THE T SHIRT CHRONICLES VOL 3

the charity muggers
t shirt said

life is the fight for survival
we will all lose

i asked him about reincarnation

he said his family were undertakers
who contribute to the
local neonatal intensive care
& struggling hospice services

i asked him what he was collecting for today

'we fiddle in 4k' he said
'& we will burn in plastic melt
 wont you please give kindly
 for the bees'

FIRE PITS CRACKED TUMBLE

when afternoon touches evening

four fox cubs play rough & fleet

on our lawn & chairs

& still as a post behind the fir trunk

one parent watches

blended in shadow & brown 

& as the dusk crowds the skys vignette 

she returns to bury 

the food our cat rejected

in
our
fire
pits
cracked tumble

& in the wild wild corner 

kept abandoned

in hope

for bees

LAVENDER BUSH

i felt 
a then
indescribable sadness

by the unremarkable
lavender bush

afraid of the bees
that days night

&
tomorrows day

BROWN DROWNING (CLICHE / LOON ALERT)

knee deep we are

in shit now

& rising

i read
the poles are collapsing
&
probably realigning

everyone is indecisive

all the bees are dying

nationalists

putting their time in

not surprising

big enough opening left
to dive in

democracys belly exposed 
flawed & dividing

dont we need to be
(cliche alert) 
u n i t i n g ?

always a war 
to skip out & die in

if
you
tire of permissible sin
daytime tv 
& morning gin

tv has them polar bears

on an ice cube
thin & staving

all i do is eating

& if i said this was new

id

be

lying

but something basic has broken 

invisible line crossing

&

its

escalating

whales beaching
like monks
immolating

hollywood repeatedly
filming our ending
like we need reminding

& since the 40s
(loon alert)
aliens been climate warning
but
im a fruit loop
just for saying

knee deep we are

in shit now

&
rising

everyone best buy waders
big enough
to keep
your 
kids in

from pinterest.com

PICASA MADRIGALS, THE TIGERS & THE BEES

BEES

GARDEN POP OFFCUT

FROM FERLINGHETTI'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS 2001

1.INAUGURAL ADDRESS

poets !

cried ferlinghetti

artists !

why not paint something important ?
write poetry as news ?

consider this

he said

is death male or female ?

and
why is it dark at night ?



2.THEY FIST ME LARRY

well im trying larry
im trying

but
artists are expats everywhere
as we ALL are
having ALL just arrived here
from we know not where

to spend our lives
in gentrified customs lanes 
dodging fistings 
by 
the border controls
ungiven authority



3. PAINTERS BERET

clarity is hard to pin
in the buzzword blizzard
of
the
tramless
autogedden
airstrip one
courtroom
uk

must i 
dig it out the motherboard
out the fatherboard
and sisterboard ?

must we
smash it out the brotherhood
with a crowbar
with a wrecking ball
wearing a 
handmedown
painters
beret ? 



4.OLD HATS, ALL CHANNELS, ALL NETS

im trying larry
im trying
in the trip hop mornings
wi fi in my lungs

autumn calling
its bronze bugle
to its copper lips

and the earth is dried out larry
cured badly
in the rush-job parade

is that news larry ?
or old hats ?

and we all clock out
in a lottery daydream
our
guts heads and motorcars
wired
with 
optic fibre

to have autotune to listen to
on 
all devices
all channels
all nets



5. TWIGLETS

those are good questions larry

very good questions
very god questions

and they got me

all
the
coffee table morning

and
in
my
afternoons mad dreams

where i am out in the snow
working with lumber
but all the lumber
is twiglets
and still we stack it
like fire wood
against log cabins
and snowdrift sidings

dreaming of payday
just one more
hewn twiglet log away



6. THIS JUST IN

we plunder like a wolf pack

but rabid and deranged

natures food and love program
replaced with 
click bait tinsel
and built-in wine coolers

its black friday
its black friday
every black day

in this golden age
of pretend plenty

well heres a news flash larry
this just in - 

all that glitters is not gold
its mostly just polished yellow

shined for 5p in a sweatshop stink

mostly



7. ZODS PRISON

in this epoch of illusion
we stampede on £200 rubber hooves 
in kfc and on tv
in hiv and ptsd

all our hopes in a glass square

like zods prison . . .
tho who wants to hear that ? 

