FRIDAY 31st JULY 2009.

Nascency, food, sapience, text,
Keep us earthbound,
Keep us annexed.

Scholarship, work, consumption, tax,
Keep us aground,
Keep us exact.

Alcohol, pills, cigarettes, sex,
Keep us all down,
Keep us in check.

Lottery, sport, gambling, stress,
Keep us around,
Keep us in debt

Retirement, age, penury, death,
Keep us in town,
Keep us enmeshed.

THURSDAY 30th JULY 2009.

On the left is our settlement, nestled
In the warm glow of electric mist
And full lipped kisses.
To the right the ravages of outside,
Peppered with listless rain and
Cracked mouths shouting.

Their noise falls from our windows
And doors, hindered by the
Sound of applause inside.
Our voices lift from the hive to give
Support in the corridors and cold
Hallways where confronted.

In dignity we breed and pass accounts
Of previous kin to reinforce the
Present, as they hold the fort,
While the government’s might sends
The length of its arm against us in
Vain and tasteless charges.

Incumbent and bitter, even after years
At it, and determined to scatter
Our gatherings for good,
But even with the help of ill weather
They won’t ride us round as long
As we keep our crowns dry.

WEDNESDAY 29th JULY 2009.

All talk of you
Reduces me to
To little more
Than theory.

A fawned mortal,
An acolyte,
A follower
Of perfect type.

But more than this,
Inside my skin,
I’m honour bound
To oxygen,

And from its brew
Is sifted out
The filaments
Of hereabouts

To swill and wash
My avenues,
And junk the last
Of me for you,

And in my files
The fluff contained
Is measured out
In tight quatrains.

TUESDAY 28th JULY 2009.

Cushioned by the hair you swept about us
Now laid side to side, and end without end,
As we fight to entrench ourselves in firm;
While the day filters through our veil and
The sacked parts rail against us alarmingly.

Beneath the fixed and ageless face of the
Moon we sift the night the same, seeing
Less than daylight, but supplementing this
By pruning more ruthlessly, leaving only a
Map creased sheet and sweat to cover us.

Dawn and all the day’s agents return out
From the dark places they faded to, inked
And singed around the edges where they
Worked against our wire, and masked to
Do the task and test our defences again.

But all they draw is blood to service the
Floodplains of their bruises and contusions,
As we hold firm and learn the secrets of
Their weaknesses and turn these to good
Use for the inevitable surge of evening.

As again we repel and content ourselves
With night, scything keener and refusing
Sleep even now, for there will be none, not
For us, as we beat mischief and its treaties
Back so that you, in your sacks, don’t have to.

MONDAY 27th JULY 2009.

Half way out of me
And a similar distance
Into you I paused to gather
My thoughts:

Were you a part
Of evening scenery;
The hint reflected for a few
Useful seconds before
Disappearing.

And upon waking made
To fit historic sketches to
Suit the essence left.

The one met and never
Met again; heard out and
Went upon their way,
With style and face and fibs,
And more than a
Story’s fantail.

And are you solid enough
Now to matter where most
Needed; when the world
Isn’t well anymore; when
Its storehouses are tapped
Out will you provide
Four walls full,

Or should I pull
The plug and run.

SUNDAY 26th JULY 2009.

This is where I was:
In the shadow of ladders,
On the trail of a black cat,
Timberless and rabbit foot free,
Although the conies were happy for me.

This is what befell:
Work took a shy at my stall,
My house was clawed back,
My father left before his time
With a fancy dressed fool on New Year’s Eve.

This is what happened:
I picked up a pen one day,
It wadded thru my margins,
Scratching signs in the fields
And swashing thought bubbles from me.

This is where I am:
A little man lives in my arms,
His eyes remind me of existence
And I will impart in whispers our
Frail fable made marble every New Year’s Day.

SATURDAY 25th JULY 2009.

