Sunday 30 September 2012

ROMANCE

for H B–W

The problem was math. There was one
and another one. There were a dozen
red carnations, but the math
was six candles plus a rose petal bath
and italian food. Two drank champagne

with fifteen oysters in a station bar.
Work out the cost of brief encounters.
If Jack loves Jenny and the obtuse
angle is ninety-seven degrees,
what is the chance of disaster?

Love is the answer. If Heather loves
Chris, then sixteen hands of gloves
and a couple of rings, eighteen doves
and a kiss, or vows are enough.



This poem was created on commission. Commission your own poem here:
http://www.justgiving.com/Gavin-Hudson1

FRUIT LIFE

for J M–G

I was an ugli fruit. I was a miracle berry.
I was a banana. I became a watermelon.
If the gooseberries are bitching, I become
a grape, a satsuma or an orange, a pear.

When my mother asks why, I reply plum
and kumquat. A punnet of strawberries,
blackberries bursting from thorns.
These are my fruit lies, my pineapples

on the window sill, shouldered by Lemon
Zest Morning Fresh and scouring pads.
I am a mango, a kiwi, a papaya, tomatoes
and you will not juice me until I am ripe. 



This poem was commissioned for charity. You too can commission here
http://www.justgiving.com/Gavin-Hudson1

Friday 28 September 2012

HAPPY ENDING

for AG

The prince and princess were married,
or not married, or married but only by
common-law, and the frog was involved.

They were married by the turkey who lived
on the hill with a ring on his nose at noon,
or midnight. There were stars, or sunshine,

or rainclouds, a hurricane of weather systems
applauding the marriage. They were blanketed
in snow, or swirled in dandelion seeds,

or eidered in down. The frog turned into
a handsome priest when they kissed his frock,
and the dish sloped off with the laughing dog.




This poem was commissioned for charity. You too can commission here http://www.justgiving.com/Gavin-Hudson1


Tuesday 25 September 2012

PHOTOS OF MOLLY ROSE JONES

for SJ

My boss posts photos
of Molly Rose Jones
in a rocker or on a mat

My boss posts photos
of Molly Rose Jones
in a striped onesy and hat

In a rocker or on a mat
Molly Rose Jones
in a striped onesy and hat
Molly Rose Jones

My boss posts photos
of Molly Rose Jones
She smiles she is amazed

My boss posts photos
of Molly Rose Jones
surprised eyebrows raised

She smiles she is amazed
Molly Rose Jones
surprised eyebrows raised
Molly Rose Jones

My boss posts photos
of Molly Rose Jones
in his hands in his lap

My boss posts photos
of Molly Rose Jones
see her laugh and clap

In his hands in his lap
Molly Rose Jones
see her laugh and clap
Molly Rose Jones

See her laugh and clap
in his hands in his lap
Molly Rose Jones
Molly Rose Jones

MEAT JOY

for JM–G

Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls
— James Joyce

The gizzards of chickens
are suckled with frenzied
slurps and the bones
are marrowed by tongues
that probe the insides
for gelatinous globs of fat.

Teeth that bit femurs
and ribs and tibias
are gnawing on ulnas
and clavicles, stripping
the flesh from the scraps
to be tossed to the pigs.

Chewing on claws
for the knuckle-meat,
an ecstasy of gristle
and skin that sticks
in teeth like gum
and spills down chins.

AUTOMATIC LOCK IN

for JB

Ten. You are trying to figure out if
you can spell the word crystal with nine
interchangeable tiles without stepping
on the floor. Eight bells need to be rung
to release the crystal. Can you see it?
Can you get it? No! Seven bolts need to be
shot through a portcullis at six moving shields.
Come out! Five strangers are shouting
through sackcloth flaps. Cut the green
wire and get out. Come out! Only four
lives are allowed. Do not drive the car
into the mines or electric fences. Three
crystals and Jonti, a com systems
administrator from Dulwich, is sat in a cell
in Industrial Zone. Time to move on.
Follow me: To the Crystal Dome! 
Two silver. Whistle. Come out. One gold.

MUSCLE

for AM

These are the smoked streaky back bacon men,
flesh pressed against oily cellophane skin,

sausages cooked to burst. Extra lean meat,
joints of beef, sweat on a low oven's heat,

tendons tightening then softening tender
under the striplights. Sheep hearts and liver,

all of the offal that fills out the back
and thighs. Cured, hung for months in a smoke-stack

or salted on hooks in a meat cellar.
Some say the swelling is saline, water

injected under the rinds, ninety-six
percent nothing but oatmeal and sawdust.

