Platonic.

It was the most sensible thing to do
it was late
she far from home
and far from ready to go home
it was the most natural thing to do.

She is in my bed now
I lay beside her for a while
breathing her in
now I sit at my desk
listening to the night buses turn the corner
looking at her perfect body
her utter serenity in slumber
watching her breathe
watching the rise and fall of a black silk slip

It is the most sensible thing to do
all my senses scream YES!

POEM.

she is my friend

she is my sister she is my brother

she is my mother

she is my father

she is my daughter

she is my lover without the complications of fucking

she is my waking thought

she is my goodnight kiss

she is my

I became your mirror.

I remembered your conversations

about a child losing innocence

as we walked on the heath that day

long after he had gone

I instinctively picked up a stick

pointed it at you

shouted bang

and killed the woman who chased him away

you snapped then

snapped the stick, snapped at me

you would not blame yourself of course not

that day I did not lose my innocence

YOU gave me guilt.

and I became your mirror.

The Muse in tattered tutu

The muse in tattered tutu on a garlanded swing

Drives me to creation

The lark is on the wing

The other girls are pretty the other girls will do 

But nothing can distract me

I love her tutu too.

The muse in tattered tutu is hurt but not by me

Saves me from distraction

Rids me of ennui

The other girls have culture the other girls have pearls

But nothing can distract me

From her muskiness and curls.

The muse in tattered tutu, I’d save her if I could

Helps me count the pennies

Makes me feel quite good

The other girls have lippy the other girls have kohl

But nothing will distract me

When she plays the other role.

The muse in tattered tutu, tutu too too tight

Drives me from the bathroom 

In the middle of the night

Other girls have boyfriends other girls have girls

But nothing will protect me

From the insults that she hurls

The muse in tattered tutu, has left me so so sad

I drove her to the station

I wish I never had

Other girls have manners other girls have grace

But the muse in tattered tutu

Is now in some other place.

What I did on my holidays: The lion and the raven.

Just a few lines, notes for a bigger story, written amid the sea cabbage, yellow poppies, mallow and deadly nightshade. As I traded, like for like, wheezes and death rattles with the sea hassled shingle.  


Sitting quietly in the lee of a groyne I watched a lion and a raven fashion a raft from the tattered and decaying detritus of past lives. As they prepared to board their flimsy craft the lion hesitated.

"Why do you falter". Asked the raven.
"I cannot swim". He replied.
"Neither can I". Said the raven "If the raft falls apart we will drown together".

Reassured, the lion climbed aboard and they set off from the shore.

I heard no more of their conversation but watched in horror as, some 200 yards from shore the raft did indeed disentangle itself from self and that which mattered for purposes of buoyancy.

As the lion sank beneath the waves the raven spread her wings. The raven spread her wings to be snatched up, wheeling, soaring, heading skywards. Landwards.

The lion, consumed, unaware of the potency of his own magic, legs becoming fins, tail broadening and flattening, gill slits opening, swam down to join the mermaids in their salty songs.

Departments of love. (notes for a poem)

If only we could identify the Love DNA .There would be testing clinics in every town. A super clinic in Oxford Street Queues round the block



Testing their love:

The old men and their Bankok brides
Spotty oiks and village bikes
Ballerinas, ballerinas
Old lovers, new lovers, perhaps not lovers at all
Scientists with actresses
Barristers and rough diamonds
Artists and bank managers
Ghosts and priests
Goths and poets.

All testing.In the departments of love:

A tattoo parlour
Gown shop
Cake shop, florist
Wedding chapel, Elvis present daily
Hallmark card shop
white goods, bedroom sets
Lingerie and soft fruit.

Receptacle for redundant dildos
Viagra falls by the chocolate fountain
Cubic Zirconiums as big as the ritz.

Cinema screening non stop rom coms
Pretty girls with trays of condoms
Pretty boys with trays of condoms
Hotel rooms for love struck non doms.

Lines written in an Essex pub garden on the occasion of a wrestling match.

Years ago I took my young sons to a wrestling match at a local pub. I wrote this at the time.

In the churchyard next door the dead at their labours
turning in graves at the sound of their neighbours
A caccophany of kids and peroxided, curvaceous blondes
clashing happily, slapperly with the herbaceous fronds.

In an Essex pub garden.

'Hot Stuff' and 'Zebra King' are bout number one
The zebra from norwich finally won
Hot stuff distracted by falling down tights
King stripily pounced and put out his lights.

