Cinquain at Shelly's

losses

tinsel title 

each of us complicit 

in seasoned pacts of forgetting 

profits

Overheard haiku

winter wonders about

exhibition cocktails 

also need a poo

For Life

SOLIDARITY 

               ON MY BOAT

      SINK

                RACISM 

The Home Secretary puts Forty Quid on her Boat Race

 

Lend us ten grand? 

I can go, live a country that hates me. 

It's definitely better than here. 

If I don't eat owt, 

or die on the way, 

I can pay you back in five year. 

SEEN THIS RIGHT

BAD ART

         ALLUS THUS 

CONTAINED SALUTÉD 

MAKE BETTER ART 

                     CONCLUS

The Clearing

In the wooded clearing,

the train guard stood a sky-wise glare.

An over-qualified journalist joined at the pit's end. 

The opposite farmer looked up for once. 

They spoke, she translated, they waited. 

I'll miss that - a nuevo-nod to a jaded hill, 

I'll miss that - a crow-wink to a Balkan murder-song, 

I'll miss that - a throw-up to a strewn lamb at

adults’ height ‘neath polished calves' leather,

Swiss Army ’tween its teeth - was that a smile?

It was never yours anyway - a body prod with a

feller's birch. 

As the meteor did it's slow job wrecking the natural

over the native, they stood dusk for the incoming. 

A lynx blew a plastic whistle.

A woodpecker gave a last .-- / - / .. -. 

A vehicle for change came stuck at the border.

A fine was never issued.

The Reporter for Witch Magazine

Getting sentimental, in Pendle

With a modern recorder

For supernatural dispatches 

And I can not afford a

Slip of the tongue 

When surrounded by strength 

On the search for woman 

Who'll go to any length 

To coven her right to

Be what she wants

I discover the night 

And the most silent of fronts

The story looks short

When it's told by a man

For the wonder of mystery 

He'll never understand 

That the blood’s on his formals

Won’t sisterhooded cloaks

Won't croak to the normals

Or snitchiest folks

Who lust after magical 

Takes for their papers

For these are all tragedies 

In black as coal makeup

Of friendship and collectivism

And natural wonder

And kindship unflinching 

In misunderstood thunder 

So take down the Old Bailey 

Raise heads going under

Put out fires decided 

By suited profunders

The docks are for fatcats

And liars in power

And a hex on these men

Each witching hour

This Walk is Long (for Danielle and Liam)

 

This walk is long, we'll be bound, whether mapped out or

whether predetermined destiny is not your thing,

 

whether detail drawn or plotted through operatic soap-sop linguistics, philosophise over a portside pint and bring

 

music, not to be confused with what suckers call

music, but the real thing. Ain't nothing like the family knot 

 

tried and tied and overtired to pick out what's what when,

a strung-out four to the floor sometimes five, gives licks to 

 

the frontal lobe, sending us grinning in strategic wonder, to

hand in hand, stand, and stare this spinning globe.

 

We can take it right back, to where we started from, with

hike-blisters and disco strings, hauling each other up by the 

 

gigs or bins, with a flavour just right, plated to perfection, with only a sprinkle of pretention, for the feast within.

We can walk through Icelandic storms or pop-gloss or some funk from Slavia armed with tonic, for when the kapo fits, play it.

We can long at tractors in monochromic grain for 360 Slavic minutes and pick within it, wildly, fresh flowers and

grip righty, those moments when minutes are hours, knitted tightly and make considered decisions seem like 

 

snap, and likely wonder what the pixel point is of it all. When the smile needs a dress and laugh is an unblocked drain 

 

when the bairn’s face is a mess, but nevertheless, we hit the harmonic at just that moment, to make this road make sense.

 

With certainty, like the tissue box or the opening credits of queen’s pawn to d4, we all know what love is really for,

 

we are in it, and we’ll walk on evermore.

