legs

 I can’t seem get my legs to move

In the correct sequence

So as ineffectual as any Liberal,

I am standing aloof above

A contest between left and right.

Walking has become a problem

Requiring serious and detailed planning,

Long ago, I must have learned it,

Now, I’ve forgotten how

I ceased to be a quadruped

To become a waddling toddler instead,

In places along the long way that I’ve walked

I’ve lost this skill from time to time

To fall unbalanced, drugged, drunk.

Then I’ve re-righted

Brushing off embarrassing memories,

Until now, when I am a tripod at best.

Stick supported, as predicted

In the Sphinx’s riddle

I wince and moan, staggering around my home,

Wearing in an artificial new knee,

And while the ball and socket grinds,

Bone on bone,

In the leg that the surgeon left alone;

The walking me got up and strode away,

Leaving an old raspberry behind.

my precautionary principle

Arthritis and Coronavirus,

These twin demons sit on my shoulders,

Gibbering in my ears like malevolent monkeys:

‘Don’t go out, don’t go out, you can’t go out,

Your legs will give way,

As you attempt to board a bus,

Then you will lie grovelling in the gutter:

And even if you did manage to get on,

You would inhale infected droplets and die.’

But I decide to defy the demons

And pass my front door frontier.

I want to wander in all the everyday

That used to bore me,

I wish to see people ignore me.

And I will not come to harm

Because I will be prepared

Precautions will be taken

No detail will be spared.

I will check to see

That I have my keys,

Then I will bury a spare set in a strongbox,

In a place that only I know.

I will carry a phone with a charger

And a power pack linked to the solar panel

That I attached to the top of the crash helmet

Which I don in case of sudden meteor impacts

Or suddenly falling airliners.

I zip up my water and flameproof outer garments,

Clamber into steel toecapped safety boots

Strap on hardened steel greaves

to protect my shins and ankles.

I cover nose and mouth with a surgical mask,

Connected to the oxygen tank

That I tow behind me

In a specially adapted shopping trolley

I gaze out through polarized goggles.

Then plod a few yards

Before tripping over a cracked paving stone

To lie grovelling in the gutter.

I make the catalogue again

 I make the catalogue again,

Moving my father’s paintings

Around and between rooms.

I relabel them, 

Enter details and dimensions

Into a machine,

Which wasn’t even thought of

When the paint was laid down.

Some paintings are unfinished

Suggesting schemes and visions

That never came to fruition.

I see images of life

Happening before I was born,

People building haystacks with pitchforks,

Bombed streets, ack ack guns

And barrage balloons,

Vases of bright flowers

And portraits of dead beauties.

All now long gone.

I too will depart soon,

But the brush strokes, oil and canvas

May live longer.

nocturate.

 Night time pissing

Is no longer what it was,

Because

It has now been given a medical name.

A pseudo-latin word

Has been bestowed

Upon the golden rain.

It is no longer any good 

To rise from your slumbers

And commemorate Jimmy Riddle.

No, you can no more

Piss or piddle.

You can’t have a wazz.

Or go for a wee;

When the bat flits,

And the owl hoots

No more peeing for you, mate,

You must now nocturate.

THE SUBURBAN FOX

 

THE SUBURBAN FOX 2

If you get up early in summer,

You may see me, lazing

Sunbathing in the first rays

Of the day.

Lying, yawning, content, alone

On the lawn that you thought

That you rented or even owned,

You probably thought

It was part of your home;

But it’s not,

It’s mine

And I’ve been living here all the time

Making my bed

Under your garden shed.

This whole street of

Discreet little Englishperson’s castles

Clenched tight by suburban arseholes

Is not your land,

It’s mine

I hunt across it in my own time,

And you seldom see me

Unless I want you to

And I show myself so you can know clearly

Who is the true owner of the territory,

The urbane suburban fox,

My compliments, that’s me.

