Moon

The heavens open,
the rains darken -
the parched moon shines ardent.

Clock Smasher!

His face flows backwards,

Clock smasher!

Stretching a strange storm-tossed wafer-thin lily tree.

Wrinkles blow-torched,

Onion peeled and caramelised.

Synthetic tresses stapled and sown.

His gluey skull resealed,

Re-varnished,

Re-baptised:

Surgeons expertly scrape clients' time-lined anciently ravages:

Industrial dishfacers,

Manga facialists.

He's good to go!

(You don't think so?),

Unbandaged,

Relaminated:

Moon-tanned Bamby,

Drip-dry popsicle.

Shocked venriloquist eyes -

Silky as spam.

Ultraviolet,

Atomised:

Blancmange in neon -

Sparkly,

Glamorous shampoo for you now Powdery Blue!

Clock smasher!

Give Porche A Chance

For goodness sake!
Leave the poor bankers alone:
Their penthouses,
And porches,
Have feelings too.

Subliminal Movie

One full minute,
One full minute into this Hollywood movie, and,
Bang!
Four seconds of product placement advertising,
Subliminal product placement advertising, mind.

And done so cleverly I almost didn't notice I noticed.

After all,
There is an art to it;
Commerce and art in symbiosis;

Effortless,

Elegant,

Elephant.

The Heartbreak Ringtone

So the silent phone plays,
The Heartbreak Ringtone,
Even switched off
it plays The Heartbreak Ringtone.
And my dripping kitchen tap keeps the dead air swinging
in metronomic jazz-time.

One more time Sam,
One more time.
I'm in a b-movie,
Black and white,
"Happy Valentine".

So I pick up my fedora,
The plane is waiting,
I have a pizza to collect,
With my name on it.
Gotta go.
And when I return,
I know my silent ringtone will welcome me home,
And it will play all night long,
The Heartbreak Ringtone,
Like jazz.

Four Haiku

The wake of the gliding swan,
A wave surfing
Grass hoppers on a leaf.


***************************

Rustic rainbows,
Fallen fractals,
Autumn swept.

***************************

The arctic sunrise
Spilling crimson
Simmering ice.

***************************

Porcelain wrinkles,
Rain lines windows,
Dusk glowing dim.

***************************

Love On A Cold Dentist

He gazed at her the gaze of the ages
She demurred
Purring
Throwing back her stroke my hair of shimmering river
Her smile more delicate than dream itself unfurled
Cheeks a furnace of pounding heart-crush
Her full-tilt tulip's slightly parting
Strawberry smile
Her date, the dentist fairy riled
!
And so waved the magic dentist wand
And
Smashed the poor guy's teeth in

Ego Ecology

Memories revive

Plastic plants

Evergreen

That Inevitable Question

A handful of commuters,

On the platform,

Waiting,

Were waiting,

A man -

Some bloke,

Walked past me,

And up to the self-service confectionery machine,

And started making noises: huh! huh! hoohauuh! hooh-hoh!

So..

I asked myself that inevitable question:

Should I turn around?

Should I turn around?

Do I really need to see why this man -

This bloke -

Is making these strange noises?

I decided:

No. No. I don't need to know at all why this man - this bloke - is still going,

Loudly now:

Huhoohahun! Hooah! Hooah! Huh!!

So,

I didn't turn around.

And then,

Of course,

I did.

He was shadow-boxing;

Shadow-boxing the self-service confectionery machine.

Ah! Ha!

I thought like Mister Clever:

Those are Kung Fu-like noises he's making:

Totally harmless.

Totally harmless,

Until he started beating the shit out of it.

Then he stopped and looked up.

At me.

Our eyes locked.

And it turned (for me anyway) like one of those westerns where a man -

Some bloke -

Walks into a bar,

And the piano player stops playing,

And the barman ducks behind the bar,

And some card players look up,

And one of them says:

We don't want no trouble mister ..

So our eyes locked.

I felt a trickle of oh shit! down my neck..

He nodded at me.

I nodded back.

And, with that,

Some quite enigmatic and elusive man-to-man understanding was reached.

Thank God for that.

Then,

He went back to punching the self-service confectionery machine.

The train arrived.

And he stopped beating the self-service confectionery machine:

He obviously had somewhere important to go.

And we both got on the train.

He sat across from me,

Picked up a discarded free newspaper to read,

And,

Read.

That probably made me ponder,

But ponder to ponder nothing much.

Slap Your Baby, Make It Cry

And please hush now -

TV volume up:

An important politician is orating himself,

To tears.

Off-the-wrist onanist:

Oral cavity inspiration.

So inspired, he is,

By his own words,

He's actually bringing himself to tears.

He's orating himself to tears.

Lips all a-tremble:

It's a site:

His vain of tears.

Explaining his "Nineteenth Way":

Journey..end of the night..hope..terror..better..balance..

prolapse..process..choice..vision..Nineteenth Way..economic suicide..

opportunity..equality..individuality..

love..enemies..deficit..defence..optimal..dental..reality..unblemished..the cancer of..

innocence..feral children..peace..diabetes..

positive change..traditional values..responsibility..hard-working families..torture..

crime..planet..paradise..terrorists..shoulder-to-shoulder..dreams..

us..them..more terrorists..green..immigrants..

war on..peace..God..joined-up..criminals..liberal elite..fiscal discipline..

community..

Me Prime Minister,

......Me,

..You,

......Me. Again.

......Prime Minister,

........Vote. Me.

..........Tomorrow!

