She is like an indie film played backwards, just a bunch of beautiful pictures.
And her eyes roll like rizla between the italian mans fingers.
She smokes with pouted lips, as if ready to kiss her lover.
She looks the same when he pulls on her hair and glides his tongue over the skin of her neck.
And she smiles the same smile when his teeth graize her *******.
Her eyes also roll when his hands hold onto her waist and she remembers the lipstick stain she left on the end of her cigarette.
She leaves the same stain on the rim of his .... forefinger.
‘I don’t know why I like you so much.’ He whispers into her curls.
‘It’s because I remind you of hash and tobacco.’ She replies.

If the Scots
get independence
will we get better ****?

I'd vote for that.

Maybe the 'silent majority' are like ...

hospitals, schools, fish,
whisky, natural energy
blah blah

The good folk in Scotland
have been drip-fed the
worst **** in history:

coated in chemicals
bath rinsed
molasses
spare car tyre
plastic
flotsam

***
seriously

No wonder -
Bammed (right up)
Givin it
Havin it
Lovin it
is why
bands & DJs
Love to Play:
'up for it'

'Hey MoJo's
share some of
that MTV love'

anything that's called
Council Hash
and accepted as the norm
reeks of class politics;

ah they won't mind
the **** end o that
they're the Scots

The Scottish Government
should embrace
a new Scotland
and the people in it

We want lots of things:
one of which is
better ****.

Crime will drop:
- sniffing car tyres for a hit
- sales of Buckfast
will fund the entire
South East of England.

Scotland could lead the world
in upcycling as
Rizla fails to meet demand.

Our days would be so radically different;

auto flexi time
carbon neutral

trams with comfy seats
systematically
mathematically
go faster
than walking:
a mode of choice

I'd vote for that

...

I don't take sleeping pills
I drink a glass of wine
I smack my arm and fill my veins
just to pass the time

And then I'm rolling down the hills
and then I roll a joint
a smile is painted on my face
for a life without a point

I ****** by an empty fireplace
and she was cold and ill
she cried that she would catch her death
so I burnt my heating bill

I ring up all my women
write letters to my men
invite them all into my bed
then make them leave again

I go out every Saturday
for whiskey and motel *****
sometimes scotch and virgins
who weep when I give them up

When I'm dry on rizla leaves
I'll smoke Corinthians 4-7
because I don't know of any love
to get me into heaven

******* keeps me up at night
but I get off on pressure
soon I'll be back for my ***** queen
and my life of simple pleasure

Teatime done with
I went with Helen
across the bomb site
off Meadow Row

and crossed
the New Kent Road
to the ABC cinema
and along side

the dark alleys
dim lights
damp stink
she just behind me

clutching her doll
Battered Betty
by one arm
was that a rat?

she half said
and screamed
could be
I said

you see
them at night
down here
she clutched my arm

with her free hand
Battered Betty
swaying behind her
what we looking for?

she asked
cigarette ends
I said
why?

What do you
want them for?
she asked
make up a smoke

with Rizla *** papers
I said
you smoke
old tobacco?

she said
put it
in your mouth?
If I get

enough tobacco
sure
I said
looking around

the ground
yuk
she said
sometimes

I find dropped coins
I found a cuff link once
silver it was
but one

ain't much good
unless you're
a one armed man
I said

does your mum know
you smoke?
God no
I said

she has enough
to worry about
without me
adding to it

she frowned
clutched my arm tighter
well you shouldn't smoke
she said

you're only 9 like me
and I would never smoke
and our children
when we have them

won't smoke either
she said
she looked
at Battered Betty steely

I pushed her words
and images
out of my mind
for the moment

I saw a semi-smoked
Senior Service
on the ground
by the wall

and stooped
to pick it up
it's got lipstick on it
Helen said distastefully

it's has a woman's
spittle inside
I looked at her
disapproving gaze

and threw it away
yes you're right
I said
men's spittle's best

she frowned darkly
ok
I said
not really

I just jest
another time maybe
I thought
taking her deeper

into the dark
and rats
and damp stink
of drains

remembering it all
it sinking
into my
9 year brain.

