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.

I like them flat peaches
But they take an age to soften up
Then you turn round
For a second
And they've  turned
Into a rotten pulp.

There's a blanket
Of fresh buttercups
Upon the mound
The pigeons
Don't know what to make of em
They think they're food
Nutrients to be found
First they peck
Then tosss
As the taste don't seem quite right
Doesn't stop the silly ******* though
Seems to send em
Into overdrive.

The Soviets at Darvazza
Tossed a match
To burn the poison
From the well
Forty odd years later
It's still the gates of Hell

The Yanks underestimated
Castle Bravo
At the rate of 2 point 5
It snowed on the Lucky Dragon
It's crew microwaved alive

And again with
The big starfish
Thermonuclear coin
Flipped in the air
Just to see what would happen
A sight that caused despair

The pulse Was bad for business
So they said that's enough of that
Don't the the rest of youse be trying it
Let's all make a pact

The sparrow curses the air
Thinks if he don't flap
He will go faster
So he ceases beating wings
That won't cause disaster.

When Marco Tardelli scored
In the final
Against the Germans in 82
It was like something
Not seen before
Or since too

A kinetic miracle displayed
And I'm not talking about the goal
More to do with miracles
And the nature of the soul

Something extraordinary happened
And it's still frozen in time
Where one mans essence
And the universe entwined

It is the celebration
That still lives in the air
A being stripped
Of all presence
And dull earthly care

He went off like a rocket
To whence he knew not where
He sprinted to the bench
Then hither
Then there

His team mates couldn't catch him
And they really tried
Old Marco carried off
On the crest
Of some unstoppable tide

Eyes bulging
Tears streaming
Screaming
GOL!
GOL!
GOL!
His arms jalisticating
As the pitch he fast roamed

Of course he gets asked about that night
By all that he meets
Says he has no memory
Of when his feet were so fleet

Except

His entire life flashed before his eyes
He said he felt just like someone
Who knows they will die
Maybe his pineal flooded his skull
Perhaps the frequency of creation
Stirred his hot chemicals

A true uniqueness
Of joy unbounded

What were the odds?

In a true Bukowskism

He was perfect laughter

He was alone with the gods.

Dark matter aids with the construction of collectives
While dark energy pushes them apart
Well that's what they reckon
They don't really know
It's the point
Where science becomes art.

Did you hear about
The mafia boss
With a PhD in quantum mechanics?
He made them an offer they couldn't understand.

We don't only have weapons
We carry the devil with us
HA HA HA HAHAHAHA HA
HA HA HAHA.

Where does it go to
The oil you secrete
Off of the juice
That you stew in
When you're feeling the heat?
From without
Or within
Sometimes it sticks to your skin
If you are lucky
It just evaporates
Better out than in.

I used to walk past
A basement Dojo
On my way work
The legend on the lintel read
THIS SCHOOL IS BUILT ON TRUST
A noble statement
A fine endeavour
Talk about **** or bust

A beautiful idea
A place open to the world
Balanced on the good conscience
Of everyone concerned

The feeling of connection
When all hold the pact
And that of betrayal
When character is lacked

But that's the only way
If your going to walk that path
To feel the sun upon your face
Never fearing for your back.

The well is not dry
I've just lost my bucket
But that water
Is tainted anyway
So you know
**** it!

The Captain's ball
The Trophy5
The spheres of childhood
Now not alive
It isn't wise
Not at this juncture
To mount space hoppers
That have slow punctures.

How to navigate the planet
And where the planet is
To use the correct verbiage
And how to raise your kids
How to cook the food you eat
And to talk to your friends
To formulate your stance
and execute your ends
Instruction
On the way to feel
About the coming
Amalgamation
To assimilate
For the greater good
Or live in isolation.

And Alexander seeing the width
And reach of his domain
Wept
For there were no more worlds to conquer
But Alexander never wrote Rocky Raccoon
So he can go and **** in his hat!

It must have been
One hell of an extension cable
From the Hathor's basement
To the Giza power station.

Stalin had the oil
****** had the cash
Von Ribbentrop
And
Molotov
Made a cocktail
That couldn't last.

It's funny in the dark
Hilarious in the void
Right up until the point
Your ego gets destroyed.

When life put love to the test
When all the buttons got depressed
When the magnetic tape got stretched
When I was a no good wretch

The tablets took their own sweet time
I was a selfish drunken swine
But you got through
And down the line
We put it all to bed.

