please hold II

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have you tried divination?
there’s a mountain I’ve heard tell
a cold, faraway place
accessible only by foot
or hardy llama
a monastery there
rickety on a crag
where legend has it
every blood moon
the holy ones stand naked
upon the ramparts
offering their monkish tears
to the Tinea:
giant, moth-like entities
wings shimmering
like silver shrouds
who flap around their pates
uncoiling their proboscises
to sup upon the salty blubber
and thus sated
and the shivering monks
amusingly agitated
grant a singular vision
to the eldest amongst them
who hath done the course
within the last twelve months
and hath a certificate

so

ask them
they might know

dinosaurs are go!

dinosaurs are go!
how they got here
I don’t know
but they’re swapping the swamps
for big city romps
neon sign dining
and downtown chomps

ain’t it just like T Rex
to pose and flex
before it wrecks
the shopping mall and the multiplex?

just listen to the roars
of Pterosaur
as it pterosoars
then pturns to pterrify
the ptraders on the ptrading floor

and heaven help those puny cops
in the armoured car that bangs and pops
as it runs up on sirens and fatally stops
by Ankylosaurus and Triceratops

the channel news helicopter
going for the wow factor
acts as distractor
for Velociraptor

while palaeontologists
are pilloried as apologists
by rancorous news anchors
and columnists

then … everything falls quiet
TOO quiet
nobody expected anything like it
the dinosaurs
resorting
to a more lawful diet

ten years later
everything’s straighter
Allosaurus working as elevator
Apple signed up with Baryonyx
to model hot brands of mobile phonics
Kimmel makes a fuss
with Parasaurolophus
saying Hey man it’s Paris for all of us
DJ Archaeopteryx
has feathers in the mix
with Aaron Dessner and Taylor Swift

but a dawn will break in the big city swelter
when they wake to the sun on the old river delta
and rising as one they’ll shiver their tails
to sweep all the people over the rails
those audacious, cretaceous, reptilian heirs
reclaiming a world that once was theirs

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augury
chuck sticks in the air
see how they land
sleep awhile
with an uncut bible
for a pillow
and when you awake
write your dreams
on a true, flat stone
and skip
over standing water
you should not have called us today my friend
we are in your fingers now
your synapses
that laughing?
that’s you, that is
please hold
for the next available
necromancer
you are number…less
in the void

last night of the tories

SOLO
Dear Land of Dopes, by Dopes art crowned
There’s so much I don’t get
Those Corpr’ate brows, their greed unbound
Once more there’s nothing left
These feudal laws, by Brexit gained
Shall whip thee well and long;
By Sun and Mail the lie maintained,
The country sold for a song

CHORUS
Land of Hopeless Tories, Smothering the Free
How shall we console thee, who are mourning thee?
Tighter still and tighter shall thy chains be set
Whoever made this god awful mess should be made to clear it up
Whoever made this god awful mess should be made to clear it up

I’m gonna do whatever it takes to do whatever 

procrastination is my middle name
or would’ve been
if I’d made the appointment
sniff
some people are built for speed
me?
well… not built exactly
a bit more abstractly
brought together
y’know?
flotsam and jetsam on the ebb and flow
a concatenation of wind-blown scraps
twigs n’sticks and wrappers from snacks
a sad sack
figure of wax
someone sat
too close to the fire
and quickly expired
melting into a comedy blob
they keep as a talking point, back of the shop
that kinda thing
but I think I’m improving
I’m determined to get better
I’m gonna do that course (if I can find the letter)

one flew over the lurcher’s basket

occasionally
Stanley
would spectacularly
stretch out on his side on the floor
give his front left leg a gnaw
with a howl that was deafening
his back legs pedalling
all in all it was pretty unsettling
like the poor thing was wrestling
invisible wolves in life or death matches
these desperate episodes coming in batches
of twos maybe threes
so we took him to the vet’s, obviously
and she said unfortunately
I think your dog has epilepsy
(although to be sure she’d need more tests
which at his age would cause him undue stress
so maybe a palliative route was best)

the medication made him a zombie
a listless lurcher / throw pillow combi
till cutting the pills seemed kinder and easier
we’d see how we went with just analgesia

and suddenly he was cured!
a lot more settled and self-assured

Differential diagnosis?

it’s probably because he’s quite a diva
in acting terms a high-achiever
making the most out of low level pain
the kind you might get from a muscle strain

(still haven’t taken him back to the vet:
WAAAY too embarrassed to tell her yet)

existential dread at the toy museum

I scare myself at the toy museum
which feels more like a mausoleum
a carpeted, air-freshened, place of the dead
where they’ve chosen to bury toys instead
puppets, bears, acrobats,
sailor babies, freaks like that
every toy with a curling caption
fixed expressions of stupefaction
staring through the dusty glass
at the aimless ghosts who whisper pass
in and out through a low-lit door
opening hours ten till four

the worst of it is a railway track
that runs the length of a case and back
the tiny figure of an engineer
one arm waving as he steers
in oily overalls, jaunty cap
neckerchief in plastic flap
cotton wool smoke from the tiny funnel
as he drives his train through a length of tunnel
emerges, waits, goes in reverse
back down the track he just traversed
ending up at the starting place
then setting off at the same, slow pace

he looks so happy fixed like that
cows and sheep along the track
painted houses, painted trees
everything perfect, permanently
his memory gone as he goes in reverse
the doomed engineer forever cursed
to twenty seconds of active bliss
the best he’ll ever know of this
we hurry back to the light of the lobby
congratulate the owner on her wonderful hobby
(but strictly between me and you
I’m worried she’s an exhibit, too)

the ones that went before

our tour guide Oliver
pterosaur t-shirt flat-hat time traveller
big boss fossiller
brains like an ossuary
real-time repository
of natural science and palaeontology
uses the tip of his walker’s cane
to draw on the sand and casually explain
how this three-toed boulder
130 million years or older
was once a footprint squelched in mud
baked in the sun, backfilled in a flood
a plus-size, bus-size iguanodon
putting their foot down, carrying on
following the herd along ancient tracks
out to the breeding grounds and back