My Heart Laid Bare

ARMADILLO
or 48 Short Pieces
By Paul Robinson

Dedicated to all those people who wouldn’t give me the time of day, to all those who thought I was a waste of time, who I infuriated because we did not see eye-to-eye, to those bastards at the jobcentre and all the places I worked at, to certain ex-girlfriends who had neither patience nor diligence and made statements like "You made me realise the type of person I want to be with". To ex-girlfriends who were simply cracked down the middle, to friends who turned their backs and finally to parents who didn’t understand.

One

I have these bags under my eyes

There caused by late nights hangin’ with barflies.
My family think I’m a drunk
but I’m just bored of the world and its junk.
It’s the conformity of it that stinks,
especially related products and things.
The people I know struggle,
working everyday like dogs,
in call centres
in offices

bars and shops,
keeping themselves
and this economy afloat.

Their dreams are sidelined
They have to glorify the mundane so they may live.
Little things become giant sensations,
a cup of tea first thing in the morning
a trip to the cinema,

anything that breaks up the monotony.
Me on the other hand
I wanna be a fucking tree.
I cannot stand the idea of being sanitised and neutralised.

Two

They want to box us in so they can win
because we live the life of the Libertine.
To be freethinking, free acting and free from rule,

in their eyes is simply to be the fool.

I have nothing to lose
and I’m ready to sacrifice everything
because I’m not gonna’ end up a 60-plus bus-pass shuffler
who reeks of piss and mumbles like an Ewok.



I need to get out of here,
go down to the beach and shout at the sea,

throw cans into its belly
and hope it washes my sins away.
I want unprotected sex with a Stereophonic’s groupie
and then afterwards tell her that the band are a bag of shit.
I want to jump out of bins and scare old ladies
and then take them for afternoon tea.

Three

I’m in debt.

It’s the recurring monkey on my back.
Sometimes I escape
and sometimes I fall into the trap. 
One phone call and I screw up.
They know where I live.
I’m sure I’ll lose them again.

A woman speaks in cruel tones.
I become monosyllabic

and try not to give anything more away. 
“You owe two grand,” she says.
“I owe you more than that,” I think.
“Can you pay now?”
“Sure, I’ll just go find a cash machine”
I go along with the script because that’s all they care about.

They need results.
“Can you afford £30 a month?” she enquires.
“No, and did I tell you I blew it all on ecstasy and booze?”
“Yes, £30 is fine” I say. 
I know its not

(I’m partly supported by my parents who let me live under their roof. I don’t tell them I spend my time writing prose.
The other support comes from the government who I include in my prayers every night, god bless their administrative capabilities)

but I just go along with the script.

Later, they’ll threaten me with court action and other things to make me comply.

She asks me how I’ll pay
and whether I have a bank account?
I tell her I’ll pay by Giro-cheque.

What I really want to say is that she should go and fuck herself and there’s very slim chance of the bank getting their money back.

“Bye” she concludes.
“Whatever”, I think.

Four

>From an early age and right through school

they want to mould you 2 by 2.
There is no time for creative flare,
no time to ‘stop and stand and stare’.
No space to act outside the norm,
you must accept the uniform.
“A job a job” they all expound,
so you can save those precious pounds.

What the fuck for?
My old age?

I’ve already decreed there’s no old age
and if there is
I’ll pop pills and live in a cave.

Does the world owe me anything?
Well, I asked it the other day and it gave no reply.

I expected at least something-
a breeze or a bit of litter floating by
but no, nothing, just silence.
I took that a number of ways
and as yet can’t decide on one. 
Maybe no one was in.
I’ll try again tomorrow. 

I hope Yul Brynner answers.

I love Yul Brynner.
I love his bald head,
his many wives
and his cigar-smoking hedonistic tendencies. 
I love the anti-smoking commercial he was in after he died of cancer, which opens with a pre-recorded message from Yul looking straight into the camera and saying “I’m dead”.


Second Degree Burns

Kt Tunstall, David Johnston, Amy Nutall, Jack Johnson
Your perverse meaning and crass reasoning
continually piss me off

Why? Why have you been allowed?
You prey on the poorly formed cerebellum
of the pre-pubescent,
saturating their minds with complete gobshite
when you have no right

Until your stranglehold on our children diminishes
I will religiously poor hot tea over my head
and you will know me when we come face-to face
I’ll be the one with the second degree burns
Spitting foam at your D to G pap pop



Bum Sex And Toilet Death

My uncle died in a pub toilet after playing a game of skittles.
I don’t like pub toilets much anymore.
Not that I thought they were great in the first place.
Survived by a son and daughter
I can only imagine what they endure.
He rests in church grounds overlooking Exmoor
where him and his Brother used to paint and poach
in-between brewing hooch in a mate’s basement.
He was a good man.

