Farmers’ Market

 

 

 

Writing to survive writing to stay alive to stave off intensity

 

you put a stick in the shit and sent it

 

you put up with life’s admin 

 

yes no sense because it ran off

 

you live in a

 

chaos of words 

 

in the night dance daily

 

lifting sighing breathing 

 

stalk DNA 

 

drug test countermeasures

 

the struggle is moments away

 

regional police force 

 

do not have the manpower 

 

to fight these levels of criminality

 

festering in the margins 

 

of a burnt out welfare state

 

what hooks hold us up 

 

no dynasty to connect with

 

walking the phone to work

 

a life’s worth of direct debit follows you around

 

like a magpie in the periphery

 

trying to catch those shiny moments that gleam off centre

 

make it all worth while

 

go college get knowledge

 

I’ve got ADHD and maybe Autism or a combination of the both

 

if I could rent them out I would 

 

like trestle tables at a country fayre

 

slap a massive pumpkin on the forehead

 

work the vegetables make them pay

 

pickles and punches produce for sale

 

spiced apple chutneys lined up and labelled lovingly

 

go for a run now

 

don’t look back.

 

 

                                         'Capitalism is the virus'

 

Under the low concrete roof of the bridge in a shelter the shape of a triangular coffin. Sealed in a secure dwelling. Goodnight to the world. Edge-land sanctuary make daily forays across the marsh. To claim a place in the world. You wouldn’t know the anxiety and the necessity to alleviate it in order to live. Fresh daily produce market nearby. The virus is in the water. Survival instinct kicks in. Everyone like this looks worn out. Just existing is not enough. Is it?  Life so precious to us, we spend millions to save lives. Yet so many lives are a living death. Autumn’s chill brings dead leaves at the onset of winter. Transition seasons hurry us along. Remind us of what we all share. Birth and death and re-birth, maybe. Move the pieces around the board in a clever post-modernist dance; that reveals the mysteries of modern life. And how the privilege of money and health can only go so far in the explanation of it all. The virus makes us sick, it makes us doubt ourselves and most of all it renders us helpless. Once in this state we are captive; held prisoner by economic binds that allow us just enough to keep going, to feed the machine that makes us sick. All critical resistance must be nullified and culture must be reduced to consumer distraction. Sounds old, because it is. It just got more refined. So smooth now that it is barely distinguishable from Ordinary Everyday Life (OEL). But we can resist, we must. Resistance is internal, ideological, individual. You matter, you exist. Keep breathing.

 Let go of the horrors today.

Real or not, they just don’t help.

Moving forwards with grace and dignity.

The power is in us all.

To be kind.

It’s not wrong to feel joy.

Let it flow through you.

Sarcasm and irony are old hat.

We all make mistakes.

 

Yes the world is going through some difficult times.

But when has it not?

We try and we try.

And that is a life lived.

 

 Garden of Infinity

 

The cac cac cacophony of a magpie, temperate, humid dawn of grey clouds closed curtains uncertainty everywhere life skills should be a qualification

you failed 

sorting through books you fell

into the world’s word 

unleashed

a fantasy model of yourself

it went of roaming for years and now it’s come back

an itinerant lodger parcels papers packages

strewn across the library floor

in this repository of the imagined nation

memories of expeditions float downriver

hacking through thick brush

corpulent bubbles rising giant catfish whiskers

hog weed and periwinkle line the banks 

fronds brush against the skin

leaving scar tissue that reacts to light

you are completely alone now

they let you go

movement in the other room

shuffling strike out for action

there is much to be done

much to be gained in the doing of it

 

 

 In the green folds where we lay

star light from creation reflects

base ideas that explode in the sky

at once jettisoned and refused

real pain diverts from faith

in essence to revere night vision

we looked at the Hubble at its shining future

peeling back invisible light

to behold our essence

in machinic grace

the long extending arm of love 

reaching through a hole in the cosmos

to pull us back to love

 

 Is that smoke over there

on the horizon signals forming words in the sky

un-folding grey balloons of matter

a warning signal to guide us

to the right path

coming up from behind tower blocks 

the pine cones of red pin prick light

dot the buildings at night

where the money grows over night

blossoms of concrete form like spectres

of humanity living burial grounds

we walk on bones crunching underfoot

all futures mingle together with pasts

the citadel is gleaming 

the rats are thriving

they like these unstable conditions

it gives them hope

for the future

they want to live 

to go on

to have families

to be unburdened of worry

to drive the freedom road

burning up the efforts of labour

in plumes of callous smoke

the birds are tweeting still

the sun comes up over the edge of town

where homes peter out into industrial estates

a few gaps on the map

old tracks 

closed shops

fancy goods

underwater theme parks

where you can scuba dive among the wreckage

find codes hidden in the weeds

remember how they use to live

the ones that came before

when the charity shops begin to close

then it’s time to worry

 

 A Short Poem About Living

 

Take each day as it comes

they say

open your eyes

look around

don’t forget to breathe

ah

welcome fellow travellers

it has begun again