She said get out
But before you go
Can you put up those shelves
She said Fuck off
but before you go
can you de-scale the shower head
The pickling vinegar is in the bottom drawer
You’ll be needing that
She said Get a life
But before you do
Can you build a garden shed
She said DIE!
But before you go
Can you outlive me
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
The moneychangers
Every time she embraced him she put her hands into his back pockets.
she put her hands into his back pocket when she embraced him
in order to feel for money.
Every time he embraced her he put his hands into her back pocket
He put his hands into her back pocket when he embraced her
in order to feel for money.
For years they passed the same £20 note back and forth between them.
she put her hands into his back pocket when she embraced him
in order to feel for money.
Every time he embraced her he put his hands into her back pocket
He put his hands into her back pocket when he embraced her
in order to feel for money.
For years they passed the same £20 note back and forth between them.
Friday, October 23, 2009
A divorcees prayer
You will hate me when this is over
But not as much as I will hate you
Yet I will hate you with affection
While you will hate me with spite
Because you really hate yourself
For once loving me
Any chance of a shag?
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The house husband
Having changed his nappy
I attempted to pick my son from the bed
when I heard the click in my back
and felt the searing pain.
I laid him down gently
lay down beside him, motionless, unable to move.
We remained like that; babies side by side
until I felt movement beside me
and he sat up
then crawled from the bed
then stood for the first time
then walked from the room.
I heard furniture legs scaping in the kitchen
I heard the clatter of utensil on pan
he returned with a tray
and he fed me grey mush
with a plastic spoon from an ABC bowl
played airplanes entering the hanger
wiped my chin with a cloth he had spat on
smiled and coo'd.
Took away the tray
made more clattering noises before
turning on the dishwasher
while humming 'piggy on the railway'.
I heard bathroom noises
and a lavatory flush
then the clat clat clat of the nodding dog
being taken for a walk accross linoleum.
Returning to the room freshly powdered
climbing onto the bed
looking down into my eyes
He then said:
If that is what grown up is Daddy
I'm in no great hurry to get there too fast
so don't you push me too hard and get better
And bend your knees when lifting me up.
I replied;
If this is what growing old is like
I'm in no great hurry to get there too fast
So don't push me too hard and I'll get better
At bending my knees when you are here
He lay down silently beside me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi4Hv7iqZCM
I attempted to pick my son from the bed
when I heard the click in my back
and felt the searing pain.
I laid him down gently
lay down beside him, motionless, unable to move.
We remained like that; babies side by side
until I felt movement beside me
and he sat up
then crawled from the bed
then stood for the first time
then walked from the room.
I heard furniture legs scaping in the kitchen
I heard the clatter of utensil on pan
he returned with a tray
and he fed me grey mush
with a plastic spoon from an ABC bowl
played airplanes entering the hanger
wiped my chin with a cloth he had spat on
smiled and coo'd.
Took away the tray
made more clattering noises before
turning on the dishwasher
while humming 'piggy on the railway'.
I heard bathroom noises
and a lavatory flush
then the clat clat clat of the nodding dog
being taken for a walk accross linoleum.
Returning to the room freshly powdered
climbing onto the bed
looking down into my eyes
He then said:
If that is what grown up is Daddy
I'm in no great hurry to get there too fast
so don't you push me too hard and get better
And bend your knees when lifting me up.
I replied;
If this is what growing old is like
I'm in no great hurry to get there too fast
So don't push me too hard and I'll get better
At bending my knees when you are here
He lay down silently beside me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi4Hv7iqZCM
Monday, September 21, 2009
Romance
She was the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic
The first time I saw her I thought
She has been unlucky
She was the most beautiful girl in the clinic
The second time I saw her
that she had been careless
The most beautiful girl in the clinic
The third time
that she was promiscuous or worse
The girl in the clap clinic.
She was the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic
The fourth time I saw her
she was wearing a white coat
I thought
Stupid me, she is a doctor.
I approached her then and said
Doctor
You are the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic.
She replied:
I’m not a doctor
I’m unlucky
I’m careless
I’m promiscuous or worse.
But I feel that is about to change.
We left the clinic hand in hand
Separated by the thickness of a surgical glove.
Later, much later as we lay
Her head on my chest her hair in my face
the scent of hibiscrub filling the white room.
I said I love you
And she said don’t love me
I am unlucky
I an careless
I am promiscuous or worse
And nothing has changed.
The first time I saw her I thought
She has been unlucky
She was the most beautiful girl in the clinic
The second time I saw her
that she had been careless
The most beautiful girl in the clinic
The third time
that she was promiscuous or worse
The girl in the clap clinic.
She was the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic
The fourth time I saw her
she was wearing a white coat
I thought
Stupid me, she is a doctor.
I approached her then and said
Doctor
You are the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic.
She replied:
I’m not a doctor
I’m unlucky
I’m careless
I’m promiscuous or worse.
But I feel that is about to change.
We left the clinic hand in hand
Separated by the thickness of a surgical glove.
Later, much later as we lay
Her head on my chest her hair in my face
the scent of hibiscrub filling the white room.
I said I love you
And she said don’t love me
I am unlucky
I an careless
I am promiscuous or worse
And nothing has changed.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
SPIT!
Molly and John had been childhood sweethearts
Shared sodas at picnics
in the meadow by the Big Loving
as it snaked easily through the county.
Shared illicit beers beneath the bleachers
when she cut cheerleading and he cut track.
Shared moonlit skinny dips in the same old Big Loving
at the sand bar on the bend
where the turtles basked back in the day.
She had run naked laughing through poison ivy;
he had spat in his hand and rubbed it in the itching places.
Later she did not need the ivy to make the itch,
she had an itch of her own
and he rubbed his spit onto that itch
but that itch never completely went away.
Molly took that itch to New York.
John took his spit to LA.
Molly found music in the cafes at night,
revolution in the air.
‘New York City, imagine that’.
She wrote him - as she itched at a sidewalk café
– in an early westbound letter.
‘Yes I can imagine that’.
He had replied.
But he couldn’t.
So she itched in the city
closed her eyes to the viscous string of men
while he spat on the coast at a succession of starlets
who practiced the Stanislavski itch
tunelessly singing the Hollywood orgasm.
Fast forward…
The two of them came together again,
out of boredom most likely.
Boredom and guilt,
prompted on her part by the metronomic click of the clock,
on his part by the young guns on the boulevard
the fear that he was all spat out.
When they married the orange blossom was already dead.
The children when they arrived
trod the rotting petals into the floorboards
of their Chicago brownstone.
He made money; she spent it.
The American dream.
Molly sat on her itch for twenty years,
took a course in etching early on
never looked back and couldn’t look forward.
Her life etched itself into her face.
She got a part time job
filling condom machines at railway stations.
Twenty years of itching and etching on molly’s part
as she watched john occasionally drool diddle his secretary
(did he buy his condoms at the station?)
was enough.
Molly came to Spain
change of life,
change of continent,
change of tense.
for a week.
John had grudgingly agreed that she could take a vacation,
a break from the shattered life they now shared.
She would visit a friend in Toledo
maybe take in an El Greco or two.
On her last day of work prior to traveling
the itch had slipped a dozen condoms into her purse
then dragged her into Victoria’s Secret on the way home.
The flight was uneventful;
she sat between the two overweight boors
each airline is obliged to provide.
Marta met her at the airport.
The Spanish air crackled.
The bullfight was - to Marta - an odd choice
for an afternoon’s entertainment
but Molly had read Hemingway,
wanted to sit ringside
black beret scarlet lipped
as Eva Gardner had once done.
She had little experience of bloodshed save her own;
but blood in the afternoon held no fear.
Manolo arched his back,
flicked a disdainful cape
at the snorting bull
an ubiquitous sneer at the crowd,
stood in his black slippers
stained with blood and dust
hawked a glistening gob of spit
that sizzled as it hit the sun scorched clay.
The bull died bravely as bulls in such tales do.
The spit dried to a disc of mother of pearl
that shimmered against the blood red earth
as the bulls ear parted unhearing from the head;
arcing it’s way into the stands,
into the lap of Molly.
