I’m just a lonely pint of milk,
I stand outside the door.
It isn’t quite so lonely, when the
customer wants some more.
For then I have companions
and we have a chance to talk.
And looking at the people who pass,
we can watch the way they walk.
But how I wish when empty,
you would wash me nice and clean,
‘Cause when I am cloudy,
I’m ashamed of being seen.
So please remember Ladies,
before you put me out,
Give me a rinse, so I can be,
proud to stand about.

Martin Adams hired a black Ferrari for 24 hours,
He instagrammed over 2000 photographs that day,
and entered over a million hashtags,
By the evening he had lost all of his followers.

We used fingers and thumbs,
hands squeezing bums,
but no tongues
in and around delicate places,
just in and out of each
other’s faces.
It was fun,
something to do on a
Sunday afternoon.

You & I shall create a person.
As acting cruel God, I will beset him with a toothache; rendering most thoughts
metaphysical & esoteric the best part of redundant.
You could put her in a beat up & battered pair of german paratrooper boots, a size
too small, if you so wished.
Akin to many of life’s fortunates, I shall make him of mixed-race parentage: Father
of Polish extraction? A sturdy & stern, upright & downright political animal of a man
from Lower Silesia. A slow-burning splenetic to boot, perhaps?
Now for her Mother – a Ceutan? Yes! A blithe & libidinous ochre flame made
feminine by flesh. To be near her is to be in the presence of one of Mother Nature’s
favoured daughters. An obscure descendant of Ammi-Saduqa, no less.
Let’s score in some rudimental sensibility for him. We can make her favourite joke,
in its contextual entirity be: “Mam angielsku zagadke dla ciebie! Co to jest pomarancza,
i brzmi jak papuga?………MARCHEWKA!”. After you translate this to English, shake your
head & ask him why – she blushes & would like to change the subject.
Time to send our man forth to stumble & gawk in the labyrinthine corridors of the
collective mind.
Paying no attention to the pattern (which you quite like for its Art Nouveau qualities) on
the path-worn carpet, she has picked up pace now & if she had not of spent most of
the quarter-mile walked assessing & cursing her footwear, she’d have noticed that
every fifth door to her left is painted a pillar box red & ajar.
Bored of this, I have him stop, turn to his right & come face to face with a diesel-blue,
riveted metal door with CALIGULA ROOM scratched upon its surface.

The cat has turned
her back
on the tidings
of Magpies
high up on the roof.
She has concerned herself
with paw licking and
catching the last
rays of summer
It’s all about
Wood Pigeons
these days
anyway.

Pat Sharp’s mullet
went solo years ago

Pat Sharp’s mullet
now lives in Mexico

Pat Sharp’s mullet,
his middle name is Trouble

Pat Sharp’s mullet
is a highly paid stunt double

Pat Sharp’s mullet
saunters when on set

Pat Sharp’s mullet
lives life with no regret

Pat Sharp’s mullet
wears Primark never Prada

Pat Sharp’s mullet
drives a clapped out, old blue Lada

Pat Sharp’s mullet
likes sushi, coq au vin

Pat Sharp’s mullet
is a ruthless ladies man

if we were aboard the
Battlestar Galactica
you’d probably be a Viper Pilot,
and i’d probably be an engineer
or a deckhand or something
probably i was blown out of the air-lock with the rest of the
nobodies
back in the mini-series
i’m pretty sure you’ll still be there by Season 3, caught-up in a
sub-plot
about the Cylons
and whether you’re one
i don’t mind, but
when the writers finally decide
it’s your time,
spare a thought for the generic overalls guy

Oh no, not again I said
I’m dreaming things
about my bed

With a lettuce quilt and
a cream cheese spread

I sleep on a piece
of soft white bread.

The longer he had not been with a girl, the more nervous he found himself when chatting to them.

He would say “Anyone told you how attributive you are”.

He wished he could summon up the witty banter his circle of friends texted each other.

Out of his mouth came ‘Can I buy a pretzel girl like you a drink’, or ‘You doing anything latex tonight’.

The problem worsened. In the end a psychoanalyst told him he had developed predictive talking.

Cynthia lived in a lighthouse.
The bulb had gone.
So it was just a house.

I took a drag from a tab
then you floated out.
Like slow motion smoke
you hung in the space
in front of my eyes
for a few seconds, smiled,
and faded into the night –
as if the air sucked you into its lungs
with no intention of blowing you out.

Yet, still that image stirs sensors,
in a section of my brain
that deals with senses.
And that snapshot of December has me remembering
how the cold felt,
and how the air smelled of Marlboro reds,
and how we met at the bar later on,
and how now,
I breathe you in
and you dissolve into me.

Imagine pergatory’s a gameshow,
And Dale Winton is the host,
And he decides who goes to heaven,
By whose basket’s worth the most.

A saccharine sensation, sticky and wet,
the morning on the tip of my tongue,
the night layered across my teeth.

Blue slithers of my eyes water themselves,
from between heavy lids, drip into waking
and find themselves regretful of their venture.

Hair plays at monkey games on my jungled face,
swinging from nose to ear to sky,
and i?
I remain unable to be swayed from the swaying.

12:00

In my hideout away from London in N1, I can hear birdsong and smell the sweet burnt coal from the boats. City noises evaporate and nature resounds.

High-pitched whistles and tweets from the birds push away the heights of crowded buildings, and the clouds are visible once more.

All I dream of is here, in amongst the concrete mass, yet so far removed. Urban sprawl conquered by nature’s sprawl. Lapping water carrying cares downstream.

And in the summer here, it is heaven. Only clouded by the thought of a full turn of the clock.

13:00 and London returns.

Just a quick note to say
hi I hope you’re ok
because I am
I have a new girlfriend
she has tattoos
she is more adventurous
than you you know
I didn’t want to become
that couple who chat
on the phone at lunch
because they can’t at home
but we did remember the time
we couldn’t go on holiday
because you had to work
fuck that was romantic

sent from my iPhone

I never want to see you again.
– Angus (sent at 17:38)

Kitty Sashkovich sat there, crying
on the train
as suburbia passed her by.

She didn’t know
that he had sent the text
to the wrong number.

Oldskool. Words printed on cellulose papers and bundled up in a book. Now, that’s going a step further. Or, shan’t we say, back? Words printed on a cellulose paper then folded up and inserted in a bundle of papers with a bunch of words. That has its own charm. Try to stick this bookmark in an e-reader.

Five in the First line,
Seven in the Second line,
Five in the Third line.

The day I was dumped

I stopped plucking

my eyebrows.

I haven’t had a good

pluck now for

nearly three months.

I used to pluck

every day. Or,

rather,

I wanted to pluck

every day but my

tweezers,

they only wanted to

pluck me every

second, third or fourth

day.

I’m getting pretty hairy.