RUBIK HEART I WISH

just imagine

if you could tell your

HEART 

wot to do

if feelings/soul were a finished

RUBIK'S CUBE 

held in

dexterous intelligent paws

to slightly twist

in rhythms

and

in kilter

with your tiny life ebbs

MY NEW COFFEE TABLE

The old woman behind the counter of stopped watches and tin trinkets is full of smiles when he comes in the door.  Her granddaughter ignores him.  She wants to know when they can go home.  Not till they’ve taken a little bit more money, dear, is when.  The charity shop smells of steam and age.  He squeezes past the clothes rails and toward the coffee table, its surface kept clear.  Twenty five pounds a taped note says, no negotiating.  Its wooden legs are battered and someone has scribbled all over the underside in blue pen.  The top is dated red and brown swirls edged in still shining chrome.

The woman is thrilled when he says he’ll take it and tells him it should clean up well.  Her granddaughter bounces up and down asking if they can home now.  Not yet they can’t.  He carries it outside rests it against a black bin warped by fire.  Taking out his phone he wonders who he can ring for a lift.

GET IT DOWN

i pour Go Cat in Schrodinger’s bowl

and sit with a glass mug of steaming green tea

i watch

Windows

boot up

i want to get something written down

before i shower

before breakfast

before the days distractions

the postman shuffles up the road in shorts chewing gum

steps over the low fence

stuffs an envelope from the HMRC

in 

my 

letter box

my next door neighbor slams her door

gets in her car

fusses with grey hair

nothing else out there this morning

i send two texts

and

lift

the cat

off the keyboard

DARK WOOF

it was there when he woke before dawn

twisting his guts into knots of hot barbed wire

he dragged it

to the shower with him

a dead weight as big and black as thunder 

it was always there

and by the time the birds were bawling

and the weak winter sun drew shapes round the curtains

it had shrunk to a large black dog

laying on the greasy kitchen lino

and by the time he left for work

it was packed tight in a backpack

and just about light enough to travel

HAIKU

air tastes of Greenwich autumn
early morning river bench
worry about money

HOT RIZLA

my Rizlas wont stick in this heat

even glue

has

a

lethargy

here

i snatch tiny pellets

from the

tobacco

air/write them

and

glory

in ANY

rhythms

that fall on my threadbare lap

-

when we were young

that was

the only

thing

going

for us/tiny pellets and rhythms on the sea wall water tower

it’s the only thing

ever

going for us/falling art – catch it smile on it

make

it

a

ritual

before its

gone

RALIEGH BURNER

i’d love to see

  a RALEIGH BURNER again

 

or a

  100 of them

charging about

in

bright

default yellow and reds

simple metal lines slim against the sky

100 kids in Top Winners

all on

RALEIGH BURNERS

hacking it about

     doing makeshift jumps and hurting themselves

some with pegs

some with pads

  now

  that’s a gang

ONLY GOLD

gold is

only

polished yellow,

silver;

just metal and grey

and

diamonds

are but shiny white

SAMURAI

samurai chooses haiku, 
more than just a warrior,
end of summer days

USED TO THINK

everything is meat.

coffee is meat/whisky and gin is meat.

cigarettes

and

drugs are all meat.

work and cars and midnight lock-ins are meat.

now i see salad everywhere.

tea is salad.

exercise and early nights are salad.

i

am

between food groups/my life

is

a

vegetable

and 

a 

gnarly chicken nugget 

is my mind.

THERAPIST

is not as foreign as her name

and

she’s asking me if i have heard the word

MINDFUL

before.

i am saying i have but only in Star Wars

and

i’m

saying

Liam Neeson

said

BE MINDFUL OF YOUR THOUGHTS.

but

later i’m thinking that was Ewan Macregor’s line and

that

he

was repeating

something Yoda said to him anyway.

no matter.

she

was

only explaining the best way to eat and savour Malteasers.

