It’s not poverty I fear, but madness.
Now a year ending poem; with a quiet song of solo cello
Mad spirited boys clashing furious on the embers wave
Theirs is a constant tapping mind outside the body
Twins Locked together rolling through this furious year of heatwaves; of plague spores
Of ‘home learning’, indeed.
Clutch to life like a billion-year baked diamond Earth
Seen from out there; reminder of the ‘look back’ at the planet.
Glance at it.
Deteriorating scourge dread hollow that instinct left unheeded
Cracking up swallowed up dread thoughts sick closing down
Dread falling frozen pavements everything the same no new sensation ever
This street that street always the same nothing new the same streets the same sky
Only faces younger older faces recede when others refocus paranoid closing dread
Sickened with dread to the stomach can’t eat shaking dread almost dead stone flowers
Faded magazines folded layers of dust on dust tormented always no end to this dread flowers
Set in the yard of stones some are plastic flowers others light up with so much dread.
Do poets light the way through dread forests will the way be lit or frosted over
With patches of black dreaded ice slipping over skidded dread stomach churning ultimatum
Nigh time insomnia dread calls opening up into unfolding universe of dreams of dread the whooshing
Sound of air sucked out of lungs paralysed with fear soaking up dread silence in alone black universe
Nothing to be said dread.
Void of toasted caramel creeps just there somewhere .
Wake most nights watching unedited spools flow into and out of the body. Rapid hostage. Urinate; think the worst thoughts.
Dawn light; use words like ‘spectral’ & ‘infinity’. Know that there is something outside to catch onto often enough. Many times, not. Retreat into a cold infinity of spectral wonder.
Your notion of self so frail it could fritz into a cloud of dust motes; exploding silently inside the sugary breeze. Ah, it’s a cake being baked below. Filling the room now.
A slip of the tongue; a chance blending of interactions. The newly renovated toilet block excoriated for diverting pleasure plans.
Solid wound base lines in the mud suck glow lights from across the living room; try to understand all this. Breathing in and out the anechoic family unit moves slowly along the track; in our mobile empires of nothing. Grandiose patriarch; resourceful matriarch. Look up from underneath splendour; lay flat on your back and twizzle a bauble just so. Watch your face reflected, all bloated; full of joyful entropy. You can do it all, they say, as you rock back and forth in the happy baby position; a boulder perched on the edge of an abyss rolls silently into infinity.
SPILLED INTO DAYLIGHT
Clawed focus
Occult effigy
Out of clay
Over bright
Coffee outline
Brought by cold
sea winds tides.
Seminal lineate forest tracks
Marking spectral interest
Find first furze
The golden making
Pounded fungus swash
Along wet grass passage
Obliterated mist
Outstretched hands
In slow trances shadow boxes
Told to belong
Being life on the sea shelf
Mineral beds; bore holes
Arctic research unit
Interlude of
Ice and dew
Natal bough
Active triode flicker
Bile and other internal waste
Eating drinking sleeping
Pale uninterested matter
Splayed across buying lanes
The colour of
Cigarette butt
yellow diseased languor
Hoping for a high street heart attack
open up the broken wounded
To forgiveness, a toast !
A solitary sentinel of enclosure springs
listing towards a crumbling scree face of purple and orange; virtual
Markings claiming new reality units hike out; trembling onwards together shoulder the storms.
Review work beak to bone
Update operating system
Collapse into frontal lobe
Suggestion of infantile brass knuckle spate
Grieving force tuned to unrest
Load sport re-entertain immunity diplomatic
Perfect frequency delivery
And we are spent; taxed beyond repair spine
Switch on to harmonic light
Grave stake hold infrastructure cured a swell
Insert spirit bone layered corpuscle
Rip out spine realize debt scar timely today
Spectral intra dust fractured beams
Boat yard rhythm broad strokes held over most
In time becomes own language
Demon focus up-skirt streaming freeze
Court jester grubbing over frolic lust.
Submerge full smooth will
Evergreen sandwich spread obulum cloud
Will you go dark side and where will it matter?
