I had put on weight,
I enjoyed life,
I  was optimist,
I was my children's  number one,
My husband had not left me,
Though my beauty was receding.
Didn't have time for beauty parlours,
I decided to sum up myself in the mirror,
Looked at my curves,
None at all,
Looked at my face,
Slight traces of beauty left.
Needed a face lift,
Smile still **** and beautiful,
Hair, high time I went to a good hairstylist.
I turned this way and that way,
I was no more stylish,
I was fading.
Tears welled up in my eyes,
I heard a chorus from behind me,
"BEST CREATION FROM GOD"
My three children and husband
gathered around me for a family hug,
We love you as you are,
Nothing More Nothing Less.

Rugby, Warwickshire
16/10/2015

Unholy streets of G-d, liquid tobacco,
gentle froth and steam
from the coffee estuary, split beneath the clock tower
on the idle hour; more pigeons than people,
more buildigs than choices
on this small-town, charity shop parade.

The women are still beautiful, still unattainable,
still on the brink of a breakdown
in the most confident dress.
Street-pastors carry the drunks home,
the street-cleaners appear by the afterparty,
clear out the old bottles
before the commuter picks up cigarettes
from the newsagents that never rests.

Tattoo parlours, barber shops,
Christmas on the radio come Hallowe'en-
this is the town that crazy built:
war-time poetry, jet propulsion,
chief inventor of sport,
of mild alcohol addiciton.

There's hundreds of places to get drunk in this town,
hundreds of places to hide away;
a foreign face in a sea of family and friends.
Landlocked, gridlocked,
centrally located but left out on a limb;
this town clings to the tracks,
it's avenues of escape
the only margin to keep the residents
out of mind and in their place.

But this is where I grew up,
always more car-park than parkland,
my first steps on Campbell Street,
on Armstrong Close,
first time I broke the law on Bridget Street,
on Selborne Road.
I'd push my bike all around this town,
no stopping off for a smoke,
for to get my fix-
I'd push on and on past graveyards and open bars
without a second gance.

Now, it's all shooters and soul-singers
and happenstance;
chicken wings on a late-night binge,
a box of wine, a night of sin,
wake up in shame,
life's a guessing game
and guess what, you'll never win.

Chewing gum, patches,
vapour that scratches the back of my throat,
nicotine in my blood,
you know, I'm trying my best to get clean.
Blister packs of vitamins, bowls of fruit,
buying coconut water over the counter-
green tea by the rising moon,
incense sticks and vegetables in the garden,
yet by the time night rolls on by
the locus of my eyes, they darken;
I'll be back on the beer,
I'll be smoking a carton.

This is the town that crazy built,
even the flowers by the roadside wilt,
cement factory, hum-drum poverty,
post-code belonging to Coventry,
kept out of the war
by a matter of minutes,
kept from the future
by corporate interest.

Hospital lights, supermarket glow,
I can't remember the last time
I wasn't loaded with chemicals
every time I get home,
every time I sign out
and put my head on the pillow,
I see familiar streets, familiar signs,
the job centre, the floodlights,
the 12% lager, the twist of lime.
I struggle with rhyme,
I struggle most days to get out of the house,
but at night, I know, that sea of doubt
is a river of light, to ruin my liver,
to spike my fever, to calm me down.

There's hundreds of places to get drunk in this town,
and this world it don't spin,
it just throws me around.

-

Why can’t I see past the buildings,
skylines obstructing my view,
collecting on the curb
with doorways and steps
inviting to someone else I suppose

Still I push past,
hugging the shoulder
of a rush hour highway
Staring into windows
as they pass, staring back

Exits signs point at me
but I can’t listen
Their warnings make no difference
in cloverleaf grumblings
and exhaust fume skywriting

One foot in front of the other,
worn converse high tops
gray, the greens are lost
with the sunset that breathes down my neck
reaching for one more moon rise

No rest, still creeping alongside
sleeping 18 wheelers purring
on their asphalt mattresses,
straddling yellow lines
leading to the bathrooms…not a chance

27 miles the sign reads
in reflective lettering calling out to me
It seems like nothing,
compared to what is behind me now…
My life or what it was

But that is no longer my concern,
my future is now 22 miles away
Where your arms are waiting,
holding my future…open, warm
and I begin running faster

Another 10 to go, down main streets
with coffee shops and beauty parlours,
one traffic light and a train station
a kid on a bike delivering newspapers offers me a ride
No need, it’s just around this corner…

On the lawn is a flamingo,
plastic and pink behind a white picket fence
with a gate that creaks and a porch light comes on…
illuminating my dream…as I see you,
it has finally come true

Spent the evening walking nowhere streets
dodging horns and sirens of hungry motorbike taxis.
It was a parade of street-food vendors,
security guards half asleep by bottles of whiskey.
Every woman I passed was beautiful,
laid their *** on the numbered tables
as off-hand as their mobile phone, their purse;
their bored men. Each one had their toenails painted,
wore short skirts and vest tops in the stifling heat.
The best of them wore tight dresses of black or red
and ate their food in the same studious manner
I imagined they would take to the zip of my jeans.

