Saturday, September 17, 2011

Stalked and poetry.


Stalked and poetry.

Stalked
I am being stalked by the coolhunter
How cool is that

She is good
she frightens death
and chills out hell

She can stalk in high summer 
without working up a sweat
she can stalk on the ice pack
invisibly
while casually clubbing seal cubs

She can stalk you at truck stops
or at Soho house
she is just too cool to be noticed.

Except by Phil Spector



And she dealt with him.




Poetry defined.

A friend calls from canada and asks: '
What are you doing?'
and I say I am drinking milk and reading Bukowski
and she laughs and it is that laugh, 
you know, 
the laugh of someone you really like
and straight away you want to make her laugh again
not to make her happy so much
as to make her laugh again
so you can listen to it.

And when she hangs up I think of poetry
and what defines poetry
It is not as if writing a shopping list of metaphors is enough
to make a poem!

Monday, September 12, 2011

On Haiku.


On Haiku.

It is sad that it has come to this
that I must count syllables
when I would have counted
the ways that I loved you

the ways that I loved you
before you demanded a haiku
you said life was too short
for anything more than three lines.

Write a poem you said
write it in our autumn mists
I'm leaving you now.

The carpenters tale.



(With apologies to Lennon and McCartney)

She sat opposite me and said:
You are seeing someone else
you don't love me any-more
you are never here
you are always distant now.

I sat opposite her and said:
Sometimes a piece of wood sings to me
I found a piece of singing wood six weeks ago
it sang of your beauty and grace
it sang of my love for you
it sang of our happiness.
Since then I have spent every waking hour
working with that wood
making you a table
I built into it your beauty, your grace
I built into it my love for you
I built into it our happiness.
That is why I have not been here
that is why I have appeared distant.

I then brought the table to her... There!

She said:
You do not love me any-more
You are seeing someone else.

That table is in the fucking Ikea catalogue... Sixty quid.

She left me then.
I lit a fire
Isn't it good. Norwegian wood.

Forgotten things found.


The farmer's wife.

She keeps bantams
has no faith in god
no faith in art
no faith in science

put all her faith in one man
all her eggs in his basket


The tired ploughman.

I've been ploughing this furrow for too long. Each time I look up from my toil the end of the field is still not in sight save an oak tree on the horizon; when I set out that tree was a mere sapling.

The seagulls that dog my wake have given up on fat worms ever being exposed and now eye my soft parts greedily. they swoop in ever closer.

Time to release the old horse from her traces (smack her on the rump and watch her trot back to her pasture) leave the plough mid furrow mid field (already rusting it will soon enough blend in visually and then soon enough decompose and vanish).

If I walk quickly I will make it to that tree under which sits a little old lady who has many stories to tell me.

I have forgotten what I was going to sow in this field any-way.

Hot chestnuts maybe.

Ode to a departed tooth.

Tristan has been having dental problems... Ouch!

My teeth are out in sympathy.

He sent me the following which I suspect may refer to something other than a molar:

Your absence has left a void
which I have filled with pain
The exquisite agony
taunts me with your parting

Although I realise that when the pain goes
I shall remember you for what you really were

It hurts too much to miss you right now.

Last years notes.

When I am gone
first drain the blood and set aside
Burn me
Mix ashes and blood with cement
Cast bricks.

with which to build a folly.

Build it in the meadow where we were happy.

According to last years notes.

A poem written in a silk shirt that you hated.

Her life was a discoball constructed from shards of shattered bliss


Lies
the blunt but self sharpening things
you bring into the bubble of bliss.

The knife you hold to your wrist
should I threaten to leave.
The new man you prefer to the last man
Who all forget to leave a forwarding address when they go
to
meet clandestinely in the pub

To discuss
the blunt but self sharpening things

You leave lying around

Amid shards of bliss.

Oh. And bullshit.

Women and swimming pools.

The perfect woman is like a swimming pool. she has a shallow end and a deep end.

my problem is I keep diving into the shallow end.

Much to the amusement of the handsome life guard.


Advice to young men considering falling in love.

Lose yourself in her
but do not
lose yourself to her

Enjoy the moment
but do not
assume it will last

Spend all you have on her
but do not
borrow to impress

Invest in the truth
but do not
expect dividends

Live for the moment
but do not
live only for the moment

Care for her
but do not
think that you own her

Tell her you love her
but do not
tell her too often

Tolerate stuff
but do not
let her take the piss.

But most off all
do not take sharp things
into the bubble of bliss

Then she might fall in love with you as well.

Early childhood.

I was taken back to my early childhood today.

An accidental journey brought about by getting shampoo in my eye; I was immediately transported back to my 2 year old self having his hair washed by his mother; shampoo always got in my eyes back then (there was no baby shampoo either) and as far as I was concerned it was attempted murder. Boy did I wail.

'Don't be a baby'. She'd scold.

'But I am a fucking baby!'

And if I knew then what I know now I would have stayed a baby.

Short stories about tall women.

There are few meaningful occupations that can be successfully pursued in a bar unless you work in one.

Mine I think is an exception; I can sit at a table with a ginger beer and a notebook. When I'm not writing I'm probably thinking about writing, or watching.

Quite a lot of material comes that way, walks right up to my table and sits down:

'What do you write'?

I'd looked up from my notebook, she was sitting opposite me. I said: 'Short stories about tall women'.

'Are you going to write about me?'

She had good hands, long slender fingers; the hands of a tall woman. 'Bits of you'.

'Which bits'?

'So far your hands'. I looked at her eyes then. She held my gaze, imprisoned it.

She said: 'You'll write about my eyes too. Can I read it when it is done'.

'Certainly'. I replied, where will I find you'?

'Oh, I'll wait here until you've finished'.

'I may take many years to complete it. I may never complete it'.

'That's ok... I'll wait'.

Joy.

Sometimes when in a dark place someone will come along and light a match. Every once in a while that match will be used to light a candle. Very occasionally that candle will be used to find the switch...

To turn on the sun.

It is dazzling.

Whatever happened to chivalry?

Long, long ago a knight, while riding through a forest, came upon a familiar scene:

Roped to a tree was a white gowned damsel. A damsel most certainly in distress. Leering over her was a dragon. there was the usual smoke from the nostrils and stench of rotting flesh.

The knight dismounted, approached the dragon while unsheathing his sword.

'Stop!' Cried the damsel and dragon in unison. 'If you kill the dragon you will kill us both for we are two halves of the same beast'.

'But if I do not kill the dragon it will surely kill you'. The knight said to the damsel.

'No it won't'. She replied. 'This is just a game we play to entertain ourselves'.

The knight sheathed his sword, mounted his horse and rode away to the sound of jeering from the damsel and dragon.

The last words he heard were: Whatever happened to chivalry.

S & M

Self flagellation used to be the preserve of the religious fanatic.

Not so any longer... I knew a man who has been beating himself up since his father stopped.

The same guy had a girlfriend who was doing the same thing for the same reason. They met on common ground.

They split up when she realised that he was never going to beat her and he realised that all she wanted to do was beat him up rather than herself because she didn't want to damage her looks.

Time and memory are beating them up now.

Time is merciless.

As is god of course, if you believe that shit.

What goes around comes around... With a whip.