LAMPS TRIMMED & BURNING

some
of
us
always pull lamp duty
on the cold windowsill

clamps left on
the
glued wood topper
of
the venetian blinds

ABOUT PIERCE BROSNAN

in an experimental jet boat
on & under 

the surface of the thames

you chase down an assassin

& you roll it

& in a halo of bubbles & white water

of course

thats 

when you straighten your tie knot

ABOUT DAMASCUS

age & its rising descent

play at profundity today

like a road to damascus moment

if damascus is the corner shop

& the moment 

a rest at the corner

on a low brick wall

under strung cables 

buzzing from signals 

caught from the sky

WEAK TEA VISION

it is an overcast
& room temperature day

a day that tried for more
& turned out like weak tea

there is a sense of something 

forgotten / lost / gone

& a feeling of something

missed / wrong / skewed 

& then there comes a moment 

when i think / feel / know 

that if i turned round now
my grandparents would be there
 
a reassuring perfection

of themselves

maybe even hand in hand

in beige & smiling

ABOUT FLAGS

when 

i 

saw 

them

i called my red flags
wine overflow

& necessary blood

& green flags
just more ego juice
for the hero gravy

FAR FROM THE TUCKSHOP QUEUE

us kids numbed & agog

who unzipped their coats 
to catch the blow & sail

of parkside autumn wind

are accidentally now adults

in a rush of penumbra

& the jumping blur of it

far from the tuckshop queue

GARDENERS VAN

 

time has become . . . tactile

like a sensory toy

in a drs wating room

patinaed with irremovable gunk

~

& next door - the gardener

his van is evident

in the patent street

NEVER HAVE GONE

theres a tape in me
that plays back 

old friends voices

with such timing 

that its like

they never
have gone 

~

this conjured backing

is flowers that bloom

out the stomped dust 

IF THE RAIN, A FRAGPOP

& next year

i will be older

like a tree is taller

if the rain & sun

KEEL OF CRUMBS

& rain came
perpendicular & small
& i listened to the rain
& i thought a thought
& the thought thunk me

in
a
sunday mornings
keel of crumbs

soul itching
like a microdose tease

feet up

chow down

& wonder

THE GIVING BOX

i put the tv on

& its not a show hes famous for

& i never knew he was in this show

or even knew of this show at all

but 

it was very very nice 

to see that avid urgent fireball

that is rik mayall again

PUT LITTLE TRUST IN TOMORROW

whoever said
seize the day
must have been high

it comes at you like a ramrod
like a haymaker of light
like a newspaper taxi ramraid
thru a pawn shop window

youd need hands
like andre the giant
or a glove
like thanos

not my mere mortal mitts

of meds & meat & mistakes

SOME MAD SCIENCE

i know we CAN touch
& how important touching is

but i keep thinking
about how we CANT touch

how touch 

is resistance

is pushback 

from the atoms & forces

in our own reaching fingers

& upturned faces

& small animal palms

& cold night time feet

& i love me some mad science
but i cannot forgive it this

THE FACE OF DEATHGLO FEAR

well 

youre a person
just a person
like an everyday person
of meat & appetites & deathglo fear 

well
youre just collateral damage

everyday collateral damage
in the culture wars

bullshit timewaste

of impetus & ignorance & fear

& i am happy to see you 

lighting the grey retrograde streets

of the plumb citys boar

with your optimist flags
of freedom & future & fandango 

in the face of everyones deathglo fear

HOW WE BLEW IT

all 

the
WE did this
&
WE did that

how WE failed mother earth &
how WE squandered paradise &
how WE cut down all the trees &
how WE poisoned the rivers &

how WE melted the glaciers 
how WE blew it &
all that

well i dont feel 

i should be included
as i didnt do any of that

& neither i bet did you

LIKE BUTCH & SUNDANCE, A TV POP

born strange & shared

in a corporate world

so 

they 

run 

then

hand in hand

toward the camera

together together

& into 

a film grain 

freeze frame

like butch & sundance

before

the

credits

crawl

MANY A TRUE WORD

 

god is basically a nanny cam

i
heard

a
cartoon
character
say 

on the late night tv

~

& i would like to take 

this opportunity to say -

this 

shorthand

demographic

clumping

together

of gen this & gen that

makes

me

uncomfortable

in its lazy reduction

IT WAS VIDEO OF COURSE

i was 

well behind

the leaps of phone tech
when he showed me

a pic of his fiancé in turkey

i jumped 

when she moved

cos it was video of course
& he looked at me

with surprise & weird distaste

& i felt 

like philip k dick

when hes spying on himself
& its raining in his heart 

in paranoid & scrambled LA

INSERT ANALOGY HERE

theres so much shit
coming thru

we got to suck up

inset hoover analogy here
with reference to full bags
&
the horror & frustration

& delay & interruption

from 

the 

tangled electrical cords

knotted need to not comply

that makes me hot with anger 

in the bland day hallway

MEAT CULVERTS

 

now streaked 

& chipped

& perforated

by the strafe of our own worry

& scraped 

& gouged

& punctuated

by a policy mandated 

inferiority complex

we

meat culverts
be

resilient & tough & stripped

like tardigrades in trousers

masked up in the welfare queue 

INSINUATING MELODIES

now

my
mind
writes

its
own
eulogy
as
i
paint

& i am trying not to ruin the canvas
& i am happy i have not ruined it yet

& i can only paint to arcade fire
& i am almost sick of them

    almost gagging on 

      the insinuating melodies

but i am hooked on

the bitter sweet

coffee & banoffee

of nostalgia & longing 

CHESTNUT & UMBER

painted chestnut & umber

with the runoff of the world

we echo-chamber 

a call & response

under the gibbous belly

of a lock screen

with a queue of sign

THIS IS HOW SHAKESPEAR HAPPENED

dear mr mendes

with respect
but this continued
beatles feeding frenzy
makes it feel
like theres never ever been
Any  Other  Bands

this is how shakespear happened

marlowe is hanging on

but who quotes

fletcher

anymore ?

