Why Stand in the Rain

Why stand in the rain
Daft as it seems
But graft goes in
To put on
This entertainment
This community connects
Like aqueducts
It’s handshakes
It’s tear ducts
It’s survival
It’s nice weather for ducks

- For Mishi, R. I. P.
- Dulwich Hamlet F. C.

Hollywood

Hollywood (An in-joke for Poetry Unplugged)

If you don’t listen
You don’t learn
If no-one learns
No-one listens
If no-listens
We all get poor
We all may need the back scratch mutual bank
Hollywood is a sack waxed mutual wank
Hollywood loves stupid
Hollywood is man whore

Caught

The red whine sits
Like cricket slips in
It’s amateur hour
At the end of its wick
You’ll always get caught
In the Black River
These days
When the sign in
Away day ledger
Reads Mr. Smith
When the baggy mind
Makes green choices
The flabby heart
Will sink
When the lily-livered
Gets the
Sorcerer’s
Apprentice to
To do the dirty
In the public launderette
It goes without that
However steely
The 45th Dan
On this
Will be pressed
Will be finished

Men in Pubs - A Tanka

Men in pubs pig farm
Spring eighty four defence all
Proper full of shit
Reason jumps around as ticks
In self-obsessed boxes this

10,000 ‘Spoons when all you need is a knife

In a room

Largely full of men

Who couldn’t

Largely give a flying

Principally

Each sip of the cheapest

Kicks like

Dad’s army arrows

At that border

It’s a tv game show prize fight

For a pup

It’s not their price driven down

It’s the others driven up

It’s an Art Deco takeover

Students luxuriate and

Love the costing clearly

The badly wedded

Love their phones so dearly

And tolerate table space 

Nearly

The old boys 

Habitualise

The bar staff

Navigate

Deftly slowly they’re 

Used to it

And the pay

When thirst

Overcomes morality

It’s not a snob’s trick

It’s the atmospheric

So I occasionalise

And out meself

Take the mick

Pentonville

Shes been caught
In the orders
The bricks shout
More nowadays
Than the locked up
Not with standing
On the the short brick wall
With a 2 for 1 bottle
And a shout stuck on flexi-disc
Jimmy I love you repeat
Since the banging riots
It’s all gone quiet
No more
Top lift breast bare
For the window-rattlers
Fervent p’raps
The rats
Finally got ‘em
They
Like football grounds
JCB-ed
Out of town
If she still loves Jimmy
We guess
The spirit bounces
Off walls through bars
Round corners as
The litter wind’s
Flock paper
Dawn chorus
Flower’s gone
Some of them
Have moved on

Thirsting More

I properly
Sneer at those
With coffee cup
Takeaway prose
Positions
With charcoal
In reusable bottles
With semi sparkling
Watter on the bus
I ponder this
A bottle while
Dragon stout
Down the street

Electronic Assistance

The phone-in went
Little Johnny
In Whocareslike
Who cannot sleep
There was a cackle
From the
Electronic assistant
In the household
Mother distraught
He’s now traumatised
There was a cackle
For 15 minutes
The phone-in went
They had a psychologist
They had a tooth sucking
I mean, sssss
It’s difficult, isn’t it?
For 15 minutes
It’s difficult for
Little Jihan
In Hudaydah
Who cannot sleep
The electronic device
Blew up their household
Mother distraught
He’s now traumatised
It took 15 seconds
There was a cackle
There was no phone-in

We Want Our People Back

There’s more light
And reflection
Under this London bridge
Semi-accommodation
More blue light
More self-reflection
More abuse-lite
Than the church pamphlet
From down the road
In north London
There are smaller
Villages in the north
Back home
I pay my
Homeless tax
Every month
Sometimes daily
Which I will till they
Be given more
Than light
And reflection
Till the powers
Use their powers
Till the powers
Pay their homeless tax
Tell the powers
We want our people back

Frying Time

It’s frying time,
Down the learning
Business takeaway.
Chips are laid down
The only hand
Shakes are of the bottle
Just a lot of old sauce,
An’ plenty on…
‘Cos let’s face it,
it’s just a
Salt-rubbed gravy chase.

The sausage thought is:
There’s no
Currying of favour
Terms are
Pulled out the freezer.
Watch ‘em crackle, they say
Batter the worth
While they
Let the over-paid
And over-paying
Dominate the flavour
Of this puddin’

Let ‘em get chippy,
They say.
Let ‘em tackle
Little packets
Of hire purchase ketchup,
‘Tween their teeth,
Then feel the squeeze.
Microwave the reduction in
Portion size,
Watch ‘em eat it,
With this wooden,
Two pronged attack.
Let pride be mushed, again
Again, but Bigga!

They’re pickling the
Human learning institution
Again today.
The counter jar may scold,
But again today,
It’s served up, cold,
It’s served up late
In yesterday’s paper,
Or reconstituted
Plastic plate.

Jaikas!

As white west man
It’s important
To ‘ave
Really learned a lot
An’ I’ve
Really learned a lot
As a species
These are the least bits
We can do
As the rest
Grope around
For meaning of existence
Others are existing
Only just existing
Polish slang
For nuts
For bollocks
Is 'Jajka'
Meaning 'eggs'
One egg
Two eggs
Hard boiled
Wi’ fellow soldiers
Hard boiled
We toast our might
Hard boiled
After all
Eggs is eggs right?
Maybe
This an apology
Maybe
There’s an anthology
Maybe
A massive book
Maybe
With a massive cock n’ balls on it
Maybe
When
There’s an important
Question ‘bout our
World’s behaviour
It’s fine
For you to think
We duck it
Because we’re in charge
White west man
‘Cos we want to stay in charge
White west man
All we say is
“Fuck it”

Peas

There’s a politeness around
In which I arrange
These peas
It’s not all gravy
No
She’s the one
Who hasn’t
Got it plate-wise
So I dare arrange
For she
Dare me to chip away
It’s not
On a plate this crack
It’s not
All gravy
But it is
Peas

Wise as, Mr Ożek

I know what wine
In what glasses
I speak a few of
The languages
I know history of art
I’m not a communist
And in the meantime
I teach the young to dance

Kin

The boots may be waxed
Stiff as the eye
Dear’s very
Old as that tree there
Yer chopping
It’s not about flair for words
It’s the kindness
Us wood
Pigeons dropping

Who Knew It

It’s 2018
(Who knew it)
And it’s still Oh
Kay they say
Be seen
Wi’ men who gob off
Quips in pubs
(Who knew it)
Such as
Spunk
Is
Gender fluid

Fire Retarding

There’s more devices
For this crisis
More fire retarding
Than the one de Niro
Starred in
More than you can shake a stick
Of northern rock at
Dickens and Hardy
Round the block
One
Last time an’ ‘alf, eh?
Let’s say we’ll call it that