AL FRESCO GRIFTER EXPO

with the wounded muntfish
barking facebook vox pops
at the al fresco grifter expo

its hard to enjoy
where the plum tree
meets the fir tree
in the garden sky

MUSTARD SEED

they say
the kingdom of heaven
is like a mustard seed
or similar - whatever

i am more concerned
with the door policy
the smoking areas

& when they stop doing food

cos i cant eat a parable

~

& A&E was busy this weekend

cos so much reason 

was bleeding out

from all the stabbed up sanity
butchered in the london streets

DREAMING WITH STEPHEN & JOHN

they flee from the city
with feet lit crimson
& headlights in their hands

& happy clouds will love you
& the storm clouds match your gloom

& the stark scaffold of nude timbers
where words dwell with their ink 

welcome you in quiet moderation

then spurned

with no why 

they chase you 

thru the mist

to the beach at the end of the world
& you lunge
at a loss
into the weak grey surf

& you land home
to the windows & the colour
& what 

you say 

in the 

stephen king & john carpenter 

was that ?

NASCENT POLYURETHANE ZEN

granny would say

you got your health
& at youre working

in a positive way

with a dreamy smile

like it was well enough
& i would think

low bar gran low bar

but now i got neither
& tho time works hard

to make those days
shine all sepia golden & carefree

i still remember 

their cold dark edge
of black mirth 

in the night woods

& theres real gold nuggets
in the old river of new today
if you pan slo-mo

with the gentle myopia

of nascent polyurethane zen

BEGINS WITH P

in these petroleum days 

of prepping & paranoia

& pandering to power

patriotism is payrolled 
by prosperous populists
pretending at protector

& by proles & plebs
puffed up with the potash
of propaganda & projection

on our painted isle
of payday loans 

& paddington bear

SICK HEART LIMPS

they tell their microphones
that violence 

has no place
in politics

when

it has 

exactly 

the place

they bred for it

~

& the veil

these days

needs no lifting

its full of machine gun holes

& anyone can look & see

the sick heart limping inside

TRENCH WARFARE

my mind grows jealous

of the animals

who

never

fall 

into

the trench warfare
of tangled semantics

~

dry redolence

like scabs

tumble

flicked 

to the clindamycin soil

PARADISE

you know things 

are getting dark & wild
when its phil collins

jammed looping in your head
&
you simplemindedly agree
& even nod

nod !

to his cookie cutter
boil in the bag
ladybird
emoting

~

send me prayers

metal

&

cohens gentle takedowns

IN SILICON

the ether
is brimful

to the firmament

with
our
paused conversations

burnt into silicon relief

for 

the 

river god to cool

NOSTALGIA GOLD

the stone roses
tub thump

in the memory

of a patio wind

& an imported 

beach movie glow

~

& the chess board

& the gin bottles
& the leaf mottled sun

of a summer that was a summer 

are all edged now

like sparkling surf

in nostalgia gold

CRY OUT WOLF

always i must be busy with anything

in the existential terror
& 10 AM nadir

of another weekday morning

or the nowhere hole
will eat me up 
like the boy

in the garden

alone & worrying

about when to cry out wolf

enter art !

that amateur hunting

of incomplete & fluid beasts

LIKE SUNLIGHT

progress is retro

in these timpani days

&

tho there
may be
a void
in us

i am sure 

it can shine
like sunlight
on a branch
on a tree
in the shade

MERCURY SPILL

the
pain
pretended
at a dull ache
but we both knew
it was fire
&
the shape
of a mercury spill

~

& the shirt
on the hanger
on the line
like a sail
slides away
on the wind

ACTION HERO BIRKENSTOCKS

when the cracks show
like dry earth filigree
i filler them
with lou reed & anne sexton
with sharp cheddar & con air

& i write something down
write this down
call it a poem
call it essential work
& rub the blear from my kliegs

& send this pixel clot & bolus
down the byebye wifi stream
& everyone look -
john cusaks saving the day
in his socks & sandals

SEGMENTARIES

 

he smelt of tobacco

the wood in his garage

& the summer rust of old sheds

~

bad actors lowkey preen

money buffered

from the effluent surge

~


the love scaffold
& medicine tunnel

both do jauntily
wave aloft the carrots

PLASTIC TWIST

candle wax on the squares

like contour maps of lands 

&
cigarette ash is clumping 

in the crowns of the kings & queens

&

minibeasts hike the warped board

as per their night time routine

& 

we are dissecting the human world

its bomb fetish & dangerous solipsism 

& we get high

& mad on wine
& play chess
or kinda

garden chairs & a bar stool

corned beef & beans
plastic twist in the padlock loop

CEMEMTERY FRAGPOP

i 

tried
not 

to 

think about it

but 

i 

was in the cemetery

so what can you do ?

THE QUIET TENNIS BALL & THE DERELICT SWINGS

see how quietly
the tennis ball sits

in the fringe
of the lawn
this morning

~

a tier of sadness

arrives 

on the car park air

as you swing wide the door

& another 

washes over you

from the derelict swings

like layers of silt

home now & settling in 

BITS OUT FOR THE DOC

there
is
a
boring honesty
&
pointless freedom

in getting your bits out
for the doc
in the sideroom
off A&Es
slaggamuffin clot

DEAR DIARY

the masonry of the town
boasts silently
by deign of its protrusion

& my black & locked samsung

is passive aggression 

writ flat & blank & lithium 

~

dear diary

today everything 

is humblebragging at me

& it all pulses with ego 

what mad sickness is this now ?

