Resting it upon my palms I open up the book of Psalms..
..where I once walked in pastures green..and I have seen the shadowed valleys,running East to West..reminding me of mean dark alleys from my youth.
God's truth aches like the tooth that takes my mind away.

Would I pay to see this show?
To watch the slow..slow walk by the hero who took from the Pharaoh the "Chosen" and then was frozen out at the end of the game?
In Gods name would I pay?

Would I know when and how to say in Aramaic quite prosaic..Hallelujah?..or could I dream to speak in tongues and climb to heaven upon the rungs of a handy ladder?..and add another..Abel's brother with knife in hand to send me off to sleep the promised land.

What is it that was begat to think of thoughts unlike like that and dream undreampt,unkempt and sore to knock again on Heavens door.
Where no-one's in
To go and sin or sin no more..another knock upon the door..another notch cut on the belt..

..And I have felt the flesh grow weak
I seek an answer to a question set and yet I seem to know that what I get is only half the Parallel.
Twixt here and hell
I ring the bell and cry unclean
It seems the thing to do.

Subtract from the menu
the ladies that can do and
those who don't want to,
add
men to the equations
plus
one ounce of
raisins
pop in the oven and
serve piping hot.

There may be mountains in Montana
there may be lots of moles
I heard a lot of people there
are busy saving souls.

There may be blue sky in Montana
I really hope that's true
there may be ghosts of cowboys
just a moseying on through.

I gulp dry gulches for my tea,
my breakfast,
dime store books,
There may be these across the seas
Montana may put me at ease
I really want to know though
are there
Mountains in Montana?

In this sling shot,whatya got 'cause we ain't got a thing
I bring to you a different view of how
to get along,
singing from the same sheet has got me beat 'cause it don't work,at least it don't for me and though I try to be,I cannot be amazed by new technology,give me a pen and then some ink
let me link the letter trail,let me trace out through the nib the thoughts I pull from Adam's rib and Eve's delight
let me write in semaphore and pour my heart into the page,uncage the reasoning behind the everyday in which I find most everything,let me bind my feet until I meet the pen that walks the other way,let me stay in suspension,pension me into,flood the ink through me,let the words bend into me,open my eyes so my mind can see the oceans inside of me,
and inside you,
where once thoughts flew like blue birds,do you remember?
can you fall once again into the speeding of the brain as it rushes to its end and pretend to pretend that it's real,can you feel to be higher,lick your lips like the fire licks the wood,could you imagine what it's like once more to write the opening of the door,can you make love with the ink,link into the think that you will?
does this view fit the bill?

I wonder where she goes each night,through the square then turning right and being swallowed by the fading light,
I wonder where she goes.
I wonder if she knows I'm watching her, as she goes off across the square and if she does,does she care that I know she wanders off each night to go,
but where?

As this time here begins to thin,
I hear the sweet playing of a mandolin and the music spins cotton about my ears,here
in this garden where years come and go and mountains burst forth from the spring,
I begin to sing,
in tune
with my life.

In a book I opened
on page twenty three
I came upon a pressed flower and
wondered,
was it for me?

The book was printed, eighteen ninety five
I guess
the flower was alive back then and
so
it wasn't for me.

I wonder who placed it
between pages twenty three and four and
why did they put it there?
who was it for?

Sad,
looking upon the dead rose
thinking about those,
and did the book close on them,
did the rose
speak of love
back then?

Tommy the trout ended up in a pan
laughing out loud
as only a tickled trout can.

You're long overdue,
as if you ever knew the time,
time for you meant something to do,
somewhere to go,
but not something to be.

Is it goodness and mercy?
oh mercy it's not,
the bubble you sit in
is the one that will pop, but
it bothers me that what I see are
the rip-off merchants
collecting kudos for even bigger
flim-flam, ten cent men,
for the
cheats
and the deadbeats,
the tax dodgers,
those who make and won't pay, those
who make and just take it away,
the fraudsters
who love to lord it and
I'm really getting bored with it.