So take me off to destinations
Covered with the dehydrated skin of pilgrims,
Lotion dripped on crystal beaches and
Liberally drizzled in the niches of history’s resorts.
To the world’s rich and poor ports, buffered
With motor boats and yachts of floating courtesans,
Where surfers earn their sport and businessmen their fortunes.
Where fishing ships and little skiffs rub rudders
With the oceans’ mighty liners and each nation’s
Freighted finest changes hands and climate.

Inland a caravan of vehicles expands to
Fill the countryside with expectant peasants, and
Their produce, eager for the sights each region
Is renowned for. Crowding mountain trails and slopes,
And rails and ropes supporting them; exhorting words
Not brought from home, and busying their bodies
To inhabit even more of it, as when in Rome behave as fabulously.
And though the seven wonders may have
Suffered in recession these seasonal site hunters
Will find a private treasure of their own.

The highs and lows, the bright and toneless
Thoroughfares of magic; take me to the edge of night
And tragedy of day; beyond the majesty of empty
Space or where every face makes off to. The wet and cold,
The warmed and stone broken, adrift amidst the
Desert’s endless sky, mankind’s glass and silver
Eye line, nature’s verge and ancient surging lava flows of land.
North, south, east or west take me wherever
Your world chooses to view us and through us
Survive, but I will still only look in your eyes.

FRIDAY 24th JULY 2009.

Oh love hold us like you
Told us that you would do forever,
When heaven existed
In the fixtures of our limbs;
When we, cap handed, were
Wrapping paper anxious around
Each other’s handsome prize;
Tremble felt along the lengths of
Arms and wintered fingers;
Trenchant legs ready for whatever
Was to happen next,
Folding only in response to the
One supporting us and
Falling so extraordinarily well.
Short order breath expressed and
Sucked up between tongue and teeth,
Before longer courses were drawn
From deeper storerooms and re-ordered
With supper’s shopping list and
Breakfast’s bedroom. Love make our shape more
Capable of honouring such hope.

THURSDAY 23rd JULY 2009.

Strike with me and we’ll
Rip the tits of this bitch,
And match the backs up
And see just like me and
Be more than you in our
Flat racked rib sack. Sift
With me sister, and lift
The nipped bits from my
Listing chest, making
Fine the mess of bowed
Breast bones with cold
Sewn stitches. Frisk me
For a dick, and slice the
Niceties of society vices
Right off in front of my
Ice cubed eyes; spilling
My willingness and its
Accomplices down the
Fucking lane. Let me
Thread a dreadful hot
Needle point through
The soft joists of lust’s
Threshold and close it
Up for good baby, for no
More maybes shall be
Coming our way, as we
Androgynize our lives,
As separate apes, to live
Like similar fish; slipping
The skins of this damn
Day’s battle field to
Weld as a one headed
Species until God bobs
Up to rob more bones.

WEDNESDAY 22nd JULY 2009.

Now the scene’s browbeaten
I can’t go on bleating
Otherwise I’ll sound like a child,
Constantly indicting itself,
For as I’ve been vetoed
The hum of comfort is
Offered on the understanding
That I continue to be so.

When I was in exile I had
Nothing in my pockets,
No sleeves to put stuff up, flip
Flops on my feet and only a
Metre of window to
Sleep and wake up to,
And I didn’t mingle where I lived
Or mention pursuing it.

My bookmarks were littered
With porn links, and I
Was sick of being critical,
Of being picked apart,
Remarked upon; if I called I got
Bawled at, if I didn’t I got cursed,
So I left the phone alone and
Avoided the worst.

But I’m still being difficult,
Actively typical, and it’s
Been witnessed, so as I chuff
Effusive words it appears
Middle age is being entered
And attempts to leave it will
Depend upon whether enough
Strength is crushed.

TUESDAY 21st JULY 2009.

Your name
Was known
Before you came;

It was the
First word
Spoken to you,

And
The
Last,

And will
Survive long after
You have passed.

It
Will go
To the moon,

And from the
Nearest step
After that

To
The
Farthest,

Will be
Carved in
Starlight.

MONDAY 20th JULY 2009.

