I surrendered.

You, hard, angular, cold and wrapped,

Frigid yet promising,

Met my mouth;

And slowly, deliberately,

The smoothness comes;

And as you warm in me,

The intense tongue-washed liquor

Sluices into the black-hole of creaminess you create

And leave inside me, wanting more.

(For Rizla)

Riddle me a riddle,

My old friend dressed in red,

Do the folk who roll you

All end up stoned in bed?

Now, we all like a riddle,

We’ll hunt and find your name.

Rice that’s made for smoking,

And lips to hold your fame?

For Natalie and BP

The light.

The gauge.

The night.

The green.

The white.

The lane.

The pump.

The hose.

The fuel.

The shut.

The walk.

The shelves.

The meal.

The bean.

The card.

The chip.

The face.

The smile.

The belt.

The stop.

The fuller stop.

Money in, money out;

In and out,

Our accounts,

Back and forth,

This and that

Big respect,

Community,

Newbury.

Bottom drawers,

Retirement dreams

Passbook smiles,

Tip top rates,

Telling you straight.

Money in, money out;

In and out,

All accounts

Back and forth,

This and that

Big respect,

Community,

Newbury

Bottom rung,

All mod cons;

Front and back,

Up and down,

Spick and span

Mortgage rate,

Talking straight.

Money in, money out;

In and out,

All accounts

Back and forth,

This and that

Big respect,

Community,

Newbury.

Respect!

There is a field in Northern parts

Where root vegetables grow strong,

Against Peak winds and cold,

And at the harvest moon, stand resolute

And welcome the immortality that

Follows swimming in the brine,

To winter in more acidic climes.

And when the summer summons comes

(Their world thus now ajar),

They charge to spike the maiden salad

Like some Brontëan ravisher

At the wedding feast who cries:

‘Unleash the bulldog,

And cry Great Branston!’

(For Mulberry and for Bex)

A bag is a bag

Is a receptacle, a container

Of leather, plastic, cloth or paper,

Capable of being closed at the mouth.

It started with the Viking bagge you pack your pillage in,

Became Burglar Bill’s over-the-shoulder swag,

Or the brown bag of moonshine to drink under the stars;

Or the place where late the cat was waiting patiently to exit

Or frankly a mixed one of curate’s eggs,

Rucked, duffelled and toted.

Don’t forget that bag of bones, the woman who’s just gotta have Alexa,

The It-Bag apparently,

(So my sources tell me,

Unless it was a typo and actually she said ‘kit bag’)

And if any wanted proof of our baggage bonkersness

And the sublime triumph of irrationality in human behaviour,

Let them visit Mulberry.

But afterwards, watch out for an unexpected Bayswater[1] in the bagging area.

A kind of pushbutton Narnia,

A screen that opens to a Grand Canyon of stories;

Here a hiding place for killers; there, great shoals of red herrings

Lurk underneath the opaque plastic surface.

You’ll find the colloquies of the kings and the kingdoms of the past they rule

Delivered in glorious Whispersync.

Or if it’s love you browse, you’ll find hearts broken and mended; won and lost;

Endings – happy, endings  – sad:

The kiss-and-tell brigade’s finest moves.

Poets gather hither and thither keeping time,

Hoping for digital royalties and an easy rhyme

The science future has its own Black hole,

‘ It’s a library, but not as we know it, Jim’.

This one lights a thousand ethereal fires a day

Whatever would Johannes Gutenberg have said?

Surely not ‘customers who bought this also bought…’