Soyou wanna get back to your laboursto those hours in the week that enslave us? listen,the government doesn’t do any favourswe’re all going to pay in the end…
About: John Smallshaw
Author Archives: John Smallshaw
Batch number to follow
Because your eyes had that glassy stareI thought you were a teddy bearI mean, look,what the…f**k, we don’t swear in front of a teddy bearwe use asterisks and rely on theirimaginations. As mad a March here and therethe Hare lost against the tortoise…
The new chancellery
It was about the deconstruction, the decomposition, the dissolution of the monasteries in favour of monetary policies and the public was being viewed as Pharisees and parasites. This was the night shiftthe day moved away years before. They call you the heretic, the one touched by the spirits, the lunatic, and they fear you, but…
Pictorials
I take a look through the picture book at scenes of times gone by,ladies in crinolines like statues and heroines and men looking sombre, moustachioed hombres of the gentlemen variety,children with faces pressed up to the windows in countrywide mansions, I wonder if that’s how they lived. And there are other images of urchins by…
just a doodle
From the way that she looks to the way that she walks and how she uncorks a bottle of fizz,it makes mesuspicious and though her lips look deliciously perched as they areon a face I’m aware is far beyond the word fond,I shall give Ms a miss and rely on myignorance which we all know…
Series
Sunrise at the ‘Ponderosa’andif you can remember when ‘Hoss’ or ‘Little Joe’would round up cattle tothe nearest T-bone steakthink yourself lucky that youmanaged to wake at all…
Yayy it’s Saturday I think
Sideways on Saturdaybeinghandcuffed to it and what you say is what I dream. Someone whispered in my earyesterday somewhere last yearsometimes I fear thosewhispered wordsbutthe batteries in the hearing aidare weak and somehow words just fade, I am fading inexorably into the realmsof ancient historyI wonder who’ll remember me andwill I even know myself?…
Keeping on keeping the faith
This is the legacy that lockdown has left and we have been shot in the dark. Not a wedding, Barmitzvah, no bars that can fix yathat after-work drink, just think of it and who would have done it,this web that we’re in and the faceless have spun it. I am hopeful that a throatful of…
Worries #14
Who’ll be there towind up theclocks? Depressing the key makes a note,takes a notedepress more than one Andthis is not easythese keys don’t have to please methey please themselves, taking more note of the keys thanthe notes won’t get me no votesand don’t get me a tuneI’m giving up soonleaving the lady enough roomto show…
Jolly
I don’t know the timedon’t know what daybut I know deep insidethey’ll come and takeus away and that as they saywill be that,but if they take all ofus awaythere’ll be no one left tosaythat will be thatdid you ever think about that? That place known as empty isgetting quite full,they’ll have to build a new…
Take two twice daily
In a moment of electrifying claritywhen you realise that you’re asplit personality and so you sit downwith yourself for a cup of teaand understand they’ll be comingto take ‘we’ away…
Chef on board
Beans?seems like a compromisebecause when I set my eyesupon those savoury piesonly to realisethat the calorie count wouldtake me past my recommendeddaily amountwhichmeans to mebeans for tea…
Charlies angles
Do you remember when Friday was exciting,when you couldn’t wait to finish workand plug the night in? we’re all adrift now, thecastaway and every dayis just a day,no special nights at all. Tinged by despair unhinged but hanging therewe wonder should we fallwould there be a safety net?…
It’s always the way
you get an order of nunswhenyou ordered french fries,everyone triesto get in on the action…
Treats
Life is like a chocolate biscuityou love it and when you get near to the end of ityou wait a bit because youdon’t want to eat the last bitand then you doand then it’s gone,but the taste of it isleft on your tongue…
Oil on water
Continue to be amused by the antics of lunatics and you’ll be joining them in the lockdown ward which is open to visitors on Sundays unless it’s not and this is not how it’s supposed to be said the Earl of Montgomery whose real name was Bill and who had been ill with delusions for…
It was much more fun when we were young
The gobstopperthe teeny bopper,weonly came a cropperif we mixed them up. Now,we get mixed up tellingright from wrong,do we isolate, and if sofor how long?…
On the beach
I loved the ponies too,but they weren’t really ponieswe knew they were donkeys,nodding as they didwatching the Sun as it slidacross the bay. Yesterday is always so far away…
The nervous neurons
They may refer to it as a ‘road map’ as if this is just another journey, but we all know that at the moment we’re not allowed to travelso what use is a map?come to think of itwhat use is a road? it’s just another soundbite to overload the signals that your brains try hard…
Coral sea
Working things out in my head when the bed looks more inviting and the windows are letting the light in and I’m working things out in my head, exercising mentally to keep my mental faculties on top form. it’s a bit like long division when you’re sitting on a logarithm and algebra drops in for…