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

Got arseholed and lost in Glasgow
Wandered off into the hills
Eons passed it seemed in stasis
Ended up in the Bootes void
Came to with a start
As I floated inside of eternity
Took me ages to get a cab
Then I woke in Central station
Laided out on a bench
In the lap of some fella
Called Rabb.

When you live on the flight path
You forget it is a road
With traffic lights
And diversions
The sky holds a heavy load
You get used to the rumble
Of the setting down
And taking off
Just faraway from the Tarmac
You can brush them noises off
Like all the things  you won't imagine
Like that persistent scratchy cough.

God lord them ******* can sing!

The inn at the oaks
Is where we all decompose
Spiritually

Come one
Come all
And gather round
Let us sit upon the ground
In the dawning day
As the warmth accrues
The birds awake
To this paragraph new
And the badgers slumber
Beneath the clay
Human progress
Not delayed
The horizon suffused
Orange and pink
To be alive
But not to think
The rising sun
Sings it song aloud
Oh look!
There is a mushroom cloud.

When the lightning
Strikes the eruption
What is forged in the smoke
Will fall immediate to earth
See it rolling down the *****
Bouncing off of boulders
Striking sparks in the gloom
Creating filaments
Dark gossamer
For the coming terrible loom.

I grew up round the corner
From where Clive Barker was born
Though he's twenty years older
That was where we called home
He described the neighbourhood
In the first chapters o Weaveworld
I viddied it well
I could follow the lead role
Could see the portal to hell
It's quite a feeling
It's quite the trip
To see a bestseller
In the streets which you skip
Once you learn you live parallel
To the abyss

That's hard to shake.
As the midnight meat trains
Rattle the back gates

A triumph in the moonlight
Hackneyed *****
In the cold light
Of this cruel
Saturday

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.

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.

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.

You say it was unbearable
But you bore it
Every minute
You were in it

Like a cave diver
Turned around
In silty water
You felt that this was it
Soaked lamb to the intrinsic slaughter

But look at you now
It's like it didn't even happen
When you emerged
At the caves mouth
Those that loved you
All were clapping.

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?

The generalities
Of how we diagnose
Our children
Seem harsh
And cruel
But what else
You gonna do?
We don't have that much time
And there's drugs
To push through
Should we have let em eat peanuts
And lose a few?
Or medicate
Remorseless
Chemistry
Anew?

Is it the crack and report
As the hammer strikes true?
Or the spilt second scrape
Down the barrel ?
The discharge of gas
As the slug rips past?
Through the displacement o air
it does burrow
Is it the PEYANG! PATOU! Richocet
Of an old cowboy movie?
Or the acts of the Manson's
They thought that **** groovy?
Is it the swish as it grazes
A candidates ear?
Or the whimper of a victim
Rigid with fear?

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.

Leonard said
Everybody knows
Now that he's dead
It'd be shocking
To suppose
That
God is dead
And all that
There all that
Would diagnose
In the long run
What everybody
Knows.

Feels like it hasn't rained in weeks
But there was
A spritzing just now
Lasted but a few minutes
All the clouds would allow
So there is that fragrance
That's hard to describe
Wet dust
Doesn't quite cover it
But it makes me feel alive.
It makes you remember.

I keep meaning to get back
On the lions mane
To relay the nyalin
That the years have stripped
And cleared

Neural roadways
Are now potholed
It's like
Blackburn Lancashire

It worked so well
The time
I took it
Focused the fuzz away
But I keep forgetting
To retake it
At the beginning
Of each day.

You had it all right in your mind
It'd bin bouncing round there awhile
You couldnt say it to or at anyone at the time
Cos by the ale you was somewhat beguiled

The quips you remember
The laughs that you got
The chances not taken
Not taken a lot

The cold wind you remember
On a beach so remote
Smashed any chance
Of getting my vote
On my selective
Amnesia

Just hang on a minute
While I choose to emote
The thing that foments us
Ain't the thing what makes us vote.

When you out and about
You felt the grip o the *****
There be somat about
The feel o someone you knew
But alone you feel different
Something you can barely construe
And so you delve down to
What you obviously knew.

