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Poetry by Christopher William John Byrne.

The Thames (London)

Not deeply profound
Or profound in its depth

Hmm

I may not have a fantastic social life presently
But I do have a web presence; www.fly.to/cwjb .

WASP

You think you're a social butterfly
But you're more of a bee
Honey


Radiohead

Resisting 
In a persistent 
Vegetative
State
"Appalled ironic paralysis"

Promise

Like a speeding  car driver
On the first day of summer
When the oil rises up from the tarmac
I'll be coming back to you


Collaborative Poem From A Toilet Door In London 
by various anonymous authors. 
(supported by London Arts Council and the National Lottery.) 

My arse sings like a buttercup
It warbles in the night
And when it drops it's little load
My legs must take to flight

Mmmm


Red pudding tonight
Angel  Delight
Fluffy mash in the sky
Shepherd's Pie

Roll

Sometimes it feels like
We're ballroom dancing
It seems I'm only here 
To make you look good

Tortured Artist in Isleworth

Van Gogh also lived here

Society

You were free publicity
There was no spark 
Apart from that of media interest 
The only things that clicked
Were the photographers' cameras
I did not have much to say to you
But I had something to sell

My Stylist

I go to Barry 
At Toni and Guy's in Richmond
To get a regular sprinkle 
Of "designer dandruff"
To create the illusion that
I am a mere mortal 
With the rest of humanity

The Big Turd

On the edge of a big nothing
Space to fill
Time to kill
Everyone wants to look
Some need to be seen 


Dead Artist. Modern Art

I am out of copyright
I've still got loads to say
I am out of copyright
And there is no one left to pay

Extract from Dissertation Acknowledgements

...No thanks to a certain fast-food restaurant in Aldershot,  Hampshire 
for many hours of much perspiration
and rational bureaucratic exploitation
for a very miserly rumuneration
but thanks very much for the inspiration
and inside information
for this dissertation
/independent study.
Thanks to my fellow "crewmembers" there for the odd moments of 
transcendental 
existential
elation
and jubilation...

Bullshit (Dedique a tous poetes.)

I do not get shitfaced
Pissed up
Or hammered
I am an artist
Too exquisitely sensitive for the world
I seek to explore the extremities
Of the human condition
Booze is for me
An agent of mystical transport
Je bois
Pour epater les bourgeois
I do not have a romantic attitude to lager
It is integral to my (f)art
Shits
And hangovers

London

I am reliably informed
That the Chinawhite Bar's VIP area
Is called the Mao Bar
When can we discerning punters expect
The Hitler Brasserie
And Stalin Cafe?

Romance

As a firework farted in the starry sky
I try to stare into your cross eyes

Mucous

From panpipe purgatory
To the saxaphone moods first ring of hell

Westside

I'm so suburban
I think my Nike trainers make me
Hardboiled
Risky
Edgy
Raw and 
Gritty
Yo Baby!
Wassup?
It's no coincidence that statistics show
Reebok Classics footprints are now more often found in
Forensic evidence than Air Max   

Bland

In the kingdom of the bland
The person with a non-ear piercing is (shoc)king
The man with a comedy tie is Joe King
And the man with a Jamiroquai CD is fun(king)

Dreams

I want to be a cult author
I'm going to shoot my wife
Drink myself to an early grave
Do drugs man
To provide vicarious thrills
For commuters on the train

Clubbing in Aldershot. Shite 

As the deejay piles pure piano tuna
On hard cheesebag endlessly
Anybody who is nobody 
Will soon walk through that door
Life is not hard in here
Just a lot of it is para trained
Major structural damage is being inflicted upon the premises
By the mattress backs
(Not mutton dressed as lamb
But offal packaged as mutton)
Waddling in time to the big numbas
It feels like the roof is about to cave in
My dandruff is glowin' under the UV light
Oh the glamour

Talk of the Town

I was once an eligible batchelor
Now I am an illegible old  batchelor
Now I am more Debenhams
Than debonair
I used to be enigmatic
Now I listen to Enigma 

