Not if you
but can you
and do you
want to?

If you can but you don't
and you do but you won't
where does that leave me?

Not in ecstasy
but you text I see,
'see you later'

Well okay then
see you then
when
after ten?

I look on the mobile
She says,
'I'll be home in a short while'
so I sit and I wait
it's a quarter to eight and a long way to go.

After an hour or so
I got bored
(don't you know)
and I put off the lights and went home.

...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.

In the catchment zone
where you catch a school if
you have a home
the fishermen roam.
Rods at the ready and eyes on the wheel just
waiting to steal your place.

It was the busted times
it was the worsted times
a time of tweed
a time of need.
I wonder where the mice and men came into it.
I read a bit of Steinbeck just a titchy bit which itched a bit,he had a lot to say,and in turns it turned out he ripped the title off from Rabbie Burns,while the cat's away it seems the mice and men will play.
So we learn and at each turning page,each burning rage we must endure,I am sure it's for some greater good.
I wish I could
believe that.

Some say that the milky way is where the gods reside
I reserve my judgement
more by luck because I don't give a huckleberry where they live as long,as long as they give me,
hope that the stars will always shine
hope that the universe is mine
hope that they, divine
can see
just how divine
we are.

Wednesday taps me
on the shoulder
wakes me up
to remind me that I'm
one day older

*******.

There is no day
no black, no white
just
hooded figures in the night
with one thing only on their mind
to find
another vestibule and feed the fuel of their desire
set on fire
bound in wire
men in dire circumstance
given
not a chance
except to die,
and now we don't ask why
but we the living
accept that which is gone
we go on
some in
ignorance.

Jade
green
a Chinese murmur
Burma
mining
refining the trade
conditions laid
bare
but the fare
is
Jade.

If only they'd videoed the nativity
that'd be proof
that Christianity was based
on a real life case

but
it's a bit like that programme
CSI
you're left wondering why
'til the very end and then
the battery would go.

Only a video
could show the truth
it's a shame
the birth of Christ came
too early for that.

Remanded to Risley
by the order of
her Majesty,
to give some pleasure
to
the treasury
I rattle my chains.

Blame's a losing game and you can't blame me for that, but we're all in eight by four cells and alarm bells keep on ringing.

They demanded life, I said,
'my wife wouldn't like me away for that long',
apparently I was wrong,
she's run off with a toff from down South,
and I'm down in the dumps
not to mention the mouth.

I rattle the chains and try all the locks,
they strap me to tables,
give me electric shocks.

The treatment becomes the punishment and the crime is time in fits and spurts it punctures me and how it hurts.

I rattle my chains to the sound of my pains
and it sounds like a Max Bygraves
record.

I ride this broomstick high on *** or Lsd either
one,
it don't bother me, nothing does above the roar
of my heart shredding
and, what is more,
I have no license for this stick, which I
picked at random,
I am the kick, the jam, the butter and the ram,
the ruthless raider on the lam but on the stick
I am superman and I am so slick
it's sick.

But bedding down
I am the crying clown,
the fish without its bowl,
the end's in sight but not my goal,
unfinished artwork
I am sold, unvarnished,
tarnished by some trick,
painted
tainted by the stick,
no room for two upon the broom,
in the doom there are no friends,
only ends and untied things.

Did you want to balance on the edge of a freshly sharpened knife,
did you really want to spend your life afraid of being cut
did you put the cutting blocks away?
Good,
then it's chocks away and engines gun,let's fly and meet the morning where we'll win the sun and lose the night,
flying blind with eyes tight shut feels a bit like being cut,but no blood yet,
no need to get upset
we'll get there
somewhere where the daring and disarming go and where existence seems to ebb in constant flowing ever knowing waves,
and someone waves so far below where ants appear and everything is, although nothing seems clear.
As we stand there on the edge and look,
fear is written hurriedly in the pages of another book
and we have flown,taken years and grown beyond the boundaries of man,scanned by few and those who new it never recognised,
the eyes can see,the hands can touch, which doesn't mean so much when you don't know what you're leaning on or looking at.

The world was flat,but blown up like a balloon it became that which we know it, a ball, though you can't throw it.

Better to believe if you can that dancing on termite hills is all that is man,and all we will be are the ants that look up to see,
a man in his plane
doing the same thing over and over and over
again.

Fathers's farther away
Mother's gone
and what do I say?

what is there out there?

I want to see what's beyond
when I stare into
the distance

and distant is how it seems
waking
and dreams roll
into one


They're still gone.

She rates at
twenty-seven degrees,
a bit of a tease
if you ask me,
but no one asks me
I am only the camera.