Sunday 23 September 2012

THE NEW PLACE

for TH

The new place is still an unpacked pile
of boxes, crockery lying in wait
wrapped in newspaper, a brown file
of tenancy agreements and contracts
that are signed and dated. The white
walls are uncluttered by jam-sticky hands
or crayons that count the kids' heights
in months, January — March — December.
The year opens like a front door
to a garden of blossoming flowers,
the roses uncurling like cats,
blown dandelion clocks exploding the air,
filling the bedrooms with fairies.
Nell, bouncing on bedsprings, captures a wish.

Friday 21 September 2012

SHRIVEL

for SJ

When he reached sixty his penis
shrunk up his prostate
like a snail hiding its face
in its shell. His hermit crab
sometimes showed its claws
unexpectedly in the bath or on a bus,
but if he fancied a bash
it turned tortoise, a slug
in his fist that slipped his hand.

NAPPIES

for EM

Nobody told us the baby
would make so much shit. Nobody

warned us the piles of nappies
that propped up the rocker was

unconquerable. We were buried
in walls of elasticated waist bands

that pinched our hips. Gave us rash.
We were Sudocrem freaks. Washed

our hands every six minutes.
Worried about dysentery and anthrax

and rats. But we love the warm
parcel each morning and calm

the accompanying sobs. The child
is colic or sick or overfed

or underfed, or just walking in nappies
as if she were filling her britches.

To hell with the nappies.
May their stinking white edifice rise

out of the dustbin like a Triffid
attempting to strangle the house would.

I WAS A GARETH GATES FAN

for JD

I was just like my grandmother,
phoning for both in case either

would lose. She'd told me she'd rung up
eight times, and each time a flip-flop

decision as who was her Pop 
Idol. I plumped for the young pup

who stammered and looked like cute sex,
and voted the once more. My ex

was indifferent and said both my
Nanna and I were insane. Say

what you will about phone votes,
my nan is officially nuts.

She'd gone for Will Young and for Steve
Brookstein on X-Factor. Believe

me, she's crazy but loves choirs
of stutterers as much as queers.

Tuesday 18 September 2012

CONSTIPATION

for SJ

I felt it first
in my gut,
which contorted
around turds
like a brow
solving a problem.
It was not
the one thing,
but several
backed up
and hardening
into a fist
of stones.

My bowel
inflated
with flatulent
shouts and groans
that could not
commute
themselves
beyond the brick
of shit
that had settled
in my colon.

I puffed
as I pushed
my entire pelvic
floor at
the enormous
turnip that lodged
in my large
intestine.
I had taken
in too much 
and not enough
fibre, so
I swelled
like a pregnant sow, 
burdened
with a bellyful
of cack.

I squeezed
at my middle
in an effort
to pop
the cork
of my fizzy
brown dilemma.
No such luck!
I was stuck
with the bab
like a debt
inherited
from a dead
spouse or parent.

Eventually,
it collapsed
like a neutron star
after reaching
critical mess
in the produce aisle
of Tescos.
The staff
were polite
as they mopped
at the seeping
tide when it ran
on to pop
and crisps
and I cried
great big sobs
of relief
and I farted
and was released.


THAT'S TORN IT

for MH-S

If the Minister of State for Health dropped his keys
in the street outside his home and bent from his back
and not from his knees as we're told, then his trousers
would stretch over his arse and rip. And the cameras
would catch it in a battering of flashbulbs and the hacks
would laugh at the red lipstick print emblazoned
across both cheeks as if they'd been kissed. His wife
would stand in the window aghast, while tatters
of fabric flapped round his bum before tumbling down
to his ankles. A leveller this. Stood in the street,
feeling the breeze on your balls and your thin thighs
twitching like a giraffe standing after just being born.

JAMES DRAPER EUROPEAN CINEMA CLUB

for JD

None of the boys in these movies 
are under eighteen in compliance
with European law, and none
of the boys in these movies are over
nineteen, and no-one speaks English,
only Icelandic or Dutch. Everyone
takes all of their clothes off almost
all of the time in these movies, and
nobody gets shy round the thermals
and geysers on those volcanic shores.
Sometimes two of the boys go off
on their own for a talk-scene indoors,
say a beach house or sauna, either
they are clothed, or unclothed, or
unclothing each other as they talk.
None of the boys in these movies
has a bad word to say about the boys
in these movies, and none of the boys
says anything dumb or clever in these
movies, and everyone is always cut
and clean shaven, and no-one is fat,
and no-one is ugly. All of the boys
in these movies do it for pleasure,
nobody gets paid more than the other,
and none have a beautiful wife
back home, or a child to provide for.
Everyone is single and happy and alone.