For you there's a reckoning due
and not before time.

It's getting to be posh
all these new folk
with their dosh.
buying up the property
leaving nowt
for you and me.

It's not the same
not as it was
because,
our street's got
a brand new name.
'Petunia close'
sounds like a dose of something bad,
awful sad,
that it's getting to be a bit posh round here,
next year,
I won't recognise
the pie and mash shop
the garage pit stop
it will all be gucci,reebok
smoochy bars,
fast and frantic tarty cars.

I'm moving out to Birmingham
at least up there they still
eat spam,
I may move further North to Carlisle
they'll not change
not for a long while.

Anyway
I made a fortune
holding on
not selling too soon.

(The problem is,
not the solution
or gentrifying
or more pollution
it's the weeding out
and in their place
making space for
evolution)

Peering in to the forest,dark then clearing,appears a horseman riding
bringing tidings of a battle won,
fought on some foreign field
and bought by death under a foreign sun.
There is no rejoicing here,no celebration,we wait to hear news from some distant shore,for we are parents of the sons who won the war,and what for we ask?
to bask in everlasting glory?

Bring me back my dead,rebuild for me another story of no war,no battles fought,no victory was ever bought without the shedding of our blood.
Good men die or live and we who gave them life,the father,wife wait to hear,
wait and fear
the knocking at our door.

We are the fine cut...line cut..
..potatoe face on Irish lace.
We are the here..we are the place.
And just in case
You fail to understand.
We have become the wall art..the new start..
..the baby grand has grown.
We are the music you've never known but you know it now.
The anyway we can be anyhow.
This is the step that walks out on the street
Get out and meet it...it's something you cannot ignore
Not something you buy in a la de da store
But the free in your ears and the world in your eyes.

Prise yourself away from the dusty thoughts of yesterday and look
This is today and a new kind of book has evolved.
That talks as it turns and revolves as it burns and the ash of the script..
..strips layers off your skin..and should you want to dive in..
..Go ahead.
The start of a thread of whatever you've ever read disappears
And the years drip away.
This here is the place and today it's your face on the pack
Get up on the stage and attack..
Lay them flat on their back with a salvo of sound
Bring it down to the ground.

A penny buys a pound..we'll be outlawed
They'll call us flawed characters..
..embarrassing chapters.

But let's capture that thought..write stuff and not like you've been taught..
..but be brazen and ***** to the 'Man' who tells you.."OH NO"
He just ain't got the rollocks to be in the show.
Let it go and you're lost
You'll be reading shinola that you bought at cost from the stall in the mall.

Be a pal..break the mould..don't do as you're told but do as you do
Look inside of the you..and bang it out..put it down on a sheet
Spill out your words to those people you meet..you've got one chance..
..which is no chance if you don't take it.
Get out there and
Make it
Happen.

I asked,
who is he?
and the answer came back,
he's a calamity,
**** it that's me
that were talking about
I should really get out of this one sided conversation
preferably at the next station
but if not I can walk.
You can talk,
Look at you
what the hell do you do
except to put people down and
rub their nose in the dirt.

Hurt you?
I could
but why would I do that?
You're just a statistic
someone who's sarcastic
let's face it
you're past it
it's time for you to go.
If you don't know the way
let me show you.

Yesterday you bothered me
today as you can see
I don't give a toss
you're not my boss you're a loser
I choose a
different path
you can laugh
but then again you always did
you hid behind grins
but the circle of life spins
and you can't laugh no more
close the door when you go
just so I know
that I'm free.

Dorothy,
what are you doing there, behind the curtain where a Wizard waits,conjuring fates and certain only of the uncertainty as much as any Wizard can certainly be.

