FOR MY PEOPLE

read an article in a broadsheet
about the increase of poetry sales
off the back of the odyssey

& the rise of . . . instapoets !?

& briefly piqued i read on 

but i recognised no names there

from right here

& on behalf of my people
i got in a right mood
& i stopped flushing the toilet

until medical intervention
& semantic investigation
arrived me home

COLOUR FLUSHED AWAY

the

toilet
looks
like
something giger drew

in a doodle margin

when
youre
on
the

bathroom
floor
with the ceramic in your face

& 

the air is all hazy grey

OH MY DAYS

i shit only air

disappointed

was looking forward to that

~

close the book
poems in / shit out
that was the plan

close the book

~

i know i will be back soon

& not too late

touch wood

touch cloth

ha

this soft machine maintenance

oh my days 

photo by Daniel Cheung on Unsplash

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY

  if
  i
listened to my body

listened to its 

  wail & warp & whine

listened to its 

  white noise telegraph

 

& its desperate morse

  click-clacking in my dry bones grind

like they say that you should do

then

i 

would be sleeping

  or drifting in the inbetween

on the toilet

  but imagining a starship command chair

eating carbs

  

  but hounded by light salad sanity

tickertape headline news 

  on the bog sheets roll

amateurly sculpting

  unconsciously phallic art

  with 

  my

  toes

  & 

  cheap modelling clay

lightly opiated to soft kingdom come

photo - Simple Street Deconstructed, courtesy of the Dagenham Archive

ARSE IS AN ARSE, THE STORY OF A FOOLS CLEANLINESS

for 
an 
unprecedented 
twenty minutes
my own bodys
necessary deposits
heavily disgusted me

& i wanted to

never
never
ever

have to go & shit again 

~

this strange urge 

for 
such 
unattainable cleanliness

scared away
my 
animal embrace 

~

i withheld in denial

being Art

in my stillness
&
assumed dignity

portals briefly 
forced inactive

~

but
i was so much stranger then

&
i am emptier than that now

from pinterest.com

THE SOUNDS OF FLUSHING

hello bathroom
my old friend
its good to shit 
in you again

because a pressure 
softly creeping
left its seeds 
while i was eating

and the pressure 
that was planted 
in my colon
still remains

with the sound
of flushing

from dailymail.com

CRISIS EXISTENTIAL ON DISPLAY / GAGGING AT THE THOUGHT OF MILK

i couldnt believe
that i had to sit there

a   d   l
l   a   o
l   y   n
        g

with these strangers
this old woman
these weird smells

so i asked
and went to the toilets
and sat there
sat in the solitude there
in the quiet there

knowing i must go back
to that allocated chair 
to the unknowable rules
to the faces
ugly dumb crumb covered faces

back to that clinking crate
its bottles of full fat milk
dirty from the truck
and warm from the sun

i knew i had to go back
knew if i did i would cry
knew if i cried
it would feed on itself
and i would be looked at
looked at and asked 
all those unanswerable questions

on display and out of the loop
gagging at the thought of milk

at school
1978

from cpfc.org

TOILET POP OFFCUT

OLD WISDOM

best do
what your
body 
tells you

says 
the 
neighbour
lady

shes
hissing 
at the cats
on her lawn

but

i
say
to
the
neighbour
lady

if i 
listened to
my body

i would 
be asleep
on the toilet
all the time
choking down carbs

pic from vertical-slice.net

A MONDAY MORNING IN THE WORLD

1. DIDN'T DIE AGAIN

everything 
is an 
ugly pile
to 
retarded morning eyes

we did not die 
in the nights 
short dark surrender

a day is reissued
from 
out the 
backlog queue



2. HICCUPS

left arm aloft
and
three pints of water
makes 
me
sick

water
comes up
still cold

i disgust me

hiccups gone



3. FILIGREE SARCOPHAGI

i sit with the toilet

lid up

not knowing what to do

so we reminisce

good times & bad times

waiting
for dawns
brief heaven
to
light
the
cobwebs into filigree

and the bath
into
sarcophagi 

from britishmuseum.org

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY

they all say

listen to your body
itll tell you what it needs

and they all say this
with a kind of wise nod
i hope i never imitate

if
i
really
listened to my body
tell me what it needs

i would be on the toilet
asleep eating carbs

~

so i take
what my body says
with a pinch of salt
wise cynicism 
and a heavy veto

and i listen to the wind
and i worry about the rain
and i keep the cellar door open