An unrecognizable Molly.
Molly lost, Molly found. Molly free, Molly bound.
‘Manolo.’
She whispered much later
when the sun had gone down
and the fiesta had dissolved itself
into the barrios and tourist hotels.
‘Manolo.’
I took up the dog eared copy of THE TIN DRUM.
It fell open at the chapter titled ‘fizz powder’
I read to her again of little Oskar
spitting into the navel of Maria.
Molly flew to Boston four days later
made her morning connection to Chicago
.....in good time.
The fire-fighter moved dazed
through the rubble of what had once been the World Trade Centre.
The dust was thick and acrid
he wished he had some kind of mask or respirator.
He hawked and spat into the debris at his feet,
onto a small black slipper.
A slipper stained with blood, dust and tears.
America.
Shared sodas at picnics
in the meadow by the Big Loving
as it snaked easily through the county.
Shared illicit beers beneath the bleachers
when she cut cheerleading and he cut track.
Shared moonlit skinny dips in the same old Big Loving
at the sand bar on the bend
where the turtles basked back in the day.
She had run naked laughing through poison ivy;
he had spat in his hand and rubbed it in the itching places.
Later she did not need the ivy to make the itch,
she had an itch of her own
and he rubbed his spit onto that itch
but that itch never completely went away.
Molly took that itch to New York.
John took his spit to LA.
Molly found music in the cafes at night,
revolution in the air.
‘New York City, imagine that’.
She wrote him - as she itched at a sidewalk café
– in an early westbound letter.
‘Yes I can imagine that’.
He had replied.
But he couldn’t.
So she itched in the city
closed her eyes to the viscous string of men
while he spat on the coast at a succession of starlets
who practiced the Stanislavski itch
tunelessly singing the Hollywood orgasm.
Fast forward…
The two of them came together again,
out of boredom most likely.
Boredom and guilt,
prompted on her part by the metronomic click of the clock,
on his part by the young guns on the boulevard
the fear that he was all spat out.
When they married the orange blossom was already dead.
The children when they arrived
trod the rotting petals into the floorboards
of their Chicago brownstone.
He made money; she spent it.
The American dream.
Molly sat on her itch for twenty years,
took a course in etching early on
never looked back and couldn’t look forward.
Her life etched itself into her face.
She got a part time job
filling condom machines at railway stations.
Twenty years of itching and etching on molly’s part
as she watched john occasionally drool diddle his secretary
(did he buy his condoms at the station?)
was enough.
Molly came to Spain
change of life,
change of continent,
change of tense.
for a week.
John had grudgingly agreed that she could take a vacation,
a break from the shattered life they now shared.
She would visit a friend in Toledo
maybe take in an El Greco or two.
On her last day of work prior to traveling
the itch had slipped a dozen condoms into her purse
then dragged her into Victoria’s Secret on the way home.
The flight was uneventful;
she sat between the two overweight boors
each airline is obliged to provide.
Marta met her at the airport.
The Spanish air crackled.
The bullfight was - to Marta - an odd choice
for an afternoon’s entertainment
but Molly had read Hemingway,
wanted to sit ringside
black beret scarlet lipped
as Eva Gardner had once done.
She had little experience of bloodshed save her own;
but blood in the afternoon held no fear.
Manolo arched his back,
flicked a disdainful cape
at the snorting bull
an ubiquitous sneer at the crowd,
stood in his black slippers
stained with blood and dust
hawked a glistening gob of spit
that sizzled as it hit the sun scorched clay.
The bull died bravely as bulls in such tales do.
The spit dried to a disc of mother of pearl
that shimmered against the blood red earth
as the bulls ear parted unhearing from the head;
arcing it’s way into the stands,
into the lap of Molly.
An unrecognizable Molly.
Molly lost, Molly found. Molly free, Molly bound.
‘Manolo.’
She whispered much later
when the sun had gone down
and the fiesta had dissolved itself
into the barrios and tourist hotels.
‘Manolo.’
I took up the dog eared copy of THE TIN DRUM.
It fell open at the chapter titled ‘fizz powder’
I read to her again of little Oskar
spitting into the navel of Maria.
Molly flew to Boston four days later
made her morning connection to Chicago
.....in good time.
The fire-fighter moved dazed
through the rubble of what had once been the World Trade Centre.
The dust was thick and acrid
he wished he had some kind of mask or respirator.
He hawked and spat into the debris at his feet,
onto a small black slipper.
A slipper stained with blood, dust and tears.
America.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
WHY THE MIDDLE CHILD?
When I was a child we had a goat
The goat was called Pumkin
We had a goat called Pumkin because my sister had eczema
And couldn’t have dairy products
One of my jobs was to milk that goat
So my sister could have goats milk
And avoid dairy products
And avoid the humiliation of the betnavate
She is cursed by the memory of betnavate
A storm tormented Shropshire that summer
Lashed about Pumkin’s shed
Thunder boomed, like Nabokov’s dinner gong, bronzily
Lightning lit up my fear
As I attempted to milk that damn goat
How I shudder still at the memory of those distended teats
How Pumkin shuddered with fear and with loathing
At my amateurish tugging of her dugs.
The milk squirting into the timid pail
And I thought why the middle boy
Why me
Surely we could just plug my sister onto those teats
And let her suckle Remus and Romulus like
And I imagine the unknown and unfabled
Older brother of those Italian twins
Who bravely milked the she wolves in their lairs
To feed his baby siblings from a bottle fashioned from bull horn and pigs bladder
And who vanished one night
The night that the twins were weaned from milk to meat
And tasted their first morsel of human flesh.
Flesh tenderized by lupine jaws in a darkly mountainside cave.
Lit occasionally by a flash of lightening and called to dinner
By Nabokov’s dinner gong.
The goat was called Pumkin
We had a goat called Pumkin because my sister had eczema
And couldn’t have dairy products
One of my jobs was to milk that goat
So my sister could have goats milk
And avoid dairy products
And avoid the humiliation of the betnavate
She is cursed by the memory of betnavate
A storm tormented Shropshire that summer
Lashed about Pumkin’s shed
Thunder boomed, like Nabokov’s dinner gong, bronzily
Lightning lit up my fear
As I attempted to milk that damn goat
How I shudder still at the memory of those distended teats
How Pumkin shuddered with fear and with loathing
At my amateurish tugging of her dugs.
The milk squirting into the timid pail
And I thought why the middle boy
Why me
Surely we could just plug my sister onto those teats
And let her suckle Remus and Romulus like
And I imagine the unknown and unfabled
Older brother of those Italian twins
Who bravely milked the she wolves in their lairs
To feed his baby siblings from a bottle fashioned from bull horn and pigs bladder
And who vanished one night
The night that the twins were weaned from milk to meat
And tasted their first morsel of human flesh.
Flesh tenderized by lupine jaws in a darkly mountainside cave.
Lit occasionally by a flash of lightening and called to dinner
By Nabokov’s dinner gong.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Knots in usage.
Rhys was in his sixties when I met him.
He had spent 42 years of his life in prison. He was not bitter towards the law or the police or the government.
He blamed his mother.
She failed to teach me the one thing that would keep me out of prison he told me.
He then proceeded to tell his curious tale.
When I was seventeen. He said. I was sitting on the bridge near our home in Tiger Bay. I was unrealistically fishing in the filthy, polluted river. There were no fish save brown fish. I was killing time.
One of my shoes slipped off; I had not tied the laces. It slipped off and into and under the chemical soup of a river. I took off my other shoe and threw it after the first in dismay. I set out to walk barefoot home.
In the high street was a rack of shoes outside a shoeshop. I surreptitiously took two shoes which appeared to be about my size. I put them on and ran. Sadly the shoes were both designed for a left foot and were two sizes too small and I had not tied the laces.
The police caught me easily in those crippling handicaps. I got four years in borstall for theft.
I blamed my mother.
When I came out of that place I tried my hand at armed robbery; crime seemed the only option, and I had learned a lot from my cell mates.
In the bank that I held up, (armed with my granddads army revolver, no bullets, I’m a pacifist. Or a coward. Or both.), the knot tying my mask came undone and I was exposed to the cameras. I got 18 years for that.
