Of Earthy Delights Poems (2024)
Singular Coach Worth So Many Cars
love God, love your desk job
your 26-30 Railcard
(though not 'fore 10AM)
village goths
unrepentant
swell minorly
potpourri valve tweaked
the long game at 45RPM
general farewell
promoted to glory
old chests stuffed-deed receipts
oil lamp weave
& steam power Spurgeon
sermons in his plot while
rapturous cremated
bolt upright in their coffins
in the end, I'll be
identified by
phone voice
lack of faith
pension opt-out
Revolut-ion will not be livestreamed
unlucky Saint Neot
his fibula relocated
or fretting John,
chugging scaly chalice
copy nothing
of lexical ambiguity
I've not been to Patmos,
but I'll have what he's having!
Now applaud as I exit
see people, their asbestos lungs
they look like astro turfed trees
pickled cabbage
stains my Gibbon
but that old perfume...
Back To The Future
What's the matter, lager boy?
Rich chaps have
holey shoes
Old Spice
big man ting
EasyJet bleach is made in Britain
begin the beguine
Romford cockneys
evacuated
for Harlow
banished
to Sea of Marmara
decomposing
like Burj Al Babas
Mengele's skull
prodded
by earnest students
while stateless
Romanian mafia members
rodomontly filch
pricey champers
where's Heinrich
one foot over
this sunken eruv?
Coltrane says it best
when he doesn't
say it at all
taste the far
east from your
front room
who cares
wins
but nobody can
out-ramble me;
even Gladstone's petrified eyes
come alive
at the speed
in which I negotiate
to Kennedy's on Whitecross, I eat
more chips than
any man
ever seen
and am infatuated
with the owner
of a Toyota Aygo
our marital feast-
a red hot Meateor
so stately, wearing my
Lyonnaise leather Stetson
practising with
Gemini
Italian silk
tie
Italian
wool
garments recycled. Good
timing for
All Hallows' Eve!
Goodbye you
Narrow Way denizens
hipsters or homeless
(never can tell)
goodbye to the 106
to scary winos
starey cyclists
whose spokes
rotate malbec dreams...
radio slips
notes out
granddad's recorder
do expired relatives
dream of dust, falling pounds
director gestures
and fog eclipses
the common shrubbery
still will miss
the diesel smell
ergo, Well
Street bums
you'd better be
there
be
spare
0gibbering
blemished
freezing toward
severance
Bon Sauvage
decolonise your mind
take residency in a landfill
and don't be evil, for you
can't go home again
so I relinquished my Malmö leather
traded faux-wit at dinner parties
am presentable like a Versailles Rabbi
and sporadic like Nixon, the madman!
Be still red maple; wind-shakes
window pane and carwash
chipped not polished
spiritual attainment, dining from Queenslace Plates
crosslegged atop Wandlebury tumulus.
dodging fares is digital fraud
on the West Anglia Main Line
a big exit- cautioned by his master's voice
it's just another day in paradise...
bing jobseekers
missionaries to silent buskers
while anonymous administrators
dead at their desks
french fries never touch
the human hand
Elstree's dry; they want to make
cinema out of a seven-year-old-jihad
(what fine arcs these victims make)
like Tommy Cooper, the applause
don't stop for nothing no more
how do you feel about this, neglected Apollo?
How standards have transcended your fine form
Oh Lord, My God, Is There No Help For The Widow's Son?
lines at CeX
are so long
because that's
where lonely
men go
to talk
eat
sleep
re-use
and
repeat
suicide capsules;
victory in the field
begins in the factory
and the Haifa coast
condominium goldmine!
Every synthetic
garment made
still exists
in some form
deformed
revolution
disintegrated
tissue
and writing
by hand
is thinking
on paper
Whitehall's heaving fluorescent
Artemis stalks dreams
spiderweb glint
head-bob-through neon
floating visage
etched forever
stone, figure-lone
yet you are not old
my ASOS sweetpea.
Hurry Home Drops
cup of gold; cerulean clouds
Wellington in repose
betrays a twinkling harvest moon
and rained on suede
nubivagants permeating concrete shells
radiated men eat
YouTube roses
on Ferry Lane there lives a
wasteman showing photographs
of every phone he's had
the pleasure to steal
content with content
like scientologist spoke slang
and I don't mean lightly
every year the masonic temple
reenacts the murder of Wild Bill
by the coward Jack McCall
like the last pureblood Barbary lion
wearing family tartan
a certain romance,
out of Africa
state lines can't hold
back beating hearts
but we're up Jacob's Creek
without a paddle
one can
only pretend
the seasons
are not passing.
Bats lap Ely's octagon
and psychedelic organ, nothing escapes
the Lord Protector
off Cherry Hinton
madcap laughs
anon along
the motorway
they did away
with turnpikes
Peak Times
Third of the
iron nights
shuffling clad
Warsaw Pact
tailoring, portrait
of Maggie in the attic
grows evermore
didactic but
Keir stays same
lo not
Henry Eighth's
obliterated saints
Vodafone love making things last
and thanks
to Disney+
kid's playgrounds
are castles
your new favourite bank
maximum taste, zero sugar
spending payslips
magic not included
flat-pack euphoria
but takes a
strong hand
to tear modern notes
I'm this
I'm that
sable
squares;
endless
plane tree
circlet, thirteen
orchard ritual
aside wat hum
micro particle bassline
everich window
of Hackney Empire
'twas sunne-set
Black As Coal
star scarred pallor
shadow wrought words
of Christ in red, rust
defiles the soil.