Judge
Jury
Bailif
Death row guard
Priest 1
Executioner
Gurney orderly
Coroner
Private ambulance driver
Undertaker
Grave digger
Priest 2.

When someone looked at you
And was compelled to smile
When the journey was blissful
Neither counted the miles
With warmth without edge
And peace within reach
When puppies gambolled  
At your feet On the beach
When you returned home
To comfort and food
When you fed off of each other
When connectivity accrued
When you both were anchored
Moored solid in love
When it would last forever
Decreed from above.

In the immortal words o  the late great Jonny Mathias
Oh ** oh oh oh ** oh ** oh **
Oh ** ** oh ** oh oh ** oh **
Oh ** ** ** **
Oh ** ** oh
Oh ** oh **
Oh oh ** oh **.

Just past Easter 2013
Arlington National Cemetery
In the state of Virginia
After a long hot day of seeing the sights
Me and my girl
Wandered silent round the fields of the fallen

The unseen lights

The red not there
But certainly
The White of the crosses
Against the Blue of the sky
As Japanese cherry blossom
Around us did fly
Crested the rise
That is John Fitzgerald's hill
Next to Jackie and baby
Laying there still
We were alone
With what seemed like the Gods
In this most visited place
What were the odds?
We looked at each other through the eternal flame
Each told the other the future
Neither one was to blame.

Don't won't to sound
Like George Formby
But there's no other way
Lest you ignore me
Cos the reverse is true
When I'm drinking whisky
It not Through others lives
It's the **** ****
Within me.

Christmas Eve probably 1978
The sweet smell o roasting turkey
From the back kitchen emenates
Albert Finney's Scrooge on the box
The grate hung with three socks
The tree smelling the way
The trees used to smell
Sugared glacier fruits
Banana toffee
Turkish delght
Tangerine
Apple
Pointless vitamins
In the torrent
O *****
Then Jimmy came home
Comedic drunk
Rolled round on the carpet
Spouted his usual  funk
Then crawled up the stairs
And collapsed on the bed
On Christmas morn he thought
That he'd already
Been here
Deja vu
The spirit o Chrimbo
Can make you feel queer.

When McCartney goes
The seas will boil
Everest will crumble
The crops will spoil
Immovable objects
Will get shunted aside
Unstoppable forces
Will have the brakes applied
When McCartney shuffles off
Every dog will cry
The tortoises
Will all pull in their heads/legs/tails and die
When McMartney joins the choir
The world will feel a chill
Sadness on Penny Lane
The fool has left the hill
When McCartney throws a six
There will be a global tremor
But take comfort in the fact
Ringo will live forever

It like going to that new David and Goliath movie
And them wanting you
To be shocked at the result
Some entertainment
Shows right in front
Well it doesent show you
But you come preinformed
The curse of the biopic
No story forestalled
Especially if your a fan you tut your way through
You know they didn't do it that way
You wonder why they don't sue
Or at least their estates
Jealous guardians of legacy
Or money grubbing shysters
Rolling round in ignominy
Just look what the *******
Have done to the work's of Tolkien.

Just been watching
The Ten Commandments
Talk about almost immediate abandon
Mosses just popped up mount Herob
For a chat with the lord
And as soon as he was gone
They got out all the gold
Smelted it down
Shaped it in to a calf
Removed all their clothes
Got in the sinful bath
Soaked and cavorted
A good long while
All manner o wickednesses
They indulged in
Irony
Foreshadowing
There was about ten of em
And then Mosses
Came back
Aghast and almost rabid
He'd only nipped out
For a couple of  tablets

Probably
About
Tuesday
Afternoon.

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

You're always writing out your ******
That's just the nature of the media you choose
Still every now and then
It can be a bit less hacky i suppose
When you  feel the spark
When  you fish the words out of the air
When it's not that embarrassing
To expose yourself to care
When the ether throws you a bone
And your radio turns computer
Drop your kecks and bend over
Here's comes another beauty.

Point a political gun
At your friend
Demand to know
What went where and when
Formulate your argument
But like Marty put it
The time circuits are bent
I can't calculate it
Beware the knowers
Like Bukowski said
They'll tell you your fine
When you're already dead.

