Biography
I like to express myself using the form of poetry.
It is not a career, it is the need to express emotion.
I hope to move people with my performances.
I put a lot of effort into writing what I hope are original and provocative pieces of work.
I like to entertain, I like to be passionate.
I like to combine my spoken words with imagery, often my own photographic work.
Recently I have been getting involved with making very short five minute films. I have posted the first of which on youtube under my handle of 'thesixtyninemachine'
Speaking of machines, I love machinery. I had a childhood fascination with taking apart old washing machines. Our family owned a 'Servis Super Twin Deluxe' and its ticking timer fascinated me. This fascination with how things worked bled over into my writing with many pieces working in an emotionally mechanical way.
Mechanics, emotion, spoken word; they assemble in my mind, the result are my performances.
I may publish some books soon but for now
I read from alcohol proof, laminated plastic envelopes.
Poetry is a hobby for me.
Samples
this, the killing field
----------------------------
I cant lift you.
You are too heavy
..and anyway you’re hurting
..and have asked I stop in last breath.
Your pain immense
I put you down
I am an anvil
but I am not invincible
Yet I thought I could save you
pulled at open ribs
injuries too severe
Pieces of shrapnel
caused blood streams from your ear
Running into soil
Underground entrenched
And I saw minature rivers, red on black
In desperation scraming the profanites
pleading out your name
the frightened tears streaked
my dusted cherry cheeks
and
I tugged and I dragged at you
ape like
I thumped on your hulk for you
It never worked
And in trench
did rat skulk oblivious
patient with incisors
cursed those ambassadors
Of the inevitable
they survived the shelling
And the shrapnel
Whilst my friends fall.
the foriegn silence seemed innapropiate
as a hundred guns stopped to reload
so
I picked for one last time at you
my own sweat fell on your
half frozen smile,
already dead.
butcher meat but everything
a person, a soul gone
evaporate
but not for me to know
for hope is a poppy soap
opera-
this the killing field.
My hands bloodied and soiled
The field hospital bombed
And the grenadiers called
For reinforcements
told me to fall in.
I took the spade for you
Dug a pit for you
Took a tag from you
Stuck a fag on lips
Put your photograph,
hip flask,
On folded arms,
In the hope,
that those upon a waking, 3 foot under,
Soil
may spark up
with lucifer, bring the devils drink to lips,
dreaming
My rope for you
Never saved, the threadbare knots
gave way to
loyal
devotion
life’s little simple things
thru fire and shells
kept us going
the craven A’s and bells
I took your kit bag,
for we needed that
Then covered your face
The rats had began to Que.
I never saw an albatross
for sky too shot to shoe
any vulture
and enemy did I loathe
carved through once pretty groves
Of garden
splintered.
Cuckoo clock
Infant I stared in anticipation
father wound a cuckoo clock
I had learned of such things
Yet never seen
Such fascination for magic
animorphasised icon
a wooden bird cacooned
attuned an instrument of time
Potentially marooned
Yet such energy in the spring
The tick tock comfort
The gentle rocking rhythm
It infected me
the audience chair spectacular
participants, a stage set on
Winter sun mellow
Highlights blue ribbons, the living room
twisting pipe smoke
such a sombre man set free
by the forgotten box clockwork key
Joy revealed the hidden emotion
That lingered on lined skin
A smile cracking
A simple thing
So out of reach
He knows the approaching
command performance
imminent
his confident confirmation
his rocking slowed
watching ,one minute to 3
the cuckoo first called
And in a symphony we smiled
Father and son
I spent my remains life in anticipation
For similar things
Long after daddy had gone
--------------------------------------------------
3,20 AM
There she lay
in the throws of slumber
and me
my futile counting of numbers
wide awake annoying
fingertips rake
splitting hair
the problems of a day
and you just there
breathing
bedside
your sleeping form
I am the motionless man
I Fidget in a most considerate manner
with thoughts the burdens
and words that stammer
for I fear to share
at This cruel hours lair
In bed, tis surely criminal,
To wake and break,
the breathing beauty rhythm,
sighs of mostly silence.
her hypnotic security
is after all
feeding me, endless
as my inner voice bleats
a restless leg
cotton sheets
barriers
I thread
a focus of thoughts
shifting slowly
but curled, the core, if only
she were awake
a warm mass of more
of her is what I need
so shuffling over, I shape her form
and body warmth
creeping yawns
at daybreak
the lush lawns
semi- illuminate
curtains often open
she is a colour
harmonious
4,13 am
I finally drift
lids sagging shift
a melatonin melt
she the sandman felt
I should finally
Sleep.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The wonderful Mr Frost
He crept up our path
Cunning Mr frost
Crossed crazy pave chasms
as solid became door mat bristle
and garden blades of grass.
