Mislabeled

One draught is never enough
Missing the old land lady
Gay days, frayed memory
The hand cradles amber nectar
Even amid buffed wood and steel
Of monotonous chain pubs
One draught is never enough.

But enchanted ones, canalside
Or pitched surprise on hillside bends
Black windows, low slung
Magic ones make me long
For alcoholism
Hang-overs and misjudgement
One draught is never enough.

I have paintings from Italy
Paintings from towns I don't remember
Paintings of towns I never knew
Paintings that call thoughts
Of sun, hills, Roman blue
Thoughts so easy to love.

A picture of a harbour bay,
A distant town, vineyards, roads
Church so far away
No details the vague wash holds
I couldn't see that day
Whether there are singers
If the harbour's rife with thieves
A brush as free as hope
The view as beautiful as it is remote.

It is my own painting that I love.
As other artists do
One draught is never enough
I could murder a forest with you.

Birthday Poem

Fusion
Star fuelled muse of all men
Hydrogen to Helium
Naturally, and all them
Photons
That bless skin a billion miles
Distant from the tides within
Life giving
Heart of summer
Light bestowing wonder
It happens to the lucky ones
These passing suns.

Locally

Forget the map

The church green
Let morning and evening
Cables and kerosene

Make their mosaic
Of local
Make scapes of familiarity
Repetition of scent
Repetition of sight
Repetition of memory.

Tessellating the High Road
With Kloveniersburgwal
With Rue Sous l'Eglise
With the High Road
With Bentley Rise
With the slate grey snakes of Lancashire
With the beach in Perth
Collected like classrooms
Memories of classrooms.

The dendrite linked streets

The bend, the taxi fleet
The station split and gapped

Like synapses

Electric axons

Reinforced with use
Cement meaning
Cement behaviour.

Cups of tea, cups of tea
I do not keep milk at home
But locally
That's different.

The carnation bush in the park

Again, the dog and his old man

The stairs in the dark
Alleys like the back of my hand
But not Spitalfields
Not Upper Street Post Office
Not the bridge by Markfield
Or even Dam Square
They are just along the line
Along the river from here
An inch on a map
Local, just across a synapse.

Half glass

The debate has been lengthy
Whether the glass is half full
Or half empty
I don't mean to kill it
But
You have a glass
Go fill it.

We won't make it out alive

For all we hope and strive

Not you or I

Will make it out alive.

And all we crave and love

Under the changing sky

Will not save us

Not you, nor I.

But there is time to love

To learn and cry

To suffer and struggle

Flourish or survive

But not you or I

Will make it out alive.

A letter to Arsene Wenger

Dear Mr. Wenger OBE,

As your pursuit of excellence is a perennial

And all engaging excercise I appreciate

Your time with us is precious

But I hope you'd entertain

As you are known to do

A train of sentiments

Amateur, but long thought through.

Many times before, of course

I have tried to write, like in 08

With those young hopeful greats

When I prayed you'd bring in Seedorf

And once in 05 after some rash mistake

I wished to urge you send Jens Lehman

To Tibet to meditate.

And many times to express

The tour de force

That is the Pride

The paper lit the crowd alive

The dot to dot

Like verse in Morse

But this letter is my choice recourse

To praise a mastery oft ignored

Your mastery of the long game.

Its a shame

That since we last one the title

Smart money flew

The commodities super cycle

To Moss Side and Harrow Road

Rubber stamping stars like mints

And now you coach a squad

To play not clubs but

Carbon footprints.

When Nottingham are lost in woods

And Elland Road is owned by hoods

Blackburn were just a flash

And many others gone to trash

I admire how you've played it long.

How my hackles are unshackled

By the prattle of myopic hacks

Who's copy does not detail

Battling clubs that oil backs

Oh the reams of tittle tattle

Almost always lack

That critical faculty

And strategy,

But clearly you could see

This earlier than Xavi

It's incredible

In the days of the debt frenzy

With a net spend that South End envies

When Moneyball men descend

From across the pond

Buying clubs from County to Rotherham

That all the while you've played it long.

