SPIES

at night i stretch out

like a corpse on acid

in the great shadow blocks 

of an expressive & eclectic dark

waiting for dawn to arrive

pocket sized

yellow & blue

~

&

i am hiding with the spies

in the back streets of venice
& 

i am hiding with the spies
in the books i hear too

DESCRIBING TREES

now they axiom
& skedaddle
in their brittle winter debris
bark so dark its noir

& theres something of 

the pop-up book about them
their shapes - almost absences
cut out from the fence & shed & air

quietly mad & still & muted 
renfermé arbre
like painted by a french engineer
with a gall bladder for an eye

GULLIBLE DRUNKS

in 1989
there was this month or two

when each estuary pub

had a chancer joe

selling graffitied chunks
of the berlin wall 

out the boot

of their mk3 escort

or a borrowed volvo 760

& a small self conscious queue 

formed after last orders

in the car parks cold & dark 

espousing disclaimers & paying

in the heavy stink

of the seawall mud

AUTUMNS DARK LID

in

the
morning parks
liminal hinter

the

golden merkin

of

dewy leaves

confer 

into light & colour

just about 

only just enough

strength to wrangle

wrestle & tangle

with the afternoons 

four o clock dark lid 

ABOUT THE PAST

then 

after 

dark

the accelerator juice

kicked up the drama

of ordinary lights

& made paintings

of the gutters
dark mirror pools

TOTALLY UNFORGIVABLE BEHAVIOUR

so bastard

an affliction
is insomnia

that it makes you
wish that the dark

the days reward

comfort blanket

& old friend 

would just bastard end

FINDING WINTER THERE

these annual
pitstops
come round
like we
fell asleep
in the
afternoon
sunroom
& woke up
finding
dark thats there
like a wall is there
&
then winter too

LUNCHEON VOUCHER SERVICE STATION BREAKFASTS

in a boxy ford
we drove thru the night

for ramsgate margate
brighton & hastings

nirvana & sabres of paradise
& marlboro & magic trees

cats eyes a metronome
in the kinetic dream sheen

motorway maintenance floodlights

rude oases of smelting black

~

the dawn was tired
driving back

a flipside to
the orange moon

souvenirs stashed
under backseat parkas

with sea salted socks

& windows wide open

our army boots tapping

to the median beat

BEHIND THE BRICK & CONSENSUS

noons the new midnight

dusks a ceasefire relief 

dawn games are welcome 

     

i play there

     

like canute did 

with the tide

~

our deal with the dark

        is always in play

i stretch out there 

        sweating bleach

waiting for the time out

            the short death

            the hallucinations

        

   behind the privilege bricks 

        

   

AN ECONOMY OF PASSION

looking for light
in the dark of the park

odd pop misunderstood
in your eggshell mind

alone in dusks inertia & ennui

by your own divine hand

the fm rules 

missed your 

short wave gain

you are an economy of passion

a child in the inbetween

photo - Tree & Fuzz from the Dagenham Archive

FREE THEN I SUPPOSE

we

lay

in 

the corn lake
under the sun king
horizon a memory
waiting on the dark

~

we

went

down 

the farmer lanes

& the train spurs
to the corner pubs

felt like Stand By Me on drugs


~

& high & young

& haystack scratched
every blink 

became a 

matrix glitch

a festival-eye 

insomnia re-render


~

& cold glasses
& muddy boots
&
the pool table naked under stars

free as we could be 

for then

i suppose 

photo by Georgi Kyurpanov on Unsplash

DECLARATION

 

i 

am

a 

culdesac tangent

a spur off

the

replacing circle

awake in the dark

ok ?

& listening to the winds

from visitalbuquerque.org

MEETING AT THE WHITE POST TREE

get a bottle

&

a carrier full of cans

go

out

in

a

field

&

kick the empties about

laugh at earth
laugh at its signs

&

roll crumble-flake-slate

up an easy tree

smoke till then its dark

& 
the world

is unmade 
is fresh again

those

were

the

days

young & before phones
meeting arranged
at 
the
white post tree

20 pences for the call box man
easy stay out till three

from essexwt.co.org

WEDNESDAY POPS - BLUES

1. TELEPHONE BLUES


i dont ring him

so he cant
not answer




2. SOFA BLUES


i cant find proof enough
that
we
are
not
all
mad

not behind the sofa
where water damage
flakes the paint
or 
under 
its blameless cushions

only pennies there

and peanuts




3. 3 O CLOCK BLUES


i nap acceptably well

for a whole

45 mins

&
wake
in the pms 3 o clock nadir

i simmer

waiting on night 
to deliver
its
own
black
conundrum

its coma
its peace
and

its certified hallucination

from quotesgram.com

SOME HEARTS

TIME SLIDES

out
the
front
window
suburbia burps
on schedule

and
past the marks
the cat makes
with his interested nose
the
regular joes
and
ordinary janes
start their engines
and
dive
into
that cement river
to everywhere

