AUTUMM WHINING REVELATIONS

autumn throws away 
its cheap gold
    in
    a
    decoration celebration

i walk across it on a sick day afternoon

    and
    realise
how Hard the Easy things are    

the drain of the 
    shower 
    shit 
    and shave - any daily discipline
                a
                Himalaya challenge
                when 
    seafog comes in thru my ears
      and
        rolls soup-dense 
        over
        the synapses 
        dulled
        lighthouse sparks

even
  stubbing 
    this 
      finished 
        cigarette out 
takes
  new
    logarithm 
      concentration 

and writing - jesus bandini christ !
  i
vivisect myself at the desk
  for
baby 
Ladybird 
beginner 
prose

too on the gold carpet
i
realise
how Easy the Hard things are

  honesty's floodgates torn down / sold for scrap
  i
  wear
  the
  scars
  and
  the
  holes 
  and 
  the 
  worn 
  organs
  like superhero spandex everyday

even the observation
of the burnt out flatline
  is
  a
razors edge smudged with good blood
  and
rambunctious kipple
  that
  i 
  balance my old boots on
  without
    regret
      foreboding
        or 
          anger

willing my procrastination to turn to pragmatism
in

times natural fibers tidal weave

from vintagecobweb.com

STRAIGHT AND SHALLOW SHEEP

she wears torn tights
under cut-off denim
  so
she must
  be 
off to Forbidden Planet 
to find some comic book no ones heard of
  or

we've
heard
  of
  it 
but she was there before
    at
      the
        beginning
        when
        IT MATTERED - see ?  look at my tights !
 

hes
got a super skinny suit on
  looks like he couldnt 
  bend down 
  to pick up
  a dropped iphone
he must want to get into club night promotion
  altho
    he's
      stuck in Tiger Tiger by the gig room
          for
          now

  and
  all
  the
half-shaved thick-mops towering dramatic
  over
wild full beards and pastel shorts -
  the
  dapper
  mountain
  men
who've only ever climbed Primrose Hill
  must be ...

  must be ...

  well 
  maybe ... organic steampunk IT farmers ?

we play distraction o clock
  in
leopard onesies driving BMWs across the sink estate dusk
  or
striding ubertoss on gentrified boroughs graffiti'd cement
  on
  kids scooters
  or
  roller blades 
  wondering
          how 
            far
              back
                does
                  RETRO
                    live ?    
  and
stealing
  nerds
classic accidental tucked-in mum-bought look
  and
  selling
  it
  in labels
  to
straight and shallow sheep
  feet
    pointy
      like
        clowns
 

  too - 
  norm-core falls from some jaded journalists head
cos
obviously
all
we
are
is 
  cat walk dollies
even
when 
we're 
not
  cat walk dollies - 
      like 
      theres 
      no 
      more 
      pressing problems 
        than
          wardobes
            and
              mirrors
            for
          earths
        premier
      cutlery 
    monkeys
  busy
bombing their lives into the sick nuclear sea

from thefashionista

THREE

BOOKS



good books
  are
  all
  ticks
on a checkboard / on some meta to-do list

  they
  are
plucked
from
the
universal mind
  by
    typer 
      brains 
oiled and loaded / rickety and keen

reports filed 
  and
  job
  done 

oh to be a chosen paper saint



HEADLINES 1


  the 
headlines of the world

drag the flowers
  
  into

  the 
  
  shade



HEADLINES 2


unhealthy hysterical preoccupation
  with
  easy
  generalisation


the
  truth
    is
      in
        the 
          small
            print 


  but
  who 
cares about that ?

specific detail 
and
hard fact
  is 
  no 
  ones 
tagline

PIC POEM - A TALE OF TWO ASHTRAYS

i been using this ashtray  24 years

wow !

i stole it from a hotel in Omsk

sorry  !

i got a new one yesterday

to keep my nicotine gum in

when i'm a good boy 

and my smokes

when i'm not

DREAM - MAFIA WAREHOUSE

its the same warehouse i used to work in
dirty 1990s 
forever spliffs
nightwork 
and
team scotch no1

but

now
its
run
by
the MOB

deliveries come in / my job to check them
ok - can do . . .
its another urgent
shipment
of
hitmen kits

black leather gloves
check
bodybags
check
plastic bags for shell casings
check
9 mm suppressors 
check
eyebrow wax
check
shovels and picks 
check
9mm pistols serial numbers removed
no . . .


