I wake.
Ache and take
A moment to adjust my eyes
I listen to her sleeping sighs.
I look to her *******
I have lain in those nests and I have caressed.
And after all these years
Of marriage,children,laughter and tears
I still wake and ache to take you in my arms
And tell you I love you.

John Smallshaw 2011

Trampling through the essays which were written one tomorrow and you know you'll never read them,
why is life filled with such sorrow?
but you keep on walking through them 'til they're fallen men on battlefields and it makes you feel so hollow when the echoes sound inside you,when the words join up around you and there's no one left who knew you but the essay stands on sentry call to catch and if then you should fall there's always one tomorrow and another entry wading through your soul.

The lights go on in somewhere but you've been there far too often and there's nothing left to keep you as you wander through the weeping and you know it's the beginning but the ending is no secret it was written on the exit signs that hung drunkenly in doorways and you've been through those same doorways many times.

This is the clock that stood stock still
as you swallowed
and took up a job down at t'mill
there was the time when your dreams were like mine
and not folded away as they were on the day when you signed on the line at the old cotton mill and there's no time to go back and alter what's done
what was fun is no fun and the sun will not shine
like the time that it rained on the day out in July
when it was there that I wondered and wondered and why
you didn't try
to kiss me
bless me for I should have known that you hadn't grown then
some men are slow men and some men stay boys
and toys for the taking
but making the move to the mill is still the lamest excuse that I've ever seen
we could have been
good
together
whether you believe it or not
I have a lot to give
you'd rather live in your bolts of cloth
but I am a moth that is after a flame
and if you won't light me
I'll find someone else
to join me in my game.

Fly away childhood
'fly away paul'
I'll find another one and we'll have the ball that you and I should have
and life's not so bad
if you have the the life that I should have had
It's a mock turtle soup with a loop round the group and a fix on the past and getting passed by the mill is one more or less bitter pill
that we ought not to swallow
and if swallows don't make a season then that isn't a reason to despair.

ps..I love the way you wear your hair
I like the way you dress
wish that I had impressed you more.

Underneath the shadow of the
old Yew tree
where the dead men sleep
in the cemetery,
there's a woodpecker pecking
constantly,
so much for
'Rest in peace'

Give me some Tramadol
Panadol
a laxative
a fixative
just
give me some peace.

Give me a new lease on life
a wife
a home
a new hip
(just thought that I'd slip that one in)

Oh Christ on the cross
how do I live with the loss
how does one start
when the heart has been shattered
and what does it matter?

Let me be drip fed on a bed
and out of my head
give me indemnity
against
whatever I've said or am likely to say
Give me
Today.

Another light heart
day start
start to
amalgamate
concentrate on not being late
for the sunshine
in time
whatever is to be
will be mine
and then
when I start to fly
and watch the World go by
I may wonder why
I am alone.

One Summer on a Wednesday in June
when the Sun had sorted out the moon and shone
John..(that is I) thought I could fly
so I jumped off the bridge that flew over the railway lines
I admit
I have had better times and my grand designs were slightly flawed
but getting bored with broken leg and arm
and seeming to do more harm than good
I thought I would
just learn to knit
which is a bit like tying knots in spaghetti.

Now me (again that is I)
am waiting for the sky to lighten
up the day
then I'll go and play
hopscotch on the motorway.

Some people never learn
but Sunday schools are just for fools
and that is fine
I only go there
for the bread and wine
and that's fine too.

Feeding tigers in the zoo sounds like fun
anybody like to come
with me?
Talk to tigers
set them free?
Something might be wrong with me
but I can't see how just a little cat could be
so dangerous.

The iron bedstead creaked and the buckets underneath the leaks up in the ceiling gave us a feeling, of being on a movie set,
the flicker of light from the candle,waxed magnificent across the film of grime,a window to another time,a line up in the make up shed,the freshly made up bed,everybody said,
'down in the Hacienda where the cockroaches defend ya, against the desert rats,where nocturnal bats then eat the desert rats,you'll feel at home,

No coffee bar,no public phone,no concierge,you're all alone and feeling tender and that is life down in the Hacienda.

We took a walk through tumbleweeds and in this town that leads us to despair,we found we did not care,we two, were already there,at the end,where cockroaches could not defend against the things that lived within,the sin that kept us pinned against the ropes,the hope we had against all hopes that somehow we'd escape,be free,could settle in obscurity.

