Sense and Censorships

 

Sense and Censorships

 

It’s a weekend, the 7th day – rest –

be thankful, smile, be blessed,

except here, they’re certain it’s best

to call it differently. Take some young teacher,

nothing special, with features

still forming; setting - not the finished article,

but with some potential.

You could work on shaping clay

with fettling knives, ribs, pray

that come some far-flung day

she could rise up, inspire, spark fire.

One day, the officeholders come to call

wielding spreadsheets, paperknives and small

grievances spread large like deserts.

Ah, books. Shred literature, censor art

with references to those parts

of growth and life deemed by him unfit

they’ll Fahrenheit 451 it –

or close schools, pick up tools, censure fools

who dare to dream beyond rules –

hide heads in black

and use AI to attack

because it’s sense she lacks.

Voices so small they’re hardly voices at all

must bite their lips

as starving populations watch inflation grip,

drowning not waving from sinking ships,

on activists’ necks the snug noose fits.

Easy lie crowns upon heads that sit

and watch them blowing each other to bits.

Borders

 

Borders

 

We’ll frame it all in black,

in truth, the only borders available:

a sort of corrugated card,

to staple around the edges,

hide the cracks.

because the music room lacked

the requisite panache,

a cliffhanger, last rites act

from management prior to the visit –

we shrugged, set to,

mundane, but someone has to

and we’re the band, after all.

Printed off all the old images

to slap on the boards as ordered,

sitting pretty and bordered.

And Alex said to me,

apropos of displays and such -

‘Can you remember, a first LP,

that first you bought?’ Well, I could,

duly reddened within,

so great was the sin;

defaulted to one that counted.

Music had come, gone; amounted

to nothing – but your Beatles Red

is indelibly stamped into my head -

from my very first cassette

that spooled itself into brown ribbons

around vicious toothed spindles

and snapped - to the cracked CD

double jewel-cased set sitting

next to Blue and –

above bordered grinning moptops -

two vinyls sleeved by peeling flipbacks.

Can we bear it?

To see us posted

could bring tears – they sound the same

but the bordered man

has long since bleached; faded

into run out groves, jaded.

But Daniella punches my arm,

punctures, pushes me in corners

‘Take up your bass and play!”

she orders.

A Push for the Margins

 

A Push for the Margins

 

Sitting inside our boxes within boxes

and seizing lined paper, foolscap -

where we long since abandoned

watermarks, jester’s caps

or anything amusing like that,

or along those lines and pushing

for the margin. ‘Write a date,’

we might command a class

but which one doesn’t matter.

I’m listening for the clatter

of metal on unoiled wheels,

body and wire basket, molded steel,

considering creative efforts

that went into conveying foodstuffs –

tipped into rivers, turned to rust

and think I might write about stuff

like that – and you? But here,

within these walls, we can call

but no one’s listening at all,

we could point it out, and somewhere

in our hearts, we know and we care

but it is all we’ll ever be.

Value of the week? Compassion,

of course, and caring – we’re nations

on nations of striving aspirers

but there’s flaws of floors in highrisers

that I once thought scraped skies -

we’re pointing at what’s obvious

and there’s comfort in penned oblivion.

Let’s push for the margins.

Room enough to scribble columns there

and yet I lately read of a tramp

who’d trollied everything he was,

set his face against the rat-race,

composed in decomposition,

wearing a dressing gown tied with string –

a gang of schoolboys did for him.

Need a Massage?

 

Need a Massage?

 

Walls of silence, walls of sound –

overused words, meaningless,

a blend of background noise

meets tortoise trotters –

 

and he always wins

in that story about a race up a hill,

featuring the rabbit, dog and ipis.

 

No – the real walls are in your head.

Lately I felt them,

screaming barriers, claustrophobic,

built somewhere between

terror and panic

 

and that cheese croissant on display:

It’s the same one everyday,

sat flaking in the glass cabinet

but it can’t be, can it?

 

Unless – they’ve sealed it in a vacuum,

but then, what’s the point of it,

what use can it possibly serve?

 

Hyperbole? Well, I guess so – moulting

outside, sat beside

this tortoiseshell cat,

a stray, curled up, shop cornered,

but mounting a campaign for my lap.

 

Careful – she could scratch –

but seemed so beautiful, a comfort,

content to stretch out her back

against my legs. Then, you arrived,

 

Pajero pulled up outside

‘Brands for Less’ – but I’m a mess

masquerading as somewhat dressed:

 

We depart, you speak of your sister:

‘Lori says, I should massage Daddi,

just gentle tonight, You want?’