I am the chip off the block
Bloodstock
A shock to the staid
The life of the laid back.
'I
..am alright Jack'

National health
International wealth
I have the key to it all
The cards just need to fall..
..lucky.

In these shambles this rambler makes believe
That this gambler can achieve..
..Immortality.
Immaturity in this..though, this next deal I can't miss..
Four aces.

Three places away..Tens and the way out is sealed.
The cards have been dealed
Hard as it seems
I have to undress my dreams and put them to bed
Then the next thought occurs..the ball's landing in red..
..and I'm fed up..to my back teeth
Which is known locally as bad gamblers grief.

Take a chip off this old block and place it on odds
Fate and those other sods conspire
To make me perspire...it comes up an eight..
..blasted fate.

I'm going to go to a rehab
Have a stab at normality
Another form of immortality?
Let's see.

Think you've been linkedIn
that you're as safe
because you're connected?
yeah
well,
take a long look at Brinks Mat,
money for old rope
robbed by them old blokes you
passed on the way here
and you still think you're linkedin?
stick a pin in any map and that'll show you
that there's a pinhole in the map, you see it and
believe it because the pin was in your hand and
Linkedin?
being Linkedin is a pinhole in the sand forever
caving in
forever falling through the castles that you build,
filled with this desire to set those sights of yours just a little higher
you'll give in to every whim,
make believe you are the pin, but baby,
you are not Linkedin
it's just a ******* scam.

Men with pins have a multitude of sins and lies disguised as truths and sold in fortune telling booths by Gypsies all related to the seventh son of **** knows who is the biggest pin of all.

Don't you fall into the trap of thinking you're linkedin because that's just crap and you're bigger than that, almost as big as Brinks Mat thought they were, but we don't go near there,

anymore.

No pills I can take for this ache,
no potion to calm the swell of this ocean.

I find the formula in
my love for her
and she cures
everything.

I met a seer at the bingo hall who seemed to know the number of every ball before it rose up that perspex tube.
It is dubious sort of man who can predict four corners or a line and then have time to prophesize about what prize he's going to get.
I bet he was such fun to know before he felt he had to go and spoil my day.
And I don't like bingo anyway.

Who bought the sky and the reason to live and why,
did the temple fall into a river of sin, did the way we began mean we couldn't possibly win, who begged us to die when it wasn't our time, who holds the rod and who's on the line?

I went through the eye of a needle saw a pin ***** of light and felt quite alright, but I don't recommend it,
the next day when you're feeling like **** is the worst, but to you who are well versed in the misuse of the scriptures, go ahead.

I read and have read the book of the dead and know it's no big deal, the unreal of it is the way that you feel when you're reading it and I don't recommend it either.

It remains to be seen who bought off the dream and who's paying the rent, but it's my guess they're bent and they won't feel no heat because not one cop on the beat ain't on the take.

The liquefied glass through which an Angel can pass or
look solemnly on,
is an impregnable force but of course
not for Angels I see.
I have yet to be an Angel.

I walk on the edge of incredible dreams and it
all seems quite plausible to me,
I have yet to be an Angel.

In the fullness of time when
the glass is half empty
she comes with a refill
to fill me.
I have yet to be an Angel.

There are tracks laid down hard in
the marshalling yard and the
marshalling yard is me.
I have yet to be an Angel.

I'm in no hurry, I'm aware that
time chews on glass through which
Angels can pass.
I have yet to be an Angel.

Is it agreed then that we
feed all hungry children
educate them
and teach them without trying to
preach,
then
perhaps there will be a world
fit for the free,

We all know that
sometimes we have to let go.
A case of,
'press and release to win some peace'
it becomes pointless to hold on to what's gone,a feeling so dull almost like
bottling sunbeams once they have shone and finding those beams do not shine quite so bright,will not light up the darkness if you stay in the night,
we have to let go,have to let yesterday flow with the ebb of the tide,inside the minds of some men there's a pen that writes queries,writing the forehead with lines,
the weary should know if they'll only let go they will find the blotter to mop up the ink,there's a link between here ,now and then, it's how you perceive it and when you believe it you'll know
that
sometimes we have to let go.

Monday came so soon
and it only seems like yesterday we walked upon the moon
and held hands on top of Worlds
when you sprinkled stardust in my eyes
and I gazed into your deep brown eyes
only yesterday
where did it go
why could not time go slow and let me linger
just a little longer
in your sweet embrace?

I guess Monday's always come and we all must face
another day
away from what we
love the most.
That coasting through the mid of nights
amid the sights of wonderful
within the arms of marvellous
to taste delights
of magical
but Monday's always come
if only to block a little sun from the sun that shone.
Perhaps one day the Moon may stay
and brighten up the darkest day
and lighten up the nights, where for now I stay
in dreaming dreams of yesterday.

