You’ve a long life ahead of you
He spluttered it as tears fell down her face
Unsure of what to say
How to ease the pain
So he spluttered nonsense,
So she cried some more
then tears turned to laughter,
And the ice was broken once more,
These two go way back,
Like back back
Like laying smoking zoots in uni flats
Like pills and spills and the first big city thrills, big chill
Back back
Slips and big trips,
Diving lessons with rich,
Makeups and breakups
Long phone calls to gossip and bitch
They go back back
Mutual disdain for exes
Mutual love for each other
Conversations the amble an ramble
No stone unturned
No yarn unravelled
See these two know each other
Deeply
Meaningfully
Lovingly
See these two go back back
No longer smoking zoot in uni flats
Only the odd pill and spill
Less big city thrills,
But still
The same love and attention
And mutual affection
See what he meant when he said a long life ahead of you
Was a reminder
That this life will be shared
Cos you can’t shake him easily
Nor her either
Love shared.
Moonlight strikes
It’s ten to six
Morning
Staring vacantly
At my Dick
Urging something
Anything
A twitch
But the chemicals
Say no
My brain
Won’t flow
So I lay there
Cursing
My poor
Flaccid
Drooping
Prick
Dress nicely
So you put on your Sunday best
Not that nice
So now your just in a vest
Your going to be cold
So now you’re wearing two
What about your arms
So you put socks on them too
Your aren’t wearing pants
So the y fronts slip on
Your poor hairless legs
But your trousers are gone
Please not the shorts
They are all you have left
So that’s the outfit
That’s Sunday best
I think I’m growing edges.
Spikes and spokes,
Prickly and pointy,
Handle at your own risk,
Watch out for a little prick,
Soft and doughy,
Hurts a little bit,
Slight sting,
Rub it out or off,
Back to normal,
My edges sing,
Along curved roads,
Now sharp turns,
Too straight,
For too long,
Resurfaced,
With a hard left turn,
Taken,
Turned tables,
Maybe wrong,
Maybe hidden,
Dormant,
Stallegtites and stallegmites,
From inny To outy,
New edges,
Gives me a fright,
Poking those around me,
Still soft boiled,
Cracked shell,
Cracked pots,
Crack pot,
If I was a pot,
Flowers would attach,
To me,
I’d bloom,
Red and blue,
Bruises,
And ceramic scars,
Creaking and cracking,
Lathered and lacquered,
Fixed up,
Washed up,
Old must smell,
Lynx Africa,
Chasing after,
No answer,
So the edges got/get sharper,
New faces,
Fatally fragmented,
Equally sharp,
Appearing abundantly,
At the worst Fucking time,
Because if these edges sing,
They also shout,
These edges are perimeters,
Locked doors,
Slammed In faces,
Beaming back
Offering everything,
You want,
You wish,
But fragmented,
Still…..
I think I’m growing
Edges
Sometimes a coffin needs a final nail,
Cos the shit inside just won’t die,
Sometimes a pan needs a flash fire,
Cos the bacon just won’t fry
And sometimes I need Michelle McManus,
Cos otherwise I just can’t cry
See the coffin needs nails cos I’m dumb
The pan needs fire cos I’m scum
And I can’t cry cos I’m numb
Dumb scum feeling numb is no fun for anyone
I’m frozen with hammer and nail in hand
Extinguishing fires that need to burn and holding back tears that need to fall
I’ll let you do all that for me
You can put the final nail in the coffin
Set fire to everything we had left
And pull tears from my dry eyes
Cheers
Why can’t I have a bath with my socks on.
I shout it at the tap.
I’m nude,
obviously
Apart from my socks,
obviously
Shaking with anticipation
Im lifting my foot
Hovering over the glistening surface
Drips from the tap acting as a countdown
Egging me on
But I put my foot back down,
Slowly
Do I let the intrusive thoughts win,
The voice in my head telling me this is wrong
Telling me this isn’t what big boys do
Maybe If I just dip my toe
But the taps won’t let me,
Frowning at me through the warped reflection,
If I just Submerge one foot
Or Both feet,
Will that even be enough,
Maybe ill put socks on my hands too
And feel the water slowly rush over my twiddling extremities
Ass up head tilted back so as not to drown
Hands and feet submerged with socks on
That’s ridiculous I tell myself
Just the feet
That’s all I need
The metronomic drip has now sent me into an internal frenzy
Im turgid
Standing to attention as the imminent submersion brings me to the height of excitement
The
drip
Of
the
tap
increases
I
am
left
with
only
One option
I put my towel round my waist and rush back to my bedroom
I’ll try again tomorrow.