This Hacienda is the place where you must meet your demons face to face,unearth the things you'd rather not,
down in the Hacienda is where we learnt a lot,stopped the rot,oiled the bed,noted what was said,
but it's hardly worth it going to, the Hacienda just to view,you have to go and do,to see and be the changes that are made,
and as the Hacienda fades into another scene and plays into another screen,I lean across to her to share a kiss.

I sleep now in monochrome
On a mono bed in a mono home
And in those blacks and whites
Of my monochrome nights
I dream.
Technically in faint hues
Of reds and greens and blues.
But she who left
Was the colour on my page
The spoken word upon my stage
And now in monochrome
Like the howling winds outside the door I moan
And comb through the echoes
To hear her voice.

Well being, being well and seeing as that's okay make me well as well, but a well can be deep, can it not?
so with that in mind I've got a long rope.

Also
and there's almost always one also to add to things that I also don't know
so
I put also into the algorithmic mix and get
answers in the form of equations which mathematicians expound on at length whose length is as long as the rope for the well that is possibly deep

I keep going round the houses to get to the place that I want and the place that I want is well being and all being well I will get there.

Confucius may have said a lot but he never said what I could not
suppose he found the narration would not translate
and in this state of mind over no matter
I wonder what is the matter with me
I can see
things that are not there and if I write about these things
I swear people think
I'm blowing bubbles in the air
but they can't pop them
can't stop them
I put my thinking where I want and is it not fairthat I should
could a minstrel shoulder less a burden?
in my garden everything's rosio
sing me a song and
I'll be your romeo.

Confucius confuses me with someone I used to be
and whatever he says
makes no difference I see
what I see
and if words could convey this disarray
I'd write them all day
but they don't so I won't
but who am I to decide that you out there should be denied
of my talented pen?
(me big headed..when?)
so I'll keep on showing you the slowing of what I do and in the inks you'll find links
to the something not there.

Does that man that he was and he was such a man
care about what I can do?
Confucius say
and whatever it was got lost in translation.

On the production line a product of the time
and a time for busy bees
with beehive hairdo's and the permanent wave
not many dreadlocks
but that's something I'll save for a rainy day
I like to play my fingers through them
and when she gets a bit naughty and the temps reached about forty
well, things go on
but that's not for on the production line
a time and a place for many things
and she brings me most
then cooks me a meal,
sometimes I feel like a king
and to her who would love me
I bring but a man
with faults and defaults she can discover at will and she will.
and still I remain like a tomato ketchup stain on her dress
She, under duress tells me later
I wait on her shift at the factory but it finishes and me I'm still here
waiting to see her.

Her life is her own and I own none of it
not a drop or a little bit and as she has so often said,
'you can get that idea right out of you head'
She is strong and I long for her
She is weak and I comfort her
but these things she does for me
I wait and see what the next instalment will be
her and me
me and her
on the production line where love isn't fair nor is meant to be
it's the economy
got to blame it on something and that seems about right
got to make light of it and that does not
what she has and she has an awful lot
is what I haven't got
and maybe never will
and that's another will I can't fight
and another something that isn't quite right.

Life goes on and we get old
and maybe we never get to hold what we wish for
maybe that's not the way
perhaps we'll always have to fight for our day in the sun
or pick up the gun and demand it or take it by force
and of course as a pacifist
I would desist from taking that step
which is one step away
from the hangman.

Turn the sound on your
dressing gown down
douse the lights
listen to the night,
rustling leaves leave lots to the
imagination and
all the time in creation to
Imagine
monsters hiding under the bed
in the bathroom
in your head
wake up
one day you'll be dead
and
was that the Moon that I saw
hanging on an unlikely thread?

Answer me this,
how can salmon run without any legs?
a fisherman's story and another unlikely
thread.

Behind the bike shed
I kissed a redhead
an unlikelier thread?

Sunday is the unlikeliest
or so the trick cyclist
tells me.

Syria.
It's a worrier
and
no wonder I can't sleep.

Do we stay out or
do we go in with 'boots on the ground?'

Harold said,
'this won't affect the pound in your pocket'
that's torn it,
the hawks will have *******, but
no win, no fee or should that be
no win, no free?

It's a puzzle of a poser,
suppose we
dispose of the lies,
we could with an open pair of eyes
see
things differently.