Could feel the sweat roll down my back
kicking gravel out my sandals every ten strides.
The playboys rev their motorbikes
as if it were a talent they had been working on,
a kind of siren song to tempt the free women.
Each one is on the lookout for a bargain.
Each one streaks past to some indiscernible point
where they will bury themselves amongst
the massage parlours, karaoke bars, and short-stay hotels;
Each one a straight-up brothel once you make it through the doors.
I feel too awkward in this ******* town to order a sandwich
let alone try out my second language to ask for a cheap *******.

Every foreigner here had some kind of breakdown.
Some kind of complex that drew them like a moth to flame
to some place where white skin is enough to feign riches,
stimulate desire and place you amongst better men.
We steal a living for a year or two of forever blue skies.
We eat good food and toast ourselves every evening
with cold lager and palm leaf cigarettes.
We cannot read a word in these humid streets
where every single building holds a portrait of the King.
Spent the evening with my shadow, both alive in the night
beneath the heady aroma of cooking oil and street-food spice,
both hurting to become, both slipping out of sight.

you were a reckless tearaway arriving
to take the heat with a debt reckoning
in Sunday skies marked for duckbill clips
of dark filled entries on its balance sheet
a challenging force I felt I had to account for
a raincheck that I wanted to cash in on
before the heavens opened and blew me away
knocking at my door for a riot of rebellious
adult licence needed
love to be let in

you agree we meet outside in the gathering storm
for there's a multitude of conflicts to be resolved
stark contradictions and that's what excites
with you there's upsetting imbalance involved
upending equilibrium with blunt direct questions
and reactions like a Luddite with the mind of a librarian
so that I never quite know where you're coming from
but know the answer is next
written bold on the sheet
which has your signature on
I predict with a scrawl
but that you think
is kinda neat

"throw me every strain of emotion you can pick up"
and you do and your wake never lets me down
propelling a wet film wind machine
should I withstand its crazed delivery?

those sheets of rain that blew in
off the bay
you always try
your best to tear
across
I feel them shooing the air
into my lungs
winding up branches faster and faster
like a toy plane rubber band
dancing in my hair
this way then your way
until it stood on end
scared
to not go on and on
the way of so many plucking ideas
drawn from the spoils
of let's-play-chicken arts
found on the tables of tattoo parlours
when the shades roll down
and pages flick quickly as dices roll out
extremes in exfoliating salon sport
close shaving loose leaves off every hairpin bend
and scratching the bald patch
ever more bold
as if you liked transplanting bulbs
follicles in deep crimson beds
of eye poppy temperatures gone wavering

impossible to ignore in a flash of eye shadow
from a bouncy bobbing weaving
pony tale conductor
keen to take on electric vaults
showing me a pair of high heels
whatever
I ****** at your scurrying reins
my grasp like a wind slipping
through a shake of tussled vanes
black curls of wild abandon
whipped up into a shift dress
in shades of grey flight
centred in misplaced miss red
lipstick outline worn to a fade
over the top of the roots
rushes **** the breeze with pollination
as full on as a full Brazilian headdress
collected from a gazillion dipping flowers
a rainbow opening to shower off
it's end in privacy
high pitched screens

little cover in those shorts of ours
from a summertime blanket of rain
which you turned up to cloud my thighs
always thrown over and folding your way
ace-of-***** cards played torn
and ragged with bare laced love
thrown down with on-the-river sneers
cornered with those winking semi-colon smiles
open ended to point out the end will be fun
but I get your gusting gist in the mean time
determined to wheedle the worst in me out
which looking up is on its way now
and when the lightning will stop dancing
is a rough reckoning I'm not ready to say
but in the eye of this exciting storm
it's clear
not tissues not anything
need wipe these slate skies clean
from our trail blaze
my tearaway

Never mind steel,
We are creating new materials,
Carbon nano-tubes, poly-ceramics,

Twirl a ball above your head, we are
Building elevators into space,
Stringing massage parlours around the earth,

We are engineering ourselves,
Computer worlds and,
Selling real estate, we

Are leaving the old people,
Behind,
Stained curtains and they are,

Walking into forests,
In Japan.

