It is always the way
You get to the front of the BBQ
And they’ve ran out of hog.
I feel them moving behind me
Edging around me to the altar of meat;
To the cooling carcass and pick
At the leftovers, the greasy pink
Scraps fed into each other’s gullets
A woman with an empty glass of
Red, squeals and laughs and
Drops her cup.
There is a buzzing in my ear.
I’ve lost all
My appetite
Eyes are closed
On the first day
Of nine
When I have
Not been in the curlicue
Red and green swirl of
Drunk.
Eyes are closed
And I feel a
Paw upon my fist
I do not need
To look
To know
It’s my sleeping buddy,
Not mine
But mine right now.
I open one
Eye and see
His white scrunched
Face, I think
Bill loves sleep
More than me
(while never tired
I could sleep for
The rest of my life)
More handsome
Than many
Women I have
Laid with
And awoken
Separate from.
There are lessons here
To be learnt from
The fat, hairy Buddha
With his bi-pedalling
Student.
I spit you out
Like the black spat out
The universe
Like your mum
Grunting in hot
white pain
Spat you out
(I was carefully cut
From a loving window in my mother)
Whole worlds, bullets, teeth
Toys, chocolate éclairs, notes with
Writing on
All revolving:
Swallowing and hawking.
On reading this,
You’ll find like most
Bad things
It will end up getting stuck
Between your teeth
‘eatin isss cheatin’
She said, then
Swallowed herself
I ate a bacon bit.
Last time
I go to
The salad bar
I never know
Where to look
On the underground.
Staring up at
Advertisements
For holidays,
Restaurants
And pills:
Various
Destinations.
All the models have
Cartoon wide eyes
Menacing grins
But great skin.
I look down
At all the heads
In the carriage
Sunken eyes
Hollow yawns
Blinks that get
Longer and
Longer.
The train doors
Open and close and
No one gets on,
We all
Rumble in the night
To our
Various destinations.
Got to thank Berryman for the Eliah poems.
I know he can't hear me because his ears are rotting away and he wouldn't know what the internet is, but appreciation is still due.
Each mother of a crime
Mastermind
Say ‘mison, he just want to grow’
And they right, so-so.
Ah put my feelers out
My one long tentacle
And watched it remotely,
Snake and writhe about
Lifting all the skirt in the bar
Sneaking over mole, wart and spot
Making constellations o dot to dot
Not to worry tho, it didn't get far
No not wuth the hubby lager louts
The place were all courtroomy, complete
With feather and tar
And on my pulsating love, the men
Got me all Abelard
Old cloven hoof might just be right,
Noone really gets home at end of the night
You can tell he's
having sex
when the radio comes on.
Either he
or the speakers
mumble something over a
restaurant violin
about how they can
hear
the love
when their hearts
beat
side by side
but what
this really means
is his naked chest on
her lovely
breasts.
There is
a brief intercession
as the dj enters
the bedroom
then the violins
kick in again
I think if I fucked
to this music
I’d be sick on her
though some women might
like that
maybe this explains
the songs'
airtime and long
overdue, shelf-life.
I hear a gasp and
the radio gets louder
keeping any voyeuristic
bats listening
deep in
the night sky.
My bed trembles to this
earthquake musical
he’s fucking in tune
to Manilow
“Coh poh-
Coh poh cabah nah”
Just as my neighbour’s
heat, starts to
warm my room
there’s a crash,
a groan and
he shouts:
“DAMN, RADIO’S FALLEN, IT’S BROKE!”
In the dark
I grin
wider than the moon
A better poet would make
Some cocky metaphor about Medusa
Being caught in her own stone gaze
Not me, she was a long sunglassed blonde
Mid-twenties, the world at her diamond feet
Staring into the mirror of a skyscraper
She was combing her hair with her red
Fingernails and men crashed into things
As they craned their cleanly shaven necks
I sat with my sandwich and did not take a bite
Some white and black meteorite exploded on her
Head and dribbled down her hair ‘AYEEEEEEEEEEE’
I looked above; the pigeon cooed and nodded its idiot
Skull and flew away. It’s good to know that
Even giants and gods
Have their bad days.
I was sitting
In the local park with
A full bag of salted and
Roasted peanuts.
I threw a couple onto the concrete;
The sea of pigeons
Did not eat them.
