A LOAF OF BREAD AND A CAN OF SPECIAL BREW
He sat on a seafront bench
A loaf of bread and a can of Special Brew
By his side,
Speaking to someone who wasn’t there.
Thoough these day you can never tell
Whether they are or not;
He may have had a mobile phone in his ear.
Then he spoke to me;
‘What are you fucking looking at, blue?’
Yeah, I thought, that figures,
‘And a happy New Year to you too’
ALGORITHM
No human being can
Write fast enough
Or large enough
Or small enough
Nor love long enough
Without limit
GOLEM HEIGHTS
Ah Golem, they call you Yossele
They say you can make yourself invisible
And raise spirits from the dead
Then you rest on the Sabbath
On your dark and bloody bed
Ah Golem, kneaded into your shapeless husk
Created by the sages
Return to your dust.
Ah Golem, man of clay
You bowed before us once
Give us our bread today.
YOU DID IT YOUR WAY
You did it your way
Every day
Never-minding
What I had to say.
Now comes the price you pay
‘Cos I’m already halfway
To Montego Bay
Oh yeah!
IDLE MUSINGS
Right now,
I do not need the demon lover
Or the secret longings
Which call me from the deepest shadows.
I only want lies…
Sweet and 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
MILLENNIALS
Millennials are cool
Millennials rule
When millennials go to school
And when millennials get sick
They stay at home
Because they are not thick
Unlike non-millennials
Who do deserve some stick.
Millennials are never sad
Though they are sometimes bad
The way millennials can be
Because they have history
On their side.
Millennials are mostly bilingual
And sometimes nonwhite
Millennials are never racist
And they seldom talk shite
Millennials deserves some veneration
Because Millennials come bearing gifts
From the silent generation
IN 1963
In 1963
When Philip Larkin wrote verse
That nobody thought was twee
Christine Keeler was the girl for me
Though Mandy Rice Davis
Could just as easily ‘save us’
In 1963
Henry Cooper knocked down Mohammed Ali
Otherwise known as Cassius Clay
And Mr Profumo
When asked ‘who do you know?’
Said: ‘Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) –
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP’.
(with apologies to Philip Larkin)
CATCHER IN THE RYE – THE MAN WHO SHOT JOHN LENNON
More popular than Jesus are you
And what if I shoot you
Will I be more popular too?
That is the question you see
Why are The Beatles more popular than me?
And so I did what others would not dare
There was no moral or religious reason
It was just John Lennon hunting season
And the bright lights of infamy and fame shone brightly right there.
Imagine there’s no John Lennon,
I had sung the night before
And now there wasn’t anymore
Because I shot him four times in the back
And watched him die
Then carried on reading a chapter
Of The Catcher in the Rye.
I had ended the life
Of a man I did not know
And as somebody told me I must leave
I just stood there thinking
‘But where would I go?’
TROPIC OF CANCER
Men of Zanzibar
Men of Tierra Del Fuego
Men of Yucatan
Save me from these glaucous times
The hate piles up before me
Like glacial fjords
With blue-tipped spines.
The obscure religious chants
Spread like an avalanche
From Etna to the Aegean
‘Seize every woman
Kill every man’
They’re butchering the sacred cow;
All the world’s a desert now.
HIT ME WITH YOUR SELFIE STICK
In the deserts of Sudan
And the gardens of Japan
From Milan to Yucatan
Every woman, every man
Hit me with your selfie stick
Hit me, hit me
hit me now you selfish prick
Hit me, hit me, hit me
Hit me with your stupid stick
Hit me slowly, hit me quick
Hit me, hit me, hit me
With your stupid fucking selfie stick
(With apologies to Ian Dury and the Blockheads)
My Writing Life 