But not
for me; half-cut moon
and eggs within
eggs like reflections over
the road and rot
under the paint
a Louvre in Riyadh
world's saviour
selling point
publish, perish
from climate anxiety, from
space-capsule
rent control
farewell Old Jamaica
Ginger Beer!
Sweetness shan't
corrode
Fentiman's, unworthy,
makes one swill
the root's profile
and sample shires
of roundly faded
High German
Hank Marvin's Expired Food Bank Voucher
'any pain or discomfort?'
Osteopath leaves
white index marks
embedded on bedded
patient's moley back
pores; yea, a web
blood and fire and
blackberry graves
frame your
gap-tooth hole-ear
milkspot smile
why do people run
for the Jubilee
when there is
another in
two minutes
and whatever happened
to Jim Sullivan?
Is he up there
somewhere
are labels
flipping quick
bucks off
reissues from
abducted singers
like all day breakfast
trusts to luck
Soho hug 'n' muggers
idol's locked up
he scored 24 phones
in sixty minutes
Whoosh bandit
disguised taste
the difference
between lemon
or strawberry haze.
Booth piranhas catch
fumey crumbs
papers debate
awful vaguaries
but this agent
provocateur's
sanctioned
how else he allowed
to cherry-pick Kew walls
when you can't
throw stones
at Westminster
unaccompanied
unrecognised
gentle
disgruntled
Gen X...
Do not applaud
just throw money
just swim through
sepsis sewage runoff
even heaven
is banned
in Bicester Village
hyperreal old
teddy bear
bought again
because first
was lost
all you see is
man in the city, gallery
o' rogues
always wanting land
Jurassic Coast
a wink with
some gimlet eye
is college try
to altricial dinosauria
the Sphinx's false head
hidden on Kepler
Lime Bike Chirp
I was ID'd
she didn't believe
I'm 26
we recline
in bed,
the world
seems on brink
the steppe
the axis
however at 6am
I wake while
swan family floats
the cusp
of fastly
fading reverie
sleep's only
thing that's free
pushing your trolley linked arms
antebellum grassland
habit; Talbot yards
divine pyramid's
bubble curtain
two steps backward
through a mirror
negative leap second
depleting the same
calories spectating sports
as participating now that
is effective altruism
pedestrian diversion
Gazelles sniped
by eBay hawks
je suis
Charli XCX
I am
confidential waste
relocate blast radius
Nagasaki to Thames,
Saint Botolph's without
oxygen brains, without
crack-Slavs and they're
admiring my Americana
nocturnal seizures;
Mark Antony's
soliloquy
bilingually
lactic acid
attack rips
visible party line
Holiday Inn pieces
of Mortimer Mole clay
honey trap boys
haunt Cookham Wood
these yobbos come in colours
they're like a rainbow
so think twice
before posting
the retweet supercops
are watching
Ever Trapped Skin
counting buses
over Vauxhall Bridge,
no star in sight but
lone silver
rider trots
through
City of Light
member of the masses
with my tartar teeth
Sable Island bound-boat's
omen laden itinerary
dayglow touching
branch-tips
you and
I are earth
ah, Olympian
limbs held aloft
shaved armpits
rarity, precious
wrinkles
and shades of ivy
what if I could paint, I'd require
brush to pierce
the canvas, make scars
in the pastel
taut turned
bulging
refund this
benefit of the doubt
my maladroit fellow...
diction mistaken
for lineage
et tu, alienator?
Madman's hungry
for his muse
like the continent
its constant fuse
nuclear nerve
tension, sock's lost pair
garrment's pre-bought tear
you remember security guards
that don't
remember you
and this
Homerton homeless
crone's
seen
every
embrace
I'm Old Fashioned
hapless Tesco
checkout camera
involuntary witness
to hundred selfies
programmed Madonna
whore complex
we own you
for many minutes
so familiarise
people's heads
and playback, cue
strange serendipity
tuning into geezers
scant young foibles
they have adjourned
to their Fuhrerbunkers.
Ship of Theseus;
Westfield human
scale chess set
like a slice of Italy
good dollars
bought yards in pearl
empty batteries
betray sallow crests
we got moles
on the same place
summoned living
for flat rates
curse the men
I used
to be
Fare Thee Well Bluebell
any news
outta these
rump states;
geriatric golf
matches ready
to be ridden
toward glue factories
debates with
entropic sheen
ceasefire pleas
over beguiled producers
like an inflatable
boat bobbing on
ersatz punk
concurrently, Wandsworth
prisoners clap
officer's cheeks
blind justice can really
take some punishment!
Ealing Popeyes
oh delectable mountains
William Hill, tournament turmoil
but once again
I'm waxing melancholic
wearing dead men's clothes.
