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.

 

 

 

 

‘What If Tom Baker…

 

‘What If Tom Baker…

 

…left at the end of Season 15 (Invasion of Time)?’,

opined some pock-skinned You Tube git –

a tongue-tied hobbledehoy with zits,

a self-styled influencer, all round, cradle-bound tosser,

a greasy spot well versed in yeast, a foreskin flosser

with less right to comment on Great Tom’s legend

than your baker’s dozen basket-case of knob-ends.

Ask someone who was there – no, why bother:

yes - substandard production, dodgy script -

they’d scheduled ginseng and arenas of killer cats,

but inflation put the mockers on all of that -

so, went for a weekend and whisky script,

bunkered down, pseudonymed up, tore through it,

the rest is history, French for story, you doubt he knows.

What if? What if what? What’s your point?

He didn’t leave – three more glorious years, anointed

the greatest on most occasions; I vote you fuck off -

don’t spend weekends filming yourself rubbing cloth,

speculating your chin-dribble in spattered glasses,

ejaculating misinformed dictats to the spanking classes

while the rest of us watch the donkey leading the asses.

Construction Time Again

 

Construction Time Again

 

In this city, it’s construction time again.

It was yesterday, it will be tomorrow,

for us it’s all one and the same.

Deployed -  Hyundai 220 mechanical crawlers

that yawn elaborately, bare teeth and bite

deep, ravage this poor sub-soil

of grit, concrete, gravel and spoil –

nothing green grows in such solid grey caliche

never a bush let alone a tree.

You wonder how anything rooted here,

what it destroyed, what it cleared -

that’s me, picking my way between bunkers

screened by poor to middling safety bulwarks,

therefore, anyone intent on tumbling

can only blame themselves – that, the night,

or the heat haze blurring lines of sight.

Avoid murderous traffic, two-fold slayers

who exterior heat to interior cool or flay

your heels alive with spinning tyres

that pitch and toss the dust storms higher

than they’ve any right to be. If I make it –

the jury’s out – I might order coffee, ponder

why the pit outside is dug that deep,

did they remember chemicals to exterminate

the scuttling cockroaches that proliferate

and find nests so easy to build? Once inside

I am besieged by the one fly

who somehow knows and has found me out,

will attack without remorse or any thoughts

for its own survival – I swot without any hope

of success in preventing exit or egress

and wonder if I hung a flypaper throughout

it might ultimately lead to my arrest.

Chickadees

 

Chickadees

 

Not the most promising of subjects,

but it has to be tackled - I expect

little will come of it; won’t move mountains,

overturn rocks or grind pebbles into sand –

yes, nothing much here, nothing grand.

Chickadees - and you may ask what sound

is made – newlings, who flew using westerlies,

accustomed to sitting back, coattailing,

utilizer to cancer and something of that

and how loud they are, how sweet they sing –

of sealing wax, of silly-string

of rum, red bull and teaching,

of shots, soft pillows, sleeping,

of minted lattes delivered late,

of however did she get in such a state?

A sweet midnight chorus punctuates my night;

tossing sour, turning bitter and overbites

into unfurling dawns that reach surging crescendos

until, one day the silence of nothing at all.

It’s sound and fury of empty kettle

switched on at socket, of filament blown

and circuit breakers that halt the flow

burnt to cinders; let licking flames

fuse the hems, to part the stitching once again,

make merry with meal of candy brain.

The Hollows of Mars

 

The Hollows of Mars

 

I come here to speak not of Asimov.

‘Buy Jupiter!’ He screamed from the covers

of schlock paperbacks –

emblazoned with impossibly delicate constructions

pollocked with nuanced gleam and splashed shade -

and from each block of light a face

might be planted there, hard to see, but

acclimatized interstellar with not a hair

out of place, embracing space;

how tempting and easy to slip

one of these into your blazer pocket?

Or ‘Boys! Grow GIANT mushrooms in your cellars!’

Get this – I recant Bradbury, disavow Clarke –

a fall of moondust, sinking shuttles

beget creeping worlds that evolve and scuttle,

send out for Kimbo Kinnison – triplanetary extraordinary

needed more now than he ever was.

Didn’t they ignite the gases of those giants

to send a message to the stars? Buy Coke?

No. For here, in the Hollows of Mars

there is a lack of substance –

once it was buttered thick, now only shea and palm

such quantities won’t actually do harm

per se – but witness these tacky packages, plastic tat

with which they are pleased to wrap

your futures – not mine. Lo! Fry’s Chocolate Cream

surreptitious beneath your sheets before you dream

of ‘To Your Scattered Bodies Go!’

where Sir Richard Francis Burton’s beyond universal

masked in new flesh; ready for rehearsal.

I Charge Thee Hence

 

I Charge Thee Hence

 

Last night she came to me.

To say I was surprised was an understatement –

you see these Doha pavements,

well – they’ve too many cracks – agreed?

Tread lightly and with care,

you could conjure threads never there.

When she left, some of her last words

were: ‘The spell is broke.’

This, of course, is a private joke

and I screwed with the adverb

for the rhyme. Some of her last words

because there were others she toyed with

in due course - she takes, you give –

fall through cracks, but live,

so I’m pleased to say neither of us

left the battlefield untouched.

