cooked & et

from the hard shoulder
to the inside lane.

shrugging off juggernauts
and hondas as that song was
chug-chug-chugging through her brain.

(struggling to remember her own name).

hence,
we christened her
charlotteorsarahjane,
cloned from the spit and snot
of fifties harlots,
personality split.

she spent ten,
long
years on the shelf
and now
she's here.

doing a pretty impressive
impression of herself.

I always knew she'd graduate early
from our underground facility
the september air turns her breath
into sticky clouds of WD-40.

she tosses her wire for hair,
grits her needles for teeth,
rolls her marbles for eyes.

as she vainly struggles,
to remember her next lines.

what a girl.
she infuses some glamour and glitz
into the musings of old men
who smirk as their dirty little prayers
addressed to themselves and their heirs

erupt from her rubb'ry lips.

in the basement
uncanny reserves rehearse the same six songs.
upstairs
they drink and discuss the mortality rates of platinum blondes.

and how most soft drinks never seem to hit the spot.

clifford frigs himself as pigeons slide into listed buildings
as he fingers the life support machine
of a chav queen, chav christ, ritual sacrifice.
rosy-cheeked and dewey-eyed.
weeping about the witch waiting at the top of her drive.

whom no-one else seems to see.
cliff has her on speed dial number five.

on a chequerboard in reverse order
i read allow the sources of my boredom.
morons on forums worldwide have simultaneously decided
there is no more art or fashion, only
records that whisper 'hooray for satan'
if you spin em arse-backwards.

a fresh assignment lands on his desk,
as he privately expresses regret
at never having seen any eye whites
only broken bodies after the fact.

likens it to seeing war stuttering
through a phone camera lens.

check out the blitzkrieg in ten million pixels.
'oh the humanity' on the digital zoom.

(and when he quits) he returns
to walk our streets with all the style
of benefit cheats and tax exiles.

mumbling,
she doesn't exist if no-one's taking pictures.
if she isn't performing its as though she was never born.

i'm just writing you this quick note to say:

happy happy handlers day.

soup kitchen.

harness the power of the pyramid
in the job interview or the queue
for the soup kitchen.

harness the power of the pyramid
in the job interview or the queue for the soup kitchen.

i always felt slightly sick and nervous
every time i made an aspirational purchase.

you know,
there's nothing funny about an emperor or slaves.

its like singing about how fast your hair is thinning
or writing about the lines on your face.

you said this is surreal.
i said this is as real as it gets.
caffeine, bloated cadavers,
good people under the sledgehammer.

tilt your head and read my welcome mat, mate.
it says there's nothing funny about an emperor or his slaves.

i saw one thousand birthdays, bored.
awaiting delivery of a godless stick from luxor.

the whole experience left me very cross.

meet your new boss - king tutankahmun.
dines exclusively on millionaire's shortbread,
downs a pint of asses milk each night before bed.

he paid for the pavements and now he owns the streets.
this is known as thinking outside the box - delivering beyond the brief.

he never struggles to squeeze in his five a day..

she shuffles on a cane into subterranean spaces,
unto her cache of cattle with sellotape faces.

a remorseful chorus goes up,
'is this all we have to show for it'.
as though aimed at a film that
spits out his credits mid-sentence.

with sticky dreams
of gristle wet grit and brits abroad,
we kick up the dust in place de la concorde.

i pay them the blindest bit of notice,
its more than they deserve,
and set about erasing any traces
of triangles from my work.

we prayed you cease to trade in vagueries
and make your allegiances achingly clear.

still, you leave it in the hands of the overlords of chance.

book bins gutted,
insides scooped out like splintered giblets.

restuffed with
terminus, blinds, blue chairs that recline.

a serpentine of working men
all queue to see the boy who sleeps with one eye open.

i crack another can for
pubs, schools and post offices
as they disappear down the jewel-encrusted orifices.

blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah.

flattened.

a demolition crew has moved in next door using
TNT and toothbrushes I said "hey, what you doing?"
but the foreman ignored me, implored his men to
restore the land to it's former glory.

IAN simpson's monolith
bringing paganism back to the people
handing mysticism to the masses.
some buildings round here will never need planning permission.

the plans from above belie the architects cheap lust for the occult;

broken pentagram avenues,
cement mixed with the sweat and shit
of two maidens from stratford-on-avon.
a loose cannon in planning tried to save em.

and now he's off with the stress.

so him in his name lets raise a glass
to that good old-fashioned dumb bravery.

AND STAND before the three graces in a hi-vis jacket
and choose your own incedental music.
and yawn in the face of the dawning of deficit.

from the mud something will continue to rise
I only exist to tell you which things and why.

