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Johnny Zhivago Sep 2013
From your old calloused hand
To the last living strand
Of hair that sprouts feebly
Like black sunbaked seaweed

With earlobes enourmous
And eyeballs a-milky
These wrinkles put dimples
all over your flesh crawling

in mongst the shadows
Of large concrete buildings
And root in the gutter
For edible matter which is

Torn in your hands by
Pain-quaking fingers
And prodded and poked
Into toothless dark places

Where bleeding black gums
Weary of smiling
pound out the mixture
Into acid bile.

I pity the monster
That crawls from your lips
When your life is no longer
And your tongue is for eating

I pity the blackbird
To peck out your eyes
That eyelids unmoving
Cant shield from the dangers
Johnny Zhivago Sep 2013
-The wind was seething, heavy.
-After waking, and gazing at the pummelled window
-I pulled my patchwork desert gear into a bag.
-I borrowed some sandals, a bike,
and ate a healthy bowl of noodle.
-Then peddled scowling at the wind.

-In the town, in the open maze of buildings,
-The sands were kept at bay.
-But i rode out. North and west and then south after a bit.
-I pushed through the stinging screaming,
-Past great shallow rivers, dust roads, donkey carts, snipped and snatched dialogues.

-A cloth cap pulled low
-Sunglasses
-A palistinian checkered scarf

-On the night bus out
-We stop and i leap out for a spliff and to relieve myself
-The night wind so much more terrible
-It bit down stubbornly (i'd stupidly left my desert gear on the little bed.)
-And pellets of rain added mockery to the situation.
-The line of shiverers excited to get back on the bus is slow and quivering
-So i let the cold become a numb cool
-So as to stand it
-And when the doorway appears to me in a dark warm glow
-I leap again; this time in,
-Then dig myself deep in the cosy alcove.
-Just then, my brain slowly/grinningly explodes.
-The short little fat man across from me
-is a picture of pleasantry.
Johnny Zhivago Aug 2013
Spanish influenza
walking pneumonia
icepick headache
common cold
whooping cough
Diabetes
anorexia
getting old

flat foot
bad back
heel spur
heart attack
spasticus
autisticus
tongue tied
amb(i)dextrous

my weakness
is my forte
my sickness is  my skill
my illness
is my realness
it makes my life a thrill


Trying to fight this
bronchitis
gangrene
runny nose
frostbite
tooth decay
hat hair
broken bones

bed bound
shell-shocked
flea ridden
sinusitis
cholera
dropsy
eliphantitis
out-all-nightis

wom­b fever
winter fever
black water fever
remitting fever
ship fever
jail fever
camp fever
or schizophrenia

scarlet fever
tuberculosis
American plague
rock n roll
Wheezing
Paralysed
Got gas
In both holes

rabies
scabies
rickets
and SARS
man flu
bird flu
swine flew
from Mars

multiple sclerosis
tennis elbow-sis
stomach ulcers
and leukaemia
night blindness
hypothermia
lung cancer
sickle-cell anaemia

French pox
Lockjaw
Polio
Gout
Nostalgia
Dropsy
Knocked right
Out

Stuttering
Bellyacher
Anti-social
Leprosy
Sleep walker
Sleep talker
Absent minded
OCD

Tourettes, ****
Pyromania
tonsillitis
Conjunctivitis
Food poisoned!
Warted over
My Psoriasis
(Will I survive this?)

Measles
Malaria
Meningitis
Migraine
Scrum-pox
Worm fit
Water on
the brain

apparitions
seeing things
rattly chest
bad breath
la duzi
tormentation
inflammation
black death

measles
malaria
migrane
mumps
leprosy
lice and
leg bone
lumps

kleptomania
bubonic plague
black *****
feeling ****
bone shave
falling sickness
wanna stop
just cant quit

Huntington's and
Parkingson's and
Hare-lipped
Hay fever
Typhoid fever
Glandular fever
Night fever
And Hysteria

intellectual
dyslexia
dysfunctional
family
cancer crab
stillborn twin
bad blood
epilepsy

Parking spot
disabilities
all the wounds in
all the militaries
pity thee with
lost agility
lost babes or
infertility

ear infection
starvation
Hepatitis
E to A
smallpox
chicken pox
cow pox
what a day

tuberculosis
stuttering
panic stricken
star struck
scurvy
shingles
headless chicken
bad luck


paranoid
in the void
premature
*******
stomach ulcers
feeble pulses
chronicled
*******

autistic
gallstones
double-jointe­d
wrists and knees
consumption
bad digestion
quinsy palsy
ticks and fleas

amnesia
typhus
amnesia
heart failure
radiation
cholera
amnesia
bad behaviour

Hypochondriac?
By gosh, no!
Poorly are ye?
‘Fraid so.


nostalgia
        suffer me
wanderlust
suffer me
insomnia
suffer me
loneliness
let me be



god
complex
mother
complex
father
complex
ego
complex

­

its complicated
im superior
its complicated
im inferior
its complicated
im a short man
got ingrown hairs
got a bad tan



im suffering
ocd
im suffering
obesity
im suffering
jealousy
xenophobia
and nosebleeds



stokholm
syndrome
toxic shock
syndrome
got it down
syndrome
irritable bowel
syndrome

yellow nail
syndrome
stevens-johnson
syndrome
restless leg
syndrome
shoulder-hand
syndrome

lambert-eaton
syndrome
mi­ddle-lobe
syndrome
mobius
syndrome
pickwickian
syndrome

post rubella
syndrome
riley day
syndrome
straight back
syndrome
ulysess
syndrome



alcoholics
we are prone
drug addicts
we are prone
mind benders
we are prone
fortune spenders
we are prone