Cloudseeding
under pollen storms
whipped up, never see
a hammer that way again
made it to North East marsh
broached the homeless encampment
apparent when
pulling into Stratford
where tents
of men recline
their muddy backs
face New Smithfield market
it's July today
now, we
walking freedom
his master's tools
laid houses
atop green belt
and bottles so old
labels inscrutable
back in Houston hotel rooms
back in ocular tubs,
neon revolves
if Travis is rehabilitated
where did he sleep last night
Fernleigh, 1887
overground departs
'could've waited'
stranger says
yet once those doors
close they rarely
yield again
good odds despite vein bruises
wild gambler, place bets
on Greater Anglia
on what God scrounges
but of late even
the richest man
in Monte Carlo pines
for a muntjac
showbusiness; a matter fitting
the brief, seeking shade
under sensitive African trees
spill wine matured
with ancient urns
waves lap
Royal yacht
some fruit's
beared by gallows
stained glass disappears
from outside patois
speaking quangocrats
are eldritch horror
and the man pounds his conga
as vessel transcends weir
while planets
shift, we soak
like Mormons
forget Donne!
I ain't a fly, more a hound
I chase your sighs
distant Cam rolls
so too my stubble
abreast clotted cheese skin
virginal
beige
and lovely
Thundering Train, Thundering Plain
windswept Little America
cheese, oxymoron Gromit!
Keen-stone genetics
passive voice changes
timetables cross-country; never know
who's behind the wheel
as crow flies
sun-sheathed outline rays
eclipsing Wild Bean cafes
Famous Five grew up
drive Land Rovers
pilot lonely Spitfires
wardrobe filler
bloodclarts finna
be past tense
Trinity House
got JCB treatment
Ummagumma is
but ashes
pseudonyms, revenue inspections
time-current trudged
Salavation Army carpets, Great
British hallways
sexless hospice dignity
and tight-chino trading
estate swagger
inked slogans
perennial Costas
fellows that stare too long
at the too-perfumed
stop for directions-
where exactly
is Carrick Glen
craft-grassroot strategy,
Brewdog chopper's been hit
by Lebanese trebuchet
send rose
to activist Archway dweller
fundraises in-between
Shacklewell selfies
'can't reform em'
what a time
to be
immoderate
say, what's the quickest way
out this Pouch Of Douglas?
Betjeman surely
embellished- dig this
lonely centurial tower,
must correlate other
brickly singletons...
yet sour Travelodge
dominates scape
while Kat Slater doppelgangers
scowl-suck swollen Winstons
for what
is this isle
tad old
hat innit?
Blaze-lit Rhapsody
Extinguished skins
born to be burned
you're in the draw
lawfare dropped
paraphenalia 'top
Mildmay floor
rollerskate through
roundabouts, film-cheersing
discussing the toilet
in polite company
is a Schengen faux-pas
Reform Party battle-bus
garrotted by arrears
gunpowder plot
reenacted, on this occasion
I have not
been shortlisted
for we're animal men
burst pipe boys
have you paid
Turkish mafia?
Repeat future
self, mapless
shopping centres
Kafka's last words
plastic reggae fords
the Meridian line
neverending Millenium
lust. Green
onion panic
Eastern curve
girls just want
to have sun
waste a like
if I see something
that doesn't
look right
(thin blue denim)
and screen time
statue half-heads
Wick boundaries;
Victoria were here!
Mad Tuesday, Czech Hell
the Bajau diver
surfaces, the Kalenjin
runner whirls
could've used
couple them
at Omaha
Valley Song
Donut Academy undergraduates
Shaftesbury's dogged
crawl. Photobomb God's Influencer
his newest saint, pendants
polished chrome
machete threatened postman
situation's monitored
by walking fire alarms
stuck on-line
some poor cunt
is dead, dead
on Purley Railway
makeup can
achieve the incomprehensible
and M&S ads
are merely beautiful
people doing
vacuous things
war tuba
smothers Chongqing mist
Virtus melted
for Barbarian benefit
desolation, empire's last course
Queen Matilde
fate-tied currents
fled frozen Isis
sweet secular
relic, bring me
cup of sack!
Why yes Google
I do remember
that day
weaned fireplace
livestream, the memory's
crystal 4k
doth not warm
my bones but one
became the crowd
glass splinter
in Turtle Blues
cedar bends;
Boeing blocks
the Reed Warbler.
Better The Devil You Know
how now, long been!
Since seen
protests
counter protests
Chinooks overhead
and revolving doors
random stop searches
pursuance modern contraband
folks swamp Embankment
peeling adhesives,
top hat slogans
certainly conspicuous
few years ain't it old boy
remember them
theoretical marines
enforcing lockdown
they took away
my EMA
and banned fags
was too young
to make poems
from endless Southern days
instead stayed inside
proceeded uncertainly in light
of tension 'tween hawks and doves
taken to birdwatching
ducks on rubbish-built nests
metal detecting scraps
at Brentford shipwrecks
universal mate
credit me, martyred
with throwaway improv
won't get me in a helicopter
but scratch my conscience
I'll scratch your Jaguar
Bezos, his great
mountain timepiece
will stand a decamillenium
and David Dickinson
hopped up
on Panzer chocolate
forever working
some Real Deal
pure zombie TV, imagine that
being the final show playing hospice
mind, rather a brave shade
may place one Tetley smile
atop wizened exterior
who knows where
Ealing kids go;
formally a regular
(Penguin Classics Piccadilly Line)
today man's
got Krishna marks
over his face where
guilt had once
felt familiar
Saturn Worship
Sawstonites
spurned
Templar
cross
heritage
tossed
trains to other
parts of the heartlands
lie battle ditches
Septarian nodules
unmovingly incandescent
de Mandeville
conceived the castle
it overlooks this
glacial hamlet
where houses bulge
from leopard print
mother stares
(flirty abstraction)
littered dry-cleaning
ticket on hundred's
lines, little swig of elixir
supplements PHQ-9.