 

Daddi – her pet name for me,

even though she’s 55, in Davao City,

halfway across the globe from here.

 

Instinct dictates

I should roll my eyes, ‘You hate?’

you reply, stroking thighs, and indicate

as we’re pulling out

across the painted lanes.

 

No. If it’s all the same,

I’ll accept. It’s either greed

or just maybe, I need.

The Last Box of Cigarettes

 

The Last Box of Cigarettes

 

The last box of cigarettes sat on a shelf,

the only company – itself,

which is tautological but quite neat,

you’ll agree – and factually inaccurate:

I have 52 more

gathering dust, in a drawer

back in the UK - always fact-check.

So how this one slipped the net

after four years spent repenting

is hard to say. Housed in a tempting

flip-back lavender-pink carton,

these Sobraine Cocktails, were a bargain

in rainbows of colour and gold tipped.

When your fingers gripped

one of these beauties, you felt rich.

Banned so fast, it made me sick

once the killjoys got their sticky mitts

all over them, because they did not sit

pretty in continuing eras of austerity,

Well, enjoy your soul grinding poverty

if you must – having extra work booked

on the weekend – some UK crooks

masquerading as school inspectors,

armed with spreadsheets, data, lectures

due - I took up the box to give to you

if you tipped up to help out. True,

I feel the spark, your heat

my eyes gypsy roving when you greet

me of a morning, lingering too long

and your engorged blouse. Wrong.

I know it, but there’s that frisson

that exists – and as I passed them across

to kiss your cheek, felt no loss

when you moved your head

to take my lips instead.

Later you sent pictures, delighted,

as for me, despite it all,

I couldn’t help but feel excited.

They Keep Killing Steed

 

They Keep Killing Steed

 

‘Same old far-fetched tat,’

you remember your mother sneering

after watching something like that

New Avengers.  ‘Crap’.

Except she didn’t swear back then

and slapped you for deploying it.

You’d hoarded covers of TV Times

with Purdey on them in that blue

tight, strappy, cross your heart dress,

put them to lively use,

a private Playtex late night line up -

and when you’d sneaked a view

or two of the actual show

it sent shivers down the spine.

Seemed so modern, worth cheering

a future where Steed’s prosecuting

his philosophy - persecuting

those bastards doing the looting,

putting the black, using shooters –

there was gnaws and cybernauts, too.

Still, they kept killing him in the end,

after two seasons, he was history,

last seen in Canada amongst mystery

like – why the fuck is he there?

Nowadays, no one cares

to use all the Motown tunes we lacked,

like Chichen Mac, Chicken,

Oh, Chicken Mac,

when are you coming back?

Because only some can cane it here

where the days of Pearly Spencer

are long gone, if something’s wrong,

then nobody’s letting on.

And I imagine you’d shoot to kill,

when they put up the electricity bills

one-more-time.

It Will Come and It Will Go

 

It Will Come and It Will Go

 

4.30 am. Blinking in a half light

cast by external globes on walls

outside, hooked into concrete,

probing through translucent drapes

that only manage half a job.

Fish beneath the sheets, give up,

toss the pillows aside -

‘The fateful day is come,’ you’d cry

if you were given to hysteria

or were a dramatic sort of cove –

well, could be, you suppose

as you pad, pale naked, across tiles,

pulling on shorts, T Shirt clammy

for the day before. It smells of piss.

Too early for gym, poke at idle work,

keeping lights dim - they could seep,

creep like snakes under the door,

wake her from her flowery sleep.

Still, not long before she appears

tousle topped: ‘How’s your sleep, dear?’

You both put plus 45 minutes in,

exit sweating from the gym,

strip each other off in the kitchen

toss the rags and shags inside

the open-mouthed machine -

empty-bellied it will chew on the cud.

She likes your shorts, she should,

she picked them, after all –

having audited all your clothes

when you weren’t alert

and declared a deficits– shirts,

too, and when you ask her why

she smiles – perhaps more wise

than ever you will be.

You sit in the car, silently,

she drives quiet dawn streets,

you’re tired, think pillows, sheets,

4.30am and the hours spent tossing

thinking lots, but saying nothing,

until, she breaks down the walls -

‘I know you, from bottom to top,

your head is full of work.’

She’s right, of course,

it’s in there, like high hurdles,

breasts and bellies trapped in girdles,

dammed blood throttling brick veins,

and nothing much you can explain.

