Invest in a vest, no vested interests
He just wants to be the best mess
That he can be, better than all the rest,
Skin pressed red,
Pink like a raw chicken breast,
Or salt cooked salmon
Little curls of grey ramen
Growing right out of his chest,
Armpits too,
Cultures growing into something rude
A clump of nosy neighbours
Doing no one any favours
Wafting exotic scented flavours –
Au du ‘enemy of bathers’
The musk of sun ripened labour
Get dat cash in hand playa,
Stuff it in your bumbag, fannypack,
Wads of cash, rubber band goes snap.
Panting with a Lab’s lap,
Never had the last laugh cos he’s a real thinker,
One arm crossed, the other upright
If we brake now might fuck up his whole life.
Might just fill the hole in his life
But not the hole on his head,
Pretty tired Friar Tuck, no luck,
Partially bald, silver wings garland the hole
Hiding ears like Victorian ankles,
Better drop the anchor so alls well that ends well
Getting off at Stockwell,
The train don’t stop well
His heart swells, stops, drops and rolls
Call it the final toll of the bell.
Tag: commute
2nd February Commuter
Asked for a ladder that Jacob couldn’t climb,
The clattering hubbub pulled my minds eye
To the gash in the back of her black wool tights,
Might try to cling on tightly not tiredly
If they weren’t so unsightly, reuniting skin
With fresh air, oxidising her legs
Along with her burnt copper hair,
Girly curls of wire curling so wildly,
Wily as a coyote.
Call her a talking, flaming bush, I’m blaming the peyote
What’s there to show me in your red leather bag?
Adorable Pandora or fair weather hag
Using the bag to haggle with her hangnail charm,
Two hands hang at the end of her arms
Cutely curtailed with cuticles so beautiful
They disarm. There’s no cause for alarm
But looking back, they were beautifully black,
Cos black nail polish is a tip top tactic
To hide all the grime,
The sort a whiny white male would acknowledge as
The secret residue of cut lines.
Her plush cheeks blush meekly from the pre-dinner wine,
And cork coloured eyes spill wider
Than the widest oil spill those sinners tried to hide.
No truth, just crude lies cruising so wide they were
More out of this world than that Buck Rogers guy.
Watch her buck teeth chew the buckwheat,
Buck the trend of the lean in 15 cheat sheet.
Got some pretty neat tats,
Inked in bric-à-brac stacked
In a handy habitat
Between each finger, imagine that!
My gaze lingers like a lazy acrobat on
A love heart and a peace sign and
Other tat like that,
Abiding, silently hiding until the oyster emerges at the end of the line
Hard to define such a boisterous girl
When you watch her spit out a spearmint pearl.
1st February Commuter
Ten damn stops until the end of the line,
The grape on the vine where X marks the spot.
Try and spot the lesser-spotted leopard skin blouse:
Is she mutton dressed as lamb or an
Overdressed, jam distressed dormouse?
Playing house inside tannin stained teapots,
When it’s only 5 o’clock and she’s already
Dressing madder than a hatter whose lost the plot
Too late to change her top
Too late to change her spots or her stripes,
You’re damn right, marching overripe
Hair into a tortoiseshell brooch.
Slowing her approach to make an impression
Impressing in a cotton pelt as sheer as Shere Khan’s direction
Straight to the top and don’t ever stop
Except to stop the rot.
Keep tutting with your glottal stop
Tainted posh, lips painted rot.
That’s German for red, which is the colour of
The blood that she coughs.
I’ve seen the hanky, diagnosed it, now thank me.
This ain’t no hanky panky,
I want some of that cash you got in the banky,
Legs short not lanky, saggy scarf hanging,
Tassels hassled by the carriage breeze
Banking the cliff of her hips,
Suede ankle boots will never slip
Just like ships that’ll never sink,
Who else thinks that logo clad tote bags
Are totally totemic baggage, iconoclastic
And plastic. Masticating the muscles
Of her shoulder, forever getting older,
Depend on that like the weather getting colder,
But unwanted like a cold caller getting bolder.
Should’ve told her, that the signal from the iPhone in her hand
Resonates on a dangerous bandwidth,
But it’s what she listens to the band with,
Plugged into an iPhone I.V., a shrinking violet
Slowly hidden beneath apple’s poison ivy.
25th January Commuter
He fumbles a thumb out of his glove,
A single digit shrugging off the above and
Exposing brown skin next to his cuff.
