Cobbled Together

Cobbled Together

 

Who walks amongst us barely notice

that we are rocking cobbles underfoot

unsettled as firm in concrete as others,

and why in hell would they?

Nothing to see here, move along.

Perhaps secretly you wish they'd think

about how overlaying smooth tarmac,

hides cracks, saves turned over ankles

from splintering as they twist and shout,

'if so, what’s that all about?'

you might fairly ask, pass me by with a wink,

remarking that we’ll meet on set in the sequel,

to Next Life and Life’s Next, but equally

why not now? If age shall wither her,

cobs left too long on the windowsill crumble,

sans strings, a used T Bag sags off, grumbles

about tea-leaf parchments browned, dried,

ready for some thrown together display.

Cobbled heels feel worn, under shod,

and once so full, so proud, so breasts sag.

Inevitably, we resemble those same 3 hags,

who round and round the cauldron stumbled  

muttering words pleasing to touch,

but don’t overthink our ruins too much,

just catch shot bolts out of black and blue,

well old, once bold, grown cold, still found

riding storms, throwing scorns, stepping on

those better set cobbles together.

After Church

 After Church

 

After church, doors flung open wide

swell silky perfumes from inside,

come the patient penitent full rectified

and as those last notes of sung song rise

will she now run to me in hot rushes.

And I have my own worship in mind,

soft scented pillows to rest her head,

fresh frosted sheets enfold hot bed

in dark clotted cream chocolate melt

they brush blushed cheeks like felt

as hush falls here among trimmed bushes.

What we plant within grows long,

grows wild, grows roots firm and strong,

she will not fight with me; here instead

in thought, in dreams, in tangled threads,

in tangy flower beds our shadows fled.

Soon see those doors spread open wide,

singing such songs, for here she flies

to rest honey head upon lover’s cries.

Impenitent Penitentiary

Impenitent Penitentiary

 

You keep listening; you will hear keys lock,

shutters bolt, a skin shuddering in shock

as Winter draws on, as kindling draws straw,

as clumped grass refuses to dry, feels raw,

for from these cold suns it will not draw,

once soft fires do not warm life anymore,

against hard frosts fruitless bar your door.

You keep observing, but you will not see,

think nothing deep but say you’re free

as food mountains become food troughs,

become food banks for robbers, and cops

sport boots that stamp your face forever,

Winston, cleave indelible tattoos, leather

straps to bite with weight, wrack your spine,

grind your face into grime, but all is fine

there’s nothing to see when you are blind.

You keep lookout for ships that never sail,

never dock, never harbour and klaxons wail;

steel hulls so steep, too high to ever scale,

widening moats for paper boats sinking,

shake off scruples and keep on drinking

if only the cost was less but no turning back,

high rise burn infernos, low rise crumble shacks,

to climb one hill is only to climb another

is much ado about nothing, is lost lover,

lost brother, lost sisters all; it only is fashion

where an aimless compass lacks compassion,

steers nowhere but the next, then the next,

slips guide to dash below on rocks wrecked.

You keep reading, but no one is learning

in universities where all books are for burning,

libraries eviscerated, filleted and purged,

where thinking sinks all thought submerged,

dividers and rulers draft power and wealth,

a minority bleeds a majority through stealth

and now for Great Britain here’s Britain itself,

whose prisoners slump from bad to worse,

still vote for next to nothing in their purses,

watch funerals passing wanting only hearses.

You feel something's missing, but no remorse;

a wasteland, full of gaudy carts, but no horses

strain, they're back in Spain, in Greece remain,

while turnkeys serve minced hearts and brains

and pigswill to inmates, discretely scoffing

at the mindless noughts who are ballot crossing.

C J 2 3 F U K

C J 2 3 F U K

 

Oh no, no, no…fuck me, yes

you’ll get terminally depressed

in 23F, CJ, UK,

strangling your final sweat

with underarm roll on death.

 

So many hyperactive pricks,

tray table backseat slammers

with double bad grammar,

adenoidal nasal sprayers,

video game phone players,

angry bird candy crushers

sporting thyroid sinus problems

and glands, oh glands, oh glands,

la, la, la, la, lardy cake glands

up down, in out, trough-snouts

they’re shaking it, shaking it;

rattling at your dentures,

fracking for the good flesh,

fucking with your eye teeth

until you’ll lacerate your lips,

flay your skin, trays gripped,

take more than a fair share of seat

with rollover chelsea bun buttocks;

 stink of cheese and onion, reeks

of crisps, squeezes bulk,

crushes flab, oh, it’s trad, dad,

sucking soy and breaking bad,

look, he's wishing she was a lad,

foaming froth from toothpaste tubes

set, mottled hard, a backyard

in grim unwashed skin, a grin; 

back-throated candlestick mucus snort,

what they speak they was not taught,

find me front seated lecture hauled

beneath the university of life,

squitting silent fatty acid tissues

and gashed solenoid adenoids,

have procured one metal stick,

only one, never two,

for only one will ever do

sourced from their pork butcher

or some local G.P. clinic

who signed an obligatory sicknote

with rolling eyes and rolling sighs

that a cynic never read nor wrote,

eyes you up for the trip

opens bomb bay doors, lets rip.

 

Our suspended catering service

was abandoned in cars F to J,

dispense apologies from somewhere

and two brown fingers for free,

just suck on piss warm water

in plastic bottles, passed round

to wash away despairing frown,

soothe last night’s hangover,

homemade Bailey’s, condensed milk

and eggnog mixture,

failing heart a permanent fixture,

wheels rattle under trundled cases,

pinched faces, plastered hair

casting around for seats

that are not there.