Sloppy drunk
Acting the fool
In Jackie's back yard
On a rickety  stool
Heatwave
Sunday afternoon
On the Bushmills straight
Feeling so cool
Looked around
I am here all alone
Laughed like a ******
In the gathering gloom.

It's all quite the lark
At the moment
For the aftermath
Of a plane crash
This island is beautiful
And the weather is clement
There's Brocken trees everywhere
We have the means to make fire
An abundance of edible fruit

Only six passengers booked
On an airliner made for hundreds
Little bags of nuts
And whisky miniatures galore
Though we've powered through em
Ravening greedy ******

But there are few animals
And we cannot hunt
When winter rolls round
And the fruit is gone
We'll see a different front

And so I see the laughing faces
Over the signal fire
A demented form of joy
The appearance of a pyre
As the last of the ***** gets drained
Lost spirits once again raised
I thank god I grabbed that machete
And wonder if humans
Are better fried or braised

Keep swiggin that *****
Keep smokin them tabs
**** down deep on them viruses
What get released from them labs
Waft them air fresheners
Modify your food
Keep taking them
Sweet sweet pills
What enhance your mood
E numbers Are the tops
Fresh fruit gets a sprey
Some say they've done something
That has turned the frogs gay
Make sure you sit still
Make sure you char your toast
Let's do the cancer enhancer baby
Yeah we dig it the most.

The death of the festive
The birth of the mundane
No wide open road anymore
Get back in your lane
The gears have ground down
They now hardly catch
The ******* door
Bangs loud in the wind
The ******* just won't latch
I crossed the sweet tilted field
Where we once made love
It's all dog muck and empty used condoms now
No moonlight bathes from above
We're become the elders at functions
And the mood is low
When we where the youth
All hearts were aglow
We buried our parents
And now start in with our friends
Warmly reminisce at funerals
But it's only pretend
As the clock ticks down
I know of that which I speak
The sickness in the future
Is unremittingly bleak.

Beating
Like a host
Turned heart
During
Transubstantiation
Spirit
Made flesh
Made flesh
And the wine
Pulses
And pumps
Like it did through his veins
Till
Longinus
Emptied the water out
Obvious now
What it was all about.

God came to me
In a dream last night
He didn't say which one
Voice ambiguous
Shape unclear
My eyeballs overcome
He's a lot funnier
Than you might expect
He's quite fond of a pun
His advice is for all
To laugh together
Or cry apart
Then all is done.

Just before telescopes and such
He dared venture out to touch
Not just the face of God
But more
Than the church allowed
No centre could there be
No sun circling
You and me
Planets around other stars
Holy uniqueness not ours
So they strung him upside down
In front of all the town
And burnt him
Through the hours
Upon the Field Of Flowers.

If you break your spuds
After the boil
Before the roast
Just a bit
With the back of a spoon
They will take on
A hidden flavour
More than
Salt
Oil
And vinegar can bloom
Soaking
And grinding in
With steam as an ally
Fluffing carbohydrates
I'll turn up the heat
Shall I?

Essentially inedible
Is that all
That terrible?
When you consider
Where the criticism came from.

I know sometimes he takes a different form
Oft a Shepherd
A herder of words unreformed
Of depth
And of humour
And poignancy
Renowned
Sometimes
He's his girlfriend
With beauty unbound.

There's some places you go
Where the mantle is thin
And there's just enough cracks
In the crust to begin
To let something through
With no shape and no size
No essence of anything
On which to rely
For definition
Or earthly ken
Makes you start to remember
Of occurrences when

You've felt this before

Kefalonia
Central Glascow
The street where you live
The whole nation of Ireland
These locations all give
Pause for thought
On what is and what ain't
The nature of fact
Though it's incredibly faint
I felt it most pronounced
Outside Cozzarelli's in Belleville New Jersey
Over ten years later
Still makes me uneasy.

Not people with friends
Into the collective
We dare not descend
Or is that just me
Refused entry
By not knocking on the door
Not even walking up the street
Not even getting off the bus
Not even getting on the bus
Scanned the timetable with horror.

The strait is calm
Now's the time
Row me out
To the isle of graves

The sky is clear
But not for long
Soon will the come
The dark waves

That make the passage
So arduous
And unreflective
I won't get my story straight
Time is short
And winding down
They don't like it if you're late

It's hard enough
With this skinny fellah
And his one string viola
His riff so harsh
And unrelenting
As to induce
Catatonia

Speaking of strings
I've got one left
It is taut
Yet resisting
I see the ladies
With their scissors
How long to still be existing?

