Real Writing
Stanski
Copyright©2017 Stanski
Discover other titles by Stanski
Crawling Distance
In Decline
The Night Jasmine
Elephant Small Vol 1
Elephant Small Vol 2
Elephant Small Vol 3
Elephant Small Vol 4
Elephant Small Vol 5
Elephant Small Vol 6
Cover photo © Stanski
Real Writing
Contents
1. Real Writing
2. Halfway To Southport
3. Dad Dancing In The UK
4. Wake Up…! And Smell The Cider
5. Cunts
6. Last Gasp
7. Condemned
8. Isan Chill
9. No More
10. What Are You Like
11. Smartarses
12. Pros & Cons Of Witch Hunting
13. (((SFX)))
14. Non Existent
15. Penultimate
16. Thousands And Thousands
17. กินข้าวหรือยัง…/ Did You Eat Yet?
18. Ego
About the Author
1. Real Writing
Biscuit biting
Tater blighting
Shakespeare Citing
Kung Fu fighting
Chinese kiting
Birthday knighting
Christmas lighting
Wrong ‘un righting
Friday nighting
Second sighting
Outhouse shiting
Hand-eye sleighting
Heathen smiting
Facial spiting
Getting right in
Squeezing tight in
None exciting
Or delighting
As a night in
Real writing
2. Halfway To Southport
Halfway to Southport from Oxford Road
On an upload primed for second-class carriage
No ballast attached to a carefree passage
Just sanctuary; self-assured Refuge
From that overboard, crude and huge stiffy
A bit ‘iffy’. Coming straight in the mouth
Of innocent (till proved guilty) babes from east and south
Hard to swallow is that phallus at the Palace
If you’re no sucker for clocks, so hard-on the eye
Erect in effect, and if correct it’s a sure
Fire no blanks bet that we’re all dead set
To alight at Salford Fire Station
Creations… Exposed to the light of day
As witnessed from a Varsity Viewpoint
By the unhinged Crescent of a Moonshine stare
Or the noontime glare of a sun-kissed highway
Trending to the left, for maximum effect
Or am I viewing it, doing it my way?
Because, for real, I feel we’re about to… er… Peel
To the less than up-beat, off-beat plod
Of Oh My God! Not, Bolton’s finest?
Who wonder why Wanderers walked away
From the hallowed turf of Burnden Park, in the dark
And, oh so mysterious scandal
But not one these boys couldn’t handle
With their very first strike, a bit like
What they did with that wall in Wigan
Or does ‘Wallgate’ refer to something else?
And… No lies… The guys… Who ate all the pies
By the by, that’s why we can but surmise… We’re
Halfway to Southport… And we’re going west, and
The rest of the route is tainted (love)
Painted with Scouse… Debated in-house
In da house… House of Commons… Of Lords a-leaping
All dancing, all singing ‘Come on youse…
Blues youse Reds… Youse electoral boundaries
Sounds to me (like) it’s partly Political (like)
(Like) Heartily critical, of Lancashire/Merseyside
Stirred wide to the left, no sugar in mine
I like my Councils like I like my tabloids
Highlighted in Red, devoid of all things Tory
But back to the story, we’ve stopped behind
Wigan pier which appears to the untrained eye
To indicate strongly or at least imply
The end of one imaginary line
No sign of the sea… A sign of the times!
Or those impatient tides that wait for no man!
Or, to be correct politically
No Person, whatever the gender
Agenda, timetable, schedule or routine
Past, present or future… You know what I mean…
That goes around and around… And comes
Around again, and again… Time and again
Which all only goes to prove that… ‘This…
(mere one hundred and eighty four years)
‘… is the (true) age of the train’ Yes it is!
And, oh, more yet, before I forget
It’s already 23:15
And so it would seem… No download by the sea
At least not this side of Midnight’s broken dreams
Besides, the seaside’s out of our reach
The beach is retreating beyond our grasp
Perhaps, at last, we see the sea for tea tomorrow
What joy, what sorrow as we patiently await
(It’s official now… It’s the train that’s late…!)
And we’re still only Halfway to Southport…
3. Dad Dancing In The UK
Right…!
Now…!
*55555
*เก่า งาย ตาย ช้า
Floating voters confuse the Exit Polls
Just as abstentions mock the Electoral Rolls
And first past the post is the Democratic way
While the losers knew it was not to be their day
Do you swing… to Left or right most
As you cast your vote
And know the winners will be outnumbered
By those who don’t?