Phart

I am so modern
I listen to post rock
I like post ironic humour
I use post shave balm
I hot-desk in a post office
My post is delivered by the Royal Mail

Branded

                Baptised in the TV channel                    
                                        Style-pressed                                            
Like a gingerbread man
                                                               With a biscuitcutter                                                                   
Pinpointed by market research
As target
Youth market
                                      Nike tattooed on my chest                                     
                                       Catchy jingle on my mind                                      
                                        When I blink I see negatives                                      
                                      Of cola logos and golden arches                                     
                                       We pledge allegiance                                       
                                        To the swoosh                                           
Or stripes  
Conspicuous consumption has diffused
Through my pores
The brand 
Has placed it's hands 
On me

Question

Do smart bombs
Write anthems
For doomed hardware
And software?


Questionzzz

Am I 
"Lost in the automatism
Of the hypnotised corporeal"
Or off my nut 
On half a paracetamol
And a vivid imagination 

Retrograde

I am the spirit of retro youth culture
A costumed crisis living in a costume drama
I am the process of what was cool 
Reaching room temperature
I live in inverted commas 
In a self-imposed cartoon
I am excitement for those who like routine
My "revival" is resuscitation 
Smiling knowingly
Sarcastically
Cynically
Satirically
Ironically
Today is of little value
I prefer the good old days before I was born
I deny the creative possibility of young blood
Or am I just fancy dress for a far too serious world?
 
Ice Cream Cone

Up shit creek 
Without a boat
With concrete socks on
I see alligators...
Or are they crocodiles?


Ode To Chips

Thou art divine


Lines on Wrinkles

When you are young  
You try to find yourself
While yourself is finding you
You do what you are told 
And also just do
You are only young once
So that one day you can grow old
But we are not born warm
For us to grow cold

Iffy

If this poem was a pop song
It would have a producer 
It would have strings
And be an instant classic
It would have crashing cymbals
And thundering kettle drums
(I use clever symbols)
I'm going to do a cover version of some other writer's poetry
To get my name known

Mekon

If I was a film star
People would still say
" You've got a big head"
And I would have to explain
Cinema projection to them

Norman

When the sky is your oyster
The world is your limit

Deep

If you are agonising
Over which designer egg cups to buy
Then your life may be
Too full
Of vanity
And frivolity 

Smokin'!

I am a professor of social engineering
My cigs are my social toolbox
"Would you like a fag?" to a room of strangers =
"I come in peace"
Embarrassed, awkward?
Anxious, cracked a bad joke?
Light up a fag!
Want to look generous? 
Offer everyone a cigarette
I'm never alone
With my 20 Strands
Trying to look sophisticated?
Want to meet more people?
START SMOKING!
Want Rebel Legend Mystique?
Smoke Marlboro Reds
Want to be a supermodel?
Smoke Bro Golds
Want to be a true player?
Smoke Camels
 

Well

I did not play myself in
But I made three appointments at the dentist
On the off chance 
That I would

Down Memory Lane

Some of the windows
Have a rose tint
The road is cobbled with millstones
Down short-term memory lane
There is a pothole


Manners

I was quietly picking my nose
And got a bad reaction
Do they react so strongly
When they see things that are really disgusting?

(Her) Presents

If I was a poet
I would say that the only thing that you can change is the present
Not the future or past
But that is not true
There is no receipt or proof of purchase as
All presents are given 
And we receive the present
But that is not the same thing as fate
The hardest thing in the world
Is sometimes the music stops
You get excited
And you have to pass the parcel
No one forces you to
You just have to let go
It is harder if it is your birthday 
Or it feels like it is 
It is difficult when it is a mystery prize
Or a ribboned riddle
I think proper poets call it passing by
There are a lot of presents in the future
But a lot less in the past
And the only way to find a good present is to
Get stuck in to the lucky dip of life and
Help yourself

