tit for tat

FIRST PRINCIPLES

I am consisitently
Falling to pieces

Sticking plasters
Won't do -

Hallielujah
I must go inside
Into the room of
Blood and breath,
Produce half
Baked senarios

*

False ideals
Scatter blood fertiliser
But are men any wiser?

Demob
Debrief
Get friendly with your
Cells, let hell rise
From your shoes - see
The men to kill.

DRIFTER

Be still
But while you sleep
Watch the unfolding

You too are one of the clouds
Let go of your rain your
Dream of sadness.
Lighten up.

LOVE GENERATION

Me big love generator -
I beam beatific smiles
Over garden walls

I respond to passing clouds
With reflective eyes

I am a psychadelic pool -
Sometimes aware if something dies.

MY TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES

Love is really all there is;
Someone may have told you
It's strength, reason or bliss

But love hums in telegraph pole
And mobile phone, it harmonises
Through aerials on the church-tower

Singing out, this power is all there is,
Illuminating soul and broadcasting
Humanitarian news on the hour,
That truly, Love is all there is.

THE ORIGINS OF SPECIES

Were not connected!
Someone packages our food
Tidies our dead, dresses
Our bodies, fills us with
What to believe or buy

If you weep your lucky -

We need to understand
The Origin of Species
Is subtle, smaller and greater
Than anything we can imagine.

WHAT I LEARNT AFTER NEARLY
EIGHT HOURS AT THE OFFICE

Th facility to create
Poetry is not exactly the same
As the facility to operate
A Gestetner photocopier

THE REAL THING

It's not real you know...

Me talking to you
Openly about my
Preferences, dislikes
Politics... holiday plans

Only when the heart
Is in the mouth and
It has a specific flavour,
Whether scared or exultant,
Is it real.

THE CYNIC

You like hearing your voice

You get followers
To play it from the rooftops

You send it from bell-towers
So it echo's suggesting Infinity

Belivers try to touch you -
Your greatest quality is you
Are invisible

ACCIDENT

Fly away bird up
To the fishing-line tree

Swing through the seasons
Lose your feathers in the breeze

MIND AND HEART

The mind
Is a stardust collecting bucket
- mine has a frayed rope

The heart
Is an ingot that has
Cooled, gives off smoke

The voice is a running river
- A highway for logs and wood.

My poetry is choking me.

DIVINE SPARKS

Do cars and bikes
Have the divine right
To the roads?

Do clouds
have an exclusive right
To the sky?

When you put around
The race-track of my heart

My brain is congested with
an Infinity of sparks

SET ME FREE

My eyes don't work
They're always weeping
Too busy crying
To let them see

My head don't work
It's always afraid
Of the dark in the
Corner - let me be!

I'd like to be
Where I am not -
My Buddha hair is
Tangled to hell,
Greased with gel

With each thoughts
I tied myself - I'll
Take my misperceptions
To the knife, slice them
To set me free.

MASTER & SLAVE

Oh computer
My gentle friend
You are a pool I scry
For hours on end

You sped up my life
Make me more capable
But tie my brain with
Impossible knots

I adore your wires
(Even though, I am not
Sure exactly what
they're for)

But you are a god

I squint into your pixels
Follow your bouncing
Screen-saver
And enjoy our pure
Relationship - of master
& slave.

SCALES

As clean as a a dust-mite
Soaked in dew

As graceful as a skateboard
Flipping off a curb

As important as the next
Syllable in this flow

But beware of blowing it
Out of proportion;
A synapse firing wrong -

Once you light the touchpaper,
Love is the only force
That will hold large feeling
With small thought

SIMPLY...

Simply Entrancing
This modern tapdancing
wITH his Big smile enhancing
The glow of the sequence

oh no! Cruel World!
Avert your eyes as
The star snags his sleeve
Tears off a huge strip
And gets out of sequins

THE YIN OF LANDSCAPES

tested landscapes
As open as the Himalayas or
Rooted as The Northern Pennines
..Soil caressing and easy on the
Eyes as The Yorkshire Wolds,

But I want to leave this place

I crave the virginal Downs
That lead to the suicide drop
Down the white infinity of Albion's
Cliffs, for a single moment
A man defying gravity.

