The Complete Poetic Works of Jeremy Young

Eve Red in Tooth and Claw

2007-12-08T16:49:00.000Z

Hey! Carebear Noob
check me in local
this belt is stacked with juicy wrecks.
I watched some macro farmer
pop all the rats:
I had him buddied; he logged.

The eternal noob sees only ISK
and warps to pick the loot.
The gang uncloak -
aggro him with a T2 frig
that bobbles and webs
leaving the CAPs to pop his uninsured ship-
pwned.

The only consolation
is that sec matters here
so they leave the corpless pod
to swim back to the station.

E-peen smacking sneers at his ass.

tryphtich

2007-01-09T23:38:00.000Z

Alone, hand in hand, we stand
awaiting that time when, you go away.
Tonight, we see only snatched sleep.

I am, transported to that room
by a radio interview about a hospice
for children. Overcoming, envy

at the parents sharing of life;
I stand with them, as they mark out
the dying. Feel with them that time

too special when hope sublimates
leaving only reality and the peace
that comes from correct action.

Clueless

2006-11-18T03:21:00.000Z

A crescent hairline marking, on her left eyelid
drawes my attention. maybe a tiny uncut nail
was caught in a moment of tiredness.

The lid is not entirely closed. Through
a sheen of blood, I see her eye but it
is rolled into her head: maintaining the mystery of colour.

I wonder if she cried? Fot a fine trickle has marked
the corner of the other eye: forming an 'L' shape.
I did fret that these trickles and traces might hold clues.

But nothing, except her salmi coloured skin
speaks of an obvious cause. And this is a reaction,
a marker, the action of being dead two days.

And her eeyore rattle weeps by her head.
Just as we cry for her. And wonder what we did
for her to stop fighting and leave us clueless.

Clock Watching

2006-11-18T03:14:00.000Z

The days sometimes brighten: sometimes it rains
and we await one full cycle of the moon.
In fact the time is marked out in memories
and opposites. Or in snatched glances of reminders,
like my mother's lips, or girlfriends nose.

Late at night, when soaked in wine, I pull
your picture from the jumble of porn
that fills my computer; and wonder why
you look so tired, mouth open,
caught in dreamingmfrom a sleep which
I cannot wake you.

My heart has sunk.
I seem to live by the beating in my stomach,
which twitches and drains to a flow of feelings.

Tears are supposed to bring comfort.

Between Waking

2006-11-07T08:13:00.000Z

I awoke at just before four,
soaked in sweat, my mind raging:
I throw death curses, with venom
and maximum malign intent.
They do not bring balance.

Everything is in shadow.
A parrallel world runs beside mine.
I do both what I do
and what I should be doing:
but actually achieve nothing.

I awake at just before four,
and find you sleeping.
Only our feet touch.
Our positions of comfort have altered:
my arms now encircle you.

Who could guess that time
could pad with such slow feet?

Baby Care

2006-11-07T08:04:00.000Z

In the time of Death, we all turn to God
and we are no different. Hours ago,
locked in the fury of Napoleanic sea combat,
five decked ships of the line pouring
broadsides of contractions into your body
I could not concieve of this calm water.
We stand around the perspex crib
as our dearly loved and much lamented baby
is properly named and enters the church.
We have often joked and laughed at religion.
Yet now, as the chaplin tries to lay on
the new, all inclusive, trippy, hippy
version of God: we seek for older forms;
prefering 'hath', 'thee' and 'thou':
the rythems learned in school by rote.
They offer extra weight to the solemnity.

It is 3.30, or there abouts, the time
at which the tide turns and the dead depart.

Too Weak to Push

2006-11-07T07:57:00.000Z

Maternity pads and funeral arrangements
are never a perfect combination,
but they have entered our lives:
become another part of the situation.

Why are prams and pushchairs everywhere
whenever I walk about the streets?

Why do people say we should talk,
when we have not stopped, nor cannot sleep.

And as a way of making contact
people say they understand the way we feel.
Not a good thing to say. Because you don't
and I hope and pray you never will.

Eulogy

2006-11-04T21:18:00.000Z

Your mum let herself in: she hadn't long had the key.
I awoke, surprised to find her biting her lip.
She said she had news. The cliche would have me frightened,
doing a runner, demanding snap decisions; but
I was so happy. And from that moment I loved you.

You used to appear in my daydreams: chattering.
drawing, wanting to know what I was doing;
why the sky is blue, how far to the moon.
On Monday you helped me carry the shopping home.
Pleased as punch that you had your own bag.

But it hasn't been easy. On the day I rang grandma,
she dampened the mood with news of granpa's illness.
I so wanted him to live long enough to see you, and now
you and he will get to spend endless time together.
For despite my grief, I cannot bare to think of you alone.

You made us laugh with you antics. The way you bumped
when Chelsea scored, or when you tickled mummy's ribs.
Or how you would hide when the midwife wanted to hear your heartbeat.
And what I would give for you again to kick me in the kidneys
in bed. Or feel you rippling at night when I cuddled with your mum.

I'm sorry. I am so sorry. No matter how many tears I cry
it cannot lift this numbness at you dying. To come so near
to a life well lived, only to be snatched, like Bridget,
by Halloween spirits: it is a cruel trick; a trick too cruel
to comprehend: played by the cruelest of heartless seasons.

Spitting Melons

2006-10-28T02:38:00.000+01:00

Out comes the dummy, into the nylon
placenta and the fake pelvis.
A torn pair of tights form the vagina
and demonstrates perfectly the ragged
edge. Next comes the usual quip about
Father nature and a warning that your inside will
prolapse unless you train the pelvic floor.
Form now on it you will need a rolling pin
instead of a pencil: my foreskin sighs with relief.

I can't see the problem. That head
don't look that much bigger than my knob:
true it has been a while since I could give
thirteen hours of contractions:
complete with muscle pounding piston action:
but to be honest: and I'm not lying about
the honourable memebr for Littlecock in the Marsh;
it's going to be a doddle.

Now repeat after me:
I'm a woman, I can do this:
I'm a woman, I can do this:
I'm a woman, hear me roar.

Two More Weeks and Her Lungs Will Work

2006-10-28T02:32:00.000+01:00

Back in class, and the rough stuff begins.
Your baby has spent the past four months
upside down, blood rushing to it's head
and kicking your partner in the ribs.

I really do not like this place.
Oh sure, there is tea and biscuits,
and the woman is nice and all that:
but frankly I don't want, or need, to know.

The diagrams meake me feel sick.

And let's face it, it is all stuff
that we learned at O level.

And then it strikes me; everyone
is so young, they would have done GCSE
human reproduction which is all course work
and practicle sessions wearing a Burberry cap
with Tiffany in the back of Corsa.

Squeezed Through the Japs Eye

2006-10-28T02:25:00.000+01:00

Everyone hopes for a healthy baby,
no pain, easy birth, fast feeding: sleep.
I want a baby that looks like me.

The women worry about bonding.
The question of pain pops up again.
I want a baby that looks like me.

The women, leading the class,
emphasises that pain is natural;
I want a baby that looks like me.

She says, women are designed for birth,
control in the key; take it; sigh in;
sigh out: SOS:
I want a baby that looks like me.

And then suddenly she points at me.
I am branded a birth partner.
Apparently I am going to be present.
Although I know that I am; was always going to be;
or potentially will, dependent upon feinting
and the attitude of the rabid man-hating widwife
who gets a kick out of dilation
and treats everyone like shit.....
I am going to be there, and will play
an important, supportive role,
though the emphasis is on superfluous:
I want a child that looks like me.

When Life meets Art (and loses)

2006-10-28T02:20:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately this is not a poem,
because I did not hear a curlew cry,
nor did I skitter to the bus stop:
instead I went to parenting class.

I hate medical stuff, not that I felt well,
I've had a headache for a couple of days,
and have been feeling feint, so
this shite doesn't help. I really don't want to be here.
For fuck's sake (perhaps not the best expression)
(under the circumstances) but anywho....
what is the point of this.