More May Pang than Yoko,

so she calls out, softly, because she knows:

“It will come and it will go.’

Lexical Set

 

Lexical Set

 

Do you feel Anxiety - scanning right wing UK red tops

as Beloved by your social platforms; your TikTok,

reporting your wank; transcribing slop

of the highest fucking order.

Betrayal of what? Minor royals, major minions,

sinners and hypocrites – all of you lot -

Biased, shitting panties, offering soiled

evidence as Blackmail material, boiled up,

fished from woks with tongs and served. Bombshell?

Like what? Tripped up on wires, buried landmines

or something less Brutal, concoctions of candy floss

for dense masses in Bursts of hyperbole; Chaos

in some thick twat’s Devastated household tonight -

bubble bursting in an Embarrassing twist

a four-word Exit issued by a Z-listed

presenter – Garraway, Nunchetty, Kelly – today’s

bunch of fuckers, sucking off their own tails

chowing on Extreme Fury and talking epic-fails.

Horror Hots-Up,  Humiliated by a Major Warning

witness on-air Meltdowns, some fawning

bastard, licking royal boots, Nicholas Witchell wannabes,

with nothing approaching Mel B’s charm;

Panic-Inducing, stirring thick clots, raising false alarms

Plead, Plot, Pour on Ramped Up polemic

Record it - you’ll be up to thunder thighs in chunky vomit,

and Rocked to the core, Scrapped,

put out to pasture, and while you Struggle,

while you’re Urged to believe and Weaponised

you’ll Wrestle with a smokescreen and shut your eyes

on anything grievous With Immediate Effect.

Pinch Point

 

Pinch Point

 

Last night I missed the plane

but kept forgetting the memory

until with a jerk, I remembered again –

all a bit Bee Gees, you’ll agree:

 

‘Gotta Get a Message to You’

north by northwest of staying alive

somewhere between half past five

and other random stations

existing between this and that nation

where you and me reside.

 

There was no cradle, no receiver,

no coiled cord, no dial, no whir, no clicks –

as though such things did not exist;

they’d never deliberately missed

out Q and Z, and the plane had not taxied,

 

Was there still time to call,

ask for a refund, beg for a delay?

I could get to Heathrow within a day,

if only someone somewhere would listen -

it was never planned, something missing,

how I could explain to you

this absence – that in truth, I was an alien

in a world where they dispense a splash,

place absorbent tissue in a glass

and the drink replenished, reappears.

 

For beer it tastes overwarm, sickly,

and no matter how quickly

you drain it to the bottom – it fills again.

 

There’s a crush at the bar; closes at 10

disgorges drinkers onto the street,

disconsolate; treading on my feet

as if eager to trip up the careless pedestrian,

single them out, teach them a lesson

and you are so far away.

 

Cometh the hero, cometh the day -

the pinch point is approaching,

negligent of feeling, it cares less

about you or me, intends on leaving mess

behind – they’d beg me to be preacher:

‘We’re but as good as our worst teacher.’

Evil. Infinite Evil.

 

Evil. Infinite Evil.

 

Yesterday, hours flew past.

I was back on the bus before I got off –

there were pangs, you know?

 

Like an egg, sunny side up

or flipped over-easy - greasy -

either the yolk sings

or it leaves you queasy

 

while the gnawing rats of depression

chow down on your innards;

they are never far away,

thickening their nests inside me.

 

Anyway, last night's a thief,

I knocked back the beers of relief,

no more than one or two,

and waited on sweet sleep

and her promised velvet lands –

to fly somewhere softer.

 

Yet still, those black ponds

of messages wait.

something banal, trivial, of no use

yet twisting into a barbed sisal noose –

at which I might howl disbelief.

 

What they contain is nothing less

than bureaucratic zero-interest

yet they task me, they rate me,

and just when I’m pulling free,

drifting into green Sargasso Seas,

I am dragged back, 

castaway and beached.

 

Oh yes, there was apology;

the sender rescinds and beseeches,

her hollow hull suffered breeches,

for I too have messages in me:

and she knows about payloads -

call it a latent capacity

for evil, infinite evil.

 

So, I suppose I could’ve referenced

‘Apocalypse, Now’,

or Joseph Conrad’s colossal

trek into dark iniquity –

but I feel I understand the source

feeling aggrieved; 

manipulated, forsaken, undone -

so, instead, reach out to 

the Keeper of Traken.