Do you really give a toss at all?
Whose Bills are passed into UK law?
Hung Parliament
Coalition beckons
Weak leadership follows
Cameron’s sloppy seconds
This is politics in the UK
A Third World Country in the making
Initiated by Thatcher in the 80’s
Perpetuated by our own uneducated offspring
While us ‘Dads’ continue to dance
Because bad old habits refuse to die
The clue was when The Wall came down
Y’know, 25 years ago
Hinting that our Socialist Ideals
Had outlived their usefulness
Proportional Representation
A figment of our own imagination
Just like the Party we continue to attend
That has no Labour force left to represent
We’re becoming a Developing Nation
The sun has set on the Empire’s Pink
Coalition Government
Call Centre Economy
Philosophies replacing Unum Deo
Seven languages more widely spoken
Than our own Native British tongue
Who are these Left-wing Socialists?
Where is New Labour now?
Political Process has run its course
Conception… Lifetime… DEMISE!
You must have read the words of The Little Red Book
The Communist Manifesto
The much repeated script of a Monty Python sketch
A process is a process is…ti
me to let go…
Don’t blame it on Margaret Thatcher
Don’t blame it on The Roaring Tories
Don’t blame it on your own apathy
Blame it on the Boogie-woogie Dads Dance
*55555- IN THAI IS HA HA HA HA HA
*เก่า งาย ตาย ช้า - GAE GNAI DAI SHAR – OLD TOO QUICK, DYING TOO SLOWLY
4. Wake Up…! And Smell The Cider
What would you do if, one day
you woke up and thought it was
judging by your wallet, say
Nineteen Seventy Seven
And you were forced to survive
On Seventy Quid a week
How could you possibly keep
up your Mortgage repayments
On your luxury address
You may have to consider
quitting your expensive home
and taking up residence
inside impossibly cheap
and yet, improbably strong
bottles of, implausibly, white
cider, which makes you forget
the daily discomfort of
incurable hangovers
and other trivial things
like, of course, what day it is…
5. Cunts
I used to think I was such a clever cunt
because i knew quite a lot of the answers
to quite a lot of rhetorical questions
until i realised what a bunch of cunts
these politicians were
and not one of them as clever as i was
despite Eaton/Oxbridge
Rhetorical questions were responded to with
rhetorical answers!
What’s all that about, then?
No longer would I attempt to imitate
the complex, well-rehearsed writhing motions of
Members of Parliament
under the intense and sustained pressure of
Public Scrutiny
Contradictions of terms; oxymoronic
their manipulation of spoken gestures
with a sinister oral dexterity
that covers the lies our ears refuse to hear
our eyes refuse to see
but our open arms accept without question
because it’s so ‘special’, our ‘relationship’
with our colonial, erstwhile counterparts
just across the Pond
Intimate, infinite
Is it or isn’t it?
Cemented during our last term in Office
Lasting as long as it suits our purposes
But if all else fails… Blame the Opposition!
And I used to think I was a clever cunt…
6. Last Gasp
Gave up smoking years ago
Still, I’m waiting patiently
For that blue and black pick-up
that comes around ‘every fortnight’
with its load of tobacco
‘home-grown on south-facing slopes
of the Phu Khao mountain range’
At least that’s what they tell me
in the beer bars in Non Sang
And me; I’ve never been one
to turn away a bargain
or spurn a special offer
look a gift horse in the mouth
So I’ll continue to wait
for that blue and black pick-up
with its reasonably priced
stock of home-grown tobacco
freshly harvested and cut
and dried on south-facing slopes
of the Phu Khao mountain range
Even if it’s another
Fortnight they keep me waiting
I’ll get me my tobacco
At ten baht per hundred grammes
Or eighty baht per kilo
Including rolling papers…
That’s what I call a bargain
Even though I quit smoking
In September 2010
Me, I’m not the kind of guy
to turn away a bargain
miss an opportunity
or spurn a special offer
look a gift-horse in the mouth
Think of the money I’ll save
by not buying ready rolled
and the local businesses
my custom will benefit
on the Phu Khao mountain range…
Waiting patiently although
I stopped smoking years ago
7. Condemned
What’s it like to be Sentenced
Life condensed to a Statement
That’s Sentence literally…
Subject, Object, Verb, Full Stop
Or metaphorically…
Subject; as in Citizen
Object; of their ridicule
Verb; to frustrate, or wind-up
Full Stop. The End. Period.