I’m trying to shackle the intractable characters
In my life but it’s becoming difficult to know
Where to nail them. A basement would be the
First place for such work, but I’m currently
Unable to lay my hands on one, and even if I
Could I wouldn’t have lungs enough to last in
The damp and laminated atmosphere down
There. An attic would be an attractive alternative,
And sufficiently risk free, assuming it grew at
The top of my own home and not someone
Else’s, but since all I have are barren rafters
And no loft hatch then that option’s out. A
Garden shed requires a hedged bed of land to
Stand upon and old coal houses are usually
Crowded on the end of terraced dwellings, and
Not very private, while the option of a lock up
Somewhere in the wilderness or under railway
Arches usually necessitates the involvement of
Invoices. A possible stable to pen them would
Be the pantry which has often been hung with
Meat but is currently draped in drying sheets
And sundry laundrette metal, though it also
Houses an old chest freezer that’s not been used
For years. So that leaves me with little choice
Than to snare them in the spare bedroom
Where my sister fed her journals a constant
Diet of teenage desire and is now stocked with
Boxes and less handsomely stored ornaments,
And although hardly insulated the neighbours
Make so much noise of their own that the sound
Of me impounding my critics won’t mean much
And I can be about the business of easing their
Resistance without being disturbed at work.

SUNDAY 19th JULY 2009.

In a moment the omens
Encountered on the outskirts
Of attention spans will make their stand
And provide proof of their greeting,
And reasons for being discreet.

I’ve often suspected a
Nexus of connected events,
A cadre of coincidences, have danced in
The back ground of life, but now
They seem to be circling;

Pressure severing its
Ties to consecutive beats
And from all sides competing for my
Centre, reaching to strengthen
Its orphic significance.

Building its buoyancy
Amidst the quick sand of
Bog standards, pinching a thumb full of
Skin, a finger pressed into the
Soft spaces created.

And before I succumb to
The numbness of order, the
Stumbling boredom of it all, I pray that
The portents sensed meant what I
Always hoped they would,

And slyly in rising the
Excitable guides can steer me
Towards the edge, shyness left behind,
Sentience ahead and finally shed
Of its ancient disguise.

SATURDAY 18th JULY 2009.

And so Henry has gone,
After living so long,
After reaching higher and
Guiding the finest of lives.
There for the first air corps and
The last plain songs of his nation;
A bridge from the Somme to Afghanistan;
A participant of the worst century of man;
An example of thankfulness in a world of the
Opposite, where worship is reserved for the first
Of the day’s availabilities and we clamour for
Assistance at the first sneeze.

He said cigarettes, whisky and women did it:
Nursing him through one hundred and thirteen
Years worth of ruthless images, cursing him to lose
Every friend he made at school and giving
Him time to see further into his own
Family than most men before. He’s
Gone to meet his maker, who made
Him so well, and we should cast
A mould of him to show how
Men should be thrown onto
Life’s turntable. (And Walter has
Gone with him to give witness.)



Henry Allingham
6th June 1896 – 18th July 2009

FRIDAY 17th JULY 2009.

The crack in the window
Sill is deeper than the
Paint that has parted at
The weather’s request,
Deeper still than the
Concrete sea bed it reveals;
Fissures glisten when
Sunlight rolls over them,
Hinting at deeper issues
Beneath their creases,
As water marks reflect their
Edges like an empty delta’s vein work.

Whilst up above the
Glass is stained with
The soot and smoke of
Motor vehicles and patterned
In Tiffany like refinements,
And wooden frames
Are pared to reveal rotten
Cigarillo flakes,
And both rely upon
The granite base to
Shoulder their work load,
Regardless of how they’re seen.

THURSDAY 16th JULY 2009.

A life hung on a rail that spans the day’s
Fragrance and soaks up only the sweat of itself;
Mindful of falling, but slightly too strong to
Give in and let go, even if a spill to the perfumes
Below would improve its circumstances.

Aware that the basin is clinically clean,
And set to be steamed every hour, and the hands
Held open, with industrial soap, do so awaiting
A slip; compelling the elevation to cloud your mind
And send you to their mentored stadium,

Full of the willing, who shift their positions
Too easily and try to edify you to the same; whose
Words blast out the distinctions of the day
And quote what they hope will be honoured when
Tomorrow bothers to follow their tales.

