When were things better in my day?

I remember being forced into drinks

for my 29th birthday, everyone was 

being weird and I aimed several

kicks at a traffic cone

on my way home,

why would anyone celebrate me

and then celebrate me like that.

That was the last time I asked

my creator would chase me

to their demise,

until I was alone, floating

away on a sliver of artic

ice, fate unknown.

There's so much they don't tell

you. You can enjoy the work

of someone else without

having to read yourself in it.

You can actually just 

live your own life

and feel pain and joy,

all the bloody things 

in between and they

are yours and no-one

needs to help you make

sense of it.

You can just respect that

Mary Shelley* is buried 

in your hometown and

there the connection ends.

*I drank in the Mary Shelley

once, I was 18, an ember

dropped out of my cigarette

and landed on someone's coat,

I at once slid through the

front door on my ice,

whilst watching the pyre.

Summing Up

You're a shut in if you're at home

and you can't be sold things

even though you are quietly

rebuilding your jeans collection

online, but it's apparently a

problem to take your drinking 

to its natural conclusion first

and pick up the pieces later

and discover that picking up

the pieces is discovering so

many worlds can exist for 

you at home if you just open

your mouth and let them out.

And once you realise that is

not a problem you realise the

real problem is you go out

once in a blue moon and your

immediate response to everything

going on is to be surprised by it

and wanting to know more is

a net result of surprise not

curiosity. Just holding 

that curiosity and welding it to 

whatever it is you're now getting 

up to at home, gosh there is 

so much there for us in here

if we just leave our coats

on the hook.

Soundtrack to the Frost Level

Relief of the midwinter,

sun binary scattered

vascular malformations

on the snow in relief.

I see you out there now,

even though you're also

somewhere squinting

in the same sun 6 hours later

in German Switzerland

where you've never been

but you're there still

as I trace my fingers

across the van's tinted

windows eating Lindt

for lunch, you can't

eat raclette alone.

Switzerland, the Last

Homely House where

rösti won't kill you

even in the middle of summer

but two days by the pool

almost did, thinking I

could be god without

need, skipping from

one minute to the next,

thinking actually spiriting

you out there would be 

impossible, that not

happening now is

won't happening, never,

that the fool's errand is

stretching for peak life

that if it could just be

located in the past

it could be relocated to

the present and so

the wine kept spilling.

I looked down at the

town below and misremembered

the idea I had of us

turning bowed and bent

and bedraggled, instead I 

looked at the eternal Gilles, 

eternal swimming trunks

rolling cigarettes in the 

ambient lightless 

rolling hills of his own

sunset, I knew him for

three days at best and

I said I want that

I want to live like this

in a place where visitors

think cheese won't kill

you and make grim jokes

about where is this Nazi 

gold then, can I cosplay

the eternal European

only a navy bodywarmer

apart from Davos, someone

who calls their kid Luca

and whose team will comfortably

be in the last 8 every other

World Cup who probably

shrugged their way to

middle management at Siemens - 

Gilles is no longer with us

and I might try and come

back from the deep end

I went off. I think there's some

point to this, I'm staring

at the London Plane

blocking the sledging hill

I keep adding to hoping it will

snow again, hoping it will be you

who takes me to Switzerland

to search for your ancestors 

wary of skis, preferring to 

play out their song on cowbells, 

who made a meal of your surname

but were never there.

How to Describe a Person

A bellowing honking  bell like mellifluous laugh 

is this working

is this thing on

siloing with the eye of the beholder

catching adjectives in flasks

to release downstream

hashing it out with nets

for the schools of fish thoughts

chronology is not the death

of imagination nor is

comparison

master those until they're screensavers

and you can find the fissures to

root around in,

bring

a person to life.

Fellow Feeling

Taste, but don't touch

touch but don't eat

eat but don't digest

digest but don't quit

quit without judgement.

The gaze is so odd, something has been splattering out the screen for decades 

and so the flesh becomes avatar for onlineness, a dead middle censure-proof anonymity

that some unfunny piece of shit will label dashcam core, I've returned to being

ironic about this kind of humour, seeming genuine is not what I'm selling,

harvest me, part me out, but what you don't get is how long I lingered

on one image over another, if you overlay each and every one I looked at 

believe it or not it's something that looks purple and brown which is how people 

entertained themselves in the olden days, thumbs pressed down on closed eyelids and all that.

