FIVE LEAVES GONE

rude alarm white light.

black and blue moan groan.

 

its day; morning.

cold steel.

flashbulbs cracking.

its not easy

when feeling and drama have all gone away.

time is flatter.

only 3D now.

I move as machine.

I splash cold water on my face in the practical reality of the bathroom.

outside I find things rightly and plainly where I left them.

THIS IS IT

heating pipes 

click in corners/just like last year.

pens in pots 

cast long shadows/plastic pines at dusk.

todays empty quiet sad; this is it . . .

 

mend a bike in the garage full of bins.

just like last year.

and the joint I smoke 

smells of camping/sounds of ripping tent zips.

flash back to gone people; this is it . . .

kitchen radio quiet sitting silent

on a simple chair.

table cluttered 

with classic clutch of kipple/a world of worthy things 

redundant.

I feel old; this is it, I think, this is it . . .

to plan autumn kills brown nature.

death signals and holes 

the air that comes inside

thru open door glass 

smeared 

with 

fat and dust/past piled paper news.

history happened; this is it . . .

TV glass child in soft focus asks me not to smoke

and I yell at him.

yell that he doesn’t know about drugless

ADULT BOREDOM

but hes only a Tshirt government mule.

straight as a die too/straight as dead man.

obviously this is it . . .

obviously too tired 

to cook anything at all.

online fingers order 

a 

flat 

bread 

circle

of carbs and cheese and meats.

life feels like a repeat.

this is it . . .

house tumbleweeds ball up the skirting 

and exposed pipes.

herds of horses stamp hot water around 

with tiny hooves.

living room rug teatime memories

of cards 

and 

TV gameshows 

float on warm iron air.

no progress in evidence for the lino to notice. 

this is it . . .

fly about the house 

arms out

like an aeroplane.

I am drinking now/ignore swelling in my side 

and escaping blood.

delta-wing in the narrow hallway.  this is it . . .

 

bulbs shine on black ink held in wet meniscus walls.

these are symbols I learnt

we all understand them.

I 

have 

become 

base.

this is it . . .

blooming winter roses ignore 

brittle brown death/unpainted fences/TV grey sky.

I am base and conceptual gin

out on the cold 

back step 

again.

forgotten cigarette mashed in a mitt.

this is it . . .

flashback; picked a rose for a girl/found it abandoned 

on the dirty kitchen floor/she’d gone.

its like 

its still 

laying there behind me/dead and a rose/died urban scar.

wish I had seen it fall.  this is it . . .

 

door knocked on/happy faced fucker

delivers my carbo slab.

tiny pizza van 

outside.

OUTLOOK

colours 
all drained out 
another 
flat morning/like its not even a world today


email out of outlook 
at work desk/papers and seeds and mugs and papers


email some comment/some
lower case banter/some questions/some plea


to someone - throw chat into a mirror
throw chat
at
someone ALIVE


i hear about treasure hunt children and i hear about dizziness
i hear about plans and i hear about LIFE
and i imagine the faces

and i imagine the fingers
and
after a while i am no longer crushed by
the 
overwhelming claustrophobic detail
in
all 
things on the world/a world
thats
nearly 
a
world by fag break and biscuit time


and i amazon for trinkets and tat and trousers 
for 
my 
shrinking hips


and i get cool links 
and i get lists of bands
and i make fake fun plans
(all the pain the pills hold back feeling like
clogged
gutters its not time to clean out yet)
and
by
noon
or 
near noon 
or
mafternoon as i keep calling it
some life
pumps
out
me 
too/i blackberry out some words into the
ether
into
the firmament
over
the
fields and the lazy ambulance back lane


(someone calls me about coffee!)


and
by 4 PM i'm easy smiling 
and
effortless talking 
to an old
college
friend
from 20 years ago

NORTH ACRES

hotel carpet wet step morning.

1000 school puppies march

by me. 

i wait sitting there/rain soaks into my trousers.

they got

ipods on/bags slung

and 

a very

young teacher/twice as tall/walks in the talking wake.

spring sun shines on the steel walls

and the white glass

and the working

shoulders 

of 

brick

and

all

the hundreds of red white and blue flags 

flap 

like 

bats off corner stuck sticks

up the acres of thought-straight avenues.

i’m walking north now 

in ice fresh 

blue 

cold.

