"Don't You (Forget About Me)" Simple Minds

Remember the breakfast club
and the song with the catchy tune
I stood in a metal hut today
that sold curtains, sheets and fabric by the loom

That song poked out of the tannoy
It bounced around the walls
Wasn't it about rebels in love?
Now inspired me, lonely and small

The thumping drums and the howling singer
Broadcast on max and yet all the thinner
Came to mean loss, cold and hopeless
Pathetic, lifeless and the film out of focus

Times

Time isn't constant, not across the board,
Still for every living soul it ticks and it tolls,
Your time is not mine but all time still flows,
How fast are these streams? Where does it flow?
The rate is irrelevant. Time just goes.

Swedish Scientist

The grumpy Swedish scientist with his shoulder length white hair
Does not speak or even acknowledge, just emits a frosty glare
His name is as eminent as his yellowing horn rimmed specs
His work of thirty years that in his stature does reflect
I spent a week at distance, aware but from afar
Intimidated by a viking with no axe, no beard, no scar
So how has it come to this, he's bringing me a drink
Introducing an ancient game and instructing me to sing
In Swedish that I'm a drunkard and then I'm duly led
To swallow pint in whole and upturn glass upon my head
And round the table it goes while we beat upon the wood
I think it's killing off my liver but it'll do m'career some good

Adult

Have you ever felt so strongly that it's manifest in pain?
As a child did you burn upon losing in a game?
As a teenager were you stung every time you saw that soul
Who didn't know or even like you, yet was your steadfast goal?
But then in adulthood this stuff should go, our hides as thick as leather
Not depressed by puerile things like girls or work or shitty weather
We're stronger than that, developed, we've matured with years
And yet I've found that time has served to merely multiply my fears

Machine

I've got a ten tonne machine and it's working on it's own
It's doing it's own thing while I'm playing on my phone
A behemoth, a genius, although it does have its limit
It can't get sick of working, say fuck it and just bin it


I've got a two wheeled devil although it looks more like a pram
It grunts and guzzles forty miles faster than a man
It's prettier, more useful and more expensive than dull old me
But it's just a hunk of metal without my magic key


I've got a metal box which spits out caffeine daily
And I dread to even visualise the time that it might fail me
But my addiction isn't that bad and I think that I could cope
Wait a minute please it's just that idea's bringing on a stroke

Sunday Train

Kneeling in a passage, in a train, going home
Sardine-style and sweating, Sunday night on my own
Peering through the glass, fancy headrests, all that space
Wishing for clemency and the conductor's good grace


Knowing all full well that I'm chancing my arm
Trying to improve my trip, not doing any harm
Sardine-style and sweating, Sunday night, going home
No reception, no friendly voices, no distraction from my phone


Cradled by dingy carpet as my thighs begin to burn
Sidling towards seats wondering when will be my turn
Sardine-style and sweating, Sunday night, not long to go
The longest is the last hour, empty seconds, syrup slow


But this is time to work, let's all be productive
I'll unfurl my tome and con myself constructive
My thesis stares vacantly as vacantly I do stare
This competition continues but is decidedly unfair

Parakeet Projector

Grassy mound, the path, straight and long

The city besmirched by that hideous song

December, wet and always dark

The parrot's king of all hyde park

The scene is English right to the hilt

Picnics, dogs and fountains gilt

National hol'days, the loafer's treat

Defiled by the parakeet

Green all over, carrot nose

Scream and whine and on it goes

But visitors seem oblivious to

This squawking, my head in two

Joggers jog and walkers nod

And "Holy shit," and "Oh my God,"

These birds, all a chatter, reveal in me the central matter
I've been working far too long, this isn't such an awful song. 

Cycling

When cycling on a country track
Lean forward and stretch your back
Drop heel first and brush with toes
Hug tight in pack and ride in rows
Wear helmets tight and purchase lights
That brighten roads, toads, horse's shites
Be vigilant always, stay perceptive
for potholes, cycling's contraceptive.

Hot

Today started dusty-thick, farmer's clouds
Hugging roads beside their crops
I cycled puzzled past fluffy shrouds
And picked my way between the flocks


As the day grew long, the haze burned'way
As figures droop and drip with sweat
Turn the fan to max today
Maintaining all at mildly wet


The grass shakes and the trees all quiver
While down each back there runs a river
The limp breeze offers no release
I type inside and drip on keys

Bike

I'm wearing Lycra and straddling steel
All sweat and leg and churning wheel
I draw weird looks and some wolf cries
But focus on my screaming thighs

Hunkered down, yeah I'm a Pro
Speedo says, "more miles to go,"
So I grit my teeth, spit out those flies
And say inside, "MAN UP YOU THIGHS!"

Then come the cars, so near they buffet
Us Lycra'd nutters, forced to rough it
So far so good, I will survive
The cars armed with gown and scythe

My home is a pancake plain
Hot and dry and not much rain
Rolling roads, few pitching highs
Still I suffer, wasting thighs!