In an Essex pub garden.

Now is the time for the teams that play tag
muscles abounding and bellies asag
To a fanfare of whistles, boo's, cheers and hisses
They land spectacular punches like butterfly kisses.

(Stands the clock at a quarter to three and yes there is beer yet for tea)

As each half nelson half expects
A little more decorum from the fairer sex
A fat bald dwarf in turquoise thong thing
Does a sunset flip on the 'Rock n roll King'

then real screams of pain and genuine alarm
for the wrestling elvis has broken his arm
Ambulance called, The King wheeled off in a barrow
nothing left now but to get pissed to the marrow.

In an Essex, oh so Essex, pub garden.

Magnolia

She came to visit
after twenty years of not a word
but was passing
was just passing

and as passing stopped
bringing with her the rusty key
to that locked and dusty room
called memory.

filling our heads
with the contents of that room
we then took a walk
in the spring sun

I led her to the April street
lined with magnolias
where for just one week
romance blossoms

alas too late
the blowsy meaty petals blown
smearing the pavement
with disappointment

'we are too late' I said
turning back
'we should have come here earlier'
and she asked when?

'Oh twenty years ago'.

She came to visit
after all thse years of not a word
but was passing
was just passing

and as passing stopped
for long enough
to bear witness
to my seasonal disappointment.

Holiday romance.

A true story... There is nothing like an older woman in a man's shirt.




We talked of red roses
We talked of Sorrento
While the other boys drank to their pledge

We walked to the beacon
The out at the beacon
Held hands and went to the edge

We talked of red roses
We talked of Sorrento

She told me she loved me
I told her my fears
We talked of red roses
We talked of Sorrento

Her name was Polly Anne
The same as my sister
Which smacked of incest
Every time that I kissed her

On the well rounded bottom
Of an overturned inflatable
And all was in reach
But how far was debateable

Down there
Down on the beach
Under a man’s checked shirt

We talked of red roses
We talked of Sorrento
We parted agreeing
No further contact was best

She wrote of red roses
She wrote of Sorrento

She wrote of red roses
On a card from Sorrento

Without a return address.

The impact of airfreight on the poet.

I wrote this last summer for Port Eliot Festival.






The impact of airfreight on the poet.

Once, long ago
it would be enough to say
that we ate strawberries
she and I and you would know
That she was beautiful in her summer frock
eyes the colour of cornflowers
Hair of course
ripe wheat

The summer heat sang
swallows flew low
smell of new mown grass
rosemary
lavender
and a jamjar to trap the wasps in.

Now
thanks to airfreight
if I were to tell you
that we ate strawberries
she and I
you would have no fucking clue
as to the season or our whereabouts

We could be in the Ikea cafe
in December
for all you know
Thanks to airfreight.

This poet will
if longevity allows
scream with joy
on hearing the news
that the last drop of oil
has been sucked
from beneath his summer lawn.

And it will
once again be enough
to say:

We ate strawberries
she and I and you would know.

Tail lights on the Westway flatline

Under an all seeing eye
Tail lights on the Westway flatline

On this journey you buy a bottle
not a bus ticket
You say goodbyes
don't plan hello's

and hope for no God.

Dear Poet credit the muse.

Dear poet
I saw your flyer for a show I couldn't get to
but
You look like everything
I think my stalker will be
when I first invite him into my home.

You see my stalker
far from being the man waiting for me
will be the man I am waiting for

The man my father warned me about
but will give me to.

Boiling Water.

I walked away from it and headed north.

Towards evening on the second day the snow came, 
two hours later I was seeking shelter. 
Without snowshoes my progress was laboured and awkward.  
I came across a cave in a narrow ravine; 
a drift of smoke and footprints in the snow 
from someone coming from the north; 
small footprints, 
a woman or a child.

The cave was lit only by the fire 
enough for me to see the woman, 
dressed in grey, 
sheen of her hair like a well oiled gun, 
a woman from an unknown tribe, 
sitting, 

heating water. 

The makings of some ritual tea ceremony 
laid out on a rock.

Startled but unafraid she silently watched 
I found myself a place to rest opposite her, 
the fire between us. 
In perfect English she said: 
'We will wait for the water to boil. I will make tea'.
A shoulder gesture indicated the paraphernalia on the rock beside her. 
'Then you must leave'.

We sat in silence but for the fire 
as something foreign to us both crept into the cave 
settled within us. 

