Rire Plus

Common as muck she sparkled

In the back of a green transit van

Breathless as i tunes was shuffling

From Morrisey through to Chopin



Knocked up in that lay-by by Streatham

Named her baby Sweet Charity Hope

Then busked for two years down in Newquay

Reading tarot and selling some dope



Now she lives on a barge by Devizes

She's christened it Live Your Life More

But weeps whilst her cancer advances

Charity stares through the crack of the door

Hide and Seek

I shit

I hide when I shit

When I shit

My shutters are shut

When I shit

My shitter is open

Cry

I would

If I thought

It would do any good

If I thought

I'd be any good

Or look any good

If I thought

My face being wet

May in some way

Improve my day

Forget

My eyes being red

My nose being thick

May in some way

Do the trick

Soft Boiled Eggs

The soft boiled eggs

I ate in childhood

Their felt tipped smiles

Promising alchemy

Line up now

Roll called

Stern faced

Carrying hatchets

Day Return

Shall I take a day return

To a cupboard in school

Safe at the back

Of the history block

With some moths

With some maps

And those mops

Call Girl

I could just call a call girl

Call her Juliet or Mary

I could sit and do the crossword

She could cook a Coq au vin



She could drive me to the airport

Wave her hanky on some jetty

A white flicker on the shoreline

Seagulls tangled in her hair

The South Shields Arthur Lowe

My brother's gone to battle

With the bloke who lives next door

He plans from his conservatory

He's read The Art of War



A Field Marshall in the making

He's an arsenal in his shed

Bought from B and Q and Homebase

He's that one step ahead



He's got super trooper spotlights

Which he's had passed by the planners

And twelve foot panelled fencing

His wife's a bag of spanners



He's got noisy windmill mobiles

They whirr and whine throughout the night

A Green Mountain Sugar Maple

Blocking out his neighbour's light



He cuts the lawn whilst naked

With his petrol powered mower

Has bonfires in the daytime

He's a Rambo Percy Thrower



It's a suburban moral minefield

The darkest Michael Bentine show

His tank's a people carrier

He's The South Shields Arthur Lowe



It's not like he's a moron

His head's a hothouse of ideas

He's on Operation Beehive

This may well go on for years

Inheritance

My father was magnanimous

So left me in his will

With good prostate cancer prospects

And a Black and Decker drill

Stanivlasky Meets Matalan

Community theatre is a farce

Led by the educated class

Who gull the aimless disengaged

Then set them up upon some stage

Oblivious of Bertholt Brecht

Whose needs are really being met

Sunday Tandem Love

Sweet couples

Riding tandems

Make no sense to me

Flaunting their togetherness

It's co-dependency



Their pedalling in unison

Makes them a tour de force

But Sunday tandem love to me's

Just heading for divorce

The Ghost in My Pig Sty

I thank you

For your quiet screams

I scarcely hear you



For your rare and gentle

Furtive flitting

Room to room



I have no need to lie wide eyed

Await awake

In fear the dark



The cracking on my door

Your stick

Is gone



So why still

Hover in the hall

Bouquet in hand



Localised

Somehow solemn

Maybe sitting on the tiles

Taxi Driver

Silent in the car

Ferrying me

Silent at the lights

From A to B



Silent in your car

Ferrying me

Silent in your lights

From A to B

Druids

Druids

You get on my tits

With your standing stones

Your sacred bones

Pendragon clones

Daft dream catchers

Hairy thatches

Animistic

Polytheistic allegories

Penchant for cloaks

And ancient oaks

Doing your rounds

On your burial mounds

Are you having a laugh

With your willow staff

Your Herbal teas and remedies

Celtic crosses

Fucking tossers

Ashes To Ashes

We could drive a bus

Through a Pinter pause

If we ever felt the need

You could sit there

Calmly counting

One

Two

Three