And in the press, yes, there is praise

For Pulis and Allardyce

But when there's stats and figures quoted

This mastery is rarely noted,

The credit

For this success I don't often see.

But clearly you read it

Earlier than Xavi.

Could I digress to reminisce

Of when I first witnessed,

The Colussus

Wednesday it was

Not any Wednesday

Furnace fresh steel

The educated industry

The artifice of empire

He echoed every bit that Wednesday,

To see ginger hair rise and fall

East to West like a copper sun

And Paddy off, on the run

Those days were more than fun.

But that stage was too small

For all the actors you have educated

Fashions you have dictated

And yet while others abdicated

You built a stage more elevated

Shown all how a small dog

Can maul a bear

And yet brought up puppies

With the greatest care

Built the greatest here.

For what could be coppers

You find boys strong as an Ox

Slicker than otters

Sharp as a guileful fox,

Houdinis with locks

Who run off their socks

How you taught a boy from olive groves

With feet as smooth as the gold that flows

To squeeze as hard as those olive presses

Play passes there's no second guessing.

The record is impressive

Officially, statistically the best.

Could I digress to discuss

An issue that is divisive

And that is ticket prices

The choir is too small

The circle lacking harmony

The entrance fee

Too heavy save
For those who already

Have their glory.

So Highbury refugees

Sit six to a season ticket

Packed pubs, clipped pitches

Its just not cricket.

In the next chapter

An action to bring back terraces

Would be most merited

But I digress,

Your mark is indelible

What you've already done, incredible

Long after your last players have played

In thousands of years in another age

Men will find what you have made

Look upon the work and say

This is a work of greatest endeavour

Thousands gathered here

Thousands did revere.

There can be no hesitation

Your canonisation

Is beyond question.

Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Il faut oublier Tout peut s'oublier Qui s'enfuit déjà Oublier le temps Des malentendus Et le temps perdu A savoir comment Oublier ces heures Qui tuaient parfois A coups de pourquoi Le cœur du bonheur Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Moi je t'offrirai Des perles de pluie Venues de pays Où il ne pleut pas Je creuserai la terre Jusqu'après ma mort Pour couvrir ton corps D'or et de lumière Je ferai un domaine Où l'amour sera roi Où l'amour sera loi Où tu seras reine Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Je t'inventerai Des mots insensés Que tu comprendras Je te parlerai De ces amants-là Qui ont vu deux fois Leurs cœurs s'embraser Je te raconterai L'histoire de ce roi Mort de n'avoir pas Pu te rencontrer Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas On a vu souvent Rejaillir le feu D'un ancien volcan Qu'on croyait trop vieux Il est paraît-il Des terres brûlées Donnant plus de blé Qu'un meilleur avril Et quand vient le soir Pour qu'un ciel flamboie Le rouge et le noir Ne s'épousent-ils pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Je ne vais plus pleurer Je ne vais plus parler Je me cacherai là A te regarder Danser et sourire Et à t'écouter Chanter et puis rire Laisse-moi devenir L'ombre de ton ombre L'ombre de ta main L'ombre de ton chien Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas.

No don't go away No don't go away We must let go All we can let go What's already flown Let go the times We made each unknown And time that's gone To be wise to how We let go these hours Which sometimes slay With blows of why A heart of joy No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away I offer you Pearls of rain From a realm Where it never rains I shall cross the earth Till past my death To wrap your heart With gold and light I'll make a land Where love will be lord Where love will be law Where you will be queen No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away Invent I will Some senseless words That you will know I'll talk to you Of lovers old Twice they viewed Their hearts ablaze I will speak A myth of this chief Brought forth to death Cos you didn't meet No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away My mind reminds That flame reforms From an ancient hill They called too old It sometimes seems That blackened fields Give more grain Than springs best yields When dusk comes back In the blazing west The red and black Will never nest No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away No more will I cry No more will I speak I will just hide Just so I can see You dance and smile And to hear Your style and your song Let me become  The shade of your shade The shade of your hand The shade of your hound No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away No don't go away

I have run out of rawl plugs

I have run out of rawl plugs
I wouldn't have known
I'd put hundreds of holes
In the walls of my home.

