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.

Pronounced Ah-Teh

 

Pronounced Ah-Teh

 

The uneasy silence of ceasefire

and an unseasonal rain of domino spots

swabs the alley’s brick tessellations.

You’re walking with purpose

for lemons – clean out today –

in the shop, four pitted specimens,

no boat docked, so, yesterday’s

and MJ mugs and says, ‘Where Ate?’

while you’re offering to pay.

In bed. Lately, sleep’s hard to grab -

alarms, national alerts, distant booms

that infiltrate bedrooms –

but MJ pouts and rolls her eyes,

‘Bring milk, put egg, put bread,

wake Ate and say, table is ready.’

You nod. It seems reasonable advice,

smile thanks and leave, dodging raindrops.

That evening, Ate puts the grip

on you, over pizza and a bit to drink,

‘If you let me sleep, I’ll bring the stick,’

she promises with a languid wink.

Ipis

 

Ipis

 

I wonder if your cockroach

finds enlightenment

in being – where being is spent,

scuttling from boot to boot,

born to be trod - if it has, indeed

any concept of birth,

death, in-between – often seen

coiled up, crushed, back broke,

prostrate on brick, peddling sky

kerb-crawling corners to die.

Even labels signal fate

in Oceanic spat consonance

or Eastasian soft sibilance -

something filthy shadowed

coming at night, shunning light,

quartered in your cortex.

Here’s a Tom from idle reflex

batting a stray from paw to paw

to pass an otherwise dull hour -

now, imagine, Winston, if you will,

his orange eyes, full of fever

and his boot, stamping forever.

Ever Inwards Outwards

 

Ever Inwards Outwards

 

Thick oily fumes of rumour

choke passages, screw with air,

maybe his files are somewhere out there -

it’s a battle to draw breath

and underneath thinning hair

thatching a liver spot pate

his tumor grows and grows,

issuing direct threats to the frontal lobe -

vogue, let’s get to it, nothing to it,

strike a pose and scalp.

 

Meanwhile at home, accept a plate

of warmed over, leftover

chicken. She’s sweet, he’s sour

wanting nothing so much

as a buttered cod, chips, beer,

she replaces a grim news with a loud cheer

of some nightly Filipina gameshow and -

finish up your food dear.

He’s sulky, rotavates rice with a fork

in push back, doesn’t feel the need to talk,

wishes he didn’t have to walk

the streets of Al Sadd

after she’s washed dishes feeling thrifty.

She secures his wallet with a grin

slips him her arm in

and therefore linked

closing doors, he thaws

because she’s so much smaller than him -

but fierce.

 

That night, the national emergency alarm

keeps him tossing, awake -

shrapnel tumbles upon Muraikh

drawing blood and unsheathing

as his missiles streak the sky unleashed,

drawing cat-claw scratch lines

across night's blackboard

in something like awe and ire,

but in the morning - ceasefire.

Absolutely No Sense of Humour

 

Absolutely No Sense of Humour

 

Oh, my grim-hewed night, oh light so black,

oh, alack, alack, alack.

You - found, wherever day is not,

to borrow a phrase - bloodletting.

Maniac eyes; in the way you drive,

cut up weaklings behind the wheel

in Landcruisers built from far more steel

than is strictly needed. It’s lost

now – from where or which organic soup

your million hordes crawled, which whoop

or flange of baboons, which troop

called you to arms, but here you stand.

Accountable to a strict regimen,

each of you a humourless specimen

of phlegm and yellow bile

forging ahead - top value scrabble tile

ace high straight flush for faces,

any vestige of compassionate trace

barely begot, barely begun, there's none.

This your land of lions,

your scorpion tails,

of blank slates that at wakes leave trails

of paddle-churned pale white whey

pudding spots in forbidding grey –

why, you are fifty years flipped from here

and when our worlds moved on,

your misbegottens were forgotten.

Oh, brave new world that brought forth

such blocks, such stones, such senseless things,

while I buy her diamond rings

and she’s in love with me and - well,

you know – she said so – of course,

so the only advice I’ve left to give

is why not laugh and let them live?

Donlon Gone

 

Donlon Gone

 

I flew in from the West, mostly done,

a crisp packet on the breeze - cheese and onion,

prawn cocktail, marmite or gammon –

these are my favourites, see? Have some.

And they put me up in accommodation,

showed me a local gym,

how to get takeaways delivered by them

poor people - in bags of trays

like your sweet sticky cold coffees,

your burgers, chickens, doughnuts, toffee

flavoured popped chips - left on me doorstep

until my arse is buggered out of bed,

shower with only seconds flat,

grab me drink, make the bus and sit,

shuttled in to work unprepared,

doze in front of twenty kids and stare

hungover at me phone. It's great, dozens of us

with just about enough pay

to - come the weekend - get pissed, you know,

until the money runs out - halfway through

the month, regular as clockwork,

screaming good crack, good crack 

at one in the morning,

having fist fights in the foyer and falling -

if anything’s there it’s nothing that I lack.

