The Government robbing us
banks are fobbing us off
where is that man of the cloth
when will the miracle come
who has the key to the cellar door
and why lock away the ***?

Oh
vote us in
and
they said you'll all be quids in
but we won't get a look in
until the cupboard's bare.

Despair
sounds very out there
wailing by the wall
and there's always something else to see
when you think you've seen it all.

No man is an Alcatraz is what Donne should have said
we think we're self sufficient but we're locked inside our head
and the tide of time will drown out rhyme
plotting course and to be led
halfway around the seven seas
to a
dead reckoning in bed.

The way the light bounced up from the whitestone sill, the idea that the coming of dawn could beat the dust from carpets hung over a thousand gossip-worn garden fences, and boiled tea that we drank from old tin pongers,

aye
the last of the last of us are almost at the terminus.

Things we remember
just
junk in the kitchen drawers of our minds.

Listen
you can't win everything, but that shouldn't stop you from trying and if you're now trying to stop crying because you didn't win,
join the club .
go down the pub
and sink a few and by a few
I don't mean battleships.

I win some and lose some
and that sends me into a blue..
..oh! who
am I trying to kid?
I am a kid and if I lose it's only a hiccup
on the way up to winning.

You no longer believe in the media
because you know that they have all lied to you
and word of mouth cannot be relied upon
so
what to do if you want something new
untainted
vaccinated or unvaccinated?

and this is what I've waited for
since nineteen fifty-six?

thank god it wasn't fifty-four
or
you might have thought
that this was a poem.

No one wants to talk about those things that no one talks about.

The open society is closed until further notice, and here we are, wide awake, wondering why there's such an overwhelming ache that never seems to go away.

I dreamt a hundred sheep had wandered off to fall asleep,
leaving me alone to drive poor Bo-Peep home.

I dream a lot
some leave me cold, and others make me hot
but I've got no control
it's as if my brain cells take a poll and then decide on
what the dream shall be be.

It's nothing new
I'm sure that you dream too
and I wonder
have we ever met in them
watched the sun set and then rise again?

it's a shame that I cannot remember.

funny thing about Kites
you don't have to fly one
they
can fly by themselves.

A floodlight
but up in old Lancashire
the old Lancastrian
would say a floodleet
which is quaint and rather
sweet.

remembering t'mill
and t'pigswill bins
for pig farm
which did nay harm but
left an awful stink.

and t'stone jetty known as
Tortoise Shell,
never knew why it was so
it were just somewhere to go
when bunking off school.

Start
stop
horse and crop
the cart comes on behind.

Streets lined with cobblestones
wooden wheels
always feels like
rag and bone
rag and bone
sometimes through a megaphone

days gone by
I wonder why
copper is six quid a ton.

If ever 'whatever' comes
I'll be ready
whenever that is.

Atlas cries as he holds up the sky
Chicken Little is living the dream
the jelly has babies
the world's full of maybe's
Campbell's condensing more cream.

Somehow I awake
so now
I am woke
let's see how that plays out.

I'm getting my act together
I might take it out on the road,
but the weather's against me
my knees are quite dodgy
and my hip is not hip anymore.

Untied
still they tried
to avoid
drifting off to
sleep.

I once went prospecting for gold
was told it was up in those hills
I found bugga all bar some soil
and black coal,

The doctor prescribed me some pills.

it's time for,
prayer for the day

I hope
I make it down
or up
depending
on which way
I'm going.

I opened my eyes and it was raining
it would probably have been raining
if I had kept them shut but then..
..and then
I thought what then?

see how thoughts are cut down in their prime.

coffee tastes the same in spite of the rain
the radio still plays and
the day's still the day I woke into.

it's 5:15 or 5:16
and I wonder if this is known as
living the dream.

There's not much to do when there's not much to do and there's not much we can do about it,
yes
we can sit and stare at the four walls that also sit there
or
perhaps it's a mindset issue, and there's not much we can do unless we address it.

I wrote an address once
the letter came back
address unknown
which reminds me of an
Elvis song
and has nothing to do whatsoever
to whatever this is about
except the
'nothing to do' bit

back to sitting and staring
wearing my eyes out
thinking of something to do.

'I'll be back'
and so it was

teacher
orator
sin
terminator.

cut short
just like this poem.

They inject me with a serum
and I see them
they are the
digits in a test tube

zero one and zero one
and it goes on
binary
fine by me
it's just the needles
that I don't like.

but getting old is
one more thing
that I don't like

so
inject away
I'll be zero or maybe one
for at least a day
in the sun.

He rose from the grave
came out of the cave
and I had to go to work.

I know which one is a miracle
and those who know me
know too.

Another remembrance day
to get in the way
of things we'd rather forget
but not totally
or we'd be royally *******.

..and
no Archbishop to spout the gospel,
he was spotted in Mayfair begging for
the price of a bed for the night in the
Whitechapel hostel

times are what they are
which is probably better than
what we think they might be.

He is risen,
not a euphemism
there are no dinosaurs,

here, we are all equal
unless the law tells us
that we are not.

So you can
call life a *****
a glitch
an itch in the ****
or a
Brian Rix farce
but
it's what we've got

I'm happy about that.

Easter Saturday
and Jesus rested
( in the tomb )
wish
I could rest
( not in a tomb )
but in the living room
bedroom
or any room,
but no
once again
I am scheduled
to work.

I should be on Chapter Eight of my life
and yet
here I am, an old dog
just leaving
the prologue.

These really are peculiar times
and my bones ache.

You would think that we'd know
that
everything was just so
but
I only know what I think
and at the moment
I think that Good Friday wasn't
that good at all.

