A Confessional

A confessional

Each week her column
I would find,
My housemates’ weekends
That way inclined.

I used to read her
Ghost-writ fiction,
Of Polo pricks
In horsey diction.

I'd have given all,
To to take the place,
Of Sir fucking
Toss-pot what's-his-face
And take the arm
Of such a beauty,
At the glittering ball
On
A-hole-list duty.

Against the grain,
All this lust.
I'm quite ashame,
To have felt as such.
For she was them
And me was us.
It makes us sick,
I feel disgust,
To think back then,
That for a while,
This willowy woman,
She did beguile.

Call me Judas.
A traitor, if fit,
I was young and daft,
She was definitely ‘It’

We could have had
Such great potential
(Minus clobber and
left-wing credentials).

So shoot me down
It's for the best,
But before I die
I must confess
Past feelings,
Of lust
Now,
Rather sinking ones.
For
Tara
Palmer-
Tomkinson.

Haiku

#1

Singing songs is just
Singing from the same sheet's just
Don't sing fucking hymns

#2

Kept his pen. Sod 'im.
Pens cost 20p, more than
That pint should have been.

#3

No pot to piss in?
Dig deep. Make yourself a pot.
Don't piss on your shoes.

#haiku

Pass Us The Salt

Pass us the salt.
It ain't my fault
You people lack flavour.
It condi-mental
That you Michelin starred mob,
In your Westminster kitchen,
Are serving up this slop
And we have to pay for it.

Get the manager!
The service round here is terrible!
There’s a fly in my soup!
But no flies on me mate,
I see what you’re up to.
Shame you kitchen’s
Not one of those trendy ones,
Where poor punters
Can see you preparing,
The crap you are preparing.
Pass us the salt.

You’ve got rats in your bins,
But the inspector gets paid off.
You'd get slated in the press,
But the editor’s paid off.
You'd get nailed in the Sundays,
But the food critic’s a friend of yours.
You're accounts are criminal
But you’re pan-frying the books, mate.

The upset waiting staff get paid nowt.
The Slovakian KP got kicked out, so
Now you ‘ave to wash up
But you don't know how!
The French cheese board got pricier
Who's fault is that?
Pass us the salt.

Getting bored
Of your smorgasbord, mate
No Reisling with you lot
You kept back champagne
For yourselves
But like you,
It's flat, It's no good
It's getting wurst.
No more Going Dutch
No one’s full to burst
You’re Mr. creosoting
Over the cracks, mate.
People are waiting,
People are starving,
Pass us the salt.

You concreted over
All our gardens,
So you’re buying spuds from China
Don't taste the same, mate.
You try to catch
The Scottish salmon,
But you’re a dancing bear, mate
Chained up to your little rock.
The pictures on your restaurant wall
Are all pretty little English
Garden scenes.
From Victorian times, mate.
As irrelevant as your wine list.
English wine’s no good.
You tax the tips,
Kick out the cleaners,
But
Pay
The head chef
Double.
Pass us the salt.

The hospitals are overrun
With food poisoned folk
Because the dish you're serving up
Neither cold or hot
Is best not served at all.
It has no nutrients,
It has no flavour,
And people
Are getting
Very
Fucking
Sick.

Trying To Get On

Trying to get on

The mythered mother
With 5 pristine kids
And glowing skin
And a weeks worth
She's trying to get on

Our Continental cousin
With Jackson Pollock pants
And polite manner
On his 3rd job today
He's trying to get on

The sad eyed fella
With his sadder eyed terrier
The moon faced child
With the eyes of a
Whistful tune on a ballaleika
Trying to get on

The students
The skivers
The fold-up bikers
Unaffordably housed
Facebook likers
The 'Jams', The 'Neats'
Acronymoniously explete
As they try to get on

The dandy in aspic with his
Flea market sideboard
Today, has little chance
Of getting on

The unencarserated
Freshly free
Fare blagger with
JD breath
Really wants to start getting on

The Sports direct bag
Packed with China's finest
The size of it's rented room
Clinging to its owner
Is trying to get on