Its bad how life took him in that way.

It makes me realise there are no certainties and life should be lived like everyday is the last. Because when death approaches I don’t want to look back and think, "Shit, I should have done that lass up the bum when she asked me to".

Refusing To Work

I spent last year avoiding work. This was easy because my C.V. looked like a big dog had shit on it and consequently no one would hire me. My employment record read like a minefield. I’d either walked out or been fired from 40 jobs. Even after ’streamlining’ my C.V. it still wasn’t convincing. There was an erroneous quality to it so I made a truth C.V. and posted that out. I was brutally honest and thought it might catch someone’s attention. I guess including "firing elastic bands at people" and "typing for someone who couldn’t" as a job description didn’t go down too well. Anyway, It was obvious I wasn’t going to accept pushing papers, flipping burgers or answering telephones as a career. All my friends, if I have any left, will tell you that. Carried by a self-delusion developed early on I refused point-blank to grin and bear it. I would rather be skint and have my free time than be barely breaking even and have no time. At least I’m not out stealing a 16-year old girls prosthetic leg although I did go through a phase of pilfering from the local Asda store. I was reading a copy of ’Whatever’ and was all up for revolution. I’d get drunk & hungry and satchel some of Asda’s ’Finest’ Range: Gouda, Italian meats, goat’s milk and some ‘exceedingly good cakes’. I stopped when my brain calculated that the law of averages would see me get nicked the next time I had a hankering for a Melton Mowbray at 3 in the morning.  

“Civilisation means belonging to class society. The development of productive forces is linked to the exploitation of man by man. Slavery, serfdom, wage earning; these are forms of servitude characterising civilisations epochs.”

To employ no longer means to ‘keep at work’.
Employ is to use the physical and mental capacity of another for ones own gain,
providing little return in the process.
Employ, Employment and Employee are profanities,
the killer of dreams and without dreams we are nothing.
We become hollow without them and yet definition confines them to the imagination.

They shouldn’t be confined to the imagination or confined there by others.

I want independence.
I do not want to work for another to secure my existence.
Trained like sheep to respond to an incoming bleep.
What freedom exists in labour of this kind?
How does this bless the creative mind?
It does not. It reduces it and before time you’ll be old and blind,
a life wasted in servitude.

Love: When The Plane Goes Down

As far as women are concerned this farrago is dedicated to one of them, a 26 year old, 5 foot Texan who carries a Bible when she flies but has a pentagram tattoo on her back. I love the jarred contradiction of human nature. It reminds me of Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket having to explain a CND badge on his body armour and arguing that it represented the duality of war. Personally, if I go down in a plane crash I want to be singing Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. I admit my first choice was Blaze of Glory by Bon Jovi but whoever survived would leak it to the press and I’d be remembered as the one who was singing Bon Jovi as he smashed into the ground. Anyway, I don’t want to be reading some book and then thinking Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire would have done, as the cabin depressurises and my vacuum-packed meal jets off through the window with me forced to chase after it.

Didn’t know my fate
as I stood at the gate
Passport in hand
I was never going to land

The plane would explode

in the freezing atmosphere
and I would get sucked out the exit
with no time to finish on the loo
as I whipped past my fellow passengers

It was like being in a movie;
People clinging on to each other
strapping themselves down
crying, praying, dying

and even some already dead

Barely missed the engine
what a way to go
Caught sight of another passenger
50 feet below

Even though it was chilly
I actually felt quite serene
but I wish I would have died by now

as I started gaining speed

All I could think about was impact
and whether I’d survive
I realised there was no chance
as my fingers froze
and my heart rate roze


 


For me our relationship was like being tazered in the chest; rapid arms flailing around like an epileptic, leaving you immobilised on the floor, twitching and wondering what the fuck had happened. We met on Saturday, were in bed by Sunday morning and in love by Monday.

High on whiskey and vodka
we whipped the legs from underneath life.
We’d take each other until nothing was left.
The next day we would do the same thing,
reconstructing to include each other.

We would psychically draw a map of our future

that neither of us was ever going to follow.

I paid 35 dollars to a Voodoo- Man in New Orleans and he made no mention of what was to pass. Nevertheless, I will refrain from insulting his name for fear of karmic retribution.

I wanted to write to you
but I went the pub instead.

I wanted to marry you
but I fled the country.

How can a person damage

someone he loves so much.

A Brief Passage About H

If you don’t know H from Steps
Well, he’s an absolute twat
He had a show on Channel 4
which was proper crap
With a demeanour tre camp
and a voice like a cat

H, you irritate the shit out of me
Please...contract clap

I, We And The World Of Chi

Lollipops are cool
they make my mouth go drool
lets get naked in my pool
and dive and swim and play the fool.

