Monday 30 June 2014

THE FASCINATING FORECOURTS OF OIL RAINBOWS



we're 
living jism - base functioning mush
falling about our cities and towns
drunk or screaming sane 
eating red-top comics and easy scapegoats 
with
mouths
full
of high fat salt

we're 
cutlery monkeys flinging shit in the oceans
bacon muppets in a dirty protest 
against 
our 
dull 
and 
blameless globe

anyone remember their pre-school crazy dancing minds
free ! on the fascinating forecourts of oil rainbows
before
the
System
weighed
its
boots
heavy
on
our backbone ?




from imgur.com



Friday 27 June 2014

EARTH ON A LIST



one glimpse
and
the
aliens
write
POSSIBLE FOOD SOURCE - LAST RESORT
and
hurry
to
hide
their
silver ship
in
solar filaments



from airyear.com




Thursday 26 June 2014

FALSE STILTS



its hard and its far
and
theres no time 
so
tie boot laces tight
against
the
oceans
that
make
other places seem impossible

it looks short but it feels endless
this
functioning mush / this advertised median
between 
the unkillable poor
and
the
miserable lost smiles
of
the
rich

but you
can
still
smell
the
roses

or
paint
them

if you have allergies





from dw.de

KUBE 4



with eyes like Hubble

the 
writer
rides
days
hard
and

blows midnight around



from thecaferoyal.wordpress





Wednesday 25 June 2014

KUBE POP 2



sweet 
baby 
riches

that life lame glorious

whispers promises




from watershed.co.uk

Tuesday 24 June 2014

JUST TO PROVE I EXIST (2005)


From being born strangling under my own slick cord
To snorting cocamacaine in a co-op morgue
And there I saw the dead laid out in pooling red
Red as the sun setting over the Thurrock ward

From riding into an Escort doing forty
On my BMX riding the main road blindly
My dangerous load skidded right down Southend Road
A road my house is on eternally

From passing Kerouac in a Brixton theatre
To feeding on rare steak in the World Trade Center
Sobbed through a wedding, sicked in my bedding
And touched Jimmy Page in Wembley Arena

From shatting wetly in my hungover trousers
To cocktails in the bath while I had a shower
Made my boss cry, ate a cactus to get high
And smashed a Super-loo by human power

From falling fifty feet from a forest tree tall
To hear Enoch Powell speak in a London hall
I’ve drunk in the wooden pub that I fucking love
And wrote for two years after I ran from the mall

From driving down Broadway in a Lincoln town car
Drunk with hookers and Yardies in Nottingham’s bars
Forgot about Spain in a spasm of brain pain
And floated under comets and Norfolk’s stars

From running from police ‘cause arson was at play
To sliding the Siberian tundra in a sleigh
And I made small bombs to put in suburban homes
In a cold school winter down Third Avenue way

From eating a flower and smoking a shoelace
To eating caviar and planning to buy mace
Caught my legs on barbed wire, caught my head on fire
Seen my skull bone pulling grey gravel from my face

From signing on on Basildon’s Thatcher burnt floors
To hiding away for days behind closed doors
Timed the elusive ‘Tusk’, ridden the last bus…
Crashed on rich floors amid the must of the poor 

From crossing 110th Street in the dark
To having the sun stolen from my little heart
Took a pill for a thrill and I was ill, but still…
I have fallen like dusk from the swings in the park

From the dark dark dark amid the blaze of the moon
To staring out a panther until I had won
I have been big and clever, drunk in all weather
And I’ve been lost lost lost in the clear map of noon

From cocktails on the Circus Circus rotunda
To the snowing funeral of my grandfather
Fell from a Fobbing fence onto the Fobbing bench
Bruising my whole leg every single colour

From smashing a double glazed door with my head
To staying for thirty hungover hours in bed
I got up this morning and cannot stop yawning…
Broke a council estate satellite dish then fled

From walking like a Monkee in Moscow’s mass graves
To a long time reflecting on how to behave
Then there’s hot ladies breath and the cold breath of death…
Oh the snowmen and wicker castles I have made!