TITS

for JO


They're trying to distract us with pictures
of tits and the Prince is incensed. The press
are obsessed with blurred photos of the Prince
and his wife in states of undress. Honeymooners
in the country of print. If we don't think
of their gold and their choppers we'll be sorry
we never saw her tits. The Queen shifts
in her bodice and girdle and stays. The telly
says William won't let Kate become his mother;

Santa Diana! Santa Diana! Her tits were buried
in mountains of muslin and landmines and Fayeds.

Sunday 16 September 2012

ON ST. CORNELIUS DAY

for RB

Amid the din of the chickens and lambs
that cried as our knives slit their throats,
through the blood sludge and slaughterhouse
air of their temple, the Roman inspector
made sure of our sin. We did quick work
to be done before He could see. Outside,
men we had prayed with last week screamed
at our brothers not to come in, their voices
faltering under a gurgling froth of blood
as the centurions steamed in with swords
and battle shields raised to martyr them.
When we stumbled out into the sun
from one sacrifice to the other, we saw
one death was better and we were ashamed.

Shame outlives tyrants in villages smaller
than tongues and memories are long. Talk
of our sin and our cowardice echoed
for decades around the markets and churches
and, even if we flayed our own backs with knives, 
we were Romans to them and they could not forgive.

Thursday 13 September 2012

THE OTHER TOM DALEY

for JD

Didn't dive. Couldn't swim. Was afraid of the water.

Never put a foot in. Wouldn't look at rivers or pools. 
He never received marriage proposals on twitter.
Wasn't asked to make a calendar or sticker book
He was shy. Conscious of his weight and looks.
Wore baggy shirts and baseball caps to family dos.
He never once made a speech or spoke on television.
The local news were clueless to his mum's profession.

Tuesday 11 September 2012

DECKCHAIRS AND FLOWERPOTS

for SF

On the Titanic the deckchairs were shifted
to let the women and children through
to the lifeboats that waited on the upper decks.

It reminds me of the flowerpot I pushed
from an upstairs window on the head of a Bradford
millionaire. His bowler was dinted like fuck.

Monday 10 September 2012

NECROPHILIA

for SJ

You have to be gentle and tender, more tender
than when the flesh lived and resisted your touch
with a bruise. And the lips could be kissed.
All you can do is hold them. Wash the body. Love.

LIFTED

for AG

Coffee. Cooked meat. Thongs. Windolene.
Bacon. Muller Rice. A shed. Beans.
A four pack of Stella. Razors.
Some colouring books. Socks. Blazers.

Bacon. Muller Rice. A shed. Beans.
Trousers in assorted sizes.
Some colouring books. Socks. Blazers.
Candles. Eggs. Batteries. Brylcreem.

Trousers in assorted sizes.
Dog meat. Bog roll. Mince. Mr. Sheen.
Candles. Eggs. Batteries. Brylcreem.
Bananas. Milk. Figs. Cheese slices.

Dog meat. Bog roll. Mince. Mr. Sheen.
A four pack of Stella. Razors.
Bananas. Milk. Figs. Cheese slices.
Coffee. Cooked meat. Thongs. Windowlene.

AUTUMN


for CR

I heard it from trees, burn leaves
gold through bronze into ash.
Whatever was gifted was burnt,
the flames silvering birches
with white heat, blackened elms,
a willow unwept in a cowl
of firecrackers. Come dawn, charred
limbs reach through the gunsmoke.
A fox bark coughs among embers.

TSUNAMI


for RB

It came out of the sky and over the tops of buildings and up
out the sewers and smashed into windows and doors. A bailiff
that swept away families, spilled into gutters, collecting their debris —
a pushchair, a repossessed car, a settee, cutlery, carpets —
ripped off the floorboards, the walls, bare concrete and broken
to fists of rubble. A rising onrush of misery; batons and helmets,
a crash of riot shields thundering inland and northwards.
Some say the levees were purposefully weakened, that sluice gates
had not undergone the mandatory checks, flood defence budgets
were cut. Four years of waters continuing to rise, it's swim or die
or be eaten by the sharks, contract dysentery or starve or buy a speedboat.

Thursday 6 September 2012

THE JOYS

1.

I was waking
from dreams of the angels
to the ecstasy
of your breath on my brow.
Last night we wrestled
like Jacob and the angel
and today we will leave each other 
with the postman.

2.

The clouds were alive
with the ringing of church bells.
The entire street came out
to stare up at the window.
Our shadows were caught
in the net-curtain.
Our voices were echoed
across the estate 
until they were whispers.

3.

Bacchus chose olives and wine
over lover's breasts.
He loved the taste of salt.
It reminded him of nipples.