Could have been a rockstar up there on choctaw ridge,
tallahatchie bridge, but just a song that flew so long back then.

pen a line and you're flying
or dying for to pen one more,

I could be her with the hair in my face
or me with myself out of place
could pump iron or jump
either way I am flying.

Choctaw was just a bridge too far
and they made a film of that.

I may be getting old.......But..

..I prefer..

To talk a while..to wine and dine and take my time.
But she just opened up and said,
"I like you lots,let's go to bed"
And though I thought her rather scrumptious
Another thought was to presumptuous.

These modern girls..
..no longer with their hair in curls or wearing rather dainty dresses..
..are more likely to have shorn their tresses.
Instead of heels they're wearing bovver boots and smoking dark cheroots..

I really do despair.

However.
I said,
"yes"

It's 1969 in Lancaster where time is lame
where the stagecoach calls as
the bandage falls from
the legs of the clock,
where the face looks on in utter shock as
the tick tock bleeds its last.

Once when time was fast and the mornings flew
and we as kids knew what to do
with the leftovers dropped from the feast of the day,
heading on down to skinnydip in the bay and
catching the final splashings of rays from the sun,
racing through that tidal surge and the urge to run
forever
never entered our heads.

Sleep left me to bed down with the awkward nights,
puberty and the rites of man
where passages can twist and turn on
the long road to learn the
lessons in life.

And I enter again through the door of
wanting much more,not knowing
what wanting is waiting inside and ride
down the years, through jam doughnuts and
tears beside and alongside
the shadows which echo the laughs
of my youth.

Down in the Glen at the end of the day
when the night's on the move
are the pixies at play.
I have seen them
dancing when
they thought nobody saw
I have seen them
and the clothes that they wore
were so bright
against the onset of night and the Queen
I have seen her sweet and demure
I have seen her
of that I am sure.

When the grass lays still aside the base of the hill
and the chill in the air
has a certain cool charm
take my arm.
Let us not tarry
let us not slide
for we must away to hide
stay silent and bide with me
we will assuredly see
the procession of lights.

And the Pixies set seal
between the true and unreal
and appeared as the Sun hid away
I watched as they ate
until the evening was late and the magic was high.
When you've got to ask why
because you don't really know
if what you see isn't part of some elaborate show
and you think it's a hoax
the joke's on you.
Pixies are true to belief
and believe it or not
Pixies have got their own world that very few see.

I have seen them
when down in the glen
when the day's slipped away
and often I pray that I'll see them again.
But silently see, that the Pixies will be
timid and shy.
I don't know how
don't know why
but this understanding that stands under his sky
is my joy.

I beam as I scheme and who gives a **** if I duck and I dive it's what I have to do to get by and to thrive,while the cops in their cars the modern day tsars are grafting away,getting more than their pay in backhanders and doughnuts.
My M.P'S on a freebee and it's paid for by me,me, in the taxes they take and they're breaking me down,it's time to get out of this town and head West.
I'll take a schooner from Bristol,carry a pistol,become a pirate,a buccaneer,sail near and far and the cops in their cars will have no chance to catch me or give me an asbo,
does anyone know what an asbo looks like?
or I could take the long view,play the long game,get a good name.
No,
I'd rather be a privateer anything away from here,does anyone know how to steer a ship?

There is nothing to fear
I don't even think we'll be here when the oceans return to the sand and when the water you drink. coloured green, blue and black makes you sick to the stomach and you fight back the urge to be sick,
pick any number an Unter den Linden, sing me a song of the tree, sit for a time and recite me a rhyme but let me get home for my tea.

There is nothing to fear if we're here when we fall we won't feel it at all we'll be doped out on nuclear fizzics, physically incapable of escape from the inescapable we shall sit and we'll all have a ball.

Why Sunday?
no sun
just day,
call it day
pick another prefix,
call it dullday or
pullyourselftogetherday
anything but
Sunday
no sun
just day.

I wanted ice cream so I asked for a cornet
they gave me a trumpet,
it's always like this
people just take the '****'
but I fooled them,
I started to lick
the trumpet.

The cat has a limp and a white patch on her eye
one ear's pointing down and one up,she gets by on a tin
of sardines every day,she catches the mice and expects little pay,but
a stroke and a kiss is something I wouldn't miss and she likes me to say,'kitty looks lovely'
then she'll lay on the rug and tug at my toes as if she already knows that it's time for my walk
if only,if only my kitty could talk,she could tell me such tales of mangy moggies,the males of the species,
but she can't,never will and until I speak Marmalese she'll just sit there and purr and warm up my knees.