I blamed my mother.
12 years later (good behaviour has it’s rewards) I tried my hand at kidnapping. The ropes I had bound the child with came undone; she escaped and led the police back to my bedsit. I got 20 for that.
I blamed my mother.
In prison that time I attempted to hang myself… the knot came undone. I broke my ankle on the cells concrete floor.
I blamed my mother.
I have gone straight now, I joined the scouts; I am their oldest recruit, they have taught me what mother didn’t all those years ago. They have righted her wrong. They have taught me the one thing that would have kept me out of institutions, the one thing that could have changed my life.
They have taught me to tie my own shoelaces.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
The notting Hill Promise
They primp and preen like birds of paradise
mimic the sounds of endeavour and success
only to lead me to a bower
lined with tinfoil bindles
coloured straws
and bottle tops.
they talk of synopses and story boards
and wish upon a shooting script
sniff and blow into a napkin from e and o or the electric
they talk of diologue in monologue
they talk of accents gravely and acutely
and the real star is always 'ME'.
Their body of work buried under a drift of new blown snow.
A raddled would be rock chick
on hands and knees
in the ladies loo
hoovering up cocaine
from
a piss stained floor remarks:
'I despise you losers who have to work for a living'
as she mentally remortgages
daddies inheritance
to reinvest in her habit
and somewhere nearby
an imaginary cameraman smears
a pound of vaseline
on an already forgiving lens.
In the bars they tell me
'it will never happen
you are one of us
and we never succeed.'
And that woman
somewhere between the Priory and oblivion
quotes Raymond Carver and the things we talk about
when we talk about love
and I misinterpret self interest
for interest
in a real world that for her
no longer exists.
And i gently humiliate myself
through the floorboards of embarrasment
and then despair
and get drunk
and do a line
and join in, start the rotting process
'Material all' I tell myself
in that padded place called denial.
And my life has become nothing more than material
for my obituary.
mimic the sounds of endeavour and success
only to lead me to a bower
lined with tinfoil bindles
coloured straws
and bottle tops.
they talk of synopses and story boards
and wish upon a shooting script
sniff and blow into a napkin from e and o or the electric
they talk of diologue in monologue
they talk of accents gravely and acutely
and the real star is always 'ME'.
Their body of work buried under a drift of new blown snow.
A raddled would be rock chick
on hands and knees
in the ladies loo
hoovering up cocaine
from
a piss stained floor remarks:
'I despise you losers who have to work for a living'
as she mentally remortgages
daddies inheritance
to reinvest in her habit
and somewhere nearby
an imaginary cameraman smears
a pound of vaseline
on an already forgiving lens.
In the bars they tell me
'it will never happen
you are one of us
and we never succeed.'
And that woman
somewhere between the Priory and oblivion
quotes Raymond Carver and the things we talk about
when we talk about love
and I misinterpret self interest
for interest
in a real world that for her
no longer exists.
And i gently humiliate myself
through the floorboards of embarrasment
and then despair
and get drunk
and do a line
and join in, start the rotting process
'Material all' I tell myself
in that padded place called denial.
And my life has become nothing more than material
for my obituary.
After annie Liebovitz
After Annie Leibovitz
On the circle line I said
Let’s go to West Ruislip
Just because we can
And will you marry me?
Probably she said.
I will not ask her again
But just say
Let’s go to West Ruislip
Because we can.
On the circle line I said
Let’s go to West Ruislip
Just because we can
And will you marry me?
Probably she said.
I will not ask her again
But just say
Let’s go to West Ruislip
Because we can.
Portobello Road
Shabby chic houses
The street awash with the dirt and detritus of market
Lost shoppers dither in eddies
Tides of tourists sweep down from the underground culvert.
Under the gaze of the pike like traders eyes.
The steel drums talk in tongues half guessed at.
Shops I’ll never visit yawn
The odour of meat whimpers from the halal butchery
Serried rows of scarves that are my addiction
White tulips any season
Fish stall, fruit stall, household goods and more as
Young girls pan the retro clothing for nuggets of nostalgia
Vexed pleasurers in the shark filled Electric, A distillate of chagrin and shagreen.
Lovers floating down stream in their bubbles of bliss
In cafes women rabbit over their carrot cake
In bars men belligerate over their beers.
The street awash with the dirt and detritus of market
Lost shoppers dither in eddies
Tides of tourists sweep down from the underground culvert.
Under the gaze of the pike like traders eyes.
The steel drums talk in tongues half guessed at.
Shops I’ll never visit yawn
The odour of meat whimpers from the halal butchery
Serried rows of scarves that are my addiction
White tulips any season
Fish stall, fruit stall, household goods and more as
Young girls pan the retro clothing for nuggets of nostalgia
Vexed pleasurers in the shark filled Electric, A distillate of chagrin and shagreen.
Lovers floating down stream in their bubbles of bliss
In cafes women rabbit over their carrot cake
In bars men belligerate over their beers.
Art criticism
If we say it’s art, it’s art
Even if it ain’t
We have no preconceptions
Of canvases and paint
We don’t piss in our urinals
We don’t piss about at all
We’re so rich we don’t do much
In fact we do piss all.
We are the Brit art babies, we are the Britart pack
We only do cocaine now, we’ve given up on smack
We charge such stupid prices when half the world is broke
But we have to find the money to pay for all that coke.
If Jopling says it’s art, it’s art
Serota says hooray
Saatchi counts his money
While he discounts old Man Ray
What once was Dali’s lobster
Or Howard Hodgkin’s verve
Is now lost in a bucket of shit
The cunts have got a nerve.
We are the brit art babies…etc
Paul Simon said is Art in
Knocking on the door
Tracey said without a blink
Art don’t live here anymore
We are property developers
We are proper people now
Why don’t you try the stuckists?
Why don’t you fuck off… Ciao
We are the brit art babies…etc
Even if it ain’t
We have no preconceptions
Of canvases and paint
We don’t piss in our urinals
We don’t piss about at all
We’re so rich we don’t do much
In fact we do piss all.
We are the Brit art babies, we are the Britart pack
We only do cocaine now, we’ve given up on smack
We charge such stupid prices when half the world is broke
But we have to find the money to pay for all that coke.
If Jopling says it’s art, it’s art
Serota says hooray
Saatchi counts his money
While he discounts old Man Ray
What once was Dali’s lobster
Or Howard Hodgkin’s verve
Is now lost in a bucket of shit
The cunts have got a nerve.
We are the brit art babies…etc
Paul Simon said is Art in
Knocking on the door
Tracey said without a blink
Art don’t live here anymore
We are property developers
We are proper people now
Why don’t you try the stuckists?
Why don’t you fuck off… Ciao
We are the brit art babies…etc
Crime scene. For Madelaine McCann.
I know
I have seen pictures of the crime scene.
More wine?
How could they leave the children like that?
It’s so cheap. Yes they are so stylish
And they take their children everywhere, even to restaurants
I like to live like the locals
It’s fish baked in salt!
Mmmm the young ones are gorgeous
But they soon turn to fat
I wear different bikinis on alternate days
Your turn to check on the children
To avoid white lines
Loving them is easy when you are rich
I’m not fond of jelly fish
I don’t like to eat anything without a spine
Are they asleep?
More wine. You bet. I’m pissed.
Yes they are so stylish and they take their children everywhere
We like to live like the locals
They take their children everywhere
And they speak like three languages by the age of six
Help is an international word
Pepper with strawberries how strange
No you go darling I’m talking
Yes only five Euros in the market
Go on darling
More wine. You bet.
Yes they are so stylish and they take…
We feel like we belong
Fit in
Their children every where
That womans sunburn, the one with the kids, how uncouth.
Another bottle
Another bottle
The tennis pro is so hunky
No you go sweetie
I’m on holiday ha ha ha
We don’t have enough sex
Not since the twins
Goats’ cheese?