Port

In a port things come and go
In a port some things never return
In a port you feel the rain more
In a port some people are cold
In a port there are dark cocoa mills
In a port there are betting shops
In Portakabins by the docks
In a port there are many boats and faces
In a port there is always something fishy
In a port things can't stay the same
 
Choonz

Cars go by
Hissing with the sound of amplified hi-hats
Some slide by like rattle snakes
Others sound like dodgy kettles


V.S.O.P 

I'd like to be the writer type
With a click click typewriter
I would have to smoke a pipe
And relight it with a lighter
I would drink black coffee
Pondering , scratching my beard
I'd get brandy from the offy
And people would say " He's weird! "

Centre of the Universe

I can see the love glowing in your eyes
Or is it the Starburger sign I see?
Doner kebab is in the air
Or is it love?
This is Frimley
Noise  and smell
I want to give all this to you
Lets hit the traffic island ( as in town)
Please do not give me the cold , hard shoulder
Roads, motorway and dual carriageways
You are the quiet above the drone
My focus in this blur
You are a daylight smile
Underneath the withering neon glare
You are the music above the electric hum
A reference point in this featureless town
In streets of monoxide and lead
Your oxygen goes to my head
You are strobe animation among grey suits
Are you real virtuality or Vanessa Parody?
You seem to fluoresce in that dress
You masturb my disturbation
Dilute my concentration
You are some stillness in the swarm

The Closed Circuit Teardrops

In this takeaway town 
No one gives a fuck
Everything has a short shelf-life:
Jobs, marriages and friendships
Modern life seems to be made of many Velcro relationships
Pushed together
Torn apart
Please don't crush my Styrofoam heart
It will not decompose
It can not be recycled 
You smoulder like a cigarette
Not extinguished by this ashtray town
It is not the cigarette that counts
It is the packet that matters
The electric light in this room is so strong 
It feels like it is bleaching my head and hands
In this town there is no scenic route
Nothing is in black and white
Just grey 


Rowhill

I like to play on words 
Like they are blades of grass
In a field on a sunny day
I do not use artificial fertiliser on my words
Just pure bull shit 


Just Words

She is one hell of a woman
She only calls me on payday
She is a harpy 
In Harpic
One flutter of her eyelashes
Can cause a tornado on the other side of the world
She is a siren 
Blaring in my ear
She gives me the best evils that I have ever seen
She gets me in hot water
Then hauls me over the coals
She glares daggers at me
Then throws knives at me
She bleeds me astray
She has snake hips on the dance floor
She is not allergic to caviar or champagne
She likes to piss on my bonfires (literally)
She likes to grill me about everything that I do and say
Over a low flame 
Slowly

Provisional Poetic Licence

I have passed the theory
But not the practical
I tend to look in the rear view mirror too much
I am not good at reading the signs and signals
The fast lane is sometimes too fast for me
I have blindspots in my windscreen as well
I am not good at indicating
Giving way or racing
Music distracts my concentration
I wear a seatbelt
I seem to drive better on my own

Eyes

Her eyes are one big question
In them I think I can see my future family tree
Her eyes flash like a lighthouse 
That drags me towards the rocks
She is my pupil dilator
She makes me want to die later
I am neurotransmitten
 
Pubzzz

In the Wheatsheaf
I can (pick my nose)
Burp 
Fart and spit
In a snoozers boozer
I can only talk 
Drink and sit
 
Valentine

Roses are red 
Violets are blue
Daffodils are yellow
And chrysanthemums are difficult to spell

Home (written aged 13 years)