SWEATY UN CAB

death is a hungry hand

fingers war deeply

in the back of sweaty UN cab

domestic kitchen-ignorance

hated-blank scrabble bank

rolling news-visible

black blip

in the Great Circle

falls in metal boxes from the steel lung darts

death is a rude hand

flips the bird to paralysed sad eyes pleading

locked

in

flung legal jism and hollow hung bureaucratic balls

forced storyboard

of billboard chicks and janet and john black and white

winners fingering losers

in

the

back

of sweaty UN cabs

warrior tribes in surrogate parents palms

eat their young

under porch flags

with bbq sauce/documentaries/missing limbs/and the queen

is it

dangerous and foolish

being happy in the timeless ridiculous days?

PIG SENTINELS

upright like men
on flat rooftops or slanty slates/the end of the road behind parked hatchbacks/in the park in the shadows of innocent trees/
on a playtime grassy hill/the old stone of the church tower

always
at
a
distance

Pig Sentinels LOOKING my way as i go about my bland town business

they are
without expression/as far as i can tell
silent and still
naked - or in trousers?  maybe some were in trousers
black
office
slacks

this is dream of course

but when i wake
and its still dark
despite science and architecture 
and the sane wire technically whirring/mainly functional
in my mind
i FEEL in my ANIMAL GUTS and lost senses
that
it
is
entirely likely/possible/even essential
that
Pig Sentinels stand in the night yard in one or twos 
or
wait
in
the hallway behind the bedroom door
LOOKING!

oink

A FRIEND SPOKE TO ME

i wonder who i am

she says dragging on a long white cigarette

which
hat
you got on?  

i say rolling a fag

or you posing a deeper question?

not hats

she says eyes on the distant fields ploughed into straight yellow lines

i wonder it a lot
and
you
know
what?  there isnt an answer

this answer pleases me - in silence we smoke
pondering
gazing
at
the
farmers patterns

SPOKEN TO A FREIND

we're smoking outside
hosp break time

she's in theatre blues
hair hidden
which brings out her eyes
shining with a 1000 years of bright intelligence

i keep up 
just
thru the deep coast fog and hot wire 
of adrenalin and insomnia

i say

'in my garden the other month
whenever
last year, i dont know,
i thought i should stop smoking
just
so 
i
could enjoy the summer beauty of my bursting garden a little longer,
so quiet but not creepy quiet, not end of the world silence
you understand but comfortable
and
then
i
thought
about how much i enjoy smoking in my beautiful garden,
it was a quandary,
first time i used that word ever i think, by the way,
a
QUANDARY,
a circular thought puzzle
to
ponder,
ideally while
smoking'

and she says

'thats poetry'

and
i
make
it
so

LOVE IS THIS AND THAT

love is

treading on a beercap on the way to the toilet

(to quote buckowski)

love is this/love is that

love is

when clichés are real

and you act like a toy/a child

full of bubbles not shit

love is

when daytime radio bland cardiac rock

shines

on your hearts rose like an awesome reality truth explosion

or love is a dog

till

the autumn fool

MATTER

found matter

in the

bed.

tv news on bubbles doom quietly/hot summer

midnight

going 

at 

it 

Deadwood Style; 

pour one drink to drink/drink it/pour another drink to drink...

put drink down

and

catch it up

between

thumb

and

forefinger

but 

cannot ID it at all/softly crispy 

but 

some malleability/colour? carpet stain.

laid it

on the page/rolls to the join with brittle rattle

where 

it

rests

makes

me

feel slightly sick.

which orifice does it hail from?

or

from which alien sky did it fall?