 

 

natalie number one

the fatalist brutality of the

actual actuality 

of the collar done 

nattily is

conundrum 

#1

For Jerry, a Poem

 

There's some corner of Islington that will

for ever be, threadbare cared for, thrust

in a bear-like, where we lip up the summer,

hoard the winter, where the one in gets supped. 

 

There's some corner of Islington that will

forever be, sláinte trimmed

regardless of footfall or football or wobbly form,

that picks affectation warm, 

in shouts to the brim.

 

There's some corner of Islington that will

for ever, be braw-tale anointed,

unthinned, informed, dovetailed and pointed, never skirting the grim.

 

There's some corner of Islington that will

ever be, tourist info, London-list proud, 

way beyond Engand, library-brained, for all

newborns and all newcomers.

 

There's some corner of Islington that will

for ever be, victorious, despite the Gunners,

breezing wheesy through a landlady's bain that

loves anny televised sport and hates anny rain.

 

There's some corner of Islington that will

for ever be, play it nice and cool son, nice n’ cool

where a bar workers’ fall-breaker later

is the exception that proves the rule.

 

There's some corner of Islington, that will

ever be, a game of stool chess, 

the ice-driven politik,

learnt of friends and gentleness,

with a hand on arm and a slop of a kiss,

where they'll turn it up a bit,

where they'll play the drum slowly,

where they'll play the fife lowly,

where they'll pour him a pint as they lower him down.

 

There’s some corner of Islington that will

for ever be, Jerry’s, where sorrow may always be drowned. 

 

pubsticker

the halfscarfwankers biscuitarsed drinkfast to pasts while brass fucksoff in onetwofive paced plasticclass grasps at presents wrapped in clart and regard for footballdoneproperly has justa bout phonedoneinagain which

ain't too smart

Autumn 10s

Autumn stone's on the upstroke/ Hammond crack for me almanac

i am a photograph

 

Blue Star with Pliers

postwork

beerpicture

found

particular

profound

a theatre of bream on a bike

 

 

nice scarf she said

100% synthetic I said

like jubilee doors squeezed

from tubes to stop the falling 

 

queen that bloody pleabargain yeah

the review read four star and

the unleaded pencils tookover

the spencertracy takeaway 

 

noted the tuesdaynight breakout

grooved the spinningdicks cut south

waxing their extraneous gout

borders as guardas and pandered

 

nuns pistolwhipped the tripdown

the lane called st louis memory

sweetjazz had lost its charm

the theatreposters were all tory

 

the largeman in the toilet was

offering a goodkicking for a

quid sunderland snakes played an

eightbot game named fuckthehumans

 

the bikerace was won by a smartdog

who couldn't even spell the warondrugs

listless fuckers rocked frocks

with those who chose pegs fornoses

 

as the callingcurtain closed she shot

her glancingblow fucking sue me groovy

and the mice in his glassjaw

bared their arses to the world

 

oldham's finest flyover

 

flaming lamborghinis greet us

lizardgreen in the twitch of a

 

praha 64 dankhouse near the

wreck of debenhams, flowery.

 

tenstoried sixthformers, all plaidtrad or

pulpfantistic, in vaguely matchingsocks and

 

godfathergarb, nod the latest bongo

flavored indiehit, to whispers ‘bout blood

 

sharers. piccadally types, ten

bobeye flit with the offswitch of the

 

neveraging kickbouncer, us

eyelocked on the bab-eh-fut,

 

channelling exhibition #7.

as the indoorsmoke separates, that

 

fellaoffthetelly david icke, greybobs

through the methanic mist –

 

'scues me, where's the gents?

while high as the parakeet hotel,

 

eyes and digits are heaven lent,

an acousticidiot lumps a

 

marshall in the corner, and a

tinsign ads a soap box, in the event. 

