MY MIND SUSPECTS INDUSTRIAL APOPHENIA

& 

after it all

the moon is a dirty pearl

rivetted by levi
in the dusty suede sky

& 

the ports pile driver 

is percussion backing 

the container ships 

taut hawser strum

&

tho my mind suspects 

industrial apophenia

my heart is hearing

an end of world blues

LOOK BETTER IN THE APP

& i wonder

this thunder morning
when lightning strikes
our old stoner haunt

& the rain comes down

like its behind schedule

if i would

look better in the app

like
everything
else
claims
to

on the sci fi ballast
we clutch like pearls 

in our meat-crane hands

COLD & NAKED WERE YOU THERE ?

those hymns
& odd songs
we
sang
at
school

i hear them still
in the smell of mowed grass

~

& the spaces between
the liminal sheds
source essential ballast
from the tender stash
of
the child-minds
soft chaos
braving school

MACHINE WASHABLE TIE-DYE CORNER

the babe blind
to the teeth of giants
had boil-in-the-bag positivity
glowing in his eyes
like a back lit lobotomy
& he said

'you dont know what worse luck
 your bad luck saved you from'

& time was
i would have let this fool be

standing there machine washable 

in his wipe-clean tie-dye corner
with his one drug experience
& his ironed supermarket jeans

but i said

'thats a losers mantra
 youre dying on your back foot
 where is your anger ?'

he always carried a zippo you know

clumsy & self conscious with it
& just for other people to use

GLIMPSE ATLAS

pause in old nature
& direct your antenna
to the history-myth
of the ancient bark & mushroom web

& you may glimpse atlas

waiting on a union rep
who never makes calls
outside the celestial ball

atlas  

the original solitary worker
is sick 

with megalophobia & sciatica

stuck in 

a health & safety nightmare
forever 

unrelieved & under pressure

this despite his perfect attendance

& a record of exemplary compliance

IT WAS THE BRIGHTEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE DARKEST OF TIMES

'the 20th century

was our greatest work of art'

said the voice

with an echo

in a sample

in a song

an ensemble & complicit piece
a stealth piece unframed

genocide & the moonshot
atomic fruit & lsd

its consequence babies
live corrupted now
in the collapse of words


~


please discuss
you have seven minutes
paper is unlimited
hands up if you need more pencils

WHERE SANITY TUCKED ITS FEET

i feel

its like
as if
times been being

s t r e t c h e d

instead 

of its 

regular

subjective

slide

~

i felt 

its tension 

let loose

i felt 

it crash 

into tender places

upsetting the dinner table

where sanity tucked its feet

~

& 

the clocks i thought

that measured time

i 

see hurrying now

to 

just keep up

HIS ARMOUR & HIS ZEN

it changed 

when he got
a hand-me-down granada
with dark grease patches
marking up the headrests

he sat eyes front

a car man now

barking lazy 

hand-me-down racisms

like he thought

he had found 

his armour & his zen

UP MY BLUEJAY WAY

i
go
to
the
multi-cine-mega-plex
eager
to
see

all the trailers 

& talk show clips
& social media reels 

& internet spoilers
& poster scenes 

& green screen shoots

assembled
into
the
studios
tried & tested yawn yawn order

with a 15 quid coffee bucket

to counteract the necessary 

diazepam suppository deposit
up my bluejay way

INTO PLAYGROUND LEGEND

his big-boat trainers
& market traders leather coat
dwarfed his premature body
& shrunken walnut head

& when he swore he swore
in a vicious spitting bark
that escalated & enhanced
the words to defcon 1

we talked his swearing up
into playground legend
but it hinted at an anger
sourced where
no one asked

THE WASHING IT SAYS HELLO

i like washing out on the line
drying in the sun
it says hello
clean & free

i like the stub of a pencil

the toll of use

so visible

& its useful still

i like the organic sounds
from the container port

the earthy thuds 

& soft bleeps of shipping

i like these signs & marks

these flags of commitment

to life 

& to things

WAITING THE MORNING OUT

when i knocked at his door
on school-out mornings

his mum always answered
hungover & put out

smoking a superking
in her dressing gown

jeans on the ironing board
vodka soda on the side

& she would shout for him
up the stairs like for a dog

& we would go out on bikes
to wait the morning out

on a building site
pissing in the crevices

or down some alley
rolling with the nothing

cos really
i dont think we got on at all

we were just at the same school
with compatible video games

in 1984
or thereabouts

BEAR CORNER 1990

& tho we all said DONT

he would run ahead

to the phone box 

on bear corner

& dial 999 

& shout BOLLOX

at the answering dispatcher 

then stand triumphant 

on the pavement
a lit b&h in his 

half-sovereign fist

waiting for us to catch up

every friday night

after last orders

in 1990 or 91

LUNCHEON VOUCHER SERVICE STATION BREAKFASTS

in a boxy ford
we drove thru the night

for ramsgate margate
brighton & hastings

nirvana & sabres of paradise
& marlboro & magic trees

cats eyes a metronome
in the kinetic dream sheen

motorway maintenance floodlights

rude oases of smelting black

~

the dawn was tired
driving back

a flipside to
the orange moon

souvenirs stashed
under backseat parkas

with sea salted socks

& windows wide open

our army boots tapping

to the median beat

NAVIGATING BY OSMOSIS

the tramp ship
of outsider artists

struggles with
the assumption sails

navigating by osmosis
in the grey nuance fog

& all the new words

dance-off for definition

clogging the muster points
where urgent queries queue

SPRAY TAN & PROMISES

england is eating itself
like pop did
like hollywood does
every oscar time

england bastes its young
in spray tan & promises
like hollywood does
with every new crop

england exiles its sick

like insects do

like hollywood does

silenced on worry beds

dreaming of what could have been

NAILING IT SOMETIMES

'its not repetition, its discipline'

              mark e smith 

one way or another

i may write

the same poems
over & over

because of

the meat fatigue
& the loosened memory
& the solitary cog

churning in its rut

or 

because
i got as close
as i ever will

to Nailing It sometimes

& thats a nice place

to go to

again

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS IS PAVED WITH UNFINISHED POEMS

i am the unproud owner 

of 128 unfinished poems
i will get to them
i will

i will find their form 

flexing in the ferberite

& set them almost almost free

its just the dense sickness 

is so profound these days

i feel made of 

ninety nine percent 

heavy water

~

& the power is out 

& the toll booths shut
down on damascus avenue
& its weird / things are weird
in ways its hard to say
like today
take next doors gardener

with his jeans & his tools
i never seen a more normal normal man

~

i am the proud owner 

of 127 unfinished poems
i will get to them
i will

WATER CYCLED

 

i had no choice

when the water forked

& that river branch 

i couldnt sail

still smarts 

like a ghost limb

~

its water 

under a different bridge now 

but still

i get to taste it

here

on the garden rain