PULP POME

well, up later than usual
modest place in east town
8 AM
read my detective novel in hot bath drawn from tank in the attic
heated overnight
cigarette smoke mixing with steam.


on green rusting washing pole
cord long gone to coil in the winter border
sits a white dove lit glowing by the low sun,

looks soft,
no hint
of his noisy oils
in the creamy feathers
he ruffles and smooths again.  long shadow of his beak stretching along his back.
he
is
framed in the window perfectly like
in-laws on the mantelpiece.


well, at the back door i light another cigarette 
i wear a damp towel pulled tight
in the draft
another over
my
shoulders.  quiet out there but one man mends his shed roof
bent over behind
the bare trees
higher than fences 
hitting nails in threes.


on the bent aerials monochrome magpies impossibly bright
against
the heavy grey storm clouds
nod and twitch and pace
smaller birds scattered
lost like seeds till shoots sprout
showing themselves again 
in spring.


well, i'm not in west texas anymore . . . are
these
birds
omens i wonder?
this years nearly done with me.  its mistakes and endurance and drool tailing off
like dawn mist on the choppy lakes where the 
small boats creak
waiting.


wel, i decide to decide the birds are omens.  why not?
and
i 
stretch out
on the old bench picking at the weathered peel
and
looking at churches
again.

SILENT CARTOON OF LATER IS

and shopping is;

£2 2 litre cider is

20cl Chekhov £2.95 is

my saddle burr my shopping is

and when 2 squat glasses are stuffed silly with ice

and when I drench them down my one hole mouth

then

in the towel blasted bathroom world

the invisible mirror

gives me a frontage, a final face

staring off behind me

still wary of pm wolves and bears.

and later is;

later is tight-caught like twig thorns in wool sleeves

later is

when I am covered all comfy in sugar soft clothes

when all the black

dust and fluff

cling to them, to me

when watching Touch Of Evil drinking

the b&w human-fat detective,

the film,

gives me story, sunny visible prose.

later is a school-night fish

wet and silent, swum clean.

and when strong solid coffee salvation

is fading like freckles in fierce sun

cheap booze

replaces

my snake pale legs

and monolithic broken loudspeakers

and when they are all staring at me in this pm damp room

without even chill kitchen radio creeping in here.

then I stare

with diamond-tired orbs

at the left space where

once

or twice

suddenly rested and soft and quietly talking

in ninja black or after-work jeans

sat sitting buddha still and bravely smiling

a gentle Irish nurse of candy swearing

small puppy-wet palms

round black-eyed frowns

that disappear like only children

and later is what night is

what mad saddle burr shopping is

and later is

when I know building work is needed here

a fast shoring up

and hasty plastering over

on my ripe empty-bottle husk

 

and later is

when I see my short hot life a slow bakers dough . . .

but!

later also is

when I am only up for total nothing tonight

no prowling art

no human fire

later now is

some reassuring black packet over-the-counter thrill-dull

is

sleeping with no-human-one

to strangle-hug myself to sleep on

with too few pillows allowed for my head on

but later also is

when I suddenly rise from van talk radio

and barge into the brutal fridge again

and later still is where night is

when the jazz silent cartoon on the slab TV

and the loud hipping hep hop out the living stereo

fundamentally CONSPIRE

to trip pop me over

inside the living room rug trap

and

down, slurped onto the carpets floor.

night is what late is;

when I have become colossal, a Character

in a half dreamed film noir,

some blue and incidental fucker

a TV footnote metal on a A4 clipboard

later is

when dream writing a novel on the last booze

when night-shift alone, sick of sunrise

when god-myth glorious

in a rainbow slick oil bubble,

unpaid and acting

is when a rubbish blackout will come.

DAWN KITCHEN

don’t remember where I read the fiery sentence about

HAPPINESS

and

FREEDOM

but it stood out from the dead weeds and boiled rope.

claimed;

HAPPINESS AND FREEDOM

COME FROM KNOWING WHAT YOU WANT

AND KNOWING YOU HAVE THE STRENGTH

TO WORK TOWARDS IT.

I don’t cynically crush this cosy nutshell with a harsh mocking boot heel yet.

now’s not the time to think on this because

the

clocks

have

just

gone

back

an

hour

in their arbitrary way making it 4.24am

and

I am in no condition for hard chrome thinking.

my

eyes

not

ready

for

any

light.