A fat, proud worm,
Stunted and rough. Peeled skin shrinking
As the cold air sinks in. Why do something
So obscene? Well, how else is he s’posed
To get a fingertip grip right on the screen?
Cos swiping gloves on glass is like
Wiping your ass with Vaseline,
Or quenching your thirst with kerosene.
Besides he needs a fix of technology’s morphine
And an apple an hour keeps Doc Rob lean.
It’s the ho-hum, hum-drum,
Drumming thumb, thumbing the thumbtacks
Stacking the hardbacks in favour of
8 Ball Pool and Clash of Clans, the themes
Clashing like cans, can’t stand the sounds
That obnoxiously pound our ear canals and surroundings.
Pet peeve, it’s one of those makes me frown things,
One of those down the mine, dead canary things,
One of those things best solved
With arrows and bowstrings.
Stringing us along on toe tapping
Steel capped boots, still can’t lose.
Hugs the back to front backpack
To his front not his back, sitting bareback
Head as hairy as a hairless bear’s back.
Honeycomb combover, thin as gauze,
Food for thought, thought for pause,
Pause for the lung thawing, throat scoring
Coughing prologue stop, starting
Over and over, tick-tocking, set your watch
To oily cogs slipping through the daily slog.
Mr Groundhog bogged down, sunk
Into a duck down coat.
Gotta wonder where the feathers go?
Too slow, eyes close, nose blows,
Blood flows, doors shut, train goes.
24th January Commuter
She’s nipsy-nipsy, oh so tipsy,
Bar shift over overly early,
Po-faced, no Dipsy.
Tinky-Winking like La La Land
But no tips on the bar where the jar-jar stands.
Check out that stance, hot pants sentry,
Sent to guard train entries with
Knee high black socks and the 21st century.
Wonder if she sees me seeing her,
The phone in her hand might as well say
‘Do not disturb’.
Hot blood vessels snake
Up exposed thighs, from the toe to
The heel and then up to the eyes,
Exposing each capable capillary
Lifeforce artillery, papercut distillery,
Silently standing so still it’s verging on inverse versatility
Some static mannequin-type anonymity.
Come on a minutey, for all intents and purposes
She’s intensely focussed on the proclivity of
Low hanging fruit, the pockets that sag like there’s nothing to lose. If only she knew.
Cos short shorts lead to all sorts of
Bertie basset thoughts and liquorice storms.
But of course you can’t force meteorological remorse
Onto the innocence of youth. I mean she’s
Looking mean and meaning business in
A green bomber jacket the colour of a
Golden Virginia tobacco packet.
It’s fucking one degree above zero and
she needs to sort it out, pack it in,
Showing way too much skin…
Now that’s not misogyny, it’s just
A legitimate citizens concern that
When she leaves, she might actually freeze
23rd January Commuter
I’ve got this stranger standing in the corner,
Horny Jack Horner thumbing phones and hoarding plums,
Plumbing the depths, fixing the pipes,
Keeping himself to himself, a penitent life.
Downward facing, shoe gazing,
Grazing the ground with a bland brand on his feet.
Getting stress free is a stressful feat
No strifey, no lighty – but likely to pikey
The pound on the floor, even though I saw it too…
Load up the ammo cos he’s got a coat soaked in camo
Splotches of green and brown
And black and I dunno,
Some trees and nests and stuff
You’d find up above not below
I feel like he’s wearing it just for show
Shifting sands shift his hands
Fingers plugged into the pocket
And thumbs hang on to the rim,
Fingering the discourse
Of the distinguished distance
From belt to buckle, self pleasure cuckold.
Plain faced muggle, must be a struggle to
Control that bedhead bedroll of
Tousled, floppy hair
These mouldy, curly, cabbage locks
Hanging over his face like a shaggy dog.
He ain’t got a Scooby, so surely he’s lost,
Can’t pick a destination,
But sure can pick a spot
A bloom of blackheads dabbed on the nose
Giving birth to a join the dots –
An adolescent lesson
Learned when the weasel goes pop.
Can’t hide it so stop trying
Eyes prying, everybody knows,
We’ve seen it all before like a syndicated show
Stopper, popping popper,
Lopping the top off the last black spot
Put down your top up, don’t call the cops up
Cos the blood lust for black heads
Is a messy mess. It can’t be covered by
Coats covered in birds nests.
So we best test the rest of these pests
Before blessing the depressing
Succession of self proclaimed successes
And the subsequent messes
That we have to digest.
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.
Stories On The Sofa 