4.

The instant you broke
into sweat and gasped
through the steam and smiled
and exhaled, I heard angels
sing Gloria in Excelsis Deo.
Holy. Holy. Holy.

5.

Twilight, the Romans
are off playing dice 
and the moon
over our bodies draws limbs
at all angles and unangles.
Faith transcends
the corporeal flesh.
The soul is seen in the shade.

HOMOSEXUALITY

It is the law of my own voice I shall investigate.

We have taken our masks off, or so we are told.
It is known that we habit dinner parties in Chelsea

and the Tory party conference. This is acceptance?
The reds too will tolerate the odd fag indoors

providing she doesn't raise the prospect of enemas.
Douching is clean! Put on your masks and put fingers

in arseholes and the creme–freche, double dip nachos
and do filthy on the hors–dourvres. Here comes the thrill.

Welcome to the long slide into alcoholism and mortgages
and children.We can get one in Africa for pittance

and raise it as white and straight. God forbid we promoted
our own sexuality on impressionable youths!

As long as we rip out our souls to capitalise
on our lack of family commitments, the Kingdom

of heteronormity is ours. Welcome to Straightsville!
Get pensioned off with an affable partner who received

the Victoria Cross in Iraq. Live your heroic life with a hero
and may your marriage be showered with white feathers.

— Or we could creep off to the shadows, where slime
encourages lichen and silverfish. A single bare bulb

is removed with a rag by a hand that is fresh
from holding a slashing cock and is eager to be illegal.

Wednesday 5 September 2012

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS


after Van Gogh

A difficult rebirth. The body
still bound in the cave, unreturned
to the sunlight and drowned
in linens. His skin, waxed
with burial oils, is greyed,
more in tone with the walls
of the tomb than the fields of corn
outside. But it is the empty eyes
where the true horror lies.
Lazarus is dead and alive. The sister,
Martha, throws her arms up, just 
as distressed as praising. 
Does she welcome her brother 
out to the dawn or attempt  
to keep the madness in?
What is she scared of? Knowledge?
If death isn't final then all bets
are off. Is she ashamed or annoyed?
She forked out good money
to put him to rest. She grieved,
Had begun to get used
to not carrying after him. Now 
Lazarus has returned and not.
Life does not fill easily
the liquid flesh. He looks like work.
A monster. The neighbours will talk.

Some think the artist is present,
that the face on the corpse
is his own. That he is warming
himself from the Saint–Paul asylum
for a second life. But he does
not return to the sunflowers fully.
The body seems uncertain
of its ability to stand. It brings
us to Mary, who stands in the shadows,
her back to the viewer, seemingly
wearing the tomb. She who prayed,
who sent for jesus to save
her brother, only for him to arrive
too late. Where is he now?
The Messiah? His absence is genius.
A reminder that miracles
outlive the miraculous. A sister
enslaved to her brother. Another
unsure of what she's done,
retreating and reaching a little
for this simulacrum. This Lazarus
come back from the dead.


Sunday 2 September 2012

MAKING CHUCKIES

Murder toys are
in production.
It's top news dolls
are slaughtering
teenage daughters
who sleep around,
top news daughters
who act like sluts
are being snuffed
by dolls dressed up
as kids in clothes
that fit too loose
and large. Children 
dressed in trenchcoats,
duffel coats, macs,
that hang round malls
in pairs or threes
soliciting
for two year olds.

The death count tops
the news. Two ten
year olds who watched
a nasty tape
and played at sticks
and stones will break
your bones and swear
words turn you bad.
Crossbows, semi–
automatic
guns, a Belfast
sink. These monsters
who were raised by
feckless drunks, thick,
are called to hang.
Murder toys are 
in production.


SOMEWHERE LIKE THE MOON


i.m. Neil Armstrong


A palmful of moon-dust and rock opened my head
like a visor. My space-helmeted face exposed
to the vacuum; breath floating out my mouth in green
strata, drifting Northern lights to Saturn. I was puffs
of glittering powder scuffed from boot-steps and marine
in my leaps from one toe to the next, swimming through grease.
Who could have caught me? A helium swelled suit, a piece
of satellite junk bearing the hammer and sickle.

There is nothing out here in the desert. F-16's
gone to rust. The nose-cone of a boeing, crashed
on reconnaissance. The inferno gone out, ash
stains the sand with fuselage ghosts. Solar blown, 
I am somewhere like the moon, taking off my jeans
and shirt to shiver and yell, let the air prickle
my elbows and spine. I harden to graphite in ice drifts
that polish me. Diamond. An asteroid belt. Touchdown.