We could sometimes see the Sun
Just before it rise
We would simply have to possess
The right kind of eyes
The ones that see round corners
Or over great bends
And capture past and future
As the universe expands
To the point
When it won't matter
The acuity of our sight
As everything moves so far apart
We'll never see the light
So to us
Creation will seem over
Long before
Darkness replete
When even
Venus is beyond our scope
Our loneliness complete
But of course that will not happen
The earth won't last that long
As our Sun Expands and swallows us
Muting our last song.

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.

How many frying pans will you buy and throw out?
Especially now they are worth a ****
I've had two in the last eighteen months
My own fault remorse
Short sighted reasoning
Is par for the course
To bite the bullet and go long
Has you singing
An environmentalist song.

Why was Scrooge so god ****** special?
Where was Jacob's chance at heaven?

Just a sherry at Christmas
Or your liver in a sling
Maybe one o them
For whom
Abstinence is the thing
We spread across the boozey map
In all the directions there are
Negotiate the contours
As we head toward the bar
Some move to the desert
Where there barely falls a drop
Some might as well live in the ocean
The soak that never stops
Some imbibe for giggles
Others to ward off life
To many it's a form of marriage
The sauce she is my wife
Wether  slightly buzzed
And connected
Or too arseholed to think
We see the city on the hill
As where we go to drink.

I haven't been employed for awhile
Im a bit fuzzy
My minds turned to mush
Feel somewhat  infantile
No problems to solve
No knobheads to handle
No battles to win
No angles to wangle
Hidden in plain sight
Behind this chain link fence
Nothing to do
Nowt calls me hence
When common care
Causes all to twist and ****
I'll stare at the  wall
While the world is at work.

It's tough having  a bet on the new Pope
So few know the runners and riders
It's not like getting a tip on the Gold Cup
A sparsity of insiders

At least round here

Though there's no shortage of followers
The intricacies of conclave politics
Amount to insider trading
Could they go to Africa
Or the rar east
The home team
Must be leaning and persuading

Maybe ***** to the rules
Gender swap the role
Like they do these days in the movies
Get a lass on the throne
Resize the fisherman's ring
Perhaps everything will be groovy.

Well no one really
It seemed like you was like
Really needing
Someone to **** with
And **** on your dreams
Cos me myself I've
Done ***** all with my life
You seemed in need
Of a conversational spike.

Woke up still drunk
Saw the chaddies last night
Ain't seen them boys for awhile
But they was there
In the neon light
Of the bar sign
Of that new gaff
That is called the black cat
Christie had gone bald
I had gone fat
Their Spanish cousin Miguel
Looked disgusted that
Me and Milney
Had been out all day
The margheritas were on offer
What more can I say
He's an respected man
International architect
But we bullied and coerced him to get completely wrecked
And then it was over
Woke up fully clothed
Chugged down a black coffee
My brain felt exposed
Then perceived in the distance
A rumble I could not believe
Who'd be a bin man
On Christmas Eve?

I knew a spiv
His was called walker
His first name wasn't Andy
That good old boy
Was nothing but dandy
This man a corker
Every meeting a con
And there was a war on
While Mainwaring fumed
Morality he eschewed
As he pedalled his wares
Double standards accrued
Jones the the Meat
Subserviently concured.

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.

I have a lot of difficulty with physical intimacy
A friend suggested a book called how to hug
Turns out it was the fifth volume
Of the expanded Oxford English Dictionary.

I've fallen asleep
At the back of the class.

When you move in together
You both bring all your ****
And nobody wants
To surrender not even
Just a bit
So you double up on lamps
And stereos and mugs
But the worst offender Is cutlery
Those stainless steel thugs
And the worst o the worst
Is of course the spoon
Cos there's Several sizes
Applications and soon
When combined together
Both hers and yours
They take up the full drawer
A redundancy of course
And  when youse part
As is written in the runes
She'll leave the ******* with you
Cos
Women
Have
No
Interest
In
Spoons.

The oceans know
What goes on
Upon land
And we're  told often enough
That's not true
On the other hand

We know more about the surface of the the moon

Well of course we do
It's much smaller
And there's no water
To add to the gloom

But you've got to wonder
What's down there
Biding it's time
Monitoring the air.