What's a man to do

I used to have one stalker

Now I got two

And all the time I was looking at you.

And this is gutter

But it ain't nothing new

All the time I been looking at you.

And I ain't fixed the bell.

I should be able to tell

And I don't think the door will go through.  

That and the cell

And the WhatsApp as well

Left me thinking what should I do? 

I used to have one

But I picked up another

Tired and drunk

Late in some jam or other.

If me talking to you

Feels like her talking to me

Then I best pack my bags

And go overseas.

Something scary

There's something scary

Coming over the hill

And that's a privatised A.I.

That's ready to kill

A private A.I.

That's ready to drill

A hole in your pocket

And end your pay packet

And you can't stop it

Or even lock off it.

There's something scary

Come over the hill

That's a private A.I.

Manipulating popular will.

That gets in so many heads

With what you've watched and you've read

That you have to give credit

How well we're misled.

There's something scary

Coming over the hill

And that's private A.I.

That won't for a second be still

That will out think you and I

And that really smart guy

Just easy as we

Would out think a fly.

There's something scary

Coming over the hill

That's a private A.I.

That's ready to kill

That's a private A.I.

Backed by silicon mills

In the hands of a gang

High on satanic thrills.

There's something fuck scary coming over the hill

This is a very, very, very, very, very, very dangerous moment

Don't sit back and chill

There's something scary coming over the hill.

Hot sauce

Hot sauce

The type that stays on your lips

After the tissue wipes.

Stays on your lips after wine.

Stays on your lips

Like a galaxy of light explosions

Rolling them together

Anticipating

More sauce.

Dipped meat caramelised

Comes alive. Succulent

And moist on the fork.

The aroma of this sauce curls

Gently scented around your skin.

Like incense burning by your ankle.

Laps your thigh encircling

Then splits like shoots of ivy, jasmine

Sweet Honeysuckle in spring

Raises you in scaffolds high

Adorned and flowering.

This is a sauce that coats

Like slow water, sweet

Envelopes to tongue's tip

The more you get

The more the pursed edges

Of your lips drip hot.

Piquant

Unquenched

A forceful sauce, spice remorseless

Unstalled by waterfalls, bread walls

Or heart rent caterwauls.

From your throat, heart, 

Gut a burning chasm

Volcanic. The type to wake

A mount from dormancy

To shaking pyroclasm

The type to delicately

Move your fingers on cutlery

And stir your tongue

The type of sauce

That says there's so much to come.

Excess bars

I got excess bars
Barred for black sheep barbarism
Banged like sing-sing
So many bars make prison
Riven and penned
In editorial decisions.

It's all the tall Ls
Like walls, lullabies over the fells
And moors, and more,
And more, like a cast in foundry
Liquid bars pour
Cup ringed in waterfalls
Can't mop phrases from the floor.

I got excess bars
I let you into a secret
They're secret
If I tell you this
You must not repeat it.
Repeat it.
I got excess bars
Puns so bad they're barbaric
Call to the lawyers
I need to be catching a car
I can't get stuck behind bars.

A bye

Compassionate, confused
She smiled like she didn't know
Why I'd say thank you
As we turned to go.
I'm glad I knew.

Pity the maladjusted

Pity them
For they hate pity
Hate their narrative and hold it gilded high
Proud of difference, they hate
Difference.
The poor terrified hallucinations
Monstrous others
Stalking their imagination
Rapists murderers and thieves
In lurid shadows, indistinct, unknown
And intimate to themselves.
Their own hate and fault
Could only be others.
Pity them whose fictions
Are their only pass to status
And stress relief
An identity of less cortisol
Evaporates in myth.
Terrorism.
And how they hate
Pity.

In the car parks

They are but ten years old
Some as young as seven or less
Standing in car parks alone
On the edge of commercial space.

Our conscience of this is young
We make war on their lands
Murdered old nations and tribes
Acre on acre of genocide.

They had families and cousins
Who would guide them
A parent to suckle their growth
Now we stand them by streetlights alone
With no concern for their loss.

We realised, enlightened
That they have something to give
That we love and need their presence
So we transplant some of the kids

To the margins
Where they humanise brands
The great steel wharehouses
Motorways and railway tracks
Collared, isolated, startled and scared
Passive and under attack.

How long does it take
To find one of their kin
In the next pen
Fingers reaching out
To touch in darkness
Under the toxic shelters of black rock.

Over the tops of old brick
The elders rise, storied
Like veins on the sky
Like the earth's drowning hands
Thin as a cortex.
Will they adopt and make friends
Toddlers delivered swaddled in cloth
Just babies,
These trees, child refugees.

Principles

When you're up on your high horse
And moralising
Riding well shod by those just surviving
Remember, and this may be banal
In human behaviour, context is all.
Think about what it's essential to bring
Principles are expensive things.

More underwhelming than supermarket sushi

This bad haiku that
Doesn't scan at all really
And then goes nowhere.

Standard 16

You ain't heard of me
I ain't got badges in Queensbridge
But if you wanna fuck around
Then you need bring team with.

I don't grip mics for the rep
I leave Django upset
When Babylon run up on drums
Then I'm not among the suspects.

Dip shit MCs ain't got wit to learn in weeks
Talk is cheap
Come correct
Don't even quit in my sleep.

And if you wanna look me up
Go check Who's Who
I thought you knew, those that do
Don't talk, and those that talk don't do.

You hurt the whole world

You hurt the whole world

With what you did

Not just me and you

And mum and Nu

And all the bods in the crew.

But all the others

My work would've helped

If my sense of injustice

Wasn't corrupted

By feelings I felt as a whelp.

You hurt the whole world

You did.

Never, ever

What,

Don't you like riding dragons?

Maybe it's poor eyesight

Flagons and moonlight

But I really thought you the type.

Tell me you've got spares

Who'll hang diamond teardrops in your ears

And lace your marble neck with gold.

You look better in silver

And I'd bejewel your soul.

I don't own pets

Don't need you to be any less

And you can guess one thing

That should you fall

You're heart and all

You'll find yourself flying

On a wing.

What,

Don't you like riding dragons?

I thought you would dare
Unlike the others,
Too coy or too scared
Fair, with poor insight
Can't see if you stare.

Love you've had plenty.
Loved you've been for sure.
Suitors list lengthy

But none the type to open doors

And make you realise

You never, ever

Really loved before.

Brambles

At the end of the night

I expect to be hurt

Not by a fight

Or the flight of a skirt

But the pang of the hooks

Pulling on twine

From some backward look

Long lost in time.

In my organs they bite

Zig-zag snagged line

All caught up tight

In the brambles behind.

