Nuclear Bombs In Beige

Purple mustard and beige
Became less trendy shades in the nascent global warming age
When anti-nuclear camping grannies
Militant establishment barons enraged
Yet some of us wayward lambs were charmed 
Perhaps Armageddon's reaper skis might yet slalom
So we could hide under kitchen tables evading school
Old Formica a formidable repellent of eighties radiation
MAD seemed preferable to another maths detention
Saddam was the avuncular good guy 
CIA's stalwart point man on Iran
And the Soviets
the bad guys jacking-up for Brezhnev
in Babrak Karmal's Afghanistan..

I wrote a poem about nuclear war
It got published in the school magazine
But only because I pretended nuclear war was a really bad thing
What a cynical populist I was even then
And someone felt-tipped Joy Division on my bag
And one of the older fit girls
almost saluted a dumb-founded flag
And only because I wrote a poem against nuclear war
She cooed aaaaw
Thinking I was the sensitive type
A clueless Indianish philosopher-king
Supporting the tortured souls of defunct Joy Division
And being against nuclear war..

Nuclear war
What is it good for
Writing poems against nuclear war
That's what it's good for
Say it again..

And around the same time
A dad of a neighbour boasted
That his new car had a real vinyl roof
The real vinyl roof was colour co-ordinated
With the roof being brown
And the real metallic paint 
being a fake metallic lime brown green
It flowed like a genuine blocked artery
A one point three Gee Ell Ee
It did cruise control at almost thirty
It had screaming patterned pastel cloth seats
It had gluey go-faster shiny strips
It sported two reverse lights
It was impressed with itself at the time..

He played James Last on his cassette player
Or Queen
Or other bands that played Sun City
But he didn't buy South African oranges
Because he was really against eating oranges..

Incidentally he never listened to Cliff Richard
Even though Cliff Richard also played Sun City
And yet he enjoyed immensely James Last
Even though James Last possibly never played Sun City
My neighbour's dad was a contrary man really..

His cassette player also boasted medium wave
But not FM
Because it wasn't a Ghia
And the sound on FM just not as clear
He claimed FM and power steering 
were only passing fads
For girly New Romantic powder-puff eye-shadow-clad lads
Shock troops of the power windows brigade
Custard-haired dandies 
Legless only on shandy
Blow-drying low-tar Embassy
Under the plastic palm tree haze..

A hostess trolley
A fondue set
A tea cosy
A ciggy for 5p
Return the bottle of Tizer
And get a ciggy
The newsagent didn't mind
as long as we acted over-age in his shop
And as long as we also bought
Another Curly Wurly
Or a Sherbert Fountain
Or another bottle of pop
..and another ciggy for 5p
Which we could only smoke outside..

Out of the black and into the red
You don't get nothing for two in a bed
Oh look you nearly won a caravan
But you didn't
Smashin'..  (Jim Bowen)

321
Dusty Bin
Oh how I remember
Those baffling gnomic riddles and rhymes
And no I could never crack the koan wisdom 
For a his'n'hers matching set of Terylene bathrobe towelling
Ted Rogers 
the Basho of ITV Taoism

And I had an older Marxist friend who would vote Tory
He must have been nearly seventeen
He wished for a job-nuking economy
So he surmised elegantly
Thatcher the best thing..

Later on he threw off his head 
Mohican
And joined a polytechnic band
Moody mulleted now
Analog bollocks strangled in spandex 
Ensorcelling with low Flying-V imitation Strats
A cross-bred indie tree of Cocteau Twins-Curve-MBV
Swirly mavens of shoegazer glam
And he devoured music magazines like Sounds and Kerrang
And then he got married
Had kids
The end..

So we used to take our school ties off
Before we entered the shop
Acted as if we were young grown men
on our office lunch break I suppose
And the method acting newsagent
pretended he never once guessed
as long as we acted over-age in his shop
And as long as we also bought
Another Curly Wurly
Or a Sherbert Fountain
Or another bottle of pop
..and another ciggy for 5p
Which we could only smoke outside..

I nearly blew my cover one time
When I asked if they would deal me
"a whole Hamlet including a tube of Smarties
for no more than 8 to 10p"
His wife laughed like a drain
But demurred kindly
Consolating that she thought my badge cute
Supporting CND..

Bleeding-Edge Prophet

And Lo
So let it be said
And let it also be written thus
And let it be passed down through the generations
Like rare unicorn musk..

