i
stretchily leant on the armrest
this morning, over
snarling a sneeze back into its
nasal pouch to let erupt all over
the pillow
in an outside morning stew
billowing the hilltops.

elsewhere on the morrow
there was a heavy fog over
berrylands. when i passed,
ghostly trees wheezed through
with ugly gusts of silhouette
noose vine; ignoring
icily the hanging man
twitch of mine, in these
leggy polyester spasms
from cold or
maybe nervousness.

it smelt in the carriage as
though my first day at school
puking in the sink
because
i can’t tie my shoelaces, sir,
and, oh, i’ll never ever learn.

so i have velcro straps instead
where the noose vine would
once
hiss and bore sinuously
its plastic-tooth-tips
through
lubber fumble fingers and
holes of leathery doubt
tripping me all over and out
in the gravelly schoolyard mud pit
where swatches were smashed
and my ears burned.

it was good, then, when i
-strapped to the nines-
squelched through the mire to
line up tall with the bell and
the boys.
we scoffed our apples loud
all the way to assembly
where a bigger lad ate his boogers.
i rubbed my muddy fuzz bits together
and learnt this 'to be proud'.

Sea Myth

Awe throes in sea myth
hasten me. {Oh} how I try!

Thy mist whereon,
thereon thy swim

to
a hermit yet {un}shown

and a
heteronym wish{ed} at.

I am
Rose{mary}
or Thyme.

Generally Aimless

Angles and scattered shoes
awkward
in time and faces
in the soggy window-piped exterior
bristling twigs and red vases
the stubborn itch of branches
rattle rattle with the railway cars

it's old father time come to see us
looking gaunt and slightly sickly,
his keys scratch intentions on the glass

Sweep up the grey hairs
and put them in a plastic rustle bag
with fag-ends and empty bottles
used up train fares and
also other stuff

ahh, you say,
so, this is dying...
in the bubbly froth of days
sat sunk in a sofa bed
ash marks splashed
upon the pouf

and a cindery frail peephole opening
pocked galactically starlike in the fabric
to close your eyes and put your ear to it
see?
the tom tom tom drum sounding for you
in the parade yesterday

then we went fishing at the pond-
not really but I would like to soon.
but what about you dying?
well, this is me, I say:
generally aimless in my pursuits.

5p was once a shilling.

three or five sweaty toe stains
-the other two maybe thithering hither
for a moment or
licked spotless by the rug-
leave their traces of the comedown
on shining surfaces
like my
laminate wood floorboards
under a mucky 5p coin

floating somewhere in the froth
of a day or two gone by
rope the undulating knots of
signature stamped walnut coding
cello-feigned oak and
plastic-coated cables

you see
the telly is unplugged and
by now it's much too dusty
the vacuum cleaner creaks unusedly
and desk lamps on empty chests hide their brilliance

an old biddy in the yard rakes piles of yellowed and fallen
lekky bills into bundles of kindling for later.

Inversion (After Baselitz)

Street lamps sizzle orange in
purple dampened skies
like cigarettes in the sink.

Career Prospects

I recruit for recruitment’s sake
and every year the bosses hands I shake
to celebrate my promotion.
I impress my folks with the sums I make
and feign interest and devotion

for the job I do and the life I have.
I work hard in week and misbehave
on Friday nights and at week’s end.
On Monday mornings I wash and shave
and do it all again.

I recruit for an agency
that recruits people like you and me
to carry on recruiting.
I perform a service for the industry
and you all should be saluting.

For without us and our merry lot
your generic CV would be forgot
and you’d never land a job.
But once you’ve signed that dot-
ted line
you will have joined our mob.

What will we do when we’ve reached our goal;
once we take our cut and sell your soul,
once every one is recruited
into recruitment jobs at entry-level role?
This game will be rebooted.

Autumnal Bop Quartet

Bah-low on your buccinal trumpet, ballooning cheeks
zipping stings to fingers and lips.
Frenzied squeaks and bursts of brass humming
a fragment melody. Muted pips.

Howl and sob long, tired sighs on your wet, reeded
horn to flood heaving lungs with the hollow drop-
sound of river barge moans clunking over weeded
depths. It leans with the hours, does our weep willow bop.

Ground,
splintered, smashed, simmered, crashing cymbal snap bones.
Their thuds pummeled deep in earthy backbeat sod, ploughed
in time to the tap, tap and brush of crunch-brittle snares
with scarecrow hands swept away,
like
tsssk-tsk-a-tsssk.

Oh
that a giant might thump
at his trembling chords
to the pace of my evening stroll.

The Night in Where I Live

The night in Where I Live
Is a fit-sleep of dark and clatter:
The foghorn of rattling trains;
The rainy rain and maddened wind
in the stubborn itch of branches;
The drunken whistle-wails of emergencEEEEEeee]
Snapped short. And at the turn
Shrieking foxes
Quarreling over the rubbish.

What are you fighting for, old patchwork fox?

Slippery egg shells and mouldy bread;
A tin of beans; an old soap box;
or
Broken words made of things once said.

Enfin, c’est bête.

Slaken - To Abate.

slimmer, slimmer, these blurry blue arms
touch my face splash my ashmarks
with something.
too many thoughts I had thunk
to keep quiet
and now -
not so/never
typing but tapping
have come the hideous
'click-clack /click-a-clacking'
heels
uneven on the curb.
trains rattle
keys rattle
and scratch their intention on
my glass front door.
come in I say, and
Slaken to abate your vile tasting thirst.
but be gone with your things by the morning
my dear
and swear you will never return.

Foamy Night, 18th / L'écume d'une nuit au XVIIIème

Cobwebbed bottle chandeliers
twinkle the zinc bar clink-clinks.
Grooves of biro-etched matchbox rhythms or
people staring in their drinks, blink-
ing
at my knotty warbled table knock,

and can you hear yesterday's love children
prancing up the sacred hill?
They gaze across a wattaged sea
of tungsten filament brill-
iance
that ripple, ripples along shored rocks.

And the bums mumble and mutter
in the shallow leaky gutters,
in the feeble evening showers,
and in doorways after dark.

And the mums coo and flutter
through chapped-lip peeling shutters
in the musky morning hours
and on gravel in the parks.

---------------------------------------------

Les lustres aux toiles d’araignée
Scintillent au-dessus du zinc cliquetant.
Mes rainures de bic grattent des rythmes d’alumette.
Les gens regardent leurs verres, contemplant
les nœuds tordus de ma table.

Entends-tu les enfants amoureux d’hier
qui dansent, montant la butte sacrée?
Ils fixent leurs yeux sur la mer
brillante aux filaments de tungstène
qui frise sur les rochers de sable.

Et les clodos marmonnent et bafouillent
dans les caniveaux creux qui fuient,
sous les averses faibles du soir
et sous les embrasures dans le noir.

Et les bobos roucoulent et flottent,
à travers volets gercées des lèvres,
dans les heures musquées du matin
et sur les graviers des jardins.