Verse 2:

 

Crowley used the word magic but I say we call chaos our latent friend.

 

And where I cannot explain

 

understand this bone mother we spoke to,

 

we played cards

 

to save our life.

 

We were trying to lose.

 

But when we were fed, we knew

 

we had hit gold

 

In the black-draft of sweet tooth affection

 

lies beneath the ice flow

 

of who we will choose.

 

Our understanding has become dwarfed

 

as we have grown to multiples and dimples

 

while we walked this earth.

 

The concepts we are given are not enough.

 

We know too much

 

and yet not enough to escape this penury of repetition

 

same faces places. The garden we planted.

 

The path that we know.

 

The grey stone that’s no match.

 

The dance

 

between the known and the unknown

 

into the love that lives in the sky.

 

 If you don’t ask you will never know

            as if tiredness

where naked nothings grow green

       not in common 

with other diamonds excuse of clutches 

responding ripples outside temperature shadow flux

vault through high windows

 

experience pity as a storm 

 

today perhaps us nowhere

 The bench by the exit at Tesco piled high with unwanted books

mostly shit but today a wall of faux leather bound black volumes 

that threaten to buckle it. On closer inspection they are a full set of Encyclopaedia Britannia and at once I feel sad and nostalgic. Nobody wants these cumbersome volumes anymore. Now you can clarify disputed facts in seconds on phone. I pick up one of these unweildy volumes and flick at random. Precious knowledge once confined to the school library or well healed families that could afford the down payment. Diagrams, etchings and the occasional colour plate. That thistle logo on the spines all signify a long past era of slow learning less pressure more time to breath, perhaps.

 WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW

They say write about what you know

I choose death, but it could have easily

been life.

What do I know about death?

Is it the reason I’m writing this thing?

Can one know death?

Or is life just getting acquainted with 

the idea of death?

What legacy is this 

these

small waves 

that lap at the edge of the bed

true crime confessionals ecstatic mornings 

hurry past the sober sun rise.

Near a pagoda by a lake

bird noise from the bushes

iridescent despair slides under life’s gravity

unless it’s kept in check

chaos will reign

opportunist gulls are investment bankers

they inhabit the air with stucco violence

such alchemy such an assault

the pain strikes three 

a black noise is hauled across the sky

we look up.

 The banished king returns

each week a new pint of lager

watch the golden bubbles rise 

billfolds spill luxury cheese

and onion at your feet resplendent 

now that’s bleach for you.

Arrived too late for an unfixed heart

pulmonary in his prime slowed to

a thick trickle on stage hands

formed a cross looks upward

shavasana out through the window

each lateral gestation swipes out

for botanic shade the hothouse ghost

wheeled round demure one leather 

had clasps a cane your empire

came this way fruiting delusion

out of book shop vibrations

the rarefied airs career poets

breath so well.

 

Carved faces no maybe book ends

evaporate make cordial balm

darkening rust crumbs from the table 

a black dog grins human like

rough stems recoil from greenhouse 

heat hovering moon isle seek

majestic biscuit sift billow roll

turn side extend

and release.

 BURN SOME OLD BILLS

Lost it all to some I-cloud brunch

folk devil all twisted up from booze

mangled rotten insides stupendous fork in the road.

that will teach it to think 

all sparkled up bruised ripe business

ripe for plucking

let’s go there 

no here no there

call up everyone

smack the gin off peak

clean up wipe off

you’re done here

have a piece of paper

sunny day melatonin feast

strike shoes on peeling into winter.

 

 VERY FEW KILLER WHALES HUNT LIKE THIS

 

“Make it magical”, for God’s sake!

Blood iodine reconfigure the rolled stone. It walks and talks. Free to squander everything from sheer lyrical delivery. Rub ointments over national grief light the litmus paper. Inspired by terrible muses’ dream talk so the day begins.

Hovering while drones wander about filming. What unimaginable reality could we inhabit somewhere else? Talking over diversions we slide laterally into bandit country. Sweating up the gravelled veldt; hoping the tyres will hold out. 

It’s all talk of course unless it’s making money talk. Scratch the track of the owl bedridden tourniquets bloom upon new build efficiency. The hotels are fully booked. The grip tightens on the leash, dogs lurch at you every time you pass; suspicious and aggressive. Like the police at the roadblock, don’t run anybody over the say, benevolent gun fingers' twitching. Distracted without an alibi in the act of accumulating; these are the dividends of language, on this the dullest day. They say the corgis will miss her the most

COLLABORATE WITH ROT

 

Light up talisman 

light laminate wands

light up moon glow

how does it glow

so?