we dance a slow waltz
in the last living ballroom
sewing
the
enormous obvious
somehow acceptable

guilt-edged disco seeds

of slow-mo destruction
by prosciutto slices



8. HERES THE LATEST

and our reporter on the scene says

theres
a 
petroleum bubble
in the 
exocet glass

reflecting in microcosm
our almost

almost

collective unprotest



9. BUST TO SILICONE BUST

in
our
strange and welcomed
plastic
chains

we deny our neighbour is death

is
high street business

is
universal as trousers

its 
sexless disappearance
is
surely misunderstood

spacedust to spacedust
blue blue electric blue
ashes to lashes 
to financial crashes

bust to silicone bust



10. AWOMAN

and
we can predict it all
amen

and
yet change nothing
awoman



11. BEES !

next up is the weather
with phelony crabhandle

the diminishing bee count

and the latest
corporate sport assassinations

from youtube

OUT THERE ( A DECREASING POP )

and out there 
in the jammed world
open-carry cleopatra
and the central banker
wear camo hats
and apple mouse mats
to visit the coffee shop santa

and out there
on our forbidden planet
bodiceas in a stab vest
cleaning graffiti for george best
and the greens
cant be seen
cos of bbc bias

and out there
in the city canyons
freeze dried aunt bessie
gets oil-spill messy
housing bees
and saving trees
so it all looks like yesterday

and out there
in a blinkered dream
the pastors daughter is stuck
dreaming and scheming  
for an imagined 5 mins
of rosey 50s living
thats as likely 
as colonel sanders selling duck

MAD GIBBONS OF ARMAGEDDON

the morning called the night a liar
as low risk expectations grew higher 
and 
the safe blue map spread out redder
and 
somewhere out there 
i bet theres a cross on fire
and 
here the town crier
had never felt so alone
and 
leaving his home
he
gagged on the news
and
he 
gazed at his shoes
and 
he wept
he'd not slept
and 
to not have to speak and say
he threw his shiny bell away
onto a liberals astroturf lawn
whod got up early 
especially to mourn
to 
get 
used to being invisible
and 
to 
practice being conspicuously miserable
for 
when the cameras came
and he upped his game
with useless analysis
and 
endless words
all teal piss
and 
hangover turds
in the suitably sad moan
of this dimmer switch dawn
and 
the 
prius on the driveway
couldnt have saved us anyway
and
the town crier found a wetherspoons
to pour bombay gin on his wounds
and 
there he sang delta blues
for
the zero hour shift workers
and
the unloved sex workers
and
for
all the uncertain lovers
and all the worried lovers
and all his tinted brothers
and all the single mothers
and all his turban sisters
and all the thirsty children
and all the hungry children
and all the unborn children
whod
pop out of the global lottery
into plenty
or land thats empty
and
know no other way
till their last day
and 
the town crier resigned
for the health of his mind
he wasnt old
he had time
to get out there and find
somewhere
where
theres
something better to say
and whatever and anyway
he sang
what a fucking day . . .
and
all the underclass
couldnt give an arse
business as usual 
when you live in a urinal
and
all the trustfund rats
and
all the fat white cats 
who followed the freelance piper
that acid dream of the gipper 
had
all
glued their blinkers on
gave up free thinking as one
and
coughed up
and
shat out
their unleashed desire
thats been on a fast
in the root cellar
and
they were calling out 'at last !'
knee deep in assassinated bees
like canute in rising seas
holding up the locker room keys
to the rotten empire
that balances over a pit of the past
on a high wire
wobbling in the wind of words
only the angry really heard
and
now
its
all
nuclear breeze and hard rain 
border walls and arm-stars again
and
old leaders are suddenly shadows
mumbling 'well how could we know ?'
and
now no ones knows where to go
and 
from out the banished chasm
that 
free speech wouldnt let us fill in
had come old school populist manipulation
punctuated now
with the wet bark of a rapists orgasm
as
the
mad gibbon of armageddon
touches all the women
when he should be in prison
and highbrow derision 
is no pragmatic solution
so
lets go to hell
but
might as well
mobilise that liberal army
with its printed benevolence
and kind artillery 
and see 
if that 
does any good 
at all 
anyway

from youtube

WILLINGLY DREAMING WHILE THE EARTH BURNS

unfamous pop-tarts
are herded
needy and bleating
as
guilty sacrifice lambs 
thru
sat night soft gladiator pre-praise
all
wanting it SO much
and
pumped up to unreal heights with steroid-fame 
they
cry
into
presenters shoulders
when
its
all
taken
away
by a premium rate revenue stream

theyre launched 
into a B-strand residue 
of morning tv
cheap weeklys exclusives
their five minute faces
filling
up
newspapers
instead
of
the murder murder murder
of
bees
earth
and
us 

 from www.newnownext.com