I watch her drop snapchat stories like molly,
Her face like a doggy,
Canine police squaddies sniffing the mandy
Getting a whiff of those pansies.
Ransom the wifi randomly while sitting
At the station. No 3G means no elation,
Cos uploading pictures takes patience,
Incremental like Bowie, implications
Growing station to station.
She got it, don’t got it,
Can’t get it, forget it,
Forgot it, can’t stop it so
Better make the most of this crap.
She snaps the chatter in half
With her book and two hands,
Handily handing page after page,
Imagining freedom from TFL’s
No stick, stainless-steel, Tefal cage.
What’s her zone? What she pay?
Don’t get off. I want you to stay
Hungry, gobbling the words right off of the page
They’re lambs to the slaughter, and her
Wooly woolen jumper is conspicuously comfortable,
And durable, completely out of my price range,
It’s strange, but then…I am nearly broke
So her suede shearling coat,
Must surely be a gift from a father to a daughter?
Oughta try and score the author
Who’s linguistic net has caught her
Before the Bellini’s are even passed out.
It’s getting so hot in here, I wanna pass out,
Black out, black ops, adidas high tops,
Pride of place facedown on the underground
Groaning next to her three stripe shoes,
This is awkward, so what we gonna do?
Cos I think you’ll find they’re actually trainers, not shoes.
And I bet they’re soaking wet from the rain
And the sleet and the snow.
And when at home the radiator’s a no brainer,
Cos regardless of the costs,
She’ll work overtime to repay ’em.
Tag: author
4th January Commuter
She rocking the fox fur atop her
Copper and coarse hair
Of course there’s a hat where
The strands hang, they don’t care
Straightened with no care
She straight edge,
I don’t care
Cos I’m careless and I care less
Than the parentless care bear
Left at the daycare
And man I thought you knew this?
You useless, so tell me now who do this?
Pouting in her brown boots and trench coat
Now focus, she posin’ for photos so potent
Selfies with quotes in,
So current it’s a currency
She sells social sea shells, she’s so Cal
She’s some maid, she’s raisin
The waves of the current scene
So now she’s treading water,
And wetter is better,
Caught me a trendsetter,
Hair feathered, unfettered
And threatening
To send ten times fourteen letters
Straight into your boy’s DMs
In the AM and the PM
Fuck the carpe diem
No hashtag, twit trender
Topless pic sender, rendered her helpless
She’s kicking her dentures,
Mrs trendy trencher with a headstone so trenchant
The coaches should bench her,
Bench warmers should warn her:
Don’t cut the corners
Ditch Joffrey, Nat Dormer,
Sandy like the snakes in Dorne are
Her eyes got that glint though
Lapping on the blue stone,
She got 5 on it, the note’s in her pocket
Thinking so flirty, a dozen kinds of dirty
From which we need protection,
Her phones out, she’s texting
I’m reading the reflections
Blurry and unclear, the train slows,
It stops here, I’m used up
At Euston, it’s useless, she can’t hear
The ringtone on her iPhone,
I watch as she disappears.
3rd January Commuter
It’s been a while, here’s a Commuter poem to kick off the new year.
It’s the top of the opposite of the morning
And I’m yawning cos he’s yawning…
Dribble on the red shirt, shepherd’s warning
Why is it that you’re still not yawning
Thought it’s your thing?
You know, overworking all the snoring,
Yet 40 winks on the journey’s so clever!
Underground there’s no weather,
Well Whatever, watch his chest rise
Each rib jumping t-bone junctions,
Clumping together, so clunky
More hump than, than Humpty Dumpty
Or some other sumptuous something.
Bridge toll for the fat roll
Spilling over, flooding these budding
Buddies of the adipose posers
Clinging to the inside of his trousers,
Crowd surfing the surfeit spare skin
Inverted half pipe, tap out your hash pipe
Brain fuggy, so muggy when it’s foggy
Bogging him down in the nitty gritty
Where he’s sitting,
Where he’s sleeping,
Where he’s shitting and where he’s speeding.
Still moving forward, toward a
Brand new Just Eat order.
Misty moustache or
Gravy staining, like a baby? You crazy?
Napping with no napkins, snaffling,
Still Snoring, my attentions waning,
Man it’s boring
So boring, Round and round, ball bearing,
Load bearing
Feet arches, shirt starches
Skinhead, hair gone marching
Still swear it’s cool, to be spherical?
Each to their own
But where’s the line between
Being berated and being unbearable?
