MONDAY 30th NOVEMBER 2009.

This is for you
My friend,
My enemy,
My love.

Myself made male.
Railing against the world and
It’s curtains;
Carrying hearts upon green leaved sleeves
That I gave you.

This is built
For you,
Spilt with the milk of my
Blind kindness.

I treasure you like the brother
I never had,
Like the partner in crime
That we were,
Like the fire we burned and turned to ash
And passed into compost.

This is created in
Your image,
In transience and loyalty;
For all the times I never called,
Or thought I would,
Or ignored you,
Or forgot to tell you
How very much you have always meant to me,
And how dearly I love you.


For Kev.

SUNDAY 29th NOVEMBER 2009.

An auspicious day awakes;
It’s my dear sister’s birthday,
Whose worthy ways exist to make mine
Better and who still insists that cards must be sent
And that the pleasantness of presents remains,
And whose day officially announces
The arrival of Christmas.

I still remember her 21st
Celebration back in ’82 when, as a
Youth, and in love for the first time, I drank the
Juice of Eve’s fruit and broke sobriety’s heart, and
Age, which towers over all, carried me
Home to my parents and handed
Them back a man.

The seasonal tree will go up
Today and, as in the previous few years,
It’s the one I delicately carried to the spare room
On the 6th of January; it will be unrobed and guided
Down the stairs so as not to dislodge
The baubles that my dear father
Placed there before he left.

And Jayne feels this loss more
From the distance she is and though
The tenderness of her address is never
Mentioned it’s always there whenever we share
This date apart, and half my heart goes
To her in the post with a couple
Of hopeful scratch cards.


For Jayne Kellett.

SATURDAY 28th NOVEMBER 2009.

She was fiddling in Rome
And almost fell out of bed,
And a sex concussion would have been the least
Of her worries in the face of the fire that was raging
Inside her, but she hitched herself back into position
And took up her mission again.

Though mixing drink with
Fingers at that time of night
Is going to slur any work, but after what seemed
Like a minor imperial reign she eventually came and,
Overwhelmed, fell off to sleep only to wake shaken and
Aching and tender as a tickle.

After rising and deciding
To tackle the wheel of her car
She didn’t get far before having to stop and drop
Her guts in a road side ditch, the dizzy mare should
Have taken care of business before attempting to forage,
But then she is a novice;

Booze should be left to the
Select few who can metabolize
It correctly instead of those who drag their prose
All over its supposed benefits and end up spending
The following day trying to remember exactly where
They did and didn’t get fucked.

Still I love her with all the
Might that Caesar could muster
When he blustered his way across the Rubicon and
Sealed his fate, and if I eventually fall like the empire
Fell then it will have been worth every minute of heaven
And hell that she put me through.

FRIDAY 27th NOVEMBER 2009.

It’s not him
I’ve left,
It’s her,

But when

In pain
She sets
To stir,

And all

Her games
And threats
Return;

The ones

That blame,
And let
Me burn,

And in

Those flames
My sweat
Is heard

Until

She drains
Regretful
Words.

THURSDAY 26th NOVEMBER 2009.

Imagine that your hand is mine,
And mine is yours,
And their voyages
Are already plotted;

That their movements,
Which appeared to be our own,
Are actually each others,
And inclined to refuse us.

Their destinations are obvious,
But the lingered skin
Between is suppler
And takes more of their course,

And as ageless conversation
Passes with the grace of patience,
These hands wander
Onwards towards their ends.

Eventually to reach their mark,
And start to work
As we intended,
Mending any sense of doubt;

They’re in and out; up and down,
They’re making frowns
A long forgotten aspect
Of newly acquired faces,

And upon each other’s bidding
Take us where love’s hidden
Filters collect
Impassioned breath.

WEDNESDAY 25th NOVEMBER 2009.

I come to write about today
But find my thoughts stuck
A quarter of a century ago,
When a few musos grouped
Together and made a little
Tune for Africa, whose long
Drought had clouded the
Land of Ethiopia in hunger
And privation and urgent aid
Was needed. And if in cynicism
We now live I still remember
The elation I felt at this event;
The minister for red tape had
Been evaded, taxes waived
And within a week the crowded
Sound was everywhere and
Instant music soothed us all.
The following year a concert
In north London brought the
World together for a day and
Made more options possible,
Paving the road of 80’s greed
With hope, if only for a short
While, and sweeping aside
The governance of suffering.
More was made of man in such
A short time than had been
Before or would do afterwards,
And even as the World has
Supposedly grown wiser so has
Its appetite increased and it
Now falls to us to try and feed it.