I see Dorothy in red slacks with sling backs and yellow hair,she doesn't know that I'm there,watching her,watching him,
I begin to sing the song,you know the one,and all hell breaks loose,she screams,'it's a dream,I'm home on the farm'
The Wizard says,'keep calm' and pushes the intruder alert,which I have to admit hurt,'the Wizard's a twerp' I cry out angrily,and Dorothy sees me,knees me in the green emerald halls,
Oh *****,
I think and slink away.
What was I thinking of going and drinking with Wizards and Witches, and that little krap toto is chewing my britches and where were the stitches in time that I needed?

I fell through the pavement when I went a courting,sorting the girls from the boys that they went with and Poppins went with me to see if she could be my beau,but Mary's quite scary and I quite like Dorothy,and a spoonful of sugar does not do it for me.

The Scarecrow that I know is really quite bright,ask him for a light and he'll tell you,'don't smoke'
The tin man's a joker and never been a smoker,so him and the scarecrow are friends,
it ends with the lion as is usually the case when he growls like a ***** and I laugh in his face.
and I laugh at the Wizard, who turns me into a toad and off I go hopping down my yellow brick road.

Hob nailed clogs and leather boots are what gives this man his homely roots
I puts them under me bed at night and in the morning I choose which pair is right and that depends on my mood.

Food is also a big contributor, I'd go a mile for hot *** or a pound of tripe and gripe if they were not up to scratch.
No, thee cannot match what we lads have and what we calls our own,born and raised we've grown in God own Land and if not God then someone even greater had a hand in this.

Lancashire the golden shire,not that them Yorkshiremen would agree with that sentiment but if God or whoever it was meant for that lot on t'other side o' pennines to be an agreeable sort,
he or she would never have invented such a sport as
cricket.

My shadow shivers in the snow,puts on a coat from where I do not know and I watch spellbound as it moves to go indoors and sit beside the fire,as if it dreams of greater things,
I should buy a ball and chain and chain it to the rain of snow that snows on me, then and only then will my shadow see that it is linked to me and not so casually decide to go because of its dislike of snow.

A snowman smiles at these goings on, while a robin sits and tweets,then eats the eyes and flies off with the snowmans nose,all this in December's snow,it's no wonder my shadow decides to try and go again,
I will definitely buy a ball and chain.

A clever tyke sat on a sled
said,
'lock your shadow in the shed
or better yet
leave it in bed,
everybody and his mum knows that shadows only like the sun'

There are highs and lows and shadows drive me up the wall,they're super climbers after all,but if my shadow hates the snow,
then I'll let it go and hope that it comes back to follow me or depending on the time of day,lead me on my way.

My shadow now decides to stay and play,stretching out across the flakes,all it takes is a feeble sun to give my shadow so much fun,it's an awkward cuss,don't know what the fuss was all about,
I should give it such a clout but we are friends, even though it sends me round the bend,
we'll stay friends until the end
until the night lends me a hand and sends my shadow off to sleep,somewhere warm in shadow land.

Minimum hours
minimal powers.
let the pennies shower down on those in the new age 'workhouse'
we're back to the slums where the bosses toss crumbs to the masses and
what passes as good is as good as it gets, when the greedy get all and the poor get sod all.
The cries of the City,unheard since Victoria,I mean the Queen,not the place and that is the pity of it,
trapped in this sea where only the successful can be seen as being smug,
We should heave out the plug and watch them go down,give back the town to the people who share in it,those who care and those I swear will win.
Unless the cheapness of gin begins to rear its head and the poor all get hammered instead.
When the **** hits the fan we forget the soup van and it's bottles all round and around we all go.
If the cold doesn't **** us we'll be buried in snow and they'll cover the cracks
with more minimum contracts.

She in bikini

(the costume
not
the atoll)
on the beach beside a blue sea
and me with a bucket and *****
under the shade
of a palm tree on the beach
beside the sea

we build dreams it seems from sand
and bridges to cross our hearts.