A boy, thirteen maybe;
Acne-ridden and hood-up, stood
In the remaining sun
‘Can I have a peanut’ he said
I offered up the red bag.
He snatched it from my
Hand and began to walk
Away. I shook my head
Picked up the two peanuts from
The concrete and bit off
Half of each. They tasted
Good
Better.
The boy was at a distance now
Though still laughing
Maybe.
Maybe it was good
For everyone.
And so I started writing
But became aware of the
Irredeemable situation of the
Act of writing whereby
I tried to use clever words
To make myself sound
And thus look, clever
But really,
Deep down
Hand on heart to heart
To head to ear
To mouth
My sleeve was a muddy brown
These supposed vein-opened, blood-soaked
Words had crusted up; dried out
Long before
They cracked out of my mouth
Leaving my brain
Cold
And so,
I stopped writing.
Sitting with Tom on the
Musty old green couch
Smells of dog
Old dogs, green dogs.
He throws me his
Matches, they sail across
Slow missiles in the dust
I can see I will not
Catch them.
They limply bounce
On the sofa and fall
Down the gaping maw.
I do not want to think
What’s back there
But I do and it is teeth,
Sharp broken springs, rusty
Needles, melted Chewits and
Hairy adhesive stickers.
I shiver and brave it
I touch
Matches and plastic
‘Your glasses Tom’.
Lost for months; he’s been
Short-eyed for years.
I throw them and somehow
He makes the catch and
Puts them on.
He looks out the window
And takes them off,
‘The end of my nose is
Far enough.’
I rode my blue bike
Over snails and hard places
Leaving my shadow on the straight
Had to stop and wait for
Him to catch me up
I pass by my mum
She’s got her head up there with
The clouds and the ghosts Maybe other stuff too
And I’m unstoppable
Some ripe red throat
Full-flesh looks me over -
Ruby snake wind
Working over the sun.
I move on
These bones today cannot rest
They need a good picking
A sifting to get Out all the grit
Caught for a moment In a dirty dew window
It gives me back my face
’You keep it feather brain!’
Every morning
A new crane is potted
Outside my window
New noises are added;
A milky blue siren is
Mixed into my lunchtime cereal
On the way to work
The builders give me
A stare down
The sun is always
In my eyes
When the night comes up
They are tucked up in bed
They leave their sweat and
I like the smell
It’s real work
Like sex:
A struggle
I cleaned out all the chickenshit
And ate a big greasy whitefat
Steak with my dirty bare hands
Lana whinnied in disgust
I punched her in the head.
She bucked in pain and I apologised.
I poured the slops and fed the pigs
They grunted excitedly and pushed up
Against my legs; hairy and caked in
Mud. Francine had been ill, I
Patted her head as she ate;
It was good to see her eating again.
I slit Mary’s throat – ruby red wine
All over my blue jeans. I placed her
Body on the table and gutted her. I did not
Crack her skull – I do not like the brain.
I opened a bottle of beer on the corner
Of the stone table and lay in the field
And smoked
And slept.
I see
The wrong-end
Of the morning, ugly
And grey are the
Faces as they
Stare blankly at
Their shoes as if
They are being spoken
To - two parents
For feet.
I look to mine
The left is mother
‘clean socks jack?’
‘no, not today’
‘more like
not this year’
I look to dad,
‘money troubles Jack?’
‘always dad, always’
Foot shakes from left
To right in what might be
Disapproval.
I look to the roofs
Of ancient buildings
And escape them
As they crush chewing
Gum and
Cigarettes
Deeper into the pavement.
She lit her
Sister’s cigarette
And they both
Laughed hard
When she singed her
Sister’s hair in
The strong wind
I watched and
Laughed in
My head
And bit my lip
And wished
They were my
Sisters or that
I had a sister or
That I had
Longer hair
Ahem
Eliah stretched the eye in his throat
He sang of his shoes; sluts with no sole
Leathered lips, all tired and worn from
Kissing meandering
Hot bitumen
Midday sun stretched out
Its long, yellow hand
And beat Eliah's stoop with stones of light
"If I should curtain these eyeball betcha i'll burst into flame"
Thought ever-ready Eliah and took his orbs by their corneas
Drank 'em down his tattoo'd arrow throat
Like sex, hiss self became a kaleidoscope
Which is to say, nothing
Save, shafts of colouring
"The snake which eat itssself; ourobouro my-oh-my!