As the water in the pot trembled close to boil 
she she added a ladlefull of ice cold snow-melt. 
We sat on in silence.

As the water in the pot trembled close to boil 
I took up the ladle and added snow-melt to the pot. 
we sat on in silence.

Into the early hours we sat watching that pot never boil. 
Finally, having covered me in a blanket, 
she lay nearby. 
We slept.

I awoke to find her making coffee. 
We talked; 
each to the other brought magic.

On the second morning we departed, 
heading South.

In the cave on the fire rested the pot of water. 

Singing as it boiled.

December. (work in progress)

Do not tell me everything on skype
leave some things unsaid for
rainy December cafe conversations

Do not send me google maps or coordinates
leave your body uncharted for
rainy December garret explorations

I am well past that point in time
when , had you been here
I would have touched you on the wrist or shoulder
perhaps leant in to pick a piece of lint from your coat
or pushed a stray hair back from your brow
that would have let you know
I had passed that point in time

that point where interest turns to affection.

And if suddenly becomes when.

God comes to a child in a dream.

Visiting a childrens cancer ward
in my capacity as poet
I knelt beside a bald headed child
studiously writing
tongue out
deep in concentration


I asked him and he replied 
I am writing about god and Jesus
listen


god came to me in a dream 
and said
Jesus was my favourite
and I made him suffer
Imagine what I am going to do to you!


the child went on to say
that the priest at the playground
said he looked cute with his bald head.

The next Event

Friday 24th September


the Tabernacle, Powis square, London W11.


Doors open 7.30.  Stuff happens 8.00.


Tickets £7.00 

On leaving you.

Poetry, along with beauty, can be found in anything if you know how to look at things (and people) the right way!




Twelve years ago, or thereabouts 
walking in Highgate with the woman 
the woman I loved more than any other at that time


Oh Judy...


we passed a skip and in that skip was a chair
a kitchen chair, a cheap kitchen chair; tatty but serviceable
I wrenched the thing out from its resting place
and Judy said:
throw it back, it is horrible
I refused and continued on our way
'you are not putting it in my house' she said.


Once home and Judy gone to fill her day with what she did
I stood the chair in my room
eyed it critically
It occurred to me that it was only a chair when sat upon
otherwise it was clutter.


I found paint and brush, sanded down the wood
then painted it turquoise
I upholstered the seat in faux leopard skin


on strips of paper I wrote out lines from a poem I had written as a youth
gauche lines written about leaving a girl
the girl I loved more than anyone at that time


Oh Sarah...


The poem went:


On leaving you
This morning, although there was no sun
A shadow fell across me
And pools of dew formed
in the impressions left by your fingertips.


I pasted the strips of poem to the slats and spindles of the chair
then stood back
It was no longer just a chair
when sat upon indeed it was a chair
but when standing unsatupon
it became a poem
no longer wasting space.



the next time Judy visited


Oh Judy...


she saw the chair and asked about it
I told her that it was now a poem
I showed her how to read it


She read:


On leaving you
This morning although there was no sun
A shadow fell across me
and pools of dew formed
In the impressions left by your fingertips.


she naturally assumed the poem was for her
We all make that kind of mistake
at one time or another in our lives.


She said: 
Please may I have it in my house.


That tatty old chair from the skip.

Urinal song. Work in progress

I love the sound of piss on zinc

Donna's sleepy tales

of rain on Trinidad tin roofs

that she told me as we lay

in a Gloucester park how

she reeked of passion

and coconut oil

The downpour

on the corrugated school bike shed

where Mandy and I

traded tobacco smoke laden kisses

and held our own geography lessons
discovering America

The rusty dutch barn

in which we made hay

and then hasty crop circles

in that hay

and planned al fresco escapades

in the ripening wheat

Come the sun

Of the beach girl

dancing naked

save a transparent plastic mac

the deluge

drumming on the upturned boats

as I drowned in her exclusive proximity

Before realisation that

it was the breaking of our 'summer'

30 years have leached out all but

the salty memory of those monsoon kisses

that creeps up my spine

At the sound of piss on zinc.

Agony Aunt... the state of the planet.

Dear Auntie

I'm in agony

I've fallen in love

with the mum of my cousin

yeah the twin of my mother

and then to cap that

so has my brother

he's fallen in love

before you get thinking

that that can't be to bad

I've just discovered

that so has my dad

he's fallen in love

Dear auntie

it's agony falling in love.

they're now always fighting

my pop and my mother

when they're doing that

I'm fighting my brother

We say we are all doing it

for the sake of our aunt

our maxim our mantra

our scientologists chant

Dear auntie

I'm in agony

And i'm no longer in love.

