in the cheap seats where murder breeds
somebody is out of breath
sleep is a luxury they don’t need
a sneak preview of death
deadly nightshade is your flower
manslaughter your meat
spend a year in a couple of hours
on the edge of beezley street
where the action isn’t
that’s where it is
state your position
vacancies exist
in an x certificate exercise
ex servicemen explete
keith joseph smiles and a baby dies
in a box on beezley street
from the boarding houses and the bedsits
full of accidents and fleas
somebody gets it
where the missing persons freeze
wearing dead men’s overcoats
you can’t see their feet
a riff joint shuts and opens up
right down on beezley street
cars collide colours clash
disaster movie stuff
for the man with the fu manchu moustache
revenge is not enough
there’s a dead canary on a swivel seat
there’s a rainbow in the road
meanwhile on beezley street
silence is the mode
it’s hot beneath the collar
it’s cold beneath the balls
where the perishing stink of squalor
impregnates the walls
the rats have all got rickets
they spit through broken teeth
a blood stain is your ticket
one way down beezley street
the gangster and his hired hat
drive a borrowed car
he lookes like the duke of edinburgh
but not so lah-di-dah
OAP mother-to-be
watch that three-piece suite
when shitstopper drains
and crocodile skis
are seen on beezley street
in the kingdom of the blind
where the one-eyed man is king
beauty problems are redefined
the doorbells do not ring
light bulbs pop like blisters
the only form of heat
where a fellow sells his sister
down the river on beezley street
the boys are on the wagon
the girls are on the shelf
their common problem
is that they’re not someone else
the dirt blows out
the dust blows in
you can’t keep it neat
it’s a fully furnished dustbin
16 beezley street
vince the ageing savage
betrays no kind of life
but the smell of yesterday’s cabbage
and the ghost of last year’s wife
through a constant haze
of deodorant sprays
he says retreat
alsatians dog the dirty days
down the middle of beezley street
eyes dead as viscous fish
look around for laughs
if i could have just one wish
i would be a photograph
on this permanent monday morning
get lost or fall asleep
when the yellow cats are yawning
round the back of beezley street
people turn to poison quick
as lager turns to piss
sweethearts are physically sick
every time they kiss
it’s a sociologist’s paradise
each day repeats
uneasy cheesy greasy queasy beastly beezley street
suspended sentence
read the paper humdrum
what’s the caper what goes on
eat die ho hum
page one some bum
is giving a lunatic a loaded gun
he walks others run
thirty dead no fun
do something destructive chum
sit right down write a letter to the sun
bring back hanging for everyone
they took my advice they brought it back
the national costume was all over black
there were corpses in the avenues and cul-de-sacs
piled up neatly in six-man stacks
hanging from the traffic lights and specially made racks
they’d hang you for incontinence and fiddling your tax
failure to hang yourself justified the axe
deedley dee deedley dum
they brought back hanging for everyone
the novelty’s gone it’s hell
the whole place is a death cell
the bang bang bang of the funeral bells
those who aren’t hanging are hanging someone else
the people pay the paper sells
death by the lorry load it smells
swinging britain don’t put me on
they brought back hanging for everyone
limbo
their lives are a mystery they make it their career
in the single file of history fall and disappear
swearing they’ll get even with all those other creeps
philistines and heathens who violently sleep
or steal from cigarette machines just for the change
to get back to where they’ve been: a doorway in the rain
back in the confession box back in the slums
desire burns like chicken pox underneath the thumbs
a refugee from purgatory in a purple robe of scorn
in the holy ghost observatory wears a crown of thorns
turns out she’s a gringo a hard circumstance
limbo baby limbo they wanna see you dance
take the tradesmen’s entrance take it out on a tramp
every fucking sentence complaints about the damp
the only girl is a faint cry from a garden of cement
weekends watch the paint dry it’s a big event
look through heaven’s windows with their opalescent panes
limbo baby limbo down the boulevard of shame
saint margaret dies intact she hardly seems alert
the marble glance denies the fact her face hurts
the extra legal image the cold cream skin
the regal gimmicks did you in
look through heaven’s windows you can see the powder blue veil
the cover girl of limbo and sweetheart of the jail
gipsy babies hopscotch outside the silver gates
the witch doctor’s wrist watch is stuck at five to eight
a bad break a slight ache is everyone’s complaint
flesh flakes like angel cake from mugshots of the saint
who fell from a window and was never seen again
till he turned up in limbo: a doorway in the rain
a hero rides to heaven the public merely rot
for a fraction of forever in a designated spot
eternally paralysed the morbid orbit shifts
halfway to paradise stuck in the lift
some smart cracking bimbo says you can’t be employed
sends you off to limbo on the stairway to a void
a distant relation
a family affair
look at this picture
we’re in there somewhere
permanent fixtures
people who care
stranger beware
this is a family affair
all of our yesterdays
familiar rings
i have to get away
it’s breaking my heart strings
we have a drink
it’s a special occasion
it makes me think
about a distant relation
a family affair
always a mixture
of people in chairs
permanent fixtures<
br />
bring pressure to bear
and problems to share
this is a family affair
holiday snapshots
of you and myself
acting like crackpots
like everyone else
the bermuda shorts
and the summer creations
bringing thoughts
of that distant relation
a family affair
we break ornaments
and get them repaired
we bring up past events
that hang in the air
stranger beware
this is a family affair
all of our yesterdays
familiar rings
i have to get away
from certain surroundings
weddings and funerals
and special occasions
and all the usual
distant relations
a family affair
look at this picture
we’re in there look there
permanent fixtures
people who care
whisper who dares
this is a family affair
the house on nowhere street
