Spring Billed Jack

the jackdaws bruise the garden today

borrowing sticks, stealing hay

the sticks we can have back they say

once seasoned by the summer's fray

I tell them they can keep the hay

Where There Are Fish You Will Often Find Bicycles

An experiment in Jungian free association, streams of words that are meant to make no sense but sometimes hang together, limited to ten lines each day. Successful or not I will ultimately revisit and use some of the ideas to make more cohesive wholes or even holes

(in six days god did what?)

sunDAY 1

save the shamen monkey for a cleaner time

a warm snow, maybe, where the cookies die

so busy waiting for the next day

I could’ve missed it when it finally came

through the giggling dry cinnamon walls

plaited in a garden that promised more

while a titanium hip may not bump or grind

my buying choices change with every rhyme

living in the last days of a spoon fed haze

I’m still the best thing that ever came of age

monDAY 2

I can’t hear the ground squeak, I can’t hear it swell

both wonderful & frightening this northern fall

minus fifteen with the mercury stalling

no promises made but every fence taken

owls can be born of painted stone

white padded envelopes split wide open

bitterness comes in more flavours than yellow

the best company for breathing? constant survival

protecting the key may jeopardise the egg

but where is the politick more real than Madrid?

tuesDAY 3

white powder, cold chowder, the roads are skinned deep

a roasted pig’s head finds it hard to complete

the quieter the fox the more blood in the crowd

you died in your sleep, did you not figure it out

sound down, drown out every vain catechism

each question will answer the very same thing

your bandages ride as ripped beggared threads

what disservice you offer your unfavoured deeds

while you slip down the mountain make sure that you’re smiling

you suit the black garb of ein deutscher Geschäftsmann

wednesDAY 4

now you’ve caught your own shadow take care not to spill it

line-up the artist’s dummies in ranked fascist salute

you shall not know my wife now you’ve met my life

tout the benefit of experience through a lack of advice

perverting the course of your dress with a suit

ensnared in the source of magnetic rebuke

take issue with the parents through this viscous thrum

its easier to blame The Clash when all said and done

deny every charge with indecent composure

then listen in space to Earth’s crusty symphonia

thursDAY 5

the chapel smokers stoke those who would charge us

but Josiah left this (coil) too soon and so missed the cardinal clays of Mars

which leaves me to announce, regretfully,  this activity labours on today

settle down at the back, slip the headphones on “et écoutez et répetéz”

tar macadam sits, boot blacked and slicker than BP left Louisiana

give every peace it’s chance to explore the new settlers lost anger

with more faces than a game of “Guess Who?” I put the cunt in contradiction

stacked tall the steeple-jacked speakers if you have the time to listen

my, my, what big eyes you have, they’ll be the death of you

exquisitely draughted in rouge and chalk  just for the corpse’s review

friDAY 6

with the whole world vergin’ on the ridiculous how wise to stop fucking fools

stoic, the bachelor pebble, apart on a sea of flag, will wait an eternity to fuse

ridng the tears down your right hand cheek your left remains unbroken

puddled in ale the page owl had never looked so welcoming

liquored up wishes and stolen kisses, were the making of that little boy

the architect drew invisible arcs that pulled the trees from the void

every hornet born yellow wishes it could play the downtown blues

where a memory sits alone it will always end up blaming you

the wine affects the way you love, the way you pump your blood

end each day by sounding a warning and watch for the clause from above

saturDAY 7

enough

Ruined

beggared on this taunted key

eyes, long emptied stark hollows of jaundice,

no longer reflect the encirclement of youthful steel

and, thus cowered beneath such plumb altiloquence,

she finds herself now wimpled in a creeping green

where her walls bleed a jealous neglect

fish flaked the façade of dandruff drips

her autumnal fall into sorry stupor where

grumbling brickworks effloresce, vainglorious

not in tribute

for who could love her now?

those weeds grow long around her feet

as doleful duenna to her tawny disgrace

yet still we look

through the fog

through the trees

through the dearth of honey

bees to where

the dewdrops sit like

sugared spit upon the old

maid’s bristled lip

Fourth Estate

its getting cold down here as the light of attraction flickers out,

the filament between our worlds burnt through leaving

no words that could any longer move so

what say we raise ready the fist of revolt,

or would you have us wait,

consider instead the royal topiary, the garden behind the silk fence exposed

by  freedom’s self proclaimed saviours overseas, cursed yet envied by our own

red toppers, that persistent issue you must attend in order to quell

your curious engorgement while losing sight that within these shores,

as each crumbling estate daisy chain fucks your distraction, the palace of thieves

west of the minster have an unlocked door through which to enter

and strip the fittings bare

Served by the Slice

served by the slice  

this body, cut through in the redesign for a different life,

whistles a frayed remembrance leaving naught but remnants

when falling for the suicidal hiatus of a tethered tale

in these days, of the child’s exultation, sing your song

as a lyrical dog chases damsons and damsels and the first and

furriest flavour the dustiest corpse of trees; darkly, deeply,

but with equal measures of lullabied  bile

amongst the diseased shouts “a plague on this lazy writing”

I hear you soundly and catch the irons in chipped yet eager teeth

and in times of heavier precipitation will smelt another

crock of uneven scorn

I wont beat my head to watch the swarm of black stars

collapse upon themselves in easily practiced

spiteful pity nor follow that first blaze of fear that found

the time to disappear in a crowbursting storm

I will swallow these recovering dreams , not unlike a waking alcoholic,

but shall surrender to no dog no matter it’s hue

too many days my fists feel very chatty

with so much they'd like say to you

but I, like the pencil end eraser chewed up and worn past metal rim,

cut my gums to trim  the words that should be unspoken

until détente explodes in a dissolute distemper

and my congenital fury erupts anew at which

I choose to detonate, shake every word I read & write,

force the inquisition of some fevered worth

or at least free the world of my selfish weight

rage unleashed that 28 days walking cant assuage

the fist shattered clown on the royal blue wall

laughed once too often, not any more, his

splintered face erased in a freefall of stucco tears

and for what it’s worth I do feel better

Sin By Sin

living sin by sin

the worst shadows are those you feel

sweepng your brow when eyes are squeezed tight

brushing your diastolic dreams

when umbral curve eclipses your hold and

pries it from the highest wires all that bears

my worth in such slow regard recedes

while falling all evidence suggest Selena shaves

and the urge to empty my pockets is strong

though my arms are just along for the ride

too short by a half squared so let

the wind roll my tongue over broken teeth

and taste the direction of whistling skin

as Herman talks of German trucks

and pancakes murder cherries

I know the pretty girls lie west of The Wash

I could show you every hole

Illicit (redux)

consoled within the remote comfort of those

doubtful girls and these older ones who,

having shed their curls, are happy to bare their whole

never mind their soul, I’m damn sure

this would be as close to a felony fuck

as you could ever know

and given my luck the house would

fall around my ears at the very first touch of that baiting floss

screw the metaphysical

THIS is from the gut Chuck

and even where I glimpse just a fierce reflection

of that seen fit to share

I could write of their flesh from my own delight

with a million spilled thwarted nouns

fresh for one night it’s only fair

to suggest