painted into a corner
I paint myself inspired, intense,
dismayed but remain just a fat old man
who can’t get laid
such a contrary slut
bathing myself in the corporate filth
served in styrofoam cups
the master of diversion
ooh look
the circus is in town
maybe now is my chance
to pull up and over and run away
with a tired old sawdust queen
sold as seen
amidst this arrid contemplation
...
Saturday 28th December 2013 8:42 pm
grey sky drinking
I ponder the etiquette of nursing a pint
and whether some might find it impolite
if I made it last just little while longer that I
might watch the rain that crawls on the steamed windows
making broken ghosts of every passer by
each of them eager to avoid
catching the eye of the living and I wonder
which one of them broke winter’s heart such as to make it
so bitter
Saturday 28th December 2013 8:27 pm
Free Poetry Book
Well when I say book I mean a pdf file that is readable on Kinfle, iBooks etc.
If you'd like a copy of my latest missive, Scratch, send me an email with Scratch as the title tp
psands62@yahoo.com
Thursday 26th December 2013 5:48 pm
did I ever say I was “good people”?
did I ever say I was “good people”?
some days I miss the hasty shouting
the crack of fist on salted cheekbones
better that than the nauseous choice
of considered upholstery or designer phones
never weather appropriate, rather, accident
ripped and bleeding, waiting for some other
and days my head will fill with men of war
always in shock yet mostly in awe
a...
Sunday 22nd December 2013 5:02 pm
where there are fish you will often find bicycles (in six days god did what?)
An exquisite (ish) corpse experiment conducted over the period of a week, earlier this year, writing unedited what popped into my head admittedly with prior knowledge of the line preceding but never letting that force me down a certain narrative route
where there are fish you will often find bicycles
(in six days god did what?)
sunDAY 1
save the shamen monkey for a cleaner time
...Tuesday 17th December 2013 9:26 pm
Paper
consider your condition
consider more the price we paid
consider yet a jacket
lest your broken spine betray your age
while edges yellow, sun buffed,
tar coughed & ready rubbed,
I still allow the nicotinic stain
spread across my fingered thumbs
for every page I turn speaks of
the thousand hands that opened
each leaf and countless eyes that scanned
the edifying ants ...
Sunday 1st December 2013 8:48 pm
Gulls
formed in v they fly
o’er top o’me
bellies, usually driven snow,
this morning
honey dipped in hiemal morning’s glow
til’ falling, scrap and skreel
fo’ morsels discarded
by genteel and boor
for there is no inequity
in commission to cloy the
ever open maw
Wednesday 27th November 2013 12:49 pm
Just A Simple Trip
riding through the wild ways
the green lays
the driven baize
and blinded
by the rain brilliant
bitumen burnishing
sun strafed degenerate rays
every crested rise
revealed an air superior
gray dicing the mazarine,
slicing the fourteen plus,
between here
and where I should have been
no storied moral here
just a simple trip
Thursday 14th November 2013 9:23 pm
I Won't Go Down, Not Even With Alice
we, the understated,
the lazily represented,
decree that
once the poetry
bends at the knee
in the gilded confines
of SW1
it is another victory
swung the way
of surrender
better, say we,
to be a person of interest
than acquiescent metrist
invited to tea
Sunday 10th November 2013 4:34 pm
Between The Hats
I have outgrown both the years
and the clothes
which had my name sewn into them
this doesn’t mean I no longer need help
to figure out who I am
my gloves are no longer twinned
by umbilical wool
but I appreciate you holding my hand
while leading me through this cold weight
I am living in those times
between hats
though if god were bothered to look
h...
Wednesday 16th October 2013 11:00 pm
Interest Only
Friday 20th September 2013 9:00 pm
Mutuality
friends of friends and an orgy of mutuality
each one ripe for the fucking until we greedily
eat our own tails
I find myself running low on chemistry
with so little reaction left inside of me
the water around the plug hole no longer spins,
it only falls
architectural wounds
cannot heal beneath this razor’s murderous haste
while the cognisant ...