only a graze was the final phrase
running out of breath
a travelling javelin stabbed him in the abdomen
he bled to death
the poor fool he found his feet
but left his face behind
in the happy house on nowhere street
with the pale blue bamboo blind
the trembling tongues he once enjoyed
talk behind his back
tell me he was self employed
he gave himself the sack
he’s on the scrounge in the cocktail lounge
where once he wined and dined
a thousand eyeballs shake him down
from the pale blue bamboo blind
the music will continue
there is no way out
bone muscle and sinew
begin to move about
whip that sucker with a heavy back beat
you gotta be cool to be the kind
who haunt the house on nowhere street
with the pale blue bamboo blind
he’s hanging round the swimming pool
with a mental cigarette
he knows what keeps all women cool
he knows what gets ’em wet
wave on wave of body heat
frozen in his mind
far from the house on nowhere street
with the pale blue bamboo blind
he came in search of paradise
he even learned to drive
became a living sacrifice
to other people’s wives
nobody seeks similar
with nothing much in mind
apply the house on nowhere street
with the pale blue bamboo blind
spilt beans
the roads are littered with guilty men
who write your name with a poison pen
one by one those friendly swine
who fell off the bent assembly line
turn up for a cup of tea
turn up the colour TV
then they put it about that you’ve been mean
it’s no good crying over spilt beans
all those fancy dans at the palais de danse
offer you assistance in their firm’s vans
nice boys who love their mothers
much more than a million lovers
what he wants is four spare wheels
one fair deal and two square meals
he’s exactly as he seems
it’s no good crying over spilt beans
he’s got sixty low-down dirty ways
to drive you mad in thirty days
you give him a rose he gives you thorns
you give him poetry he gives you porn
you give him presents he sends them back
he got a seven-course dinner said thanks for the snack
give me what’s crucial crisp and green
it’s no good crying over spilt beans
the three stooges the four just men
the magnificent seven and the hollywood ten
lord rockingham’s eleven and the famous five
three men in a boat and their wives
the twelve apostles and the fiddlers three
ten green bottles and the three degrees
and wave on wave of brilliantine
says no good crying over spilt beans
indigestion housemaid’s knees
your complexion looks like cheese
you make groovy gravy mother of meat
since you wed all you do is eat
too fat to fuck and that’s that
he’s got genitals fitted with a thermostat
a hitch in the kitchen what’s that scream
it’s no good crying over spilt beans
majorca
fasten your seat belts says the voice
inside the plane you can hear no noise
engines made by rolls-royce
take your choice
make mine majorca
check out the parachutes can’t be found
alert the passengers they’ll be drowned
a friendly mug says settle down
when i come round i’m gagged and bound
for majorca
here comes the neat hostess
and her unapproachable flip finesse
i found the meaning of the word excess
they’ve got little bags if you want to make a mess
i fancied cuba but it cost a lot less
to majorca
(whose blonde sand fondly kisses the cool fathoms
of the blue mediterranean)
they packed us into the white hotel
you could still smell the polycell
and the white paint in the air-conditioned cells
the waiter smells of fake chanel
gauloises garlic as well
said if i like i could call him miguel
well really
i got drunk with another fella
who’d just brought up a previous paella
wanted a fight but said they were yella
in majorca
the guitars rang the castinets clicked
the dancers stamped the dancers kicked
the double diamond flowed like sick
mother’s pride tortilla and chips
pneumatic drills you can’t kip
take a dip you’re in the shit
if you sing in the street you’re knicked
in majorca
the heat made me sick i had to stay in the shade
must have been something in the lemonade
but by the balls of franco i paid
i had to pawn my bucket and spade
next year i take the international brigade
to majorca
conditional discharge
satisfaction comes and goes
biological action cannot be froze
a sexual recharge a plug in a socket
conditional discharge a sticky deposit
love on the sick down in the dumps
visit the clinic where the microscopes jump
with the love-sick side effects tell me what was it
conditional discharge a sticky deposit
the memory lingers of a clean routine
another man’s fingers under my jeans
he gave me a card some antibiotics
said conditional discharge a sticky deposit
a random fuck dirty sheets
a crack in a cup a lavatory seat
i’m in the dark about where i got it
conditional discharge a sticky deposit
sexual freedom left me alone
in a garden of eden syndrome
it’s on the cards you’ll come across it
condit
ional discharge a sticky deposit
the ups and downs of times like these
fucking around is a social disease
and the public at large don’t know they’ve got it
conditional discharge a sticky deposit
a problem of leisure measured in terms
of pain plus pleasure plus poison sperm
take this diagram keep it in your pocket
conditional discharge sticky deposit
nothing
nothing isn’t anything
it’s tasteless and it’s flat
nothing if it’s anything
is even less than that
i’ve got that certain nothing
no one can do without
the spanish call it nada
i call it nowt
i’d take the train but don’t care
to travel by myself
all the way from nowhere
to get to nowhere else
nothing ever goes on
nothing never ends
say nothing to no one
it’s nothing to do with them
nothing going on and on
nothing wall to wall
it happens once and then it’s gone
leaving bugger all
23rd
you can count on him
he’ll always let you down
while you hang about for him
he’s in another town
he gets from A to B
he can’t see eye to eye
with anyone if you ask me
he doesn’t try
check his empty pockets
check them more than once
he hasn’t got it
whatever it is that you want
energy is a four-letter word
he doesn’t buy
here he comes now 23rd
he doesn’t try
compassion it isn’t necessary
his sickness is an act
he’ll make you an accessory
after this obvious fact
you must excuse him
ask his mother why
you can’t use him
he doesn’t try
it doesn’t pay to help him
he’s somewhere else
Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt Page 5