I would rather be skittering around
in the fresh air, listening to curlews,
pontificating on which way the wind blows
and writing meaningful poetry about shite.

That Last Weekend

2006-08-12T02:35:00.000+01:00

I remember watching the Pope
on a balcony, doing an impression
of Sooty: and thinking, that despite
the intoning commentator
that it was not a dignified death.

We arrive at the ward as visiting closes
and loiter around: half expecting;
perhaps hoping to be turned away.
What lies beyond the curtain breeds fear.

He is happy to see me, his twisted
face and toothless grin, combine
with his newly chemo'd hair
to give him the air of a parrot.
Harsh but fair. He loves animals.

The last attack, the one which should
have killed him, has whithered his legs
to skeletal reminders of Japanese cruelty;
and like the Pope, I am reminded of
glove puppets: no strings attached.

I am too emotional to deal with
my cousin and my aunt, who chatter
at us, as if this were a wedding.
I bury myself in newsprint; read twice.

I have consoled myself in many ways.
I am thankful for the peace
that allows me to bury my father:
though my counselling sessions hint
at the war in which he buried me.

And then we are alone. My mother,
and my girlfriend, go to find tea
and company, and with them goes
my daughter: secure in the belly
that keeps her from his arms.

For nearly forty years we have
swung from silence to anger and
onto indifference. Now I make
small talk. The tumour on his brain
prevents his reply.

I talk of village gossip, but
mainly I talk of my daughter.
I see by his face that he approves.
I burble and flow like a bore
encouraged by the stroke ridden smile.

That night at the club I am asked
how he is. I do not hide his death.
My mother calls it passing and
hides from the world; I understand.

The ritual of the bar; the gossip
and the laughter, the absence of weakness
and the drone of the kareoke
cannot be easy for her. As her love
slips to memory like bubbled beer.

He is again pleased at my coming.
But the stay is shorter. He needs
changing, and it pricks the soap bubble
line between illusion and his dignity.

I make hurried excuses. Forced from
my chair by a bolt of electrity,
at not wanting my memory to be of my father
as a man in a hospital bed; hovering
between infantilism and death.

I take his hand for the last time.
I stoically smile for the last time.
I look into his eyes for the last time.
My last image of him, is a man
recognisable as my father, with tears
in his eyes; his spirit rising
from the bed to follow me.

I do not speak for a long time.
Not until we drive from the hospital
grounds, navigate the round-a-bout
pass the crem and reach the turkey factory.

In Exile

2006-01-30T19:33:00.000Z

OI hin't herd a cuckoo this yair,
liven as OI do in a town.
Nor hev OI wand'd threw grass
catching thistledown
on mOI trewsers.

The sun it still rise in the skoi
but it don' reach the hoights of my youth.
This land of concrit and tarmac
it do block out the sunset,
shield the sky, deny
the booty of nature.

But don't think me ow'd.
This in't a whoin
of bohnes growen stiff.
Or fingers loozen grip
on the mug.

It is a wish to see the sea;
to feel the loif risen
through my feet,
t' see the stahrs
and the stunnen oranj un red
of a dyen Norfolk day.

Bondage

2006-01-26T13:50:00.000Z

We the nuts,
are joining with the Quakers
to create a new form of muesli. Sympathetic
sandal wearers will rejoice at our movements.

We the nuts,
are joining hands with the Buddhists
to create deep meditation beyond the chemical cosh.
Togethe5r in sandals we will find enlightenment.

Dressing to the Left

2006-01-26T13:38:00.000Z

You know you are in a 'political' meeting
(small 'p', describes the bunch of pricks)
because the bloke at the front
has a shaved head; and is talking
of reaching outside the ghetto
to the peace movement, greens,
feminists. In other words
the aim is to replace the wall of scorn
with a glass ceiling.

Instead of nuts talking to ourselves,
we will talk with other groups
and draw ourselves further to the margin:
if not completely off the page.

Haiku for a Past Girlfriend

2005-12-27T00:08:00.000Z

Sex with yon? Tied
hand, foot and heart, to a slowly
swinging five bar gate.

Rape

2005-12-08T04:31:00.000Z

Remember Dubno;
remeber how propganda and thought control
led the moderately educated, fuelled on
electoral eostrogen: to create absolute victims.

Remember Dubno:
when those moderately educated people
issued reports: which they call shocking
but in reality represent the democratic will.

Remember Dubno:
now the organs of electoral eostrogen begin
pumping out the message of fear. Facism
breeds not in ideology but in the vaccuum.

Forget about Dubno:
as if you ever remembered.

The Feminist Case Against Crossdressing

2005-10-26T02:41:00.000+01:00

Scene 3

Hera enters, dressed as a shop assistant. She carries a manikin draped in a baby blue baby-doll nightie.

Hera
Oh spite, be damned, witness this hatred,
This sluttery and degradation of wantons
And flighty females to dress them thus.
Is it not enough to endure the pain of birth?
But before and after to be dressed in scantiness revealed
And break the pleasure of a wife’s
Rehealed virginity: for pleasure.
For shame! For double shame of giving
Twice the pleasure than a woman receives;
And all the while risking the pain
Of children and the worry of nurture.

And these children,
When pulled from pulled from the body,
Are split into warriors for the state to slay
And frippery to dress thus, be tricked,
Be downcast and exploited of their maidenhood.
It is the curse of patriarchy:
Which word when sliced
Makes war into patriotism
And anarchy in the lives of women.

And just as the glories of the female form
Have increased allure, when draped sheer
In disguise of the impurity: so
Aphrodite’s waters, masks the sin of pettier pleasure
And call it love. I would as rather
My pearl were plucked,
That I might be senseless
To the assault. Than I would dress thus.

And this curse I lay, be it carried by the dutiful wife:
Since her life is without joy, and her trust
Without reward, for men take
The form of beasts at will
To double their double pleasure.
Let men be narrow in sensuality.
For if his licentious joys increase,
Even in the scruples weight,
The balance will o’er tip
And his need for woman will disappear.

Prologue

2005-10-25T19:51:00.000+01:00

A drum beat begins to beat out a dythyram.

Dionysus enters. He wears a crown of ivy, A thyrus and is dressed in a fawn-skin.

Dionysus
I am Dionysus, son of Zeus. My mother was
Semele, Cadmus’ daughter. From her womb the fire
Of lightning-flash delivered me. Oh right….
Sorry; you didn’t study the classics at school.
Ok. Right. I’m Dionysus – who, if you know me at all –
Fat chance – I blame the parents – oi, you with the drum,
You can stop now. Where was I? Oh yes….
I am Dionysus, the God of wine, agriculture
And fertility in nature. Oh yes, and for my sins
I’m also the God of the stage…. yes I know,
It’s all gone downhill, just look at the West End,
And it’s not my fault. For one thing
How many of you knew that I am the God of theatre?
Exactly. Talk about dumbing down.
And I suppose I will now have to explain my birth
And why it is of significance to this ‘play’:
And why the playwright, a certain
Mr Young, is forced to use the Deus Ex Machina
As a prologue. To be honest I am being a tease;
Since I am sure there are some of you
Grown up enough to think for yourself,
Or indeed to show yourself wise,
In the words of Aristotle, ‘It is the mark of an educated mind,
To be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.’
Of course the themes within this play
Will prevent it from receiving Arts Council funding,
Which is both it’s strength and a sign of the dullness of art.
And to be honest, I doubt it will ever be staged,
Since on the one hand you live in a puritan age
Which despises my gifts. And on the other, Mr Young,
Has not been to university and is therefore
Unpolluted by the social conventions
Necessary to get scripts past the censors
Of pseudo-Intellectualism. Bring back
The Lord Chamberlain, I say. Oh…. And, also,
As he is a drunk, and my true acolyte,
He seeks to tap into the nature of things
And not to rely on a base appeal to your reason.
It makes the censors look clever, you understand,
To have soulless cliché paraded around,
And it ticks all the right boxes
For lottery funding and targets for social exclusion.
Besides, I doubt many of you will be able to cope
With what is about to appear before you
And will quite possibly be sickened.
Oh for the old days, when audiences demanded
Eye gouging, the villain being torn limb from limb
And an expression of the nature of the human animal:
Without this kind of disclaimer. Oh well!
I’ll get off now. I can’t believe it has come to this.
That I! A man whose mother was murdered by Zeus,
With bolt lighting, and was then sewn into his thigh
Until I delivered myself…. That I! Should sink
To the level of being an unpaid part-time lecturer
In order that you…. Yes you…. Should be able
To watch a play without walking out
For no reason greater than your own bigotry
And ignorance. Hey-ho…. Needs must when and all that.
Oi, drummer…. Strike up the beat for my exit.
Oh how I long for the return of show don’t tell theatre….
Not that we ever had it really…. You wouldn’t believe
How much explanation it needed the first time
Euripedes showed the Bacchae.