A world turned on its axis, its spin halted,
Poles vaulted, creatures hunted to the brink of its
Stinking cities where their plight is pitied by
The rich and cause hoarding, and any fondness, any
Bond is forged in order to avoid such fate.

Allegiances squeezed from the clay and
Shaped into permanently glazed pillars of salt,
Hoping to exploit the flavours found in the
Earth to their ends and lengthen their stay and
Earn for their journey a union card.

And a clear bead leaps from the borders
Of your head and hair and proceeds to roll down
Wards, and just as this drop is set to stop it
Falls, and if you’ve got to, you really have to, then
There’s no option but simple laughter.

WEDNESDAY 15th JULY 2009.

I see behind
The buildings and the trees,
The people and their fleas.

Beneath
The pavement and its pools,
The strata’s molecules.

Between
The centuries that shrink,
The particles that blink.

Beyond
The anchor of infinity,
The canons of it symmetry.

Beside
The stillness of the end,
The final curtain’s blend.

Before
The master of the house,
The heart of whereabouts.

TUESDAY 14th JULY 2009.

If bits thought important
Have fallen into place
And the picture made
Has not changed then
They can’t have had much meaning to begin with.

If those most crucial hopes
Have altered so much,
And I haven’t moved
From my first crouch,
Then I must assume my expectations were wrong.

If my belief system has
Blistered so easily then
It was obviously not
Strong enough to take
The chafing and my entire armour is ill fitting.

If my protection has been
Infected by the slightest
Shift then I have to
Acknowledge it has
Never been right and neither has my visor.

If my sight was clouded
From the start then all
The cart roads favoured
That led to this dead end
Were not mislabelled but misread.

MONDAY 13th JULY 2009.

She clings to the fringes of the day;
The facile acts that hinge one drama to the next
And last as long as a bulb of sand in a glass timepiece,

Casting off the work of ordinary
Burden for a vagrant’s turn on a bed frame and
An aimless look at the day’s broad facts and forecasts.

Her attention span stretching the
Length of an arm as she switches channels and
Catches another showboat’s worth of the less fortunate;

Feeding her smoke to housebroken
Fogs whilst perfuming her rooms to be rid of the
Stink and eating food fetched from the cheapest outlet.

Passing out access to her children
As if successful in their care, and not simply court
Ordered to do so, and acting as jailor at the same time;

Flashing that vicious smile of the
Self satisfied as she dwells by the well as you leave,
Drawing a quarter of gin to begin with before moving on.

Without remorse or recourse to
Important material, and lacking opinion or impact,
Or tact for the tracks of life that can find anything more;

The tassels of her trail are cat picked
And frayed, dust loved and publicly cherished,
Whilst knotted together in order to be less forgotten than me.

SUNDAY 12th JULY 2009.

The iron lamppost outside the old house
Was used as our cricket stumps;
Every hour you could tell when a wicket
Fell as it echoed for another
Soul hopeful enough to hit and miss the
Hedged garden on the left or
Walled yard to the right. Square drives
On either side or straight over the
Bowler’s head were all the back lane
Offered, as a lob over the privet
Led to begging for the ball back from the
Old hag who lived there, and
Beyond the wall a hound lounged with
Teeth enough to burst the hardiest
Of balls. Though one day I thought me a
Lion tamer, and came through its
Gate to gently fetch a rash top edge, but
As I reached toward the lost orb
The damn dog lurched and chased me up
The wall, where, piercing my trailing
Leg, it dangled me before releasing me
On my head. Suffice to say enough
Flesh was flayed to give the beast an
Aperitif, and me four stitches
Each side and scars to remind me to
This day. I never played much
After that, as I was always nervous at
The crease as to where an off drive
Might lead, but the old metal streetlight
Still stands and commands the
Attention of drunkards in the night and
Dogs in the day who piss up it bails.

SATURDAY 11th JULY 2009.