They handed me a bag 
I unzipped it
I black suit
2 white shirts
2 white vests
2 pairs of underpants
2 pairs of socks
1 tube of toothpaste
1 toothbrush
1 five pound note
One train ticket
All in a black plastic holdall
I sighed
The records officer called me
"Sign this form Sir"
That sheet
Fourty years in the slammer
What a contrast
I drew my 1950 Parker pen
From my top left hand jacket pocket
The scratchy nib failing to make an impression on the sheet
I hesitantly asked
"Erm can I borrow a pen?"
The officer yawned and threw me a biro  
I signed my liberation
The warder drew a large
Bunch of keys from his pocket
He strolled up to the main door
The key slid into the slot
As the warder heaved open the giant door
The joints groaned under the strain
"Well then Sir. Let's not be seeing you again!"
I walked out
I was free
The door slammed behind me
My bag at my feet
I looked around
My, how the world had changed
Half of my life wasted
By some man's lie
The sun shone through the electric fence
I could see the shadow of the barbed wire 
On the concrete road before me
What did I have to back to?
Nothing
My parents died 20 years ago
A cool wind blew on my face
I turned up my collar
And sunk my hands deep into my pockets
I picked up my bag from my feet
I felt like rifling a telephone box
So I could go home 

Pinned

I am pinned to this place
I am pinned to this face
I am pinned to this race
I am pinned to disgrace

I have sinned
I am pinned

I am pinned to your door
While I am pinned to the floor
I am pinned by my fame
I am pinned to my name

I am pinned to my flaws
I've been pinned here by the laws
I am pinned by my pain
I am pinned to the game

My eyes are pinning
The world is not spinning 
For me

Radude

I'm in extreme sports gear
To go down the pub
In combat trousers
To play Nintendo
I'm wearing running shoes
To walk down the road
And in cyber undies
To do the washing up

Statement

I do not write urban hymns
But provincial poems

Statement 2

I am glad that
I do not write war poems
Whether commissioned by The Guardian
Or not
Many war poets
Are real
Poets on the underground

Simple Pleasures Are Free?

Does he regularly eat chocolate?
Get to watch the silver screen?
Does he regularly eat chocolate?
Show his face on the club scene?

Has he checked out the Tate Modern?
With the same passion he checks Tesco's waste? 
London for all your leisure
You may repent at haste.

Does he like to browse in Waterstone's?
Check out the latest (chocolate) bar?
Does he regularly eat food?
He has no home, job or car.

