FOOD IN TOWN

& with fingers
too tired for caution
you
pick
thru
the consequence buffet
as
its
the only food in town

SHRIEK ON

shriek on
shrill songbirds

dont let
our swearing
stop you

we are hungover
from questions

~

& the fulltime bell

will surely peal soon

on another mornings
cold taxi minds

SOME WEDNESDAY POPS

INTRINSIC NAME ROMANCE

andalusia
corpus christi
&
the milk mountains

bear creek
moses peak
&
the silverlink service
to gospel oak

~

maps make order
make dreams

&
its ok with me
if the same 7 11s there
open
late

in a 
heart warming rendition
of different evening air



GENERATION NEXT

hes sure 
theres hope
floundering up
out the undertow

a dovetail of brains & balls
fingers crossed
touch wood

in
the
tech
heavy
hearts
of 
Generation Next 

~

bluetooth babies
shall OWN
the collateral circles

but he feels like a dinosaur still

his 50s gut
his rabbits foot

every day 
expecting to see

a
motivated
comet
replace
his
dial-up 
sun

or disease like an asteroid
come & mock
the 
pool table rules
mid-game


MAGIC & MIRACLES

magic & miracles

well they always happening 

just
in 
the 
margins

& you need drink-talk in your guts
a mad edge fenestration
satellite objectivity

to
get
you
off the beaten busted road
of hummed drummed material witness

& see
the glitch-clicker

count 
     on 
       up



WAIL

so wail yes wail
wail the blinkers off
at
the
salami asylum slices
of 
miscellaneous fuckery

ring the grief
out the 
singing bells

in the obscene nothing
of 
wednesday 11 AM
blank wall rebar 

that
takes
you
down

& kills dead 

even the home scent
of your plug-ins

from televisius at flickr.com

SOME MONDAY POPS

HIGH STREET MARKET

cardboard empire
stacked & packed

coffee loading
fingerless gloves
take a break
to
dig inside money aprons

refolding the float
shaking the shrapnel

in 
the
6 AM refinery glare 

& yell-

POUND FORRA POUND

mildly psycho
at the old 
& 
the supermarket wary

come 
opening 
time



IN HIS OWN WAY

hes fucked come dawn 
nervous
norovirus
again 

he fucks the dawn
in his own way . . . 

then calls the day
to say

hes too tired now

to
come
outside
&
play

in that awful streetside 
gone
sweatbox
gray




SO SCATTERED

what can i write now
that better have said ?

( child
  sat
  on the empty 
  autumn back lawn
  sad
  gaze
  on the empty 
  kitchen window

  he has a toy car
  thats not quite right

  wondering 
  what 11 AM
  is for )

what to write now
in
these
times
so . . . so . . . scattered

( too OUT of touch
  too IN touch
  facetime
  plastic hacked )

what to write now
but
an
ode again
to
the
timeless trees
timeless lessons

rooted but reaching



ODE TO TIMELESS TREES

the springwinter wind
blows
early 
apple
blossom

like spontaneous confetti

over
the
marriage
of
the
birdshit onion grass
&
cracked
rutted
english lawn

from quirkyscienece.com

TWO HAIKU

DOUBLE GLAZING


outdoors is silent

its double glazing doing that 

                   its
                 double
                 glazing 




MILTON KEYNES


i hear earth        
spin its 

          resigned tired diagram 

  beat by
milton keynes

from open.edu

NEWS POPS

1.

everyday
the 
world 
is
another newspaper 
          
        older ? 
        newer ?
        or 
        more tired ?
             

2.


dear news
so theres
no headlines
of artistic triumph
of heroic compassion
of breakthrus in unity
                 universal education
                 civil responsibility 

        again ?

dear news
so theres
no side bars
on mindfulness
on the futility of fear
on the triumphs of new tech
                   beyond apple 

        again ?

whats that news ?

you think i live in
an 
absurdist liberal fantasy
in
a real world of hooting chimps ?

well touche news

but 
why 
not 
print that then ?

        for 
        a 
        change

3.

maybe
if
we
didnt watch the news

   but
   counted the days instead
   by 
   our 
   growing finger nails
   and
   the sliding sun
   
   would 
   the 
dangerous theatre
still
perform 
at
all ?

wells theatre, norfolk, virginia

HE SHOULD HAVE LOOKED SOMEWHERE ELSE

tired
man 
in the bathroom mirror
looked
for
truth
in the u-bend
and
said this
  
  'cant think of a better metaphor
  more suited to life
  than 
    pissing
  your own 
    shit stains 
  away
  in
  the dull mid-morning'

but
to his credit
the
tired
man
in the bathroom mirror
looked
very
unsure 

LONG DAY

the day was long
like a mile is long
when
you
got
no
shoes
and the air is full of grit

a tear of tiredness
tickles
and
trickles
down
my 
nose 
like the first fat drop
of
an
indian summer downpour

its only 6 pm 
so
i dress carefully in tired optimism
and
put
the tv on quiet

 from en.wikipedia.org

SUPERTIRED !

