THIS ISN'T FUCKING MASTERMIND

On the urban fringe where dog turds hang in plastic
And witches' knickers leave tide wrack

Where the leaves should be
The trees aren't green
They're know what's going on, sunshine 

This isn't fucking mastermind 

Write a poem. Get a job
Toil in pain like Petrarch
Pen pentameters in Primark

You’ve made your bed
You’d better lie to yourself

If it doesn’t rhyme, it’s no good

This isn't fucking mastermind 

Footfall from the shopping mall

Crafts desire paths in the park

Naked and illuminated  

The assistant referee seeks confirmation

From the video of his ex-best friend

This isn't fucking mastermind

Sexualise the tender

Infantilise the elderly
Revoke their right to folly
Pressurize the lonely
Into surrender of their solitude
Auction care to the bottom line 

This isn't fucking mastermind

Despite the mythical youthquake  

Nurdles from the new Aldi form 

on the dark side of the moonscape

Now that Mr Spock’s masculinity is toxic 

Fast fashion picks at the fabric of ecology

With no apology to God or logic

This isn't fucking mastermind 

There’s hell to pay in purgatory,
but the rich get in tax free  

It’s started now, best you finish it.

This isn't fucking mastermind 

CHIMPANZEE POLITICS

CHATTER. CHATTER. CHATTER.

SHATTER the illusion of inclusion.


Collusion with Caesar.


Cope with Julius. Cope with hierarchy,


need, desire and pain. Cope or don't.

There is no other remedy than this

There Is No Alternativa Tina.

As inevitable as Rome and Empire.

Hail Caesar. Hail Bacardi Breezer.

Hail the parlous state WHEREIN.

THEREIN is Caesar.

WITHOUT is nothing.

GOOD MORNING, MR JOHNSON

You can’t remember whether you’ve met Mr Johnson. Why you can’t remember, you’ve no idea of either, yet. The fact that you will doesn’t exactly reassure, since you’ve still no notion of who this Johnson is.




If it’s the first meeting, you should sound upbeat and on-message, yet not so gung-ho that you shake his hand into perpetual motion, or squish it to pulp like a boorish populist.

Or is this the Johnson that stole the money, and then came up with that cockamamie story about children’s charity? In which case you should fix him with your worst go-and-sit-on-the-naughty-step stare, shake your head ever so slightly, so that he registers your opprobrium, and reinforce it with a tut or a huff, if that is your style.

But take care; this might well turn out to be the Johnson that they all talk about. This could be the Johnson who turns heads and fills hearts with magic, the Johnson you are secretly in love with, despite never having met.

This magic Johnson could run for office someday, they say. You’ve watched his well-formed buns near the water fountain, and have lingered to chat over coffee, and sighed to yourself that you are unworthy to be the missus or mister that this magic man might want in his life.

 

Or else it could be just plain old Johnson, the Johnson they’ve never talked about again, the Johnson with the big Saudi contacts, the Johnson from the Foreign Office who headed up the Milton Keynes conference where you negotiated the contract that would only later be reported to have included a covert supply of flesh-melting white phosphorous, the special kind that the Israelis use that fades into the background on contact with most major Western media outlets, you know, the Johnson you went to school with, the one with the penchant for patent red high heels, three-piece suits and hotel parties.

 

Is it him? Is that the Johnson you’re meeting? You sure hope so, because you know what? If you remember rightly, he was a really nice guy. You liked him.

 

- Good morning, Mr Johnson.

 

 

FREE AT THE POINT OF ACCESS

FREE AT THE POINT OF ACCESS
AVAILABLE TO ALL

Good morning, Jim. It's been a tight contest
FC Arsenalona Zero Real Madras Tres
Aston Vanilla Plain Sheffield Thursday Too
Dynamo Chicken Kiev Defunct

Despair adorns the stands
Kettled corpses gasp for blue air
as the arrogance of policemen festers ouside
inside the six yard box bodies burn alive

Pathological demand avoidance syndrome awareness day
lasts for thirty years or more in The Force
without a whiff of guilt or redress
The stench of neglect and greed hangs in the air
the centre forward waits for suspension
and dreams the hidden language of Jah

FREE AT THE POINT OF ACCESS
AVAILABLE TO ALL

Something's happening in Sunderland East
Nothing's happening in Washington West

Determined to have their 0.454 kgs of flesh
there are those who would use up
every 28.35gs of their integrity
to make a killing... sometimes get lost in translation

Movies and news reports merge
in a globish market dialogue
replaced by autopilot and noises off
aeroplanes roar as generators chatter utter nutter mutter
to forklift truck drivers
who run on diesel til an explosion comes into view
and blows the fuck outta somewhere!!!
temporary and unimportant where human capital is cheap
hopes of recompense are smashed in embryo...

link to narrative and press play back

FREE AT THE POINT OF ACCESS
AVAILABLE TO ALL

Good morning Jim, It's been a tight contest

We must adjust to the new reality
same as the old reality but with added austerity
austerity has replaced actuality and breathe...

