I heart Blackpool, engraved tankards
Little old men & full kit wankers.
Bracing wind with rain & sleet
******* blowing in the street.
In Blackpool.

Kiss me quick & squeeze me slow.
Madame Tussauds, pier-end show
Grubby track-suits, baseball caps
Homeless people search for scraps.
In Blackpool.

Sun and rain, blue & grey.
All four seasons in one day.
Drug ravaged transients dressed in rags.
Haggard old women smoke their ****.
In Blackpool.

Flashing lights & lots of noise
Flirty girls & drunken boys
Abba tributes, yesterday’s stars,
Rattling trams & clapped out cars.
In Blackpool.

Penny arcades & bingo halls.
Amusement rides & market stalls.
Drag Queens flaunt with macho men.
Stripper seduces drunken hen.
In Blackpool.

Rooms by the hour, rooms by the night.
A £1 burger & a £2 pint
Rolling sea & golden sand.
Lowest life expectancy in the land.
In Blackpool.

Please don’t move to Blackpool
You’ll only waste your time
These are things that I’ve found
To make you change your mind

I spent a year one day in Morecambe
A dreary night in Rhyl
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
And I believe that still

A bunker out in Baghdad
A tent at Calais port
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
The Fylde coasts ugly wart

A cruise ship full of Covid
A plane about to crash
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
It’s ugly & it’s brash.

A cell in Bangkok’s Hilton
Chernobyl’s poisoned land
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
This place I cannot stand

There's a postcard on the mantle.
Where did they get to this time?
Egypt - They're cruising the Nile,
touring temples, pyramids, tombs.

They've come a long way from Blackpool.
They won't see the tower.

Will the pharoahs mind?
There treasures picked millenia ago,
deprived of their worldly needs
for a market in plunder.

Still there won't be a space for my charriot.
I don't expect to cross the Styx
or see Akenaton's face.

Postcards don't give you the smells and sounds,
the moments effect of light and dark,
the lift in spirits as you gaze on each new view,
the urge to closely observe.

Why go to this broken landscape
  to claim you've been there you've lived
  to add the graffiti of your presence to these precise hieroglyphs
  to see an unusual land that's been usual for centuries past?

It's Blackpool by the sea for me.

puff the magic dragon he lived by the sea
in his home in blackpool he just long to be
he liked the golden mile and the golden sand
with his bag of popcorn and an icecream in his hand

he would play with children they all loved him so
building castles in the sand gave there hearts a glow
he did magic tricks to entertain the crowd
when the crowd applauded it mean him very proud

everybody loved him and a mascot he became
then they made a song in honour of his name
puff the magic dragon is what they called the song
when the people heard it they would sing along

Fleetwood was good
but not as good as
Blackpool and her golden mile
Blackpool made us children smile
Fleetwood gave us fish but
Blackpool made us wish the
day would never end.

The Yorkshire Rose, elegantly perched on the bridge
This was not London, or the palace
nor Manchester, where Mancurians are free
nor Blackpool, where the beach swallows
Glasses, towels, mussels clinging to rocks
The Yorkshire rose, drawn upon the bridge
Bullet trains, leading distances
Almost unfathomable in this very spot
Harrogate, bath water
Spilling onto the street in natural sulphuric geysers
Burning
The Yorkshire Rose, fleeting in memory
In ghosts of the abbey nearby

Three artists for effect
a tower to direct the Sun
to paint the mornings when my mum
made breakfast,

now dear mum has gone
the paint has faded
the art struck dumb
the towers crumble one by one
and on and on
we go.

Slice me and running through me you'll find,
printed in italics
the words,

'are we there yet'

and I bet
I'm not the only one that's got this going on or through them.

In the chapel of the glitter ball
in the hall of the dance machine
I am the suburbanite alone, a
dream on a white
horse.

On the steps to the crypt where many
angels have slipped on the wrappings
of condoms,
the silent ****** plays.

The vicars in hobnails prey on those
who travel high trails,
like vultures from the mission and
there's a ****** of churches all flocking
as one to ****** the kindness that once
flashed in the eyes
of his son.

**** them with kindness his Highness demands
but his blindness defeats him and the white horse
will only meet him
half way.

In the chapel of the glitter ball where we
see nothing but the diamonds fall and in
the hall of the dance machine his Highness
becomes the Queen.

It's all alter it now and we'll take refuge somehow
in the flower of the sixties
where 'please please me'
was an anthem for young men.