Lets sink some drinks,
forget to think
and apply to be on the weakest link.

we’ll board a plane
and go insane
and see Orleans pre-hurricane.

We’ll eat chocolate
until we vomit

and skit my mum
coz she looks like a hobbit.

I’ll prance and dance through Liverpool
and shout at girls - short skirts and twirls.
coz that’s what life’s worth living for,
you no less and I no more.
We’ll get 86’d in Bangalore
or take 5 trips on an Inca tour.

And this we must do forever
if we are to live it to its full endeavour.
To see and feel the pain and pleasure,
never by half only full measure.

Observing Street life And Then Getting Trashed

I sat at the end of my street last night.
I sat there, chain-smoked

and watched people walking dogs.
I watched lights going off,
curtains closing, cars moving,
doors opening and gates slamming.
I heard drills going, water running,
music playing, people arguing,
kettles boiling and babies crying.

I then got the 46 into town

and drank until I could barely stand.
I talked, argued and danced
had my advances refused,
dropped a drink, stole a drink,
lost my coat and got kicked out of a club.
I’m sure I did more but that’s all I can remember.
The next day I thought about the actor Vincent Gallo.

What I Got For Summer

My prized possession is a Raleigh Chopper.
I like to pronounce it Ray-Lee coz its sounds more Hell’s Angels.
I’ve been trying to get into the local gang but they treat me like an aged Led Zeppelin fan.
Fuck ‘em, I’ll start me own gang called Spunk Monkey. 
It’s core members will consist of the proletariat:
Night receptionists,
Merry Go-ride Operators
Food Preparation Assistants

terrorizing the town on our Ray-Lee Choppers
and meeting up in McDonalds car-parks to have gang wars while Flags of the Sacred Harp soundtracks in the background.
My Ray-Lee Chopper is red by the way.

Finding Out Who Your Friends Really Are

I walked for a long time
up and down the old golf-course road.
I eventually got tired
and rested near the public footpath

under a massive tree.

I cried a stupid man’s cry,
half in half out
and cursed the sky.

I had no home and planned to sleep in the railway station.
It was late and the waiting room was closed.
I rang the buzzer for help but no one answered.
I curled up underneath the platform gangway,

eyes closed, shaking uncontrollably.
I got up and went out looking for some kind of insulation
found a sheet covering a load of bricks and took that.
It was all there was.

The attendant woke me up.
She thought I was dead.
I told her I’d been to a party
and had missed my train.

She knew I was lying but accepted it
because she didn’t care and why should she?
I picked myself up and disappeared into the day.
I rode trains up and down the track to get warm and think of my next move.
Knocked on a friends door and was treated with suspicion.
I must have looked a wreck.
I moved on.

Reduced by the heavens

and unwanted by the ground.
life’s door closing on me,
friends and family
abandoning me,
I went back to the footpath
and the massive tree .

I cried a stupid man’s cry,
half in half out

and cursed the sky.

X-Factor

Shayne Ward
I feel really bad for you.
Those X-factor knob-shines
are gonna get you to sing poo-on-a-shoe music
that will gradually eat away at your body
like a malignant growth. Leave now.

Don’t let those bastards consume you
like Jordan’s flange consumes Peter Andre’s Knob.
If you do not follow my oracle like advice
then you are doomed.
Your final destination is closer than you think.

Murder

The God squad rang this morning.
An elderly couple with eclipses for eyes

They might as well have been selling double-glazing.
I told them I wasn’t interested,
took their leaflet,
sat back down in the front room
and watched them watch me as they walked away
with their impressionable young ‘daughters’.
Is that their only hope?
Preyed upon by the insane masquerading as saviors

who clot their thoughts with religious escapism,
minds murdered by the Watchtower.

A Little Concerned

Dear Simpson family,
Could you please collect Jessica and Ashlee.
Its not working out
They are really dense
I’ve been watching a lot of horror

movies lately and I know what to do
with them if you don’t.

Dear Simpson family,
its irreprehensible the amount of medication
your daughters must be taking.
Jessica has trouble identifying everyday objects
and Ashlee is stuck in a Bruce Lee movie.

Dear Simpson family,

both your daughters believe they can act, dance and sing.

Dear Simpson Family,
Jessica and Ashlee are fucking Goat’s cheese.
They are hazards
They are the ones that should suffer
End this genetic nightmare
Let there be no more  

Maybe Its Make Believe

Pushing the boundaries of the mind through unintended sleep deprivation caused a flow of sounds and visions that slowly encroached upon my reality. Unfamiliar nuances that could normally be shaken off gradually began to envelop my ordinary sight. A flicker of a leaf combined with an accompanying shadow became a face or a hand. Lampposts, cars and pillar-boxes lurched and morphed with a crude sentience until a composite world of fantasy and reality dominated my perspective. I began to verbally react to objects that could not react; I reached out to objects that where not there until I was fully immersed in an ‘alter-world’ of unfamiliar voices and stages.