ASPIRATION ASPIRATION ASPIRATION

Aspire to become Head Of Remittances at the World Bank
Aspire to give the workers a break
Aspire to bust the bankers' balls
Where do I put my cross?
Crucify choice or elect anger

FREE AT THE POINT OF ACCESS
AVAILABLE TO ALL

[Something about a revolution]

[Something about a revolution]


Something about riding the tide of populism

Something about that orange thing on his head 

Something about hair as false news

Something about King Herod of Assyria 

Something about the slaughter of  innocents

Something about Spanish April Fools' Day

Something about more dead celebs than ever

Something about Dai Young still being alive despite the obvious

Something about snowflake millenials sexting in class…  Whatever!

Something about protecting people from RADICALISATION!


Something about transgendered inmates

Something about Howard's penal reform 

Something about a holding centre for the IT literate underclass

Something about the head getting to the bottom of sexual abuse

Something about the precariat

Something about the rich not giving a flying traveller's cuss

Something about the undesirability of desire now that you're 50
and have become invisible!

Something about what the hell does Palestine have to do with us

Some bollocks about One Nation Conservatism

Something about the much-lambasted leader of Labour

Something about it doing what it says on the tin

Somewhere around £35 a head! just to go to a dinner with Ed Balls!!

Something about a marketing platform masquerading as a soccer franchise

Something about people in Bangladesh

Something about Mai '68 that would freak her out

Something of the grammar school about her

Some government rot about it being your duty

Something about it supporting them to use those concerns or act on them in non-extremist ways...

Something about her repressive control obsession

Something about drilling for oil at the poles

Something about pissing over Kyoto protocols


Something about there being nothing we can do about it, so why bother?

[Something about a revolution]

Something about Facility 1391


Sarcastic comment about Donald Trump

and go home

 

ONE SOLUTION. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION?

TEXTUAL PARALYSIS

Commercially Friday

Though technically Thursday still

Immobile technologically

We sit… for

God knows how long

God has an App

What we like about this chap

Or so we are led to deceive 

Is his authenticity

His mendacity 

Is no bar to Offices of State clearly

In Block Capitals: a double shot of extra 

SINCERITY!!

It’s hard to believe we’ve been here before

And yet we do it again 

Suspended inert between persons pending

In coffee shops we suck up sugar and suspense

And wait in lines that grow longer

As gig economy refugees

Squashed five at a time 

Behind teeny tiny counters attempt to serve

Delicious Creamy Theatre of the Dispossessed 

In matching T-shirts

Our very being upstairs is tenuous

The absence of service provision that tells 

That gives context to isolation and instructs 

That causes concern

Action requires Patience

A commodity that acquires capital while-u-queue

Blue Tooth visibility high

All contact via eyes evaded 

It is a device

At no point is gaze raised from the screen

Counter-measures deemed sure-fire

An SMS is launched 

An aerial assault of rounded boldness: 

Hello X. I was at Cafe @ for 10 mins

And another: 

Seems u were not there. So I came out

The page more vital 

Than a social performance that passes for time

The virtual more real than actual 

Apparent but unfeasible

Present, but unviable

Unplugged

Unvirtualised

Unghosted

I bound past 

Later, a sub-text 

Primed with latent intent: 

I am an automated response mechanism

Thank u 4 yr message. Have an awesome Black Friday!

Loud applause, pause…

for special effects.

YET ANOTHER FUCKING DAY IN CAPITALIST ZOMBIE PARADISE

Can I help you, madam? Can I help you, sir?
In what way may I be of assistance?
Can I enquire as to which product or service you might require?
Which one in particular grabs your fantasy?
Which specific piece of merchandising whets your internal fire?
Which portion of pre-fabricated crap from China catches your lie?
Why? I can show you any number of items, should you so desire…
Is there any mass-manufactured good that you wish to purchase?

In what way has the acquisition of plasticised tat
from a South-East Asian sweat shop
with a railing on the roof
to prevent staff suicides
made you happier today?