Doorbell cam core is just a score of beleaguered Amazon delivery workers

glumly dragging that weird reinforced impromptu child playhouse

package container along the ground towards its inevitable demise two

shifts later. Nothing contains this time more than Amazon, wheel-less

on the streets beneath the palatial scaffolding, angel white Dubai walkways,

as the Louis Vutton flagship renders into trunk overnight, the building 

next to it could be shielding pedestrians from gargoyles and cherubs 

for decades now or longer until the day the package container, 

finally expended of things to put in it, expands over 200 times its size, 

swallowing whole all in the vicinity before shrinking down to a matchbox so dense, 

no drone with a hook could ever dropship it.

Am I Dead

Did the classic this thing isn't 

working so I took some more.

The Twilight Zone shot a

rainbow straight out of the tv at me.

Pete had taken his socks off

his feet looked like pig trotters.

John played with his pen knife,

smiled.

I went to bed. Cursed the tropes.

Diesel engine Goan trance.

Ceiling went paisley.

I was as simple as feared.

Spent most of the 90s feeding

off beginning, middle, end.

Now I could care less about

what happens next.

And so the ceiling returns, says fuck

you and your narrative.

I'm going paisley, see this,

it makes no sense, and neither do you.

I am eternity, when you saw me

and texted Brooke am I dead, you were.

And you will be again and again,

fuck you, I don't care what happens next.

Pull your collar up, lean into a doorway

as L.A. police robots reign supreme.

Mechanical death squads 

will blind fire lasers across streets.

You will be more and less dead than

when you crouched behind cars

that time in Berlin on New Year's Eve

black powder in the back of your throat.

Next is next, idiot. I am paisley, was

loomed in the town of Paisley.

And I'm here, again, to impel you

to stop binge watching your life. 

 

Lockbox Utd

It's unfortunate to live in a corner house

and have to shovel at right angles

so you don't do it

but it's also unfortunate that

I'm sitting here, warm now

still inconvenienced, knee deep

in concerned citizenry.

I don't want to be walking

past there,

chin jutted out waiting

for someone to exit

so I can completely

embarrass myself

to demand the landlord's number.

I don't hate my concerns,

necessarily,

but I hate the ache

of dry sand turning

behind my eyes

and the role I

have forced myself into -

I can't

technically speaking

kick over the news rack

in Walgreens because 

The Post

is always testing how

viscous is my rage 

but I could take it out

on someone whose

rent is going up

again next year.

There was a sweet

spot once,

with the weather,

it was like the 90s,

no-one minded when

it let go,

now it's just people

spinning their wheels,

front wheel drive

in this slush

forever,

for what and

also why not. 

Not Today

I'm my dad's Stepford wife

as soon as he wants to talk,

shifting through the glib

gears into a banality

of evil he doesn't

understand

where I go or

what I was once I went.

He cornered me once,

on a car ride to Cardiff,

kept going on about the

family curse:

someone had said 

something bad,

or had wronged somebody,

(when?)

someone else ended up

with a cousin with autism.

I said could

that dark cloud have been

er you know the 

Japanese occupation?

I do admit, it was hard

to see him clanking

like that 

like some computer

with valves,

talking in circles for

two hours

round something

I toyed with

and left by his door,

softly bitten

mouse of despair.

Truth Post Truth

It wasn't me says Shaggy

it wasn't me

and so this generally inoffensive

purveyor of frothy

island vibes

(HMV's words not, mine)

(not that HMV had to work

hard with its labelling to 

sell Shaggy)

set the scene for what

had to come

which is not even

lies that will save

the skin

more lies as

raw power

like straight men

in sequins

1975-77

gouging their

noses out

with coke spoons

lies that send the good

boomers wandering

into the tear gas

with a water bottle

for rinsing out the

truth

*it wasn't me*

the fuck it wasn't

allow us to 

calmly unspool

it all for you.

Blocked

Fingering the ear, the loop,

the handle of the mug, 

with the string of the tea bag 

with the tab that swings by sips

like a Camry crucifix

on the way to the airport -

what I'm not is resolution

I am and pushing and

pushed to the back of 

my mind.

Finger grips the tab

the tea bag in a dripping

death dangle over the bin,

like a spinal cord attached

to a head held aloft

FATALITY

resolution is death

and a new life work

is what gushes in to 

replace it.

Peanut Gallery Veil

The new normal

represented by full on

fucking 

ticker swearing 

now

and whilst the pit

points and clicks 

at South Koreans

trotted out,

limpid,

worked to the bone

in face tune with

stories we

tell of ourselves.

