Paul's Art World: December 2024

In order of composition, newest at the top.

Photographs from Ashurst, New Forest unless indicated otherwise.

Thoughts recur

as this one has, repeatedly.

But what is this re-writing-down–

self-plagiarism, or senility?

Does it go without saying

that there’s never a time when

‘that goes without saying’

can sensibly be said?

Can we turn back the tide?

The best we can hope for

might be an edit

that stops it coming all the way in.

(Jonathan Parsons: ‘Model Horizon (Variations)’, 2017-24, positions letters behind each other such that the viewer is naturally yet uncannily inclined to read them in one direction from the left, the other direction from the right.)

Not only

is he all shopped out,

someone's stolen

all the shopping…

(Mayfair, London)

Being too close to the angels

for them to make celestial sense

makes its own alternate sense,

given that they're selling consumption.

(Christmas decorations, Regent Street, London)

The use of gold

is very pointed,

even though I don’t know what the point is

if it isn’t pure.

(Marble Arch, London)

I’m all in favour

of donating money

in order to keep things free.

It should be made compulsory.

Brownie points

for Queen’s Elm Square

for using a square to say it’s a Square

even though it’s oblong.

(Kensington, London)

If I were a notice directing traffic

this the kind of back I’d want:

a go-green bright enough

to make the business side jealous.

(Kensington, London)

Not scale of cover

nor star of struts,

nor the finest cane

can protect an umbrella when the wind-time comes.

(Mayfair, London)

This is when I start to say

‘Get out my fucking way, you fucking slow-fuck!’

only to find that what comes out is

‘Could you please excuse me, please?’

Lego Land is Denim World

or, to build that up a bit,

those attending LUG events

have a communal liking for jeans.

(GERT LUG event, Bristol. LUG is an adult Lego Users’ Group, GERT is the Bristol branch, named from the local slang, as in the term ‘gert lush’ – ‘really good’)

Such a blizzard of instructions

might justify my sitting down

to ponder them in full -

did that not place me the wrong way round.

(Great Western train Southampton – Bristol)

It’s been a tough day

of wearing shirts

with thin grey stripes

or even the occasional check.

(18.05 Monday train from Waterloo towards Winchester – a prime commuter service)

The cars round here

must be very dirty or very clean:

because they never wash them,

or because they've washed them all already.

(Autowash, Neuss, Germany)

The Battle

of the Little Big Leaves

can only end in coverage

or rot. My money is on rot.

(Southampton)

The difference

between a bicycle wheel and a lamp

isn't so much the size of the sweep

as where you put the spokes.

(Embankment, London)

The behaviour of pigeons

is hard to fathom

why don't they simply

fly up steps?

Water would not be beautiful

if that were all there was:

it needs the world,

just as the world needs water.

I understand the price

of the American loaf:

bread by plane must have its complications.

But why does the local sourdough cost just so / as much?

(Gail's, Bermondsey, London)

Wake me up

in a dozen years…

I’m hoping that will give the world time

to work through quite a few issues.

(Self Storage, Southampton)

It sounds like a duty, if not an enforcement

Other artists might say ‘not at all,

I was simply fucking around with paint’.

But I don’t think that’s Tracey’s way.

(Tracey Emin: ‘More Fucking’ at White Cube, Bermondsey)

A leaf kiss can be beautiful

Not in the ground’s predictable orgy,

but higher up,

when one tree’s drift-down touches another.

The deer round here

are something else.

Apparently they’ll eat the lamp posts

right out of the supermarket car park.

(Totton)

Seems that pigeons aren't much good

at picking up leaves.

Can’t they be trained to use them

in the construction of their nests?

(Luton)

The future is creeping in from the right

but I have my doubts:

how fully is this bloke

going to participate?

(Luton: the mural ‘This is a Promise’, 2019, is a collaboration by two artists from Luton: Mark Titchner and Jonathan Barnbrook)

Ah, Camelus Lutonus…

Hardly an American diner,

nor do they drink coffee.

This pair must be here for the shisha.

(Luton)

When does leaf litter

become a litter of leaves,

or a litter of leaves

become a case of leaves with litter?

(Euston, London)

I worry sometimes

Do I look like someone

looking for leaflets

that sell him things he doesn't want?

How long has this thirsty bear

been waiting for a drink?

He looks happy enough:

I guess his order's on its way.

(Paris)

How do you like your bananas?

Not that early a green

and not that late a yellow,

but somewhere in between.

(Paris)

Paris seems to be cracking up

and I’m not sure there are quite enough

pieces remaining

to put it back together again.

(Paris - that said, London is probably cracking up faster)

Just as he was going to pull
the emergency chord
as the prelude to a crass attempt to pull her,
he read her admonition, and desisted.
(Paris)

Not so lucky, I suspect
for anyone who goes in there
rather than running their dog past
with its tail at maximum wag.

(Paris - the red light bars in Pigalle are notorious for ripping off tourists)

Doesn’t the world suffer

from quite enough boundaries

without them enclosing

an area of nothing?

(Paris)

I guess it's statistics

The station at which seats are freed up

because everyone gets off

is the one that I get off at.

(Paris)

Have we all been there?

I tried to open my room with my metro card

and only when I asked reception to reset it

did I realise my error.

(Paris)

It's a continental business

to ascend stairs to the underground:

I can’t name a London station

with the set-up.

(Paris – also common in Berlin but only, more logically, on the overground in London?)

Should we be worried

when the need for drugs

spills onto the streets

in the form of a pharmaceutical aura?

(Paris)

Life as a concrete post

is hard,

especially at night.

How good of someone to take a little pity.

(Paris)

In what respect -

remind me please,

I'm sure I heard it from a plausible source -

is half a bag better than none?

(Paris: or was it 'half a loaf is better than none'?)

Here on the Eurostar

I've been placed

with sleep-woman, phone-man and their headphone daughter

for three consistent hours...

I can hardly photograph them

so here's my sandwich,

my coffee, my laptop

and the view, just into France.

(Train London-Paris)

Here is the night shadow

crossing from the dark side

of an existential border

by not requiring sunlight.

(King's Cross, London)

It's sad when a fan

can only fan the ground:

the sky would be better,

even if it is too far away....

(Dalston, London)

The political bias of London transport

is rather hard to countenance.

I ignore it

and cleave to the left.

(London Bridge station)

'Of course

it's all a total mess

but you employed us

what can we say?'

(Farago Projects, Dalston, London)

The tangled web of accident

has moved the world

distressingly out

of conventional shape.

(Camden, London)

How good to see

such a triumph of greenery -

even though it grows on concrete,

even though it's come unplugged.

(Hoxton, London)

I'd like to comply

but what's the term

for a provocation

pointing to itself?

(Kennington station, London)

You know what they say

Even with one head

you'll be there before me:

two Brian's are better than one.

(Mayfair, London)

Eyes in the back of your head?

That could be useful.

Eyes in the way of your eyes?

I'm not so sure.

(Halloween makeup, 2024)

What time

does the train depart?

Ah, there it is by the station clock:

in no time at all.

(Charing Cross station, London)

They see, the eyes,

whether we like it or not.

They sear, the ears,

burning for what is said.

(Drawing by Amanda Lopes. lines 1 and 3 contain anagrams)

I was about to move this photo

into the recycle bin

when I thought ‘maybe not –

that would be too easy’.

(Mayfair, London)

Could I say she was flashing me

by virtue of my flash

revealing her naked state,

or was it the other way around?

(Mayfair, London)

If all of a bicycle’s parts are replaced

is it the same bike?

Are tricycles covered by this notice?

Can cycling create its own state of mind?

(Totton)

Where would London be

without its cattle troughs?

The rules of planning offset would need to be invoked

to replace the loss of grazing land.

(Angel, London)

Dying in slow motion

seems a good idea

when you see how it looks

to die fast.

(Bloomsbury, London)

How often does resisting temptation

equate to a missed opportunity?

I'm not too sure, but I'm impressed

by the sober black lettering this nursery has chosen.

(Islington, London)

When you cycle past a cross

you should pedal backwards

just for a moment:

inversion makes no difference.

(Mayfair, London)

According to the carrier bag

theory of nature

it’s not the fruit or seeds that matter

more how they are collected.

(Islington: In 'The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction', 1986, Ursula Le Guin disputes the idea that the spear was the earliest human tool, proposing that it was actually the receptacle. Questioning the spear's phallic, murderous logic, instead Le Guin tells the story of the carrier bag, the sling, the shell, or the gourd.)

