Duck Envy

it’s not even about the freedom
or else i’d spite the sparrows wings.
i just want to float, away from
payment procedures, data analysis –
tap, tap, tap.

when did it have to be hard work
to put one foot in front of the other,
open doors, fill kettles, destroying
any burning interest of the heart?

let me balance on gentle tides,
watch the boats and tourists
walk the bridge of horizon
and details swallowing lives.

yes, i’m happy to drift
in winds and chills if i must.
at least i’d have summer on the
reverse of office walls.

Visiting Gran

The wallpapered back of a
near empty kitchen closet
counting tinned meals passed
with stenciled patterns and
defunct cutlery.

Tubs of pickle, jam jars, bottles
of cooking fat or vinegar,
dried sauces strangling screw tops
and flour bags scrunched closed
years since home made efforts.

Flaking skirting bordering
grids of celebrated smiles, worn sofas,
the table banned from the paw prints
of many cursed, kicked but loved.

Soft steps leaking through ceiling
from around the snooker table’s lawn,
young intrigue turned age
avoiding the absence of things to say.

noisy door.

woken up at half seven
by a door slam out to her world
raging for lack of control
even though I’m due up too
as the night’s turrets fade
showers rinse and brekkie fills
before those hours ahead again
of procedure and patience
then, the second hand makes it,
gloved and scarved, now reversing
to microwaved, televised freedoms
spiralling into action replays
the eye lids easing up
pillows warming
colour upon clouds splashing
before another slam.

That Friday Feeling

Sitting at my internal window,
curd muffin crumbs crowding my lap,
sleepy slug fairies snooze on each eye brow
as fingers layer typing symphonies,
phones burping out cold calls and
paper humming beneath jet inked thoughts
in the creaky, carpeted corridor
between shifts and the swift outdoor breeze.

Eddy Ball Tales #1

Spoonie: How was lunch?

Fork: He was alright, but he’s fallen out with Breakfast. She’s been getting close to Supper which has caused a bit of friction. How was Lunch for you?

Spoonie: I’ve not seen Breakfast for ages. I keep missing him. Always gone before I get up. Me and Lunch get on well but I never get enough time to digest everything. Supper is being a right slut. I catch him in a different place every night.

Fork: I hear you about Supper. He sure gets about, but I guess that’s half the fun. You never know what state he’ll be in. Far more interesting than say… Brunch. That kid doesn’t know if he’s coming or going.

Spoonie: Oh dear, we’ve forgot all about Desert!

Fork: I’ll get my keys.

Premium Yawn Steals The Stage

X Factor – everything wrong with the music industry but the most perfect television show on earth, even if Beyonce ‘If I Was A Boy’ Knowles got introduced to the stage as a ‘hero’ by the reason Hollywood is suffering an eye drop drought right now.

Alexandra love, there’s an ‘If’ to that song title, so ‘heroin’ (albeit with an extra E) is the word you was looking for, or perhaps had taken whilst secluded from the cameras in the biblical cloud of lights, fire and smoke, going by the relentless Xtra Factor hysterics that followed. Okay, perhaps a little harsh. Who am I to say she’s mainlining already and not in fact the reincarnation of Christ? The stage is a 21st century church of sorts after all.

And either way, the voice is bloody good and the girl’s got balls, unlike the JLS lads, whoever last year’s winner is and Leona ‘Is anybody home?’ Lewis. That’s not to completely get on all fours for the new reality TV queen, as Boyzone, Westlife and a distraught Owen (spelt Eagzouvin) back stage probably had to for Louis Walsh.

The Beyonce duet worked but will haunt Alexandra ‘pronounce my surname the posh way’ Burke (I mean, Bhuuck) every record launch, as the public go googling and remember not her triumphing over Diana ‘Alien Hands’ Vickers and the likes, but the outclassing by a diva who can make a nation’s jaw drop in disbelief with a mere glorified yawn over Alex, who’s already being oh so Suzanne from Hearsay and denying it’s her in the sex tapes to the Sunday papers.

A Load of Bank

Last night I realize my bank account’s about to dip into overdraft, so I go online to do some twiddling. God forbid my direct debits for magazine subscriptions or the gym fail! I knew the credit crunch (yawn) would eventually grab me, and the yearly cash in of my coppers tin to a different bank’s savings account would come to my rescue. Enter pin – check. Memorable pet’s name – check. Good ol’ Sally the goldfish, I miss you babe!

Then comes fury. Not only do I have to cross my high rise bedroom to dig out a ridiculous online banking device they’ve sent me, but it doesn’t work when I enter my card. Rewind 15 years to the times where people line up for eons whilst dippy cashiers fiddle with paper behind stained, plastic screens.

‘Can I help you?’ asks the lady. I was a mug to assume she could. On explaining my late night banking woes, lazy device thingy and urgent need to transfer funds, she hit me right in between the eyes with as fine a bullet point from the manual of bureaucracy as they come. ‘Certainly, that’s a £20 transfer fee please.’ Just how much did she think my piggy bank, the oldest of friends, had held in his belly?

Apparently it’s free to wiz money around the intergalactic superhighway but not in human form, in a building that’s sort of meant to deal with such tasks.

Not to give in before the face of inconvenience, I recall the invention of holes in walls and make a withdrawal from my savings card. One nil to logical thinking! Grasping my emergency notes, I cross the road and line up to deposit in the near fatally overdrawn bank account’s branch. Five cashiers, one line and a single person in front of me. Things surely couldn’t be any simpler. ‘So long technology. You’ve lost!’ I mumble.