Poetry is the new rock n roll.

Write about a rock star

write about his vices

write about his fall from grace

his mid life crisis

write about a rock star

dress him up in sequins

rock n roll ain't a world

in which Joe Meek wins

Yeah poetry is the new rock n roll

write another poem buddy go buddy go

Write about the cocaine

do a line of cocaine

talk about the cocaine

talk about the cocaine

talk abou... Oh buddy

push the needle on

and write about a rock star

sing it when you're done

sing it to a techno beat

badum badum badum

(guitar solo)

Yeah poetry is the new rock n roll

write another poem buddy go buddy go

Write about a rock star

then kill him when your done

do it with an overdose

or maybe with a gun

but kill that fucking rock star

before he gets too old

that way you'll get to number one

before the bodies cold.

Yeah poetry is the new rock n roll

write another poem buddy go buddy go

sing another poem buddy go buddy go

kill another poem buddy go buddy go

It's all write muse. I'm only dissin' my ho for attention.

Portobello Rocks

http://www.portobellorocks.com/

Port Eliot.

I will be performing at Port Eliot festival this year. Hope to see you there.

http://www.porteliotfestival.com/

The enjoyable lie.

Lena lied compulsively, even when the truth would be perfectly adequate.

Lena talked in her sleep continuously, Lena told the truth in her sleep.

Lena had great difficulty hanging on to men; her daily deceits nightly exposed.

Until she met Gus.

Gus told the truth compulsively even when a lie was essential

Gus talked in his sleep continuously, Gus lied in his sleep.

Gus had great difficulty hanging on to women, His truth's were far too acute.

Until he met Lena.

During the day Gus would sleep in Lena's studio while she painted.

The white room filled with lies.

During the night Lena would sleep in his room while he wrote.

The black room echoed with honesty.

Each morning and evening they would share an hour or two of wakefulness.

He would tell her: Do not tell me you love me, do not say you will stay forever.

In return she would lie: Do not tell me you love me, do not say you will stay forever.

During these times they made love.

He told her that he loved it when she screamed out: 'No, No No, I am not having an orgasm!

They both enjoyed that lie.

The whores fake orgasm.

You cannot sell love

love has no monetary value

You cannot buy love

there is not enough money on the planet.

Love is like brownie points

you can earn it but cannot spend it.

However

Some of us have an eye for a profit

some of us have an eye for a bargain

some of us trade in forgeries

some of us happily buy fakes.

Love has no wheels to grease

no hands to ring

no feet to Manolo

no wings to feather

It is the immoveable object

and the unstoppable force

The immoveable that stops the unstoppable

the unstoppable that moves the immoveable

When money changes hands

love grinds to a halt.

The whore's fake orgasm is the sound of that grinding.

Holiday romance.

Sorry about the lousy sound quality...

Obsius and Xenia.

This all happened some 2,000 years ago so forgive me if it is a little sketchy.

Obsius was a Roman. An explorer. Happiest when his eye was on the horizon and his goal beyond that.

Having travelled through Egypt and the Sudan he arrived in Ethiopia and as was his wont he eschewed the well travelled roads setting out alone into the Mountains of the moon, somewhere in the Amhara region.

Close to exhaustion he came across a woman living alone on a mountain side. She was like no other woman he knew; she stood tall and proud, skin a deep brown, almost black, bright flashing eyes again deep brown almost black.

They eyed each other suspiciously but she led him to her cave, gave him food, allowed him to sleep, to regain his strength. Not a word passed between them; she had no language to offer him and understood none of his.

They communicated by glances, by gesture, by glottal clicks, by smiles, by frowns. Finally by touch.

Compass spinning, the explorer had found his promised land. He called her Xenia.

He stayed with her for some months, exploring the region, making his maps by day. Exploring elsewhere by night.

One morning they came upon a long dormant volcano, it's caldera filled with water, the surface shone like a mirror; it gave the appearance of having no depth yet seemed bottomless. Xenia seemed panicked by this strange place and tried to drag him away but Obsius would have none of it, leading her down to the waters edge.

Where at once they were confronted by a strange and terrible brigand. a brigand of such cruelty and ferocity that no other man would serve him lest they die by his sword.