Amy Winehouse is a mess
Parents fault
More wine
They are so stylish and they take their children
Yes I’ve seen the photos
Everywhere
Of the crime scene
Even to restaurants
You go darling…
Christmas day
Christmas day in the cottage, Duncan was bleeding the toast
Granny was out in the potting shed insulting the family ghost
Mother sat in the kitchen sink basting the turkey with tears
Father was up on the window sill mending the socks with fears
Abby was under the table, the table was under the cat
The cat was under the watchful gaze of a slightly cornered rat
Fifi was high in the basement, weeping a lake of mince pies
The washing machine had gone for a cycle; the knees were hip to the thighs
The vicar arrived with a message from God, the message was coloured in Latin
My brothers and me mixed honey with glee to sweeten the chair that he sat in
The greens had all turned BNP the future had no new queen
The broccoli reeked of purple in a shroud-like pink shagreen
An alligator out in the hallway was weeping crocodile tears
While mopping the family bloodline with the absorbent parts of its ears
Penny was just a baby and did what babies do worst
Alistair alistaired over the shoulder of a pale and frightened nurse
I gave my mother some humbugs I whistled my father some bahs
They gave to me a pedigree and a serious interest in scars
The turkey tasted of ice cream the sprouts brutal as plums
All of us sitting on uncomfortable chairs under uncomfortable bums
The hats were hattily hatting the crackers were there for the crack
After lunch I went upstairs
And filled my veins with smack.
Granny was out in the potting shed insulting the family ghost
Mother sat in the kitchen sink basting the turkey with tears
Father was up on the window sill mending the socks with fears
Abby was under the table, the table was under the cat
The cat was under the watchful gaze of a slightly cornered rat
Fifi was high in the basement, weeping a lake of mince pies
The washing machine had gone for a cycle; the knees were hip to the thighs
The vicar arrived with a message from God, the message was coloured in Latin
My brothers and me mixed honey with glee to sweeten the chair that he sat in
The greens had all turned BNP the future had no new queen
The broccoli reeked of purple in a shroud-like pink shagreen
An alligator out in the hallway was weeping crocodile tears
While mopping the family bloodline with the absorbent parts of its ears
Penny was just a baby and did what babies do worst
Alistair alistaired over the shoulder of a pale and frightened nurse
I gave my mother some humbugs I whistled my father some bahs
They gave to me a pedigree and a serious interest in scars
The turkey tasted of ice cream the sprouts brutal as plums
All of us sitting on uncomfortable chairs under uncomfortable bums
The hats were hattily hatting the crackers were there for the crack
After lunch I went upstairs
And filled my veins with smack.
The fisherman
I’ve been trying to tell the story of the fisherman for years.
It’s a true story.
I know.
I was there.
I’d just got out of rehab, hitched back to my parents house in north Wales; a spooky journey ending in a mad drive in a police van; I had asked in a police station for a cell for the night; they were unable to lock me up but they could take me on a booze fuelled race through the night, Led Zeppelin squirting from the door panels, dropping me at my parent’s house.
Down on the killing floor.
My sister let me in, gave me a sofa for the night, told me to go with the morning sun on my back…
I hitchhiked south vowing to stop only when I reached the sea.
A photographer (I cannot remember his name. I later thanked him by having him do my wedding) gave me the final lift to Dartmouth, took me to a pub.
Introduced me to Pat who offered me a job on the condition that I could row.
I spent the night in a B&B, did a rowing test the following morning with Pat, got the job and got introduced to peter; owner of a Spanish schooner moored in the river, he gave me a berth for 5 pounds a week. I fucked a lot of girls on that bowsprit net.
Okay I’m settled.
This story is about Pat.
Every morning without fail Pat would leave his parents house and walk down to his boat on the quay, cast off, start his motor and look at the sky…and smile.
He would motor (I with him sometimes) the two miles up river to his fishing place. …….turn off the motor and drift into shore. Let the joy begin.
The morning tastes of oysters and samphire.
The water is still; like glass. He uses his oars for the last few yards, sip and plat as they turn the meaty water like spaded sods.
He beaches the boat dumps his motor on the foreshore and sets to work. I or someone like me would hold one end of a net while Pat would row like fuck out into the river trailing the net in a manic lazy arc bringing it back ashore some way downstream.
He drags his end of the net this way and, once met, we pull it in together. A few grey mullet, a sea trout or two but no salmon. Pat looks at the sky and smiles.
A fox quarters the shore. A heron waits. Eddies skitter across the water like war-wounds.
Pat does not under any circumstances want to catch a salmon.
If he catches one today he will naturally want to catch two tomorrow. He will become the victim of ambition (he might as well go up to London) so he is happy to catch none.
A fishing boat steams seaward…
The idiot, he caught one. The biggest fucking salmon you’ve ever seen… He rows back to town, sells his salmon to the fishmonger, goes home, packs his bag and leaves.
Becomes a pirate…another story.
It’s a true story.
I know.
I was there.
I’d just got out of rehab, hitched back to my parents house in north Wales; a spooky journey ending in a mad drive in a police van; I had asked in a police station for a cell for the night; they were unable to lock me up but they could take me on a booze fuelled race through the night, Led Zeppelin squirting from the door panels, dropping me at my parent’s house.
Down on the killing floor.
My sister let me in, gave me a sofa for the night, told me to go with the morning sun on my back…
I hitchhiked south vowing to stop only when I reached the sea.
A photographer (I cannot remember his name. I later thanked him by having him do my wedding) gave me the final lift to Dartmouth, took me to a pub.
Introduced me to Pat who offered me a job on the condition that I could row.
I spent the night in a B&B, did a rowing test the following morning with Pat, got the job and got introduced to peter; owner of a Spanish schooner moored in the river, he gave me a berth for 5 pounds a week. I fucked a lot of girls on that bowsprit net.
Okay I’m settled.
This story is about Pat.
Every morning without fail Pat would leave his parents house and walk down to his boat on the quay, cast off, start his motor and look at the sky…and smile.
He would motor (I with him sometimes) the two miles up river to his fishing place. …….turn off the motor and drift into shore. Let the joy begin.
The morning tastes of oysters and samphire.
The water is still; like glass. He uses his oars for the last few yards, sip and plat as they turn the meaty water like spaded sods.
He beaches the boat dumps his motor on the foreshore and sets to work. I or someone like me would hold one end of a net while Pat would row like fuck out into the river trailing the net in a manic lazy arc bringing it back ashore some way downstream.
He drags his end of the net this way and, once met, we pull it in together. A few grey mullet, a sea trout or two but no salmon. Pat looks at the sky and smiles.
A fox quarters the shore. A heron waits. Eddies skitter across the water like war-wounds.
Pat does not under any circumstances want to catch a salmon.
If he catches one today he will naturally want to catch two tomorrow. He will become the victim of ambition (he might as well go up to London) so he is happy to catch none.
A fishing boat steams seaward…
The idiot, he caught one. The biggest fucking salmon you’ve ever seen… He rows back to town, sells his salmon to the fishmonger, goes home, packs his bag and leaves.
Becomes a pirate…another story.
Stans song
I want to tell you about Charlie.
Diamond geezer Charlie, salt of the earth, my best mate
Do anything for me Charlie. And he did
I thought at first of making this an Haiku but I couldn’t keep it brief enough, not even when I was dying for a piss or writing standing up like Hemingway who always wrote standing up which kept his stuff to the point, terse even… He’d be dying to have a sit down but had to write something first so he kept it short and then he could have his sit down and perhaps stroke the cat that ate avocados in the Cuban sun.
Charlie is doing life now
In a way he gave his life for me
We are all doing life one way or another Charlie would say when I visited him
Except I’m doing it easier than most
The sonnet was another possibility but just that little bit too gay. Know what I mean. Not that I’m not in touch with my feminine side and all that, my inner woman is called Michelle and she is a fucking slut who wouldn’t know a sonnet if you shoved one up her jacksie.
Charlie is doing life for taking a life
I watched him take that life
And while he took it his eyes said:
Here’s your life back Stan
You are free
Free verse seemed apt… Freebird, I loved that song, still do, Lennerd Skynerd what a tragedy eh! Freebird, that’s a cracking oxymoron.
Charlie stabbed my nagging wife
In the heart with the butcher’s knife he called slick.
