ON HEARING SOMETHING ON THE RADIO ABOUT EMILY DICKINSON

I was listening to this thing on the radio
about Emily Dickinson
well, actually not about Emily Dickinson
but about some forger who forged one of her poems
if you know what I mean

parenthetically
the forger was quite a guy
in the worst sense of the word
he had great success at his vocation
until some expert rumbled him
so what did he do?
he murdered the expert
and then another one who was on his trail,
he's behind bars now

anyway
He used exactly the right kind of paper
and had her handwriting down to a tee
that's what fooled the 'experts'
who actually thought the poem
was just an 'average Emily Dickinson' poem

It got me thinking
what kind of poet is it
with such a predictable style
that someone can do
an 'average' imitation of their stuff?

I mean I don't want to get personal
I've never read any of her poems,
maybe they're amazing
but she's not really on my list
Harry Crosby and Hart Crane are on my list
and I don't know if I'll get round to them
poetry's a bit intimidating ain't it?

but back to the point,
could someone
forge me? I ask
not that they would, I know
but could they?
Personally I don't think so,
my voice is too original
for these dull times......
but there again maybe
this poem is a forgery
and the forger
is pulling off some
subtle, crafty, sophisticated
double bluff? Oh yeah!

SUFI SANDWICH WITH BEATNIK BUTTER

sufi sandwich with beatnik butter
i spent seventy years in the gutter

sufi sandwich with beatnik butter
but every saturday i went down the bookies and had a flutter

sufi sandwich with beatnik butter
"did you have any luck?" i hear you utter

sufi sandwich with beatnik butter
"no, i always backed losers" i  flimsily mutter

sufi sandwich with beatnik butter
"why d'ya back losers" you uselessly stutter

sufi sandwich with beatnik butter
"cos winning is for losers" i shamefacedly splutter 

ESSENCE 5

Well, the bird, bird, bird
the bird is the word

the poet rests
from his quill have spilt word bunches
delicate like flower petals
you remember petals

well don't you know about the word? 

all dervishes word wallowers and madmen
seem obsessed with flying creatures
they find it easy to become cormorants
flying low over Solents of sustenance

well everybody thought you knew about the bird

now it's time for a dance
Parliament will play tricks with my feet
without leaving the ground 
I will fly

how do you know that every bird that cuts the airy way
is not..........

bards of old would spend days staring at the sky
insects and larvae would often crawl out of their wounds
their memories would become tarred and feathered wastelands
hunters would fix them in their sights
but sadly or gladly or both
there would be no fun
if there were no danger

COMMERCIAL ROAD

Loneliness in the Cascades shopping centre
too many cafes to choose from
dusk breaking over mounds of yesterday's cereals
where the weetabix minstrels meet the nail painters

Despondent minions rush to buy circus tabloids
there is no reason to believe they are not sincere
for their shopping trolley heads and reluctant accessories
shape the very core of some hypothetical vortex

Parking worries are over for the moment
though post office souls still fret in a counter-culture purgatory
pedestrian bargains are charged with unspecified irregularities
like cling film wrapped sins hanging in a limbo

DEATH OF A POET 1

Duhaney Park
a shot in the dark

King Tubby's dead!
King Tubby's dead!

his body lies still
it's so easy to kill

King Tubby's dead!
King Tubby's dead!

sirens wail
air heavy and stale

King Tubby's dead!
King Tubby's dead!

a bullet in the night
erases the light

King Tubby's dead!
King Tubby's dead!