Apart

There is a man 
Up in the sky
Head in the clouds
In that crane

He has friends at work
But he don't know 
Their surnames

Impersonating a police officer is a criminal offence. I was recently walking down a street in London when I saw a sign saying "Hefner ... remixed by Baxendale". I am not well versed in youngster slang but am I to assume from this that "Ol' Viagra Bollocks" (Hugh Hefner, the owner of the Playboy mags n' vids empire) has been courting Helen Baxendale (the English actress, seen in "Cold Feet" and "Friends"). I have researched this and found out that the phrase refers to what amounts to a musical collaboration between two up-and-coming English pop groups. There are two English musical acts called Hefner: one an "indie" pop group, and the other a dance musician. Hefner's posters (dance music) has a disclaimer that "Hefner is a registered trademark" - he also informs us in a recent interview that his stagename is "ironic"... A cursory glance at the NME will show you that now there are a whole host of bands using the name of famous (creative) people, films, places, fictional characters e.g:"Belmondo, Rothko". These are people who are trying to borrow the cool of others and as thus are about as naff as it gets. ? Have you seen the recent adverts for Cream (the Liverpool nightclub)? In one of them there is a photograph of a young man pot-washing in a restaurant; with the caption " It's why I go to work all week." Am I alone in detecting a certain sadness in this advert? Pot washing is a low paid job: quite hard work as well if you work in a busy kitchen. Cream is a very expensive nightclub; if this young man attend the nightclub every week he most be putting a large amount of his income in the till. The "weekender" idea still prevails and as one matures one realises the political dimensions of this: some people live for the weekend. Reread that phrase. Another relatively recent series of adverts that I see as almost tragic (in the true sense of the word) is the recent UK Sony Playstation onewhere we see a series of people stating that they have "commanded armies" and "have lived",i.e: Playstation is a substitute for life experiences. And the other advert with the girl with the strange face associating Playstation with a concept of "Mental Wealth" is beyond parody but not even a joke. Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Elderly Disc Jockeys. Elder abuse is a problem in modern society, particularly on the club scene. The young people clap the aging Disc Jockeys' entrance, which only encourages the deejays. Certain DJ's (thought to have been suffering from sleep deprivation) have been known to get confused when joining the dance floor, not knowing whether to twist and shout or make alternating small and big boxes with their hands. Pete Tong is over 40. Help The Aged Welfare Rights Advice: call free on 0808 8006565. Lines are open Monday to Friday 9am to 4pm. www.helptheaged.org.uk Campaign for Maximum Wage for Disc Jockeys. Following our success in a campaign to cap orchestra conductors' wages, we announce a new campaign. For far too long now disc jockeys have worked for unjust wages. But even though many of them are fully aware of this they continued in a spirit of public service. We argue that the maximum wage should be ideally an instrument of labour market policy, not just a safety net for the highest paid. We advocate a maximum wage designed to aid those who suffer discrimination in the labour force, especially women, part-time, black, young and disabled workers. We believed it should encourage efficiency and provide an incentive to training. We believe that the maximum Wage is a key element in the battle against low income and inequality. It is essential that the maximum wage work effectively with other elements of government policy, if the goal of a high wage, high skill economy is to be realised. �50 per hour plus travelling/accomodation expenses (not first class). We call on nightclub promoters and agents to bring this into action. To bring down nightclub costs and to pay them a fair, honest wage for an honest nights work. London Bar Reviews Spit Fire In swinging London's Soho district, a bar designed to look like a Nissen hut, serving authentic WW2 ration snacks and with an enforced 12 hour lock-in when the authentic air raid siren sounds. Ironmongers' Pub In the heart of London's bohemian East End. With Art on the walls; it is a building combining the best gritty features of a condemned building: with the edgy ambience of a squat. As your reviewer sips his �2.50 pint of lager and sees the graffiti covering the walls in the gents' toilet he wonders if there is a art prank being played on him! ? Top of my chart is an un-named bar, known only to the cognoscenti. Food and drink is not served. Only once every six months grain is scattered on the floor. There is a (self-service) supply of specially polluted tap water; and no sanitation but a hole in the floor of the basement. Salvation A new addition to nightlife in Clerkenwell. Only bread and water is served apart from house wine at Mass times (once every two hours 24/7/365). To enter the VIP bar one must take a vow of silence for the duration of the visit. I encountered TPT there on my visit. Salvation Army Security there demands that clients leave all the worldly goods that they are currently in possession of at the door. These are redistributed to the poor and clients are given a garment made of sackcloth. Recently Nicky Haslam was seen having a competition with Elton John in the queue as to who was paying the most to get in (Nicky lost as he had not actually paid for his donations). THE PARANOID CULTURE? ( written 1996?) When I was a university student I lived in the relatively calm and affluent student area on the edge of town. In 1995 I would often go the local newsagents, and there would sometimes be a security guard. He sometimes stood behind the people who were flicking through magazines. This was but one of the security measures; they also had about four security cameras, with flashing beacon lights to remind "the customer" of their