The instrumentals subtly come to their ends
but you don’t know it, laying holding a pen
scribbling, plucking prose from the head
comfortably thinking at the end of a bed.
The calendar’s clear and the clicking’s ceased
for two full days unleashed from the beast
of appointments, protocol, automated roles
to put the daily cereal blocks in their bowls.
Messages of recaps buzz through the phone
of last night’s dance and drunken groans.
The catchups of allies, staggering walks.
A friend’s words are the truest form of talk.
Enquiries and arrangements colour the day.
Slippery pocket change tallies away.
Books half read sit open on a side.
Contentment warms the place you lie.

If there’s something wrong
she could always just stay at home
but then you’d never see her again.

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)