GUTTER MOON

dont worry about your mind
being in the gutter

i said

and dont worry that a hot bath didnt steam it clean

we
are
all
animals after all

and
anyway

the gutter is where the moon is

and
oscar wilde 

STOCK JOKES

blue ships
pass in the corridor
and run up flags with their eyes

stock jokes
cough out like chimney smoke

blurt
into
an
overlit world

I DIDNT RECOGNISE YOU WITH YOUR CLOTHES ON
to a nurse prancing proud in civvies

they get laughs theyre designed for

i study this from a low orbit
simultaneously 
my anxiety reaches atomic levels
reading 
about
Einsteins protons which decide a location on observation
and
i
wonder too
if
i'm
understanding words right today

SNOW LIKE

snow!

covers the air and the flat painted town 
like 
static between stations

like 
theres a ton of smokers on a break tapping ash
behind the skyline and the low clouds

snow - not settling on the concrete or leaves!

so

maybe 

the fall of dancing white is a malfunction in my optics

either way
something is happening today
up there
in the uniform grey

BELLS

sometimes when 
i've done my best in another town
the moon will be gazing in at me
on the over-lit home train 
like a simpletons vacant eye
an attic mirror of steel stone
and
then
the
house
will be
silent and watching like a mute
at least twice as empty as before i shut the door

but

sometimes 
the moon is a living sliver of gold rush challenge
and 
i hear musics quiet bells and light sparkles like tinsel 
and 
tho i always only write two short lines
they are important and heavy 
like a legend of keys
and 
i'll sit on the kitchen chair
watching cigarette smoke
curl like sea horses 
bursting and combusting on the greasy dust of lampshades
savouring 
the evening abscence 
of 
the damned and unreal 
daily 
doom

DREAMER

there was an alien in the Ready Room off the bridge of the British Airways flight to NY

a new plane
experimental and retro
glass dome with seating like an amphitheatre
pilots flew from in the middle 
like pizza chefs in Pizza Express

the alien was like the one in the film Alien
all exoskeleton and loose limbs and shining saliva

in this dream 
the thing was 
that i didnt know 
if i was in a video game or acting on tv or cheese-dreaming

reality was in flux

i had a controller like on a Playstation
but i didnt know if it was the right one
there
were
many controllers tangled over the floor of the Ready Room
and
anyway
the alien was killing the SHIT out of me

i went to take a seat
(i was under the impression i did this once a week)
i was
dizzy under the sky over the dome 
i left 
the alien drooling acid and thrashing his bony tail
in some weird hologram 
of 
blue and red fire

i found a stairway behind the pilots and followed it down
to thrumming rockets and a heat haze

then
i
fell
out
into blue sky

AN EASTER

her bedroom eyes 

ask

a question

its pillow dark 

and 

a 

street light 

slides round 

hasty curtains

our profiles and rumples are black and white

i 

answer

with a finger

DAY POP

a dark roast blurs the dawn grog
into acceptable articulation

and 
the specialist nurse with the slow voice
hides from the cold wind in smokers corner
under the overhang with home-made cucpcakes
segmented in a professional brown box

she shares - mine has a crisp green icing leaf like xmas

a sweet sugar rush lines the tasks up before
the DAMNED FOREVER of 10.15
slumps
into
a
treated carbo-void
that makes my eyes work
and un-fractures the bad night off my mind

its 
caffeine hysteria and fast jokes about two-man-handling
and
the Carry On films they never made
till
the nebulous black watch of 1.30 and 2.30 
when i work ceaseless to kill time and turn the clock
hungry for home and the sofa and cigarettes
but
wary
of
the
cold quiet outside
and
the
effort to get there

