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Porpoise, dear boy, porpoise

Hmm, funny how it comes back to you all of a sudden, isn't it? There you are, leading a relatively blameless, decidedly straightforward existence and then whammo, all it takes is one half baked simile creeping into your thoughts and suddenly it's delusions of grandeur time again, 1999 all over again; a triumph of hope over experience. Any road up, have some poems:

Architecture in small English towns

Best seen at up beyond window edge
pitch of roof, slide of slates
carvings with fleur-dy-lys
your back in the way,
spine like a rope.

Silent, these roofs
and sinful, there are murders behind them.
In a room an absence
there is weeping behind pebbledash.

A great sweep of crescent, tree lined and decent.
You played hopscotch, head
back over shoulder sunshine
such handsome, handsome houses,

Great sheets of glass a mile wide,
a building’s giant eye, keeping
watch on the chevrons of paving
pointing towards bargains bargains bargains.

Patchwork, this town, stitched together,
studded with angles, compressing itself.
Shudders at night, stretches in daylight.
Best foot forward, flower displays and public art.
Now sullen, now joyful, indolent, sincere.
Fat ducks by the pond, new houses edge of town,
black and gold bollards, perpetual watery autumn sunshine,
just the one tramp and it’s quota fulfilled.
Committees attended, school sports teams supported,
council motions disapproved of, local sites of interest visited.
Vote, recycle, support local tradesman, love your neighbour,
love your lawn, have a sticker.
Chin up best face back straight breathe in look
the houses themselves are holding tight.


Things to do in Ormskirk when you’re bored

climb the monolith north with carabineer and high tensile rope
plant a flag on its crown and claim it as your own

(cut your partner’s rope and send him tumbling
fat and Spanish, to the fast-flowing brook)

orienteer the park in wide circles
pretending there are trees and it is scenery

eyes shut, feeling forward make a hill
by puffing your cheeks and loudly declaring

some enjoy sitting in a building, and sipping
Fine Wines and Spirits, Cask Ales though there are none to be had

they will laugh in coughed increments, and make motions
and mouthings suggesting of Fun

petition the council for better hovercraft access
petition the council to ban children and queers

launch a calculated assault on the precinct,
attack through the sewers, as that’s what they’ll least be expecting

go trampolining on the sleeping giants belly, land laughing
in the soft pile of his beard, no harm done

break houses for profit, there’s a market on Thursdays
and running from community wardens is enjoyable and Good Exercise

hang around the bookshop, strike up conversations
with your friends and neighbours, they will not be alarmed

why not build some luxury flats?
we haven’t got enough of those at all

debate matters loudly in the centre of town, our healthy tradition,
it is best done about half past eleven, whilst pointing

race buggies through the streets with a hawkish tribe of
post-apocalyptic road-warriors, no hang on, I nicked that from Mad Max

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