Grimbeau

In and out like a fiddler’s elbow
Clodhoppers kept on just in case
Susan Heyward smokes a Camel from Dana Andrews
in the days before Jimmy Dean
Short story by Salinger
in the days before Catcher
off with the NHS Clodhoppers
rest up the extremes before the change

A Tale of Two Drips
running down a window pane
How I lost a shirt

extraordinary ebullience breathing toxic air once in a blue moon
peeping down I out fertile earth as joyless mundanity

dearth penalty

…
Twas a sunny funferal,

down the municipal crem
weep your distance at all times
emasculate

…
time passes, state radio time, silver screen time, me tonto time, rockin horse time, inbetween days time, time after time out, timeless trips to slumber time, lifetimes and sometimes, time well wasted elsewhere, time spent less productively, no time beyond time itself, end of time, time immemorial, time out, time up, timed out…bit of a baked potato time, invisible wind blows, time pissed and time pewter…

…
Wasps nest in the brickwork housed behind the suspect sea of nettles
hides in lockdown under the auspices of thriving Jacoranda
The summer rains are set for the artificial test match
Time for old gits to argue over shit and twigs.
Prime Monster’s Hour Approaches
Peep spectres from the inside of a doughnut
insist on right on bluesky thinking over great balls afire–
straight thinking makes immediate connections

…
Darker evenings in the wet imitate November
if you’re lucky with the weather
play must be abandoned surely
Xavier has cried off poorly
Wasps multiply at leisure

…
Creepy crawly gas board
selling door to door
removed the offending tube of stuff
inpinging of my needle wound
two cheroots takes its toll
messing with my head

…
Spoonful, loving spoonful tells me
let the fresh air flow
anaesthetize the stingers
exposing jawbones of contention
piled up outside the door
ready for disposal by the authorities

…
Back we go to 2002
economically
in only three months
of inactivity.
ran fast to keep up

…
Found the wasp factory absorbed by Netflix
Weatherwise a goddam ugly gray
Practised the sober art of restraint
Giggling at Scarface
Sporting Clodhoppers on and off
Normal people just wear footwear
as they go about their day
I am unreliably informed
by the Soggy Bottom Boys
Brian de Palma and the Coen Bros
don’t turn up your nose at those
guys who know their business
Two hours pass unstably after the cheroot
Naggingly concerned at making no effort
to fill the world with more of vogon woe
David Mitchell irked me talking up
all lived through experience like grist
to the mill of the creative artist. He was
punting his latest title about rock musicians
with a catchy title that i have spilt at long off
Too wrapped up in disgust and despair. First
Brexit then Boris and now the plague and
a gammy leg. Must try to get out for a nose
about. Take a spin one evening for a run
in the country. Get away from the wasps and
nettles; the ghosts and kettles; the pavlovian life
of the house trained nutter. A return to the world
is a widespread problem nowadays. Not the exclusive
domain of the broken and wounded. The underclass
is swelling. This next wave is a wipe out.
Ovid relished a catastrophe
with a capital sea
Bollocks freezing off
sat up asleep guarding a marina adrift on regurgitated martini
spreading out between an outstretched quay of denim legs
a little bite on the inner forearm
a smell of bacon frazzling in a slipper
historical glimpses into the now
impersonal recollections concerning
the economics of cooking cheese on crackers
little grievances and niggles reveal
what a drag we are become so

…
The biobubble Test match bugler takes a break
from barmy army duty
to tame once wild undergrowth
to read the newspaper online
between heavenly grey spasms
splash on empty seats

…
when the ill winds drop, sun breaks through the umpteenth time, the Windies build up a healthy lead. Considerable if still there at stumps
The soundtrack of summer
minus the old ones in the long room
…
Green tea and a change of strides to tasteful deckchair stripey; the makings of a supper; bake off half-baked sticks; chop some jungle tom-toms;
tins of odds and sods;
packet of ham in date;
ready salted crisps; or nothing till morn

…

Clear blue still summer morn; bread and butter night of many weewees;
an early morning vaper catches the dump train before a feed of comely opiates;
turned off the Sat Morn Media News and Ents for the entitled;
sun streams in unhampered by nettlebed and wasp factor;
entertain the needy when the tasks are done and the post is passed; nosey passives fo feed elsewhere; in it to bin it…