She was dissing me he said
Stan. Now you are free. He said
He wiped the blade as carefully as Shakespeare might have wiped his favourite quill then drove himself to Paddington green and put his hands up. Give me somewhere to stand and I will carry the weight of your world Stan, he once said... Archimedes was not lost on Charlie. But he often misquoted him.
Diamond geezer Charlie, salt of the earth, my best mate
Do anything for me Charlie…
And he did.
Diamond geezer Charlie, salt of the earth, my best mate
Do anything for me Charlie. And he did
I thought at first of making this an Haiku but I couldn’t keep it brief enough, not even when I was dying for a piss or writing standing up like Hemingway who always wrote standing up which kept his stuff to the point, terse even… He’d be dying to have a sit down but had to write something first so he kept it short and then he could have his sit down and perhaps stroke the cat that ate avocados in the Cuban sun.
Charlie is doing life now
In a way he gave his life for me
We are all doing life one way or another Charlie would say when I visited him
Except I’m doing it easier than most
The sonnet was another possibility but just that little bit too gay. Know what I mean. Not that I’m not in touch with my feminine side and all that, my inner woman is called Michelle and she is a fucking slut who wouldn’t know a sonnet if you shoved one up her jacksie.
Charlie is doing life for taking a life
I watched him take that life
And while he took it his eyes said:
Here’s your life back Stan
You are free
Free verse seemed apt… Freebird, I loved that song, still do, Lennerd Skynerd what a tragedy eh! Freebird, that’s a cracking oxymoron.
Charlie stabbed my nagging wife
In the heart with the butcher’s knife he called slick.
She was dissing me he said
Stan. Now you are free. He said
He wiped the blade as carefully as Shakespeare might have wiped his favourite quill then drove himself to Paddington green and put his hands up. Give me somewhere to stand and I will carry the weight of your world Stan, he once said... Archimedes was not lost on Charlie. But he often misquoted him.
Diamond geezer Charlie, salt of the earth, my best mate
Do anything for me Charlie…
And he did.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Rowing home to a schooner in the river Dart at dawn
Fat lazy salty whore
Rolls brassily into the river’s gob.
Under a counterpane of mist
A blanket of oak cloaks the valley
Down to limpet-acned rocks
Teased… by the lardy tarts petticoats.
On, in, the swell diminishes to lap.
Fox and otter quarter the shore
Working boats steam seaward
Gulls dogging ploughed wakes.
Sip and plat of the oars
As they turn the meaty water like spaded sods.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The ten words
Many many years ago a child was born profoundly blind. His childhood and youth was spent deep in thought until he had discovered the secret to true happiness. At about the time of his discovery Braille was invented. He spent his early 20’s mastering the language of dots until at last he was able to write down his ten words.
The ten words however only made sense to those people who were also born profoundly blind. The power of the ten words was such that no-one who understood them would ever pass them on to a seeing person. It was subliminally written into the text/Braille that the secret remained with those who lived in the perpetual enlightenment that was blindness.
Many men tried to coerce blind men into reading and passing on the secret. No blind man ever succumbed to the temptation. Other men plucked out their own eyes and learnt Braille in the hope that they would learn the secret; a pointless exercise as pre-natal blindness was essential. Even a child, blinded at birth was excluded; for the sight of the red glow of sunlight through the womb was enough to exclude the knowledge.
Those ten words are in the form of a Haiku.
They are known to few men.
Those men ain’t telling.
I intend to find out what they are and thereby attain true happiness.
The ten words however only made sense to those people who were also born profoundly blind. The power of the ten words was such that no-one who understood them would ever pass them on to a seeing person. It was subliminally written into the text/Braille that the secret remained with those who lived in the perpetual enlightenment that was blindness.
Many men tried to coerce blind men into reading and passing on the secret. No blind man ever succumbed to the temptation. Other men plucked out their own eyes and learnt Braille in the hope that they would learn the secret; a pointless exercise as pre-natal blindness was essential. Even a child, blinded at birth was excluded; for the sight of the red glow of sunlight through the womb was enough to exclude the knowledge.
Those ten words are in the form of a Haiku.
They are known to few men.
Those men ain’t telling.
I intend to find out what they are and thereby attain true happiness.
The tooth fairy
Whether his alcohol problem was caused or exacerbated by his illiteracy is unclear but his social worker decided that a remedial literacy class would be just the thing to help him.
The first book attempted at his class was titled the tooth fairy, the content was a touch twee but the words used weren’t too difficult and the illustrations colourful. Having been brought up in institutions he had no concept of the tooth fairy and was therefore intrigued.
He was troubled by the word ‘shilling’ and asked for clarity, on being told it was a small coin from long ago he asked what the fairies going rate for a tooth was these days. His teacher said that she did not know precisely but thought it was somewhere in the region of two pounds.
On his way home he practiced his mental arithmetic.
He failed to turn up at the following weeks literacy class.
He missed an AA meeting.
He failed to attend a psychotherapy session.
He had no friends so could not be missed anywhere else.
His neighbour alerted the social services when the smell emanating from his bed-sit became intolerable.
He was found by the police and paramedics lying in a mass of his own blood on his filthy bed. On the floor was a bloodied pair of pliers. As they lifted the body onto a stretcher, the pillow, glued to his head with congealed blood, came with him.
Where the pillow had lain was a pile of mutilated teeth and a piece of paper torn from a children’s book. On one side was printed “The Tooth Fairy’. On the reverse was a child like note written in pencil. It said:
Deer tooth fary. Sory to trubel you but cud you bring vodka instead of muny. I have 23 teeth wich make 46 pounds. Enuf for 3 botels I hope.
Stan.
The first book attempted at his class was titled the tooth fairy, the content was a touch twee but the words used weren’t too difficult and the illustrations colourful. Having been brought up in institutions he had no concept of the tooth fairy and was therefore intrigued.
He was troubled by the word ‘shilling’ and asked for clarity, on being told it was a small coin from long ago he asked what the fairies going rate for a tooth was these days. His teacher said that she did not know precisely but thought it was somewhere in the region of two pounds.
On his way home he practiced his mental arithmetic.
He failed to turn up at the following weeks literacy class.
He missed an AA meeting.
He failed to attend a psychotherapy session.
He had no friends so could not be missed anywhere else.
His neighbour alerted the social services when the smell emanating from his bed-sit became intolerable.
He was found by the police and paramedics lying in a mass of his own blood on his filthy bed. On the floor was a bloodied pair of pliers. As they lifted the body onto a stretcher, the pillow, glued to his head with congealed blood, came with him.
Where the pillow had lain was a pile of mutilated teeth and a piece of paper torn from a children’s book. On one side was printed “The Tooth Fairy’. On the reverse was a child like note written in pencil. It said:
Deer tooth fary. Sory to trubel you but cud you bring vodka instead of muny. I have 23 teeth wich make 46 pounds. Enuf for 3 botels I hope.
Stan.
A confession
I hated that cat
Since it tried to steal my breath
It sat on my cot bound chest and inhaled
I told my parents in infant noises
But they ignored me
I made fur-balls
With hair stolen from my mummy’s hairbrush mixed with spit
Planted them in her tea
And daddies porridge
And the babies milk
I laid the blame on the cat as it lay blameless
I combed wounded hedgehogs for fleas to infest the house
I raked the goldfish with sharpened stickle bricks
I whittled my shit into cat-poo shapes
Loaded his boots, her shoes, the handles of luggage
I planted cat shit in the places they courted
And behind the place that they crapped
Yes I suffocated the new baby with a pillow then
Scattered cat hairs in the cot
Purring...
Since it tried to steal my breath
It sat on my cot bound chest and inhaled
I told my parents in infant noises
But they ignored me
I made fur-balls
With hair stolen from my mummy’s hairbrush mixed with spit
Planted them in her tea
And daddies porridge
And the babies milk
I laid the blame on the cat as it lay blameless
I combed wounded hedgehogs for fleas to infest the house
I raked the goldfish with sharpened stickle bricks
I whittled my shit into cat-poo shapes
Loaded his boots, her shoes, the handles of luggage
I planted cat shit in the places they courted
And behind the place that they crapped
Yes I suffocated the new baby with a pillow then
Scattered cat hairs in the cot
Purring...
