where were you last night?
I can’t recall
and you expect me to believe that?
not at all  ..

writing a novel
you know what that’s like?
it’s like a story that no one’s
ever written before
yeah, I’m making it up  ..

my wife gets annoyed
I don’t know why
but best just apologise

sitting at a pavement table
   of a turkish café
  near the gare de l’est

feel myself hunch
  like a dishevelled pigeon
over lunch, the waiter

asks for our order,
     naturally in french
and I ask “parlez vous anglais?”

     he enquires if we’re dutch,
               or quite possibly deutsch    ..
guess it doesn’t matter much

she’s always saying that I live
in the past
well yes, it is the only place I’ve lived
apart from now  ..

a sunday roast
washed down with a pint
got back on the coach
and belched.
what more do you want     ..

is the mousetrap still running
at the theatre, is there a donkey sanctuary
in st pauls
is there still the thames, the thames!
is this then how poetry
goes

that you keep on giving me
your opinion suggests you don’t want
it, either

wanted
to cry
but there’s people looking

worse off
than I

glad I never met george orwell
since he’d have despised me for
being a weak liberal and well
yeah he’d have been about right

for once, think of somebody else
so he did
she didn’t like it

wanted to knock on his door
and ask him to come out to play
but what if his dad answered
and what if he said, oh ok  ..

lived in lewisham for a while
it was alright  
but then she grew bored and I grew
bored with her growing bored
and staying out all night
and south east london ain’t the end of the
world

this is all knew
I’d find it odd
my dear

used to walk around
the city at night
with nothing on my feet
except myself

opened a bottle of scotch
“how’s that going to help?”
ever tried drinking this stuff
with the lid on    ..

quite like the calm appraisal
historians bring to the past
supplying a little distance
to that which is actually vast  ..

poured myself a drink
what about me?
you can pour me the
next one  ..

she used to complain
that she never knew
what he was thinking

he said I hear what
you’re saying, but isn’t
that rather the point?

I’m drunk
feel your

contempt
so not

quite drunk
enough     ..

as she closed the
door behind her
mind was made up

don’t like restaurants
are full of people
who could have stayed
at home and cooked

wrote a poem on the train
got a fine
and they made me
wash it off

don’t like coffee much
prefer tea
       and yet people are always saying
          we should meet up for coffee
    and I profoundly disagree   ..

last time I wrote a poem that
was
any good was on the late lamented
deep underground poetry site about an elderly woman on the
bus who offered me a boiled
sweet,
I thought,
but no, thanks     ..

there is little conversation
over dinner as we’re concentrating
on eating I wonder what we’ll
talk about after      ..

want to
play
by myself
today

alas
a loss
unless
undressed
the poor old
chap was loved
I guess
her curls
in swirls
around his chest       ..

turned up at her door
     with a bottle of gin
  so what is that for ?
oh, it’s just a way in ..

love to walk alone
through the city
streets are not just for grown
ups a daisy!

dylan thomas died from the drink
but that’s not what you think of
when you read his poems you think of caitlin,
swansea and soho and yeah, ok, pubs  ..

most people around here
take democracy for
granted they vote for the fascist  ..

why do people dislike politics
so much that they
prefer mob rule over civilised debate
is better than hate

they remained silent
over dinner, the gravy especially was
best not mentioned again

why call murderers butchers,
    when we get our lamb chops
from the butchers, and very nice they are, too
    few, those old shops   ..

she knew it was over
he hadn’t been home for days
why don’t you go home
she says   ..

it’s here
your
underwear
you left
it     ..

angrily get out of bed
saying you’ve had enough!
which for me was a first

people often say “less”
when they mean “fewer” -
it’s not important, I
guess, it’s just grammar    ..

city becomes us ill
and buildings rise and fall
in laboured breath

when I was a kid I got a sixpence
a week for
pocket money, plus the beano
every
saturday
and then, suddenly, they
brought in decimalisation
and a sixpence no longer existed,
and I’ve worried about
money
ever since   ..

called the waiter over
for the bill
he said what about coffee
I said thanks
but I don’t even know you     ..

they say a time machine wouldn’t
be possible
but that’s *******
I’ve got a clock

we brush against each
other
than that there is
nothing  ..

apparently the geese in russia
are bigger than the pyramids in egypt
now that’s proper gander

only writing because
like bukowski said
only if you have to
will it be any good

told as a boy if you cut a worm in half
half of it survives
but we’re not worms
boys just put down your knives

people tend to comment on
the content or subject of a poem,
rather than the form or the style
it out, mate, style it out

the first time we met
I loved her face
but I fancied her legs
and I know that’s
sexist and objectification
but we’ve been
married for thirty two years
so who cares

they used to love each
other things happened  ..