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