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

used to watch the rolling news drunk all night
i'd see seal clubbing on the blue ice
and russians turning off the gas to europe
every 
half
an 
hour

used to buy the papers
i'd marvel at the deceptions 
and the complicated persecutions
and 
follow
the money trail
best
i
could

i'd feel righteous in a twisted world
tall with knowledge
and
high on colonial foreign policy

now i avoid the news

it destabilises my delicate struggle for equilibrium

i watch tintin cartoons instead
full of clean colours
and hungrily read books from the 40s and the 50s
when everyone lived in rooming-houses 
and paid by the week
and beautiful women come out of nowhere with gin and tricks

and 
often
i
check 
its all quiet 
in the red berry bushes outside my window

DIY GHOSTS

dreamt of invisible ghosts

theyd put up white plywood shelves too loose
teeth marks round all the wobbly phillips screws

this was in an empty laundry cupboard 
off a deserted hospital room
attached to my warm kitchen

what was in the hospital room was dishevelled
broken plastic lay in smashed black crosses on the floor
a bed was suspiciously empty the sheets dented and un-tucked
a dirty screen was shoved off to one side 
i didnt look behind it opaque smears
i was tightening screws with a clumsy pocket knife

a window was open to black sky 
and net curtains bled into the room

a girl with curly hair - she normally had straight hair 
was tight behind me
i couldnt see her face
i couldnt turn away from the screws
but i felt her crouch down
and
felt her breath like a draught

TEETH MARKS she said and was gone

FAT DAWN

the
dawn is fat
with a hundred other mornings

its not spring
but
the thin mist tangs with change

no defining memories talk to me

i'm a mammal/looking up/into blue space

its
just
mornings - 

pale stacked up and the same

MOMENT

for a moment
the sun was out

everything seemed to be as simple as it was

for a moment

then 
steel doors came down 
and 
a hard-fog of wire wool mean-hugged articles and concepts
into
awkward inaccessible importance

TOMORROW WHEEL

tomorrows-
nothing special once they arrive

another turning day of kettles and diners

tomorrows-
live like cliches in yesterdays daydream
and
slowly
spin
like a great ferris wheel of jet black lozenges

tomorrows-
a now in the pocket/up the sleeve
a dim phantom to oil the gears
painted
faint
with
ill
anticipation

a safe distance away to savour beyond the wall of sleep

tomorrow-
plates of crumbs and eggs and sucked cigarettes
and of course the darkest coffee
watches
for ideas and delicate small words
to 
mark
them
and their passing/to mark them/tick them checked
and
force 
them 
real

BEDROOM DUST

some friday afternoons
walking alone the hospital corridors
with the afternoon sunlight glancing in sideways
thru
the windows
that only ever open a tiny notch
past
all
the visiting people
trying to find somewhere to get some bars on their phones
i
feel
a
lightness
a
sense of belonging/camaraderie and PEACE

but this friday pm lightness is too brief/too dim
only
dangled
to
chase
like sunrise bedroom dust

and
tho
i
WATCH for it 
and
gently URGE it
it is not dependable and i am left cold
as
the
journey home

BAD STONE

morning turns up

the nights rushed afterthought
fallen
off
sleeps cluttered table

grey leftovers
trapped under a single dull bulb

and i can hear the birds arent keen either

beige blips on the bare branches 
of small silhouette trees
surround the broken fence farms

they harvest fireworks and xmas trees in the garish winter

the soft town is all bad stone today

its
complications
audibly
grind

I

whenever 

i

say 

I

questions pop up

like gophers/like ciphers

like old fashioned NO-SALE tabs

and

i

halt

and

reboot 

blinking

YESTERDAY STACK

at deep blue midnight 
or when its time to stretch out in the dark
and 
the day is done again it is not over

yesterdays stack up like magazine back issues
selectively dog eared but unfinished

like
piles
of amazing encyclopaedias of facts
hard spines crushed and faded illegible 

don't matter where you leave them no council will take them away

like
a to z's of dense cities glimpsed blurred over a drunk weekend
and 
journals of global idiocy recorded by sacked eyes

yesterdays are the frozen leftovers in tight tubs
conscience
forbids binning

at grey yellow dawn
or when the alarm yells bells all the yesterdays flood in
and
they're lugged and dragged and touched and chewed all the day
in
bags
heavy 
misunderstood and waiting
for 
unachievable and complete sense