Then, one of them declared war on another one,

their loss, that’s me, Donlon gone.

Right Instinct, Wrong Time.

 

Right Instinct, Wrong Time.

 

Well, possibly, now war’s reduced

to white noise, stock footage,

grandstanding talk of an outage

you were moved to comment on -

thoughts return to the humdrum,

like mundane origins.

Here’s a wire bound notebook,

cheap biro, a cold study at his desk.

Conceivably Winter, back’s to the TV

that’s been forever forbidden

due to some forgotten transgression.

No amount of negotiation

will ever rebuild what’s lost,

just simmering resentment to this day,

years and years to count costs.

What will it be? Pick up stick,

and that’s blue ink that comes from it

in fits and starts. You look –

this blot on a copy book,

this misbegotten life,

this scrap to file under surplus requirement.

Yet, imagination’s budding, years unspent

without tools of war, but bent

satirical, angry, composing quixotic lines –

right instinct, wrong time.

The Cous Cous Syndrome

 

The Cous Cous Syndrome

 

There’s a war on,

she’s had a baby, he’s filling in.

There’s a grinding of the secret teeth,

no maternity relief,

procrastination is not the thief –

so, my, my - smile at least.

In the secret circle of suckers

he’s holding forth,

that’s the nature of the beast –

opines ‘Gimme. Gimme bad advice

you ever had - all in the style

of Kipling’s ‘If’’. Sits back, smiles.

But, you know, silence –

they’re unsure, he’s new

and they’re missing Miss, too.

‘When’s she back?

and other ungrateful crap

designed to try the patience

of a pedagogic saint

giving up all his free time

for free. But that’s not the way,

not how it pans out in life,

your saviour the remover to remove.

‘I’ll tell you about cous cous’

says he, ‘from Tunisia,

my advice, never eat it, see?

Just my little joke, kids, sorry!’

An hour later the first complaint,

from your outraged parent,

via Chat GPT

to give it that little punch –

cuts out the thinking,

scarred forever, traumatized 

and if life was skin,

she's permanently blistered.

So, the next day, ‘Where’s Mister?”

Oh, he’s gone, war on.

Utopia

 

Utopia

 

Four weeks -

All it takes, to show

you can’t have both;

how pipe dreams

sink boats.

 

Power from streams

provisional winds -

but what comes of cold

remains cold,

will do so

to the last rage

of a new ice age.

 

It cannot warm

will not prevail

hanging limp, the mains’lls

shiver timbers

with whispers of waste,

and all those ships

that cannot sail

remain in place.

 

Turn you turbines turn

like stroboscopes -

offer us freeze-frames

of better times,

8.3 billion stick silhouettes

dancing minuets,

writing one hundred lines

 

of unions trashed,

closed pits,

rust that clogs the drill bits,

and coal slumbering

deep in seams –

 

remove pumps,

shut off sumps,

let winding engines

wind their last,

with final blast

lay cooling towers to rest -

 

send generals and majors forth,

let whatever will

take its bloody course,

curse your green seas

damn your clear lakes –

 

four weeks is

all it takes.

It’s Said You’ll Suffer The Most

 

It’s Said You’ll Suffer The Most

 

Whether you believe it true

or think it fake

depends on what sleeps beneath your lake -

if you can conjure up huge peaks,

uprearing, looming large

as you boat these waters alone

or not - if you’re scrolling phones.

20 year poor decision, that’s what it takes -

going for second-best seats

the second-most unhappy state -

sticking plasters, pinkies in dykes,

the second-nearest way,  the lookalikes

and just about rights.

Have jungled-up second-rate celebrities,

Love Islands, Big Brothers on TV,

the only way is TOWIE

and vote eviction or don’t vote at all,

austerity and Brexit after all

were pretty good calls

or as near as dammit –

you could sell the second-hand

and shell out billions

on feckless demands

to be tolerant of gender reveal parties.

Do what it was that made your parents feel

that this is just plain common sense,

boy, evicting immigrants,

putting up barbed wire fences,

patrol the white-cliff beaches.

Maggie, where’s your free market now?

Peopled by those tolerant

of diminishing returns.

Who cares? Not him, he’ll leave you to burn

and regard existence on your sidelong screen

as somebody else hurtles ravines.

Strawberry

 

Strawberry

 

She could be blonde, it could be dyed,

like most things that start from the inside

and grow outwards to greet the eye -

Behold her. You might guess Scandinavia,

possibly it has been brushed by Agnetha,

as there’s something going on - but no -

you’d be wrong because she belongs

to Czechoslovakia. It’s The Republic now,

she once insisted, when I was oblivious.