My kilter all faltering

Taught lines pitch up short

And I find myself baltering

Between barrels of oughts.

Sideways is pain

And back seems ok

But forward I strain

And hooks rip and flay.

Somewhere, someone has scissors

For a dagger carapaced back

To cut lines so they quiver

And fall shung and slack.

Then maybe, just maybe

Berries I'll find

Following lines over my shoulder

To the brambles of mind.

All I can think of is you

I wanted to write a piece about

How free movement of capital
Allows the evasion of national regulations
And political control

Piling up mile high guarded mountains of gold

But all I can think of is you.

I wanted to write a piece about

How the value of networks being a function of their size

Combines with the weightless economy

And digital goods to facilitate global monopolies

That bleed the world dry,

Feeding small pools of leeches

In Seattle offices

But all I can think of is the time

You wore gothic eye makeup with silver studs.

I wanted to write about

How all encompassing property rights

Within a system of profit incentives encourages

Rent extraction of our common heritage

Co-opting distributed pillage

Like a virus defiling the planet

But my mind is filled with the image

Of you in a white bonnet with flowers and beau lace
And all I can think of is you.

I wanted to write

A polemic about how the efficacy and endemic limits

Of bureaucratic administration creates a situation

Where government is buckling under its own weight.

How the width at the base determines

A pyramid's safe height

But my mind
Keeps going back to that fight we had on the stairs.

I wanted to write about
How surpassed nationalism is floundering

Due the decimation of capital cost of broadcast.

The geography of communication fields bequeathed

By Mongolian, North Atlantic and Islamic imperialism

In comparison to our border being a hundred miles

But all I can think of is

You brushing your hair
From your smile, compassionate, confused.

I wanted to write about intellectual property

As a simple conceptual heresy against

The inherent advantages of humanity, GNU

The defence of Academy to protect

The intellectual future of our race as the task

Of the present generation to gift.

About the necessity of using our freedom

To develop new institutions, forms of cooperation

Demonstrative architectures of distribution

And possible uses of blockchain for value inclusion.

I wanted to write about a new Rochdale

But I fail

Cos my mind is locked on the picture

Of coloured string in your pigtails
And all I can think of is you.

I wanted to write about

Transnational communication, the evolution

And creation of new communal identities

The necessary inabilities of global hierarchy

Against mathematically proven efficiency

And resilience of networks meaning

Their dominance is given

And consequent logical implications for feminism.

But all I can think of is your spinning hem

And feet,

A second of silence after when our eyes meet

And your whites, wide, just for moment

Tell me.
All I can think of is you.

Footnotes

Pickle
That tickled me
I could call you obtuse
Am I cheating my duty
To use your peerless beauty
In want of a muse.
Afflicted by vacancy
But that ain't no news
Love in its latency
Doth always amuse.

It's just that I'm inclined
To spend time finding
New ways of describing
Your grace in text.
The curve of your brow
The fall of your neck.
Making up more nice things to say
Really must be the best use of my day.

Best of SMS

I.

Though you never call me
I know the reason why
And will hear the hills a calling
Calling till I die
And will hear the forest
The heather and the brook
And in them all your timid love
Will never be mistook.

II.

Specialness
I wish you every bliss
Miss you every kiss I waste
On some young wench in tryst.
My compass ever points to true
And all the love that I confess
Just echoes of my love for you.

III.

Sweet pea flower,
Wither do your tendrils spring
Tend what hopelings under wing
Wash what soils from fibre soft
Hold what spoils, high aloft
Sweet pea flower know one thing
I sing warm of you and oft.

Valentine for Cole

They said no to Coal
The heart of England
And oh, oh but Cole
She sets my heart a tingle
How I am not whole
A half when once a single.

And hardened men of grit and earth
Have fought the rock to treasure win
Though true Cole's wit and mirth
Are beyond measure of any men.

Valentine for Maggy

Oh leggy Maggie
Though you're crabby
I long to take you to the Abbey
Though I know I'm way too shabby
To wine and dine in Abu Dhabi.

But your scent I can't resist
Without your love I can't exist
So unrequited must persist
You'll always be my favourite fascist.

Valentine

I don't want to write this
I would rather strike a match
And hold flame to the crisp
Edge till blank paper catch.

Watch black borders advance
Line by line all shaped by chance
Before soft orange silk's short dance
Effaces these diluted words.

I don't want write this
But light fire and let it grow
For without this night's bliss
Then I must just let go.

Valentine for L

Love,
Can I call you that
I ended up unsure
Of what I loved
Or if I was.

Dismissed it all as misplaced fiction
Self-deluding games of youth
And frames we get from stories
That fit poorly on the truth.

I dismissed it all
Till after time so long
I saw you strong
Like a distilled mirror
Of the great gold Buddha
In Battersea park by the Thames
And you faced me smiling
Chest broad, face upturned
Like I wish you would've then.

Valentine for A

Heron,
Graceful by the water
What a smile she has.
You gave her that.
And if she should keep it
What a treasure.
What a treasure.
She will always have jewels.

Next Valentine

Oh surely Shirley you're not too girly
To twirl you by the short and curlies
Whirl you through the hurly burly
Till well early smile pearly.

Oh Shirley don't go all surly
Say that surely you will call me
Or I'll be poorly, wan and mardy
Take me and the glory Shirley.

Valentine for an errant muse

My father went away when I was young
Often, my mum said it affected me
Departure from the archetypes of Jung
Is not something we're born to see.

And few can stand sunbeams all day unblind
Bathe too long rue heatstroke, blistered skin
Warm blooded creatures will seek shade at times
Take some refuge from the orb life giving.

I think of Whitesmiths who make jewels from rocks
Their work coveted by aspiring thieves
Armouring their shops with shutters and locks
The worries wrought on wrights of beauty.

Don't be afraid that they'll leave, let them go
Freed things loved, if loving, return you know.

Valentine for Uplink

Crumpet
I couldn't think of a topping
Jam, honey and cream
Fresh, soft and steaming
The best wake from a dream
Gorgeous gallon waterfall
Of smoothest ice cream
Where you been ?
You must have been close
Cos I see trees looking up
And sprouting all green.

Valentine for S

When I'm at my mum's in France
Where the land still finds some freedom
And chalk oaks twist a living from the hills
There are trees I know
Knot by knot, a braille of youth
All but forgot.
They greet me like the pensioners
Who once were working men
Or the stooping lady with her stick
Who was forever shrinking.
The chalk oaks stand
And grow so slow
They inch unnoticed in decades known
But for branches from the knots
Some freshly grown, some spent and cropped
A path among old and silent friends
Their creviced bark beneath my running hand
Like hope to watch them slowly branch
Constant as the years advance.

