NEVERENDING PIECE, MAN

A psychedelic dot-to-dot

A book for every hippy

A book they cannot end or stop

The flashbacks keep them trippy

MIND THE GAP

It's not the tick

Nor the tock 

Of the clock

They're markers

Unseen

For our lives

In-between

THE BEACH

 Time is sand on a beach. Where the only certainty is where we've walked. Don't stop to collect it, for then we're merely the hourglass. Better to enjoy the feeling of it between our feet. Sense every grain. Run, too, with time. As far as we're allowed. The beach goes on forever.

POP-UP WEATHER APP

 

My weather app says,

"It's 3 degrees and it feels like 3 degrees."

Oh, Summer, when will I see you again,

My woman in love, overseas.

NOT GOING OUT

 It's cold today

It's minus one

That one is me

Outside I'll shun

I'm stuck in bed

Which is quite true

But to be fair

I need a brew

I'll just get up

And make a pot 

Then back to bed

Where it is hot

I hate the cold

And it hates me

We don't get on

As you can see.

STAIR LIFT

My feet don't work like they used to

At the end of my dodgy legs

Which in turn connect to my back

Which cracks like the shells of eggs

I don't let it get me too down

It doesn't bring me to tears

I'll wait on the ground floor for now

Until my jet pack appears

STREAMING DREAMING

 

My dog is distant

He's here having dreams

The snoring persistent

He's running through streams

DENIER OF HOSIERY

I climbed the ladder in her tights 

And I got higher and higher

But then I was turned down, twice

She's a denier, denier.

LANE DEPARTURE

 

You're the M1 for me

I've gone off the A43

The M25 has lost its sex drive

And the A12 just goes to the sea

PATRILINEAL

Beeching

without hesitation

Leaching 

from station to station

Preaching

for the good of the nation

Teaching

control by castration

SOLITARY CUTLERY

I haven't got a spoon

I haven't got a knife

I hope to get some soon

It's a lonely, forking life

BEWARE OF CHILDREN

Our dog sits in our front window

Barking at the strangers 

Thinks he is a good guard dog

Warning us of dangers

But he barks at everyone

Friends and family flee

He's even barking at the kids

But he gets that from me.

BECAUSE IT'S THERE

 

The never rest

the arc of time

we try to keep

a steady climb

because it's there

the goal's the summit

after that

it's not to plummet

RAILINGS

 The cemetery railings round our way are long gone. Cut down quickly, like so many, for much needed metal for the war effort. Inside those cemeteries now lie the very men whose own efforts were sadly cut down.

Because of them we can enjoy the peace to contemplate on such things.

THE INBETWEEN

 We get ups and downs on life's trampoline

We live most our days in the in-between.

4 eva

 I wonder if anything that we leave will last as long as a dinosaurs fossilised footprint? Will future archaeologists marvel over a fossilised tree and ponder the cryptic message, "Steve luvs Andrea 4 eva" ?

I've been with my wife for 23 years.

Be kinda cool to get to 23 million.

LIGHT AND SHADE

 

A man made of shadows was outside

His substance you couldn't see through

His outline was much like his inside

Without light he'd vanish from view.

TIMESCALES

When rivers run dry as the sun drinks each drop

When fields are bare brittle as a broken world stops

When even the cockroach can't catch its short breath

When memories of us have the last dance with death.

Will Trump then concede? 

FRIDAY 13TH. PART ONE

Superstitious? Touch wood?
I walk under ladders right where they're stood
Never pull on a Parsons nose
Blue & green seen all over my clothes
I don't pray & I won't wish
I swim after the heartiest dish
Friday 13th holds no fear for me
I stop in bed as a guarantee

TWITCH

Every time you see a curtain in your street just twitch 

It might be that the house in question has a little itch

It might be that your neighbours think that you're up to no good

It might be cos you're stood where someone else like you just stood.

STIRS AND CREAKS

Morning sounds

A car so far away

Perhaps a sound of yesterday?

My house stirs, creaks, returns to sleep

A grand old age

Deserves its rest

Watched Victorians like me 

In the same kitchen as me

Stir and creak just like me

An eye for all eternal tea.

NATURE IN LOCKDOWN

 A faded gauze of morning hints at better days. Grass has stopped growing. Worms can finally get some peace. The leaf dance is cancelled due to lack of wind. Is nature obeying Lockdown rules? I count 6 pigeons on a TV aerial, 5 on a wall. Could it be? 

No. 

None are wearing masks.

THE GREAT RUBBER BAND BALL 1979-1982

Where'd you go? I meticulously added each one of your scrappy loops and watched you turn into a rubber giant. I rolled you around. I admired you. I was very proud of you. With each band you imperceptibly grew.

We both imperceptibly grew.

OH, BYE DON!

Biden won

oh, bye Don!

let bygones be bygones

your work here is now done

Biden won

oh, bye Don!

Biden won

a big win

a big win we've all seen

bunker boy's just obscene

crying on

the last green

TOOLS

I don't know why we're not given the tools when we're younger to fully appreciate our parents. Life just works that way. The gift and curse of memory means we can revisit our much missed loved ones but we can never stay to tell them what we've learned.

STRANGE MORNING

I wake in a sticky, muddy, sucking shell hole

I'm with my great grandfather

His arm awkwardly plugs a sticky, muddy, sucking back wound

I try in vain to shout to him

That I know he lives

Through sticky, muddy, sucking memory

Strange morning

FIRST COFFEE - A LEGAL ARGUMENT

Discombobulation at your

disassociation from the

discontinuation of the night.

Misrepresentation and the

misinterpratation of the

misappropriation of the light.

Inconsideration for your

incoordination leads to

identification of your plight.

COFFEE UP

 An anonymous morning. It's too cold yet to show its face, here. No sights or sounds. Not even road noise, unless you count the scooter from up the street. A rattling abacus of one every morning at six. I shout in my head 'stop the count' and smile.

No lawyers needed. Only coffee.

TRUMP'S FAMILY RECIPE

Take 1 large country, settled in the pack.

Shake pack vigorously. 

Pour pack into boiling water

Keep simmering for 4 years.

Siphon scum from top

Add pepper spray.

Stir continuosly

Do not burn

If so, cut off black parts

Serves only one.

BINWAR

Bin bags and bin juice

All across the floor

Which bin for which use?

Recycling uproar

"It's not my turn this week"

Both my boys do cry

Both now start to shriek

As the lorry passes by

Both grab two bin bags

Running down the road

My two scallywags

Lightening my load.

RAINDROP MEMORY

 I stand at my back door with the early morning rain. One raindrop moistens both cheek and memory.

My nan taking a hankie, trying to rub out what we later found out to be the start of my 1st teenage spot and not a grubby mark. 

I touch the drop. It rolls down my stubbled cheek.

NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE TIMES

 

Lavender blue

Dilly, dilly

Covid 19

Locked down again

Dilly, dally

Death rate's obscene.

POPPING OUT FOR THE BINS

I only popped outside because the bins had fallen down

How was I to know the winds would catch my dressing gown?

I saw my neighbours face trapped in that rictus smile of fear

How was I to know that part of me had reappeared?

ONE SCHOOL OF THOUGHT

On Thursday we English get Lockdowned

With a feather I could be knocked down

The kids in the schools

Are kept there by fools 

Who forget the 'vid spreads in the playground

THE GREEN LADY

 My solitary holly tree bends with the wind. Its arched surprise known just  to me. Straightened and bent in rhymic disharmony. Flexing with the wind, it reminds me of being forced to morning exercise. A green lady. Her leaves shaken to indignant prime prickle.

She is not amused.