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If you’d happen to meet, or have met, happened upon a meeting perhaps? Yes, if you’d run into some faded figure from the black spots in your past, and let’s say this person and you hadn’t parted on particularly good terms? In fact, there existed a fear-fed acrimony, at least on your part, in all likelihood theirs too, for the sake of spelling out an insult to the deductive powers of the peruser. Then again this forced thoroughness could be an exercise in overthinking aloud in the proposed cadence that should justify any such self-indulgent posturing. Yes, regardless of the back and forth, fixating most anally, the bare bones of the story have been established. Now, what if, when you run into this old foe, he or she has suffered some terrible injury? What if they had been rendered incapable of harming you in any way by some unexplained contortion of fate? You would barely recognise them, once up-front and boisterous, reduced now to a mumbling invalid. Following some tedious interaction barely worth mentioning, a bond is formed, though the danger remains! It’s in their eyes, let not their drool-swept chin distract you from those orbs so sinister…

They blurt out, as some greater explanation in itself, that they ‘don’t use electronic mobile phones.’ I guess our new friend has maintained their faith in the old plastic cup and string charade. Maybe they’re a telepath. Like some badly pitched straight to TV film, they arrive unexplained in sequential locations, calling your name from the doorway of a public seating area. Conscious as I am of nearing the bone, I’ll say one final thing. The essential reaction within your system has changed drastically. From caution, wariness and fear; to caution, wariness, and care. Strange old world. Happy holidays, to you cheerless farts who spend a week in Spain, or even Turkey. We’ll get our turkey teeth the old fashioned way, by dissembling their skellingtons.

---

His brain’s ablaze
Causation undetermined
Evidence of neuroplasticity
Cognition approaching phenomenological verity

————————————————————————————-

A passing friend and I had clashed
A night out on the beer
Sped from her graces a mess of two faces
Convinced her I’d enlisted as queer

Eupheme’s lilt was on me spilt
I touched for the rare auld wit
When a piper’s rhyme threw me off the line
And I fell ‘pon his piper’s kit

———————————————————————————-

You are not
Obliged to smile
Within these confines
Faces hang

Blow lowly
Swing slowly
For what is holy
Needs fill’t

Rolling one up
Seems abrupt
Corrupting structures
Deemed now unfit

Stale bottled beer
Takes it toll
Your guy’s in knots
Time to roll

—————————————————————————————-

Paint quaint walkway
With the filling
Of your guts

If you’d have known
The job in hand
You might have worn
A wisp to frays

Gondoliers cajoling trip
In puddles thus receiving
Footnote mentions
A token for shrives

Glistening now ‘neath lamplight
This pulsing ming derives
Legitimacy from a bloodied coupon

————————————————————————————————-

You can hire a man
To paint a pail
With liquid grot
2 and 6

A further flim
Will see him gallop
At a brickwork curtain
Redolent in grey horsehair

We are the powerless
In awe of
His bulging elephantiasis
Tuscany leatherette

Dreams you up
A cocktail whose
Raw egg base will
Fool the tellings of age

————————————————————————————————

The introverted reveal
A suspect shortsightedness
Taking up places
In the crowded public bar

Notwithstanding
The giveaway owing most
To outlandish displays
Appalling apparel

They can only
Assert a feasible level
Of consistency in their behaviours
By way of thrift signalling

If the band could only hold
Some stillness in uniformity
A resting reprimand
They’d bloody sit a-peace!

—————————————————————————-

Those not possessed
Of artistic drive, nor otherwise maddened
Are notable by their spotless trainers
Or ‘guddies’

The musician, actor, playwright
A-lull necessarily in his conch
Awake to it all
With pen-fetched promise embroiling

Employ another’s toothbrush
In the bleaching scrub that grants
Access to the more intimate
Corners of a doorman’s heart

They are not bad people, not at all
In fact it’s us, according to our shoes
And so we make do with these sodden
Embraces, that only an endearing ensemble could invoke

And so you walk home another
Man’s shoes, and think of all the
Escalators they’ve graced and
Whether he’d neglected to tie up his laces

One day it’ll all come off
Wilting femmes will be felled
Casting call covert, collaboration .
Never are we though, free from grime

——————————————————————————–.