I've run out of rawl plugs
And there are some shelves
And holes drilled and filled
So you never could tell.

II.

In my infancy
Rawl plugs were infinite
Appearling like slaters
Expected suprises
Under furniture, behind doors
Boxed, scattered and bagged.

I laughed when I first bought rawl plugs
In a brick thick pack
Picked one strip and finished
Unthinking assumptions they'd languish
Infinite in the cupboard or shed.

Finitude, solitude
DIY.

III.

And yes, it's true I have used
A whole box of screws
Or two, 6s and 8s
A plethora of projects
Of temporary fate.

In my infancy
Screws were more infinite
Than rice grains
But I knew where rice came from
And carried it home.

I have  used a whole box of screws
Or two, 6s and 8s.

The mountainside

Or

What my phone wrote in my pocket

The mountainside
Your beacon. Ever burning
I think
The mountainside your beacon
The mountainside
I have woken up

The second course
The mountainside
I tried to cope
Address bar of your feathered heart
But aside from the public domain names
The address is being held.

The colour and size of the machine
The second course
Untarnishably wonderful in all departments,
River queen

The mountainside
The mountainside, your sovereignty acclaimed
Light
The information contained in this email
This is theoretically doable
For the price
In may

How was (love hearts) a bit of fun
The only one
Of the machine and news
The address is correct
And up to Stokey on the bus
I think one
I am the mountainside
Your sovereignty
I am caught.

How it goes
Without the mountainside.

A note on voting

I heard it said

From high on horse

That we should vote

Because others fought.

But this post

Won't be stamped
And enveloped
And offering

Just one vote

Is like asking
We go by sailboat

A nice way to travel

When the crew is good 

And the weather's bright

Once in a while

I just might.

But as other's fought

To enjoy new rights

We should not just vote

But fight.

She said she was in love

She said she was in love
As if this one word
Would make good
All that I'd just heard.

She said she was in love
As flighty adolescents do
But nowhere was the care and curiosity
Of the word I knew.

If each love is a key
Mine was not the lock
The turning that would free
Our spirits from the blocks.

She said she was in love
As lust confused from time to time
If each love is a fingerprint
Hers was at a crime.

Valentine for Y

There is water between us

I will go down to this water

Now, when it is dark

And dive and pull and roll

Each lifting and then crashing wave

Each stroke rake through raging storm

Through Biscay, through Golden Coast

And on and on to round the Horn

Swim in thunder and blinding white

Swim with longing through the night

Swim through however many dawns

Till all natures forces come becalmed

Until I come to haboured beach

To stand again within your reach

As all the gods I have beseeched

Are there to answer all for each.

The fool in Jolene

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm begging of you please just take me as I am
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Please don't go, for once just understand

Your beauty is beyond compare
With flaming locks of auburn hair
With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green

Your smile is like a breath of spring
Your voice is soft like summer rain
And I would be complete with you, Jolene

Your face it haunts my very dreams
And every night it always seems
I wake up wet and crying out Jolene

And I can easily understand
How you could soon have any man
But you don't know what you mean to me, Jolene

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm begging of you please just leave me as I am
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Please don't go, for once just understand

Though my love was always true
Love like yours I never knew
Now your the only one for me, Jolene

I had to have this talk with you
My happiness depends on you
And whatever you decide to do, Jolene

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm begging of you please just take me as I am
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Please don't go for once just understand.