Exit Dionysus.

An American Ride

2005-10-11T00:31:00.000+01:00

Two marines offer escort, each armed with M-4s;
one has a grenade slung from a webbing strap.
Our SUV picks it's way along the potholed road
past Dairy Queen, a washed out McDonalds
and the Lucky Strike casino: on which rests
a shrimp boat: left as if by a child.

The K-Mart appears deserted. One marine
signals that we should stay in the car, as he swings
out of the Humvee. He carries his rifle;
wary, watchful: hinting at recent times;
perhaps in Iraq, or Afghanistan.
We sit and watch as he talks to the National Guard.

He comes back, to brief us. Eleven dead on the roof,
forty five found among the aisles
and twenty assorted bodies in the cars
and surrounding area: the place is clean.
No news of our supplies, though a Canadian Mountie
reports seeing medical trucks yesterday.

He salutes and assigns us to the National Guard.
Only the A.C. makes it bareable.
Hour on hour we wait in the car
to keep out of the way of the clear up.
This is Indian country, and we the cavalry,
remain behind the hill: frustrated.

Eventually, a truck arrives, like Santa's sleigh:
MREs, medicines, beds, blankets, water.
Excitement breaks the boredom
as we sweat to offload this treasure.
Within the hour, from choas, we have order
and a fifty bed hospital: complete with check-out.

After supper I plan on a stroll, but am stopped
by a lofty North Carolinian sergeant.
Intrigued, I tag along with him.
He does the talking; when he discovers I am a doctor
he tells me the best way to handle combat wounds
and shows me snaps of headless raghead corpses.

Suddenly, he takes my arm: stopping me dead.
Away down the corridor in the darkness
is movement. An eye glints in the flashlight,
a creaking like leather: a burst of gun shot,
a shattering, a crash, a roar
and the alligator rises and falls dead.

The sergeant empties his magazine in the beast,
reloads, scans the room, we are alone.
Though not alone. All night, through the thin brick walls
we listen to the sounds of circling animals.
Our guards use the barking to pinpoint lost fragments
of lives lost: never to be refound: except in dog shit.

Over breakfast, I listen to the bodycount:
two small gators, various snakes, a wild pig
and eight dogs. Congratulations are expressed
that none broke through the perimeter: boyish, shy smiles
answer bashfully the praise of expertise at arms.
I barely taste the food: and struggle to keep it down.

The sun has just touched the treeline
as we pull out of camp K-Mart.
Driving south, in the gently heating morning,
through a warzone of smashed houses,
dispatternation and match-wood,
I try to follow the map: I give up after twenty miles.

I have not closely followed the news: blame is not my game,
but the further we drive the less I recognise my country.
And, the less I recognise my country
the less I recognise myself. The eyes in the vanity,
on the back of the visor, stare back
in blank unrecognition. Only the doctor remains.

A raggedy guy, in a Steelers cap flags us down.
He says he has stood there for days, we are the first to stop,
and somehow I believe him. His flacid, sunbaked tongue
wags behind gapped teeth.
The bald brow and bristled chin
make his head appear upside down.

In the back of the SUV, he devours bread ad apples,
an arthritic finger points left or right
at each junction: taking us deeper into the woods.
For some reason, my mind begins to run movies
of that Freedom Summer, in black and white.
His words run into a single trail of thick drool.

The house is not a house, it is a shack, resting against trees,
the supports stand friendless fifty feet away.
Three children stand by the door,
a boy and two girls. A casual glance
tells you immediately that the new mommy
has held this forlorn family together.

They are all tired and weak: the boy has diarrhea:
they all have a pimpled rash.
I am reluctant to ask questions
and even more unwilling to hear the answers.
The mommy takes me to a clearing
the freshness of turned soil speaks volumes.

Inside the shack is a microcosm of twisted Americana.
In the centre of the room, a smashed screen television
before which lie three sleeping spaces of blamkets.
A crucifx hangs on the wall. There is nothing else.
Except for the pot on a battered stove
containing a thin stew of mixed canned goods and shot birds.

Mommy doesn't want to leave; she's maybe nine.
She speaks for her children, but the borther comes first
and it would be unusual punnishment to leave them.
In a moment of inspiration, we connect her
via sat-phone, to her grandparents in New Mexico.
The damn of resistance breaks, her pretence falls
and she is a child again: a child needing rescue.

At last we reach our FEMA designated destination.
The marines are there already. There is one truck for the sick
and a second dead; but nothing for those in between.
If God helps those who help themselves
then in this underworld, in the underbelly, is the place of the damaned.
The Red Cross pulled out three days ago.

Here, there is no water, sewage control or gas.
No electricity, no radio, nothing.
The people speak the same language
but are somehow more noble than we.
This is the place of the pioneer
the last frontier of God before Nation.

I snap. In a gesture of futile christianity
I give my neighbour my coat, my food, my water,
their need outstrips mine.
By the time it comes to leave,
to make return to Camp K-Mart,
I have only my sneakers, shorts and T=shirt.

I wonder how i can go on.
I sit apart over supper.
The gallows humour of the soldiers
leaves me frigid.
I long for RTAs, strokes, childhood fractures,
the everyday of a doctor's life.

String Theory

2005-10-06T00:45:00.000+01:00

I googled 'pet care' - don't ask -
when suddenly -

the hard drive whirred,
the screen froze,
media player loaded,
and onto the screen
came a Russian couple,
fucking in the snow.

I liked her skirt suit,
brown, nicely cut, tight at the waist -
but -
it was her boots that really intertested me.
That, and the green blue skin of his manhood
which almost made me check myself.

They were at it hammer and tongs,
her on top - in a lovely satin taupe blouse -
leaning backwards with her hands on his shoulders:
and I thought -
nice stockings -
I've never done it like that.

It lasted 42 seconds, though it seemed like hours.
But, at the vinegar stroke,
she hopped off,
he stood up,
she knelt in front of him,
and he pissed in her mouth.

Which reminded me
that I needed cat litter.

A Love Triangle

2005-10-04T20:38:00.000+01:00

Embittered by hops
and sour as the beer
drawn through unclean pipes;
he sits in the corner,
running his fingers
around the bump of the glass.
All his memories
are held in this embrace,
this gentle foreplay
between giro
and lavatory
and the promise of sleep.

Pause

2005-10-04T20:32:00.000+01:00

We live in the gaps between songs,
those quiet times in which no narrative
takes hold of emotional memory; nor
stirs the passions in dance. In this quiet
all life escapes cliche
and drips like raindrops on the pane:
after the clouds have passed.

The rythem of rising and falling
remains to move us, but, the beat
slows to dull thud of lonely heart beat.

September Sketch

2005-09-15T01:57:00.000+01:00

The yellow moon bedecked by clouds,
like a coy schoolgirl: peeps through the crack
between the locksmith and the woolen trader.
Night creeps in on an autumnal wind
draping the town in orange and black.