On a scale of 0 to 10,
where 10 = temporarily fulfilled, & 0 = numb from the waist up,
exactly how does the special selection of product
coerced out of low-wage slaves
from the other side of the planet
make you feel at this moment?

Would you recommend this feeling to family,
friends and work colleagues?

Should there be anything further you require going forward,
into the void, do not hesitate to mention it

Have a nice day now!

You’re fucking welcome.

Don’t mention it.

No, really, don’t…

YES/NO PRIME MINISTER

As she sits down to weigh up likelihoods and alternatives - bacon (cured/ uncured) in classic tandem with eggs (scrambled /unscrambled) toast (wholemeal/ white trash) not to mention coffee and tea options in attendance - the PM partly regrets a decision brazenly taken early in the morning chez Number 10: to kick start the day with a brace of coddled eggs and a pair of rough, yet sturdy and dependable oat cakes on which to place them, before snapping a jpeg of the arrangement in order to compare and contrast them with those in the illustration on the back of the box - or is it the side?


- How is breakfast PM?

The PM has expended a goodly few minutes out of her precious mind in an attempt to resemble as far as feasible the studio photograph on the packet. She rues her choice of lexis. Surely goodly is incorrect in this context. Neither is she convinced that a coriander leaf does a passable impression of a sprig of parsley. Ho hum.

- How is breakfast PM? 

The question fails to jolt the head of government out of her reverie vis-a-vis the insignificance or otherwise of her quirky urge to do more or less whatever the serving suggestion suggests. It comforts her greatly. She feeds compulsive order/ disorder to relieve the oppressive sense of failure that, despite evident success in life, continues to dog. The crisis of choice overwhelms. Should I remain? Or perhaps better to exit? Soft or hard-boiled, how does the narrative move forward? To go? To stay? To act now? Or two acts too late? The continuous drip drip of binary opposition. The endless tap tap tap tap of politically mediated remedies...

At the breakfast buffet of entitlement, she has finally arrived at the egg station, only to be quietly informed chef's nipped out back for a smoke. Is this where the grammar schoolgirl trail ends? Even as PM, shall I never enter the upper echelons of the rarified Etonian rifles? 

A corrupted Cartesian dualism has begun to unnerve and unravel her clockwork of control. The spring has unsprung. I choose, therefore I am undone. Pepsi Cola v. Coca Cola? The apparent binary that is actually a duality. Like the commitment of the pig and the cod, compared to the involvement of the chicken and the chips, these two Great British institutions are under threat from pan-European alternatives and the menace of the almond croissant, at this critical juncture, moving forward. She has become habituated to biting off chunks of PR. She longs for detail, she overgeneralizes, she skips whole chapters and she loses plots.

- How is breakfast PM?

- Well, Kenneth. Breakfast is breakfast.

Bugger. There I go again. Ingrained a sociopathology as shoe-buying, kleptocracy, and torture has become to Imelda Marcos, this obsession, this extreme compulsion, this militant tendency to duplicate the binomial, to re-formulate this reciprocal philosophical reflection on every aspect of existence is not only inane and anodyne, but must stop now, before I implode, she fails to tell herself firmly enough.

Enough is enough! Aaarrgh!!!...

- I'm afraid the PM is unable to attend this morning's conference, announces a predecessor to stalking horses past, ladies and gentlemen of the press, due to an unfortunate and curious case of the sound bite in the night, followed by the now all too self-evident indelicate second breakfast debacle.

- The PM, continues the CPHQ spokeshorse, her chief physician informs us, has what appears to be a kipper bone lodged in her sternum which causes iteration, re-iteration and repetition of key parallelized expressions that double back on themselves with alarming frequency.  Are there any questions?... Just one. Yes. Lord Buckethead?

- Was the Kipper smoked?
  

ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN POINT NINE YEARS OF SOLICITUDE

 "...for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."

 

To paraphrase, there is more to life

than increasing its longevity

Living longer

guarantees no more life

A permanent truth

If all is temporary, a life that lasts but a moment

in the spiritual schemes of the living

in the public library

on a Sabbath afternoon

as the whole world shops

may in the long run

prove to be worthwhile

What's it to be, then?

The old three score and ten 

Biblical fashion

or a couple of dozen years slapped on top

for good measurement, guv'nor/ madam?

Is it two years shy of 60

as an Eastern Glaswegian

an inward refugee?

Forty three,

as an Afghan amputee?

Move to the country write unreadable poetry
and die at a respectable 93?

Or 114.9 years of solitude, on a diet of seaweed,

minimalist architecture and reiki?

 

There must be

more to life

than simply

 

stretching

 

it

 

out...

 

やっと