COUNCILLOR
We would meet once a week and
Discuss things I’d stolen
Not necessarily items but
Memories and
Perspectives
She pulled out a few
Classics
Like
‘did your father ever beat you?’
No, oh wait
Yeah
I remember once
The natural history museum
Climbing into the dinosaur exhibit
To talk to the red velociraptor
Dad climbed in also
And pulled my shorts down
Slapped my behind
Soundly but..
‘Well that’s all we’ve got time for today’
She got a few laughs
And I got catharsis
Cheap daytime comedy
Discuss things I’d stolen
Not necessarily items but
Memories and
Perspectives
She pulled out a few
Classics
Like
‘did your father ever beat you?’
No, oh wait
Yeah
I remember once
The natural history museum
Climbing into the dinosaur exhibit
To talk to the red velociraptor
Dad climbed in also
And pulled my shorts down
Slapped my behind
Soundly but..
‘Well that’s all we’ve got time for today’
She got a few laughs
And I got catharsis
Cheap daytime comedy
CRYING SHAME
He cried all the way from Glasgow
To Cornwall
Even at the interchanges
He was a twenty three year old
Hangover in the day
But in the nights he was good
He made electronic music
Stuff with blips and keyboards
And a tube stuck in his mouth
Like a bird half way through
Swallowing a worm
I could not understand it
But many people got the trick
And he was interesting to watch
But we were in the day &
I could not stand him this day
Both of us were hungover, him
Doubly so.
We were about to get on the train
Connecting us to Padstow
And he sighed and did that double inhalation
Thing that people do when
They’ve been crying for a while
His backpack became stuck in the big plastic doors
And he wiggled himself out
And the backpack fell off onto the platform
I have never had such a great belly laugh since.
I LOVE THE SMELL OF BURNT PIGS IN THE MORNING
I was making him a bacon sandwich.
At the ugly plastic cloth table;
It had these stupid balloons on
I've always thought it looked like
A boring birthday party.
My granddad was looking into the past
His cataracts clouding over like two crystal balls
He told the story of the bomb shelter
Beneath the pig sty and running to it
The explosions and metal burning his eyes
Melting his ears and an endless choke
Getting in and feeling the earth rumble
As if at the centre of the world
Coming out hours later shivering cold
Despite the scorched earth and the strange
Smell of bacon in the air
He bit into the sandwich and smiled
As a red blob of ketchup fell
Onto the cracked white plate.
ODE TO WCW
old lover,
just to let you know
it was me
i ate the last
of your oranges
it was bitter
and foul
i mean
really bad
gross even -
sunlight on a hangover,
i hate oranges
just to let you know
it was me
i ate the last
of your oranges
it was bitter
and foul
i mean
really bad
gross even -
sunlight on a hangover,
i hate oranges
LAST NIGHT; WE GAVE UP ON SLEEP
It’s night again
They rise so quickly now
I maintain there must be
More dark blue nights
Than days
A warm breeze rustles
My long brown hair and
At the same time
Rubs against the leaves
On the trees
That are so many
Shadowy cut-outs
From colour
Picture books
Next door
Someone is listening
To a recording of a squeezebox
And there is the rattle
Of slow cutlery
There is no smell in the air
Save heavy green
I don’t know what they’re eating
I don’t want any
I would like to
Melt into the air
Quicken the skin shedding
Till I’m floating
On that breeze
Carrying sirens, laughs
The heavy green,
Making other people
In this long night
Want to be a part of it
Baudelaire said something
About man wanting to be
At the centre of the world:
See you there
They rise so quickly now
I maintain there must be
More dark blue nights
Than days
A warm breeze rustles
My long brown hair and
At the same time
Rubs against the leaves
On the trees
That are so many
Shadowy cut-outs
From colour
Picture books
Next door
Someone is listening
To a recording of a squeezebox
And there is the rattle
Of slow cutlery
There is no smell in the air
Save heavy green
I don’t know what they’re eating
I don’t want any
I would like to
Melt into the air
Quicken the skin shedding
Till I’m floating
On that breeze
Carrying sirens, laughs
The heavy green,
Making other people
In this long night
Want to be a part of it
Baudelaire said something
About man wanting to be
At the centre of the world:
See you there
THE THEMES OF PARENTS, BIRDS, GOD AND PIZZA IN POETRY
I saw the best minds of my generation
Sitting down, eating pizza
Watching Seinfeld,
Eating at faux-Japanese
Restaurants, riding down into the valley
Of the 6000 other hyped-up chains
Riding out, pockets empty, bellies full
With no taste on their tongues
Save disappointment.