two fat guys in sand coloured suits 
march in with questions
and
out the office comes Big Pussy Bonpensiero
pointing a pistol 
at
ME

he pumps the trigger / he swears

not my fault the load is short . . .

i duck round the fat suits
and
out onto the loading bay
but
cos
its
a
dream
i
am
wading thru super thick dream treacle
and
when
i
fall
i
cant
get
up
and
struggle along like a dreadful drunk

thru the door
and outside
i get behind the stinking bins cold metal sides
my 
legs 
shaking

(like Harrison Fords Deckard 
in that rain 
on that rooftop)


bullets
ping
off
the metal / gouge cement between my boots

i grab a fire extinguisher off the wall

Big Pussy's joined by more foot soldiers
all
waving nines 
all
in pastel tracksuits
bling
flickers
in
the sodium light

i fire off white foam fuzz
coat their faces
and
their
tracksuit
chevrons

Steve McQueen turns up stage left and i coat him too

turn
him
into
a
snowman

i am struggling backwards on my arse all the time
down the kerb / over drain covers

i back into a forgotten box

the missing pistols !
packed in bubble wrap
and
oily factory cloth


i
grab
two fast - the dream treacle thins
and
i
load
them
and
pump bullets 
into
the
stumbling foam covered mass

(not Steve tho
Steves
long
gone)

from
life.
time.
com

from

www.

penguin.

com

FUCKTOWN WORKMEN

men in yellow
with
their
loyalty
stenciled across their backs
gather
on
corners
to tear up fucktowns patchwork crust
and
touch
the danger
inside her


a bucking mechanical arm
lifts
great sticky globs of clay
and 
the 
men
change and boost
the
gas veins 
and 
the 
shit pipes
like dirty street surgeons


when
an old woman is exploded by carelessness
the
yellow men
ring
the
lesions
in white plastic
and
orange
light  

and
disappear

from enchanted-wood.co.uk

THE PAST IS ANOTHER COUNTRY

1. LIGHTS

the sun is fuck-tired 
and
brain-drained 
by 
too-long summer days
and 
falls over itself 
in relief 
by 7 pm

leaving
the
streets burning all horror-show
with
paranoid security bulbs 
shining showbiz spotlights
over
block-paved flooded hatchback drives
and
commuter headlamps scan the colourless bricks
swinging
like
prison
searchlights
  the night 
      full 
    with 
      silent 
      alarms

  we
light optimistic bath candles 
to shut our eyes to
  and 
stroke laptops under reading lamps
like pets
  and
cook to the dim radio DAB displays
of quiet jazz
  and
  then
dream before the dead blue flicker
  of
evening tv
selling
  life insurance 
          in case
and 
  beach holidays 
          we deserve

from mindfulbalance.org

2. TOURIST

  in
the awful autumn depression
  of
gut memories and cold-sweat nerves and dead afternoons
  i
  hold
  the 

    Gone Winters

with oven gloves and teflon love
  cos
    who
      can
        really balance
that
old 

    Tourist Pain

with
the

    New Fool

hanging
by 
fingernails
off 
todays scribbled diary ?

from howkapow.com

SOGGY STICK MAN

now 

more 
than 
ever

i am full of blood and bones

drilled teeth 
  in
  a
archaeologists skull

and a mystery brain

but theres more
  of 
    course 
      there 
        is 
          more


i am what my hands touch 
i am what my hands change - aching and grinding
cantilever cranes 
wave and direct
five digit flippers
  to
  shape
  a
  life
from fucktowns hard clay

i sum up this life 

    for 
    reassurance

not here not now

but
during the flat light of afternoons
  i
  list
  and
  bullet point

activities / achievements / geographical location
  and
  the
  journey
  that
  delivered
  my
  soft flesh here

drinking coffee
  and
listening to jazz
  at
  9.43
wednesday morning

from myweb.tiscali.co.uk

FUCKTOWN HIGHSTREET DUSK

its warm

no chill yet

the
summer
and
the
days late sun
cling
on

bbq takeaway smells
mix
with
the low fine estuary mist
and
the
heat haze from exhaust of parking hatchbacks
is
warm
on my shins

