Broken bottle friends, some call it social alcoholism
Everyone’s famous, for the night at least
The value of signatures
Listed above names on bar receipts
Drug dealers playing in the street, what some might call shamanism
All it really is, just an eclectic collectivism
That leads to remarkable nights that aren’t remembered
Realizations that problems are just and our lives dredge on
Invincible for the night
Or perhaps
Just brave enough to embrace ones true self

Adolf ****** was really quite a chap
He made those Froggies eat a lot of crap;
And he made all those Norwegians
Look like a load of paraplegians.
He marched into Poland with his troops
Into their pants those Poles did poops.
He made short work of the poor old Greeks:
And in their pants they did big keeks.
Killing the Jews was oh so bad and cruel:
Burning them up for harsh winter fuel.
But invading Russia was a bad place to go
And the Nazis froze in the cold and snow.
The Yanks were frightened to join in the war:
They were **** scared of what they saw;
(they only got involved when the Japanese
brought the Pearl Harbour fleet to its knees).
Only the Brits stood resolute and brave
For Churchill was an inspiring knave;
He fought Adolf on the shores and beaches
And the Germans crapped their leder-britches.
So what is the lesson of these facts from history?
Not ****** much - what a ******* mystery.

This is one of Barry Hodges' most inspired memories.

  'Twas morning time in times of yore and I, bold Barry Hodges, stood outside my store, my giant vegetables on display for all to see, when lo and behold! a luxurious limousine drew up, and from the back there emerged a gorgeous form of voluptuous statuesque feminity.
  "My God!" I cried, it is that beauteous lady from *La Dolce Vita, the wondrous Anita - and I gazed with joyous on her divine body, imagining it sprawled lasciviously in my bed, legs open as wide as a major road junction on the M1 motorway.
  "Excuse me", said she in that Italo-Swedish voice guaranteed to make any man wet himself copiously, "But I am a-lookink for a shop a-called 6B, and yet all I can-a-see is a Barry Hodges' the Master Geengrocer's, complete with a giant cucumber or two, which I 'av to say remind me of somet'ing tasty."
"Dearest lady, said I, you have come to the right place: 6B is the trading name of my sister enterprise: Barry Bodgers' Boil Bursting Beauty Bureau which is located upstairs, Barry Bodgers at your service, my dearest, most delightful Fru Ekberg."
"Shhhhhhhhh! I am een deesguise, not even dear Federico knows I am-a-here." And thus, assuring her of my utmost discretion, and forming a bond by saying that I too, the famous Geordie seducer, Barry Hodges, had indulged in a slight nomenclatural change in order to separate the two sides of my business interests, and in order to do a spot of money laundering on the side.  "But," I enquired, "How is it that you have need of the rather specialised medical services we offer, you who are so radiant and bella-bella?" She lowered her eyes seductively and promised to reveal her terrible secret.

As I ushered her up the stairs to the studio, my eyes on her ****-cheeks wiggling like two delectable beach ***** in a sack, she told me the sad tale of the immense boil which kept recurring on the middle of her back and which no amount of corrective surgery could fix.
"Aha!" I exclaimed, "Only Barry Bodgers, the world's greatest boil-sucker, can effect the cure for which you long, and I shall operate on you personally, not entrusting such a task to even the best of my boil-bursting minions." I added to myself, "Also I want to give you a good old bonking while we're at at."

Once we attained the privacy of my consulting room, I instructed her to strip off utterly so I might examine her, and I can tell you, dear reader, that her **** **** was a joy to behold. I too divested myself of my clobber, knowing that boil-******* can get a bit messy at the best of times. Jesus wept!, but the mighty boil betwixt her graceful shoulders revealed when de-plastered was a true horror, with a yellow tip as big as a Grade One Belgian Turnip. I explained that I would **** it out whilst I rogered her from the rear and that, when she felt her ****** on the way, she should scream out to that effect and I would then bite the core of the boil right out in a blaze of mutual ******* glory, before applying a dose of my exclusive Boil Preventative Cream, namely a handful of our conjoined love-juices extracted from her gaping ***** by hand a few seconds earlier.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" screamed the Swedish bombshell and with a mighty **** like an industrial Dyson FX334 on full power, I slurped and  razor-bit the boil, bursting it asunder, smothering my eager face in blood and putrid pus, thereby causing me to blow my *** as ne'er before. The green core of the boil emerged from its fleshly cavity with a deafening plop as we came together like a nuclear blast d'amour.

O, but only then, as my seminal outpourings soaked my jim-jams, did I awaken to discover yet another nocturnal emission. And, not unexpectedly, dear Nurse Nellie, having heard my cry of ecstasy, rushed in to my bedroom, head-shaking and tut-tutting as usual, as she knelt down and licked my tum-tum dry.
"Yum, yum" she murmured in her dulcet Northumbrian tones, "Ah've looked after three generation o' Hodges laddies, and I kin tell ye, your *****'s the tastiest of them all, ye bonnie wee man."
"Better than Grandad Charlie's?"
"Why aye, mon, yours is well creamier."