I think
infantry,
in my infancy I fancy
there's always a chance we
might
stay out.

Do you
promise
to honour and obey?
The marriage of yesterday.

You get what you deserve
and I reserve the right
to slip away at night
and go out clubbing.

I'm not the one to criticise
the way you dress
the make up on your eyes
but have you looked
lately?
Stately homes come to mind
are you mad or are you blinded by the factories that drip dry fripperies that you use as you please
and I never please you
excuse me
is that powder on your powdered face quite dry
and why use it anyway?

Girls today are quite insane lipstick on the brain
and more upon their lips
I slip into a reverie and see
the you of long ago before you went and spent each dollar earned
on cosmetically engineered potions for perms
At times I squirm with embarrassment
at others 'oh brother'
I look away
this is not the marriage of yesterday
or the woman that I know
must go and check the requirement for a retirement home
somewhere far away and alone
Can't stand the smell of eau de cologne
any more.

I thought that I could walk on water and as the son of man
I should have swam with big fish
wish?
I should have wished the World away
stepped into another day of Saints and sinners
losers
winners
who brought hope and misery to
us
the peasantry.

Presently
pleasantly surprised
I find myself under clear blue skies
on a desert dune
whereon I rise and call out to the stars
the sun
the moon
who if they hear at all will tell me all too soon
just to whom it is I should pay homage.

I reflect as the heat reflects up off the sand.
Is this land fit only for those castles that would blow down in a storm?
what form does man take when the breaking of the bread
is taking bread from starving men?
When?
And then these thoughts that take me hostage are the homage I must pay
To live and write and fight
a ray of sunlight
and in it wrapped tight
another ray
the simple way of it
to sit and wander through these thoughts
and I thought
I could walk on water
can't even stand on my own two feet.

Wars will totalise
and if viable are liable to add up and destroy communities, where opportunities are few and far between.
When things are seen beyond belief and death comes creeping like a thief into the square where people wait.
A demonstration of great power by powers that watch as people cower down in fright,
Night has come and with its gun will cleanse the state,
no one left to demonstrate
no one left to state the case
and freedom cannot show its face.

In God I place my trust, someone must
lest justice not be done.

Through the eye of the needle where necessity lies
and the horizon's a point somewhere off,
someone dies.
On the grains where the sand shifts the mountains away, where the land ***** crab sideways to gather their prey or the fields where the crops dust off MDMA,
I drop,
intellect fades
the night fazes in on sharpened steel blades.

My credit took it hard and turned into a debit card,I never read the small print and now I am decidedly skint.
Cash will dash, if you don't keep it on a lead,or on a reign and money after all, is just the same as any other thing in life,it will knife you in the back or hack into a circumstance and given half of half a chance will run away and leave, like it left me today.

I could be brave and save but interest rates are very low and I don't know if a rainy day will ever come and sometimes money's just for fun,
I shall spend,send my money,bend it round a bar or two and in lieu of any saving grace I shall turn the Queens face on my notes,burn my bridges,sink my boats and have a riot of a time,

when I've bought a five minute slot in the bankruptcy court you can come and see what money did for me,
but until then,another ten will go on *****,a fortune on a midnight cruise and twenty quid will buy me high,
did I tell you,money's sly and slips away when least expected,I should have, or did you suspect that's why this man is wrecked and broke.

Money spoke and money speaks and money leaks away and no money means you have no say,
spending,saving,blowing it and raving we all need that touch of having not enough or as much as we need,
money feeds on us as we feed on it and slowly but surely a bit at a time,because a bit ain't a dime when a dollar only buys you a small tin of tuna, and the old lady would sooner thread needles than sew,
we'll all go quite insane.

I am the crab
the star on a slab.
dying,
you're frying tonight.

When you take me
you'll break me
and **** on my legs
devour me
deflower me.
I am a crab
the star on a slab.

On the St Lawrence
going upriver today
there may be gold in them hills
that I see lay before me

I will do me some panning and see
what pans out,
panning is what my life's
all been about

a nugget or two will do
no need to be needy or
any need to be greedy
just taking some time and
what I pan will be mine.

Waters are cold the higher
I get
shingles
slippery
wet.

I'm reflecting
on a man with a pan in his hand
a grizzled old face
a gold wedding band.