He left with the passing time
no farewells offered
no heartfelt backward glance
his footfalls ticking seconds
echoing in the Sunday parlours of the righteous he despised

He left with the passing time
no one mourned,no tears were shed
His sacred, bleeding heart
now but a tattooed image
on the chests of the dejected

He left with the passing time
on whispers of myths
and suspected tall tales
doubting his own truth
despising the lie of his creation

He left with the passing time
while pious mice sang of his glory
behind the battlements of faith
as the wars of the wicked raged in his name

He left with the passing time
while mothers wailed at shaken babes
and the disappeared sang from **** choked graves

He left with the passing time
as society shunned his brand
and drunken feet  danced lasciviously on his moral high ground

He left, with the passing time...

The sun sempiternal shepherds its flock life-longly. Repetition be its brother, night be its foe. As regurgitation fumes, funneling heinous broth of decay and hostility, the tedium drips ashore, clenching its claws, raising the congregation of lunatics hellwards and in a moment of inseparable divisionism, bursts out loud, hardening the ground with desecration. Outbegotten and throughbrought, the once ****** ******* feral sons to the demented deity all above and none below, in turning, swirling and the ever-prying agony, facilitate themselves a house atop a hill. After the cacophony concludes, The Fool finds himself standing, thrice woven, wolfmeadow thrown, fistlike tenacity hit, once beholden to each beast of coppered glow. Up he reaches, but finding nought and disillusioned with disinterest he breaks down in acid tears and horrid shrieks for mercy. The inward calibre reciprocates and bursts out a tubular noise of contradiction. In all still-standing, the Queen, she of the all-overseeing, turns to The Fool and parlours him a wisdom: "I am unto you as a universe is unto itself. I am within you as this earth is within me. I am you and you I shall stay. And when you at once turn dust-wards, I shall, bereft but forthlooking, beget you again." Aghast with sudden agonising fragility and from the cosmic incantation a ghost arisen, The Fool in all his momentarily found glory and happiness conjectures himself a vessel to venture upon. What he once missed he now resides in. He found it and now he rejoices. To Youth, at long once and at once forever.

There were thousands and thousands o'kids
Pushed down pits or stamped out in t'mills
Mekin theer bids fer freedom.
Aye...from the drudgery and slavery of serfdom.

Now I realise..all that they got was a sub standard plot..
..and two penny's to cover...their poor dead eyes
And in the parlours Ma cries.

It was the minimum rate from which..
..we still cannot escape.
The rasping and grasping maws..
..the jaws that still trap us in poverty and penury
It's time for the judiciary to alter the law
To give poor people more.
What the **** are they waiting for?
A return to the old ways..
..back to the old days?

I wait for the answer but suspect I won't hear
And wonder what year this can be
Or even what century.

England lies below the ground
Chiselled out of diamond,
Blackened halls where men would dance
On floors of obsidian, twice removed from the stars.
Parlours made of coal.
Where man and beast alike would toil
Birth would grant them pigment
But birth’s decision was in vain,
When the sun began to fall, they would arise, of colour all the same.
Nowadays the men walk free;
Above
Drink pints in the morning, offer empty yells,
To that guy who came here to escape the shells,
To the girl who arrived here with three degrees,
And now scrubs floors down on her knees,
To the guy who works for minimum wage,
He could be writing upon this very page.
Spirit crushed under coal when the mines closed down
Now England lies below the ground.

In Albion’s realm, where misty moors do lie,
‘Neath ancient oak and silver sky,
A question stirs in hearts so deep,
A debate where souls and morals meet.

In halls of law and homes alike,
Where whispers rise and thoughts take flight,
Assisted dying’s call is heard,
In hushed tones and measured word.

Through corridors of time we trace,
From Hippocratic oaths to modern grace,
A journey long, both fierce and bright,
Through shadows cast by life’s last light.

In England’s green and pleasant land,
Where life and death do hand in hand,
A plea for mercy, calm and kind,
In final moments, peace to find.

For those who suffer, bodies frail,
With voices weak and faces pale,
A choice they seek, with dignity,
To end their pain, to set them free.

Yet in this isle of storied past,
Where traditions hold and shadows cast,
A struggle brews, both old and new,
Of ethics deep and justice true.

