UP THE WEST END:

Tattoo in an alley, picture postcard prophecy.
Sitting in the rain with a paper sign says,
“I’ll take any change”

(K)

AUTUMN FAKE:

Discarded ring-pulls, crushed under wheel, glisten in the sun
of Autumn faking Summer. Tar, cut by the white lines of
outsider artists.

Listening to Orlando Julius with The Heliocentrics.

(K)

PARCHMENT SPIDER SCRATCH:

Rubbish trucks in cheery livery pass, wheezing.
Every corner shop offers ‘Cash Machines Inside’.
The Autumn leaves of London Planes scuttle across
lazy roads, parchment spiders blown by the last
warm breeze, scratch the black-top with brittle
fingernails, griping.

(K)

SUN & HAMMER BEAT DOWN GROOVE:

Kebab & Chips & Burger, send your money on the wire
around the world. Pirate Tommy’s waiting with the bin-bags
in the shadows as scrap metal taxis glide past in the sun.
Street corners catch the last of summer, van drivers leave
motors running on yellow lines, duck into offies for a
top-up of tipple where hammers beat broken gas pipes in
erratic time.

(K)

IN LOVE WITH EAST:

There’s a small dog half out the window of a first floor flat,
broken wood & mattress in the sun on Elmesmere Street.
A little boy hums crazy tunes to his dancing feet, following
his mother pushing pram past lines of purple re-cycle bins.

Listening to Erik Honore – ‘Heliographs‘

(K)

SIDE STREET WOMAN:

‘Get It First On Digital’ Shouts a bus, selling sexy,
violent boys with knives.
“‘ave a nice day lads!” shouts the manic smiling
side street woman, singing loud to no one, loosing it
from waiting so long to talk to anyone. Holds out her
hands to the boy who hesitates & smiles, mistakenly
looking back as he walks away – ‘tempted’.
“Are you ‘ere on ‘oliday then?” she howls, spinning back
into the side streets off of Christmas.

(K)

SOMETHING:

In the solitude of basement toilets, by the pool table,
beneath a studio filled with famous voices, faces, I meditated
on the weirdest day. Ego-less union, disarmed opinions &
barriers between genres lowered for something more important –
change

The white Knight launched us with familiar eloquence &,
for a day, we kicked a ball towards the same goal.

The Sunday papers quoted,
“it doesn’t matter if you don’t like the song or the artists
as long as you buy the record”

A good day, with more to come if I’m not the only one buying.

(K)

SPARKLE CITY:

“Take care darlin’ ” says the woman stopping shoppers
on a side street off Christmas. Dazed out-of-towners
walk too slow in the crowd, young men wait for girls
outside ‘Girl shops’, blowing secondhand smoke into
the wind.

(K)

STICK MAN:

Chalk-white boy with mascara bruised eyes walks on
skinny legs beneath fingers fumbling for a cigarette.

(K)

SNATCHERS GRAB:

As I descend into the world below, hands grab
to snatch the evening paper. We go down, clutching the news to sweeten all our journeys.

(K)