67 – A collection of 71 poems

2nd edition now available on amazon; paperbook & ebook

LONDON HIGH-RISE

The graffiti spreads like muck along the walkways

In the lifts and on the stairs;

BOLLOCKS TO THE POLL TAX

TANYA SUCKS and CORINNE FUCKS

The stench of urine everywhere

This calcified menagerie

Bakes hearts as hard as concrete

Solidifies old attitudes, buries hope

Deifies ignominy

Here, echoes of hollow laughter

Ghost through the floors

Children play high-rise hopscotch

And stilettos click rhythmically

Along tuneless corridors

Another circus of misfits

Adrift in the maze

Cocooned in captivity

In this graceless legacy

Of the stack-em-high days

****************************

PARTING

The sun also rises over concrete

Over this puff-adder sky

And the pricked-up chimneys

Looking like piss-horns in the stark morning

There are no shadows yet

On this marbled plain

So tender in years

But so sparing with love

I shiver at the bus stop

Admiring this proliferation of granite;

So cold, so hard,

So like you….

DEMON LOVER

DEMON LOVER

Right now,

I don’t want the demon lover

Or the secret longings

Which call my name from the deepest shadows.

I only want lies…

Sweet sensual lies…

Easing me into peace.

Or make them truths

If you so desire,

But tell me nothing

That..

I do not need…

To hear.

PRIVACY IS FOR PAEDOS

I published this one before but I think it is worth repeating.

PRIVACY IS FOR PAEDOS

We have come to the end of privacy

Our private lives have been winnowed away

To the realms of the shameful and secret.

Someone, somewhere, state, press or corporation

Is watching.

Everybody knows about the Facebook newsfeed

It’s like a sausage – everyone eats it

Though nobody knows how it is made.

We are being manipulated, surveyed, rendered

By intelligence that is artificial as well human

Driven by complex mathematical formulae

That are invisible and arcane

Where corporations feed on the private lives of their users

While governments play fast and loose.

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear

Oh yeah?

Sex and shitting were once the only pastimes safe from the Internet

Well, not any more, baby!

As Max M found to his cost

Though defecation was a bit too much

Even for his eclectic taste

Secrets are lies, sharing is caring, privacy is theft

Facebook can quite easily draw a map of your soul;

Tell us what you like and we will tell you what you are;

We can now tell which of your friends are gay

And whether you may be leaning that way

We know how much you have in your bank, your tank

And where you will holiday next time round,

When your wife will get pregnant – and by whom

We know every thought inside your head

Whether inside or outside this room.

If you want to keep a secret

You must hide it from yourself

Privacy? There is no privacy anymore,

Anywhere

Privacy is for paedos.

CONSPIRACY THEORY

CONSPIRACY THEORY

The more heads the creature has

The dumber it is.

And that’s what a conspiracy theory is:

An exercise in stupidity

Until it eventually collapses

Under the weight of its own cupidity

OMG…I SLEPT WITH THE BASS PLAYER!

'So senseless and tragic. When will young people learn?'

OMG…I SLEPT WITH THE BASS PLAYER!

Bass players are gross

Bass players give you a dose

They usually have long hair

And they’re always scratching down there

They just stand around looking dopey

And their voices are usually ropey

Then they pluck on them string…things

And the sound…omg…my head just whings

And then I look at the lead guitarist play

And I think, he can tickle my frets any old day

So to find myself waking up next to a bass-playing dope

Makes it kinda hard for a girl to cope

‘Cos nobody sleeps with the bass player innit?

Fuck it, I’ll do the drummer in the next bed in a minute!

THE ROUMANIAN

THE ROMANIAN

 Kostas vendored hot air along with hot beer

In his kingdom ‘Ye Olde Crown by-the-sea’

His tales, though tall, always plausible

And intriguing to many more than me.

He had flown Russian Migs, no less

In Ceausescu’s secret armies in the past

Doing deeds that were less than chivalrous

Before the dictator breathed his last.

Sometime later he fetched up in London

With a wife who was other than great

And who spent his less-than-hard-earned money

At quite an alarming rate.

He took to his own devices

with his hostelry by the sea

and feathered his puffy nest

helped by others as well as me.

He repaid us with roubles that were rubbish

And dollars that were chaff

And then headed off into the sunset again

Leaving behind nothing but his knowing laugh

 

 

THE FUTURE

God's love to people

THE FUTURE

There is no present

Every tick of the clock is your future

And if you have no clock

Then every beat of your heart is the future

And if you have no heartbeat

Then there is no future.

THE SACRED THREE

THE  SACRED THREE
To save,
To shield,
To surround
The hearth,
The house,
The household,
This eve,
This night,
Oh! this eve,
And every night,

Each single night.

Amen Amen

not sure where this poem comes from tbh, whether it’s one of mine or somebody else’s’

If somebody recognizes it, please let me know.

MAN OF STEEL

MAN OF STEEL

I fuse bits of metal together

A sculptor of steel

Inanimate iron

Comes alive in my hands.

Angle-irons, flats,round bars

Are my materials

I heat them, bend them,

Shape them and weld them

I can make anything with steel;

A strong frame

That will hold a skyscraper

Erect,

A steel hull

That can ride the weaves.

I can even make a fancy flower-pot stand.

BARLEY LANE, HASTINGS

TAKEN EARLIER TODAY244 243 245 247 252

BARLEY LANE, HASTINGS, UK this morning

all my books are now available @  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-OBrien/e/B0034OIGOQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388083522&sr=1-2-ent