BEHIND VIRTUAL MONKEY BARS

I crave both company & punctuation
But you never have your perfume to spend,
Or heavy spit in your mouth

I see your pictures like a fairy tale
Revealing the magic you want to show -

But the only organs
I believe in, are those
Stitched into your nervous system -
Your personal branch line of sparks
Ferries sensational communications
From orb to ear to touch

Yet you have no blood.
I flood your veins with ink by day
Drop metal words and hear the heart's
Rhythm as you draw breath -

There must be thousands, millions like you
Toothless extracts with information at fingertips -
Atrocities and wars...
Shopping and fashion....
Entertainment -
The grinning Ant and Dec

These days I am only ever truly human
When a child of dark flies a kite
Into it's own ten year rented open blue sky
Recalling my torn china blue sky.

PRINCE CHARMING

I'm dashing creative fullsome,
An illegitamate prince -
Do you want my autograph?
(Police check grubby prints...)

My criminality begins at home
Grows in the brain the soul...

Meanwhile, my shiny smile ignites
For vulnerable strangers,
with a total love, in the
News I almost own.

NIGHT-HAWK

TV hell keeps me warm
In my delicious sleep

Stupid pre-made serials
For the brain to chew

BLOOD NIGHT

3am on an convoluted island
Of thought. I'm a life hater -

Give me lustrous shiny silver stars -
Untouched by blood's corruption

No metal fusion ever carried
Such heart-ache, love, disease

BEAUTY AND THE BLACK HOLE

So easy to imitate -
Were spread like butter on toast
opening up like a rosy vessel
Our heart-beat and breath roll

I stare at our adventure
The red wormhole opens -
I want to fall
Into an infinity of stars
But just touch gravity...

MICRO-CREED

Mellow daisy stabbed
Bloodshot eye
I counted clouds today
Fussing the sky

You, my heartache
You, my reason why

I take a dandelion head
Blow it away

You should understand
This prayerful killing field
Where fantasies are real

JACK IN SACOPHAGI

3.30 - I notice
Body systems
Shutting down
The brain-stem (Fizzzz)
Still seems to rattle

I have views
The ad-men placed -
I'm my own fairy-tale
I wear my regalia

Amazingly
I move finger-tips
My hearts a dustbin
As someone sexy
Taps my dustbin lid

Creation will come
When I'm completely gone
And rotted away
As the publicity melts

HANGED MAN

Got to get to the roots
I'm studying my head
See corpses grow more
Lovely till they glow

And I watch the sun emerge
From the cold ground -
Caged birds are silent.

They hanged me last tuesday
I'm still seeing ghosts

Pretty girls, disrobed blow
In newspapers, like animals in zoos
...Those accounts of bombs strapped
To children disturb me most.

But I can't go up
I can't go down
I think this worlds a funny farm
And humans are the crop.

A RADIO PLAY -
THE MAKING OF A BRITISH
FUTURE'S DEALER

Formal cut - no jokes today
Incendiary wit? - mind tested
In Kyoto - intelligence polished
at Eton - In the field of battle
haw haw (boyish laughter)
I'll wager half a litre of grog
or wine I'll be President...

*

Sunsets - they just burn away
Pointless. I always dress to smile
Crisp pin-point attire - I keep to paths
My Dad's naked power first touched

*

(Flora gives birth to a son...9lb's)
He gives up drinking for a while

*

No time ...for fragrance or useless
Peaceful abstracts - our tribal elders
Schedule my advancement.
Fast-track to play the game of crazy golf
Of buy and sell.
I network - minute - observe - redefine
Legal? - I load camoflage weapons - re-arm
To mould the collective Party stance.
I pledge allegiance to the bank

*

Flora gives birth to a girl

*

Can't keep newspapers at bay - so far
my Saudi refinery is unknown. And the small
Print obscures three or four offshores.

I live in some god forsaken spot alone
(A tax-free Island) - lie low old bean
The winds of change will soon blow over

*

But what do our enemies know?...

Though I have a loaded gun at my head
If the recession bites hard I can surely offload
My car, my house, my wife
My stamp collection and my Boys Own.
But Cedric my lad is non-negotiable
I would tell all my lies - just to keep him.

