TRIPPING.

If it’s breakfast
On the west coast,
As you approach
The east,
Then it must be lunch,
At least,
Or some lesser pleasantry
Introduced to bridge the edacity gap,

That’s assuming of course
That my watch
Is set correctly,
And my flight is right,
And neither of these
Are certainties
As I’ve never flown
This far before.

In fact
I’m not actually
Airborne now,
As I’ve just found out,
Having been awoken
By the soaking
Sheet,
That’s trapped my feet

And tipped me on the bedroom floor
As I tried
To find
The aircraft’s aisle,
So I guess I’ll go downstairs
And make some toast
And hope
My baby’s eating what she should be when I call.

STARGAZE.

May you shine
Sun bright
In time
To cast your eyes
Over
The whole
Wide
World
At least once
A day
And make
Of your rays
A way
For mortal men
To end
Their lives upon
When
Their
Care
Has lapsed
And the gaps
Between
Their seeing
And believing
Have been
Cast
Into the shadows
Of the closing
Show
That offer
No reprieve
And leave
Them needing
Such proof
As you.

PICKING UP THE PIECES.

When we get along, or are at least agreeable,
Then it’s not peace we’ve found,
But a ceasefire,
And the use of it affords
A slight accord
Until war breaks out again,
And normality resumes,
And in the rooms where hostilities billet us
We plan further acts of engagement
And wage them when possible
And jostle for position when not.

Bottles ready to battle with if sticks and stones fail;
After knives and staves break;
Once bombs and bullets have lulled
The dumb and dull
Into a false sense of arrogance
And fancy,
And past that time when even we,
Nimble enough to know better,
Forget our past encounters and mount
A verbal barrage larger than the last
And bound to collapse into blasts as fast.

And God help the few who knew the two of us
Before escalation made a battlefield
Of disagreements;
When friendship’s ends were mentored
By love’s bosom,
And respectful words were etched
By willing quills,
For they have to carry the weight of our hate
With heavier hearts
Than we, once partners, ever can
Now the bands have struck Advance once more.

NIGHT'S LIFE.

The dawn was so long
That it stretched
Into yesterday,
And the wind was so strong
That it blew
A few streets away,

And the moment I woke up
I was sad
That I had
Because as time unfolded
Light’s tragedy
Scratched,

But a glistening hunch
Of the evening
Weaved
Till the glorious dusk
Rushed the
Last light to leave,

And then night lay forever,
Like another
New lover,
And it loosened
The leather
Of day’s hardback cover.

MORE BANG FOR MY BUCK.

There’s never been an orgasm
That hasn’t seen
Me wanting more after hunting for it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m never left
Longing for additional love,
For more passion to be fastened to it;

Or ever found time has been wasted,
Or been impatient whilst baiting it;
I’ve always felt that my butter melted well,

Whether the getting was greatly enhanced
By the dance of arousal,
Or swiftly achieved knocking knees in the street,

It’s just the end result can sometimes
Come and go too quickly,
Be over before I’ve truly appreciated its details,

And I’m left without breath, and a heart beat
That restarted on impact,
And a feeling that I needed to slow the moment down;

To be really grounded by the wires that fire
Every time she crosses them
And I’m flooded with her love to the extent that I sluice

And almost lose consciousness
In the mass of arms and legs
And lips and the stickiness that drips off her skin,

And a yearning for the length
Of my ending
To be pinned to the beginning again.

THE BURR OF THE MOMENT.

You can test the veracity
Of your choice
After
You’ve voiced it;
Once
You’ve moved on
From
The truth of the moment;

And in order to asses
The facts
In question
The marks
Of your options
Can be traced
Well on into the adopted
Space,

And though you can never
Win a minute back,
Or sever
Its tracks,
You can determine
Whether
It earned you
Pain or pleasure,

But if neither alternative
Is forthcoming
Then don’t relive
The violent drumming
Of the past
That chased
You to act
At such a prickly pace.

SCREEN TIME.