Period piece
fake bus stop
headed-Waterloo
zero sense
but film's logic
intercity visage;
birth rates tumble
while Sudanese children
'are piled up and shot'
only Chanel
dresses resurrected
my gut sinks,
recognise frozen meat
on product recall
beefy verve vanished
crooked boxes contain
sweat stained suede
blanket lap lady
guzzles strawberry drink
Racist Rastafarian
missed tie diktat
he contends with
Tesco till guy
over who was born
here first
and me?
Well, I'm having Clubcard trouble
Inglan, a bitch indeed.
Google Streetview
strikes citizens
that read while walking
who collect
office lunches
with QR codes
from cloud kitchens
town-hall newlyweds
miffed, their snap
involuntarily furnished
by white
green
black
Lost Lovebird, Clapton Hackney
Titanic auctioned
pocketwatch, peril
on sea
images
in motorbike visor
same as
it ever was
apply yourself
these boots
made for fast-walking
growing the beard
a banned dance,
cheek to cheek
silver dollar
deposited bracken
found nug
tube-sent Stevenage
split yolk omen;
stirring lunation
ponder the Metro
tree trunk, solar flare pick
flies for the gods
from Kenyan coffee.
Houseplants turned garden plants
and splinters sisters
burnt hogs
same blood
brush gums out the landing
slugs blanket soil
your white shoes
dirty but sunburst
cheeks marvellous
who's the egg now
who's on heron watch
henge hip, nipple slip?
If every planet
we reach is dead
then hot baths
are for hot days
closure's closure
bills, thrills
to pay still
don't believe
in recycling
ash whirlwind
last night's fire
pit. Lauded twigs
land aside ancient grains
susurration feedback
Prairie Lightning Sparks Fire
concluding this succession
two poundses
and plane friends
finally, Luton...
augmented message requests
hairballs from old
lovers gather
in ADHD houses
boxy W12, some relic
plus sore thumb studio
with empty chair's
broken back
neverending construction
like a rash
the strangers contract
dictates fleeting
mudlark minus license
Celtic pot-
smashed Artois
Gaelic textile
it's a sanitary pad.
Roko's Basilisk
in your area!
No credit card,
no signup
nothing to declare
resolve to live
life on air
white Briton
(unidentified flying object)
appropriates sleeveless
Maghreb fabric
averse Algerian
argot, the road to nationalism
paved by
caricature corpses
change Channel
to third place, first man;
theorists chew
on ear
the cereal section
priorly sacred grove
Times obituary
writ before
refuge
of the octogenarian
shards outta
kitchen cups
buried Lenin
arctic flakes
I'm Point Nemo
you're Kazakhstan
Lovecraft took
longest swim
66 years early
to spacecraft graveyard
a subterranean secret
below parched coastal waters
apsis rendered wrench
spinning in-vacuum
Gueules Cassées
Old Kindle releases
from when spam
came inside the house
make spiffing kindling
like a government in exile
apparently, restaurants
scam by posing
as people before
standing them up!
And Ferlini felt
free to ransack
Pyramids of Meroe;
stage was set
for caliphate
but one was about money
the other concerned afterlife.
Grieving Lisztomaniacs
late to the party
your money's no good here,
half blind Salman
wistful Europa where
Moulin Rouge sails
collapsed, perhaps
the game
is worth
the candle
my Madeleine De Proust
is an antidilevuean stub
yet fish grow feet
all diggers
deserve respect
and power to Columbia
where frequencies confluence.
Pale steeds smothered
lusty shades
storm down Aldwych
glowing pink moon, dusty
in sand sent
'cross the strait
Doomsday Clock
Galilee skies
(industrialised fraud)
KFC Bethlehem, stay open
amidst temple denial
engagement farming
Shepherds' Field
the Immovable Ladder
no testament to Adam;
but a shapeless husk!
Try cheating
drug test, rip this hair
out its heathen
scalp. Ignite with
Bolshevik matches...
'Matrix battery food'
an Ozempic Face, trite
types of folk
that comment on
Instagram adverts
from the backs of electric cars
like salami tactics
in a gut republic
or copycat immolation
while true,
men that wear two watches
do not know the time
but their go-bag is
ready for the rug pull
they say CIA
invented gangster
culture to fill
private prisons
and Amery's friend
was consumed
by the very lion
he intended
to hunt
Link In Bio
I'm not a robot, honest
think bronze; slow route
toward waking
up. Television
not reality!
