The Lucky ...

long before I got marooned

on the five-mile Indian beach

for twenty months

with a disparate gaggle of international fortunates

I'd been using the phrase

we are the Lucky Fuckers

...

in my 50s I'd

already started noticing the

pattern of glee

the regularity with which i was using the phrase

how easy it came to the tongue

we are the Lucky Fuckers

because...

...

washing up in Vancouver in

sun-soaked yellow-green September

near the very end of another colossal

Fringe Tour of Canada?

we are the Lucky Fuckers

...

sat around a long table in Sahagun

on the Camino Di Santiago

for a Christian communal dinner

with a hodge-podge of international faces

Danish Lara, Mexican Omar,

Singaporean Faith, Alsatian Mathilde

and more?

we are the Lucky Fuckers

...

the three-five-or-six table-loads of us

in Steel Wheels on the

last Thurs Fri Sat of Edmonton?

we are the Lucky Fuckers

...

going for a beer on the beach with

Dylan and

fresh from the Narmada Parikrama, Venki

now known as Bholebaba?

we are the ...

...

descending

as leg-weary as it gets

after the hardcore snowy trek over

the high-altitude Thuong La pass

on the five hour downhill saunter

amongst the colossal Himalayas

with the promise of the five hour descent into Kagbeni

tomorrow or the next day?

we are the Lucky Fuckers

...

finishing our sticky rice and

ambling into Armstrongs on the Cowgate?

or Eva Bi on St Laurent?

we are the Lucky Fuckers

...

sauntering down Heather and along False Creek

to meet a bunch of mates

in the Fringe-Caravanserai that is Granville Island?

we are the...

...

and we deserve something by then...

after 800 k of the Camino

don't you deserve something good? ...

after the total commitment of the Fringe tour

six or seven or five or, best, eight Festivals

one hundred days

fifty-sixty shows

as full-on as full-on gets

don't you deserve something good?

yes you do

and is it good?

yes it is

its brilliant, the best

and we are the Lucky Fuckers

...

wung West over The Rockies

six Festivals down

one or two more to come

the joyous opportunity

being an artist

doing the art

getting punters

making money, enough

we are The...

...

or

two coffees into the day on some

winding Spanish green lane of Autumn

with the mist across the valley

tucking into a Basque tortilla and watching

new friends straggle up the Way

to join me

we are the...

...

and is it good?

yes it is

its brilliant, the best

the concatenating glees

the insurgent sense of achievement

where we are the Lucky Fuckers

drenched in luck

sodden with it

dissolving into luck and crystallising as

even purer luck

with the elevation within

with every breath a happiness

with a pleasure in the weariness of the limbs

for we are The

…

perched on the natural seat

of a smooth boulder

on a Cambodian mountainside

in the very green greenery

surrounded three-sixty by

real-thing rain-forest jungle

looking round and up at the plays of the

dappling sun while

breathing in the cleanest air

we are the

...

bouncing on the back of motorbike taxis across

Ukerewe Island towards Ukora Island?

back in Victoria in Swans the boozer?

or in the Don Mee for Peking duck?

or on the train west across Ontario

or tucking into another dal bati in Pushkar

we are...

…

or me walking onstage to sell-outs in Vancouver

while, simultaneously, mates nearby are doing exactly the same...

or sipping our third lassi of the day in Bikaner

or ordering a pint in...

or tucking into the Oyster po'boys in...

we are the

you are the

i am the

...

while, March 2020

the world turns to rubbish

yet i'm day in, day out

month in, month out

wandering the empty beach

swimming seven times a day

floating under the stars

ambling in the greenery

like a Lucky Fucker

again the words

the Lucky Fuckers

life keeps doing this

the Lucky Fuckers

effortless steps upward

coasting through the days

pushing on open doors

finding the right words with ease

springing in the step

getting back more than you put in

reaping more than you can remember sowing

with, a counterweight pulling you up

a bounce from the very ground

lifting you on emotional thermals

all rising to the cusp

…

with the words

we are the luck ...

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

...

so here we are

just beginning to regain our zeal and zap before

the next throw of our bodies out into the world

and we, we have this, this latest culmination of

all the beauties which came before

and here we are, eye deep in the book of plenty

before a field-trip in paradise…

and here we are

fit and equal to the adventures of the day

…

so me, i'm been cleaning the brushes,

and priming the canvass

making the frame and

preparing the paint

…