Skiddy mud aggressive twilight goose bombers
Because you are a spiritual animal
You know how to keep warm
Every noise has a note
Put and place it where
Joyless nocturnes fall and rise
Rise and fall
Corn dog peppered with stale farts
Witless trendy fuck face goon
The great poet sighs and fifteen thousand butterflies escape from her throat.
The aroma of greatness is like musk ox and chartreuse. When the great poet closes her eyes all the lightbulbs of the world flicker momentarily.
The great poet stretches out in an easy chair and the creases in his velveteen smoking jacket whisper sonnets to each other.
The great poet……..
The goat poet loathes the company of others
The great poet needs to know his greatness exists in the minds of others
The great poet lifts his pen; dust motes turn circles in time.
The great poet tumbles forwards forever through the cosmos
The great poet upholds to wisdom of the ancients
The great poet was last seen dragging his robes into chthonian darkness
The great poet broods over life’s great mysteries
In silent erosion the great poet sits and waits contemplating oblivion’s arrival
If you see the great poet tell him we’re looking for her…
The Frost Fayre of the Glory Hand
Just because it can’t be seen does not mean it wasn’t there. Cat scrape against improvised bird call and response. Jellyfish trails across the page this distance and the next will be one exploded whale.
Thrown carcass flying in great spattering chunks of white where one oily greased lump crashed down on a Cadillac now we won’t come back from that. All eyes on the birded-up flesh cross the road rambling man coming through; cheep gutter amp strapped to his back ass guitaring it around the marsh peninsular one cow looks up then carries on munch munch long horns. Now it’s toot toot portal opening but not by much stand clear allow for easy open access; that’s right easy does it we are now going inside the belly through the portal stepping over and under time. Indented earth colossal safe in victimhood; cumbersome in nose regard; that which is your strength.
In time the blubber floats to the dunes where the gulls have been irrevocably scared off. Expressing likes and dislikes of the modern era. What moon eats are we having today; so, dust the watch sand it down to nothing? Notice the knocker of doors, the waking one’s just wrapped up past the blast core. Down in the frozen gully where sorrows lie down. Look backwards and up at the figure in the window, at the figure that is always at the window in frosted mizzle width furled ready tiger clawed wrong sided entombed in lichen. Mess of blubber. Containment of mass.
“I am wanting to turn out to be lover”
Buries self in back bedroom internal universe never to return it’s ok we like it here they say. But the Wi-Fi is shady. Serious work with solid intent. Melancholy drug abuse heavy lidded swansong just about fifty years to get comfortable still staring out the back window watching it all go by.
Conflicts light up the windscreen; four geese skim to a halt then take off again immediately. The municipal pond bubbles with winter scum one eyelid flicks open then disappears; trees are giving up their last leaves. Come to know deserted creep streets around the closed-up bars. Crumbs sulk rat-like on the dark deserted city table.
Every act of terminal resistance, along tenuous fault lines on the brink of collapse. Seeking solace in mundane beauty is often ineffectual just the same. Bubbles keep rising; they are not commensurate with the idea of successful living. Images in the rear-view, squalls of gull farms like waste modules that pepper our spirit with granulated symphonies splayed out over the scorched remains.
Hairy colossus of mossy cosmos forms. If I collapse to bring forward new space then the order is strip.
Order unguents furnish agents in glitter robes & golden things. Eat up flutes standing to read over simmer in sleepy resignation. If it is functional post punk funk. Bring into overwrought colour swatches repeat prints hidden heron pools.
Deliciously arboreal state; what combinations of words remain untapped? Noctilucent corona above the reservoir courses down to dry pooling reserve. Within this source of inertia stock will fall. Glowering memory of esteemed pre-set graticule force machine. It is the of impulse listless leaning bowered enface towards a crazy chief. Uprising to wound the demonic blast wave compounding an internal revenue rebate pending. Volte face situation recharged via USB port blown out sub heading leaf less. Quarantined books may remain in the little lending library until vaccinated. Elsewhere the wretched of the earth roam with dogs in tow. Home baked star fish surprise all full up of love giving songs censorious roaring fall after too much whisky talk.