They wandered lonely as a cloud
Now all it does it rain rain rain rain, rain
And there’s water water
Everywhere and not a drop to drink
Because everyone in the bar
Is on the beers tonight
(April is the cruellest month
On our wallets and purses)
And the shadows of waxwings
Are ignored as they dart
Inside the window panes.
Jules pipes up ‘my eyes,
My eyes have seen the coming
And going of the lord’
She sticks her tongue
Down the barman’s throat
All guttural he speaks,
‘How do I love thee?
I don’t.’
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
All the tired bellies filled with drink.
The bar filters out
And only the owls remain
Tonight, there's me
And the old men
And they're chanting
'God is my father
But where is mother?'
I hear a cry from the Hull
'They fuck you up,
your mum and dad'
Larks, shut your mouth
and have a seat.
IT DOES NOT COME LIKE IT SHOULD
All firey truth and hot iron,
It comes like a green faint
Or a pass-out from drinking feverishly
The hot iron cooled black in
Pondwater.
I can no longer see
You in the cinema
I can no longer lie in bed
Stick the reel on under my hair
And in my ear
And watch you move
There are photographs
Stills that might be you
Or might be someone else
Probably your head
On a different body
The bed grows deeper.
In my mind,
You are a gallery of sores
That I will enter
Only once a day
And it is currently
That wet black
Hour
MENSCH
‘Like bees. Like bees with their black hive minds striped with yellow thoughts of Queenie.’ From the city square bus stop where the last bus had left hours before he watched the few stragglers prop each other up as they struggled on through the white city. Drunk on nectar, a lone worker bee sat down next to him. They sat looking at each other for a couple of minutes, the time could be told from the visible exhalations of both parties and when our protagonist hit him across the face the drunkard fell quite quietly, all sounds softened by the compacting of the thick, carpeted snow beneath him. Our hero flipped the drunk onto his front, took his shiny long knife from the top pocket of his blazer and with the steady hand of a carpenter, opened up the drunkard’s tracksuit top and his rear muscle and flesh. He swallowed down the innards with a sour face 'this one was definitely a smoker' he affirmed. He threw what he couldn’t devour into a nearby black bin. Voices echoed round the square, he climbed calmly inside the newly made man-suit and sat back down on the bench. Another drunk came round to the front of the bus stop, bleary eyed he stumbled onto the bench next to the man. ‘What bloody hells gone on here Joe?’ he blurted out. ‘Looks like you’ve been spewing your guts’. The man in the man-suit worked the mouth with precision, ‘red wine’ he said. His friend nodded, ‘Let’s go eat, bloody starving’. They walked together to a nearby kebab shop where Joe’s friend ordered a chicken kebab that looked like the contents of the aforementioned bin. Joe’s amicable buddy did most of the talking in-between tearing into his spicy orange dinner. Topics ranged from ‘The bloody environmentalist shits at the city council’ to ‘bloody fucken call centres’. They went home together and what once was Joe sprawled out on the couch and stared at the ceiling.
At around midday Joe’s friend came down from his bedroom and started making a fry-up, Joe went into the kitchen and sat at the breakfast bar and listened to him air his thoughts on the gross amounts of pussy in the club the previous evening. Joe thought about cats, he had a real soft spot for cats, especially Abyssinians. Bored of conversation and lost in his feline world, Joe sprung up from his seat and seized the sizzling frying pan. He shook it; the cheap fat sausages rolled onto their grey, uncooked side and made popping sounds in the pan. He put the frying pan back down and watched Joe’s friend butter the toast. ‘Are you going to work today?’ asked Joe’s pal over their grease sodden breakfast, ‘No.’ He looked at Joe with concern in his plasticky blue eyes and nodded. Joe’s friend finished his breakfast, pulled his tie up, looked at his obtuse, cleanly shaven face in the polished mirror and walked out the front door.
