Hundreds And Thousands

A revolver
and open packets - a few thousand pounds
sat restfully around me in the back seat

I asked if I could hold the gun
okay, be careful: it's heavy
it was heavy

The car inflated with sun
I was eight or nine
it was fun

He laughed
then didn't even lock the doors
didn't need to
it was a safe area

I didn't have school that day

Hand on my shoulder
we walked to my door
everything was okay he was a neighbour
his family now big in ice cream

Simon Says

PUBLIC NOTICE

Plain-clothed human beings are known to operate in this area    
                                                                                
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Please don't approach them                                              
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Please don't approach yourself                                           
Or point at your own reflection                                            
Or call attention to yourself in any way                                  
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Because I Could Be Me    

                                                                               

Tokyo Spring 2013 Haiku

Face-masked of Toyko -
cherry blossoms drip early -
sulphur in snowdrops.

A Snowflake With Your Bullet On It

There's a poem hiding under my fridge,
Like a mouse without a pillow;
Like a fridge magnet within a freezer;
Like Hugo Chavez as his Madame Tussauds lookalike. * 

He stands, the mouth open, the fist in the air,
In full flow,
Below the din of the one-cymbal-clapping Terracotta Army.

Poems usually collide Dumdum with my head -
Hollow-point on the third eye,
Like a vat of mustard accidentally pollinated.

I shall boil some noodles the flavour of elastic bands.
Nothing captures the taste of elastic bands quite like bargain-noodles.

Why are children force-fed sprouts at Christmastime?
It's their parents' sweet revenge,
As the choking cash cows' offspring purge, splurge, sob and vent..

The marbles spin in the liquidiser.
A butterfly's wings wilt, cooked in the marrow of a smog-lined sun.
A California yoga-philistine applies to copyright the design of every snowflake.


* Madame Tussaud's is now the more funky Madame Tussauds. 

The Eurosceptic From Atlantis

How do we reposition ourselves in Europe? 

We're in the wrong position: 
Too off piste; 
Too oft pissed; 
Too pissed off. 

Too pissed off - 
And especially when pissed - 
And especially when pissed off - 
And especially when pissed. 

Sceptical about Europe? 

Like? 
Is it there? 

Not sceptical about Euroscepticism. 
Because? Well, that is definitely there. 
In fact, it's so there, it's here! 
And, if what is there is here, 
Then what is here really doesn't need to be there. 
Hmmm..so there! 

And, so it follows.. 
As Europe mightn't be there at all, 
Euroscepticism can only thrive..here, 
(For where else could it? or should it?: 
Only until such a point that it's.. there?) 

Uh oh! 
Now wait a minute! 
Would that not mean 
Europe must also be there, for Euroscepticism to be disbelieved there? 
And if Eurosceptics are there disbelieving.. 
Well, that sort of begs the question.., 
Though a hypothetical one of crucial unimportance -  
Crucial unimportance. 
So unimportant it's both critically and crucially unimportant. 
And, as you know, 
A question that is both critically and crucially unimportant, 
Is of an unimportance of the deepest and most significant kind. 
Verily, and very. 
Almost like: 
If a tree fell in the middle of a forest, 
And no one was there to hear it, 
Would global warming sceptics 
make the sound.. 
Crrraaaasshhh!! in one of their cute and adorable funny voices? 

Personally, I'm all for repositioning ourselves (disbelieving), 
By Italy. 

By Italy. 
With hot air balloons. 

Wha..? With hot air balloons? 

Yeah, man,  
With hot air balloons. 
You heard right. 
Can you think of a better way? 

We could all lift off with this land, 
Throwing over our essential ballast of horsebeefburgers (one word), 
Casino bankers and frustrated fox hunters; 
Misogynistic fundamentalists and insensitive commuters breakfasting on egg burgers on trains. 

(Misandristic fundamentalists can stay on board - for now..). 

And thus, 
These irrefrangible islands shall rise tethered to millions of massive hot air balloons, arising, 
And land, aloft, loftily, 
And sort of softly, 
Mooring by (but by no means on,(as that would be plain rude)), 
The land of: 
Italian women, 
And tomatoes - tinned. 
Please kindly note, only the tomatoes should be tinned, though. 

Then all the millions of hot air balloons, 
We shall release to glide floating to the moon,  
Like we're all in a classic late-nineties tampon ad. 
They certainly don't make them like that anymore. 
Or the tampon ads.. 

I'm a man, and even I used to buy that brand of tampons, 
Only to justify to myself similarly running through a cornfield before cheerfully emancipating a bunch of balloons from a cliff top. 
Never once regretted it. 
And although my more radical feminist student friends at the time were somewhat equivocal, 
They accommodated this zephyrian avidity. 
One of them even allowing me use of  her helium balloon inflator with variable nozzle attachments. 
She even refused my offer of a Pot Noodle as a thank you. 