The Barnet job rumbles on; it’s all eight-hour days that rain down like liquid cement. Tented outside the infected Zone we assist with reading, progress of any kind is regarded as progress.
Open veins worldwide webs officialdom make-up chiasmus face time
Sweat out yoga protest march injustice assassinate power base control time
Don’t want no adverts in my brain today heavy metal thunder time
You love meaningless statistics they said; corresponding data time
Watching the seasons change is the cycle of death into life time
Damp walls in this bus shelter; bus that never runs on time
So, let me get this straight; but no hang on, what did Heidegger mean?
Wasted thought time, bones rubbing matt; what’s Sanskrit for hip replacement?
We know more about fiction than reality; our reality is a fiction
Drinking too much again painting the fireplace the colour of melted chocolate
If poetry is gibberish then what is gibberish?
Stop trying; just wait now for something to happen. got kicked out of the cat scrap garden
Squares of living dying space brutal places hurled against the shore
Decaying flood plains ride out on the Canvey Express mini bus direct from Stamford Hill
You won’t believe the prices
Bingo ! The yoga matts arrived so fast. Conspiracy theory on thought for the day that is right, God is the biggest one ah but he’s benevolent says the rector
Vs. Spector and that hard drugs and cider mates love that line.
The Pastels are good too. Watching a stand-off between the neighbouring cats; they enter some deep
time aggression poised in small movements it’s martial arts.
Deep mossy intel on the opiates score front all correct except for Big Star now leave bandit boils
Leverage on the closing bell sanctimonious but of course there was no one to answer for it.
Suggestions please sample products first attention span of a slice of ham banality diatribe phony
references to ‘nature’; dive into the nearest bin culture theorist’s seminar. Jaywick plankton all the way down the Blackwater specimens found toxic flea repel ants living on the shore sun beam horizons river run horoscopes played backwards cd fly tip dumped hope foetid ageing.
What is that sound scratching
From below
Where does it belong
In the house?
Force fed disappointment to no avail
We and I prevail without inhibitors that bind
Us to the means of production
Percussion blends with the sounds from the street; the “caw, caw” and the sirens come to claim us.
Spot check luck balance either mania or mood good
Today let us luxuriate in this madness
Call it bi-polar if you like but I would say
That this condition is non-binary; both states belong exclusively in each other’s company.
If I was a carpenter and you were a lady…
Systems analysis coffee pulsar inquest grail battery farm osmosis is this real?
Now that we are desperate we can begin again.
Lovely drizzle down the window; outside shapes, people or blobs.
Headache beacon or is my brain to explode on this day?
Fly tip sutra, damp burnt smell on approach; smashed shards of mirror glass on the trail. Look at your
broken reflections.
It doesn’t have to be long, this thing
Whatever it is, doesn’t need to take all night
Is what we’re thinking. The just to let go; unfold the body.
Don’t rush, last time in the grip of some fever some madness exposure.
Present emptiness; is the subject.
How can you make a profit?
Push through to the next level of fulfilment.
Calm your pen down! Is that a question of ethics? Japanese Sea Shanty
Damn this broken nail praise the rain though
Luxurious November dark
Descending
OPERATING SYSTEMS
The squeezed mouth of the world. Human ore failed antigen; tangled matter, the swamp.
where long slow drones pulse;
voice surfaces through
dry ground
‘Warning – deep excavations’
every patch of clear water; suspended pale pink. The image of this in my memory grows stronger the more time passes. I know it will probably stick around forever.
A dead nail a totally dead nail
Nailed dead totally
Unaccustomed to the cord tightening; to the belt lashings
Spooky make up minions floating in nylon cobwebs
Inchoate hunger patterns hang over limbless tree dream orange scrub
Take a page before the voices are lost
Our loss
Choral elision overlaps harmonics disturbed sleep rupture synapse
Waffle over omit to wound light break nebulous reflex coffee attire romp resound to sea shore trance
Breakers flounder storage hangout. Unending imagination suppression life choice virtue face platform exchange. Memo in soft graylight aloft fragile edifice dashed on brain rot resolve. Tedium tremens natch tangled oxygen tentacle pen raw with essential to wit murderous owl’s volley. Water marshes Essex freeway personhood synthetic grief corridor impotent messenger bird recall.