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The Blackbird prince
Molly liked to save money.
That is all I can remember of her. If you asked me what she looked like I could only reply that she looked like she liked to save money. The same applied to her smell and her sounds.
Molly wanted to be seen as a kind woman; she liked to give gifts to her friends… The problem was that she didn’t like buying them. As she liked to save money she needed to find some-one else to buy them. This person was invariably called her boyfriend. I’m using the word boyfriend as a collective noun here… She had a boyfriend of short term relationships. The boyfriends soon left her out of despair, out of horror and always out of pocket
One afternoon, alone scrimping, she spotted an ad on the internet offering a free cake (she borrowed her broadband from neighbours).
She put on her nice thrift shop dress and set out to drive the 20 miles or so to the free cake, she stopped at the garage to put petrol in. She bought a bounty bar (her one luxury) and worming tablets on impulse.
She picked up the cake, thanked the woman kindly and drove home.
At home she put the kettle on then made tea, put out a plate and a knife, sat down and looked at the cake. Before unwrapping it she read the words ‘may contain nuts’ on the label. She sighed and put away the plate and knife.
She eyed the birds in the garden.
Reaching up to scatter morsels of cake on the bird table a blackbird landed on her forearm.
Hello little chap. She said.
Hello! Said the blackbird… and less of the little chap please. I am in fact a prince, a very honest, generous prince, who has been put under this ghastly spell by a wicked witch, only my mother knows why and she isn’t telling. The only way I can change back is by receiving a voluntary kiss from a virgin.
Susie thought about this and decided to kiss him anyway… He's a prince she thought, not a gynaecologist.
There was a puff of smoke and instantly she was transformed in to a black bird.
She was startled for a moment then hopping up to the bird table, thought: Oh well, at least I can eat the cake!
The blackbird prince put a wing around her shoulder and said: This cake is all very well but what I really need is some worms… Look at that dog over there, I bet it is full of worms, if only we could get at them.
Susie looked down at the thrift shop dress on the grass, the bounty bar and worming tablet packet fallen from the pocket and said:
I have an idea.
That is all I can remember of her. If you asked me what she looked like I could only reply that she looked like she liked to save money. The same applied to her smell and her sounds.
Molly wanted to be seen as a kind woman; she liked to give gifts to her friends… The problem was that she didn’t like buying them. As she liked to save money she needed to find some-one else to buy them. This person was invariably called her boyfriend. I’m using the word boyfriend as a collective noun here… She had a boyfriend of short term relationships. The boyfriends soon left her out of despair, out of horror and always out of pocket
One afternoon, alone scrimping, she spotted an ad on the internet offering a free cake (she borrowed her broadband from neighbours).
She put on her nice thrift shop dress and set out to drive the 20 miles or so to the free cake, she stopped at the garage to put petrol in. She bought a bounty bar (her one luxury) and worming tablets on impulse.
She picked up the cake, thanked the woman kindly and drove home.
At home she put the kettle on then made tea, put out a plate and a knife, sat down and looked at the cake. Before unwrapping it she read the words ‘may contain nuts’ on the label. She sighed and put away the plate and knife.
She eyed the birds in the garden.
Reaching up to scatter morsels of cake on the bird table a blackbird landed on her forearm.
Hello little chap. She said.
Hello! Said the blackbird… and less of the little chap please. I am in fact a prince, a very honest, generous prince, who has been put under this ghastly spell by a wicked witch, only my mother knows why and she isn’t telling. The only way I can change back is by receiving a voluntary kiss from a virgin.
Susie thought about this and decided to kiss him anyway… He's a prince she thought, not a gynaecologist.
There was a puff of smoke and instantly she was transformed in to a black bird.
She was startled for a moment then hopping up to the bird table, thought: Oh well, at least I can eat the cake!
The blackbird prince put a wing around her shoulder and said: This cake is all very well but what I really need is some worms… Look at that dog over there, I bet it is full of worms, if only we could get at them.
Susie looked down at the thrift shop dress on the grass, the bounty bar and worming tablet packet fallen from the pocket and said:
I have an idea.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Arc of a diver
I am aware that I am being most horribly punished for my actions and there is nothing I can do because I have already gone too far. This is unequivocal.
My assumption was; when my life flashed through my minds eye as I fell to my death, that it would contain itself to my past!
Such is the speed at which the human brain can work when pressed that I am allowed the luxury of this consideration as I watch both the wall of the multistory slip by and my future (or what future I would have had, had I not decided to take this final action) flash forward.
So now I know! For one nano-second I am enlightened and it has taken my own snuffing of the candle to illuminate me; what a paradox and surely one that only people such as me have ever been aware of… For if one dies a natural death at the moment specified in our timelines there would be no future life left to taunt us!
In this split second as I plummet headlong to the concrete below I am allowed the horror of seeing the Cancer misdiagnosed and good health regained. I witness the love and patience of my wife as she supports me through the trials of becoming successful as an artist, as she bears me a beautiful daughter who burgeons into an even more beautiful woman who brings two delightful grandchildren into my no longer possible life. I witness the retrospective at the Tate and the accolades that that itself would bring. I kneel before the King and humbly accept my Knighthood. I die peacefully at home, aged 92, surrounded by the people I would have loved!
It occurs to me that my punishment, though harsh, ends now.
My assumption was; when my life flashed through my minds eye as I fell to my death, that it would contain itself to my past!
Such is the speed at which the human brain can work when pressed that I am allowed the luxury of this consideration as I watch both the wall of the multistory slip by and my future (or what future I would have had, had I not decided to take this final action) flash forward.
So now I know! For one nano-second I am enlightened and it has taken my own snuffing of the candle to illuminate me; what a paradox and surely one that only people such as me have ever been aware of… For if one dies a natural death at the moment specified in our timelines there would be no future life left to taunt us!
In this split second as I plummet headlong to the concrete below I am allowed the horror of seeing the Cancer misdiagnosed and good health regained. I witness the love and patience of my wife as she supports me through the trials of becoming successful as an artist, as she bears me a beautiful daughter who burgeons into an even more beautiful woman who brings two delightful grandchildren into my no longer possible life. I witness the retrospective at the Tate and the accolades that that itself would bring. I kneel before the King and humbly accept my Knighthood. I die peacefully at home, aged 92, surrounded by the people I would have loved!
It occurs to me that my punishment, though harsh, ends now.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Smell
He loved the smell of her neck, could spend hours kissing her there along the line where her hair started and then down her spine or across her shoulders and over the tattoo of a rose that he made her have to cover the one that said ‘Jake’ and 4EVER but it wasn’t forever and it never is forever.
And it isn’t forever she says as she leaves him, I lied she says as she leaves him, someone else is smelling me now as she leaves him.
He consoles himself with breakfast at the brasserie; coffee, croissants and apricot confiture. A glob of jam falls from the spoon onto the back of his hand, he licks it off. then smelling her he put his hand up to his nose and inhales and she is there but she isn’t there and it is him and it was him he loved all along; the smell of his own saliva…
And it isn’t forever she says as she leaves him, I lied she says as she leaves him, someone else is smelling me now as she leaves him.
He consoles himself with breakfast at the brasserie; coffee, croissants and apricot confiture. A glob of jam falls from the spoon onto the back of his hand, he licks it off. then smelling her he put his hand up to his nose and inhales and she is there but she isn’t there and it is him and it was him he loved all along; the smell of his own saliva…
Scouting for girls
I was rooting around in the library
A swine truffling for pearls
When I found a gem in the leaf-mould
It was “practical scouting for girls’.
The girl on the cover was dated
The dust jacket tatty and tired
She looked from the book in a way to convey
That she knew the I want she inspired.
I knew at once I must find her
For her freshness, her woggle, her curls
And I had just the thing that would help me
It was ‘practical scouting for girls’.
I read it from cover to cover
I learnt how to put up a tent
I learnt how to stop a runaway horse
And what establishment meant.
I read a lot about skipping
Then skipped the chapter on verse
The knitting bit had me in stitches
I am now a competent nurse.