And, lo! 
No: there are no Moonsceptics: 
Well, the moon (that's in the sky) can be seen from here. 

Now, 
Have we ever seen Europe (in the sky), 
From here? 

Says it all really. 

And have you ever, ever once, witnessed Europhiles (in the sky) from here? 
We are the silvery seamed anti-matter to their dark matter dream..

Let's Dive In Front Of Aeroplanes (or, Oh No, Look, Another Sixth-Form, Jejune Bit Of Doggerel About "The Bankers")

I snuck the spy at four London Evening Standard articles. Four. 
Warning us, their grim-of-teeth uber-plebian readers, 
That our casino bankers might very well leave these shores, 
For we're all turning into entrenched and bitter, sixth-form, banker-bashing bores. 
The traders, they cry, in stunned bafflement and dismay: 
Why are we so hated so, 
Why, we chose ourselves as the chosen ones back in the day...?

And double-bubble you public-sector-hectors, 
And all you construction workers out on your ears, 
And all you ne'er-do-wells saving so-called meaningful lives, (yeah, right).. 
It's so about time you all realised, the casino bankers that you affect to despise, 
Are really.. 
Really.. 
Oh, you know.. 
Do I need to spell it out? 
Oh no, please don't ask me to spell it out. 

Look, 
They have feelings too you know, 
More so than you average Janes and Joes. 
Wake up and smell their cocaine, 
(But don't sniff it: 
There's your predictable sense of entitlement again..) 
Or, 
Woe betide: 
They might very well fly away, 
Never, ever, to return again, 
- So the Evening Standard says. 

So, let's dive in front of aeroplanes. 
Let's stop the brokers flying away. 
Let's dive in front of aeroplanes, 
Don't let them take off, 
Dont let them get away! 

Let's dive in front of aeroplanes, 
Let's give them some big love;
We must see the error of our ways. 
Let's dive in front of aeroplanes, 
Or they wont allow us to 
Bail them out again. 

Casino bankers love.... 
They posssibly love their children. 
Casino bankers enjoy... 
Giving a little corporate giving to charity. 
Their altruism is completely peachable. 
Mercenaries. 
Oh look, there you go again.. 

Casino bankers love free-enterprise (tax-subsidised), 
Casino bankers feel misunderstood: 
Just because I'm a tree, doesn't mean I'm made from wood, right? 
Casino bankers feel your pain, 
As if it's 
In Spain. 

Cynic! 

They're leaving on a plane, 
We must stop them now, 
We'll never see their likes again. 
But if they choose to go, 
Despite our pardon, 
Let's hope the pilots, 
Are not trained by Air bin Laden. 

So let's dive in front of aeroplanes, 
Or these misunderstood altruists will get away, 
Let's dive in front of aeroplanes, 
Or the free market tarzan won't allow us to.. 
Shhh.. 
Bail them out.. 
Again. 

Shhh..

Withdrawn Haiku

Bovine consuming -
horses mooing in -
burgs of slush-Burger.

Wrongly labelled Spaghetti Bolognese:
Labelled Italian.
At least, that's what I think they mean.

"Gourmet Dishes of the World" for ninety-nine pee.

[The burghers so hungry:
I could eat thirty percent horse - with a glimmer]

Wrongly labelled hormones:
Labelled Italian.
At least, that's what I think they mean.

For Hindu Sagittarius's - capital H capital S - of the world,
It's especially painful,
And doubly ironic.
Indubitably.

Don't move:
There's a penguin sat next to you.
And it doesn't have sat-nav.
In other words, it's there because it wants to be.
Should I call the RSPB, 
Or should I call the RSPCA?
I never can remember in times like this.
Or should I just call a cab?

You might say:
But how would the penguin pay?
And would the RSPB call the RSPCA
to RSVP a carriage confirmation for Penguin?

Well, for a start, that's probably not its name.

Now, where were we?
No, no,
This element is not haiku:
There are too many syllables -
And they're all in the wrong order.
Wrongorderlyoraretheyin.

Never would I write
a haiku about penguins -
they aren't Japanese.

It must have slid in:
You have a penguin-friendly window sill.
They know, they know..
They've been doing this for years.
My imaginary friend knows someone who has written a book about it.
And she should know:
She herself being an imaginary penguin -
And she definitely didn't imagine that!

I'm not slagging them off:
If I was a penguin..
(I'm not by the way. 
So..)
I'd be exactly the same:
I would never gainsay myself,
In the altogether,
Everfornever:
A Spice Girls hit on a parallel earth.

Pound Shop Ashimmering In Rainlight

My local pound shop casts back lost souls
anciently flung from the death-throes of rock n roll,
This one place, still, I clang my faith;
One pound firm, behold the grab-pack toothpaste.

