The Kitchen

Everything happened in the kitchen.
She was sentenced to life
but a week before
couldn't believe the time
went so quick
but we became a dying horse
under beating pressure.

Everything happened in the kitchen
the twin towers took hold of the planes
Your Dad explained we'd never forget this day
The papers asked if it was the end of the world
Nostradamus sleeping still in his grave

Everything happened in the kitchen
Legs made a v and eyes marked the sky
 but then we disagreed
until the water, either way,. ran dry

Everything happened in the kitchen.
Well, not everything but a lot.

No formula

2020 and we see the staples
in a society of stockpilers
How many configure.
It's a squeeze to get on the first train
at the expense of a neighbour's sway

some cupboards full
without a care for those
who must entertain hunger and
then bathe in their own shit
that's before we've gotten to the pandemic

My wife must solely feed our baby next week
Because there's no formula in a pandemic.



Trust me

Trust me to have writers block in a pandemic.
I'm not seeing anyone about the town though! Most of my writing is done on bus journeys, but I haven't been on a bus in months. Anyway...Here is something I started. 

Cars line the front
as if they are in mourning
They'll soon get moved along
by heads who don't need
the sea to stomach
their thoughts today.


ps music production is kicking off with more time I have. Expect to see more music on here than writing perhaps?

Petrol

I wrote this with 'I trawl the megahertz' in mind. Everything feels pretty surreal! 
March 20.
Petrol never smelt so pure...
Mask on. A nurse, slumped at
the back of an empty bus,
can barely afford the sunshine.
She is on a conference call
to a fantasy land where there
are no ladders and she is
royalty through occupation alone.

Earphones in. 

She is miles away from an eviction notice
and every mile she runs is for her thought process alone. 
She has money untied in her account
that can be any currency but sterling.
She's just awaiting the gun.

But as the driver puts his foot down

she is rocked back to reality,
A witness to groups flocking beaches.
Hoarders who would let their neighbours swim
then drown in their own waste.
They've been taught to fend for
themselves for years, 
when were they suddenly going to change?

She realises that her time on the front line will be an age.


Beyond this time is white noise.

No cornerman or hydration
But if she could hazard a hope
she'd be in a cafe in central Paris.
Awaiting a Calvados, followed by a stroll along the seine
Ready to be swept off her feet by moonlight.
Watching the tower lights. but until then...

she sets foot in the elevator,


and realises her time on the front line will be an age
.


Hi Vis

Homelessness in a hi vis
locked in the commute
of sharply dressed suits
Trying to double
their lung capacity
with half of his

But for that hi vis
he'd simply be homeless.

For Roo

As Schubert offers an upright,
to those fixed, blue eyes
ascends the octaves over the house,
Our time gently flies
A morning sweep, curtain beams,

I come to the conclusion
that you'll be in an observatory one day
If not by occupation then certainly in spirit.

And, at times, the world will try
and remove you from these observations
and I will try and keep you with them

It will be a tug of war until my end.

The Press Need Us

The  press  need  us  restless,
To  play  fetch  with  bitter sentiments 
(that lack any substance). 
To possess a disposition of others
which can be echoed by broadcasters.
Protecting top jobs and big wigs investors.
The press need us restless
(more than we need them) 

And if any fox tries to escape this
They hound the living life out of her.








Throw a blanket down

Throw a blanket down -
Insulate a daydream.
You are one of many in a dead end,
sick and tired of waiting.
and as you falter to the window
to smoke your soul for better times...
Throw a blanket down.

Throw a blanket down -
Insulate hope
For the many stood for a common good
and as they have you dressed down
like an old greyhound
who couldn't run fast enough,
whose heart was down the drain
before a shot was fired...
Throw a blanket down.

Throw a blanket down -
Insulate the good times.
Where refresh wasn't so important
and approval wasn't currency
and you couldn't get so far fetched
within your own community...
Throw a blanket down.

Know that many had your back
and every system  has to crash.



The train station

The train station.

A tanked up football fan
singing over an 8 piece brass band.

A fusion of blue language.

The place is scale electrix hectic.

hanging doves look down
on us as if we're all mad.

Spitfire prams, frostbitten hands
No one knows where they're really going.

But that Shakin Stevens cover makes the rush okay

 Merry Christmas everyone.*

Stockholm Syndrome?

Perhaps you needed the early moon
or the hangover of the storm
or couldn't leave your punctured bike
under sheets of tarpaulin

Perhaps you were meeting with God,
howling the hills for a love,
who gave the sea the definition it deserved

Perhaps you were just content with an open plan_
Your bathing bones kidnapped by the cold.

Perhaps it was the ring pull of cans of brew,
which I've never seen you sink
or that elusive drug deal
in the sober precinct.

Or perhaps, under the shelter...

you were let down by the system.

bigots next to me

Let them win the jackpot.
Something to stop them describing
the bite of every breed of dog.