By way of an unfortunate series of events, three unusual days were spent in a psychiatric unit. The first day I spent sleeping and recuperating and as a result regained good judgement and a sense of normality. This proved essential because I spent the next 2 avoiding some bloke who thought I was Jesus. After a thorough assessment it was concluded that I’d suffered hysteria caused by sleep deprivation and I was released back into the community.


To Be Blunt

Mr Blunt
you be a cunt

If I saw your face
in a crowded place
I would fill it with mace

I would watch you cry
smoke a joint
get high
and walk away content that justice was done

Are you even conscious when you put pen-to-paper?

‘Back to Bedlam’ sounds like one song divided into several.
I got trashed one night
doused it with paraffin
and Frisbeed the fucker into Lake Windermere

Take that James Blunt
Tommy credentials and all
your pluvial videos
and the one in the hall

I’m reclaiming the audio that you infected
For me,
the children
but mostly the disaffected.

2005 Was A Mad Year

Sitting here holed up in a 2 star B&B eating sardines out of a tin with a plastic fork robbed from the supermarket really does put a new perspective on things. Three days before I was in a psychiatric unit watching people rock uncontrollably. Go back three more days and I was asleep in a Berlin nightclub; back to August and you’d find me running through a field being chased by festival security; the States in June - New Orleans pre-hurricane; Texas in March and on a pissy day in February, handing over my credit card in exchange for a plane ticket which started this whole chain of events.

December Routine

I wake up late, usually alert. 
The other day my mouth was bleeding.
‘Our Last Days As Children’ is ringing in my ears.
I piss and swill and gargle.
Downstairs I smoke two cigarettes.
By this time I’m dressed.
I walk to the hole in the wall - still no money.

I walk back,
make tea
and listen to Sonic Youth’s rendition of The Simpson’s Theme
I walk down to the library,
check my e-mails,
do some research on Ulysses 31.
I walk back
By this time I’m hungry.
I eat and then watch Richard & Judy (last in the series).

I walk into town,
drink beer
and smoke cigarettes.
I walk back home.

Mary Carey Quite Contrary

I heard that Mariah Carey intended on promoting her UK album release by arriving at HMV Oxford Rd in a helicopter but instead turned up in a black cab and tipped the driver 150 notes.

Mariah you isn’t the Queen.

You can’t bounce around whacked out on quinine,
dressed like an obscene drag queen.
I bought your album and all I could hear was silence.
Something must have happened in the studio.
Is it my Hearing? Is it shite.
You’ve made an album for canines.
I’m chuffed I can’t hear it
but our scamp can’t go anywhere near it.
He just lies there like he’s been harpooned.

You dragon!
I hope you get marooned on a desert island with G4.

Your Dog Is A Scruff

She let me stay because I had nowhere else to go.
I couldn’t work out if she felt sorry for me.
I stank of beer but she didn’t notice,
maybe she did
but just kept it quiet.

Maybe she did feel sorry for me.
She was the sweetest person I’ve ever met.
So much so that it made me a little sick.
Her housemate was suspicious.
They had been fucked over by men before
and yet she trusted me
but I could tell that she was confused by me.
I excited her,
maybe that was the attraction.

We had tea and then she drove me to the station. 
My hands started to shake,
my head was dizzy,
I didn’t feel right,
I had to get out of this situation.
Make no promises,
get out of the car and walk away.
I felt relief as I got out the car.

I waved.
She smiled and waved back.
I never saw her again

Read My Fax. You Are Terminated

McFly, let your music die
It makes me hollow inside
Strange haircuts
Rooney-esque looks

all add up to talentless fucks

The one with the hair
who sounds like he’s from Wigan
He knows your shit
and is winging it
until the record company get wind of it

Excuse my temporary naivety
the record company know as well

and are winging it
until the punters get wind of it

Oh but McFly this, McFly that
Have you seen what you little fuckers have done to my gran
She’ll never piss straight again
because of your poison running through her viens

Serve me my fry’s bitches

What Started This Mess

I was 3 sheets to the wind in the Thompson Travel Shop.
I remember wearing a dark knee length raincoat with the collar up
and a fishing hat bought from the old Army Navy Store.
I think I got the flight for 400 quid
The fishing hat cost a fiver.
I got to the airport early and started to drink,
not too much but enough to make things more interesting.

