Summit of Beauty and Love

 

Summit of Beauty and Love

 

A desert day fit for hot baking,

your armpits damp, your throat aching

conjure cracked roadside eggs sizzling

and sweet-filled taco syrup spilling -

just oozing into parched cracks.

You’d watched her morning struggle -

arm behind, her fingers juggling

as she's hooking up her cupcakes,

and now you sit outside and wait,

the Pajero’s air-con grappling manfully

with an Arabian summer’s heat.

Her friend comes from dark interiors

of some low-rent abode

bucking bales as she negotiates the road -

surely those buttons will never hold,

or so your inner bad boy hopes.

Later at IKEA, she’s picked sausages

a hearty helping, a wanton portion,

her teeth, her lips perform contortions

and how you loved that word –

tittered at it, when you were young

and growing up, it was among

those you banked for sleepless nights.

Later, among the clocks and lights,

her bag bulging with trivial picks –

she speaks Filipino and licks

the cone as whippy ice cream drips

from wafers onto fingers.

What you’re told later long lingers

into your afternoon siesta’s dreams –

her French boyfriend, of vast appetites

vacationed and had taken flights

of fancy with some other squeeze,

sending evidence in the post –

it must have been a hollow boast

after she’d packed him. Such a shame

but, even so, you feel it just the same,

swimming up the torpor of your brain

and Venus was her name.

Four Candles

 

Four Candles

 

You watch them put people in the jungle

and make them eat worms,

slap leeches in their baths -

been doing it for years – adding dabs of colour -

celebrities, influencers – off they trundle -

I mean, if it’s a Tik Tok Twerk

with followers a-plenty, they better get packing.

Switch it on, how we laughed –

or if you think something’s lacking,

maybe not. Later tonight there’ll be a top ten

of things somehow better then –

Fray Bentos, Dixons Pick n Mix,

Saturday shopping at Woolworths –

but there’s a nip in the air.

Want a national dish? Have an English -

goodness gracious me, you saw that once

they’re putting chips on everything that’s wrong

but you’d rather be caught with a poppadum,

left wondering if it’s dubbed a classic

because the dim and distant remember it.

Who told you to think that,

made it a condition, a living thing,

a terrible thing to lose –

you'd never put yourself in their shoes

or walk around in them

because they know there are those

who laugh at four candles –

even Griff said it’s a shoddy thing to lampoon

shooting sparrows with a cannon,

there must be something worse in the room –

coming from jungles, sculling with spoons

while you’re told those poor people on the rafts,

will make it here and will fail to laugh.

A Jack of all Knaves

 

A Jack of all Knaves

 

Sometimes you’d like to jack it all in,

my Johnkin, wish for the tin tack, the sack,

put the boot in, flirt with original sin

some negligence, misdemeanor, peccadillo,

tell me, is this the way to Amarillo,

Phoenix Nights - show me your Peter Kay,

homeward bound? It’s that way.

But Jack Sprat could eat no fat,

whilst ever-expanding girths of those who lack

for nothing, are in want of filling,

need stuffing, see? Keep on drilling,

keep on running, gimme some lovin, roll with it,

lumberjack, steeplejack - nothing bootjack

will ever have teeth enough to remove shoes,

pining for the fjords, what’s the use?

You’d fix that flat, but the jack’s gone AWOL,

the AA  won’t pick up the phone at all,

the RAC used to salute, you know,

but you’re stuck there and cannot roll

or join the great big convoy

and ain’t she a beautiful sight?

Rubber Duck, Pig Pen,

Spider Mike might allow

your tar to plant his jack on the ship’s prow,

watch that pennant flutter South

as she’s churning

her buttered Northbound wake –

HMS Raleigh, HMS Drake

bowling for jacks on Plymouth Sound

as the Spanish Armada’s Eastward bound

for the Philippines.

Or even you dream

of kicking back,

plugging headphones in the jack,

Hit the Road, Jack and don’t you come back

no more, no more, no more, no more.

Ah, it’s all a bit of Jackanory

what’s the story, Balamorey,

while she’s home at home from home

plumping your pillows,

licking her lips,

heaving bosom and see-through slips

standing with her syrups on her rose-hips –

another month brings another wage

while you tell it like the end of days

coming on like a polymath’s sage

but all those scratched spirals speak

to nothing so much as a jack of all knaves.