You can tell a great deal about someone from his or her bathroom. Joe’s friend, whose post on the kitchen table referred to as Michael Weatherbottom, had a wonderfully immaculate ensuite. The sink’s obsidian base and the bright silver taps shined in the warm white light of the halogen-lit, fitted square glass floor. Clean, furry white towels were neatly folded on the radiator rail; compartmentalised shaving, tooth brushing and grooming sets were prim and proper in the mock-mahogany mirror unit. Joe noted all these things and headed down stairs. On the final step, the front door opened and a young, brunette woman entered, she jumped backwards ‘OOO’ and then the recognition of Joe lit up in her face. ‘Oh hello Joe, you gave me quite the shock, Mr Weatherbottom didn’t tell me anyone would be here’. Joe nodded, tried to smile as the side of his face sagged and said in a voice, not unlike Joe’s voice, but a little deeper ‘Don’t mind me’. The woman went into the kitchen and Joe followed. He leaned against the breakfast counter and watched as she bent over to pick up a broom. ‘What can I do?’ he asked, her head revolved from her bent position ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, what can I do to help?’ her brow furrowed and she said, ‘I suppose you could hoover the floor if you wanted to help’ she pointed at the kitchen closet. Joe opened the closet, took out the vacuum cleaner, plugged it in and began on the kitchen floor. ‘What do you think about Cicero and Piny the Younger’s conception of the Humanitas?’ asked Joe but the roar of the hoover drowned the question. He watched the tornado of dust and hair churn in the cleaner’s transparent belly and looked pleased with himself.
After he’d finished the hoovering, Joe dusted the coffee tables, hung out Michael’s washing, polished the already sparkling mirrors and cleaned the shower. They both focussed on their work and didn’t speak. The cleaner gave Joe many side-glances from her amber eyes and he noticed most of them. When the already immaculate house looked that little bit more perfect. The maid brushed her hands as if to say ‘that’s-that’. Joe stood with his hands on his hips and smiled. She walked over to him and said ‘thank you so much’ and whilst talking, she moved her head into his face with puckered lips. Joe bent backwards ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. Her puckered lips tightened and became a pout, ‘Sorry’ she said. He shook his head and helped himself to the glass bottle of skimmed milk from the fridge. The fridge was quite dirty with tomato, mustard and a whitish sauce Joe couldn’t identify, all stuck to the door. He cleaned the inner door with the kitchen sponge and a long spray of Dettol and then closed it. On closing it, the cleaner ran at him and slammed his head against the refrigerator door. He knelt down and held the back of his head as a volley of fists rained down upon his back. The front of his head began to slide off and he fell to the floor and watched as the maid’s foot grew in size as it built up velocity towards his stolen face.
At around midday Joe’s friend came down from his bedroom and started making a fry-up, Joe went into the kitchen and sat at the breakfast bar and listened to him air his thoughts on the gross amounts of pussy in the club the previous evening. Joe thought about cats, he had a real soft spot for cats, especially Abyssinians. Bored of conversation and lost in his feline world, Joe sprung up from his seat and seized the sizzling frying pan. He shook it; the cheap fat sausages rolled onto their grey, uncooked side and made popping sounds in the pan. He put the frying pan back down and watched Joe’s friend butter the toast. ‘Are you going to work today?’ asked Joe’s pal over their grease sodden breakfast, ‘No.’ He looked at Joe with concern in his plasticky blue eyes and nodded. Joe’s friend finished his breakfast, pulled his tie up, looked at his obtuse, cleanly shaven face in the polished mirror and walked out the front door.
You can tell a great deal about someone from his or her bathroom. Joe’s friend, whose post on the kitchen table referred to as Michael Weatherbottom, had a wonderfully immaculate ensuite. The sink’s obsidian base and the bright silver taps shined in the warm white light of the halogen-lit, fitted square glass floor. Clean, furry white towels were neatly folded on the radiator rail; compartmentalised shaving, tooth brushing and grooming sets were prim and proper in the mock-mahogany mirror unit. Joe noted all these things and headed down stairs. On the final step, the front door opened and a young, brunette woman entered, she jumped backwards ‘OOO’ and then the recognition of Joe lit up in her face. ‘Oh hello Joe, you gave me quite the shock, Mr Weatherbottom didn’t tell me anyone would be here’. Joe nodded, tried to smile as the side of his face sagged and said in a voice, not unlike Joe’s voice, but a little deeper ‘Don’t mind me’. The woman went into the kitchen and Joe followed. He leaned against the breakfast counter and watched as she bent over to pick up a broom. ‘What can I do?’ he asked, her head revolved from her bent position ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, what can I do to help?’ her brow furrowed and she said, ‘I suppose you could hoover the floor if you wanted to help’ she pointed at the kitchen closet. Joe opened the closet, took out the vacuum cleaner, plugged it in and began on the kitchen floor. ‘What do you think about Cicero and Piny the Younger’s conception of the Humanitas?’ asked Joe but the roar of the hoover drowned the question. He watched the tornado of dust and hair churn in the cleaner’s transparent belly and looked pleased with himself.
After he’d finished the hoovering, Joe dusted the coffee tables, hung out Michael’s washing, polished the already sparkling mirrors and cleaned the shower. They both focussed on their work and didn’t speak. The cleaner gave Joe many side-glances from her amber eyes and he noticed most of them. When the already immaculate house looked that little bit more perfect. The maid brushed her hands as if to say ‘that’s-that’. Joe stood with his hands on his hips and smiled. She walked over to him and said ‘thank you so much’ and whilst talking, she moved her head into his face with puckered lips. Joe bent backwards ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. Her puckered lips tightened and became a pout, ‘Sorry’ she said. He shook his head and helped himself to the glass bottle of skimmed milk from the fridge. The fridge was quite dirty with tomato, mustard and a whitish sauce Joe couldn’t identify, all stuck to the door. He cleaned the inner door with the kitchen sponge and a long spray of Dettol and then closed it. On closing it, the cleaner ran at him and slammed his head against the refrigerator door. He knelt down and held the back of his head as a volley of fists rained down upon his back. The front of his head began to slide off and he fell to the floor and watched as the maid’s foot grew in size as it built up velocity towards his stolen face.
PARTY SIZE
How big are you she says
Flicking ash in my face
And she’s right too
I’d like to
Eat that cigarette
I’d like to
Do a lot of things
I’d regret too
I put my arms around her neck
And squeeze
The little light goes out
She goes weak at the knees
She goes
Knocking on deaths door
She goes on to somewhere
I can’t get to her no
Now I think
I think
This is a party
There’s you and
There’s not you
And there’s not you
And that’s me
This is a party
And I fit
Party size
Flicking ash in my face
And she’s right too
I’d like to
Eat that cigarette
I’d like to
Do a lot of things
I’d regret too
I put my arms around her neck
And squeeze
The little light goes out
She goes weak at the knees
She goes
Knocking on deaths door
She goes on to somewhere
I can’t get to her no
Now I think
I think
This is a party
There’s you and
There’s not you
And there’s not you
And that’s me
This is a party
And I fit
Party size
THE SONGBIRDS ARE SILENT NOW
Mmm you sure are ex tasty
A neon heart-flashing boot
Kicking my insides to mush
You got the cold baby bite
Of a heartbeak
Injecting cock codes
Into slimy tar veins
Lovers spit in my gums and
A hangover strobes my jeans
Somewhere there’s a tonsil party
And I want into your book
Sticking it hard in every leaf
A shopping novelist
Needing new stimuli every night
It’s not over till I’m under cover
A sneak thief
Stealing from your diamond bed
And, the songbirds are silent now
The cheeping just sounds cheap
A neon heart-flashing boot
Kicking my insides to mush
You got the cold baby bite
Of a heartbeak
Injecting cock codes
Into slimy tar veins
Lovers spit in my gums and
A hangover strobes my jeans
Somewhere there’s a tonsil party
And I want into your book
Sticking it hard in every leaf
A shopping novelist
Needing new stimuli every night
It’s not over till I’m under cover
A sneak thief
Stealing from your diamond bed
And, the songbirds are silent now
The cheeping just sounds cheap
HUMAN HAIR
Between scowling at
The mirror
And picking up the razor
I think about growing
A burly gorilla beard
To remind others
I am still an ape from
The floor
up
152
Pounds of flesh
Picking and eating
Scabs and other men
Warring internal gods.