Now this brigand had a particular liking for challenges and sport. He said to Obsius: 'There lives in this pool a serpent of obscene nature and unsatiable greed. It regularly snatches my goats from the waters edge and has had a lunge for me on more than one occasion. If you can enter his domain, dispatch the foul beast and return with an eye as proof of his death I will reward you with your freedom.'

He, of course had no intention of letting them go.

Before Obsius could respond Xenia had plunged headfirst into the black water, instantly disappearing from sight. the two men could do nothing but stand there and wait. And wait...

Unbeknown to them there was a cleft in the rocks under the surface it led upwards to a cavern. Through the cavern ran a small stream. The bed of the stream was littered with perfectly smooth (the result of thousands of years erosion) spheres of black volcanic glass. Xenia made her way to the cave, selected a sphere she felt was the right size for a serpent's eye then returned to the surface. Whereupon she held up the 'serpents eye' for both men to see.

The brigand, quite naturally furious, pushed both Xenia and Obsius into the lake...

They disappeared from view as She led Him through the blackness to the cave, then through a labyrinth of tunnels to safety.

the brigand meanwhile, out of curiosity went to the waters edge to see what was going on down there. At once the serpent's head smashed through the surface, snatching the brigand, taking him down into it's jaw, it's gullet, it's gut, the black depths.

The last thing to register in the brigands brain were the serpents yellow eyes.

Sadly for the serpent the brigand's unsheathed sword ruptured it's spleen and caused a long agonising death.

Time passed peacefully on the mountain side but both knew that he must return home. On the morning of his departure, wordlessly she handed him the black sphere, pointing out the mist that appeared trapped beneath it's surface then indicating the tear that seeped from her eye. He kissed away the tear, tasting...

Back in Rome the black stone was the talk of the town. It sat upon his table where he worked. He told no-one of the tears trapped within it, not even his wife who knew better than to question him about the strange piece of glass.

The Romans learned to call the thing Lapis Obsidianus.

He called it Xenia.

Ruby.

Home

Drinking Milk reading Bukowski bored

I'd rather be drinking beer

Fucking the woman who turned Bukowski down

Reading her my own poetry

No obscene horror in that

The doorbell

Then she is here in my room MY room

In her leopard skin silk

Agent Provocateur

Bright red mouth

Hair as black as a raven's wing

Bottle of cheap red wine in her hand

A shadow of the Sapphire in her navel through silk

She has not changed much in ten years

Except the unmellowed ageing

Oh Ruby.

Two glasses in she says

You have not asked me to stay

If I knew you less well

I'd ask you to stay

You are every man's dream

But not every night

Repeated dream becomes nightmare

In which you do not turn Bukowski down

Ever

An explanation of sorts.

We lay together on the big brightly coloured sofa watching a film about Patagonia.

She said: 'I did not have a teddy bear when I was a child. I had a seal cub'.

I told her that I did not have a teddy either. Or a seal cub for that matter. I had a rock.

I had found the rock shortly after I had started to walk, I had found it in the shed in the yard near the kitchen door. I brought my new friend into the house to play. I soon learned to love that rock.

When my mother found us together in the living room she tutted then took the rock from me, throwing it onto the fire.

I was saddened by the loss of my new and only friend and saddened also by my mothers cruelty. I also wondered if perhaps my mother was racist; my friend was black.

It did not take me long however to return to the shed in the yard and find a new friend. I loved my new friend almost as much as the first.

It was not long before my mother found us together. My new friend followed the first onto the fire.

This time I did not waste too much time grieving but returned to the shed for another rock. This process repeated itself until I became quick enough on my feet to get ahead of the fire whereupon my mother would put my friends into the basket beside the fireplace saying: 'Who's mummy's clever little helper then'.

I could not for the life of me see what was clever about burning my friends. Since then I have had difficulty forming relationships.

The woman beside me on the brightly coloured sofa said: 'I am your friend'.

'I know'. I replied. As I held the cigarette lighter to the hem of her dress.

Before you go.

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
　

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.

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?

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

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.

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.
　

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.
　
　

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.
　

Roughler TV and Jan Nieupjur present
Tristan Hazell
Orlando Seale
Clea Myers
Plus a screening of The Amen Break
By Nate Harrison
The Tabernacle
Powis Square
London W11 2AY
Sunday 13th September
Doors open 7.00
Stuff happens 7.45
Entrance free
Part of Portobello Film Festival

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.