End of day
at close of play
staying put
for night cap
to help
send me to a sleeping more sublime
I fell into a fever and thought myself a flea
transmitter in the lapel
of a diseased bailiff
transmitting gruff sweet nothing
about property and theft
The noose was too loose, the trap door was stuck.
‘Lydia Steptoe, you are by dint of serendipity, free to roam the earth, jejune and fancy free’
The voice removed the sack. It was Mr Kipling.
‘James Hayter?’
‘None other’ said James Hayter, glowing with avuncular warmth
‘Are you pulling my leg?’ said Lydia.
‘No, dear lady. The rules are clear as custard tarts. Now off you trot, and sorry for the cock-up.’
James Hayter doffed his manky indigo topper and indicated the door marked ‘Exit’
The lights went orange. The cluster of onlookers began to hop on their right legs. Lydia stepped down from the rickety scaffold and scuttled toward the door. Before pushing the bar she turned
‘For what was I condemned to hang, James Hayter?’
‘Wasting court time with mediocre card tricks’
‘Seems a bit harsh’, she thought nodding mock penitence
…
Outside it was dark. The…
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A floorboard squeaks, a muffled cough, a lid shutting.
Shut the blinds and windows
wait for the knock on the door
One will come along
when the fun begins
Could take a week or two
These things often do
Grow a second skin
Give up life for Lent
Wash your hands of the matter
Turn the other cheek
inner fires burning
suddenly depressed
Grey supulchral dawn
no floorboard squeaks
no muffled cough
lid still down
ride on
The other side of the wind
Where the waves are absent
Save for lungfish splashing
stroll in pink straw hats down
an obligatory gangplank
for seasick whalers
day falls copious, resplendent
in the nursery window
Downstairs floor suck underway
With a hey-nonny-nonny
and a ha-bloody-hee
Gonna meet a quaker
with a banjo on my knee
killing time the old way
watch a river flow
under a complacent sun
Florrie sprayed the kitchen garden
a shiny black car drove off
Art of eyebrows sheds fresh light
Professor Marmite makes a stir
courts controversy
divides opinion
promotes indifference
chairs sitting on the fence
Splinters…sat no more
Denis Diderot takes a powder
Drowns his woes in seafood chowder
Chagrin’s cat hisses delight
Sibilant as steam in a fissure
A team player left out for scowling
Slicing blood oranges for half time
spitting in fresh face masks
Charles Tomlinson turns sights into words
Stoke of old was long and narrow
where learning to fish
teaches you to cast no shadow on the water
or the fish will flee
Poverty stricken seamstresses
shed gemstones in the dust
Well before he got to Cambridge
he knew his Baudelaire well
I must return to Ruskin and keep a journal
as i walk through a limestone landscape
like an empty vessel; quick
when the light is so much better
refracted by the driven snow
of Arizona’s Desert
not nobody elses
For change is brought by light
and not other people
casting the shadow of a doubt
where the sun dont shine
Time spent in smoke
ends in smoke
All go out in flames
or down divinely
dedicated to the marvellous nice
Everybody’s smoking
so no one’s getting high
Time up in smoke
rope a dopem, amtelope
down death row cinemas
grow edelweiss and the blue is plain azure
Palladian pillars and Mick the Miller
get lowered down in town
freedonia is just a broadway show
where everyone eats cornbread
Back home in the dull familiar
struggling like der fuhrer
with the castle gate
think I’ll go all vegan on them
to show how serious I have hope
Strung out on quasars
everyone got lice
poor ickle seedy
third monsoon season
taramasalata
remnants on a crust
stealth bombers nest in
the stangest places
captain paranoia
calls the shots in Cisco
Sunday morning scrub
Wind blows like a stammer,
winkles drapes,
dissipates
replaced by pastel
blue and pink graffiti
over thinned out chestnut woods
Nine days into the new year spring struck the dozy Cut at ten fifty nine on the strawberry nosegay, essential oil spillage romping in abject hayloft recalled Petula and dripping rain down on this jawful of toxic fodder, still beggars can’t be choosers, so they say, but more of that anon
O! mute contorted spring that of witch from yuledream breaks still antiseptic and vindictive in its luscous bite and repressive in its grandiose vision, all this seen in contrasted tarns of Aryan types of northern european extraction, one applies such strictures others sadder succour, and petit moi in sweet rancid pod spouting freedom crap to passers out. No this one wants it over and done with so much that she can get some quality sleep and spend precious time with her pissed neglected family and maybe by a stroke of luck meet some friends or just play walk the fucking dog as it seems these days everywhere you go there is some needy bitch on heat driving hound dogs mad, bad, and tedious to know
Now there was a blast from the decent past as if i remembered a rhythm of how to spout without stopping and looking up to see the product of my disinterred fingers weep; o for the generous rear of the cheesecake and smell of the loud rampaging nobheads stomping thunderously over the resonant needled flaw of presence and then sudden like almost stopping to consider too stark vivid options, the wild orchids and leafmould hoof persist only now as mummery, got a new one as there’s no two ways about it, what’s more besides bet it snows before next week is through, but fuck it let’s go then you and I and get those beers in Grimbeau mentioned ages back
Do I chance dare in this repair to risk the stair in darkness, or even in the flickering light in this state of twilight, distress and thirst? Onwards and downwards a wag suggests! What are you. a tomfool or an eejit tripper? Of course one will find at the heel of the hunt we all piss blood on a Friday night round here…
Grimbeau 