Leapt from a low rooftop and broke one of my feet
To sweating out my face by that atomic heat
Thrown up still cold milk, touched fields of spiders silk
And stolen cars to leave them mere yards down the street

From a Devon eclipse in a gay actors home
To stumbling round a muddy Glastival alone
And outside Heathrow I fought happy with the snow…
Bled from my head for reasons too many to moan

From pissing in homes unfinished by the sea wall
To spending hot pinty nights swaying on a stool
I have held sweating hands while waiting for the Man
And lived a decade job-hanging in the mall

From school-trip looking at the grey graves of the Czars
To wearing a yellow shirt under a pink bra
Drank a quintiple whisky, let a Beetle hit me
And dug into a bowling green under dawn's stars

From crashing and smashing the blue boat on the Broads
To carpet hashness in university halls
Broke my warm arm on ice, stole from a farm barn twice
Crunched down secret gravel my thieving on call

From the top of the Empire State to rank home wine
To short Lenin laying dead with a waxy shine
And I have ignored the phone in my own home
And ridden in the airliners that play with the time

From finding beasts and beauty and putting both back
To a fifteen car police chase on a haystack
I saw the police chopper above me hover…
Pinging my pants I’ve smacked myself in the sack

From wearing black leather and touching softly lace
To fighting in the pale forecourt of Pelham Place
And I have gone West because the West is the best
And there on the beaches I have got off my face

From writing wretched words that make pretty girls cry
To smoke on the rec. below chefs hats in the sky
And in the eighties I stole Volkswagen badges
Staying out on the Frost estate so late, oh my!

From freeing captive budgies to the winter trees
To see Multisanti in Little Italy
And I tore a dead mouse in half moving the bath
Its soft red insides strung like confectionery

From wearing their leather and eating their wet flesh
To paying to see sick people in their own mess
I own part of the moon but live in one warm room
And when I do vote I draw a monkey instead

From cycling down the Fobbing hill in sunglasses
In the rain at night on coke and fucking blasted
To hit the bottom hedge banging my rotten head
Plastered now and wondering how I’ve lasted…

From these things and many many more and madder
To the daily colon squeeze and draining bladder
I write these hard chrome rhymes in this terminal time
To prove I exist in any way that matters…

Monday 23 June 2014

HOSPITAL SHIT POP



nurse
says
she'll
wait
till
i'm
out
the
sluice
room
before
she
empties
the
stinky commode

i
say
considerate
but
i
cant
smell
shit

she misses the pun
and
lord
they both
reek
bad



from buckinghealthcare.org

Saturday 21 June 2014

1980s MEMORIES



weird decade

was i the only one who 
didnt 
understand
why was Manikin so popular
and
all the electro 
so
cold?

i didnt get Top Gun - i was
watching 1950s allegorical westerns
on
BBC2

a v different bag

school was almost all violence - Spamming Tefals 
and 
punching dead legs and dead arms
everyone
obsessed
WITH WHO COULD HAVE WHO

and
with
WHO GOT OFF WITH WHO where and when and how many fingers
you had to get three fingers
so
you
could
sing
the
song
from the Trio choc bar ad

kids made cudgels in woodwork
banging nails thru balsa wood
and
burning
down
the library
and
competing
to
make the supply teachers cry

and kids all wore clothes with tiny animal motifs
and weird Italian names
asking
eat
other
ARE YOU CASUAL ?  or CAS

what do you say when everyone is cas ?
with
Nike this
and
Fila that -
Puma Top Winners were passable but they weren't Ivan Lendls

there was an assembly
when
they scared us all
saying
ONE OUT OF EVERY TEN OF YOU WILL DIE FROM AIDS
and
after that
Homo
was
the insult of the decade - taking over from Joey

at least 
we watched 
the Blues Brothers in English Literature
and
i
found
some
great
musicians 

now 
they knew 
how 
to 
dress





Friday 20 June 2014

LIVING JISM



you wear your damage like a badge
you
wave
some
ancient 
event 
like a battle banner

when you did this / did that
that time at
band camp - whatever

when you nearly died / when you nearly lived
stuck 
like
a polished shield / a war medal
on
a dead rock face
justifying
your
empty
boots
and dull life

youre
just like us all - living jism
helpless
and
all day waiting
for
the sweetness of laying the used bones down at night

but
you cant accept your bland position in the chaos
in 
the working mush 
and the city mould

thats
all



city of the bread from thedailymail





Thursday 19 June 2014

SICK DYNAMO



worry 

that sick dynamo

runs
you
in
circles all the long day

steals your words
all your fast comebacks gone

takes the heat out of people
takes 
the
purpose
from
your
legs

leaves your boots empty
as your butterfly belly

and
shits
out
fear 



from huntingenglish.com






Wednesday 18 June 2014

KNIFE BOY BUSTED



when i was a kid
knew this kid
lived over the other side of the park
beyond the fire path 
and the cycle barriers
and
all
the
big flea dart bushes

