…halfway between ludic rant
& macabre reality
really ought i have a shower
Now the gas is flowing?
& get changed into
shy retiring tweed
Priestess of Thaumaturge
Scourgess of Pareidolia
Tirelessly seeking out
a poetry of cartoon shorts
to embed in your third eye
therefore upside down
sometimes inside out
eluctable in the dark
Elsie Gassbang-Trott
always told it like it was-
essentially transvestite
noble by disposition
or by dint of nature—
girls will be the boys
& the boys will be the girls:
Whatever you want
Twelfth Night of twelfth day
—Now is the winter
of snide discontent—
Wrong Play, Belch
Burp, barf, bark…
Enter broken head:
Well, why you did ask!
~
Coming up three in the sub-post office, rain, pretty dull, quiet, the games have started, think I’ll take a break, go below for a quiet smoke, finish my too sweet coffee; brains gone native, so to speak, not responding to all this gender swapping on the company wireless.
I can see the Puritans giving out soon if they don’t put a sock in this…
~
—No
more cakes & ale, Toby-Baby
Think I’ll forge a billet-du or two
Set the ball
Gallivanting mad
in love’s tacky bagatelle
—Pray,
entreat those three interlopes
loitering by the knick-knacks
come hither nuncles
excorcise the stable stench
with bawdy ballads:
Feast of Fools, Feast of Folly
Indented coastline
enchanted Adriatic
Harbouring novelties
under your nose, Malvolio
Ship of Folly, Ship of Fools
…belated birthday cards
cautiously pessimistic
murmur down below…
Will there still be Fennel cakes & Indian ale for tea?
mauve creams & nice ointments salve
bruises aches lacerations
let us sing a daft song of sixpence
Baked in an Bean
Miser winds up radio
Widower haunts bungalow
Ghost of Xmas done
Sweet pea inside glum drum hums
My favourite things
Howls for hope & provenance
Thinks like ships in bottles
How did they get there?
Most of them sleepwalked
Others saw the writing
On the wall·
still do
mussed by brutal firelight
Now consider this
Photoshop malingering
Hanging on the wall
Still life crow reservation
Clambering for attention
ascending F6
Nothing better to do
Fifty eighth birthday climb
Panoramic view
Bewilderment as far as
Cloud cover permits
smart eye to wonder
This advantage point
Affords no contradiction
Crazy hawks circle
Contemplating Toblerones
Fraught with anticipation
oozing saliva
Eschatology dribbles
Drips from slow airliners
Replicate drizzle
Reichenbach or Angel Falls
Smatters not to I & i
under the rainbow
Five hundred before
legendary lost lunchtime
Torrential London
buses, easy similes,
heavy workload for
eternal editors,
that which is permanently
out to luncheon,
wield escutcheon spoon
limply with panache
seas contain plenty fishes
most worth throwing back
kept from the saddle by sleep and cider,
nestled in this cluttered room, this dimlit
hibernation station, wallow fallow in
the gathered gloom, the afternoon moon
this is the time for those who dream in daytime,
those who gather and hunt, those who like me
watch from windows, making shade from shadow,
form from substance, the things that dreams are made on.
Glisten
Sheer sparkling wit,
wild infant crazy hopes,
whose voices, too true, call to us all
like spooks
Four minutes past late
The long and the short of it…
Cleared out the empties.
Priced up cheapo books for Juul;
Made some fresh coffee;
What’s to do next, Boss?
Review the twelvemonth, Arthur!
The third Afghan War
proved a futile sacrifice
same as the first two
Old top brass eye up the next,
mothers weep for a tearless world,
alcohol poisoning
has doubled, trebled, wobbled
quadrupled…collapsed.
Anything else, Boss?
A hard shoulder to cry on
Crashed out from seven to eleven
& so on & so forth all the long night long
Necessarily punctuated by bouts of micturition, coffee
& tap water, insucks on a menthol vape, alpha
Meandering through the channel & guides in search of
Something beyond my control·I am not
Who I was & am what I am·
Winzerschlafenziet or so they call it
In wobbly obscurantist circles:
Crimson sheets barely tell
The tip of the icebreaker
Crashing through pack ice
& all night teleshopping
Even when soaked overnight
In saline and lavender
~
Quite why I am here
For some reason escapes me
(common in a chick of my age
That’s what oft I hear)
Or so the experts, goldfish
And fellow imbeciles explain
I think there is another reason:
Terminal boredom
Which (I am unreliably informed)
Comes from deep down within one
A remark that never fails to
Incite me to outrageous
acts of crochet & fretwork
which I later would mortally regret
If I could only remember what they
Were & consider them worth
Categorising as such—
this also bores me and drives me to fits
of desperation that distract me & that’s
why accidents like people occur…
11.18
No dump!
Where’s my strutting arrogant piranha gone?
Stone crazy bower birds pinch my trinkets.
Harpies pester & rag my innards.
Make a stand for decency!
Go to ‘Sea’ again before the New Tear
Guess I’ll go below
& take a blow
Fake a bow to indifference
Milk the plaudits for what they’re worth
Fifty short of six thousand likes for the year
& not a bean to show for it
But the inner glow…
Dawn skyline silhouette
Centrefold cardboard pop up
charcoal rooftops part
Exposing awesome schism
Giant rocket gone to seed
Oversees gurt grey divide
Totem hides taboo
Purple sprouting broccoli
Also springs to mind
Thing and winnowy
Long bolemic pins
Dangle down half-heartedly
Look stronger than this close up
Grimbeau 