presence. I could have understood this if the shop was a designer boutique; but it was the local newsagent in Hull, East Yorkshire. The local mini-market had similar security measures plus "tagged" products. It was part of a local chain and all their shops had similar security measures. Around the corner on Grafton St (where it seemed that every second car had a steering wheel lock) there was the local second-hand car yard. It was protected by razor wire and the gate was topped in sheet metal cut into spikes. One thing I noticed on bus journeys around Hull was the amount of burglar alarms on domestic property - it seemed that they had become a necessity. Since leaving Hull I have learnt that Humberside has got the highest burglary rate in the country - I was burgled but luckily had not moved in yet to my shared house. Some of the stolen goods ended up in a shop no more than 200 metres away. In this context it seems these measures are a reasonable response, not paranoia. It seemed that the new industry of security, along with that of higher education, was a boom industry in an area where the traditional industries are almost dead. Left-wingers argue that recession causes unemployment; which in turn causes crime. I would expand this with "the threat and fear of crime combined with a lack of faith in the police force (in terms of lack of resources etc) has created the security industry". A 1996 MORI reported that more than one in three people think that newspapers, security companies and the insurance industry have a vested interest in making people more afraid of violent crime. They then also surely have a vested interest in making people more afraid of property crime, as it is far more commonplace and can be even more painful. The Automobile Association advertise that they to their members they are the fourth emergency service. One of their advertisements depicts a woman broken down "on the wrong side of town" - and the heroic AA man comes to "save" her. Does this advertising prey on people's fears? Liz Turner (in an article in the Saturday Guardian magazine in 1996 ) could be said to be aiding and abetting the industries that thrive on fear of crime. One of the items on a list of safeguards she listed for women drivers' safety was "get a mobile phone". This helpful advice forgets to mention that line rental bills alone are around 200 pounds per year. For a man a mobile phone is a status symbol; it would be sad if mobile phones became for women drivers the equivalent of the rape alarm. The recent boom on out-of-town shopping developments (the big High Street names leaving the High Street) could have been motivated to a certain degree by a corporate fear of crime. The average out-of-town shopping development is inaccessible for the pedestrian shopper. It is designed for the car owner - relatively affluent; and thus not likely to be a shoplifter. There is another more important aspect to this "culture of paranoia": how the culture of fear could affect the young generation. An irresponsible print media feeds this paranoia in their search for higher circulation figures. Overcautious parents drive their children to school because they perceive the streets to be dangerous - tragedies like Dunblane can only compound this fear. "Not talking to strangers" (the culture of suspicion), taken to heart could make making friends very difficult, and in the long run could be a social handicap. Linda Grant in the Guardian has pointed out that it is the number of cars on the road that make the streets more dangerous. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents noted that in 1995 five child pedestrians died every week. Young lungs are exposed to more pollution travelling in a car than walking on the pavement. One can only imagine the "image of the world" of the children who are brought up behind the high brick walls and electric gates in the "stockbroker belts"- the Englishman's home literally as castle. Kids grow up in front of the television, with its emphasis on consumerism and violence - giving a distorted picture of the reality that it is supposed to represent. If you take a look around this sceptered isle, it could seem that we live in a fearful time. Some verbose commentators might say that it is a symptom of the "fin de siecle" but that is a gross over-intellec tualisation and would serve to negate the very real fears and worries of many people. The Ten Commandments tell us to "love thy neighbour". Friedrich Nietzsche argued in "Beyond Good and Evil" that: "Ultimately `love of one's neighbour' is always something secondary … when compared with fear of one's neighbour." Nietzsche is arguing that fear is more natural and instinctive than love. The formation of the British State is evidence of this: the Welfare State was formed a long time after the Police Force, and now that the Police are not sufficient, business is moving in. Is this paranoid culture a result of the decline of Christian morals, a response to widespread crime and / or just one more nail in the coffin of society? Are we moving towards a situation like America, where the well off have retreated to gated and fenced communities, with security guards manning the checkpoints at the entrances. Either way, somebody is making money out of it. The security industry is recession-fuelled. Is it a similar case to that of the railways, which it could be argued were left in a poor state (through lack of investment, deregulation and now privatisation) to encourage growth in car ownership and use, with the closely associated industries of car manufacturing, petroleum and road-building? Has a lack of funding for the police been a ruse by the successive governments to "create an opening" for the security firms to move in, a new, "free" market? ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT C.W.J BYRNE. it's the the same guy whose stuff you may have read in the new statesman, www.yearzero.org, undercover magazine, freedom, right now!, journal of nietzsche studies, www.obv.org.uk, mental health nursing journal, Blueprint etc. yawn! aka burnsey, byrnesey, burn, byrnes, burnsie, burns...