THE CITY OF OPPORTUNITY

I will take roots
And petals and grow -
An incredible hybrid.
The roots are sewers
The petals are skyscrapers
And this baby is New York City

THE FLORIST'S DIARY

Slick with lavender oil
I pull it quickly out,
Wave it to the baying crowd
Then with my fingers self censor
As I insert the machine back in.
My hair is a mess today
Really need to shave my legs

I don't like the winking Eco
Red bulbs or dressing in torn
Tights - but it's only
Every Monday night...

***

I'm still a regular girl.
I go to Church service
And do the flowers - Gladioli
And white lilies my favourite.
I believe in scripture and our Saviour

But my penances with a
Dildo are still legendary...

And when the men are nearly sated
In the front row and I'm counting notes
Backstage, I wonder what my soul looks like -
How puzzled my own face is.

HEAVY AND LIGHT

I believe in non-corporeal
Woodland fairies too light
To inprison with hands...

I believe in ample car parking
Tesco vouchers and the
Need for sturdy carriers

I believe in vitamins, juicing
And the medicinal value of the
Broccoli and cabbage families

But once I have cut away disease
And boxed up life, how can I
Realize my extended roots?

NIETZSCHE RAP

I thought I was the hub
In your lubed wheel
But I am hollow
I will snuff out
Your harmony
Dismember the
Alphabet and planet;
Take us back fifty years
Put graffiti on the last
Culturally sensitive cave walls

Your positive I'm negative
I get furry kicks out of
Transformer kisses

...Do not trust a single word
I say. Anything made of breath
Is just cloud-speak, insincere.

***

Writing with the light out
Campaigning in the dark;
Over counter drugs
Free up the log jam but
There is black blood in my veins
Like sluggish rivers in Chernobyl

***

I am the hidden 'O' - ugly side.
Your heart has raised questions
Bloody questions,'Can it be better'
'Is it true?' - I want feeding with
Sunlight, heat and truth.
My thought eats further until
In a glorious echoing universe
I open my slack snake mouth
(for a mouth is all I ever really was)
And swallow the existential Source.

SPRING IS SHUT

I sing Verdi and Puccini.
I want things to open up
Dramatic, alive as if its Spring -
But this Welsh daffodil is closed
Like some rusted cash register.

INJURY-ENQUIRY-SENTENCE

After the Inquiry
You are sentenced
In a storm of vitriol -
Each press bulb flash
Hits like a minor stroke.

You consciously give love to
Every member of the room the jury
- Even the blurred public gallery

They sentence you.
Roll the dice.

You look at their faces -
I'm not sure whether they
Will let me off lightly or
Comfort with random
Quotes from The Bible

(Meanwhile someone dour washes
Down the seat of the electric chair).

THIS IS A BIT SKETCHY

Some people love complexity and
Systems, trap logic as if it's real.

I use charcoal and pencil;
By smudging verbs and
Anglo-Saxon maxims
I sketch the wind the mist
So tight I get lost in it.

IN EDEN

Trees should stay green
And lovely

The Earth should stay firm
Never quake - never flood.

Men should only eat veggies
Fruits and herbs and
Read stimulating literature

And when they walk
Be finely balanced as any
Acrobat or conjurer,
Not favouring either
The left or right foot.

RUDE STICKS

I jesture with them
Cross them, twirl them
and when I'm totally bored
Drop them - they float down
A dark industrial river

And you,
As the wind lifts your pretty
Cotton dress, blow bubbles up
From your child's bottle of froth

And from a hundred yards away,
Stood on the other bank,
I see each thought rise, each
Thought beguiling, shimmering,
As vulnerable as your head.

IN PRAYER

In prayer I become simple
Trusting the heart to open
Like a polyp, like a muscle
On the great grey sea-shore

While feeling outside the sinew
Of tides that could rip me apart
Dashing me up on rocks

But won't destroy me (I trust)
Because something unites me with
All the worn objects, all the memories
Inhabiting the great bay's curves.

APPLAUSE PAUSE

Clap clap clap
Put one hand against medal
(subtle involuntary report - knife
Wound - Star Wars - Self Defense)
All for the National good.

Rub your sister's memory
And brother's - pause men to
Salute the sunset in an atom.