 

A troubled haiku

FROM BOX VIEWS

DUST MATTERS THE

ANGLE OF SKEWERS

Warszawiarnia

 

 

nie dla mnie it’s only bullet holes

and tripping tribute museums nah

for me it’s a dance of naïvejoy deftdrafted of

ediblywarm suncrack’d backslaps from the

oldboys it’s a sketch on the back of a

politicallyshite flyer of a folkflower tattoo in a 

brutalistbar in an alien hiphop frozen

vodkabuzz for the strongarm of the

most beautiful cousin you’ve not met

yet

Running the Country for Them

 

life's very voodoo

 

and 

butchered bores

overrun with pennies

of

gigantic international jobs

for

own nests

 feather

lying

dogs of

canary wharf machinery

wallowing

days of stats

______________________________

by

the mouth of london

'twas a honey taste to him

he

was due a werewolf turn

in the smoke 

the adamant review

for

these wild works of theatre

are 

life's very voodoo

Jam Sandwich

there's a box in the head, there's a head in a box, there’s handcuffs, there's trauma, post-mortem, a tick in a box, there's a case in a wastepaper bin that's bin dropped, there's rag-accusations, there are sheep, there are flocks, there's a trial, there's a trail, there's a chicken, there's pox, there's an institution swearing publicly, to pull up itss ocks, there's a chief and a meeting and a waggon full of cops, there's a tape that's erased and a woman in the dock, there's boat taking folks in a sink on the rocks, there’s a cold calculator for counting the cost, there's an unwritten committee who have all the chops, there's all cats are beautiful, there’s hunting the fox, there's tea on the wall and the sirens won't stop, for the searching of children who they’re calling unwashed,

here’s the question: there's a police car, does it make you feel safe, scared or cross?

there’s a box in the head, there’s a head in a box, there's all of that bollocks ‘bout a communist plot, there's a professor at uni who’s assumed security, there’s a man on the socials on the subject of purity, there's political flops serving policy slops, there's a commiss’ner all draped in a flag with a cross, there’s a woman in the clink, I bet you’ve not seen her, there's an academic on telly who's mistook for a cleaner, there's a facebook opinion that voxes the pops, there's veins thin and blue and they're ready to pop, down your local borough and shop any brown boy who's hoping to get out of the stocks and stop all this street show of being publicly flogged, there’s a box in the head, there's a head in a box, there's a jack-boot, there’s fruit, there’s a tick in a box.

First published in Jarg 'zine #3

Wildcat Whiskey an’ a game a’ darts

he was a game of twohalves a play

in classacts a plaid salamander on a

 

yacht piano in a backarsed bar

the gap from trousercuff to loafer was

 

leathal bouncing like jerryleelewis's

bedhead splitminded scribing if

 

necessary violence picking violets for

his nan a d.a.’ed georgiefame on a

 

longsixties greyday all very kray

twinned with florence dressed texmex

 

newyoik rawmeat with smartsauce in a

backstreet boozer near you

 

guitar peccadilloes ginsweat

teardropping on his lapelbadge screaming

 

no requests! in any smashedfactory

window in any bigot's bureau singing

 

alltogethernow fly me gary

to the moon

 

 

 

 

Scratchers

Scratchers

for the striking Matchgirls

These given takers, Us taken givers.

Us nithering arms with shift alarms, 

from shafters, fruitless flee.

These frame the smog with hat and rod,

and want us criminal be. 

These corn cross dish to comfort mug,

Us mafficking sods in capital fog,

Us Monday mice, smoggy cogs of ditch

and chapel, duff and scratching toil.

These dainty doyles of telegraph fat,

shaved nape and plumb, curtsey

spend their surname spoils.

These division suiters, ledger scratch

with gimlet eye, toast peaks,

ink troughs with foul dispatches of

Us crumb condemned to exhaust and

quell in Standard daily rackets.

Us sallow grudge and sorrow trudge, but,

Us throng know where the meat is from.

Us dandelion nippers, burden sellers

of common blend, will smirk our end

in her pride’s eye, in suffer shirts, ‘till

wooded jackets with save-stitched bright,

united letters,

and forth,

Us stride in strife, in strike —

for we's our only ever betters.

First published in Feathers and Pennies

https://www.matchgirls1888.org/