When I head back downstream
it'll be
to champagne, caviar, real coffee with cream
or is that just an old prospectors pipe dream?
I see diamonds that flash off the noonday Sun
as if
running atop of the water
I'm rich,
but I wish it was gold.

It's silent mostly
except for the water and birds
and the words I cuss out,
did I mention
that's what panning is all about.

I scramble through the brambles that
grow over my mind and try to find
a way out,

I guess panning is about that too,

If the globe that we lived on was flat and we lived on and on it knowing that,
could we at least try to put a new spin on things,
could we round up the numbers that go round the clock or would time, laid out in a line go into shock,
and if gravity failed would the sea that we sailed on sail over the rim,could we swim to the shore,wouldn't life be a bore
if the World was as flat as all that?

So,
let's turn a new page in the turning of age where technology seems, to be all the rage,
Let us stand on this stage and perform a new play
a new day,
deserves that if the world is not flat
and that's all,
that I have to say.

******* your smoke rings and bring me your gold rings
we marry at dawn on the green.

I love you like I loved no other
your smell
intoxicates me and
smothers my senses
I am dwarfed in the
the shadow of you.

The field gun
hidden behind a grassy bank and flanked by trees
manned by two men and an officer up to their knees in mud
did good!

It fired simultaneously
with a charge by the third infantry
Death stamped on the base of the eight pound shell
it smiled
into the face of Ben Fazackerly who came from Coventry
and Ben fell dead.
(and it has to be said..minus his head)

Perhaps Ben had seen some premonition
that he'd be killed by enemy ammunition
so on Wednesday the week before
he'd decided not to take the chance
of losing his new false teeth in France
and posted them with two weeks pay
to his wife and lover
Betty May

And Bet began to understand when she saw the postman
with the telegram come past the garden gate at ten past eight.
At five past two
the crying through
she went and made some tea.

With the teeth that Ben had sent
she turned the gas on
and bent with grief
she went to sleep.
Forever.

There is always the square root
the road to nirvana
the mathematical equation
that solves the dilemma.,
the indigent integer that
itches my conscience and the
point that floats before my eyes.

Triangulating my position on the road to
perdition, at least I know where I am.

If the cat's in the black box and the white box
is bare,
is the cat really there?.
The idiot in me says it must be,
seeing's believing they say,
what colour is the cat that's meant to deceive?

Equations flow freely through the nearly enough now
and the answers flood in with the mail.

Will you tell me what I want to know
before I leave this night
won't you give one kiss before I go
or just turn off the light?

Give me a morsel of your mind
give me a crumb so I can find
or let me be forever blind.

Can't you see that it's no good to be
a starving man in this bakery
If I have to I will help myself
and I can't help myself
but help myself
to all there is.

Now moored in the dark bays
My ship in the dark days
Sailed light in the wild seas.

The fresh winds that blew in
off the keys
paid no fees nor no duties
those beauties were wild.

We.
In the child that is time
got drunk on cheap whiskey
and drank even more wine.
And sailed on.

We.
were the gone in 'begone with you'
a Devils brew of a troupe
on a sloop with no flag.

Dragging my heels a bit
in a suit of the age
that cannot fit.
It's not cut for this jib
Which is even more of a fib
that is scratched in the journal with ink and with nib.

Here I tie up and stay in the bay of my birth
My final berth and it's fitting
that in this bay where I sit on the sloop
that the loop of my life keeps on playing,
relaying those wild crazy times in 'the Carolines'
or on the 'Main'
Standing, 'man on the wheel'
life is just one big reel
Always one more destination
Just one more salutation
then I go.

The pan is bubbling merrily, the kettle's whistling cheerily,
I hear the clinking of the cutlery and only wish that I could be
that flamin' happy.

The rolling of the sea rolls over me
a swallowed thought,
a hiccup in the mightiness of nothingness
it waves goodbye below the talons of a storm grey sky
which grab at me as I roll and roll in the rolling sea.
If I land I want to land on the impermanence of a present
tense and move towards that which rewards me,
towards and to the rear of me,
atop and underneath the rolling sea,
I roll along,bowling to a future who knows what
that can be?

Think I'm melting
and
belting hot or not
that Sun
has a soft spot for me

haven't felt in
this frame of mind
since Winter came
and went.

hanging loose?
well all men do
ha.

Now I'm drooping
well all men do
another ha.

But I am melting.

