wooden floors with a clean sheen

perfect frames at perfect angles…

I wonder what the artists would say?

Abstract speaks for itself:

‘I was not born, bold and brash,

pulsating and splashed and splurged,

spunked out and blown

to be thrown into this.

This. This. What is this?

A fucking frame that cost more

than the name of the man who made me

at the time he made me.

Created me.

With passion and heart.

They have boxed me in.

Entrapped me.

Entrapment.

Help. Help me.

Embrace me.

See past the frame.

These lines could go on forever.

I could wrap around you,

caress you with colours

and treat you like a Queen

at a Royal Variety Performance.

We would laugh

and dance like a Paula Abdul music video

I’ll be the cat and the cream

and you’ll be the Queen.

You be the boat and I’ll be the stream.

Run with me.

Run with me.

Colours can clash and splash

splatter and explode

implode and  impale

on an earth shattering scale.

Free me.

Release me.

Tina sang ‘I’m in chains’,

but I want to stain you

and train you

and of course take the blame.

Slapdash? Sure.

Grab a brush, grab a saw,

release me amore.

I need to express myself

it’s in vogue to fall short

but run with it.

Work with it.

Race with it.

Be true.

I want the world to have colour

and I want to paint you.’

I see the swirls and the shades,

the lines that cascade,

the thickened texture

and emboldened sheen.

The frame, it blinds.

It shadows and hides

what needs to be seen.

The curve of a wink

in the signature blinks.

I look at it and think:

I need to get laid.

get under my umbrella,

the acid rain is gonna come;

it’s made of tin and nickel bits

and will save you ’til the sun.

O girl,

get under my umbrella,

the acid rain is gonna come,

you can sit with me

upon the beach

as fish mutate like salted slugs.

O girl,

its just regression

as the acid rain swiftly, softly comes;

it eats the cloth and skin and leaves the bones,

showing we are all one.

O girl,

get under my umbrella,

the acid rain is gonna come.

I’ll put my arm around you

as the world becomes undone

and we can laugh and joke

as that beefy bloke

shrivels and shrinks to none.

O girl,

get under my umbrella,

the acid rain is gonna come.

I can kiss you in the sharpness

as the pin pricks shoot like guns.

We’ll be safe beneath the umbrella

o, girl,

lets have some fun.

Why you shakin’ your head girl,

why you gotta run?

O girl,

I wanna romance you

I wanna kiss you in the rain.

O girl,

I wanna romance you

in a shitty shower that stains.

O girl,

you’re drivin’ me crazy,

O girl,

I’m so in pain.

My umbrellas dissolved to nothing

and this drizzle’s melting my brain.

O girl,

I just wanna hold you,

but my arms have turned to bone;

O girl,

do you think I deserve you

as I stand before you, the rubble of rome?

O girl,

you ran from love that hid under an umbrella

and left me here alone.

O girl,

you shoulda got under the umbrella

why did you have to run?

O girl,

we coulda had something special,

we coulda had some fun.

I expected razzle dazzle, pomp, panache;

a bass line hook

and a crescendo crash.

Perhaps little birds and love hearts afloat,

holding warm hands

in Autumn coats

but no, nuh uh, not meant to be

for my fair maiden had a chemical science degree.

She made a potion highly potent

- created with a fine mass of math -

until she concluded the correct quotient

to throw in my eyes in a parks path.

‘My eyes, my eyes!’ my voice did bellow

as a hideous goo

poured out, brown and yellow.

The woman claimed to be a nurse -

a simple lie and my life’s curse.

She took me home

and cared for me well,

I fell in love,

fell for her spell.

I got down one day on bended knee

and she said “Over here!”

(because I couldn’t see)

I tried again

and she accepted

but I know her trickery

and now regret it.

We married in a church of glamour

with a funky priest

and black soul jammers.

When we returned from that church

she told me straight

about my curse.

The bitch, she knew my wallet was bulging

and she felt like a bit

of selfish indulging.

“I’m going on honeymoon”

she said with a smirk,

“With a guy called Stavros,

not you, you berk.”

She left me here

and took a plane

for sun, sea and sex

with a Turk in Spain.

Blinded by love?

No, just a fool reliant

on the devious bitch who blinded with science.

A petty drip upon ones chair

slipping down the side

to one’s underwear

I look up, confused

what is this drip

that’s wet my chair

so I slide and slip?

An elephant a top the ceiling

gives one a gutsy, queasy feeling.

“What-ho!” I say, feeling quite brave

“What are you doing?”  in a high octave.

The elephant stares with a black, beady eye,

as the ceiling creaks a cracking cry.

“Get down from there you shameless brute!

Back to the Circus with you,

I give you the boot!”

It stares a long and pointed stare

that wets my moistened underwear.

I pause and turn toward the door

and race for the knob, my hand a-claw.

The elephant falls, it gives bold chase,

I’m on the garden grass, racing post haste.

I reach the wall and take a breath

before being trampled to my dastardly death.

If you see an elephant a-top your ceiling

take note of that most-queasy feeling

and remember to run, and run post haste;

do not stop when an elephant gives chase.

’twas called the Quill

a shifting letter

in a sky still.

I’d be on me boat,

two pirates legs:

one made of wood

looked like a peg.

This bird would caw

and caw away

a little dubya

in the sky grey.

I’d gasp and roar:

“Thar be the Quill!”

but with guns a’ready

the clouds lay still.

I’d scratch me head

a befuddled clown

a pure mans dunce

wearing a pure mans frown;

but then the Quill

it would caw again

and in the sky no Quill

as we took aim.