They say we are the stars of our own stories,
And they should know,
Being the audience of said shows,
But if so
Then I would’ve hoped
For a little more input by now,
More constructive opinions from them,
Seeing as my chronicle has not always been strong.

Often my direction’s askew,
My production values,
Cinematography;
Or was it the wardrobe?
The make-up?
The locations
And props?
Possibly the soundtrack has been lacking
Or the accents were hesitant.
Could be the lighting was frightful
And the editing imbedded.
Or maybe,
Just maybe,
The cast and co-stars
Were far from perfect
And unable to provide the right support.

But most likely of all,
What has eaten into my critiques,
Is the script that ripped from me a sequel;
My telling of the tale,
My fable,
And the only solution for that
Is to utilize
Another writer
For my life.

EVERYBODIES HOBBIES.

You get fucked up
To forget
What
You have
And have not got;

What
You had
And lost
Because
You always shot your wad:

Too much junk
And drunken flights
Trying to elude
The night
Of day’s embrace.

And the pace of it
Skittles your pins
And you collapse
Without applause
Or the score you thought;

Striving for life
Whilst driving
Towards death’s door
And imploring loved ones
To revolve it for you:

To pass by
Or effect a rescue,
But who knew,
At the end of the day,
That they’d be as wrecked as you.

SCHEMAS.

He’s got those handy pliers,
With the eyes on,
And he’s going to use them to get his boogers out,
And you don’t want to know
What he’s making in his half moulds
Or piping thru his super-dooper dough extruder.

Man the boy’s getting noisy,
And that’s no mistake,
And he wants everyone to know what he’s making,
And if I happen
To be in the kitchen cooking
Then he calls me, repeatedly, until I have to look,

And invariably he’s dismantled
The castle that we built
The day before or emptied out his box of bricks,
Because according to statistics
His particular form of play
Is disconnecting or something as fetching,

As well as enveloping;
So to sum up his day:
He likes to be rude, crude, knock things over
And then hide in his tent
Which he makes an event of
Until you find him and hide again until he’s tired out.

FAST.

And if you’re trying to slim down
Then be careful of the image
That shouts for attention as you pass
The endless glass walls of the modern world,
As it can hurl you a curve ball of tragic proportions,
And even on the road side proof lets loose
A howl of unmissable statistics for you to refute.

So never trust what you see in the screens
Of those stores with the perfect mannequins inside,
Or the distorted blimp of you that, costume like,
Clothes them as you slide by,
And those car windows should be skipped passed too,
As they’ll spin you in so many directions
You’ll be convinced that there’s no connection
Between what you’re trying to achieve and what you see.

In fact try not to act
On the impulse to check your reflection
In any surface with length enough to render it,
And as for the wicked witch mirror in the hall,
Forget that too,
As it will only tell you what you want to hear,
So stay clear,
And go out the back way,
And at night,
When your diet.

SERVING TIME.

I make the most of each twinkling minute
When I am spinning my plans,
And much from the stuff’s that’s presented
To be the best that I can;

More of the matter that’s handy is used
When I am fusing ideas,
And no opportunity’s omitted
When whittling frontiers.

And there’s nothing for chance’s prehension
To make fences with later,
And nowhere for fate’s politicians
To finish their debates.

And prayers and all those that uphold them
Can be folded away,
For there’s more need of firm understanding
Than demands from the layman,

For the instant is hereby insistent,
And is issuing pleas,
And only those few with a rule book
Can look after its deeds.

And although I don’t know time’s location
It’s my aim to placate it,
For what other purpose is worth
Our surplus of waiting.

THE SAME CUP FOR ALL.

My baby got a job
Where the grand folks hobnob
With the lowly
And the only
Difference is the cut of cloth,
While the height of the froth
On the top
Of coffee cups
Is ubiquitous
For each of us,
And we all sashay
The same way
Thru cafe bars
And beneath the stars
That gleam
In the steam
Of Chicago steel
As the winter nights peel
The heat
From the streets
And use it to herald
The sidewalk’s perils,
And staying indoors too long
When the throng
Of humanity
In its meekness and vanity
Is waiting for you
To do what you do
Is unhealthy,
So now you can be
Serving a latte
Whilst being rather chatty
And be revelling in the glory
Of all Chitown’s stories.

