The Oldest Paperboy In Dunstable

You're too old to be a paperboy
You just don't have the legs
Of all the boys in Dunstable
you are the fuckin' dregs.
There's not a single morning when
my paper isn't late
When I peek out from my window
there's you, wheezing by the gate.
Same each morning, rain or shine
So here's my christmas tip
Get a proper job
'Cos as a paperboy
You're shit.

2:24 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Shopping List
Category: Writing and Poetry

Milk bread cheese
frozen peas,
Bottle of coke
soap on a rope,
Pasties pies
sausage rolls,
Word for the wise
tortured souls.
Fruit an' things
petit filous,
onion rings
next years news,
The things we think but never say
as the days and months and years slip away.
We best get some ham
for the children's packed lunch,
Parked in disabled
walk with a hunch,
Biscuits and teabags
fizzy drinks
Choccies and gladrags
kitchen sinks.

7:21 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Don’t Say It
Category: Writing and Poetry

Not now.
Let's save it for drunken whisperings
falling out of pubs and trousers
hunched together in beergardens.
We'll save it for when our skin cracks
and our hair goes up in grey flames.
Tell it to my eyebrows that
I will twirl into long twisted peaks
in a bid to appear more sagely
more owl-like.
But not now.

We'll not bog ourselves down
repeating age-old mantras.
Not us.

I've got other things to say to you too
Things I've read that probably aren't true
Things I've been thinking about
Things I found in the shed
Things I'd like us to do together
But let's save it for our deathbeds
or the last thing we say before being run down
by a bus
or mowed down
in a hail of bullets during a bank heist.
We'll say it if we must
but not now.
Not yet.

8:12 AM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Bubble ’n’ Squeak
Category: Writing and Poetry

Spade

I like to call
a spade
a spade.
I'm not outspoken
I just think it's confusing
to use any other term for it.

Sandcastles

I like my women
like I like my sandcastles
Completely made out of wet sand
big massive tits
a well dug saltwater moat
to keep all the other men away
and a flag sticking out of their heads.
When they start to crumble
I smash them with a spade
then pack up my picnic
roll my beachtowel neatly
and leave the sea to swallow them up
like they were never there.

Wonky Wheel

As we paced the aisles of the supermarket
you remarked at the wonky wheel
of the steel cage trolley.
And there beside the dented tins
we cried in one another's arms
Not for the wonky wheel
but for the things we knew
and couldn't say.
Then we dried our tears
You inspected a melon
and we pushed on.

Love

I want to touch your oozing grunt
and flungulate your mimsy,
Your bubberjub is swollen rawl
Your udderdugs hang flimsy.

I can almost taste the the ploogaloo
of steaming vatelina,
That lies 'twixt barge and jumbersrout
and smells of semolina.

Muvva

My Muvva sed
I always shud
go to skool
so that I cud
lern to spel
all posh and that
and spell long werds
like Proletariat.
But wot muva fales
too undurstand
iz that she
needunt repremand
Fore I'm moor a
kind ov practicul guy
and werds arent
where my talunts lye

One Day

We may look the same but leathery
half-man half-armchair clad in tweed,
Tinderbox hairdo crackling grey
in the sun like thin dry straw.
We can shout at children,
wave sticks and and beat the pathside plants.
Spit on flowers, shuffle round shops, suck eggs.
Hold lectures on love.
Hips may swell and thighs may sag,
dimple chicken white.
Sing drum and base like warbling nags
and never trim our pubes.
'Youth is wasted on the young'
we'll croak at family do's.
Then pull our pipes and slippers on,
Complain, recline
and snooze.

This Morning

This morning was beautiful
Ice-cold bright and blue
Bare-feet and birdsong
The smell of sausages

This morning was beautiful
The dog's tongue on my arm
Towering tomatoes and cannabis
and the rumble of the kettle

This morning was beautiful
Cold grass beneath my feet
The air in my lungs
and the thoughts in my head

This morning was beautiful.

Oi'm Oirish

Oi'm Oirish Oi am
Well not me specifically but
Moi Mam is Oirish
and that makes me Oirish too.
Oi've never been too Oirland
But Oi know da craic an' stuff
Oi support Oirland in da ruggers
and Oi croi when Oi see a spud.
We Oirish are mad y'know?
We put traffic cones on our heads
And we listen to da Pogues
And we drink da black stuff an' stuff.
No Oi've never been to Oirland
but da Oirish blood runs true moi veins
Yes, moi heart belongs to Oirland
But yes, I'm from America.