The teenager is romantic
I mean not at all
But in their perceptions
They in a way are

I regard an impressive
Player altogether different
Nowadays, an easy separation
That enables a deeper appreciation

I’m not trying to paint
Myself as some almighty
Pilot of holy consciousness,
The poetically inclined digress

It’s angled somewhat besides
According to familiarity
Subtle is the silent cheer
Fit for the purpose here

Let it be understood
Never mentioned
Lest we’re convinced
Of a sore soul struggling

————————————————————————————-

Young man runs
Mad to show
All that he got
The naked eye’s plain

Old man wise
Nurses his lump
Serves the section
Shrugs frame free

————————————————————————————–

-You like blues, aye?

-Love ’em, compadre. All the classics.

-Do you know Bflat King?

-You have a king sized mattress in your flat?

-Naw, single. What about Johnny B Goode do you like him?

-Please don’t call me King. Cigarette?

———————————————————————————–

————————————————————————————-

Wheaten slick with grease
It’s the cheaper sort
Perfectly adequate
For scrubbing oul pots

I was forced into buying it
It nearly withstood the cold butter
That’s the stuff that built
The men of old

A stubborn nature
Will resist even nature’s test
Galvanise the lot of them
But they were all dog men

Raised and reared champions
According to their constitution
Ate hot spuds from the pot
Having served their time at the peace wall

———————————————————————————

Frida was a rhythmic mistress
She’d not the looks of Agnetha
I’ll give you that, fair does
She knew something though

Agnetha was a grand chanter
But she could never move like Frida
Together of course they were dynamite
I bet the bass player had half an eye on her

———————————————————————————

A sideways face gone smiling
And if you’d any call to be happy
In the smallest of ways
It’s for sure you’d be smiling on your way

Low key days are easier kept
In the confines of a tidy script
You’ve to give yourself every chance
And sure we’ve all to suffer

———————————————————————————-

Buck shot bodies
Piano key eyes
Criminal records
Drug fucked minds

This is my design
Think we’re doing fine
They closed the bloody mine
And still our babies cry

Mummy’s on the wine
Daddy’s gone away
Keep what you can find
Live another day

This is our design
Is it meant to be so trying?
They want you out of line
Confrontation’s worth your time

————————————————————————–

The breadth of her
Would stoned the head off ye
She’s a fair whack of woman
All of it there

Good whack a stuff there
Tell ye what
I’d near climb over the seat of this bus
You back me here, I’m goin’ in

————————————————————————–

His water tap nose
Strapped shut with sinew
Rivalled at last
The question mark man

His elderly neighbour
Fed the plants
With human excrement
And when he knelt

The arch of his back
Defied humanology
Standing straight up
He was the human question mark

Or an old East Belfast
Pirate’s hook for
Hustling carcasses
And rending men askew

Scared stiff of scurvy
Porter was purloined
Rat guts succoured
Through the black hours

If your da was a pirate
You’d get a dirty pack of cards
And illicit French letters
With a hook in the gub

Seagull squawks
Sent them fleeing for breadcrumb
And a short barstool leg
For to fit your father’s deficiency

---

‘Dorset! Are you ready to go? Hurry up, your father’s appointment with the phrenology board is today, we mustn’t be late!’

Dorset Tsung had often been mistaken as a dialect, distinct to the Far East diaspora that had settled in the region. Her father had struck upon her Christian name after having cycled head-first into a road sign, whose tungsten alloy had allowed a near-perfect indentation of his exceedingly thick skull.

‘Dorset, my girl? Come hither! Yes, let me see, a fine set of dimensions. The phrenologists will be most impressed. It’s not every full-blooded English girl can lay claim to such exotic strands. Pull your skirt a bit higher, love. Remember how one must address?’

‘Your excellency, what fine features you have, pending further research I bend to your superiority. Could I interest you in a foot rub?’

‘Excellent! My dear Dorset, you do have a bright future ahead of you. The bloodline must continue. Avichi, reandre!’

‘Oh come now, Phillip, don’t be silly. This isn’t Highlander, you know.’

‘Petunia, if you are going to prop every put-down with a reference so obscure, that Dorset will be necessarily distracted with undue research, then I am afraid I cannot heed your comely warnings. Avichi, moondebbre!’

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