Surely not the tunes?

In the garden of Eden baby
In the room above a pub
In the valley of the shadow
That's where I found my love

When dinosaurs ruled the earth
The day the Earth stood still
When a river ran right through it
That's when I got my fill

Something in the way she moves
Some day my prince will come
Some enchanted evening *******
Some kind of wonderful

Who watches the watchmen?
Whose side are you on?
Who are you peter Townsend?
Whose heavy head wears the crown?

I've always been prone
To stubbing a toe
My mother
Chastised me
When I was down low
Close to the floor
And the obstacles there
Seemingly volleying
Solid objects without a care
You'd think it'd be easy
On my shallow eclipticacal plain
To avoid maternal exasperation
And young digital pain

But I've always done it

Though in adolescence
And first adulthood
The occurrences dropped
Gyroscope tuned
Balance now understood

As the years curved away
The habit came back
Micro reactions
Now starting to lack

The leverage and mass
Certainly don't help
After the impact
The pathetic yelp
The delay between
Whack and sensation
Has always confused me
Defied explanation
Similar to getting
Hoofed in the spuds
Two seconds to grace
Then the ache comes in floods
I reckon it happens now
About once a week
Hopping then paralysed
As my faculties leak.

I'm eschewing *****
And ***** too
Perhaps a month
Maybe two
It's been a fortnight
Still slightly fuzzy
Jerky sleep patterns
I had it coming
Don't start me on
The whacky dreams
A disaster movie
Each night it seems
Aliens
Zombies
Catastrophes
Volcanos
Earthquakes
Foul disease
And it's all my fault
I caused it all
Uncharacteristic
Prideful
Before the fall

And then the wake.

When beauty gets down low
To speak to me
I think of you
Neath that shady tree

The chlorophyll packs the leaves so tight
The veins resist with all their might
To store life for the months to come
They greedily swallow the light

I remember laying in the grass
Our eyes on each other still
Your smile matched your pretty dress
The sun transited the hill

We didn't notice it's passage
Till we felt the chill
Till all was shadow
We stood and turned without a word
Our last day on the meadow.

The most delicate sleep
Brings brutalist dreams
When you leave the herb alone
At least that's how it seems

The beginnings
Of sunrise
Like vivid bruise on milky thigh
pushing up the dark shutter of Day.

If you make the crowd laugh
Then you're winning
Doesn't matter
How ****
Your argument is
If your opponent left
Flustered and squirming
He's the one
Who is stinking of ****
Play to the gallery
That's how it is
Like Sun Tzu said
If he's a hot head
Take the ****.

She asked the wiseman
Could he describe nothing
He said no
But he'd have a go at everything
He began with
Aardvarks

Is it a good idea Tibet with your life?
And
The State they leave the place is Nepalling.

Staring out the window
Can't find the words
I crave
Trying to get this finnished
Coffee keeps goin
Back in the microwave.

It's that heavy happiness
When you're listening to Leonard
So simply expressed
Though you know he knows the big words
He'd rather talk to many
Than the cognoscenti
See there I just did it
Shame on me
Get salted through with Cohen
the beauty elementary.

Where's all this rain they keep talking about?
It not fell for awhile
But it's hardly a drought
Weatherman don't know what he's talking about
Where's all this rain?

You don't feel it yourself
What others think of you
And they rarely say it
Not within your earshot
Till its too late
Standing over your box
You don't feel it yourself

Some day a real rain will come
Like Travis said to the candidate
Been thinking of Firearms and Mohicans of late
The time has passed for scholarly debate
Some day a real rain will come.

Is the nature of expression
Just a collective
Jumping off point
A result of tickling
Our unconsciousness
From sullen back to noisy front
Ejected
Deep within
To without
After Previous
Shoving its way in
As we went
Ambling
Through the cloud?

When scientists get poetic
They knock this place into
A cocked hat
Cos they deal
With real truth
And proper ambiguity
Now
What you think
About that?

Sam and Dianne
Tony and Carmela
Vera and Jack
Bobby and Shiela
Boston
Jersey
Weatherfield
Liverpool.

Is that thin gravy
Or black coffee
That half empties my cup?
It's been there awhile
It's looking a bit rough
Don't give it a sniff
Grasp the handle
Take it up
Drain it down
I'll know soon enough.