THAMES ESTUARY

APOLOGIES TO MOON

1. STUPID MOON

tonight the moon was big and stupid
trapped
and 
tangled in the lines of telegraph wires
too
bloated
for the sky 


2. UNWONDER ECLIPSE

fat acne moon 
scratched
by
our muddy balls black edge
is
something for me to look to uselessly
at
my
sleepless 2.22 AM 

wondering wheres the wonder ?


3. I SAID

maybe i seen you too much 
silent witness every night
there over empty football fields 
where
i
swung
with
tins 
on the mist-ghost goal posts
the
space between us 

hanging there empty huge invisible 

frightened me
so i mocked you stupid moon
to
dampen
my
fear 


4. ONLINE

tomorrow online / in the papers
caught
by
a
night lens / reality software tweaked
youll
be
BIG with meaning
as
you
LOOM behind famous outlines

so
much
more
than
this
sore dot i see
lost
in
fucktowns empty empty skies


5. SORRY

before saturns rings and jupiters storm eye
moon is an everyday miracle

too silent
too common
too OURS

from imdb.com

DREAMS LIFTED

once i had a dream
that all dreams were lifted
and
i
was
in
a
calm place 
remembering new things 
i had always known
back
where
the
world
came from 

 

 from growmelbourne.org

LIMP AS WET FRUIT

of course 
i could not get back to sleep
so
now
i
stand
aching in dawns clear pastel
too
tired
to
wash
eat
or
plan
wondering and worrying
how
i will open myself for Words again
how
to
bust out a Yell again / be alarming as morning tv
or
be
a Revelation
like 
natures silent and screaming trees

from alanbaxteronline.com

BARBARAS BROTHER

always in the same double breasted black suit
shining at the creases and cuffs from age and wear

sewn from some Co-op unkillable man-made fiber
that flapped like bats in the fucktown winds

blowing round the bus shelters and bread smell bakeries
and always a faded shade of beige M&S jumper

of loose mobius threads and bobbles and hangnail loops  
and his thin hair hung shoulder long and greasy grey

and dirtied the frayed collar of a washed-out dress-shirt
and his sideburns were great wedges of salt and pepper thatch

looking like a gangster chauffeur from the golden Krays days
who had tumbled thru hard times into harmless madness

and he wheeled a brown plaid zip-top shopping trolley
like old ladies fill with wool and a whole lifes cash savings

with shopping-stuffed plastic bags tied to the metal handle
and his pockets bulged with huge handkerchiefs like sheets

and great bunches of mortice lock keys like a prison warden
as he hurries from supermarket to charity shop to bank

i used to see him standing and pacing impatient on street corners
tapping a Timex while he waited on the bus routes of his mind

for decades he never changed from his strange rut of strange time
and now the streets are empty of Barbaras brothers analogue rush

i worry i may have to step up and choose one final outfit
and replace him with my shape for the next forty effing years

 from www.chew-the-fat.org

WORD POP

i write without rage
my tired eyes are destroyed flotillas

i
am
unbent / forced calm in the fiery force

under
hallucinatory
memory
spume 

 

 from illustratedfirstworldwar.com - battle of jutland

KID WISDOM

browsing books
stacked between stairs
i mind-touch them
i instinct-weigh them

by spines
and colours
and names
and font

when a ten year old 
says to me
        YOU WRITE POETRY DONT YOU ?
i nod / say
        BUT I DONT READ IT MUCH
he says
        YOU SHOULD THO SHOULDNT YOU ?

so today i take 
a doorstep 
of Harold Norse
to the white room
with my failing guts

when i come out
i have left 
my trousers behind
and i write 6 poems
of which this is one 

 from acousticlevitation.org

PUSH TODAY

englands famous dishwater skies 
cling 
to stubborn roofs repeating tiles
and 
to blocked forgotten relic chimneys
and 
to superseded satellite dishes still snobbish
and 
to spindly self conscious tv antennas open metal ribs
and 
theres 
no shadow or definition and no depth or drama
and
almost almost almost no time

somehow we are stuck in dawns disappointing grey forever
and 
its silent fallout of thin endless gutless rain

thats 21C toxic !