It started well, so cleanly
Soaked in Lush stuff she soothed the aches
Whilst wife was meanwhile cooking a treat
Cider soaked pork and apples
The taste was tremendous
Precedent set for the night ahead

Feeling cool as ganstas we bopped and grinded
To hip-hop only Jurassic 5 could please me with
We were few female amongst a crowd of masculinity
And we relished the imbalance
Flirting my way to the front of the bar
I reignited my relationship with the favourite Jaegar-Bomb
And there dust settled upon the cleanliness

Things turned hazy but in a good way
Post gig we flooded onto the streets of Brixton
And drank the finest foreign beers from an overflowing alehouse
The company was our long-missed men-friends
And yet we still meeting more
As we shared the ingredients to ***** our lungs
They asked for 50 shades of grey in return for rizla
So I rose to the challenge in my half-cut state

This time is was always my intention to wash the weekend down wildly
And starting Thursday this premature session could progress to only place
…the Queens Head
Where dust turned to grime as snapshots of evidence
Prove it was on the credit card that those Jaegar-Bombs were paid
Time and time again
We had become team-mates and it was time I fed them
So we muddled back to my place
Trumpeting our voices through the building
As I served slow roasted pork from glasses
Apparently felt good choice
But next day our melted fingerprints disagree
Our heads also disagree with the antics
And it takes two rounds of tablets to numb the pain

Before later forcing recovery as in Shoreditch we start again
Gathered at Bettys we watched music played
Our rumps rested on armchairs upon the pavement
We continued drinking until the early hours of the day
Then searched for somewhere to take us on the dance floor longer
After only brief grimes of movement and Jaegar
Our night ended abruptly to our dismay
Instead had my first take of kebab
And went north where *** took the night away

Once again woke next morn in bed with man-friend
No memory but surely not in a **** way
Now the skies ******* a mocking mirror of our livers
It seemed a sign to sink further
And the finest ****** Mary led the way
And together sat on sofas we philosophised subjects that we deemed great
Then we ogled sparkly get ups
With prices that we couldn’t afford to pay
So went south to join more friends whose film we met to celebrate

The beginning of the end of madness
Needed cocktails-all we could tolerate
We had formed a tribe of friendship
And we hunted somewhere to prolong the rave
By now all sense of cleanliness long-time washed away
So a downstairs dive provided venue fit for our friendships to extenuate

Then outside met a generous stranger
Who offered tastings that lead our minds astray
Our insides dirtied beyond belief
But sprits high so when we stumbled upon a private party
We were welcome guests to join their birthday

What happened next I needn’t say
For inevitably it had become Sunday
So ***** now we were beyond grey
In wife’s bed I lay
Whilst my insides showed their dismay

This would take some cleaning

She rolls the paper
with a kind of ease:
like a silk dress falling
on the eve of her skin;

or the delicate sips
taken from her glass,
delicately held between
curled spread fingers.

Then maybe as tongue
presses to the lining,
it looks as though
rice-paper become lips

her kisses sealing
this tube filament
mantled in her smile,
lighting up the room.

Beasts feasting on prey... dishing on the words of Kings who wouldn’t fall to their knees and obey. I could almost hear their young play, as the mother watches with a haunted conscious of a young Fay. Come hither, and perhaps stretch your hands and catch a fire in a desired rizla, coz come winter, these words could be just as banned and burned by some sinner. A barefoot impaired but reaching for that stepping stone far from a mile, where manhood is shred but brothers keep breaching and stretching jail bars to a smile. Singing psalms of liberation in the blazing Sun of the plantations, stone-bashing patience and building railway stations never brought any justice or emancipation to the nation. Hence, Brothers found sense in taking a chance for the people, using pens from bribed fences illegal, and the library as a class for lessons of the Eagle. Unseen revolutionary pages and books smuggled through visitations, vice or versa... Brothers battered to solitary cages for sharing books of the struggle through imitations, Life of a hustler. Many of them died, because many others spied for the other side, despite loyalty. I guess with every Field Hero outside comes a yield ***** inside royalty. Retrospect, read and see what Malcolm reprimanded fallacy like the Big Six for, then introspect your creed and if you believe, welcome this reminded policy like the 46664...

The mess we leave,
We make our mark
Upon this place
Where we've been left.

The clatter the clutter,
The bits and bobs,
A crumbled leaf,
An empty box

Poured into all
These little things:
The passage of
Our life laid bare.

I have measured my life
In rizla packs and coffee cups,
Worn out soles and washing up;
Empty vessels filled by my touch

Transfigured, transformed
I watch them turn
Into players on a stage,
Into words on a page

But these objects have been touched before
In a life they lived, back when
Once they sang another's song
And soon they'll sing again

Unplanned symphonies composed
By the dragging of our toes

The soles of our feet
Are honest poets
Our footprints:
Their most sincere verse.

Heavy bearing the day in the city of distress,
getting back to my place, in my head there's a mess,
tough to go to sleep, so I stick to my flask,
close up a rizla and take care of my skunk.

Every one racing up - for their personal clap-clap,
running through busy streets with no time to ghasp,
pale and invisible - modern day ghost.
City of kebabs vs beans on toast.

Sunshine's not much more than a shadow from the past,
people puking on toga on a late night bus,
need the medicine - to stop living in a rush,
in this massive brain-washing our life's running past.

