Prospects for 2026?

 What is this life but a shadow on the wall

A woman is shot in an Immigration hall

It sparks a revolution, an American civil war

The guns are a shooting, and will missiles soar

And heads of state topple, it's all enthrall

The livers of policemen hang like guttural

Cries of religion upon depleted market stalls

Back in England, we are digging up the past

Clans who once were destined, now given a second chance

Lost in insurrection America stumbles and falls

Russia are battering on Europe's backwall

And Suddenly we wake up as if a Carnix cry

The streets are a heaving we realize we don't want to die

And people begin to fight

America shrinks, but so does the world

Because they can't sell Soybeans to China

And So the Chinese stomachs wimper minor

Keys of pity

And though they try to invade Taiwan

Domestic starvation leads to economic wan

The lights go out in the city

Their tech companies cannot save them

For who can buy it but Americans

And the dollar is crumbling

And Russia have hit back,

The US satellites are tumbling

After a Russian missile attack

So then the infrastructure of the world is in collapse

And the world wide web is in shreds

Like the spiders have been given up for dead

And have left the secret skills of weaving under wraps

I'm still holding out for a solution

But Then the nukes start to launch

And what isn't left in dire pollution 

Has suddenly got torched

And not to put too finer point

On the end of 2026

But those of us who do wake up

Need our weetabix

Slowly oh so slowly

We begin to feel and move

And There is food,

But it is local only grown

where there's technology it's only crude

And travel is anathema to any common sense

Because when you leave the confines of your country's fence

You realize everywhere's in ruins

And you might as well build strong your home

And it really did take all those years

To build up the city of Rome

So we talk to our neighbour because

Only half the world survived

And we learn how to treat them better

And how to live better lives

After death

 After a near encounter with death

It felt like slipping into a dark hole

A pit of an endless fall

The fear of losing life,

Losing self-control

I see the sun on the brick wall

And it is beautiful

As I remember when I was a child

In an orchard

Just lying on the grass

Doing nothing at all

We are so lucky to live in this world

The willow grows, reaches to the sun

And I breathe, free air

Where the body is trusted

And I think what sin it's been

That I ever lacked self care

I want the sun forever

And I don't want to lose myself in the moon

I want the sun's goodness to guide me

I want to visit the sea

And ask her to hold me there

I want to stay in bed and admire the sun on the bricks on the wall

Opposite my room on the street of Saint Paul

Broken mass

 King Midas sat on the toilet

Turning his shit into gold

Just gold bricking it, shitting it out

Until that toilet got sold

And you're like some shit alchemist

Who turns my gold into lead

To whom I bring my desire and you insist

That I take it elsewhere instead

And yet you hold up your fire

As if a beacon to guide me home

And I rise ever higher and higher

Only to always come down alone

So what is the point to this dichotomy

One in which you only give out vasectomy

And leave my dead flowers to rot til eternity

Comes round or hell freezes over

I'm cutting off now before I'm run over

I'm already a burn victim in the vice of the system

I'm as undisciplined as my rhyme scheme

I'm holding aloft my flag of surrender

Saying I can't take it anymore

Just leave me alone on my own private shore

This is the end of our un-alchemical amore

birds

 Fly away in the morning

Across the mountain

Through the air

Little bird

With the broken leg

And the cold black, coal black stare

Fly from the tolling virtue

Of the church bell as it chimes

Fly away from soul in curfew

In the mission of the times

I am here in disgusted tremors

and torpid curses that you've flung

For like a land where tornedos shudder

The very foundations under the sun

I am asking for my leisure

I am asking for to be released

From hard labour of your work camp

You call joy and pleasure

But I what need is sleep and peace

The colours blind me

All the greys and faded blues

All the worn out washed out wallpapers

All the garish flowery curtains' hues

Nothing certain only aging

Only death written on every door

All this town is is a work camp

For the poor man to get poor

I am sick to my back teeth

Of my life's decisions that have

Led me here

Some disasters that I ran from

No heroics I was scared

Never been a man of action

Only been ashamed and poor

All I had, all I was born with

I have thrown away at temptation's door

All the agents of panic have caught me

All the ghosts have taught me the law

I should believe in something holy

But knowing only it is death's door

That I knock on when I'm lonely

And say I give up now, and yet want more

Tell me why? Is it my mother, is it her love

Of life that's sure

Or tell me, is it my father, is it destructive

Tendencies that endure

Through the heart break and the clamour

Of the days where glamour shines no more

And I am felled by all the lovers

Who ever loved me, who I ever professed

Or confessed my amore

And I am left with shattered armour, broken shield

Broken hearted by these loves

That never started, by these loves that grew then died

By these loves like vines in gutters

Growing up into cold skies

And still I shall stand up and be counted

bare and naked with no home nor lies

And I shall thank the heavens 

For those loves that opened my eyes

The In between

 In the circle

In the circle of my life I'm in the middle

Can't decide which way to go

I play the fiddle

There are more fish in the sea

Than out

It's getting hard to see

I'm getting stout

Without a doubt

The fog is rising within me

Like a water spout

The mist is all glistening

tip toeing about

An Saint Paul has written his epistles about it

The way the fat controller

Waves his flag

It's just these pan pipes keep blowing

In the leaves

And the music of the winter's loom

Gives some ease

To the houses with the rooms

Where summer hangs on the eaves

And Spring is an attitude

Of the cobwebs the spiders weave

And Autumn has forgotten its manners

And I've left my spanners

In works I can't retrieve

To have and to hold

 I wish I had her to hold again

All through the night's bitter cold again

This can't be how our story ends

I wish I had her to hold

I wish I had her to hold

More of this and it'll make me so old

I wish I had her to hold

And let our story unfold

There are many ways I've been told

But there's only one way I want to hold

My darling in my arms

Keeping her far from harm

I wish I had her to hold

It's a wrap

 The thing about presents is

The only worthwhile thing in them

Is their wrapping, because that's

The only part the giver has actually taken the trouble 

to do themselves

That's why dogs, cats and toddlers play mainly with

The wrapping, it is the best bit

A book, someone else wrote it,

a toy, somebody else thinks that's fun

paper though, wrapping paper

That was touched by the hands of someone who cares

Or feels obliged to give you something

Even if they don't really care and are giving you

The present out of duty, then they at least

wrapped it, put it in a box, maybe wrote a card

That's why it's fun to tear those things up

Because it just shows what a fun waste of time it all is

giving or receiving is really bollocks, but we do it

because it's something to do

And if we didn't it would be boring, and it would probably just be raining

and grey

But you see building things up and destroying them

Is really all life is about

And it is most fun to destroy things someone else has made

or valued

And it is even fun to see them being destroyed 

To an extent

Of course it's easier to understand when it's a cat, a dog or a toddler doing it

But deep down, that's all we really want to do anyway

They just have an excuse, infancy or they're animals

So it's pretty much the same.