I was fond of frogspawn pond and the games that we played,with names I can hardly recall
walking tall,we as boys were so full of the joys as the light skipped on gaily through those games we played daily,
and the tadpoles played catch if you can.
As a man full of doubt and sad how we turned out
I go back now and then,remembering when it was simple to be,
so free without care,
and I often find there
some of my old boyhood friends,memory lends these gifts to me and once again I can be,
young, by the pond of which I was so fond where the tadpoles played catch if
you can.

Now they sleep in Soho Square,people pass
but they don't care,they're off to dinner,dine and dance,
**** the homeless,they've no chance,no mercy here,lazy ******* drinking beer,see a beggar and walk on by,they disappear,easy try it once or twice,got the feeling,ain't it nice?

We're the monkey's nuts,no if's or buts and shut the beggars in the jail,they're losers one and all,watch them tumble,ninepins fall,it's just a game,why in Gods name would people choose to lose their self respect?No shame,I blame it on their family,happily my family rallies round if I should fall and hit the ground.

No pity in my heart for those who fail to even start,except to start to open one more tin.
Where'ya been?
there's no time to spend or lend a hand,let the Sally Army band come down and give them bread and soup.
We're **** a hoop we got employment,a house and car,we get enjoyment,sod the dossers and the tramps they don't pay insurance stamps,they pay no tax except on beer,we don't want that sort living here.
We don't want that sort anywhere especially not in Soho Square.

Not yet half way there and there's no time to spare, no sense in hanging around, ifya wanna fly the first thing to do is get off the ground, spread your wings and somewhere in heaven a lone angel sings,
dontcha know only birds go where the sky sets them free, where the spirit soars, why can't it be me?

But halfway there is better than not yet begun and so I run for the train,
once again I am late,
but better late than never whichever that is or whatever that could be always ends up to be me.

I get lost
I get scared,
better to have lost than never to have dared.

Better gets everywhere have you noticed that?
and I feel better that it does,
the better the better one feels
the better that everything heals
and so
I kiss it better.

Drawing blinds across our eyes
we are blinded to the beauty
trapped inside.
sideways,all ways and
in days of darkness we cannot see
and blinded as we are
we'll be
forever bound by that impotency of being in, yet still without,being a part of,yet still not seeing
this humble being begs to let the light in,get the blinds pulled,cull the nights that **** him,nights no longer thrill him or will him to deliver goddesses to altar tables.

Beds and fables
stories now, but I am still unable to forget,
more than millstones 'round my neck and iron ***** placed on my ankles designed to slow me down,
Oh how it rankles.

Time was,
life was younger and in that hungering I ate my fill and how the darkness of the night did thrill me so
to and fro.
A see saw ride
a fairground slide to my demise and somewhere now,behind the blinds inside and written on the signposts,hosts to my dependence on
the days long gone
where I had shone my light,
there sits a frightened child with wild abandoned thought, untamed adventures I have sought and fought against society
but now I'll be
the child that waits within for me.

I have done dope like the pope says his prayers,pushed coke up the stairways that led up my nose,
blown porsche's and rollers,smoked them lined up like soldiers in syringes that marched through my veins I have injected insane through the pores of my pain and with angel dust injected again,
but now I'm a good boy, an out of the hood boy,informed and forming opinions which storm through the past.
The icy blast of awakening sings to me,brings it all home to me,
'Oh to be in England'
now everything is clear.

Electrodes to nodes
and nothing bodes well
electrickery and it trickles into me
revolting and jolting
and Frankensteinlike bolting me
to the bed.

The head
this head will no longer be as free
as the thought imagining in me
while hot electrotomoty
burns me to
anonymity
and it's a pity I can't be
a less condusive entity
but the powers that be seem to have it in for me
and I am strapped to non lucidity
in the name of all humanity
don't put a shilling in the meter

Later I meet myself
in a shell of who I used to be in a picture
painted hastily
on a background
which I cannot see
and what was once no longer is or was it ever and did I once was clever too or were the words electricked through the nodes that boded ill?
Will it stay or will it go
somewhere out there
do you know
or are you waiting for the leads that lead you to electric feeds?
Can someone bring me bread and water
call my Mother
call my daughter
or like the lamb led to the slaughter
will I bleed to death?