and 
peels away the paint from the parked big-arse cars 

and 
all the memories of other gone and nowhere days
must queue and wait and twiddle their useless thumbs
because
today the world wont move at all
no
matter
how
hard
you 
live it and push

 

charing cross bridge, overcast weather, claude monet

ORDER

soft-brain survival necessity 
and
retro-vision sanity valves 
justify
and
reform
and
tamper
the
unknowable journeys weird turns knowable
and
make
glowbombs from the chaos architecture 
of 
fast time and blinkered squinting unsense
and
force
me
to
call the dark old days
long 
gone 
and
golden

 from linkedin.com

COMMON MASKS / REAL CLOWNS

old womans Dorian Grey picture 
has
climbed
out
the
attic
to
paint 
yesteryears youth-glam face trowel-thick
with
shaking hands / myopia / golden delusion memory  
on
top
of
todays collapsed dishcloth skull

no
one
will
recognise her plain naked
in
her
hospital 
last 
days 

the picture of dorian grey by ivan albright from 1945 film by albert lewin

WORLD - AARGH !

my inability to adequately articulate
  my
frustrations and dissatisfaction
  with 

  governments
    world order
      gods
        banks
          the religious
           the dumb 
             the music industry
               war mongers
                 space explorers
                   computer coders tickling the depths of AI
                     and 
                     more
       
           and
my difficulty in pin-pointing
  where it went wrong

if
it
was
ever
right

  leads to poems like this
that
lack
much
intrisic merit
insight
or
viable life alternatives 

 from behindthevoiceactors.com

EMPTY TICK CLOCK

fridge hums
clock ticks
cat wheezes

and repeat

outside -

flatbed truck rattles 
tracksuit kid rings a hand bell
sky is underfelt or discarded iron

and when i get my boots on
and get myself out there
the
wind
is 
uncertain - it has no nose today
and
only
blows
round
corners

from traceysolomon.wordpress.com

CLOUD ODE

good morning clouds 
shall i describe you again ?
i
hope
you
are
not
tired
of
me
looking

your constant motion soothes
like
fire
or
sea
and you filter so well
the moons
bland anger
and
the suns 
blank gaze

you sail closer to us 
than their hard edges 
so
thank you clouds
for
your patience
and
calming
sky
tv

 

 from dreamatico.com

RUSSIA / GLASS / FLAWS

1. FLAWS

theres flaws in this vessel 

like
the
bubbles
in
cheap
glass 

forever floating / photograph still

a negative space blow-show
dependent
on
the 
whole


2. RUSSIAN PEPSI

there
were
bubbles in the cheap glass 
in 
the
Pepsi bottles of Russia '91 - i was young 
and 
not yet too wrong
breathing
awful
fags
in the pick-pocket market 

between the snow and oversize receptions 
the 
air-chant was a new hue

and
i 
walked 
amazed and dazed and brain-busted 
in DMs 
and 
envy denim
at 
church interiors and subway depths
and
i
remember
the
warped hotel windows 16 floors over the Om
distressing
the
view
like a heat-haze or a Stargate
that
made
the
frozen water wobbly sad and grey


3. LENIN
 
flaws 
are
both
beginning and end 
of 
shadow stories 
and
struggles like symphony

light bleed and lens flare and Persian rugs

more interesting by a megaton
than
the
cold
glacier 
of
perfection

dead Lenin - preservation intention
of
chemical juice
and
death meccano
only
rebuilt a man
in 
state approved yellows

 

 fromrussiawithlove.blogspot

TROUSER METAPHOR POP

i have found the trousers
of
my
sickness
and
they
walk me unemployed
among
the
accidental
art
of
councils

 

 from phillipwolmuth.photoshelter.com

 

FRIDAY A.M. CAFE POP

upstairs cafe
soft chairs
red walls 
window cracked open - for flyover fumes
sky grey - fades in pockets to blue
thin brown toast
small strong coffee 
and
i
cant
see THRU enough of the world today
the
glossy
propaganda
cafe
pic
of 
smiling blonde family
unavoidable over the cutlery buckets 
EATS into me 
and
in
the
toilet
there
were
controls you dont even have to TOUCH 

 from mcphee.com

PUSH IS SECRETLY NAUGHTY

PUSH

GETS ITS

KNOBLET OUT 

CODEINE

CODEINE 1.

