Speculation

After everything is gone -

Should the speculators speculate on Love -

Would their God become our slave?

Rain And Umbrellas

Snake flowing floes of waterborne umbrella skins,

Beat to the rainfall teeming her tabla thumbs.

Cloud strewn streets dehumdrumed drum.

Aeons flash by caterpillar,

Cleopatra - thanks for dinner;

Mashed potato, balloons and mango,

A dreamy trifle,

An eyelash tango.

Treetops wobble,

A rain splash down,

A glimmer full of sky gleams,

The clotted cream crown.

The sunset echo abloom;

Rippling puddly platters,

Reflect a sparkling dusk-light,

On the dappled marching dragons.

Slave To The Upgrade

As I turn the parchment of my electronic book -

A sensual glade,

Of scentless plastic..

The Stark Blossom

Her love lost,
She slips away,
Silhouettes gleam moon shadow.

Blue eyes burn broken;
She leans her head back against the wall ~
Turns around,
As lunar trees rustle the cover for her delicate steal-away.

A last look back.
His bed now..
His bed now..
In-breath, deep, deep, shallow.

In-breath, shallow.
Places keys,
Resting, date-stamped,
On the newspaper in the hall.
Turn the page.

Enfolding cruel lament: Let me out of this place.. - Sold.
Orchestral manoeuvres in the dark. Let me out of this place;
Just open the door,
And walk the corridor,
And down these stairs..

And the outside lights of the dark unveil,
The stark blossom,
The unnatural world.
The traffic milling swashing rain revives her.
She weeps a lonely relief.
And she glows,
Like a frozen rose,
Thawing under the sunlight of the moon.
Her reflection warms the oblong aspects of glass and steel;
The cold statues ignite in flames.

Ten

So Happy Anniversary to you,

War On Terror,

For you are ten-years-old today!

And what special events are you planning to surprise us with,

On this auspicious occasion?

Think -

Soon you will be a teenager,

(God help us).

Please,

Wouldn't you like to swap this football in return for our souls?

They were only meant to be borrowed for a little while you know.

We miss them,

And we'd like you to return them back to us please,

Kinder, gentler..

No, not in that way.

And,

Please,

Never, again.

Okay?

Polite Notice Blues

The low-level absurdity of quantum thoughtlessness,
Luridly displayed,
At the tea-point


Polite Notice:
Do not leave your dirty dishes or used cutlery in the sink.


(Another) Polite Notice:
To avoid blockages,
And flooding,
Please rinse your dishes before placing them in the dishwasher.
                                                 ThankhyphenYou.


And here she comes,
The senior manager,
Gifting the floor (four) her honeysuckle bloated cadaver infusions,
Organic;
Her muesli dregs gluey,
Satanic;
Bathing with toxic used tissues,
Bubonic;
She catches my silent musing leakage harmonics:
"Something wrong?"
And my hyperbolic bottles it,
Something chronic.

Green On Red-Eye

The expanding desert flows below,

The eco-tourist mirage..

Cracked Symbols

the cracked string-bead spaghetti throng swirls bedazzled
bedraggled and comically wretched
a mournful shimmer around cartoon candles
huddling in the gloaming gloom
unragged and healthy
the hum of the crayon-prayer-faithful numb
their pagan-bling makeshift memorial
an installation art totem
as delicate as graffiti sold on the shopping channel
bottles of vodka nestle with silver spoons and opened cartons of cigarettes
and suffocating garage forecourt flowers clinging for dear life
inside their unopened cling-film shallow grave
attached felt tip fly-tipped post-it-sentiments
words you are so mist
words YOU'RE NOT DEAD YOU'RE A STAR!!
words xxx Luv Lucy
words we mourn your loss 4u etc
from across the road she circles her own mind for a clue to theirs
as this dead girl sings of rehab from a tinny mobile phone speaker
rendering her soundwaves disembodied
her sonic angel feathers crash land a last bow r.i.p cashback
as Rapunzul's saturn return death dances
into her vaporised tower of ringtone sorrow
bemused walking away she muses
- oh the irony
they're offering up as symbols of devotion the very paraphernalia that killed her
- what a way to go and what a way to be remembered
then she makes the sign
as she nervously touches her pendant
of the cross

Keyboard Commando

He draws the fine line between hate and hate -

He's a keyboard commando.

Swirling eyes catheterise incontinent flamer rage -

She's a keyboard commando.

The spurned saturnine misanthropes,

The atheist/God brigades,

The grandad rock fascismos man

their onanist hive-brained barricades.

The CAPS LOCK attack-dogzillas,

The green crayon font glocalistas.

They're all keyboard commandos.

The zoilist cannibal synthesis;

The psycho-stalker metamorphosis.

Take half an ounce of thought,

A nanosecond of self-reflection,

A quark of empathy,

A sliver of good intention,

A tonne of self-righteousness,

A big ol' tent of me and me -

The bravado swamp thrills,

Rabid gazelles on kill,

Shelling from the craven caves of anonymity.

It's Munch's Scream upstreaming in the polyglot argot

of keyboard commandos.

Lying poet songsmiths:

So we're really all the same?