Friday 20th September 2013 8:47 pm
written in the dirt
this autumn morning
winter’s aperitif
is served on the rocks
shaken and stirring
come downpour now
unleash your jotting scribe and
cast the showery runes of fables untried
forge scripts along our droughty lanes
of songs for all that yet remain
or wash away those pages brown,
whelm witness to our temporal sway
we’ll listen to the eager eart...
Thursday 5th September 2013 9:58 pm
shelter '76
along the length of a blue dusting lung busting puckered roof
and fingers the gaps where once there was glass
wire veined, designed to resist
a boot, a fist a flick of the wristy bone
trebuchet yet now carpeting this concrete nest
of surly youth in a crystal expression of boys
when they are bored
nowhere better then than this Park Drive smo...
Tuesday 3rd September 2013 9:37 pm
River Prayers
from between the leaves
the shafts fall and draw
a hundred golden atria
shining through
the stained organics
of liquid glass
to the cloistral faithful
swimming beneath
Thursday 29th August 2013 8:12 pm
buddy can you spare
you’re cold, button up,
batten down the hatched glass
these mean talking ghosts offer
little anonymity to the marrowfat
of shoulder high memories
sister in all but time
an “a star” in the morning
yet the many delights,
ours but for the cleansed eyes
and thighs, came as you sounded
memory in your truth’s thunder
blackened through evi...
Saturday 24th August 2013 8:35 pm
Snooping Readership
Some of us are grateful to the NSA. GCHQ and Prism because at least we know somebody is reading what we write
Thursday 22nd August 2013 11:37 am
Tipping Point
This is not a begging letter, this is not a plea for validation or soothing words. This is a statement of fact. When I still owned musical instruments and could play a note or too I found it difficult to control. I wanted it to be all encompassing, my raison d'être. In 1999 I realised that I was kidding myself, I was just too ordinary, and that such desire was both unhealthy and damaging and co...
Tuesday 20th August 2013 12:11 pm
New Collection Available
http://www.lulu.com/shop/paul-sands/scratch/paperback/product-21160352.html?showPreview=true
Saturday 17th August 2013 11:18 am
Coming soon
Currently compling my second collection of poetry.
It will be available in paperback in the usual places but also as a free pdf file to download and read on your reader of choice
Thursday 15th August 2013 10:28 am
unititled
yesterday caught up, panting,
riding the crashed cash of signed association
and mimicked accusations of bleak envy
with several scenes already written
most earning a one star rating
from the hindsight of double scrutiny
were that jeopardy a statute of memory
nervous cats might not need to dress to impress
and hide non fictional facts from
the dirty word...
Wednesday 31st July 2013 3:49 pm
fear yourself
and thought itself is dread
sometimes
begs to grip a taller hand
while quivering on the clipped
lithium dawn
facedown
though now
a vital non mover
playful as a frozen clue
what if friction is as cold
is as still
as hateful hearts?
when all out of truth
we used dream ears
throat upon throat
nineteen welcomed shadows
...
Wednesday 31st July 2013 3:47 pm
got it in 4, warts 'n' all
with a ruder writing awakened
this executioners mark sat wasted on a girlish pout
once the stupid bodies of the foolish dead
were dragged by the fanned shoes
crooked classics needing no further background checks
unbridled is what it is
the empty right hand hugged as tumbled denial
where distance curled your recognised existence
pine tobacco growled a rounde...
Tuesday 11th June 2013 3:16 pm
my own private calvary
every lamppost begets a graveyard
a thick bottomed slice of burnt offerings
to the insect gods
upon seeing this the blackened birds drop
eating, now,
from a sugared spoon
the wind comes from nowhere and just holds me
a manly duality, with a laissez faire sexuality
and when it drops those birds settle on my
fingers and cough for my attention
far too ...
Friday 31st May 2013 6:09 pm
theta wave
are we recording?
yes?
with that the withered concierge told me
“we don’t want your type around here
too white”
regardless I made love to a cultural icon
away from the conference table
out of sight of the knowing grins
I made her smile
and as ziggy played for time with no
reason nor rhyme
there and then I decided to hide this story in a
cavernous...
