Why should not one not play cards
Upon the the African savannah
And northern Iraq?
Too many Cheetahs.

How would one do that
And why would you do it
Surely you'd get to the point
And then spew it
To press a button
And many people
Would be liquidised
The nature of connection
Would deffo de-emphasise
But of course not
What are you thinking
They grew up with bombs
And simple ******
Deaths the drink
They've been drinking.

Shot through the hip
On Flanders field
Left to infect and die
As the quagmire
Slowly
Revealed
How quick it is
To mulch the young
To the Earth
Up pop the poppies
To show that
What was
Worth

Slice your potatoes
So thick
They can take on
The oil
Salt
And fat
The nature of which
They need to be serious
So no one calls them a ****
Boil for a bit
And then on to the roasteries
Everyone likes the edges
Of their
Spuds
crispery

Where does a joke come from?
Oooh now that's a good question
Some people talk of a need
To describe some modern obsession
Forgetting the fact
That the gags we now guffaw at
Are age old weathered
Pieces of
Granite.

Skeleton walks into a pub
Orders a pint of Guinness
And a mop.

What is it your after?
When your just sitting there
Or just sitting there
And just ******* there
I've heard that's how some work it out

When working out
On the treadmill
Or in the ****** gym
The words for those
come buzzing
To the ear within

In a rowing boat
With a fishing rod
On a foreign beach
Half cut
After bumping
Into an old lover
The once open doors
Now firmly shut
And locked
And bolted
And barred

So what is it you're after
When you're just sitting there?
To obliterate a few minutes ?
Closer to not being there.

Some of the foulest things
Were conceived
In the most beautiful
Of places
The pure alpine breeze
Cooled the mechanics
Of the elimination
Of races
Verdant green
The backdrop
For reeducation
Stark Mother Russia
The denouncements
The Cossackification
White Plains
Trinity
The United Nations.

A pub sign
Swinging
Through the rust
Completely
Bleached by the sun
I have a vague
Memory
Of its fitting
From when I was about 10
Summer holiday
Ball under my arm
We'd be playing all day
Walked under
Two ladders
Three fellahs
******* the flash
New *******
In place
It's just about
Still there
Today.

The things that
Bounce round your brain
And then are gone

For a millisecond
They meant the world to you
But you can't recall them now

You can't render  it
Out the void
If you could
It would deft
Be employed

Cos it was the coolest
Thing that there's ever been
The fact the world can't
**** on it
Seems
Somewhat obscene

But it will happen
Again and again
And you've got the *****
To call humanity
Your friend.

Let's do another line
Of powdered sleep
Swim the oceans
With Hypnos
Tumble down in the deep
Dream of beauty
And horror
And nothing at all
You feel it so real
Sure as you're stuck to this ball
When your dreams
Are mostly disasters
Which are usually caused by your actions
You awake
It takes a couple of beats
To realise
The current apocalypse
Isn't happening.

And it's stood there awhile
So long in fact
All that was left
Was residual
The flies had drunk their fill
The microbes obvs
Munching there still
A light off green mulch
Mouldering at will
Until
All fuel is gone.

What's gotten into yer
What is it that blows you away?
You had it so straight in your head as well
The family were there
Ears cupped
Filled with care
Determined to get your back pay
Industrial accident
Your ******* in traction
The boss man keeps
Laughing all day

And completely untenneable
The things that
Separates the daily
From the utterly
Undeniable
It moves the masses
When the obverse'
Gets thrown at the floor
Like the the time
When your mammy
Made that movie
And they called her an *****.

Do you walk round in circles
Do you know when  you're doin it
Do you talk to yourself
Whilst you eschewing it
Is there a way
To stop the step
Will charred flesh be helpful
Or could it be a salad
Nutrition is a bit ******* key
But is it really?
The ****** of refuelment
Is what we be after.

They used to call him the ironmonger
For he'd make a bolt for the door
When it was his turn at the bar
His wallet was in his other jacket
He'd be back in a minute
Just round the corner
It wasent far
It became a sort of art form
One that I couldn't help applaud
His bald faced brass balledness
Deffo could not be ignored
But there is a craft
To chicanery
If done with a bit of charm
It provides its own amusement
So really where's the harm?
Others were driven *****
It made them twist and ****
But I always appreciate
A master hard at work.