*******,
that pish and tosh that people bash out and post
at most
it's barely legible.
Quite incredible really that one would waste his or her time pounding on the keyboard just to post another rhyme or two
but
it's what I do to alleviate the stress
I might be creating somewhat of a mess in other's minds but I don't mind at all and if you don't read
I won't bleed
I'll just write something else.

I could sail far away for a year and a day or
with a **** in the boat I
could just
float.

It was a
will I get to see you again kind of kiss,
that sort of a hit and miss kind of kiss
when your lips touch and there's a
slight chance that you may
make contact.

This to all the girls I kissed and missed
and wished I'd kissed some more,
and those I wished I'd met and known,
those who made me smile and laugh and
those who made me moan.

My little black book has grown up now,
it's old and the names inside are fading,
a bit like me.

On the seventh day we paid the rent
and what was meant for food
gave us one more week to brood on inequality and the inferiority of our position.
One condition we stipulate,is not to tempt the hand of fate or providence
and not paying rent would surely dent the image that we try to make
and though it breaks my heart to part with nine and six a week
and even if I know the landlord's got a bleedin' cheek to charge this much
I touch my forelock and say,
'good morning Sir'.

An air of doom and gloom descends it all depends on what next I say,
will I pay this ghastly fee to keep a roof over Marjorie (the wife) the kids and I
or will I look the landlord in the eye and let him know that he's a thieving crook and intimate that he should go and **** himself and take the rent book too
what do I do but lay the nine and six upon the table with the pale blue rent book and do not say, 'go **** anyone'
me and the missus and kids will stay on for another week while seeking out some other place where barefaced robbery is a crime.

In another time the landlord would be shot his houses all forfeit
but today that rotten toff has got it all, it's like a noose tied round my neck,a millstone that drags me by the ***** and puts me down
I ought to push that bad lot in the 'cut' and let the baftard drown,
and I said nothing, not a sound escaped my lips
the class system trips me up and weighs me in and while I drink a bottle of sour milk he drinks Geneva gin.

Poor people and peasants never win
the odds are bent in favour of more rent and that rotten sod will nod and shake his head
I'd wish him dead but that's another sin
and like I said,
poor people and peasants never win.

Wrestling winter

I fall as autumn
into her cold
embrace,

Behind the curtain on the wall and through the roar of
the waterfall, into the trappings of mystery, warm and wet beside the sea, sand castle domes and ice cream cones disappearing in the bay, a summer today and gone too soon, love in the afternoon before the rising of the moon and mystery beside the sea.
We never knew, we didn't care, the constancy of being there was enough, times if tough were few and if we could do it all for just a moment more, for just a second chance, another trip to what we saw when we were kids down on the shore picking clams or on the tram rides through the town, ha ha we dressed up to then dress down, stripped off bare ***, skinny dipped, ripped through tides and got our backsides whipped when dad found we'd bunked off from school, not cool then and not cool now but I'd go back unchanged and  
how I'd enjoy it all again

On the street edgings
spring
pharmacists,
fledglings,
peddling their wares and
nobody cares.

More people are done by drugs people have done
and it's not any fun
anymore.

I leave them alone now and get
by without them,
somehow
life seems a
lot better.

Out in the backyard where I discarded the old bard..
..I take a moment to think.

This is not the first time I've been on the brink of a change and maybe it won't be the last.
But I have put what is past into a polythene sack..
..let the archaeologist of the future rummage through that.

If this change is a bust..then so be it..I must..
..change the change that I'm making..
And change is there for the taking..it's free.
This is the way that I want it to be.

If it's not done today..the change will not go away..
..It will wait in abeyance.
A conveyance for me when I am finally ready.
I'm still out in the backyard with the remains of the old bard.
Finding it so hard to leave things behind.