BIRDS & THE MOON

 

the moon is
a neurodivergent godlet

& they scoop the tides
in a regular rhythm

hanging there self evident

in the blue sky & the black

no matter the boot prints

we trod into their face

& i nod to them

& i salute them

like i do with

the yelling magpies

& the murdered pigeon

i buried in our gardens

burgeoning animal 

cemetery plot 

FRAGPOP No1.2

the pressure wave

the walking meat

lay on thick 

is only a cock

in your ear

~

the postman cometh

with glossy photographs

of cooked food

& 

all the numbers

for the approximation

of the above

& he feeds my slot with them

& the hospital letters too

STONED COG

if you survive
the first 40 or 50 years

intact
or mostly so

you can while away 

the second innings

with dark & dreamy realisations
about yourself back in the day

as you pat yourself on the back
& fire up the electric bong

our existence & extinction
just neighbouring teeth

on a great stoned cog

FRAGPOP No 1.6

be moon

be egg

be a cactus mandala

& 

warm as a radiator towel

& dance

to hank williams

liminal crackle

in our cartoon dusk

FRAGPOP No 3.0

so youre having a day

& your control panel
is lit up red

put black tape over it

the way they

put black tape over us

FRAGPOP No 1.4

i used to have

go-fast stripes

you could only see

if you were playing fast & loose

with the moons vim

& the appropriate cogs

inside of the countdown machine

FRAGPOP No 3.2

 

& now the day 

has a glare

coming out 

the asylum windows

& the night 

is an absence 

like sandpaper

used smooth

MOON PHONE

after hanging up
the moon phone
nixon held aloft
a balsa wood space plane

& i think about sugar magnolia
in the march of the shadows

picking plums

&

carrying bones

in the summers holiday surround

INSINUATING, 2 X FRAGPOPS

torn
hot
shreds
of boeing parts

rain
bimonthly

on the school yard astroturf

& the struggling eggshells there

~

now the plastic death cult

has hijacked my priorities

& i search new raincoats online

with every black cloud & shower

instead of painting these muted roses

ABOUT PLUMS

bubbles burst

he told himself
sitting in the sun
smiling like a fool

in a quiet

both made & found

lost briefly

in the beauty

of the careful plums

HOOVER BAG

it looks
just like
as if

god vacuumed up 

all the shavings 

& the trimmings

& all the broken pieces 

& the reject pieces

& all the dried glue curls

& the redundant gristle 

left out & scattered around his work space

with his high falutin coffee stained notes

& then later 

emptied the hoover bag
all over 

this land

hes forgot

PRESSURE ROSE

i have become age

& my head feels beetlejuice small

& i used to be a child

but i ate him

when the pressure rose

on a hair gel

bus stop

morning

ITS IN THE DOING OF IT, IF ITS ANYWHERE PT1

its an
honest jam

if you get on with it

in the morning solitude

coffees by the bakers dozen

or in a kitchen canyon

you carved out the mountains

in the landscape of the day

empties a clutter clog

on the ceramic cistern

blood in your tears

tears in your stool

& squeeze mournful on the player

LEMON FRAGPOP #2

what
is
this
mercury & malware malady

this non-newtonian mallow of thoughts

these questions

this sop

but a takeaway

a lemon bolt diversion

pronged & sharp

to jib 

a knee jerk jag

ABOUT THE WINDOW

the godlight of spring sun
finds the windowsill plants

& paints there 

laser-like outlines

of blue & gold & white & yellow

around the points of leaves

& the swoop of stems

& the wings of petals 

& up the plumb of pots

& its life & glee & art

& the reason & an answer
& it  g l o w s

like heaven glows

in books & stories & tv 

MORNING REPORT #107

i become

a confusion of tenses

when

the
morning
jag

kicked off / kicks in / kacked up ?

under thin grey rags

leaking like nuclear

from the sad dog sun

ABOUT FAUX PANIC

the 

uncertain electric rush
of 

red & purple anxiety
is 

you coming back online
& 

reconnecting your central nervous system
to
whatever hanging drek
passed
for consciousness before

BEREAVED IN RAGS

 

he saw theyre serving 

lobster bisque & onion soup
up on the ISS tonight

& it reminds him

he says
of Gil Scott-Herons poem
Whitey On The Moon

& he tries to remember

he says

that maybe not everything in the sky

means death all the time

as he waits

out the night

bereaved in rags

CONSISTENTLY PUNCTUAL FESTIVAL MEMORIES

wood smoke / hills of bass

the memories remember themselves

an automatic excavation 

of a layer cake of times

~

heroic turds / a drawstring baggie

& none of it fades

just relentlessly consistently punctual

& pungent

& lurid

& with a colourscape of rot

SMOKE FOR DAYS

you
got
a
rush
of crazy thoughts

in a bottle
in the fridge

but everything
is so of itself
dont you think ?
in these unspooling times 

where towers smoke 

for days & days
on a deconstructed 

hospital plateau 

NEWS WILL EAT

you better

spend some time

looking
somewhere else

you fragile sun of a gun

or that news
will eat

your soft heart 

alive

ABOUT THE MORNING

when it comes

slouching

out of its dark hide

grey with cloud

& pale with glitter

& trojan with potential

i announce the morning

to

be

a 

Gungabean Morning

as i have no other thoughts

& nothing else to say

~

 

a collage of eyes

from magazine paper

sees

more

than

me

ABOUT THE NIGHTSHIFT #1

there was a strange intimacy
in the dark victory
of turning the days 

against their grain

reheated nuggets / big macs / fries 

&

a leg wound sealed with parcel tape

but dawn blared banal 

too soon / too often

over 

the 

dashboard debris

OFFCUT SEGMENTARIES

my bones & brittle ideas

rattle like pills

when i am shook about

out in the porkish gales

~

rainy day opiates

in the kitchen bin now

left in the pocket

of a dead mans 

fleece lined 

winter shirt

~

premium regimental gloss

yes - premium regimental gloss

now the colour got back in