TUESDAY 24th NOVEMBER 2009.

Extend yourself a little
And be amazed how much
More you can achieve,
Even fleetingly,
Begrudgingly,
When you never intended invention,
Or considered creation,
And when you felt energy
Had fled possession.

Hold that thought and
Exhale it with an aim in mind,
A determined kind and
Begin to imagine,
To believe,
Yourself capable of releasing fully,
Of easing your schedule into being,
And furthering purposes
Hitherto sullied.

Reach for the ceiling;
Through the walls and windows
That have pre-supposed
Your life for you,
Your order;
Past the fields that conceal life’s edges,
The fences set to strengthen your cage,
And into the remaining
Unknown stretches.

MONDAY 23rd NOVEMBER 2009.

To drink
And be drunk,
Send
And receive,
Ring
And be rung,
Blend
And believe.

Laugh
And convulse,
Weep
And exclaim,
Ask
And be dumb,
Hear,
And again.

Give
And be took,
Take
And be thawed,
Spin
And be loved,
Fall
And be caught.

Rise
And be brave,
Breathe
And exhale,
Try
And attain,
Sleep
And dovetail.

SUNDAY 22nd NOVEMBER 2009.

I’m sat in a never ending state
Of heart break and repair,
And today I’m attempting to mend,
But tomorrow the wind will blow holes through her hair
And she’ll allude to me again,

And my guilt will be spilled
Down the telephone line.
I will have to disconnect it just to
Get a bit of peace and quiet in front of the riot that is the
Union match this afternoon,

And though I get the many
Laws of cricket the rules
Of rugby still puzzle me even after
All these years, but I’d love to stuff her at the bottom of a
Scrum or haul her into a maul.

Man has no more nobler
Critic than the hissing
Bitch he married in a fit of drink
Induced haze, and left in charge of his children when he
Couldn’t stand her grandeur,

And who now dangles them
In front of me when the
Merest whiff of illness or disease
Appears to sheathe them, or ignores my calls the following
Day after being shouted at.

And now after grinding and
Grating a plate full of
Bubble and squeak I may find the
Tranquility I need to address my shattered cardiac gasket
And kick start its basking.

SATURDAY 21st NOVEMBER 2009.

An obsession with
Seamless alabaster skin,
And the perfect frames
It’s covering will no doubt
Be my undoing,

And as sun-kissed
Hides file past I find
Myself gasping at their
Fastenings and wondering
What I ever saw in cream;

And when Asian and
Oriental wonders of the
Female world uncurl
Their legs in my direction
I’m phallically affected.

And ochre tones lay
Me prone in the closed
Company of memories
Of African women
Chasing me upstairs.

And then I’m spared
Any embarrassment by
The fact that all the
Attractive men have
Beaten me there, again.

FRIDAY 20th NOVEMBER 2009.

The world may turn to hurt me;
To nip and nick
Or peck
And pick me off,
But it will not profit,
For once I’m gone
I will be everywhere:
When it rains I’ll cry,
When it blows I’ll sigh,
When it shines I’ll smile
And come night I’ll lie with you,
And screen your dreams.
When you touch the ground
I’ll reach back,
When you hop
I’ll skip into the space beneath to cushion you,
And when you’re sad
I’ll make a better mood for you
And smooth your path.
And who I am,
My being,
My heart and soul,
My body and mind
Will go beyond the sky
And join the higher universe,
And in communion return to
My beloved forbears.
But I will always,
Always,
Be inside you,
In every memory and mention,
Every sense and sentence,
Every atom of my character,
Every second of my attendance
Has been, and always will be, yours.

THURSDAY 19th NOVEMBER 2009.

There’s a cinema in the town,
A picture house, a flix,
And for the first time in thirty years
A big screen can be seen by walking to it,
And the train can be used for other things,
Although, no doubt, less people will choose to do so
And the station will close because of it;
Irony always requires a victim,
And on this occasion I may well be complicit
In providing one because I will promote this palace
With all my heart and soul until every King, Queen and pawn
Roll through its doors and are reborn.

And even if it moonlights as a
Theatre at the weekend
Its celluloid adventures are as welcome
As an old friend and as magical as memory recalls;
Its new canvas is as grand as any hanging, and its sound
As proud, and I don’t mind a play or two anyway.
Since I was younger than my daughter
My thoughts have wandered the stalls of a nostalgic fleapit,
With its back row communities,
And now I don’t need to envisage, just visit,
And she’ll have a place to take a date to someday,
Like they do in the movies.




For the Junction.