Face towards the grip misdirection trunk knuckle up sloppy switching scratch cards Pleades trinket mucous unloved star glistens. Weeping rust signage scooter mist wings flapping squally luxury words repeat order words. Control lines order ingress run off knees nettle grab the inter-order grease. Chime blue berry overflow peeling paint obstruct swollen suburban glands sports wrought lager gene.
Head washed up diagnostic obliterate pasta. Fire rehearsing unbecoming nuclear legs head wound agenda. That the corners of the mouth afford nourish pocket wiped memory bent out of shape chip shop wizard comb lemon drizzle porno stash foot prints avocado face time aubergine the other way.
Life Skills Recovery Worker
Hands in trance formation; assume skills are frozen out at distance of hermetic memory,
Egregore of cloud-based disruptor sim scam.
Now what? What the fuck now. Memory grift, skin dance, what?
Read like a prisoner
Papers float in through the flap; it’s meal time.
Hunger strike on the wing.
bind hands submerge them deep in brain swelling hostage classical booze wound again. Tethered monolith walled garden chains over cooked slabs; courage in the face of religious persecution. to read all
everything
at once the face says.
Heart flutter death knell but it doesn’t change the immediacy of interaction. still dancing around this swerving around that discreet wounds covered over with leaves.
“What’s this, a prophylactic wrapper!”[1]
Julian of Norwich divine drive backwards strength to carry against winds of rubbish, waste destruction,
God allowed me to look at himself for a considerable time, and, as far as my simple mind could take it, to dwell on all that I had seen, and its significance.[2]
Hand wash back cadence; articulated slack line overtly so. Smoothed over bi-lingual remedies frigid conclusions keep harm from Armageddon.
Adrift across the dusk light, at the smoking end of summer. The air is hollowed out, briny, blowing across the palm like so much glitter. Midsummer distilled into a nothingness where even the car drove itself. Sweet harmonics fill these ears. All that is left is blood pressure inside the skull bone. On the corner, domestic and traditional ghost’s hang together inside shrouds of cherry flavoured vapour; their advice is holistic.
Coming in closer, holding to the sill of crushed shells and random foliage sharp against bare feet. The old place in sight now; perspiring in stillness. Heat haze on the road hums with carrion and a carpet shade of pine cones, pressed under a seedy musk of toilet tissue florets and furtive debris. Tidal worn out faces, peer defeated through laminate windows edged open to ventilate hot nylon atmospheres. Taking hold of the footings we scramble over sandy clays bright orange with jagged shards of flint. Do we know the host that brought us here; what value is it to be worth something to somewhere?
Out over the ghost town road jab the accelerator to outrun delivery vans. Value and quality collaborate in steel, sweat and then some. The place is artificial now; a memory museum. Old municipal buildings are now castles; rubble islands the nation’s glands; pulse entrails force open networks of sealed errors.
Past the deserted bus shelters where long slow drones pulse; marrows grow to interminable widths in semi silent greenhouses burdened by hogweed and gamma rays. A voice surfaces through the hovering dust motes ascending into recognisable speech patterns like a jellyfish illuminating from the deep. The sound of ceremonial gongs; a magpie clacking at the air behind the tree outside my window, “ Do yourself a favour boy, stop lying down all the time things get tough, get up and run, live like your life depended on it, go now, faster!”
The Krux
(dedicated to D.I.X. everywhere and forever)
Moving through black landings flicker light possibilities, zoetrope reflection osmosis real fulgent battle worn croak uphill to vent to want. Gather multiples all reflective suggest onyx hope reject played and won on this stage here now, this grassy knoll.
Magic and resistance great pleasure born supplicant notice weary destroyed by cynic flex park-o-meter check basalt weight conjoined pair to incubate stems. Heart’s weight mortgaged Nintendo horoscope deals in strip mined official stupa plead gallant in striped plain.
New fixity gammon rind flotsam of The Gyre pulps up from below; grief bombing meteor showers of plastic saturated Aurelia amrita glug against the hot tides. Worm hole shaken foxes blubber wave fat bole increasing levity stuck inside holographic seam of crust mantle.
