Walking on orange clouds until I can't feel without instructions.
Tie the tourniquet as tight as you can as I take in the spring air from my window.
To grieve my past self would require energy that is assigned elsewhere.
Loneliness is my only inheritance. For everything else I use hard cash.
As my spoon loses its shine to the flame I am closer to my destination.
I shall dance with my maker as a reward for services rendered.
I go here, I go there
I can go anywhere
I talk to him, I talk to her
I am confident, that's for sure
I do this, I do that
I go where the adventure is at
I work hard, I work fast
I make big bucks, cold hard cash
I found someone, we settle down
We have some kids in a quiet town
We make some friends, we have good times
We have come to know life dahling as simply divine
The kids grow up then leave the home,
we find ourselves all alone
It's not like before, when in our youth
A little bit different, and done with more couth
One of us dies, who will be the first
No matter what, the others heart will burst
"I'll take it from here". we gently say
As we say goodbye at the end of that day.
after doors close after hours when scarlet neon flickers out red-light nights fill voids of need my body is a ripped flower my throat tingles to the burn of vodka-fire gleaning the gleaming water-washed street for an answer to the latest outstanding bill sadly grateful for the slightest footfall twenty for oral forty for full car park dark steam-heavy dark not streetwalking but streetstaggering in hollow-pod hell anaemic-ashy and vodka-fumy amorphous shadows loitering on durex-dotted waste ground in secret alleys back to dank brick or deep throating down on my knees skirt around thighs fingers come-pearled and slick come quick after doors close after hours when scarlet neon flickers out cold glitter of streetlights gleam of cold hard cash cold kisses colder touch no eye contact look away the cold nothingness that we say
Songs from a life, sounds like the blues,
microwave fries, pot noodle, stews,
dead on two legs, only half-nine,
saying yes, to the overtime,
this months rent and the kids' new shoes.
Paying forward, paying your dues,
when there isn't much left to lose,
longing for friends, weekends and wine,
songs from a life.
Cut price make up covers the bruise,
somewhere hard cash, won't look for clues,
warning the kids to keep off-line,
praying tomorrow, turns out fine,
unreported on last nights news,
songs from a life.
Mina Verbena is selling her herbs
in a cart that she sets in the road by the curb.
If you’ve got some spare change, then she’s got some thyme,
or a nice bit of parsley, for only a dime.
Mina Verbena grew up in the ‘burbs,
a seasoned young seller with plenty of verve.
Her herbs are enticing, with spice and panache;
to sample her flavors, she favors hard cash.
You forget who you are
Amidst the chaos of this journey
You ignore your true purpose
Trying to chase your problems
You lose your identity
As you suck into the society's labels
Before you even realise
You're engulfed by the worries of this world
You've lost track of time chasing hard cash
You're a reflection of what you wished not to be
Many years ago when you'd judge your formers
Who am I? What have I become?
You ask yourself
Unable to recognize the person you see
Little did you notice
While you were trying to make amends in others
You lost a part of you to them
Until there was nothing left of you
That truly belonged to you
Now you're just like others
An automaton, a label, a status, a cash cow
See, forty bucks in cold, hard cash
can fill your trailer with gin trash.
And for growing fine tomatoes,
forty's pretty small potatoes.
The big box products like Black Cow
will truly set you back, and how!
The cotton hulls and seeds and stems
ejected from the cotton gin,
stored a year in a giant pile,
makes the heart leap and brings a smile.
Earthy, loamy, a little sour,
magical black growing power.
By the barrow, then tilled under,
it's a veggie growing wonder.
Its Round-up contents raise concerns;
the pile's so hot, it nearly burns.
Big veggies are the things it grows,
but I'll look out for extra toes.
A happy pug adored as essential
had doting owners quite influential
But with the stock market crash
she was sold for hard cash
Now she’s forlorn and inconsequential
1/13/22
A stranger came knocking at my front door
Early in the morning, quarter to five,
Asked if I believed in helping the poor
Told him at five I was barely alive,
But if he was needing help to survive
I could offer him tasty toast and jam,
Perhaps, I might even fry up some ham.
To my chagrin, he said he needed cash
I said, "At five out of hard cash I am,"
Then, he turned and hurried off in a dash.
written June 27, 2021
[based on a true incident a number
of years ago while living in a parsonage.]