Waiting in airports is bad news sober.
I boarded the flight,
drank
and arrived in Chicago.
I caught my connecting flight,
drank more
and arrived in Austin. 
I waited for some friends to arrive,
drank even more

and then they arrived. 

Physicists and cosmologists riddled with ulcers caused by funding stress will soon realise that beer is time-travelling fuel and the human body is the time travelling machine. All they need to do is pop into the nearest bargain-booze and pick up a 6-pack of strong lager, down it and that should take them backwards or forwards a decade or so.

How to Keep Your Own Soul

Popular music vanish
the genre to be dispensed with
stored up in the attic
dumped in a nursing home

no exequies or pleasantries
left like a baby outside woolies
flushed down the bog
buried at the bottom of the garden
thrown on the fire
music that cannot inspire

Pop music is auditory rape
and you are paying them to do it

you’re paying them to fuck you in the ass

Delete all pop from your mp3 player
purchase music that has soul
and maybe you’ll get to keep your own

Television

Got really fucked off the other day
watching too much TV.

Sat there and just stared at it.
I was trying to write and kept getting distracted
by the cathode tube and the refresh rate
blasting out a collection of pictures that unnecessarily filled up my head.
Turned the sound down to see if that helped.
Found myself still looking at the screen through the corner of my eye.
Turned it off completely and felt the room suddenly empty.
Then I started staring at the white blank page,
then the ceiling and then back to the blank white page.

Decided that this was not a good time to write,
put the tele’ back on and removed the pen and paper from sight
and watched whatever shite was on the box.
Maybe it was necessary after all.

War On a Club - The Night I left My Coat

Hi, I left my jacket at the club
I was smashed on Saturday
didn’t eat no grub

Read poetry to a fiery lass
as she lay in bed beautiful and serene
Had a dream about balloons and serpent wounds
and lambasted music by keane

Left a message on the answerphone
Why the fuck is no one home?
Banged on your door like a rancid whore
Rang the doorbell until they could here it in hell

This is worse than a holiday in Rhyll

Woke up this morning
Phoned the owners mobile
“I left my coat in your club”
“Is it pinstripe, blue with poetry inside?”
“Yes, when can I collect it?”
“Tomorrow about two”
“I’ll be waiting outside”

Thank fuck for that

Linda Loves Milk

There is a lady in the library every Friday
who sits right next to me,
She has no teeth,
Smells, and looks like a Schwa alien.
She says to me by way of her gums,

“I used to be a sinner, a really bad sinner
but I stopped going to church because I think they’ve forgiven me”.
Linda takes a giant slurp of her milk
and continues to flick through a picture book of Blackpool.
I try to ignore her - 
once they get you they never let go.
The milk slurp is the worst.
I think a little goes up her nose as well.

I leave.
I get home and pour a glass of milk to go with my food.
I take a big chug and make the same noise as Linda.
I stand there silent assessing what just happened.
Did Linda make me do that?
Does everyone slurp milk or
is it just Linda and me?
Whatever
I decide that I shouldn’t get angry when Linda slurps her milk

because I do it and so might others.
So slurp away Linda.
Babble on about what you like and fall asleep
because I slurp milk
just like you,
except I don’t smell
and I don’t talk to myself.
See you next Friday Linda
and good look getting to Blackpool

on your own
with no teeth.

Maybe I should take her to Blackpool?
Do the good Samaritan thing
But the way my luck is she’d probably die on me.
Then I’d be stuck with a dead person
on my own
and that wouldn’t do.

Imagine explaining that -
“Well, we met in the library on a Friday.
We both like milk
but I don’t smell
or talk to myself.
Linda wanted to go to Blackpool
on her own
with no teeth.
I knew she’d never get there

so I took her
and then she died on the promenade tram”.

Lets Be Mean To Keane

Have you ever been asked by a friend,
“I’m going’ down the shop what chocolate do you want?”
I’m sure you may have replied, “surprise me”

and then they bring you back a mars bar.
No Drifter, Fuse or Topic but a mars bar.
Well that’s how Keane make me feel.
They are the mars bar of music.
It’ll do but only because you haven’t sampled the options.

You make me feel hollow,
as barren as Llano,
as weak as shandy,

I hate you as much as my ex Mandy.

You’ll never be a Curly Wurly.

Romanticism & The Dole

Hello, I’m poor.
No one likes the poor
and frankly I like it that no one likes the poor

because it makes those who dislike the poor look like real pricks.
They suddenly show their true colours,
as their liberal middle class bubble peels away.

To The Meretricious Girls Aloud -

I’d like to see you all knocked up,
wheeling around kids in prams
with names like Jasper and Treacle,
complaining that your child support hasn’t come through yet.