he always had a knife with him
pen knife
but a big one
he had a mouth full of bullshit
and
we called him a perv 
before we knew what one was
there
was 
sickness 
in his eyes

he knocked on my door one night
the time was inappropriate 
he was turned away
he stayed out there in the half-light
sawing
at the 
conifers 
with his knife
i
watched from my window
peeping from behind the net curtain
and
he
disappeared after that

years later we're both soul-sucked
dying of retail
working in the mall
trying to remember our dreams
and
one saturday theres a bomb threat
the whole place opens late
car parks full
police horses crapping in the bus station
and
queues of hungry shoppers 
at the big glass doors

he'd rung his hoax into Special Branch
he was after an easy weekend
with his perversions 
and 
knives

he used his home phone
he was easily busted
and had to write an apology 
to every retail unit in the mall
to 
be 
pinned to Nobo boards
in the staffrooms

the IRA had been knocking about in Canary Wharf
with Transit full of explosives
and
there'd been that Pub in Covent Garden too 
blown to bits one summer afternoon

so
that
was 
the 
least of what he had to do




from squirrelbasket.wordpress







Tuesday 17 June 2014

NO BLAME



i wouldnt blame her if she did as she said . . .
i
said
DO YOU WANT YOUR RED CLOTHES WASHED SEPARATE FROM THE WHITE ?
i
said
RACE HORSING
i
said
THE CAT LOOKS LONG TODAY
i
said
BLEH
i
said
an unrecognisable stream of consonants
i
said
______ thinking i already spoke
she
said
ENGLISH IS YOUR FIRST LANGUAGE DUDE ! 
AND YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER ! 
HOWS THAT GOING ?

i lay in the bath tub musing about how
i
really 
wouldnt 
blame her at all . . .

shes multilingual
an actual genius 
and
i
lay
in the bath tub
gazing at my belly hair 
and
how
it
explodes
below
and
drifts like seaweed in clear water
and
when i get up
it
clings
and
looks too much / too wild / too dark
so
i
wouldnt
blame
her
at
all
if
one
night
she
did
as
she
said
and mends me once and for all
with
a
club hammer to the skull




from magictools.in

Monday 16 June 2014

NO SPACE THEN SPACE



sat in the chair waiting to feel good / the low black recliner on the small patio / normally i like the chair and feel good / spent matches like small lumber are scattered on the stones / normally like the small lumber / but couldnt find my space today 

book / good book / but i dont care 

cold and grey june day / used underwear sky / gods y-fronts hang there drip drying over us - we're the kitchen sink 

i head in listening to demos on a portable / stretch out on the cushions / empty mugs watch me do nothing / scribbles climb across the rug / cant find my space today 

cat attacks cardboard record spines / not his taste most of them / he likes chet baker / he likes cat baker / he cant find his space today 

hall rug watching just watching like empty coffee mugs / lay down on the bed pm / cat follows on searching feet

day time bed is almost delicious but i dream 

i dream i got my cock out / i needed to piss so i got my cock out / then i'm falling / think i better protect my cock / fall slow / land in the trees like a railway embankment / weak trees / exhaust thin and struggling / i piss / group of people above me but no humans / they all dress in waterproofs / theres a guide like for tourists / for trains maybe or for the piss boy falling / they cant find their space 

i get up / struggle to garden recliner and the lumber patio 

birds / birds fly / birds fly into their holes up the trees / dishrag sky in the sink / good book silent / i wait for my space / my space might be in the bath / i run a bath and wait for my space 

my space is the bath / i write in there / fingers ache keeping the pad dry / its awkward but i write about my man hair / then she shaves my head before a good supper

Saturday 14 June 2014

SO THERES THAT



did hard ton of work 
on the bad architecture
in
the
skull bone 
over my boots
when
the 
patches of common habits
split
like
green 
wood

counselled the horrible this
and
therapised the awful that
and
still 
i'm 

jetlag hangover night-piss
with
derelict legs - wood eaten by generations of salt wind
and
fingers pumped with helium 
and 
bad 
air

but get a few scribbles published
in underground rags
and
theres a soft cat 
sleeping the bedspread
and
a
special woman - they both purr - who softens
the rough edges of the cave 
to 
say 
the 
least . . . 