On the Monopoly board

Park Lane is rather pricey.

In the real world, it seems,

you can live there rent-free.

(Park Lane, London)

A bit of crating, scrawled with graffiti?

I took it for firewood.

Only when it was burning

did I start to have my doubts.

(Hoxton. London: the wording is 'Don't Fucking Touch!!')

What is it

about time

that it's so hard to fuck,

that it always fucks you?

(Stella McCartney window display, Bond Street, London)

‘They ought to fine me

not with one of their piddling fixed penalties

but with a percentage of what my car is worth –

then I’d pay with twice the swagger.’

One tissue

would be pure detritus:

two

might try to pass as a sculpture.

In principle

there's nothing with lying down:

it's as good as any mode for making love.

Yet I think this post is fucked.

I can accept the occasional exception

but let us be perfectly clear:

nobody, no person, no head

is wearing a hat here.

Now my orange congruence

is ready to supplant

the reasons that I used to have

for mixing red and yellow.

I thought I could fly

but I seem to be grounded.

Nor am I sure

that this is the right way to go.

(Totton)

It comes to something

when a fence

needs a wall

in order to keep it standing up.

(Totton)

I didn’t even know

that barbers were being prosecuted,

but here is there refuge:

I guess it must be true.

(Rumbridge Road, Totton: here at least, hair services are thriving – a few yards contains not just The Barber Sanctuary, but also Love Your Hair, No. 15 Barbershop, Gentlemen’s League, Chris Ashleigh Hair Design, The Hair Lounge, The Organic Hair Lounge, Stunning Styles and Elegant)

L is for leaf

I get that of course:

I’m keener to stumble on ‘M’ for money,

to see what that’s worth.

(Southampton)

I'm not convinced

that either makes very much a sense,

but it must be easier to carry a bicycle in a shopping trolley

than a shopping trolley on a bicycle.

(Southampton)

Put on the headphones!

It looks as if she'll be wired for sound,

perhaps a tad superfluously,

through mouth and nose and eyes…

I have to question

whether such an extensive system

is really needed to store a few leaves,

and also the point of the goal.

(Pimlico, London)

Lambent… I like the word

Solar with design flair

and the promise of illumination…

All for a building site.

(Notting Hill, London)

I thought I might buy this

to better inform my essay on The Philosophy of the Philosophy of Philosophy…

but I didn't like the thought of someone

meta-meta-meta-meta analysing that.

(Blackstone's, Cambridge, with Timothy Williamson's book 'The Philosophy of Philosophy')

Those impossibilities

must have included

the impossibility of carrying on

in just the circumstances that came to pass.

(Notting Hill, London)

This was my plan:

to tip the balance underground

and see what streams of the hidden

came to the surface.

(Belgravia, London)

Who can be surprised

that Albany Mansions,

somewhat above itself,

refuses to play the role of No. 12?

(The number sequence of Upper Maze Hill, St Leonards)

Ignorance is no defence

even if you pull off most of the notices

before you proceed

to urinate on the street.

(St James’s, London - evidently there used to be six such anti-urination notices)

Something tells me

that my self portrait with shadow

will not be accepted

as a passport photo.

I overheard someone

complain about living opposite

‘a place that was a fucking brothel'

and wondered: was that a fucking tautology?

(Soho, London. The image is from Wikipedia, which says it is a photograph taken in 2015 of ‘a doorway advertising ‘Models’ in Brewer Street’ - an example of the now-declining phenomenon of the Soho ‘walk-up’. Perhaps that was the type of neighbouring property in question, as brothels are illegal in Britain, though I suppose that may not rule them out.)

This is what I call

high visibility:

let’s resupply

the traffic police at once!

(Waterloo station, London)

Failure to roll

has cost this stone

but do I rather like

its gather of moss.

(Bermondsey, London)

We almost all have legs

Sometimes we notice them.

Sometimes we don't.

Who can say why?

(Warrior Square station, St Leonards)

Here are the poles

(or are they rods?)

that make up the gate (or is it a fence?)

in front of what is surely Polegate School.

(Polegate)

School’s out already

and the children stream to church…

only to walk past

as if it were just a short cut.

(Polegate)

How far will I get

entering Wildlife Photographer of the Year

with these dramatic, split second captures

of a rapid and elusive pigeon?

(St Leonards-on-Sea)

TS Eliot

measured out a life with coffee spoons:

I've measured out St Leonards

by the sunshine through the windows of parked cars.

(St Leonards-on-Sea. The measurement was made by J Alfred Prufrock in his Lovesong. As for Eliot, surprisingly little attention has been paid to them being the first poet to openly foreground their transsexuality)

'I'm sorry, Sir

They look more like plums to me.

What a shame we had to close our Plum Division

due to a lack of demand.'

(St Leonards-on-Sea)

Ah yes

but is death itself dangerous?

I guess we'll never know

until we get to it being too late...

(General Hospital, Southampton)

'Platform 2 for the 12.58

to Ore via Eastbourne.

This train is formed of Ore carriages.'

Hang on, I think she said ‘four’.

(Polegate Railway Station - the level crossing seemed more interesting than the platform)

The rhino is a threatened species

The Spearmint seems to be no exception.

Less clear is the fate

of the instincts that used to sustain it…

(Online sources as of 2024 suggest that the strip club, part of a curiously-named chain founded in California, is being refurbished rather than permanently closed. I can’t say that looks likely, but apparently Camden Council follows a policy of banning any new applications for licenses for ‘sex establishments’, making the site valuable to retain in the business for its pre-existing, and so secure, license for such purposes.)

You’ll know how it is…

The slow line is fast

to stop altogether and the fast line is slow

when the slow line is blocked.

(Waterloo Station, London)

The sting is no more

It would be easy to be happy,

but what if it wouldn’t have stung me,

would have stung no one, in fact?

I worry a little

that deconstruction

might dominate function

in the consumption of post-modern beer.

(Warren Street, London)

I like a little mystery

but if you're the sort who needs to know

what's going on,

White Hart Street has got you covered, too.

(Kennington, London)

This must be where

the big decisions get made

in Taunton. Do they worry

that Whitehall is a no-through road?

(Taunton)

I waited several minutes

for an illustrative Yummy

to emerge with hair and beauty.

You’ll have to imagine her.

(Taunton)

A ‘santa’

is the collective term

for this many ho-ho-hoses

festively wrapped around each other.

(Hauser & Wirth, Bruton)

The River Brue

is brewing up no kind of storm.

Some reeds attempt to ripple it,

but their resistance hardly registers.

(Bruton)

This car park looks open

for what must be its very last day,

as if they put this notice up especially for me -

making it a pity I’m on foot.

(Dorchester)

Sure, I like bright colours

but let's hear it for

umbelliferous modulation

aging from cream yellow to yellow cream.

(According to Hauser & Wirth’s account of the Oudulf Field at Bruton the flower colour of Acillea ‘Credo’ is ‘of the soothing variety of yellow, washed with cream to varying degrees dependent on the maturity of the inflorescence’)

I was going to complain

that this road seems to be

pretty-much straight

when I realised: that might be the twist.

(Poole)

‘Don't Poo in Pool’

says a sign at these swimming baths –

that is, I hope it does,

in case I get round to swimming in Poole.

(Dolphin Centre, Poole - Council image)

I thought there was smoke in the fields

but as the train

carried on past the extent of it

I realised that was a mistscape...

(Dorset, but online image - I didn't manage to take a photo)

For almost

200 years, I hear,

they've been trying to find an auction house

willing to auction this auction house off.

(Dorchester)

The decorations

at Dorchester South

aren’t just somewhat unseasonal,

they’re decidedly way out.

(Dorchester)

I am all for modesty

in the context of self-confidence,

but Dagmar Road is self-effacing

to an undirectional fault.

(Dagmar Road, Dorchester)

There is an allure

to the cracks in this pavement:

an art historian would call it

craquelure.

(Dorchester)

The key to playing golf

in Poole

is teeing off out of the water:

it’s utterly crazy and yet it makes sense.

(Poole)

The point, I suppose

is that even seagulls

cannot get completely clean

in salty water.

(Poole)

No-one loves pigeons

and no-one loves ‘No Parking’ cones…

except, perhaps, for pigeons:

no only do they empathise, they never get fined.

(St James's, London)

There's no need to wait

for a bus to come, but fear not:

your waiting can be done on board,

while hoping it will move.

(Oxford Street, London)

Were I bee

I think I’d be a white-tailed bumble:

not for any particular reason,

simply because I can bee.