I am nuking microfries because the smell is reassuring

but

the low radio

and

the left wine

and

the codeine calmness

join

dawn’s child’s touch in opening a melting stone.

GODS TERMINAL MASTERPIECE; THE FRONT LINE LIBERATION CORPORATION Part 11

I fire murder down the hillside, windows shatter, the un-killed inside die, as they should.  Do the brittle spastic dance as fast metal took them and shook them.  I slide my featureless muzzle over to cover the doorway and put the rest of the clip in Dickey as he spills out…men, women and children rushing out with guns, terminal and unprepared; lazy minds soon to be freed.  Frontline Special Report is here; a real scoop by Fuck and Jesus!  I put another clip of three hundred in and glance at the Blood Major.  He mumbles under his breath, on one knee, sprays the soldiers caught in the open with screaming metal.  Back in my own optic I see Dickey try to set up a mortar underneath us and point at the ridge excited…barking orders with a silent mouth.  No chance, I thought and I fill them with hot metal…punch great holes through Dickey coughing and jumping in the crossfire as their bones are blown out…mortar falls from lifeless hands; everything as it should be.  I felt flush with good duty, serene and holy with job and work; blood rushing with God in my fingers.

Sudden high crack and whine and my optic is off cutting a great gash across my cheek to the bone.  The discreet lens under the flash eliminator smashed plastic.  I swear loudly and I stand up tall, fearless and arrogant, emptying the clip into their bunkhouse.  Aiming with the crude manual sights, wood splinters and steel clangs and buckles.  Dickey falls and stumbles startled and dies.  My rifle clicks empty as bullets hit around me and I drop my war rifle, feed dead too; useless.   I draw both Officers Nokia Master Blaster’s from my 58 webbing and start to run down the hill teeth gritted, face a sheen of warm blood, keen to die and keen to kill, terminal and livid and running.  ‘Liberate you!’  I am shouting.

‘Fuck yes, Johnson, I’m with you boy!’  And the Blood Major is out in the open covering my charge with a fresh clip of three hundred, green light glows against the dirt on his cheek.

I run low using the land as cover, thirty mercury tipped rounds wait in each hand as surviving Dickey advances in a straggling formation up the hillside his camp burning bright behind him.  The Blood Major cuts them down with short controlled bursts; a textbook cull…and I hit the camp at a manic run blood rushing in my ears, loud as the voice of God.  I enter the nearest hut and open fire with both hands de-personifying the contents to Jesus and Fuck.  ‘Liberate that!’  I yell at the bloody mess on the walls.  I slip one Blaster into its holster, the feed goes dead, and drop a cull bomb as I leave the hut.

I am hit in the gut, happened on the hill, and I jab my thigh with a Medic standing foolish in the open.  I feel a tug at my other thigh and I’m knocked down on one knee firing my guns across the camp and pulling myself into cover of a Dick jeep, leg hit now…find the Blood Major there, knees in the mud, keen eyes looking for the shooter.  I put a field dressing over my bleeding thigh hiding the bone from view; vivid red powers my wrath.  I take some pills and jab another Medic in.

‘You hit Johnson?’

‘Sir.  Twice.’

‘Cock!’

‘Sir.’

The hut blows behind us in a sudden leap of stained wood and tin.

‘Clear.’  I say, the Blood Major puts in another clip of three hundred…grabs the extra pack off my back and takes out two bombs and throws them far across the camp…another hut blows behind us, hot debris dance in the air alive…camp destroyed old testament style…great pictures…must be more…buildings on the other side of the camp near the bridge blow then, must be a magazine, like hell surging up from the ground.

‘That got him, Johnson!’  Says the Blood Major as his arm burst in a red mist up by his shoulder, ‘Maybe fucking not.  Johnson, you cock!’  He takes pills arm hanging loose and I jab his thigh with a Medic.  ‘Johnson, liberate that Dick!’

‘On it sir.’  I see the shooter lying still in the shadow of a blackened tree, caught sight of his muzzle flash as bullets rattle off the jeep; his rifle feed on Dickeys screen giving me a fix.