Winter

The Winter came early
Frost set the slabs ablaze
shimmering silver
Cracked your cogs dry
as you washed up.

Hot hands in rubber gloves
plunged the sea of suds and stared.
The garden swum with eyeglue
Daffodils danced.
Uneasy.

Up the steps
behind the shed
we built from wood and straw,
Whispering worms squirmed merrily
Tattle tales in dirt.
A snot-stained shirt in the rockery
meant a night inside with the lights out.

Night came creeping
Stalking through the marigolds
Pinching out the dandelions
pockets full of sleep.

You danced in your reflection
Dark canvas painted bright,
The colours in your eyes like naked fire in the night.
Black hands,
Squeezing.

The winter came early
Frost set the slabs ablaze
brilliant silver.
Sucked the cogs dry
as you washed up.

8:46 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Where Did You Learn To Dance?
Category: Writing and Poetry

Where did you learn them moves?
Where did you learn to dance?
Did you read them on the back of a biscuit tin?
Did you learn that shit in FRANCE?!

Did they come to you in the depths of a dream
as you were high on crack?
They were throwin' those shapes in the 80's mate
Why don't you FUCK OFF to Iraq?

That spinny-hand thing is embarrassing
You look COMPLETELY gay
And don't shake your rear like that round 'ere
You're from Egham. Not Bombay.

Was it Turkey? Sweden? Pakistan?
China? Greece? Peru?
Tell me where you learnt them moves
So I can learn them too.

5:02 AM - 4 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

I Don’t Know Anything About Lithuanians
Category: Writing and Poetry

I don't know anything about Lithuanians
Or Poles for that matter
Romanians are a mystery to me
but play accordions on tube trains
wear baseball caps
and have babies
that live in orphanages.
Black people are loud
and come in many shades of black
ranging from black
to very black
and all the way back
to black
but their teeth are always white.
Turks wear leather
this I know for fact
And are big men who support violent football clubs
and stab people from Leeds
if you believe everything you read.
In fact, the further east you go
the less I know about anything
until you get to China
and I know all about them
We know all about them
don't we?

5:23 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Mushroomhead

Do not let your Grandmother near your hair.
Bowl-cuts went out with sugar sandwiches,
typhoid and 19th century Dublin slumhouses.
She may smell like lavender and softmints,
She may make the best korma in Manchester,
She may fix you with those wharferin eyes
and puddle your insides.

She may forge documents,
rubber-stamp your soul.
She may finger the mixing bowl,
fondle the stub of a dusty memory
when men were men and children wore
fine mushroom-style barnets.
She may be the kindest most human
person to touch your life,
But your Granmother is NOT a qualified hairdresser.

8:25 AM - 6 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Day Off
Category: Writing and Poetry

The phone rings and it's Shireen
asking if I want to go to the zoo.
I tell her in no uncertain terms that I do not
and that it is my day off
and that I will be switching my phone off.

The dog scratches at the bedroom door
asking me if I want to go to the park.
I tell him in no uncertain terms that I do not
and that if shitting in the back garden is good enough for me
then it's good enough for him.

I smoke several joints in bed
and watch 2 episodes of Columbo
rewinding and replaying the parts that make me laugh,
Peter Falk is a shuffling goggle-eyed genius of the screen,
then come downstairs and stare into the fridge for several hours
wondering what sustenence can be assembled from half a pot of yoghurt
a bag of broccoli and a cheese 'n' onion quiche.
It is a challenge alright,
but sometimes the mind needs to be challenged like this
else it withers and dies.

I set up the projector and play halo 3
for about an hour, gnashing my teeth
as chipmunk-yank teenagers repeatedly blast me
in the back of the head
and then laugh about it with their pre-pubescent friends.
Les said once that their reaction speed is keener and faster than mine
on account of their age
and that if it came to a real gun battle
then I would win easily.
I hope it will not come to that
although the thought makes me feel slightly better about myself.

Shireen calls again
banging on about the zoo.
I will never understand that girl.

10:21 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The Man
Category: Writing and Poetry

He is a man who sniffs bikeseats
He is one hell of man
A serious man
a man of many characters
a man who frightens women
a man who makes people sick
a cunt
a bollocks
a fucking plum
there are many sides to his character
Many sides indeed.
One time he wrestled naked
another time he spat at his mum

One time he showed a side to him
that blinded us such was it's brilliance
He is a layered onion of a man.
he is indeed an onion
and a chestnut
and a conker dipped in vinegar
hard as fuck
a sure winner
a real man.

You are a strong man also
with hands like shovels
and pendulous swinging balls
that brim with tiny men
made in your image.

