, i was told it was Italian opera,
later i was told it was Wagner (i hate Wagner) -
but there were french horns in the orchestra and the opera
was done in french, what the ****?!
so adding the dot dot dots... the french are real bores
in Opera... the french can't do opera! for the love of god
they can't do opera! i admit a almost cried with
a dying wish and a toilet break when Werther sand his
last - i almost ****** a tear like salting a curry -
but the French CAN'T DO OPERA!
the German can, Italians too - let the French write philosophy,
the French CAN'T WRITE OPERA -
although the fourth act saved the entire spectacle -
i do admit with the back of my mind present
that the children's choir was a salvage point -
oh poor Werther - soft-spoken German, must be either
Saxon or slang - *verter - vide cor meum -
the French aren't allowed operatic expression -
banish them toward the ***** of Stendhal - banish them!
but you know... i can count almost half a year to
respect my memory since i last stood in an urban environment,
with Duck Trump accents demonising the air -
so tacky, so ******* out of place...
prosthetic limbs equated as people with their
tourist visa permits scaffolding the areas where
a Guinness sells at 5 quid while in provincial pubs it sells
well under 3 quid - i came up with a maxim along the way,
waving Kant's critique of pure reason along the way
(exaggeration, well and truly established, necessarily) -
a book contra a mobile phone use -
when i got back to the outer suburbs of London, or "London",
or simply greater, after seeing the panic in the central
sphere of commotion, i simply said the words:
an hour for them is a day for us.
an hour for them is a day for us - drop the paranoid
straitjacket clause revised -
there is clear distinction - in my fashion i was worth
less than £100 - most people where worth per item an excess
of that - London is an eerie place there days -
e.g. Sarah (33) communications manager -
an Arab stole her chance for a one-bedroom box or
something resembling living space -
Eve (24) -property guardian etc., 27 people sharing
one kitchen, quasi-squatting in a removable van of brick;
Aletheia (33) back with her parents in Brighton
(cue the scene from Hellraiser: Inferno - the last
scene, the noooooooooooooooooooooooo! and your childhood
bedroom) - well, d'uh; t'ah d'ah!
London is eerie - the only person smiling was me,
the rest of the people looked boxed, Hammersmith
Hamsterwheel types with duck-taped around their foreheads the
slogan: jog on... jog on, keep calm, keep on jogging.
you said Doreen or did i say Doreen and was this a
short-term memory placard advertising a "wish you were here"?
the French can't do opera - they're the same bores
in opera as the Germans are in thinking -
Jules Massenet did no wrong but undid so any wrongs -
but then crescendo! the most ****** fragment of the opera -
next to me a plump beauty with her boyfriend -
throughout the second act our arms were touching
and i rhymed my breathing to the rhythmic of hers -
clothed, neither naked, neither penetrating -
i guess the English pinnacle of ******, chaste -
in the third act our legs were touching sadistically knee to knee -
nonetheless London is to tacky - so eerie - so foreign -
so not imitable English - forget Soho or the East End
like you already forgot the folklore of the ancient
English smog of the 18th century chimneys -
it's gone - bye bye - it won't return - it was never intending
to return - it seems only Camden remains to be levelled -
or Vauxhall... we'll all be rich phantoms by then -
whether a real swimming pool for the rich or a virtual
swimming pool for the poor, it won't matter -
dreams will hardly be summoned for poetic partisan expression
bewildered as to whether the simulation or the actual partaking
are that far apart - it won't matter -
such a night in London i summed up with words:
for them an hour, for us a day - the discriminatory relativity
poker-handed us the ****** expressions that way -
but in the countryside... so much air, and so little
minute phobias grown into offshoots of skyscrapers -
so much air... so much air... so much air...
and no courtesan airs... bow... mm hmm... huh?
THE FRENCH CAN'T WRITE OPERAS!

A rude dawn over the city
Where Pepys once fought with his beautiful wife
After seducing whatever servant-girl chanced
To be around, where kings
First ruled from cold castles full of cockroaches,
Murderous cousins
Lurking through the baleful halls of history
Eyeing the empty throne. The stinking
River long shorn of fish sweeps elegantly before
The crimson petticoats of multiple ******
Promenading along Thames Street,
Winking at under-washed gallants.

Vauxhall gardens a pithy cavalcade of priests and doxies,
Of flower girls, flaxen haired girls selling fruit,
Anxious to reach home before the ****** hour of early
Evening when beaus gather in alley ways establishing
A testosterone gauntlet in the dust-spawned gloom.