Of no persuasion or opinion
with no bias or
particular bent,
they swing on the stem,
slender and
when the
combine's away from the fields
how they play
chattering into the ears of corn.
The titmouse, the dormouse, the brown mouse
I
adore mice,
but I am a cat
so I would.

Benefit spongers and loafers and loungers all rolled into one and labelled as scroungers
but
I see MP's on junkets and freebies all paid for and by
you and I.
Who's robbing who,
who's robbing you
who's robbing me?
ask your
MP.

As each ball falls
I juggle less *****
in the end there'll
be none left at all.

Try to do right and
keep perspective,
my sight
is injured by the
onset of night.

And you lot harangue me,
you'd strip me
and hang me if
you had your way.

But today I'm the juggler,
the word
I'm the smuggler
the pirate that sails in
with the goods.

The ghosts are attacking,they caught me out, slacking and sleeping through the day,if the ghosts had their way,they would shake me up,break me up,sweep me and keep me locked in my head.


I'm thinking that those ghosts have got to be dead, but I find that they're feeding on me, and running amok,pell mell ,chock a block,
In this binding I find a way to escape,don't sleep,stay awake,let the ghosts take the slow train and get out of my brain,flush them all down the drain,
just got to stay awake and alert and no matter how much it hurts me,it's the only way I see and the way to release.

The truce.

A piece of the peace or the rest of the rest I don't get,they won't let me alone,I can't eat,I'm becoming all skin and bone,which would be good, were I modelling the latest creations because skinny is cool in some men's imaginations,but what would they know about the dead and the dead slow,with looks that could **** those who don't fit their bill of what's acceptable to them,
but that's men,what did you expect,and the truth is no truce,no closing the sluice gates,the fates have me trapped between here and the next place,
full of grace,fair of face and a heavy heart, my eyes start to close as the ghosts rise around me,surrounded I'm bound once again.

Pain so they say is just that drumbeat when night meets your day and a slight thing to which you'll grow accustomed,I disagree,pain's just another mad moment running free and it always crashes head first into me,but I get used to it,it's just a constant yammering,stammering that hammers my soul,when the night's a black hole and day is a lifetime away.

When the ghosts have their fill and decide not to **** me but leave me,the funny thing is I miss them,what man am I to miss ghosts that would fly and disrupt me?
Tell me,
a contradiction, a contra addiction, predicting the best but expecting the worst,
I finally sleep.

The Sun
Sol
following Winter

chasing me into the shadows,
In those
who knows
what lurks?

I am pedestrian
Lancastrian,
but the good Lord
he made me
a Geordie where they
still talk of that
'Jarrow Walk'
as if it was
yesterday.

They march on to haunt me
in what was and what
could be
history repeats
but we knew that

and many times before by some
lake or on the shore
when I've looked out and tried to
make sense of it
I am hit by the oddities,
life's ideosyncrasies

I feel that
my insecurities
secure me.

Tarmac melting underfoot
Sehr gut
jawohl
mein herr

but Germany's not here
and I definitely
am not there

I'm just approaching blighty
tapping lightly on the door
there's no one in the house it seems
what did I come here for?

I could have gone to Mozambique
the place in Dylan's song
but I'm still tapping on the door
what's taking them so long?

Zanzibar is not that far
I could be there instead
or I could get in my car
and drive across
the oceans in my head.


I'm here
no beer
not *** of tea for me
I think the island's all closed down
and they've sailed over the sea.

We were sat in the back row
she was watching the film show,
I was looking at her look at the screen,engrossed,
I had seen it before,
with Sharon next door,
who wasn't as pretty as this girl sitting near me.

I reached out my hand, she took hold of it,
and
my heart started racing,
seeking her cheek I kissed her,how sweet, and then she turned and kissed me,
fully on the lips.
I could feel it from my head to the tips of my toes
and now she knows how I feel
about her.
If she feels the same about me
this could be
the start of something new,
not just another picture show but someone I want to know and what I intend to go after.

To start again we take a pen
create a bill of rights
because,
sermons will not feed you
in the long term this is what we need to do,
storm the walls of warehouses and and pull them down
burn the cities,burn the towns
astound the populace,face the thieves who turn a trick
and kick them out.

When you drink your Veuve Clicqout and eat your honey roasted ham.remember for a moment,
Barry Trent.
who sets his table in a tent on Hackney marsh,
he bends over,under harsh light,most nights
eating bread and jam.