Plume of distracted smoke 

rising forms

pungent sticks of joss

sandalwood and herb.

Face to the rain face 

down to the brain blizzard

calling

you cannot hear 

we know it’s there.

 

 ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN THE ACT

The desperate hours begin with

‘i will write for nothing’, thanks Tom 

do anything               Go Swimming 

 

but face reality a slow self-education

books, a yoga mat, difficult childhoods

fitting in trouble

always know no other

that heavy metal age 

iron maiden fantasy rubble

Plant a flag on unstable ground; signs describe what is real but we’re still none the wiser.

Re-think these rotting days will last forever. So much time to get nothing done in. What pivotal moments will occur?

Accelerate into Autumn 

overnight lightning pinned electrical bouncing from blue walls.

So much rain; have we flooded?

Trying mid-morning to gloomily transcribe the blood pressure behind the eyes 

into something relatable or even readable. 

What’s up with that anyway? 

Poetry that keeps on asking questions that nobody could answer ever. 

Easy, right?

New voices merge in noisy interaction, like the magpies and newly arrived green parakeets. On their way to the forest.

Slowly, delicately, with precision we pick apart the day; attend to what needs attending to; “show up”, as Adriene would say.

To be present in your own life sounds absurd but so many are not. 

How would you know anyway?

Questions unanswered.

 WAITING FOR DATA 

Asleep in the ruins hung inside, acid alert bookish skin

days exert their feet climbing look askance see Everest assistance

with one good leg.

Legitimate winner’s see Toadflax roadside head out you can’t catch me they

say in yellow greening waste site. Sit awhile and spew the monstrous glory of it all.

Mine, yours, ours all folds into a perfect murder

night is real, the gas on obstinate saturates of capital on

the edge of this world.

Pilfer out of dreams new species; forms beautiful facia storms ahead

but not today.

 How much gross is wastage?

All is not well

All will never be well

         to piss 

  to 

Walk into a hang

                    over 

you never recover 

                   from 

entertain

                      meant to bleed

noise nose bleed together

she was disingenuous offal 

                      officiating distinct purple

yellow flower heads 

                              your line diagonal

 

scratch out a place

         to 

   exist an exit 

together we live

                      wrong / song

it’s our favourite

fresh paint licks 

                                  the back of the throat

your songs are all wrong 

                 not desire 

but in the back behind the eye

                                          lids

a breeding has been disturbed 

stopping breathing now would be absurd.

 

 NULL AND VOID

A loose tepid something glistens around the bend

origin unknown books on Blake strewn around the room 

type face font ungrateful messiah know-it-all magazine editors’ online

edition runaway percussion unit scored its own goals frustrated librarian

your ideas won’t gestate enough to escape the hoovering delivery

spout bookish thugs in fake cocktail lounge

shy banter piecemeal luxury grammar school dropouts

knocked into stuffing semaphore pigments into downstream notation

mental case internet academic plaintive piano utility buggy franchise

lawn frostings upturned crime scene photo 120 dollar crack binge

foraging for yellow blisters the gorgon blood moon rise humming

contempt for everything even the roadside fox carrion takes the dancing gloss

to avoid a cold fingered crushing salute.

Long haul overdone inside lane no good helpful expanding curlew 

aggravated dark Lol Coxhill narrates the revised bridge section with helpful commentary this time

we are air

I am doing 

Nothing doing

Air

Scum surge survival wave

Null

Void.

 HOMELESS ON ACID

 

Dreary below above and beneath

homelessness on acid just belting the cosmos

hard in the face jumping through time 

bending out on hoops

curling up floating staring through the endless milky night.

 

Your breath is on acid 

 Something heavy between the blackberry and the funnel web

cracked out of the sun’s heel 

feeds the hornet’s whisper of death

bat rites trick in the dusk 

more diary poems 

semaphore wind chimes echo nuclear locations.

 

You and I grow old like tea and whisky

we follow the secret pathogens littering the sailor’s path

smiles unfold in a horror-scope of favourites closed up against

each new direct debit obligation.

 Poem Q & A

moving sand

enjoy it be glad it exists

crunchy under foot

an easy antiphony 

likes looking up words

new feelings for bread

they turned off the water.

Why nobody knows

but now we are thirsty

for something

Chupacabra !

to appear

inside this heavy heat.

