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/

a 13 building cut-up

when cookery people's

underclothing screamed

their vintage, hollow, management

dreams, unique, they weighed

services, all new delhiblue at the

london tower teaschool. 

when i met patty's spanish mama 

that caféday, a mere 17, we

bubbled and pulsed like matched

mosquitos. It was complex

Predictable Art Flick

the painter of texas stray

soul's poor and white

and the summer trains are

bait for the paris riot. 

closely round the lighthouse rock, 

clings the cliché clover

observed, i am but a thief, –

just another brighton walkover.