The road to Tyburn is littered with lost hopes!
On hanging day bodies swung like debutantes dancing
To jazz tunes-
Aristocrats quartered with precision squealed like common folk,
Bleeding as much. The city watched all this
And didn’t murmur-never complained-
Smiled, as only a city can smile, at gin-drunk matrons, pie eating aldermen
And the ****** activity in street shadows by relieved young women on
VE day 1945.

First day on the job, an apprentice with no clue
Put with some old boy, Norman Collins his name
been plumbing everywhere, from Watford to Timbuktu

Picked me up in his Vauxhall Belmont, a fading sun caught red
telling me tales of his dinner, roadkill on the hob
His wife cooked him these meals, I think he must be mad

Driving out in the sticks, a job for a pal, over near the village of Sarrett
A blob in the road, dead pigeon or badger, well he's not eating that
would have been different if it were something else he said, as he actually fancied a bit of rabbit

I didn't realise what a good bloke he was until a few days with this old codger
My main boss was a grumpy sod, never paid me till he had some
Looking back now, I miss that man, who told me tales of old times and tomfoolery

I used to be a wrestler young John, back in the days of the local funfair
Took on any Herbert who thought he was keen, and showed them the tent exit
From **** McManus to Jackie Pallo, bring them on son, I didn't really care

He locked me in a toilet one day, inside somebody’s house
Let me out I cried, for a good 4 hours, he ignored my every shout
For he couldn’t care less and that’s what I miss, a soul who just larked about

For they seem dead in this day and age where everything is done by the book
Don’t upset the man over there, do you know who he is, he’s the King and you’re just a Rook
As they don’t seem to exist anymore, these men who walk on Gods seven sins
Have a laugh, have joke, as life’s too short
I miss old Norman Collins

JJB

is now departing Waterloo please stand clear of the doors.'
Past Vauxhall , Queens town it rattles ,
Past ruins of mans grandure ,
Greek Theatres. Of Greek gods
Amphitheatres of Rome ,
Grand stair cases where Titanics. Good walked down ,
arm in arm to tea with Captain Smith .

Where Napolian crowned himself  , Empeorer ,
Placed a crown upon his head at Notra Dame is said .
A Kaiser rode with noble steed through Jeruselems ancient walls ,
he built an arch so all could see how grand ,
how great he was to all.
And we dream like kings , have manic dreams
and build monuments like pyramids in the sky.
Yet butterfly's can't hold them ,
Neither flys ,
Or mice or rats scurry by .
They crawl where man can't find them ,
Yet are there when they fall ,
and sickness and death shall take them,
and where insects crawl ,
Our bodies decay  ,
where sheep and goats don't mix ,
Shifted like  sands of time ,
To green fields or fire ,
by the great Shepheard King Jesus ,
Who died to save us all.

law
in new agreement england will be returning to unleaded fuel rather than electric cars. vauxhall will be able to continue manufacturing petrol. it is my belief that unleaded fuel is more eco friendly than battery cars which are 4 times as dangerous to ecology. this is because the battery car will burn peoples blood in the end. any one using a battery car will be allowed to continue for now but people need to know the truth

We met
in the heat of the discotheque
they played the sixties
all night long


afterwards
I jumped the queue for kebabs
and you had Shish,

Later still,
the hesitation before a kiss
frightened I'd miss the moment
but never
did

and confirmation
of a further assignation
at the discotheque
where we met
next Saturday night

feels like
a hundred year wait
until we get back on the
dance floor
and gyrate once more
to the beat

I can still feel the heat
of your lips.

It's not wishing on a star
that has brought me this far
it's the red vauxhall viva
my fathers old car

she
sits
under the hanging dice,
I think
our names on the windscreen
would look rather nice
she
says
no
and I go along with her.

Heaven was 1977.

See how the Vauxhall Viva rusts aside shooting rhubarb,
How the shed tumbles in golden creosote,
A gate latches with a clunk and there I stand on pebbledash shed tile,
Pushing red Raleigh Grifter to shed with  the family rides.

A cat slinks towards a Whiskas tin a rattling under winding can opener and I am back in 1977.

Heaven was 1977.

Vicky Kingsford was by my side.

Sun played on my home and I was in heaven.

Terracotta robots zapping rodents.
Ongoing Zagreb building projects.
Witches, milk floats and Vauxhall cars in Bill's head.
You got Tonsillitis from licking prostitutes’ rancid toes.

Towel used for a century; six frayed threads on its length.
Novel bus design; the driver drives from upstairs.
You drink Earl Grey tea, cold.

I so **** hate slow tardy days dragging till I get my dole for a new tattoo.
Signed on Fri, a 3 day wait till pay day.
It may not be paid right.
Twits!

Nebulous screwdrivers in the sky.
Take me away from the clouds to a desert landscape.
Tattoo my earlobe you minky moo.