Your palm opens,
lit up like a buttercup
and a keyboard appears

numbers from one to a thousand
and one years
press any button you like
and take a hike through time

except for number nine
that closes the keyboard
and you can't afford to do that
mid app'
can you?

As Monday mourns the weekend's passing
men are massing
at the shipyards,steelyards,
good men ,hard men
waiting at the coal mines
I wonder were they better times.

Mass employment,enjoyment
a wage to take home Friday night
a beer or two
to set the world to rights, and a couple more
before the saloon bar door was closed.

Saturday and up on market street
set out to meet friends
old and new.

The Matinee,
a treat for kids on Saturday and then some chips
and dad slips in to see the accountant
(turfing the lawn,I suppose,but who knows)

Then Mum and Dad dressed to the nines
aye, yes
much better times,
and down to the dance at half past eight where they'll stand in a queue till a quarter to, and dance the night away.

A different time
a different day
when a workman worked for a workman's pay.
It was a long time ago,
and not in Bethlehem.

Embers in the ashes
fire that lights up her eye lashes
I've seen it all before
when once upon a fancied time ago
she promised that
she loved me so
and I believed.

Oh firelight how you deceived me
left me drowning
cold
defeated.
I who greeted you like a trusted friend
for you to send me far away
I rue the day we met.

I should have wrapped my soul around a totem pole
and danced with chiefs and braves
gone to fight the cavalry
but look at me
broken on a broken lance
Romance?
shove it in a pipe and smoke it
it doesn't last
so you can keep it.

Just embers,
I remember raging fires
that danced in the moonlight
sometimes for all night.
Now,
like me they're cold and grey
it is another day
to drag
on a smoking ***
in the
dustbowl.

It is back to where I started from
this journey just goes on and on and
I am lost is that so wrong?

Back to where it all began
somewhere up North past Birmingham and hoping that I get there sometime soon.

Going back to settle in the town which I left long ago and headed down to London and the City lights don't seem so bright no more.

Going back to see my dear old Mum who now lives in an old folks home,
I wonder if she'll recognise her son.

The journey just goes on at length you find the strength and all along you realise that strong is what you are and though the breaks are few and far between you've seen the light and set the scene for going home,
It's just a dream
the journey just goes on as it goes on.

Reasons to live?
give me one.
Go on,
tell me how good this life can be
tell me some lies and please set me free
from these feelings I get
and let me believe
breathe into me hope
show me then how to cope with the stress.

I'm a mess
that's not new
I don't know what to do or
how to do if I did and tell me your secret
I will do as you bid.
Let me stand on the verge
purged of despair
surging with get up and go.

On the verges where go only sad men,I know quite a few
when the life that they knew came a falling apart and the plans that they had became dreams that went bad
ending up on the heap in the scrapyard they keep one foot on the edge of insanity because that's one of the ways they can jump in and out of the haze that fills their hearts with such longing for what was once long ago
On the verges, I know quite a few.

So breathe into me something more than I've got
just give me one more little shot
at the bullseye
I
want to go on with a heart filled with something so strong they'll hear it beat in the Islands which are my lands where my ancestors live
give me one breath.

One lesson to learn
don't burn all your bridges unless you can swim
don't jump off tall buildings you know you can't win and it's one down and all down or we all drown in apathy.
I don't want your sympathy
don't want your largesse
I have no need to impress you or dress you in compliments embellished non sentiments
just give me a lead
give the poor boy a hand at the trough let me feed
give me breath
let me breathe
It's fresh air and a vision I need
and the ability
to swim.

Santa's got up from his bed and
he's oiling the wheels on his sled,
There's no longer a freeze so
he doesn't use skis,
yes,
Santa's got up from his bed.

The priests could not be bothered to talk to me..
..as the Bishop took them off for tea..in their finery
Eating roast sham and drinking champagne..
..down by the river in the refurbished winery.

And this I felt as I knelt down to pray.
Religion is dead
It just doesn't pay.