Ham would be a luxury he don't see too much of those,
wearing clothes a size too small or sometimes just to big to fit,
but you don't really give a monkey's for the flunkies who live hand to mouth and living South as rich folk do
I bet you think your **** don't stink,
think on
one day we'll all be gone
and equalised.
In someone else's eyes you'll be the Barry Trent,bent and ghostly,
mostly.

Swings and snakes
it only takes one rung to fall,did someone ring the bell for hell,is it supper time?
A half filled bottle of Geneva gin
say,
Buddy can you spare a lime.

We trap to feel the body slight
beneath the moon
is it alright?
you hush me,push me on,'til all illusion gone and what is there? two bodies without care,abandoned to the feeling set underneath the moonlit ceiling,
shall we dance through this or chance a seat beside the window pane,where we can trap ourself again in one more link that we will chain around our waists,
and did I tell you,you taste good?
I knew you would,you look so sweet,demure,petite and no less a giantess for wanting more,shall we stand beside the door and walk without,within the gardens you shall be another tasting test for me.
Or is it time to feast on what is most, and what is least is still the feast for me, the man
can you understand the need?
see the beads of sweat appear,nervousness,a touch of fear,and what is fear?but the moment when the time is near to consummate,a first date once more?
are we still beside the door?
I lost track of time
and we, now become what is yours and mine
and what is the time?
Time to dance again, to go but for the pain that does not release the chain and would I want to leave?
you can believe that I would not
being thankful in the nicest way for what I've got
I'll never let it go
so
dance with me again real slow and take me through the moves again,throw away the key and keep the chains.We are what is, and what remains will be
the two of us
locked into destiny.

...and now you come to mention it
I know,
that most of what I write is ****,but
among the dross you'll find occasionally, a real gem
written by
me.

In the gardens of a Gethsemane
under the branches of a
sick sycamore tree
slept the man they called
a prodigy.

A few of the many who followed him
knocked at the outskirts of freedom
to enter in.

The morning woke crossly for everyone
and the prodigal son was
on his way home with parables to plant
in the arable land which grow better than
Talents they tell me
in the garden of my own Gethsemane

Like a spot  that I keep picking or
a wound that I keep licking
I've got something kicking
'round in here,
something's buzzing in my brain
like flies, it's driving me insane,
picking, kicking, sticking to the lining,
I'm refining it,
digging through the flies and ****,
refining it.
Filing it and in a bit it will be clear,
something's
kicking 'round in here.

(20 minute poetry)

Hunched up and hemmed in
hacked off,
on the flamin' tube and
ageing rapidly.

This is not for me
I need open space and
a place to spread my wings.

Feeling faint
this ain't no picnic
unless
It's one that makes you
sick

smelling ***** clothes
wet stinking hair
I want to be anywhere
other than here

when a twenty minute trip
gives me the pip

I need to slip away.

Today is not good,
thinking the tube would be empty at nine as it should
be
fooled me.

I'm
looking to find escape velocity
hah
I can't even find a seat.

Each camera,each take and one more mistake to add to the last and the past that we dread is only two steps ahead or was that behind?
we look,do not find,the blind leading the blind,feeding on visions,leading to that collision and crash.
One more flash,one more take and one more ****** ache but the soul is intact.

Then the crew take their leave after bidding goodbye and the dread that we fear is nigh.
like 'pie in the sky' that's not there I get by on a wish and a wing,hoping that someone will bring me,
to some semblance of order that should be,
but every take, every flash,collision and crash I return to the stage where I age quite disgracefully,
fully aware that where I stand I shall fall.
A last call for the cast and the dread of the past reappears,in the circle or gods in the theatre at odds with the play,
I play on.

She was a ten
but that was way back when
before decimal coins
and long before the seams and several joins started to unpick
and now she looks sick.

Sick of the days
ticked off with those nights when she sits alone
frightened
so frightened if the phone starts to ring
or the doorbell chimes.

Not like those other times when she stood out in a crowd
her beauty (albeit plastic) would shout it out loud
'look at me
can you see you how good I feel',and still I would kneel at her feet
to me she's the sweet little lady
who one night in a Javanese bar said 'maybe' to me.

I see her now like never before
like today was the door that we came through
and if I knew then
even when she was a ten
that I'd still love her
a score of years on
when she is ill
I would still have gone it all the way
would still be here in love with her today
and that's the reason I believe
she'll get better when we leave
to count to ten
again.

I am the jumbling
the mumbling man
escaping gas of thoughts that pass into the night.
I burn the midnight sun that oils the gatling gun that chats incessantly and I believe that this is me.
I am conquistador
Quixote wanting more
I am the situation needing close examination somewhat of an exclamation mark
I am the dark.