‘Cover me, sir.’  The Blood Major slaps on a field dressing and says, ‘Go!’ and I’m off out of cover angling for a ditch at the edge of the camp, running low between bodies liberated with quiet eyes.  The Major opens fire, but cries out and the shooter is on me again…bullets chasing me and catching up, tearing my back open to my ribs…I dive in the ditch panting and, letting my blood drip, take more pills, crunching them viciously between my teeth.  I can hear the Major swearing and risk a glance across the stained dirt…the shooter has him pinned down bullets pinging off the jeep like big hail.  I’m up and running low firing both guns…taking two in the stomach knocking me off aim before I zero in and Dickeys head snaps back and stays there silent in defeat and new freedom.

There is silence and blood leaks warm and thick from my middle.  I fall to my knees the wind blowing flickering angry fire flat against the ground.  I roll on my back a Chopper above me circling whipping rainbow flares into frenzy.  I find a field dressing and slap it on my leaking guts.  The Blood Major walks over bleeding victory from his arm tucked in his battle blouse.  He jabs two Medics in my thigh and helps me up.  We lurch to the blackened tree and sit in cover with dead Dickey, open head of flies.  Reloading and dripping warm red, field bandages soaking through with deaths warm blood, we take pills.  A POX Sky Chopper hovers in front of us.  I can see the Majors shoulder blade; he can see my spine.

‘We showed them Gods stuff, eh cock?’

‘We did, sir!  Showed them to Fuck and Jesus.’  Smiles, thumbs up from the Choppers crew; magic feed…the anchor on the screen on the Choppers flank tells it like it is…flashes back to Washington; the old glory days.  We see our accepted recommendations on the banner.  

The Chopper going giddy suddenly and is spinning into the ground as the tail is hit by heavy murder from the river.  It goes down crumpling like cardboard and we hit the ground as fire rushes around us.  We stagger up gasping for breath, slapping flames out on each other, air short.  Another Chopper coming in filming the first.

A gun rattles from the bridge and the Blood Major goes over bursting in a dozen places.

‘Look at the red, sir!  See life warm blood.’  I say as I shove Medics into his legs helping him up.  We hear the rattle of guns from the bridge, feel bullets hit close.

‘Boat landing, Johnson, get to it.  I’ll take the bridge.’  He is chewing pills firing hard at the bridge all the time from the hip with his one hand.

Small boat hits the shore.  I draw both guns and crouch behind the tree, raining mercury and lead at the bodies.  Five Dickeys with long deathware leap out and five Dickeys go down the mercury blowing them up inside.  I can feel the heat from the burning Chopper on my back.  I keep firing into the river small splashes dancing, Dickey dead, as he should be; in water source of life lapping the shore red and splintered white of man and fish.  I lob a grenade into the boat, it blows and the POX Sky Chopper hovers low getting fine pictures.  It opens up on the other boats in the river as mines blow water into white columns of steam.  Earth’s once blue vein ripped asunder running red in the thin rain.

A scream from the east and a Sky Jet too low, flashing silver sliver, catches a tilted wing on the raw edge of the bridge and becomes a great ball of fire, back broken, two halves spinning over and over.

‘I am Gods time to die, cock!’  The Blood Major is shouting; Dickey on the bridge liberated, intermittent fire over…heat catches in my throat…smell of the dead takes over from the smell of the cooking…downtime?  I look over to the bridge and reload my Nokias urgent. 

‘Incoming sir!’  I shout as I see two jeeps hurtle toward us off the bridge with fire flashing from muzzles, light glinting from discreet eyes.  The Blood Major stays on his knees firing his rifle with one hand…bullets spit sand around his feet…spit blood through his torso…splash my face…I throw my last cull bomb.  The lead jeep turns into a molten white replica of itself, hurtles out of control…disintegrated by Gods will and my righteous rage.  Tugs in my chest make me fall…see myself on their screen all hit and humble…angry I fire at the screen till it burst, showers me with tiny glass tinkling into the water.  I see Dickeys forces massing on the opposite bank, filling the river with busy boats low and twisting around mines.

The Blood Major murders the second jeep with a long sustained burst.  Two figures run from the wreck.  I struggle to my knees waving my pistols and fire hard at the running figures…the Major reloads another clip of three hundred…world turning black on me…blood on my face sticky…body broken for God…fall back and see a crawling figure in bloody and burnt green raise a rifle at us; no chance. 