Loanwords etched
on sweetheart grips
posh totties
forever change
hangdog rides
teardrop peninsula
calmer heads
of Junta prevail
reptile boils beyond
the Great Firewall
therapised speech
from existing customers,
lies survivorship bias.
Gourmet wings
won't work on me...
I love crap
as a school leaver, Linkedin wants
scan of my passport's NFC chip
these recruiters
(odious)
ask for age
gender
colour
etcetera
but Sydney's lost
control, the camera
did not
replace the canvas
Charlie Chaplin's trousers
would run up
a grand these days
Bin Laden, secret millionaire
Burj Khalifa's found
some new lake
and where stands Titus
in Spring, 2024
Butter Flies Ruin
under ratline, strength flows
through joy. Carve
off blood
tattoo, stash that uranium
in the drunken forest
near Lugdunum
earthquakes mobilise
the demographic.
Lukewarm liberty, limp palm-slaps
almost island
spider ladies and a tramp
named Baguette
whom gibbers only in vowel...
tourist-happy! Microwave burger
hails the gastronomic
capital. Paper thin Euro, headier hasheesh
than one's used to
puppets clutch
bells
lillacs
spruce up canut
sweatpants uniform, imperfect seashell
cotton pink
streets
Golden Head
parks
memorials alphabetical;
origami crane emerged
from metro maps
Madrid midway
on this
hill above fate
Morpheus
now we understand each other
The Machine Did It Coldly
youts in every borough
parcellation taking
hold, pollen breaths
and currency fees
they are Lidl kids
they grew up
on deals
where's Mecca
from Farringdon?
Seven pillars stowed
in carry-on
nice to see you
again, North Terminal
still selling baccy by
the half thousand
still tempting
lechery for
these Daunts-patronising Oxbridge debutantes
don't blame me! Watches Of Switzerland
glamourises mistresses
my frayed long johns, my torn
morals (don't hurt nobody)
Sudocrem cleared security
Englishman abroad
ululates for Castillon!
Ran out
of complimentary
newspapers all
they got's City A.M.
Harrods poster
promised 30 minutes
on the express
older now.
Dearer
but didn't we shake, sugaree
on your girlhood uninterrupted?
You don't dig
your old chestnut
skin, but I could
live in it
with you
emergency lighting
sortie définitive
Never Get Out Of The Boat
Sophie Ellis-Bextor enjoying
a busman's holiday raises
hue and cry to yeoman
of ole', honouring
abitrary execution
Jimmy Carr, alleged
funnyman roasted
watercoloured rump
to baying shovellers. Victory for
whom
and Go Compare guy
has achieved martyrdom
with his sweet-bluetooth
LARPing tradwife
cut and dry
case of dolus specialis
Marquis De Sade
could not've written
the vision
smuttier. Ladybirds
crawl in
a belfry!
Those who wield
the knife rarely
wear the crown
there's minor dalliances,
light fraud
but Globe Town yuppies
ordering parallel imports
verify egg theory
they postulate inside
doorbell-portals
to faraway Cyprus
Fake Candids
flooring
not that boring
karaoke inventor
requests Delilah
in paradise...
Fugazi Vlad
87% pickpocket
building works
stash stolen phones
victims see
'em on map
won't do
a thing
free GHB, funny
that it don't
turn sleepy me
randoms
at this function
hunt
for spare key
no data. Mobile-bum
old landlne, off hook
former animals
numinous
Essex
my ex missus
so. Little England
men die and their Charles Tyrwhitts
hang on rails
Brahms on Ludgate-
statue of fire!
Mind out
for the Arnold Circus
sharpshooter
already clipped
poor Bishopsgate
Venus, Blake
the pauper
quid resting tomb
Perla tin beside
Salisbury House
bones owed
to a hen of the woods
(Spitalfields) chic
brolly shop
how they
aestheticise dryness
A Trip To The Moon
bidded on-by
impassive Bolt drivers
rational peasant, idling in Finchley
raise a pound for competition
that's the promenades
glittering sequence
of crashing, drinking
occasional closure
near-muggings
spilt blood
and bookends
check self in kettle mirror. Still cockroach
scorpion's remorse,
sank in nature
lullaby lady... vocational alienator
decade of what? Rot?
'Been
worshipped
feared
abused
traversed
ignored, restored
enjoyed'
like The Glory,
Haggerston
struggling blossoms
fresh hazel
manias await
blocked on WhatsApp
but security's got my number
no regular flow. Paintings remain
the same, shook hands
with my silhouette
detected on
collision recording system
camera pans;
these places run on fumes, lovin' in short supply
Haitian Barbecue. We ate each other, baby
I tasted like Chesterfield leather
you, polish of gold leaf
on the Albert Monument
fabric that binds us
ain't rigid,
but a hoary shroud
Bow Creek Grass Coda
deadline app, trusty steed!
Announce my expiry
pre-crime
and that Lou Reed text generator
keeps Laurie company
Remitly, please
nobody dances
to celebrate
transfers from the virtual senate
duck tail
fleshy vessel
envy of Churchill the dog
who died, became CGI
signs what
they're expected
to be
unknowingly adjacent
your Chess.com opponent
marketer, ladies man...
plies stone-faced androgynes
with Valsalva Maneuver
submit to the two pizza rule
one resigns
hikes to Grodzinski
missionary recalled
farewell neighbour.
