Adrian

Now I have bin and you’ve gone
and forgotten my name.
All our bins still get a spin:
the ride still revolves,
the flashing compressing hollow
beast that comes through weekly

and though I offer comradely gestures
and ‘hey ups!’ you can’t process me
as a punter outside the scurrying trail,
the trawling circuit that has sustained you
since way before I joined you
as frontline bin cabin crew.

You were in the midst of the marathon then
but you had been binning since the beginning
with a quiet sense of focus like an endurance athlete
to an ever elusive end and still going..

back then it was the black art of the black bags.
We’d do a street at a time, an A team of four of us,
pulling off a new pristine, airless bags as gifts
to housewives from our belts as we opened gates
to get to the arse of the household-the bin
and pull out full bags, inflated and stuffed
like stools; we made piles of them on street sides
for one of us to scoop up and throw on-
the glory days of the backyard bin chase,
and well before they reinvented the bin
by adding wheels and recycling and
highlighting you with higher vis clothing.

low vis in you
I am lost in your tinnitus,
the bin din from all that lid
banging marching forward focusing,
to stick with it;
the muck-the man-the machine.

Veins

there are old roads out there-
Roman and Medieval; routes,
grooves from feet and hooves.
Heading from Windy Hill,
we tread new blood in dried out veins
like nerves running, untrapped
taking on a disc of this moorland of
England’s duckboarded backbone-
flagstoned, rough and bouldered and
under pylon’s that zip wire our energy
to town like fizz and around our systems
of reservoirs-almost Aztec displays
of stone-and back through folds
and creases of piled up land
towards the beating path of the M62
lain down like curtain poles;
courses of hurrying hooks
streaming along the smoothed paths
east and west-we look on,
off piste and lost- at
the living loaded artery pulsing
and accept it- the bringing, the being;
the contained impulse
and everything it carries

Proper Happy

Welcome children to my buffet of drug facts

I’ve put on a spread of things we keep
under wraps; laminated stimulants,

on a buffet table of simulation-

the kind of fayre you might come across

in the imminent party of life-

to be proper happy; know thy props-
know what fizzes and fizzles
snaps and crackles and pops

to be proper happy; know thy props-
know what fizzes and fizzles

and where the party starts and stops

here we have wacky-backy
donkey dust, Special K and wizz
nico-café-ketamine and
you need to know what is
a stimulant and a sedative
and what not to mix them with
categories, tolerances, types and doses-
you need to know your space cakes
from your party samosas-
your sugar coated diazepam
from your chocolate coated marzipan

we’ve got magic mushrooms
speed and cocaine, areosols and glue
anything that has a use is open to misuse
tranquilisers, hallucinogens
prescription drugs and skag-
you could succumb to all of these
from the first inhalation of a fag

from chocoholism to solvent abuse
you’ve got to be aware-
of other varieties of juice-
being squeezed out of sight-
knowledge can be used to concentrate

the mind and to dilute-

to be proper happy; know thy props-
know what fizzes and what fizzles
what snaps and crackles and pops

to be proper happy; know thy props-
know what fizzes and what fizzles
and where the party starts
and where the party stops

Proper Happy

My Deerboy

Come in children, take your seats
and have a think on me.
I’ve put a spread on
to simulate some stimulants
to show you-
safe beneath cling film for now-
what could be on the buffet table
at the party of life to come

today it is self-service; self-teach.
Absorb and explore them; imagine them
and find out about all these props
that have been put out of your reach

to be proper happy; know thy props.
Know what fizzes and what fizzles
what snaps and crackles and pops
and where the party starts
and where the party stops

here we have wacky-backy
donkey dust, Special K and wizz
nico-café-ketamine and
you need to know what is
a stimulant and a sedative
and what not to mix them with
categories, tolerances, types and doses-
you need to know your space cakes
from your party samosas-
your sugar coated diazepam
from…

View original post 110 more words

Uke Recruit

My Deerboy

so you saw the recruitment poster
and naturally, you thought you’d come
thinking it would come naturally-
being artistic yourself-you came to class
equipped for the jaunt; the saunter in the park
where the sun is bound to shine-
with a new ukelele in a case
like a little hamper with a little rug of hope-
what are you letting yourself in for?
not this assault course, maybe?..

Let me tune you up.
First off, this is not going to be
some slack strung Hawaiian picnic,
where you can catch everything with butter fingers
where fizz sends it straight to your brain,
where you’ll just belch music
to your heart’s content
no. you’re going to have to jog on the spot;
get your knees up, star jump and listen
and fail and feel musically immune
to anything remotely infectious or
resembling a tune; you’re in the army now
so excuse me…

View original post 24 more words

Coffee

I’m wired; give me a jolt
of chemicals-zap my bundle
of nerves that is me and I’ll flicker
and glow like a neon blue fly trap
of nerves that is me and I’ll buzz
and deliver a coping strategy
of nerves that is me and I’ll rise
and in my haste forget to taste
and wake up and smell the coffee

About The Buoy

She plunged in-
mad as she is about the buoy-
to embrace the buoy to kiss
to climb on board the buoy to lift
herself onto the buoy to cling
to adorn the buoy to stay
with the buoy but she finds
she slides off-
through fatigue. She backstrokes
back to her tethered line,
her marker to adore to knock
the static shell of the hero
that answers through buoyancy
as a protrusion, a remnant;
a hard unsinkable shoulder
but she can never fully grip the buoy-
like the shoreline that grips her,
pulls her in, she can’t keep hold-
she is alone but the buoy
can help her resist the drift,
survive the desolate cold
and the swelling of the water.
Even when drawn back well inland
the buoy is there. She swims out
in her mind and rests and knocks
and the buoy answers
through buoyancy

 

Tea Lights

I was sitting in a deserted bar while the barman busied himself lighting tea lights for every empty table and wrote this

My Deerboy

scrape out the old wax
hold your ear to the ground:
silence, so trade with it-
insert new tea lights
into old tea light holders
like new bars of soap dissolving
into a clear sparkle-
keep your fingers crossed
for moths; for humans
to come and wash away some sorrows
and stain the table cloths.
Every available space is vacated
and reserved with a flame:
untroubled, obligatory like petit pain
this is a place of prayers, placed
in the vain hope of payers,
living wicks to come in
be reached and reach out
to refuel 

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Red Currant

we milked it every year;
the bush. Embarrassed by its
seasonal abundance;
we all got called to help

with old stained and scored
plastic mixing bowls from the kitchen
and buckets,
to help our vines in labour,
gather the little harvest of reds
we did our bit for the garden-
a side street from the main route
of the carnival of summer-
we were never ones
for party poppers-

this garden renounced
such opulence and seduction
the kind that was never the less
occurring in its sun trapping midst-
a sin trap indeed-
we become donors of summers blood
or stewed or froze the fruit directly
and kept a lid on summer,
kept our realm fire retardant
and about the bare bones
and the longevity of leaves

Tea Lights

refill your ambience dispensers
with tea lights like soap that
dissolve into a clear sparkle;
scatter them around your furniture,
reserve every available space
with flames like bread
and pray for moths
to flutter in to wash away
some sorrows
and stain the table cloths