Thursday 30th May 2013 11:00 am
may it never, yet it does
the monsters used to live under the bed
now they walk the streets, most often,
with halos around their heads
cold sunbeams stiffen my hyphenated bones
and even singing does nothing
to evaporate the frosted water in my veins
splash my neck
slap my face
I’m sick of talking, I get no satisfaction
from my lower case hate
Saturday 25th May 2013 4:03 pm
Good Morning, Good Morning
this house is awakening
it yawns and stretches its
aged bones, as last night’s ghosts scurry
home, with the copper blood running
warm through worm pricked floors
I lie,like you, while you lie,
like me, under the nights warm stink
and the claw and the purr
of the cat’s half lidded lazy gaze
as the foundations shake with each
passing race of 18 wheel freight
Saturday 18th May 2013 3:18 pm
Quietly, I
quietly, quietly sat a lie
arms outstretched
palms staked to the fierce eye
observing within
as, first, flesh mottles
closer still to see without
while blister
vermilion doubts
one apiece of each
seized mortal engine
dripped of framed wax
placed in a filleted whole
gas pored
for a hungry earth
this is all I wish today
let each word die in a dusty throat
a melt th...
Tuesday 7th May 2013 11:56 pm
Bone
and spat it out
and for many years it crawled
before it learned to stand
where it said “I will make you now a fresh bowl,
from my family’s blood”
Friday 19th April 2013 7:43 am
MQ-9
seen through the columns of rising smoke
the intention couldn't be clearer
while the tattooed roads wear the organic stains
as footholds for a memory of fallen phosphor rain
yet more caustic the harvest we reap
from the drone-grown, crone wept bones
even as the stone groves grow over the dead hope of
the pebble eyed children in their dreamless sleep
...
Tuesday 16th April 2013 9:59 pm
Itchy
each night I sleep
entwined in the comfortable branches
of a mossy oak
by day I play
among the lissom saplings
and wonder
how far I might still bend
Tuesday 16th April 2013 5:57 pm
mild frenzy
they lined up
in their smart suits and executive hair
outside the foundation stone
of a nations ruin ready to eulogise
to heap praise upon a legacy
of division
the traffic slowed
and the tempers frayed in a burg
where there is never enough
most had left by 8PM
save one expecting maybe
a ghost?
returning at the earliest light
most h...
Tuesday 9th April 2013 3:28 pm
I'm working dammit
Sunday 7th April 2013 8:10 pm
what crisis?
what crisis?
nowadays they have to pinch the ends
of their cigarettes before they cross the threshold
no longer allowed to herd the crumbling swarms
of ash across the gingham veldt
outside the window, on the pavement, lies a bible
and the radio declares their readiness is high
seems like a good night to let the smokers
in and warm around a last ember...
Friday 5th April 2013 8:39 pm
Cromer
the sea is rattling bones today
and the wind holds my ears to ransom
for want of a scarf and a hat
she is walking on the promenade
and wants no part of the play
so I am talking to the man on the pier
with the rods and ask
“what’s your game?“
whiting
and if he’s lucky
bass
Wednesday 3rd April 2013 8:25 pm
spring billed jack
the jackdaws bruised the garden today
borrowing sticks, stealing hay
the sticks we can eventually have back they say
once seasoned by the summer’s fray
I tell them they can keep them anyway
Monday 1st April 2013 7:01 pm
the small american mammal lied
the coldest nights are the quietest
though the litter chatters around my feet
like the arctic teeth of an almost corpse
and the gas settles close to home
glassy in it’s welcome
the trees, taut, still brittle of bone,
clench every desperate sinew
as fleshless fingers on a wintered birch
gnarl a carpal tunnel to the council’s moon
Saturday 30th March 2013 4:31 pm
revolution runs better on stolen gasoline
every curtain will be stolen from
entitlement
each grain of dirt will raise
it’s raucous voice above
and over manners
while atoms bond
air will ignite for
blood is fuel enough
as gravity exists
believable in it’s force
secure each ideal
under fire from
truthful lies repeated
within freedom’s
monopoly of slaves
these d...