I can't see, but I think that suburbia's a skating rink
and we are the skaters darting away from the sharks
to be eaten by alligators, or
to be saved at some cost by the one on the cross where each point that he points to
is a station that I've been to.

So I shuffle the view and turn the glitter ball on
and everything's gone
like it used to be
except for me.

.

I survived Cameron and his band of hatchet men

remember when Thatcher took the axe to school milk?

but you ******* voted her in
as smooth as silk
but we see her now as the sows ear she was.

I won't vote for Corbyn
he never went and yet he's already a has been,
never seen that before excepting Jeremy and they named a park after him.

Thorpe.

Once
when I drew a breath in Toxteth
and the carnival was the riot
I got a bit
but that's censored.

Anyway
in Lancaster it's raining although it was cool down in Blackpool with the Duchess and only a slight breeze and a sneeze or two passing by Blackpool zoo.

Goodnight y'all
don't fall asleep
before you've said
your prayers.

Nothing beats being beside the sea
With a stick of Blackpool rock
My only company.

This crock is old
Can hardly unfold the deckchair
"Hey you there..
..young chap..give me a hand" "

"Alright grandad..keep your hair on",
..he replied.

The tide is still out but it's on the turn
I want to sit in the sun
And I still want to burn
Never learn.
I know that it's wrong..
but at my age..anything that lasts for long is a treat.

No.
Nothing beats being beside the sea
Just me on my own
Where the sand is becoming my second home..
..and the seagulls all know me by name.
But still krap on me all the same.
I think it is part of the game that we play.
Sitting and wasting what's left of my life away.

I stay for a while..looking up..looking down the old golden mile
Can't see any gold
Another tale I was told that just wasn't true.
But the sky is real blue and that's worth its weight..
..in diamonds..but I'll stick to my stick of Blackpool rock.
Should have got a sun block..my head's burnt red
Never..never learn
Time for bed.

This contains swearwords!!!!


Do you know what it’s like to be on the dole?
The giro, the social, the rock and roll,
Well I’m tellin you now, that it’s no laff,
No heat or food, round at my gaff,

I can’t pay the bills on fifty three quid,
This is how I live; I’m tellin ye kid,
No Lecky, or water, or comfy bed,
Nowhere to lay my educated head,

You’s think I’m brewsted on state benefit,
Well I’m tellin ye now, life is ****,
No jobs are goin in my town,
This whole ****** country is goin down,

I look every day for a job to do,
Over qualified under qualified, scew you,
I’d brush your path, deliver your dinner,
My options for work get thinner and thinner,

But we get the blame for the country’s debt,
And seen in your eyes as a useless get,
We are not scroungers and living like kings,
We can’t afford the simple things,

We can’t take our kids to Blackpool pier,
Or to the fair, it’s just too dear,
It’s not our fault the system let us down,
Schooling was crap, but I got a cap and gown,

So don’t look at me, like I’m ****,
I’ve bettered meself to get out of this pit,
I’m clever and proud and I stand tall,
I make something out of nothing, coz I’ve got **** all,

You won’t tread us down, yeah that’s right,
We got fire in our bellies and where ready to fight,
We’re not greedy for a fancy lifestyle.
The simple things make us smile,

So quit avin a go, at our worlds apart,
I’m scouse and proud, with a lions heart,
So live well in your mansion, apartment, or detached,
Coz were the generation that Maggie hatched,

Yeah that’s right were Maggie’s crew,
The under privileged, not like you,
Time to step up the Cameron’s and Clegg’s,
Coz you’ve sat long enough on Thatcher’s eggs.

Tina Ford

We flew through
puberty and left a Concorde trail.
A signature of heat,
feats to fete the wonder in and the wondering
of where to begin.

But the Concorde trail tails off
eventually,
and after the screaming noise, of us,
the boys
when silence returns to the body, and it's
only the chimes of the clock that rocks us to sleep,
there is, I find a tiny piece of my mind, where
puberty keeps a notebook

I look at it, cringe,
squeak like the hinge of an old door,
look some more,
it fascinates me
consternates me
makes me laugh and cry,
the trying of and wanting to
and the wonder of wondering who.


The memory of most memorable events are
scorched into and run right through me,like
a stick of Blackpool rock,each name I've known
are written and imprinted on me.

Puberty and what comes next,will in the future,
I am sure be sent in hurried texts by
hurried men,who hurry on to marry wives,
have hurried *** in hurried lives
and after that,
who knows.

Some tell me Blackpool's cool,
so I sit in the cool,
watching a darkening sky,
wrapped against the onshore breeze,
stifling a day's end sigh.