(New Forest Visitor Centre, Lyndhurst)

The staked pancakes

I suppose, come skewered in a pile,

but if you’re going to misspell ‘scrambled’

I do think ‘srcamlbed’ is better.

(Menu of the Wild & Green Kitchen, Cranleigh, featuring 'scambled eggs' and 'staked pancakes'. The cooking is much better than the spelling, which is surely the way round you would want it…)

I suspect

There’s just one problem

With this admirably capacious bin:

emptying it.

(Fitzrovia, London)

This van makes me wonder

if the water sedge grows at the water’s edge,

are rushes to be found where the water rushes

too fast to be so precisely confined?

(A more orthodox distinction is found in the ditty ‘Sedges have edges, Rushes are round, Grasses are hollow, What have YOU found?’)

Given that this

is an impression of a shell,

I'm inclined to count it

as a fossil.

(Southwark, London)

I seem to have taken

50% off of this photograph,

same as I have

off the reductions in the sale.

(Oxford Street, London)

Why avoid the obvious question?

Can I cut my pizza with a knife

or possibly one of those fancy wheels

rather than hurling an axe?

(Fitzrovia, London)

I would have thought haircuts

among the things least likely

to last forever -

and so it has proved.

(Goodge Street, London - the Toppers slogan on the door is 'Great Cuts Forever')

Not only does she have to carry an awkward burden

there's a complicated shadow

to drag along behind,

all while listening to her headphones.

(Leeds)

That's all very well

but who fences off

the fences

that fence off fences?

(Leeds)

Whoever looks

at the side of traffic lights?

Now that I am,

I don’t know whether to stop.

(Tottenham Court Road, London)

I can't go so far

as approving of litter,

but some litter operates

at almost that point

(Deptford)

This may be the best

non-effort of Steph,

a colourist

as accidental as nature.

Who would want a passive chiropractor

the sort who says

'You must be making up the pain:

I can't see any problem with your back'?

(Deptford)

It takes nine Thameslink stops

to turn Deptford into Dartford...

it seems a convoluted way

to alter two letters.

(Farringdon, London)

Even a callous type like me

is touched to see

how this lamppost has been bandaged up

as if it might get better....

(St Leonards-on-Sea)

‘Everybody wins a turtle!’

runs the cry

but does everybody also win

the desire to win a turtle?

(Eastbourne)

In this version of stone paper scissors

wood beats tarmac,

tarmac beats earth

and earth beats wood.

(St Leonards: The logic of this is that the tree disrupts the pavement’s tarmac, the tarmac prevents the earth giving sustenance, and the tree can't survive without earth.)

‘Why Greece?’ I wondered

when I woke from dreaming of

‘Kleitorídes tis Elládas’,

a comprehensive mapping of five million locations…

(One answer could be that the medieval origin of the word ‘clitoris’ lies in the Greek ‘kleitoris’ – which is why ‘clitorides’ - as well as ‘clitorises’- is a valid plural form. Another might be that Greece’s geography has a comparably complicated form. Either way, though, I wonder whether Greek men need ‘κλειτορίδες της Ελλάδας’ more than English men need the equivalent map ‘Clitorises of England’. My illustration is, of course, of the summary map only.)

How dangerous is

the Electio Eel?

Enough of a threat, it would seem,

to justify bandaging the face.

(Woking)

I still say

that any ballerina

who stands in needs of a base

leaves something to be desired.

(Woking: the sculpture is ‘Poppy’, 1996, by Tom Merrifield)

Half the day

blown away

by administration

and nothing much to show for it.

This may look ordinary

and I suppose it is –

yet it’s also the world’s first duty free shop,

as opened in 1947.

(Shannon Airport, County Clare)

The good news is

the lion is on a chain.

The bad news is

the chain is rather long.

(Birdhill, County Tipperary)

Wounded Knee

stands proud among presidents,

many of them troubled

more in the mind than the knee.

(Shannon Airport, County Clare. Many politicians - mostly US Presidents, including Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes and Trump - are ranged around the departure lounge walls. Lakota leader Wounded Knee, according to the caption, passed through the airport in the 1970’s)

Disregard my cardboard smile

I was thrilled to pose

with Barack and Michelle

not being Donald and Melania.

(Barack Obama Plaza is a motorway service area on the R445 road beside the village of Moneygall in County Offaly. Falmouth Kearney, the great-great-great-grandfather of Barack Obama (US President 2009-17) emigrated from Moneygall to the USA in 1850.The rather kitschy Plaza features an Obama museum / visitor centre. At the time – August 2024 – the possibility of a second Trump term loomed)

Like a critical echo

of the cracking of ice

that might be traced back to deforestation,

this vase seems cracked with trees.

(Jennifer Ahern: ‘Winter Series’ of hand-built painted stoneware at the National Design and Craft Gallery in Kilkenny)

I'm ready to descend

into the ripples

of time and place.

But I suspect they are cold.

(Killaloe, County Clare)

When a gravestone falls

it might signal the end of a death:

when a bollard falls,

its death has just begun.

(Adare, County Limerick)

Please do not throw

chewing gum in the urinals:

place it with gentle precision,

as if you were in the ladies’.

(Adare, County Limerick)

I don’t like the implication

that Jesus would be worshipped less

had he come out of a rough and ready

quickie behind the bike sheds.

(Church of the Immaculate Conception, Lahinch, County Clare)

Arguing for hours

made the making up

so very sweet

they called it the harmony row.

(Ennis, County Clare)

If I were to open

a chain of closed shops

I think I, too,

would call them 'Game Over'.

(Kilkenny, County Kilkenny)

The classics section

is reassuringly small

but unlikely to sell, in consequence:

I've read them all...

(The Nenagh Bookshop, County Tipperary)

What more can be said?

Plenty, I suppose.

And yet, perhaps,

nothing.

(St. Flannan's Cathedral, Killaloe, County Clare)

Top of the Town

may be overstating the case for Walsh’s,

though I await the context

of the rest of Killaloe…

(Killaloe, County Clare)

The Sisters of Mercy

will show no mercy

to anyone

found damaging their property.

(Nenagh: The Sisters of Mercy, is an institute run by the Roman Catholic Church with some 6000 sisters worldwide – best known in recent times for allegations of abuse connected to running Magdalene laundries, where women were brought by the state or their families for being unmarried and pregnant)

The shadow of history

is crenelated by conflict

and the £5m cost

of restoring this tower.

(Nenagh, County Tipperary: £5m was spent in 2008-12 on spent on restoring / virtually rebuilding the cylindrical keep of the 13th century castle)

Bottle sex

gets pretty full-on.

which should come as no surprise:

most of the time, they’re drunk.

I'm not saying

that trees can square the circle,

but it seems they can

make triangles out of rings.

Any trio benefits

from a solid and dependable backing.

You can bank on bronze

to do the job.

(Woking – the sculpture is Sean Henry’s ‘Standing Man’, 2010)

Did Mary

do the washing, then?

I like to think that Joseph

took his turn.

(Euston, London)

Project Orange will be complete

when all of the blue is vanquished.

Then, however,

we won’t know what it was.

(Clapham Junction, London)

I came to Winchester

because I like rain

that knows it's rain,

not shower or drizzle, let alone mist.

(Winchester)

People in Camden, Woking and Battersea

are totally different,

the only question being

‘Who is where?’

(Woking (1,3 & 6), Camden (4,5 & 7) and Battersea (2,6 & 8))

The most patient man in Woking

has been standing here for several years.

I don't know what he's waiting for:

I can say that it hasn't happened yet.

(Sean Henry's painted bronze 'The Wanderer', 2012, was installed in Woking High Street in 2018. Henry was born in Woking in 1965.)

‘Which way's pink?’

seems a sensible question,

now that the band is so very fractured

even Floyd is no longer with them.

(Fitzrovia, London. Pink Floyd’s 1975 song ‘Have a Cigar’ presents a cash-driven record executive who praises the band but reveals his ignorance through the question ‘By the way, which one’s Pink?’. The band title refers to no members, but is a combination of Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, two blues artists admired by Syd Barrett. The last full Pink Floyd tour was in 1994: since then, various partial reunions have been riven by personal feuds, notably between David Gilmour and Roger Waters. The former has, for example, called the latter ‘a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy megalomaniac’. )

Welcome to London…

Let's hope that

the operation of trains

is not another optional extra.

(Charing Cross Underground Station)

Thanks…

though I had guessed that this is a wall.

I think it was the bricks

that gave it away.