Thank you..

..............................He's finished.

The possessed sway,

And chant,

And cheer.

And they cry a little too.

It's not nice.

And tomorrow I'll probably vote for this guy -

And his Nineteenth Way.

..So different, I bet, from The Eighteenth Way and The Third Way,

And the second way and the..

Balloons and streamers release, and,

One of those lite-rawk anthems blasts asinine thoughts on

believing in dreams if you reach for the something or other:

Sonic napalm for organ-gurning monkeys.

Who are these simpletons that watch this neo-fascist-like propaganda on TV?

I mean,

Apart from me?

Now this is where it gets really bad,

So turn your gaze away now if you're of a delicate disposition:

He's..

Wait for it..

He's holding someone's baby.

An evil parent has just handed him over their defenceless flesh and blood.

Bonding with nuclear blancmange - poor baby.

And now he's kissing the baby.

They say there's nothing worse than seeing a baby cry,

Oh yes there is:

Witnessing a sweet baby smile and gurgle at a corpsing vote-bandit.

The politician's vision:

Perfect 20/ vision,

Slap your baby,

Make it cry.

Presence

I'm facing the roads that didn't take,

And the blood flows ice-cold;

The present absences,

Summon up themselves,

Just like that.

Arising - eyes stark rockets,

"Look!" they point,

Down this road,

Then this one..

So, round-around and round the spaghetti roundabout we go.

Waltzing phantoms slide,

Shuffle around,

Blend into,

And vaporise, whistling through me,

Misting away:

Mist into mist;

They will never say goodbye.

Still Time For A Taco

And,

Although his blog poetry met with little success,

His serial killing career really took off..

Detective Panata shook his head,

Hissed sizzled air through his teeth,

And pulled out the gruesome murder-scene photographs,

Placing them -

One by one -

On the mock-Formica.

The poet's eyes:

Lights on but burglars at home -

Blank paged his inner-space haiku's:

Warping mirrors rhymed black holes backatcha.

Detective Panata tap-tap-tapped the photos,

And swilled another slurp of stream-driven caffeine;

Cobra curlicue vapour whirl-dervished hypnotic snake-charm weave out the Styrofoam,

Like a snoozing Icelandic deep-dreaming geyser,

Yadda yadda.

The detective leaned,

Lolling over blog-poet-maniac,

Like a polyester mack'd bat-gargoyle with vertigo,

"So just explain to me one thing okay?

Why?"

"Hm..mm..why..

Why?"

The killer-poet fish-eyed some mysterious event horizon,

Then:

"Well, why does anyone write poetry,

Deee-tec-tive?"

"Huh?

What?

Hoh: You think this is funny?

You think you're some kinda funny guy?

Is that it?"

"No detective, none of my stuff is funny:

That's the problem,

Deee-tect-ive."

"Oh I get it. I get it!"

"Yeah?

Then you're the only one detective Pan..watchaface.."

Detective Panwatchaface shook his head:

Sheesh, wait till the wife hears this one..

That thought graveyardshiftdrifted gears through Panata's wandering night,

Towards,

Well, towards a more domestic mystery:

Why the hell is she still with me..?

When I open the front door I half expect

..silence..

I need a Viagra just to take a leak..

But, she ain't gone sh

she.. she ain't gone..

She ain't gone..

Panata's head spinning like hamsters running on blancmange wheels,

Looked up, away,

Turning nowhere-to-nowhere,

And gumshoed out the interview room,

Nodding sagely to the uniformed sentry tilting at a droning air fan,

Outside the door.

And down the corridor he went..

I need some air.

I also need some hair!

He smiled to himself:

Now that rhymes -

And it's funny!

The paperwork:

That,

Can be done tomorrow..

..I need some hair..

Detective Panata chuckled slyly..

Oh boy..

So,

Panata strolled across the wet, soda lamp-lit car park:

Must've been raining earlier..

A sultry night sirocco breeze wafted and comingled

with the rattlesnakes' spelling bee.

A distant coyote howled, inevitably..

That's funny though:

A coyote?

Sirocco breeze?

Rattlesnakes?

Spelling bee?

What? In London?

Ho!

Maybe. Just maybe,

This whole global warming shit,

Really is for real after all..

Anyways..

Panata tut-tutted as he heaved himself into his sedan,

Clicked "drive",

And swept out the station house,

And..

Crashed:

Driving down the wrong side of the damned highway again.

So,

As his crushed radiator spluttered and spat,

Panata's eyes pnarpnaring -

Twinkled brightly behind his safety aviators:

I need some air,

And I need some new hair,

Oh,

Aaand, aaand:

I need a car repair.

Ho!

I'm gettin' really good at this shit!

Wait till I tell Wilma:

I'm a freakin' poet!

A crowd of regulation assholes began to gather round the turnpike.

"Okay, show's over.

Move on 'kay?

Move on nahh.."

The hustlers, pimps, showgirls, gamblers, drifters and off-duty strippers,

Shuffled back with their shopping baskets,

Into Tesco's..

Panata lit a cigaret,

And wiped away a small trickle of blood he noticed -

A red tear really -

Dripping a forlorn ruby down his zig-zag forehead..

He surveyed his car-wreck:

I'll have to file:

It's totalled..

They'll have my ass for this..

He stared down Main:

A couple of sirens from the uptown precinct were headed his way:

Oh jeez;

That's all I need:

The freakin' cavalry..

Panata allowed himself a smile.

Well,

Anyways,

Still time for a taco..