Unsocial Services

2005-09-08T23:55:00.000+01:00

'I swear down I didn't.'
He swings on the bar-support like Petter Pan,
phone pressed to his ear.
You just know his middle name is 'Trouble'.
'You tell her if I go down for this
I'll smash her fucking house up.'
I guess a neighbour, or a concerned aunt
but as a more of the story dribbles out
the accuser turns out to be his mother.
Jewellery is missing, not for the first time,
just as not for the first time
he is wanted by the police.
Why else is he living in rented rooms
in a pub and making reverse charged calls
to relatives in search of support?
He agrees an alibi: he never went into the house,
except when he climbed through the window
to open the front door for the others.
Of one thing he is sure: he did not burgle.
Yet he is scared, and wants to change rooms:
as if anyone cares where he is.

A Light Storm at Evening

2005-09-08T23:49:00.000+01:00

Litter and leaves ratlike run
with quick steps, that stop,
wary of maovement for the next
gust of wind: to send them
scampering. Ratfish that glimmer
in the streetlights, drawn
by the oxydising bubbled
stream. Diamonding tarmac
washed in freah rain
makes merry with dark stones
to glisten and glint as flint
striking steel. The road wriggles
in the light, eelish, a conger,
wide as a fist, stone teeth
agape for passing feet
and the flashing of passing traffique.

In Rehearsal

2005-09-08T23:44:00.000+01:00

The dust of past actors
makes me sneeze in a way
that plastic flowers never could.

The only real change
are the no smoking signs.
The world marked in white tape,

the chairs marking an arch
around which stumble the faltering
ghosts of characters, as yet

locked into the page.
Everything is questions
without business: at the centre

the dictator of taste;
who shadow boxes evry line
and wills the performance into shape.

Women are Nuts

2005-09-06T10:16:00.000+01:00

I admire Casanova:
though not for the reasons you'd expect.
I don't mean
the condoms made of sheep's guts,
or
the hundreds of lovers.
I am talking about his capacity for boredom.

Bare with me.

We've all heard it,
that plaintive cry:
'you don't listen to me anymore.'

Which completely overlooks the fact
that we have never listened to you.

That first date,
when you were rattling on about your job,
that holiday in Corfu, laughing
at your last bedmate who mentioned children.
While your spring-loaded jaw
was waving in the wind....
You were right....
I was looking at your breasts.

On Dead Pets

2005-07-19T18:39:00.000+01:00

My sister won a goldfish at the fair,
in fact she won two, but one died
and we flushed it down the toilet.

We found the other floating and revived
it with whisky. It turned white.
It lived for a year, before it joined its friend.

Sheep

2005-07-18T14:21:00.000+01:00

As I walk these narrow, pinched Leeds streets,
(with the war: the struggle as yet unfinish’d,
we are all just sheep)
Wasted drunken sots, without the sun,
stagger ever on – growing always denser, plagued by sores.
Perhaps to engage in time of danger,
to stand up strong for the power of labour,
to reach out a hand to help your brother,
sister mother, comrade, lover.
As I walk unattended,
around me I see the fall out of worlds –
politics, produce the announcement of victory –
science, triumph, inflation defeated.
And we in our Northern cities count the cost.

The Law on Religious Hatred

2005-07-12T23:50:00.000+01:00

I'm starting a new religion.
Everyone must dress like a clown
and have comical hooters fitted to cars,
which comically explode:
with comical effects.
Make up will be optional for women
but compulsary for men:
though only priests can have red noses.

And before you criticise me
remember
I have at least sixteen acolytes
in each of your target marginals.

Suggested Reasons

2005-07-12T23:43:00.000+01:00

I'll bet it was music that turned them,
too many Friday nights driving aimlessly
round town, in a mate's souped up Subaru
with blacked out windows. And it can't help
not drinking, and having too much time
to think. Political types and White Liberals
will probably include racism as a factor.
But this is the way of the world.
But maybe they mean tribalism.
Since it can't be easy
having the faith of the one true god
in a culture of enforced relativism:
when you are only three generations
down from the hill tribes. But that
incessant beat of the drum and bass:
I'll bet that had something to do with it.

How Life has not Changed

2005-07-12T23:34:00.000+01:00

I went out for a night of poetry:
a harmless pleasure, a bauble,
exhalations of breath in a cruel world.

I return to find armed police
at the station, machine guns
and caps, like the forces of apartheid.

This was not something I expected.
Nor is standing so close to death
something I desire. But,

don't think I am attacking authority.
I would rather not be indentified
by a dentist, or my cash-point card.

At an announcement: a failed unit:
we sprint two platforms
to another waiting train.

Everything is jumpy tonight.
We all sweat in the heat
and go with the flow.

The Cause of Terror

2005-07-10T18:35:00.000+01:00

One person in ten will suffer from a mental illness.
Around 4% will recieve any treatment, other than ridicule.
These people will live in either North America
or Austrailia or Europe:
or come from a rich family in the rest of the world.

They will firstly be offered drugs,
then maybe twelve sessions of counselling.
If this does not work,
they will be institutionalised
with a fortnightly benefit cheque
and the offer of help in a crisis.

Oh
and of course they will be ridiculed,
marginalised and descriminated against
universally.

Things Not Seen

2005-07-10T18:22:00.000+01:00

Perhaps I was sleeping
when the PrimeMinister or Mr President
shot a cabinet member to bring a meeting to order.
Or had torture filmed for their pleasure.

Perhaps I was dreaming
when a teenage victim of gang rape
watched helpless, as the verdict was overturned
and now needs police protection from the mob.

Perhaps I was drunk
when crowds of angry men
with AK47's, chanted en-masse,
beating their heads 'til they bled.

Whatever, I wasn't lucid
enough to understand.
And, I still don't see.
Thank goodness.

Human Reactions

2005-07-10T18:15:00.000+01:00

'Of course we have to look at the bigger picture,'
and for an added dash of cleverness
they quote Martin Luther King.

Is it just me who weeps for the dead?

'Wasn't Nelson Mandela a terrorist?'
'And look! We have multicultural corpses!'
Which proves we must be winning.

Is it just me who weeps for the dead?

Another half baked theory is expressed:
this one's about freedom versus imperialism.
It is as deep as a meniscus

or a waving placard on a peace rally;
or believing cause and effect
is a one way process.

Is it just me who weeps for the dead?

How Religion Works

2005-07-09T23:57:00.000+01:00

In the town where I was born
at the corner of tharket place
is a lwayers office. At one corner
is a brick with a moulded heart.
It marks the spot where a witch
burned at the stake, ripped
out her heart and threw it.

The story isn't ture of course.

But the BMA is spattered with blood
and pigeons dine on battered flesh.
And, deep in the earth, beneath
London streets, they calculate bodies
by the counting of fingers.

Newtonian Physics

2005-07-08T23:34:00.000+01:00

Cause and effect
cause and effect
because I have no effect
I affect a cause.

Effect and cause
I fuck my cause
because I have no cause
I make an effect.

A Quick History Lesson

2005-07-08T23:29:00.000+01:00

What they don't tell you
was when they show you Churchill,
in homberg hat and big cigar,
doing the 'V' sign
in the back of the car:
is when he said,
'London can take it.'
The Londoners shouted back
'Fuck off
it's not you they're bombing.'

After Judy Garland

2005-07-08T23:26:00.000+01:00

bang, bang, bang
went the subway:
Big KerBOOM went the bus:
don't blame us sing the muslims:
each one with their fingers crossed.

The Next Day

2005-07-08T23:20:00.000+01:00

Two drunk lasses shout, 'conga'
and dance into the road.
The line of a thong presses
through mushroom slacks.

On the doors, a black shirted bouncer,
touches the arm of an anoraked lad:
he freezes, half turns, his mate looks on:
the moment of tension in producing ID.

A cauldron of chatter, wallows in the pit
of the pit carved from the remnants of the public baths.
At my table, by the ghost of the deep end
I sip my beer, chew gum: life goes on.