‘Cover me, you cock!’  The Major is shouting; eyes only for the running figures…his battle blouse soaked with fresh blood, bent legs holding him up by pills, hip torn to the bone, stained sand grinding in the joint…I murder the crawling figure and then try to get to my knees again, cover the Major…everything as God intended…but the Blood Major needs no cover.

He turns slowly back to me, lazily shooting into bodies on the ground as they jump and leak, forced to play on.

I fall back twisted and cold in the chest…trying to stand, trying to sit…I turned my helmet feed onto my face…empty breath where once I had words. 

‘Johnson, you cock, good man.’  The Blood Major sinks to the ground; broken and gasping…he got on his shoulder radio and sticks a cigarette in my gas mask.

‘Bridge secure.  Baps get the half-track down here I’m too fucked to get back up the hill.  We lost Johnson.  Out.’

With great effort, I reloaded both pistols looking around for other crawling survivors but I saw just flame and craters, bloody green clothes and twisted hardware; Dickey all ruined.  All as it should be.  Job duty and good work.

‘Johnson!’  He slapped me.  ‘Johnson!  Life is deaths warm blood, Johnson!’  He slapped me again.  ‘Johnson!             Quote me, you cock!’  He sticks his last Medic in my leg and sits next to me.  Helps me sip water and pills.

Trying to speak but my chest was cold and breath was short.  I saw the ridge above us fill with Fodder Infantry and half-tracks and the FLC Guadalcanal with a NBCBN screen breaking through the thinned out trees…Frontline.  I was on the screen, split with POX Sky Choppers and the Blood Major sitting calmly both red as dawn with flapping green dirty exposing scarred and scratched white bone.  The anchorman reviewing my career and announcing my posthumous decorations.   I heard a mechanized rattle of murder from the riverbank; too close…the Blood Major goes over with a sudden gasp and lay still eyes wide.

‘Johnson, you cock!’  He gasps, on the ground next to me.

‘Sir!’  I gasp.  His body missing huge chunks.

My brain numb we lay there the horrible downtime getting its icy fingers in deeper than Jesus.  I heard a half-tracks rumbling diesel and saw it come out of the tree line below Frontline…a green rumbling murder machine stuck on auto, Baps firing the killing gun over our heads, de-personifying the boat crew on the bank…Baps to the rescue; Washington all over again.  Action on the Guadalcanal screen up on the ridge a clear pictures of the Blood Major and me waging fine war…the anchor talking of Washington; classic clips on the split screen, that Special Report that made us legend…discussing our heavy wounds…de-existing fast now, the Blood Major breathing heavily…the dirt wet and red stinking of fuel and the dead.  Downtime, fucking downtime!  And flies around my stomach; only the great pictures can give any relief.  I can see the turret of the Thatcher above the trees behind our half-track coming our way.

Sky Choppers line up over the river and rattle white fire and flares on to the opposite bank and the boats underneath them, a wall of bullets smacking the land.

‘You want to work in the hospitals, Johnson?’

‘No sir!’

‘Want to lose your rank do you?’

‘Fuck and Jesus no, sir!’

‘Want to kill and die, Johnson?’

‘Fuck and Jesus yes, Major!’  Not lie here in horrible downtime waiting to get locked up inside Frontline; downtime forever, watching the action; just watching, no green Go light or low hum from your feed, never again another clip of three hundred, never again the wonderful rush of the crossfire with your image huge and real time, never again visible to millions, never re-run over and over, never to wear your rank again, no further promotion with the arena out of your grasp, no more high octane feats with every thing as it should be, no more Washington’s; no more of Gods terminal masterpiece with me a grateful pawn.  

‘Then quote me, Carnage Captain, you cock!’ said the Blood Major and he took his Officers Nokia Master Blaster from its holster with a hand showing bone…small buzz as the feed came on line and the blink of the green Go light…looking up at the Thatcher he shot himself in the head with a fast five shot burst…every fifth round a live feed.  I saw it all huge behind him…his massive image dwarfing the real figure…his head blown across the hillside screen over and over, the NBCBN anchor ecstatic. 