My illness, my illness
My illness is my realness

*Pick it up
Tide it over
Fight it off or
Cave in

Save it
Suffer it
Pass it on
When its Raining

bleed him
restrain him
shave his
head

he went from being
quite well
to being quite
dead.
unfinished but did you bother to the end?
Johnny Zhivago Jun 2013
politics, passion, religion and god
i just need what the next man's got

give me a community so i can be a communist
give me the capital so i can be a capitalist
im not     optimistic
and im not   pessimistic
ill sum it all ip
im just a mystic
Johnny Zhivago Jun 2013
Probably just a man with his gloves on backwards
Darkwood doves in his outercoat pocket
figs and fossils hanging off his earlobes
silky cigarette smoke scooting up his fingers

got a moody mad eye and he knows how to use it
when he gets a brain block,
he breaks it with a breeze block
nudges out mice and shrews from his foot box
fixes up his old bow-tie for the foxtrot
there gonna see his burnt out knees and elbows
easy to fix though, with a bit of Velcro
Johnny Zhivago Jun 2013
mr moonlight
mr nowhere
maxwell edison
mr jones

dr robert
sgt pepper
mr kite, bb king
edgar allen poe

walter raleigh
mat busby
the hendersons
and maggie mae

mr mustard
captain marvel
rita lucy jojo
vera chuck and dave

mother nature
polethene pam
mr heath doris day
and buffalo bill

loretta martin
**** sadie
hey jude eggman
my michelle

rigby            and pilchard
or elenor      and semolina
took father  mckenzie
too see a dancing horse

henry       his name was
rocky       raccoon was there
prudence rode elephant
to the i me mine waltz
---
There gonna crucify me
the way things go
christ it aint easy
the next day dont know

you know the walrus was paul man
johns bird can sing
george was a genie
ringo wore a ring

but paul is dead now
george stole his soul
john is alive though
ringos in a hole

her royal highness the tax man
commit the perfect crime
she asked for more
with a belly full of wine
Johnny Zhivago Jun 2013
Alarm at 9:30, wake up at 8:30, stretch in bed, go downstairs to kitchen, make omelette, give a quater to a freind, eat the rest, alarm goes off, cycle in to uni, shuffle the word order of an essay, print it, muck around, go to the bar, glance at a man giggling to himself, smoke a dovetail, go back in, slice an orange, eat it then, go through, the print out, crossing ****, out, Daniel walks up, hey hows it going, fast talking scurry walking you know what i mean man, he starts up, ive heard this one before... i havent drunk for 3 years, now i just smoke ****, cos i always smoke it,  got a girlfriend? I had a girlfriend, she was my best friend, then she went crazy though, made me insany, i said to her listen:
im thirty its simple you with me or no?
You stay or you go? Is that simple or no?
This was a while ago, she said i dunno, i felt mad as mud, and i came to the bar, just human beings, and there was my girl, with a korean! I smiled in surprise, he switched up the convo, you had a girl, well did you like her?
I stopped him right there, im going for a ****, dont mean to diss,
ok he said bye,
and walked through the door,
of him we'll say no more.
I got to the ******, a sense of achievement, sense of a glorified victory for me, i fumbled my fly, which was hooked with a paperclip, which was bent round the button, to stop from fly diving, and as this was happening my eyesight went whitey i tingled my fingers, i staggered aboutey, my foots were a-wobbling inside of my shoe, my knees were a-jiving to knee-jiggler tune, i flopped on my bag on the back of my back, twitched and i break-danced until my foot tore loose, and suddenly a boot, an invisible boot, and invisible foot, and invisible man, kicked me my jaw, and back snapped my neck, left me there sprawled. cripped by pain, blinded by white, starved of control, but over at last, i hobbled back out, morosely sat down, high brows of eyes, did you goosey gander, oh my Amanda, he looked like a mortal
when he went in
but then he came out
limping with sin
that boy was me, i met with a girl, and cycled back home, certain my tendons, were torn off the bone, i told her i fainted in the toilet and fought with an invisible man, she said can you be normal for once and tell me wagwan, why were you painting the toilet, and who was the man, i told her again that i fainted not painted, and she looked confused. i lost my essay, and im wearing glasses and your saying nothing, except nonsense and nothing, i told her id noticed her glasses but had seen no essay, as she let me go she kissed me but i asked for a hug, a hugs more important if youre stuck in the mud, i went to my house and told all my flatfriends the truth, why my foot hurts and my disturbance of duelling that man, they acted surprised and then went to bed, i made i some tea, and then spent the rest of the night smoking down my confusion.
Healing gently but still some weak patches


it rained then shone then hailed then snowed
and she'd forgot her coat
and it poured on her throat
later passed the day
and we cycled back northways
carlights lamps and moon hit your face
smiling with your long as a boot-face
hail-bones sparkly white as toothpaste
england is a sock and we live in a bootlace

her 'guy' lived with her
so she came round early arva-,
i accidentally injected her
with a deadly kind of larvae.
she went to a farmer-cist
to get an antidote,
a little white little pea that
went floating down her throat.
merrily merrily merrily merrily,
right under the belly
it knocked the nest out from the tree
and stamp the eggs to jelly

mama pigeon was away
magpie made jelly-egg
stampy stampy crush crush
heavy evil mag-leg
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