Then, three cashiers close their windows, one spends the next forty minutes trying to communicate with someone that only speaks Danish and the lady in front of me loses her cheque book (wow – they still exist?) in her foot long bag. Out comes her family photo album, about three containers of medication, the world’s largest collection of intertwined key rings molded into words like ‘Mum’ and ‘Love’, then off she goes. I finally step up to the counter, hand over the cash, secure the fate of my beloved bills and take comfort in the smell of a Greggs Bakery next door.

‘Hmm, well at least I’ll be eating two for £1.09 pasties for breakfast. There’s good in every situation to be had’ I philosophize, preparing my change for the quick pre-office pit stop. Then, not that it wasn’t clear by now, comes confirmation that it’s just one of those days. The queue for cherry tarts and donuts is to the rim of the shops entrance, a kid is licking her dropped block of fudge cake off the tiles and I’m now an additional half hour late to work. No, I do not want a bag or receipt.

A Higher Horse

and so it turned out,
that the giant critic of idiots
had superiors above him,
dabbing black marks to his name
every time a thrown was creased,
leaving, at the day’s end,
through a looking glass –
much bigger than his own,
one more fool upon the tally.

West End Swell

Hot dog vans, dishing it out like crack.
Maccy D’s filling gluttony’s hole.
Pissy alleys offering it on a plate.
Vacant skulls holding out empty bowls.

Discount theatre tickets, cheap cocktails.
Each opportunity, too good to be true.
Strangers cruising the curbs of bars.
Spreading the loner’s most lethal flu.

Buttons on walls, filling crazy hands.
A night of tipsy syrup, one full day’s work.
Public toilets and river side winds,
where the lost and found go lurk.

Parked cars with their lights turned on.
Bus stop crowds of vomit and smoke.
Tacky limo parties slowly passing by.
Misplaced joy, thickening to choke.

Staggering beauty, heading home solo.
The cast of tomorrow’s news stream.
Loose flesh squeezing into cabs.
Regret oozing from bursting seams.

‘She started it’ turmoil echoes.
Rubbish carts stirring up dust.
And all of the above again in a week.
Deluded and lustful cycles, a must.

Monk and The City

Joining the line that stretched far enough back from the counter that you couldn’t see the target, I started flicking through the paper being bought. It wasn’t in my hands to inform me of worldly matters. No, I just wanted the pull out pages listing jobs and articles about how Facebook is the new Google is the new God.

Page one, nothing. Page two, promising. Then the next person to discover this meandering line stepped up behind me. ‘Chhhk Chhhk Zzzzzp Chk Chk Zzzzzp’ looped her phone speakers as I thought to politely ask her what she was listening to, perhaps with a mention that it wasn’t very audible and was probably running her phone down to ‘my last bar of battery, init’.

Unable to CTRL + F a reliable enough way to make these remarks without causing war I carried on licking my dirty finger to turn each filthy page. Besides, she was too busy spitefully asking ‘Who asked you?’ to her sister, or perhaps daughter, each time the young companion innocently read the price tags of tall bins filled with chocolate bars, strategically placed along the line’s shore.

Before long, as it had to, it happened. Right out of the text book that is high street angst said the visibly irate skin head of thirty something years – ‘Only two bloody tills and all these people. Unbelievable. This’ll be defrosted by the time I get in the car’.

I don’t know who he was talking to, but they sure were a great listener. He seemingly gained the world and all its self service checkouts in throwing that right out there and was soon served, ready to hit ‘defrost’ and ‘five minutes’ back home in no time. Maybe it does help to speak your mind, I thought, as he moved towards the volatile sliding doors with an ‘about fucking time’.

The final destination was nearing and to those under the rule of time, must have promised the same relief Tom Hanks probably felt reading his final lines to Meg Ryan in ‘You’ve Got Mail’ (avoid). Looking back, I smiled into the eyes of those that knew they had them, noticing that the ‘Chhhk Chhhk Zzzzzp’ turned ‘Tssst Tst Tst Meaaah’ was actually from headphones. Those poor ears and that poor kid who’s older sister, or mother, has probably never heard her raw voice separate to a backdrop of call waiting music on crack.

‘Thanks a lot. Enjoy your evening’ I concluded before leaving the counter turned stage spotlight. ‘Safe’ replied the cashier, or perhaps he didn’t and was on edge in social situations so repeated comforting mantras. I threw the smile back on, passing my fellow audience members turned audience. ‘You’ve been a great crowd. Goodnight!’ I thought, with paper under arm and a Twix chocolate in mouth.

Watching my step, I dodged past that same ‘How are these meant to hold?’ man, crawling on the pavement collecting canned hotdogs with sweaty, angry hands. Taking in all the moment had to offer, whilst the lettuce rolled beneath a car, I stood thinking. If only we could all see this funny side every time that we hit the shops.

7.22pm on Curtain Road

Empty bars and reserved stalls
fill the stillness of nothing much
as the flocks of slight interest
prepare to arrive but never do
so the random sits, always alone
ripping beer mats and his heart
whilst remembering that time in Delhi –
an ear wash, 10 rupee cheap,
which for all of the loud, lonely noise
remains his biggest regret.

Passing time…

On a path to the now
I bumped into a cow
You doing are how?
Fine thank you pal
Then a cat went meow
So I leaned into a bow
Act did it foul?
Yes I cleaned up with a towel.
Before an owl then howled
Flying into a prowl
To eat a mouse with his jowl
To which I thought Ow!