Adam Smith's Sock Problem 2

 Adam Smith's Sock Problem

Sock, Sock, Sock, emergency
There are no Socks upon my feet,
There are no Socks that I can see
Socks Socks Socks immediately

Woke up in the morning
Birds are singing in the tree
But I see toes in front of me
So I seek Socks with urgency

Sock, Sock, Sock, emergency
There are no Socks upon my feet,
There are no Socks that I can see
Socks Socks Socks immediately

My Socks are vermin dirty or
My Socks are soaking wet
But I gotta wear them or go barefoot
I got a marked absence of hosiery

Sock, Sock, Sock, emergency
There are no Socks upon my feet,
There are no Socks that I can see
Socks Socks Socks immediately

But am I gonna sit here
Til my feet grow fur?
No! I’m gonna get up and get going
Be a Sock entrepreneur,

Sock, Sock, Sock, emergency
There are no Socks upon my feet,
There are no Socks that I can see
So I gonna start up a Sock factory

Gonna raise up some capital
Gonna go it alone
Get them proles knitting
Inna Free trade zone

Sock, Sock, Sock, emergency
There are no Socks upon my feet,
There are no Socks that I can see
Make more Socks immediately

Now I’ve started moving, I ain’t gonna stop
Like a shark in the water,
I keep swimming or I drop
I won’t let anyone else make any socks

Yes it’s Sock, Sock, Sock, emergency
You all gotta buy your socks from me
I wiped out all competition, so now you see
I gotta Sock, Sock, Sock, monopoly

toddler

 The Earth is rare,

And there’s rare earth there

With long dead forests

To frack, drill and mine

To warm the world

And poison the air

Until all the carbon’s done.

Then we’ll dig up the lithium

Whilst those who still live

Can get irradiated

By the nuclear waste

That we’ve created.

It’s like watching a toddler

Put a finger

Into an electric socket.

Such a beautiful planet

With so many idiots on it.

those Days

 Today was one of those

Days, I suppose.

It got right up my nose,

Like a greedy maggot

Crawling towards my brain.

I had to painfully pick it out,

Throw it on the floor

And squash it into organic mess;

Which was what the whole day was,

Total shite.

Bored man

Waiting for a van

That never came.

Definitely total shite.

But at least I saw a red kite

Regain its ancestral place

Skilfully flying

Forktailed over London.

When things go wrong

Sometimes they can be put right again.

THE SIXTH DAY AFTER ELIZABETH WINDOR’S DEATH

 Disrespectful parakeets squawk in the garden,

Washing machine and radio mumble on,

The first washing away biological evidence with soap,

The second erasing dissent with propaganda.

And so a dynasty rolls on over me,

Like a driverless tank,

Or a blind elephant with a felon chained to its foot.

Whatever I think or say,

I’m still subjected to having to be a disloyal subject.

The mundane morning sounds erase

My republican dreams.

SPARROWHAWK

 An immaculately dressed assassin

Stands beneath the red leaved tree.

Her beautiful suit

Of grey and brown feathers

Perfectly fitting and subtly understated.

She bows her head and plucks

The breast of her victim.

A pigeon pinned down

By her sharp taloned feet.

I have seen the angel of death.

the drought broke.

 God was sexually aroused, thus

The sky gushed uncontrollably,

And the drought broke.

It was all very un-English,

Like climate change and garlic.

It caught me out,

So, I sheltered in a grey plastic shed,

Which matched the sky.

There I ate an orange,

Whilst visited by a lone robin

And many frogs

Dancing in the deluge.

When that slackened

I went out and pulverized one slug

On the concrete garden path,

Picked spinach and tomatoes for my supper,

Then got back to dry under tiles.

I had been praying for water for weeks,

Now, I am hoping that my roof doesn’t leak.

You can have too much of a good thing,

Some say,

I disbelieve,

Rain brings relief.

codes

 I keep a pad of paper on my desk, prepared

For ideas, thoughts, memories and half-remembered dreams.

Any of those

Are seeds which can be grown,

And some may become odes.

I don’t try to force matters,

I know these things can happen

As if by a will of their own.

Then, one day, I looked at my pad,

And saw than all I had written were codes,

Account numbers, website addresses,

Passwords, computer links.

I had been expending my ink

No to reach any human being,

But so that machine can communicate to machine.

 

So, feeling old and obsolete,

I go out and sit in my garden seat.

The swifts have gone,

The grass has burned dry brown,

And clouds and clouds and clouds pass overhead,

Like ideas, thoughts, memories and half-remembered dreams.

The garden needs rain

But none falls

Perhaps I did not write down the correct code.

song about drugs

 Many old heroes used to sing

Love songs about drugs

Except for a few wiser ones,

Who warned uzz

That there’s no such thing

As a free buzz.