Please Remember To Mention Me (In Tapes You Leave Behind)

 

Please Remember To Mention Me (In Tapes You Leave Behind)

 

Fishy tissue from the bin

you just put the used trash in

wipe liquid from your puncta

cold smears and the glass is smudged

from side to side

so please remember to mention me

in tapes you leave behind

 

Vans exist in old Qatar

did not know they reached that far

talking T Shirts not the car

lifting artifacts off the hook

that stray offside

so please remember to mention me

in tapes you leave behind

 

She’s got wheels wheels of steel

dentist and her whining drill

his cavalry and his hill

never too far from glorious

but too unkind

so please remember to mention me

in tapes you leave behind

 

Curiosity kills cats

born in skips, but for all that

there is nothing that they lack

and the marimba shimmers

as beaters grind

so please remember to mention me

in tapes you leave behind

 

Magnificent men in their

flying machines windswept hair

up tiddly up up and flares

shoot up dummy Lee Coopers

but where’s your spine

so please remember to mention me

in tapes you leave behind

 

When your world is running down

all you find is all you found

she who’s in will make no sound

but trespasses against you

and love is blind

so please remember to mention me

in tapes you leave behind

 

Shangri-La is sitting here

playing postman’s knock that's clear

name that tune then disappear

and I’ll name that tune in one

I think you find

sometimes I did remember to mention you

in tapes I left behind

Yesterday’s Favourite

 

Yesterday’s Favourite

 

There are bureaucrats and plunging necklines,

you know which you prefer -

and her eyes glittered with half mocked up steel,

viz - well it all depends on how you feel

and some are well past their sell-by date.

It flickers across your mind,

death by a thousand paper cuts and all that

and you wonder why she did not say use by.

Maybe she sees your woman, sawin’ on a fiddle,

playin’ it hot – and raising flames of sin

with her violin, violin, violin –

all yours, Babooshka, Babooshka, ya-ya -

like how her subtonic, snaps to, resolves tension

and release – oh, her buttons be thieves of vision

she looses just one or two -

you’re never caught looking but looking, she’s shaking

think of all the music we’re making

oh, and how we’d like to make even more.

Still, a phone call begets a tap on the door –

something about revelations, elbows, short sleeves,

those boxes need to be ticked you know

so, consider this a ticking off, ears made of cloth -

sweet sweaty brows onto pillow cleavage drips

like sails billow over prows of departing ships.

 

4 Whats, Fool?

 

4 Whats, Fool?

 

Once, when he was very small,

he scrawled in biro upon the toilet wall,

4 to Doomsday.

What made him do this, he could not say,

It was all that university food in the JCR

one too many at the bar

of the student union that time David Owen

popped in – there was going

to be an election – 87 and  Maggie Out,

the riff-raff shout –

all that Two Tone, New Wave,

calm down, behave.

Wait, wait – was it Peter Davison?

Could be, he had a lot on –

A Very Peculiar Practice, Sandra Dickenson

all squeaky voice and Trillian,

Brenda Blethyn, Chance in a Million,

and then there was The Doctor.

No matter, what’s salient is this,

when he returned next day, for a shit,

beneath it, some wag had put

4 Whats, Fuckwit?

with much ado about underscoring.

They’d call that trolling these days,

but back then it had made him think,

wounded and blink.

Still, ask him that question in 2026

and I think he’d have 4 answers for it.

This is Wrong, Right?

 

This is Wrong, Right?

 

He’s claiming he can’t strum it -

I’m just a campfire guitarist, see?

we nod, it’s a standard setting,

his done thing, not letting

practice get under his skin

and from out of somewhere within,

Alex hits the drums – punctuates him.

But you put up, shut up,

and maybe rhythm sections

indulge in a bit of back to basic

eye-rolling. That’s him, that’s me

waiting for a cue –

meantime he’s given a G Minor,

patient in her rough good humour,

so we can all swing it together.

And there’s something here

isn’t it? Like, decades back

looking, seeing nothing of this, that,

hit the road, Jack,

just static, grey snow,

then white out - there you go, that’s me.

Who could’ve caught it,

or said to your fuzzy futures go,

don’t pack ice, toss it behind,

close doors after you

and who knows what’ll you’ll find?