Rhetoric

2005-07-08T23:12:00.000+01:00

They won't change our way of life:
the news will still be full of lies
and cries that we need to understand Islam.
We'll bring in draconian laws
and identity cards to track everyone.
There'll be more speed cameras
and health warnings and 'lifestyle'.
More people will be unpolitical
when they realize they make no difference.
With each new day will come
credit card applications
or holidays in the sun:
if you dial this number.
Rich rock stars will blackmail the poor
to give to the even poorer
for reasons of PR and record sales.
The summer will come in with hose pipe bans
and the winter with calls to the Samaritans.
We'll complain about passive smoking
from behind the bull-bars of an SUV:
but, they won't change our way of life.

A Mesage to the Mad Mahdi

2005-07-07T18:51:00.000+01:00

The Union Jack flies at half mast,
the pigeons find the bits,
but if Hitler couldn't bow us
then what chance have you got?

Take a stroll around the internet,
there stand England's friends
with prayers and hope, hands held out:
what chance have the you got?

Crab Salad

2005-07-07T15:12:00.000+01:00

Are you indifferent now?
Now I have prized you apart,
stirred up the inward facade,
tasted your wholeness
and found you wanting.

Flaming June

2005-07-07T15:06:00.000+01:00

The year turned yesterday,
turned with the fire of summer
and the seeds of dreams:
I await the time of harvest.

To walk with tensed shoulders
makes the sweat worse.
Instead you must stroll
with arms as loose as knotted string.

Do not fight the gifts of the sun
be like the flowers and bloom.
Know that your dreams are not your's alone.
Relax, be strong, soak in the sun.

Pleasure

2005-07-07T14:56:00.000+01:00

Passing through the back of things;
the wild green growth, brambling
out of walls: over and through iron fences.

Passing through the industrial units
tagged by graffetti merchants:
adventuring across the tracks to make a mark.

A world of passing cables, sub-stations;
a pandemonium of ordered rails
condemned never to diverge or kiss.

In the blackness of passing tunnel
all conversation ceases:
but we have the signal to proceed.

Then after two false starts, green water,
I see my favourite view: gently arcing
cut by navvies; treelined. And we pass.

After Emily Dickenson

2005-07-04T23:46:00.000+01:00

I would not stop for love
because it would not stop for me,
the present holds just myself
and mastorbatory.
The love she gave was bitter sweet,
not worth the time I spent
unscrambling the code of her
wound about her neck.
And now she's gone
no tears for her are shed:
for though she looked good on my arm
she was blooming crap in bed.

Prayer of Protection

2005-07-04T23:40:00.000+01:00

I am told to expect arguments
or a settling of scores, though
as I watch the blue rippled brown water
I cannot believe this will crush me.

I have been told from which quarter
the attack will come. though
as I watch the duckling swimming
I cannot believe it will drown me.

For my enemies are but bubbles
in the wakes of a pedalo, though
they may curse me and slight me
I cannot believe they will hurt me.

By the Lake

2005-07-04T23:34:00.000+01:00

In the brightness of a bank holiday
I sit beside the lake, and perspire.

Today things are brighter.
Today the vitamin of sunshine
and the laughter of children
has brought rewards.

The oarsmen and peddlers:
Monday sailors:
go round in circles
but I have clear direction.

I shall sit here
and slowly turn brown.

Untitled - Unfinished - Birthday

2005-07-01T23:35:00.000+01:00

Her lips have almost ceased to be
receding under the bitten fag.
A flash of tit reveals both knees
so completely do they sag.

She is part of the fat clan birthday.
The big, the fat, and the ugly:
complete with balloons, they come to play
............

What Passes for Music

2005-07-01T13:10:00.000+01:00

There is a rule of inevitability,
that men of a certain age
armed with guitars and a mouth-organ
only play in public
to entertain themselves.

This rule is re-enforced
by a direct relationship
between the entry fee,
the quality of the beer,
the youth of the clientele
and the scantiness of female clothing:
and it is inverse.

Suddenly a gel-hair loon
whistles and cheers
in support of the asthmatic wasp
wheezing his way through the blues.

The poet in black slips away
from his barstool
and I feel like joining him.

Now on stage we have Pop Idol setting up.
As they are musicians
this is a tedious process.
The singer dances
and struts his ego.
Unfortunately,
his singing is pitched
to strangle a cat.
And thankfully, he is wrong,
I have never heard this song before.
I blame kareoke.
It encourages them
to think they can sing.
Still,
I am guessing there are
at least
ten idiots in the world
so who know?
Maybe they'll get to number 1.

I've only been here a quarter of a pint
and already I am watching
the trail of people going back
and forward to the toilet.
Well....
I did come out to be entertained.

You Love

2005-06-30T12:14:00.000+01:00

Your love unfolds to the creaking of petals
so slow to mark the passing time.
Your love it flows sublime as mercury
infusing all it touches with the hatter's curse,
or the dance of the March Hare
chasing furious in midday revel.
Your love reveals the patience spilt
by careless hands, grasping, clutching
trying to possess: running over bleached skin,
standing bold in sterility. And you love
in opening with the rain have blossomed
'neath my outstretched hand:
and fingers locked in bound embrace
share the pattern of silken whorls
that trace the path we now do tread
winding downward toward our bed.

Which is Witch

2005-06-30T12:12:00.000+01:00

Warm as a duvet'd fart,
cold as a tart's tit,
high as an elephant's nuts,
low as a dog's arse.
Simile, it won't crack you face,
smile, to reach the unconnected.

Unconnected

2005-06-30T12:07:00.000+01:00

An iced, sliced orange of a moon,
rolling toward the missing portion
or maybe
the crystallised flowers of snow,
dancing and floating
are the remains of the missing moon
cascading to the earth.
I traverse the vacuum of the car park.
I have to squint,
a mixture of sleat stings my cheeks.

On the way back,
as I am thinking about the shadows of the moon
and the way they are so clear tonight:
I falter on the steps,
as a rat clambers away,
I see it clearly for a split second
as it turned the corner
before disappearing into the foliage
discarded by a thoughtless planner.

I want to tell people,
I want to make them look at the moon
and be revolted by rats.
But the car park belongs to the 'normal',
who pig out on shopping,
and care not for the changing moon,
nor the vermin they produce.

This Sorta Be The One

2005-06-30T12:05:00.000+01:00

He tucks me in, my dear old dad,
he might not mean to, but he do,
he squeezes out the breath I have
and stops my circulation too.

But he was tucked in just the same
by a father in sea captains hat,
and felt the blankets crush his frame,
pulled hard and tight beneath the mat....... tress

Man passes inhumaity onto man
like this bit of bedtime bliss.
Children: wriggle free while you can.
Mother's: buy duvets for your kids.

Things Which Never Happened

2005-06-30T12:01:00.000+01:00

She rings while I am writing her an email,
I knew from the off what's coming:
I've spent weeks trying to get her to say it.
We have had seven days of non-stop not-talking.
Two things have sparked this
firstly that I mentioned having a baby
and then my suggestion that
she should shag someone else
if that will make her happy.
Oh and because she's scared.

This last point is subtle.
Since it was all lovely whilst she dished
out the encouragement.
But when I do it
this breaks the rules.
Since giving is mostly selfish:
The parties vie to give the most
and then fight like rats in a sack
to get equal shares.

And she does frustrate me
the way she wastes her talent.
But she won't be told,
calls that 'browbeating'
and then she announces her grand plan:
to withdraw from the world.

I offer to hammer in the nails.
Take her to the top of a low hill
and play the part of John Wayne,
'Truely this is the duaghter of a driven man.'

Yeah sure I am bitter.
I have lost someone
to rant at
when drunken lonely nights
drag on for an hour too long.

And when I tell her
it never happened,
I am suprised that she said it did.