The Times offers subscription

The Times offers me subscription
For £2.33 a week
For £2.33 a week
I can digest Murdoch's shit.

Now of course unwittingly
We're all part of this utility
To process new age sewage
Into opiated rage.

But for £2.33 you get a direct pipe
Of distributed shit digestion
Served to you in type.

You can "get educated" for £2.33
Perspective gaslight medicated
Object to facts to hallucinated
Angrily frustrated in hyper-reality.

And sewage turns to compost
Inside the reader's head
Seeded with Murdoch trees
And on this shite they're fed.

Murdoch trees grow Murdoch fruit
That we will never eat
Bloody juice and bitter rind
Pollute the grounds
The roots beneath our feet.

The Times offers me value
Subscription to opinion for £2.33
So I can be a smacked up minion
Of rank plutocracy.

So I can ponder questions
Such as how many foreigners
Sorry terrorists
It would be good to cull
I can have a septic tank
For Murdoch in my skull.

The Times offers me subscription
Education for £2.33
And I say, not me, no thanks
I would rather stay dull
Than set a distributed septic tank
For Murdoch in my skull.

Things not too say on Tinder I.

Sneering, disdain and contempt
Are the road down which lost love is sent
Wind in the sails.
Current for keels.

The attention of some is a blessing
The attention of others a curse
And one love's intention confessing
Can sometimes be roads to the worst.

You should always be sure
When push comes to shove
There is more
More than one kind of love.

Wind haiku

Soft butterfly wings
Cause hurricanes in far realms
What storms a bullet?

Ducks in a line

The big one is down in the rushes
And the little one is up by the pond
The mother is nesting
And another is resting
I don't know where the speckled one's gone.

Sprinkle spring

Sprinkle me some springtime
A tinkling of thimble bells
A twinkling of sunshine.
Burgeon some root fed bud
Some sureptious shoot that scouts
In doubt of curious March frosts.
Warm a nest of noon kissed moss
To catch each wafting cloud that pass
Sprinkle me some springtime
On my breakfast.

Reminder for Randy

If you think Rand is grand
That there's no need for Machiavellli
With a gun in your hand
If this is the plan, you understand
All religion is soppy
Just remember Nietzche
Died young, mad and unhappy.

Recommendation for A

I can recommend A,

As a human being
Of the conscious type.
Considerate and observant
With a minium of fuss.
Guided by unshakeable
Moral compass.
Possessed of deft assurance
Like a shepherd in control
And emotional fibre
Spun of gold.

Elemental

When you looked at her, you couldn't think Tracey.

Fire and ice, Sheffield feisty

In a blue cocktail dress she could be the first lady

In a brown hessian sack this woman was racey

When you looked, you just couldn't think Tracey.

Drunk Note

Oh sexy minx
In slinky keks
Remember sex ain't hard to get
But intimacy, a scarce
A delicate capacity.
The lack of which makes liberty
A wasteland wanting happy.

X for Y

My mate said
I mistook an X for Z
And I
Sometimes in my head
Drunk, when I should be in bed
Mistake an ex for a why.

Sonnet for Berners-lee's Monster

"What is it like to be a bat?"
Nagel

A wobble of flesh wakens and reacts
Tap, tap
Plastic catalyst pressed calls on
Signals from silicon-carbon synapse
Electric charge along copper axon.

Glass dendrite lights, digital bytes echo.
Another road, connection reinforced
Traversed between terminals of macro
Neurons, silicon enriched wobbling flesh.

Fan cooled hippocampus in Finnish wharehouse
Orbito-celebrito lobes cross-linked
With Twitter-form Gyrus and various
Specialist regions on sex, cats. In sync.

It is anyone's guess
If it's conscious.
Anyone's guess
What its consciousness is.

Crowded world

This city is a crowded world
How to stand or move, push
Be pushed against, what lengths
Of stride for pigeon steps
What weight to pull
Be pulled upon
What tug to move you on.
It is a crowded world.

To be heard
Above the turning motors
The shepherd roads
To shout is hard
To harmonise, sing
Bring instruments
For few have ears close enough
One will hear a whisper
This is a crowded world.

To be seen
Amidst the herd
The sea of hair and hats
The brick facades, lift your hand
They'll think you drown
Step a box, a stage, on siege engines
Climb the pyramid of men
Scale
Don't look down
This is a crowded world.

New year sonnet

What work's this, the past to rest
We can but drag shipping threads
The rope of life's woof and weft
To shuttle days, blindly lead

By weather and dreams of youth
Weave the lines from every root
Bind the findings of your truth
To all selves you can recruit.

Eastern light will make the past
Less real than the rising dust
First palour of the year toast
And strike to smith the year's musts.

Spin all beams that fall upon thee
To threads of richest tapestry.

New year haiku

Clock ticks thick leg steps
Calendar leaf by leaf flies
Rearriving home.

Streets at lunch

White low sun in lunchtime sky
Paves and shods the City silver
And all the tarmac roads
Show their other face in this
False spring.
The crocus will rise
Before the year's done
There's a cherry
At the junction in full blossom
I have construction worries
Like builders
And London roads are silver.

Collateral love

They say all is fair 
But sometimes the battle gets rough 
And you're so buff 
You're causing collateral love.

I say you're beautiful, poised, powerful 
Others want all the above 
You're so buff 
You're causing collateral love.

And so many want to hear it 
But they just don't bring enough 
But you're so buff you're causing 
Collateral love.

So beautiful is this world

So beautiful is this world
It calls me like a siren
And I am bidden to gambol
Like a spring lamb
Stumbling as if drunk
Among it's wonders.

So beautiful is this world
That every noise is music
And all becomes a serenade
The joyous song of everyday
Makes me fizz like lemonade.

Extended reply to a superior and errant muse

Who claims someone else said it all

I'll accept your apologies
Not for me, but for you
We both know you never have need
And always a smile will do.

But I'll accept your apologies
Because we both know that it's true
You couldn't open without saying sorry
The respect just wouldn't come through.

I know it can't be a habit
That with men you must never have to
But I'll accept your apologies
Not for me, but for you.

II.

When I first drank Absinthe
Upstairs on the corner in Brixton
It was giddy, peripheral vision
Lost to my recollection
Hungover like fire
Brain in a tumbledryer
But I sobered up
I don't have the mind
To sip wormwood in the forest
Till blind.

III.

If you ask what am I to you
Not as much of what you need
Of what I've got it's true.
But please, give that no heed.

IV.

Well after I'd left home
I would get offended
By people's pretences and stratagems
Sulk insulted and think
Do they not understand
What I can understand in them
But then one instant understood
That they didn't, they couldn't
With all the will, they never would
Because they didn't, they couldn't
And I became more forgiving
And meet it now with quiet shepherding
Chevere, Chevere

V.