 POORLY RECIEVED

 

Lighting flash sink bulb weed in the outhouse / 

the finger tap

of bee hitting window / it’s war outside / eat porridge stay out of the sun / theory based alchemy / lachrymose compensation procedure / as that is what it is / try harder / belched the scrap heap / scratching towards the sprinkler / it’s a heavy war / try harder / always please your best efforts only / effortless / as it may seem / this was as good as it got / fierce delivery / powder cakes / attrition / dead men on an island / south pacific / burning lawns / urban myths / orange squash / re-uptake inhibitors / gather at dusk / in the shade of the baobab tree / trust them / they are your friends / like the cloak of ambiguity / that you must wear / at all cost.

 

Multitasking in the multiverse / now isolate the bee’s breath / carrier bags of wisdom / litter the cluttered north London flat / when police broke in / they found the body / in an advanced stage / of decomposition / next witness / chimes bell at crow call / ambient methods without being sullen / hypnotise / the sprinkler / do you want some / dangerous dog lover / when the rain pours in through your eyes / then out of the mouth / a carved gator / tincture of cannabis infused with elderflower /

 caught out by the ebb tide / 

 

Peace fractured at last 

a brokered silence breaks out

Wind slams the patio door

 dragging the bricks 

Courtship innuendo 

the puffed up collar of a mating pigeon

Like an Edwardian ruff 

staging a tragedy by the ponds negotiating

Crumpled cans from 700 million light years hanging out for the UHF

Daily message playing chess in another galaxy 

formalism and entropy

At the edge of language 

to infinity and beyond was not what Foucault said

it’s a marmite philosophy

leave a trail of reference points in case we get lost

10 minutes concentrated effort now sleep for an hour

500 words a week the future’s bright the future 

Is purple and red and coming in at 300 km an hour

Most have evacuated or at least dug a hole of language

So deep that exhumation is impossible

Throat-warblers Bee eaters Californian King Fishers have all been

Sighted way off their normal migratory paths the world’s on fire 

They say you smell of frozen food and colossal waste your mind 

does not correlate with anything real or rational and yet you are safely fed in streamers bunting animal lights and gorgeous cheeses.

So redecorate and move on ignite in glorious splendour those technicolour treats

 

That prove you are not alone but part of a collective whole. The obliterated seascape is your home horizon.

 

 

 THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO PAY

 

Inside this living heart will you know how and when to cheat death / and could it then be said we are travelling faster than the sun / what is rounder and more orange than blades flexing against the light / breaking entry against hot warped bodies grazing in sandy fantasy / so gird against the second wave / or subsequent waves / our warm bloodied frenzy heals against the distance we have come / from misery terrace / musk lynx and half chewed fish bones eek out an existence / this triumphant Shangri-la / was built from scaffolding and shrewd divestments of aggregate / now skimming low across the sea bed / azure fronds folding and all eels and shoals / spear in hand / floating somewhere in the med / Neptune they called me / down at the local bar / just an old lemon turning Larkin / pressing against grey flabby bottoms / on such a perfect roll / even Kleinzahler couldn’t take it away / all cyclopean walls and Scops owls whacking it down in one great big dollop / there are other ways to pay they said.

 WAIT ANOTHER HOUR

 

behind schedule 

the clock ticks over the horizon

 

you can barely walk

 

Taken by wonder

across an Atlantic of fear

 

Not knowing or trying to know

 

About being in the world today

 

Transported by muses thrown

 

Time travelling mucus muscle at night on the

 

Nuclear thrust of brand-new pain

 

The tooth’s ache 

 

Skiing memory lines

 

Carving a heavy weft 

 

Like glassy foot prints

 

God’s light, the light of the Gods’.

 

Slipping into something like memory praxis

 

The overwhelming passions of high cholesterol 

 

Sorcery flower dump cat glance askance sly 

 

Controlling whiskery street profits

 

Taste the bitter due sap over toxic coffee conversation

 

When is man woman or woman man when does it conflict 

 

With what you thought of Robocop when he says

 

His name at the end all suited up in under armour but 

 

The pulled back machinations of the face give that game away

 

burn parallax prisms towards bends in weaponry backwards on itself

        spin the gun fancy amigo style and blow your own face off

 By accident.

 

Don’t respect the honey suckle party black out. Crushed lichen under foot squeezing juice from individual membranes that cannot be coerced however  fruitful cost effect etc it may etc be.

 

Don’t react.