News tickers churn on
spreading the latest tales across
slices of breakfast toast
sheets of preparation in a corporate’s reception
wide screen train station stare points
the worlds in commuting palms
and feeds magnetising a nation’s eyes.

Break (Typer investigates why Jessie J is trending)

Finding smoke breaks now more refreshing
the not so free world craves for its info gasps
intervening shrinking blocks of contentment
ever uncomfortable without the conjured
interruptions of biscuit crumb detail.

Break (Typer’s friend who’s working abroad appears in a box to say ‘hello’)

Society’s psyche
blasé through repetitive routine
shrugs exhalations of expectance
as a name or face or lamp post of flowers
gets its thirty seconds of red LED lights
ones and zeros.

Break (Typer un-mutes the TV’s sport report)

Rarely does the undercurrent of sedate suffering
over fill the land’s un-thresh-old
bursting overt feeling for once across faces
all in it together but mightily alone
positioning place names in another’s tragedy.

Break (Typer checks a train timetable to see when he needs to get showered)

The dead racist reality TV star
horny babysitter turned royal beauty
mauled school trip stranger
text book pop star implosion
have all exited stage left.

Break (Typer searches for reassurance that ‘psyche’ is an appropriate word)

Alarm clocks tally up looping races
coffee mornings stir competition
hunters stake claim.

Break (Typer uses a translation tool to e-mail a friend happy ramadan before he forgets)

‘I walked her dogs’
‘She lived in my cousin’s friend’s flat’
‘He bagged my neighbour’s shopping’
‘The reporters blocked my road and I was late for work’
‘A helicopter kept circling my neighbourhood. It was probably looking for the killer’
‘I knew all the words to that main song. It’s well sad.’
‘My hot water was off this morning. I knew it was going to be a bad day.’

Break (Typer does a replace all on ‘poet’ with ‘writer’ and then another, settling for less pretence, though walks straight into the ego strut he wanted to sidestep by referencing his edits at all)

An occasional city break
globe trotting backpack adventure
technical error
house move
bed stricken fever
might wean someone off the penetrative
onslaught of persistent mind buckling.

Break (Typer taps in apologies to a friend that he’s running late)

However peaceful an escape
surrounded by pixels of noise
the nakedness of calm re-hooks.

Break (Typer washes and shuts down for a weekend of drink)

Biting at the virtual fishing rod line

Break (Typer reconnects computer to see how he looked at the rave)

A cliche commute to tales of hip
through bullet holed brickwork,
multiplex cinemas and cafes,
along bars lined with river,
floating restaurants of photo film,
upon halls of epic art and past
to scribble coated dorms of rest,
laid the ideal storyline to pin
knowing laughs, shoulder pats,
beer glass clinks, accounts of old,
and soundtrack silence,
honest as ever,
far away from haunts of home,
though just as it always is.

Another book on heroes,
stenches of vinegar to work,
screens, desks, tea mugs,
where bar dreams lurk
before weekend sketches,
seven pint glasses deep.
The Monday to Friday shuffle
begins atop a hill that’s steep.
Paper clips and croissants,
time sheets plotting the way.
A church choir’s faint murmers
coat streets of an hour’s play
before afternoon rituals
of acronym and jet ink.
Rock n roll babies
aged in a blink.