Starlings do maths in the sky,
imaginary numbers,
imaginative paths,
sweeping, forming swarming,
hereditary helix,
genetic genuflection.

Thomas came from the school of hard facts
No Gradgrind, yet, had slipped through its cracks
A Bounderby born saw light in this day
Believing flowers belong outside with the hay

In Louisa G,
Thoughts would flee
It was clear to see
Just not on bended knee

The girl would gaze towards a flame
Far too majestic to tame
And there hours would disappear
As “Fancy” hesitantly slipped near

A circus of thought
Nine oils bought
*****’s distraught
Isolation caught

Her father left home
A sad clown made to roam
Metaphor in a poem
Lost, no need to atone

A foster child of Logic
There’s no need to frolic
Study enveloped her life
While Louisa became a wife

Married and bound to an age differential
That made her hubby seem quite parental

Thomas had begun new work
Money earned, quite the perk
Then it vanished with great haste
Gambled away like simple waste

His sister, Loo, called to bail
Thomas, who had found life stale
Her few possessions drift away
On donations to her brother’s dismay

Time moves on with little give
Debts build like the weight of a fib
Soon Thomas pleads for far too much,
100 dollars, please rush

Louisa, was completely tapped out
Her brother had broken an ever-flowing spout
He used every penny of the girl’s love
Then drifted, like a fleeting dove.

Her husband, Josiah, sat none the wiser,
Cuddled by the facts of a rude little miser
Then came a parliamentary heart of house,
James snuck in quiet as a mouse.

Mr. Harthouse was a man of great esteem
He came to Coketown on track-lines powered by steam
There he met the wife of a cold little man
And his pursuit of affection began

Lousia had no need for affection
Or for that matter unwanted attention
Yet, as Thomas fell
She thought the notion seemed quite swell

Conversations began with ease
Mr. Harthouse was certainly no ******
Operated amongst the ideas of her school
And even sat earnestly while listening to Stephen Blackpool

…

A servant to no deviant will
And master of a mere peasant’s skill
Stephan spoke in broken phrase
Sentences flowed like a tainted maze

A public speaker the man was not
Still, in front of many, he unraveled a plot
The man spoke with flagrant passion
But, it drifted off in latent fashion

The entirety a man stood casting doubt
Blockading the meager man’s route
Stephan carried on until all was lost
His employment in fact the first major cost.


...unfinished :(

You. You engulfe me. Over and over and over.

Relentless. Little weapon. Poxy.

Maureen of Blackpool. Readers' Wife of the Year 1988. Wife of the Year. 100% correct.

Goodbye sweet princess. The 4 in 1 will no longer taste of pure Korma. But

Jalfrezi

Here they come to seek a symbol
of seaside sun - a cruise ship
castaway, beached,rain stained,
landlubbers hamock and griddle.

But first they collapse me and curse me.
Doing it properly should be
part of their curriculum vitae,
a test of nationality.

Then I'm candy flossed, ice creamed, Blackpool
rocked, salted and crisped, generally stuffed,
while they lie back, roast and relax.
Good job it's not a nudist beach.

In a Ford escort you can get on the motorway and let your self free
In a Ford escort you can paint it black or red or even blue like the sea
In a Ford escort travelling to Wales is a whole different country
In a Ford escort my dad drives it like it's a Capri
In a Ford escort it's easy to get parts for you and for me
In a Ford escort you can fit a big stereo and wake up the street
In a Ford escort you can go to Blackpool and drive on the beach
In a Ford escort you can smoke a cigarette because we have a smelly that looks like a tree
In a Ford escort when you've had enough of the mark 2 you can save up and get the mark 3.

a cult novilist in Blackpool
watches Martina Navratilova
throw sugar lumps
at passers by
as captured teardrops
in a teaspoon
call, plead, for understanding
perhaps release
for they’re not the
obsessive prize
once hailed as trophy
but simply words in the air
that execute that which never comes
causing a retreat from an ordinance
of nothing
where time defiles itself
a red speckled jersey
whose arms, once occupied
are too small, limited
like abandoned prosthetics
leaving rotting flesh
to slowly scald the earth
with a vaporous experience
of emotional contrasts
like that of mesmerising serpents
whose visional embrace
stares deeply with such a charge
of ****** energy
that causes the air to weep
and poses the question
who shall give me leave

Sick as hell I check my phone, messaging into school,
I sigh inside and notice the time, deciding to message you.
The pain falls deep in my body, I type to you in glee,
Crushed, squished, I sit up waiting, stuck in a morning daydream.
Sharp stabs and bubbling insides, lead my fragile mind,
despite the feeling, a childish grin came at your reply.