All of humanity's problems stem
From a man's inability to sit
Quietly in a room alone
Well if those words were true
I'd be a king
Upon a throne
But quantity is not quality
Besides there is no enterography
From the inside
To the outside
That gets shown
Pascal wrote that opening
In the mid sixteen hundreds
It's been quoted cameoed
And inspected
It invites you to do
What it says you can't
Irrespective.

Humanity's an improbably steep
And multidimensional hill
To accommodate
All routes
A holy mountain
If you will
Though wether roped
Or solo it's a free for all
To
Scale
Freeze
Dangle
Or fall

But there's room up there still
If you fancy a climb
Cos most of us
Are sunbathing
In meadows sublime
Through opera glasses
Peering up transfixed
I see
Tiny dark figures hanging in time

I'm tipsy on thin air
And feeling unkind.

Never March on Moscow
that's  what old Monty said
Its rule one
On page one
not really up for dissent

Rule two
He furthered
Don't take on the Chinese
Within their own vast land
The invisible armies
Of the people
Will swallow your troops
Right where they stand

For those objectives
Are so far away
Across valley steppe and mountain
Bleak and cold and bare
The folk have suffered more
Of which they will not speak
Beyond what you call care

So that's the east's
Intrinsic insurance
When it Comes to boots on the ground
They haven't got the legs
To come too far the other way though
So it's mushrooms
All around.

If you try any preversions in there
I'll blow your head off
Said Colonel Bat Gauno
You try anything funny
I'll shoot you right through the glass
Said Jack Walsh
Colin Farrell
Blasted that Belgian lad
In the eyes
At close range with a blank
Some people
Underestimate
What guns can get up to
In the movies.

I went to see Riverdance on LSD
That's the cast and crew on it
Not me you see
It certainly a contemplative
Then interpretive effort
Watch for five minutes
You'll never forget it
And that's about
All they got out of me
How much cash do you want
Michael Ryan ******* Flatley?

The light of the righteous
Fell upon the multitude
Gathered glad
The Pearly Gates
Swung open
In walked Dad.



To Jimmy with all my love.

I heard an American journalist
Describe the United Kingdom
In nineteen forty four
As
A green and pleasant
Unsinkable air craft carrier
No poetry required
There at all.

You can swing from a gibbet
Or process coffee like a civet
And die knowing
You served the lord
Anyway.

What's that force?
That hits your alfactory
When your on holiday
In a far foreign land
As the sun dips
Always coastal
So the ozone lends a hand
It's above the
Charring meat
Sauteing veg
The roasting garlic
And the sharp tang off of the grill
It's the difference in memory
That's why it lives there still.

The city I live in is notorious
For timeslips
Walk round the wrong corner
And you'll be partying
With the Incas
Ah that doesn't work
Cos it time
Not space
I just think
I liked the rhyme
But even that's a disgrace
Does that happen to you?
In the middle of a ditty
You've got a direction
You want to go in
But the delivery
Gets all ******.

I remember when
And it wasent
That long ago
The nature of the now
Changed
When the
Nature
Of the
Nature
Went unnatural
Somehow
And yet
It gets
Thinner
With
Time
But
It
Takes so long
It's like the dripping
Of lime

That what was special
Is not that special anymore
Despite national anthems
The modern ground swell
Abhorred
To what was the beginning
The mid
But possibly
Not the end
Let's see how it goes
Whatever can you defend?

There's a palm tree
Outside my kitchen window
It outest extremities
Don't quite touch the glass
Of the thing we could gladly
Talk between us
And feel the feel
Of the connection at last.

Morphine's album
YES!
Has a place in my heart
That's is smothered in pride
Listened to it constantly
In 96 in Glasgow
When hard work
Was along for the ride

Ripping the guts
Out of a IT company
Partition walls and ceilings
Fell before my sledgehammer
Right in front o me

Chewing hash
And snorting scotch
Were  the orders of the day
Once the dust had settled
And we'd drawn all our pay

I'd never seen so many places
To sentimentally sing
Chemically altered karaoke
Is one hell of a thing.

The greatest
Road trip/odd couple/anti-buddy movie there's been
Each line quotable
Like nothing you've ever seen
Just as Butch and Sundance
Were running out of time
Forced transition
Layers on
Laughs
And
Poignancy
Sublime
Two men chipped
And polished
From very different stone
To meet as friends in the next life
As they walk this one alone.