OUTSIDE THE BRITISH MUSEUM

rain falling
rain falling like
small nasty tears
on the old cold grey autumnal ground

I sat down outside the British Museum
watched the phantoms inside a pulled-up coach
wait for children lost inside the city

I got up and moved in the direction
of my difficult destination
from nowhere a porsche appeared
revving up at ridiculous speed
it came to a screeching halt at some traffic lights
behind the steering wheel an imbecile
a city geek, a young money meddler

By chance
by happenchance
at that very moment
two coppers were proceeding along the street,
they witnessed the maniac motorist's antics
ran up to his car and obliged him to park round the corner

I took great pleasure in slowly passing by the scene:
the smart-arsed dickhead fumbling with his documentation
as he stood on the pavement explaining himself,
the two plods about to have a bit of fun
nailing some cocky swashbuckler who dared
taunt them with his opulent arrogance

aaah, the rain,
aaah the pain,
aaah the sweet taste
of some motherfucker
getting his just desserts

DIVE-BOMBING

Looking up at one of those big posh houses
along a road off Palmeston Road
just down from St Jude's church

A heron atop a roof
what in god's name is a heron doing
atop a roof
in Southsea?
unheard of

pretty creature
curves and slenderness
poise and pertness

What happened next
was not expected

A seagull swooped,
clearly attacking the marooned heron
then another seagull
then another

Squawking threats coming
from their uncultured beaks
lining up like bombers over Dresden
wave after wave
claws showing
they plunged

closer and closer
to within a few feet

the heron raised its leg
retracted its mighty startled beak
let loose a plaintive cry

a lull
and then the dive-bombers were at it again

I couldn't hang around all day
I watched for ten minutes
I could hardly climb on the roof
and rescue the heron
and I didn't have my mobile
so the quandary of ringing the
Royal Society for the Prevention of Misfortune to Birds
did not arise

Still
I wonder how it all ended
and I wonder
why the gulls were having a go at the heron

had it said something out of line?
did  it smell wrong?
or was it simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I will never know
the answer to any of these questions

THERE THEY WERE

There they were
a whole bastard crowd of them
filling the sky
over Southsea Common

You know what I'm talking about
those fat puffy lumps of meat with wings:
dragons

a riot of gold, silver and diamond
sparkling  thoughts wrapped in transcendental
transportations of the imagination,
a clash of emerald green
and a scarlet red that would pierce the soul
and boil the blood

clumps of people gathered together
on that wind battered, foam soaked
barren open space by the sea
watching the beasts as they hovered

"Why don't the council do something about it?"

"If they start shitting, I'm out of here"

"They're a damn nuisance and that's all there is to it, I don't care how bloody colourful they are"

They do it every Sunday
why? No-one knows
fortunately
they don't linger too long
just long enough
for the eerie sounds emanating from their
time-stormed throats
to haunt the dreams
of all
who witness their antics

ESSENCE 4

How do swans sailing
through the air
manage to seem so celestial?

Majestic hulks of beauty
with their steam train intonations
like the flapping of dragon's wings

Fat body, long ugly neck,
beady splattered eyes
they should resemble dolt-headed helicopters
but they don't
they defy logic
 

OPEN A NEW WINDOW

Open a new window
 
Open a new window
set the light upon startling vistas
 
Open a new window
launch a thousand electric frogs
into the bleak beyond

Open a new window
let your visions of amphibians
jellyfish, sardines and breakfasts
give solace to the buttercups
 
Open a new window
forget the old window
its view is anachronistic
nothing more than memories
swimming round a bowl of brine
 
Open a new window
and from behind its painless panes
scream proclamations,
hurl long-winded expletives
along with imprecise accusations
at no-one in particular
 

ST GEORGE'S DAY

Her majesty
her highness
the queen that is
must be over the moon

Today
St George's day !
and yesterday
or
was it the day before yesterday?
her birthday!

What joy!
for our monarch

I can just imagine that
poisonous bitch
stabbing a spear straight into the heart
of a dragon
skewering it around

She would probably snap its head off
while
faint puffs of dirt-brown smoke
still wafted from its demoralised nostrils

She would probably then
call over the rest of her
vapid family
and make some kind of boring speech
featuring
a lot of earnestness
and a couple of quasi-liberal sentiments

A good thing no-one
round here celebrates St George's day
except possibly
the dodgy looking bloke
I saw coming out of a pub
wrapped in
a white flag with a red cross

SOMERSTOWN SOMERSTOWN

Somerstown Somerstown
where a great big metal worm
sits astride the motorway

Somerstown Somerstown
where the giant glass eye
turns into a health centre

Somerstown Somerstown
where it's impossible to cross the road
without being knocked over