Tell me worldeater, In this hall o' mirrors,
Which of these 'I's is I?"
The serpent had its mouthful,
Subsequently did not reply.
She says to me with slits
For eyes “you’re a cat
Sitting on an
Electric fence”
I say to her with
The bottle between my
Lips
“you’re a portrait of
Yourself when you’re
Grey and old”. She
Bites her redder lips
She says with
Fingers tense as
Claws “you think
You’re cheesecake, but
You’re sough dough”.
“I know baby
I know”.
I poisoned my father and ate
My mother’s hair and
Woke up horrified. I rode
An incomprehensible object
(possibly a bicycle) across a
Night city and woke up
Disappointed. I stuck a pen
Up an ancient girlfriend’s
Dress and woke up delighted.
I was in Sicily and the mad cats
With fungus eyes and wet, loose
Matted fur chased me to our broken
Townhouse and I woke up nostalgic for
Real olives. I woke up in the girl’s bed
I’ve stolen with her knuckle crunching,
Prison tattooed boyfriend standing over me.
I woke up and he was still there. I woke up again
And he was gone and I searched the whole house to
Make sure. I dreamt I was long-haired and old and happy
And I woke up tired.
DOWN DOWN
DOWN he said
In gruff thespian
And I yawned
And stuffed
Sweet popcorn
Into my face
YES YES
OOOO YES she yelped
And i yawned
And placed
My arm around
My woman
And played
With her breast.
I was given
A frown and
A smile in
The pixellated light.
When we left
I had popcorn
In my beard
And a hard-
On
She had
Popcorn in her
Blonde cut hair
And she stumbled
With small
Mole eyes
I told her
‘That
Was the best film
I never watched’
And in the light
She squinted on.
I do not
Ask for
Much.
Legs, arms, eyes
A mind
Maybe a soul
And then
I meet one and
It’s not her
Back
To the drawing
Board.
She’s got to
Have a look,
Her own and
She cannot have
Fat cow thighs
And then
I meet one and
No, it’s not her.
Let’s add
Moneypowersex
Fucking shamelessly
Bathrooms
Pool tables
Kitchen Worktops
Bluegreen Dandelion
Canals
Doesn’t intensely like
Dogs or
Horses
(Women have been known
To look like their pets)
Radiating light on
Stone cloud days
And then,
I don’t meet
One or
Any and it’s
Back to the
Drawing board
Legs, arms
Eyes and
Holes.
I held her down hard
By the neck. She was my
Commanding officer.
I Squeezed
And she fireworked a moan.
Oven room and her head; a
Sun dried tomato
I worked in and out and she
Was louder. Then I was no longer
I and I was exploding in
A minefield and then I was back
And she was keeled over the
Blue bed, coughing.
She turned to meet my face
And her neck was stained
With squashed tomatoes.
I sit by
Your bed
And listen to
Something in the back
Of your wrinkled throat
Rattle.
You look over
All concerned
Thinking, I bet
That I’m thinking
Of your death (rasp)
‘Oh gone are the days of my beauty’
You crack
Long gone I think
Are the days of
Poetry
You turn your
Crumbling eyes to
The window
Trying to
See something, but
It is barred.
‘The grass was always greener’
More nonsense
Your eyes
Return to me
‘Thank you for coming, I didn’t think I would get to say goodbye’
‘It’s fine.’
There’s another
Crack and
You are gone.
On my way out
I ring Tom, your
Grandson “Your grandma’s dead.’
‘Thanks’ he says
‘For going’
‘O.K.’ I reply
‘You owe me a night of long drinks’.
You forget
How the world lies
Next door
Cooking and eating, fucking
Hard and sometimes gently
On their backs like dead beetles and
Various other positions
And then, cleaning up.
I forgot
How the land lies
Promising wonders in
Peach morning light
And taking them back
When the pillow and i
Meet for a second time
I force the pillow into
My mouth
Hopefully neighbours
Will mistake me for
A feather duster
theblacktunnelprovides
aholewheretonguescouldhide
when word//SPACE//thought collide
towardthemouthsyawnandyoufallinside
penetratingdarkyoureyesarenotyourguide
byfingertipsandtheballsofyourfeetyouglide
vastmovementwithoutthesoundofyourstride
silenceisnotgoldenitisarunnyliquidblacktide
summerdrownedheretheheatshiveredanddied
