….Anna Conda she said
wearing nothing but a florid feather boa
and a face like fizz
Name’s Conda
Routefinder
If you take the B4016997
it’ll wind up over the hill
and on to heaven
but if you’re in a hurry
to get somewhere fast
turn right and the M1
will take you past
everything else at speed
heaven isn’t guaranteed
City and Guilds qualified Dog Groomer
I know one end of a dog
from the other.
I want respect for it
Outstayed Welcome
I stayed longer
than driftwood should plan
outside the subway station
we embraced on day-glo grass
knowing the earth we’d worked
was now shapeless sand
I bobbed down the escalator,
a squall blew me through a train door,
a wave washed me down a tunnel,
away from land
Off His Legs
They brought me a blanket
a blanket of deep snow
for I have come to this place
where we all must go
when we’re old
and no, it s not romantic,
comfortable or warm
its cold….
cold
Liver
My mother was a high liver
and giver of herself in conversation
My liver’s wasted
and I’m still looking for myself
so that I can be generous with it
to the next generation
Kumquat
wet twat
in a shell
come quick
come slow
in thick hot breath
a death takes place below
and in the lush gush of seed
a sweet resurrection
in the afterglow
Jocks Abroad
I am not the only mad dog
on this road at noon
there are others
and some of them
are English
Jock in Totteridge
Ah’m having a terrible time
in half-timbered Totteridge
first the kettle cowps
its defurring chemicals
gobbing white sludge in ma tea
thus giving me furry cramps
in the solar plexus
and then ma sexus
is taken out by the teapot
tipping a ton of hot Tetleys
doon ma front
before it wis brewed
due to the new glue
in the china blue
handle
not resisting
boiling water
OK there were warning signs in both cases
but they were written in
bloody English.
International
In this bar
at this time
there are 9 men
watching Bulgaria versus Spain
and holding forth,
one blonde woman
reading a German paper
with a smirk on her face,
one pierced and painted woman
smoking a cigarette
and staring at her knees
and one pale woman in black
sweeping round and round
with a feather duster
muttering private curses
in 12 different languages
I am Sleepless Here
The bell strikes every time
a quarter-hour of night has gone
there have been two rain showers
and three times a milky moon
broke through soft cloud
like a highwayman
tapping my window-pane.
A woman shouted in a grey yard,
four lorries pulled their loads away,
setting their diesels
for another part of the country
and once, at four forty-eight, I dozed
then twitched awake again
regretting
I wasn’t with you.
Hedera
I’ve got powdery mildew on my hedera
I’m gonny have to take to my bedera
If not I might well end up deadera
than a plate
of well-grilled kippers
Houseplant care is a full-time game you know
thats why I stopped driving in the fast lane you know.
I’ve got sore feet too. They’re a bit of a pain you know
so I’ve started wearing
slippers
Flume
A very fat and grinning man
came down the giant flume.
They should have
built a plunge pool
with a bit of extra room…..
everyone laughed
for the tidal wave he caused
washed away all tides forever
and waterlogged the moon
As a result
fluming will soon be an official Olympic Sport….
he who wins
is he who grins
widest
and displaces
most liquid.
Even now in Eastern Europe
they’re fattening themselves up
and polishing
their teeth.
Fish
Why do you dive off
seacliffs on dark stormy nights
when you’re tired and emotional
and can’t see the trees for the wood?
Is it some deep-down
death-by-drowning wish?
No.
If I wanted to drown I could.
I just like the feel of cold black water
curling round my nose.
I suppose
I’m a funny fish.
Feminist
There’s too much oestrogen
in the water.
That’s why I’ve fathered
twenty daughters
and now I’m growing breasts.
It’s good news for the ambivalent amongst us
(I’ve bought my very first dress)
but I don’t know about the rest
of history
Fatherland
Your Father
which art in Heaven
fought mine.
They were down in the mud
with blades, hand to hand
gouging each other
not for hatred
but for survival.
My Father Killed
Your Father
Hallowed be his name.
Like you I am as meek
as any of the Blessed
and we gaze at each others eyes
not wishing to gouge them.
We make love in the mud
rather than fight.
But somehow Our Fathers
are forever and ever…….
or at least
a good while yet.
Amen
Saving the Planet
cut down
the cutting down
of rainforest
recycle
your bicycles
bury the fossil fuel idea
deep underground
make free ozone zones
in the greenhouse
take acid in the rain
Divorce
Are you gonny have
a talk to mummy,
give her a drinka wine?
Disarming
I’m aware
of my disarming honesty.
Please remain armed
if you wish.
Dont worry,
I can handle myself.