WEDNESDAY 18th NOVEMBER 2009.

So this is the one
I struggle
To double;

To make more sense
Of than
A clause’s length,

Or mention an incident
From the day
Worthy of awe’s remembrance:

An adventure steeped in
My personal luck
And backed by the public’s appreciation;

An inspiration created more than a thousand
Miles away in the mid west
Or passed hand to mouth to me from breath;

An invention of my trade, made flesh and paged for
Next year's eyes to flash upon one
Long afternoon with nothing better to do than read,

And be grateful to the writer for delighting in simple props
Rather than stewing over the cubed blocks that
Were bottlenecking progress to the next day’s wonderful phrases.

TUESDAY 17th NOVEMBER 2009.

We concluded our talk and decided
To work in some order,
So that if,
In future dialogues,
We should be reduced
To screaming
Abuse
We would choose reverse,
Having consulted
Each other first.
Or if blows were thrown upon
Proceedings then
We would refuse to meet
Them with our own,
And martyrdom
Would show us
The error of our ways.
And if,
God forbid,
It came to plates,
And knocking crockery
Across each other’s brow,
Then we agreed to each pick a
Piece,
Place it in the
Post,
And see,
Upon delivery,
Whose saucer was most
Complete,
And therefore win the heat.
How sensible men and women are
When there is 3,000 miles
Worth of swimming
Between them.

MONDAY 16th NOVEMBER 2009.

Out in the night,
In the sealed evening,
And suddenly up above me
Flashes of ash
In the stagnant heights,
But it’s only the ghosts
Of a lamppost reflecting
From telephone wires
Narrating the tales of their day
As they are lit up.

And in the cold,
This little English pall,
I stall and stand cigarette still
As air leaves
My mouth and folds
Into the history of
Clouds above the mist,
And I’m tapped on the
Shoulder and asked for a light,
Which I don’t have.

And in that stretch,
That century of seconds,
I’m reminded that I was due at
The store for my
Nightly case of etched
Facial lines and
Early morning calls,
And tonight, for the
First time in a week, I may just
Buy some smokes.

SUNDAY 15th NOVEMBER 2009.

In the dark you teach me,
And your tutelage leaks into the day,
Where such young mornings live,
And gives wisdom a face.

Unfolding emotions from inanimate
Matter where they curled
Furtively all those years ago,
Closing borders
And sealing their rawness in;
Lead lined and binding my replies.

This you’ve been able to do;
All my denials dug through and earth
Turned, and you have opened me to
Your newly released urgency.

So please stand upon the last handsome
Point of your Eastern seaboard
Whilst I hit upon the west most
Tip of Britain
And let us scream our names to the
Wind and wait till they meet and bind.

SATURDAY 14th NOVEMBER 2009.

The hallway is empty now
Where his pram had been standing
For the last four hours.
Harry is gone home,
And my soul bleeds through
Tight veins
Made paper thin by rain
Inside that escapes
From my
Sight.

My arms are lighter now
After he had fallen asleep there
And woke refreshed.
Smiling when he rises,
When he rests, when his life
Confesses
Its innermost trust,
And covers me
With its
Love.

My heart is barren now
Before the night, and the next,
Till he calls round again.
Gaining in his fight with
Gravity, aiming for a head’s
Height in
Order to draw
Me more to
His blue
Eyes.

FRIDAY 13th NOVEMBER 2009.

My hair surgeon made a suggestion,
Recommending I try harder to be truthful
And farther from the stars of imaginary space,
So I placed myself at love’s mercy;
Prostrated my shape beneath her gaze
And lamented the number of months
I’d wasted collecting age.

The private deals life makes with you
Whilst asleep are impacting upon the
Future now that it has arrived, and I’m in
Middle of it, but as my love smiles in
Isolation I mirror her in punctuation, and we
Thank God almighty for the inventiveness
Of his secret servants.

And my son and I will exchange places
In the night, not so very far ahead: my hair
Recedes as his breeds, my teeth crash as his
Flash, my eyes dim, his gleam
And as my strength fails his will prevail
And he’ll end up carrying me through
The dawn of the next new day.

I’ve still not grieved for my father’s loss;
I’ve been putting it off. I’ve not suffered
Like I should have, like I would have had I
Thought more. But sudden death
Measures you, and with time it’s easier to deal
With; sweeter now I’ve got some hardcore
Love, top shelf stuff, supporting me.

THURSDAY 12th NOVEMBER 2009.

You
Are at the end of the word on the screen;
I
Answer beneath, and
We
Are between.