There are some faces, still

getting grainy, camera roll back and mix

pointing fingers, scrolling credits,

guilty as charged pay the debit

and you do try not to forget

director’s chairs and producer’s hats

as she rosins up to play

something about life's best days

not slipping through her fingers

all the time - try to catch it every minute,

how your future’s bright -

but this is wrong, right?

This Could Be Rotterdam or Anywhere

This Could Be Rotterdam or Anywhere

 

When Dobson’s holding two pair

this could be Rotterdam or anywhere -

say Manchester in the High Peak,

so to speak.

And all that he is

and all that he teach,

and all that he loved,

and all that he seek,

put him somewhat out of her reach –

because she's gotta hold allusions

or it’s all confusion

and the lunatic is in your head.

So, after all that tolling

on the iron bell,

he might prefer to kick back -

rather than scrambling to pack,

make the bus, rush the train,

mocking up those kaleidoscopic strains

of On The Run -

rest a little, see his little one

who is little no more – but like a son –

and just breathe, breathe in the air.

And Dobson, after all,

is only ordinary men –

and they shipped some 50 million.

You’d like to give a bit of it away

in clues, but what's the use, he say:

if you didn’t hear it by now,

if it didn’t permeate, infiltrate –

well, this could be Rotterdam or anywhere,

and there’s more time to stand and stare

than maybe you’d care

to think.

Implacable

 

Implacable

 

Here’s your flotilla – a floating thing

of carousing crews, champagne corks

and popping off a quick selfie from the bridge.

Stand fronting the mirror, all a-quiver

and service the art of self-service -

post pictures, memes,

high jinx on the high seas.

You crawl above the Mediterranean basin

with all the speed of sea-snails set racing

against nudibranch,

urchins and worms,

tossing off plastic

as you drift idle amongst the bottles.

In your wake, come admiring crowds

cherishing anemone fronds in reflected ponds

with nothing much to say at all.

Perhaps they recall disrupted seminars, lecture halls,

turning up hungover, arriving late,

or just turning over in bed

to rest a self-weary head.

Now, here come the gunboats, soldiers swarm

implacable and hole, and sink

those above their paygrade and rank,

completely out-thought, out-flanked

and you claim the whole thing stank.

Most of you disgorged in Greece

to fill up on moussaka, gobble baklava,

chug down ouzo, toast yourselves at the very least -

and those they dragged off

might flit across a butterfly mind

before alighting on the nearest cabbage,

Now, your people can’t be sure

who the shouting’s really for,

why those most in need still go without -

and they may well envy the gibbering throng

with a green gaunt eye

while licking ravenous lips and dripping tongues.

Integrity (2)

 

Integrity (2)

 

When I retire, I’ll look for somewhere

with fresh running water, clean air

put my feet up, play guitar

in some LoFi jobbing pub band

where the sound of two hands

clapping won’t cover up mistakes

amateurs like us are bound to make.

Write grungy poetry such as this,

expect to be kissed by the mistress,

seek out all my ex-lovers,

offer them flowers and forgiveness.

Like a Skyline Pigeon, be set free,

tossed up, seeking irresponsibility,

the taste of pillow slips, flossed sheets,

and balling my head into my feet.

But, as for the here, as for the now,

you sought me out, trapped me somehow,

tottered in here demanding answers,

scrolling through your phone -

a foreknowledge of knowing glances,

what happens when you take your chances,

swop out truth for something rancid.

Integrity (1)

 

Integrity (1)

 

A most remarkable march, that,

where your Master would have had a fit

on the grinder, if he’d pinged it –

you can hear his screams now

painting a pretty picture in spit

like why did we enlist yer, yer git?

or what's the village doing for an idiot

while you're away?

Something along those lines at any rate -

his swinging arms are a state,

nowhere near the requisite ninety

and he’s cue-balled his fists

until his knuckles are lily white -

but where’s the fight

he’s expecting? He’s drawn the crowds,

they’re chanting something loud

and he’s going for the full fifteen rounds

in his head, better off dead,

better off far away from here.

Father? Yes dear?

Now, there’s something queer,

he’s trailing boy behind him, his son

who, to keep pace, has to run,

looking aloft at his blustery white beard.

A timely reminder, if one were required

that every match sparks fire,

and every pitbull sports an inner golden labrador.