But before I was sentenced…
I was already Condemned…
…Many suns and moons ago
in a separate lifetime
a Relative Dimension
Alternate Reality
or Parallel Universe
spawned by Quantum Mechanics
When I was made redundant
in more senses than just one
Lost my home, my family
as well as my livelihood
Instead of me becoming
a scrounger, a parasite
I took my hard-earned savings -
which I could easily blow
on sex, drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll
in the space of a few months
in the United Kingdom
to where my money lasted
the best part of fifteen years
Austerity in action
years before the Credit Crunch
and it didn’t even cost
her majesty’s government
a solitary penny
On my return to Blighty
I wasn’t expecting the…
But then, nobody expects
The Spanish Inquisition…!
No way José… career arse
was going to strip search me
hold me indefinitely
for or against my free will
without charge, explanation
although he flexed his muscles
in his best British ‘accent’
with the accent on ‘accent’
‘I may if I wanna to’
I caused him some confusion
name not native Inglesi…
Apparently I wasn’t
really quite foreign enough
to qualify for arrest
followed by deportation
enforced repatriation
in the country of my birth
which happened to be… England
That threw him right off the scent…
But, then again, I wasn’t
exactly British enough
which my name so clearly proved
Despite EU credentials
which couldn’t be disputed
I couldn’t merely pass ‘GO’
and collect two hundred pounds
each week from my bank account
claim my Housing Benefit
and live the life of Riley
Quarantine awaited me
(not Quentin Tarantino)
Six months of uncertainty
like some suspect rabid dog
until, at last, I was deemed
aptly assimilated
and posed no further risk of
leaving the country again
on the money I could save
from seventy quid a week
I’d lost my identity
and my nationality
Not sure where it happened, but
the beginning of the end
of my staunch naïveté
and trust in Human Nature
must have occurred while flying
over airspace away from
the Greenwich meridian
significantly longer
than a fortnight away from
the United Kingdom of
Great Britain, Northern Ireland
also spent a lot of time explaining that they hadn’t
just been released from prison
which only serves to prove
suspicions, accusations
spoken in body language
By the way, did I mention
That before being sentenced
I’d already been condemned
8. Isan Chill
Wilder than a wet weekend in Wythenshawe
Warmer than a night beside the fire
Beer Chang to rival Boddies, Hydes, or Joseph Holt
Satisfaction guaranteed to match desire
But there ain’t no snow in Non Sang
While the banter runs smooth, like a cool, cool breeze
And there ain’t no frost in Kuddu
Where the welcome’s warm and its aim, to please
No there ain’t no ice in Hua Kua City
Village Isan chillout… 85 degrees
No up-country white-outs, avalanches, blizzards
Jangwat, Tambon, Amphoe, Moo Ban never freeze
But when winter strikes in Nongbualamphu
Open-air live bands are on the agenda
Then you’ll really think you’re back home in Manchester
‘Cos it’s the coolest gig since Hacienda
9. No More
I ain’t taking no more of them negatives
No, I ain’t taking none of them negs no more
Without them negs, I’m minus nothing
And you ain’t taking nothing from me no more
I ain’t going to no more nowheres
No, no nowhere don’t mean nothing to me no more
Ain’t no nowheres I ain’t never not going
Nowhere ain’t going nowhere; not now, not then, not no more
I ain’t talking to no more nobodys
Nobody don’t know nothing I ain’t not forgot no more
No, no, no I ain’t messing with no more no marks
No way, no how I .ain’t nobody I ain’t gonna know no more
I ain’t doing no more of them nothings
Ain’t nothing I ain’t doing that ain’t nothing no more
No, no, no, no more nothings ain’t never no bad thing
And nothing ain’t never not getting done no more
I ain’t saying no more of them nevers
No, no, no, no, no Never saying never no more
Never ain’t no time, no sooner, no later
No better for no-one who ain’t waiting no more
Yes! I’m positively charged
Yes, yes I’m absolutely sure
Yes, yes, yes certain as can be
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Please give me more
But… and there’s always a ‘but’, isn’t there?
Don’t give me no more take-aways
Don’t want no subtractions no more
Don’t give me none of them withdrawal symptoms
Ain’t no-one, nothing, never, nowhere knows No Less ain’t No More
10. What Are You Like
Attitude, dude…