The lawmakers and healers stand,
With heavy hearts and steady hand,
To ponder laws and futures bright,
In sleepless thoughts through endless night.

For some do fear a slippery *****,
Where lives are weighed with loss of hope,
And others see compassion’s glow,
In helping those who wish to go.

Within the courts, the voices blend,
Of those who seek life’s gentle end,
And those who guard with fervent plea,
The sanctity of life’s decree.

In parlours warm and hospital halls,
The echoes rise of earnest calls,
For choice and freedom, calm and clear,
To face the end without the fear.

Yet also rings the cautioned cry,
Of hasty laws and who decide,
For life’s great gift, both pure and bright,
Must not be dimmed in darkest night.

Oh Albion, with heart so fair,
In this debate, take utmost care,
For every life, a tale profound,
In every heart, a sacred ground.

So let the voices blend as one,
In search of wisdom, never done,
To find a path both just and true,
In shadows cast by life’s last view.

Through trials hard and thoughts so deep,
In sleepless nights and dreams that keep,
May mercy guide, with steady hand,
In life’s great arc, from birth to sand.

Oh, Heavenly Father, light our way,
With wisdom’s glow, both night and day,
Grant us the grace to choose what’s right,
In shadows cast by life’s last light.

In Albion’s realm, where misty moors do lie,
May wisdom reign and spirits fly,
For in this choice, both grave and bright,
Lies the soul of mercy’s light.

The city
illuminated
by neon lights

Busy souls
electrify the shops
and parlours

Rows of cars
line the streets
their headlights glow

Walk down the
sidewalk and see
people drunk on love
and *****

We're waiting for the green light

We're ready to go

With a little tightening round the waist the skinny day comes out to taste the fatness of the light
I am in sight of something great but I'm hungry ,cannot wait
so I make my move too soon
and am swallowed in the craters of a Moon so cold
so very,very old with its yellow hardened crust that would lead me into desperation with gnarled hands and beard and face as red as any rust turned into dust
I would become
the dying of a dying sun
no matter fat or thin or if I wore a belt or braces
the many faces I would see
would only ever face the end of me.

I try to modify this future that only I can see by praying to a God I can't and never did
I wonder if that God is hid among the craters on the Moon and was it that he made his move too soon?
If so,
we'll have much to muse upon as we wonder where our lives have gone
and would he tell me how to live or would he give a eulogy
prepare me for that long journey?

I've come ten million stars through another thousand corner half lit bars where girls would sell me ballerina dreams that danced for me on spotlight screens and how could everything that seemed so real
be whisked away?

The spinning wheel came to a stop and zero popped up on the marker board where rich men ****** their eminence
and all pretence was stripped away.
Any other day the Lords that lorded over us would break up parliaments and owls would hoot and say
Wit and to whom would we deliver it?

A bit of eccentricity electric elementary educationalists get me fired up again as if I ever learned from them old men with old ideas whose only thoughts were to get young men up off their rears and into wars
more ****** who sold a bill of lading to trading partners who shot us down in front room parlours on council housing states of minds.

A kind of beauty in this fractured glass where through osmosis I can pass but not pass away only into some other uneventful day.
I lay my tortures on your brow
you know how to soothe this pain
before I go off scale again and read a riot act to those, where those who have lain their lives in ***** fields and barn houses full of hay
would have me say,
that we should not have to live this way.

In the craters on the Moon
I see that all is all too soon and will always be
another eulogy is read
for the dead undead who do not know
that here is where we are
there's nowhere left to go.

in the house of bumbling,
frogs jump sidways
to avoid the talk
tense
with the things
unspoken....

in the house of bumbling
birds mime joy in silent cages
waiting for  life to smile...

in the house of bumbling
ants march in straight lines
hugging the walls
leaving poisoned crumbs
behind...

in the house of bumbling
the lizards no longer lounge
but busily repetitively clean
the cowebbed dark corners

in the house of bumbling
spiders have no parlours
****** no flies
they now knit cardigans
and read the words
of the wise


oh the house of bumbling
is a place of curious wondering
and sometimes is found
stumbling
in the reccesses of my mind

where and whence
it goes
when not residing with me
i do not know...

perhaps you may have
the delight
of the house of bumbling
staying the night
and removing the seriousness
of the plight

the one in which
you fight boredom
in the dark reaches
of the lonely night....

Something knocking
one time dead,
something knocking
in my head.

My eyes open wide and that
something slides inside
and the knock, knock,
knocking fades away and then
it dies.