And the rosaries become hypocrisies..
..this I understand.
It was never planned but the pomposity of ceremony..
..and the incense they burned
Turned..me cold.

I believe that God does exist..though the richness of the clergy..
..is like an allergy to me.
I want the church to be free for the saint and the sinner
And dinner for everyone.
Let charity begin from the place where it started.
Charity..alas has become so hard hearted..
..and it tightens its belt.
All this I felt as I knelt down to pray.

Saturation deforestation
slash and burn
turn green into brown
tear the lot down,

when there isn't a tree
perhaps we can see
the wood,

it's a joke,
but I agree
it's not good.

Tax.

maybe we
could have an M.O.T.
on every tree
if that's the only way we'll value them

leave it to the ministry men.

They came with their capsules,
killed me with
dex spansules,
and I
sped away,
Faster than light that plays in the sky,
I ask myself why
I
ask
myself
why.

Tuesday.


It was Tuesday late in the day when we met

It was raining so hard we were both soaking wet.

I talked to her like she was an old friend

And realised soon, I didn’t want this to end.

So I said,

Fancy a coffee?

Even though it was late.

She grinned and said,

Shall we call this a date?

And we talked as we walked

And it got really late

I said, let me walk you home, at least to your gate.

We got to her house and she said, coming for a drink?

Yes please I replied, I didn’t need to think.

The evening passed to morning

We laughed and we joked

And saw the new day dawning.

Then we kissed and my heart missed a beat

Then we kissed again a double measure,neat.

Her lips tasted of the morning mist and once again we tenderly kissed

Then undressed as the suns rays hit the counterpane

And I knew I’d never be the same.

I kissed her eyes her neck her ears

It nearly brought this grown man to tears.

She whispered don’t rush just take your time

And you and me will make each other mine.

If I ever thought that I wanted to die

I now know for sure that this was a lie.

She made me want to live,She made me want to give

And after when we felt just so her cat jumped up and bit my toe.

But we laughed and began to touch and I wanted her so much.

Then later over a cup of tea she said,

Does that mean you really like me?

Yes, I said, I really love your feet and my heart skipped another beat

I love the way you sway I love the things you say

Your nakedness is branded on my brain

My heart was racing like a train.

She smiled and said, I like you too

I said, I want to make love with you.

And though I’ve not had to many lovers

She took me under her bedcovers

And heavens did she make me moan and yell

By doing,

Well,
A gentleman does not tell.

And then the bell went clang the telephone rang

I opened my eyes and to my surprise

I was alone in my room it might as well be a tomb

Just another ******* though for a while it did seem

So so real So so good.

But then I suppose it would.

I have looked upon the latter
but much prefer the former.
Memo:
take a letter
to my parliamentary candidate stating unequivocally
that this life's not the life for me
and could he see a way to see
a brighter
lighter
future for me.

But my candidate can oft' be seen
at Weatherspoons in
Bethnal Green
supping on a pint of ale
(and then I wonder why I fail)

So it's down to me
to make a future I can see
the storm clouds brewing.

Chewing on a blade of grass
I pass the hat around.
Opportunities abound and I must leap
to keep another date
with some politician on the make.

The doorbell chimes a memory of better times
the postman brings me several letters
one from 'Zetters'
(8 draws on the football pool)
I'm off to celebrate.

The parliamentary candidate can kiss my ****
he's just a fool
and now I'm as rich as Midas
you may find me somewhere by a sea
where I once pinned my dreams upon those flowing streams
just to see if they would float.
but now I'll buy a boat and sail away
this is my day

And as a postscript I must write:
I've never been happy with the man they chose
To represent me behind closed doors
and plan my life.
Now my life is planned atop the ocean's wave
and so I wave goodbye
don't cry
I won't.

The great con moves along
tent city's not gone
it's just moved around the corner
where your eye does not see it.

A brave new world indeed
they
feed us on ******* expecting respect
and say,
it's all hunky dory,
well
they Fukin bore me.