And suddenly she is using the 'l' word,
spits it to sugar the rejection.
And then comes the 'f' word,
which is even more weird:
We have only been in the same room four times:
twice it ended in the two-backed-beast
and it has always ended in kissing;
And, I ask you?
Is that a way for friends to carry on?

The Rabbit God

2005-06-30T11:58:00.000+01:00

The sun sits high past the noontime,
the flat land, new mown,
ambles away to the river.
And, in the last field before the railway lines
I lean against the stake of the barbed wire fence
and watch rabbits.

The year before the roadsides had been littered
with the blinded debris of mixi.

He is two months younger than I;
taller, more willing to fight,
though maybe my equal in strength.
We have just had a wheelie competition,
in the dust of the abandoned road,
which runs arrow straight over the crossing.
Our brown-berry legs,
in short trousers,
carry the scars of play,
in these dying days of the summer holiday.

He tells me to wait outside,
I kick stones:
he re-appears with the gun.
I am nervous.
He tells me it is fine,
that his parents won't mind.
And, anyway, they are both at work.
The gun is nearly as tall as me.
And as he pulls the trigger,
it nearly knocks him backwards:
though he says it is only a 4/10,
and he's fired bigger.

The rabbit looks shocked.
One moment it was chasing it's friend's tail
the next it is moving sideways,
then backwards
then looping into the air.
The field which moments earlier
had been dotted with grey dancing,
lies fallow and still
a sea of watching eyes.

It is larger than I imagine.
'A female,' he tells me, laughing,
squeezing the guts,
gushing out a yellow stream.
I tell him to stop,
sensing desecration,
but he says you have to do it.
He breaks the gun, and casually carries it on the hip
holding the now cleaned doe
by the ears.

The last time I was in this garden,
we used a catapult
to test the parachute of his Action Man.
And, I think of this
as he slits the rabbit from pelvis to neck.
The torn flesh and purple innards
force me to retreat to the corner of the house.
When I peer around the wall,
in response to his urging,
I see his fingers enter the cut,
hook the skin,
pull the hind legs back:
with a deft cracking of bones.
It comes off in one piece:
the skin from the meat,
like the sound of a wet sandcastle being turned out.

The Playing Out of Parts

2005-06-30T11:53:00.000+01:00

I was not born in the normal way.
I was stripped from the womb
and sown into my mother's thigh.
And when the time was safe
my hobbled mother released me.

The Sunday joint congeals in the fridge.
The white fat rises to sit on the stick thick gravy.
The bosom smooth curve of the Pyrex bowl
condensates the boiled limp left-overs.
Tomorrow we will eat this again: fried.
A pink plastic Tupperware beaker,
bitten white by growing teeth
melts in the restless heat of summer;
melts into the tartrazine rocket fuel
of the Spar bought orange.

My mother straightens
from the women's work of gardening.
Her perm hangs in ringlets at her brow.
Soiled rubber gloves, backhanded,
wipe the beaded sweats from her temples.
'Put that down,' she says,
'I'm bored,' I reply
willfully continuing to dig at the roots of the rose bush.

I hate this tone in her face,
lacking softness,
bereft of the confirmation I seek.
The final straw comes
when I kick the dog.
Suddenly she is raggedy
brisk, angular:
I am hanging by one arm in her grip,
whilst she clouts me.
Hard smacks
on bare legs.
It doesn't hurt.
But I cry.
'You're a devil,' she shouts.

Sniveling I peer over the back of the chair.
He is sitting in the dark
curtains drawn.
Smoke patterns mutate in the crack.
He is watching tele.
A succession of black and white armies,
retreat and advance over the western desert.
He says nothing.
I ask a question.
'Don't be so bloody stupid.' he says.
Clumsily I try to sit with him,
the cup gets spilt
he flares like a struck match.

'No body wants you.'
'No body wants you.'

My sister takes me by the hand.
She leads me to the forbidden land.
She says she will help me,
that she has the secret.
She has heard talk on her mid-night walks.
I was not the choosen one,
but a prodigal.
And in her face I see the truth.
Submit to her power,
strip naked.

Like Pentheus I am skirted,
prepared by my sister
for secret Bacchanal.
In yellow and pleated blue,
I am sacrificed.
To the vengeful ducks
of which my mother warned.

The Past Revealed

2005-06-30T11:50:00.000+01:00

The four o clock form
of the translucent figure,
seen in the mirror,
reflects to a ditch:
long since covered.
There is no crowd,
no cries of 'Raus!'
only the two of them;
the oppressor
and the suppressed.
The bullets come from within.

Above, a third party
takes traitorous pleasure
in love withheld.

The line of the spine is bent,
to accommodate
the swelling belly and sagging breasts.
Stick arms, hang from rounded shoulders.
The thighs expand around the genitals,
the knees bump out
and the hair thickens
directly proportional
to the thinning of the head.

It is the figure of the Jew,
the outsider,
the weak and the simple minded.
Eternally standing at the pit of age.
Eternally the victim
of the fascism of health.

It is a stranger's body,
that does not link to the child inside.

As life slipped away
it arrived in this frame
without a noticeable transition.

The Party Congress

2005-06-30T11:48:00.000+01:00

He has been caught out, evading the midnight guards.
Brought before the commissar:
his case is based on merit and attraction.
It relies upon the greater good and the principles of socialism
but the rules have changed to focus on the personal.
politically he is unsound; a radical,
an optimist: and a dangerous mind.
Only at the end of the trial does he slip
allowing past ideology to enter the discourse.
Like the condemned in Solsinitsyn
they fuck through the fence.
In the morning
she calls out the Red Guard.

The Loop

2005-06-30T11:47:00.000+01:00

I've been counting out the stations:
depression, drinking, sleeplessness and hunger,
of the outbound journey that took me home.
I've been sketching my impressions
and counting out my blessings, but
not discounting, this waiting on my own.
I've been pushing bent coins into payphones
and banging the handset, tapping up strangers
to break up the fiver for change.

I've been counting in the stations:
tiredness, smoking, sleepyhead and food,
awaiting for the time for the signal to uncross.
I am making up a list of things
that I must buy, things to cook,
things to bake, and make, and put them in a pie.
I am worrying that my charms have gone
that you will not alight. And, I will be left standing
with just a warning to mind the gap.

The Hairdresser's Art

2005-06-30T11:45:00.000+01:00

In the white walled room:
each object carefully placed
to make the required impact:
by the door is a series of icons,
she says describes her life.

I look at these:
they do not describe a life
they are deliberately obscuring.
The frames speak loudly of minimalism
but the black and white pictures:
smiling faces:
seem to be nothing more than
magazine prints.

But there is one telling picture.
It is on graduation day.
She sits with her brother.
She wears a long dress
and gown.
The laughter and happiness bubbles
between them.
An orgy of collective family pride.
Her face is framed
by tumbling dark locks
worthy of Roxanne.
The tresses and curls
tumble down to her breasts.
And she is thin, slender,
a waspish beauty.

I turn away from that picture
and see her now.
She is solid,
as a wardrobe is solid.
Her hair is cut short to the neck,
and she hides behind her fringe:
dark eyes hidden,
lurking in shadows.

In conversation she is goading
and then defensive.
Forcing the listener
to back down
or fight the rage;
of being spat upon.

All of this is confirmation
that the haircut has worked.
No longer can she be dragged to heel
by a handful of hair
held at the nape of the neck.

The Gatekeeper

2005-06-30T11:42:00.000+01:00

The glass was half full
until I realised that I wouldn't be drunk.
And the bottle was nearly gone
when my head started to spin.
The only real difference was me.
And me seeing it for what it was.
A means to an end and the end in it's self.
Yeah, I'm a happy drunk,
but equally, I'm miserable sober:
Yet they say; and 'they' are never wrong;
that sadness kills more than drink....
so what can you do?

You cry for perfection.
Your weeping is the tears of failure,
yet I do not strive
and seek only small victories
in a tactical game with
the Damoclian sword of liver disease.

Out, out, damned candle,
illuminate not my paltry term
upon this vulgar stage.
Think when you read this
that you see proud horses,
stamping hooves upon the sacred ground,
when I play the back end of the donkey.
Think that this winding sheet of scrolling screen
is the wide vessel of the universe.
Match not my words
with my actions
nor
my actions to my words.

For the bottle and the glass are empty
and I must to bed,
at a petty pace,
knowing that I have been drawn on
and put off in equal measure.

The End of the Pier Show

2005-06-30T11:40:00.000+01:00

An orange sinking sun spears rippled
on the still calm sea.
Your hand wears mine
like a palm glove.
We speak in soft voices.

Chunks of red meat
are baited with hooks.
They hang in rows from the rail
each attended by a boy.
Caught crabs tumble in the bucket.

You turn to me, in honesty,
and say we're lucky to be alive
and I agree and kiss you.
We both have eyes open
to watch for dilation.

The largest black brown crab
severs the right claw of a rival.
Maybe there is pain
but the shell hides all:
except the pinkness of skin.

The Beautiful UnWantedness of Weeds

2005-06-30T11:37:00.000+01:00

You are Franz, the professor,
hide bound by convention,
battling with words:
and you close your eyes
when kissing.

Which I guess makes me
Franz's wife:
since I am neurotic,
I do bitch,
and threats have made you open.

But we both know I'm Sabina.
Dangerous, subversive,
independent to the point of recklessness.
Tearing the heart from things
and longing for an American beach house.

You'll say this is not so
that I am shocked by your unconventionally,
but you break the rules
in a bourgeois fashion.
I state plainly rules don't exist.

And I see you now
with another spectacled acolyte
fawning on your every word:
as challenging as cake
or never reading your work in public.

And you must be Franz
because of your fear of vulgarity.
In your kitsch world, you see it only as shit:
I see spent blood: but
then I eat things with faces.

Swan

2005-06-30T11:35:00.000+01:00

In neat precision, a hand extends,
I look on amazed at strength with held
and so masked by gentle purity.
The slight curve of the wrist
that flicks the glass toward the lip
and then falls like chestnut leaves
in a spinning tumble to replace the drink:
as if it had never moved.

Untitled - Flowers

2005-06-30T11:33:00.000+01:00

No one died
No one cried
No one even saw
The seed on the wind
of the roadside flowers

Untitled - Spring

2005-06-30T11:31:00.000+01:00

Last week I recall wondering when the leaves will come.
And the next day rubbed my eyes and saw tumbled pink blosom:
I thought it was snow. Then day by day another sign appears.
Some days it is the frightened sun flexing to make make June.
What had seemed a dead thing, an exhaust whithered twig,
is now bedecked with purple crocus buds, sap thick, ready to burst.
Grass is suddenly sparkling. Compared to the lost lifeless winter
green, this is touched by envy or a lover's wink at midnight.
And all because last week, tiny me, wondered about the leaves.

Spooked

2005-06-30T11:29:00.000+01:00

They are the two sides of her:
one so black, that with eyes closed
she could not be seen inside a sack
hurled at night into the canal.
The other dabble grey, long eared,
always watching but hating to be watched;
beloved by men for scattiness.

I could see what she meant,
and had not thought of it
in the way she suggested.
Not least because I knew only one side,
and had advised against adopting
this wilder, blacker, insecure other.

And when last night she told me:
of the blackest shadow, rolling over for affection:
of trust returned and wildness tamed
I was happy. Not least because a friend;
a friend though times when waves so high
threatened to overturn my tiny boat:
that friend had returned.
And with it the girlishness
that had not been
through the narrow longing of the season,
not know the pull of the tom cat call
with juiced excitement.

Instead it lay, legs in the air,
happily domesticated:
with no need
for cigarettes and sling backs.

Untitled - Leaving

2005-06-30T11:27:00.000+01:00

Counting out the gardens
against the rising bank,
we pass the house of love and kisses
and into the open country
and the day beyond.
Every cloud is lined with silver
and the green grass of homeward bound
complete with warmed heart
and a mind at rest for tomorrow.

Untitled - Moon

2005-06-30T11:26:00.000+01:00

Full moon cries the night,
rolling over moor tops
as we pitch into the wide expanse of the valley.
Away twinkle the town lights:
stars caught in the lake of the night.
Full moon, full moon
the night cries
and I cry: look out.

The Language of Flowers

2005-06-30T11:24:00.000+01:00

I only wanted a single white rose
but the shop only sold
orange, red or pink...
and since my love is not a slut
I went to another shop
and bought a bunch of ten.

Chav

2005-06-30T11:22:00.000+01:00

He's Reebok man at C&A,
he's pure class
in a chava way.

She's feathered earrings
kissing his neck,
can't stand up on points,
cross eyed
slapped arse.
An arse so tight
to lick it would break it.
Whinging like a whore's chuff.

2 ways to know if you fancy her

2005-06-30T11:20:00.000+01:00

1) All other women look attractive but not quite.
2) You're prmary genital doubles as a bath towel holder.

21st Century Stats

2005-06-30T11:18:00.000+01:00

About two months ago
a district chieftain in Niger
agreed to release his seven thousand slaves.
He didn't.

This fact has intrigued and troubled me
Every minute of every day
one and a third women
are raped in the United States.

Again.
This fact intrigues and troubles me.

Untitled - Pub Law

2005-06-30T11:16:00.000+01:00

This won't be, this won't be:
it wasn't me, it wasn't me
A crop haired black woman
is asked to leave.

She stands against the black shirted staff:
All dwarfed by the glass facade
This won't be, this won't be:
it wasn't me, it wasn't me
Her tan camel three quarter length coat
in plain contrast to the patterning of her dress.

Like a Grenadier she marches
over the white newly laid flagstones
This won't be, this won't be:
it wasn't me, it wasn't me.

Ignoring the sporadic traffic
she enters the batcave of the police station.
I smile. Knowing that they don't give a shite
the licensing laws are down to the door.

Untitled - Meat

2005-06-30T11:14:00.000+01:00

Everything was going well
until she mentioned steak.
And backed this up
with an announcement about being a veggie.

Don't get me wrong
I am an animal lover myself:
today I had bacon, steak and a pork pie.
And in a sense I am semi-veggie
I don't eat anything that resembles an animal
when wrapped in a polystyrene tray.

So I look forward to romantic meals
of stuffed peppers; candlelit aubergine;
and roast carrot on Sunday with two veg.

That is assuming she is satisfied
with me as meat.

Untitled - Hippo

2005-06-30T11:12:00.000+01:00

when I was fourteen,
I was in the zoo at Nuremburg
and saw two hippo's having sex.
It wasn't porno or nuffin
the cow was under the water:
and had you caught a passing glimpse
you might have thought it an asthma attack,
had it not been for the grunting
and the twitching ears.
You could tell it was love.
He had this look in his eye
not quite desperation
not quite desire
more wondering if she would tell if he faked it.

The Lament of the Stud Stallion

2005-06-30T11:09:00.000+01:00

Calm down missus, I'm not twenty-one
I've done my bit, and given you one.
I'm not sure I can keep up with this
I'm doing a Paula, I'm having a piss.

Now steady on missus and don't get too hot
I've got a bad back, and two is my lot
I'm not as young as I used to be
so make the most, I can't manage three.

Seriously missus, I can't take this pace.
What do you mean? Sit on my face?
mummph, glumph, mumph, omph
omph, can't, mumph, breath, glumph.

I'm telling you missus, I'm not coming out
of this wardrobe 'til you tell me what the strap-on's about.
I'm knackered, I'm frightened, I'm totally drained
and nothing I do can keep you restrained.

Saying Goodbye

2005-06-30T11:05:00.000+01:00

At night, as I say my prayers,
I rip the thread from my guts
and without if's or buts, cast out
those that have wronged me.

And in the morning I awake
refreshed in the knowledge that
I have not slept with the argument
of yesterday, or the people of my past.

A simple snap of the fingers, like scissors
is all that is needed. The gesture does the trick,
snuffing out the candle of lost ships adrift at night:
a simple snip of the figures, snip, snip: snap.

And in time you will not need to cut
the memory from your running mind.
For the cuts weaken the ivy, which binds
your choking dreams to say...

Do not abandon us,
here trapped in your yesterdays.

She That is Called Love

2005-06-29T15:23:00.000+01:00

The false hope of happiness lay on the breeze
as false as her smile, or the friendship we shared.
It all slipped away with a frightening ease
when all that she promised without a care
turned into smiles directed at her:
for she was not swan, but base cur.

Seelctive Quoting

2005-06-29T15:21:00.000+01:00

'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.'
I think of this warning, whilst sunbathing:
to perfect my redneck. She means losing her
is worth more than my freedom to be me.
And sometimes in the blue notes of regret, I agree.
But my blues singing days are over
and she is not about to ride the train
wearing a dirty red bandana. Being a gentleman
I won't go there on the weight issue.
Instead I hum a few bars of Move Over
and enjoy the pleasure of Vitamin A,
and the knowledge that I keep my own time.

Secret Santa

2005-06-29T15:19:00.000+01:00

You are funny.
I play a trick of leaving hearts
then scurry to the bath.
'Think of me' you said.

Of course I do,
I think of not much else in truth:
though perhaps you know that too.

The picture I carry
is not one that you would choose
for you have not seen it: only I.

You are funny.
And once more you make me laugh
for by the flickering candle light
you're the reindeer in my bath.

Saturday Getting Pissed Blues

2005-06-29T15:15:00.000+01:00

Hello, I'm Jeremy Young

*wild applause*

Well I hear Tesco's a calliin
It's coming down the lane
Well I ain't had no brandy
since I don't know when
But I hear Tesco a callin
down the line
I got to get some brandy
Cos I drank the wine....

When I was just a baby
My mother told me son
don't ever play with brandy
look here's a gun
but I got a taste for brandy
that can't be beat
Well I find the taste of brandy
sure is sweet

I bet they got some Whiskey
I bet they got some Gin
But nothing quite hit's the spot
like fancy French distilling
Well I know I got it coming
And it ain't gonna be free
but I got the taste right now
and that's what tortures me.

Well if they freed me from my craving
if they set my liver free
I bet I'd still have this wanting
for some fancy French Brandy
But I'd buy it with my groceries
and not be walking these nightime streets.

(sung roughly, I mean very roughly, to the tune of Folsome Prison Blues)
peace:)

Right On People

2005-06-29T15:13:00.000+01:00

Ardent with buzzwords and Stalinism,
disheveled attire in the right shade of black:
they begin the tirade.

My ears bleed in time
with the weeping of their splintered eyes.
I have heard it all before.

'Comrade! This collective refuses to accept
the selfishness of my imploring, in response
to your outdated reactionary bigotry,

you have once more suppressed the suppressed
and this oppression shall not stand.'
With each swig of beer

the hypocrisy increases, spurred on by dialectic
bought by the dozen at the university
from which we were barred.

The self righteous soul of scant learning,
red with the blood of fallen workers,
and the blue blood

of middle class pretension sadly crushed
by the reality of a world that does not understand.
And we listen, apologise, agree to be re-educated, and

bow down to the torrent,
bow down to the torrent:
bow down to the torrent.

Arse About

2005-06-29T15:11:00.000+01:00

Barbed wire and nettles
are my kisses
and lashings of the whip.
In scorn and rage
I woo thee.
Shoving and pushing
my warm embrace.

Island

2005-06-29T15:10:00.000+01:00

And tears won't come
I will not let them
weakness is for humans
and I am ignoble Caliban.

Kiss

2005-06-29T15:07:00.000+01:00

I yearn not for the fancy of you,
a poetic ideal, or illusionary shape.
My passion is for something more:
the whole of you
hand flapping a flushed cheek.

Penitent

2005-06-29T15:05:00.000+01:00

A journey made in recompense and escape
is how it begins. The remorse is real.
Like a child playing kiss-chase
and being miscast as Georgy Porgy
mid-game.So maybe not so childlike,
isn't that the nature of men
to mistreat women and thus gain respect?

On Visiting Angels

2005-06-29T15:03:00.000+01:00

Bitten by the the northern chills of spring
and doubling around the looping road,
we finally came to stand before the angel.

We hurry. We snip and snap and dash,
to avoid the wind, the gathering cloud,
and because it is too large, too big, too

solid to be taken in with leisure. What
from the rushing road stood silent and serene:
when at the giant iron feet, sends my compass spinning.

I want to take it in, but I cannot run far enough away.
I want to bring it womblike inside me, to absorb the power,
like the ceiling of the bishop's palace of Wurzburg.

Then sensing my intent, the angel whispers to the cloud
and sends snow: ice snow: which eventually sent
the Romans's running from Hadrian's wall.

Normal

2005-06-29T15:01:00.000+01:00

what is normal? And why say I am?
I've never had a proper fight,
wasted my life for years in a job.
Wiped a babies arse
and claimed it made me grown up.
I don't have a television.
Have never been on a foreign holiday
nor entered into the death lock
of buying a home.
I do get sparked up by triviality
but I don't wear glasses.
I wrinkle and grey;
I wither and shrink;
and everybody knows that I drink:
but I don't understand
why, in reflex,
I offer the reassurance of normality.

10 Reasons Why

2005-06-29T14:59:00.000+01:00

1) the plan included 'orange juice (with bits in)'
2) Correction without condemnation.
3) You have self doubt.
4) With friends you are loyal and true.
5) I am only the 3rd person to ever tell you to 'fuck off.'
6) Being called 'lad.'
7) You are too smart to have your brains fucked out.
8) Only by being close to your eyes can your beauty be fully seen.
9) You hide behind you fringe.
10) Your perpetual wandering to understand humanity.

Pap

2005-06-29T14:58:00.000+01:00

More beautiful than
sunrise in June
with nature in bloom
or last night's blue moon.

The Extra Half Hour

2005-06-29T14:56:00.000+01:00

Amid the prattle of cocktail chatter
sits the solitary poet.
Without a toothbrush
or change of pants:
feeling grubby,
wracked by nerves
and an upset stomach.
She says she is in a fluster;
which means there will be
that time of 'give me a chance,
to get used to this.'
All day the poet has watched women:
an Italian lothario:
but there is only one woman,
he wishes to see.

Brainless

2005-06-29T14:54:00.000+01:00

And so the moment arrives,
when we finally meet; again.
After the tiffs and trials,
testing the water and the snowball
fighting of cold shoulders offered.

On the train, I found myself
caressing my neck, wishing,
to once more see through your eyes.

I have planned some lines
which I will not say
and promised
not to say those things, that I know I will.
I call this plain speaking
but you name it for what it is,
thoughtlessness.

Wander About

2005-06-29T14:52:00.000+01:00

Life picked me up and dumped me.
Yet as I wander the alleys
and window shop in the narrow high street:
with the mixtures of trendy,
the common place and
the downright rough.
I find myself reaching
the rash presumption
that this place suits your personality.
The people share your style.
I have mistaken you in strangers.

An Explanation for Kevin

2005-06-29T14:51:00.000+01:00

It was Wendy Cope:
Jonathon's sister.
And she was drinking
cocoa
not tea.

Tasteless

2005-06-29T14:49:00.000+01:00

Nibbling undercooked chips
in a posh bit of Leeds.
So posh they hide us with bushes.
I can't say I like chips.
I never eat them all.

Go Forth and Multiply

2005-06-29T14:47:00.000+01:00

If you ask me
there's too much fuss
made about the word fuck.
It's only a fucking word
for fuck's sake.
Sure there are other fucking words
but fuck says it all.
And, if you think I shouldn't say it....
You can
go away.