Blusher

Blusher

 

Today she’s an early riser

creamy vest top, cleavage spilling and down

as she stretches to tie trainers

with an uninvited yawn:

‘How’s your sleep?’ Not good

and she doesn’t want the gym

but off we troop, put a few kilometers in

by order of the smartwatch –

 

it congratulates us, patronizing,

as though we achieved something

unparalleled and unique -

rather like Norton, thieving a payment

from your account by subscription

then informing you of your unmatched success.

On the way back, out of breath

she says: ‘Last night, I finished the Cadbury’.

 

So for insomnia’s sake, I stride to Palengke,

counting steps and she protests:

‘You only want some more than me!’

while hooking a bra, pulling on her dress -

which is true, and something sneaky.

 

On entering, MJ, tightly attired, marks me,

conjures herself sultry 

from between shelves,

brings what is required; says: ‘Where Ate?’

placing goods, nothing rushed

then marks my card with a smile and blush.

Hello, Kitty

 

Hello, Kitty

 

Princess Pussy Drawers wears some sparkly bling,

is a gaunt, linear, wispy-blonde thing

found hanging around in the morning gym

often as much as twice a week.

Scarcely moves; seldom speaks

except in squeaks, contemplating her physique

in the mirror, mirror on the wall.

Neither big but nothing small

she comes in tie-dye white vest affairs,

twitching her rear, tossing hair

while simulating dives off a low-slung bench,

gripping hands, safely lands teeth clenched

on the double-thick rubber mat –

as if to say, well, look at me; get that.

So thin, scratching her papier-mache skin,

picks a painted button nose, a pointy chin,

pale blue pond-water, powder-puff looks

in bleached plaster and closed books.

Everything’s lush, everyone’s ripped,

she surged from skies, didn’t slip;

is pleased to receive plus 500 quid

weekly, for conferring wisdom such as it is,

conducting classes of pre-nursery kids

through some little of life’s intricacies,

‘Heads, shoulders knees and toes,

knees and toes’; this is the way that learning goes,

Gordian rituals like ‘The Wheels on the Bus’,

with focus frowns; conducts her class:

‘Hop, little bunny, hop, hop, hop,’

sipping from Stanley a slurry of pre-mixed slop

she had delivered from a coffee shop

next door by a Nepali rider; disapproves of

his smell, but after all, the weather’s hot -

later she’ll put up with quite a lot more

burgers, fries, coke zero from the same store –

or somewhere similar. Checks phone for gossip,

if it’s scurrilous, she hopes she’s in it,

and come falling dusk and fading light,

gets skulled, pukes up her junk; joins a dawn

chorus of tone deaf Abba medley singalongs

hurling spurious shite into gathering storms.

Hocus Pocus

 

Hocus Pocus

 

And Magus says to himself –

‘This notion makes sense,

if you see my Excel as a fence

where each box is boxed itself

in an infinite sequence’ -

closed, bounded, nested.

And on the seventh day, did he rest?

No. Where each cell is a law

onto itself, and each tick scores

the paper just so, or is drawn

using a suitable software –

and here, thinks he, is a loose term -

for there is nothing soft

in hours spent and time lost,

where life is but a ticking clock,

a countdown, a screensaver.

Roll on, write more, press send,

here’s yours – efficacy as upload,

filling, filing, hitting ticks,

in praise of illiterate literal script –

‘Ancient parchments, what of them?’

thinks he, ‘My decree, my theorem

this my poetry, so mote it be,’

And did he smile his work to see,

where all are slave and master both,

don themselves in borrowed cloaks,

receive, complete, resend, repeat,

in ever-afters infinite?

Ticks

 

Ticks

 

The Cornish summer, lost to me now,

is not without its hazards.

 

Burning deserts lend perspective, however –

 

gazing skywards, wishing for showers,

lamenting drenched shirts

and whatever impulse made me brave the dirt

and dust of the streets of Al Sadd -

 

where, 5 or 6 musicians brood and clutch,

pick up sticks; achieve nothing much -

despoilers.

 

The mind scuttles backwards to a sign I read

many times: ‘Be Tick Aware’ –

on the fenceposts, stiles, kissing gates - there

as I walked along adder paths

leading down to the shade of the river’s trees,

shiver and think of Lyme’s disease.

 

Dogs, too. Embedded blackheads in blotched skin,

part the hair where it’s tunneled in,

recall father lighting matches,

touching cooling char on full blood bladders,

shuddering at the convulsing something

that emerged to drop its last.

