Squat

I am possessed and in a stolen space;
It’s just a matter of time now.
On my haunches, smoking
With sporadic lyrical launches occurring
Daily; reality disconnected, the meter
Bypassed; another outer/inner power source
Is now my first and last resource,
And it might come down to selling
My body but fuck it. My brain-always twisting and
The world that stuck is asking, stick
Or twist? Last summer’s coat is on, I am bust, so
Twist. Again.

Long Night With Baby

These walls are heavy duty tonight,
I feel buried alive. I am bouncing
And serving you in various stress positions.
I made my bed so I have to stand, be a prop,
A pacifier now. You are no pushover,
You are a little restless god, I hope
You inhale my prayers. If I could
I would pull the covers over me upright
And sleep and keep hold of you,
Because you need to feel gravity in process
And that process is me, less precious
Than you, more vulnerable to the night.

New Animal (old refrain)

It was kind of you to bring my body back,
But my heart was still with you.
I had missed my train and I directed you
To a turn off for the M62. We were singing:
I’ve got to feel it in my blood
I need your touch, don’t need your love.
You left me like a sheep
Thank you, benign shepherd.
Then you drove off
In your car crammed full with Def Leopard.
Back to the old fold I felt
The wind right in my face. I was
Back like an aborted launch in my own
Failing space race. But now I know,
I can feel it in my blood
I need your touch, I might need your love.
I ran up and over moorland, punched
And spat at all the way
By the weather, beneath those nosy stars with
Nothing better to do or say.
I’ve got to feel it in my blood
I need your touch, I think I need your love.
Feeling good enough for the gutter
Following my own urine trail,
And signs and marks laid down
For cars and things of bigger scale.
And the urban distance was amber
And spread out, like a dead fox.
And the hunting wind was surrounding me,
On top, it howled, it mocked when I muttered
I can feel it in my blood
I need your touch, I need your love.
I stuck to the camber of the road
Marched back like an exposed renegade
By that turncoat wind had carried me out
Like a comrade up for change;
It welcomed me back like an enemy,
A head on stranger when I sang
I’ve got to feel it in my blood
I need your touch, I need your love.
Because I feel it in my blood,
Because I feel it in my blood-
It was kind of you to bring my body back,
But my heart is still with you
Sat there on the passenger seat
Somewhere along the M62.

Milnsbridge

Smoker

Sporty-Cultural

Its sporty-culture; soap opera
under sun and flood lights,
seasons of cultivation come and go
for fans of historical cults
headed by ego gardeners; every one
is an expert but so few candidates
because the plot holders are the plot line;
the gaffer club; swapping allotments
a player the fan side of the touch line
to hold press conferences about how
the ripening race is going, filling
the airwaves full with their personas-
about deals and grounds and old seeds
planting new seeds and pip like players
going out from poly-tunnels to kick
a cursor around a green screen core,
insulated by an insatiable appetite for
beer and a simulation of war
to get points, points…points make the
pigment, seasons can turn at any moment
in this years fruit off at the seasons end
Sky is the limit, raining in
injecting the ground with all it can
to create drama out of these allotments;
football grounds, who can get the best
product, the best shed, tools, tactics-
its all a take over, a transfer
of ownership that is mental as much as physical
all of us plot losers; prize makers.

Mark II

Flaws: if you held up Mark one,
You could see them; underlying problems.
The short fuse, insecurities, stress spots,
And held up he was by you, for a decade-
A long trial; more missing than matching,
Patching. You, always hinting at an upgrade
And he wore your colours from your
Days of domestic paint-balling, hits hung
On him in a mould forming; roles and expectations
Chucked from high ground; potential untucked,
Ill fitting, dissatisfying your needs.
Until Mark II came along; he looks the same,
Moves the same, takes the same shit,
But those weakness have been sorted out
And at last you can say, Mark II- I love you!

Winter Fuel

I took it on boards, in grained in mind;
‘I must get through this winter wisely’
and when the cold invaded I began
sourcing fuel; it was resistance, with
arms of wood discarded-from skips,
workmen, woodland; I piled it up,
all rough timber, but when I came with
axe and saw, to start a war, I saw
shelves, structures, opportunities
for making stuff
and though the cold was in my house
searching it and insulting me,
going through my bones and things,
I could hardly part with the wood, expend it,
finding always a way to reuse and mend it.
So, like a one man salvage army
self-conscripted, surrounded,
I am storing energy; building,
deferring release;
playing with fire.

Dream Warrior

My Deerboy

Journeyman out and still on an ill thought
Out journey, a man without a plan, he stands
Here with glass, liquid, hard hands, scarred
With bad blurry tattoos, rotating
Coins-cigarettes-cider; benefits and provisions.
From well beyond the bland, afternoon streets that
Let him here to latch on, like us, with beer
His standing here is a story, a spiral, that spans 50 years
And the Atlantic; an exile, beggar, a father, a slack past
Behind him the spiral, tightening to this front,
To now and to the corral of a council flat
Where he unwinds, rests with his bed
And a laptop that is his release; it is the tip
The point of return, the digital spew of the spiral
He retraces; paths, footprints; simulated attempts
At reconciliation-electronic, and sleep-chemical,
And every night, the plains of a lost continent, always
The dream warrior, always the dream loser.

*

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Retrosexual Man

I am retrosexual; I go back
to get my kicks I go down
stairs like a slinky; unwind retrosexually
I am pleasured easily, sentimentally
ever active, an action man after action
bent on bendy memories of
Barbie and me: two of a kind,
plastic peas from similar pods-
on my own I own my own
memories now, all mine the shrine
to idolize and presently you are not
how I visualize you-
on my shelved soul there are artefacts,
dolls I treasure and you
my little heart’s favourite-
yes, there have been others over the years
I’ve  inflated a fair few,
but they leak, they break,
they don’t stand up like you.