Baby cries deep in the crib
Mother cradles one more nib
and Father writes of sights
he's seen.

King of parlours, Queen of hearts,
no matter who
the knocking starts,
knock, knock, knocking,
baby rocking,
eyes tight shut
but
the knocking
waits.

So you stared at the hourglass and counted
For all that it was worth, for every grain that fell
What exactly are you trying to achieve?

Drunken nights and empty parlours
Bottomless glasses and dusted shelves
you look in the mirror and see what bloodshot eyes can see
blurred lines and skewed vision from your lack of depth and ability to perceive

You watch the clock make it’s way around once then again
More like you’re on a boat in the middle of the sea
lost at will and on course to the places you’ve never been
And the places you least wanted to be

Live inside the walls of your mind
They’ve carved you out so well you could be a pumpkin on All Hallows Eve
Everything that used to be a part of you was simply tossed out the window to feed the starving crows

I see that your heart is bleeding again but no amount of gauze will swallow the pain
You can stare at the mirror for hours trying to love the parts of you that you hate

But they’ll never see the rotten parts of you that you see so clearly

The walls are closing in again


Don’t lose hope


                               Don’t lose hope



                                                         ­      Don’t lose hope

(m.e.)

There upon the foamy waters
boats rock with silent ease
all about reflects the sky
forget me not blue
stretches the miles.
Hushed I watch the majesty
of simple lives
Under the toil of the sun
boatmen sing their nets ashore
shimmering with life
as though the dawn itself were caught
within
a single bell, chimes skylark sweet
keeping time with the rhythm of all.
Calling home calloused hands
to pretty parlours
where rest and the devil take hold.

The Twilight Zone
In the nearest town and close to all amenities
such as hospitals and funeral parlours my wife
and went to look at an elderly people’s hotel
where people of a certain age get a small flat to
live in, yet it has a café for the social evening with
where young ladies who have gone to university
and studied geriatrics, sing and give the recital of
something suitable not to offend and often
a priest comes around and talks about Jesus.

Sunny Lodge the place was called, and we thanked
the manager we should think about it and was given
brochures to read. Driving home my wife cried, she
has a daughter who is no quite there I have no offspring
we decided to live in our cottage as long as possible
egoistically, I hoped to die before her it would save me
the funeral and sorting out and throwing away my private
collections of bleakly second-grade poetry, blowing in
the dusty wind of forgotten time.

My environment raised me to fantasize
and romanticize fairytale plots
Constantly told Everyones special, but if
everyone’s special, is special... not

told violence isn’t the answer, but grown men start wars, told its childish to fully
Manipulate and intimidate at school...
like adult workplaces don’t have bullies

My lack of contentment and resentment
are petty and petulant, so I’ll recant it
but impossible expectations make failure an inevitable feeling as disenchantment

comes from being sold magic and gold dreams were told to chase and harbour
but reality showed the fallacy, cuz the only happy endings are in massage parlours

Cuz maturation, brings lacerations
a mental state knowing only ******* for self exploration, so complications
with my identity caused me exasperation

so my child will learn of the wild waitin
Nothing inhumane, just rationalization
No Unrealistic imagery, or idealistic epiphany, just realizations


Instead of illusions most institutions
that directly rooted, or Alluded
Being intoxicated left toxic hatred,  
I got from the delusive undiluted

Euphoric delusion, an intrusion conducive  
with ecstasy come downs, now habitual
feeling missed opportunities residual
like manifestation of the metaphysical

actually exists, it insists, a ritual
a nagging cyst that sits, subliminal
like a psyches itch, that persists, and only exists, cuz I can’t resist, being miserable

but what is emphatically unequivocal
makes me combatively typical
Like my psychosis births mitosis roaches
that are magically cynical

like an angry lucky charms leprechaun who’s going insane, way passed clinical cuz I’m too myopic to see this topic,
making me neurotic, isn’t the typical

response cuz logic isnt the pinnacle
when trying to ration what is invisible
and take the hypothetically and try to remedy, what’s not theoretically divisible

So I’m left where I began, remaining
Knowing my complaining, is draining
Partially wishing, for the convincing
the world is beautiful, the painting

I use to see when faith in humans
and in destiny, still arresting me
instead of seeing how dark and cold it is, unable to ignore the unpleasantry

life isn’t all jewels and sparkling glitter
Happy thoughts & rainbows  and that
Doesn’t change earths mean maggots
Like jean jackets bedazzled, it’s still crap