 

Then lumbered with them

for the duration

like two outsized pairs of tits

on your trestle paneled fence sit,

all creeping brambles

and sticking thorns,

in thick accents spray thick thoughts,

spout everything what TikTok taught,

pointless to ignore, it’s sod’s law,

facile views, they’re keeping score,

open floor, swallow me; I’m feeling raw,

I’m looking for the exit door,

but London is still

a million million miles or more,

louder, louder bleat I phones,

they need you to know, be aware

somebody cares, they’re not alone,

they drone, they drone, they drone, they drone

witless words, the bleeding obvious,

spraying germs, looking gormless,

without a fucking trace of remorse.

 

Choke your airspace,

fill your headspace,

never heard of liminal space,

so take that look from off your face,

and listen to my anecdotes,

my feeble fucking jokes,

here's no hint of irony,

side jabbers, arm grabbers,

spittle shooting mouth blabbers,

wrap your tongue around

all the news that’s fit to burst,

blood pressure goes from bad to worse,

and if they know

you’ll hear it first

like, oh look, fish and chips,

our country's not a sinking ship,

here's a fucking YouTube clip,

too many of them stealing jobs,

from them snowflakes and yobs,

send them back, Europe's crap,

I'd give them all a well-earned slap,

saw that film what's doing the rounds,

there are silent parrots and sick dogs

so give two pounds, give two pounds,

what’s two pounds a fucking month

and I got luncheon meat for lunch,

with other such points of interest,

missing half their teeth

and lumps of hair, and tons of grief,

oh, so much, and opinions

that drizzle like watered soap;

no lather no matter how hard you rinse,

drips on brown stained withered jeans,

from arse's cleft, still some left,

stays slack, stays flaccid, stays limp,

it’s potted inside there like a shrimp,

sorry sweetheart, but look:

here’s a self-satisfied hiss of ‘yes!’

from behind my blank mask;

doubtful if you read a book

instead of asking why, or guess

at grunts of effort, grunts of crisis,

grunts of satisfied self-righteous,

backchannel noise, backchannel snot,

they’re either freezing cold or hot

and isn’t the fucking weather awful or not,

they’ll swap it for a Freeview box.

Oh, yes, yes, yes…fuck me no,

together endless will you go,

in 23F, CJ, UK,

remember well on each long day

while you’re peering up from the abyss  

at those that live in ignorant bliss.

Relative Minor

Relative Minor

 

It’s true, music can be rewritten

and probably you’ll do it yourself,

when you learn that every major

has a relative minor to command,

so don’t fret about it too much.

 

You can take my guiding vocal

before going solo; a timed desert,

cast off, strike out, forge ahead:

like stabilisers when it doesn’t hurt

to fall anymore,

 

and summer spent in parks;

throwing bicycles of frustration,

more tumbles, flips and pratfalls

than Roberts Brothers.

 

Spitting out grass and gravel,

chewing mud, a discontented bullock

certain that cycling is not for him,

until, one day, finding paths we grin,

change up gears and soon begin.

 

Setting off; taller, fitter, stronger

perhaps, in need of me no longer,

this relative minor with attitude

and a stream of sharp sarcastic quips,

one-liners to leave me feeling flat,

all punctured tyres and backchat,

but singing love ballads for all that

if it comes down to it

 

and saving penalties to kicking balls

with some accuracy, shooting hoops

for fun and missing, makes me run

to leave my neck in need of tuning.

 

We’re strumming guitars, crooning

crumbs, taking curtain calls that bewitch

in showing which Peter Pan is which,

in those times when you astound me

from your head and from your heart,

you finish the riff you hear me start

throw your grin and crow.

 

Well journey from tenor to contralto,

and it’s you I’ll miss the most

as we cut out the same green cloth,

a Robin Hood in Sherwood moss,

one fires, one gathers on the stone,

but we will never be alone:

you place your bet and I will wager

that every minor has a relative major.

A Love like Blood

A Love like Blood

 

And every night from ashen shadow’s step

you steal into my dreams like slithering thief

with an assassin’s smile and butcher’s knife

and slow waking stuck blooded eyes drip

in slaughter on your grey abattoir’s smock,

each night to brace myself for sleep’s shock;

this English rose, we sometime laid to rest

never idles, still deploys blackthorn poisons,

pricks skin deep, takes pride in the stalking

trench-coat visions in overcast skies, talking

venom, foul folly like death’s-head cypress

slashed deep, slashed back, sprouting forth,

must wield its blade and take its course,

force black hands inside to squeeze my brain

like oozing sponge until all that remains

is your buzzsaw whirls, felled limb's thud,

withering hope’s vines of a love like blood.

In Your Gardens

In Your Gardens

 

Within your gardens, asleep but dressed

on top of sheets our faces pressed

into creases, following thought’s themes

inside a sultry afternoon’s waking dreams,

which, this time, did never evolve

into an eternal pursuit by hirsute lioness

imprisoned by some Kafkaesque safari park,

and in panic looking for any means

of escape, grip walls with noiseless screams

aching our swallowing, arching mouths.

Then, come light, we unpick stitches apart,

flighting from dun hell’s clammy dark,

to fling wet pillows from heated heads.

Rest. Here instead, our love no longer dead;

you’re smiling adoration up to my window,

enfolding our washing somewhere below

two coupled magpies, that skittering go

about their twined joyous business.

Something of what we inside us witness

together smacks of truth. I have seen

some of this before: it hurts, it aches,

it gives, it takes, it seeks to forever break

that which is broken and yet bare blushes

leave cuts where your mind mine brushes,

it comes, it goes, into our hearts it rushes

like the tide must force the tunnel wide.

Your smile, the one somewhere foolish lost,

tossed into seas I was forced to cross

rocks my heart upon your swollen breasts

asleep, but pressed within your gardens.