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

CLOSED THE BIG DOOR

they

wont

let

you

die

in the regular madness
of the chattel lands

where guilt is on tap
like a riot hose
& innocence is vestigial

& theyre proud
of the suicide nets they hung
below the factory windows

to catch & save

the lives they use

to beat down to a dumb nub

WAVE A FLAG

youngbloods
overtake me

of course they do
i am one mph

& i have no networking

& no push or pummel left

after the essential work
is bled out clotting

& filed on here

in its secret drabs 

~

if you find it

wave a flag

& i will wave 

your flag too

FIVE WHOLE MINUTES

gears
jump
grind

judder

i greet old scaffold
with chemists oil

& move smooth for five whole minutes

its a glimpse
of a dab

of the essence of life

of homunculus freedom
& the ordinary of others

CHALK & CHAIRS

there was no announcement
in any of the papers
& nothing on tv

no sirens
no shoutout
no sign

but i reckon / know / feel 

that all my teachers are gone now
dead / defeated / downsized
retired into the garden with crosswords

& they cant make me
reduce quadrilaterals
read steinbeck aloud
to anything ever again

in 

their 

compulsory fiefdoms

of chalk & chairs

ANIMAL UNBOTHERED

be easy
to drift thru the days
an extant mass

without urge
or maintenance

no deliveries or plans

no requests or pangs

no phone no flubs no leaks

silent
sitting
sustained

or walking pointing remembering
or walking for walking

like an animal unbothered
to prove it is here

UNFILED 2022 FIELD REPORTAGE 4

i warn the binmen
that i am building up
to jettison much ballast

its to maintain trim
i tell them
you know how heavy
the dead are
&
the screaming detail of things

BY APERTURES

the moonlight beam
a silver blaze
down the curtain gap

is broken

by nights 

black erasure

& arrives as a bullion bar

smelted by apertures
on the rumpled sheets & me

UNFILED 2022 FIELD REPORTAGE 3

the dove sways
with its weight

on the topmost curve
of the conifers branch

& the lily twice dead
is blooming today

~

you !  

flower !

you could have been anything

&

obvious & complete 

&

heavy headed in the wind swing

& 

on a bed of hard cold clay

you nod & nod & nod

like an old old man

at another VE day

UNFILED 2022 FIELD REPORTAGE 2

all the kipple questions

  & needy decisions

that niggle & naggle

  in drop-down check-box rain

& on precinct clipboards

  in day-pay anorak arms

rub like beach sand

  in your summer shoes

maybe i decide them all now ?
  like on a hospital food menu

then ride all the green lights
  easy & low & flying & freed

all the way to xanadu west
  out on el dorado bay