I look again,
Everyday would
Fall apart
With facial hair
And besides,
No girl likes to kiss
Wire brushes
The mirror
And picking up the razor
I think about growing
A burly gorilla beard
To remind others
I am still an ape from
The floor
up
152
Pounds of flesh
Picking and eating
Scabs and other men
Warring internal gods.
I look again,
Everyday would
Fall apart
With facial hair
And besides,
No girl likes to kiss
Wire brushes
DYSCALCULIA
12:
Five Forty Five on
Results day
In trouble at home
Scuffed my shoes and
Dad gets home from work.
He hears the foul news
‘Jack, you need to learn boy;
You are the sum of your days’
I shut up,
Dyscalculia
I can’t count,
All those stupid
Burnt plastic miles
Behind me
I grow a little
‘Dad,
I’ve failed at maths’
Five Forty Five on
Results day
In trouble at home
Scuffed my shoes and
Dad gets home from work.
He hears the foul news
‘Jack, you need to learn boy;
You are the sum of your days’
I shut up,
Dyscalculia
I can’t count,
All those stupid
Burnt plastic miles
Behind me
I grow a little
‘Dad,
I’ve failed at maths’
DANCE PARTNERS
From the moment you
Opened the seven foot
Door and swaggered
Across the room, I knew
I wasn’t going to like
You. A mutual
Friend gives an
Introduction.
You go in
For a handshake
In times gone
By, this was
To confirm the other
Was not holding a
Weapon. I keep
My hands
By my side.
Your hand wavers, then
Falls.
There is a
Nod. Acceptance.
Later I am talking
You creep up
Next to me,
I say something
Funny,
No not funny but
Laughable;
You lean back
And give a belly
Laugh, patting me
On the back.
Is this to show me
You are
A devious prick or simply
A gesture of friendship,
Cordiality, that makes
Up for the missed
Handshake?
In school I might have had
‘Kick me’
Slapped to my back.
I instinctively check.
Now it appears to you
That I am disgusted with
Your touch. You
Raise your lips in a weak
Smile and
Exit. A wounded animal
Caught
In conversation
Opened the seven foot
Door and swaggered
Across the room, I knew
I wasn’t going to like
You. A mutual
Friend gives an
Introduction.
You go in
For a handshake
In times gone
By, this was
To confirm the other
Was not holding a
Weapon. I keep
My hands
By my side.
Your hand wavers, then
Falls.
There is a
Nod. Acceptance.
Later I am talking
You creep up
Next to me,
I say something
Funny,
No not funny but
Laughable;
You lean back
And give a belly
Laugh, patting me
On the back.
Is this to show me
You are
A devious prick or simply
A gesture of friendship,
Cordiality, that makes
Up for the missed
Handshake?
In school I might have had
‘Kick me’
Slapped to my back.
I instinctively check.
Now it appears to you
That I am disgusted with
Your touch. You
Raise your lips in a weak
Smile and
Exit. A wounded animal
Caught
In conversation
BONE DANCE
I saw you eyeing up that skull
And by those old gods
You looked wonder-full
My bones shook in the ossuary
From the cold night breeze of January
You had glowing skin
I wanted to look in.
You melted white
As the moon
And I hummed a simple contrite
Little tune
That was drowned out by the spirited wind
And against the leftover rib cages we were pinned,
Lunar white glowing skin
I wanted to look in.
I took the trouble
To get to know you well
But the trouble
Was watching those lips
Not the stories you tell
Our teeth chattered in the ossuary
From the cold night breeze of January
You’ve had glowing skin
I wanted to look in.
LOOK HERE: THIS ONE'S STILL MOVING
Charlotte and I
Sit outside and burn
And eat cheeseburgers
And watch the passers
By Liverpool St. Station
The animals in
Fancy dress shuffle along
They do not look
At each other.
Charlotte, her mind
fast as trains
that stop for no one,
‘They are scared of change’
She says with no malice
I nod.
