Have a Kit Kat

 

Have a Kit Kat

 

June 2026 and Beckham’s face plastered everywhere -

because those old walls need a bit of pointing,

cracks in the tiles, needs a flat finish – you’re aware

it’s just wound down, but could flare

up again at any time – and not forgetting baggage squatting

implacably, eyes glued to Not the Nine O Clock Cup

whilst around and about its head the rotting

carcass of shagpile brings flies in need of swotting.

Denmark? A canker of the ear, part of you needs to stay here,

whilst another needs rest, aches for an achy breaky break -

have a kit kat - and all that for goodness sake

stuff – but they don’t package it for nails now,

no innards to push or tin foil to slit before you chow

down – just ubiquitous cheap plastic wrap.

It boils in your dreams when you take a nap,

Gary Lineker’s sweating forehead and cheeky grin,

boss – have a word with him -

Beckham slotting that last-minuter in

between the sticks - before pulling out of a tackle -

metatarsal - Ronaldinho Gaucho - the woodwork rattles

and we’re down .and out once again.

They said next year will be easier, good things coming

like the sun rising behind the disused tin gasometers

take a thermometer, check room temperature

and you’ll see that what was once has gone

but something tells you there could be better songs

to sing than this one – and how will she fare?

Left behind with time zones - a two hour delay

until after five days, her turn will come, she ups, flies away.

But when the hands on the clock strike ding, ding, ding –

and everyone stops for tea – you’re left munching

on Kit Kats over what next year might bring.

We Love The Enterprise We Really Do

 

We Love The Enterprise We Really Do

 

We love The Enterprise, we really do - 

garbage scow -

I suppose you could pass to Mexico,

but as for the other two?

Still, no matter,

we get tossed off leavings

on a trencherman’s platter -

a highlights package, your televisual feast -

so is it possible to reserve the BBC2 channel

for the duration? No. 

Why don’t you talk properly:

those B’s look like P’s

and who’s ever heard of a Boast Office?

No one’s drawing Mr Hutchinson’s map,

it’s halfway across the world

where these bastards don’t even like football,

let them chuck hoops, slam dunks, touchdown

and cheer for the hempen homespun homerun –

but call this an own goal by no means –

oh, there’s plenty of fast bucks

to be made – you love football, you’re out of luck,

mate – where’s Captain Kirk?

He’s the one with McDonalds sponsoring his shirt.

I Stand Relieved

 

I Stand Relieved

 

What? Oh yes, you might suppose

that standing beneath the compass rose

having spent a Middle Watch putting

ten of starboard on, sir,

come to midships, midships it is,

that I have no spur

to prick. But, I care not to care

and therefore might be somewhat put out -

not that they’re moving tankers

but that they had to be anchored

there at all. I mean, what’s the point?

Personally - after they’d cased the joint,

wielded secateurs for a bit of dead-heading –

I dodged a few projectiles

lobbed in my general direction,

reported the pretty ribbons bow the sky,

watched my workload spike

and the workshy fly –

it seems flowers bloomed again and spreading

sprawling across the rockeries.

And anyone with a brain to scratch

might wonder why those boffins lifted latches

on cry havoc – instead of inventing the tool

with which a man might try.

What? Oh yes, you might suppose

you relieve me, sir, and might believe

I stand relieved.

Truffles

 

Truffles

 

A swaggering, overbearing,

tin-plated dictator

with delusions of godhood,

see you later

Truffles - viewing figures

scraping the barnacles

off Bill’s bottom,

with banal lo-fi hi-jinks -

don’t kid yourself, pal, the Devil’s bored

gets to thinking up yours,

Pantheon of Discord -

I’m locking the piano’s lid, you fraud:

back, back – the time of the Osirans

is long past

because this time round

the scripts were trash,

here’s a horrid thing

hear the song I sing

of Mr Ring a Ding Ding

no one’s watching –

there’s a tavern in the town (in the town),

where horrid hacks hung around

shipping slash fiction,

Spock/Kirk, 60 years too late,

seven writing fake Blakes –

ideas that were well past

their sell-by date like –

here's one, Ron, Oo I could crush a grape,

servicing black gay mates

rocking kilts down the disco –

because, Doctor, they let you go

butchered butchers’ hooks

and took delight

in setting alight

some other hard-working chap’s farts

because the past has been bottled

and labelled with art.

Does The World?

 

Does The World?

 

I once thought if I closed my eyes,

the world would disappear –

cease to be like it was just memory

but I didn’t tell, in case it was true –

like how can you know

that your blue is his blue

if blue is the colour?

 

That was when I cared about you

or such stuff as dreams are – you know –

but now – on leaving home of a morning,

catch the bus -

I wonder if all that fuss

she makes is apropos of something,

or something of nothing

and maybe if she stops, the world does too.

 

Scraped back her oven-bun hair

and running to fat -

perhaps - but careful, cancel – puckered lips

blow goldfish bubbles

or like a red snapper snaps air

pitched medium to high –

a ball toss the batsman misses –

she’s forever blowing kisses,

pretty kisses on eclairs.

 

Sometimes words are chucked

casual, forwards, backwards,

over the shoulder for luck

as a pinch of salt

on the last chops in the chiller,

handled, thumbed, pressed to the back

where all the unlucky flies get trapped.

 

From first to last verse

it’s prattled and pursed,

an endless bargain bin flutter of fascinators –

words to erode riverbeds

fashioned from basalt ballast

she’s a bedload of corrasion

for every occasion

a shedful of din

to collect your clutter in -

while the world upon its axle spins

I close my eyes...start to grin.

Despair Thy Charm

 

Despair Thy Charm

 

There were tears before bedtime - as prophesied.

It did not give him any pleasure

to behold her blinking red eyes,

or later, his - in anger, sorrow or measure for measure –

 

and when the drummer in the band

stretched out hands

to the bassist

there were traces

of red – caught in-between – he confesses

saw sobbing tears tumble upon her breast  –

and is this the price of some such success.

 

Later, when the band assembled

to tune up, the violinist trembled

when breasting her sunny C major

and Adam ripped it out from his chest – let it be, let it be –

taking up arms against a troubled sea.

 

So, in extemporis, all five of them gladly play

catch up - perhaps in doing so, wanted to say

to these three, who do not see

I am the song so sing me

or here is the false face of futility –

because it will never, ever be enough.

 

Pave the roads

from Lands End to John O Groats

in evidence, surveys, spreadsheets fit to be ticked,

because it was Thor who was tricked

to take draughts from the Ocean’s horn

still the tides returned

ground and churned

this rock into a million, million grains of sand –

 

Despair thy charm,

that only can oftentimes win you to harm -

and there’s a chance that you might see

there may be an answer, let it be.

She Looks Like A Sugar In A Plum (Plum Plum)

 

She Looks Like A Sugar In A Plum (Plum Plum)

 

And when he emerges from the shower,

toweling his back,

rubbing deep and dirty between the toes,

up the knees and onward elbows,

puddle-duck feet filling ceramic cracks

there’s a naked body –

small, caramel toasty and he could rest his chin

on that raven-black crown,

as capital C clasps her lower case –

cannot see her face

she’s penciling wall, something on the paper there,

and fronts him in full despair:

‘Oh, it’s gone up again.’

‘Ah, you could be right,’ he grins,

lifts and retires within –

until later, she’s slicing banana, assesses

that the small Malaysian ones are best

and should they put it to the test?

On his way, after all, to buy from Palengke,

this sweltering day, marked by EmJay

coming from there within and shouts ‘What Ah-Teh?’

Well, he could say that where he's from,

she looks like a sugar in a plum 

(plum, plum).