Ice cream might assist me
and as it's a medical emergency
I should call an ambulance
that'd be a performance
unpaid
because of my amateur status

weightless now,
I am melted away
left it too late and
ain't that
always the way?

wishing I had gone fishing
instead of splish splashing
getting a rash in
an awkward place

always the case isn't it?
complaints about the heat
complaints when it's cold
complaints about most things
especially getting old.

Sunset soon
can't wait for the moonlight
it might
cool me down.

The man with the *** Aitch Dee
university educant,
not like me who was
dragged through the secondaries
and modern too,
not much education, but
what can one do?
when the riverbank calls you and the
corn starts to wave and the wind is the music
to which you can rave.

The man with the *** Aitch Dee
earns more than me,
but I have more memories,
like sailing off to the sea
like catching fish for my tea
like swimming naked and free,

is educant a word?
and that's the education of me.

I know,
let me create an alter ego
be another man
someone different to who I am,
I know,
I can do that.
I can iron out the creases until the person who I thought I was ceases to exist.
How could I resist to be,
someone who was never ever me?
I know now what to do and I shall do it soon,
before the next moon rises I shall surprise you,
wait and see.
Tomorrow the man I was
will not be me.

It's only ever that day when it's my turn to be the one that pays on those Saturdays when the chicken lays fourteen Easter eggs and somewhere Peter begs,
'let me go'

Oh jeezus, don't you know we've moved a million miles from the Mount of Ararat and Arafat is dead,
Moses set no fire alarm, the ark was built from plans made in his head, caught light or set afire by some hot town gospel choir and sunk before it sailed,
it seems the ****** failed to float, no new world orchestras, self supporting lace trim bra's, silk lined half price cocktail bars and Saturday is the boat to blame.
we sink to fill ourselves with shame.

Jeezus,
you should have got your dad to build the world a bit less mad, a bit more ground to go around and a lot more love for crazy folk.

...and then she hugs me closer to her
where her scents intoxicate me,
fate decrees and I agree
its been a lovely
day.

Some o' that
Would look quite nice upon the walls within my flat.

With the mountains all around me
I sit in silence.
And I am free.

The valleys far below where I no longer go
Fade.
Underneath the overhanging rocks
I find the shade I need
Vestiges of a former greed.

I look towards and to the sky
A blue glass ceiling.
I wonder why it's so.
I think I'd like to go beyond and wander,yonder,far away.

Here up high there is no fear
Just solitude, which I have chosen.

One that came so long ago to play the game and could not know
The end was always near
Up high,there is no fear.

And my thought is nought against the mountain stone.
Alone,there is no fear.
But my mind would squander distant lands of which I've seen but few
Yet know the sky out there is also blue
And peopled just the same
As I, who came to play this game.
What difference then? I ask
That their task be so much greater than mine.
Another line within this platform game.

So mountains rise to poke fun at my skies
But then they crumble
Dusting off their dusty feet they also meet the man that dies
Alone and yet in company.
A stone in my eternity.

Some o' that
Would look quite nice upon the walls within my flat.
Wallpapered and looking clean
The astonishingly textural mountain scene.
Alas the pass which I went through is no longer there
So my vision of a loneliness,alone,
I cannot share.
I bear the cross and show the shame
A loser,loser in
The game.

I see her in hues,romantic soft blues and in chiffon and lace
but her face tells a tale of ships under sail and of mountainous seas.
Storm tossed she crossed the oceanic trail
to look for and find her holy grail
all to no avail.
It was here all the time in her very own backyard
sometimes the lessons life teaches are hard.

You might think it's a social commentary
but to me
it's just a bit of poetry.
If I rant and rave about saving the whales or
some jungle in Ecuador,
they're just words and not for
dissemination,
just for you to read and it's all in my
fertile
imagination.

I write as I feel,I
don't kneel at the feet of
Shelley or Keats,
if you want that instead of my kind of writing,
the right kind of,bright kind of,tight kind of,
then go right in and read.the
difference is in the breeding,the reading is all of the same,
I won't change my style nor my name just to be,
a tick on your checklist for your friends to see.

This is not commentating
this is my heart remonstrating with the soul
that's inside me.
this is my poetry
take it or leave it.

Stood for a century,
shattered windows
crumbling balcony,
earmarked for
new construction
a site for
mass
destruction.

The house has seen,
the old King,
the older Queen,
seen men cry
stood while bombs fell from
the sky and
now
the end has come.