my pains gone 
but 
theres residue left in me
and
my
life

is

dialled down - i am a sick-note back-stop
when 
i
take a low ride
on
the slow slide
of
warm
codeine 


CODEINE 2.

tactile but numb / alert but behind 
i
am
stretched out on knotted sheets
where
emergency put me
and
not thinking nothing / nothing at all
except
to
slowly wonder why that is - and not minding no answer 
and
getting older / it happens
happens 
right 
now
while time passes
and
as it passes 
it 
reaches out to touch my shoulder
in
a 
peaceful reassurance
that
feels
right - not patronising
today


CODEINE 3.

soft brain bath i decide
i am having a soft brain bath / maybe waiting on the postman

hey mr postman
bring me something new . . .

and outside the sun-blur window
the
world
is
an intense jigsaw
built
of
infinite shapes


CODEINE 4.

and
the
low ride / slow slide
is
me 
staring deep
into
the 
twisting cave-like depths
of
the
lapcats ear

and 
that scream i hear
of 
a 
distant star fighters engine
is
only
english wind
in
the
chimney

and
the roar and the white noise pounding
is
only
my own blood living
and
sat
on
cushions
in
the
margins

from sixthseal.com

PUSH 18 SMASHED IT THRU THE LOOKING GLASS

push 18

smashed it

thru the

looking

glass

ON PURPOSE

once upon a time
a long long time ago
on
a
nowhere street corner
of
short garden walls and cropped lawns
a
much younger me
locked
away
all
his 
confused and conflicting emotions 
deep deep deep inside
his
skinny boy guts
and
felt
a
wonderful
short
term
buzz
of
control and freedom

 from sikhanonymous.wordpress.com

 

MY END OF THE STREET

theres 
a 
sick man 
sorting and creeping 
thru
his 
hoarded kipple hes keeping
in
black bags stacked and tumbling
in
his
suffering ma's driveway 
her
house
already stuffed to the ceiling
and
next
door
a bad man is swearing and shouting
at
his
daughter whos wailing and crying 
and
hysterically pleading
between
his
endless
decorating drilling and remodelling
and
then
suddenly they are all moving 
and
theres old guys slowly walking
to
the
shop
for
papers for reading
stopping and gossiping 
about 
britain declining
and
the kids i used to see cycling
are
grown
now
and 
shoot around in hatchbacks driving
away
from their bungalow
that
echoes with arguing 
front 
door 
always 
open 
behind a ford cortina rusting
and
me 
i am bleeding 
from cuts i keep making
when 
shaving and cooking
between
escalating curtain twitching
bad
sleeping
and
dr visiting

from curbsideclassic.com

NATURE RESERVE INCIDENT

on a bench hewn from log
my hangover is slid sideways
when
i
find
a
half-joint in a deep pocket
Silver Fish i called them - stiff and dry
its
end
a
crumbling black crater

scene is 
nature reserve on reclaimed marsh
boardwalks / plaques
the Thames a touch away

i
light
it
and
smoke
it
and
then 
i 
am 
pointing my camera at unremarkable birds
  clicking and clicking 
    fuzzy photos of smudged brown feathers
      again and again

sooooooo much
i
make
myself
laugh and laugh and laugh - clicking photo fool !
suddenly 
high
loosened
and
undone

 from rspb.org

CREATIVE PROBLEMS

1. NO WHEELS SPIN LIKE IN MOVIES

my
inner
monologue
is
a
derailed
train

it crashed way back
there
was shit on the track 
and 
the signals pointed everywhere

i 
think
as
deep
as
it
lets
me

but i only hear ghosts
and
commuter echoes 


2. THE CLEVER METAPHORS STAY INDOORS
 
some days / some weeks
the
words
are
turds
and 
dont let me play 
and 
all 
yesterdays smells
from 
yesterdays streets
still
pang and pull my salty heart
but
in
a
wordless
sensation 
like 
walls are built in the way 

 from dmaxti.com