Your golden personality dripping on me, after whimpering a battle cry,
Ballrooms fill with dancing literature, written in the night by a fool.
Words, movements, gentle touches, make my heartstrings unwind,
Music, intimacy, gifts for you, under a sky of blue.
Child-like fantasies feel trapped inside a tub of Neapolitan ice cream,
My confidence felt numb under a heavy lock until I saw your key.

Cheek caresses and dark chocolate eyes are all I want to see,
Our anxieties scare me, but we’ll overcome it like a butterfly.
Despite it all, it feels wonderful, to meet someone who sees esteem,
Blind ourselves, of achievements we hold, to me you are a jewel.
Your impact, care and self dedication is the reason why my smile grew,
Joyful tears, the pain we’ve known, I know we can finally leave behind.

Gazing downwards, I feel at ease, seeing your name signed,
Touching your handwriting, a piece of you, here beyond the sea.
Ambitions are goals made from our souls, we dream of making come true,
if feeling love is what I feel, I want you to prolong this high.
Colours are bright within our lives and I feel like we could rule,
We spoke in harmony, we spoke in warmth, we watch the pouring stream.

Hardships will fall, sometimes we will but I know we are a team,
We push onwards through the force like a blistering wind.
I promise you, I’ll hold on to you, during this whirlpool,
Life is fun with someone and you mean everything to me.
I’ll dream of you thinking of when I’ll see you come by,
The scent of tea over me, over you, awaiting our breakthrough.

Crying, singing and feeling, It’s all I wish to do,
Learning what’s wrong, doing what’s right, mild to extreme.
We cheer, we laugh and hold hands under this moonbeam,
For your attitude of faith, reminded me that day, to never feel resigned.
Carve your name into mine on the bark of a tree,
Celebrate every moment, kiss me in time, the rush of a joule.

I want your days to be as shiny as the lights, glistening near Blackpool,
It amazes me, that this sheltered dream, could become our reality,
You coat me in romance, I will pay back in kind.

David was born in a dreary wee spot
By the side of the mill in the dabbler's lot
His dad was a dabbler, all his long life
And his mother excelled as a dabbler's wife
When he grew to adulthood they 'prenticed him quick
Til he earned his diploma and dabbling stick

All day he would labour, at this and at that
In the tinkerer's workshop, upright or out flat
But his sunny demeanor was waxing and cracked
As in secret, he yearned for a thing which he lacked
For a life with out borders, impulsive and free
Where he'd live as a dolphin and leap through the sea

His mother had cried when he told of his dream
And his father was dead set against the whole scheme
There were tantrums, rebuttals and guilt trips galore
But young David was stubborn and made for the door
For the safety and warmth of the bus out of town
With a confident furrow entrenched in his frown

He tarried in places with odd sounding names
And confounded the groom of a good many dames
There were taverns and zoos where they'd shoot him on sight
So he took to decamping by cover of night
The journey was arduous, torrid and bleak
But he made it to Blackpool just shy of a week

The pier was bustling, jammed to the brink
But our David was not one to buckle or blink
He charged at the crowd with a deafening wail
They scattered, retreated and showed him their tail
When stood on the edge and admiring the weather
He casually cling-filmed his ankles together

Now hopping along like a fish out of water
He dived to his dream like a lamb to the slaughter
The moral should not be too taxing to spot
Be content with whatever you've currently got
Because sometimes a cloud is just low flying steam
And the universe gives not a crap for your dream

Washed up on the beach with a terminal chill
Lies Delusional David of Dabbler's Hill

I love the British weather especially the sun
But I really can't stand the rain
And I love the smell of fish and chips
It just meddles with my brain

I love the coasts that we possess
Even the Blackpool shore
And to see the way my children play
Makes me love them even more

I love the nitty gritty of politics
Although I'm not to keen on the tories
Their quite happy to cut this and that
Amongst their sordid stories

I love our sporting culture
But I can take or leave the glamorous WAGS
All bling and silly makeup
And the nice Gucci bags

I love our capital London
Especially Leicester Square
Don't understand our Queen though
With her funny little stare

And finally I love the nature
From the Hebrides to John O groats
Where the people are very rural
As they tend to their pigs and goats

