isn’t it

yesterday 

is just behind the ridge behind you

tomorrow 

is just in front of the ridge in front of you

spin around

but

you’ll never catch sight of them

you know the past 

you guess the future 

but you’ll never see them

today is 

well

it just is

isn’t it

tell me tomorrow when today is past 

and if it did in gentle’s lightening hours

and if it did in gentle’s lightening hours,

  chance upon the dewed bird’s early worm,

and daisying with the dawn-eyed flowers,

  another summer’s day confirm.

and then they play the old songs, the summer list,

  from the days when we met our chance,

and my tears, thin as upon this morning mist,

  fall sweetly now upon your enquiring glance.

and all our knowing, twirls around that look,

  that held-breath upon the lake of time;

and love that started as a brook,

 now combines the tributaries of you are mine.

and in the darkling down slow hours

  that bat across the flitting moon,

and at these bookend days of ours,

  that came all but too soon,

we’ll fade together, day to night, 

  so hold my hand as i hold yours,

and we’ll kiss goodnight to night.

on the edge of sleep

there’s a park

between sleep and hark

where the serpent guile 

is upon the surf of dreams 

and sometimes dark

and sometimes light

and sometimes day

and sometimes night 

roundabout the park

empty swings play

and demand we cling on tight

ere we dive in

and dream the while away 

sound the alarm

sound the alarm

the colour of sand

he wanted it the colour of sand

over and over

he said he wanted it the colour of sand

as he walked past with his dog

but you have to eat i said

i don’t know why i thought that 

but i kept on telling him

over and over

you have to eat

from 6 am until 7 am

or the colour will not be real

but he was not listening 

it was as if he wasn’t there

dread

we crept into the graveyard 

through the twisted rusty fence 

through the rustling russet bushes

to see the blackbird on her nest

but she was dead 

dead and sitting there

dead upon her nest

turning the dread ran out with us

through the twisted rusty fence

god i hate everyone

god i hate everyone

the ones who drop litter,

leave it there, let’s drown in it,

  i say!

the ones who park on the pavement

in their hierarchical metal boxes,

coded, badged, and booted.

warrior, animal, and vegetable too.

the sod you generation,

the era of the sod you, sod you,

sod you;

   sniff.

the noisy ones, and the daft ones,

and the ones around the back;

in their nowheres, with

their barbecues, 

barbarising their mistakes.

the fag parents of the fag brains,

in their fag brain obese-mobiles.

  i sodding hate ‘em all.

the blue-rinsers oozing down the scent

of the perfumed hoi polloi, 

their powder layered thick as thieves

of time when time’s run out.

and the squeaky, speaky girls, with their

alabaster faces plastered brown;

oh do make up your bloody mind,

all i see are painted clowns;

but do you think

you looking good? or are

you good for looking at?

  oh for god’s sake!

all that’s fashion is out of fashion,

they are fashioned to be plebeians;

imbecile and infantile.

your mundane conversations, 

the same on tuesday, wednesday,

all week through;

not one fundamental question

follows your how do you do you do

  what?

the promenading doggy dumpers,

with their little bags of doggy poo,

nattering about their doggy dos,

and did they do, and do they do?

  ah sod you, sod you,

    sod you all.

       i hate you all.

      

every single one of you.

remember?

remember?

they are gone now

and i cannot remember them.

how they fitted together so well,

and how i spoke through them.

i never said goodbye, or tartar. 

each extraction was brutal,

a last love-bite and they were gone.

and my curly hair, in sepia;

i can no longer feel the coiled springs,

or the henna of the sunlight.

now in the twilight of my life

i cannot remember them.

every toe nail and finger nail that

i had grown up with and without,

where are they now?

composted where i point; over there.

gone their sublime scratching of the itch

of a flaky skin. i cannot remember.

that exfoliating epithelial rejuvenation,

the snow falling from the buds.

scratched note fading from the hands of time.

i cannot tell if the wardrobe dust is mine,

or yours. so how can i remember.

the red blood cells and their ruddy recycling.

the zillions of gametes that will never meet.

the bone swimming in a mineral sea.

the tears that have flowed.

with the peristalsis to the drain,

its microbiome in full reign.

all gone from my memory.

as the moisture on my breath

condescends to fade,

so do my memories sublimate,

until nothing of substance can be left.

so who am i now?

what is left me now?

an everlasting brush that had

numerous new handles and heads?

now upon the pyre of goodbye. 

however much you drink of the past,

you will piss it away in time.

regard the reflection of your mind,

always one step out-of-step

with the neural ion flux,

that the eons have prescribed.

chip away at the temporal pole and

the tent of thought will collapse upon you;

as your fly-sheet soul in fleeing flies

refusing the evening’s last goodbyes.

i do not recognise the memories,

still ...