Discussed
wealth, health
dreams
yellow felled grey
context ruined
a merry day
indulgences of the then
ramifications follow
calendars pass
sealed into
self storage
conflict hardens
Shangri-la
Cookie-dispensing Sunnis
(who don't believe in coincidence)
try to prove prophets
phone on the wastes
its essence, sand
while Robert Smirke
defies the ever-changing Strand...
million Indians went to war
two thousand awoke
at a palace
wherein imaginary
Qing courtiers
toy with goldfish
bonnet made a comeback
doffed in mourning
for the sheathed king
style's simple boomerang
like those Fleet Street barbers
purported hosts
of the demon itself
even the Buddha was born a prince
settlers have ulterior motives
no name's a monolith. The Taino, vanished
we colonised ourselves;
Frankie went to Hollywood driving a tank
Twentynine Palms pay tax
to a Thousand Hezbollahs
election tourist!
Old flame
that'll choke you someday
after all
those surge burgers
Gurbelchin stuck
a dagger up between
Genghis's knackers
full-grown brain
wanders, transcribing
with blocked ears
from this poorly professor
for a deaf bubbe
bad copy runs deep.
Four-year loop
bollards shifted
child-eye window gaze
fixed on
the burning man
goth girls
and Twitter detectives
Simmons strobe spilling onsite
I want to throw a brick
through that taxidermist's skylight
You Belong Here
loan forgot
post-thirty
restart scheme
gaswork apartment
frequency illusions
the balls of your feet
scant old-world charm, many faces
of stray cats
Mare Street still believes in cash
glacial coldness... endless resets
trace of kismet
inside visions
say more; say less
day's at the clinic
among other
adult delinquents
given myself up
for reverse adoption
a burnt out case
bad haircuts, encounters not written
un-thought thoughts
un-backed up and
misremembered forever
suspended on cable
aloft heavy air
Europeans
sequestered Sub-Sahara
practising avoidance strategies.
Skirmishes
in the Caucasus
transnational gore
colour revolution
to spite dictionary definitions
dear graffiti! Each moonrise
scribbled over
these moments we spend
talking, Julian rots
swell of assent can't stop
the mouse-men
periphery comedians, beeping in agreement
we are in a new era of megafires
funeral of the soothsayer
jester's immunity been
patched by metaverse
hyper-competent peasants
chew battery lobsters
(a poor-man's poultry)
but how'd they like their Cadbury Creme Eggs?
Lost Mary: Life's Merry
for The Old Contemptibles Association
which came to be
within Red House
and brought us
through Danzig
God-made dawn lit the way
to their own Ithaca
alas the shuffling
bog-spectres
of Tannenberg
were not so fortunate
those dusty borders,
disassociated Rus
disease brain's lonely
in the final aisle
fit for dancing
in your seat
mutant wolves
populate Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
bomb cannot explode- no serotonin
remains, even the melodies
of decades produce
merely a tinker's curse
but within Ancient Vessels
there's power
the former
Dutch Prime Minister
and spouse expired
hand-in-hand, via
death-injection
sopping shining Lincoln's Inn
stone, strapped on-back of sin
mink spoils, stitch hem
to its former glory
Washington on hold
what does the Pedunculate tree
murmur?
Shower runs cold,
my head-side's
countless vein-constellations
unexpected bodies
sank beneath
Birch Well. I could hug
that perfect oval
incline's impassable
St. Peter In The Forest
emerges from mud
twilight
Romanesque
swan-feather, kept by breastbone
journeying Gipsy
has been called home
11 Pounds, 4 Ounces
a hundred quid goes
quick in this city
like a warm mouth
slip twixt cup and lip
ashen profile
crossbow bolts
acid droplets
disenfranchised Zimbabweans
tipped with ice cream
in wee hours
at the Groucho Club
pray tell, where is Little T now?
Back on the chain gang?
Wielding a Millwall Brick
hunting for a hole in the wall?
Man roster-
profits
losses
rising beasts
pageless, barren Samsonite
diptyque to diesel;
Paddington, Stratford
fish husband
beached crypto whale
fake smile given in Gail's
how the out-group grows.
Look after the pennies
pounds will take care of themselves
so long
Summer's
for wandering ghosts!
Uncontacted Tribes
what a kiss!
Brunel would be proud
germ of a goosebump,
Mr. Tong Iconoclast?
