lanzarote iii.

lizard pulse pathos 

and egrets on the gravel cut

fling a ring around the thing 

regret declined burrata 

fact checked on carbon i rediscover 

archaeomagnetic dating,

did you know the poles

will switch

and north will

become south.

prohibito biciclette

celestial waves 

lapping rusty mounds 

baps boobing

a breasty boundary 

round emphysema 

cowboy country 

before i went on the bike holiday i’d had a period of poor health that culminated in a trip to the hospital and a spinal tap. i was on medication for migranes, but it made me sluggish and slowed my heart rate down, so i started the last climb of the day a bit ahead of my pals in case i struggled. i was fine, but i got lost and had to reroute my way back and i went over some very sketchy ‘gravel’ roads. quite stressful. being lost in the desert alone is not what i hope for.

lanzarote ii.

el grifo abandonado, 

aquapark de los muertos 

pizza tres quesos, 

no blue, 

snide salad.

poolside morning yoga 

and think about the future

fall asleep in my clothes

fresh from the waffle shop boys

sick in the toilet at midnight 

maybe thanks 

to the waffle shop boys

i eat a lot of cake on cycing holidays. on this occassion, i think the late night waffle after dinner was a refined carbohydrate too far.

lanzarote i.

exhausted by the tyranny of choice, 

unable to sleep

four alarmed hours, 

panic 

then mile-high boredom.

bad pizza is still kinda good, 

parched stroll less soo

cacti burrito, 

a visage 

of the village 

in the mirage…

reinforcements parachuting in

petulant torrents of surf, 

energía de la patata grande

pumice piss, 

curtain of cliffs 

and scattered sand 

past the chain-gang (squared)

by fag ash straits 

of jagged lava, 

literal poetry in motion

i’m not much of a photo person. i’m not sure why, as i have total aphantasia which means i cannot see anything in my mind. i can’t just look once at the view and recall it forevermore.

maybe i should. but this disability has meant my internal world has always been dark and wordy. so when i’m on holiday, i like to record the holiday in poetry. this short series describes my cycling holiday with friends in lanzarote last year.

why i support scottish independence but only if i get to be in charge

i long to modernise scotland
to the revue of my imagination
to restrict actors to a single role
depiction in our nation
and making them legally change their name
to the one they portray in fiction
punishable by death
and claiming global jurisdiction
then i will reduce the toothbrushing time
from two minutes to 90 seconds
and thus sanction my cohort
to luxuriate over breakfast
then i will retire to
the camper-van i’ll embezzle
proud of my augmentation of
our cultural endeavour

this won’t make me especially popular but i don’t support scottish independence. i think we live in an age of empires. that sovereignty is meaningless in an era where the usa might invade greenland. i don’t think independence will make the average voter more powerful. we should accept our powerlessness and work towards global government within whatever existing supranational structures available to us.

but if independence does happen, i would like to be president and these are my main policy priorities.

haw yuppie

i shout haw yuppie at a prefect 

on a flip phone

citizenship is over, 

we are now brand ambassadors

sold off forever, 

forever strong and stable

wrap up warm for the gilet years

lasagna al forne and an afternoon of beers

it’s like 10 thousand spoons 

when all you need is the bus fare to partick 

ah well, we’ll get there in the end

how come nobody says yuppie any more? is it because social mobility was like a once off event that only benefitted a small number of baby boomers?

remember when only poseurs had mobile phones? remember when it used to be very difficult to find a recent enough photo of yourself to use as a profile pic? i was just flicking through my photos there, and they are thin on ground until about 2010. very little record of my many fashion missteps over the years.

all the king’s memes

i despair we are so selfish 

in such a self defeating way

meritocracy is not 

a real-world thing

it’s a pump and dump town

and there’s new mayor in clown

so double down 

to top trump

they say

all the king’s horses 

and all the king’s memes

couldn’t repair humpty‘s 

defective genes

he pulls fascist faces

and pardons racists

we can only prey

for a ceasefire that sticks

a new leader had been ennobled and he was promising to end wars while at the same time pardoning violent people who were in prison for storming the capitol. a mockery is being made of the rule of law. corruption is open, bragged about. it’s depressing. so turn the news off and write some poetry.

horse

@poet’s corner 7 jan 2026

hi, happy new year everyone.

this isn’t about horses, but it sort of has has a donkey in it, and i think the don himself rode a mule, which is somewhat horse related i think.

i had been writing a lot of poetry in 2024. and in 2025 i started posting it to the internet and reading it in bars. and continued writing. but in a new context – a public poet. i mean, in a limited way. this change made me think of book 2 of cervante’s don quixote. one of the first great works of meta-fiction.

reus brexitus 

brexitus rex, a fencepost; 

no entry for french blokes 

yes hello we are here 

it is act two of don quixote

or quixote like… piss moat

(though i prefer quixotic, 

like chaotic)

anyway 

so far so quixotic

(to rhyme with exotic)

anyway

in which we ask,

will the windmills we recall 

from the first act charge back?

in which we find,

that windmills

don’t charge on poets

this next poem contains one word that is a derivative of horse.