It’s been a tough month for both of us

for her, more than me, you’d guess,

what with war’s constant missile warnings,

school foreclosed, distance learning

imposed a second time this decade.

Age has withered her. There are lines -

some born of stubbornness, others kind,

it is ten years passed since we first met

and she picked me up - so I can forget

that in my heart I made a silent compact

to always protect. I feel I should pass by;

see her bright diamonds twinkle lively

today - for what she does we do – not die.

We smile. Shy. I want to see your lovely face,

I said, candid, thinking of a thousand ships,

and then, to my surprise, she blushed

to her roots. We passed some small talk

about history repeating, the day’s work,

how she snuck to her office, forbidden.

So,  I wondered if you could love so much

that all transgressions could be forgiven

even when her rage will come again,

thoughts can touch, and hearts can mend,

and her husband looking like Santa Claus

passes parcels through a shutting door.

The Basic Problem

 

The Basic Problem

 

Nowadays, people spout ‘reach out’.

it’s been seen going about -

one of those tuppeny ha’penny phrases,

that’s done the rounds a while

tossed off towards the end

of every insincere email sent.

Those with brains recall The Four Tops;

resonance of guttural shouts

that had ten times more integrity;

and meant something.

There’s wellness rooms, too,

if you’re overworked, stressed,

or violently depressed,

boasting scented candles and vibrochairs -

book yourself in, have 20 minutes of throb,

try not to think of Monty Python, Black Rod,

or Wankel rotary engines.

Meanwhile, another batch of undercooked

cookie cutter employees, most of them crooked

or on the make profiteers

with nothing squared between their ears

are heading your way, starstruck,

having been told they're professionals.

The basic problem is people, you see?

solve that, live easy, healthy, free.

A Clink of Lite

 

Clink of Lite

 

Just a ray and a Dreyfus’ eyeball

winking manic then winking out –

nothing more, that’s all

except gob-fulls of spat rhetoric,

but the other side denied it,

never happened, they claimed,

we care less, send your planes.

Door cracking off a quick blink,

oh, yes, you’ll see a glimpse

but they rewrote continuity

in time for ‘Revenge’s’ ambiguity –

he’s banged up in an asylum,

but then, maybe they all should be.

All this is moot, these chinks of light,

Sammy’s not for packing, no sir,

claims of cancelled flights,

domestic arrangements, childcare,

terrible Wi-Fi, honest, he swears

leaving those left over there

to slum it, pick over his traces,

do all that work on his behalf:

you can’t blame him for a last laugh

he’s praying that you’ll be all right -

toasts you with a clink of lite.

Rags and Shags

 

Rags and Shags

 

Watching news, your gaze is held, braced

as if by the locking arms of a service structure

before a rocket launches into space.

When you went to Everton primary,

you’d chafe at the bit for the mobile library,

lend The Big Book of Space and devour it.

Today, they shot frames of a pink deck chair,

abandoned in tatters, cut to it over there -

in amongst the killed concrete.

The deck had gone, hanging incomplete

and as for the fabric – sailcloth, canvas -

well, these artists brush in broad strokes.

Later you watch as a bridge is detonated,

surrounding brush and scrubs decimated,

causing gaudy peacock plumes to rise.

Meanwhile, on a brick littered Corniche

they’re building oilskinned cities of tents,

tarpaulins draped from tailgates, low rent

one ringed stoves slowly boiling over.

There’ll be no school today,

instead, a brother pushes his sister to and fro,

doing the Science, counting sink holes,

contemplating a combustion chamber’s thrust,

delivering its payload, driving aloft,

doing the Math, stirring the dust.

Scission

 

Scission

 

Over there you say being over here’s

too high a price to pay, too severe,

and talk of war zones, missiles, drones

send messages on your iPhones.

It’s all over International Sky News

journalists and pundits’ informed views

as long as it includes ordinary blokes,

UK interest, like this bird’s fat folks

whose flight was grounded. Stranded,

I’ll bet wishing they’d never landed -

after a while Al Jazeera’s a better bet

than listening to recycled shitheads.

I’m waiting at signals by The Corniche,

after casting for sheirii - that’s fish -

caught zero, bugger all - but it's fine

sitting under the rising sun, passing time.

My mind’s elsewhere, of course

in case there’s an alarm; deadly force

arcing overhead. I’m there pondering

fate, how you’d said I’d be squandering

everything when I put it behind me

coming here, then, by accident I hear

you gossiping incidents ten years prior.

Know what I think? Life must be dire

indeed, if that’s all there’s left to fire

up engines. What's kept is meaning less

as we’re getting older, shorter of breath:

when you retire, you said you’d travel.

Well, fine. Just leave me here to unravel

the dullness in your thoughts that drone;

I’ll happily reap this whirlwind alone.