Faces looking
At the pavement or to the past
‘Heads so big,
They cannot turn them.’
I nod.
She takes a photo
I write a poem
And we’ve both bottled
Something in our bug jars,
We just don’t know what.
UPON THE HILL
I am on a horse that I cannot ride
And death is coming but I have not died
Behind him there is war and horse, he guides
Famine and pestilence; grinning like cadavers
Up upon their horse’s hide
For four ride in the four ride in
Plague points at me and asks ‘how goes the human race?’
‘Not bad’ says I ‘But we’re still in last place’
War laughs and a malevolent smile runs across his face
‘It’s good to know you haven’t given up the chase’
And then he rides out and the bombs fall in his wake
Over a school, the children ring each other’s necks
And the teachers’ bones they break
The hippy’s lovemaking rituals become a rape
As across the darkening globe,
Each other’s white brothers turn into green snakes
Then pestilence rode out but with less pizzazz than war
He crept into buildings
Filled the occupants minds with a particular horror
That a flesh dining disease skulked around the streets
And the world boarded its windows and locked all its doors
Famine licked her lips and out rode the last of the four
And after her appetite had been stirred
The first world’s cheeks mirrored the third
Death waved goodbye as its horse he spurred
Ready to give the world
Alpha and omega: its his and hers
And with the last seen setting sun
Cities burnt with the force of megatons
No man had anywhere left to run
And after their task was done
They returned to the hill that I was upon
‘Now’, said Death ‘doesn’t the world look to be in better health?’
I nodded and asked whether in life I should have accumulated spiritual wealth
‘Nahhh’ its jaw chattered ‘you were always fucked -
Everyone above knew mankind would eat itself’
ONE FOR MELVILLE
I wore
A tuxedo
And felt like
A thousand pounds
Were in my pockets
And I had
Sunk to the bottom
Of a mud-green pond
I slept
On an electric
Inflatable mattress
And it sunk
In the middle of
The dirt green night
I dreamt
I was in the belly rolls
Of a gigantic
Fat woman
Suffocating in
Her sweat
And in her
Pink blubber
Experience
Has taught me
Not to get
Dressed up
For anything
A tuxedo
And felt like
A thousand pounds
Were in my pockets
And I had
Sunk to the bottom
Of a mud-green pond
I slept
On an electric
Inflatable mattress
And it sunk
In the middle of
The dirt green night
I dreamt
I was in the belly rolls
Of a gigantic
Fat woman
Suffocating in
Her sweat
And in her
Pink blubber
Experience
Has taught me
Not to get
Dressed up
For anything
HOLY HEAD FLOATING DOWN THE GUTTER
You’ve raised your glass
And your face
Up to an unlit sun
Crucifixes nailed to your
Cuticles
From mindlessly scratching
At the tables in bars
And worse,
I’ve always felt
When the night birds sing
From their
Mellifluous cages of blood;
Trumpets regaling the beers
The night before
And the nights before that
But tonight,
The will to write
Is not as strong as
The will to sleep.
MOTHER SCULPTOR
Giacometti
Called his women
‘spaghetti’
The reason for the
Spindle stalk legs
And ears of corn bodies
Of his women
Was the stripping away
The cutting down
Of everything
Right
Down
To
Its
Core.
I could see his
Mother saying
‘if you keep
Carving away
At everything
Soon there will
Be nothing left’
To have nothing
Is to be weightless
Free
Of everything.
Stripping, molding
Whittling and hacking
at the universe
till it is reduced to
an intelligible size.
That is why
The best sculptures
You will never
Ever
See.
THE STORM
I know I aint much good looking love
But try giving my request a ‘No’
I think I’ve got a look on me
That bruises even shadows.
It’s a nice night to be out in a storm
I got a cold head, my hands are warm
It’s a nice Night to be out in the storm
I got a cold head, my mind’s a-swarm
With all the stuff I could do to you
But I’ll just stand here
On my bones I’ll chew
Down by the canal
Down by the water
It was getting so banal
Until a cyclist I caught
And I threw him down
Into that flowing bed
He isn’t sleeping darling,
Darling he’s dead.
