He looked like he could have been
that man we thought he should have been
but it wasn't him at all.

A case of mistaken identity is
not as useful as a case of wine.

Saturday dressed in black and it's early
so she might go back
and change into something
a bit lighter.

Seek and you will find
or maybe life's unkind
and you'll go blindly on
never finding the one.

But one is out there
and usually where you
least expect.

Postscript.

Some who are living do not know
that life thrills you before it kills you,
there's no escaping fate and her hand.

I've been here before
the last day of the first month
in the new year,
yes
I've been here before.

Different but the same
or possibly the same
but a bit different,
or
I'm getting older
and my
eyesight weaker,
but
mentally stronger
I hunger no more
for those things
not meant to be
and
not meant for me,

so
different in a good way
and today is a good day
to be alive.

..and then
I did the dance
you know
the one
where you think you're dead
you know

but it was She
showing me what
life could be
you know
and now I do too.

All of the things I could be
and here I am
looking back to the
future
where I was me,

time's *****
one minute you're
bathed in the morning
light
and then
the night comes along.

I'll get over it
or
go under with it,

it's no problem
at all.

I walk off the ache in these old bones
and smell the oranges hanging from
the trees.

early morning workers
talking in hushed whispers,
two cyclists that **** right by me
clearly
they're not bothered by me.

Coffee from a sleepy waiter?
no!
I think I'll see you later
and on my way I go.

Magic in the streetlights
that seem to glare at me,
perhaps my sight needs
readjusting, but
I think I'll wait and see.

We are trying too
but
that doesn't get through
to you,

Mozart continues composing.

I have my clothes in the dryer
which are taking some time
so I try a
higher setting,
is
that getting through?

Wednesday evening
I'm thinking of leaving
it soon,
remembering
that the Moon and I
are old friends.

Almost vegetative
hoping something will give
wondering how I will live
almost vegetative.

The mind
has a mind of its own
which smuggles itself in
under the cover of darkness,

but there are
flashes of light
tunnels that end
bridges to build
friendships to tend

and so
we go
on.

Seen the movie
got the shirt
and
read the book
by Kurt Vonnegut.

I've read lots of books
escaped into
lascivious looks
by beautiful females
and to be honest
by males too.

Been wooed chapter and verse
the curse of the old
the cure for the young.

Saw Ben Gunn
heard him tell of Billy Bones
chatted **** with
Davy Jones
and
all in the reading
leading me to a merry dance.

I used to watch people but now I watch walls, walls are solid and walls seldom move,
walls don't give you funny looks and walls don't give two flying ***** about who you are.

I count bricks too which is another one of the tricks I do.

Peculiar?
maybe I'm just regular when I should have been a medium,
but I got sick of seeing ghosts so regular I am.

Sunday,
said it before and I'll say it again, Sunday is the same as any other day and if people want to get down on their knees to pray so be it.

I might stay in tonight, I said to myself because I know that I will stay in tonight which gives me the illusion that I could have gone out, I'm getting too old for this malarkey and believe me malarkey was my middle name in the olden days,

just juddering now and somehow still doing.

No one's fault it is Baltic outside
just the weather and the Winter
enough to make your blood freeze
and your bones splinter
but no one to blame
no one to scream at

disappointed that you can't point a finger?
you
may be entitled to compensation.

yeah!
but it's never
Wind stopped work is it

oh no!
we have to battle the elements
trudge through the snow
walk on the wild side,
I don't want to go

what then would I do
stay home with you?
you'd find me lots to do
I may as well be at work.

It's not funny because it's not Friday
and even if it is funny or Friday I have to work through the weekend.

I can never decide whether to go out and seek or to hide,
always in the middle, in a huddle or in some trouble,

Luckily I can count on some things
things like fingers or if it's more than ten,
toes too.

She says,
stop squawking
I do the talking
go back to your writing

I've counted to ten already.

Thinking I'd stay awake
but
these years caught up on me
and
now I'm between the devil
and what he has planned for me.

Well
*** my boots
the bank I use
went bust today
but I trust in the
FSCS

and sometimes God too.

It's not the way because it works this way
it's because
it works.

Character building
is like
house building
you have to cement the bricks
in place.

we get distracted
girls or boys
who are
very attractive

and where does it end?