it is about an idea i think about a lot which i call the book at the end of the universe. 

i like to think that, when this whole thing is over, all the players will be invited to inspect the logs and find out what the other characters were thinking, what actually went down, who thought they had got away with cheating, and so on. like, the ultimate compendium of gossip, sleaze, and quiet morality.

the book however raises questions: could it have existed before the universe started? does it already exist? do the players who have already left the game have access to it? or are there superplayers who have access to the book now? and would reading the book change the book?

anyway, this is…

the elucidation

hey. imagine if everyone 

knew everything

not about the physics and philosophy of the universe, 

god and the mystery of life;

but about every dirty thought you have ever had,

and all the gossip since the pharaoh and moses 

smoked camel lights in negotiation 

round behind the pyramid

not just who horsed who, 

but every weird wet dream too

we would be more liberal and better behaved i should think

subterfuge stymied, 

the obfuscated elucidated.

staying almost on theme, i want to do my first repeat, because while it doesn’t contain a horse, it would have if it not for the austerity budgets of david cameron and george osbourne. apologies to anyone who didn’t like this when i read it four weeks ago. also, apologies to anyone who doesn’t like it today.

this is called, 

the hoarse foreman of the apocalypse

life under actually existing capitalism continues; 

a unique combination of boring and stressful

the yoga word lost to an armed counter revolution 

be mindful, namaste, 

despite the flames, be restful

the firewater fades to a numb, dumb dysphoria

as we tag along 

behind the hoarse foreman of the apocalypse 

on foot due to cutbacks

finally. i don’t like to write too much about politics. i have a degree in political philosophy. i used to wish people were more interested in politics. i have been proved wrong.

anyway 

a new leader had been ennobled and he was promising to end wars while at the same time pardoning violent people who were in prison for good, violent reasons. a mockery has been made of the rule of law. corruption is open, bragged about. it’s depressing. 

but there is a horse in this verse.

all the king’s memes

i despair we are so selfish 

in such a self defeating way

meritocratic is not 

what the world is today

it’s a pump and dump town

and there’s new mayor in clown

so double down 

to top trump

they say

all the king’s horses 

and all the king’s memes

couldn’t repair humpty‘s 

defective genes

he pulls fascist faces

and pardons racists

we can only prey

for a ceasefire that sticks

this was a spinal tap

they are taking the piss

a hospital day in boring pain

on my way to the spinal tap

they paywalled tour de france

doffed and donned by a duo 

of up-duffed doctors

two days in the hospital 

and i’m walking like a train wreck survivor

it was only my neck that hurt yesterday

a new diagnosis, 

coital migraines…

i’m done with western medicine, man.

and that was how i met fah.

weirdly, i find myself writing this on 15 december 2025, the day ron reiner, who directed the spinal tap movie, was murdered. and for some reason trump has weighed in. what a miserable world we live in. but it is at least better for containing the great works of ron reiner.

entertainment. it’s there with food and shelter as one of the core essentials of life. even without food and shelter, one will seek entertainment.

this poem however is about some mysterious migraines i’d been having. i actually went to the doctor about my sore neck. i mentioned the headaches and before i knew it i was in hospital undergoing a gruelling litany of tests. on leaving the hospital, i noted that despite my two days in hospital, the neck pain i’d presented at the doctor’s with was if anything, significantly worse.

i complained to my barber, and she recommended a massage therapist called fah. i’m not going to claim she works miracles, but i did go on a cycling holiday to the canary islands like a week later.

archival sleeves

i take a bridge to the opaque sky, 

cranes peak above the mist

sanity is no identity 

likely to inspire me.

the storm comes, 

a lockdown redux

trapped and claustrophobic.

pulling up archival sleeves

although i’m not 

the most thoughtful typist

stoic, waiting, 

on the fundamental 

life changing news

a decade to the day, 

again it goes my way

ah friend anxiety, 

my quitting finger itches

tomorrow’s loaf will be a belter, 

yesterday’s a chinese whisper

my girlfriend got trapped at my flat on the day of a big storm. she left to go home in the morning, but it was so windy she came back. i was just having a normal work day, she was climbing the walls. she baked cookies with chickpea flour. they were pretty nice.

i went through a big archival urge about a year ago. started sorting documents. sketching out timeframes. i think i was preparing to write a memoir. i was worried i was planning on doing myself in. well, its a year later, and i’m glad to say i’m working on a memoir. although, it is not a true story. in the traditional sense.

echolalia

echolalian 

echo-location 

finds me where?

a lack e acumen; 

black pepper and cumin

or is it turmeric? 

i use all three for safety and

dod on and dod well, 

two is too many bills

moving like a statue, 

a foot-soldier, 

mystified and amused

das kapital 

to cap it all

ex marx the blues

a lot of my poetry comes from echolalia. daft little phrases just get stuck in my head and i want to say them just for the pleasure of the words moving through my mouth.

moving like a statue was a funny thing i heard in a podcast. the speaker meant that they were moved to an emotional response, like they might have on seeing a great work of statuary. but i heard it literally, and my brain said no, statues do not tend to move.