Can't get next to you

I lost your number
To a pick-pocket down the Arsenal
I would've given an engagement ring
Or all my summers
For that one simple thing.
Humming Al Green.
I miss your integrity
When I find myself in times of trouble
What your voice says
I guess it's unpossessing
My house is less of a mess.
A lick of paint does wonders
For your conciousness.
I'm just about driving now
If I buy a van
We could elope as spouses
Rent the houses
And raise kids in Kyrgzstahn
Or Australia
But you've probably got different plans
Like I said, a pick-pocket took my dockets
So I had to email ya
Give us a call
Love
To hear from you and all.

English donkey

There is a donkey
That carries all the portage
For the village and the palace
Carries to all quarters
Harnessed up with baggage.

Some have seen it at the palace gate
They say "that gold's a heavy weight "
Some have seen it at the butchers
And say it carries meat
Some see it at the hospital
Bearing medicines for meek
Some see it in the quarters
Where they say it runs cocaine
Some see it piled with wood and straw
And think it poor and plain.

But the donkey goes about it chores
However understood
Forever lifts and forever hauls
'Most every type of good
One day dray horse, one day mule
One day pet, one stubborn fool
But always on the donkey's back
Is some good of value
To which we're attached.

For there are cars and there are planes
And even dog-led slays
But they never ever carry it
In quite the donkey's way.
Some petrol fuelled, some larger limbed
Some even work in teams
But it seems
It's the donkey that we turn to
When we want to carry dreams.

Though short and plain and spindled legged
Its strong and versatile as eggs
And carries all from water's edge
For high and marbled palace.

Valentine for uplink

You're my every hope and solace
My every focus like opium
The dopest promotion for human beings
A voice like seeing dawn E'ing
I can't depict the state of addiction
Search for superlatives in fan fiction
The Aphroditeest, Venusuviusest
The finest moviest, stars like Grace
Leaving Bacall in your wake, trailing
Oh the depth of the fall
Infinite, unfailing
Like bars, chains and a jail
Lead where the largest freedom could ever avail
Gold cast female
Hot as your own star
I'd forget every object of worth
For your presence
Like heaven on earth
If its a crime I plead guilty as charged
Face any penalty
To be even part of your entourage.

Valentine for A

There is love like wine

Love like air and water

Love like gold and jewels

But your love, for me

Is more like trigonometry

A truth and understanding
Of unpredictable utility.

Value that will never cease

Like pivot points and levers
And knowing dawn is east.

Valentines

1.
Singular or plural
Water birth or epidural
Church or a beech
In a suit or sandles
Do you count the candles
Valentine
Your place or mine


2.
Oh hot bird what flies in air
It is with heart too full of care
I long to squeeze and pull your hair
Slap your arse bent taut and bare
Oh how I long to kiss you there

Clarinet

You never would expect
A foghorn aged become clarinet
Those clarion cries we can't forget
And yet...

She was a warrior of raucous nights
Her cries would frighten dawn
But now with notes sweet tender light
She lullabies her fawn.

Now she glides on summer lawns
Without the cider bottles strewn
Strewn like those souls left to mourn
Those suitors who beseeched the moon.

Oh I could tell you
Of the Princes, oh the dukes and heirs
How they queued and how they howled
That ever she be theirs.

There were wails and there were tears
From her peers there were glares
Laughter's heard at sunset now
In peels and in pairs.

If you are here, now
And not lensed through all those years
It's easy to forget
A foghorn was this clarinet.

Anonymous

On a journey though rain
Not showers
But rain that comes in cords
Not driving
But windless falls
The tall clouds
Closed to bind the sky as one
A single shaft of sun
Moving storm fast
Found me.

A gasp of brightness
Light across the stone
Lifted my face to the rain
To the pale northern sun
Ice in the eye
White against grey
Shone, burned
And was gone.

My iris carries stars
As if I saw some fey spirit
In the grey soaking air
Leading
A ghost of spring
Hope of spring
As winter closes in.

At King's X, we filed in
Polite murmurs
And I took the Tube.