Several feet seem to have left
Their marks on me:
Shallow, deep, bird toed,
Young and old
And there,
Trailed off to the side,
The frail,
Whose tracks criss-cross
The rest as if beset with illness
Long before their end was met;
Melting back into the land they
Used to stand upon when strong.

But all these freckled influences
Fade eventually
Around the edges of this way,
This face of mine
That still juts
Into the bustle of the world,
And leave me
Free of imprint,
Shone of surface,
Smoothed of proof there
Ever was a foot to put before mine
And lead me into temptation.

FRIDAY 10th JULY 2009.

Should I expect something to happen or go after a happening?
Brave space or quail from a cave in?
Launch a first strike or wait to retaliate?
Act like playground children
Or world leaders in their war room’s comfort,
Or a terrified pensioner behind his front door’s barricade,
Or be brave and take it on the chin
With whatever crumbs I’m given.

What would my dearly beloved do in such circumstance?
Pander to the needs of the many
Or handle business privately with a few?
Dance on the ends of hanging strings
Or pull them from positions removed from view,
Or shrug and take what’s offered with indifference and
That ‘I’ll get back to you’ attitude
That’s prevalent these days.

And you, who’ve known me for a lifetime’s worth of days
Or a day in the life of communication,
What response would you offer when time
Switches direction as quickly as this,
And what you thought was safe the night before
Breaks through the morning’s floorboards before you wake.
What does make the aimless so
Good at finding their mark?

THURSDAY 9th JULY 2009.

In the mid summer sky weather’s
Weapons fight each other for
Supremacy. Clouds shout their names
As they rub together or feather each other’s
Feet, tricking tickled rain into the conversation.
Higher varieties bang the anvil tops of towers
Showering electric sparks across heaven’s work bench;
Hammering like Thursday’s namesake until all the Norman’s
Children are awake and damning his name.

Upon the ground puddles pile
Higher and become fiery as their surfaces
Are ripped by hail spat viciously from low
Floaters snuck up under cover, that, once bled
Dry, cry drizzle for another hour. People creep
Up half a street in little cotton T-shirts, as humidity
Keeps coats indoors, but once they’ve gone too far to safely
Turn around the worst of water’s benefits assails, and drenched
And wet necked they seek any shelter as it pelts down.

But between the seams of swollen,
Folded comas, sunlight, that only last
Week seared sight, tries to squeeze an
Eyelash full of wonder through, cindering each
Solid edge and wedging more combustion as it swells.
Eventually a magnifying glass’s hole is stretched to let
An aureate splash scatter cotton bulbs apart and startle
Thunder’s water colours with the richest oils, and thickest brush
Strokes, spoiling winter’s little summertime incursion.

WEDNESDAY 8th JULY 2009.

There is the proof of life
I’ve been looking for.
I saw him spat out into
The world in front of my
Eyes onto a delivery room
Gurney and eternity purled
When he opened his own.

My questions will linger,
But I know they will
Remain unanswerable
As long as I ask them
Here; truth prowls elsewhere
While today it is only
The tally that matters.

Today only the facts at
Hand count, and they
Are suited inside him,
Rooted and hiding,
And as long as I live I’ll
Never have the gifts to
Be able to find them,

And why should I
Bother, as he will uncover
Them in time, and if it’s
To be he’ll educate me
Sufficiently to be strong enough
And content to face my
Eventual destination.

TUESDAY 7th JULY 2009.

So the wife’s gone wild again,
And everything condenses.
Time once strung between tin
Cans is instantly transmitted, and
All its clockwork mechanisms micro chipped.

And anything that was, hard
Boiled or soft, is squashed into
24 hours worth of verbal abuse,
And I’m cut loose once more to shore
Up on the settees of friends and relatives.

More than not I knew this would
Be the case, once he was born;
I knew I’d have to brace myself
Against her and the crew she calls a
Family; I knew I’d fail to cling onto the rigging.

And indeed the seas have been
Rough before, but there’s always
Been a lifeboat to swim to, either
Launched or trawling, and I’ve been
Able to ride the tides home attached to its hull.

