Category: Poetry

Not A Man Of Want

A few novelty sized chocolate bars
did him on Christmas morning
with a promise of something extra
once the shops opened their sales.

He routinely served up cups of tea,
then toasted egg sandwiches,
as wrapping paper covered carpet
to raise smiles, praise and thanks.

Presents got stacked up in piles
and the television was switched on
whilst he collected empty plates
to wash the first load of the day.

After a day of playing chauffeur,
tidying the sideboard down
and willingly being of service to all,
he sat with a beer to watch the game.

Nothing fitting stood out on shop shelves,
such was his straightforwardness,
so one size fits all tracksuit bottoms
were bought and well received.

Quietly and agreeably he drove
over to one visitor’s house,
for glasses they mistakenly packed
so she could read a little before bed.

A Friday Standard

Just a cheeky one before the weekend
then all of a sudden it’s half past ten.
The office bike’s eyeing a cycling
and warring rivals are trading grins.
Out come the shots after sugary shots
before a frantic march to new bars.
Scrambles for entrance and coat fees
precede disco balls, tears and scars.
Sleepy mornings the following day
see sketchy shuffles to McDonalds.
Patchy memories of hands astray
line remorse ridden thought tunnels.
Pleas to not share the awful photos
meet chuckles, cringes and sighs.
Efforts to stay dry are announced
but calendar planners suggest a lie.

Norbert Eating Marshmellows In A Trilby

Sit on a teacake seat and have a cycle
with these Jammie Dodger wheels
along the canal of liquid bronze Irn Bru
beside hundreds and thousands fields.
Put a Soda Stream in your step
and have a fizzy Love Hearts day.
Take a nibble on a chocolate digestive.
They’re laid out on a liquorice tray.
Pass the go-carts made of chocolate.
Drink the rain for its sherbet tint.
Sail a boat that’s made of wafer
and dip your feet in ponds of mint.
Hang up your coat of Quavers
on a bonbon bridge’s Curly Wurly tree.
The most rushing imaginations
live in our heads. Just look and see.

Everybody’s talking about it.

Hi guys, happy monday!
Did you have a good weekend?
It was sunny wasn’t it!
I bet that’s it for the rest of the year now.
Nice to get out though.
London looks so much prettier in the sun, don’t you think?
It takes it out of you a bit though.
I need another weekend to recover from that one!
I had to spend ages trying to find my shorts!
It just makes such a difference though, that ol’ sunshine.
It’s a bit colder today, but not too dissimilar to yesterday.
Let’s hope it lasts. We deserve it I reckon.
Yeah, it’s been narf cold and non sunny since way back.
Maybe we’ll get a break now, after all those storms.
Everyone looks a bit tanned, don’t they?
Must have been the sun this weekend, that was shining.
What’s your favourite park for barbecues in the sun?
We should totally meet up for one the next time it’s sunny.
God, I feel so trapped today, after being outside all weekend.
It’s going to be a long week. How is it only nine minutes past 10?
Let’s go outside at lunch and try to relive the sun.
Yeah, it will be like the sunny weekend we had yesterday.
My friend can get designer sunglasses at wholesale price.
Do you want me to get you a pair?
I can’t believe how sunny it was.

The ‘ings.

Playing fiance to get a friend in the door.
Waking up to the shock of a sneeze.
Messaging a friend to check she got home.
Looking down on a zebra crossing tiff.
Gossiping about strangers on text.
Chasing down the Style Wars DVD again.
Hoovering a duster’s pray.
Replacing a broken laptop charger.
Putting the washing machine on dry.
Counting pennies and heading to shops.
Waiting to head out for a burger.
Taking a photo of two American elders on tour.
Leaving missed calls on a bored walk back.
Picking up an A brand pizza for half price.
Setting up the laptop to play on the TV.
Wondering what so and so did in the end.
Imagining if Johnny had left off the sax.
Filling a glass with water and inviting sleep.

Table taps.

My friend who’s detoxing came to visit so I saw in the long bank holiday weekend dry which my wallet loves me for today, unlike the 101 friends I’ve been calling since noon to get out there with me for pints that they don’t want added on top of the headaches they’ve already clocked up, trickling in reminders of biros pushing numbers onto palms that are still dirty, not like the soft hands of Hannah, travelling out by bus to salvage my bored Saturday with her company, half fuelled by pity and half by the fact that she’s less wimpish than most, bringing Welshy along with her like my time’s free for anyone to pimp off to others without my sign off, which I would have granted anyway because let’s face it, he’s great and I didn’t have anything on the cards an hour ago, dragging my vacuum cleaner around the flat to a backdrop of BBC news reports going around and around like the duster on the coffee table brushing away crisp crumbs until the next bored house tidy and back to front dusting and mopping sequence, so eager I get to have things done, like this gibberish snake of thought’s final line as Hannah’s just arrived, folding her umbrella, walking towards me and saying ‘Hello!’

In unison.

The previous night’s shows get autopsied
as people arrive in ordinary fashion
opening windows and closing blinds.

Fully realised routine phrases
are exchanged with playful intent
at desks, copiers and coffee machines.

‘Can you believe it’s 10am already and only Wednesday?’

Stuff gets done and sectioned by
flashes of barmy grins and foolish voices
amounting to a mild communal insanity.

Exercising deliberate absurdity
lightness purposefully ticks things along
keeping the mind stitched just about right.

Those who can’t, write critiques online.