SICK HAIKU

visit sick friend, talk shit, laugh; 
we should be on radio!
makes me feel better

BOOOOKS

even 
when i'm not reading
because the day is uncomfortable as crabs
and nothing will 
suitably engage
or smile or entertain
and 
i sit still as statues/stuck by science
to
simple wooden kitchen chairs
and
the
huge
turning hurtling heft of the world
its 
very 
IMPORTANT/headline crucial
to
have
gentle
piles and stacks and broken spine columns
of
BOOOOKS! all around
quiet/undemanding
patiently holding safe and linear
reality dreams
and
sane disorder - EXPOSING time and tricks
chaos filed
on
trial

i'll lay a hand on their gospel like i'm evidence
and
promise
never
to
properly lie

VALLEY

into the Valley of Dearth
rode the gallant bored hundreds
books
in
their
breasts bursting behind bones

forward Werd Army!
onto the da vinci shades of twilight airport doorsteps
and
call nothing - 
no werds or sentence fallen - a MISTAKE!

tube train fodder to the left of them
rejection letters filed to the right them
into the Valley of Dearth
rode
six hundred hungry writers happy
to
find
space
to
fill
with Honour Glory Truth 
fickle swaying market money
cannot 
fade

WARS AND DOGS AND ME

write like a steppen-dog

barking

the ripped missed decades like

rutting and pissing alleys

growling out war

by

the empty beef tins

dwelling unhealthy

on the scream headlines

barking

in

a

dusty typing room

hearing and sympathising

with

the

drunkards

fighting out in the garage

forecourts

-

i’m home now

safe now

and in my cave/bunkered down with paper and a pen

my

sick still

drying on the bike frame

locked up downstairs

-

some future must be waiting behind

locked doors of grandparent visits

and

kitchen births – the past

empty house/fluff balls blow over the cracked brown tiles

i drink wine there

and

badly decorate

watching

my new

hand-me-down

TV

SHO BUZNIZ

Pure Drugs

     i say

and

     Good Long Legs

should be today’s Clean Glory    

but

my hands are empty pale

and

i cut

my head open

with

a crushed beer can

newly dried plaster walls

smell

of yesterdays wine now/dried in like birth mark stains

it leaked out in my bag

and

sprayed the decorating hall

cant remember the cycle home

TO MY PEN

i rip you

i rip you

from my awful paw

soft and sweaty and clamped like a claw

cos

i need

a piss now

and

i'm

drunk

enough

to need both hands for navigation and control

DRONE WITNESS 3

i’m a walker/a functionary

like

an

iron pipe

i’m base plumbing/a simple vector/a channel

but

not rusting and tubing in the dry wall; i’m LOOSE

i’m a mover/a weak electric current

i carry plastic

push it with my trolley hands

past

the freaked survivors retreated by fire

war

inherited error genetics

and

accident/live’s of plates of lard

i have the tubes

dr’s

dress

them up in for a quiet last imagined ball

plastic cracker jewellery

for

final minutes

i’m a watcher/eyes

i’m a soft camera

witnessing

no-privacy

between

the white

exit

walls

BDAY

leave the hectic confusion of Past
in
a
tupperware container
drilled full with air holes
to
let
it breath and gently rot and fade

anything of real steel in there
will
oxidise into learnt valuable antiques
beautiful with barnacles
and
warped with age and rain and wind 

open carton of Today and pour it slowly
over
naked writing
bearing in sane mind fine wire choices
that
invisibly fence Abyss

you walked a ghost in the dark
and felt the cold and lived the tricks/mistakes
and
white noise night thunder
now
the meat flesh is real/not laid out on a chilled slab -

walk
bare and opened
in the
blues and flower oranges of fruit and water daylight
and
feel
the
warmth from the good/bad new/old
cafe corners and night-out streets
on
your
constantly surprised questioning/accepting
ageing
birthday 
face 

DRONE WITNESS 2

unjaded unhardened

i witness

paper hospital faces coloured dark olives and white greys

coming apart in rotten shoelace quiet screams

i

walk

silent

soft

funeral steps to preserve/generate stillness and peace

concern

at

the defeat and the no-raging from dull lit pale beds

burning

confused

compassion

inside me