the empty indian resturant
is
scraped bare inside
pillaged 
behind
blacked-out
windows
and
i wonder if memories cling to the naked pillars
of
drunk dance steps
and
cheap
corporate do's

an empty plot
with
a
half rebuilt house
now
abandoned 
layers
new decay 
on 
the 
old

a man with smudged green tattoos
under
thick white arm hair
calls out 
HEY ! 
to a younger man in shorts at the cash-point
while 
still
50 yards away

his face is like a clenched first
he says 
EIGHT QUID
and
indicates
his
white
shoes

the cash-point man
looks like he'd
rather
not
have
been 
seen

i
look
at the shoes
supermarket loafers with afterthought tassels

eight quid 
is 
about 
right

 from metrouk

WE ARE DIFFERENT COMPANY

 from polyvore.com

she stops her homey knitting 
stops dressing like a retro-granny
    and
ignores the guy who tries too hard
    in
mismatched bad-fitting charity shop tweed

    now
    she 
    snogs
    another 
    her
both in second-hand double-denim
from the wednesday market
    and
    she
    cuts
    her
    hair
in tough black spikes
    but
    always
wears a hat when she goes back home

    and 
a square-guy
the must-fit-in guy 
with a flexible past 
    of
stalin-like revisionism
    he 
    snogged 
    a  
    him - snogged the tweed guy
    on
    the
    train
after that gig

    but 
also he didnt - of course he didn't

    or 
he did - but REALLY drunk - as a laugh
    or
sober and for youthful free experimentation
    
  or 
    even 
      for 
        love

it depends
    on
    the
company he's in

from thebetaband.co.uk

like i'd tell some people i threw up on my own lap
    in 
    the 
Water Rats that time
    and
    only
    a
    barmaid noticed
    and
    it
    was
    only
liquid and nuts anyway - and early
  so
    it 
      didnt
        count

and
  to
    others
      i just say 
   
    the 
    band 
    was 
    good

THREE

B&W FILMS ARE FULL OF JOBS NO ONE HAS ANYMORE


trying not to smoke 
is
impossible
watching
a
film noir
for breakfast

from doriantb.blogspot

TOO MUCH DEATH TV


i look at news

mainly the headlines
mainly out of the corner of my eye

i
MUST
be 
informed

but
i
MUSTN'T
see

their
faces 

from csglobe.com

WE SLEEP IN THE BED HISTORY MADE


trying to not worry
about
the
worlds
rented confusion
i
bask in weakness
and
kipple
and
create plop-pop pomes
in
free and found and quiet empty time 
instead

from leilaladomptable.wordpress

MORE 199?

from arcademuseum

after
burger van
bacon rolls

fatty - chewey - good
 
we go down the pier
in army surplus and dusty boots
and
hit 
the
arcades
with
pockets heavy with last nights bar change
and 
cider hangovers 
drowned and subdued
by
electric bells
and
ancient patterned carpets spiraling like headaches
and
too
much

Tekken

old people in macs
sat
outside
on sheltered benches

tearing up bread for gulls
and
reading
folded
papers
look
like
colourised 1950s news reels
 
w e get drunk again
in the half-way bar 
shaking with storm waves and sea gales
the 
tide
surging
angry and white underneath thin planks
and
charging
up
the
stone
beach 
in a mad disease of froth

a tv crew set up 
and pretend they're in a different town 

we throw peanuts at them 
and
call
them
out
on their lie

i've no money 
for

a 
Neds Atomic Dustbin gig that night
so
i wait in a borrowed car
parked

in
a
steep hill car park

i smoke joints
and
look out at the black and the dotted lights

wondering and wondering
 

then i try to sleep

freezing cold - itchy - angled

later 
we're
in a five story house of stairs 
and cupboard bathrooms
and
someone crushes up E's at bedtime 
on
the
coffee table with a dessert spoon
and
filling his nose
runs
off
to
catch
the 
last 
train to Charing Cross

while
we
stay
and
laugh
and
drink
from
tins
and
wonder
if he made it
and
make up bizarre scenarios
about
his
journey

from dreamstime