I
Am on the phone at the end of the lead;
You
Answer with breath, and
We
Are agreed.

You
Are at the end of the road and its yield;
I
Answer to greet, and
We
Are Revealed.

I
Am on the floor at the end of the week;
You
Answer my reach, and
We
Are complete.

WEDNESDAY 11th NOVEMBER 2009.

So how do I write silence?
Try to represent the
Emptiness of a blank page,
Maybe,
Or repeat the word 160 times
To fill 2 minutes (I counted).

Address a thesaurus for
More sonorous
Adjectives to scream ‘Be quiet’
With from my type,
Or gripe about the lack of
Respect this
Simple institution fetches
Now, and whether
To partake of it upon the
Nearest Sunday
Cenotaph commemoration
Or on the day itself.

Attempt to be profound,
But no doubt
In the depths of this opinion
Sound as thin as
The letters minted here.

Or simply ask you,
My dear friend, not to speak
Of this piece or
Note it; never read it aloud
Or re-post it
But instead linger now for
The right
Amount of reverential seconds.

TUESDAY 10th NOVEMBER 2009.

At the end of an arm’s length
Is another, and it’s
Connected to the mystery that is
The other.

That most rough cut mould, that soul parcel,
Partnered by a heart,
Marshaled by a mind and bent to
Invention;

Tendered by desire’s armies
And calmed by the bruising music of
Human contact, or inflamed
By the same.

Swarming across the Earth in
Numbers unseen before in a
Being as evolved of form
As this,

Whilst each little glitter
Piece is individual to the point of
Repulsion from the majority
Of the mass.

But just ask me my name,
Paint words and facts and bridge the gap,
And slip behind my eyes
And ears and mask,

And entwine you fingerprints
With mine, deciphering the hidden
Self and helping solve
The crime of emptiness.

MONDAY 9th NOVEMBER 2009.

The glass screen flared with images
Operated elsewhere,
Transmitted by the littlest things
And whistling to us their condition.
Canvases changed with age, replaced
With plasma and crystal displays,
And the images inflamed;
Coloured and cleaned and screaming.

We passed the information from these,
And newspapers
And magazines, onto each other
Via keys and computer rebootings
Until the shapes of events had been
Sent back to themselves and, with
Impact, altered
The output of their original acts.

The ignorant world for once heard
What was being
Said of it and remedied its visuals,
And we good folk boasted of our
Roles, and told taller tales to all who
We mailed, but when more were
Falsely conceived we
Declared war on the story weavers.

SUNDAY 8th NOVEMBER 2009.

The Cenotaph stands
For all those hands to reach
Back from the land of the dead
And receive our token red gestures.

The blood of foreign fields
Where ran and kneeled and fell
The keenest of all, who still do so in desert
States more distant where other poppies fester.

Shelter by the entity of this great
Shape and wait to place your blotted
Paper wreath in celebration and mourning,
And remember the loss of all our glorious ancestors.

SATURDAY 7th NOVEMBER 2009.

Your pants
Are past your arse
And being rolled like
Homemade Cuban cigars
Down your inner thighs,
Until they land
In the sand that escaped
From my sleeves when I started
Handling these dreams;
Such a time it’s been since I found myself
Graced by this sight.
I have to wipe away the stain of water
From my eye corners, so wide are they
Being made, and wider still
Are smiles until
They puncture cheek space
And muscles brace themselves
For more.
Certain words were
Invented to
Prevent us from
Learning a vocabulary
Above our station, and the profanity
Of ages falls from my tongue
As it touches your cunt,
And all fresh and fruity,
I’m not going anywhere, for it’s my duty
To the room to stay as groomed as possible,
And race you
Onto our mutual bus.

FRIDAY 6th NOVEMBER 2009.

Feel like the shiver that shook God's liver and
Told him to get off his fat drunken arse and make
A world for fools to pool in.

Feel like the first soul out of heaven's hanger who's
Been floating around the mansions of the world
Looking for a body to attach itself to.

Feel like the found person who trespassed on the
Surface of the Earth and was asked to stay,
As long as he would love it forever.

Feel like a kid who just fell from his mother's tit,
And landed in the arena of surely must have
Beens, and was handed its key.

Feel like the never was who found the door to the
Ever is and entered it without even knocking
Upon it's ornate surface.

Feel like the last person in the class to be told they
Passed the test and that the net that caught the
Best has irreparably burst.

Feel like the end of the rainbow that sowed its
Worth in the stony ground only for it to be found
By the lowliest man in the queue.

THURSDAY 5th NOVEMBER 2009.