We put children's toys away
because
we're told that we are too old
to play
with childhood games

in many cases that is probably true
but
once we lose that fuse
that burnt through
our youth
we might as well give up
and that is the truth,

Snap
Happy Families
Old Maid
Ludo
Cluedo
and you all know
Blind Man's Buff

this is the stuff
we were
young for.

So
you can't pour a drink
from
a fibre optic,

easy mistake to
make mine a double.

Out on a limb and listening to Cohen wondering to myself, do I know him?

and the answer came to me through the words which he sang to me, words of melancholy, words of God above, words which invoked in me a feeling akin to love.

So I knew him
but
too late now
to tell him
that I knew him
perhaps
I'll tell Marianne.

Some people get off the train at the wrong station
and think well, I'm here now, *** it, I'll stay.

Leave nothing behind you
or others may find you
and if they do
you will have to leave again.

Some people hang loose
some
like to put their heads in a noose
I like pomegranate juice
that was probably
of little or no interest
a bit like
my bank account.

The days are rolling on into more days the longer I go on and everything's becoming a blur, it's all so fast-paced.

A need to step aside, to get off this mad ride and take a long deep breath.

Monday and why not?
it was Monday last week so this is probably a repeat.

I'm not complaining,
really.

We're here now so,
are we there yet?
becomes redundant.

...and then she said that she liked girls,
oh
just like me then,
and I don't like men
again just like me

we were hitting it off
but I think that I'd bitten off
more than I could chew,

she said, but Bro'
I like you though
and
I liked her

we shared lunch
and that's all.

President Turnip
approaches the onion
office

orange
in hand.

Hide but not seek
look
and don't peek,
some things we put away
and when that rainy day comes
we bring out the umbrella.

They give affirmations
have high expectations
and wait..

..and wait.

What went before them becomes a talking point on some forum where crusty academics dissect limitations.

I'm sitting in Suburbanville cutting pictures from magazines to stick in a scrapbook and thinking, I wish you were here.

Sunday
and still working away
no praying today
no new lamps for old
just a constant cold.

She tells me
that dreams can come true
but
only before midday on Sunday
and that
makes it all worthwhile.

Nighttime
or
Nightmare?

pictures
or
you weren't even there.

In a luxurious setting
getting the best
and a duckdown duvet
easing my rest
but
not satisfied

this is where the pied piper comes in
fluting his tunes
polluting the airs
more fukin nightmares

what can one do against a zoo of monsters  but feed them, pretend that you need them and then discard them.

Last seen
heading thataway
Saturday
on the lam.

Head it off at the ravine
Dean
said, Jerry.

Back to the land of one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing, nothing changes except change and that change is being short-changed by the money men down in the city.

The Dollar and Sterling
when we need a
Grace Darling to light us the way.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul
puts food on the table
but tarnishes the soul

note: it could tarnish Saul too.

For those who didn't make it
take it from me
making it isn't the be-all and
end all
it only feels like it.

All work and low pay
makes Jack a....

The passage of time is lit by the lights of the night shift
which waits for the morning to come.

Lucky?
I could be
but *** me this government
doesn't make it easy.

...and so
I sleep because dreams are
cheap entertainment.

They said
we were there even when we were nowhere near, which made it quite clear to us that they disliked us being among them.

I spit in their eye
who needs men like that

let's have our own party
politics excluded.

Juan who likes his own company is the one we watch.

But Juan was one too,
one of the elite
a little effete
but the effect was stunning.

There's not much to see anymore
not since the war, moaned Maud,
if I could afford to move, oh!
wouldn't that be lovely, she said.

But where would I go? asked her husband Tom
who was eighty-one,
you could stay said Maud who had once adored him
but now hardly noticed him,

it's my age. he cried
you think I'm dried up and shrivelled he snivelled,

I've found another she said with a smile
better looking than you by a mile
and younger too,

Tom demanded to know
who

The man from number twenty,
you wouldn't know him
but I do.

On this seventeenth day
a Friday looms
and yet I see no mills.

My reflection looks at him as I look in on me if only to see what I look like and I look like a dog-eared book.

Turn a page
open up the cage
and I could escape this chapter.