I wondered about the score,

not that there’s any love lost

and I chuckled when he was torn apart by the boss –

looking for a dignified exit,

there’s an entire parade ground out of step

and the system lacks integrity,

yet I thought they both made for a pretty

picture and felt ashamed.

Somebody loves him - makes a difference,

and the sun should continue to climb

long after we forget who he is and time

erases a collective memory -

and though he was my enemy

I went there and slapped in for clemency.

Silent Noise

 

Silent Noise

 

You often wonder if others hear it –

the sound of the world,

the sound of the crowd.

Do they? No - you suffer alone

amongst that constant drone

of aircons set viciously high.

Background percolation of machines

brewing a mumbled hubbub,

and children unleashed, each a thief

of peace, raising cain

in premeditated, murderous grief.

Aimless, tuneless preprogrammed keys,

synthesizing unmusical fills

slip into any remaining space and drill

through teeth to seek out abscess

and as you struggle to draw breath -

here’s your unsilent-set cell phones.

Put on headphones, more noise,

it must be admitted

if only for yourself -

but even here you’re penetrated;

it seeps in and bleeds noisy fingers through.

More din from across seas -

both incessant in vain-glorious trumpetry

while self-satisfied influencers are pleased

with whatever illiterate 140 character conceits

you must block out or delete.

But, you’re ever the one defeated,

calls for ceasefire or a hiatus

ignored – which is inevitable,

when you’ve no weapons to lay down

and screams cannot cut sound.

Arrival

Arrival

 

I saw you standing tall,

the day after the day after you left,

wasting good breath.

Only tall because of those stiletto heels -

more plastic tentpole,

than academic colossus.

You were talking to the new boss

and beating off about their loss

all horsey and garrulous –

like anyone would give a toss -

packing your habitual whinny,

all nasal and tinny.

Go. Off into history hobble,

strutting like a tenth rate model,

in the left your phone

and the right, a paper cup, dripping foam

of some sickly Starbucks

delivered by motorbike.

Go. Take an overseas hike

and choke your future by the throat.

Here’s a whip-round - your best sicknotes

with no forwarding address –

I’d wish you success

but what I loved the best

was the arrival of the day you left.

I grow tired - I'm thinking no longer.

 

I grow tired - I'm thinking no longer.

 

I don’t think about you now –

but this, you’d maybe guess,

is only an affectation, an affliction,

a contradiction,

running stubborn to my beliefs –

so, think me a thief.

 

In here, you’re stripped bare,

naked as I intended –

 

I took away the plinth,

kenneled all those pet names

and myths I imbued you with,

all our ‘love live forever’ stuff

and nonsense,

all fondant fancies -

aerosols of synthesized cream whip

that soaked stale cake

to make hard crumbs of comfort

fit for your lips.

 

The excuses I made and uses

I put your memory to

befit your passing from this state

to another – the conceits

and sophistry that granted you pardon,

have slowly hardened -

become a buried marble mosaic

under the cinder and ashes

of some inner Herculaneum bathroom

where two burnt statues recline.

 

But, all this lack of thought

has made me tired,

and perhaps you, too –

I no longer want to bring fire,

which is, perhaps, the fate of all

thieves who strike matches – small

sparks leave match wood residues,

charcoal stains on fingertip whorls.

A Blossom of Influence

 

A Blossom of Influence

 

The cherry blossom’s spiked

in Chelsea and Kensington

and so have showers of like-hungry shite

that come to influence it.

 

You wonder where these fuckers come from

or buried their brains

when every year’s the same -

out with the phones, grinning inane

at themselves - then complain

 

when your actual residents paint it black

roll out barbed wire, upturn thumb tacks,

cover drives in broken glass

in the empty hope they might bag

one of these preening peacock airheads.

 

Hot on their heels, your Sky reporter,

BBC, GB News, they’re all alike,

with clueless comment, cliched views

seen lurking about this quarter

filming trails, filming the masses,

shoving microphone and camera

up each other's smart arses,

then, cue fluff - a John Hartson fill

looking pitiful, dispensably miserable -

a juggler of sow’s ears, darning needles,

cheap accessories, baubles, threads

thinks we’re better-off dead:

 

I’m afraid it’s all in vain,

too far down the road to ruin;

around about us, bleeding, strewn,

all those trashed cherry blossomed trees -

your scabies-rash of influencers

transmitting social disease.

