Monday, 6 January 2025

Big, Grey Pumpkin

               offset    very grey                    
                  decidedly pleasurable                  
                     ever so grey a sheet      big!      
                     you           quite pleasurable     
                                good, gray, pleasant     
                              good, light, enjoyable     
                            gray, tearful, teary-eyed    
                        gray, tearful, teary-eyed  offset
                      good, tearful, fine big!    a sheet
                     good, gray, humble    quite playful 
                     ever so bright        trotting      
                    quite playful           .            
                  quite pleasurable                      
                 good, tearful, fine                     
                contented quite solid                    
              trembling      very tall                   
          quite solid          a sheet                   
         quite grey           babycakes                  
       trembling             trembling                   
      offset               so bright                     
 very grey              beautiful                        
 offset              trotting                            
 teary              offset                               
big!                 teary                               
you                    you                               
so                      big!                             
so                        so           

109 reaction

Yes you do need to leave your room
You should not remain sitting at your table
And you must listen to many other voices
Do not ever simply wait

You do need to leave your room
Don't wait, and don't be so still and solitary
Be restless and numinary, no matter
How troubling, how counter to your nature this may seem

You do need to leave your room
The world will never freely offer itself
To you for its unmasking
You must request this pleasure, you must
Attend each ceremony

You do need to leave your room
Nature may have no choice, but you have a chance
It will never roll in ecstasy at your feet
Nor will it writhe in raptures before you
Come on now, did you really believe
This is the way it would ever be

Yes you do need to leave your room

re: Die Zürauer Aphorismen

Sunday, 5 January 2025

Hattytown Tales

I wore a beret to the office today, and people had shit to say I wore a baseball cap pulled down over my injured eyebrows I wore a sombrero on an Edwardian picnic

I wore a beanie to bed every night and I think it helped a lot

I wore a balaclava that was frozen to my mouth

I wore a bucket hat because it fits my face

I wore a fedora before it was cool Reuben

I wore a kippah and family pearls

I wore a trucker hat that said

    BRIDE

while my wife wore a button down that read QUEEN


I wore a trilby then, and of course one smoked

even if one didn't enjoy it


I wore a kufi and a Public Enemy T-shirt

I wore a Santa hat and each child took my picture

I wore a homburg hat, carried a bumbershoot umbrella

I wore a panama hat to a polo match on a cloudless day

I wore a mortarboard and robe, looking tall and clear-eyed

I wore a tam o'shanter, and had Brave Tart written on my back

I wore a pillbox hat to my wedding and still get compliments to this day


I wore a visor and brought a sarong with me every single day

I wore a top hat, a ripped up suit, and dead flowers in the pocket

I wore a deerstalker most of the day Saturday, and I never do that

I wore a stetson with crossed sabers, yellow cord and sgt stripes

I wore a dunce cap and was summoned to the corner for the rest of the day


I wore a boater in summer and a beret in winter. 

I did not look as good as this girl


I wore a pith helmet, a veil, a bee proof space suit, 

leather gloves up to my elbows


I wore a Phrygian cap of doeskin lined with otter


I wore a turban then. In a flash we were

in each other's arms in an unrelenting hug


c. 2017




Coming in the air tonight

Turning the corner every day TCP weed and 19th century cow shit urgh

Signature garbage notes

reminiscent of blossom and piss (catpiss)


A bejesus awful stench

no garlic no returns


date unknown


Recycling Centre


The Singer

Normally I sing about 16 17 songs a night
but of course it's never enough
never enough and the audience always wants more
they say always leave them wanting more but
they really do want more if I had my way I'd sing 30 40 songs a night
even more if I didn't have to protect my voice
and I always say my voice is a precious instrument
otherwise I'd sing all day long 100 songs wouldn't even be enough
I often say I'll be singing all the songs in heaven

I probably know at least 1000 songs, maybe 2000
and I wish I knew more I'm always learning more
my head is like a library of song
a library which can never have enough books
and of course I wrote my own books by which I mean songs
I must have written 500 songs and
I'm not saying they're all classics but my audience
love to hear my new songs as well as every
song from every musical
plus the great pop hits karaoke favourites if you will
the great american songbook
chansons arias folk county blues and jazz
but really there's nothing I can't sing because
I love it I just love to sing

Thursday, 2 January 2025

A devastating portrait of the American Dream

Dr Stacey arrived, at my bedside, it was the olden days when they still did that
a reassuring presence with stethoscope and nasal hair
a man who begins at the dawn of a new day to swim in the backyard pool of some friends
he poked at my tender lower right side of abdomen (tummy), and swiftly
he twisted his ankle and so does Ned
after 10 seconds he diagnosed appendicitis and nodded at my mother, like
I'd be shocked if he wandered into my back garden, then
we'd better get the lad in for an operation, pronto

But I always blamed the chestnuts, warm chestnuts, while
Michael Rodd examined a dairy invention
my father had strangely brought home the night before, and while
William Woollard was showing a device to improve coal production and miners' health
we'd never tasted this peculiar nut before from the beech family Fagacaeae
at the age of 52, strapping but past-his-prime Lancaster appeared nude
they were sweet, warm, tasty but I was soon transfixed
as we watched The New Seekers with too few glimpses of my secret crush Eve Graham
who had surpassed Miss World 1972 Belinda Green in my demented little so-called heart
Ned is visiting a friend when he notices the abundance of backyard pools that populate their upscale suburb
still scoffing the creamy, dreamy and extremely moreish nutty snack
excited beyond all rationality by Radar Love with the drummer leaping over his kit
and the new Christmas hits we'd never hear the end of

Some pool owners welcomed him, some hated him, and
I'd be shocked if he wandered into my back garden, and
I'm not saying there were parasites in my digestive tract already
pounding on the door of a vacant, run-down home
meanwhile Slade and Wizzard were lighting up my tiny mind, while chestnuts
probably innocent but forever tainted, were
worming their way into my prematurely inflamed heart

A week in hospital followed, a surrealist voyage through time and space
my new best friend was Danny Creamer never to be seen again
even after the time we wrestled on the floor and excuse me
burst each other's stitches, boys will be boys
and the day I returned home I collapsed on the steps in the rain
stayed up late eating ice cream and watching a film with my mother
all meat Burt spends a summer day swimming home via all the pools in his quiet suburban neighborhood
wait for the ending, she kept saying gleefully, don't go to sleep yet

I'd be shocked if he wandered into my back garden
she could never keep schtum about endings, a slice of gossip, or some-
thing personal that really should have remained personal and
by the time he gets to the final pool, things really
have begun to fall apart for poor Ned, and
I don't recall my father's presence post-chestnut
but he was the captain of his soul and that's what counts


Burt Lancaster


Monday, 30 December 2024

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