But that’s not going to happen
Is it
you’ve been building nice little nest eggs by robbing the public. Fleecing us in return for half-arsed musical efforts.
I bet you didn’t even listen to your latest album all the way through. What’s track 8?
Go on.
Track 8?
Oh, who gives a fuck anyway?
You are glorified backing singers - never forget that.

You are a virus infecting the minds of human beings.
Stop your nonsense.
Shameful harlots.

Erm
 
Contrary to popular belief
I sir am no thief
I earn my keep
rolling fine Virginian leaf

My hair goes grey
day after day
How do I keep them at bay?
I Know. I’ll dye them the colour of hay

Happy Christmas
Hope you miss us
I don’t you
You fucking pain in the neck

Happy New Year
I’m full of cheer
Hope you get nicked for carrying gear
You crackhead

Confronting The Washing Machine

Look what you did to my scarf
Your rpm shrank it in half

A gift from my Nan
All the colours have ran
Look what you did to my scarf

Thoughts

Someone stole an idea from my head
I’d decided on bangers and mash
That’s what I was gonna have
But somebody stole the idea from my head

So now I’ll have to have a tin of stew
And some bread

Television Two

Switch the TV on by remote.
CBBC is on.
Loads of bright colours & shouting
Winter Olympics is on two

more kids stuff on three
The reception on four is bollocks
Try the video channel to see
if it boosts the signal but its
not enough and the afternoon tele on five
is still stuck in the 1980’s so its
back to two with an occasional flick
to one and three and a rare peep at four
just in case the atmospherics have improved the picture.

Its Never Just A Song

You smiled at me the other day
It was a moment of enlightenment.
Maybe you had sex that morning
and full of good thoughts
you smiled at me
but as the day wore on
Something changed

and when I next saw you
your face looked different
the day had taken it
your barriers had returned
and with it contempt
so you ignored me
as you passed me by
All the worries and troubles
split your enlightenment into fragments

I don’t know when you’re going to have sex again
but I hope that moment returns for you
and that smile for me

Leave My Mother Alone

You said you’d leave me in the summer
if I didn’t leave your mother alone
but your mother fucked your brother
know its nearly summer

and I want to give your mother a phone

You said you’d leave me for a girl
if I didn’t stop the things that I do
but that girl was your brothers
and know its nearly summer
oh, what shall I do.

When Things Aren’t Going So Well

For me creativity is life. Without it I feel nothing and I am nothing, except maybe the ‘something’ a shell feels being spanked by the ebb and flow. It’s not enough to revel in the creation of others. I must create myself. A picture, a poem, a song, a sentence that has meaning is worth more than the millions generated by business, by commerce, by economy. Creativity is my true wealth and I gladly suffer for it.

   Take life as a calendar
Take a low paid job
Add the two together
And you don’t have a lot
Each day is the same

Smothered in the inane

My mum said to me:
“Your just gonna have to get used to it,
life is boring”.

My older brother said to me:
“I gave up on my dreams a long time ago,
this is it for me now and I’ve accepted that”.

I say:
“That’s unacceptable”.

I was not born into this world so I could work myself into the ground to make ends meet. We all have the right as individuals to do what we wan to dot and to be who we want to be. I will not let those people who have resigned themselves to resign me. In the words of Grandmaster Gareth:

“The people we call grown ups have a lot of growing up to do
they get up every morning and they’re fast asleep in bed by two
and on and on it goes till they get old and everyday is the same persuading every other generation they must play their game”.

     
Elevator Escalator Stairs
     Misty’s Big Adventure

Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan also concurs:

   “In between dim hours
   In between dull days
   I’m out counting flowers
   I’m still chasing fate”.

Later concluding:

“You and I we understand.
Time is not for making
But just because we don’t have a clue
Doesn’t mean where faking”.

     Wasting Time

     Zwan

Baby Blood

   I was there at the scene
when the baby hit the windscreen

unsecured in its pram
it toddled straight infront of the van

I was the only other person around
between god the baby and the ground
The mother had already begun to put on her shroud
it was clear the infant was dead
The driver had already begun his therapy
smoothing out the trauma in his head

I phoned an ambulance
consoled the mother
and checked the driver
I couldn’t go near the child

Cars and people soon gathered
a procession for the moment of death

body bagged

and loaded up
gradually dwindling evidence of what was
and statement complete
i made my way to work 2 hours late
serving bangers & mash
taking cash
as the memory lingered of some kid who just had his skull smashed in by a 2 ton transit

Left and headed home
drank to block the images
but the scene permeated my dreams
the sound of the mother
the baby in blood

I’m sorry
but this is all I have to give
as the wheels roll over the spot your baby ceased to live

and everyone gets on with what there supposed to do
and the people in the canteen form an orderly cue