Saturday 30th March 2013 4:30 pm
cleansing the orphanage with fire and prayer
i.(the entrance lobby)
continue
take five, not to tradition, yet die to keep poor, poor kitty strimming
fragmented , as perhaps are, rosebuds that fall in the manner which
sweat tracks roll, dammed, oiled but not waived, by a picture without words
I would be yourself, centred, and shoes should share my nylon net
musk mined in imaginary time and black, yellow, black deep, I thi...
Thursday 21st March 2013 7:20 pm
bowie (if you didn't know)
rag my workaday clothes on the hobo tree
the messianic alien has descended once more
from the canyons of manhattan to remind all
and sundry just what we’ve been missing
more avuncular, maybe?, than those times before
but lay down the prayer beads and rosary
a wonderful day has arrived
(available on vinyl, download and cd)
less vanguard of the wired new wierd
...
Wednesday 20th March 2013 7:31 am
Free
today's mash-up: free(ish) association a line spat out every hour in couplets that are not allowed to quite rhyme, all nonsense of course
save the monkey for a cleaner time
a warm snow, maybe, where the cookies die
so busy waiting for the next day
I could’ve missed it when it finally came
through the giggling walls
plaited in a garden that promised more
while a titanium hip may...
Sunday 10th March 2013 9:38 pm
Mountebank
innards laid out, divined,
bloodless cold tripe
that cast insight on the plight of
who?
these maladroit
broadcasts naught
but considered shite
a drama of the here and now
in as many acts
as you can swallow
just breathless gasping
in the vacuum-packed plastic
of this necrotic head
that tonight bleeds a deviant intramural
spring wash along...
Saturday 9th March 2013 10:29 pm
This Pig Society
all selling, or telling
forgot about the gelling together
of aught that matters
till we tipped past the point
of diminished returns to ruminate
instead on what a rich man earns
and caponised the germ
of all that once promised
in a swinish lust to fill our own pockets
gave a child faced strangler
the keys to the bank
to share the gold...
Saturday 9th March 2013 8:33 pm
For Cornelia (after viewing ‘Neither From Nor Towards’ then visiting the Norfolk coast)
the escarpments may crumble
while feeding the sea of glass, brick and bone
but they sing their story in 4:4(million) time
a slow lament for man dethroned
though in a blinked centennial reunion
of stolen, moulded, kiln begat marl
a rolled orbicular, boiled and burnished delivery
lies offered for Cornelia’s resurrective art
Saturday 9th March 2013 8:25 pm
Ruined
beggared on this taunted key
eyes, long emptied stark hollows of jaundice,
no longer reflect the encirclement of youthful steel
and, thus cowered beneath such plumb altiloquence,
she finds herself now wimpled in a creeping green
where her walls bleed a jealous neglect
fish flaked the façade of dandruff drips
her autumnal fall into sorry stupor where
g...
Saturday 9th March 2013 11:46 am
Served by the Slice
served by the slice
this body, cut through in the redesign for a different life,
whistles a frayed remembrance leaving naught but remnants
when falling for the suicidal hiatus of a tethered tale
in these days, of the child’s exultation, sing your song
as a lyrical dog chases damsons and damsels and the first and
furriest flavour the dustiest corpse of trees; dark...
Thursday 28th February 2013 10:53 pm
Illicit
consoled within the remote comfort of those
doubtful girls and these older ones who,
having shed their curls, are happy to bare their whole
never mind their soul, I’m damn sure
this would be as close to a felony fuck
as you could ever know
and given my luck the house would
fall around my ears at the very first touch of that baiting floss
screw the metaphysical
...
Wednesday 20th February 2013 7:55 pm
Sin by Sin
Wednesday 20th February 2013 7:50 pm
Each Branch I Snap
Thursday 31st January 2013 7:42 am
Iced
belly up, seal-suited, booted and solstice shy
the weight under a sickle curved sky-sail, the icicle smile
of a frictionless fear, wears this glass thin but while
wise in countless ways, beyond the power
of n at least, stays wary yet of the sightless beast hidden
behind the curve
above and below 66.5°, you will find your breath tastes
...
Wednesday 16th January 2013 6:29 pm
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