Streetlights brighten the drunken Odyssey
For all, even from afar, you can gaze
And see that this is what makes cities
Warm amber takes the doubt away
But streetlights are not free
Can't stop dogs pissing,
Or leave broken things unseen
You might look and see lovers kissing
I see a realised dream.

Streetlights are a public good.

VI.
Your smallest attention
A concentrated dose
The electrifying inspiration
Of having you close
Like pharmaceuticals
It makes me selfish, truth be told
Like it's stealable
I guess it's a hard struggle to toil
Walking around like a Tesla coil

VII.

You must have won many a battle of wills
With trophies to litter your mantle and sill
You could get me drunk and suggest
In a simple low cost conquest
And I'm sure you can smell them
The prey that offers less fight then Belgium.
It's not a field where I could challenge your might
You know I don't pick that type of fight.

VIII.

When I gazed into your eyes
For the first minute, I was just amazed
By their size
I guess most don't survive that first blaze
Fall prey to disguise and leave dazed.

I saw your need for vengenace
On the selfish, the inspired, that stole
The moments of Tartarus romance
Deep in the founds of your soul.

But you can apologise one of these days
Self sensitise and let struggle give way

IX.

Though you might try
There are things you can't fake
From forty yards your eyes
Said that you made a mistake

But you can apologise
I'll accept it
Though we both know a message will do

You can apologise
I'll accept it
Not for me, but for you.

Reply to an errant muse

Let's talk 
Tell me I'm not 
Your favorite stalker 
Of the current crop 
Bet you've had corkers 
I'll put it out I'm top 
In terms of the baddest 
Baddest kind of mad 
Bet I'm the best type of stalker you've had.

Santa needs a visa

It's all changed
Elf rights arrived
And they cast off their chains
Now they been rationalised
And replaced by machines.

Suppliers fly parts
From the Antartic on hire
Cos it's cheap
Now the Elves are in igloos
With nothing to eat.

And the reindeer
Don't like Springboks
Coming over here
But there's a shock.
They could never expect it
Santa needs a visa post Brexit

Slave labour, cheap foreign imports
Flooding the streets
Dumping toys on good children
And our boys can't comepte.

The RAF will have him
Before he hits Aberdeen
Send him back to his cabin
Keep Rudolf in quarantine.

And you think you're in the frying pan
But this is the nex' shit
Santa needs a visa post Brexit.

Faerie bears

Pocket fluff gets wanderlust if you're delicate enough and loft it
Aeolian. I often come across furry bears when truffling
In coppiced asparagus or a Walrus esophagus
But nonetheless
Faerie bears are very rare
They pass unnoticed, lost in luscious grass
Leading elusive lives and should be always
Indistinctly described
Like clouds.
Clouds make perfect answers
To any question
To all subjects, look up
Look up
Clouds make perfect answers.

Letter to an errant muse

The power you have over men
That power that affects me too
Can give no power o'er your sen
Your beauty can't protect you.

The hold you have on other hearts
Can never hold the heart within
Though you might glower, spit and smart
It will not shield Eros' sweet pin.

You can deny
Say there's no rush
You'll try and find another one
But then why lie
I've seen you blush
You're not fooling anyone.

Jogging partners

I get these moments when
Folk want to measure and won't pretend
And when they find I won't contend
They scoff and call me bats
And I say friend
Let's not offend
We all must find our track
I'm on the mend
And in the end
You'll find I don't race rats
I jog round the bend
And up dead ends
And it's more fun it fact
To run against dead men.

I dreamt the house aflame

When I awoke my eyes were full of flame

The house around me was a phoenix

And I was dreaming, a dream that wakes you.

From Sparta with all warriors slain

In emptied halls I watched torches

Watched one torch with my heart

Jumping at each gust

In each obscurity.

Screaming to the runner

Set it down

Set it down

Set it down on the dry heather, the parched gorse and sedge

Set it down

So it may teach and I may learn

Set it down

Fool, it runs swifter than you.

I gathered marbles in the Menalaion

Flaming marbles

And watched them burn through my hand

Felt like the other guy who stayed in

Looking through the window

With Armstrong and Aldrin.

Looking through high regency windows

The sound of cowbells, cars and marraccas

Surrounded by Tuxedos and bolts of cloth

Loki enters with a silver platter, burnt

“Is that Old Bond St.?” I ask

“Refreshments?”

Blackened leather apron, thick Hellenic beard

The tailor drags his gammy leg and hunch

Flip-top pocket watch and tape

Measuring my chains

“So light” I say “I've never worn any so light”

And float.

Ear to an oyster shell

High in the Atcama

I set a circle of campfires

Each in a mound

And from the centre speak

In Italian, today

"Cosa ti piacerebbe fare per oggi"
Fresh roast black coffee

Curved shoulders falling forward

I can't save myself from hanging

On these words.

She smiles like she knows what you're doing next summer.

Roaring like an orchestra, like the circus is in town

We gather staring till our orange faces stretch like drums

Broad-shouldered, leaping engorged, hair free
Pan's troupe pipe a raucous feast in glade of light

All bow and shy, even with our backs turned

We feel the forceful presence of the blaze.

Sun blind into the blazing furnace

The silhouettes of men pounding iron poles

At it's heart

And sparks fly
Like Sheffield in days gone by

Poles, then hands, redden and sag

Then the rump melts, then the rest.

Steelmen softening to pools of dribbling slag.

Settled on a glowing bed
Calm as candles in an empty church

I heard a whisper

Late in the day in the outdoor air, from a sofa

In need of tender and close enough to breathe on

The embers had fallen like tea leaves

A map of silk faced charcoal roads

And piebald scars, I heard confess in whispered guess

The spot to crowd hot ash to light with breath

That which remains, to gauge log or branch

To aid surviving heat, that yet might thrive

And dance, wick and char, smoke gets in your eyes.

Smoke gets in your eyes and then you see,

If it will make green twigs spit

Where to leave and let the flame run free

When fire calms

And calls you close enough to breathe.

It is light and warmth, food

And all of art and science

The house was a phoenix

And I awoke, it felt

In Sparta, without fear

Of fire.

The sunny days

The sunny days
They slip away.
They slip away
To winter grey
And rain that brings
A grave dismay.

You're almost perfect

I know nothing but your beauty, your grace

Like a pink Pescara marble pillar

In visions was Galathea released

And you could be a cold blooded killer.

You're almost perfect.

For sure they'll be no tears over this

No complications when the football's on

No vengeful face turn scorn on sorry kiss

No callous laughing when the moment's wrong.