Work was depressingly manic
and I now need a tonic
to tide me through the dark hours
of the night.

been up for two hours
and
just remembered that
today is Good Friday
then I remembered that
I'm working today,

Good Friday indeed.

Self-doubting
and the ripples spread out in
ever widening circles.

Try not to do it
try
to power your way through it,

we're all heading down to the ocean
some
are placid streams
some are raging torrents
some are serene
some filled with torments
but
we're all going to get there
in the end.

Imagine the mirror image imagining you imagining it.
and who would do that?

me
me
I wanna go
I wanna know
what I'm imagined as being.

Only Thomas knew
and even he doubted

once again
that ******* in the back row
shouted
get off, you're no good.

Half of them I never heard of
and
the other half I never cared for,

time to explore
time to
find out what finding out's for,
but first
write a letter home
yes
some still know how to
we're not all attached to the glue tube.

oh yes,
glue gets you high
it also gets you stuck
in a rut.

Sixty years ago
there were wars
famine
poverty
disease
strife
and that was life.

Today,
seems like it was sixty years ago
only yesterday,

oh yes
we've come a long way.

That last summer
which we greatly enjoyed
feels like the last century,

The mind of man employs distractions
conjures up attractions
to take our minds off the time that it takes
to put on the brakes and remind us
that summer is behind us and autumn falls due.

but it cannot see that Eliot's Starnbergersee
is an illusion, and Marie could be you passsing
by me with a smile on your face

Sat there in a cafe
having coffee
because they only had
English Breakfast tea
and
it's fifteen before three

the coffee came cold
or I forgot it was there
because I'm getting old
and
I'm not sure I care anymore.

Poor me
I really wanted a tea
Assam or Lapsang
or at a push PG
Tips.

I never got to where I am
I was
never seemingly quite
that man
who meant to be
the man
you
supposed me to be

Don't worry
it's only with my blood
that I'm crying.

Sunset and my sight is reddened.

There's a canyon in the badlands and
It's Montana that takes hold of my hands
to lead me in deeper.

Only in America
thank the Lord
for small mercies.

It's just the same
but different
and it's a game
we all play.

Individual
invisible
occasionally irascible
but mostly
amenable.

Count to five
hold your breath
another ten
and ten more
then another
smother yourself in the feeling
until your mind is reeling
and exhale.

it's a game, and we're the same
all testing boundaries.

Sunday night  and it might be Monday
tomorrow might be that other day
that we read about.

Serendipity doo dah
is what I heard
but serendipity
was not the word

they could have made the song
on a thirty three and a third
instead of a 78rpm.

She's shelling peas
off the Outer Hebrides
and he's being a lazy sod
won't even move a
pea pod,

but thinking takes up all his time
and thinking work might be a crime
he remains an innocent.

...
and I know
that dealing with it
is only the half of it
It's the reconstruction
that counts.

I counted the knives
the lives that I wasted
the loves that I tasted
and
but you know that

so
why
am I here
will I die
do I fear
no
because
I'm still dealing
with it.

In the heat of the moment
that lasted a lifetime
I was hers
and
She was mine

but a lifetime isn't long enough
and yet I found
that I was strong enough
to carry the weight of our.
world
on my shoulders

The mind grips tight
holds on to the what might
but the what might was last night
and now it is the morning.

woke up yawning
saw no chasm
this will be a lucky day.

showered and shaved
saved
breakfast 'til last
then
realised I have to work,

still feeling lucky
but *** me
no rest for the wicked.

Trying to take it all in
hashtag grin or gin

for the beginners
sit there and pray for us
because
there is nothing else to do

we're through
down the drains
in handcrafted chains
not made in Britain
but
more likely India,

imported coal
and
that's just another hole
to bury us in,

hashtag grin or gin.

Are they all glamorous
and if so
what about us
the **** it in brigade

We who raid the fridges at midnight
hold our bellies in tight and buy ever
tighter trousers

from when we we're a pup
until our old age
the waist sizes go up

and those plans that we made
what happened to them
what happened to us that we
became old men?

Anyway
I'm beyond caring now,
and
letting my beard grow
allowing my hair to go where it will
still wondering
if they are all glamorous.

They tell me that the weather is changing
but changing or not, it'll still be the weather.

Buy British?
inward looking

I sometimes wonder
who's cukin' who
and who's the cuckoo?

The world is global
although
it doesn't seem to want
to be
perhaps
a pre-frontal
lobotomy
or maybe not.

Meanwhile
there are plenty of studies
by buddies of buddies
that pay very well and
tell very little.

Yes
I saw it,
but only when I wanted to
and even then
I never believed that
it could be true
and yet I knew
that it was.

Life
is just because it
can be
and we
have no control
over it,

we can only see it
through our own eyes.

Tuesday's child is full of grace
well
that didn't work out
did it?

Tuesday
1 May 1956

In
that space
between old age and death.

I am
not here or there
but liminal
yet always where
the sun shines.

Wouldn't it be nice to go paddling in the sea
like we used to do when we were four,
( thought it was three, but no, it was four )

My memory like a magician, plays tricks on me
but
wouldn't it be nice to go paddling in the sea.

This mindless ***** just caught his toe on
the corner of the table.

I need my eyes adjusting so I bought some
bi-focals
which turned out to be straight focals.

Oh it's a joke
I said to the bloke
who got offended by that.

These are troubling times,
but when haven't they been?
war
conflict
the flesh being picked
from our bones

not much hope
when we are left to rot
when
those who have got
refuse to give

whatever happened to
live and let live?