A Heartbreak in Every Home

 

A Heartbreak in Every Home

 

More than a pang of pathos,

more like a stab

and the more’s the pity.

 

Your loss is their loss,

feeling a family of two – sitting,

both together alone,

and budding headphones.

 

You cannot read their story in any book,

across the room – a look

possibly euphoria, possibly tragedy,

whatever's absent, a mystery

if anything's absent at all –

a family of two, curled up small.

 

Nothing or something felt

across the room – nothing crimes

committed which cannot be solved,

nothing sins you cannot absolve,

Sherlock was never needed here –

there are no clues to find.

 

Whatever bitterness covers apple rind

can be scrubbed off with toothbrush

washed under the sink; rinsed –

it’s just you who overthinks,

guilty as charged – you seal

what there is nothing to feel,

thieve where there is nothing to steal,

bleed from wounds already healed –

 

don’t send for the doctor,

the police, the prophet:

when you know every home has its closet.

What Need Have I?

 

What Need Have I?

 

I often see you talking to yourself -

no crime there, an overactive mind

crushed just once too many times,

perhaps, telling stories.

Recalling that long winding path

up mountainside, rain or shine,

just a treasured hour’s respite to compose –

songs, stories, complex narratives

before floods hit of shoveled shit.

I cannot reach you in this state,

they came, they went

and most took something with them.

Here’s her iron gate,

your journey’s nearly done and sealed

just round the corner, up the rise

scuff that last bit with reluctant heels

and I can see you from here,

all those years ago.

You don’t care here and now,

things ran their course, she left skid marks

says ‘live, love and life’s too short’

but her words were cheaply bought

and speak of suffering.

I know you miss him, too

wonder if he’s up there watching you,

grinning at how it all panned out.

And if he’s written in the sky,

you look up and wonder if he will reply –

what need have I?

In Your Room

 

In Your Room

 

Here’s your old, old room

and the door’s ajar –

you’ve been here many times before,

more times than you’d care

to recall – and maybe soon

you’ll be using it some more.

Would you like to peer in again?

The tapered staircase,

quarter corkscrewed

is best attempted in solitude

with a candle to light you to bed

and a hush for old men

who bump heads.

Oh, it’s not changed much,

we’ve kept it just the way you like it,

ready for your return –

not much of a homecoming to be sure,

but your fittings and fixtures,

cobwebs, dust, ancient pictures

smothered in the unbrushed dust

of just remembered conquests

are all present and correct -

and there, something intangible

that burns all the same,

something once learned

that remains unlearned.

We give thanks. Take, eat

of Miss Havisham’s wedding cake.

When Did You Last Have the Pleasure of Smelling a Flower?

 

When Did You Last Have the Pleasure of Smelling a Flower?

 

There’s been a row, something small,

scarcely a raised voice, not much at all

of little enough, really. Something about sleep,

well, the lack of it

and a visit to Al Safa Polyclinic

with a  tiresome three hour wait as a result.

The afterburners lingered like they do,

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you

of all people, do I? Tension. Slammed door.

Absence of messages at work the next day

an ardor of apathy

that’s struggling to fill

a packed vacuum

of emptiness stuffing the room -

wonder who’s first to cave in, break bread,

offer olives, send doves?

But I guess you’d take a little time to understand

that when her offered hand

is taken, rather than brushed aside or shrugged off,

there’s a shared delight instead

of those small trifles you do together -

something in nothing whatever,

that adds up to the pleasure of love.

Cogitation

 

Cogitation

 

She’s off sick again - irritating

and Alex says he’d seen her wandering

Barwa’s parks. Puts wheels in motion

doesn’t it? Cogitations.

 

Like - consider the machine,

not the lilies, not the fields, not again

because it’s what she’d expect -

offer flowers to an untouched sick bed

of cool, crisp, unvisited sheets

along with chocolates, Lucozade, other treats

like a side of overripe ham

because she was that girl from Birmingham

walking the clap-boards

with a bit of pity poor Tom,

do us some charity.

 

Let’s send out for clarity –

What system insists that it only exists

to lodge components into housings -

machines built for the comfort of the cog?

 

These bits have teeth,

we’ve seen them bite,

they settle into second gears,

draw other fittings and fixtures near

to them – almost form a unit, hermetic

self-contained, and prophetic

spooling loops of doom

spinning counterclockwise to the room.