Consider
dedication
and addiction
the first is just a presentation
and attempted justification
without much foundation
of the second
which is an affliction
not a fiction
Cast
In the grey light dribbling
through the thud
of dull machinery
he searched for a
friend
A red hot metal skate
with a crucible of gold
dropped onto his glistening pate
instead of the mould
they’d made for him.
He was cast
as a misfit
in the end.
Buried Alive
No air can reach through that,
nothing gets past soil
pressed into its brown wet self
and densening in the downward weight of
microorganism.
No force can push through that,
you might want to bloody a few nails
strain back, knees and shoulders raw
in the dark box of this enormity.
No avail.
No sound can rise through that,
try your lungs until the time of breath is past
time will go slowly, time will go fast
and neither matters.
This is the end of all banality
the ultimate finality,
the big one
at last
Bone
Your earlier remarks
were a bit near the bone
of my contention.
Its not a big deal,
I just thought I’d mention
it.
Bad in Bed
I’m well-hung
lick-nippled, six-packed
great-buttocked
but bad in bed.
Chicks doze off
as I grunt away at them,
birds get bored to death
with my pecker,
geese fly off in a flock
slandering the gander.
With you I nibble your ears,
use lips, all the things I’ve got
with slow sensitivity.
You moan with the tedium
of this intimacy.
I kiss your thighs
they twitch a little,
I do that thing I do
with one hand at your perineum
one at the down of your neck
and my mouth at your pearly gates.
You dont open them
you dont scream for more
you snore.
Apple
You are the eye
of my Big Apple
the core of my world
a perfectly ripe
Cox’s Pippin
of a girl.
Dont let the wee tykes from up the road steal you.
Alien
It was then I realised
you were not of this planet.
We had found soft shingle
on a hard flinty beach
sat side by side
watching island life
when I stood to swim.
I left two loveable curved indents
behind my behind
and when I turned from the sea
I saw your indents were
just conical holes.
You are not anorexic.
You have not been slimming.
Then I noticed you were only sweating on one side…
something adrift with the drainage ducting
or extra-terrestrial style features?
I considered your endearing thin spiked ears
remembered you cannot abide
going anywhere slowly
and the look of startlement
in your green antennae
when I mention
washing dishes
Aimara Reques
runs round a reservoir in the rain
her Nikes and popsocks punishing the po-faced ground
and the heart in her dark bounced breast
beating the dreary wind. Those Latin locks
curled damply round her cheeks are black-blasted heath fingers
pointed witches of somewhere chilly and wet in the west.
Her ringlets might be sensual on a hot pillow somewhere south
traced by a spent lover’s hand, smelled like the best coffee in a morning.
Resting there she could be unfit, fat and taken warmly
not flabfighting in a place where everything she likes is wrong,
where lovers can’t be found
because they’ve all gone
to Venezuela.
A Jump
She thought she’d go beyond
for once live a little
do something memorable and bold
before she got old.
It was scarily enriching
and not all that hard
apart from the ground
when her chute failed to open
They scooped her up with a shovel
into binbags
put her in a young persons grave
and forgot about her
The old worms licked
their rubbery lips
You need a coat….
even though its 80 degrees
there might arise a chilly breeze
on the way to the chip shop
when you turn a corner to the west …
best be ready
no the weather’s not steady, not really your friend
it’s bound to turn nasty in the end
you need a coat.
…a good coat is a must
it makes you feel bigger, more decisive, more robust.
and whiskers help too.
When You Were Three
you’re 90 years old.
we talk of weather and sport,
the longterm primitives of a longform life
needing to get free
there are scores to consider…teams to appraise
so we watch the match
on your Sky TV
you and me
you doze, you start awake
you need to know what you missed
was there a goal, a penalty, a foul ?
you need to know
you need to see.
it’s the same bright fight in your eye
that you had when you were three
TV Breasts
I will take illegal hormones
I’m prepared to take the chance
If I grow breasts on my shoulderblades
I’ll be sexier when we dance.
Thincat
I use my claws
to get rich
but I stay slim.
I’m a Thincat
not a fat.
I could ask you
what you think of that
but it doesn’t really
matter.
The Afghan Generals
To Salisbury Plain
the Afghan Generals came
to train
wearing medals and those proud
mountainous
Afghan gazes
Late each evening
they would buy ice lollies
in the 24hr Somerfield
and at the Holiday Inn’s revolving door
I’d often meet them…
smiling…..licking the
chocolate or strawberry
off their
fierce moustaches
Satsuma
Rodger Dodge
was just a splodge
on the horizon of
satsuma wrestling
He half-nelsoned a plum
stuck his thumb
up his bum
And waggled his fingers at the referee
who was a grapefruit
and was a bit acidic about it, I can tell you!
wrestling
wrestling
wrestling……..