COG#2

sunk down to the bottom of the motorway,
found a very expressive 'work of subways,
but still not a whiff of city breath.

city of glass will end up smashed up,
so throw the seeds down and stomp the ground until they grow,
drag the saplings up by the scruff of their necks.

all of our churches and temples and mosques;
we turned them into free museums.

all of our football grounds, loved and hated, so outdated;
converted into women's prisons.

come along and see what we can offer.
state-sponsored, backing-track, street-buskers.
pay a pilgrimage to one of our seven quartiers.

you can sit her down and earnestly express
biggest doesn't always equate to best.
but these london girls know better than that.

I stared across the river misery.
I thought I looked to new york cities.

this was the renaissance with no resistance.

c.o.g.c.o.g.c.o.g.c.o.g....

(and this quarter,
we're gonna hit our quota
of ten romes a day. ten romes a day. ten romes a day. ten romes a day.)

secret shopper.

i
was
chewing on the script.
flavourless and fatty words.

I'm JUST trying to bring some joy into a joyless world.

he's content to sing to himself in the dark,
the musical equivalent of a subsistence farmer.

(what will they think of next?)

i recall,
it was back in 2003
when i first invented the slur
and the scream.

i'd seen desperate stanza-pop
before a queen victoria backdrop.

their words were so rich i knew i wouldn't sleep a wink that night.

all my hooks and barbs seem to signal
that i am forever doomed to be the lead single.

i can't decide if i need to be
deciduous or evergreen.

the blues empire

I got
me a lonely plot

and I built it.

from column a to column b,
rolled out like a canopy,
the monopoly on misery,
the blues empire.

girls up against words,
TKO-no-contest.

I was here first
with trademarked hurts,
copyrighted curses

and verses
with patent pending.

reserves of misery
that are never ending.

and I,
I will stick my oar in.

and send my profits soaring.
soaring,
soaring,
ssssoaring.

the sun hit bellecour, rifles won't stop singing. j. moulin, nuns and monks offer themselves to the ether and "blue eyes" won't stop stinging. the rudderless plebs of the provinces. we tried to forget, but the scars won't let us, or the books. and so was born his generation's loudest voice, a word carpenter. sat next to an empty seat forever, staring into the irish sea forever, wondering if his…heroes ever felt like this.

pretence, pretence, pretence, to clearing out his desk. reduced to selling his bottled sweat on the internet. he's in his 3rd choice home talking loudly for everyone, sipping tapwater, straddling the typewriter. and when he's done his rotten, his rotting soul, smashes into the s..southern pole. and there..he ..thaws the….icecaps…….thawss., glacier NOIr and glacier..er ..bLanche,
and the rest of em.

it was blues man, it was blues.

pilot whales.

listen, please listen,
i dressed my message in the most appropriate rhythm.
a new wave of fisherman, name dawkins & hitchens,
winter and whiskeys will make for a swifter existence.

but don't lose yourself in prudence,
blubber has a million and one uses
and mammals move so gracelessly.
tonight, on the specials, i think...i think i saw you and me.

bring me my readers, i need to see the order of service.
blake's verse reversed, dickie dawkins' work rendered worthless.

whale, badger, fallow deer,
the magnetic pull of the cull.
population control became the black hole in my conversations,
i determine as i cut the beast across the throat.

and our hunter begins to wonder
if that cough he can't shift is stress or tuberculosis.
he'll pay for the things he says, like how
when he dies he wants to return to the earth as a plague.

I'M GONNA BUILD ME A HORSE three times the height of the angel of the north
and when the people look up at the galvanised steel skin they will feel exactly what i want them to feel.

bulldozer

put the boy out to stud.
he was born to draw blood from the ground.

in samelsbury i've seen a snowplough with no teeth
aching for a ding or a chip or a scratch or a dent or anything.

in the shadow of eurofighter/hawkteam,
tremendous weapons =.
but.
we don't make em, we just sell em.

and i'll turn the mortar into mist as cranes and diggers do the twist.
over in a corner health and safety man having kittens.


see me limp in first - walking with a common purpose.
i am aware that i am aware that i am aware that i am aware.

i may be bored but i can breathe easy.
as normally service is restored
i learn that peace is the only thing that can please me.


i've had some work done,
bumper stickers and racing stripes,
new stereo system.
my own mum only recognises me by the eyes.

but i am aware that i am aware that i am aware that i am aware that i am aware that i am aware that i am aware that i am aware
that i am aware that i am aware
that i am aware
that i am aware
that i am aware.
that i am AWARE that i am AWARE that i am AWARE
that i am aware, that i am aware. that i am aware.
that i am aware,
that i am aware.

hi-noise

folks all mentioned in passing from preston, lancs to prestatyn.
all the fields and hills just pissed emselves laughing.

whats the grandmother saying?
she's saying a town of heathens-on-knees all praying.

the pixels and sluts turned their men into mush
while respect and restraint..and restraint had washed away like cheap paint.

so pull the pulse to your finger.
and bury your one good ear.

yes, i have heard of all of those too.
but what is the intended meaning of all those words that you use?

what is your prefered interpretation of the sound? come round
to mine, we will cancel each other out.

and take shameful pride
in commiting all our crimes
in 2/4 timing.

getting warmer...

i experienced that peculiar brand of shame that usually only comes with having a biblical name.
with nowhere hair nothing eyes deep sigh uneasy air
triple crowned son in his anglican gut wonders if the wandering is best left to others,

through himselves he weaves the mantra he can never be man, master cast , with plasterrrrrr
he carves it into table - 2 x 3 -

"when you first notice immortality is beginning to abandon thee".

she wrote - boy, you won't even live to a footnote.
he proclaimed,
my only aim is to leave a stain.

-----------

tame her with frantic early morning emails.
spell out 'i fucking love you' in chemtrails.
bathe in bravery.
become famous, for your defiant pathos.
arrange a transfer to speaker's corner
to argue the case of the both the latter, and the former.

and your days
everafter
will become
slightly softer
easier.
and warmer.
and warmer.

adn warmrer

typewriter

QWERTY. QWERTY. it is as good a start as any, QWERTY>

i don't know what the story is. where it starts,. where it ends.
i'd just returned from reading every book ever written and if the answer exists, well..
it chooses to remain hidden.

i've got my own word for everything.
from canal beds nicking poetry.
see me looking up perplexed - i'm the artist, but..my pukka pad is spotless

decades o' dust bouncing upwards --he thought his time had come and gone,
he was wrong
QWERTY!

and since you left the stage he's been
burning all he reads
out of respect,
he opens the W.I.P file of his au-to-bi-og-ra-phy
and does a findandreplace on every instance of your name.

commited his final soliloquy to tape.

smashed it and unravelled it.
and mailed it to the beckett estate.

push the bullet in

converted his words into zeroes and ones
hunched over, they were his gift to the beyond.
he was still giddy at being let in the circle,
becoming privy to words so wise and witty.

but of late he couldn't help but notice
he received fewer glances from colleagues in hallways.
a sudden drought of pleasantries usually spelt out
demotion from peer to peasantry.

now the drought had hit his studio home,
his letters and calls all seemed to dry up at once.
he wrote his friends to ask them why and was
hit with an avalanche of out of office replies.

the very next day in a blind panic he burnt
all of his years of degenerate work.
it was too late. the word was out.
round up all moaners and misfits.

he must have missed this.
between mither about free shit
and that mess in the kitchen.

on the afternoon when they finally caught up to him,
held his skinny wrists and pushed every bullet in,
his thoughts remained fixed on a mysterious list
of a various faux-pas and their respective dire consequences.

estate#4

without chains i felt so naked and nervous.
having thoroughly failed at putting being a man first.
i was unconfirmed and unbaptised
when i sailed to the land where sabres tickle the sky.

reject yourself and bet your entire hand
on a metre square of reclaimed land.
build your own palace out of mud and scrap iron
and name it 'abraham', or something.

this is a perfect backdrop for the rapture
gold, silver, hanging all coming back in fashion.

say seeya to the gatekeepers and repeaters forever
as we learn how to plough side by side together.
tax free, zombie chic, a plughole pulling me inwards.
something to talk about before, during, but never afterwards.

it's such a lovely day for a crusade.
and my office suggestion box overflows with
requests for another great war of the cross.
i won't be reading any of these.

but my friends all say i have william the conquerors gut
and my mum says i have richard the lionheart's cheek-bones.

will the cardboard condos belch forth a new breed of hero?
and will these buildings unlisted see the birth of a new kind of history?
his final thoughts were about sand in his lager and sex on the beach.
his last words were about bingo, booze and sex on the beach.

i think i know why they wrap us in scaffolding.
drip-fed us on panic, plots 'n' scandals left us
as potent as a mummified king (in a potted history).
the memos that you left for me said 'don't forget your guillotine'.

sunflowers...

and from cotton clouds he descended waved his wand and mended and restitched these regions as legions of men all gathered and clamoured for a touch of his leathery hands.

the ghost of ghandi continues to bounce to an fro about this valley from the leisure centre through superdrug and the circus onto the con club and up to the academy.

he always seems to end up in tears these days.
whether he's reading from the births and deaths,
or the yellow pages.

enter stage left and enter stage right as every night somewhere unknown sunflowers pulling their way up through astroturf as the serfs and the royalty all look skywards lost in the quality of the build and still the world and his wife want a man not a god who can repeal iron laws and seal them in vaults.

its been weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks
since they put pennies on the eyes of their dying dioceses.
stricken with wasting disease.

I was sure that there would be a sting in this tale I grope blindly through each line in the hope that it will reveal itself the ceiling is so low already and still he continues to grow and grow I said "sir may I wash myself in your river" though I know that you built it out of cabbages and conifers.

the invisible millstone around his neck.
he sees a perfect border slice from east to west.
the bulk of the villagers curse their fate
that their days should be stripped clean of symbols and themes.

doped up on cash.
fattened and bored.
I zip myself up and
I ping myself home.

where every second lunar eclipse
I bring two chapped lips against her broken hips.
alright.

hothouse

those nosey redheads.
ive seen your cash.
but wheres the class.?
in the room where I sleep she keeps horses she keeps
talking talking talking talking talking talking about wine and horses.

the walls are wet with easy earnings,
there's a sad corner stack of uneasy learnings.
she pauses, she says "fuck" for effect.
her hahahahangover is gonna need another namecheck.

is this a bull or a bear town?
the girls all wear their hair in bobs around here.
and it is worse than we feared,
they have come for our hats, they have come for our beards.

but I spent my life savings of filter coffee.
this is something they can never take off me.
this is something they can never take off me.
never.
never.

I've got this burial plot in canada square where the sexed-up mob sweeps from here to there.
She looks at the sky and says, "it's a little too blue today, isn't it?".
we're past the push now, where we shut up about the who and how,
bullshit and bullion bronze bullion.
relentless, dry-mouthed and friendless in the hothouse.
hothouse.
hothouse.
hothouse.
hothouse.

open collar.

from the barren moors i ventured down
to skim some of the funds from the dead brick town.
but in a twist, a madefortv shocker
i turned myself into open collar corporate cock-sucker.
i became super-sized, subsidised, angloamericanised.
two or three buttons akimbo,
i took off my specs, announced my exit from limbo.
i grind my pretty teeth round and round,
the sound is enough to supply the tempo.
the harmony, the melody should already be burnt into your memory.
i jettisoned my primitive laws at the door,
arrived with sean corker in a 4x4.
i began to live the life diverse
combining lynx shower gel & gillette anti-perspirant.

i'm an ex-fieldmouse and i've come so far
carrying round my conscience on a scratched cd-r.
showing off my soft-skills I have to determine
if today is a beer or a coffee day.
in a cotton shirt replaced jesus class
with vitamin pills and muscle mass.
i took the volley full-on, and here i stand
doing the protein shake to the establishmenthouseband.
the only competition left between us today
is to see who can be subservient in the most subversive way.
what is wrong with this picture?
i was just passing through i became a permanent fixture.

years and years later when it all broke down
the room was full as fire laws could ever allow.
the equation is glamour/banter
semantics:tragic.
in distress,
I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press I sent an SOS to the gutter press i said yes,

(they found me wincing. they found me wincing. they found me wincing. drinking daddy's whiskey).

the anchor age

there are misters
corrupting victorian vistas
and i'm the kind of man who likes to see
from the top to the bottom of his streets (and from the bottom to the top)

don't take it out on the buildings it wasn't the buildings fault.
don't take it out on the buildings it wasn't their fault.

why do you look so down?
you're king of this roundabout. with an asphalt crown.
and there are plastinated bishops and priests
who will pay to pretend to believe for a day
and it's a treat.
and it's a novelty.
faith is the final fetish of these twenty something centuries.

I'd been shaking the lonely hands our last local heroes.
I had a vision of a perfect canyon
cutting from capetown to grand bretagne
and the knowledge that built this town
Will see it returned to the ground.
To the ground.

And every year, without fail
It's LL bowen & Mrs. Greer
here to teach me about
the inexistence of class
they come to deny they come to erase
a past, a story, an anchor
i listen intently and when they've finished I thank them,
and when they've finished I say "thanks".

early morning, profit warning
what do I do with all my dying money?
identify my USP
and throw myself into the icy sea of questions unanswered,
my actions are abstract, the words are my anchor.
the words will be my anchor.