strange how exhausted a man can be
with 
mind-fog a north wall of dense smudged graffiti 
and
still 

all at once

can
plan evenings of seaside-dinner and cafe-words 
he might miss 
and
still
can
suddenly plot crime novels bent on the work toilet
he may never write
and
still
can
work his heavy limbs for folding money
thru the murky muddy troughs of awful 10 AM
and
still
can
jot and scribble nascent poems quickly down
between
dark bitter coffees and spacious abyss moments 
that 
reduce All Things from rocky mass to mere paper concept
with
still
the 
big world-drama banging like jungle telegraph
out the radio headlines and dim-opinion gossip mouths
that
fill
full
every
long
slow
blink
of tiny interrupted peace

from delightmakers.com

SELF PORTRAIT

ash flakes onto the desk like dirty snow from days first smoke
lit and pulled deep
he blows it away to collect and become dust
and
coffee steams out the round cup like ghosts of ground beans 
and field labour
from 
the 
first 
pot

he rubs sleep from tired eyes

he'll do this all day

he squints eyes tight shut fingers still over keys
trying
to
remember
the
words
he thought on waking
or just
from seconds ago

them he rattles them out/eyes unfocused - 
or something close anyways
and of course they seem weak and his face shows displeasure

its quiet - this effort day task one
a challenge on waking
a discipline in the unwashed dressing gown 
dry night sweat itching
a determination born of coldfire breakdowns 
and drunken wasted time

he SAYS something and launches its small creation
into 
electronic ether

the cat passes by - sits back-to-him on the wide window sill
watching
the
silent street and birds in the red berry bush

he sips coffee - opens new tabs - closes new tabs
checks the time

sometimes i control his hands

sometimes

from Hospice Matters wordpress

RAMPAGING CHAOS BEHIND THICK GLASS

exhaustions anxious opiate 
is
blinkered zencalm
and
quiet
lurking horrorfilm unease
in
a
toobright toogloomy 
world
of 
slow slog
and
muffled toweldamp claustrophobia
where 
mudmarching days
are
reread paperback pages
of
forgottenwho names
and
obscure and inexplicable action

SICK MAN MOANING

tired as jet lag and walking death
unfed
and not even smoking

damp germs spread down the cure tube
and
irony knocks away at my resilience

all my
aims
dreams
efforts
plans
loves hates and style
are exiled into the distance of extreme exhaustion

i hold onto them like the end of Brazil

and when i try to sleep
an alien growl like an hallucination
wakes
me
only
three
mins
in

all night long

HALLUCINATORY OVER CROSS

the damp fog and thick dirty tide 
of 
daylights waking dream
and
the slow dry chalkboard scream 
of 
helpless night-watches
are
experienced with twisted spirit/dim-thrill resignation 
that
turns medical curse into dull adventure
struggling on and on over toy obstacles
for the soft treasure
under
the
machines rainbow

its
a 
fabricated masquerade of limbic automation 
and 
coffee

punctuated

by
visions of maiming and murder/burning and abuse
real as french existential thrillers

and

the care glow of citrus hands

ACCIDENTAL EXPERIMENTS IN SLEEP DEPRIVATION

again and so -

plastic shades here are lurid as toys
and morning sounds batter and rush me 
vivid
as
HD cinema 
or drugbomb

my minds a moon walk/a mercury swill

feet are diving boots 
and their
metronome motion mesmerises
the slow tick and blank tock
behind
eyes
low
drapes 

how, i think, it is that all coffee is empty now?

it
was
hot

it
was
in a mug

and it tasted strong

but EMPTY of accelerators somehow

and the student drs - of course i loathe them

wear earth tones and sea colours
like turd orange and mould greens
and 
words like plums rush out from underbites and deep Grant clefts
too goose fed for skinny hipsters and fitted shirts
and
no one needs THREE pagers . . .

again and so 
their lack of presence/awareness/actual mass
would
normally,
on some bedslept day, 
preclude these babbleclots/these chuckle-clumps
from
REAL 
loathing

but today - 
again and so, the coffee was empty!
and the 
morning delivery tall/wide/large/urgent
wobbling in stretched film corners of weak plastic wrap
on a split and creaking pallet
almost
a
DESIGNED hazard . . . 

today - they block the corridor 
a dam of Gap and Farah/all low belts and tiny bags
with
such an EPIC lack of spatial awareness
that
i
grooooooowl 
hands
wide in a silent plead . . .

to mere shuffling and no eye contact
at
all