Donor Kebab
I was born with a weak kidney
just like Auntie Shona
so when my sister Ann got lynched
she became my kidney donor.
When our first son Napoleon Solo
was finally delivered
we found he had worse lungs
than his Uncle Archie’s liver
and little Ilya’s intestines
have been pan-fried in slivers,
and now that I’ve lost my brains
somewhere in my succulent balls
you seem to have a braised heart.
Frankly, all in all
its offal.
Memories of a Biscuit
Didn’t there used to be something
called a majestic wafer in the fifties
aimed at the early rotting tooth?
I’d have killed for it at nine,
now I hardly remember
whether things were plain
or chocolate coated
in my youth
I loved it then,
had such an appetite,
like later when
I would have died for my first wife
though in fact I lived for her.
Now
if I could just recall her name
well that would take the biscuit.
Kitchen Wisdom
There are only two kinds of conversation
depending on the situation:
Bvoomff!
or
Squiffy.
Its Good to Have a Blether
about the weather
or my anus tickled with a feather
when we’re in the playroom together
and I’m naked
and you’re in red and yellow leather
much better
than being at the end of my tether
because someone’s
writing platitude or perverted filth in
unconscionably bad rhyming drivel
about our communication skills
and our lives together.
Intended
I was feeling quite pleased
with it
till I realised
it was not quite what I
intended
If Cows were Blue
they’d probably have blue eyes
and not those slurpy brown things
that make you melt and feel all sentimental
Their dental hygiene would be second to none …
likewise their military prowess.
They’d have dreamed up
the rise of the third stomach
and the invasion of all those potato fields in Poland
And if I were an Englishman
I’d have had to do something about it
like go over there on my bike and say
How now blue cow?
Death in Bed
I want to die between your legs
die inside you
subside, slide from climax to heaven,
seems like a fitting way to go
when you’re ninety five
and I’m a hundred and seven.
I’ll be older and wiser by then.
In your beginning will be my end
yet so’s you dont feel unfulfilled
and I’m at peace and pleasurably killed
and you cant accuse me of selfishness
or of being rough or making a mess
I’ll wait until you’ve come
go gently, building up slow
then have my coronary
in your afterglow.
Cricket
You rejected me.
I got upset.
Then you rejected me some more
for feeling rejected
Its just not
cricket
Christmas
If I bash my head one more time
on the Star of Bethlehem above the stair
its coming off guide duty
and going back under there
I’m going to fling the Norway Spruce out the window
kick the crackers to kingdom come then eat the marzipan magi
(we’ll see what all that oriental wisdom does for them then!)
As for the infant jesus
I’ll put him out in the blue bin
for recycling
Checkout in Beanqueue
how the man clutches a pint of magnolia vinyl silk emulsion,
holding it high like in a crowded bar,
elbows in, stomach proud, muttering an occasional “Awright pal”
… how the woman eyes him with a weary gaze…
”Stupid but useful” she thinks
as she steers the trolley and watches the prices….
Landline and Ansaphone
Hello its me
I’m in the village of Salt in Staffordshire
Its not in a Vodafone cell.
I could turn this one-way conversation
into a poem
but I might be accused
of writing doggerel
Caravan
In a field beside the M5 near Glastonbury
theres a white camel.
Dont feed it
Dont even look at it
Its a saboteur
Its there to cause accidents
especially if you’re going away for a nice Easter Break
with a caravan in tow
Welcome Break
Michael Wood Services
1/2 a mile
Jane Wood chisels
an orgasmic smile
out of her face
A 1
This is A1, top hole, tickety boo
I cruise it in my Subaru
5 cylinder Cabriolet in petrol blue,
It was built by the Romans
in the year 2
and Taylor Woodrow
got the maintenance contract.
Designed to rearrange, conquer
and control
it was very effective
on the whole…….
just like the autobahns
and you-know-who
this is A1, top hole, tickety boo
Rummage
Her voluminous handbag,
the belly of a small dead cow
dyed Buckingham Green
was not clean
it held fluff, stuff like
the sacks and crumbs
of bygone sandwiches,
squashed figs, pork scratchings
earrings, ringtones,
a phone somewhere
that could never be found,
ringpulls,
a can opener from a time
when ringpulls didn’t exist. This
was just in case….
Toast
When she threw the toast and
much of it lodged in my right ear and
a crunchiness developed
in my hearing and
something dripped
from my nose
peanut butter perhaps
I resolved always
to avoid
this kind of thing
at breakfast