Normal being, 

are these the last

totems I will

take with

me in decline

so normal can

finally be concerns

other-wordly

oh you're so Stasi

says no-one ever

tuning out the

dial on the lives

of others.

How to Park

Fetching the car

true intimacy

if anyone knew

how much to slow

down under the

LIRR where the

bridge grants

the snow liminality

and I lift my step

higher

    treacle dance

    bouncy castle    

    vamping

    on the frozen

    pigeon shit

if anyone knew

that the thought

is this

that watching

my breath tumble

from my mouth

wishing it was

cigarette smoke

and knowing that

I shouldn't

and won't

and that I'm here

now, making my

life to step into,

that we can all

be so much more

than the 

alternate side shuffle

and also the

shuffle is enough,

maybe a city

shadow tax

but not a tax on 

our thoughts.

Maybe Class

We call this a maybe class

it's at the teacher's discretion

maybe it'll run half the year

and maybe this dance class

will be hip hop

(maybe won't be Irish step dancing)

this is also a maybe tour though

you can observe the new annex

collapse into prison grey round

the corner and here is some art

on the wall (I thought it was

excellent, maybe I'll pipe up).

In Georgetown, Penang, I stepped

from an old mall to a new mall -

it seemed they quite literally tore

the exterior wall off the old mall 

and rammed it into the new one

and the join was a rip in time,

I couldn't believe it,

had to capture this moment of

commerce regenerating.

It was comical, I perhaps shouldn't

have thought so, but the drop ceiling

was coming off and wires were

exposed and everything was

smeared in muck and grease

and human striving and someone

cut it with a line that you stepped 

through into a bright white 

dentist office light, 

contemporary heaven.

Kindergarten is in the new annex

and then the children graduate up into

this grey what was already there, 

turn the corner and find some tourist

documenting this with his

Leica, some tourist who no 

longer scans as a small Chinese

child in 1984, spaghettified by two

tall uncles on his mother's side,

and they curse violently

at his incredulity. 

Silver Onions

I love city exhibitions

I learned the silver onions,

ever so slightly elongated, 

like space hoppers

held up by the ears,

they compost shit

which I thought was compost.

Shit was just night soil

in China because someone

would come and remove

the contents of your outhouse

in the middle of the night, 

and then it would be used to 

soil as well as soil.

I'm a silver onion moth

when they switch the 

disco lights on: other unexpected

festively-lit places include an

elevator repair shop in 

Long Island City. You're walking

around LIC in a pandemic and

the profound panic that

you left everything too late,

that begins with the elevator

repair shop, who's partying 

without me and why

won't they stop?

Sad Grey Houses

POINT OF VIEW FROM THE TV:

YOUNG FRIENDS FROM CENTRAL

CASTING IN AI GENERATED 

SPORTS FRANCHISE MERCH

JUMP UP AND HI FIVE. A DENNY'S

GRADE PICTURE OF A MASSIVE

BOWL OF NACHOS IS GLUED 

TO THE OTTOMAN THAT SITS BETWEEN

ME FROM MY POINT OF VIEW

AND THE FRIENDS FROM CENTRAL

CASTING. THEY LOOK FAMILIAR

THEY HAVE BEEN COMPOSITED

FROM VARIOUS PETROL PUMP

MINI TVS. I SEE THEIR FACES AND

THINK OF ARMREST WELL M&MS

THAT FROZE OVERNIGHT TO SEE

OFF VARIOUS FRAGMENTED TEETH

I stop thinking of my teeth, let's go back

to interiors again. The ottoman is from 

Wayfair and the friends know a deal when

they see one. Dealing with contractors is

harder, you have to speak their language

and also not seem too apologetic even though

it's you, you are the one who needs apologising

for the soap dish with the rounded corners

that is already delaminating after two weeks

because laminated plywood is not supposed

to be used for housing soap.

Meanwhile the friends are stuck now celebrating

the eternal touchdown, the nachos have

toppled into this delightful mise en scène as 

we are in a freeze frame, waiting to

go back to the actual game which is an

opportune time to refocus my gaze on

to the friend standing by the toaster oven

wondering how much it cost and if a lot,

what will be the easily achievable aesthetic 

of another fifteen years it will be offset

against. 