There was once a man so wise
And this wise man was a very wise man
And he did offer me deeply learned counsel
And he did point to a very far away place
Way over there betwixt the yonder high rises
Past the melded concrete ravines
The budgerigar dressage glass-encased whirlpool trip-wired meadows
Humanity redux recast remoulded deep-fried and stilettoed
A hive-mind meshed in a debt collector universe
Smashed over our heads with cellos..

And yet and yet
For all that
There beyond the marauding marque shellac 
And the disinterred fluorescing plastered grass
A mysterious plain of rapturous abandon and ascension was mapped
Glittering and shimmering so silken diffuse and vast..

Yes of course his eyes flashed as the eyes of a zoom lensed visionary
Fathomless and flaming
Yet calm and all-seeing
There I tell you
It lieth there 
He flourished a magical divining instrument
Pointing and tilting it so
His hallowed dowser elevating us symbiotically
A deft sceptic-frying debunkers Valhalla soul communion 
of elevated spirit and esoteric Vimana-style technology
The wise man had no doubt 
For his instrument had no doubt
For where there is synergy there is symmetry
The flowing a flowering liminal...

So what incredible wonders lieth there I enquired
He only nodded cryptically murmuring
Sagely confiding delicately whispering
Know this..it is The Gift 
Right there 
Just as fixed on the earth
as the canopy of stars is hanging up high I tell you..

So you must go now to that very place
Make haste
For what you must seek post-rock poetry man
 - this veiled Nirvana municipality
Shall surely be revealed with tidings gladly
To shine gloriously before you in all its munificent majesty
So roll now chosen one
I shall meet you there verily before sundown
Farewell
No time to fetch your man-mittens..

And so let it be written
For my man-mittens I did not tarry journeying 'neath this engineered sky
The strips of tripping Komodo breath of barium halo slime
Enveloped the cascading Wormwood lodestone 
on its eccentric Sumerian inscribed melt-and-go timeline..

And know this..
As Space Deception Technology cloaked
I walked amongst the hordes of sonic feedback clones
A strange delirium a gnostic probably foretold
For the undeliverable people seemed as fevered lost sheep 
Wandering
Eyes forever cast low on Pokémon GO!
Volunteer mole-spies banging into one another privacy laundering..

And when this sacred land I at last reached
All around me was but bleak barrenness babbling electronic speech..

And an upturned shopping trolley lay here
And some non-biodegradable carrier bags
shape-shifted a desultory tumble-weed banshee swirl over there
The heat waves steam-rolled the unforgiving arid asphalt air
And I feeling weary and confused at this desperate scene
Awaited for the return of the wise man
My elemental bleeding-edge guide
As drone vultures above hummed swooped tormented and dived
We the people team-tagged the deep state's outlandish ants or flies..

After not one sundown but two
The wise man stumbled at last into view
Bedraggled and windswept and blistered
This locust land of philistine bling 
Gang-banging the medicated ever more bewildered..

So I held out my arms askance..
And what dwells here wise man
For I observe here but ten kinds of miserable wrong 
No heavenly gyrating maidens
No starlight
No feast
No nymphs banging golden leaf gongs
Where are my welcoming dancing throngs
Come on..

And gentle reader know this
The fierce gusts did whip harshly around us
And the magnified darkening sun stung us 
Burning as lasers through the mysterious lenses square
Earth projecting an imposter moon layer as deep as a disc
Our ragged souls shredding us through the hedgerows of despair..

The wise man shook his head with deep sorrow
I confess I am so lost
Moreover
 More lost than ever
And he gazed up to the bubbling scarlet cotton
Then wiping away tears of frustration
Glared down at his device
He concluded after a silence
Philosophically gonzo-Zen
My Celestial Promised Land Sat-Nav App fucked up again..

So I must say this unto you
Whatever you need to discover is not here
Or there...or there..
And even if it be here..or there..or there..
Surely I would not know..
He trailed off..
..for I have no gleaning of astronomy..or astrology..or astrometry
Nary a glimmer..no hope..

His tormented soul was as the debris field
Swirling the anciently-fangled constellation Ophiuchus..
If only I had paid more attention at Wise Man College
Alas I did not heed my teachers knowledge
Thus I confess I know not one lentil sausage
Self-deluded
I download this app
A short-cut to the etheric unworldly bridge
You see I was tempted
Alas I am not a very learned wise man
I hope you will find it within yourself to forgive..

