Through art they are born

Want to join a(n) humunculus club
find a group who will embrace me
maybe try out paracelsus.net
maybe learn to spell homunculus
correctly for a start, okay

Look all I want
all I've ever wanted is
to find my people, my little people

Miniature constructs
with the ability to foresee the future
carry out some light admin
and spying missions
cast a harmless spell or two

Not trying to enslave the world
just find some fellow
neuroanatomical enthusiasts
no bunny pervs, no string-
dancing Geppetto creeps

Keep it pure, back to the old ways
putrefaction in a horse's womb
the dedicated harvesting of sperm cells
classic alchemy before the
TikTok generation ruined it

I'll find me some devoted
collaborators, soon I'll call them friends
show up ready with a glass container
and some intimacy biscuits

I think I bust a button on my trousers, I hope they don't fall down

Sure I put my trousers on
yes I think I put my pants on too

Certainly can't complain, even if I am (don't say it)
guilty of all related charges, and so what

For a 50 years now I've
put and pulled my trousers on, and
offtimes with a belt
steady on, sounds a bit raunchy now

Sir do you know I have
unashamedly Put My Trousers On
in Crystal Palace, Highbury & Islington
Euston, Kilburn and Paris

You step in you step out
You step in you step out
You step in you step out
You step in you step out

I have yanked them on
and ripped them right off again
I'm talking about my famous trousers
mis pantalones legendarios

I've done it in Nottingham, done it in Norwich
really no need to go through this twice
I've done it in Manchester, see also Mansfield
don't say nothing that's my advice

Sir, I have to ask
- have you been drinking?
- and where exactly are 
  these famous trousers?

Trigger Down

It was a sore affair
you killed our horse & called
it collateral damage

But you freed us hostages
unfairly known as
the Cigarette Gang
in the smokescreen chaos

Now I'm at this here party
with these fancy boys, silk sleeves
and rowing club haught
trying to blend, trying
to forget about the farm

Spelling Bee

With its seven letters always poses
more of a challenge than Connections
or Wordle; and Sudoku as we have established
can politely do one

Anyway, mother advised  me that today's
pangram word was OUTHOUSED

Wrong letters, and it's
not a real word I countered, 'just
fucking play it son', she squawked

In an uncharacteristic outburst
'you know words arenyt the same hier
bustin my noggin trying to talk sense to ya'

- excuse me

'In this realm, I've tellt before
but ye never listen know, just
liek you never did befour'

- I haven't

'Also its tomorrows answer thass
why don' fit, told ya time
don' work the same hier too'

Jigidi Jogon

On my run glanced down
on my run
I go running now
75 if I'm a day
saw a lone jigsaw piece
on the path, a
piece of the pie,
on the path

Maybe next time around I'll pick up
that piece of the pie, on
the path, maybe it's the missing
piece of the
puzzle; the under- or over-
oxygenated brain, which

Always comes up with
solutions

Slow Sunday

Trying not to talk too fast

Suggestion of slowness or
concerning tortoises

Encouraged to think of escapism
and the spaces you go to relax,
to unwind

In my room, which is also
a good place to hide
and pretend to be working

I am planning trips
to the beach
to the heath

And it's a perfect opportunity
to play this...

Always bring a gun

Look at me and my choppers
look at me and my knives
I'm a chef baby that's my excuse

Gonna chop you up man
gonna slice you up sucker
there ain't nothing you can

Call it RDJTV

Curtain parts, a living landscape
from early morning to late night
Rio de Janeiro Posto 4

We played 'She was a showgirl' in
addition to my less popular
Spotify MPB selections

Supermarket fruit platters
cocktails on the roof, we was
exactly pie-eyed two years ago

O que aconteceu

Bus stop incident

Exhausted, late for an appointment
necking a limited edition
Fuji Apple & Ginger Red Bull
and hovering near a bus stop, maybe
I should just walk

'Hey man, you're not from here man'

FFS no he's not talking to me

'No I am Japan'

'Yeah man, Japan man, not local I can tell
say why you not on your bike like me

'See you man, with your round belly, be
much better off on a bicycle, like I man you know
I cycle everywhere, start
pedalling lose
my fat old belly
feel the fitness in my legs you see
strong muscle, invigoration with
the best diet, the active man lifestyle you see me'

Citymapper says 1 min, come on

'Listen up, all of you bredren
want to be cycling, not
waiting for the bus with your round shoulder
give up attitude, ya need to get real man'

I can't fault him as I toss the can away
and pull out a Snickers bar

Here's the W3, I'm reviving
and going to
make it

Big brass bed

We all ended up on his yacht
in the south of France, yes yacht
yes south of France

I was just 17 but he shook my hand like an equal
'Delighted to meet you. Please call me Arthur'

Drinks were made for all of us kids and adults alike
'Put a tape on, Fiona! Oh I love this one'

I recognised Nashville Skyline and he noted my smile
'Oh you like Dylan, lad. He's my man, he's the best,
saw him in Manchester back in 66'

'Fiona, you look gorgeous tonight love,
doesn't she look beautiful everyone'

Tracey rolled her eyes at me, she
found Arthur 'a repulsive creep' her words not mine
and her mother 'a fucking slag' again her words
for hooking up with him

