Unreal night
blood damp black
on sun-drenched grass.
No buttercups grow in
Iguana hours: stone dead cicadas
Pop! One more skin shed.
For sale:
A cider press;
Zealous owner.
Time thwitels away,
stops some clocks,
breaks all rocks.
Under moon
The garden blooms.
Thwarts & All.
Starving
savaged anchovy,
ravaged dry
baguette,
tore off a sockful,
wrapped up shredded limb
A bloodless coup d’ pan complete…
till later:
Part-sated, basking in its modest cranny,
the predator lowers, rests ruminant,
still wanting, just waiting, inhaling, whittling.
The deep, odd, shock of it hit me in the sun
On the shed path, marooned on a concrete crack
Freed up took in the scene, shocked, turned;
Trundled, older, balder, back up the ramp
Freewheeled, calmer, silent, down the ramp
Came to rest beside the stable table,
Tossed my hair (singular) in the blue breeze
And wiped the puss from Barney’s weeping souls.
The moo-cows are gone home to roast
No more mutinous idiots barge in
Decide to play this game of life to win
The first of the few,
the last of the many,
the next or
the runner-up,
the second last bar none
the rising of the moon
at the setting of the sun
under cypress shadows
wise chrysanthemum
Freaks out,
Cauli’s out early
too,
much ado
about garden,
inside
Chopin mazurks
On a croissant
Something lurks above
A dove with a glove
A weasel with an easel
In the murk…
the whisper of the sea
around the balustrade
the whistle of the sea
cast me in this mystery?
this is the
start of history
a whisper of the sea,
around the balustrade.
Melancholy
Flea
Melancholy
Knee,
Woe is me,
Anatomy
Giant flea,
Hook
Swatted whopper,
splattered it,
squashed it
on
scruff, ruff
with my giant thumb,
shadow of its former self,
a bloody, sticky mess.
Find a strange land,
concrete, not a fancy,
Not a nation,
Nor a state or both,
where confusion breeds
dissemblance and misery.
A realm glimpsed,
enjoyed only without torment,
or opposing the beast.
Secure and safe, warm and dry,
without fear or favour.
Impossible! That can never be.
Whorled walnut tree
Makes the sticks
The brickburner supplies the bricks.
Al Boley
fills gas
lamp mantle
a tin, eerie
bacolite mantle,
Woodbine romance
Shall we dance?
Syncopated Agatha;
Anglepoise, equipose,
Lachrymose quaques.
Crackle and ivory,
drum brush, Dapper Dan,
tuxedo, savoy, suave, class, pure class, lush…
rubber corsets on flaccid flappers,
inner tube condoms,
PJ Perelman, art deco, echo chamber
commemorations, abdications, league of nations,
pylon poets, silver screens, Teruel,
Abyssinia, King Zog, King Kong,
concierge, demi-urge, debutantes, ants-in-pants…
Popular Fronts, Fascist Cunts, Micky Mouse,
The uniformed doorman at the Picture House
Primo Carnero, Bonnie, Clyde, Lassie
Armstrong Siddeley, broken chassis
Spikes, louses, blouses, dames in trousers
Pathe Newsreels, nudists, sandalled Buddhists,
Caddying for Tony Locke, spats, Schneider Trophy
No nightingales in Berkeley Square, just martingales,
…hear road spray surge
Saturday morning shipping
muggy, sticky, sweaty,
laurel oil shining
yellow, yellow flower,
slug and nomad,
fennel sags and drips,
splashing,
plushing the petrichor,
boney, stony, earthly delight
sigh and swoon
Sun and Moon
Grimbeau 