And we wept
For we were as idiots self-annointed
And were as the Sam Allardyce recently proclaimed
Obviously massively disappointed..

The Transcendentalist

So the scents of pre cornflake sex
And post energy drink breath
Pervades the carriage like a squid squadron infusion..

Acrid lemon bleach musk cologne
Tinkly-plink-thud beats effervesce from earphones
She leans arching on the glass pane knackered
Eye-liner Rothko remastered
Her groin marine satyr
Not so lucky a bastard
She receives a sext from another torpedo piece of spam with pecs
Night riders of the triple-xxx scuba app. pipelines
Anticipating the lying
Looking forward to her beau's spying..

Free newspaper time
Good deeds and lonely bee-lines
Fleeting eye-contact frieze a la carte
Doves flee shark Bonapartes
Amorous darts
You looking at me
You better be
This empty cup of coffee
Would murder for a cup of tea..

Egg sandwich Nazi
An olfactory nuclear catastrophe
Two parts sulphur
To one part ego cadaver of hoax-to-fade celebrity
Outreach egg sandwich Nazi..

Egg sandwich Nazi
A committed hater of commuter humanity
The clown at a Fred West house-warming party
And apropos of nothing
I met the scribe who outed an inspector
Later suicided in some woods
But that is another poem
And I never would..

The Zen master invites us all to mind the gap
I always sit cross-legged in the aisle when she chants
..mind the gap..mind the gap..Which gap
My chakras haven't activated sufficiently to decode this mantra
My codon helix still only binary matter
Although the descendants of Enki now spin peeling our ionised sun ..mind the gap..mind the gap..
The commuters file through me
I'm a phantom rocking the 3d stun gunned..

Well she could be referring to the gap between this one and the next..
The gap between our fantasy and the grim reality..
The gap between our vulnerability and our armour..
The gap between illusion and dharma..
The gap between us surface dwellers and Agarthans..

I content myself that on the subconscious plain my third eye apprehends
Like a cherry blossom tree the haiku
An elusive state of bliss sudoku
..mind the gap..mind the gap...
..and the bends..I add 
Arising I clap one hand
Breathe in and hold on..
And hold on to hold on and in-breathe again - 
Holding
Intoning - 
...mind the gap..avoid the bends..mind the gap..
I know I will breathe out some day..

Hillary Clinton 9/11 Haiku

Hillary Clinton
Collapses at free-fall speed -
Time to bomb Iran

Tycho (Deviationist Astronaut And The Zany Karmic Architect)

I'm rushing below the firmament in a submarine
Pulled up by balloons
Rocket thrusters won't work in a vacuum
The torrid plasma liquid washes over the viewing screen
And the Hubble telescope cannot anywhere be seen
This periscope doesn't recognise the space handed to us it seems..

Am I floating beneath the epidermis of a prison planet scheme
I fear this is way beyond my theosophical steam
So how to define the omniscient dream
And space isn't so black
Its spectrum spans luminescent green to cream..

So what animates the animation
Is our reality externally generated and framed
Perhaps our earth is only a splash of an atomic spark
inside a vast stellar game
Are we merely holographic entrapped imaginings
Programmed by the zany karmic architect with cosmogryal game
Or maybe I have too much non linear time on my hands again
Deja vu circles around as once again
Time spirals on the helter skelter curves
Snakes and ladders arc on zig-zags..
And whatever..

A tractor beam from the moon pulls and parks me in
The indigo oceans crash and swirl below the glassy domes
For some lucky souls this is home
The helium-3 propellant firing down sloshes through the fins
The crazy nightclubs below flash and sparkle
A typical Saturday night then..
                                                  in the downtown crater Tycho..

Will I meet a moonmaid offering an immersive beer
I'm a lonesome deviationist space astronaut submariner
Touching down with a smile and a tear
And if it's five hundred lunars for a praying mantis lap dance
Sorry but I'm outta here..

Who built the moon
Optics present crescent spaghettify
Absinthe cigars Ganymede elves and rye
I float when I float and flop as I fly
Soon in the groove you'll be fine
So promise me you'll try it sometime..

The gravity chambers slishslosh beguiling hues of bottle sea blue
The bar chairs are of the nymph empath's euphoric crystal
I sup and wind down
Take in the view..

Whoa
What is that
I'm stopped dead in my tracks..