Oh how I wish I was a fish
Swimming in the deep blue sea
Oh how I wish I was a fish
And you were a fish with me
Oh how i wish that we were fish
Exploring the sea together
Oh how I wish that we were fish
And we could swim forever
Oh how I wish I was a fish
So I could forget the past
How I wish that we were fish
together until the last
How I wish I was a fish
Existing in eternal present
Oh how I wish that we were fish
Where future gives way to presence
Oh how I wish that we were fish
With simple common goals
Oh how I wish that we were fish
And we would not grow old
He is cloud, She is bird
The cloud drifts
He sweeps alongside
The bird swoops
She pounces with it
Cloud and bird dance together
She and he intertwine
She tweets and twitters in his ear
Vapour mists float from his mouth
Above them the bird and cloud are circling each other
She and he dance in each others eyes
He is soft and transient,
She is elegant and flighty
Murmurations between them
Cumulative tension building
Not even bursts of vapour stop her or the bird
Together they stay as the rain pours from the cloud and him
Pressure has wings and flies on them both
But they hold
intertwined
Interlocked
Together
Cloud
Bird
He
She
Broken mirrors on the floor
Is it bad luck if it’s not glass
If it isn’t I’ll smash em all
Soft light at 8pm
Circadian rhythms in flux
Glad, mad and full of bad
Maybe that’s why we’re sad
Maybe that’s why I’m fucked
Or why I lament lost years
Lost months
I’ll just blame the clocks
I’ll just blame time
I’ll just blame you
Maybe then I’ll feel fine
Saw one magpie today
But a squirrel too
Do I still have to prepare for sorrow
My mates are all ill
they stopped smoking last week
Now they can breathe easy
But now they also can’t see
Blindness is a side effect
Of nicotine withdrawal
Can’t see the wood for the trees
That’s why I’ll never stop
When I get ill
I’ll just blame the clocks
I’ll just blame time
I’ll just blame you
Maybe then I’ll feel fine
I walked under a ladder
But I was wearing a hat
Does that mean I’m safe from bad omens?
Everyone I know is flaky
Pasty pastry
Can’t commit to this
Can’t commit to that
Can’t commit to me
That’s the feeling I grab
And I spiral
And rage
Fume and flame
I blame the clocks
I blame time
I blame you
I don’t feel fine
But then I remember the mirrors I smashed
The magpie I saw
The ladder I walked under
The luck that’s on my side
And I remember that I am the master of my own ceremony
Inside and out
I put into the world what I put out
So no more glass, magpies or
Ladders for me
I’m on the up and up
I think I just saw a black cat…
I need to learn to cook I need to learn to cook So I think I’ll buy An air fryer Slow clooker And microwave I don’t like the oven anymore Or the hob or the kettle It feels outdated Like museum displays at the yorvik centre, I want to boil my water in the air fryer I want to slow cook my cereal I want to microwave my bacon Because I’m the modern man I saw it all on instagram Saved all the vids That’s all I need To be a ninja in the kitchen Soon I’ll be a modern chef In fact why don’t they make the air fryer much bigger Then I can air fry a whole suckling pig Legs akimbo Hung drawn and quartered They should Make the slow cooker deeper and wider so I can sit in it, slowly edging towards boiling point Like a freshly caught lobster, Claws clacking with delight I wish they would lengthen the microwave so I can give radiation poisoning to the mice underneath my sofa They are such pests And I could massacre them whilst also heating my house Because I think that’s how microwaves work Either way I’m sure the kitchen tech will help And Maybe soon I’ll learn to cook.