Exhuming Autumn
Today in a doze
Floating backwards through streets stained in grey drizzled memory,
Splash in puddles of tranquillised silence that merge in the glow light of refrigerated shadows
Where sinister snacks audition for minor parts in today’s feature.
A light misting of rain cools the TV frost
I am not here or there but defy this accuracy by pressure of intensity
Scattered rooms across the east and west of the city contain stashes of memories
Like everyone.
Sash windows panic,
In an old antiques centre the fresh clatter of mossy brown furniture casts damp patches over fried
breakfast in Turnpike Lane; cats thud between rooms, take your best shot
Old crusted heels
But miss
Rubbed hard, summoned into action once more.
Good Cheese Dishes.
First comes one then
There are two,
More ultimately will find their way in.
Flung centrifugal against Time; marked by hailstones like golf balls crashing through pine forest fronds herald an encomium that calls the beaten to name.
Island of cargo containers rearranges itself according to weather conditions daily, coming in and out of view; shimmering as it melts over the axis edge. Stopping to hold a conch to the ear; on breathing out a spray of cabbage whites. Flush with pockets bare and sockets sucked where eyes once were. We are worth a fortune.
Away from the waspish lagoon we simmer inland. There is turbulence in the heart of this exotic and bewildering air space; travelling around as if permanently looking out from within at people existing elsewhere. The shingle rolls in folded tributaries to meet the sea. Crystal placid memory haze. In silhouette there you are, collecting shells.
Footprints crunch to flint lined ossuary; a pine dampened furze fizzled burnt out thoughts.
Carpet of pine cones soiled tissues litter; a seedy furtive musk metres from the roadside; always in shade.
Void. Still. Nothing.
Sink in suiceaside, disappear or collapse into the earth up to our necks.
A curved arc of dorsal muscle cuts through perfectly rounding the swell; then disappears off again.
Harrier hovers, flight line insight to radar station gold teeth clenched, graffiti “Go Home!”
Tap tap tap drift light as dust summer cataclysm days hollow and riney blowing forwards like so much glitter. Midsummer distilled nothingness even the car is driving itself today.
Sweat harmonics come to these ears. All that is left of blood pressure skull bone flying westwards. Closer, hold still against the sill; crushed shells random foliage against bare feet. The old place in sight; holding breath now, perspiring in summer stillness. John Clare close at hand, footings to scramble soils sandy clays bright orange with jagged shards of flint installed to light the way. Do we know the host that brought us here; what value is it to be worth something to somewhere? Value and quality collaborate in steel, sweat and then some. The place is artificial now; a memory museum. Old municipal building now castles; rubble islands, the nation’s glands pulse entrails, networks of sealed errors. Calumny of increased bandwidths, long slow drones where semi silent pulses of voice surface occasionally from the hovering dust motes into actual recognisable speech patterns. Then take the train Brighton, you will be staying in the formerly bombed out section of the Metropole. Look there for clues; remnants of Thatcher’s Britain. “Please be my friend,” a voice beckons from the corridor like the twins from The Shining ; a glimpse and their gone. “Room service!!!!”
Musicians, daemons, gather round!
47 years of crap underneath me, stacked like mount Everest, flowing into undulating vistas of hard encrusted shite. Spiralling off into the distance; forming valleys and canyons as far as the horizon.
To summon the energy to clamber off this mound of brown is too great so here I sit on my throne of shit. Surveying the landscape with a mixture of pride and remorse. Everyone sits. Everyone shits.
Drizzle drazzle droozle dizzle. Dry liquid forms, corner of the mouth. It’s a hash pipe but we’re calling it a flute. They found it in the bushes. A mystery turd sits malevolently by the roundabout. A cluster of metallic blue shit fly’s shimmer across its surface each one never staying still for more than a second. I want to gag at the sight of it. Children rush by narrowly avoiding catastrophe. In the shade under the tree line men wrestle on a blue plastic mat. Locked in positions; inaudibly grunting. Rustle buzz hum trains passing; the back and forth of the swings and on we go.
