BBC

Creature!

'You've got to be in it
To win it?'

Or a life spent desperate lonely
Bashing a pencil hand
Against the monolith

And the nation
Beams at the teet

And the writers and intellects
Rest in the cleavage

Happy between
The bosum of tradition
And the void of art

A Nursing Home

Resting my eyes upon the lilies
And my tired mind
Projected forth
To the end of human suffering

Breathe deep with me reader
And feel the warmth
Of a life spent
Whilstling after
Art

And the pretty girls
Between me and
Absolution

Hold up my crown
Merlin Fulcher
And the tracks spelt out
Between me
And destiny.

Exit

Tired of iron
And the industry
Extremities
He fell faster
Past the throbbing
Friday lights
His dust caked
Boots, made a star
Beside the wheel
Of ochre toil,
His resting place

Our Flock Are Sheep

Dear wartime popular consensus.
I took a bough and stated: historiographical controversies
Dear pillars and stones;
Dear childhood in a library,
Childlike for a school.

Please excuse my absence and accept my kind
thoughts at this time of sadness for our family.

Four portions in the oven. That is family.
Like the uniform duck: we will all be fathers,
Or watch surreptitiously our friends on the grass.
There are coffees coming, or, 'Please help
Yourself to a soft drink'. Go on.

Dear Lion & Unicorn and mustard sandwich.
Here's making hands in the air (making hands in, the, air).
This summer will go on and on.
It will go on and on and last weekend, it was to go on.
Ice may be harder to come by?
Why just lie and with your hands back let the
Wind blow over you.

Dear Sir, I watched you in the woods gathering stones.
I, watched thoughts, reinvent themselves in bones.
I found my children, eating ankles.
My ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to my home.

On marble floors our flock are sheep.
Indian cottage, where shall we sleep?
A great wind blew across the world.
Come hither, help me with the map.
All of this is good and bad in equal portions.

Your Mouth

Fireburst over the horizon
An open window full of dust
Youth on computer: aged.

Horizon dust and fresh cut grass
Dusk and mother time
Upper time.

My brother, my freind.
The woman who lived below the stairs
Two of them:
Drill pigs.

Mother in the air
Fences for the rich
Father in the air
Fences for the rich

I, never trusted:
Opinions, statements,
Thoughts: your mind
Your mouth.

Thank you for listening
If not

Steps

I used to be nostalgic.
One day I will be hopeful.
I will always be pessimistic.
Optimism will come.
There is nothing but despair.
I'm too scared of fear.
I can't bear this discomfort.
I'm troubled by this anxiety.
I'm concerned by this neurosis.
I think I will be thoughtful.
I'm not sure about apprehension.
But I have faith in my trust.

Arch-Up

Arch-up
Kid

These words weren't learnt
In a day.

Take solace in
Correct spelling,
Punctuation,
Grammar

Up-beat
And salient
Traditions
Of the past.

Be kind to
Associations
Or 'opportunities'
For life
Is a tireless Road.

Cycle Path

Cycle Path
When I'm on it
It's like we're
All wearing the same hat

I feel lost or betrayed
When
Road Markings
Lead me astray

Sometimes I take a diversion

As I grow older
You become more familiar
But I still feel
I made
The right choice

(Etc.)

Etc said to me
'Things won't always
Be this fun
You know'.

Thank you
Reiterated the
Point

A Hello
Said
Gratuitously

This all made me
Question
How I felt
Which in any case
Explains the
Joy

Daylight Saving

Summer rain
Caught the eye
Of a passing stranger
At 5:25 pm
Angles to the
Ascecnding municipal skies.

At a dark-made-light
Staircase:
Two minds elapsed
Looking backwards
On a shared past of
Phosphorescent
Twilight youth encounters.

Our man up-high
Took a deep breath
And welcomed in the
Warm becoming day.

An early evening light
Caught his mind
As it stretched
Across the months
To come.

Photographically images
Fell in rain
And blue flaking leaves
Of spring
Set expecting.

He shook the future
From his mind
And whispered back
'come again: homeward friend.'

Stank

Again being unfortunate or unusual
In taking
A sound word
Into properties termed
Explicit

He was a pioneer
Of unusual feeling
Among dissatisfied
Urban rate payers.