But this time, after such distilled
Syllables have been hurled, I think
I’ll curl as tight as limbs allow and let
The watermark of this extended chapter
Cast its scar then sink down to begin my life again.

MONDAY 6th JULY 2009.

Connecting tissue minds
The gap between what I think
I’ve seen and what breezes
Past upon the track I use;
Fusing my paths with the
Maps made by heaven’s maker,
And scraping their lengths
And straightening bends to
Allow me to see more clearly.
Ridding hidden alcoves of
The damp tranches that gather
There and hamper financially;
Plastering over poking hand
Holes in order to forward me and
Fool my expectations; stations
Needing smooth places to prove
Their worth, and soothe the once
Burned prints of fingertips
When they reach to test perfection.
It matters not where this is, just
That friction kisses lightly and
Its fiction binds me tight, and
In its synthetic mitten I find
Time to flit along in peace.

SUNDAY 5th JULY 2009.

The window’s closed
But I can still hear the birds,
My mind knows
Their words:

They want my skin,
My frame and all its hollows
To nest in
And grow.

But I need it
To further the flowering
I seeded
In spring,

To escort him
And watch over proceedings,
And support
Readings.

And so nature,
And it’s morning exhorting,
Can go spur
Its wards

In other worlds,
Where life has space to turn to
Those unfurled,
And learn.

SATURDAY 4th JULY 2009.

The idiotic
They tee off a lot,
They’re scattershot;
There’s always some cunt with a gun
Waving it in place of a vocabulary,
Seething in the street and blaming
Belief or the lack of seasonal heat.
Reporting
The wide screen scene they fought
To create whilst panning and scanning
To individual details; manning the
Script’s centre and damning the rest,
Forcing
Attentions best spent elsewhere to
Observe their wares and trickle
Back tales of extraordinary aims
To the dumb patrons of home states,
As an afterthought
Of a patriotic
Mini plot.

FRIDAY 3rd JULY 2009.

The daughter’s sports day was cancelled;
Probably on account of the fact that the
Intended entrance fee, for parents, had
The effect of discouraging them, and so
The Governors, unable to rustle up enough
Money to cover coffee and refreshments,
Pulled the plug on the whole event.
-----------------------------------------Quite
Lucky really as in previous years all we’ve
Been able to see from the sidelines has been
The stuttering of stick figures flickering
Around the farthest bends, and disappearing
Half way through each lap in the badly kept
Long grass, whilst being unable to take our
Cameras with us in case we turn out to be
Perverts.
----------So we weren’t too disappointed
To hear the news, as Murray’s in the semi
At Wimbledon anyway and displaying
How these things ought be done, and the
Daughter, she’s ecstatic due to the fact
That she always comes last no matter
What distance she dashes, like her dad,
Who also ran like a girl.

THURSDAY 2nd JULY 2009.

A drop of morning water,
Leaf fallen to
The warming ground,
Sounds out its final cry,
A hiss of mist before it dies
Dried out upon the sidewalk.

A picture of day forming,
Captured in court
Yards and gardens,
Where grass once green bleaches,
Tinder thin and brittle creasing,
Holding out for a downpour.

But nothing has been ordered,
And noon is brought
With thirst’s onslaught
Parching streets and people,
Housed in crowded office coffins,
Anticipating home time,

Where evening brings comfort
In the form of
Cold beers fast drawn,
Drinking to the drum of
Tumbling conversations concerned
About tomorrow’s furnace.

WEDNESDAY 1st JULY 2009.

The sky screams my name
And I reply with bare chest
Airing;
My skin, patterned where
The sun’s lungs have already
Sung,
Lays waiting for its cloak
To soak the rest in its ochre
Coat
And groom to its tune the
Tones that only the youthful
Suit,
Whilst my mirrors lie in
Shattered piles reflecting
Shines,
Dismissed by fists pitted
With splints from previous
Seers,
And friends venting bile
Have seen the back of said
Hands,
And now only my open
Robes stay with me in my
Search
For perfection, perched
On the edge of correction’s
Burst,
Laid waiting, as bait, for
Heat’s hook to look and do its
Worst.