He reached impossible places,
Roof tiles and church spires,
Tower blocks and bar fires,
It must be magical
To touch things glancing.
To brush them
to paint them white, on toe tip prancing
To glance and glide silently
Enchanting our village
In the middle of the night.
Glazing our pond
He the creator of wonderland genius
with nipping, the air bites
milky skin once cold ignites,
With a curious, invisible heat.
Somehow we survive
And only the running defeat him
Mr frost, made us motionless.
Unaware as we sleep, as new day rises,
feet exposed, from duvet awaking leapt
excited eyes wide at your canvas, stretch
you covered every object in crystal!
rushing goose-pimples rise on an intake of breath
a vapour trail on blue, fulfilled yet bereft
of words
a window creaks open on wonderland
and with reddened rubbing
huff cupping of hands
his melting world awaits.
my howling hollow
--------------------------
The air has blown a howling hollow
And left nothing inside
Such the power of your scream goodbye
Such the power of the tumbling ring
And the resentment in the eye
That leaves
The kitchen sink has swallowed
The howling hollow followed
Goodbye
So many married words
The I do’s of the confetti herds
Have gathered in the aisles
And arranged themselves
In top hat and tail
With hope the king
In pastry tiers and icing flails
The diamond bling
the whipping tales
Of a wedding dress
White
And veiled
And lacy veils say it all
Hiding eyes
You were never 100% pure
The semi covered face
the quickened scrawl
Of a thousand wedding invites
The church hall is empty now
The high rise plughole
A reality cow
The star machine
No longer milking
‘ TV Chat’ and ‘99p bella’ reflect
On the table top neglect
Of flicked through magazines
In a salon
As she sits in a lathered daydream
With the sun tan imprint
Still in-between her third finger
The band of gold
Has ceased to linger there
Poem from a train (pathetic am I) parts 1 & 2
----------------------------------------------------------------
Parts 1 + 2
Hopefully i'll get a good seat
-a window seat
Hopefully i'll miss the rush hour
dodge the sleet
of my mind.
Somehow escape
With a daydream into peoples back yards.
The border of the British rail.
I see the plastic slides
and all that it entails
to maintain bouncy castles
In outer space.
Their only place
The garden.
The families begin to rust
Like the carriage lamps
And the sagging busts of sandstone
Drenched
The castles quenched the desire
For the fortress
And quagmire that becomes
The estate.
Lucky I escaped on this train then.
The flashing faces are freeze frames
The pointed fingers
Of the lame
blame each other
as the domestic row
Is obvious to me for those few seconds.
They are in my line of sight
My visibility is splayed
And the milk tray, tacky and melting
is Laid out
in a living room, halogen downright lit
By a man in a black jump suit
athletic git, jumping
Ah…
He is only a shadow-
I was mistaken for a second-
The carriage lamps had flickered.
I’m disappointed, pen tip thumping my brow,
I have seen water features
Flash by
-Inspired by the cleavage of Charlie Dimmock.
I have seen semi naked
Flesh
And the exuberant eye
Of a divorcee
Presumably
How dare I!
assumtion! , ha! -
the ass of you and me
who the bugger do I think I am
sat here.
but I love it
the peeping
I loved to perv into her stocking clad
Windows
revell in a strangers underwear strewn
And her red lit room
Invited me
For a few seconds . . .
I thought I may be in the dam rack
Until a nudging mum pram basket
Flat pack knocked my knee jerk reaction
Back to dodge her shopping tack flack
And get out of the way.
Bet she’s a single mum
the shell suit says it all
Dreadful of me.
You idiot I call myself
who the bugger am I.
Such assumptions
In a fantasy world
I create a stage
And hurl the characters upon it
I watch Nike clad morons
Bang bin lids
As though they are apes
With sticks of bones
As though they are out to become
The overthrown elite
Of society
And who can blame them
In this ludicrous place
Of overblown phones
Oozing technology
The spotted clones of hoods
And arrogant teen thuds of defiant feet
they find a seat, close to me
in the carriage.
Yes, I know you have arrived, no need to make a noise.
They want to be somebody
Just like me
Clambering
Gasping
But somehow still alive
The song goes
And I attribute
The thrown hands
As drowning
As I sat all comfortable
In standard class
Through scratched Perspex
That should be glass
And dignity dictates
the reluctance to scratch my
derriere in public
so instead I tolerate and
do the stiff upper lip bit
for my kind and
gyrate slightly in the hope to satisfy
all the while it rushes by
the outside, oblivious
do you really think they would give a damn
about an itch on my ass?
Who the bugger am I?