The Surinam Arsenal fan
Head to toe in Emirates clobber
Is getting on with
Philipino nurses with massive purses
And men without vans
Drummers without bands
Whistlers without songs
All trying to get on

Mothers with hankies like super soppers
Classical students with precious
Cargo who will apologetically,
Offer their seats
Are trying to get on

The mothers,
The brothers
The potential lovers
Not "them and us"
Not "us and others"

And those with noses out of phones
Or max volume hands-free calls home
Pick up a Metro
As they are getting on

But despite the free paper
Propaganda droppers
The Tory rag-trade
Headline shockers

Despite all this
We are all just
Trying to get on

cov451

Sharpen Up

Sharpened by the state.
They are axe that cuts,
Forged by forgers,
Who ain't,
The sharpest
Tool in the box.
What kind of tool shall we be?
Some, are very happy,
(insert object of ire),
And very good,
At
Just
Being
Tools.

Are we knives
Sharpened by society?
For kids without lives,
For stabbing
Kids without lives?

Are we broad swords?
Sharpened by others,
For slaying others abroad?

We grind and strop
For what sense?
To sharpen points on this
Barbed wire fence?

Are we board-room panel saws
For which there is no point?
Sipping screwdrivers down
Their crow bar joint?
That's the private equity dream.
Ours, it would seem,
Is to be aware,
Make aware,
And fight like mad
For what is fair.

We’re sharpened over time.
We're not devised
To be anti-this or that or
Anti-bleedin'-clockwise.
We are all chisels, see,
Sharpened on many sides.
Sharp of point and brain,
To carve our way,
Practically, beautifully,
With, or ‘gainst the grain.

So stay sharp now.
Noses to the grind-stone.

And we'll never
Let the bastards
Grind
Us
Down.

As performed with Poets on the Picket Line, 11th February 2017, in support of Hackney Picturehouse workers' strike for a living wage.

I looked for Neil Dovestone, for a bit.

I looked for Neil Dovestone, for a bit
(With thanks to The Sonics).

Like all good walks,
Your sleuth begins
With a crawl.
Some folks like water,
Some folks like wine,
But i like the taste
Of straight strychnine.

Past dry stoned-walled
Teenage handbrake-turn corners
In 80s cars bought in the 90s.
I shake hands with this bar called Clarence.
Pub’s not working.
Not middle.
Just class.

A Navvie, a Commie and
Some Pendle Witches
Walk in wellies
Not me,
I'm past rugby league pitches,
Up past archers’ dwellings,
Wi’ John Willie Lees
T' ‘mountains’.
‘Mountains?’
Nay, lad, just ‘ills these.

Our victim,
Of what we know
Had overseas steel from
Knee to toe,
A Euston train without
An aim?
A ton thirty of tenners
For when the fat lady sings?
For who?
The wine is red,
Poison is blue,
Strychnine is good
For what's ailing you.

Strings sour,
Down wings,
Of misty dribble.
Head bowed, upwards.
The rainwater in tracks
Glows distant moon blue.
Glistens like the
Crystal swan, in the
Down there,
Christmas-lit window of the
Middle stone terrace.
Fissures of molten
Intergalactic lava,
Mixed in with sulphurous
Farm smell
The crags in the rock
Mimic the elbow crease
Of a Native American scalper.

Afar, the expanse of deep watery
Drown-thee dread of a
Hypnotic wind
Skips the midnight reservoir
In to an Artex ceiling
From the film Vertigo.
Who'd kill one dove
With 2 stones?
Thee’s a Mystery,
Four ghostly five,
Six helicopters,
Seven strychnine.

It’s down, now, detective, down.
Half cocked in London dress.
Make it to the next
Distant landladied
“You alright love...?” pub.
An archipelago of bitter pints
Aligned wi’ Sheik Rory o’ Yorkshire.

I ponder ‘pon the case in hand.
Beats me, this
Walter anonym-Mitty.
But if you listen to what I say,
You'll try strychnine some day.
Make you jump, it'll make you shout,
It'll even knock you out.

Rest in Peace
John Lytton

I like trees

I like trees,
You can sit under them and write about them.
Our leaders are like trees,
We sit under them and write about them.
I like chainsaws.