 

I wonder if ticks also landed here,

followed me over

to gain purchase; aim to thrive

be the last living thing left alive

 

in deconstructing boxes that engulf streets,

get scuffed beneath my sandalled feet,

surf the sandstorms, catch the wind;

open and dare me to peer within.

 

Maybe a future where the tick is King.

 

Autocrats, laying traps:

‘Tick this!’ they might declaim, ‘You’re insane!’

and they’d pass around the sheet again

until the non-conformity is detected –

a pedestrian out for a midnight stroll,

arrested by the unelected –

 

Exposing flesh, they burrow deep,

invent new rules to keep

or someone’s nobody spreads and creeps,

creates a million million spreadsheets –

 

For ticks.

 

So, in a practice room, not far away,

spoiling a noisy day before yesterday,

we’re scraping together this unruly tune,

leaving the rebellious door to the room

open.

Still Cooking

 

Still Cooking

 

I dreamt of Tereza last night,

laid back, close in thoughts, tight,

2 fingers crossed to form a 2-bar gate –

so, I thought of blue

and to see if you

were ready for your lunch

although it was early –

popped a diamond rolled it around,

but it was still cooking.

You tasted a spoonful

tongue tip then supped it

to see if it was yummy.

Not yet, still needed to marinate

so the juices would suffuse and mix,

swim one into the other.

I thought to bring you to Palengke,

let MJ choose a flavor –

what will it be?

Chocolate lime, strawberry,

slip, take scissors and snip the top

unwrap it like a lollipop.

And after you had taken your lunch

I slipped back, slept, to dream again

of Tereza, MJ, anything.

Bring Out Your Dead

 Bring Out Your Dead

 

You might see black clouds massing

in the East

if you ever lifted your head.

 

instead -

 

What a jolly good chap the King is,

in the counting house, by the toll booth

this side of Boothferry Bridge;

 

there’s horror for Andy

can he survive the Winter - he’ll be lucky

if bias from Munchetty

don’t get him first;

 

and Traitors cancel an entire series

due to a devastating four-word firestorm

while influencers swarm

over Stockport’s nursery manager

with the kindest soul;

 

there’s fresh outrage sparked

by sleeping trailblazer,

bombshells Meghan, will nothing faze her

or bring this odious couple

to their knees

rid you all of this turbulent priest;

 

while over there in Pickle Cottage,

divorced celebrities plant beans

but cannot say

how many make five;

 

bless Garraway, oh Garraway

and all who launch her,

crack champagne bottles, splitting his sides

if he gets out of there alive;

 

your viewers aren’t happy,

they never are,

when a minor Premier League icon

is always crashing

in the same car;

 

marveling at the UK stockpiling toilet paper,

alongside 6 other everyday

household items, but cannot say why,

 

and millions on the dole; hand-outs,

foodbanks, posting salvation

taking holidays in the nation’s

sick capital, Merthyr Tydfil,

spawning epidemics of falling ill.

 

You might see black clouds massing,

in the East

if you lifted your head –

 

Instead,

bring out your dead.

How I Wish You With Me

 

How I Wish You With Me

 

‘How I wish you with me,’

but I’m more Sweeney –

call me Dobson

stirring the bath – I let her raise dust,

watch spinning wheels

depart to break bread, ponder

if there’s communion wine used

or if they make do with grape juice.

It’s crushed super-sweet -

I know this,

having braised lamb shanks,

seasoned them with mint

sipped jus; still winced.

I noted there’s still a soupçon of rust

about the knees in the gym

this morning - spoilt my quadriceps

from that step too far

I took. Golden the Glossop days

and how I cursed,

unswallowing every expletive ever learnt -

a trip I took on trust,

sent tumbling like Iranian stocks,

absorbers not enough for shocks,

belly’s but a backpack of rocks,

left only with regret

for the sweet and sour pork balls

I didn’t get.

Still, she pulled me up,

from the rowing machine –

where I’d managed a ginger stroke or two

asked me to film her lifting weights -

‘Great tits dear, nice ass,’

I called, as you do:

you're told you shouldn’t these days,

but clearly we’re both out of date

because, 'Thank you,' and she laughs.

Later looking at the watch-fit, contemplate

my obesity – reading the grim news:

She scolds me, ‘You’re pogi,’

and tells me she still has use

for all of that which we call our own.

I could complain she’d adjust my waist

quite easily if I lose the requisite -

but she would’ve called me out

for talking shit

if she’d ever used words like that.

Instead, she drops me here to sit out 2 hours

to write of cast-offs, sailors, ships

as she communes with those higher powers

that I somewhere let slip.