No “we did not dance to my favourite song”

No grounding bumps, back to reality

No fear of secrets hidden all along

No blue confusion of intimacy.

I know nothing but your beauty, your grace

Nested so remote, I doubt we'll ever meet

Any abstract trope or shade will freely trace

Pure hope, like fresh primed canvas, incomplete

You're almost perfect.

Oh I'd ruin it if we met for real

You never disappoint, almost perfect

You're ideal.

You must know love well

My love was not enough for you
Or in truth
You were so like magic
I never thought you could be true
In theatre it's called tragic
My love did not arrive on cue.

I hid elements of my affection
From my conscience, safe
In a forest of judgements and young bravado
Useless
To try and hide a heart from you
Pocketed it as you left
When I thought it was still by that bush
Pocketed it as you left
College
The way you lose school friends
And when we met again
It was not adventure, not the same.

II.

Since you've had my heart
You never served it on a plate
Or used it as a hook
Play with it, like a cat or stoat
Never treated it a joke.
You never stoked its flame
Or teased it to uncertain hell
You let it breathe.
And that taught me
Love
That you must know love well.

All I know

All I know
Is as I grow
What I know
I know too slow.

And even when the going's fine
Just one percent is knowing
The rest's remembering in time.

Autumn poem

Autumn upon us it's time
To set a match to kinderling
Rest by the hot press of silk light
Watch sparks race up the flue
With youthful dreams they too
Might be stars.

It washes the city flat and sick
November's clouded light
Paints every shade with muddied brush
I wish I'd sown all the feathers to my wings
Wish I had stitched in August
In earnest.

Radiators are not the hearth
Fan heaters not the fire
Guide my taper to the driest tinder
And watch it catch in flickers
A curved lick from a knot that starts to jet
I will let it smoke
Let it weave wisps to plumes
And then blow
Call forth a genie,
Wild feet snapping twigs in dance
Grant me warmth, comfort and light to see by
Cocooned from autumn in it's grey
In all it's forms of colourful decay.

Getting burned never put me off
Holidays with blackened fingers
Sores from embers to remind me of my folly
I loved playing with fire when young

A hazy memory of me
In my sister's ill-fitting dungarees
Laying a fire as a sphere of straw with wood in
Like an oven
I loved playing with fire when young.

This impulse to gather wood and pile it
An odd source of happiness, primordial reward
Clockwork foresight, dyed into my Id
I love to gather wood
And can think of but one purpose
To set fires in autumn and wish.

Gulls

There's always a storm down the Thames these days
Constant as traffic, a carousel of gull calls
Over the tiles, the roofs, rusted swinging hinges
Even in spring blue sky, days since rainfall
There must always be a storm in the Thames.

They eat the pigeons, the gulls do
With their ired eye and their wronged screech
I've seen them, like you may have too
Pigeons left the field for Parrakeets.

My mother, looking at the clouds would mutter
When thigh high young her hand I reached for
There's storm at Chatham, over Thanet
They fly down to London to find harbor
And Pigeons are softer than Ganets.

There must be a storm out to sea
Pigeons have moved on from grass seed
And the Gulls have moved on from fish
Pecking boxes of K.F.C
Avians scavenging trash
It is, as Darwinian does
These days we breed Vultures from Doves.

I heard of civil war where Starlings breed
Now they travel with but a clutch of friends
Sparrows survive, some return to the trees
Someone won five thousand pounds in the end.

There's a storm in the Thames, gulls are in flight
The wooden lense of tradition has said
Of people who look on red sky at night
Only shepherds of the Atlantic
Go soundly to bed, and Grandma will tell
That is was all fields, before Haber-Bosch
These days there's always a storm in the Wash.

There's always a storm down the Thames
And other legends
The widow in Richmond, who in loving grief
Released a pair of green Parrakeets
And park by park they fought for twenty years
Till they shocked us one scarfed schooled winter
Green against grey and the naked trees of the heath
A flock of sqwaking green Parrakeets.

Doves become Vultures, Parrots replace Doves
Darwin says it what it takes to find love
Grandma says the Lord works in mysterious ways
And there's always a storm in the Thames these days.

Something I said to bloke on stage

Don't step to me with that
Gotta be black to rap crap
That abject chat is a trap
That forefathers fought to free from
But you jumping straight back.

Erecting same walls of Melanin
Like the spirit of slave masters
Still leaves deep within

You divide and categorise
By the colour of man's skin
Brother that ain't brain cells
That's brain prison.

Untame Ode to Ali Cole

Moonbeam loom your weft and woof

Does leave me a breathless beetroot youth

The softest quilt, your sticky silk

Is all cocooning of my heart that melts.

In truth I haven't felt this way

Since I dived velvet chocolate caramel

And swam intoxicated days

Till my teeth sank into nougat quays

And mermaids, raised me on Patchouli breeze

With magic made me divine wind.

Oh moonbeam loom, let me begin again.

At Ariadne's knee she learned

To weave the equinox's light

Into silver sheets and pearls

That hold souls warm and tight.

Oh moonbeam loom

Let me dye just one thread

Or know

I'd rather die instead.

I gaze though gauzes in my bed

No light to see by in your stead

But stumble blind in garden sheds

By scent alone to roses led

With searching fingers grasp their heads

And push a dozen to my nose

But their touch is not of your ilk

As brick to Sapphire is

As water is to milk.

A rose cannot bind me like your silk.

Ode to Ali Cole

There is a story to be told
About the glory of Ali Cole
But not a story I can tell
So wide the sea, so deep the well.

For I can gaze into the heavens
But cannot count the stars
They name me but a heathen
In the hunt of Diana.

Though my eye is full of moon
But one side I see
All its markings and its runes
Remain a mystery.

I can but stand as priests have done
Marvel at the moon and sun
As they set my night and day
In ways that I can't fathom.

I can but stand as priests and pray
In humble wonder of all she be
A glory far beyond assay
Pray, enlightenment she'll bestow on me.

Note to a bird on a train

Thank you
You gave me a pen
To write
A rare gem
From a ship in the night.

Shoulders of giants

Where cords of civilisation are moored

The brittle guy ropes of our tree house world

I see men of law and plump senators

Laying blocks and digging foundation holes

New barriers rising high while I watch

Above where the arm stops, at the seam stitch.

There the claims of Captains of industry

Lead lines of blind leaders like Pavlov's bell

“All the silver I land belongs to me”

They cry so proud from high on the lapel.

Laying barbed wire which they freshly forge

Electrifying the tromba, notch and gorge

Dragging paper up the back by the cart

Reams in blocks yards thick on seams daily grow

Miles upon miles of statutes and torts

To form walls, tall and strong like Jerrico

At the entrances they make gates like Gates

Would charge fees to all who climb the breastplate.