and i got a new vics nasal spray habit too
that
puts
some
legs
in
the empty suck of decaff




from unspaceexploration - tumblr

Friday 13 June 2014

MY CAT



my cat is the sweetest cat in the world / no really / he waits on the hot windowsill for me when my eight hours are up / in i come / he flops on the hall rug / stretching out like a cuddle whore / wants a belly tickle 

we're watching tv sat on the floor / me and my lady having supper / he gets up on the sofa behind us / he doesnt whine for food or anything / he puts his head between us / rests on our shoulders 

he wakes up purring / he sleeps on her pillow in her hair / wakes up purring / he's so happy we're there

he fell asleep / my hand on his paws / me asleep too / his head on my hand / one little canine peeps out and touches my skin / 
he looks wise but not when that canine pops out 

he runs / like a madman / then he stops / sudden / dead / cleans himself like there was no rush at all 

he jumped in the shower once / water running / and he drinks any water / oily bath water / the bucket by the porch door with the fag ends in

his friend tigerface / maybe not his friend really / when tigerface comes round / starts sniffing at the food bowl my cat  just walks off all shy / and if he's out on garden patrol when tigerface comes sniffing round the food bowl / he waits in the distance till he's done and gone / then runs in 

when his bowl is nearly empty he has a look or nerves on his wise face / paces / wondering about his GoCat

he's still a good mouser / he plays with them mean / till their little hearts give out and he abandons them / a gift for me curled under the coffee table

he saw the last days of me drinking / he watched all the seasons of Lost on my lap / most of 24 too / snoring like an old man / and if theres thunder then its behind the toilet / crouched low and still / lost eyes / waiting for kind words

and when he looks at me / when i'm here writing / or watching the tube or spaced in the comfy chair / whatever / his gaze is long and steady and disturbingly adoring 



Thursday 12 June 2014

THERES A SHEEN ON THINGS



cars - showroom hatchbacks 
with
sun
painted into the steel
but 
under 
the 
glancing sexcurve bonnet
the
fat hips / the flat behind
its
a
black and earth hungry beast

scratch at it with chewed nails
in
an
anger-jag - scrape the pretence off

grand balancing trick

brain-suck ads / lobotomy-smile magazines
of 
easy fortunes - they
drip
the
gloss - charm syrup
and
inside
the lie-skin is flesh / truth -

tear at it with your stained teeth

its
weak
and
simple






Wednesday 11 June 2014

CONDIMENT WOMEN



you glimpse a moment
or it stares at you
becomes 
a
THING
so you scribble it down in a secret book
pleased
you saw it
pleased 
you noticed you noticed its standard horror
and
you
wrap it up fresh and quick and keep it on ice
in 
a 
freezer bag

and
its
nurses again - theatre staff really
in anonymous blues and paper caps
eyes 
are pools 
are angels 
are nuns - sun in black rainstorms
shining
from
the
over-washed uniformity

and
when
changed 
and
clutching car keys clocking out
they 
look
somehow
just 
like 
condiments
in a hungover breakfast nook




from jeremyriad.com

Tuesday 10 June 2014

GARDEN POP



sun
turns
the
world 
a blue light 
like tv light - smearing and sparkling 
the 
red
nodding 
washing

i
listen
carefully
to
the
constant birds - and to lunch being chopped
in
the
kitchen 

she comes over the lawn now
with a tin of coconut milk 
and swiss army blade
for
me
to
twist
open


Monday 9 June 2014

ITS ALRIGHT MA, FLOWERS GROW IN SHIT


so
you wake up on the dead side of the moon
and
you recognise it
because you been there before
and
you puke warm bile
every morning at 3 AM
and
your eyes are empty and cold as ice cream scoops
and
youre rammed in your own sweating stink crack
where
theres
no 
time
or
light
till something clicks or cracks forever
inside your deepest guts 
and
you go on a go-slow
and 
never speed up again ever
and
numbers look like egyptian writing 
all wolf heads and square cats
and
they
call it ME or they call it CFS or they call it suck-it-looser
when
you
feel like one of those dog turds
thats got rubber bands hanging from it
linking
up
shit
clumps
in a horrible convoy
and
you end up at 6.45 AM queueing for more blood tests
with
the 
ordinary ogres 
wishing
they
find
you
a
cooler
disease