(South Bermondsey, London. In fact the full word is ‘Millwall’ - the football club's ground is here: Millwall is a district on the Isle of Dogs, and the club has retained the name although it moved south in 1910)

I guess it's a pipe dream

but wouldn't things be easier

if nothing in the world

was simply black or straightforwardly white?

(South Bermondsey, London)

My suspicion

that Damien doesn't stoop to ironing

any more than painting spots

is born out by the casting of this board onto the street.

(spotted in Bermondsey, London, where I don't recall any of Damien Hirst's spot paintings ever being exhibited - though he did show other paintings there at White Cube in 2012)

This is not

the sweetest rose in London.

Might another name have served

its not-so-sweetness better?

(Spitalfields, London)

Can a strawberry be lonely?

Steph is concerned that this one

hasn’t made it into my muesli,

that I’ve left it ‘all on its own’.

One seat for my bags

one seat for my drink,

one seat ready for me.

Who needs rush hour?

(District line, London)

It’s as if I’m absent from myself

I blame my parents for making me a revolutionary.

What distortions, I ponder darkly,

will be required to get me back in synch?

(Discounted sale shelf, Blackwell’s bookshop, Oxford)

This boot belongs to the woman sitting next to me

who calls the friend she’s phoning

‘you fucking bitch’

with such obvious endearment, I am touched.

(Train between Paddington and Oxford)

Seven plastic bottles

sitting on the pavement

and if one plastic bottle should accidentally

I see it has already rolled away.

(Spitalfields, London)

I don't believe

that bikes have railings,

so it must be

that fences have spokes.

(Somers Town, London)

I'd like to join in sister-sleep

All I need’s to be female -

preferably adolescent -

and to have a sister.

(Train between Woking and Waterloo)

Take a seat

Relax -

at one with nature,

at one with the wood….

(Newmans Copse, Hounsdown)

Having fallen

on holly

I was relieved to be wrapped

in a blanket of lichen.

(Newmans Copse, Hounsdown)

The key to a good dapple

is that what might be seen as

the light-shadows of leaves

are actually the light-shadows of gaps between them.

(Newmans Copse, Hounsdown)

What to make

of a plastic garden?

How can it be

‘a piece of land where flowers and plants are grown’?

(Sunnyfields Farm Shop, Hounsdown)

It's great to see such inclusivity

though I do wonder

how many jerks in need of support

will have a courage to go in?

(Tottenham, London)

I like it that this fence

seems to have been sewn into place.

It must have taken

quite a needle.

(Tottenham, London)

The sun up the bum

of the golden cockerel

tells me that Spurs will have a great season

if only all the matches are in August.

(Outside Tottenham Hotspurs’ football ground, London)

Inversion is the standard way

of disrupting meaning,

meaning that this is sadly predictable –

if it’s not the slyest of deconstructions.

(Kings Cross, London)

This flash a car

bears definite messages:

on the one hand ‘I'm a tasteless twit’;

on the other ‘I’m extremely rich’.

(Kings Cross, London)

When a frog glows

with quite so much health, you have to ask yourself –

even allowing for the freshening rain –

whether it can be for real.

(Bloomsbury, London)

I want to be rich enough

to own and run

a superyacht.

But I don’t want a superyacht.

(The 367-foot Renaissance became available for charter in 2024 at a rate of $3.25 million per week, so to be rich enough to hire it for a mere week would be something in itself)

Isn’t there something self-refuting

about an advert claiming

that the place that no-one's wanted yet

is just the place to advertise?

I hung the pavement on itself

walked along it downside up,

then caught my reflection,

looking away, in a window.

(Islington, London)

How does she handle

life having dealt her

such a folded face?

Ah yes, of course, I see...

(Islington, London)

It's one thing

to tackle the subject of nothing,

another

to think of anything to say.

(accidental in-camera abstraction)

‘Isn’t gambling wrong?’

I challenged. ‘Only if you lose’,

he countered, ‘which is why

I always bet to win’.

('Casino' by Simon Whybray in the show ‘Sin Centre’ at Hannah Barry Gallery, Peckham, London, 31 May - 14 Sept 2024)

Found in the school playground

One uniformly blue jumper

believed to have belonged

to a five-and-a-half year old.

(Nursling Primary School, Southampton)

Love and infatuation

Reality and fantasy.

Transport and being transported.

Mind the gap!

(Vauxhall Station, London)

The children are terribly tall around here

though not, I suppose, as you approach by car:

they’ll look to be of normal proportions

as you run them over.

(Kennington, London)

I found this fish

out of water,

but lucky enough

to be made of wood.

(Kennington, London)

My pleasure in recording a recorder

would be greater were one of the group

playing on,

as well as for, the recorder.

How thoughtful it is

to put out a towel out for passers-by

when it's raining so hard.

I can think of only one problem…

(Fitzrovia, London)

Does Asda

really

cost more than Cost Less

by other than the logic of definition?

(Camberwell, London)

To have your head in the clouds

may cause some mental drift,

but to have your head made up of clouds

must be bad for every kind of thinking.

(Camberwell, London)

The pavement’s dream

of rising up askew

remains no more than a hopeful outline

of an unlikely reality.

(Camberwell, London)

My pleasure in recording a recorder

would be greater were one of the group

playing on,

as well as for, the recorder.

(Penguin Café at the Turner Sims concert hall, Southampton)

Supposing that it’s all the rage

to wear your curtains externally

why not go the whole way on

to show your inner pink?

(Peckham, London)

Is there virtue

or stupidity

in such a pure mechanism

fully unmoored from what to brought it into being?

(Peckham, London)

Grid distorted by the form of its ground?

Check. Placed in contrasting encirclement?

Check. Echoed by the pattern of the floor?

Check. I think I’ll take a photo.

Why the shimmy

Mr Sign?

What reason could your arrows have

for directional hesitation?

(Farringdon, London)

Among my first dictates

when I come to power

will be the requirement

that every Square should have a square sign.

(London)

If you can't

walk, run.

If you can't

run, flow.

(Direction line for walking, plus hose - Barbican, London)

That ought to cover it:

emergency exit,

fire extinguisher, ladder.

I think I'll stay put.

(Barbican, London)

How metaphorical

are hotel toasters?

Once is not enough,

twice is far too much.

(Avisford Park, near Arundel)

One throw-away thought…

What’s the difference

between a bin liner

and a line of bins?

(Southampton)

Such a waste of summer ice

chills me somewhat…

but then, I get heated

about poor insulation in winter.

(South Kensington, London)

Which will it be?

Heaven or hell?

Either way, surely,

is more a destination than diversion?

(Finchley Road, London)

A garage

for model cars?

It's nice to know

niche businesses survive.

(Bow, London)

Standards are declining

as they always have.

No wonder rich men

will spend more on football than on papers.

(Tower Hill, London. Evgeny Lebedev decided to axe the Evening Standard in 2024 in the face of losses of £5m per year. Chelsea, for example, have posted losses of £360m over the last three accounting years)

How many clouds

do you need to join up

to make a sky?

I propose the rule of three.

(Bermondsey, London)

Is this a video

ready to be played

or just the sun

already playing off the angle of a roof....

(Tower Hill, London) By way of comparison, here's a video still:

Temperatures are rising

round the globe:

out with yellow’s gentle admonitions

in with virulent red prohibitions.

(Bermondsey, London)

Is this the place to busk?

Does it come alive at dusk?

Did there used to be musk?

Or is it merely ‘usk’?

(Usk Street, Bethnal Green: The ‘Globe Town’ motif gives the impression that an initial letter has been covered up)

Why are lemons

kept in nets

but never apples?

Apples are just too damn hard to catch.

I can’t believe that they believe

that a barrier like that

will keep the Big Man in his place

or prevent his theft.

(Paddington, London: an as-yet-unlaunched commission by Ugo Rondinone, I do believe)

Not a perfect

pair of pears,

but - equi-nestled - company enough...

effectively, a conference.

(The Conference Pear, an autumn cultivar of the European pear Pyrus communis was developed in Britain by Thomas Francis Rivers, the name deriving from it claiming first prize at the National British Pear Conference in 1885)

‘Sorry sir,

but we rarely see

shoes so ordinary:

we're not repairing them.’

(Paddington, London)

That's very generous

given that I never went in.

Maybe that's why

they went under.

This may not be the usual way

to hang a fence,

but doesn’t everybody need

a little horizontal in their lives?

(Southampton)

Why worry overmuch?

Three quarters of people

won’t get shingles

until they are dead…

How many petals

does a Dog Rose have?