It's about time we weren't all so compliant

They'll privatise the shoulders of giants.

Do Mssrs Musk, Zuckerberg, Venter, Brin

Feel that they could have achieved anything

Had they not in diligence caught coat tales

The thick braid between gold buttons scaled.

Licence royalties owed to Edison

Newton, Bacon, Faraday and whoever

Was the Babylonian that pressed on

Wet clay with stones way back in Nineveh.

Illiterate, I don't think they'd have one percent of the clients

They're all reliant

On the shoulders of giants.

This deft suspension above the deep shit

This tree house society of all us

Exists high in the sky, every bit

Borne on shoulders of countless Colossus.

Without the lookout post of libraries

We'll fall from the Eden of these high trees.

Make mine a Molotov, get defiant

They want privatise shoulders of giants.

Excercise

I spent some time in thought about it all
If
I was a climber, unvertiginous
Oh if
I loved to wander waterfalls and cliffs
If only
I tended to flowers idigneous
If only I
Couldn't live in the City's artifice
If only ideas
Freed I from these strictures and earthly bonds
If only ideas purr
Like a calm cat, watchful, ready, at peace
If only ideas purchase
Houses full bread, pillows, songs and friends
If ony ideas purchase say
Dreams of peace, light, empires and monuments
If only ideas' purchase save us
From the vagaries of love and our end
Only if ideas' purchase saves us now
Will I keep the habour afore of the prow.

Some piece of confusion

Wish she'd had enough to love
In her heart
That she weren't so hurt
You know.
Didn't start from gentle touch
So far apart, yet
I glimpse light from pillboxes
From just a brush
I think we'd fit like stencils
And alter charts,
My fire never quieted
For us.

So late in summer - sonnet

Speak less of desire so late in summer

When heat swaddles tarmac, rising from roots

Flowers in finery seduce bees dumb

And sun kisses sugar into green fruits.

The hay's to be brought in, the grass is long

The seas are warm, tall corn has ripened ear

December born charm, think my heart unwrong

So late, speak less of desire my dear.

All life's adventure, so late in summer

So late waking, bees already in love

Strawberries from spring beds have set runners

Still dusk takes an age to draw close above

This season of slow days when geese look South
She was born, a Passion flower in her mouth.

Closed vowel

Why did love not open

We made move and prove

And even lose and open vowel

But love stayed closed

And now to find a rhyme

I am so oft defeated

Love, love, love

It must have stayed repeated.

So late in summer

Speak less of desire so late in summer

When heat swaddles tarmac, rising from roots

Flowers in their finery seduce bees dumb

And sun kisses sugar into green fruits.

The hay's to be brought in, the grass is long

The seas are warm, the corn has ripened ear

The collared doves coo soft in song

May born charm, think my heart unwrong

Talk less of desire my dear.

All life is adventure

So late in summer

So late waking, with bees already in love

When dusk takes an age to draw covers close

Geese look south

She was born of this season

Passionflower in her mouth.

Sick note for Tommy Bee's birthday

Oh marbled fleshed Adonis
Unadmonishable
So unearthly is your promise
It is immodest that I pretend
To frame such mind-bending glory
With a pen.

So stout of jaw and firm of hip
That artists track your every step
A truth I see that at your birth
The very fabric of aesthetics ripped
And all was lit across the earth
As glorious God let us see in you
Heroic new dimensions
Of beauty timeless true.

I have heard the name Tommy Bee
Sung in arias overseas
And whispered in hushed reverent tones
Gates, Obama seek to phone
Diaz, Delevigne writhe and sweat
Westwood (V) casts weekly thrones.

And scientists they wish to test
That muscled member world renowned as blessed
That thick undulating silken dick
That zestful lovers besotted lick
With heaving chest and heart so quick
They quest to taste the irreplacable
Lollipop of Hackney Wick.

Sonic Boom

Gurning sun-burnt urchins lurch church to church uncertain

In curious discovery of all covered by the curtains.

Lethargic surges urge in waves merging pungent nights with days

In rolling surf of mirth and smurfs, giraffes, and of course, unicorns

Dressed in heavy gauge

Macrophages for anxiety, scour thoroughfares of pagan piety

Alleyways of high society.

And all the world's a stage

To see bees

Make a merry path so free

Dancing underneath the trees

Moments that can only please

And all the world's a stage.

Sparkle this lithium crisp reaction i saw shooting stars

Look, a smile and another, and another in a milky way

Which way, oh what wily bewitchment hexes this

Enchanted wood, I hear leaves play tambourines

And lights in orange, white and green

Shadows dance and hug me warm like wilderness

Perambulating ambient distances, riotous bliss, listless of all, dam hill

Missed this, legs kill, white coats, pill for that,

Missed this, in glistening visions, missions in fission

Listening to waves breaking in space in fat collisions

Wishing

For a clean place to shit-in.

Cover me on the grass like ashes, drift like pollen in the sun

Running syrup thick liquid marionette to sounds and sets

Settled and encamped in rainbow ranks, what walls

What walls are there that would resist this army's siege.

Drink a case this on my feet

Tarantella daft, laced with tastes of scenes, bass and acts

For others

I can't speak

The most useful paste of lean baked half sedated waste

I been in a year and a week

For real

Something saved my grace in those fields.

Battle bars

Your deadweight statements are basic, abate them
I got half a dozen replacements
You'll take vacations in basements
Concrete casements no trace, no body, no statements
Wasting your grace chasing migratory geese
Geaser I'm decorating temporary space with these beats
We done verbal feats
In places where iron gates get effaced by the beast
You heard all the  chiefs, daft
I'm sicker than cats fed on weeks of fur-balls and grass.
You claim you badder by half
Bet I'm madder, brung better rungs the ladder
Had enough of rough mathematics and adders
Don't be sad that your pad is full of fakes and charades
Bars claiming your hard
You only punt ounces, all you bounce is a card
Gwaan jog your hard arse right back to your yard
Act like you heard
My style is known lardarse round here and abroad
Don't be sad that you're around to drown in my wake
My shit is greater, no debate, settled and clear
Your ears been waiting to hear shit like this
Since like Shakespeare.

Scum also rises

They say that cream rises to the top
A quote true of pure milk
But that's about where it stops.

For when I boil the pot
Cream in or not
It's scum that I see rise to the top.

So don't be suprised
If the film is not
As the quotation advises
There is the odd clot
And scum also rises.