I see
the microsecond arguments like Polaroid’s
they fade from nothing
I see
the cracking cement
of a crazy paving path unitended
I see
the new born and the bent
the baby bouncers
and the loafers lent
and the sofas rent to CSL lounge suits incorporated
unlimited credit problem inherited
the adolescent cubicles, hutch and a bunk
for the social defunct - I blame the parents
for the whole stinking mess
for allowing
50 cent wallpaper
made of fools gold guest
innovated, lest QVC.
in 100 years time
I’m told it will all be a bad idea
like the road in the sky
or the high rise streaking tear
of imprisonment
life
and the backyard estate
life and the elevated mistakes
I watch it all
this is not a ghost train
this is British Rails ride through suburbia
this is me thinking i'm further
from it
than I really am.
Pathetic am I
-----------------------------------
WHITE GOODS
White Goods (pt2)
Posted on Tuesday 26th August 2008 7:31 pm
I went to see God in the out of town shopping centre
He has invited me to buy
64 thousand five hundred and seventy eight
independently priced washing machines
he sold me the merits of every one
in a trance I watched the drums spin and the pair of us stood together
like gay lovers on a his and hers shopping exhibition
I wore the trousers this time
I am amazed at the technological advances
he tells me that one model in particular
can actually play music as it attends to your wife’s
fifty knuckle shuffle
I corrected him and told him she was a he.
I asked whether it would stop her moaning
He stuttered momentarily, then looking perplexed,
replied that he would have to check the instruction leaflet.
Pete Crompton, 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Life is) Slowly becoming a disaster
"When ‘we’ finally did choose the paint
Silk or matt, it ain’t something
I want to do again, but I know I will and that I have to
all that squatting in the Que
4 hours-just to leave a sodding car park
and at the last minute
my injuries were insulted once more
for
the sprogs declared a desire for ice cream JUST as we left the car park
-the little sods poured it all over my leather seats
and then it started raining,again.Then a wiper blade failed"
despite the downpour
optimistic people trudge deluded
the open sandal shoes
mostly middle age
mostly starting to lose all hair
middle class
pairs peering out
over stacks of double glazed glass
his n hers
debating their desires
arguing the toss
on gas stoves or electric fires
lets share the artificial flames
the backdrop to the perfectly arranged
aisles of choice.
and
The heartless manipulators and security guards
Watch from sonic sockets
Their smoked Perspex spheres hide cameras
They scan for bulging pockets
then zoom in on you
cleavge loving pervs
Empower themselves with security
They make
Cold eyes
And demonstrably devise
New and invigorating ways
In which to stimulate us.
Themselves so mindless and voyeuristically bored
Parallel run the lines and shelves
Parabolic the mirrors
Demented the minimum wage elves
Stacking row upon row
For endless pockets we delve
For things we don’t really need
But like any hob knobbed biscuit greed
We lap it up anyway
And feel guilty
As the guarantee that came with these consumer disposables
Did not include greed or stupidity.
The push bike exercise machine
Made in Korea
Lasted only seventy nine miles
Or was that your tolerance for diet
it never happens and he pats the fat
gets
tugged by a child
realises that
this: this is all he will ever be
this: it is all he is ; all he ever will be
unless he wakes up
from what is slowly becoming
a disaster.
All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.
Last blog entry
Posted on Thursday 20th November 2008 1:02 am
Something wonderful
Don’t focus on the negative-
too much of it already.
better left unsaid
its not worthy.
we all share it
all know its there
darkness does its to own work.
brighter things she said
are better
loving things she said
theyre better
makes it better
should enter troubled heads
more often
so now I nurture
it helps with the smiling
Shant dwell in the dark
rather, soften
as I realise
hands alone cannot change the hard
shouting has never softened the shard
upon which we are all cut
from time to time
yes all of us
share mine, yes
and ill share yours
bless
see, now, how we all smile!
under feet
Pave gold, goes our troubled mile!
every day a test but
let light in, if only a while
a start
you must do
it helps you live
opens heart
brighter things need not be chained
or elusive she said
you are imperfect she said
accept yourself
once wound, once bled
gone now, safe
let it all go, give
to someone, heal
you can you do, Ive seen you
tension makes a prisoner
bars are made to see thru
escape
with wondrous things in heart
stronger is your shield
and yes
let the guard down sometimes
for that’s important too
as
Love can’t get in if you block it
and
Light only makes shadows
If you stop it
this
list of loving things
mother said
shall
find light in which to write
for she had given birth
so passage comes to light
this sun
now I breathe these waterfalls
where once the dead of night
Previous: Hello darling, I'm home again
View or make comments. (3 comments)
Mia Darlone
Wed 12th Nov 2008 12:43
Many joyous thanks for your very pleasant comment about The Liver Is Evil..... I perform it in charactor, but it is actually largely based on...er....my own actions. Though I haven't slept with someone with an overcomb. (Not for the lack of trying).
Really like 3.20am and My Howling Hollow. And White Gods!