The brothers started playing cards, that
was always their thing, they knew
every game invented and some
yet to be invented

Arthur was knocking back the whiskey
'You know boys, when I first saw Fiona
laying there on the beach I thought, no
I knew she was the one, and I just went over
and laid down on top of her - '

'Please Arthur, not in front -'

'And I said Hiya gal you're lovely,
you're my lady now, and I were about 40 then'

Tracey shook her head and went up on deck
as Dylan sang about a country pie

Twitching

Rumbled awake to a street hubbub
boss man is idling in the Kia again
pulling on the fruitiest of vapes

Three no four of them along the wall
energy drinks and bruv bruv chat
constant mobile consultations

Weasel face #2 hands down
his grey tracky bottoms, you'd be
the first one to crack son

Lights on, engine on, window open
unwritten rule only one ever permitted
to sit in car

Sandwich on the wall whose wall my wall
chatty new boy peanut
head through window not invited to sit

Shifty lad #3 heads round the back, as I
retreat to the bedroom pos,
providing vital surveillance -

***Nothing to see here***

Dans une zone rurale non identifiée

oh moira ahm oan the skag
  gissa cig gissa fag
   how's yer ma, how's yer granpaw
      his plates in the sink

it wis fun in the beginning
    tryin tae feel someth        
        tryin tae feel nothing

handmade bloodtat reads SF4C
Silver Foil 4eva Crew
--cigarette light clicks--

oh moira ahm lookin for-
    ward to ma early grave

his prostate's haemorrhaging
make nan a cup of tea and
    stop picking your spots

we do enjoy some harp-
                           sichord chamber music while
                     we shoot up of an
                afternoon, it lends
          an air of sophisticat

  one night drunk and distressed she 
  drove mother's car as fast as she could
  down a narrow country lane
  with the headlights off 
  it was exhilarating, I didn't care

            today for a changeup
       we'll drop an eckie and 
     sit in the park, see if
any colour appears

grey grey electric grey
powder, sky every day
sink into my platitude

punch another wall
    stroke my hair
       <contemplative piano music>
    sunken cheeks

Leaders of the Band

It took place in the pre-rock and roll era
not quite the Glenn Miller Story but the one
featuring Gene Krupa going berserk
as I recall, as one might say
someone should keep a record

A single engined plane disappeared over the English Channel
and she took off on her tricycle
not tricycle bicycle with
stabilisers get it right
mum didn't notice for ages
the boy was transfixed also half asleep
waiting for the punk rocker call
also, athletics from Crystal Palace

Dad as always was absent with his hobbies
she took off as fast her as two chubby legs
and three or would it be four
wheels could take her, all

The way to Tudor Gardens which
as it happens aha haha aha ha
can't say that any more
isn't all that far away as the crow cycles

Until some nosy old couple
aka good neighbours asked if
she was lost by which time
mum had noticed, the house was aflap
Gene Krupa could batter himself a new one

A search party was despatched - 'She
can't have gone far, get out on your
bike and look for her!'

I like a mission and took my task
very seriously. By the time
I returned an hour later
so had she
and now it was my turn -
'Where the hell have you been!'

She insisted she wasn't running away
she'd just got bored
we all got bored in the suburbs
accidental punk rockers every one

limerence, as a kind of illness

limerence, to me is the
obsessive romantic or non-
romantic attraction to
the idea of someone who is unavailable
inherently, an
all-consuming fantasy of someone
that you become addicted to

suddenly there's this aura around someone
that feels like it's the answer
to all the problems and pain in your life

it isn't even necessarily to do with that person but
it can be more the longing
for something impossible
as a way to escape the possibility of real rejection
and real pain, think of it as protecting
your heart by chasing after something

that could never really hurt you
but recreating the pain
that you experienced
constantly by
reliving
your own abandonment
wounds

so it's a journey through the process of
limerence as a kind of illness
and a mental state

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002lf1r

Jan Christian Smuts ≠ complex legacy

Jan Smuts
former Prime Minister of South Africa
Jan Smuts
warrior-statesman-philosopher-scholar

Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts
has a bronze statue in Parliament Square
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts
his violent suppression of domestic uprisings
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts
his adherence to segregationist policies
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts
white supremacist
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts
employed paternalist rhetoric

Smuts
opposed racial equality
Smuts
hypocrisy on the world stage
Smuts
international statesman
Smuts
helped establish the League of Nations and the United Nations

Specific, local

We took a trip to Kruviat Rock
the excuse me fucking
glorious majesty of it
rising, rising, rising
and the mad love we made
that night
riding and bubbling on
our own velvet landscape

Strangely
now we are back home
in England's
Novemberish gloom
we cannot find any
record, any mention
of Kruviat Rock
in any country, any continent

My Wild West Gang

big man big gun big heart
that's me in a nutshell

healin's my callin'
shootin's my insurance

guns run dry
my spear don't

rock don't lie
men do
I trust my pickax

my pa said shoot straight
and speak truth
I live by both

bang! ha ha!
did I get ya?

they fear my gun
they should fear
what's behind it

God guides my hands
medicine does the rest

you don't know me

people come and people go
some stay with you
but mostly they go

now I'm falling
into the pile of
people
you
no
longer
know