Me friend he say

My friend, he enquire 
I say “Fire. Wired. Less tired” 
We converse 
And in some flippancy 
I drop discursive verse 
Upon family 
Him a see me 
Him a say 
“Do you have a problem with intimacy” 

Me a say 
“If I have learnt one thing today 
It's easier when they run away 
It might not please, might bring dismay 
What's easier when they run away” 

And him a say “The struggle to stay may pay” 

And me a say 
“In sunshine we must make hay 
To store to feed a winter's day 
The work we love is not all play
When may all the struggle pay” 

What him a say next 
What me a say next 
Don't go down in text.

The Camel and the Swallow

You know the mound out the back door

There was a Camel under all that straw

And a broken Swallow too
How long for, no one knew

The Camel sat submerged and chewed

The Swallow ate ticks galore

They chewed and chewed until they saw

The world anew, a bit like before.

A breeze came, then a wind

And lightened the Camel's leaden limbs

And twitched the weakened Swallow's wings.

Day by day, summer jets

Lifted golden blades away

Like invisible majorettes

The Swallow began to hop and flap

The Camel stretched its legs and back

And turned his dusty head and said

“No matter what the doctor thinks

There's a million straws gone o'er the brink

And I'm still here and need a drink

How many summers Swallow?”

The Swallow said “more than one

I've lost count, I've seen no sun

Sallow, under all that straw restrained

But you will play piano again.”

And the Camel said “and you will sing”

And that small breath took the Swallow's frame.

In the zephyrs and gusts that summer brings

Came the breath that lifts the Swallow's wings.

Letter to a 4am fan

Given your pride's so clearly in safe hands

What should I read of your shyness

Coy lioness?

To analysis I shan't digress

For all that way is silliness, unless

A rustle in the grass, a scent

I can but wish

In innocence and jest I ask.

What causes you to slink

I wish you'd come confess.

It must be changing metres

Or where I put the stress.

You must have fixed on Cheetahs

Or be vulnerable I guess.

This verse is always yours,

Use it for whatever purpose

If you would that there be more be

Close, come, make others

Superlative, make others

Superfluous

This verse is always yours.

A rustle in the grass

No teeth or claws, I can but muse

Excuse me this
Many souls walk the streets of London
Wishing that they'd played their trumps

Does Carnival, oh mind altering insubstantial

Oh seam of muse

Oh rich vein 

Unmined

Does Carnival and the throbbing street

Touch you only skin deep

Were you once touched deeper

Once touched deeper

Oh and that time flew

Call it shallow

Call me shallow

I know that's not enough for you. ;-)

What was that

I don't know whether it was
Oxytocin or Beta-endorphin
I been spending more time laughin.

I don't know whether it was
3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine or Psilocybin
I been spending more time vibesin.

I don't know whether it was
What's only skin-deep
That touched me like a suture in the amygdala
I been getting better sleep.

I don't know whether it was
Sun-shine or music
But that really did improve shit.

I don't know what to blame
Whether it was all or none
Or one and not the other
Sketched out in rough
Seems enough.

Offerings

They offered me diamonds
I said I had no need
They offered me roast meat
I said I had no need
They offered me sugar
Sweet, honeyed mead
Offered feather beds, flags and jewellery,
Syrups, swords and grails.
Offer me a violin
I will take it without fail.

Trophy hunting

I.

Sometimes, summer dusk promises no rain
Sky like blistered fire in a whitesmith's forge
Eyes become giddy with riches and flame
With all that glides your mesmered gaze ignored.

II.

Brush dip the sky-line and colour the night
Running where eyes do not help, the woods, caves
Where only ears and fingertips give sight
Mice in the grass sound like leopards at play.

Sunset led me into blindness.

To this cathedral, where eyes are no aid
Dark decorates dark, laticed and yawning
All solid darkles
Ornament is silouhette and scratches
Saved for morning.

In this black abyss came a beast so vast
Its stone haunches shifted trees like dancers
Its vermeil ivory rich outshone the moon
Each deft step cast, a giant earthquake passed
Night falling in night. Darkness bright as noon.

Sunset led me into ink.

In silouhette decorated cathedrals
I stumbled
Where swelling fear holds your face from truth
Till my soles broke brambles to sweet dark juice
Morticed brush to paths, that for others lay
To the horizon, hillls, the holloway
I stumbled
From the sweet dank stench of wet earth at night
To the pale, nervous scorn of morning light.

III.

In peeley-walley day's advance
When cold braves slept and field mice crept
And all that's left is detritus
Feathers slipped silent from the branch.

As shepherds watch rams that fight
And fisher seeks the fish to bite
After blind, warm, embroidered night
My sore eyes caught a final flight.

In false first light's nervous scorn
I saw Minerva's owl at dawn.

Ouch

I.

Sometimes, when summer dusk comes and the sun
Lights sky, like a fire in a whitesmith's forge
Eyes become giddy with riches and flame
And what glides across your gaze is missed.

II.

Brush dip the sky-line and colour the night
Running where eyes do not help, the woods, the caves
Where only ears and fingertips may aid you
Hoots, mice sound like giants stirred in the brush.

Fears eats your shadow, grow on your shoulder
Pushing your cheek, holding your face from truth
Face them
Face them, as you would children
Face them well, and they will become guards and pets.

III.

Sunset led me into blindness
Where eyes do not help
Into this cathedral, where dark decorates dark
And all ornament is silouhette and scratches
Are saved for morning.

I stumbled amid lice and rotten wood
Till my shoes broke brambles.
I stumbled in the blast of guns
And warfare for ivories.

IV.

Sunset led me into darkness
With but one silk length
Where eyes do not help
Where fears eat your shadow
There came a beast so vast its haunches
Shifted trees like dancers
And its ivory outshone the moon
Each step an earthquake of night falling within night.

With but one length of silk
I stumbled
Amid lice and rotten wood, the scent of earth at night
Till my soles broke brambles like grapes
Morticed brush to paths that lay
To the holloway, to the rising horizon and hills
To the pale nervous scorn of morning light.

V.

Sunset led me into ink
In silouhette decorated cathedrals
I stumbled, the scent of earth at night
Where fear holds your face from truth
Would I cage the moon, would you
Take it from the sky,
Stuffed with straw
Hold it in some room in fear
Of tides, of earthquakes, of night falling
Within night.

With but one length of silk
I hunted earthquakes
And sought to feed them from my hand.
I stumbled.

VI.

In the pale, nervous scorn of morning
When braves slept and mice crept
Feathers slipped silent from the bough.
I sought to call a beast so vast
To my wrist and feed it
From my palm.
I command no other way.

Feathers slipped silent from the bough
After blind, warm, embroidered night
My sore eyes caught a final flight
In false first light's nervous scorn
I saw Minerva's owl at dawn.

Like dancing to D&B

I've been dancing to pop songs too long
In four four
Side to side steps on the dance floor
A little shimmy or a shake
But nothing so complicated
You have to concentrate.

But there's the odd track that's Goldie
Hip shake palpitations makes a break sweat
Feet sweet confused, ankle, passes ankle
New fangled angles, half spangled
As the drop lets your fingers dangle.

Shifts lift, kick infiltesimal gifts,tuck adjustments
From just where the cusp of balance tips
Boated lips spit time, butt grinds
All other limbs celebrate like panic.

I can't live in country, I need city
Syncopation, smoking jazz or frustration hints
Every missed chance the artist omits
Trying to add the extras, I admit
Be committed and quit
Be committed and quit
Rather than subsist on off the peg regular popular dirges
Purge dregs
My feet greet jazz, greet breaks
Like new found lovers
I've been dancing to pop songs
For too long.

Letter to W.H. Auden cc: Foreigner

I don't feel you need no teaching
You know what love is now
Not for weather or for bacon
Or strangers in a crowd.
The kind that plays on Steinway grands
The kind that really sings
Not that which leads to suicide
That isn't really loving.

It looks as clear as ground and polished glass
Lenses light to crystal points of focus
It stinks unto high heaven, since you ask
That reek speaks sweet like the scent of crocus.

Touch a pile of small particles like sand

Dive the water of the river

With a little luck you will understand

That's what it'll give you.

Others often talk about it

Like it is something new

Love speaks of all the particles

Your body's sliding through

There are versions told in stories

That make the heroes tick

But stories have their editors

I doubt you're quite that thick.

And you hear it when you can hear

The lark or blackbird sing

There are times that you can hear it

Above all other things.

You can hear it in the questions

The echoes and replies

And when it speaks you hear it clearly

It does not bear disguise.

Go look at how the waiter feels

Watch the eyes of their pets

Go look when your telephone rings

And look on further yet

And if you can't see it clearly

Don't get it twisted bruv'

If you've searched and haven't found it

First look inside for love.

It doesn't just do party tricks

It works white magic too

It will feed the finest lunches

On only scraps of food

It has opinions on investments

For when the times get rough

And is the finest company

The odd truth about love.

Love's all the water in the sea

And oh the rose has thorns

Love's look out post sways tipsy high

Don't say you've not been warned

If it comes when you're unready

Then it may pass you by

But it is sure to come again

As dawn is in the sky.

You can try blind it, force it, shout it down

Love will be heard

And it ain't shit to be flippant about

Not a careless word

And though it's more abundant still

It's worth much more than gold

That's another truth about love

That's very, very old.


W.H.Auden. O Tell me the truth about love

Capitalism

It feels strange, a wake 

And yet no sorrow

I talk, get no response.

I used to see you grow and learn

Ensconced you in warm clothes

I call, get no response.

I tended you, and fed you

For many years now
You used to wake

And talk

And now I sit in wake 

Brimful confused sans grief

And cry, I get no response.

It always feels odd

Sitting with dead bodies.

Untitled

I wish I could stop
Writing about sadness and loss
Eat berries for breakfast and floss.

I wish I could stop
Writing about sadness and loss
And go rolling on
Not gathering moss.

I wish I could stop
Writing about sadness and loss.

Tanks - empires of numbers

VII.

Fixed point attractors, like power

Pack actors in recurring patterns

Fired by predictably sick desires

A's will over B happens, rounds and batons

Struggle, collusion, betrayal

Seeking the imperial delusion

Of infancy, of omnipotent will

The great self-infantilising

Fantasy of the great.

VIII.

It came in waves

Ever faster waves

The progress

And due process and the institutions

Were soon next to useless

As were the populace

But the bastards are a restless menace

We had built habitat for empires

Empires of numbers

Built scaffolds and canals

Down which empires sluiced and flourished

We irrigated empires

With all our laws

Empires of numbers to the nth power

And their emperors by necessities of scale

Lost no sleep in treating people

Like numbers in columns on spreadsheets

Push button mutton,

Can't see the sheep for the meat

Always better prepared

Uncaring as to who's spared

Who scarred, who discarded

They didn't lose sleep

Leading numbers

Saw no loss in reducing the universe to maths

We made our lofty peaks with feathered nests

A habitat for psychopaths.

And these Peter Pans

Soon sought silicon oracles

That modelled decision trees

From all recorded human history

Controlled production from touch screens

Found they preferred steel sycophants to flesh

For yes, it was so much more like god,

Like magic

With native fabrication

They didn't need consumers

Only power

So they found new adjectives

For us,

You and me

We mostly sat there

Because it was easy, by and large

To stop us going cold and hungry

And keep us entertained

Though many drowned

And some still died young

But she

She did not sit down

At least one

Reason why.

Tanks part II bit

She missed living above the sea

In the old towers

Watching the waves collapse

Breaking into bubbles

And the music it made

Each tower with a tutu.

After she lost her signature

And gave up on extensions

She sailed from the home

In a dumb boat to an old block

The type certified unsafe

That were squatted.

A pebbledash of guano

Barnacles and gulls

A block with no tutu
That water argued through.

She ate oysters and salmon

And when the waves were high

An old industrial mixer could be animated

In her hands

There was nothing it could not produce.

She met a scrap diver there,

Old for a scrap diver

Who claimed never to have had a number

Since birth eating oysters and kelp

And something like noodles on the reef.

Surfing the long breaks, salted in the knowledge

Of each block underneath.

And the scrap diver would come back with gifts

Wrested from Atlantis

And she would throw them in the mixer

When the waves were high

And make robots to feed fish

And seed oysters.

She was happy

And as it happened
Would meet many of them again

But one day in spring,

The scrap diver didn't come back

The gifts stopped

None of the divers came back that day

And when the waves rose

It just felt damp

So she went back up the hill

Leaving them onions, the windowbox

And her favourite robot made from compasses.

Grime Bars

All dem want is a big, big war
Boy step up get slap to the jaw
Your mans chat like they never been chored
Bet my ghetto more gutter than yours

Gutter than yours
Gutter than yours
Bet my ghetto more gutter than yours
More gutter than yours

My mans roll with no front door
Dogs in the yard blood, its your call
Hardcore t'iefs that'll take your floors
Bet my ghetto more gutter than yours

Gutter than yours
Gutter than yours
Bet my ghetto more gutter than yours
More gutter than yours

All your boys is in plus fours
You got guns but we got more
Chat like that, kidnapped in a car
Bet my ghetto more gutter by far

Gutter than yours
Gutter than yours
Bet my ghetto more gutter than yours
More gutter than yours