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That vine is veneer;
a lighthearted nature
for light headed moments;
so don’t piss in my cocktail
the enamel must prevail;

all are guilty, have been for years
as contributors and subscribers
and hearsay relayers
but even as everything
goes properly tits up,
you can’t chip the veneer,

no one needs to peer
inside any curious little cracks
no one wants to know
what’s lurking at their backs..

no commotion here;
the occasional brawl
may breakout as you scroll
to and fro but all are safe..

there is nothing new to see or hear
nothing to share in the prism,
the prism is the story now.,,
so are you in
or are you out?

Currency

The height of high street surely has passed;
the lazy river experience failing fast-
I’ve seen images-19th century-
when it was horses, chimneys
and churches and curious specks
of pond life posing, blackeners
blackening their white future,
the past the same, the architecture
a state of grace above the glare
but it wasn’t ways retail that set the heart racing-was it? The heart, the centre-
Was it world wars, a sense of scarcity? Why the dynamo of the human flow of town and city? Spend spend spend?
When you busk or beg or spend time
instead of money in a town centre
you get to see how mad we’ve become
but dear hamsters, the wheels are coming off. Where is our centre
without that lure?
I’ll meet you there.

The Gadget Is The Gospel

There’s a buffet ahead
give us this day our daily spread
we’ve got a paper plate
to navigate, a serviette
for what we’re saving for later.

They’ll spin you around
flip you up and feed you
when you’re upside down
with all kinds of stuffed delights, bite size
-they’ve broken it down, emptied it out.

So you can graze away:
what’s for desert?
I’m sure they’ll have nice selection.

Pull the chord, away we go
thumbs on the pulse
and for all we know
of fake news of freedom of speech
of turning traditions
to undermine beliefs
by media priests
and their call to prayer
giving you every angle
to complete your square
to spread the news
of whoever you accuse
the gadget is the gospel
now choose your truth
connect the dots what’s that spell
the gadget is the gospel
like Hansel like Gretel
following our own truth trail
the gadget is the gospel.

Drummer Boy

you and your rhythm sticks
hit/song/hit/song/hit/song/
repetition makes it strong

decades of stadia;
billions have gone along
for the thrill of Phil
Collins-if you didn’t feel it in the air
you must have been in an air raid shelter
or something

Lady Di’s drummer boy,
pumping up the 80’s
hit/song/hit/song/hit/song
thickening our skin

and maybe its sustainable
but its probably not
judging by your mess
we’re all victims
of your success

Gospel

God didn’t say shit
until he knew all that spit
and sawdust was going to hold up.
But what he said there was, so
there was sound
before light and sight
and black and white.

Just at the fork of the fifties
lightning struck on fertile ground,
splitting the narrative,
a gyrating dream out of the dream,
of the gutter, twisting
out of the guts of America,
self-delivered royalty of hillbilly soil,
all hail:
king of the rednecks.

We heard the news
before we saw it:
there would be good rocking tonight,
and indeed it came to El Paso.

They pinned the sin on him
-the first firework
before the pyrotechnical sky
we’ve lived under since-
gasping in their bobby-sox
and flattops, grasping
at the subtext, this was the best
thing America had to offer
wasn’t it? Better than
the hula-hoop, Frank Sinatra..

oh the nostalgia, the dream;
he was fluttering, pristine
-before the flares, the amphetamines,
and the effect, a rippling rhythm
that would build, seismically
shake, rattle the walls of the city..

the rise and then
the splendorous demise;
the dream: duplicated
the myth: inflated
the man: medicated
Eden’s blue suede skies
mushroom clouded,

and so from green to gold,
a cabaret crucifixion,
and Memphis sank to grief
for all women, men
same old blues;
new Jerusalem.

Peak District

It’s shape is a remnant
from the in roads and out
roads and industrialisation
and what’s left is the manor,
manless manor in the middle

It’s a back yard dog
for Lancashire, Yorkshire
Midlands, chained up
panting in unbroken heat;
shaking off deluges
when they come.

get back there, explore
hear the silence implore
‘In wildness is the preservation of the world’

Barca v Liverpool May 7th 2019

Divas, almost aquatic
in a fish tank near you
prima donnas, creme-de-la-cremers;
South American, African, European-

high maintenance sport strutters,
colonialist dancers as warriors
of football; the legacy of empires.

The conquest is total
and we pay our dues,
subscribe to the tribe;
goad the global glamourators,
to flamboyantly flit
around our airwaves, now
in two colours clashing
on the green stage

and here comes
Barcelona, a shoal of stars
bursting with pedigree,
it’s all madness, din,
passion, almost blood thirsty
will to win in the glue-sniffing:
the sense of us
and hasn’t it always been thus?

how those powerhouse peacocks
got pecked at by the blood red
fighting fish of Liverpool,
made redder by the atmosphere
of the Anfield aquarium,

in that oxygenating hysteria
we watched as they fell apart
against ‘heavy metal football’;
gold plating roughly stripped
like scales.

Bring Me Back

What he took took him
and that was the road,
that was his road to ruin.

Where he found his soul
his soul was taken.
What he did was his undoing.

Was it gravity,
was it destiny?
a road opening

a road, a pinning
she knew, she drew
what she could draw,

a never-ending
landing rope,
clutching at straws.

What he took took him
and where he shared his soul
his soul was shared.

She kept a hold of life
but part of her always
ready to answer

and brought back when
a certain song
brings her back to then

Back

Just when you thought the passion had gone
the passion is back;
rest your head
put your nerves back
in the reserves..

all that emotion, that promo
pro motion and promotion
is back, all that needle
of the banterful game,
a want was scoring into a need,
an internal battle of external consensus
around futility, a simulation
of a war state, a stimulus-
back-on, the stimulus of
us against them,
let us kick-start and consume
get back, switch on and drink
from the aquarium.

Their own devices

boxing and bouncy castles;
deflated. The life sucked out.
The race reduced to a run,
the human trundle;

if I can cut in I’d say
that thrusting blade;
blunted,

and a lot of it was about status
and a lot of it pleasure;
curiosity and marvelling and ‘progress’

That’s why there is no
substitute for the interface of interaction;
real people in real time in real places
and the real reason
that the next generation is fucked
if they think that living remotely
with screens and the ‘internet of things’
is sustainable.

Without interaction
it’s all in review, rewind and degeneration,
without the oxygenaters,
the hydrogenaters of life; coming
together. god, in his heavenly quarantine
help us, if we have to rely
more and more on the web.

another snipe
another snip