Patrick O’Flanagan’s covert shenanigans
Make people ask where he gets to at night
There’s a perception that Patrick O’Flanagan
Visits a door with a glowing red light
What people don’t know about Patrick O’Flanagan
Is he has only one goal
Each night at ten to ten, visits his gran again
She does a dance with a pole
Old Ma O’Flanagan dances for Stan and Ben
Over in County Kildare
The nurses and carers all turn a blind eye
As Stan sticks his pension ‘down there’
Pat’s her announcer, he's also her bouncer
He keeps them old fellas in check
Old Ben can get frisky and that’s a bit risky
Unless he desires a sore neck
These is the rules says Patrick O’Flanagan
That shrivelled todger of yours
Grandma will make that old thing come awake again
And you place hard cash down her drawers
But Ben said those wrinkles don’t pep up our winkles
We only watch her to rehearse
For what we might see on the CCTV
When you nip out back with that nurse
Darkness Reigns
The dark has settled and I am at my height
of delicious evil as I rage through the Earth this night.
A basement of torture in the East, where I relish the lash,
in the market of children lost and hurting, where I laugh loudly,
at the deviant exchange of cold hard cash.
Beautiful bombs are made in a pristine warehouse in the West
and the promise of murder of the masses, perhaps I love this the best.
How I recharge and strengthen in power,
When the axis of evil, in the North and the South crawls and turns on and on every hour.
Every second, every minute, every day
killing and cruelty in every way.
And I walk sometimes slowly and silently with hooded disguise
or join with the normal who walk with closed eyes.
Step by step I’ve been here before, thousands of years
through terror and chains, holocausts and genocide, I know my way,
Give the greedy their chance, the murderous a place to play
The sinister and shameful running to meet me, and meet their clay,
For all will be earth and cloying dark, some time
And I will cloister the cold, welcome the heat and wait, in evil sublime.
3/5/21 Sponsor Funom Makama.
If I were famous, I would hide
Behind gates of that gilded cage
Displayed, my privacy denied
Burned by hot spotlights of the stage
Not for me is the glittered path
My face splashed across TV screens
Where strangers ask for autographs
I am the handmaid, not the queen
Celebrity can do some good
Help out a charitable cause
Supplying medicine and food
Giving true heroes the applause
I'm not immune to gold's allure
For cold hard cash, I just might switch
But from fame's name, I would detour
To be anonymously rich.
3/16/21
Mr point would indicate wherever he might be
He’d point at you and sometimes he would also point at me
He’d point at mountains and at sky and sometimes at the sea
And sometimes at his willy if he had to take a pee
He’d point toward the motorway if you asked him the way
He’d point toward the sky if you asked what colour’s grey
He’d point at the calendar before he named the day
He’d point at everybody else, if you said, ‘So, who’s gay?’
Mr Point will point down south, he’ll even point out Stoke
He’ll point out Adam Hargreaves if he ever ends up broke
But Mr Point ain’t named because his fingers like to poke
Mr Point he’s called because he never gets the joke
[Dear Mr Hargreaves... if you want to get your hands on ‘Mr Point’...
I accept bank transfers and hard cash]
Canton Here I Come
Written: by Tom Wright
2004
I once traveled to a big time swap meet,
Thinking there, I’d find a deal so sweet.
I swapped my hard cash,
For another man’s stash,
But it was torturous on knees and feet.
A lot of ‘what ifs’ have made my mind snuffle
a missed chance to say something gets my extremities cold
it is obvious how my eyes gyrate to his gestures
everyone sees the chemistry but he wants it in hard cash
I love him, love him, love him! My heart in need of embrocation
accidentally, shopping in the same place, my throat goes inflamed
an hour of periodic stare at each other produces just a ‘hi’
what an ignorant moron and an annoying colt!
Love can just happen but I understand, it’s not completely divine
life would be hell’s backdoor if I’m not the eventual winner
we meet again, this time he’s in a mesmerizing Tuxedo
a clear derby match, my lungs jump out to hide under my feet
direct isn’t my thing, so I drive through the outerbelt
chipping the little paper in his pocket, inscribed with my number
his call twelve hours later captions “this is what I’ve been waiting for”.
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