Feel the fabric
Said Clive:
It is enough.

Sticky

Sticky buns, Sticky buns, Sticky buns!

…

She sat
On a shared chair
Called a sofa
Resting her legs
On my crotch

And teased
Ice cream
Out of the pot

Iron Out

Iron out the iniquities
Of sweet Thursday mornings
Spent unemployed
And sipping empty
Coffers
At the Starbuck’s Hilton
Level 2

Undressed I saw the creases

Took a moment to familiarise myself
With: charming lady
Of Oriental dispensations

In a back street in soho
Where someone I once stood next to
Wandered off

Chasing the words of my dream
In her heart.

Peterhof

A heart in pounding progress
On the morning of our dreams.
Seduced by sights and rising
Schemes
-- she carried on her wings.

Agincourt

Sweet Agincourt
O where is love?
I look in heart
I look above

Sweet Agincourt
My love, my time
A bead in hope
I seek to find.

O Agincourt
O where art thou?
On prisms dreams?
The minds of sow?

Sweet Agincourt
Sweet Time, sweet now
For peace in Love
We wonder how…

NHS

A Mouse!
In the post-room

Little fellow
Don’t send him up
To endoscopy

Afterlines

After day work call line
On the bus home
She cries
About her boss

And life
Franz Ferdinand
Corporate communications

I tell her to join a union
She has
None of it.

Sin

Not particularly inspired thought:
George as he watched the doorway to the stairs above the room,
Nathaniel as he mopped vomit in the men’s room,
Jacob as he lifted another crate.
Not particularly inspired
And Jesus sat in the corner of the room
Gently opening beer bottles with a pocket razor.

British Genius

Febvre: Nigel Kennedy.
We all want to
Say things about
His aftershave
His afterthoughts.
We thought a man couldn’t have an ‘appearance’
That is: we thought a man could be controlled



So there is a picture of Nigel Kennedy in every home
Now.

Say

That in-the-street library and phone box.

That wet wall on a London day.

That limestone brick and wet dark grass.

Toneless like a telephone or office filled with glass, and leather.

That man, stood there in a room with little more than darkness. Starkness un-availed.

He stood there like a dove, peaceful, in a land where no-one knew his name.

Calm and without people; he went there everyday.

And when fog or glass misted the aperture; he took a deep breath, buttoned his coat, and his heart burned.

4pm it’s very dark and people are scurrying home. The day has ended early – for everyone – there is no rush hour, just aromatic bushes on shepherd’s heath, mock tudor public lavatories, a smell of disinfectant.

Nobody wore raincoat apart from he.

He trod back on a clean pavement, not wet, but imminent with dampness. The door was dark, not in colour, but in tone. It opened swiftly and without a noise. A corridor, full with a sense of damp dust; a paste-like warm effect, an acrid cold reek.

Stairs with carpet so fine it could be wooden boards, but silent. Wind blowing on the panes. Two steps up and one step down. A coat must be placed on a peg.

Up the stairs and into a darkened room, lit quickly by deskplamp – an important friend. There is a typewriter, a telephone, papers, a pipe, a chair, two windows – this could be where Harold Pinter lived but it isn’t.

He sits down with his thoughts alive. Un-ties one shoe, takes off his glasses (for a moment).

‘There isn’t much I wouldn’t say to a telephone with half a glass of brandy.

‘It took, three miles and wind blowing off the Thames. It took it all.

‘So then I – in the bookshop, under new architecture windows saw making photos for myself, in October.

‘I saw the view of London. But all I felt was my youth.

‘I saw Limestone in my self.

‘I routine a day and kiss.’

Closer to the window, an empty street. A phonebox, more darkness and wind. Dark houses and apartments, lit-up by square windows. Equally interesting people place their elbows and watch.

Aldeburgh

As I walked
Along the broken line of pebble stones
It broke; an orange crest of whitéd detail
Like a bone finger carving
Scraped against a rest.



A deep breath under phosphorescent skies.
I had survived this land to find another:
The Coast.

Siriol

Moving at a high velocity
As though my mind was filled with other thoughts
Than you and conversation
On the train from Ipswich
To Liverpool Street.