We're worse off now than we've ever been
'cept for the queen
she's just as rich as can be while
we got tents on the side streets
rough sleepers in the malls
and employers pleading poverty
what a load of *****.

A standard of living is giving
not taking, not stealing by dealing
from the bottom of the pack

what is it we lack?
compassion?
empathy?
no good asking me they've cut
out my tongue
the great con goes on and we are being
silenced
one
by
one
until we too are gone.

They are but words on paper
graphite on wood

Today I'm being good
they let me off the naughty stair

that's fair.

when I'm not being good
I am being good in a
naughty way

Well
that's what I say,

school reports,
end of term torts,
words on paper
all escape me
when
I'm with her

that's fair too.

Take these tears from yesterday
And kiss them all away.

In the shuffling long, long line..
..stood men from another world..another time
Dressed in linen shirts and boots and kipper ties
Men with tired sad..grimy eyes.

And in the Labour exchange a man would say
Ninepence ha'penny...unemployment pay.
This..
..for men who had gone to war
And evened up the score...crushed the fascist state.

Why do they call this country great?

Those men who sat beside the Thames..
..and with one stroke from Sheaffer pens destroyed us all.
But these proud old men..did heed this country and its call.
Left the fields and left the ploughs..the pits and mills
The rolling hills where they were born
A forlorn hope..for a brighter day
Kiss my tears from yesterday away.

Why do they call this country great?
This Island state
The ancestral homes
Of dead mens bones.
Expletives long deleted..hope depleted..future boarded up.
We will not drink a cup and sing to..
Auld lang syne.

The handwritten card reads,

'Help Me
suffering from Hepatitis C'

which to me is a cry
from the heart,

but he's just one of many
in the city,
doesn't anybody care?

the card could of course be a lie
and the man sitting there
could be
as healthy as you or as I

wonder why he wrote it?

while
I think inoculation,
half of the population have
never heard of hepatitis

the liver might as
well be something to eat
not a disease for someone to beat

I admire him however grim it may be
to sit and bare your medical history
begging for charity
it's certainly something you
don't see
every day.

When the sun came crashing from the sky
we knew why the oceans all ran dry
and we,
like harum scarum lunatics watched all this, believed it was a magic trick and later it would be alright.
But the night grew strong the longer it went on and we were wrong to laugh and play while everything we had,
faded into grey,then black and we realised it would not be back at the click of the fingers.

Some vestiges of a memory lingers on and fables told are of a day of gold and light and might we hear the story one more time,as told by the old man with more time upon his hands,about the distant lands where men could see,it seems an eternity of gloom has left much room and yet not to expand but contract back into caves, and slaves we were to ever think the madness could go on without some form of retribution,
some divine or godly intervention
an architect whose own invention had been superseded by  what those whom he had invented needed?

It's all too late
we'll have to wait for another spot that turns up in a universe,where nothing worse than this could possibly occur
and though the candle is unlit,a bit of it will fall into another lighting of the sky
and once more I'm sure we'll wonder why
the magician always spins a double zero and wins.

A part of me dreams in pictures on screens
and some of me sits at reality's door.

Knock
Knock
who's there?

I heard a bird 'it was no nightingale, but  a
storm petrel looking for a ship under sail
on the high sea
and a part of me knows it was only a dream.

I see reality
so easy to ignore
where some of me
sits at reality's door.

Knock
Knock
who's there?

The beggarman's wife sees reality,
life is no dream  
for her.

But nothing's the same as the pain that you feel when you're poor, down at heel and the baby is crying for milk.

Occasionally I wake and
take a quick look outside
to see who is knocking,
there's
no one
only the wind slapping
at me,
reality stings
a nightingale sings
the storm petrel rides
on the wind.

The radio babbling in the background,
just sound.
The church bells ringing bring in
more sound,
in silence I take apart the two
to decon,recon,
juxtapose
the church bells and the radio and
only heaven knows
the reasons
why.