 

Almost. Because all that energy spent

means inner workings are found absent

more often than not –

have spiraled in uncontrolled control

to light up consoles to console.

 

And to be fair, it’s more than machine ghosts

that threaten sleek running -

a stream of smooth operators, always coming

with drained batteries of malfunctioning

promise – to work better than the last –

but expelled all oily unctuous effacement

to search for another displacement.

Your Account Does Not Have Two-Factor Authentication Enabled

 

Your Account Does Not Have Two-Factor Authentication Enabled

 

Well, thank God for that,

because one of these days -

he’s all alone

cover’s blown,

fumbles his phone,

password’s shown,

but - how can I remember that

he sighs -

looks up, takes a bullet 

and dies,

fuck your two factor he cries.

Leaking Tradecraft

 

Leaking Tradecraft

 

Why, it’s been six months,

maybe more,

the postman knocked the door

or would’ve done –

but those days are gone,

just emails marked spam -

he was once wont to knock twice,

you know?

You scowl at the bill,

call them in

to have a meter fitted -

it’s original sin

to be wasteful

in their green utopia, for sure.

So, they came,

poked about with your pipes a bit

gave it the full five minutes,

cocked an ear,

with utmost solemnity declared

shock, horror –

there’s leaks round here.

17 bloody litres a day,

making their way

into your scorched Earth -

well, something’s having a party,

you’d maybe think,

water, water everywhere,

let’s have a bit to drink.

But where?

Where do you think it be?

Matey takes his divining rod,

licks a gritty finger,

points with certainty

at your kitchen floor,

under ceramic tiles,

beneath them warped boards,

with confidence declares

that he’s heard a noise.

And that’s it.

Months pass, until at last

here’s your leaden plumber

of weighty matters,

all creosote coveralls

and putty splatters,

a-gurning and a-frowning,

blowtorch to hand

and in his other

a vicious receipt he plans

to lay upon you

come that happy day,

but – scowls and says –

Oh dear, no leak here,

they’re plumb wrong –

think it’s up your top path,

they're having a laugh

them other lads -

we’ll be back next month,

thereabouts, it's lunch.

No one round here’s grinning

at all those drawstrings

snipped by ruthless cutpurses

and you’d fucking swear

but it does no good to curse –

it’s the UK, fear the worse.

Topological

 

Topological

 

Wait—you mean topical, don’t you?

There’s nothing topical about the M50,

an under-engineered relic connecting

nowhere to nothing much,

targets Wales, misses by miles

and barely offers a hard shoulder to cry on—

 

but look - on account of her—you’re forced

to use it using you or be damned -

I battled their logic for so long,

cursed when I was forced to buy one,

screamed 'turn round, go back, you're wrong',

but was shot for a flushed grouse's song.

 

So, pull from your pocket. Check. Enough.

Mine’s got fluff

that, God willing, might choke the bastard.

 

There are tributaries of messages

feeding estuaries of conrotatory seas—

a confusion of contradictions

you’re made to answer,

each and every one for everyone.

 

Don’t think to block, leave groups,

or invoke the fifth—

that only stirs a hornet’s nest

beneath her beehive:

sent on impulse, on every whim,

on every ill-formed

spark across synapses, thumb-fired,

six or seven already today to every soul.

 

All around her it grows. Forms

from a flick of the wrist, a stab at glass,

an eternal fluid rictus-stream

so thick she’s landscaping it now—

hod-carrying brick by brick,

each post rammed and replies laid in place,

a landscape littered with dour faces,

mutinous whispers, daggered smiles

and putting out a thousand miles.

We’re getting seasick of it,

queasy mariners gripping the gunwales,

sucked off into lost tunnels

as it slowly reshapes itself—imperceptible

cracks become caves, stacks, stumps,

remolding whatever was as once it was.

All around her hat, the debris

of her mind’s eye from her mind flies.

And they—

cartographers of the surveyed—

issue grim diktats, dire warnings,

grey apocalypses from breast-pocket laptops,

scarring terrains, carving their names

into twisted metal, blasted concrete

trod under dust and rubble.

 

Clawed earth while she screamed violated rage,

warned you—but it’s already too late -

all that's left is a psychoscape.