I spy other moonmaids weeping in a distant pool viewing their news
And I feel I'm about to somersault into..into..
Because I can never..
I conceive I am about to know
I never knew...

So what would you do
If you happen upon umpteen moonmaids weeping at their news
Would you just carry on drinking an immersive beer
So I will slip away
Well I have to
I must intrepidly peer inside their limpid galley
Carefully foot-fall-floating quietly near..

And
Some moonmaids gazing inwardly seem hushed
Others shed tears
One somehow sensing my presence turns around
Churning over goodness knows what thoughts profound
Instilling transference into my mind
How did you arrive here
Oh by typical balloon spaceship submarine
No
How did you appear here
I turn to point to the bar behind me now gone disappeared
I can't even find the entrance slipped through only moments before
Behind me now is a gossamer silken turquoise shimmering waterfall
Yeah okay hmm
The weekend starts here I guess..

From here on in things I fear
will veer ever looping vectors of weird..

Swimming over this moonmaid now steers me to her viewing dock
Floating 4d immersive screens enveloping us all
She is explaining how each screen is a human soul
I myself am utterly goggle-transfixed
Depth charged into the shimmering truth arranged
The moonmaids are gazing through souls
Thousands..
Then tens of thousands more..
The screens within screens within screens
Almost as if every soul...

The root of the every water drop
Every incarnate consciousness
The The
As threading through the you of you
She plunges me through the screens
Trip wired
The minds fling a torrential heart-rending choir
A multitude of beings simultaneous per second per second
Imploding I cannot breathe..

And
As the tree
Through every vein of every leaf
Coursing through the living screens
I a crash test dummy colliding with Dream..

She pulls my head away
I gasp for air
Have you eaten
Well I had an immersive beer..
With that she slams my head back into the 4d..

Where am I
I am a..
A terrified child
I'm experiencing the life
and thoughts of a terrified and sobbing child
I'm bleeding against a wall
Something fell inside me hurts
A man a few feet away from me is firing a machine gun
He is shouting something at me
But I don't understand..
             
Booms bangs smoke
                        Above I see a drone
                                      I cannot move..
The city around me is rubble and burning
I feel my head I see blood
Where's my mother
I don't understand..

My eyes..I cannot see
I cannot see..

Where's my mother
Why has she left me..
Where is she...

Can't she hear me..

Where is my mother..
Please let her be okay..

I am thrown into the air
I am really scared now
I feel strange
I feel..like I am sleeping now..

The moonmaid pulls me out the screen
Just as this child folds over
Thus this one screen within the others folds over
Folding over just broken I blank out..

Silence in the galley
Arias of silence
Delivered by moon sirens..

I come to
But I now see no longer
And I am no longer an I
Disembodied
Bereft in a veiled vast space
Some kind of another place
Ultra dimensional nothing
Night teems off night
Peeling layers slip outside of time in full eclipse

Then..
A drop of light sense infuses
Tangible
Touching
Enveloping
Flashing a beam through this glimmering fabric
Waves waves and pulsation waves
Thrumming
The hum-drum totality
Vibrating
Of a different octave..
 - Am I experiencing a dead imagination

And a fresh new raindrop splashes
Vibrates on an orchid leaf..then gone..
 - No

I'm back..
Floating on the gentle waves
Of the shimmering waterfall
The moonmaid is sitting on a rock above me
Gazing intently through the screens
The screens within screens within screens within screens..

I will lie here still for a very long while.....
.............

She turns her gaze toward me
Unfathomable
More elusive than ever
...in another lifetime...she whispers..
I have no time to ask
She is leaning over now
And now she is pressing a finger through the middle of my forehead...

The heart of all matter
The sand flow of neutron stars
A birth..

I see myself now walking against the flow of the waterfall
Held in her rapt trillion light year eyes..

Now I see myself
Now
Floating above myself in the bar
Yet I'm still prone
Held in her gaze
As she floats above me.. 
I'm  floating above me..
Oh man..

Now on a slow dive landing
I turn around
And the waterfall is pulling away
And she is now fading into air with the other moonmaids
Slowly turning away from me
She is whispering
Don't return....until we meet again..
             until we meet again..never return..
    ..until we return..we will never meet again..





　

The Empath

You're scared of the dark
You love the night
You easily empathise with another in pain
For yours you pay little mind
Your ghosts awaken
As you fitfully sleep
You have self respect save the self esteem..

The things you feel
The steel you no longer feel
The healer healed only with the hurt so sealed..