HOME

he awoke dog tired

and

it

felt

just like home

BLOFFEE'S

fast stumble
between black coffees of work and flat daylight

settings
are
all
off
and the instruments lie

and when i fall off horsey
its
onto
jagged rust

a rushed bundle of accessory parts 
missing updates and mandates
default in jeans 
i 
am 
plankton!

ticking

CHEAP BLUE

supermarket own-brand shower gel

is a sleeping plastic bat of memories

water stained 

on a limescale hook

the smell in the early morning steam

reminds me of . . .

sunshine?  

innocence?  

1987 hair gel?

i cant place it/its flavour holds something special for me

i 

keep the blue last half inch for a bad day

because it makes the morning LIVE

and

deserves

further

investigation

and 

they dont sell it anymore

AGAIN

the day is again

i feel it thin on me/weak used and limping

the sky is full with falling blossom

or

asbestos

and the light beams itself like LASERS across the day time bed

why not?  half three/all the things will still be here later 

nap . . .

DUMP 7.00 AM

morning
work
day shows birds pale blue
toilet
another mans tang and funk
the
seat
is obscenely warm
then soon its my heat and comfortable
and
the smell noticed and recorded is replaced
dump
work
7.00 am

BUN

tho my dreams are violent rows 
of busted legs and bombs in long bars
my
whisky
guns
are empty as dead suns gone now
and
i
am
delicate enough rocking in daylight bows
to
gasp in cool air and brim with salty water
at the text of a sweet snack offer
that
i
cried over it/died over it
and
held together on its 
strong font shoulders a clean marching soldier 
speaking the safe mantra
of
simplicity's sparks
and
a
moment
in
life

SUNDAY MORNING

old white dub thumps in here
and drilling continues next door
like theyre building an ark in there
for
two of every asbo and hoodie and celebrity.

coffee
battles
the
low fug from the nights quick death
packed
with
technicolour dreams left there
so the day can breath
and
outside
the
sky is dishrag grey with a slow glow
uniform
and low.

the Machiavellian paper machines blend now
like ant armies scaling soil heaps
with the scribbled and desperate to-do lists
and
fight
for
space
in
un-rested and isolated and alien tight-knot lobes.

i form an embryonic black and white plan for the slow day
with a slender window for tackling the panic that waits
in the Outlook inbox
then
visit
my small bathroom
where the dirty tasks are simple and splashed with cool water,
calming 
under fluorescents where silver fish shine 
between cat hairs like spiders legs 
and caterpillars of fluff dull and dim under the door
and all the promising tubes.

essential and mundane; i will empty myself there
and
drag steel across my face.

am'n.

JAZZ

do you like jazz?

i ask catty who shows me his impeccably clean anus

i never thought i would, i say

i always found the apparent lack of discipline uncomfortable

but
i
know
different now

jazz dances by itself and the musicians MAKE me believe

catty pulls a yellow child's book from the low shelf
and
i
ask
him
to go to the shop with his pocket money
and
buy
me
some sliced white to toast

i threaten to force him to read the book if he doesn't

he's disappeared

don't you like the jazz then catty?  i ask the doorway

and
wonder
if
there's
any
eggs left

HOW TO WRITE POETRY 321

rub cider vinegar in those wounds that fit you

go loiter by open water 
breath its constant motion and still weight

read the graffiti on the concrete wall there
that obscene kids 
and lovers wrote

marvel at the sky and its queue of planes
that dont come down till theyre told

call
the
morning forest a frayed smudge 
if it feels right

announce
that the cold streaks of rain like fairy lines
are 
falling stars flashing in your headlamp
and
watch 
them  
dance fast and endless and popping
like
video in the black puddles

find a thing and call the thing a things name 
and 
say its name again aloud 
to 
feel 
its 
magic quota
make the A4 sacred