DOWN THE CO-OP

New assistant,
seems OK,
smiles.

Then at the end
of the transaction
says
"Can I interest  you in our
offer on cherries, one pound
a punnet?"
She points at a pathetically
small punnet
containing five or six limp
cherries.

"No, you can't"
I reply.
"And in fact I don't really
like you asking.
If I wanted cherries
I'd get them off
my own volition."

"Oooh, I'm sorry"
she says,
"I was only trying to
get a conversation going,
y'know a bit of interaction."

"That's is a noble intention,"
I riposted,
"However, I feel it being
accompanied by a commercial
proposition
somewhat diminishes
its sincerity."

At this point she seems to get really
wound up and tells me
she doesn't like my tone.

This is an instant,
a moment
in which I have to confess
on some occasions
in my elongated life
the situation has escalated:
become unpleasant and
disagreeable.
The dispute has often got
personal.
Things have been said
on both sides that
perhaps in the pure light of day
would have gone unsaid

However,
the passing of years
perhaps, have taught me something.
"I'm sorry you don't like my tone,"
I responded.
"I was merely pointing out
a fundamental flaw in your
argument. Also I come here all the time
and this is the first time someone's tried
to flog me something in this way."

She now gets the wrong end of the stick
but
a debate has been established.
we progress upon paths of reasonable
discourse, well fairly reasonable,
there's an element of lingering danger,
the possibility of fireworks.

But in the end,
it all ends happily.
We even end up establishing the fact
that she thought I said
the shop assistants in the co-op
pester me continually,
when I said the exact opposite.

They're OK, they're cool,
they leave me alone
or maintain a low-key
conversation.
Which is probably, probably
what she'll do
next time
she serves me.

INSIDE SOMEBODY ELSE'S SOUL

I have raved
down subconscious alleyways
covered in mud graphene and silicone

pecked by butterflies
with the faces of rats
and surrounded by passions
I barely understood

I have raved
Oh yes I have raved

I have exploded
at the bottom of thoughtless
oceans
embraced by hysterical seahorses
caught between the mad laughter
of blissed-out porpoises
and staggeringly
intransigent sharks

I have exploded
Oh yes I have exploded

Inside some messed-up future
where nobody has a soul
I sometimes crawl and dither.
I'm only trying to convert myself into
a dijinn and save the world
where's the harm in that?

I have upset the cart
I have tossed rotten apples into
salads
and
never had the slightest doubt
that all the bickering and
background interference
is the only true way
to alternate
between
elevated hopes
and
deflated
consequences

I have somersaulted
through hoops of reason
and trod tripwires
of exuberance

I have raced
through columns of
combustible gas
and zigzagged
through calamities

And I didn't stop there

Yes, yes
I have somersaulted
raced
and zigzagged
and I didn't stop there

That beauty you were talking of
the one I found in the courtyard
I let her loose

Now she calls everything impermanent

Form of a woman
snake donkey, lion goat
dijinns
fire fire fire
ruins jungles marshes

Inside you
everything's on fire

I WILL RIP YOUR HEART OUT

Y'know somewhere out on Highway 61,
or Highway 57
or whichever fucking highway
it is that ends up
in Chicago

Out there
with the sun spitting down
with ghastly giant Irish type crows
fluttering about,
with great fields of cornflake corn
waving in the breeze

With Bette Davis by my side
a couple of 30s hoodlums hanging around
a bit further off,
and Billie Holiday waiting for me
in a car with the motor running

yeah, right
with my Hitchcock gaze
and filthy fingers of hate
with my visions of bloodthirsty cherubim
and Mohammed looking over my shoulder

God be praised,
with silent grace
and noisy enthusiasm
with my eyes half-filled with tears
half-filled with something I can't
quite put my finger on

I will
I will
I will rip your heart out

ON HAVING MY HAIKU REJECTED BY THE JOURNAL 'MODERN HAIKU'

I sit rejected
a sad unwanted kitten
waiting to be drowned

TRANSLATION OF 'SON DE NEGROS EN CUBA'
BY FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

SON OF BLACK CUBA

When the full moon arrives
I'm off to Santiago de Cuba
I'm off to Santiago

in a carriage of black water
I'm off to Santiago
The palm-tree roofs will sing
I'm off to Santiago
When the palm tree wants to be a stork
I'm off to Santiago
And when the banana-tree wants to be a jellyfish
I'm off to Santiago

With the blonde head of Fonseca
I'm off to Santiago
And with Romeo and Juliet's rose
I'm off to Santiago
Oh, Cuba, rhythm of dried seeds!
Paper sea and silver coins
I'm off to Santiago

Oh, waist on fire and drop of wood!
I'm off to Santiago
Harp of living tree-trunks, alligator, tobacco flower!
I'm off to Santiago
I always said I'd go to Santiago
in a carriage of black water

I'm off to Santiago
Breeze and alcohol in the wheels
I'm off to Santiago
My coral in the deepest shadows
I'm off to Santiago
The drowned sea in the sand
I'm off to Santiago
White heat, dead fruit,
I'm off to Santiago
Oh, the bovine coolness of sugar cane!
Oh, Cuba! The sigh of the curve and the mud!
I'm off to Santiago

HOW THEY WHINE

You know that shit
that shit that moronic artists
spout

about
like how their 'art'
isn't about
providing answers
but asking questions

Well,
I vomit
into their
lonely little souls

I defecate inside their
rusty ego-stewed
minds

For in the
magic brew of
my words
you
will
I promise
I GUARANTEE!
find a thousand solutions

You will find
the answers
to all the mysteries
to all the paradoxes
to all the indefinable wonderings

You will
rise to the surface of
the intoxicating
stirring of my creations
and find yourself
speechless
from revelation
and
resolution

otherwise
I'd be wasting my time
and you'd be left dangling
in a sort of vapid
bourgeois nothingness
and we wouldn't want that

SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW

Balthasar
stooped
spat out the
unsteady gaze
of everybody
who had smelt
his hate

I was cleaning the dung
from the stables
at the time
I knew nothing
of silly people
who could not create
a universe
in the blink
and flutter
of an overwhelming
undernourished
lonely
split-second

Gaspar
I beat him to
a fucking pulp.
But my cruelty was kindness!
He deserved everything I
served up
I was just struggling to find my
true self
and you know what?
I never did find it

Yeh, the wanker
just came into the stables
at the wrong time
and with the wrong attitude
even the flies
were outraged by his
stranded behaviour

and
yes, it was jealousy
that drove me.
and hypocrisy
that picked me up
it was isolation
that spurred my bones
and every blow I delivered
lived with me
forever

Melchior
sat by his camel and mocked
my antics
"You're a
miserable tosser"
he said
with a smirk

The lazy lizards
crawling out his ears
turned their
indolent eyes
in my direction

I didn't like the look
they gave me