Somerstown Somerstown
where during the day
there's never anyone around

Somerstown Somerstown
where my solicitor's offices
contradict the tower blocks

Somerstown Somerstown
so near the magistrate's courts
so far from the sea

Somerstown Somerstown
where lonely bus stops
sit like stranded sheep

Somerstown Somerstown
in the heart of the city
cars are the stars, the stars are cars

ESSENCE 3

Two birds in the distance
become flies
dancing together
frolicking in the morning haze
crazy lovers
who have risen early for one time in their lives

they don't fade away
they disappear

SUPERVOID

you're going into
hot diggety space, man
with that face man
I mean outer space, man
where there ain't like no hot dog stand
for like a billion light years
and though that's not very far by cosmic standards
it's still far

and when you get there
what ya gonna see there?
nothing
that's what you'll see there
'cos you dead bound
to ride straight smack into
the bang middle of a SUPERVOID
and that critter's one big expletive
man
that is one bit of space
that certainly ain't the place
weirdly a SUPERVOID
ain't totally void
it's just a lot emptier than everywhere else

You ain't got the brains or the knowhow
to stick to the built up
side of the universe
you're a dumb smartass
you'll have a head full of dark matter
and a soul the size of the milky way
before y'can steer your spaceship mind outta there

so listen to me boy
even though
I know
you ain't gonna listen
'cos
you're a jackass droid
an asteroid
I'm still telling ya
though there ain't nothing between your earlobes
except particles of foam

keep the cream out of the night
whip the dawn until she cries
tell creation to sling its hook
and
WHATEVER
YOU DO
GOD DARN IT
AVOID
THE SUPERVOID!

REFLECTIONS DURING A TRAIN JOURNEY

I forgot about Slough
quite quickly
too busy
dreading Reading

GENERAL ELECTION


Frying pan people
sizzle on a beach of complexities

Non-stick chisel chunks
whipped by permanent cluelessness

Honeydew morons
programmed to obey

Raspy nowhere persons
tormented by the demons of the media

Ding-donging in a hall of constant reverberations
disorientated puppeteers cut the strings

There are no weapons except
indifference and expedience

The Queen owns thoroughbred stables
we have the dung of her stallions

The middle of the road
is a dangerous place to stand

Nothing good can possibly come
from anyone that bland

Our saucepan souls boil away
we are left with detritus

A politician in a suit
is anything but cute

ESSENCE 2

There is only the blazing now
and I like a pea in a peapod
swept along

the I
pops out of the peapod
and the peapod disintegrates

now there is only I and now, no pod at all,
the silverly art of a determined harvester
sets upon the scene

a billion sweaty imperceptible pores
filter away my I
and now there's
only now

GO, CURATOR, GO

Mind-sapping
mobile snapping
undo the wrapping
go, curator, go

academically
unimaginatively
ponderously
go, curator, go

upper class
upper-middle class
up your own arse
go, curator, go

pontificating
deliberating
about a painting
go, curator, go

in a trance
full of importance 
in a gallery in France
go, curator, go

online, offline
soaked in brine
drunk on wine
go, curator, go

culture clueless
dull and foolish
somewhat ghoulish
go, curator, go


 

TO MY ENEMIES (WHO ARE NUMEROUS)

To my enemies
CLOTH CAP in hand
doffing a lot
and sniffling
yes, sniffling

For you are of course
so much wiser, wittier and winsome
than I.

what else can I do but grovel at your feet
like an unloved puppydog
with screwed up eyes
and a cute sideways head movement

To my enemies
head bowed
acceptant of your superiority
in every facet of my
life
your
life
anyone's
life

For naturally you are a poet a mystic a visionary
as well as being exceptionally perceptive
and with an intellect, well, well above average

To my enemies
I raise my bowl of porridge
I salute
whilst staring in the sun
and now
like an uneasy reptile
I slither away
shamefully, haphazardly
a slimy globule
in the shade of your vastly encompassing genius