PUSHING SKIN.

In the sweat of it
You count
Doubt out,
And repeat
A mantra of increasing amounts,
As the meditative sound of fitness
Surrounds the bits inside
That remain unconvinced,
And by the finish
What you’ve done before
Has been wrung from memory’s fund
And spent for a moment’s end
In order to afford
Another engram’s remnant
For storage,
And recall once more.
And eventually
The seat of your pants
Doesn’t sit as it did,
On your arse,
And your skin
Doesn’t fit,
As it did,
On your arse,
But the case
That you’re making
Is made on your face,
And your frame,
And the phrases and gains
Are replayed
The next day
Amidst the sweat of it.

EXERCISING CAUTION.

I have to divorce myself
From the facts of my activities
When they give to me
Their attention,
And lavish me with the rewards
Of their length.

Going forward is the only option;
Counting the stroke,
Whilst pretending not to notice,
Is adopted,
And never wishing to finish
Is the holy goal;

Only the goal is to end it;
To befriend the blessed relief
That completion brings,
And hopefully not
Feel the sting of muscle snap
And lung hunger:

Air being precious
When huge intakes make
The body bend better,
And the mind mend whatever
Allusions to torture chambers
It has laboured with

Whilst shaking fists at
The flabbiness of age
And its inevitable troop
Into youth’s future
That I, and all who brave its hail,
Strive to keep lean.

THE SHIP OF SHAPE.

So after the day has been filled with its frills,
And the more substantial demands of fatherhood,
And its principle package has been stashed in his cot,
I dial my love and we discuss as much as we can
In the time that we have,
And then I lay for a while and contemplate
The last twenty four hours municipal events,
And dread my exercise:
That damned facsimile boat that stands at the foot of my bed
And calls upon me every evening to relieve age’s grievances,
And causes me to question my resolve
Every time I answer it,
Every time we dance with fitness
And its handsome stamp of vigour and vitality
In order keep up with my growing boy:
You see I’m forty five,
And he nearly three,
And it doesn’t require a bright mind
To realise I’ll have to be on my toes sooner rather than later,
And if they’re composed of crumpled wood
Then nobody will do any good by it.
So I challenge myself every night;
I dare my natural indolence
To stare into the future’s tense and unpleasant land
And do nothing,
And then I rise and pull at the oars,
Of course,
And eventually, after the pain subsides,
I ride the invisible river of my room
Until I’m back at berth again,
And alight with the knowledge that,
Although nowhere near the water,
I’m wetter than I ever thought sweat could get me,
And better in body and mind than I was before,
And more able to take this confidence forward;
And if, step by step, I can take care of today’s claims
Then tomorrow’s will take care of themselves.

PASSING.

And what makes a life worth the service of remembrance?
Is it the glancing influence of a chanced impact?
Or the distinct closeness of a longer exposure?

And if know which one then how come it meant so much?
How did they raise their game beyond its length?
How were they able to think outside the books?

And why were you so fascinated by their scarce rapture?
Why did their words and deeds bleed over you?
Why did you succumb to one over another?

And then when did you realise their life’s prize was yours?
When did it turn you from your own birth’s gold?
When were you old enough to know the truth?

And where upon the path of your life’s map was it unwrapped?
Where was the love above all others uncovered?
Where were you when the proof moved you?

And who are you to be, now that they have left the field?
Who can lift you up to see another season?
Nobody but you; the one they left their love upon.

TIME TRAVELS.

A look at the clock said it was four,
When it seemed like eight,
And the time took to reach this point
Was filled with more than could possibly
Have been jimmied into it,
Even though we were
Bidding farewell in a windowless function room
And closeted by conversation and ale,
And hadn’t even gone to the top shelf.