I never did find my scout girl
Her freshness her woggle her curls
But woo'd and won the librarian
Helped by practical scouting for girls
A swine truffling for pearls
When I found a gem in the leaf-mould
It was “practical scouting for girls’.
The girl on the cover was dated
The dust jacket tatty and tired
She looked from the book in a way to convey
That she knew the I want she inspired.
I knew at once I must find her
For her freshness, her woggle, her curls
And I had just the thing that would help me
It was ‘practical scouting for girls’.
I read it from cover to cover
I learnt how to put up a tent
I learnt how to stop a runaway horse
And what establishment meant.
I read a lot about skipping
Then skipped the chapter on verse
The knitting bit had me in stitches
I am now a competent nurse.
I never did find my scout girl
Her freshness her woggle her curls
But woo'd and won the librarian
Helped by practical scouting for girls
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Memory
Memory will go; this is what life is about, the future relies on the past and the past relies on memory and as memory diminishes so the future becomes less…less what, I’ve forgotten.
How I got to Judy’s house I cannot remember. I was 18 and fucked on amphetamines dope and alcohol and looking for a bed. I turned up with a bottle of scotch and a hold- all.
She had a terraced house, a husband in prison, a young daughter and a drawer full of drugs. Oh! Yeah she had rats in an aquarium. We drank the whiskey, tried many sorts of her dope and some of her liquid LSD and laughed a lot and laughed a lot more and then she showed me the stairs to my room before showing me her bed: she said you can go up there or stay down here…I was 18, fucked on amphetamines, dope, alcohol, LSD, the pheromones of a middle aged woman and the scent of fear from caged rats. I chose her bed. Less steps to climb. We eventually sublet my room.
We sublet my room to a fat single mother whose baby I often mistook for a pig whilst melting into the soft furnishings on paranoid trips.
For a lot of that time I did not know whether I was toothpaste or cornice moldings or both.
Judy had admirers who would come round and cook her crap meals without knowing that we were shagging in the downstairs loo and laughing and then laughing about that. 35 years later I can remember the crap meals but I cannot remember the fucks. I cannot remember what colour the loo was painted, I cannot remember Judy.
Judy tried to kill me.
I don’t blame her.
She had a Mini clubman, green, British racing green. Fuck... I had to go. The husband was coming out of prison. I could not (would not) fight. We went for a picnic on cleeve hill as some sort of goodbye thing. The child Rosie was with us as we lay under the elephant trees and talked of what might be or might have been. The beech trees were monstrous with bark like grannies elbows and she told me she loved me through a gap in her teeth. I was closer to her daughter’s age than hers.
I went into the woods for a piss, as I stood micturating against a tree I sensed something and ducked; a sock full of nuts bolts nails and screws clouted into the tree just where my head should have been. I managed to wrestle the weapon from Judy’s grasp and force her to the ground. Needless to say she was loud.
Subdued she seemed pleased to miss. I asked her what she had intended and she told me that she wanted to kill me and then write obscenities over my body… She opened her bag, it was full of lipsticks… I cannot remember how this ended. It is true but I cannot remember… I’m alive so she didn’t kill me.
She said she didn’t want me to leave her.
Her husband had been imprisoned for stealing among other things underwear from washing lines. When he was arrested he was wearing it. He had curly blonde hair and a heroin habit. It was 1973 and David Bowie said everything was possible. But I didn’t think a ménage a trios with a middle aged mum and a cross dressing junkie was anything like probable let alone possible.
Judy is 70 now…
How I got to Judy’s house I cannot remember. I was 18 and fucked on amphetamines dope and alcohol and looking for a bed. I turned up with a bottle of scotch and a hold- all.
She had a terraced house, a husband in prison, a young daughter and a drawer full of drugs. Oh! Yeah she had rats in an aquarium. We drank the whiskey, tried many sorts of her dope and some of her liquid LSD and laughed a lot and laughed a lot more and then she showed me the stairs to my room before showing me her bed: she said you can go up there or stay down here…I was 18, fucked on amphetamines, dope, alcohol, LSD, the pheromones of a middle aged woman and the scent of fear from caged rats. I chose her bed. Less steps to climb. We eventually sublet my room.
We sublet my room to a fat single mother whose baby I often mistook for a pig whilst melting into the soft furnishings on paranoid trips.
For a lot of that time I did not know whether I was toothpaste or cornice moldings or both.
Judy had admirers who would come round and cook her crap meals without knowing that we were shagging in the downstairs loo and laughing and then laughing about that. 35 years later I can remember the crap meals but I cannot remember the fucks. I cannot remember what colour the loo was painted, I cannot remember Judy.
Judy tried to kill me.
I don’t blame her.
She had a Mini clubman, green, British racing green. Fuck... I had to go. The husband was coming out of prison. I could not (would not) fight. We went for a picnic on cleeve hill as some sort of goodbye thing. The child Rosie was with us as we lay under the elephant trees and talked of what might be or might have been. The beech trees were monstrous with bark like grannies elbows and she told me she loved me through a gap in her teeth. I was closer to her daughter’s age than hers.
I went into the woods for a piss, as I stood micturating against a tree I sensed something and ducked; a sock full of nuts bolts nails and screws clouted into the tree just where my head should have been. I managed to wrestle the weapon from Judy’s grasp and force her to the ground. Needless to say she was loud.
Subdued she seemed pleased to miss. I asked her what she had intended and she told me that she wanted to kill me and then write obscenities over my body… She opened her bag, it was full of lipsticks… I cannot remember how this ended. It is true but I cannot remember… I’m alive so she didn’t kill me.
She said she didn’t want me to leave her.
Her husband had been imprisoned for stealing among other things underwear from washing lines. When he was arrested he was wearing it. He had curly blonde hair and a heroin habit. It was 1973 and David Bowie said everything was possible. But I didn’t think a ménage a trios with a middle aged mum and a cross dressing junkie was anything like probable let alone possible.
Judy is 70 now…
The tree of life
Silas was fifteen when his father took him into the forest to give him his tree.
Silas’s father Dan was a woodsman as had been generations of the family before him, each steeped in the lore of the woods and the passing of the seasons. Silas was known in the village as Silas the wise for he had been the first in their little community to receive schooling, he had book-learning and was therefore governed by a greater knowledge and worldly things.
Dan led his son to the clearing in the middle of which stood a giant oak, perhaps the largest in all of Wessex, a tree that had been passed down from generation to generation until finally it was felt that Silas was the son to do best with and by the mighty oak.
‘This is your tree Silas’. Said Dan, in a reverential tone. ‘Manage it well and it will last you a lifetime.
For the next few days Silas fashioned a hut on the edge of the clearing and ferried his meagre belongings from his parent’s cottage.
On the fifth day he set about his tree. Taking his saw he climbed to the first of many elephantine limbs, sat astraddle and began to saw! It took him a day and a half to cut through that branch and as he had been working with the saw between himself and the tree, when the branch fell he fell with it. Breaking his left arm in the process.
After having his arm set by the village doctor Silas spent the next six weeks recovering, spending his time chopping up the smaller branches with his right hand by day and acquiring more knowledge and wisdom from his books by candlelight at night.
When his plaster was removed Silas trimmed the fallen branch, sold the main baulk to the wood dealer and stacked the smaller stuff in his charcoal clamp. He then set about the second mighty branch!
When the second branch fell it broke both a leg and his right wrist in the process.
The third branch re-broke the left arm and his collar bone.
The fourth branch broke his pelvis. During each convalescence he returned to his books and his thirst for wisdom.
After the broken pelvis the curious doctor visited Silas at his clearing and when he saw and heard how the boy had broken so many bones he offered the benefit of his wisdom and suggested Silas cut the whole bloody tree down before he lopped off the branches.
After the doctor had left Silas sharpened his saw and set about chopping down that fabulous tree which in the process of falling killed him stone dead.
When his father arrived having been summoned by Gustav the poacher, he stood sucking his teeth. Finally he looked at his son’s broken body and then at the fallen oak.
‘I was right’ He said. I told him it would last him his lifetime!
Silas’s father Dan was a woodsman as had been generations of the family before him, each steeped in the lore of the woods and the passing of the seasons. Silas was known in the village as Silas the wise for he had been the first in their little community to receive schooling, he had book-learning and was therefore governed by a greater knowledge and worldly things.
Dan led his son to the clearing in the middle of which stood a giant oak, perhaps the largest in all of Wessex, a tree that had been passed down from generation to generation until finally it was felt that Silas was the son to do best with and by the mighty oak.
‘This is your tree Silas’. Said Dan, in a reverential tone. ‘Manage it well and it will last you a lifetime.
For the next few days Silas fashioned a hut on the edge of the clearing and ferried his meagre belongings from his parent’s cottage.
On the fifth day he set about his tree. Taking his saw he climbed to the first of many elephantine limbs, sat astraddle and began to saw! It took him a day and a half to cut through that branch and as he had been working with the saw between himself and the tree, when the branch fell he fell with it. Breaking his left arm in the process.
After having his arm set by the village doctor Silas spent the next six weeks recovering, spending his time chopping up the smaller branches with his right hand by day and acquiring more knowledge and wisdom from his books by candlelight at night.
When his plaster was removed Silas trimmed the fallen branch, sold the main baulk to the wood dealer and stacked the smaller stuff in his charcoal clamp. He then set about the second mighty branch!
When the second branch fell it broke both a leg and his right wrist in the process.
The third branch re-broke the left arm and his collar bone.
The fourth branch broke his pelvis. During each convalescence he returned to his books and his thirst for wisdom.
After the broken pelvis the curious doctor visited Silas at his clearing and when he saw and heard how the boy had broken so many bones he offered the benefit of his wisdom and suggested Silas cut the whole bloody tree down before he lopped off the branches.
After the doctor had left Silas sharpened his saw and set about chopping down that fabulous tree which in the process of falling killed him stone dead.
When his father arrived having been summoned by Gustav the poacher, he stood sucking his teeth. Finally he looked at his son’s broken body and then at the fallen oak.
‘I was right’ He said. I told him it would last him his lifetime!
The obsidian eye
There’s a guy who drinks in my local, Old guy, in his 80’s I guess, small and wiry, looks honest and hard working and always dapper in his black suit, white shirt and black tie, as if always waiting for a funeral or just come back from one.
The only odd thing about him is his eyes; he has one piercing blue eye and one dark brown, almost black. The dark eye is glass and ill fitting.
Last week I plucked up some courage and bought him a pint, sat down at his table, looked into the good eye and asked about the other one.
He started to talk without hesitation and with great passion.
In 1947 he said In 1947 I was demobbed and me and 3 mates went to Butlins for a week down Southend, we shared a chalet, all them chalets look alike and on the second night I got so pissed I went back to the wrong one didn’t I. I crept in in the dark so as not to wake the others, undressed and climbed into the bottom bunk and fell asleep. I woke meself up with a coughing fit and in doing so startled the girl who was sleeping in the upper bunk.
She mumbled something like she had a mouth full of pebbles and a moment later demanded “who’s that?’
I didn’t know then but I know now that she had a glass eye and she kept it in her mouth at night when she slept so as not to lose it and to keep it moist. She had popped it back into the socket, wet with spit, before demanding who I was.
I was pretty surprised to hear a girls voice from the bunk where me mate was supposed to be so I leaned out and looked up, as I looked up she looked down and her glass eye fell from its socket.
Our eyes met!
Fuck I said you’ve poked me fucking eye out, well you should have caught mine she said and what the bleeding hell are you doing in my chalet?
She sat with me in the doctor’s office as he scooped out my busted eye with a spoon and replaced it with a marble as a temporary measure. Six weeks later I had a brand new glass eye and a beautiful new wife. We were together for 60 years Trish and me. I buried her six weeks ago.
Before the funeral. He went on. Before the funeral I went to see her one last time.
In her box she looked as beautiful as when I first set eyes on her. A mad idea came into me head and I gently eased her glass eye out with me thumb and replaced it with me own. I put her eye into me head before closing her eyelids. I wanted part of me to go with her you see and I wanted part of her to stay with me.
This brown un was hers, beautiful colour ain’t it. Obsidian the poets call it.
The funny thing is, he said with a chuckle, the funny thing is she was such a beautiful woman people used to say to me. Stan, ugly little runt like you, how the fuck did you catch her eye in the first place and I’d say back with a twinkle in me good un, it’s more of a case of how I didn’t catch her eye what did the trick.
The secrets of magic
Things started getting out of hand when the dog got run down in the street out side our window. She had watched it happen and when I got in from work she was standing there in tears. I held her for a while then took her to bed.
I’d first seen her in Stanley Park one afternoon when a bunch of us were sitting around with guitars, playing whatever came into our heads and generally fooling about. A number of kids had congregated to catch the mood and catch the sun, she sat away from the others under the shade of a tree; long thick hair the color of new pennies burning against almost white skin. She wore a green summer dress and red Converse.
I knew she was there but not really there until Gus came along in a daze, stood among us and announced Kurt Cobain was dead. For real! Shot himself in the head and was dead! I looked at her then, alone under that tree; tears running black from her eyeliner. I told myself she needed comfort only really it was me who needed her. So I went to her and held her. She sobbed into my white t-shirt.
We practically stayed like that for the rest of the day, talking about Kurt and singing his songs. Then somebody played ‘In Memory of a Free Festival’ on his boom box and after that the only thing to do was go home or someplace else.
She came back to my place.
We ate pizza and listened to Nirvana CD’s while she cried some more. She laughed when I told her she looked like a clown with her make-up running. We kissed before she left me knowing I would see her again.
Soon we were living together and making plans. Sex wasn’t that great but I put that down to anything I could think of except the truth. I wasn’t going anywhere near the truth back then.
After the dog I started to find more ways to make her cry so I could comfort her. During the day I would make up sad stories to tell her at night. And I would buy her eyeliner and mascara, the cheap stuff that ran, and encourage her to use it.
But I should never have told her about the clown.
.
They found her on the sidewalk, crumpled and broken, except for her face, which, undamaged by the 30 foot fall from the window, she’d made up like a clown’s. Bright red mouth – I’d never known her to wear lipstick - and thick black weep lines running from her eyes. She had cropped her hair. Gelled it so it stood up like a fright wig.
Just like Bepo the clown who at my 8th birthday party led me into the cellar to show me the secrets of magic.
I’d first seen her in Stanley Park one afternoon when a bunch of us were sitting around with guitars, playing whatever came into our heads and generally fooling about. A number of kids had congregated to catch the mood and catch the sun, she sat away from the others under the shade of a tree; long thick hair the color of new pennies burning against almost white skin. She wore a green summer dress and red Converse.
I knew she was there but not really there until Gus came along in a daze, stood among us and announced Kurt Cobain was dead. For real! Shot himself in the head and was dead! I looked at her then, alone under that tree; tears running black from her eyeliner. I told myself she needed comfort only really it was me who needed her. So I went to her and held her. She sobbed into my white t-shirt.
We practically stayed like that for the rest of the day, talking about Kurt and singing his songs. Then somebody played ‘In Memory of a Free Festival’ on his boom box and after that the only thing to do was go home or someplace else.
She came back to my place.
We ate pizza and listened to Nirvana CD’s while she cried some more. She laughed when I told her she looked like a clown with her make-up running. We kissed before she left me knowing I would see her again.
Soon we were living together and making plans. Sex wasn’t that great but I put that down to anything I could think of except the truth. I wasn’t going anywhere near the truth back then.
After the dog I started to find more ways to make her cry so I could comfort her. During the day I would make up sad stories to tell her at night. And I would buy her eyeliner and mascara, the cheap stuff that ran, and encourage her to use it.
But I should never have told her about the clown.
.
They found her on the sidewalk, crumpled and broken, except for her face, which, undamaged by the 30 foot fall from the window, she’d made up like a clown’s. Bright red mouth – I’d never known her to wear lipstick - and thick black weep lines running from her eyes. She had cropped her hair. Gelled it so it stood up like a fright wig.
Just like Bepo the clown who at my 8th birthday party led me into the cellar to show me the secrets of magic.
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