I'm knackered and slightly mentally scarred from certain experiences but I had a truly wonderful time this weekend and I'd like to say a massive thank you to Sean and everyone else who made it happen. I got 5 new poems out of it and here they are:

 

 

We Watched It Live

 

We watched it live on Al Jazeera

It came free with the news mix on Sky

They said he’d been hid down a hole for a while

We were kids back when they gave it their first try

Couldn’t really understand why

Those soldiers we saw on TV

In their sand storm uniforms

Clutching their machine guns

Marched upon stomachs full of ideals

And force-fed ideas of the enemy

Back then there was a few hours’ delay

We had to wait for the nightly news to see

Now we can stream war live

Any time of the day or night on our mobiles

But you can’t blame the media

We’re just products of the era

In which eager eyes can steal a man’s last moments

You could tell he’d been tortured

As the floor opened up and he fell

We waited and held our breath

Until two fingers were pushed against his neck

And he was pronounced dead

And we felt real fear

Real fear for what we never got right

The first time

Well this time

We all watched him die

 

 

I Need You (After Many)

 

I need you like a pacifist needs a fight

I need you like a fish needs a bike

I need you like the Irwell needs more shite

I don’t need you

 

I need you like the Queen needs more gems

I need you like the upper classes need the Lib Dems

I need you like my dog needs a Mercedes Benz

I don’t need you

 

I need you like Christmas telly needs another Great Escape

I need you like the pop charts need another Ace Of Base

I need you like a goth needs a flesh-coloured face

I don’t need you

 

I need you like Hugh Hefner needs another bunny

I need you like Steve Jobs needs some more money

I need you like Mercury needs to be a bit more sunny

I really don’t need you

Now bugger off!

 

 

Without You

 

Without you I am Costco without buying bog roll in bulk

I am a house party without a bird in the loo having a sulk

I am a Boris Karloff flick without the skulk

Without you I am Bruce Banner without the Hulk

 

Without you I am a song without its beat

I am a rose without its smell so sweet

I am a mattress without its bottom sheet

Without you I am the jungle without its cheet

-as

 

Without you I am Saturn without its rings

I am Julie Andrews without her favourite things

I am a Blue Peter appeal without the buys and the brings

Without you I am the X-Factor without fellas who can’t sing

Without you I ain’t anything

 

 

Far Too Real

 

When cars backfire or bangers are lit

Before November the 5^th

Do you flinch?

Does your flesh crawl with survival instinct

And does every tiny spinal hair

Stand to attention

When a friend taps you on the back?

Do you suddenly lack the mundane humanity

To sympathise with domestic tragedy?

Do you line up all of your tins of peas

In regimented twos and threes?

Is your flat sheet tight with precision corners

Or else you can’t sleep?

Do you feel discharged from your true identity

In pedestrian T-Shirts, trainers and jeans

Marching down your home town’s streets?

Are you ordered to feel accomplished

With a mission seemingly so far from completion?

When all you’re really filled with

Is emptiness and derision?

Do neither pills nor fatigue extinguish torturous dreams

When you wake like a shot

‘Cause it all feels too real?

No, Prime Minister, I thought not.

 

 

 

There’s 3D (Cut-Up From Four Pages Of The M.E.N. 15/10/10)

 

There’s 3D

Then there’s Macclesfield 3D

England’s 12 largest cities outside London

Are Vodafone networked

Have your say every weekend

At Bristol Street Motors

- Renault Laguna only 7995

New shape becomes automatically Tory

Power to you

Pickles the virtues of localism

We need dealership neighbours

Ideas for life

Updated every 3 years