That depends –

not so much on botany, as wind.

Imagine the interview

‘… and what would you bring

to the role of Programme Developer

here at St Martin’s Theatre?’

(Seven Dials, London: St. Martin’s Theatre has been home to Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’, the longest continuous running show in the world, since March 1974. Prior to that it was at Ambassadors Theatre 1952 to 1974. The only interruptions in its run have been two days while it moved theatres and 14 months for the Covid pandemic.)

Nobody wants to live in phlegm city

but we all have to start

from where we are, then try to move on

to where we’d sooner be.

(I couldn’t get a decent image of my mucus, so here more tastefully are four people trying to get rid of the it – or, more likely, actors pretending to be people trying to get rid of it)

If the size of leaf fragments

indicates the volume of feet,

then it’s plain

that this is London.

(There are estimated to be 100,000 plane trees on the streets of Greater London, accounting for some 10% of the total arboreal population – but they tend to be in many of the most prominent places)

The Barbican’s concrete

seems to be on fire

with damp. I guess that's more resistant

than even the right sort of cladding.

(Barbican, London)

I appreciate

the handle.

All all the same,

I can't quite lift this column.

(Elephant & Castle, London)

What crop circles are

in rural myth,

the sprayed drain is in suburbia -

assuming it’s for real.

If I were a bird on a wire

I wouldn't be nervous about edging higher.

True, I’m no flyer,

but that isn't me on the wire.

The big rocks

are in charge round here.

They don't wait for the pebbles to invite them,

they just apply their weight.

(Arnhem, Netherlands)

I'm not sure I believe

in Cod:

it's just pollock mis-described

to hide the overfishing.

(Amsterdam)

When the model folds into the page

I'm returned to the 1970’s joke

regarding a young man’s surprise

that women didn’t have staples.

(The book is 'I am' by Erwin Olaf, as seen in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Playboy centrefolds were stapled, back in the day)

Only on pond pondering

did I twig that yonder ripply rocks

were in fact

some sort of ceramic habitat for plants.

(Oosterpark, Amsterdam)

Summer is near

and by way of a seasonal forecast,

the building's decor

falls from the trees.

(Montesorri School, Amsterdam)

Why do herons

never position themselves in front of reflections?

If I had lines of comparable purity

I guess I'd do the same.

(Oosterpark, Amsterdam)

The window orchid’s

combination of in and out,

direct and reflected, natural and constructed

makes other orchids look a little simple.

(Amsterdam)

If you're going to slice the sky

I recommend an irregular quadrilateral:

whether eponymous blue or scudded,

I leave to your taste.

(Railway Station, Southampton)

I have discovered

that super-hoop earrings

make women beautiful.

Could this be my route to a fortune?

‘Isn’t it time’

I asked old Mrs Bench,

‘to admit your late husband is no longer a bench,

and get back into to being one yourself?’

(Photograph taken in Knighton, Wales by Steph Carey-Kent)

It can’t be much

of a boost to the environment

to find that cans of Boost

are falling fast as leaves.

(Kings Cross, London)

It looks as if Victoria

has had a lot of rain...

The floods have washed down

well past Brixton.

(Kings Cross Underground, London)

Oh dear!

Am I showing that the wrong way up?

I need to be better

at getting down to detail.

(Baker Street, London)

It isn't rush hour

but all the same this seems

a little greedy. Shouldn’t sleep

be kept to the Circle Line?

(Bakerloo line, London - the Circle Line is the traditional one for endless journeying, given it doesn't have end stations)

I think we can call this modern pavement

'post-post', even though its deconstruction

doesn’t carry the weight of theory

the post-post-modern leads one to expect.

(pavement with post removed, Marylebone, London)

This is the sort of city

in which it's assumed that the average bed buyer

knows their Pepys. I wonder if they offer

the best of a bad bargain…

(Oxford - Samuel Pepys' Dairy contains the first known use of the phrase 'the best of a bad bargain')

Pizza – pasta

pizza – pasta

constitutes the full Italian Cycle -

we’re not even halfway through.

(Oxford)

This is Radio Wok FM

challenging the limits

of hot vibes and stir-fry

on the way down to the dump.

Are these just plantains?

No more than my wife is just a woman:

they’re our very own plantains

from our very own patch of wild garden.

I wonder who discarded this

and whether in was in carelessness,

or irony or...

what would be the protest being made?

(Southampton)

I suppose the message is

they're all at sea here, expect a long wait -

cunningly making me extra pleased

when they see me right on time.

(Royal South Hants and Southampton Hospital)

If you leave it

to appearances -

even after winter, even though it must be so -

leaves don't seem the essence of these trees.

(Pimlico, London)

Since when did roads

become so colourful?

Perhaps it’s time

to restrict the cars to black or white.

(Pimlico, London)

If Elton had sung of Marilyn

that it seemed to him she lived her life

'like a rockrose in the wind',

would he still have had a hit?

(Chichester: this fluttering Cistus x aguilarii 'Maculatus' – or Spotted white rockrose – put me in mind of the famous scene from 1954 film of ‘The Seven Year Itch’ (1954) in which Marilyn Monroe laughs as her skirt is blown up by the blast from a subway vent, and hence of Elton John’s 1973 song about her, ‘Candle in the Wind’)

‘Water logic’?

Sounds sophisticated...

Actually, it's just an awkwardly high and pointlessly elaborate

table on which to put the jugs of water.

(Conquest Hospital, St Leonards)

A large portion

of peace, please,

preferably worldwide -

and could I have that with chips?

(World Peace Shop, Bexhill)

Let us not get carried away

Plenty of shops have closed their doors,

many more important than a picture framer –

but that's just my perspective.

(Bexhill)

This isn't abstract art

says the gallery text, but it is attempting

‘to represent the unrepresentable’,

which looks like having the same result…

(Manuel Mathieu: 'The End of Figuration' at the De La Warr PAvilion, Bexhill)

It's a shame

the wall has a broken its necklace,

though it still exudes

a scattered glamour.

(Bexhill)

This is the most

commendably restrained

‘No Parking’ notice I can recall.

Several cars are parked in front of it.

(Sign almost fully overpainted, St Leonards)

The way the world is

I'd expect to find this toilet

dirty and malfunctional,

but I'm not playing along.

(Hackney, London)

When the sun rose

in the daisies

I knew the day was going

to be good.

(St Leonards)

These days, I guess

the video’s sound is silence –

and not because

there’s been a return to silent movies.

(St Leonards)

Compromise

is not the same as failure:

the practice of accommodation

is a large part of success.

(St Leonards)

THE CYST

There’s plenty in the world

one would rather didn’t exist

I’m certainly keen that the lump on my arm

should become an ex-cyst.

(12 May 2024)

Either my gown

is mortally wounded,

or else I can't deny the charge

of making it rather bloody.

(Southampton General Hospital, just after having the cyst in my arm excised and drained - ie surgically lanced - on 14 May. a surprisingly full tray of blood and puss resulted, plus overspill)

‘This is Lancing’

says the announcer.

I can’t help feeling ‘That was lancing’

would have been more to the point.

(Lancing Railway Station, 15 May)

This is all the existence

an ex-cyst can aspire to.

I can't see why it bothers:

perhaps it won't, for long.

(St Leonards, 17 May)

___________________________________

Mind you don't slip

on the sign that's enacting

exactly the fate

that it warns you against.

(Southampton General Hospital)

You can't trust buttercups

to reveal affection:

they’ll always claim you’re loved, five petals on.

Better to take your chances with a daisy.

(Minstead. ‘He loves me, he loves me not’ / ‘She loves me, she loves me not’ is a game in which a person alternately speaks the phrases while picking one petal off a flower - usually a daisy - for each phrase. The phrase they speak on picking off the last petal supposedly represents the truth between the object of their affection loving them or not.)

A ball of hedge

makes little sense. It's hard to kick it

anywhere, let alone as far as the docks,

to a big enough structure to act as a goal.

(The docks begin just four miles from Ashurst, but still… )

The sun's own rays

cause the sun's zone.

But the sun is not a zone of itself:

it's just the sun.

I’ve heard the jokes

about gnome sweet gnome

and I still find gnomes

more crass than sweet.

(Houndsdown)

See how the dandelion

wears the plan

for its own eternity

as if it were a skirt.

You could map every visible star

onto this constellation of daisies,

the only question being

which daisies to omit.