writing things
loving things
mocking things
with empathy and kindness
and the meanness of a clown

in northern europe 1984

watching
classic
sci fi
with
a
childs wonder
and
the hindsight
of a god

from uk.ign.com

BRACE YOURSELF

the sun rises
over its own long shadows

retracts them like claws

and 
keeps them for 7PM

too lazy for AM blackmail

~

and i am unhooked
from out my anxiety dream*

that i might enjoy another day
sat
in
the
easychair petroleum sunshine

pouring decaff
into the
gin hole

~

and stephen kings 
night mist of monsters

gave way 
to dagenhams day fog

all 
90s ghosts
and 
noughties walking dead

surprised to still be streetside
and
functional

~

the waking worries
arrive like milk used to

dirty with slugs
on the doorstep

and sanity calls
says

its just a tuesday
any old tuesday again

count your blessings
theyre in the cats eyes


~

so dance on
my gibbons

throw your shapes
in the missile test dawn

and if theres any kind 
of breakfast at all
then relax

youre still in the frying pan

~

maybe braise yourselves tho

baste your plastic kipple 
in extra-prime amazon juice

as preparation
as goodbye

for
the
overcrowding
and 
the 
torched scraps
on the blue flame free-for-all
of the stove top

from designmodo.com

*( a teeming public toilet
   rushed private mens functional stares

   and no cubicle doors close right
   and in mine there no toilet either

   so i was trying my best
   to shit out a built-up backlog 
   hovering my arse 
   over a tall chromium pedal bin

   ultimately unsuccessfully )

FIND ME A MANTRA 1/3

what to write
when you want to write
but
all
your
notes
are 
like 
from 
a lunatics 
therapy diary

heavy on 
toilet 
observations
and the 
deliberate 
slide of the sun

~

i
need
a
mantra
that
steams
like
harmonies 
from out the compost

that
inspires
like
the daisies
losing
themselves
in
the
school
yards
melting
tarmac

still blinding white
and egg yolk yellow

under a simple
childish
sun

from recycleforlewisham.com

PLANE LOOKS LIKE A BLURRY NEGATIVE

a plane
up there
glides thru
misty cloud
up there
like its 
a huge cross
in a 
huge box 
on a 
huge form
sliding by 
like advertising
up there
like a 
hardsell 
suggestion

the plane 
is creeping 
me out
up there
like its 
a ghost
up there
a ghost
from long ago
and i have 
stood still
down here
and we are 
already done

there is a 
uniform layer 
of dust 
and fluff 
and lint
all over 
all my 
clothes
like i have 
stood still
down here
since long
long ago

i feel 
hollowed
down here
battery 
struggling 
leaking
and rust 
is dripping

from
down
there

down
there

where the 
toilet goes

from thinkstock / news.bbc.co.uk

ANOTHER PAIR OF POPS

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OFFCUT POPISMS

sometimes its like
i wake up
all
of
a sudden

and think

what the shit am i wearing ?

( two diff clashing camo patterns
  and
  an
  orange check shirt )

or

why am i writing about
the
toilet
again ?

( it was NOT teflon in there . . . )

you
know ?

-

cant see the dangerous flames 
in 
the 
sunlight
of 
state approved fame

and
the
shouting
newspaper
fallout
deafens
us
with
agenda in bold font

-

the grey sea attacks

it sucks at the concrete edges

and my mind -

is
so
far
from home

fish scale sky by mizz bee on flickr

DYING ?

im dying ?

im not dying !

i
just
had
beetroot yesterday

and
the
toilet bowl
became
scary
as
a
cancer ward