I wanted to be like my heroes once,

Scrimped and saved to customise

My school uniform with flared strides;

Grew my hair long

Got jeered at in the street

And incited headmaster’s ire.

I wanted to experience  

the songs myself,

So, I got catnipped in squalid pubs

Until I eventually managed to buy

Some stuff that made me high.

Drugs are easier to obtain now,

A word on the phone

A touch or two on a keyboard

Then hoards

Of pills, potions, lotions, emetics and diuretics

Are delivered to my door

Where they are stored to ensure

That I never run out

And for awhile

I can hold back old age, illness and pain

But I’ll never get that high

Again.

 

LINES ON THE RESIGNATION OF BOJO

 I listened to the morning radio,

He still sat, like a blonde toad, burping latin

And exuding slime over us all.

I resignedly stomped off

To brush my teeth and wash,

And returned cleaned to hear

That Boris Notgudonov had gone.

An old age of corrupt Conservatism

Would still stagger on, perhaps;

Or is this the first stone rolling

Down a hillside before

Eventual collapse.

Walking backwards

 Walking backwards is seldom a good idea

I did it once and stepped onto thin air

Which did not support me

So, I fell ten feet

And was lucky to get up again

With only bruises to recommend

Forward motion in and into the future.

I have considered making an exception for

Walking backwards time,

But, I’m unconvinced that

The past was ever better

And anyway, I can’t even

Walk backwards far enough

To unwrite these silly lines.

platinum jubilee of elizabeth windsor

 A tidal wave of sickly sweet, opiated syrup

Pours from the radio

And fills my unwilling ears up.

With more and more and more and more

Grovelling to the crown.

This fawning flow of obsequious deference rises

Until I fear I’ll drown

Beneath an ideological edifice

That I find obscene.

Or maybe I’m just jealous

That the lottery of heredity

Did not see fit to allot to me

The genes to be the queen.

lywers

 Liars, lawyers and paying clients,

With witnesses who have not seen,

Appear, like prattling postage stamps,

Every day on video screens.

Politicians, shysters, grifters

Crawl as worms from rotting wood,

Alter words like slick shapeshifters,

Change left to right and bad to good.

Twisting truth, they try to persuade us

Make us unsure of where we stand

What we knew now seems to evade us,

We feel that we’re standing on quicksand.

But this planet cannot be glibly lied to

It’s changing because of our greeds and needs,

There’s no easy exit, yet we try to find one

But business as usual can no longer proceed.

I hate hoovering

 I hate hoovering,

Vacuuming is vile,

And mechanised suction sucks.

Most of the time,

I’m surrounded by detritus

And I don’t give a tuppeny fuck.

But once in a while,

Usually in springtime,

I catch the cleaning disease.

I notice the dust

And scraps around my feet

then I feel a pang of unease.

So, I apply a flexible hose,

Which ingests my nasty leavings

But attempted domestication

Is a deafening bore,

So I sit back down after,

To drop more rubbish on my floor.

MEDZ

 Exhausting exercise,

Invasive injections

Bitter pills

And diuretics,

To keep me pissing like a drain.

So, I piss down a drain

Before I go out

Dragging my feet

Behind my walking frame.

Every step I take,

Every move I make,

Is just another excuse

For another nerve

To blow a fuse.

swiftshit

Silly old cripple

Sits on the shitter,

Listens to swifts,

Screaming in summer.

corvine politics

 

The crows are very vocal today.

Their caws cause me to glance up,

As like black ink characters

Painted on a pale blue sky,

They fly along and across the street,

Back and forth, in and away.

I know their kind, it’s like mine,

Ruthless, intelligent, and incredibly social.

I know that they can summon each other

To form flocks when they need to.

I have seen them mass thirty strong

To shout abuse

At an owl hiding behind leaves.

They can form squadrons

To harass herons.

And sometimes they gather together

As a black parliament

In the hilltop tree.

Do they agree there  to depose old king crow?

Does a feathered delegation tell him

That his rule is ended?

I sit earthbound and wonder

As corvine politics goes on,

Way above my head.

nautical seagull stuff

 I floated through winter

On a river of booze

And washed up in spring

Like a castaway on a rock,

Staring up confused

A cloudy sky

Waiting for swifts to arrive.

But I only see seagulls

Wheeling above

Screaming and laughing derisively

At my self-pity

Whilst people are entombed alive

Beneath the bombarded steelworks

I can make up all this nautical seagull stuff.