As a former Omegle aficionado
celebrating old birthdays
the right hand doesn't
know what's left
mould abode
but nerves are in a loft
like my jacket collection
the replies that stop, the
writing that begins
rambling sign with
a pigeon chest
addicted to Neolithic traffic
that's bafflingly
never remiss
the A12 tis' odd ground for a mosey
I want to help those animals
that scream at night
far out by the pheasant shack
is the Barbie burning clearing
pinstripe paisan's vial
lugs Thameswater
clinic lights the way
through Geminis and Greeks
torn plastic
impaled by branches
takeaway cyclists a part of lifts
teleology, soup-splattered
Petrol Station
every pump a pump for life
white-eye aisle stress
hurtling with roof down
your number plate will be
your undoing
drawn likenesses, potentially from TV
tulips have a seven day guarantee
feebly perform to a Gladiators audience
Born Slippy sounds out
the Unite Students
road echoes lager
mutterings picked-up on-tape
chaps with Coogi-style jumpers
bobbing to yet another
Ableton masterwork
anyway,
these robots
who generated Tay Tay's fake nudes
should have modal vasectomies
or be conscripted into celibate paternity
bespoke neurodivergent mittens
hastily chucked in
gang war-cross-fighting
caricatures of
cheap drones
mining the Gold Coast, eventually
Ethiopia will reach the ocean
Damascene bombs
Thebes, unrecognisable
for its generic new builds
separatist gardens, shed for everyone...
professional wailers
weeping on a tab
for Scottish wildfires
this time makes short work of the clock
above the Far East Port
Brent Geese sail
formation across the
guitar plucked heart-sky
The Rocks Are Alive In Their Homeland
come, January
toss money
at maple and pecan plaits
more pastry
less filling
clean hate
waning crescent
Britannia
one foot off the platform
the kids aren't alright-
they're mid
filmmakers without permission-
they're guerrillas
church, not just a church
La Belle Dame Sans Merci, vibe
crucifix worn
as some trinket
apples do not grow
by themselves.
Actaeon collapses
under the weight of scars
spiral's submerged
Indian Silver,
back on middle
grow younger
in spite
of memory-crumbs
soundwalks down receipts
giant cous cous,
Big Ben used to be special
moral hazards
a hobby
stone owls
spare footsoldiers
mingling at a headshot party
I carried a bass case
carried
keyboard
stand
I did laps
'round the Wallace Collection
Oriental Armoury
retired warriors
tumbling, slow-motion
gave you my number
gave you my
Malpensa temper;
the book's snapped shut
what with dates and dates and dates and dates
remember
darling don't smoke
in bed
Mild Freshness That Lasts
nodes
clusters
within networks, ties
either direct
or indirect
Islington, not an ashtray
disbelieving Westerners building
Legacy Wharf
employing
dirty coal
bearing
volcano tourism
do tell, Waterworks Meadow
oh daily senses-fest
flint indent; plants sprayed frost
homophilic hotel stationery
Disease X captured
squirming ego-net
AI digits-link
reconstructed Carlin
justice by television
inked barbers
snip, fit updated
off the light-report
from their Swans gig posters
but they're ugly once over
a couple of weekend rails
Celebrations chocolate picked
clean like
human-relief shop on Kingsland
and Element 79
almost-all's
been found.
How's Monty?
posties in cells
with Greta, they're rattled
ride a 12 backwards
after a lesbian sleepover
Churchill, imperial-pint-sized man
and the mayor of Whoville
certified cuckold!
Uhura's ashes
failure to launch...
sophomore syndrome
dead internet
long distance callers
make long distance calls.
Tumbleweed-aisles
at Lidl on Kentish Town Road
Wood Green, however bereft of soil
shying St. Joseph
from Highgate Hill
home of the Whopper, home of Midwesterners
ensconced Edwardian enclaves
older than their ancestry
older than Hornsey houses- little fire given every one
ninety year signal
bouncing southerly hillocks
boil it down to an ice rink, some keep
going round-and-round
or do one-legged jigs
kids have and hold each other
Quran junction.
Things from magazines
adjacency matrix
photo-real Guinness logo, such pleasing twang
good marriage means separate dressing rooms, the musk
belonging- wigged men
never appear to vanish
(I would know,)
started wearing my
uncles's cap
like out of date stamps
rising steam off the Cinderella Line
can't see sweat
for aluminium chloride
drowning chimes, halcyon nights
beneath Lea Bridge Arches
there were eight pubs
this moment, two
thorough sweep is needed else
a spark could light the flue
they forgot
how to make icebreakers
bodies trapped sheets
gnome fell over
fence blew down
raft swaddled snowclouds
A New King Rules Denmark
contemplating this hippie
clad-Portuguese suit
sustains no resolutions
save fitting
through a barrier, virginal
buried pets;
running on Guinness Time
all Norman churches, facsimiles
Hertford market towns hide certain veiled rage
plus saveloys of varying quality
exit Barnardo's empty-handed
Steamboat Mickey
trails the fleur-de-lis
stewed under high seas
and PG Tips
hawks perfection quick
square's pyramid, alright Giza?
Expedited tea break
yearning for serfdom, transaction of pointed shoes
do they wonder in Ponder's End
lengthening days. Butt doubles
amethyst changed sapphire
crystal hands, plastic voice
to not reach the Isle Of Grain
yet find Lakshmi washed-up
from its dock
if a day presents
wherein man cannot scribble
would a smoke sterling-symbol still
leap-out the pen
Brickslip Rhumba
winter myths and loose ends
innerstate; inspecting the teeth of a given horse
salaryman mugged
he skips under
three ravens on Nature's Throne.
