I know, if you knew when you lost it you wouldn’t be looking.

Have you checked the back of the sofa? Underneath it?

Could it be in your pockets? Have you checked your pockets?

What about your pockets? What about there, in there?

No. The insides of your pockets. Now, have you got,

Have you got any inside pockets? The insides of the inside.

I mean your inside pocket. Inside your inside pocket.

Have you checked the cupboards? With the clothes in,

The clothes, the new clothes, ’cause you never know,

Things turn up in the strangest . . . They do. Turn up.

You have to check all of the pockets in all of the clothes

Of all the places you’ve ever been – that’s a lot of pockets.

Find out where the new land lies and the old lies land.

Funny how when you’re looking you find everything else

Except. Don’t start blaming people. Before you know it

You’ll accuse everyone that is nearest to you,

Everyone that was closest to you, that mattered.

You’ll turn on them, investigate them for the time

They might have slipped it in their pockets

And slipped away saying goodbye, goodbye.

Have you checked your pockets? Your inside pockets?

**** This

**** This

**** this, **** all that

Who the **** are you shouting at?

**** you and what you’re shouting for

**** you all, I don’t care no more

**** it, you are the dead loss

**** you and **** your ****ing boss

Not much to say, no ****er to tell

**** **** **** it **** in’ hell.

Magpie

Magpie

I saw a single magpie,

It really got to my head.

I thought, ‘You unlucky bastard,’

And shot the bugger dead.

Before We Get Into This

Before We Get Into This

Before we get to know each other

And sing for tomorrow

And unearth yesterday,

So that we can prepare our joint grave,

You should know that I have no family,

Neither disowned nor distanced – none.

No birthdays, nor Christmas,

No telephone calls. It’s been that way

Since birth, for what it’s worth,

No next of skin.

I am the guilty secret of an innocent woman

And a dead man – tell your parents, they’ll want to know.

Advice for the Living

Advice for the Living

Dead fast this.

Everyone’s dying to arrive,

Living for deadlines, trying to

Stay straight as a die. They’ll get

There, dead or alive because they’re

Dead set, and they do arrive in shores

Of dead heats, dead beats at dead ends

Dead messed up like dead stock. The living

Dead flogging dead horses in the dead of

Night. Dead right, dead lost, dead right.

Every now and again we stop dead

In our tracks, dead still ’cause it’s

Dead hard, like a dead weight’s

Dropped on the head. . .Wouldn’t

You die for a little piece, die for

A breath of hope? Dead right,

I would. In the dead centre of

All this deadlocking, dread