Until years after Pearl Harbour...
All change - now
USA gentlemen love the banquets
In disintegrating Japanese bars
Plenty jobs plenty silicon chip

***

Bang bang bang
Keep pulling the smoke
Over your eyes - trigger
Death smoke slides
Happy down the long bore

"Slo Mo Mr Joe
You dealer fixer man -
Tricky dickey(ha ha)"

And the fixer's friends
Think forgiveness is
Old breath, a disease,
And plan to splinter men's
Faces with hand grenades
And sell them cheap

Clap clap clap
Using major credit cards
In most larger capitols
The clientele get drunk
On American Karaoke.

THE DIVINE MYTH OF HOW RAINBOW ANGELS
CAME TO EARTH AND USED THEIR SACRED
GLOBULAR GUNS TO IMPREGNATE OUR
APE-LIKE ANCESTORS

Heres the suppressed
Hirsute underground ape myth
Handed down from Silverback
To Silverback -
An oral grunt myth

To identify an angel, you scare them
Open them up - shine your
Light on their stars inside.
And in the duodenum of their sewer
Dark, icicles give birth to hybrids.
Joy in the silvered packages.

Such deposits favour
A world of pollution, new evolution
Mammalians producing milk.
Worlds, hidden within whorls.

***

Love them - hate them - but
Sweet Lord, never ignore them!
Those great ones - the efficient ones
Inscribing perfect silhouettes above us,
The great maestro EYES hanging
Down from dark wings
Which cool the fornicator's below

They controlled the hairy men
Depositing all their new
Ape wisdom inside

Lending delicate thrusts
To the uptight sealed dark -
But not enough it seems.
They intervened with rainbows.
Dark intelligent rainbows.

That gave us an alien instinct - our
Animal parts became slaved in tandem
To their powerful wings.
The Arch hierachy, waited,
Seemingly for an Eternity
(Innocent ones, not perverted)
To float transformer smiles
Onto this planet -
That made us feel happy (of sorts)....

The morning when we walked upright
It was their star of Joy.

And so we have been birthed, the inheritors
Are we to swoon!? Applaud - Fly to the moon?

Instead I'd rather eat, watch the news
Drink beer, slice salted ham before
The TV and consume our goulish mixtures
Of animal-vegetable-mineral parts

To keep free
To keep our impression that
We - are - not - slaves
And so I zip up my pants
And walk to work nine to five
At a bank in Islington high street.

PRIMAL THERAPY

Go into a room alone
Switch on the light
Clench your fists

And beat up the furniture
Extract sadness from cushions
Wring joy from exquisite
Patterned curtains

And if they ask tearfully
In the staged Soap Opera
'Is it love in your heart?'
Put your size twelves
Through the widescreen.

CLINICAL LOVE

I could dissect sunsets
But I would only get burned

Worlds turn to deflect
This cold gaze of love

ENIGMA CODES

Manning wires
Deciphering
Need into different
Languages

Some days
Were Cyrillic -
Others Roman -
Only your breath curls,
Translates into 'flower'.

HENRY THE EIGHTH
THE ALCOHOLIC

Dredging the spirit
Filling decanters
Full of memories
Blurring
Emotions

Admiring the burr
And glow of a goblet
To forget for a moment
All those chopped heads,
Floating in the red wine.

CARTOON TRADES

A politician
Requires adders
In the grass

A stripper
Needs many layers
To their personalty

Comic poets
Umpteen bats in
Their gothic belltower

SUNSHINE ANGEL

Sunshine angel
On polymer wings
Sunshine angel
Superior being

Your head is polished
Your legs reflect peace
If you don't fly lower
You'll get hit by geese

LOOKING OUT AT MY OLD WINDOW I SEE...

My Buddha head glows, lumanescent stones from the
Earth dot my eyes, and through streaked double
Glazing, a Chinese arrangement of snow and trees
Balances Yorkshire grit. I digest the amazing details
In the picture; there's an A to Z of flowers, open handed,
or bulbs slowly opening up like a baby's fist.

I was ill then and that scene was a facade hiding
A rotting palace, illness seeping into my soul.
Now I have clean air, a new perspective
A head with new thoughts, but still

Those closest to me are furthest away.
In truth, in a strident year centuries of fantasy
Have been exposed to the surgery of light.
My saving grace, is the world is still full of good people,
And I, despite the distortion,
Are still one of them.