After the angel dust
shaving the tiger proved easier
than Murdoch had thought.
And, as it turned out,
what Chadwick had posited
was later proven true,
it was the skin and not just
the fur that was patterned.
they were all the same
just get over it
Next week a Zebra,
she decided.
‘ The giraffe might prove to be a tall order,’
said the Indian rubber man,
deftly reading her train of thought.
How they chortled
that evening over their
Barley wine and Camembert
‘Just walks around sweating, does nothing but sweat…and fart. Yeah, sweating and farting, and grunting too. Sweats, farts, and grunts. The man is a disgrace!’ raged Nobby, hopping shrewdly on his good foot.
‘What did he ban you for then?’
‘I called him a fat, lazy, turd.’
‘I see.’
And Henry did see. He had discerned a pattern emerging since Nobby offered to stick a hot poker up his arse in July after a lurgy. Quarterly cycles, circadian rhythms, in-growing toenails, attention seeking behaviour, and six pints of Old Tharg each lunchtime had taken their grotesque toll.
‘ I’m going down the Zephyr from here on in.
Henry was confused.
‘You mean the Zodiac?’
‘Yeah. See you Sunday.’
‘Okay, Boss.’
–
With Flo away and Headcase post-traumatically shocked from a wolfhound goring Henry was all for the quiet life. Summer had been pointless, autumn dormant, and now with winter’s onset Henry was concentrating on his baldness with all his might. If he fretted on it very hard, a hairless Xmas was within his grasp. A once in a lifetime opportunity. The experiments with the uranium earmuffs would have paid off. In the new year he would get a patent via the Godalming Honkers Cult and new vistas would duly open up.
-Apart from walk what
would you like to do?
-Dunno, don’t think about that
much these days.
Go out?
Where?
What to do?
I’m skint anyway,
then there’s the weather,
and, to be honest
I’m not much company,
and, repulsive to look at
except in a ghoulish way.
See I’m pretty much
resigned to that these days.
Don’t get me wrong though,
I haven’t given up.
Where there’s life…and all of that.
What about you, what are you up to?
-Cosmic time travel,
the laundry,
a spot of Pilates,
watch some junk on the box,
maybe a spot of bear baiting.
Same old, same old.
Isn’t online shopping a godsend?
The time you save…
-Dunno, don’t do it much these days,
too much damn hassle
and then there’s identity theft,
hacking,
and you don’t know
really see what your getting,
well you can’t can you –
not unless you’re really there,
in the shop or whatever.
-We could go shopping…shop-ping!
-Nah, I hate shopping.
crowds of people.
Bloody people everywhere,
getting in your way,
pushing.
-What about Christmas then?
-Quiet I suppose…
a barren tundra
of dread bleak isolation.
Same old malarkey
I rose and chose a coffee
from the selection of available
water based liquids.
With this I had a cigarette,
which I made myself:
harvesting, drying, processing leaf,
pulping paper in a big blue pail,
extracting gas from the bio mass
and flattening it to the required
denir aboard my
miniature steam roller.
An exhaustive process
often interrupted by the need
to release toxic waste
from the tee-pee
~
On arrival upstairs in my lift
the day was revealed as misty
and the streets sweat wet.
I dropped my lighter on the floor and left it,
vowing to retrieve it later
with my extended manual claw
that hangs from the hospital bed.
A cursory take on the news
clarified the extent of yesterday’s huge explosion in China.
Jim Al Kalili showed me around Sellafield
nuclear reprocessing plant and availed me of a
brief history of nuclear energy.
He looks very like a frog
I was intimate with once
during Thermidore
Away from chaos radio and noisy gadgets
I try to hear my own voice.
It is jumbled, jerky, muddled
&
When it hears me listening it shut’s up.
Intruder, it whispers under my breath and hides behind an eyebrow.
Another voice comes, quite the opposite of my sonorous lilt
An abrupt jibber-jabber
accompanied by
a mellifluous buzzer.
Just as I begin to make it out
It stops and hides behind an eyelid
~
Unperturbed I resume my
interrupted bout
of shadow boxing.
So far the shadow is ahead by two points:
it is southpaw, dogged, cunning, experienced.
I stand firm, steely jawed, granite eyed,
bleeding, unfeeling, waiting.
Rope a dope, Ali called it;
or, was that Angelo?
~
Zap, I’m downed
a momentary lapse is all it takes
bloody WASPs
get me every time
I let my guard down
slob dons long john-johns chthonic dressing gown crumbles down below (Harken! The Bells) truffle waffle kerfuffle muffled chronic iconic gin & tonic how ironic!
History is a nightmare
forget to learn it
Put in your pocket
Retrieve in one hundred years
if you remember that is
Have a real good laugh & cry
Poem posted, home alone, drinks at three
with Little Me
and my charming, closest, confidantes
Myself and I
The woman at the next table
passed me the ashtray
with a kind and understanding smile.
I poured myself in with gusto.
I do not care for the one
with the mean grimace and fixed gaze.
Is there fur will, yes or no?
a bald dog hollered.
Finger shows telling
ghoulish tales of reading
after dark descends
the staircase bearing scissors:
The Barber of Free Will
Grimbeau 