Let's dance the next dance
like it's the last dance,
like we know
that it's our last chance
to dance and when
the band begin to slow
hold me like smoke,
there is a flame inside my soul
burning the dancefloor,
let's dance before it goes...

Spring's rain and winds have blown away;
Summer has died and Autumn too.
But in the sad emptiness of my heart
Winter beckons me to its cold embrace.
It is now so many long Decembers past
Since I lost the one true love of my life;
No, she did not die, I cast her out proudly
As she refused to leave her unloved spouse.
A victim of religious hypocrisy.
And now we both dread the future on our own,
Self-pitying victims of our idiotic pride.

Barry Hodges goes all autobiographical in this one

O well-renowned upper-class *banlieue#, gorgeous Gosforth,
(blest suburb of the mighty Novocastrian metropolis
majestically situated on the Northern side
of the glorious industrial River Tyne
which wends its stately way towards the sea
only pausing to absorb greedily the teeming outflow
of the sewage farm at charming South Shields),
Thrice hail to thee##, O uncrowned queen of Northumbria!


And selbstverständlich### Gosforth's greatest claim to fame
In the annals of literature and cultural glory
Is to be the proud birthplace of yours truly,
Barry Hodges, the immortal Bard of Gosforth;
O sweet Mary mother of God (Ave Maria, cha cha cha),
How could I ever forget my dearest memory there,
Of my first immense accidental ****** incurred
Whilst washing myself manfully in the bathtub one day,
Thus causing a really **** teenage soapy squirt?

Let my ardent fans gawp in terror and wonder
At my countless amorous encounters
And their tragic yet inevitable consequences;
How sad must you be reading how mistress after mistress
Comes to a sticky end (to coin an unfortunate phrase)?
And, verily, other blood relatives are not spared:
Aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, (parents even),
All are prone to going under a runaway bus or charabanc
Or even tumbling into a frothily noisome manhole,
Gargling sadly in eldritch agony as they drown
In lumpy brown-ale-flavoured untreated Geordie sewage.

And yet, one day, un bel di di maggio#### perhap,
I too may encounter a fate too utterly horrid,
Too utterly horrid to contemplate, oy vay#####;
Maybe involving a blunt machete wielded gaily
By some poor demented cuckolded old *******
Whose pathetic bedroom skills have been derided
By his gloating lady wife after a taste of love's Nirvana
At the hands of the magnificent Master ******* (me).

O dear Lord and Father of Mankind######,
Look down kindly on el gran Casanova,
El Señor Hodges, and thus let me complete
My mighty oeuvre of awe-inspiring poems,
Before the Grim Reaper takes me in his arms
Dragging me screaming o'er that sad bourne of no return,
To the shivering shores of the benighted Underworld.
But, take pause for a moment, dear reader:
If that other poetic genius (by which I mean
sweet, sweet William, the Bard of Avon)
Could manage 154 bleeding sonnets no less
(and Christ knows how much else besides)
Before kicking the *******' bucket
(and he poked that Ann Hathaway too,
a right totally tasty piece I have heard
with a gorgeously provocative keester),
Surely I may be permitted to churn out a thousand odes
(thus ensuring a few dozen golden trophies from my peers)?


If I am to be denied my just literary deserts,
Even allowing for the occasional day off
To respectfully attend the odd funeral or two
of exhausted bed partners and bystanders,
(followed by the happier reading of the will
in which I get the benefits so richly due to me
as a just reward for sleeping with some ugly cow
and thereby giving her the treat of her pathetic life),
I think it's totally out of ******* order
And a right liberty to boot, squire.

The image
Of your tongue
Gently caressing
My spine
While
You're pulling
My hair
From behind
Brings thoughts
To mind
That make
My heart race
And I'm sure
Nothing could replace
That emotion
As you trace
Little hearts
Down my chest
With your calloused
Fingertips
Or that look of lust
That appears
With every
Sway of my hips
Or how the sight
Of me
Licking my lips
Makes you
Lose control
And you
Don't even know
How often
These images appear
But for now
It's just dreams
Until you're here
Holding me
Touching me
Kissing me roughly
Squeezing me
Pounding me
Biting be softly
I just can't wait
Until these dreams
Become my reality

I’m just so tired
of carrying around these heavy bones,
of synthetic smiles and empty words,
of meaningless ***,
of dreams that cling to the sides of my head;
this chewed up, spat out,
sticky, deformed hope—
the kind you unknowingly step on,
carry with you for awhile
and notice suddenly
with a face twisted in disgust.
The same reeking kind you spend hours
digging out of the soles of your shoes
with a broken stick.

And just I’m tired.

I’m tired
of ******* the poison out of this wound,
of tasting its hot, tinny infection,
of the uncertainty of recovery,
of your one-man audience.
I’m tired of being tired,
and I’m tired of admitting
that I was a naive enough
to offer up the best parts of myself
to something pining for so much less.
I
will never be
less.

I’m tired, but I’m here.
I’m here, and I’m searching.
When I find myself again,
when I regenerate all of those best parts,
I won’t be tired.
I’ll be this amazing
[*******]
spectacle,
and I’ll make sure you and less
have the finest mezzanine seats
for the one thousand mic drops
I always knew I had in me.