shaking hands

i walked into the traffic blind so that i could get to work on time for once.
with coffee rings around my eyes, I stumbled in at sixty seconds past nine.

and they said,
"stephen, don't make any plans for the evening".
they said, "stephen, don't make any plans for the evening.."

staring at my shaking hands, i made a further series of insane demands of myself.
now i must find a route from work that avoids any mirrors or reflective surfaces.

in a bit that was typically cryptic, slickly inefficient, and glistening with eccentricity,
i left my glasses at home that day, combed my hair, and binned all my sexy underwear,
for if i was to dress more sensible, i just might start to comprehend the incomprehensible.

ether wip+

ten cups in and i started to shift, my blue eyes bulged and blinked at a thousand bpm.

as i fingered the scales on my skin, i twisted like stifled and stymied victorian women.

now i dine with dave on dead flies and crickets.

harvesting souls is, i suppose, an honest living.

they saw me assemble from the ether and said i could double my luck,

if only i was to man up and murder my identical twin brother.

the treadmills kept me too tired to mither you,
so you best suggest which ghetto that i ought to go to.

what will you do for our wounded heroes?

what will you do for our wounded heroes?

the counties were cut into bite size chunks for ease of top down management.

what will you do for our wounded heroes?

what will you do for our wounded heroes?

zoom, zoom, zoom

clifford frigs himself as pigeons slide into listed buildings,
as he fingers the life support machine of a chav queen,
chav christ, ritual sacrifice. rosy-cheeked and dewy eyed,
weeping about the witch at the bottom of her drive.

on a checkerboard in reverse order i read out loud
the sources of my boredom - morons on forums have
simultaneously decided there is no more art or fashion,
only records that whisper "HOO-ray for satan" if you
spin em arse backwards.

like perry, like gaga, like callahan, like pink.

a fresh assignment lands on his desk as he exposes himself as a poet in progress
as he parts his lips and expresses regret at having never seen the whites of their eyes
only broken bodies after the fact. it's like seeing war rage through a phone camera lens,
blitzkrieg in ten million pixels - "oh the humanity" on the digital zoom.

zoom, zoom, zoom,
zoom, zoom, zoom.

banned from the library

he wants a job where he doesn't even have to think
about joe and mary public. but everything's ringed-fenced,
previous experience, re-deployees only.

"it's like I'm trapped in the ...."

I've been stitched up by four works of fiction; matt, mark luke and...the other one.

and for a series of innocent blunders i find myself barred from MCR's central rotunda.

shrieks and howls in the bowels of the listed buildings,
they have just twigged i cannot borrow but I can still go in and read for free.

imperial novel guardsman trains his hardened gaze upon me,
with a look that's bought and paid for - in a town of draft dodgers and collaborators.

he's a peculiar sort, cut precisely to primark sizes.
in every new edition that arrives he scribbles out all the words he doesn't like,
scribbles out the ISBM so that no-one could ever order those books again.

who wants a job?

citizen spy

doing his bit to spice up suburban life.

he likes to think of himself as the provincial eye.

a martyr might cost you up to half a million
but a shill will still only set you back a shilling or two.

a broad sweep,
operation snoop-while-you-sleep,

a town of amateur sleuths,
i think i heard my letterbox snapping to.

villager volunteer swat division all rounding us up with grim precision.

train guard pulls magnum from hidden holster
and trains it at the temple of amateur photographer.

speaking for a certain kind of saviour
about certain kinds of uncertain behaviour - citizen spy.

he doesn't care if their cameras give him cancer.

bass creeps

bass creeps

through every window and every door

leaks through your ceiling to my laminate floors

and the malaysian jelutong knows every note and word of your tremendous song collection.

rattle the ice

thats on the inside of my windows

set your watch by the sirens, hooligans who are always right on cue.

hunt for clues

in the choreography of the city below

in the tattoos of those in the know

seek revelations in their blots of inky constellations.

don't turn the other cheek

turn that set of speakers back around

and turn your neighbour into soggy ground.

and they will know that this is not a bluff when i reveal my six foot golden sub-woofer.

bass creeps.

ferris wheel

the ferris wheel rolled into town it made me feel like i'd dropped down right into paris knee deep dog shit vulture culture pick 'n' mix two double oh eight dead weight culture of capital gains under pains to deliver a meaningful experience in DUMPlington centre

on the finest booze in the bestest bars where all the locals and losers have been barred i sink my teeth into stale bread with my feet on the leather - its my only pleasure where a fella named never does the same old shuffle never says a word never moves a muscle with a grin he teaches em to operate the machinery that'll one day replace him

i'm dressed from head to toe in silk in a town that reeks of rotten milk on a wooden bench for our arte and labore another peel town another white acre -

stand at the intersecting vectors of cross and fennel street
speak your troubles to the spokes be the residual of a visual joke

mr leese
sez
my hands
starting
to seize

penning all these hymns to the wheel underneath various pseudonyms.