But I can’t imagine what that’s like.

down the hill

 

I ride down the hill to the hospital

In the ambulance,

That follows the hearse,

Wondering which vehicle

Will take me home again.

The needle enters the arthritic knee,

Steroid and painkiller are pumped in.

The invasion crosses the border

And there is no anaesthetic for that.

I am old and

After an uneventful life

One part of my body after another

Starts to fail,

But I have the consolation of knowing,

That I have never ordered younger people

To go out and fight and die.

My refugee tomato plants

 My refugee tomato plants

Have been suddenly and forcibly moved

From the warm, safe, place of their birth.

They have been placed in strange containers,

And  forced to move,

At the whim of a power

That they cannot communicate with,

Or understand.

They have been singled out,

And selected

For arbitrary reasons.

Pulled out of their native soils,

Leaving ripped root tendrils behind.

Then planted separately

Into new colder, strange places

And left to regrow their roots

As best they can

Or perish alone in exile

Kim’s failed dream

The fascists’ canon roared,

And Kim Philby saw

Their impact

On blocks of workers’ flats.

That sight confirmed his intent

To betray his class

To build a better way of life for all.

A century later,

History repeats 

Like a bad tune,

Playing over and over,

On a broken machine, 

As the inheritors of Kim’s failed dream

Bombard workers’ flats.

Who knows what will grow

From the ruins in Ukraine,

Flowers of hope?

Or poisonous thorns and spores

Of the virus that makes humans kill

Each other

Again and again and again?

Chicken Kiev

 Old man lies in bed, sleepless,

Listening to the radio voices

That, late at night, can lull him to sleep;

Talking of cricket matches, or bringing

Stories, music and recipes from far-off places.

But the radio voices aren’t comforting tonight,

The Old man turns over and tries to sleep

Because nightmares might be better

Than listening again

To voices of desperation and

defiance in the face of fear.

He’s heard them before

Calling from the Czech lands

As the tanks rolled in.

Young man went out to shout

In the street outside the Russian embassy.

He can’t even do that now.

So he just has to listen

To the ingredients describing the recipe

For Chicken Kiev.

Missing mice

 I miss the mice I murdered,

Now my flat feels flat and

The silence makes me feel alone.

No more scurrying in dark corners,

I’m the only one at home.

But I am the sole oligarch here,

I had to protect my realm,

If you shit amidst my shopping

Death will be your doom.

You tried to eat my porridge oats

So I laid poison pills for your rodent throats

You ate them and you died.

I won’t lie I never cried.

But the silence makes me feel alone.

Arthritic ageist.

 I am an ageist now,

I hate my arthritic finger,

Which is crooked and makes me drop

That which I attempt to hold.

I hate the grind of bone on bone

In my arthritic knees.

I love watching birds

Envying the elegance of their flight.

When I stagger out

Balancing with walking stick

And shopping trolley

To put rubbish in dustbins

All of ten yards

It’s my journey for the day

Then I watch people walking by in the street

Every stride they take

Looks as miraculous as flight to me

I am an earthbound and static ageist

Replaying memories

And listening to music played by ghosts

Waiting to be carried to the grave

That is why I am an

Arthritic ageist.

staggershit

 Sometimes when I stagger out to shit,

In the middle of the night,

I hear a robin singing,

And I wonder if it is trying

To sweeten the darkness.

Sometimes when I stagger out to shit

In the middle of the night,

I hear a randy dog fox

Barking sharply.

I wonder if this sounds romantic to a vixen.

Sometimes when I stagger out to shit

In the middle of the night,

I hear a police helicopter's blades slicing the air ,

As it circles searching,

To mount surveillance

On us villeins below.

Sometimes when I stagger out to shit

In the middle of the night,

I hear nothing.

So I sit and shit quietly

In suburbia.

shredsong

 

My shredder sings to me

As I feed documents in

Between its sharp gnashing teeth

Selections from my history get eaten

Strips of paper are shat out beneath.

This is the way I edit my past

Edit my past

Edit my past

And censor my information

I cut up the things that I wish to hide

Wish to hide

Wish to hide

And send them to incineration.

So the metal music

Of the shredder’s blades

Sends me into reverie

And I dream of forest glades

And the song of the chainsaw.