(Nottingham)

Beware of crocodiles

next time you’re looking

to snap up a bargain

on the High Street…

(Nottingham)

Here's where the barber sign

asks the Post Office Tower

‘what makes you think

it’s such a big deal to revolve?’

(Fitzrovia, London)

This is how

you mark the place of a market stand.

It makes sense to patrol your claim

with a pigeon.

(Chapel Street Market, Islington, London)

Where buttercups

are yellow, straight, because they love the sun,

bluebells are a shade of blue

because they love the shade.

(Lyndhurst)

Edward Square may seem a little dull

to those who've crossed swords with Pete Point,

or traced the curves of Lucy Round.

Yet worthiness is worthy, after all.

(Edward Square, Barnsbury – one of London’s first public gardens when opened to all in 1888. Who, by the way, put the word into swords?)

See how gently he sands the paintwork down

as if it were the tooth

of one of the patients who've defected

from Rough Work Dental down the road.

(Alton)

The Germans love their big blue pipes

I reckon that’s because it is

the love of big blue pipes itself

that all those big blue pipes pump round.

(Berlin)

The case for having hair of grass

is clear enough - winter is a doddle.

How about a lawn of hair?

No reasons come to mind…

(Cornelia Schleime: ‘Wenn der Ostwind weht’ (When the East Wind Blows), 2016 - Acrylic, asphalt varnish and shellac on canvas, 220 × 360 cm at Galerie Judin, Berlin)

The feathered nettle

is all about lure and contrast.

Can I feel the former,

Without edging into the latter?

(Berlin)

That moment when

you notice that you’re sinking

then realise that the lifebuoy is stuck between the rails

and, anyway, is made of bronze…

(Berlin – that’s Norbert Radermache’s ‘The Ring’, 1985, on Potsdamer Brücke)

This looks like pool that I can play…

too rough for skill to count for much,

and no pockets, besides, to benefit those

who know how to hold a cue.

(Berlin)

A rose is a rose is

some sort of monstrosity

in what appears to be cement.

Its sweetness must be its scent.

(Berlin)

I can't see the photographer

but can tell that the pose

is not for me.

Am I entitled to take my own picture?

(Berlin)

Have I discovered a new form

of discrimination? Or should I ask

‘Habe ich eine neue Form

der Diskriminierung entdeckt?’

(Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin)

Don a green hat

from a green situation

to banish the blues

and keep your thoughts spring-fresh.

(Berlin)

What is slightly out of kilter?

The construction

of the U-Bahn system

or how I line up my phone?

(U-Bahnhof Konstanzer Straße, Berlin)

The sun is out

The bath’s in place.

The Germans love to be naked.

What can explain their failure to wash here?

(Berlin)

What an achievement

I don't think it is

to be the first bus that I see in Berlin

when it’s not even one that I wanted to catch.

(Berlin)

What would you sooner suspend?

The laws of gravity

or that lot,

over your head?

(Clapham Junction, London)

Tables dancing?

It doesn't seem likely

even at the peak of Soho's

reputation for the disreputable.

(Soho, London)

You know that summer is coming

when the blossom falls from the wall

leaving the bulk of it

greyer than before.

(Deptford, London)

Do Not Disturb!

For I am getting

ready

to unfurl...

(lily, Camberwell, London)

They’re thoughtful round here

cutting a section

out of the cover-board

in case you want to see the wall.

(Deptford, London)

This is the place

to bring a clapped-out bike

if you can’t be bothered

to take it down the tip.

(Mayfair, London)

How much simpler it would be

to remove any bicycles

chained to the railings

were they not chained to the railings!

(Bloomsbury, London - less favourable than Mayfair, it seems, if you want the bike removed)

That's enough

of the mottling drizzle, drip and mist –

now's the time

for the bolder strikes of proper rain.

(Bermondsey, London)

One would be an incident

Two is a tendency.

Three would amount to

a suspiciously unlikely trend.

(straws in Holborn. London)

The Baselitz bike is an awkward ride

It isn’t so much the free-spinning wheels

Getting you nowhere

As the scraping of the head as you try.

(Bloomsbury, London - Georg Baselitz is known for paintings that appear the wrong way up)

What you want

is buffers worth hitting –

not so much physically as metaphorically.

The railways pull the trick off all the time.

(Waterloo Station, London)

The tipping point for ferns

is rather literal:

when the tips

unfurl to a point.

(Furzey Gardens, Minstead)

A Zalean Colour Chart

may not have room for every hue

but for garden beauty purposes

it will do.

(Azaleas in Furzey Gardens, Minstead)

I can't believe

that easel was used to paint the wall -

but if it was,

that was quite some canvas it supported!

(Shoreditch, London)

How do you sleep

on a train?

With quite a lot of snuffle noise,

that I have spared you here.

(Between Winchester and Woking)

If you can see the world

in a grain of sand,

why not the cosmos

in the cracking of a pane?

(St James’s, London)

You never know…

If you sleep outside Pret,

you may wake up to breakfast

or, more likely, brunch…

(Oxford Circus, London)

I like the moment

when speckles of rain

complement or cover or even seem to merge

with speckles on the stone.

(Southampton)

I’ve been cut back

in what I'd call my prime

were it not so easy

to end it.

(Southampton)

Does this really

throw light

on the mechanics of a street lamp?

I’m baffled by the spring…

(Charing Cross, London)

The sign of the cross

is such a barrier here!

Do they want to stop the unconverted

climbing up to ecstasy?

(St Anne’s Church, Soho, London)

Given the exposure to the elements

it’s hard to be surprised

that almost every hairdresser

has given up on grass

(Hillier’s Arboretum, Hampshire)

This much tape

suggests an invisible reason -

if only that someone's keen that we

should wonder what that is.

(Canada Water, London)

Living in a parallel world

would suit me fine

if I just knew

whether I was in the real one.

(Finchley Road, London)

Kiss the hippo

massage the rhino

kick the kanga

tickle the tiger…

(Covent Garden, London. It sounds dangerous, but according to the chain’s founder, Joshua Tarlo, the name 'Kiss the Hippo Coffee' is merely ‘a playful expression of the company's respect for nature’ – it was the first coffee company in the industry to be certified as a carbon negative.)

I’m not convinced

that this is a man looking out of the window -

but I concede

he’s something of a star.

(Mayfair, London)

Daisies, dandelions, primroses, buttercups…

All I'm saying is:

I've never seen a cowslip

bloom along this way.

(Totton)

You can't expect these trees to swim

Even if they did have lessons,

it would take a million years of evolution

to give them any chance.

(Totton)

Is that all philosophy tells us?

That there's really no chance

of reeling in seeming

as far as the really real real?

(The image - at least on 5 April 2024, was the first to come up from a Google image search for 'reeling in seeming')

Spring brings a surfeit

of helio-yellows.

Which grabs the glory?

Pick your fix…

Blowsy is

as blowsy does

but the essence of blowsy

must be what it was.

(You can describe lush, overblown flowers that are a bit past their peak bloom as ‘blowsy’)

I guess I wouldn’t mind

too much

were it full of my shit –

but I wouldn’t like anyone else’s.

(Deptford, London)

The urban cow is glossy pink

and either has no lust for grass,

or else has learned to channel it

into cinnamon buns and lattes.

(Farringdon, London)

Who doesn’t favour natural light?

Well, this must be as natural,

albeit short of lumen-power,

as artificial light can get.

(Deptford, London)

Has a feather escaped

from a pillow in disguise,

or is it here

by sleep-tickling happenstance?

(Farringdon, London)

12 across

Four letters that

‘will smell as sweet

if you get this answer wrong’.

(Train, Basingstoke)

You never know

when there might be two fires

and only one alarm –

and then where would we be?

(Mayfair, London)

Eat pizza and save the world

Walk backwards in red shoes and save the world.

Write poems about photographs and save the world.

Stop the sun exploding and save the world...

(West Brompton, London)

The simple allure of complexity

is evident here:

the complex allure of simplicity

may be harder to pin down.

(Piccadilly, London)

Why would you dump ice down a drain?

Let us say to protest global warning…

Either that, or there’s a lot of whisky

being readied for the rocks down below.

(St James’s, London)

Last year the primroses

rose rather modestly -

primly, even.

Now they’re on the rise.

Ah, the eternal question

of how to define the temporary!

This machine’s rejected notes for over five years,

but that’s less than a blip in the universe’s timespan.

Let us assume them

mother and daughter:

that hereditary pink hair

seems to fade a little over time.

(Portsmouth)

I like

a good yard sale.

How much

if I take the lot?