Some might say,
the house is old and had its day
but it was built to last and
sadly
our future becomes its past.

I shall mourn its passing even
as I watch the rising of the new
which will never last as long or do
as much for me,
as the house which
stood
a
century.

I see an army of boatmen of bowmen of old men stretching way back into time,
on the Thames and the Rhine a long line of troops.
The Crimea's not here I shout in disgust but my words turn to dust
as I knew that they must.
Recouping some strength and at length, I go searching the files which file past me,for miles I am searching,a lost little urchin looking for Captain John Kyle.
And in some style he appears from somewhere in the rear and lends me his ear for a while,
I complain,
you're at it again and they're going to war,I don't understand,can you tell me what for?
'Orders',says he,'I know not or care why,I joined this army to do or to die'
Then the line carried on until the troops were all gone and somewhere on the Somme another rose smiled.

I folded up the sheets of rain as I walked slowly down the country lane on one wet Sunday afternoon,
it was late in June or early July,can't remember, don't know why
my mind was flooded with the same old chatter
pitter,patter on the leaves and from the trees.
I sat under the dryness of the ancient oak and lit a smoke which drifted slowly in the summer breeze
and ate a Branston pickle and cheese soft roll,drank some lemonade.

Days like this made me who I am
a soaked up,washed out yesterday man
but I exist
despite the persistence of the rain,
I play the game and play it well
the proof being that I'm here to tell the tale and smoke a while,
while the heavens empty of the sky
don't know why or for what length of time
days like this will be all mine.
Under the trees
out of the breeze
somebody please
stop the rain.

The House of St Barnabas.

If I ever elected to be selected
rejected then detected as a phoney,fake
I don't recall
that was before I took the fall
did the bird
before a word of mine was spoken out.

Around about two thousand and eight or was it nine?
the time is no great matter
the former or the latter it's no great shakes
but is it the time I made the breaks in continuity
the absurdity and futility
of this life I was living
and for this I'm giving credit where it's due
and you people know just who you are and what you did
what you achieved against all the odds
for you it was not a numbers game but a human life that was in the frame
and you're named just right.

I wonder what St Barnabas might have to say about the way you encouraged me
and would he nod his head and see just what you did?
You got rid of the one that had hung on so long and you opened up my eyes to the future and what it could mean
and I thought I'd seen nearly everything just about most things that a lifetime could bring
how wrong was I?
Why,
you showed me another route and with a 'whistle and flute' sent me headlong knowing what's right and what's wrong
and with a song in heart you gave me the start
to begin.

And I realise that the truth always lies somewhere within the within but it's how to begin and what method to choose or what direction to take.
Did St Barnabas really take time out
to worry about me?
I think you can see that he did.

In the house on Greek Street I think I could say that I met the real me and get this,
I meet a lot
but not what the house of St Barnabas got
and that's what did it for me.
Encouragement see
feeds the lost and the lonely
if only
there was more than just one
But St Barnabas goes on and it goes on in the makings of men who when they think all is lost and think the end is quite near
there's a Saint near here
who will help.

Away in a manger
doesn't cut it no more
the baby has grown and
he's gone off to war.

Where the sky is as wide as the smile on your face..and white clouds interlace with the heat from the sun.
Where the fun in the day is found in the words that you say..is where you'll find me.
Just to be..
..near..
..to you.
Involved..
..in..
..The things that you do.

And when the darkness comes which it always must.
Where love and lust are deaf and blind.
I shall find..
..that inner strength..
..go to any length
To see you shine..
..Love..
..Be mine

At the start of it..part of it..for a bit is tough so take the rough with the smooth..
Suffer bruised Egos along with bruised shins..Life's little banana skins have a way of making you slip.
If you just rip into her day..there's no way she'll say thanks.
But if you like driving those sorts of tanks then join the armed forces..
It's horses for courses..
Ships for the seas
Vicars and teas..
..She's..........your desire..so go out and buy her a gift..give her a lift..wait at the factory gate at the end of her shift.
Do everything well
Don't sell yourself short
If you're caught unawares..the only way out is to face down hostile stares.

Just look to her smiles and your troubles are already miles away.
Call her to hear her say
"So glad you are mine"
Fine.
Look in the mirror and see..
..yourself shine.
Love..
..Be mine.

The hotel we booked looked breezy and bright
just as well
as we planned on staying the night.