Still we were here,
And glad to be,
But the next act happened so fast
That when checked again
The time was indeed much later than thought,
And the flux of duration afterwards
Alternated between further extremes,
And the accrual of this news,
And cause of it,
Can only be attributed to the depth of friendship,
And need to relive the lives we’d already led.

And maybe the length of the bar tab,
And the labyrinthine setting,
Conspired to hot wire our body clocks,
Or it could be that the tales and travails,
The stories and glories,
The anecdotes and quotes
Spoken of
Colluded
And before we knew it
We were no longer twenty anymore
But in our forties.

DIVINING.

We need a geologist to adjudicate on the nature of stone
And bouldered soil
Because,
Left alone,
We’ll argue that the land’s made out of sand
Or glass
Or other such compacted evaporite,
And what matters
Is that
We get the composition right
In order to continue mining this wonderful vein of love,
That we’ve suddenly discovered,
Without caving in
The surrounding ground
And drowning in the sea water that
Will inevitably run into the excavated tunnels,
And the sum of it,
The ultimate amount,
Counts for everything
As yesterday there was little left
Of the previous seams
We’d dug,
And we were having difficulty
Tapping into
Any bed.

AS IT WAS.

When I was a child I was sure who the good guys
And the bad guys were:

The cavalry always arriving at the very last minute,
Regardless of the limits of the tale,
In order to rescue a crowd of hapless cowboys
From a bunch
Of half drunk
And half naked invaders;

A squad of brave, but clueless, British troops
Attempting to take the last bridge
From a brigade of Germans,
Who always made you squirm
Regardless of the ideology on their collars,
And failing even more courageously than the last lot;

An insubordinate Detective
Stalking the streets of a West coast city
With a canon in hand,
And the righteousness of the damned at his command,
And against the wishes of his bosses
Crippling the crook only to be booked himself,

And a knight in the finest shining armour,
With feather on his helmet,
Riding to set
The world straight and despatch
Whichever black suited brute
Just happened to be terrorising the town that day.

These were the stories a more ideal time.
Or maybe not;
Maybe they were just the back lane games
Of six year old kids.

RETURN JOURNEY.

On the way back
My little lad was knackered
And I was indebted
To Retford
For arriving when it did
As I wasn’t feeling so cosy myself,
Although Doncaster
Could’ve arrived faster
As I was faltering rapidly
And we still had to change trains there,
But as it happened
When we arrived
The bustle of the mainline
King’s Cross beehive
Was replaced
By the more sedate pace
Of a provincial interchange
And we were able to be about
Our business of switching
More quickly
Than I thought we would,
And as he
Was half asleep
There was little fuss
To bother us
And we were soon home
And in our comfort zone
Quicker
Than a hiker
On a downhill bike,
And thankful
For the ways
Of grace.

LONDON IN JANUARY.

We were bound for London land,
And found it just the same
And as blameless as ever
For its many heavy names.

As framed by history’s verdigris
As it had always been,
And as loaded with as many folks
As its ancient spokes could carry.

It didn’t worry us or bar our path
And when brushed against its rush
It neither faltered nor altered
The direction of our carriage.

Old friends were met and new ones made
And if the same can be said
For me and my son then we’ve done
Wonders with our time there,

And a man made in Ireland
Passed from one emerald realm
Into a different kingdom of colour
And joy and sadness wept together.

The weather held, in fact it bloomed,
And if a few routines were ruined
Then the function of them was
Held up to be not so important after all

And I thank the family who roomed us
With all the love I have left over
After its use on my own household,
And hope to be as good a host myself one day.

THE MEASURE OF MAN.

Fortune is a stricter mistress
Than I once thought:

Insisting upon constant calls from the lords
And ladies of vexation,
But rewarding order;

Supporting the odds of bookies lucky enough
To have her hotline,
Whilst laying off the bets elsewhere;

Routinely screening the probabilities of loss
From those tossing coins
Into the fountains of circumstance

Whilst hampering the paths
Of people touched with a genuine blush
Of substance with regards to facts and figures

And sourcing revenue from any who
Are fool enough to bluff themselves a second chance,
When every last cent has been spent
Supporting the first.