I ask you now with open arms
Are you going to stop shivering and be calm
And I ask you now
Without cold knife or warm gun
Are you going to be my only one.
DEVIL, GROW SOME TEETH
I was sat in an empty office
11 flights up
Next to the window
With the telephone off the hook
Waiting for it to ring.
The sun: a milkman
Leaving glass bottles of orange
Outside my closed eyelids
Hot as hell and happy
These are how workdays
Should be spent.
Daydreaming last summer
Swimming in ponds every day.
I hear a tapping, I
Ignore it. Get back to summer.
BANG BANG BANG
The lucid summer
Slips and I open my eyes.
Outside the window
A toothless man,
Warped behind
The greasy window;
Swirled in suds.
He smiles and when he notices
He has disturbed my
Little piece of heaven,
Laughs aloud
And moves down
On his electric box
Out of sight
I put my feet
Back on the desk
Lay back in the
Cool and comfortable chair,
Cannot get comfortable
The sun shoots bright red
Bolts at
My closed eyes
Phones begin to ring
Around the office -
I met the devil once;
No fire
No brimstone
Just a silent laugh
And the profound ability
Of getting one's back up.
HOME ECONOMICS
We stared
Into the grate
Your eyes
All aflame
Cooking on the hot logs
And ‘I’ve seen myself
Falling into something like that
With purpose’
Plath-esque death
Darling,
But you need to go
Slower
Take a pill
And enjoy
The warmth
WE WALKED AROUND THE SCULPTURE
Trying to find
An entry point
No, no
It looks like
A croissant but
Sick coloured
The next:
A key on a string
Captioned ‘All the locks are broken’
I worry if my fast blue bike
Is safe outside
Then a Rothko
And I like Rothko
Prints don’t cut the jam
You need the viscosity
With Rothko
I look into the red maw
And I can see the hell
He’d been living in
The painting
Stains my eyes;
The town is
A little more red
CRAB MEAT
She’s leaving tomorrow
And it’s our last meal
An empty bottle of red
Sits proud
On the table
We have yet to receive our entree
I have a toothy smile because
I know this is the good life.
Her plate comes piled
With breadcrumbed fish
And one huge red pincer
In some primordial,
Emerald sauce
She picks it up
With her hands
Takes the crab cracker
And crushes its hard arm
Green flies across the restaurant
The noise is wince-worthy, the
Clicking and cracking of bone shard
She looks delighted
And sucks the meat out
With a long metal straw
My fish soup
No longer appeals to me.
I want
A monstrous,
Brick and carmine
Coloured lobster
And a silver set of
Claw crushers
YOU MAY GET VITAMIN A FROM THE SUN, BUT IT’S THE COLD DAYS THAT MAKE YOU TOUGH
We were in
Hysterics.
The low red
Sun gave
Her shadow
A long, long
Neck.
I called her
‘Inhuman’
And she stopped
Laughing.
‘I mean your
Shadow’
She eye’d
Me
Cooley.
‘But it’s not
Really
You, is it?’
She rubbed
Her neck and
Glared and
With malice,
Stood Hard
On my
Dark friend.
YOU ARE AN ICE QUEEN AND ONE DAY YOU WILL BE SLUSH
'I do not
want to go
to the party
if he will be there -
is it rude to
tell him
to stay away?'
'Yes, yes
yes it is but
it's one moment
of feeling bad
verses a whole
night of feeling
much much
worse'
'Yes, this is true'
'I know it
to be true -
I speak the
truth twice
per day, this
is once and
the other
will be later
when I have
want to go
to the party
if he will be there -
is it rude to
tell him
to stay away?'
'Yes, yes
yes it is but
it's one moment
of feeling bad
verses a whole
night of feeling
much much
worse'
'Yes, this is true'
'I know it
to be true -
I speak the
truth twice
per day, this
is once and
the other
will be later
when I have
my daily meeting
with
the toilet bowl.'
the toilet bowl.'
TEETHING
He put his
Lips up
To the glass
And blew.
I could see
The contents
Of his mouth.
Yellow tongue
Dirty sock
Teeth
And white gums.
I have to admit,
In my white shirt
He could have
Mistaken me for
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