A Break in Play

Museum food is the best version of museum food,

it eschews the Pixar template of a few jokes thrown

in for the grown ups. Dough not meant for brick ovens,

two wrap halves a thoughtless waste of a two for the

price of one, apple slice and peanut butter, just an

apple slice and peanut butter, ground pepper chopped 

into lines, dippin dots wedge salad, molten Skittles in a

zombie bowl to dunk your head in, breadless crusts, 

egg flavour granola bars, pretzel covered yoghurts. 

An untested dining concept: sit down restaurant serving 

museum  food at restaurant prices, 

where the most grown up thing you can do is tear 

open a sachet of balsamic dressing 

without getting it all over yourself,

this you do to wet the extremely dry tenders

in lieu of the honey ranch buffalo mustard bleu sriracha cottage cheese

or whatever there was a run on you don't care

and can't, blinded by strip lights over the sauce in bins

and the strain for the boy 

blending in with the trees you can't see for the wood.

Mum Was Done

By 83, she told me this in 96,

pushed for divorce in absentia

but by Saturday evening

divorce was just me telling 

everyone at my table.

Someone probably hung out for a while,

flipped a wedge of coasters off the lip

woargh and wahey and

divorce news of non-divorce transactional:

Rich said he was adopted

and it was never spoken of again

I thought everything was a trade so

I asked his brother at football,

said he didn't know why 

no-one ever knew.

Ben asked her what prostitutes were

she said: prostitutes are women who

go out with men for money

Ben whispered are prostitutes women

who have sex for money

tchhhhhhh

why did you ask then -

and that was it.

Divorce is what happens when

becoming middle class is not enough

so why did she tell me then

and why was that it.

I thought, maybe divorce is

what happens when you can't

track who's using the camp bed,

when you've crossed the 

threshold of shame once you've

realised everyone else is a foil

or conduit to what you haven't said.

I do understand,

my dad didn't weld a thing in his life

and his toilet, a hole in the ground,

was at least, inside.

Whilst he was squatting, thousands of miles away,

were you out there in the big freeze of

62-63 in your nightie and grown up work boots

or was the back door hemmed in?

New year was delayed 10 minutes

by snow on the clock hands

that delay has stuck for all time,

so leaves on the line

never make you late

and the curse of the lumpen of

the kingdom is to be 

10 minutes behind every decision

made. 

Only Forwards

Slept-in lefthand mouth crease - I

prefer facing you -

lends, finally leaves texture to the face

that life is catching up with, so

life adding texture to a face, 

now in conversation with life.

A face can say much or as little

of you as you want 

and it only adds texture to itself.

I want to sever my mind 

from mine 

as my mind

has been round much longer 

than my face. It's about

time I recognised it. 

I have a t-shirt about being 50

that I bought 15 years ago and

it was almost black then,

gone charcoal since, so perhaps it 

will speak to my hair and

also my dandruff won't show as much.

I'm looking out the window now -

we had the deck done two years ago

that's what I see -

crisp lines of the patio that will

shift as the tree roots do their best

to suck and grow from the

meltwaters filtering through

as the squirrels scatter seeds

and fuck as well

I see some red in the tails of my 

forebears

how did they get here.

I see you, squirrels,

and I swore that was all I saw,

but now I promise 

that I think only of you now, squirrels,

because we got the deck done.

Deck done, cracks appear

and reappear. 

Doom-scrolling Yelp

gaining ground,

imperial or metric,

the child holds the tape measure,

twirls it in the street,

that bed's got to go,

he's sprawling out.

Only forwards.

John, of Bloomington

John as sex guy,

suddenly all I was hearing was about

John, sex guy, drug guy,

person around a dj guy,

John forever known to all

the world of Bloomington

as Bloomington guy

gormless, standing in an alley

piss dripping down 

the inside of

his trouser leg

and my judgement came at me from

8 years yonder

I vowed to return to my room

in spite - no you've got to meet John -

no, my room,

which I did 

and slept

'til dawn when the others returned

and these years since staring

through the cracks of my fingers

at the image of John

and whatever he does all weekend

as sex guy, the man,

John

and me, not man, as men,

my middle-age to see men,

all gingerbread men

mindlessly floating towards

freedom

on the tip of the fox's nose.

 

Everything's Going On

In case winter

fills its cracks

drape the rocks,

in case I find myself

fifteen minutes free

slip my phone

between the sofa cushion

to rest with the feathers

and cat litter,

pennies and hair pins,

let fluff accumulate

in its usb-C port

so I can spend

another fifteen

in quiet meditation

with the toothpick

in purpose.