And oh my dear she is worse
Than the curses of the damned
And more addictive than the fixtures
That plucked at their pockets to begin with,

And when she’s finished
We will all wish ourselves more relevant
To the loved ones who will need to be appeased

And more worthy of the
Certainty they never gambled with.

THE TOGETHER FORECAST.

An egg shell cracks,
A tightrope snaps,
A minefield map’s misplaced,
And that’s all it takes
For today to go the way of the Dodo;
So maybe tomorrow
We will ride the rollercoaster
To a finer height,
And try and sustain the ride,
For a little while at least,
Until the beast
That resides within
Begins again
To plunge us under its spell.

And if we spend a little longer
On this premise
Then the promise
Of a more honest future
Might suit us
Better than the bent mess of yesterday,
And we can look forward
To open doorways
Instead of exits
Next week,
And the months after,
And further learning
And laughter
Will be better graphed.

TRYING TO OPEN THE GATE.

It’s cold,
So cold
I believe there’s steam rising from my eye balls,
And wet walls
Are forcing
The gate to swell and it’s hard to tell the difference
Between the clean
Lines of frost
On the copper coloured paint and the cracks
Scratched into
It this winter.

And since
I’ve got to wince
In order to force my vision to fulfil its mission
It’s harder
To see the yard
Than it once was and i think I’ve lost the will to live
Or at least
The latch key
To the gate that swings on damaged hinges
And leads
To freedom.

But maybe
Once the days
Have stretched their aching legs a little longer
They’ll be done
With the damp,
And the demands of trammels will be a mere memory
Of defeat
Shivering
In the frigid wind that hindered my progression
And almost made
My sight change.

DOWN THE LINE.

Whilst calling her up
I heard talking
At her door,
And then later in the afternoon
There was more residual chatter
In her spartan apartment,
And I asked if she had a man there,
And she said it was her daughter,
But I thought the voice too noisy,
And said so,
As I know what dudes do,
Though apparently they say kiss my ass,
As it actually was my lover’s child passing through.

Still I was right about doughnut holes:
She thought them cut from the centre
Of the unmentionable treat,
But I knew they’re just a marketing tool
To sell more hellish food,

And my love is so unlucky these days
As she didn’t return her library books
And the fine was raised,
On January 1st,
From ten cents to twenty and she’s broke,
And what’s worse I hear the city
Is now employing Cripps
Or Bloods or similar groups
To retrieve their books,
Though she always did like
Those kind of manly tones around her home.

FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS.

There’s a man
At the University of Chicago
Who’s in charge of
An experiment to detect
Dark Matter Particles,
But he’s finding it difficult,
In the windy city,
As the hadrons that he’s after
Won’t stay still long enough
To capture,
But I don’t really care so much
For that stuff,
As my love
Is trapped
In her basement flat,
In that same city,
As the season wails
In its own cardinal flavours
All around her,
And just when I thought that I’d found her
I lost her again
And can barely begin to make amends
By telling her how much she’s missed
And loved
And as such I’m moved
To declare that the nature of despair
Is much blacker
Than any missing atoms.

STANDARDS.

Don’t squander your conscience
On causes once thought important,
Save it for those painful days when possibilities,
And the disastrous marks they make,
Rain all around you and confound your moral compass,
Leading you astray,
Venturing you to ends once thought centered,
And tempting your applause.

Be brave with your morals
When woodland fungus multiplies
Outside of its natural habitat’s compound,
And surrounds you with cupped hands,
Begging for the sands of your life to slip through them,
And approve of them
Because of the quality of their volatile
And violent outlines.

And be true with your views
In the face of the multitude of new ones
That flew once the world digitised its itches,
And scratched your back
In the hope you would respond in kind,
Instead of bearing these scars
As a testimony to how deep life’s lonely and eager
Greediness has bitten.