Cheeks of a stuffed burrito
Pulled pork and neck less
You need less like a necklace sans the nectar,
His julie missing her jewelies,
Dive in to those two turquoise blue poolies
Blinking behind the eye lids
Of the biscuit tin.
He’s yawning, not snoring.
Still boring.
14th July Commuter
She sits slowly, steadily
Pushes a caramel hand through the nest of daddy-longleg limbs
On top of her head. Her inky hair swept up into a pony tail
Clamped in place by a tired old band,
The fractured strut that tries its best to tame
Each strand, each fraying thread of a
Nightshade tapestry woven by will-o’-the-wisps.
The tickling grey of age spiderwebs its way through her roots,
Trapping flakes of dandruff like flies…
Perhaps she should try TRESemmé as it’s
Salon quality at a high street price –
– um, never mind.
Her curtain tassel is hassled and flustered by the maelstrom breeze
Whipping with ease through the carriage,
Fidgeting in her seat, it’s not hard miss that
She possesses a certain kind of plumpness.
An ocean of skin, fit to burst thanks to organs within,
Try not to rupture the suet that inflates both arms like rubber rings,
Must patch her up, must try to keep it all in.
A shrunken smile, smaller than a voodoo head,
Has been hung picturesque upon a
Face the colour of clotted cream fudge,
With a gaze forlorn, a smiling sadness
Found only in eyes that have sunk
Beneath the cresting wave of a cheek.
Needs must mean we have to
Dive down deep to discover her treasure,
Two tiny beads polished to a shine,
Leisurely strung upon a thin braid of wrinkles
Etched under each lid
That have eroded her youth,
But perhaps not carnal pleasure. She titters,
Asking advice on which stop she should depart,
One-two-three? Can’t be going too far.
Finally staggers upwards, a drunken elephant,
Slipping in monsoon mud,
Waddles right past me, totally unaware that
She’s finished playing her part in my art.
27th June Commuter
The flock of diamanté dragonflies buzz on her shirt,
A silent fly-by beneath grey-haired sky,
Rhinestone insects, wings spread like summer flowers,
The trim of her trainers, pristine, white as self raising flour,
Ready to bake the most of each day,
Leaving tire tread footprints in the soft clay
Of gum on a pavement or mud in the park.
Fiddles with shades that pull back her hair,
A silent remark to show that she cares,
Despite how her skin hangs with a sunshine sag,
Despite the fact its the texture of an old serpentine bag.
I’ve an inclination to ask where exactly
The purse ends and the suntan begins?
Maybe beneath the luscious green stains
Supplied by gold plated, copper rings,
Bringing digits to life like
The rains on the plains of good old sunny Spain.
She’ll bequeath them one day, as either
A tacky postcard or an heirloom for kin,
Call it a passion for fashion?
More like original sin,
Just a set of toggles to tighten up ill fitting skin.
22nd June Commuter
Extra, extra cries the Paperboy as he
Grabs and grips her lips,
Squeezing the middle like toothpaste,
Extracting 1x grimacing mouth,
A duckface pout and a Clanger’s snout.
Long and pointed for funnelling sneers,
Or exhaling vapour. A verbal caretaker
Stringing up lies from point A to point B,
That will disappoint me. Run an AB test
To see which face is best.
Which will the public adore?
Do they demand that she
Suck in her jaw, gobstopper her cheeks and push out the bones,
Calving glaciers alone under a frown,
Pointed pottery pieces emerge from the ground,
Unearth and excavate, pack your crate with
The mousey brown hair that tumbles and falls,
Stumbles, appalled at the knots that clump up its roots,
Shoots and all. Tousled’s the word, each spindly thread
A probing tentacle, a tentative proboscis
Molesting stainless steel frames,
As if playing a game second hand, so no need to unbox it.
A penitent pose, feet tight, knees bowed, hands clasped on her bag,
A sky blue summer skirt, navy blazer and creased flowery shirt,
The dowdy clothes of a vicars wife,
The masquerade of a suburban high,
Of wicker baskets on old rusty bikes
Of morse code messages tapped out on pipes.
A sneering sniff appraises the carriage,
I look at her hand,
Wrinkled, bare, no sign of marriage.
17th June Commuter
Nibble the nail, waggle the tail,
Watch the olive bubble and burst
Bobbing in blue eyes that fidget and flirt
Beneath a grey budget cut, stoic and square,
A clipped LEGO do that perfectly frames
Frameless glasses, all lenses and glare,
So perfectly, that momentarily it’s hard to perceive,
Where the human begins and the plastic recedes.