Laughter in the auditorium
when it should be at the crematorium
when they remember
me.

That won't be happening soon
as the dish said to the spoon,
I am not sure what was being referred to
and don't care to know.

She says,
that's a bit morbid for you
and I reply,
love you too
sweetheart.

That easy chair,
yes
the heavy one that was hard to move,
not so easy now is it?

I'm on the lounger
trying to scrounge a
cup of tea.

She's on the sofa
calls me a loafer
and says
make your own,

and a home's not a home
without putting some
work in.

ditched the idea of a shipping container
going to get me several big tents
one for me to live in
the others to rent on
LandBnB.

I'll have to nail them down in East London
things go walkies around here.

Footnote.
I toyed with the idea of getting some Yurts
but somehow the word yurts hurts

I have things to do
but I'm not sure what,

I got an early morning fugue
trying to find out who I am
and it's not yet breaking dawn
what was my name when I was born?

the fog lifts
the fugue departs
hell and all the handcarts
have rolled away
and today
I have things to do.

She sees through me
I must be paper-thin,
think again She says to me
and strokes my double chin,

but we are as we are
and to be fair
as we are has got me this far
so
no complaints from me.

Wheee two days free
but I'll still be up at five
watching the day crawl in.

Thought I was sorely tempted
to find I was only sore and
it was a real letdown

but I'm alright
two days free
why shouldn't I be?

She says
the bathroom needs tiling
those papers need filing
and before I can get a word in
She gives me that look.

thought I was free
alas
not to be.

Gullible's travels?
well
we're all fallible
aren't we?

There I was
because I was
there's no changing that,
but now
here I am
because I am
in a constant state of change.

Flux, which is not a swear word,
that's just a random additive
which they may put in your food.

Some succumb to it
I **** my thumb and
get on with it,
we all get wound up
some get crushed in the
round-up
some succumb to it
I **** my thumb and
get on with it.

It's just a page filled
with rage
or
is it
unrequited love?

forget what I wrote above
it's half a page
and only that
everything
pales into
flatline
pulse gone
having
a
hard time,

organising
the origin
so
to begin
it's just a page
and I've turned it.

The sunset
filled with hope
for tomorrow
and regret
for
the past.

Hmm
I'll get there,
one day
I'll be able to share
the truth.

Today was tough going
but knowing how tough
things can get
I got going too.

'We have never had it so good'
oh
please tell me if you could
when was that?

I'm thinking about buying a shipping container and shipping it to Saltburn-by-the-sea
I could make it quite habitable or comfortable and good enough for me and at high tide, I could go off floating to end up in the place called Shanghai or it could be I go off to that other place where containers go when they die.

Dreaming Spires don't make this no Oxford
but dreaming of you makes it right.

Self
corruption, destruction,
must believe in the self.

If I'm going to hell
I'm taking the detour.

Sunday and the prophets arrive
but
only nine to five and
double time too.

It all has a price
and it's sometimes so nice
how can I refuse?

They'll not be happy
until we're living in tents down on
Hackney Marsh,

Cold Weather payments?
not a chance
harsh
but true

and even when we're lined up for our nightly gruel
they'll not give us any fuel for our fires.

We've been ejected, evicted, victims of a scam.

There's never a minute goes by
when I don't wonder why
the minutes go by
as they do,

clockwork?

If someone forgets to wind up the universe
we'll be stuck in this moment forever.

A sea horse gallops
beneath an arch of anemones
as turtles march slowly
along the line of the shore.

Okay
bedtime
work early
no play
Sunday
is not a day
of rest.

Deep woe and sorrow
yes
I'm working tomorrow
but only if
I can borrow an Identity card.

life is hard and some
and sometimes you got to run
from the law,

Border control?
no control at all,
see
they're not on the ball
people will come and
more people to run
the law has fun
keeping people under the gun.

If this is where I want to be
even with a foreign identity
I don't see the problem
but I see that you
have a hard time
accepting
what washes in
with the tide.

Who's pointing the finger at
who or whom?
no room at the Inn?
well,
it depends upon your
point of view.

I point at you or
you point at me
pointing out the obvious
that anyone can see.

It's the weekend
and I'm working
I can't seem to put a perk
into my step.