Hold your vendetta against god
and not that poor van driving sod


Still Poetry Still

   They say poetry is dead

   but as long as the mind weeps with emotions triggered by life
   then we will have poetry
   as long as we have people unaccepting of life’s drudgery
   then we shall have poetry

   as long as people have time to sit back and consider
   the there will be poetry
   as long as men rage against men
as long as tramps still search for ciggy butts in pavement cracks

   as long as a mother sees fit to shoot up infront of her kid
as long as a son can kill his parents and spend their savings on a round-the-world-tour
   then we shall have poetry

A. L. E.

Just keep writing, writing, writing

page upon page
from now until next year
and beyond that year
build a legacy of your thoughts and prose
an’ care not for those who may judge your work

get it into you brain
   that this must not be done for fame

   it must be done for me
the me being you
which transforms to I
Envisage a room
Packed stacked high
full of theory prose and poetry
that creates a hole to the soul

a window to humanity
commit you hand, eye and mind to this endeavour
each one a meme
that will survive you and your children
a massive literary safety blanket
a grammatical bunker
a creative work like music, art or film
but let it not be for fame
that mutant wicked debilitating game

Karmic Laws of Detoxification

I was shaking
my body was stiff
I needed another drink
or at least a spliff
i couldn’t hold a pen
i could hardly walk
i was seeing seagulls under my eyelids

You knew I was still drunk when I talked

i got into the shower
unbalanced and improper
nearly blacked out from the shock of the water
gradually me muscles began to relax
and I felt more nimble
my head cleared
and I stepped out

got dried
got dressed
got fed
had some shots of vodka
to lubricate my head
made my way to the local
got a pint in
selected a handful of tunes
an’ sat there waitin’ for the karmic laws of the universe to administer their blessing

The Who manifest themselves:

“See me
Feel me
Touch me
Heal me

See me
Feel me

Touch me
Heal me

See me
Feel me
Heel me

Listening to you
I get the music
Gazing at you

I get the heat
Following you
I climb a mountain
I get excitement at your feet

Right behind you
I see the millions
On you, I see the glory
On you, I get opinions

On you, I get the story”.

blessing given

You’ve Got Hairy Arms For A Lady

You’ve got the hairiest arms in the world
have you never noticed?
its not even all over
A forearm jungle that intensifies towards the elbow

and to think the other day you were having a go at some bloke who was walking like an orang-utan
your arms
his legs
need I go on?

Sarah, Zoë, Edith, Cat & Joe

   Once a promising Ladette

   now a harmless coquette
   for a moment you were a pleasing remedy
   then you really started to fuck me off -
   like losing a pack of bifters

   subtract your wolling northern rant
   minus your prettiness
   and your formula disintegrates
   leaving no remainder capable of division

   what else do you actually do?
   no, don’t say a word
   I already know
   you swan about with zoe ball

   and spin tunes and stuff
   whoopee do
   Infact, it’s a similar setup with Edith Bowman
   and Cat Deely who also depress me

   a shake up is needed
   a good kicking
   a shove of the mattress
   no Muller lite and vodka schnapps for you ladies

   I think you’ve had enough
   you’re about as luminous as a tesco perishables section
surely there must be women out there with enough fallopian tube to dethrone these audio hussies
go in there and kick ‘em square in the fanny

and declare revolution while sandal slapping jo whiley in the mush
there must be
I’ll do the t-shirts
and badges
and megaphone palaver
e-mail me.

Should I Smoke This Ciggy Know Or Later

I was governed by the fall of a two pence coin

if there was ambiguity
i’d call upon its services
should i
could I
became yes or no
do it
don’t
if I didn’t agree
it was best of three

i called that extension ‘mooring the outcome’
i ended up repeating the process
until it suited my requirements
and then I abandoned the decision making strategy altogether
because it was me who governed the two pence coin
which I finally
ceremonially exchanged
for a blackjack

at the newsagents






The Junction Messenger

There is a nexus of truth that inhabits the junction. Like the lay-lines that are supposed to traverse this island, it intersects in an area of significance, although its not marked by ancient barrow or building. Whenever you pass through this point you almost sense something irregular. Time slows ever so slightly and what you almost become aware of quickly disperses as you walk on. Most people rarely bat an eye-lid but a few recognise that inexplicable something. 

I’m about to turn the corner and he hobbles past me shouting and cursing at two kids who’ve been tormenting him. Rumour has it he lost his family to cancer. He demonstrates at the junction with cardboard placards that probably double up as a bed at night. His angular marker font runs parallel with the direction of the cardboard corrugate. This gives an avant-garde twist to just recognisable warnings of the dangers of smoking. He buttresses his street campaign with inimical outbursts that once can only assume mirror his written word.