I am also a strong man
although a little less strong than he,
but with better clothes
so that makes it even unless we are lifting rocks
in which case he would win easily.

8:33 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Escalator
Category: Writing and Poetry

Perhaps we will meet again one day
In a coffee shop
In a queue for the toilet
at a music festival
and I will give you my place
before quietly and discreetly wetting myself.
Or when we are old
and parked together in armchairs
dribbling through small old eyes
we will hallow back to a time on
an escalator when were young
that is too long past to recall with any certainty
like the faint scent on our fingers.
But for now I am content
to sail past you
wish you luck
and toast your journey to street level
and oblivion.

7:53 PM - 1 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Gold Star
Category: Writing and Poetry

In the third year of school
my teacher told me
to reach deep inside myself.
So I stuffed my arm inside
my own anus
up to the elbow
and began to
pull out my intestines
like a clown pulling a string
of triangular red flags from his sleeve.
Natalie Tancott started crying
and the new boy threw up in his lap.
But my teacher was very impressed
and awarded me with a gold star.

12:10 PM - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Holidays With Nan
Category: Writing and Poetry

In the days before pubic hair
and dress sense, I would visit
Nan in Manchester
and smoke silk cut from the
crack in the bathroom window.
They were great days back then
and when she caught me
as invariably she would
there was no scolding but
jam doughnuts and a seated chat
in the yard under the washing line
where Grandad's lemon-stain kegs
swung like wet rags.

In the hallway one holiday
she asked me if I knew
about the things she'd done
'I bet they've told you' she hissed
sucking on a softmint
and those yellow eyes hardened
like crystal for the tip of a wink
or a bead of sweat.

But mostly the holidays
would pass happily,
The bars on the fire roared and
pound coins rolled merrily into
the back of the television.
We would stroll to the market
in Levenshulme; maybe a pastie in Asdas
and a treat if I was lucky.
When I cried for no reason
she knew why.
She listened with pity and guilt
because she knew only too well
about circles of violence.

She hammered on the
bathroom door one time
in a pair of yellow marigolds,
keen to scrub my pubescent body
And the embarrassment etched
on her jowly face was second only
to the horror on my own.

So when she lay
still as stone on purple cushions
in the make-up my Mother had painted,
she was cold this time
like chicken breast to the touch.
I fought for breath with the others
and wished I could have kissed her
like my Mother had
but I didn't want to smudge her
or the make-up she had on.

6:21 AM - 2 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Chess Club
Category: Writing and Poetry

The chess club was closed.
No bums on seats
No berets on pegs
Still the sign on the door read 'private'
And the dust settled thick.

This haven of bliss
Away from the yells of the street
And the call of the wild sat stagnant.
Snug in it's importance
It sat reading over it's rules

Something stirred from outside
It was a big ugly world out there
Where words stung
And people couldn't play chess
Not that well at any rate.

9:49 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The Lady On The Romford Road
Category: Writing and Poetry

One time
many moons ago
I visited a lady of ill repute
down an alley on the Romford Road.
One look she took at me
and beckoned me behind a skip
where we made crazy daddy-longleg love
on a soggy mattress
that smelled of cats and
homosexual love.
I would visit her again
and again come the week after
and within time
I would bring friends
acquaintances
family members
my Mother
Friends from the unit
to enjoy the lady's loving
and the mattress of sog.
And then one day
she was not there
and I was very embarrassed when we
had to turn the minibus around
and everyone thought it was my fault
that she wasn't there.
I often wonder what happened to her
and I hope she's straightened her life out.

7:44 AM - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Erotic Fairytales For Children
Category: Writing and Poetry

She wrote
erotic tales for children
They were wildly unpopular
For reasons unbeknown to her
but never did she pause for tea
nor think of downing tools

The living room was her domain
her swirling canvas swayed before
as in her belly green eggs fizzed
and whispers slipped beneath the door

'Out, out damned spot' her nib a-flash
ablaze on paper, spewed her soul
her crashing teeth did knicker-nash
her eyes did tilt and roll

But closer look my love and see
between those jagged ink-scratched peaks
and falls, her life upon a page
a tale etched on those cheeks

The days were painted on her face
The scores and tallies carved in deep
The shadows of her lovers danced
They quick-step marched
They stamped their feet
And as the blade splashed
Slashed the page
A wailing curdling cry of rage
Came cold as ice from those dry lips
Peaked, arced and shattered at her feet

And still she wrote
her fairytales
Unpopular
but proud

5:40 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment