SwEep
(duStpan & Bru(sj)sh),
WiPe
(scRim & ChaMois),
scruB
(scour, raspish, Rubba)
pOlish
(wax &shine –BufF)
& TouCh-UP
(blushEN, sh(ine)y, finesSE
up porCh (rouge, glOSSy LipstiCk)
Well doNe Job(Pat pate thrice: p-p-pAT)
(Well Done®…!)
Pressing buttons is fraught
With potential disaster
Self-destructive tendencies
Disregard consequences
Plunging headlong in the void
Swans dive slow in fetid lakes
Factors beyond dawn patrol
sense ebbs while love grows fragile
been there saw the t-shirt
savaged on the twilight wire
Scented sanguine tatters drip
On stony porous ground:
the first cut was the daftest
—how come we never learn
from our fascination
with cut & paste alibis?
Dubious communiques
arrive from far off lightships
coaxing weak sun jars pulsate
diligence smells of sawdust
meanwhile next door erudite
yes men jostle for number
one in the copycat charts
the truth fears for its life
in fugitive Siberia
While walking naked
Into the gas chamber one felt
A certain thrill at
one’s predicament:
bereft as one is of Ambassadors
Plenipotentiaries, creeps
& other former fellow
travellers
on the groovy train
to Gobbledegook Central
Nonetheless is more or less
A condition of extreme despair
Energises oneself to crave
A morsel to eat…
Or is it a trick
To lure me from this
Earth shat-a-ring-a-roses
Endeavour?
Like twits leave sinking ships
~
Tree up (this time round)
On the deal (what)I made
Wit (ha-ha) myself & eye…
One before breakfast
thirteen days a week
for twenty nine days
~
How could I possibly
Make a telling difference
Without self-regulation?
Better word up quick
Stop flying by the seat
Of my sovereignty
Call a May Election
Climb a few more Alptraums
Mourn far distant Maidenhead
The first Human Contact of
the Week Award goes to…
F-Bomb,
who, while supersaturated
with head-crunching prescription
drugs, heard out my proposal
with consummate alacrity…
Attempts to remedy the parlous
tobacco situation have fallen on deaf legs
A canned orchestra plays wistful dainties on the window sill
I listen out for salvation—
no salvation arrives on the ten-fifty two
Emil Coiran cracks me up
We are all failures—like it
Dormant bureaucrat
Can’t wait to get on with it
Administration
More disappointment on demand
Basic human rights movement
Sings love’s old sweet song:
Academe, Sweet Academe
How still I see thee
Lying through your teeth
Understand you shortcomings
Before you start discussions
Terms of endearment
Fall on quilted ears
Ingratitude did not come easy to Adam at first, but he told me that once you get the hang it, it soon becomes a firm favourite with all the family, & creating just the right environment for it to thrive results in endless time consuming diversion…
—You’re obsessed! I thought, but he was my man and I did not want to prick his bubble
—What do you fancy to eat? I said
—Apple crumble, he replied contemplating apathy
The air grew thick with orange blossom.
~
—Maculate misconceptions are more frequent than first meets the eye, said the Omniscient Narrator, looking straight into camera two. And to me it seems somehow inevitable that this little episode will precede a fall to end all falls
—Well you should bloody well know, I thought, knowingly
Adam began to weep in despair, smelling trouble in the air, and cursed the green lentil stew for provoking his melancholia, exploiting his innocence.
—Fuck the crumble! I thought, angrily crunching the rosy apple, which, it must be said, tasted everso tangy if not a little toxic
~
Before I knew it I was flat on my back writhing in ecstasy with an Anaconda watching on, reading Constrictor’s Monthly, and smiling benignly at my antics
—You been at the apples, I see, it said in a broad, warm, matriarchal brogue
—Am I still in Eden? I asked
—No, Cirencester, the Serpent replied. All the apples you want here, my dear. Truth be told that’s all there fucking is. Excuse my French.
—Original Sin, I sobbed
—Non, mon petit dejeuner, said the Anaconda. Golden Delicious.
…halfway between ludic rant
& macabre reality
really ought i have a shower
Now the gas is flowing?
& get changed into
shy retiring tweed
Priestess of Thaumaturge
Scourgess of Pareidolia
Tirelessly seeking out
a poetry of cartoon shorts
to embed in your third eye
therefore upside down
sometimes inside out
eluctable in the dark
Elsie Gassbang-Trott
always told it like it was-
essentially transvestite
noble by disposition
or by dint of nature—
girls will be the boys
& the boys will be the girls:
Whatever you want
Twelfth Night of twelfth day
—Now is the winter
of snide discontent—
Wrong Play, Belch
Burp, barf, bark…
Enter broken head:
Well, why you did ask!
~
Coming up three in the sub-post office, rain, pretty dull, quiet, the games have started, think I’ll take a break, go below for a quiet smoke, finish my too sweet coffee; brains gone native, so to speak, not responding to all this gender swapping on the company wireless.
I can see the Puritans giving out soon if they don’t put a sock in this…
~
—No
more cakes & ale, Toby-Baby
Think I’ll forge a billet-du or two
Set the ball
Gallivanting mad
in love’s tacky bagatelle
—Pray,
entreat those three interlopes
loitering by the knick-knacks
come hither nuncles
excorcise the stable stench
with bawdy ballads:
Feast of Fools, Feast of Folly
Indented coastline
enchanted Adriatic
Harbouring novelties
under your nose, Malvolio
Ship of Folly, Ship of Fools
Angels One Zero—
shy antihero comes good
post uplifting prang…
Burnt black kettle bam-a-lamb
Soiled jakes nettle bramley camp
Galingale smells waft slow
O’er Hurricano Horlicks
Watching World War One
won single handledly
reassuringly by brave
bumptious public school chaps
sporting pristine pewter tankards
guffawing at goodfellows
cuddling cadavers
torching teddy bears…
End of the end of
the beginning of end of
the most frightful fiasco:
the goal is to the post
as the post is to the goal…
& the whole is sometimes more
sometimes less than the sum
of its particles…
unquenchable thirst
for adoration—
first after epiphany
silent movies on tv, just subtitles and soundtrack:
you are your own narrator, sat glued to your box, making sense
Somewhere Grace is sipping her morning Soave
shakily through a barbershop straw
recalling the warm thrall of Séance on a Wet Afternoon
hatching sub-plots for new crypsis
Next door a cynical foetus lurks
Listening to Statesboro Blues
Enraptured by womb thoughts
‘Meeting myself on the Way Back’
Repeats like film noir
Primo Carnero
Doffs his coxcomb
Syncopates fancy knotwork
Crying in a pisspot
full of contorting lugworms
Time is a great paella
Dunshaggin’ reads the legend
On the y-shaped coffin box
Grimbeau 