Its difficult to understand his words-
distorted by a rage and anger that has seen him marginalized
treated like a freak
ignored, ridiculed

amusive and mystical
there exists a profound dimension to his soul

Masked by the almost carnival interaction between audience and curiosity, this dimension leaps out and envelops those wanting to understand. If you’re busy distracted by his fuzzy beard or what offers are on in river island then sadly you’re out of the loop. But if you are affected by this man, and I don’t mean his situation or plight, I mean truly affected by what he represents, then hopefully you’ll approach the grave with more meaning because in this man lies reality.

He represents the boundary of you existence
beyond which most refuse to cross
he is the margin of society
he guards a treacherous path
i imagine looking into his eyes
but I only imagine because i dare not actually look
out of fear of what I might see
most people think this way

ignoring avoiding
as they walk by
too scared to face reality
unwilling to have the boat rocked
others pity him
and some go as far as initiating crude conversation
don’t feel guilt or pity
he is locked in a mission
he has passion, motivation

a message to share
vagrancy is not synonymous with directionlessness
take away his purpose and you will kill him
let him struggle and he will remain alive
deconstruct his pain with the tools of psychiatry
and you commit murder
he is a keeper
a soothsayer
a guardian of the nexus of truth

Against the backdrop of Victorian gaiety
that kneads the senses
and infuses a false sense of importance
that pampers to materialism
and cream tea appetites
that comforts the old and infirm
and amuses the merry-go round young
he reclines against wall and floor

his core bare for all to see
dedicated to the cause of his deceased family

The next time you cross his path
try not to be distracted by the haze around him
dig deeper
retune and consider what he represents
and maybe one day we can look him in the eye without fear
 

Faster, Faster

I have no like for the city type.
Einstein was right when he said, “time was relative”
Because everytime I see them on a train or plane
they seem to move faster, speak faster, complain faster and
piss and shit faster relative to me.

When I’m out at a club they make me feel the odd one out

as they dance and prance and jostle and shout
In these places there is no point in being polite
coz you just get looked at weird as if you’ve just
been released from prison and are ready to commit
an offence.

These high-city-flyers have lost all sense of communication,
except were the elevation of their station is concerned.
And they move to fast, drive to fast and their hearts beat to fast

as chemicals race around the body circuit like cars on a
scalectrix track.

If you’re not suited and booted then you have to realise
that they won’t give you the time of day.
I guess I’ll just fester in my northern retreat and smoke
fags and play boggle all day.

Telling Lies, Selling Pies

Out on the edge
working a canteen
serving mash and veg
fellas in overalls
couples with their smalls
old ladies shaking

forgetting, spilling
their time nearly spent
good honest people
and me in the middle
in sheeps clothing
watching, admiring,
disdaining, avoiding

telling lies

selling pies

Crooked Usage

   Drive through deserts in a beat up truck
   chase redemption
   and ride the ass of lady luck

consider murder for 50 grand
and pay with fingers
taken from hand

show me the beauty in life again
away from the darkness
but tell me no lies of
what is behind crooked usage

journey to the west coast

drop to the surface and die
body preserved in rye
cycle through a circle
make your sibling punch and cry
visit monks in a monastery
confess in a vestibule

show me the beauty in life again
away from the darkness

but tell me no lies of
what is behind crooked usage

Let me drain bins
into my mouth
eat snow
and throw grenades
fire bullets into blankets
and make basement acid lemonade

go countryside
via hillside
long change gypsy families
travel nomad

cut wedges out of democracy
chase wrens through hedges
and puke bile at the complete and utter idiocy of it all

show me the beauty in life
away from the darkness
but tell me no lies of
what is behind crooked usage


Up

I lay there
half unconscious,

aware of the dark room surround
mind filled with electronic computer fuzz
and the remnants of a late night beer buzz
faceless shadows howling at me
sent from the underworld
images pulsing across my view
fear twitching down my spine
launched like a Soyuz on the Kazakhstan plains
up-vertical

punching through brick and mortar
ceiling, loft and roof
into the suburban air
my ascent unbroken
boeing window altitude views
blended with turner atmosphere
stratosphere and mesosphere
until I rested
above the earth

gaia in glory

then movement began again
planets past me
galaxies, nebula
rushing
up heartbeat
until I stopped
but I did not stop

I had no control
I was human
I was man
I was everything
ying - yang
it was ascension
it was freedom
as the whole lot permeated every
nook and cranny

every cell, vein, and neuron
no meeting with divinity
just complete and utter mind boggling awe
a kodak panoramic of the universe
me a sign on a metal plate
arms extended
then everything in reverse
the galaxies and planets past
atmosphere, roof

body jolt
awake, sweating
in the dark surround
scared shitless
wondering what just happened
vividity, lucidity
made the voyage real
symbolic even unworldly