Cartons in eastern curlicues,
Cruiser consumers bruise switch-back queues,
Swashbuckler toddlers' lance party foam
as the security man scrolls his mobile phone.

The frying pans keep fresh six weeks,
The perfume blooms shriek their facsimile-wish.
She towers her pylon labelling Polish fare,
Beautifying the aisle she seems to floatinglyfloat right there.

Then a tannoy announcement,
As my ear buds plug in..Icelandic ashimmerings..
Icelandic ashimmerings..bedazzling a..
Till-service-requesting:
Iceberg chords gush aloft a drama of glitter and shade..
A pram-prang stage-left segue shape-shifts the nightingales' glade.

Wafers of waves,
I'm in my pound shop daze:
A translucent snowflake flu-zen-euphoria;
A bottleneck shoegaze.

The tree lights still wink in a Christmastime February,

The Belisha beacons blink rainlight softlysoft outside. 

Imagining Another You

Imagine one another.
Imagine the other.

Imagine -
To be the other of you.
How is your other you?

And,
How are you too?

Have faith in this accident of fate game;
Role play your prevailing freewill 
with a roll of the loaded dice.

Mirrors -
To seem mirrors -
A myriad of mirrors face-down your wall,
Unfolding and folding their gazing.
See how they reflect and refract the chrysalis -
The shadow play.

Do your anthems different remain the same?
So, does your birth right?
Do you empathise with,
Or even recognise the re-mirrored frame?
And the game, 
That's anything but a game.
Facing opposite the familiar rules,
Does your difference seem in play?

Imagine, imagine,
Wishing to understand your other,
And imagine uncovering the path
you might together discover -
Almost like there is no other.

Press The Button

As the blizzards of London continue,
To hold us to ransom with two-millimetre snow:
Arctic conditions in the warmer world,
'Tis verily updated Doctor Zhivago..

I accidentally press the "delete Facebook from the world" button,
And one-seventh of ecosystem disappeared,
All dissolved into a soluble realm, 
An aspirinless ether.

I couldn't locate the "I was only kidding, sorry. I didn't mean it" button, 
Thus unable to reset two billion souls into existence again.

One-seventh of the world's women and men,
And their press-ganged pets,
All who had up to, but no more than, five-thousand friends.

Facebook won't allow you five-thousand-and-one friends,
Because no-one needs five-thousand-and-one friends.
Even the most popular pets don't need five-thousand-and-one friends,
Unless they're celebrities,
Or their owners are celebrities.
Some celebrity pets even have celebrity owners,
It's an astonishingly small world,
For celebrity pets,
And celebrity owners. 

Sometimes pressing buttons isn't fun -
My hypnopompic number one.

Not Like Dolphins

Moving on from heartbreak, 
Means "letting go..", 
And "moving on..". 

Seize the day; 
Don't look back; 
Earth still has plenty of fish, 
In the sea. 

So move on, 
Because we still have fishes - plenty of them, 
And they're in the sea. 

So watch a film, 
Sob to the songs, 
Eat some more chocolate, and, 
Learn to breathe underwater. 
Get out, 
Cultivate an interest: 
Swim like a shark.
Grow and abdominise some gills. 

I wonder though, 
When a dolphin is heartbroken, 
Do other dolphins gather round, circling, consoling: 
"Let it go, 
There are plenty of humans on the land... 
You just need a good night out." 
I doubt it: 
Dolphins, warm-blooded,
possess highly intuituitive, sensitive empathic abilities. 
Imagine a moping dolphin being cajolled to get pissed to get laid after a curry, 
Or to cheer up because there are plenty of cold fish on the land.. 

No, dolphins would float beside you, gliding lowly above the coral; 
They would weep the quiet with you; 
They would listen; 
They would communicate:
They would understand. 

Would dolphins, though, understand simply letting go, knowing, 
That that thing you once had: 
That special someone, who, once upon a time 
unlocked the moonlight behind your eyes, 
Who guided you to the enchanted and illuminated enchanted forest, 
Really didn't amount to that much? 
See, it was all just an illusion. 
So you should feel okay then. 
You have moved on - again. 
You're as shiny as tin foil glittering translucent beneath the waves. 

And your friends apparently never liked them that much anyway, 
They offer by way of support. 

The heartbreak, 
Plays on. 
Memories, and all their meaning,
You have just let go of, like that - 

Because it's time. 
Seriously, it's about time now, 
You moved on. 
You owe it to yourself don't you?. 

Downsize your depth out here in the sea, 
And if you don't boil down your memories, 
You are only indulging in sentimentality, 
And nostalgia. 

Thus the unalloyed truth pierces the body-polished armour not even a scratch. 
And the treaded water booms to the galley-slave drum. 

A Bloke Of Letters

When I was a schoolboy,
My English teacher instructed:
One thought, one sentence.

But now I'm a bloke,
I'm a bloke.