When we remember the Fifth of November
I never forget Guy Fawkes.
For centuries,
By fiat, we were ordered to
Celebrate the deliverance of James
From Gunpowder, treason and plot.
From what was and was not.
But from the harrying to the
Carrying of coal miners’ banners
We’ve been hounded in the North,
By scoundrels and force,
And now even the communal pyres,
Borrowed from All Hallows eve, where we
Used to burn unwanted furniture, have been
Discouraged or altogether outlawed by the
Decrees of Parliament’s disreputable men. Fireworks
Still fly at civic assemblies, but the old message, as
Ever, has been buried beneath the ashes of enterprise.
No more balloon headed effigies wearing last year’s
Clothes and stuffed with straw hauled around the
Neighborhood for pennies, no more runny nosed urchins,
No more searching for reasons behind the barrels.
And even as South Yorkshire Fireman strike, tonight the
Sight of elaborate displays may or may not remind that acts
Of terrorism are as old as the stones, and that the man with
The wick in his hand is not always the one behind the plan.
Guido was from here and I feel a kinship to him and his
Grievance and, though all were eventually strung, he is the
One we recall and name this evenfall after, and some remember him
More fondly these days than the King we were once dragooned to exult.

WEDNESDAY 4th NOVEMBER 2009.

Bang on the door,
And run away,
And of course
Wait for them to say
“Fuck off!”
Before launching
Your eggs at their head.
And when they’ve gone
Transfer the dog shit
From your pocket to
Their letter box
And knock again.
Oh the delights
Of tonight, when our
Mischief ran riot,
And those neighbours
We hated
Were treated to
All manner of
Frivolous vandalisms,
And kept their washing
Lines idle, and a
Bucket of suds
To scrub naughty
Words off walls,
And locked up their
Cats and dogs.
But now there
Appears no need of it,
As its disease has spread
To the rest of the
Year’s evenings,
Where kids are more
Ambitious with
Their viciousness.

TUESDAY 3rd NOVEMBER 2009.

In the mirror
Is an image of me:
A snapshot of today’s back lot
Where my features try to park
In between lines
That have been singed by time,
And counter signed.

Behind my face,
The face of one who has serially killed
Themself for twenty years,
Is another projection of
Me, another reflection
Bouncing back from the gristle and skin,
And detaching itself;
Peeling from the feelings that
Have bombarded into it,
And imparted
Nothing.

My sinews to you have snapped,
Synapses crashed,
Circuits fried;
Wires tied in differently coloured knots
Are clotted,
And as the awning of my judgement
Pushes itself away from me
I am revealed.

MONDAY 2nd NOVEMBER 2009.

Through the vanguard of the weather’s army
I fought my way to the store;
Lines of leaves advancing at street level as
The remaining tree dwellers unhooked themselves
And made violently for my eyes.
The almost visible wind made a mockery of hat
Wearing, but only glued on baseball caps are seen
These days, and even they’ve stayed out of the streets
In the face of this gale. And eventually the sentinels
Of atmosphere’s memory saw me for the threat my
Feet projected and unleashed their worst upon me.
A shot volley of some distant valley’s rain attempted
To pierce my cheeks, but even water wasn’t up
To the test of another attempt, and relented, and though
There was a distant drum of thunder there was no cymbal
Crash as the last of the day’s persuasions attacked me.
Still it was a short walk, and a smaller list, and with ear
Phones plugged in to avoid the wind’s transmission
And inanities of family shopping days, it would be relatively
Painless. The new two for one’s were on today so for only an extra
Tune’s worth I searched a little longer for something new,
And was gone before the queues increased too much. Shoulders
Hunched with bags full of Sunday supplements and ready
For a harder haul back home, but the fortune of ordinary
Headwinds prevailed, and this one was a tail, and helped
Me along, and with hedge combed hair and arm cables
Straining I made my way in and returned to you.

SUNDAY 1st NOVEMBER 2009.

All Saints’ Day
Saves my soul from wandering
Too far from
Its carcass,
Strewn funeral like along the couch,
Wherein my mind crouches
From the honourable
Turn of the world,
And its external journeys,
Which do not wish my spirit yet,
And sentence it to
One more revolution at least
Inside the meat of me.

It’s not worthy of walking the
Tread to heaven,
Or taking hell’s elevator,
Not today, good sir,
Not in its current state:
Hounded by the physical effects
Of my psyche’s desires
To the extent that poor ventilation
Suffers it to exhaustion,
And it begs for an exit,
But, as the rest of me, the best of me
Will have to stay and
See this day through.