Thursday 25 May 2017





The Modern City

‘It may burst into life at any moment, often when it is least expected. This possibility is a vital flash of hope in the mind of the man in the mire of the macadam, in the moving chaos, on the run.’


From ‘All That Is Solid Melts Into Air’ Marshall Berman



Music Review


Forgotten Idols lay smashed and scattered across the floor. Dissonant undercurrents coerce a riptide of shattered beats as Duran Duran Duran speeds into sight and docks directly into your neurological pathways. 
Tracks swarm into your mind, effortlessly dismantling the techno mainframe. Refracted acid takes 'Sexus' to a place where famished ghosts leer at each other across a mist-infused steam room. Repeated listenings reveal new fissures, fresh layers emerge as we scrape away at the glacial enormity of this techno scree-face. Redemption is in sight as we take a final pasting on 'Marathon Man', a track so banging as to provoke a wry smile on the face of any seasoned raver. At its climax it literally screeches under the weight of its intensity flinging its subjects into a feral transcendence. 


Tuesday 23 May 2017



Earnest young men trying to photograph the essence of the city

educators ask

“What’s an archaeologist?”

 the rush of polluted blood
The enthusiastic historian cracks on
Someone cackles

‘Ein jeder Engel ist schreklich’
While todays builders grind the city to paste

Gross Development Ideal

Chilled hopeless couples 
Silhouettes of birds,
Arctic Terns gather in a backroom of a bar
 some small town in the America of your imaginations
A hand grips the glass of bourbon, it goes up, and it comes down
Flickering neon

A cracked pianist
looping despair busted radio receiver
Great joy from those out of focus days
What is clear are the smiles
Walls collapsing under the weight of memory 
That guy on the saxophone once again
Every night the same
The lobby bar, the business folk drifting milling out of range
Chilled hopeless
Sorry for angry words kids
“Its not fair”


if time has lead you astray
then go berserk with me

if care worn dusty days have turned you grey
then sit in the garden
and have a cup of tea


with me

Friday 12 May 2017



Lovers of Uneventful Music

Harvesting energy from the cortex of the universe
mentally degraded Aztec mystics take one year in a stride
all days and nights pass through in a few seconds
dreams stack up behind the smouldering closet
tottering comes a frontiersman a true gunslinger a fur trapper
all this
Fossils indicate multi faith settlements
Dryad diadem doughnut holes
Wine bar on the edge of the universe
Porsche wheels carousel bonus time
Frills and fancy ornaments
Thames side apartments very near the Greenwich peninsular
The meridian line goes through the coffee shop
That is overpriced and badly run
Have you seen Blow Up?
I haven’t yet I’m saving it up
Marion Park, early summer
You should go there
We could take selfies 
All my heroes are behind me
Action figures in a washed out wilderness
Don’t go that way boys
Its cold out here looking at the broken sky oozing multi-coloured rain
Up on the chill hill
Overlooking the financial district
Communing with our ghosts and friends and ghosts
Of friends
Strike up ribaldry
Strike up destiny
Straddle the DLR
Unlock its mystery.



Assembly Dance Anxiety

Inside the walled garden insist on forever
recoil at the angels faces
peering from the grotto
notice what you must in the geometry of the last supper
observe only most the brilliant aspects
that have existed in this moment
listen to music while you write
remember last night as we went to sleep
happy, under my heavy wine blanket,
knowing that the dull thudding of a sudden  downpour
would give the newly planted euphorbias
a watering they so desperately needed
it was kind warm rain
I hope that they have taken root.

Tuesday 9 May 2017



the complexities of life flourish under pressure
you could feel as if you are walking on air
even if this can be defined succinctly
you have a vague notion
this is a correct mode of processing an emotion

maybe your at the bottom of a well
or stuck up a tree
in fact where are you
apart from an idea in space
an idea that can only be yours

so we are all just a bunch ideas
rubbing up against each other
in disagreement mostly sometimes it works out
like this morning on the gravel track beside the canal
heads down morning run
a voyage into the unknown once more
the idea of a journey
really?
new species? perhaps vast swathes of uncharted territory
a human wormery mulching on humanity
to produce liquid nutrient
the good stuff we need to survive

Friday 5 May 2017





You Look Like a Bug



visionaries cluster
                                           look
an outpost
                   rhythm clusters                fortunes
gulls terns and swallows stay for a crumpet
she visits once more
 breathes life
                     into the failing museum.

come and cohort with my despair
clouds cream over the tumulus
           rag time won’t do it, febrile and stocky he is the scourge of the Combs.

puerile in a haven of hot folly.

play us a madrigal or something magical
throw arms into darkness, a bright penumbra
smoke out the idea or else use  primitive traps
like the wild old cold and  golden days
get swept up in the vacuum of infinity.
heart says no
intangible abstracts stack up violently, saying is this what we care about, this unreality?

so there it is 
still writhing

chess pieces lie scattered in a zero gravity chaos of divine loss. 

Thursday 4 May 2017

North Folk

Tribal negotiations on the wing
the pulsing of a bat bouncing out of the night
Jolly Roger the old folk sailor like a livid fish finger
Renaissance man of The Wash
Old house of antiquity you look familiar
I beseech you to begin pleaching the desiderata
wealth in a line of stones
(a hammering away next door, strong odour of urinals)
the Bedrock of ghost villages scattered across sand and flint
young eyes in an old frame
greasy liaisons fulfilled too fast
husbandry in accordance with status
proficiency is negotiated by rank
design directors gather together
take more make more
another frisson of batwings
stalwart geese guard the perimeter fence
the kind of stealth that gathers money in the darkness
a malice of kindness overdriven down winding lanes
plunging
undulating
speculating  
chances of survival, what rationale and run to where?
Battling the tides, The River Ouse has burst its banks
And there suddenly hovering over all is the heavenly sepulchre of

Ely Cathedral