NOTHING  AT ALL

Doing nothing
much like a spaced out Tao Monk
way back in the past
when mountains turned into flowers
and waterfalls cascaded from the heavens

Doing nothing
but my nothing is of course a profound nothing
not like that lazy nothing
that hangs around my letterbox
with its tongue shaped like an iris plant
leaping on top of me when
I least expect it

Doing nothing
an irresolute shape
a misty recipient
an 11.36 in the morning
have-no-care imp
set alive by time

we hear from all sides
we see from nowhere
we smell like rotten eggs
and now the most sublime thing of all
perhaps
we should all do more of nothing
not the lazy nothing
just nothing
nothing at all

I FEEL A POEM COMING ON

I FEEL A POEM COMING ON


The sigh of the cars breezing in through my window
an unusually blue sky
the banging of doors
the recent visit of a man from the Energy Consumption Inspectorate
or something like that
the lack of bird call
the purr of a motor
a bus passing
a bill from Southern Water
I feel a poem coming on

CORRESPONDINGLY

With eyes of illumination
smoked out head
reading the futures of
people as they passed me in the street
at one with the timeless moment
my feet befell the shell
of a giant supermarket
and within its boarded  up
restlessness
a towering crane
a red-necked swindler if you ask me
wrestled with the sky
and I
was only going to a football match
I didn't ask the weight of eternity to accompany me

but it did
a shiny dry beast
as unprepared and dishevelled as everyone else

it was freezing in the stand
though the pitch was in full sun
some kind of elusive philosophical truth
was hinted at

Devera at right back! Why?
Westcarr, no idea,
Antangana,
Antangana, who had showed promise,
who should now flourish,
played like a three-legged hippopotamus.
no wingers, a midfield without purpose

It doesn't matter
it's irrelevant,
like
hypermarkets,
and drive-in McDonalds,
like buildings bestowing vicious
ugliness and nothing more,
as if we were slaves to their will

we just accept
defeat
and lack of vision
they slither across the blazing grass
like yet another misplaced pass

AMERICA

We landed at Logan airport, Boston,

a right dump it was,

all broken pipes

and leaking roofs

We breezed through customs

and clambered on a train,

at least I think it was a train

It being 10pm and with

us being in a new country and all

I thought this a pertinent moment to consider

the matter of accommodation.

I asked the bloke sitting

next to me if he knew

of a cheap hotel.

“Yeah, sure” he said

“stop after next, right outside

the train station”

'Cheap' is a relative

term I guess, we did

not find 150 dollars a night

cheap.

We decided to wander

around a bit in search

of something a little more

suited to our flimsy budget

Within a very short space of time

we found ourselves

in what I presume is the

financial hub of the city.

Towering skyscrapers

lurked over us.

The mighty omnipotent shapes

of stereotypically

American office blocks

housing the usual band

of tainted villains

soared pompously up

into the skies

The strangest thing

about this scenario

was there was not a soul in sight,

not the slightest hint of a human

and no traffic either.

We had just five minutes earlier

stepped off a plane onto a new

continent and we were now

wandering utterly alone

through an eerie

Night of the living dead v Wall Street

type landscape

It was both creepy and

bewitching,

we had no idea what to do,

we continued our aimless

wander,

sort of mesmerised

by the novelty

and ghostliness

of everything

It didn't take long for

our reverie to be shattered.

A taxi appeared out of nowhere,

the driver wound down his window

and ordered us to get in.

We got in.

“So what are you people doing and

where are you going?” said

the driver

or something else equally practical

It was a reasonable enough question,

somehow we had

great difficulty in

answering it.

After listening to us faff about

for a while, he brusquely interrupted,

“Come on guys focus, FOCUS!”

His determined insistence

reaped its benefits,

we managed to garble out

something about looking for

somewhere cheap to stay

He took us to

the American equivalent

of a B&B which

was pretty expensive

but not 150 dollars.

The next day I got it

together, and found

somewhere reasonable.