(Portsmouth)

All I can say is

if Boris tried to seduce me,

I’m pretty sure

I wouldn’t fuck him.

(Portsmouth)

Portsmouth is looking at me

eyelash-branches in its eye.

I'm not sure I want to look

at Portsmouth.

What is the effect of causes?

To make matters other

than they would have been.

But what is the cause of effects?

(Portsmouth)

It was a squeeze

to get through, we won't deny it,

but you can't tell us where we’ll fit in,

nor what we're meant to do.

(Portsmouth)

Why did the couple next to me

spend the whole hour down to Portsmouth

wordless, bookless – phoneless, even

in favour of staring at places like this?

(Fratton)

Why must magnolia move

just as one is snapping it?

It looks too late

to be part of the process of blooming.

(Oxford)

‘How many greats’

asks the clock of the sun,

‘do I need, to get back to

you being my parent?’

Its job

is to illumine, and yet it reflects.

But reflection

can throw light on matters, too.

(Whitechapel, London)

Halfway up

is surely better than halfway down,

even conceding

that they’re the same place.

(Edgeware, London)

The law of diminishing rocks

States that size is proportional to distance.

I’d be tempted to increase the size by corresponding increments

were it not for the view from the other end.

(Whitechapel, London)

Death’s on its way

I know it you know it

I just hope I don't look

this scared or surprised.

Dead flowers

may seem a bad omen,

but when there are seven

the summer is going to be good.

I like the way a celandine

spreads. No holding back,

no fear of looking daft if the sun stays in -

even though it probably will.

I've never got off the train

at Millbrook.

Nor it is obvious

why I should...

(Southampton)

It makes little sense

that something so common as daffodils

can retain the power to enchant.

Yet there they are.

I like this picture

enough to include it,

even though

I have no words.

(Southampton)

If walls have feelings

the same as some rocks,

this one must be suffering

quite a bit of pain.

(Southampton)

Would you want to live in a house

that backs onto death quite as directly as these?

Even if it made your last journey

that little bit quicker?

(Southampton)

Why do cars have ears?

To help,

of course,

their drivers to see.

(Southampton)

Even

in the pebble kingdom,

single parent families

are on the rise.

(Broadstairs)

On Broadstairs Beach

I can connect nothing

to Eliot.

I need to get to Margate, fast.

(Broadstairs. In 1921 TS Eliot, recuperating from a nervous breakdown, had sat in a shelter on Margate’s seafront while writing Part III of The Waste Land.‘On Margate Sands / I can connect / Nothing with nothing. / The broken fingernails of dirty hands. / My people humble people who expect / Nothing.’)

Here everyone is keen to please

They serve with smiles,

stop to let us cross the road,

accommodate guests who can’t spell.

(Broadstairs: photo of sign spotted by Steph)

Alder was felled

Berry had no time to ripen; Pollard

was cut back; White went into the dark.

Everyone was grateful to them.

(Broadstairs)

They like their puns in Thanet

‘Max Headroom’ was already one,

so ‘Matt's Headroom’ is a pun

as squared as the back of a haircut.

(Broadstairs)

‘You won't be planting that in me

unless you use a

very, very powerful

anaes…. ‘

(Broadstairs)

How long was it?

Probably not as long as it seemed.

The air was tossing, turning, shifting,

never could quite settle in its bag.

(Broadstairs)

Follow the line past the bin

and just beyond infinity

you'll find him cleaning windows

in a never-ending cycle…

(Margate)

What may seem

a difficult project

is seamlessly achieved here:

the gridding of sand.

(Margate)

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised

that the ‘Rose in June’ is closed in March

Business must be a struggle

on just one month a year

(Margate)

We’re proud to live here

up to a point: a point

that was tested in 2011 and tipped in ‘22.

Can we move to Princess Anne?

(Broadstairs: there is a ‘Princess Anne Road’ nearby. Accusations about sexual abuse by the already-less-than-popular Prince Andrew, Duke of York, arose in 2011, in the context of his association with the convicted sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein. In 2022 he made a multi-million pound settlement to prevent the matter reaching court. That was widely seen as a tacit admission of guilt, and the royal family obliged Andrew to withdraw from public life.)

This will be

the national hub

when the Barbie Revolution

skateboards into town.

(Broadstairs)

Do I detect

a certain determination

to stop anybody getting under

Westover Road?

(Broadstairs)

This is a seat

worth sitting on:

I may not even need

to need the loo.

(Margate)

Two up two down

in Cliftonville:

they don't make wildernesses

the way they used to.

(Margate)

Spoiler alert

The winner is revealed,

and he doesn't look surprised…

or even happy.

(New Milton)

I expect

to find things pretty disgusting,

that being the state of the country these days.

Does that mean I should mess the place up?

(Café, New Milton)

This is the shape

of the boundary

between 40 and 100 % gravel -

with gravel roughly equal on either side.

(New Milton. The typical concrete mix is made up of roughly 10% cement, 20% air and water, 30% sand, and 40% gravel)

That must have been

one hell of a closing party,

a night on which the usual old customs

seemed so cool they might have been new.

(the former Old's Cool Occasions and Old's Cool Customs, New Milton)

Ignoring the rain

I combed the streets

for items of interest -

and all I found was this.

(New Milton)

Why is it called

Old Milton?

You don't say Old York or Old Amsterdam.

Let the usurpers carry the burden of distinction!

(Old Milton)

I was puzzled for a moment

Why would the Evening Standard

list the contents of The Independent?

Then I realised my mistake – or theirs...

(Northern Line, London)

The problem is

if you’ve laid down

you won’t be able to reach

the top of the box to open it.

Stute

should be a word

for an intelligent person.

Who wouldn’t want to be a stute?

(If you put ‘intelligent person’ into an online image search, the first page is dominated by Einstein)

Are Sotheby’s moving

with the trans times?

I guess not, that’s probably an old-fashioned jacket,

not a short skirt.

(Sotheby’s, Mayfair, London)

This looks like

a dangerously drippy place to stand.

But what is life

if you never take a risk?

(Waterloo, London)

I didn't know that Arb

had been canonized:

who'd have thought that making coffee

could get you so far?

(Warren Street, London. Kerning is the typographical process of adjusting the spacing between characters. Sometimes there are restrictions.)

What I like

about the 440 page

‘Fish Hooks of the Pacific Islands’

is that it's Volume Two.

(Thomas Heneage booksshop, Piccadilly, London)

Here is the puddle zone

well on the way –

stop right now, rain! –

to becoming a flood.

Hose-woman bows

her nozzle head:

I’m flattered,

and slightly surprised.

(Burgh House, Hampstead, London)

‘Where’, I'm inclined to ask grass

‘is your backbone?’

And what kind of excuse is

'not needing one’?

(Windy riverside, Greenwich, London)

The already-pleasure

of parking for free

is nudged a touch higher

by knowing that there used to be a charge.

(Lymington New Forest Hospital)

Rampant kingdomism

continues to deny plantae

the decent depth of burial

routinely afforded animalia.

(Hiller’s Arboretum, Hampshire: who can doubt the bias in how we treat the five kingdoms, with Animalia, Plantae and Fungi respected in that order, followed by Monera and Protista)

It’s one thing

to grow up as the odd one out,

another to be odd

without the prospect of change.

(Public convenience, Lymington)

This strikes me as a pipe worth smoking

Until the chance arises

I shall stick with abnegation:

even vapes have yet to tempt me.

(Farringdon, London)

This is how you walk the path

Ignore the night.

Follow the instructions.

Reach the gated distance and you're done.

The ivy’s flowered

brighter and sooner, and faded faster,

than I have ever seen before -

and I’ve known sixty springs…

I have my doubts

Is scrubbing away the yellow line

really sufficient

to free up your parking?

(Paddington, London)

It's a long-established trick

Dash in, take the credit,

turn round sharp

and walk straight out.

(Walpole Park, Ealing, London)

The longest snake I've ever seen

is writhing here.

You need to be careful:

the head could be anywhere.

(Pitzhanger Manor, Ealing, London)

It’s hard to say

if the hat is flattering

or simply a practical means

of shutting out the world of delay.

(Southampton-London train: this passenger appeared dozily unfazed by our running 50 minutes late)

People prefer to go

over a bridge.

Water is happy enough

going under.

It's easier to catch rain

in a bucket then in a photo:

it needs to be pretty-much bucketing down

to make enough pictorial impression.

(Southampton)

Are we paying for holes?

Or is that rendered immaterial

by how much space is always present

at the subatomic level?