I remember the food, I remember the taste,
I remember the beach and I wanna reframe,
I remember the nature, I'm afraid I'll forget,
I remember my life but there's no time for that.

---

9-to-5 ghospel, first-world rap, call it that,
blues for who's got answers, money for the rich ****.
I've no real complain, but it rains over my reason,
living in the city that's got only one season.

I need clearing up, fresh air from this prison,
needa breath something that don't smell like poison,
needa look outside at the end of the day,
and know that there is something beyond the grey.

Been staring for hours at an off-licence shelf,
browsing for nothing, maybe looking for myself,
lobotomised by the lifeless lights,
the only noise: the cars outside.

Nothing and everything - just floating around
a party on a boat, a rave underground,
the late night workers, the drop of a pound,
every night is the longest, every day passes by.

Lot of money goes wasted but nothing to buy,
This city is the woman that I'll never betray.
This city commands, you shut up and obey.
This city is the white, the black and the grey.

Reflecting on directions taken
shadows floating in the glass
scribbling notes on Rizla paper
this like everything will pass.

rolling a tulip.
gone.
eyes soft. heads nod.

walls of alabaster layered cave
hazy bodies litter rave.

i am folded: foldin rizla blue
first a pocket by lick the glue.

toast some bensons
add in some resin.

filled and build over tube.
sweet trick, the petal, dude.

small tribe makes the ground
that the tulip travels around

She throws me a kiss like she's blowing out candles.

I smoke long into the night,
there's a party at Everley mansions,
tensions
recriminations
which we'll blame on the *****.

She
flickers like lightning and strikes
I lick the Rizla and build
a new smoke,, looking
long into the candle light
waiting for the day.

You think you've given and you have in part,
but only of money and not of your heart.

Go home to forget them
move that frame made of lead then
and keep your tin man deep inside.

At the hostel
down in Harlem
there is hope and
despair,

things are equal here
where hearts are shared
with tins of beer
and rizla rolling paper

and the evening tapers to
a sharp end
someone coughing in
the West End
and someone coming to
a dead end

but you think you've given
and go on as it were
living
until you don't or if you
did you think you won't
make the same mistakes

all it takes,
a heart that breaks
a tiny bit
gives a little bit
and
all it takes comes
to an end.

time to spend a bit of love
on some time
with some other .

I want to be the one creative writer
that sees behind the picture cards
and cuts his teeth on
shards of glass,

the one to pass between the
living and the not so fortunate
I want to be the ante natal scan
I want to see the man I am before I'm born
want and feed upon the first rays of the dawn
before the dawn of time
and be the ink of every line I ever wrote.

Imagining is taken down in
every lonely postcard town,
wish you were here
with rizla and two tins of beer.

My story is without repent
The green of new growth
Puts joy in my otherwise
Dead soul .
The dandelion that serves
Our servants, gets cuts down with haste
It serves us well
Hopefully no ****** beds .

The smell of fresh cut grass sure is nice .
But the  little fellows , the beasties are our rice , no lovely coloured trouperdour , with silver rizla thin wings  ,

Lost souls that we still have to celebrate
Never forgotten,  there waiting in the fly like wings , the curtain open , your with us again

The writing was on the wall
until the council got the call
and sent the anti-graffiti squad,
and now
God knows what it said.

I wrote my love letters on Rizla's and watched the smoke from them rise with something akin to tears in my eyes,
now what?

to hell with 'em
I'll scribe my love on sheets of vellum,
let the animal rights man
have sleepless nights
thinking of how bad I am.

There's a wall in the City
with these words written on it,
'Pity the Poor'
there are several bricks missing
and there's always a dog ******* up against it
,
I'm not sure why it's there
or what its purpose could be,
but I think
it's just a bit of
spray can charity
to make people feel good
about themselves.

I'm slipping away and far too often
jumping through tenses as I used
to jump fences,

the,  and then it eludes me
another line was lost,  
but you never get anything for nothing unless you get told something for nothing which sometimes doesn't mean anything at all.

I'm still thinking about the wall.

Reflecting on directions taken
shadows floating in the glass
scribbling notes on Rizla paper
this
like everything will pass.

Stood at the school gate waiting for your child
The parents mostly chatty but the odd one is overly wild
You know whose kid that is as it's probably that horrible little ####
His twin is almost the same, a litter of 2 gobby runts
And as the saying goes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree
The mother with her roll-up ****, yellow fingertip's, a necessity 
Father on the dole, looking for work, a lie he often pledges 
Smokes cheap baccy, Rizla style, far cry from his Benson and Hedges
Yet they turn up in brand new trainers and all designer clobber
While you struggle day to day and wondered why you even bother
As the world breeds these people daily and I don't mean to be blunt
But they are what they are and to be seen a mile off
They're just a family of ####'s

JJB