Marching with flaming pitchforks,
looking for what direction to go,
the easily swayed fickle flock
wherever the ex-burks say so.

Intellectualising to the death,
efforts by others that actually try,
glossy words and asterisks
obstruct talents in their strides.

The jaws of thoughtless clickers,
only wind up and talk once told
the long read, super scrolled
opinions verified to hold.

The police of artificial tastes
sit faceless behind their screens
deciding how many stars will shine
light on creative scenes.

All the while the closet typists
bold behind a keyboard’s taps
possess no attempts of their own,
and so mask over that fact

with long words pumped with fluffy
language that undermines to derail.
The binary smoke and mirrors
pose a question; who’s really failed?

New York bars.

Take this one to 34th street and change for the L.
Living out your holiday dreams in New York’s pretty swell.
It’s hot as hell, but everything’s heavenly,
witnessing Kool Herc’s legacy’s longevity.
Roof tops and sky lines, craft beers, parks and walks.
Thick gorgeous accents when New Yorker’s talk.
Sleepy Metro trips home, missed stations and dark streets.
Quick shuffles of the feet and panicked hunts for Taxi fleets.
Street rappers’ CDs for ten dollars or a bartered two.
A broken water hydrant that’s cliche but true.
The eyes of a visitor as wide as Central Park’s long.
Hostel chatter repeating each guest’s ‘Where are you from?’
Bagels power confusing journeys of wonder from B to C.
More baffling are tourists leaving for DC.
Picked up in London and placed in a cinematic city.
A constant gratitude for everything that’s been seen.

Eleven lines to Singapore.

Last night’s dishes sit at the
bottom of a sink’s bubbly pond.
Bedroom doors seal in stillness.
Car engines motor the street alive
and a window pulls in the day.
Blocks of electric flood out colour.
The kettle’s steam fogs over toast.
Handles turn and life bags slide
from pockets of warm calm.
Stretches perform first acts.
Post advertises outside parts.

The sleeping man.

They move the sleeping man on
like there’s some place he belongs
as a rich Russian’s news stand’s
merchant sings his paper’s songs.
You skip over their litter
in a dash through inky news sheets.
Audio, visual versions play out,
in front of your wide screen seat.
If in luck he’ll hostel it tonight
and see you after tomorrow’s pints.
If you break enough notes,
some coins will pity his plight.
To be a moved on sleeping man
is a twisted tale we’ll never unwind.
We like to think we’re aware
as much as we’re utterly blind.

Carriage 5604.

The streets are alive with up-lit red brick walls
on one of those evening when you take a mental note
that daylight’s lasting longer than the short days of late,
bookended by stretched nighttime.
The platform’s calmer for once,
the crowds are cuddling some place else
and you shaved five minutes off your clocking off time
so don’t care that the station’s boards reveal
a five minute wait.
The businessman’s black eye gives you as much to think about
as the school kid doing some kind of subconscious ritual
with every finger on each hand.
He presses one at a time into the center of his palms
like the world will stop if he just lets them hang.
By now you’re but a segment away from letting your feet sip
the air of your soft platform march towards a couple of blocks
you alternate the days on which you walk home.
Variety follows that outstretch with the opening of
fridge and freezer draws.
Chillies get mixed into leafy stumps of broccoli
and there’s no telling what colours the stripes on your straw in
the glass of iced orange juice will be this evening,
or the articles you’ll read
and documentaries you’ll flick through for any matter.
Sleep’s as much a mystery as everything around us
when wearing some sets of glasses.
Never mind tomorrow.
It shrinks with every premature play you feed it
before the starting gun’s even been loaded with history’s paint.

Green face paint man.

Placing his bag of tricks on
the side door steps of
St. Martin-in-the-fields
a day of poses prepares.

Out comes a plastic gun
swamp coloured
and passers by file the sight
before crossing to his theatre.

Between taped plains of chalk
dreamy in pastoral hues
and concrete symmetry
he stands on a shoe box of cans.

Seagulls patter at the mouth
of an empty crisps packet.

Toddlers wobble to his cap
dropping small coins inside.

One leg is suspended in air
as an arm points forward to battle.

The gun hangs playfully over
a bus engine’s waves of bass.

Party Process.

Tetris blocks of flashbacks
jitter down to a hangover’s pillow,
clunking smiles and cringes
onto a weekend of some recovery
and more refreshing body damage.

Dashes of Monday’s margins
splash louder towards last orders
but the pages are kept unironed
for as long as we can scrunch.

Snippets of communal memories
trickle, bounce and settle.

The fuels of new plans are gulped.

WE’RE ALL FAMOUS NOW

YOUR COFFEE MUGS ARE FAMOUS NOW
WITH A SUPPORTING CAST OF MILK AND SPOONS
AT MULTIPLE SET LOCATIONS
WHERE EVERYTHING IS UNDER ZOOM
OUR DIMPLES ARE ON WIDE SCREENS
AND WE’VE BADGES FOR TOILET TRIPS
EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE’S THOUGHTS
FEELINGS AND WHERE HOPES SIT
THE RED LIGHT IS NEVER OFF
MEMORIES ARE A DATA DISC
YOUR DOCTOR CAN STREAM YOUR COUGH
AND MUM CAN WATCH YOU WHISK
AN EVENING’S MIXING BOWL OF STARDOM
WITH A SPRINKLING OF THE MUNDANE
THERE’S NOTHING LEFT TO FIND OUT
NOW WE’RE ALL CAPSULES OF FAME