archival sleeves

i take a bridge to the opaque sky,

cranes peak above the mist

sanity is no identity

likely to inspire me.

the storm comes,

a lockdown redux

trapped and claustrophobic.

pulling up archival sleeves

although i’m not

the most thoughtful typist

stoic, waiting,

on the fundamental

life changing news

a decade to the day,

again it goes my way

ah friend anxiety,

my quitting finger itches

tomorrow’s loaf will be a belter,

yesterday’s a chinese whisper

my girlfriend got trapped at my flat on the day of a big storm. she left to go home in the morning, but it was so windy she came back. i was just having a normal work day, she was climbing the walls. she baked cookies with chickpea flour. they were pretty nice.

i went through a big archival urge about a year ago. started sorting documents. sketching out timeframes. i think i was preparing to write a memoir. i was worried i was planning on doing myself in. well, its a year later, and i’m glad to say i’m working on a memoir. although, it is not a true story. in the traditional sense.

echolalia

echolalian
echo-location
finds me where?
a lack e acumen;
black pepper and cumin
or is it turmeric?
i use all three for safety and
dod on and dod well,
two is too many bills
moving like a statue,
a foot-soldier,
mystified and amused
das kapital
to cap it all
ex marx the blues

a lot of my poetry comes from echolalia. daft little phrases just get stuck in my head and i want to say them just for the pleasure of the words moving through my mouth.

moving like a statue was a funny thing i heard in a podcast. the speaker meant that they were moved to an emotional response, like they might have on seeing a great work of statuary. but i heard it literally, and my brain said no, statues do not tend to move.

waiting

i wait on a call
and fret on making a call,
feeling powerless, unable
and this is what i mean
when i say i’m strong and stable
wrap up warm for the gilet years
lasagna al forne and an afternoon of beers
it’s like 10 thousand spoons
when all you need is the bus fare to partick
ah well, we’ll get there in the end

i had a job interview. i was waiting for the news. i’d had a couple of disappointments. didn’t want to get my hopes up. but had a good feeling that i dared not develop.

this is the first chorus of part three — which we are calling giletdonism. 2024 had been rocky and i was planning for a somewhat cosier year to follow on.

roll, again

we roll again
through cold thick cream
a runner for four seasons
i believe in
the beauty and
the romance of numbers
fact patterns:
four ones, nine nine nine,
four eights
i can’t help but add
together spectral sums

earlier in the year i wrote of coincidental couples day — we only live in relation to each other. for any two people, whose lives overlap, there will be a day when one is twice the age of the other. i like to celebrate the anniversary of that day with my partner — it was 11.1.1999. four ones and three nines. it was meant to be.

time, again

we feel like time is all we have
when we are under its spell.
but we could abolish it
now,
not tomorrow,
neither yesterday,
in the universal now.
clocks and calendars
are metaphors for our
warped perception of a dimension
that we can not comprehend.

the earth is forever moving in space, such that the events of last week took place literally millions of miles away. are time and space one and the same? does time mean anything at all, on the universal scale? time is relative, even within a single planet there are an infinite permutations of 12 noon. in britain we run with greenwich time as a compromise to keep the trains punctual. but the sun isn’t directly overhead in greenwich while it’s immediately above lerwick.

obligation ii

today i made
a lovely little loaf.
am i a valid toiler?
instead of,
or as well as,
a poetry mine despoiler?
have my met my
productivity minimum
am i entitled to a break yet?
i posit that if workers suffer
ceo’s should go to jail
follow the money to personal wealth
pierce the corporate veil

is it the natural condition of humans to work? how are we to know when to stop? why are we doing the work we are doing, and not some other work? trade under capitalism, we are told by liberal theory is not a zero sum. its beneficial to all parties.

but is it? a huge amount of effort goes into busy work on behalf of the very rich. lawyers, accountants, luxury goods firms, builders making skyscrapers and mcmansions. but most of the world is poor. even in rich countries, there are homeless people who own nothing. should we not pause on space programs for trillionaires at least until everyone has somewhere comfortable to live?

obligation

as a child the buildings
and roads scared me
in their scale
the work of a million lifetimes,
where did they come from?
and what was my obligation?
all my life i’ve suffered
discrimination
just because i’m shy and lazy.
and inattentive
imperceptive, defensive
and stand offish
and prone to mischief.

i am terrible at job interviews. i am naturally averse to self-celebration, and not fast at thinking. a bit overly literal. dumbfounded by even the most predictable tell me about a time when. however, there is one question that i could answer endlessly — tell me your greatest weakness.

in my head

a rolled up blanket
for a headrest buttress
i report
every door i open
i say “this is where the magic happens”
in my head
and laugh
in my head

sometimes the poem is just what i was thinking that day. and where i was thinking it.

the yaktrax

a pointless punishment
for my eczemic fingers
janurian resolvers avoid
pavements rinkish
speak to the sun, the sky,
the sea and the trees
mass palomas fly,
sneeze around disease
rife and virulent,
bring us to our knees
re-shorn past the
pine scent xmas ceme-tery(eee)

my fingers were sore from the cold. the streets were asheet with ice. i bought myself some yaktrax, remembering them from a personal injury legal report. but the ice was gone before i got to wear them. meanwhile, people were throwing out their christmas trees, fed up of love and goodwill and all that sort of stuff.

ending

@poet’s corner 10 dec 2025

fellow poets, the end is nigh.

this is called, the hoarse foreman of the apocalypse

life under actually existing capitalism continues;

a unique combination of boring and stressful

the yoga word lost to an armed counter revolution

be mindful, namaste,

despite the flames, be restful

the firewater fades to a numb, dumb dysphoria

as we tag along

behind the hoarse foreman of the apocalypse

on foot due to cutbacks

i think about time a lot, the hopeless impossibility of the past, its unchanging nature, its doubtful provenance. but do facts remain or do they change over time? the despots of the past become sanitised by history. they become great men. nearly always men anyway.

but we don’t need great leaders. we need stability, peace, equality, food, shelter and entertainment. we need good company.

this is called

endless time

how would you feel

if everything happened forever

if every moment of your life was still ongoing

everything always in total contradiction

i want the unexpected

off script, dumbfound me

astonish me quick

with your attention to retail

when they finish the history books we’ll see

we just have to just accept the past

it happened

i was once diagnosed with a terminal illness. that was the start of my midlife crisis. i was then completely undiagnosed on my 39th birthday. a misread x-ray was all it was. i went to decathlon and listened to madonna.

i remember the days after diagnosis. feeling so heavy. feeling like i could forget to breathe. this is called

lonely consequence

maybe we can choose

our consequences

and gain energy as the

days accumulate

have i mentioned my inability to visualise the future?

scared, listless,

unreadily forced to bear witness

a dusken golden moment lighted

a sudden recognition;

that leaden feeling

when they tell you are going to die

is loneliness,

as much of it as you can have.

my on and off girlfriend and i were finally turning the dial fully to off. we were taking active steps to move on. it seemed like that was what we were going to do. i decided i would focus more on my housework. but as usual. the temptation to check in arose.

inconclusive, in conclusion

anyway, that was yesterday,

with that we close the chapter

for now the winter sun flits

over scarecrows, toclips and frosty nips

and it all begins to feel conclusive

but then the things as usual

start to get ambiguous

and once again of the good souls

we must ask forgiveness

and one last thing. this is the last chorus of the first year of my epic, ongoing, poem, the love epochal.

the redemptive final chorus

o wean in a manger,

your chocolate trough

it’s a preposterous amount but

somehow never enough

i have a theory

that love is pain

different but the same