what’s with this whole twenty
first century internet
thing about having followers,
I mean I feel like a stalker

wrote a poem once that was published
in a little magazine and for which I received
a cheque of five quid and ****** happy
I was to have it

and there was the one that was
published in another
magazine for absolutely nothing
and that’s it, my career as a poet   ..

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

your heart is just a pump, love
and if I broke that
you’d be dead, but you’re not      ..

she said I wonder
what you look like
without your glasses

he said I wonder
what you look like
without my glasses    ..

someone stops the road sweeper
and asks him the way;
he says, like this     ..

I want to read
my book
why are you
looking at me
like that ?

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

always been timid
or not here I come!

can’t see a way out at all
     wherever one looks there’s just wall
    and yes, one solitary gate
      whereby they gather to await
    the old fool

the american poet I most admire
is dorothy parker,
a drinker, a poet, a cynic, a writer
and **** it, I like her!

one gets to the point
when you’re old
that you no longer ask

you just know if they
don’t when they decline
to wipe your ****    ..

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

write poems on beer mats in the pub
they’re not particularly good
but it passes an afternoon

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

tattoos are like putting
ink on a  j m w turner
no one’s a blank canvas

went into the second hand bookshop
I said hi, what’s new?

hid a poem in a tree in
the woods
but they cut it down
to just a couple of words

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  ..

well if they get me
don’t try to get them back

why the hell would I want
them back?

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

losing again went
to the pub they said sorry
we’re just closing he

said oh I’m the one
they always let in, in the
last minute or so

do conspiracy theorists get out
of bed of a morning thinking
what if that’s
what they wanted me to do     ..

used to think I’d like
to get to know you,
but I don’t, anymore

looking back
on our old haunts
me still    ..

frightfully british but
also roman catholic
ate no meat on a friday
was always fish and chips

out walking
this evening
is grey

grey buildings
grey rain
bows

drained rows
of veins
flow

with
grey    ..  

out walking
this evening
is grey

grey clouds
in our eyes

and I smoke

telling lies
and you choke -
and the flies  ..!

out walking
this evening
is grey

as she closed the
door behind her
mind was made up

want to inhale
the very scent of
of the city?
try the back seat
of a taxi     ..

this morning I find myself
out
of deodorant and mouthwash
I give you fair warning    ..

berwick street market
watching with my son
as a pigeon
pecked at and dropped a grape
on the kerb
over and over again

I called him
sisyphus
but my son said dad you’re so
****** pretentious   ..

hey mister,
didn’t I see you
on the telly
last night?

well you look
like him,
if you don’t mind
me saying

hey mister,
what d’yer wanna go
around pretending
to be him for      ..

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  ..

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  ..

poetry’s alright
but I’d rather
have a bike     ..

only ever known two women whose
feet I found attractive
and one I married -
don’t know what happened to the
other three     ..

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

I want to write anything
but love poems
tend to get in the way

life can end
in a second, love
I’m just writing
a poem

don’t know if I can make tomorrow
how about the day after
I’ve had a little more time to think  ..

wanted to write something upon
westminster bridge
but since wordsworth had already scuppered me
completely
I went back to the pub    ..

we’re both getting old,
but she still has dignity and desirability
and a demure sensuality and
all I have is a cough

o’hara should have
been a little more careful
on the road
perhaps wasn’t his thing

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     ..

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

no good at talking
with strangers
so perhaps we should get to
know each other

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

the older she gets the more
beautiful she looks at me growing
older too and gives a most
conspiratorial wink

I love a good book

“thought you invited me back for a reason   ..”

didn’t you bring a good book ?

sharing sandwiches
in the park
will never stale