THE ANIMAL TALLY.

After the annual stock check at London Zoo
It was noted that most beasts went forth two by two,
Except for the largest of mammals of course,
Who wandered the gardens in tough four by fours.

So in order to store them correctly to class
Fences were mended and experts amassed,
And workers were brought from all over the land
To assist with the mysteries of animal strands.

There were twenty two versions of zebras summated
Till someone discovered a colour blind rater
Then all of the pandas and various bears
Were checked out again to ensure who they were.

And the lions and tigers and cheetahs and leopards
Were drugged to ensure their claws were kept separate
Because when the antelopes had to be numbered
There were rumours the cats would be taking the sum.

And the birds had their wings tied to aid in the poll,
And the fish were all tickled to ease with their total,
And the fauna that ran and the creatures that hopped
Were encouraged to slow down or simply to stop.

And everyone said what a grand census count,
Until someone remembered the arthropod house,
So the insect inspectors were sent overnight
So as not to give most of the bugs there a fright.

And it rained rather strange as the reckoning ceased,
And an old man announced it looked set in for weeks,
Though he was renowned for being an old blower,
But by the month end people knew him as Noah.

NOT TOO WARY IN EARLY JANUARY.

He generally likes fireworks,
But maybe not when they wake him up
At midnight,
And are a little frightening,
And today,
When he saw lightening streak
He said to me,
“More rockets Daddy”
And I had to agree,
Especially when the booming music of the thunder
Was reminiscent of those hidden maroons
That blow when the curtains are closed,
And my little one is not afraid of much
At the moment,
Thankfully:
Insects don’t vex him
And the dark doesn’t startle;
He’s not afraid to graze his knees
And doesn’t freeze too badly,
And fire and water and air and earth
Stay in their respectful berths,
When we walk by,
But to the moron who threw a cigarette out of a window
That nearly landed on my head,
Or worse,
My boy’s,
Then the next time you do so
I’m going to pay you a visit
And drop a tab end on your bed whilst you sleep.

REFRESHED.

Now here’s a year,
A pure and new one,
Shed of only a few hours
And ready to be flowered however we
Choose to do so.

And with the work of tradition,
And turning of clock ticks,
It is laid out to stick your lips to
And kiss heartily and fill up with all the wishes
You ever started with.

And all the hopes
You coat with best intentions
Can be dressed again
And once more shown the road
A fresh year has blessed.

And out in the crowds
You’ll notice how folks
Are roped hand in hand together
In order to better the weather that may well blow
You off your course

So find the fingers
Of the first fist you can
And cling to them with all the love
You can muster and maybe the bluster
Will pass you by

And with firm ties
And family binds verified,
And your heart upon your sleeve
For any stranger met to see and understand,
You can fall once more into the arms of man.

A HOME OF OUR OWN.

There is a place for us;
A space made by the self righteous
Who subsequently abandoned it
As it wasn’t good enough
For them,
But what is?

And as you would expect,
From the pharisaic,
It’s a perfect
Desire,
But obviously not for the pious,
Who left it for higher ground,
Apparently.

So now it’s even more flawless
As there are no intolerant followers there,
No opinionated minions,
No virtuous worshipers,
No religions or chieftains
Or fever,
Only the leaves
In autumn
And the trees
That brought them
Into being
In spring,

And soon
There’ll be me
And you.

THE GOD OF PHOTOGRAPHY.

I’ve fallen for many a mistress
Along the stone road of my life,
And the highlights have often been rendered in film
Or on tape,
Or scraped across the silvered surface
Of digital waves,
But the ones I wish I’d taken
Have constantly
Escaped me,
Either because
I was too embossed
By alcohol’s pressure,
Or loosened by love’s pleasure,
Or there was an emptiness to address,
And I’ve managed to miss a measure’s worth,
And so I pray every night,
Beneath the Victorian awnings of my eyelids,
That the next time stuff happens,
That happens
To be worth recording,
I’ll be able
To extract the maximum splash
From its impact.