STATE OF THE NATION

so i do what i can
when i can

i mean wrighting of course

between the fruit flies

& static veg of the day

thoughts like samples
over fuzzbox loops

big themselves up

with poached & grandiose titles

eg;

THE STATE OF THE NATION

jack & jill
went up the hill
for another litre of cider*
& jack fell down
& broke his crown
& the ambulance came three days after

* & ice & monster munch
  & ribena & vape juice

SAD MAD BONES

 

when its bad news headlines

that justify 

your extant mood

its

a 

weird & dysfunctional synergy 

that

sends

a

buzz of balance

thru

your

sad mad bones

SOFT ARCHAEOLOGY

i would go 

once again 

to the places

i have been 

to see what of me

i might find there

in the memory

of streets

& the minds

of hills

~

time has never known 

what its to do with me

& i am infested 

with its minutes

&

backwatered 

by the tides

of its great bowl

FEAR EVEN TO ONCE GLANCE

now

the
system orchestrated mindset

demands rolling explanations

for absence from the day machine

&

it

comes

out

as

a beg / a whine / an excuse

& pleas for understanding

when

i should
be unapologetically ill

a still turning 

burning windmill 

on the overlook hill

sacrificed to home experiments

& slo-mo soft-blazing 

a strange new trail

thru the heart of darkness 

where half the healthy fear 

to even once glance

CIRCLES OF ELLIPSES

 now automatic writing
that engine & saviour of expression

     well -

 stationary boatmen

 make circles of ellipses

 in the spring of surface tension

 with coffee scoop feet 

& if i must

fall deep

to hear myself

i will belay the kernmantle ropes

 & light it up 

 & read the shadows
 of the gumbo & diamonds down there

  & fetch them up

  to the suns

  light

  warmth

   & bleachy fade

   & bust like birth

the kitchen counter silence 

in this bad-quiet & still 

     headpan pool

BABY JOHANSEN ASKS #2

 

papa ?

yes son ?

you know carol on the corner 
sold their mobility scooter
to pay bills from thames water ?

that rhymes son ! 

you could be a poet when you grow up

but papa ?

yes son ?

how would that help ?

. . . well . . .

BABY JOHANSEN ASKS

papa ?

yes son ?

this labour party, 

theyre people too, 

right papa ?

yes son 

then why are they doing 

such unpeople things ?

. . . well son . . .

RAW LIKE BACON

i
bathed
in
the triumph
of a cat

exfoliated with sand from the sky

& raw like bacon like headlines
i took to the sleeping bed

& failed there
with
mountain tension

missing the streams of leigh 

PATTI SMITH FRAGPOP

to paraphrase patti smith -

i am so middle aged
so god damn middle aged

& i wish 

   someone 

      would send me

         energy

A DAY IN THE STRIFE (TO THE TUNE OF A DAY IN THE LIFE)

i

saw

the news today oh boy

the government

blew its legitimacy out

in a subsidised ulez car

& tho the news was rather sad

i just stood & stared

as another crowd of people 

were turned away

&

everyone was really sure

he was from the house of shills

SINCERELY NO REGARDS

to; politics

cc; disaster, capitalism, polycrisis

re; throwing the poor & sick again

    to the payday loanshark wolves 
     

to whom it may concern, 

we 'uneconomic units'

are sorry
you cant
see any worth
in our struggling lives

just know 

we too

can see 

even less

in yours

sincerely no regards whatsofuckingever 

NOSTALGIA GLANDS

outside the unkillable bookies

diehard smokers

brace for judgement

& breath their b&h

into my memory portal

& manic nostalgia glands

~

matchboxes &

cubic cellophane

under the thin light

of a streetlight

& night smoke

in the mist of rain

REALITY PROPS

gore on the green lawn

feathers on the garden walk

haikus in red dawn

~

his face is a mountain

the night is screaming

all conversations 

are clipped like wings

~

& the emptiness of right now

is punched out 

on the quiet carpet

of a weekday morning fume

GOOGLING PADLOCKS

on hand-me-down phones
&
library wifi

the sick google 

padlocks & foodbanks

in
the ruins
of
britains stable doors

THE BLISS OF THE WOMB

if you didnt arrive 

keening hard an existential wail

some strange masked woman
beat you till you did

now they expect autofill permission

& adherence 

to the fluid goalposts

mumbled 

out the sanitised egg

& 

to roll over roll over

& 

curl up like a hibernating boy

every unexplainable night

chinos neatly folded 

under crisp polo shirts

photo ID on a company lanyard

next to the rare earth phone

like the blood & terror

& shit & screaming

were never ever there

& you had forgotten

the bliss of the womb

THE FRANKENSTEIN REST OF IT

 

now most days

i cant believe

all this normal stuff 

is happening

you know - 

like eggs 

clever parrots  

& 

our regular surrender to the dark

let alone the frankenstein rest of it

VULCAN FIRES HIS FORGE

among other news

the world is heavy 

on cringe & deflection

ego & projection 

orchestrated diatribe

& racketeering from the egg

& big machines turn

& the moon is thirsty

& innocent mammals

hunt landmines 

in the ivf dirt

i am weak at the shit of it

now heres pinochet

with the weather

where you are