POX already had the Blood Major being decorated split with a death raid from the feed of a Divine Wind Jet out over the ocean…I laid back and looked at the gray sky full of smoke and bright coloured flares swirling in circles under the Choppers, the roar of battle seeming distant as the cold ate into me sharp like God’s claiming claws…a couple of Sky Planes coming low up the river; POX recon. feed.  I drew my own Officers Nokia Master Blaster, feed already buzzing like a patient bee and quoted the Blood Major one last time; Incoming, I thought, everything as it should be…

TOO SANE

shall i attempt to describe
what over-pilled and hanging writers
already
written? - the filths black animal blanket
that
grips
your
reason
away?


no - i shall describe tuesday when time was still on dry gears,
when
my voice shrank small as a mouse's,
when, 
too sane, all faces were intricately lined by artists,
when
i touched the slow lumbering large things all around me
never
more conscious of being on the surface of a populated planet,
and i, too sane,
clearly knew and felt the earths solid girth and soil heft under my feet,
all
sky's painted in hollywood watercolours.


i
was saved on the edge of Craylands by
a
concise
slice
of christmas with singing and chestnuts hiding treats in
the
brussels.

BAGGAGE GIRL

tired under bright lights i'm photo'd in big hall.

glasses off/fingers printed.

questioned.

-WHEN WERE YOU LAST HERE?

-WHAT?  AMERICALAND OR NY?  VEGAS YEARS AGO/NY LONGER ...

i’m between zones/new butterfly/travel scotch fuzzy/airport desk marine loses interest.

white noise left in the big blue whale

i’m watching a blonde creature.

she was curled comfy on the back seat under blankets.

she travelled alone/her tights printed like stockings

small black dress/leather boots/hair a yellow nest.

she grabs a square wheeled bag/pops out the handle.

outside cold air smells of nothing.

dark is an old skull/this new night is trilogy long.

put

my

hat

on/light a cigarette/wait

for

cab

by touts shouting clouds out their mouths.

shes a nesting animal in back of cab/by the door eyes shut

without fear/drives past shuffling queues.

NOT MAGIC

silent moment of almost wonder,
not magic
but magnificent
like THIS-


epic months
of tension drugged out my soft back now
i'm 
sat in the corner window
where
hyacinth blooms clear as bbc blu-ray,
its sweet funk brand new
and 
a
row of old records rest against chipped moroccan red paint
and 
outside
winter sun makes evergreens gold under blue
between rain 
and 
all the light shades of grey move in the wind 
like 
ships or visiting kings.


all the things i know are happening 
that i dont understand
and havent touched
are ok this sunday - berries in the seasons
or
washing hung out and drying patient
in pm front rooms
with 
the dusty tv off where cushions rest 
untroubled
about 
how
saturday 
left
them.

CHICKEN LEG BDAY

midnight/way over 30/i open both presents

and 

all 3 cards

carefully dropped off here for me

at a

prescheduled

strict

arranged

time.

of course i am looking for money/paper cash.

have been bunging 

bottles of Jameson

on my tired card

all week.

too scared to check bank balance/unknown info

like

the terror of unread

inbox.

i score ten pounds and a sigh.

of course there is the promise of chicken later

when i sober up enough

to spice

the fuck and bejesus

out of

some

legs

again.

LOVE

FELT it before - 
ive SAID it before
mostly in tears - 
i've WRITTEN it before
mostly in tears
but not felt its warm amber wings 
beat the black air beside me before.


felt its fire/felt its destruction in the 3 am bed/hot rocks dying on my chest.


felt its overwhelming urge/felt its desperate need in the coffee back yard/bike grease on my trousers.


felt its hungry fists punch holes in the door/felt its homelessness in the sportwear alley/my hands with only themselves to hold.


felt its boiling evaporation burgle my soul away/felt its blood bleed out in wedding hotels/staining good shirts forever.


felt an absence become physical beside me in family restaurants/picking at food while biker couples dance.


felts its prisoner and its loser and seen its poor eyes big as moons on summer pub seawalls.


felt its forever print of amateur exclusion/felt its mulch leaf
melancholy in glass wall flats and out on small morning
balconies/suggestions falling deaf on hangover ears.


felt its apocalypse online and its crisis in the dark drinking corners/my eyes never rise from my empties.


felt its truth in silence in the sudden telephone call/felt it sour beautiful songs sinister/some i never hear again.


now i glimpse different.


glimpse its simple human heart/its knowledge thats quiet and its
peace between.


glimpsed its living gold


and
all the given glimpses are
without
the
pain

i always thought was one and the same.