Weary eyed shop workers curse the sight of dawn,
A drunken Hen stumbles and her tutu gets torn,
The smell of burning chip fat invades my nose,
‘Chips for breakfast?!’ I cry, chewing marshmallows,
I venture towards the tower feeling free as a bird,
When SPLAT on my shoe lands a seagull ****.
Rough with the smooth - that’s what this town’s all about,
I think as a man pulls his Jokebooks out,
‘It’s for charity!’ he lies. ‘I live here mate..’
‘Oh right, soz love, fancy a date?’’
I ignore the geezer and gaze out to the sea,
Wondering where the Lochness Monster might be..
Soaking up the sights as 2 drunks start to fight,
‘OI’ I shout, as a kid sets a bin alight.
Skaters jump like kangaroos on the bandstand,
As health freaks tut, running rapid on the sand.
Children charge like apes in supersensory mazes,
While parents eye arcades with terror on their faces,
Suddenly crisp packets dance in the air,
As the wind picks up and whips at my hair.
‘It’s hometime for me!’ A hailstone hits my eyeball,
And the blue sky runs behind some grey clouds of storm,
There’s not many places with 4 seasons in a day!
So don’t let the weather throw you into disarray.
‘Blackpool’ I say, ‘a town of stark contrast…’
As a horse driven carriage then a rat stroll past.
A town to make memories no matter how worn,
That time never erases as new ones get born.

Back in Bispham, where the prom’s a bit safer,
The oldies don’t buy 3 Hammers, just pies and papers,
I step off the number 11 bus and shout ‘Thanks!’
The bus driver grunts, takes his hand out his pants,
Then speeds down our beautiful, glistening prom,
Full of lights that probably shouldn’t still be on.

I blew it twice and twice they flew,leaving few upon the stalk to talk to friends,I thought those dandelion days would never end,but the dandelion knew the time,though I did not,and now I have the time my friends are gone,blown along the Summer breezes and as winter freezes man and beast,at least I have the pictures in my mind.

February finds me back there,older now and minus hair which once was long and flowing,I guess I'm showing my age when I speak of daisy chains and sticks of sticky Blackpool rock and yet I look for but cannot find the dandelion clock,perhaps it's locked away in preparation for some other Summers day.

I've got a lot on my mind so can I say my piece?
then I can just kiss my teeth
now I've made my peace
I've got a job, I'm the police;
self righteous justice
If killing time ain't good enough
then well, just **** this

I'm ******* now,
I cook a hand grenade
throw it to a crowd, explosive;
that's my sound
my life is darkness;
like in a shroud
am I too loud for your ears to handle?
Well then lets take a gamble
get the ******* my cloud
I'm shoutin' proud from here to Blackpool

Let's have a party
yeah that's cool, so where's the pedestal?
I'm like a statue frozen in motion
action shot, I'm not posin'
but I'm proposin' if we cut the ****
and get them flows in
and everyone is bouncin'
then we can turn this house in
Inside out,
it's about,
the beat,
the love,
the flow,
that steals,
the show,
if you don't know what I've been told
then I suggest you let it go

"Where is my invite? I think i missed it"
well despite the fright
you may have given yourself
I didn't send one girl, just look at yourself
In this life it's all about perfection
****** protection
affection and nation wide elections

I like to fly so high
in the sky and I do it with pride
I'm not a drugs kind of guy but
happiness is synthesized and if that's a crime
then I guess I'm crooked!
but I'm always lookin' for a way out
so if you won't let me in then I stay out
I feel I'm down and I'm definitely out,
so I guess I should pray now

Then god tells me
life is predicaments and resolutions
promoting solutions and twisting
the truth in constitutions
changing pace in relations
and pretending we never took welfare
out of the equation

Oh, there is light in such places:
The galleries of Soho, the catwalks of Milan,
The boardwalks of Blackpool,
But it exists to flatter, to obfuscate, to tell alluring lies,
A trompe l’oeil of a family picnic
Etched on the wall of an abandoned orphanage,
The siren song crooned by a spider
To the enraptured and wholly credulous fly.

Ah, but the illumination here!
The sun reflecting off the roofs
On those Bob Evans and Shoney’s you would shun,
The starlight backed by a host of owls, a symphony of crickets,
All serving to peel away the layers of artifice and cunning,
To be shucked away like so many cornhusks,
Allowing the secrets of the universe to be whispered to you,
Faintly yet unmistakably, and once moved by these epiphanies
What is to stop you from running along the narrow, unlined streets
And green open spaces in mad, unfashionable celebration,
Exempt from the clucking of the chic and the congnoscenti?