Feed the earlobes some slack so they
Billow and sag; lower than vines in a swamp,
Bend the branch with a stomp,
Ripening fruit turns to wine if it wants
A belly pregnant with flies,
To drag down the skin
’til it hangs past his eyes.
Drips of cold custard flung at a wall,
Can’t cut the mustard, he’s expecting a fall
Cos something’s got him squirming,
Worming it’s way inside of his head,
Cut off the crusts to reveal the bread.
And still his chin bobs, this way and that,
Badge on his collar, hands in his lap
Fingers twitch anxiously, twisting, turning,
Gripping, gurning when he catches a nail,
Fiddling fingers curtail each cuticle,
Pushing them back until the nails are minuscule.
Now they grasp and entwine, latticed like vines,
Tightening the knot that’s tied up his heart,
At least it’s a start, not the whole, but a part.
15th June Commuter
Shark fin heels cut swathes through the aisle,
Flexing her thighs wide as a smile,
Stretching her tights cos that’s just the style,
To dress up your floating logs as crocodiles.
Slumping in seats, languidly lazing,
The taut, dark brown fabric gradually fading
Through phases, thinning from day after day
Without changing. Her knee caps are
Straining beneath a drab cream
That’s just itching to burst.
Oblivious, mother hen is hatching her purse,
Casually cradled, craftily able to
Explore all her things,
iPhone, lipstick and gold plated hoop earrings.
She coughs into a cardigan, politely hiding her germs,
But a hand is preferred when manners are learned,
A vicious hacking bark has dislodged her perm,
And it feels like a corner might just have been turned.
She re-fluffs her tresses to make sure they fall right,
Palms down the creases on the dress she wore last night
Tries to put on her makeup under the right light,
Steady hand, steady wrist,
Checks her phone, what’s she missed?
She looks disappointed,
Forlorn and let down:
The 3G signal is feeble,
Because we’re a mile underground.
14th June Commuter
Twin eyes bulge at the bottom of craters
Carved into a newly hewn moon,
A pair of potted cue balls ricocheting
Among the bulbous, firefly-white cheeks
That dominate this wide chasm of a face,
Exposing a parrot’s beak mouth as they
Pull apart like tectonic plates,
Fat strokes of butter hastily spread on bread;
A canvas primed with early morning acrylics
Smeared on with the flat of a blade,
Features splayed in oh so many ways,
All the kaleidoscopic angles of a fleshy Picasso.
Check the footnotes and take note of the feet,
Niagara skinny jeans spill over the seat,
Gushing deep, dark, denim waters
That trickle into tattered Chucks,
Tie the laces once, string the beggars up
Then never again with any luck.
Criss-crossing, over and under,
Put the rabbit in his hole,
And pull tight to secure the body to the sole.
Use a finger to trace the dark seams that
Ripple across his blushing currant hoodie,
As if the skin were stripped from the body,
Revealing the flesh and organs beneath
Casting him as a natural history exhibit,
Detailing the muscles and their functions,
The arteries and their junctions,
The feet and their bunions.
Drifting back to the face of this young’un,
Spot the faint grouse speckle
Freckling the hairline around his ears,
Early onset stubble,
Not long enough to shave,
Too short to cause trouble.
13th June Commuter
A pair of clothes peg cheekbones
Pinch the skin tight and
Hang both sheets out to dry,
A soiled and stained bedspread set,
That I bet’s never been Vanish white.
Seems the kids have taken their toll
Rubbing teabags into the page,
Like crayons on bark until he shows his age.
But that was yesteryear; now they
Rub the whorls of their thumb on placid glass
Until a wild sepia toned Instagram filter appears.
Blonde skin, sallow and yellow beneath a fox fur beard,
Paragraphs scribbled upon used grease proof paper
Broken by scratchy punctuation and a shaving rash,
Bobbles of red, like wool on a jumper,
Delicate as each individual eyelash,
Gossamer spiderwebs spun atop tired bags,
That sit like bruises beneath each eye,
Plump seedless grapes,
Fit to burst,
Let the juice cascade from beneath the precipice of
Tightly knitted brows, a thin line of crochet,
Two dinosaur femurs buried where they lay,
Framing two hollow yet insightful eyes,
Serious but delicate, like rocks dropped through ice.
These geological conquistadors,
What have they seen so worthy to ignore,
All the things to pass by and not keep score,
Surely they can’t have already absorbed
Everything deemed gorgeous,
Prescribed to wariness and movements cautious,
Squirrel themselves away
Just so there’s no need to meet our gaze,
Acknowledge and adore us?
Stories On The Sofa 