A hot potato
where Middle England's ammo
is fired with shallow joy -
Solutions splashed on the back
of picture postcards
selling the seaside's decline -
Where rain talk is favoured over
blistering sunshine-
where ghosts now roam empty halls
that once stood host to tea room dances,
gentle kisses from doting lovers
And django lead second chances

and somewhere my daydreams
get swept up in all of this.
I'm sentimental, you're instrumental
in the middle of every week

let them win

(or give me a pair of headphones.)

Here comes the sun

In six months time, we'll know the routine
Here comes the sun*
Nina thumping on the keys
Beaming sunshine, gentle sweep

Here comes the sun...

I can hardly wait


(Written the week before my first baby boy is due.)

*Here comes the Sun by the Beatles (perf Nina Simone)

Tin cans

I get used to their bloom. 

The places they're found
The joy they bring
A tunnel escape
for the voiceless opera

I get used to the blues
of their fading spectrum
Flight wreckage
from a budget airline
never cleared 

I get used to the way they held hope for so many answers,
 offered none, but enough for one more


And one more 

Biscuit foil sky / pyro pink

Biscuit foil sky

Sugar screams 
coming from the high tide.


It's a picture night designed

for heavy shoulders 
formed 

for carrying so much noise. 


Gulls grace the sea. 


I hope anyone in need

gets the chance to see 
this.


Biscuit foil sky.

Sea swimmers have soup in their veins 

I push a pram away from the sun, 

 transfixed on its stand off with the moon 

It backs down and bleaches the sky pyro pink... 


Others no longer focused on patchwork pavements either. 

open mic night

Open Mic Night

Outside the cats lay lifeless,
tenth spent. 

Street kids invest
ungodly hours
wondering if home
is asleep enough
to return yet —

Inconclusive, 

their hearts sink
as the chip shop light's dim.
The last one sunken as
even his phone charge
rejects him. 

Oil poured
down the drain,
the smell of vinegar
finds a new salt 
in the sea air. 

Stumbling from the station pub
a stray in a stetson does his best
to reel off a soliloquy
which was born somewhere between 
9/11 and a damaged heart.

One by one — a sequence of
single hung shutters
put him back in his place,
a solitary mouthpiece in the dark. 

Inside it's battle of the beards,
placebo folk.
A platform for undiscovered
talent to show their worth


Some do.

Lying rough

She was lying rough
& I'd finally saved enough
to buy a resonator
(I fetched her medicine too)

She was a Queen Bee
One who left my company for good.
and every time I scaled the stairs
I saw her in my bed.
So I took it to the 2nd hand shop
who told me it was worthless.

I umd and arred, took the money, got drunk.

I was lying rough. no her. no resonator. no medicine.

Up the hill

Every week

up the hill

the bus is touch and go

 Folks on board discuss their health

Every week they look unhealthier

the bus is touch and go

They get off.

Their seats soon taken

(mention smoke)




The birdsong 3.52am

The bird song is a landlord cashing a deposit
from a couple who won't get any sleep
cos the man below is a wayward soprano
He shrieks at the top of his voice
revs the fuck out of his stereo
They've got guitars and plants and idle optimism
But he's that cream that never sours until an
inevitable, avoidable crash.

The bird song are his friends who bail him out,
wire through his account. So he can straggle down the hill
on autopilot to get more fuel..A bag full.

The bird song is the shop who serve him
No concern of the state he's in
Part of a building society cashing in
His walls closing, theirs expanding (still standing)

The bird song is 3.52am. I want some sleep.

The left give up

Bent over s-d-r-a-w-k-c-a-b
Short of straight answers
Facts are foiled,
used up scratch cards 
Voting records 
line top shelves -
Adult magazines
for the few [not the many]
So many still buy bright
from the bottom.

Billie Holiday is
drowned out
by a low exhaust
She sounds desperate & drained
My legs are heavy
stuck to the floor
I don't feel like doing
anything noteworthy
Because if I try
I'll be by her side.

These days,
I see many photos of
launderettes
I don't know what each
represents.

Perhaps hope for a rare kind
of co-operation

Turning Ninety Three

Such fervent excitement.
She couldn't sleep turning Ninety Three.

Now morning, with her good hand, she takes on a television score
A pause for entertaining the common discourse
Her mind's eye flickers in to life

Music brings the sun. Sunflowers open bask
and then silence_____ Weak kneed she asks

I've still got a few years left haven't I?

This quiver was me as a child hopeful
Christmas hadn't run it's course
as the tinsel came down,
leaving grief stricken walls
and the pine needles met up in the pan
for the last sorry time.

'Yes, of course' my answer - automatic, assuring.

As the conductor rests. She's gone.
We go back to entertaining.
We hope to have her back on again. (soon)



This was about my Nan in law. How her dementia seems to come and go. How it's all invisible and unpredictable)  I also took a lot from this _  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp6c_oG1SBk