Oh yes -

We're churning in one big boiling cauldron world -

A world of keyboard commandos.

Snooze Button

Seconds before I must fall back awake,

To drizzling dreaminess uneasily I sling-shot

my flimsy detaching spiral.

The Snooze Button - a praying mantis.

And I cannot shake away its silent countdown,

The temp-deafened digital laughter.

My eyes - as sore as Romeo's;

A salted ochre sea star Guanatanamo.

And, in dream, the snooze button pounces,

Like The News At Ten:

Yodel-dong:

"Tonight: The World's End.."

Dong.

"Golf"

Dong.

"No more weather - ever"

Dong.

Snooze button,

Snooze button,

You gift me only lucid, anxious nightmares;

Your sonic rainbow rays pour

primary colours liquid concrete grey,

Coal, charcoal, ash,

Municipal car park green,

Institutional padded cell cream,

And asbestos marine.

Snooze button,

Snooze button,

I hope no one dedicates a poem to you.

Snooze button,

In five minutes time,

You'll press my button again.

A flaying embrace of flailing sunlight,

As golden as swaying moles at the stroke of midnight.

Snooze button,

You spill through my eyes you salt plain sorcery,

Enticing wishful mirages of dreaming drowning.

Forty-Two Seconds

Congratulations, and,

Please rest assured,
Your limited edition mp3,
Will be with you shortly,

And will arrive in a virtual-cardboard gatefold sleeve.

And, in delightful edition -

Its very special revolving hole,

Wrapped tenderly - hand-made too!

Will come to you separately,
Posted in a vacuum-sealed, sexy black bubble-wrap.

Now,
We're sorry,

For we are now legally obliged to state the obvious to you:
We know, probably, you are aware of this already, and,

Justin Bieber appreciates your patience and understanding here,

Truly, he does,

For he knows how seriously his special fans,

Love all manifestations of life in this amazing universe so very much:

A universe that created Justin Bieber,

And Justin Bieber fans,

And on the same planet,

And at the same time, means,

Truly,

We Are All One.

But Justin Bieber's lawyers still wish you to know:

Please don't, by accident,

Drop the hole for this mp3 through your hands:
A dropped revolving hole may trigger,

A cataclysmic flux in space-time,

Ripping the entire universe to absolute shreds.

Don't do this in Justin Bieber's name:

He loves you as he loves Canada.

Justin Bieber doesn't want any of his truly astonishing fans to

wipe out fifty-billion-and-one civilisations instantly.

And all for being a little clumsy?

And please be aware,
The person who drops the mp3 hole will be humanity's sole survivor,

(Being the centre of the catastrophe, ironically perhaps,

Means being the only one to escape instant death).

Now that is not good news,
As everyone else, all dead, shall eagerly await their slayer's arrival,
Down and into,

The newly terrible and vengeful black hole afterlife.
And "sorry" and "please forgive me" won't cut it there:
For your forgiving and loving God,

Wrapped as She is,

In the very bubble-wrap of space-time,

Would also have died.

However,

The swirling, melting afterlife,

Functioning out of space and time,

Would thrive.

And yes,

That is really ironic.

Even Justin Bieber's pure and eternal soul won't be able to save you there.

Dear winner,

Please don't let this information spoil your enjoyment of this limited edition mp3,
With its virtual gatefold sleeve,

And its very special revolving hole,
Arriving separately,
In sexy black bubble wrap.

Justin Bieber endorses this message.

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

Well,

That was forty-two seconds of your life,
You will never get back.

So how was it for you?

Actually -

Only kidding!

Here you go:
Here's your forty-two seconds back.
Please put them away in a cool, dry and safe place,

Until you need them.

Please use your forty-two seconds wisely,

By July 3011.

If you accidentally consume these forty-two seconds after the use-by-date,

Please fly back in time,
Before your cosmic consciousness disintegrates;
Your local time-warp shaman,

Will be glad to assist you with this,
So don't worry.

(And in case you are wondering -
And you probably are -

Time-warp shamanic practitioners

Will come into existence,

In ninety years and twelve seconds time, precisely,

By which time,

You will also be delighted to hear,
We would also have paid off our current national deficit,
And be invited to join The New Mongol Empire.

The New Mongol Empire?

Oh, don't ask.)

So remember,
Justin Bieber wants you to enjoy his compositions,

And his very special revolving hole,
Safely.

Please be warned:
The lyrics on this mp3,

Contain mild expressions of sentimental sadness.

Justin Bieber,

And The New Mongol Empire,
Endorse this message.

The Swimming Bells

I heard the scream,
So through walls I fell,
A sidewinder of dream:
The swimming bells.

I serenaded stone-white-noise and other idiots,
Where bricks grow.

I love leaning on rain:
Still life on bursting sky:
In every cloud hangs the bath.

Can we parachute from clouds?
Can clouds?

I'll tip my tethered cloud over this one:
A silvery stream liner for dreaming on:
A slidden slumber chandelier,
A wonderful plumping floss flamingo.

Am I insured for domestic cloud explosions?

The monsoon trenches are triggered.

Too late now.

So as I lay myself down on my raindrop eiderdown,

From my concrete floor carnations bloom.