The cawing began

to catch me craw;

my eye a twitchin’

more stress in store

as this beady bird

with black eyes beaming

would caw and crow

as my ears be screaming.

“Shut the bleeder up!”

me men would roar

but the shifting bird

would invisibly caw.

Our eyes grew heavy -

beneath them grey,

our skin grew lined:

a pact was made.

“We kill the bird

with the dirty caw

because, me lubbers,

it be gettin’ on me craw.

We stay awake tonight.

No eye may rest,

’til that birdy’s body

be in me chest.”

A prize booty

worth a year long gloat,

we shook sturdy hands

upon me boat.

The night grew black,

torches be lit;

the only sounds:

tabacco spit.

The caw began

at 13 o’ clock,

the boat shimmied and shook

as it began to rock.

“Who be thar?”

I asked, a cap’n brave,

not realising me men

were a’top their grave.

The bird it cawed

and tingles pricked,

a jittery hearty

jumped and kicked.

We chortled and roared

at his weak livered folly,

in this tense time

a moment to be jolly.

The bird cawed again,

’twas on me boat!

‘Twas on the shoulder

of me cabin boys coat.

We all took aim,

the blam did deafen

and that sweet cabin boy

now be in Heaven.

The Quill cawed again,

a collective echo,

it be everywhere!

I felt the first blow.

A collective groan echoed

as we fell to the floor;

in our final moments,

a mocking caw.

I like to pretend

that the lack of eye contact

- that is typical on the tube -

is caused by my powerful Mafioso connections;

legendary rage, brutality

and all seeing eyes.

Ah meester Contellini, please do not kill me.

Ah meester Capaci, please don’t attack me.

I nod, with my coal eyes,

scissor slits on a lined paper face:

You have been pardoned oh weak ones,

but do not cross this God before you again.

Sometimes

I like to pretend

that this screaming shuttle

- that splutters and scrapes -

is really a spaceship

darting around a tubular galaxy

devoid of stars.

It is the home of carnivirous creatures

hungry for human flesh.

They want in this ship.

They scream and scrape beneath,

clawing to creep inside

and devour us limb by limb.

Sometimes

I like to pretend

that when I get off this train

and walk to my workplace

that

- instead of picking up a broom -

I pick up a gun

and I blow these scum bags

on the streets to smithereens.

The whores,

the scoring and the pimping.

The dealing and the killing.

The world needs a hero.

It’s time to clean up the streets,

I’d say.

Time to clean up the streets.

heard it all before.

The tramps are coming in

wanting more and more.

What they don’t realise

is that it aint turkey stew -

it’s a stew boy, that’s assured boy,

but it’s made from me and you.

Turkey in a stew,

aint nothin’ going on

you better gobble down your food

and then you better run.

The last one in

is the first one served,

but this aint tennis though Guv;

aint no love in these words.

The shelter saves the hungry

by serving up this turkey stew.

Just make sure you get there early

or they might be serving you.

looking for a home

and now, Mao Lee,

you’re all alone.

Came into our house,

looking for a home.

You got the home;

so alone.

Culkin’s on the sidewalk

gazing in at you,

there’s no marbles on the staircase,

no burglars feeling blue.

We thought we did you a favour

by giving you a home,

then we moved out -

you’re all alone.

Your texts came thick.

Your texts came fast

a lonely ship with a white half mast.

We were just moving house,

you were just moving in,

it’s not quite how friendships begin.

We were just moving house,

you were just moving in.

It not quite how most friendships begin.

Mao Lee’s at the window,

Mao Lee’s at the door,

we were just moving house

but she wanted more.

You came into our house

looking for a home.

Now, Mao Lee, you’re all alone.

gave the clock a trickle

as it tick, tick, tickled into sand.

A genius hand

that held many fans

salivating, berating and

contemplating man.

Salvador Dali;

paintbrush hairs above his lip,

he let them slip and slide

on hip and thigh.

He had the need to graze against

a most beautiful face;

a porcelain piece

while on his knees

mottled with blue

he painted her trees

that led to a bush

and a final push.

Two paintbrush hairs

rubbed together in ecstacy.

Salvador Dali!

Salvador Dali!

They said his name at parties

and he’d cup them in his hands.

he walked with a mince.

I thought he was gorgeous;

a little camp prince.

We flirted and skirted

around serious issues,

the start of a relationship

is no time for tissues.

We’d need them all later

as our hope would come down,

our emotions and trust

lost in a sad town.

Suffocated by pain,

I’m sure he did drown

and rise up so hollow

with his head hanging down.

The place that we lived

changed to a ghost town

and the demons of our pasts,

they’d forever surround

and my dead eyed prince,

he was throned and then crowned

as the weird, odd little boy

who messed me around.

Weird odd little boy

could make me laugh

but I somehow felt

he’d been love starved.

He’d be clingy and needy

then push me away;

confused me,

refused me

for the rest of my days.

Next thing you know

ten years have gone past

and we’re surrounded in darkness;

a life’s curse has been cast.

As a wife, as a woman,

I sank to my knees,

scrubbing the floor

and slaving for free.

I was blacked up and jacked up,

paid not even rupees.

I trusted,

combusted

and was broke without fees.

If love is involved

you pay with your heart

and my pride’s out the window

as the weird little boys cart

stands at the window,

he’ll take a piece at a time,

he wants me in pieces;

a jigsaw in brine.

I’m his mission in life.

To me he’s assigned.

He’ll rip me to shreds,

then pour me rose wine.

He’ll kiss me and kiss me

until we’re both so entwined

then he’ll bruise me, refuse me,

on my heart we will dine.

This weird, odd little boy who looks like a man,

he is my biggest enemy and my biggest fan.