There are yellowfish
crying out
for a poach.
We approach seven.
It is evening:
drinks on the patio,
freewheeling banter, laughs , and snacks.
Tapas lovingly prepared.
The lugubrious air
memories of summers past.
Dreamtime in a word.
The smoked haddock will stop yelling soon.
Green or black olives, Daphne?
Are they pitted?
By my fair hand.
You are the one, aren’t you…What’s that sound?
Fish snoring.
Tee-hee-hee…
Yesterday plus one
damp smell of seventies
porn mag, black and white,
thick minged,
Titbits or Parade,
lawn and hedge,
put it back where you found it:
a secret.
Stealthy wanks and aloof strops conceal
the pull and then sulky sleep,
complex born.
Delivered by a bald man from Parslow’s
who looked like a parrot,
or that comedian who made a film with a parrot,
lantern jawed, sort of Stanley Holloway,
that time anyway.
We move into different times of Happy Door
writing down the football scores
in a Woolworth red notebook
and very erudite
but for the greasy skin and hair
and the Bri-nylon shirt:
withered upturned orange collar,
second hand jacket that was always too big:
still is.
Pink salmon trousers for smart
made me look and feel like a dork,
perhaps I was!
Do not let on or you’ve had it,
there will be retribution and bullying
far worse than ever known in the history of me.
Join gangs,
walk hard and hide
clever bully,
ideas man,
dirty rec,
silly temptress with Goldie locks,
the smell of sweet wee-wee.
Bowled him!
Over
A blind, dead driver
in front
slows and
indicates all options
before a left at the lights opposite
a set sun of cheap stuff
and loss leaders
that call the believers
and sinners to shop.
All the trees
are brown
and the
carpet is grey.
I went
for
a splash
on a summer’s day…
Rite of Spring on: unseasonably
Pleasing accompaniment while
Sitting daringly naked with towel
To hand and an eye on my genitals
Ensuring they are not overexposed
To the sun.
Having been burnt before like this.
When the Rite is done
(less than thirty minutes)
Back indoors to lunch on cider and crackers,
And, gently creaming my largest organ.
It is the centenary of this Rite.
Sixish
Warm, heavy, windless evening.
The stumbling minor chords of evening stumble
as a lazy dozer, sticky from unusual heat,
wends homeward to unstick the goo and
prepare for tasks unimagined,
unwelcome,
and sunshine important.
Protozoans and zoans; krypton tripped on
A fat, docile cat.
Splat!
A commotion ensued:
fur, screech, ouch, run…
boxed in
in the garden
permanently dormant.
Cist! My arse
Tells a tale
Of
Punishment.
I am arrived at the mausoleum.
Linoleum cool marbled purple floor
Helpfully reflecting afternoon sun.
A resurrected garden through the door
Seems closer as shadow lengthens distance.
No matter; we continue our approach.
Outside is, as always, not what it seemed,
As usual old habits and patterns
Recur: lassitude and wreckfullness soon
Assume the crown: spongeful someday slatterns
Vying for positions of insignificance
Beneath a tree, by the spuds and garden fence.
Above them clouds the monk soars:
Theloniously.
Wasn’t that sick?
Are you aware?
Me lying dead on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the drones.
Didn’t it miss?
How can they prove?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can’t move.
Where are the drones?
Send in the drones.
Just when I’d stopped opening wars,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again with my nonchalant air,
Sure of my lines,
No one is there.
Don’t you love force?
My call I fear.
I thought that you’d want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the drones?
Quick, send in the drones.
Don’t bother, they’re here
Isn’t it sick?
Isn’t it clear,
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the drones?
There ought to be drones.
Let’s get out of here.
Mike Foot died yesterday.
My
mind flew to
the Bevan biography:
when I read it
how I felt.
Then
there was the Scarfe sculpt of him laying crumpled
in a duffel coat with a mop for hair
and spine
This
was soon after
Scarfe had done ‘the wall’
cartoon movie sequences with pink Floyd
who were busy floating inflated pigs.
Huston and the Moby Dick
latex whales,
cast adrift by a seastorrm and floating
about the cork coastline endangering shipping.
Poor Mike,
a bit like
the latex whale himself,
as he got swamped
by the ugly tory juggernaut,
and the middle class parasites of the sdp fiasco.
I heard Owen belching out some shite
about Plymouth after the war, Argyle etc – what a dick!
I have dreamt about being looked upon with
general disapprobrium
for
frequent use of this word,
smacks of a bit of
adolescent muckiness.
there
was this thing on the radio about
Salinger and I was full of shit last night,
so it’s understandable.
Grimbeau 