Rusty Albion Rusty Dunya The body is a mortal coil But the spirit is eternal, The message of the lord spread But we humans interpret infernal, Dante’s legions Daliance with nuclear thermal, Fact of the matter is Disparity hierarchy wealth run this imperial residence Never leave any room for group clarity just much hesitance, He looked surprised when sheila said good morning, Easy to forget compassion with all that forewarning, They called it umbongo, Dont ever want to talk on Filasteen Sudan and Congo, Geriatric gammon leading anti human times, Heralding misery drone strike making lies with lemons no lime, Or reason He asked for ancestor’s relic But it was given to safekeeping Steven, People frowned said it was tricky for particular reasons, Data mindsets and dopamine fiends No fjords or illysiean fields, Subterranean sonnets as TFL runs dry Pay them their money! ‘But I have to get to moorgate by eight hunny’, He called it a dreary isle When poor fella talked you’d run a mile, Manic street preachers come and go To where? I don’t really know, Where theres little sun but ample malice Sufi and Selassi all get scarred for chalice, Don’t get me wrong Much love there is, Community too We are the guardians of the truth! Yet the lines of greed aplenty too So they selective when they say come through, Earth a run red right about now, epidemics ignorance consumption & rage, Not always against the machine For memory of it fades, Idly we scroll for more to unfold, real heroes: Bisan, Wael and Motaz too, So far apart we are from kin like you, Scrolling seeing dead youth then next scroll slide and right on que, Superstar DJs in the booth, Keep scrolling lest you lose your moral fibre, Eat your branflakes and contemplate whats happened to Harry Maguire, what an awful chasm between reality and delight, an ode to a nightingale, but its well past midnight, Globally it seems us lot are persona non grata Greta got the message, what about her father? They sorry for the loss Don’t want the intifada, Londinium is a madness and hella dreary too, Theres only so much that bunting and vindaloo can do, Global Fascist violence, parliament liminal Shirt cuff suits, why ya get so cynical? Here Grenfell still looms large Yet in Westminster they continue to harass the bar staff, Hard to get wowed by folk all too common, law dun change now talk gone foreign, Metropoli locomotive like Masekela said, They only bring out Hugh when Hugh is dead, 3D said: ‘I love my neighbour i don’t wait for the Olympics’, Velodrome wont save us, its one of many gimmicks, They dont tell you nelson’s statue in Dublin was bombed by the IRA, The big smoke is still squelching and gnawing away, Albion’s pleasant lands have gone into decay, Yet mighty forces have entered the fray, We see it on Saturdays when we protest and parlé, Seems little hope at times, others we dazzle and bring sun to the grey.
TIGER BALM TOBY - Cal Brockel Toby emptied two metric tonnes of tiger balm into the outdoor swimming pool And took a deep gluttonous breath. “I’ve just been so tense,” he said, eyes stinging. “Every part of my body feels like one big knot. I’ve tried everything”. On went the snorkel. I went nearer to him. Over by the diving board, careful not to step on any of the thousands of tiny glass jars he’d been methodically decanting. A beetle skittered across the surface. Toby climbed in. He was cautious at first: just a little toe. Then he kicked off the side with the other foot, Scrunched his eyes tight, and flopped into the ointment With no splash. I sat and dangled my feet off. “I just need total complete relaxation. The whole World’s just a lot right now”. He said through the snorkel hole.
SMALL WORLD BIG WORLD - Ned Dukes My world feels small today Smaller than yesterday Smaller than the day before I’m shrinking as the world around me grows I was a mouse yesterday Now a cockroach Tomorrow an ant And who knows how much smaller after that I wasn’t always this small It wasn’t long ago I was an elephant roaming through a cul de sacs of ant hill bungalows Bursting at the seams of the world Around me Now I’ve shrunk again I need someone to pump me up Gas me up Reinflate me so I can stand up tall
OCTOBER TO MARCH - Ned Dukes A depressing dreary isle Where pervading grey stifles smiles 6 months of each year Spent yearning for the next cycle to come nearer, Slight peaks of sustaining sun Venture out, not long enough for some Darkness creeps ever quicker Pavement stones slippier and slippier And bare trees bare down As their discharge coagulates on the ground We trudge Through mud As we are pelted, not with water, but by slurry and sludge Brief moments of respite Public houses with dimmed lights As we huddle together Yearning for the night to come As we wait for they grey to be gone To be replaced by night Which offers us a moments peace When this dreary isle comes alive And frowns turn upside down And the dimmed lights of the public houses Become beacons to the massses Where we can all drown our sorrows Forget about a grey tomorrow And bask in our collective grump Escape for a moment In a pint of mulch And as the cold bites Each pint and the company which accompanies them Warms your soul Just for moment And then, We trudge back In our waterproof sacks Through sludge slurry and mulch To our damp brick hovels Where we can’t even turn in the fucking heating.