Actually

looking back

I think  arriving

in 'The New World'

utterly unprepared and

utterly clueless

was not quite
as stupid a venture
as it  might at first seem

ESSENCE 1

ESSENCE 1

One magical morning
when everyone was dead
I wrote a poem
then went back to bed

DRAGONS BY THE DUSTBINS

There were dragons by the dustbins,
big bastards,
with huge flappy wings,
endless snouts

I asked them what they were doing
they looked sheepish
refused to engage me in conversation

Their iridescent bodies
gleamed in the morning sun
like the memory of a glorious dawn

'If you don't go away
I'll be obliged to call the Police'
I said, in a schoolmasterly voice

'Don't do that' replied one of the dragons
at last showing some sort of engagement
'We're just hanging around
we don't mean any harm'

'I've heard that before', said I,
looking them in the eyes,
those immense beady planets
engulfed in mystery and mythology
'if only it were true'

I saw six thousand years flash by,
I heard the cry of battle
the crack of skulls
I saw cities rise and fall
gazed on unimagined civilisations

It is hard to concentrate when talking to dragons
but I pulled myself together,
'Look, scram will ya!
This is a respectable neighbourhood.
Go on off with ya'

They didn't argue
spitting small flames
they rose
and soared off into the sky
like clumsy jets

NO

No,
I will never place a semi-colon
half-way through a line of my poesie,
no,
never

I believe grammar has its place
but that sort of thing is
off-putting
and elitist
and awkward
and explains why most 'modern' poetry
is unreadable

No, I will never place a semi-colon; half-way through a line of my poesie

BT Home Hub 5

BT Home Hub 5


information

Skiving
seagulls
shit on shallow shores

troubleshooting guide

Petrified
pigeons
perspire through puny pores

set-up summary

Fuddled
flamingos
flounce on flimsy floors

all your extras in one place

Dancing
ducks
defecate in desiccated drawers

SUFI SANDWICH

SUFI SANDWICH

cream propellers
mayonnaise manicure
the luncheon was spread around the park
the deer
danced
venison turbines
Chutney-by-the-sea

bobbing on the surrealist sea
i turned to Captain Cocksure
he was still half blind
and the parrot on his head
was reciting poesie
"Have no fear Selfish
before very long
the butterscotch waves and the
horseradish foam
will be part of a greater
future,
'til then
we must picnic with evil
and share an aperitif with living ghosts"

i was comforted as only an old grenadier can
be comforted
i tossed yellow yesterday
into the salad
and caroused with a cucumber

spaghetti lathes
grape juice batteries
luncheon
by the right-to-buy shed
someone accidentally
split an atom in half
so for the rest of the night
we reluctantly contemplated
a half-formed
universe

ON ATTENDING A RECORD FAIR

dim faces
blotched
stupidity
vacuous 'dance' music tables
unladen with goods
monochrome shitheadedness
pricey cakes
lame coffee

no I am not bitter
we sold nothing
we were not meant to sell

sweat
human sweat
enveloping
the tawdry Dalston basement
in a vile rank cacophony
the age of Fleetwood Mac and
Jethro Tull
the 'crazy' world of Arthur Brown
spineless
dull-clothed pointlessness

no I am not bitter
few visited our stall
few were meant to visit it

Predictable wares
insipid clawing hands
flicking through sleeves
in a sturdy quest
for something
uninspiring
they will not approach us
we are the colour
we were/are the light
they for no particular reason
thrive in the shade
of artificial staleness

no we are not bitter
our man let us down badly
and made us look and feel like fools
yet bitterness
you are a stranger

THOSE WHO BETRAY SELFISH SHOULD BE CRUSHED

I crunch the snow
I am a crow

I snatch the air
I was a pear

I grasp the time
half lemon and lime

I seize the moment
from my lazy opponent

I stab the dark
I will be a drunk aardvark

I pierce the veil
to no avail

I shoot the breeze
with my enemies the bees

I open the door
I become a wild boar

with words I grapple
much like a rotten apple

I fall to the floor
pierced to the core