Battening down my sight to penetrate black

and see she is naked front and back,

full figured firm – it is 10 years ago, again – clearly

when we said stuff like: ‘I love you dearly,’

but a year and a bit is all

it takes to change that,

just wait a few more; everything sags,

there’s tattoos, creases, pink dyed grey hair -

but I know why she’s here; what she wants.

Those in the room with me, licking lips,

cannot tear their eyes from breasts and hips;

she only has to say it once:

‘Come with me.’ She beckons, opens, reveals

what it is she thinks I should feel:

‘I want you to meet my new partner.’

And if I should choose to go with her,

well, here’s a door opened onto lost life,

with talk of past futures, new wives,

galleons whose sails are billowing full,

offering safe passage to any fool

who takes hold of stray threads and pulls -

so, you know, I charged her hence:

‘And do not haunt me thus with empty boats,

for I am real and you are ghosts.’

McDonald's

 

McDonalds

 

When the coffee arrived – finally –

after a three song wait,

the coda to an uncomposed melody -

I did not complain it was late,

cold or blatantly lacking

in promised milk and sugar.

The balsawood twizzlestick, too,

had gone AWOL

and she arrived with a look comprised

of injured pride, wounds inside,

and a bowlful of spilled cherries, fried

in something not totally unpleasant.

‘Why did the pheasant

cross the road?’ I might have said,

recalling one who had tried,

could not fly and died.

But I didn’t. So, she did not reply

‘Sir, you forgot your number - 6 -

which is why things did not go as planned.’

And, as for me, I therefore did not say,

‘I am not a number, I am a free man!’

while not a soul laughed.

Close Encounters of the 4th Kind

 

Close Encounters of the 4th Kind

 

She cut you off at the aisle’s

entrance with her silk-sheet smile,

satin-stockinged longing boxed in place

by cloister walls, a safe cage -

scans your face and you blush

feel words tumble, rushing

like undammed waters, your plush

tongue pushing against the roof,

stuck between bare teeth,

tasting sugar-salts without tasting,

pursuing defection, hunting relief.

Some liberated small talk forms knots

to disguise a bigger clotting

of ideas just beneath veneers:

‘Where’s Paulo?’ ’At home.’

And you think that’s good, so does she,

not here, not now -

but it’s coming, and when it comes,

violins will smoulder of fused enclosures

that bleed inside each other.

At midnight, perhaps you’re awake,

some distant noise – it shakes

but you’re enfolded by black night

and see another, something older - begrimed

that thumb-pricks and cannot help remind

you of feelings felt these many times.

She bares her breasts, it stirs,

upon her lips – and yours – form words

you both needed to say

before she takes herself away

again. ‘Is that you?’ ’No, me first, is it you?’

Both wondering why it has been so long,

what it is that is wrong

and all those small neglected affections

form strong once more

just before she finds the door –

you agree to meet as you agreed before.

 

If there’s a surface, 

you’ll struggle to reach it,

pulling puff-lunged breaststrokes that bring you

muddling from this one side

to another against flooding tides,

beach then wooly finger labyrinthine aisles.

And when you blink, you’ll find

you were not really close at all –

just caught yourself pushing at the 4^th wall.

Deserts of Vast Eternity

 

Deserts of Vast Eternity

 

Most fighting fish are stupid –

yes, they are stupid.

 

Swimming in deserts of vast eternity,

except, you associate deserts with sand

and fish swimming on land

are, on the whole, scarcely found.

 

But, define stupid and you may conclude

that these are fish holding views

in conflict with you

 

and yours. Frustrating, is it not?

Here comes a steaming great polyglot

of aquatic subrational species

swimming in and amongst the intellectual faeces

that serves as a subsurface pelagic zone

they are pleased to dub home.

 

I speak not to disprove what it is you deem

logical – you may think that to me they seem

unworthy of gills – but this is not ethics

when I caution you they keep having sex.

 

Maybe, like me, you feel pathos pull

at you - a new and inexperienced school

swimming enraptured into our aforesaid pool –

perhaps let’s call it their induction,

for argument’s sake – or preparation –

really, it is all one.

 

But there are some who say: ‘come, come,’

and with oxidised fins beckon,

then pack them all on

a multi-coloured, sub-surface contraption

that will convey them to meeting on meeting

in order to knock out invention

and pack them with stuffing.

 

Why, some become nothing but teddy bears!

I have seen it and I swear

it confounds all rationality. Only yesterday

I was trapped. A flying fish  who stayed

atrophied in thought some 40 years too long

found her way onto the quarterdeck.

 

Her words, such as they were,

belied a life that, to her, was full - so sure

she was. ‘I have seen such worlds

since I retired, and filled my belly

with meat and drink, I slept

in the finest hotels and met

such celebrated fish as turn out on pitches,

and there I took these pictures.’

 

And soon she swooned

for she had stayed out of her pool

so long – no listeners there had heart enough

to throw her back amongst such stuff

as dreams are made of.

 

But yet – who is to say that such piscation

does not bring the shoals elation?

There is validity in the common view

and safety in the cluster -

any ideas to the contrary will not pass muster

and can safely be dismissed –

 

Afterall, most fighting fish

are stupid. Yes, they are stupid to swim 

just deserts there

and find nothing

but the opportunistic predator.