Grimbeau

Four chinooks beetle low underhead
describing a rough diamond formation
slow but faster than cars that kerb crawl past
I wonder how the giant laurel appears to them
As They flourish overnight
Picture all those roots crammed into a ballooning charcoal bucket
and then pretend to persuade me to give it up
as a bad job that never was never worth doing
Only instead to sidle off over the broken biscuit brown grass
Wing it on one engine back to base camp
smile back knowingly at some all weather gnomes
who count us out and count us back like orphans
up to their necks in sump oil wild lolling
wisely on a riddled crimson fence post
entangled in a spider’s knitting
briskly inside a pike eats the crackling radio,
Baltic salmon bask in the fridge, all lost at sea suffering
opiate withdrawal sweats we twitch & cringe
Then I see you sliding slippery eel wise, sending us a sign from beyond,
which when it is decoded reads
‘we’re not ready for you yet. Pal’
~
Till all the seas run dry, my nose.
Till all the seas run dry
Abdabs scream blue murder
Till all the seas run dry with blood
When all the seas run dry…
Enforced radio silence over wrought after a hard night’s day
Churning down the dairy with hairy Mary
wary of her sudden subtle mood swings—
the purpose of this mission: moan
~
Big match called off by bye bye blackbirds
wretched car phones yelp outside
world made worse by cheap shite airlines,
five hoppity hops to nirvana time
& limp back on yer tod,
sip true levelling vodka juice ,
no sleep till dawn for tribal drones
passing over after bringing down
patchwork dirigibles on burnt out homes
Ratty sits now sucking an olive
Now spilling a Martini dry
shaken but unstirred by those loud bangs
No hard feelings where there aint none in
Yesterday the pike with jam on
Today the frozen salmon cordon
Encouraging the Privet hedge to part red waters
Will you pass milk & honey
The silken money
To mellow my chlorinated slaughter
For if you not for who
Mirror under water cracks
Call grimalkin get hope back
I am hearing you
In conversation
Singing through the nosegay of fucked up floribundal
Only in conversation mind you
~

I run things over in my head occasionally
Deliberately or by accident
Take the right option
At the top of the stairwell
For an example of this
Sallow mango tigers burn
Flagrant tongues lick upwards
Melting toy balloons drop fire
Withered moulded plastic chairs
Empty overnight commode
Circus macabre summer fayre
Shriek to no avail it seems from here

~
Did you not capture the moment just now—
Especially in that droll incursive October Wind
As malfeasant tides surged fast & loose
Now time trudges wetter softer
Sandshoe shuffle shod in sloppy sludge—
snide red caps doffed hide furtive grins
Faces crescent—shaped venally daft
Trying to zone in, get a grip, any grip,
be rid of this, this, this…
profane, pernicious accidie. Look out
Dai the Morf & Wily Dan confer
to hatch a slick masterplan midstream
to swamp the market in eiderdown
or farm mink in Chipping Norton Town
or timewatch daily brexit as life goes on
like a walk in the baked potato park
—so many murders these day you dont
know where to not step first
~
Each one a new one on closer inspection
A different case of upstairs
Did I say no chess today I may fret—
Well so what if not
Put a derringer to my head
And just keep missing
Man did I live to regret it
First time Crispin smiled upon
His golden demoiselle, an inhabitant,
She signed, of a country of the capuchins,
So delicately blushed, so humbly eyed,
Attentive to a coronal of things
Secret and most paticular. Second, upon
A ruddy counterpart, a maid
Most sisterly to the first, not yet awake
Excepting to the pad of motherly footsteps, but
Marvelling sometimes in round shaken sleep.
Then third, a braid still dun flaxen in the night,
A creeper under mellow jaundiced leaves. And fourth,
Mere blusteriness that gewgaws jollified,
All din and gobbleygook, blasphemously pinkened.
Gonna hit frilly five today they say
Sky seems the limit round here no doubt
Off Asylum Avenue when smoke churns
Chelsea Moll makes sticky buns shine
No matter what the weather does
Use up the wrinkled grapes on the quiet
Man did I live to regret it
Saying good things about people you can’t smell sounds daft
Almost as if you made it up: derisive
Crossed out, obliterated truths
Blown up, a put up job, hiding some
malign agenda under scarlet pimples
The words escape me so I stumble round playing blind man’s bluff,
Internal bear pits, persuasive, lure me out