Two

And two old homos sat at a desk
Old homos of the sort
That didn’t make it out much
Watching 'shows'
At the National Theatre.

Two old homos eating lunch
It’s not a date
Late at night
In a room
It’s two old homos
Not on a date
Not on a date

Two old homos
In the park with a dog
They're brothers
They're twins
They're friends
They're gentleman friends

Two old homos
For all their lives
At school
University
Clubs and dives
They've been two old homos,
All of their lives.

Chivalry

I saw a knight
An order of the garter
Today on a bike
Like a lord
Of the roads
With beard,
A red Honda
And fibre glass aero curve.
A True King.
Real men don’t smile.
Real men shag wome.

'Pidgeons in Transit'

I believe we are in High Wycombe. Beautiful.

Dreams a bloon.
Do you want a bloon?

Breasts.
Big breast
I have never seen.
What do you do with them?
Are they yours?
Do you share them?
Can he..pinch?
Breasts.
I like your breasts.
Breasts
You're breasts
Can I...pinch?

I saw beautiful mounds of earth with grass, I saw formations in brick and stone.
Towering steel serrated spikes, quite motionless mechanical monsters.
I saw them. All.

Your car is shit. Thankfully I don’t own it.
Ownership is man made kind.
Ownership is bliss and torment, entwined.
It gets better or worse everyday.
It exists in terms of numbers and lies.
I am objectless, one day in the future perhaps.

I have never seen such a beautiful thing.
You smell of cheese. and vomit.

There were hills.



We did good things.
When we were young,
on roads

M40

The pylon is naked like my thoughts
And pain I've caused.

I like you naked,
More than with your clothes on.
Original like Adam
or e.,

I MIGHT NEVER SEND A LETTER 'GAIN

In time I will collect
The ashes
Of my face
And the endless photos
Of sheet glass
And naked breasts.

And everyone will say
I loved her.

I time I will take her grace
And like a tall
Glass fill myself
With colourful explosions
And distasteful replicas
Of plastic aeroplane toys,
Marked foliage
Or leaves.

And everyone will say
I was not for her.

Or else I will mark time
And take each changing object
As sandstone

The industry
Of thoughts
Or houses


And everyone will say

I might.

2006

The sun goes down on another year,
Two-thousand and six.
The light is soft, the sky is flat
And now it is raining.

Seaside Yesterday

seaside yesterday
love on the currents
warm mist blue
with beady fire lights
men in tall dark green
and satin on the sea's sheen.

the crashing waves
were music
for the morrocan pipes
and lilting rythms
the haze
of summer nights

coastal like a rock
on a tidal voyage
through twittering
concierge
and sex

Reading of The Mounted Pond

The Crow didst bless the slated fringe
And rest its sooty crest, upon the slant.
And upon its sunken gaze our eyes did dart
Forthwith its pitched surety didst depart.

An obfuscate haze dusted my lips and hand.
One beside himself, sat Eastwards in memoriam.
Paired in pairs, across the oily undulate -
The taloned duck in May-ward quarry set.

My ears the adopted audience of wayward tape
From whence fell into mine pocket open gape.
Dispersed, my senses urged to waxly coalesce,
And shadow out, the prating clamour of excess.

I shared their reading of the mounted pond,
Without glance of name, scripted e'er so fond.
Etched sans breath, the ditty echoes promptly,
Our earthly response fevers outward courtly.

Beside the Heron's crutched twigs and rows
Of silken geese. Amid the dewlets darty
And hopping, not proud but inwards dropping.
His sooty breast so lent clawed & cropping.

With perceptive eye it unfurled - the Crow -
Its poised, knotted digits parleyed sorrow.
Cycles erred trepid, as the wakeful likeness
Emerged my mind to symbiosis - now I know!

The Studio

Peach radiance and fresh gum hue
Quick anxiety doth vanish from you.
And this is it no mock no other:
No shamblesome cliche or hastiful blunder
For here is assertion, authority and flair,
The mission to sow twice the fair share.
Conveyed with profession, whimful and calm,
Portrait of knowledge: eve's mind sooth'd like balm.