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.