Sam Neill
Suitably evil
In The Omen three
In that movie I thought he was coming after me
There's a scene where he's planning
The massacre of the new coming Christs
Gave an address just down the road from mine
Instructions to his disciples
Murderous advice
31 other potential Jesai
Got offed
After the alignment
In Cassiopeia
But one was saved
Was he talking about me?
Oh! one thing is certain
In the battle of Hell against Heaven
Don't be watching whacky Devil films
When you're only just eleven.

A trio goes to the rain forest
To affirm a message
Humanistic
Bump into
A couple of salty dudes
Somewhat hubristic
They're here to have the local tribe off
Rob em of all their ******* and emeralds
And ****** their flock
But the drugs sent em crazy
It sealed their fate
They both ended up with their brains on a plate
As did all bar the final girl.

The blue shadow
Of the purple forest
That Antoninus sang about
Foreshadowed
The doom of the oppressor
Though by then
He wouldn't be about
For they would rule
Five hundred more years
But when just one man said
NO I WONT!
Rome began to fear.

He went looking
But couldn't  find it
Anywhere
The fuel in his tear drop gas tank
Could of took him beyond care
After a realisation
That tear drop explodes
The American dream
Red White and Blew
All over the road.

The first time I felt betrayed by creation
Was when I first was able
To get it straight in my head
That I will not be at my funeral.

Tortured for no reason
By the Japanese
In response to
General ripper's
Grave entreaties
He suffered
The indignities
Without much rancour
The strange thing is
They make such ****** good cameras.

In the universe nothing's above the law
Yes
But on Earth nothing's stronger than love
That's my case sir
There in that tear drop
Gripped in a rose's glove.

In the fairy tale of New York
The knave who would be a knight
Rejected by the queen consort
He attempts to throw his light
As gods lonely man
Every muscle must be tight
For one day
A real rain will come
And clean the streets of blight

He rescued the Fair princess
From the beast
And his foul hoard
The queen now was interested
The gas pedal he floored.

Butch and Sundance
The times a changing
The old west receding
Modernity raging
There's clocks
And watches all over the place
Well it's too late now
Said Sundance to Butch
The futures all yours you lousy bicycle
Butch replied
The sepia soon replaced.

Prehistoric territoriality
Local government venality
One man who hates the water
A younger seeking knowledge
The last would quite
The ghosts of his past
By quashing what is put there
In the murk.
That's the story of Jaws

King Kong
Went wrong
When they brought a blonde along
He only wanted to be loved
It could only end one way.

Went to see that new Wes Anderson number last night
Entitled The Phoenician Scheme
An excellent effort all round
Scene
By scene
By scene
I've always admired his movies
But this seemed a cut above
In pacing
Framing
And intensity
A true labour of love
But there seemed
Something extra
A deeper meaning
For me to take
The gods of cinema talking to me
Or perhaps
***** rice crispie cake.

They hit the beach
From the other way
So their ghosts
Could get compared
To that
They met in the fray

I've just seen a pigeon
In the heavy rain
Clinging on to
The surface
Of a sheer brick wall
I didn't know
They could do that
I was waiting for the fall
Was this fellah
The Alex Honnold
Of his feathered breed?
Or do they do it all the time
And I've just never seen?
He flapped his wings
Now and then to adjust his grip
But he hung right in there
With barely a slip
Then I saw it
He motivation anew
The bird feeder was busy
He was stuck in a queue.

You strike that flint
With a mineral ball
You tinder fire
It's not special at all.

You flick a switch
On that socket
On the wall
You can charge your life
You can make that call.

When I post on here
Sometimes I give give it
A cursory scan and press save
Other times
I intensively re read it
Again and again
Line by line
Word for word
Until I'm satisfied
There's no mistakes
Either way
The flubs aren't apparent
Till it's loose
In the ether
There's blocks
And there's blinds
In my mental
Procedures.

I had a friend
Thirty years ago
He had nowt
Didn't have two ha'pennys to rub together
Managed to get himself
A little Handcart
He went round
Collecting all old newspapers
Day and night he toiled
Seven days a week
And twice on Sunday
To one day make his fortune
And do you know what he's worth today?
NOTHING!
And he still owes for the handcart.

There's untold matter
Outside the void
You'd think
Some of it
Might want to get in
To give its selves
A bit more room
Reorientation
Again.