the futile push

i decry the wasted effort
of nationalism
if you look for
a thing that isn’t there
finding it
will take forever
but we keep looking
for sovereignty
as if it could keep us warm
or fill our bellies
when we have for long
lived in an age of empires
we bear the fasces epochal
as the colonial ceasefire breaches
yet more racist murders
sanctioned.
victory is hollow.
temporary.
achievement too
the only thing
is the process
of making
of caring
of loving

all nationalism is bad, it really doesn’t matter what country it relates to. all nationalism is rooted in complacency, historical delusions, perverse grudges, jingoism, racism, fairy tales and holy violence.

the struggle of one is the struggle of all. when we reject that, we are forced into a debilitating cognitive dissonance that blurs all boundaries. when you adopt a team and make it your identity, yet have no control of the team, you are creating the circumstances for terrible moral compromises.

we will be the trees

o naked forest nation
dressed for lamb,
for mutton razed
the trees will come back
(and we will be the trees)
i take a ride to salubrity,
see the mountains and the sea
strong on the pedals
stable on the wheels
insecure and antisocial
that is my appeal
hold on tight for the gilet years
keep it strong and stable
on two round wheels
unique to the animal kingdom
is the migratory mamil
i guess we’ll know when,
if we get there in the end

nobody talks about middle aged men in lycra any more. society must have become more tolerant. it really is the best stuff to wear to cycle around the strange barren place we call scotland. we fed our trees to deers or something. highland clearances. many sheeps. but i think the trees will win in the end. the forests will return and there will be no scotland, no people, just trees, chilling, quietly social, plugged in to the funghi superhighway, posting memes on tree reddit.

grease this time

get a guestie
on the govanhill greasefire
episode ensemble
bonus glorious
morning trail
and more guest stars

there was a fire near my girlfriend’s flat and it brought everyone out onto the street. there was a real community spirit. my pal f. cycled right past and didn’t notice me, such was his stare at postcombustional scene. neighbours chatted like old friends. fortunately, fires are common in this town.

the next morning we went on a trail run with the rub club and i saw another old friend, r, with his kid, getting into the car for the school run.

it’s been a year and i’ve barely spoke to a neighbour since!

hot snot

lobster myself in the bath
remembering mark speight
cornfed tariff chicken
chicane con carnie
woke to find my head
sealed shut with snot and gunk
a dank lurgy palisade
that stymies my endeavour

poor mark speight. why do i remember him though, and not the woman involved? i think they were maybe both minor celebs — children’s entertainers? and they did a load of cocaine and then she had a very hot shower and died and he went on the run and killed himself. anyway, i often think of this when in a hot bath or shower.

and there’s some echolalia in there i think about mark carney and taco — trump always chickens out. i’m a big fan of the unhedged podcast.

the echo boom

the tyranny of timidity
blocked up in the aisle
tiny teenager in
a bad seeds tee
it comes round in loops
the echo boom
so hear my sole
soliloquy
my chance to have
my soul put free
just some cunt
from the internet team
a macbook on finance
and a dream i forgot
and can’t remember

the millennials are the most rebranded generation in history. we started out as the echo boomers — because we are the offspring of the baby boomers, who were a much larger generation that generation x, we were in turn larger as a cohort then either gen x, or their issue, generation z.

those of you who know the alphabet may have realised that millennials were also generation y. i prefer generation y, because of it’s homophone — why.

we are the generation that asks, why are we here at all? and some of us are turning 42 this year. hello, douglas adams fans.

leaving paris

into traffic:
glacial jam
leaving
the doorknob poles behind
leaving
a trail of lime green snot

while in paris we were both on the cusp of illness. we were snorting first defence a lot. it just about got us through. paris was very fun. there are daft poles with doorknobs on them all over the place.

dear parisiennes, what are your knobs for? why so wonky?

paris

a hot time
in the lukewarm
hot tub
in the paris finca
dirt ship
down, max
imum
zen on the seine
you read your
local,
bell jar
let me light your plath
take me
to the
bistro
i love and missed you
nap to
moon sa
fari
slurp some snails at paul’s
to an
extent
we are
all, somewhat, a
hyster
ical
baby
in a pram being pushed down a paris boulevard

i love holiday poems. this holiday was the biggest rush. i barely had time to get my phone out my pocket. we were cycling around paris, cafes, cocktails, sightseeing, dinner. i bought a packet of fags. wish i hadn’t as despite not having bought another pack since i’m back on the nicotine replacement therapy.

hello goose my pope is dying

its world war three
and the pope’s half deed
leave a breathe in the air
by the muddy rinsed geese
we share the animal
experiences:
hunger, etc.,
fear and sleep
so, umwelt notwithstanding,
i feel you deep

it is such a shame that our communication with animals is so inaccurate, or at least, hard to verify. sometimes the dog brings me a toy though, and i think, aw, she saw the toy, and thought of me. came to find me. i exist in her internal world.

and she exists in mine. here i am writing a blog about her. rip the last pope.

n.n. the sailor man

you worked so hard for that,
you said when i ended.
that’s all i want from life —
my struggle commended
a delicate elbow
cannot be diminished
i’m just like pop-eye
but i don’t eats me spinach

hello welcome to march, the month that’s also an instruction. a good month for spring reasons. but not my favourite. that’s may, the month of invitation. a lot of the poetry this month is goo related. snot. snails.

i start the month by plagiarising myself. i love, adore, plagiarising my worst lines. i once recorded a song with the couplet, ‘i am much sexier than neil kinnock, i’m tougher than pop-eye, but i don’t eats me spinach’. suffice to say, that song wasn’t a hit. also, i did eat spinach regularly at the time. i don’t anymore.

atlas tugged

earth is comprised of water, mud and metal
so is the human body.
and as we pump pollutants into the air
we literally incorporate them,
a singular ticket to where?
i’m in my prime and,
unlike miss jean brodie,
atlas tugged
people expand in space to take it all
when i just want to be so small
hitlerism is coming back
and i’m as depressed as i am scared
and i’m suddenly not sure,
is everyone humouring me or not?

i’d just read primo levy’s masterpiece ‘the periodic table’ and was touched greatly by it. the vile inevitability of war, hatred and suffering, coexisting, always, with the fantastic beauty of the cultural world. as the bombs dropped, the poets worked on in the dark.

the culture war will exist forever. because there will always be the poetic and the curious on one side, and the bullies on the other side, who think that poetry is an affront to them, because they dare not try and understand it. and even now, when the bullies are fundamentally in control of america and the internet, they strike against poetry, and call us elitist, when all we are is a disparate mass trying to make sense of the hatred in the world, and imagine something nicer.