~

and up there
the winter sun
is a heart in free fall
doing half a job
dizzy with worry
autumn betrayal
and arctic gasps

~

the winter sun

it
only
just

j u s t

touches
the bungalow ridge tiles
over the road
at
noon

in a golden smear
like night out
next morning
lipstick

and if i think i hear it sigh
its probably the water pipes

~

time slides
it just does

i go to piss
and
its
dark when i come out

like i blink you know ?
and then its black dark

time slides
it just does

~

and theyre all driving back from work now
1000 things done and behind

mooring the hatchbacks
on their concrete berths

and
i
pull
the
curtains
on
the
day

twist the blinds flat
and 
put the lamp lights on

cos time slides
it just does

downwards
and then up
into itself again

uncontrollable
and smug about it

from omegavintagewatches.co.uk

A PICTURE OF A MAN

i would call the help desk
all the time

it was almost
scheduled
i treated it like
a time-out

this and that
i would say
and also
the printer
it doesnt know who i am

a strange IT guy
a strange faced 
tall faced 
long man
would came down

i
mean
his frowns were kind of inside
and
his loping stride way too long

kind of staged
like his mind
was on a catwalk

and his
laptop bag
seemed
borrowed somehow

or downloaded
and 3D printed

just
for
today

or like he was 
a dead meat sim
the helpdesk just grew
in
a
windowsill pot
like cress

~

he was a suited guy
collar open too wide
tie gone wild
50 or so
and
looked almost like
he could be
daniel craigs
older brother
if his parents
had kept him
in the dark
till adolescence

i always got the impression
he might not actually be there
but i didnt ask anyone else
if they could see him

or try to touch him
at all

i dont think
i wanted to know

as long as the printer
it knew who i was again

~

a midlife crisis
or an effort at camoflague
had tattooed 
crisp stars 
up his left neck

and there was 
smudged green
barbed wire
drawn up the right

and
when
he
had
mended
our
printer
he went out to chain smoke
in the bluelight entrance
making
endless
calls
on
a
too big
dead square
blackberry
telephone

like 
he was an
anomaly
fresh thru
the
mandela gateway

and needed beaming up
right away

before his presence
collapsed 
all the worlds 
forever

from newsweek.com

TV HASNT SLEPT SINCE 8/10/1997

my tv 
never says 
goodnight 
to me
any more

clicking it OFF mid show - 

  atlanta cops weird newspeak
  wrong aspect richard widmark 
  hitlers eternal adventures

( specifically ;
  how albert speer designed ruins 
  into the reichs new buildings
  so the 1000 year rule
  could decay in scheduled beauty )

-  i feel guilty relief 
like i kicked out a heavy talker
after a night drinking on my sofa
to wait for his cab in the street

and when i stretch out in the repeating dark
i know hes someplace out there somewhere 
bending the cabbies ear
twenty to the dozen

and when i try to
                  fall 
                     safely
into
the
natural nothing
battling the bright white noise of absence 
and the ufo lights in my eyes
i
know 
half the world 
               or 
              more
is still ON out there
making waves and taking names

from youtube.com

ALL OVER AGAIN

the dawn cracks the nights dark glass
and
we
have
to
do
it
all over again

cover ourselves in cotton
animal hide on our feet
press space 
tap enter 
interact with plastic 
summon data trapped in light
discuss in depth the weather

we daydream if we can
in the blue light under sodium tubes
of quiet cobweb woods
of the oscillating sea
of colour brochure beaches
of supper 
silence
and the short death of bed 

and in the evening in a break from tv 
we choke a little too polite to complain
counting our weird and diminishing blessings
under
a
beautiful
pollution
sunset

from flickr by vw4ross

SPORTS ARE GREEN (IF ROLLERBALL WAS REAL I'D FOLLOW IT)

saturday football in the pub

id go for the drinks
and
sink
into
a
dark bubble

i never Got It back then
all
the
Go Reds & Go Blues

and
i
got
no
laughs saying

  if only theyd work TOGETHER
  theyd score more goals that way

but
it
WAS
green

like the snooker
id
watch
and

  d r i f t

the next day

taming my hangover with
bottled
beer
and
green
weed

from www.pintrest.com