The season builds, Le Tour De France,
Instantly I sound the ponce
Listing favourite 'Maillot Jaunes'
A fortnight of my girlfriend's yawns

Bus

I'm forced to pay the alarming bus fare as my vehicle's in disarray
So I coast in a double decker like traffic called in sick today


I glance across the fields and trees, at deer, pheasants, a hare too
When I drive this road myself it's a death-wish to admire the view


But public transport has a bad image and avoidance is preferential
When did it come to this? That my car was an essential


Tens of millions are "on the road," and congestion is now rife
"I should take the bus you say? I'd rather take my life."


Why don't we all share the stress? Use the bus to go far?
Maybe people just invoke their liberty as they fart inside their car?

Question

The question of importance and who gives a fuck
Were things my subconscious occasionally threw up
Spent frocked at funerals or cantor singing
Smattered with guilt and incessant bell-ringing


Unerring obedience to the guy with the beads
Regardless of his character, opinions or deeds
I'd kneel through his homily, listen as he'd say
How the Church needed money and "to Hell," if you're gay


In my early teens I was already aware
The system was rotten and the Church was not fair
I confessed to my Mother, and I sought contradiction
She replied "corruption's a human affliction"


How can the Church, built on followers of God
Avoid their sins and remain holy unflawed
It cannot and in fact it is defined by this feature
Just like the scripture is interpreted by every new preacher


So the inequality, the disparity, I accepted it all
"We are all forgiven just by answering His call,"
The years rolled on and the issue was dismissed
For the basest inquiry, does he even exist?

Jealousy

An article all about quantitiative easing
A comment piece on midnight feasting
Some pictures of some suburban sprawl
Ten pages of sport to cap it all


There is a theory that print media's dead
The most anaemic rag you ever read
Or a notion, people now, are self-obsessed
They want comment on their lives, what they eat, how they dress


Vlogging, blogging, social media and twitter
I have the sneaking suspicion that these folk are all bitter
Unable to write passages that hold mass attention
So they focus inwardly, post incomprehension
Social media, pure, freedom-speech, human-right
Whatever shit I think I'll just post on my site


Then these goons, those successful bloggers
Who tote Google's ads and earn the web honours
Post-modern, toss-filled, observational flunkies
Supplying nutrients for hoards of e-junkies
They're almost entirely crass, daring and wank
"Who cares what he thinks? It's hits in the bank"

Girl

The girl with the trumpeter's lips
and the teenage boy clutching her hips
Their physical display on the public right-of-way
No shame, no awareness even
Of older people, older standards, decorum, heathens


Oblivious to onlookers, simple and pure
unfettered with fear, stress or lists of things to do
People older and seemingly disgusted
are quietly jealous of their evident lusting
their grey pigeon holes and their appointment intercourse
bears no pale resemblance to this love found out-of-doors.

PhD

Coffee, tea and peppermint for some

This room is a fairly strange old mixture
Student, office-body, some kids and mum
And me, perennial, a caffeinated fixture
Plodding on with this expanding tome
Ensconced in one of my public burrows
Working better in white noise than alone
With each day making deeper furrows
I feel the farmer metaphor's a fit
Three long years spent raking shit.

Russian Scientist

The mumbling Russian scientist with his collar at his ears
Gave the longest, driest lecture to a congregation of his peers
"It was here we noticed this," and "This was the observation,"
So continued this rigid and rehearsed, rather worn old recitation
"It was proved in '62 by Prof and Doctor both now dead,"
"It was shown before my birth by this institute's great head,"
"There are further works to do, but my health's a consideration
in limiting my contribution to the knowledge of my nation,"
Very publicly he revealed the truth, which comes as no surprise
Nobody knows everything and everybody dies.

Climate Change

After all the plans and Bruce Willis thrillers
To protect from asteroids, comets, global killers
The one situation the Scientist's dismissed
That one which fell off their great list
That meteor worth six solar masses
Which in 2014 did thankfully pass us
But whose gravity was greater still
And dragged us off against our will
Far from the Sun our star and hero
The forecasts fell long past zero
And all those left in bunkers deep
Had one small victory that they could keep
That this great tragedy would simply mean
No more striving to be "green".

Tree

There is a tree at the bottom of my garden
It used to be a tree but now it's more of a bush
At dusk every night it comes into its own
With a freakish shriek, cackle, twitter and groan
It shakes in small patches, rustles, leans to and fro'
By dark it stands silent and you would never know....

Cat

My cat once became stuck in a box in my room,
I believe in that dark box the cat prophecy'd doom,
He probably thought that he had crossed over,
Not found my old photos and postcards from Dover,
I wondered if he'd felt sad or wished he'd seen more,
But when I opened the box, he just pissed on the floor.