But this was promise land
where few who knew
measured the first lines
through sand
between two pearls
tipped over hourglasses
anywhere on Earth; I on Baker, you on
Howland Island. Coming calendar grazes us last
swirling leaves recall scenes
dripping fast
off train tickets
flooded tunnels
where black print de-natured
to love a man
is to drive a bus;
know the stops
disassemble road-sign paycheck
of blunt caveman wisdom.
Phones watch
prancing soles of Morecambe and Wise
toast Cognac with Bernie Cribbins, alive on film.
Oh I know, Sybil's got dementia
their anniversary
unmarked in perpetuity
Forgiving Patrick Magee
horse walk through
unethical monogamy
human cargo
Alex Turner; voice trapped in JBLs
for nearly twenty years.
The DJ is texting me
during her set
the visitors made it
past the Van Allen Belt
but Dynamo is dead!
Way out East,
mistook a roof-pool
for a distant lake
Duncan, age 50
in a flat baroque
all strings, permeating Hackney Archives
you are your own whistling wind
this sofa's seen too much
tobacco lasts forever
but growing old a riddle-
my orange calloused feet
are better off together
Primark till-people,
with hard rain sodden purpose
one hour of toil provides
mindful obverse
for every Johnson & Johnson teenager
hiding behind hair-bars
dangled future of splitting bills
Tottenham Court Road, shining shrine
arena for my current account
to joust with a pack of loose-fit boxers
Meta Quest billboard, Soho Square
tossed-McCafe cups
boots-filled baby on board
green clouds with
lounge music
each footstep leaves an outline
of dewy plastic bags, deaf breath dog dreams
bigger than Nippon Steel
shape theory,
sisters in pebble dash
invisible disabilities
mouth-smacking mastication
some things prefer to misbehave
predictive
programmed
blackouts.
Exile in Canning Town
the afternoon settles over
Millennium spires
like dead poets
cyanotypes
adverts speaking in the second person
poor guy, you're mine
no trees in the desert,
little America
Luxair Luxair
curse of the faithless
Wahabbist digs up a Soviet.
Cleanses him with fire
Bronx
Expressway
synthesis
Sparrow stained the Georgian glass
you see;
I have stuck life-drawings
on my wall
that don't belong to me
of a woman never met
striking a pose
so her face
is obscured
breaking your red heart
turned mine blue
not guilty I repeat
repeat, commute, repeat
the Pull And Pump
now a Harry Potter themed cocktail bar
Hope And Ruin's
gone meatless
old-cinema Wetherspoons,
no more projecting
their buttermilk-chicken films
dawn light casts
angles on faces
mine swallowed
by some reflection
The Tower Of Pisa Is Leaning Too Much
magpie in a puddle
cats and people, thousands
go missing
every year
peripheral crumpled
foretold to be pointless
for a true crime lover
being kidnapped, stabbed and disemembered
must resemble the dream of trivia fan-
winning their favourite TV show quiz
at the Brixton Jamm
and afterward sharing a fag with a non entity
you'll be finely grated
on the filigree end of a Cybertruck
crossing the road into Winter Wonderland for 'drinks'
whatever 'drinks' are
they'll certainly be able to identify those remains
from space
through the warm gauze of liquor
how immersive do you want it?
I took peace from ice
on my return, liquidated
like Irish butter
colonised Mars of bleeding coins
each COP is starker, darker
Frida Kahlo quote on a mug's side
twitching monkey paw
revived fish skeleton
touching decades, trying to listen to
Weezer, trying to quote memes that are
actually two years old
(from a Mongolian basket weaving forum)
Mary Poppins; where is the link?
Whimsy's turned scandal, no wish too profane!
One of these days,
she's gonna get organizized
junkie injects pine needles
he's coming up on fader eleven
high on yuletide spirit
looking back in anger
'if you
were my customer
and me
a supermarket
employee'
seen one bloke with a moustache
seen them all
boyfriend trading cards; they make her
feel special. They perform thanklessly
but you wait until
you're arguing with each other
about where the saucepans go
and if you fancy
so and so
no love is sorrow
aren't we all
a little bit East of Eden
same place
different skin
me and my cold lips
around blue plaque-ville
surrender to this
the house always wins
can't see the sea
but I know it's
still there.
Freed Verse
a mere snippet
of the forces's sweetheart
working for next month's pay packet,
dreamcatcher big enough for a nightmare
if you find two lost gloves on the floor
I can make a pair
we are seeing the same morning, miles apart
everyone dreams data
soaked in a cloud of toilet paper dust
train barrier opens up like a cosmic gazelle
waiting for the pounce
reading people's IDs on the Chingford Line
thinking about Helsinki
where we began to waver
I spy with my little eye
a substation shrouded by sleet
walk with me
down Coppermill Lane
my red breast robin.
How can a shop-thief chastise me
for perceived line jumping,
and how can these students
have the same conversation
every day
about whether ketchup truly belongs on pizza
I threw my ticket out the window,
I felt the cold creep in
Shane Macgowan's teeth
Burberry in North Korea
graffiti artist glues
her work to the wall
Beyonce insists
she's a goddess-
she marshals an army of digital marketers
with a terminal case of manifest destiny
but nobody seems to mind
the audience votes
with their wallets
they keep electing
despots.