things move around

Thursday, nothing to recommend it,

just bother. No bother,

I’ll send it
to you - here’s hoping you incapacitate each other.

- take two aspirin

Belgium.

Not big enough, and not cold enough.

It’s time Brussels sprouted. It’s time Friesland became Freezeland.

Laydeeez and gentlmn, intadusin the undisputed heavyweight champion othwrld, the anitmacassar of the massacre, the dude

who’d

dismember you in September, flay you in May, and all year round, be crass and crude -

it’s camera-monium! Laydeeezngentlmn, he’s killed killer bees with his bare knees, he’s pulverised plovers, he’s squeezed six maidens from six overs, he’s eviscerated everything that’s ever been consecrated! He fells his enemies like rowan trees and makes amends to their friends by halving his fees! He’s

the smasher, the trasher, the faker, the maker, the only poet who can show it in public, the psychaedelic shaman of the world y’aint got admittance to, the trigonometrical, assymetrical, hypothetical bogeyman of your childrens’ dreams and your so-scared nightmares, the zilliontime champion othwrld -

Rocky Balboa.

(he’s a bit of a goer!)

god knows i miss the tepid tea
and the emphysemics
and the idea

that they could be here
if i were there
on wigan pier

if i could be there
sucking in that air

i would be there

wigan north western
you have given to me enough
to deserve a fuck of a lot more than this

pissing down
been out in you
on that job

and knew i was in england
unhappy, but in england
none of which was true
but i was surrounded by a people
who, though pustulent, wouldn’t
give up to the french or americans
anything

because they knew
not in their shirt pockets but in their hearts
about being somewhere
that had been occupied millenia ago /
that had been occupied millenia before

can’t call me that anymore

intelligible
that i knew what it meant
to call england home

got on a plane and there england went
like chaff from a fighter plane

like the indian fucking rajah alone

is chillies

the bastard strolled off a side-road and came alongside me at the junction three blocks from where i live.

he overtook me. i quickened my step and overtook him. quickening his step, he overtook me again, the bastard.

i quickened my step when we got to the first side road, and overtook the bastard. i could hear his footsteps two feet behind mine and to the left. a man approached from the opposite direction with a slavering labrador on a long leash. instinctively i moved to the left, to avoid the man, aware as i did so that there would inevitably be repurcussions. result: dog, man, bastard, me, all over the sidewalk like so much spilled donair on a friday. i was the first on my feet again, closely followed by you know who, and both of us quickened our step.

this was ridiculous. we were walking as fast as your average shitzu runs. and that’s a pretty fast walk, for those of you who’ve never owned a shitzu. my shins were suffering and a crucifix of sweat was painting itself across the back of my shirt, which had the top two buttons undone due to the unseasonal heat. when the bastard got ahead of me again, i kicked him as hard as i could in the calf, to try and take him out momentarily. we were only a block from home.

thought i was home free, when i felt a twang in my hamstring. looked round, and the bastard was going past me, a bloody knife in his right hand. i grabbed his ankle and hauled him to the floor. what the fuck right did he have to overtake me? none. i punched him hard in the groin, then the neck. i picked up his knife from the floor and rammed it into his thigh - see how he likes it. he had short black hair, a straight nose and everything else average. i wanted to say something, but i couldn’t, i just wanted to get to the end of the block first.

i could tell he wanted to say something to me, but that wasn’t what mattered. i overtook him and got home.

Some men when put out in the sun grow skin like vellum;
some men when put out in the sun repent.
Others grow lustful and rut like dingos in the dust;
others misremember days misspent.
Some men when put out in the sun swell up like watermelons;
some men when put out in the sun barely blink.
Others flicker like imps and then spontaneously combust;
others decompose into ammonium and zinc.

The telephone trilling like a crazed popinjay.

Viscid drool on varnished mahogany.

Paperclips as far as the eye can see.

’s epigrams