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.

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

reverse engineering

every poem, novel, recipe 

and joke 

exists quiet in the ether

the poet doesn’t create 

she discovers; 

with a notebook she uncovers.

a subterranean homesick miner,

reverse engineering the blueprints

of a universal designer

in a universe without life, does maths exist? does moral philosophy? do poems only exist after the are written? or are they just waiting to be found?

reus brexitus 

brexitus rex, a fencepost; 

no entry for french blokes 

yes hello we are here 

it is act two of don quixote

or quixote like quick’s oat

(though i prefer key oh tick, 

like chaotic)

in which we ask,

will the windmills we recall 

from the first act charge back?

in which we find,

that windmills

don’t charge on poets

happy new year.

i started publishing the poem a year after i started writing it. and as i published, i continued writing, but within a new context. in cervantes’ don quixote, book two was written after book two was published, and don quixote’s resulting fame was part of the story – the other characters he encountered has already read the first book. the first novel and the first example of metafiction. so if you are the sort of reader who throws the book at the wall when the author is introduced as a character, i’m sorry to inform you that this has been part of the challenge novels present to readers since the start.