But the Doorman named Stan,said this,and deadpan,'you ain't coming in because you're not wed.
'Aye 'we're over the brush' no rush to get wed', 's what I said,
'well
you ain't getting in, get that in your head', is what Stan the doorman then said.

So we to and we fro'd 'til I punched him in the nose,a bad move on my part,got carted away to spend that night and the next day in a cell.

And she gave me hell when I got home.

This is not me
I've never been here
it's someone else you see
this is not me.

I want to say goodnight to you but few if any know,and those who did have flown away,do you want to stay and listen to someone who does not know if you are there,
do you even care that I am here?
I fear you don't and so I won't be saying goodnight
in any case
I shall sleep tight
locked inside the darkness of my lonely night.

I want to play truant from this
Want to give it a miss and go down by the lake
Take off my kit and go in for a dip
I want to give this night the slip.

Disappear without trace
and just in case the night does have eyes
want to change my appearance
don't want to be caught by surprise.

I shall dive in
thrive in
the cold ink black.
Float on my back
breast stroke
butterfly
looking at the night sky
Can't think why
I would want any more
but to skip in and out
Along the long lake shore.

I want to play truant from this
want to kiss goodbye to today, bring on the night

I know why
my ears ache and my chest feels tight.

I'm being restricted
constricted
crushed by the rush of the daily plough
to the office and shop
I wonder how
they can live.

Give me my lake and the take that I have
on this fight
Give me my lake in the night
Give me a minute to make my escape
The truant can't take
any more.

With a little tightening round the waist the skinny day comes out to taste the fatness of the light
I am in sight of something great but I'm hungry ,cannot wait
so I make my move too soon
and am swallowed in the craters of a Moon so cold
so very,very old with its yellow hardened crust that would lead me into desperation with gnarled hands and beard and face as red as any rust turned into dust
I would become
the dying of a dying sun
no matter fat or thin or if I wore a belt or braces
the many faces I would see
would only ever face the end of me.

I try to modify this future that only I can see by praying to a God I can't and never did
I wonder if that God is hid among the craters on the Moon and was it that he made his move too soon?
If so,
we'll have much to muse upon as we wonder where our lives have gone
and would he tell me how to live or would he give a eulogy
prepare me for that long journey?

I've come ten million stars through another thousand corner half lit bars where girls would sell me ballerina dreams that danced for me on spotlight screens and how could everything that seemed so real
be whisked away?

The spinning wheel came to a stop and zero popped up on the marker board where rich men ****** their eminence
and all pretence was stripped away.
Any other day the Lords that lorded over us would break up parliaments and owls would hoot and say
Wit and to whom would we deliver it?

A bit of eccentricity electric elementary educationalists get me fired up again as if I ever learned from them old men with old ideas whose only thoughts were to get young men up off their rears and into wars
more ****** who sold a bill of lading to trading partners who shot us down in front room parlours on council housing states of minds.

A kind of beauty in this fractured glass where through osmosis I can pass but not pass away only into some other uneventful day.
I lay my tortures on your brow
you know how to soothe this pain
before I go off scale again and read a riot act to those, where those who have lain their lives in ***** fields and barn houses full of hay
would have me say,
that we should not have to live this way.

In the craters on the Moon
I see that all is all too soon and will always be
another eulogy is read
for the dead undead who do not know
that here is where we are
there's nowhere left to go.

****** on by bonny dogs
and soaked by the fog
that clipped back the grass round its base
and the face of it
was a lamp that lit up the dark.
Standing soulfully lame
with a name quite generic
and in a cobbled street so specific to the
Lancashire town.

As night comes down across the Pennines
and the lads on the late shift go back down the mines
the warm light remembers more times than it cares too
now old
past its prime
it stands a monument to the time
when ladies in bustles
bustled past
casting shadows it seemingly grows
or is that my imagination?

...and now we know that as we slow
time races on.
It plays catch me if you can
as if we could,
and would we want to anyway.
Let us stay here playing in the sunset and
forget it all
for we shall fall like leaves off flowers and be caught by laughter in the hours that pass.
The last mass and the journey home, a minute for a final poem and all roads that once led to Rome are blocked,now locked and we are trapped inside beside the gates of fate.
Here,
where pearls are shattered and dreams are scattered and the four winds rest there will be time and
again we'll play
in the sunlight of our yesterday.