(Sourdough bread is certainly prone to gaps. That said, nearly everything is emptiness: if you take account of the space between the electrons of an atom, 99.9999999% of us – or bread – is space)

X marks the spots

though it’s fair to point out

that everywhere else

is also recording the rain.

(Peckham, London)

Hang on a second!

That may be

a bit too slow.

Moments also have their limits.

(Closed coffee shop enjoining us to slow down - Peckham, London)

Don't fuss!

Just get your head down.

What does gratitude

cost you, after all?

(Deptford, London)

AND

is only part of a word

from which little can be deduced

about what came next and

(Peckham, London)

This is how

the solar system looks from Peckham:

the substance of the sun

having been eaten.

(Peckham, London)

Here you might buy

your vibrato or masturbat,

yr lub, yr sxy unds.

But I wdn’t trust their condos.

(Southampton)

If plastic bottles were plastic flowers

and plastic flowers were allowed by the rules

this wouldn’t get far, nevertheless,

in a gardening competition.

(Southampton)

Is it the same transitional thing?

From larva to flight mode,

from feudal to capital

from dry to wet?

(Pavement as rain begins, Bermondsey, London)

‘At the moment

ATMs are useless, sorry,

and the more I spend, the less I have.

Ask tomorrow, maybe I'll get paid.’

(Automated Teller Machine, Clerkenwell, London. Not to mention the heater...)

Life isn't simple

You can't expect

an automatic fit:

this is as close as you’re likely to get.

(Mayfair, London)

Why should I trust that man at all?

For all I know

he's fallen rather gravely ill

since they put the advert up.

(Kensington, London: David Gady is considered perhaps the leading male fashion ‘supermodel’, though I admit I hadn’t heard of him before I saw him stating in this advert how he's 'always trusted Wellman')

The splashbird

leaves a distinctive track -

consistent with dragging its well-webbed feet,

reluctant to accept that they’re not in water.

(Mayfair, London)

This may not be shit creek

this may not quite be a paddle,

but there may be a comparable problem

unless it has been cast aside by a one-legged cyclist.

(Kensington, London)

This is an unfiltered view

of Exhibition Road:

you can't call a phone box up-to-date technology

in the context of an edit.

(Kensington, London)

The Dutch

seem to favour stickerfiti:

spraycans are going

a little too far…

(Amsterdam)

You won’t find a world

without grit.

The academic question being

Whether you would want one…

(Schiedam)

I worry

that my worry lines

have started to outweigh my smile –

and then I worry that that will make them worse.

(Rotterdam)

You can tell the time

from the groundlights here –

or you could,

were any of them set correctly.

(Rotterdam)

The fundamental error here -

climbing on the outside of the building –

made worse by the fact that

there are only four proper footholds.

(Rotterdam: work by Daan Botlek – ‘Make it Happen’, 2017)

How did this work?

Why would you lay a pavement

that doesn't fit? Or build a wall

that squashes the pavement up?

(Rotterdam)

There comes a point

when the only purpose of light bulbs

seems to be to light up themselves.

That's when you turn them off.

(Den Haag Centraal Train Station)

Now that I'm old

I see the new as nothing more

than age in the waiting room.

It won't be all that long.

(Schiedam)

I don’t want to seem ungrateful

but who needs eight pillows,

especially when they’re all too fat?

Maybe I do want to seem ungrateful…

(Bilderberg Parkhotel, Rotterdam)

Can it really be

that the paper,

not the act

is the focus of attention here?

(Stedelijk Museum Schiedam)

Has this street got above itsel?

What justified the elevation

from brick-plain Scots

to the fluted fantoosheries of Ancient Greece?

(Euston, London: 'Drummond' is a habitational name from several Scots towns. ‘Itsel’ and ‘fantoosherie’ (flashiness / pretentiousness) are Scots words. ‘Doric’ is ‘the ancient Greek dialect of the Dorians’ as well as ‘relating to or denoting a classical order of architecture characterized by a sturdy fluted column and a thick square abacus resting on a rounded moulding’)

Help me please!

My walls are crumbling, the roof is overloaded,

I fear the log fire is out of control -

and I have no funds to put disaster right!

(Mayfair, London)

We may have found our winner

in the contest for maximum drippage.

I just hope

no message was intended.

(Victoria, London)

The Box Bird’s nests

appear in April –

sometimes early, sometimes late,

I’ve often wondered why…

(Since Easter happens on the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon (i.e. the ecclesiastical full moon of the northern spring), it can fall on any date between March 22 and April 25)

Christmas is over

The only presents to be given now

are trees to the streets

who may not even want them.

(London / Brussels, late January 2024)

It's all very well

to say they're out of date round here,

but how many current Belgian bands

get to play in London, after all?

(Brussels, 2024: both The Human League and UB40 had their hits in the early 1980's)

The birds of Brussels

just about scrape by,

dodging the rubbish to nest in plant pots.

It’s surprising they grow to such sizes.

(Vanderkindere, Brussels)

The Belgians

love their dogs

but do the dogs

love Belgium?

(Brussels)

Blue people to the left

Red people to the right.

Surrealists,

carry right on.

(Brussels - the city of Magritte - is strongly associated with the convention-defying surrealist movement)

Call yourself

a tree,

you twig-weak failure to take up space?

At least your father could stand up for himself.

(Brussels)

Beware

of leaving your car boot open:

who knows who’ll steal a photo

or even a bottle of water…

(Brussels)

Love can be

as delicate as a feather.

Love can be

as base as a drain.

(Brussels)

Behind the eyes

behind the windows

behind the trees…

Thoughts.

(Brussels)

I don't see windows

I see lives made visible

by the lack of visibility

that means they need extra light.

(Brussels)

The concrete fence

that pretended to be wood

didn’t even think about how hard it would be

for a wooden fence to pretend to be concrete.

(Brussels)

That’s quite a contraption!

I’m hoping

to be strobed to sleep

but it doesn’t quite happen.

(Belgrove Hotel, London)

People think she's tardy

but it's merely that her units need converting:

‘in a second’ is a minute, ‘a minute’ is five,

‘ten minutes’ is half an hour, and so on.

(Actually, she is Tardy – golfer Bailey Tardy, presumably the buck of jokes if she is late. I meant to post this earlier.)

This looks too vulnerable

to be out in public -

doesn't the pinkness

belong on the inside?

(Bethnal Green, London)

The Imposter Syndrome

can rear its head anywhere.

But I say:

let's make difference our friend.

(Cambridge Heath. London)

It’s not itself the biggest news

but I went in here to buy a paper,

believing logic on my side -

and found they didn't sell them.

(Bishopsgate, London)

Don't get me wrong

Trees have their merits

but lamp posts, they light up the world

and know the right way to behave around pavements.

(Cambridge Heath, London)

I love the practicality!

The daily puzzling

over which foot is which

made so much easier!

(Whitechapel Underground Station, London)

I’m touched

by how tenderly –

even though down to a less-than-stump slice -

the big tree cradles its diminutive friend.

(Clissold Park, London)

It was a matter of honour

to abandon this book

in public disgrace.

I swear I didn’t read a single word.

(Manor House, London)

At least it's dark

But how would you like

to have your inners exposed

to any passing fetishist of circuits?

(Manor House, London)

‘Bollocks to bullocks’

reads the 360°

feedback from their neighbours,

understandably provoked by the noise and smell.

(Fitzrovia, London)

The winter sun

is low enough to make me wonder:

is it really

93 million miles up?

(Redbridge, Southampton)

I remember

when it would have mattered

that a telephone box had been smashed up

and you couldn't call in to report it.

(Manor House, London)

This isn’t the sort of handbag

that’s worth more than its contents.

What I’d take for a grin

becomes a grimace.

(Manor House, London)

The X’s

act as indicators,

just in case you fail to spot

that the pavement’s been repaired.

(Mayfair, London)

Where to walk?

Unable to reach the ceiling,

I pondered the balance required for the handrail.

Then I saw the footmarks and all was clear.

(South Kensington Tube Station, London)

Want to stack a tower block

on a van

on a car?

I suggest you cheat.

(Redbridge, Southampton)

Here is normality

reflecting normality to such an extent

that I’m starting to think

it's abnormal.

(Southampton)

Having complained about getting no bin bags

I was almost disappointed, when they arrived,

to find that all our neighbours

had been given some too.

(I say ‘almost’, because - of course – the good fortune of others should not diminish our own. Consider, for example, the parable of Jesus and the vineyard workers… Matthew 20: 1–16)