fish breathe
first month rivers wide
not knowing
coming
or going
(Lichtenstein's Still Life with Red Wine)
He was the sort that
Would carry beer mats in his
Covert coat pocket
For unstable tables that
Would bump into him often
Borscht spat Benday dots
On badly lain flags by The
Absolute Friday
Nighters with Stazi barnets
He was tucked up to avoid
The down dent left by
Second story safe haul was
The cheek suck of the
Bar girl's neat note for the numb
'er for ambivalence see
(Dalí's Lobster Telephone)
The sniff dog's nod not
Bread of expectation not
Stall tied to edge the
Clamourous bus burr was he
Quall to the fuss of walking
You bets whispered in
Two battered whiskers placed by
The strife eternal
Diced and shifted gifted to
The nowhere not even odd
There not could provide
A new collar to button
He put his finger
Right the fuck on it tonic
And crossed the narrow road wide
(Bertelli's Profilo Continuo (Testa di Mussolini))
The memorial
To the dog with two dicks he
Passed the bronzed pigeon
Shat on statue to a simp
Pairing tit of the drool stool
Kinder scoots strewn as
Homeless folk's strewth dotted he
Spotted the libr'ry's
Shut as John's paper shop was
Like his cigarette rolled up
He lingered fingered
For an excuse for a coin
Not choc lit he flicked
Through the poetry bit of
Sue Ryder's put out of sorties
(Herakut's I got quite good at hiding the herd from those who kill beauty for fun)
Crisp his soup head dreamt
Of rye bread but not that sort
Beyond caged whistles
And mirrors of his drying
Window sun budget cigar
Pickled plates a cream
American Frank furs the
Diner's sound soured at
Psycho records on plastic
That jukebox lent him in thin
He judge watched narrow
Eyes and James Dean smiles so snuck
The doorway dark as
Fuck to hear imagine ary
Women there misplaced for luck
Tights from
The House of SWP
Ripped on the ex-Christmas tree
She took another limp
From a packet of deads
Do that one more time
Sunshine
Said she said she said she
The sun
was the colour of piss on chrome, of
marigolds in baskets, marigolds in sinks, of lager
in the last flat roof pub. The riotous fug.
Al limped in.
He’d worked in Bloomsbury before the concrete set.
There was a moment where 50% polyester felt like
silk on skin. He was made of XS, but took an XL RL
knock-off in white. Bone buttoned. Billowing.
Bog rolls on string.
They’d got their Sunday’s
caught in the zip of the afternoon. Kev of Mancunia was
double cross, had shot people for less and would not
leave it out. Lydia, gave a ‘missed Frank earlier’
out the side of her mouth.
I don’t need to miss this place to know that they was there.
I snapped fairies in the willow by me dead mum’s dog,
do you ever notice? Do you
fucking care?
Algernon had a
perfect working washer, Ariston, but opted for the coin-op.
Odds on for a mix-up in the undergarments. Meaning
cubicle confinement to pass the export flat, else that
frilly question, he dared be asked.
The lash.
He’d arrived
all over The Danish Girl on ITV 3. It made his year.
He’d kipped all through MotD 2, the pub-time sermon,
to be passed on and on and on
and on…
A schtum trudge
through dead tree stools, lily mats, lino grass, took a sharp
down the gents. Parfum ’73 hit his working nostril, for the
veil of stench. Eyes to heavens, he royally threw. Home
counties ‘22.
He flicked thinning overgrowth, nicked his finger on
safety glass and rouged his lips. Scarf-tied Sue Ryder, tight.
Firm fingered the hole in his memory, to see
if it had a pulse.
Borax for the thorax.
Metal coat-hanger ‘tween teeth. Jutting clavicles creased and
wrinkled. Tranquiliser girls came crutch less with glossy dogs
in flaxen highs, all camomile lawn laid and dandy handsome.
Glue that.
The fruit machine flashed back.
Fellow nymphs gambolling meadows, were fellow sods
gambling Sky Sports racing. Keynes would’ve had a
good-to-firm field day. Cornflower pens behind ears.
A horse named Ripp Off ran the 2:15.
Livers for the chop.
a damn fix, unfair! In all my time recorded,
such power, such grace should not go unrewarded!
The vape was opiate.
The insults, appropriate. The expression on Dave’s dog’s
visage. The brawn by the pawn shop. Salute tattoos
on the arms of Ian. All soaks, masquerading
as functioning human beings.
Al’s named each that ghastly prick, as the fug of the day
came in again,
thick.
Vent-Axia
magnolia fly-stuck where the loose let, let loose. Arse flesh
for the meat raffle. Each nail, each visit, he filed under
breezeblocks in the bogs. He calf-polish spat on his Reebok,
mirrored a young man never aged.
Not ‘alf.
Narcissus ivy, window cracked. It wrapped his imagination
like the absinthe advert dress by the dartboard.
It was a story full of holes.
Vanessa tolled,
the crowd bemused. Tomorrow, our lonesome fuck, would be
‘same again love’, as both Al and Algernon
all too bastard knew.
In West Ukraine, a blue crane
lifts the barley from the guts of the city.
In this accident of geography,
she found the only puddle on the ground
and made one hell of a splash.
Blonde and pleated, tall and static,
a well trod speakers’ corner, she stood.
Her hometown, a Bureau de Change
above a laundry room.
She could not have the patience of the flower seller.
She did not believe in the sound of the sea.
The hurricane from the away end
blew crosses from the hilltops into her psychology,
blew ticks from the reservoir to fuel her residency.
Statuesque, she daily flung her concrete words, ballistic,
against the amassed and fascistic.
To mark the tenth anniversary of her death,
football scarves were laid.
A small boy, all neat and auburn,
offered his historiography:
Fuck your vile corrupt iconography
Spat and turned into the café, he burst
already old enough to drink 5 star Hararava,
lit up his cigarette and eyeballed
the old patriots in the corner,
who ran off handing their beer money
to the beggar woman in the street.
He bowed toward her stomping ground
and sniped:
Never admit defeat!
Went to revere Roddy
in the Betsey
In the half-trim half-time power of the
dimming light
Where pints and flights abut
Went to cozen limbo
Set squirreling
in the glower of the wonder hour
before Mischief Night
But the pub was bloody shut
And where I sat
in another
in the cup
Aberdeen could've been
1-0 up
healer for vice
give dire and squat
you cabling strippen!
dwelt no fan
goad and hew agile jiz
to remand ire
grub the snake move
oh but stay!
cage your serfs to no.
is onyx strip zoo?
or he lied...