Neither moves.
One boiler-lagged on its back.
The other on its back.
One leg bent.
The other straight.
It is like sleeping together.
A finger on Tarmac.
A finger in a leather glove.
A finger bent in hair.
A gasp. A shout. A breath.
It is like sleeping together.
One stares skyward.
The other looks West.
One fears and cares.
The other is waking.
Neither moves.
Bodies are circling in headlamps.
Bodies are hovering through drizzle.
Bodies are ringing in their ears.
Can you hear me mate?
Listen to the songify version: here
Tuesday 26 February 2013
THE ELASTICITY OF TIME IN A MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT INVOLVING A PEDESTRIAN
38 38 37.5 36 35 33.5 30 27
18 14 9.5 5
3 1 0.25 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0.12
18 14 9.5 5
3 1 0.25 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0.12
Monday 25 February 2013
ONE WAY CONVERSATION AFTER A MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT INVOLVING A PEDESTRIAN
Are you OK? Are you OK mate?
Mate? Are you OK? Mate? Mate?
Are you OK mate? Are you OK?
Mate? Can you hear me? Mate?
Mate? Are you hurt? Are you OK?
Can you hear me mate? Are you
OK? Are you hurt? Mate? Can
you hear me? Are you hurt? Are
you OK mate? Mate? Mate?
Are you OK? Are you hurt? Can
you stand up mate? Can you
stand up? Mate? Are you hurt?
Are you OK mate? Are you OK?
Can you stand up? Mate? Mate?
Can you hear me mate? Mate?
Mate? Mate? Are you hurt? Mate?
Mate? Are you OK? Mate? Mate?
Are you OK mate? Are you OK?
Mate? Can you hear me? Mate?
Mate? Are you hurt? Are you OK?
Can you hear me mate? Are you
OK? Are you hurt? Mate? Can
you hear me? Are you hurt? Are
you OK mate? Mate? Mate?
Are you OK? Are you hurt? Can
you stand up mate? Can you
stand up? Mate? Are you hurt?
Are you OK mate? Are you OK?
Can you stand up? Mate? Mate?
Can you hear me mate? Mate?
Mate? Mate? Are you hurt? Mate?
Tuesday 19 February 2013
THINGS YOU START DOING WHEN YOU START EATING FISH
You start going to the cinema on your own after work.
You get your haircut.
You stop spending so much.
You get more energy and become less sociable.
Sex is not something you want to do as often
You only want to sleep with Japanese men.
You refer to yourself in the second person.
Seven years of your life are partially erased.
You feel like your left kidney always has a water infection.
You begin to masterbate more frequently
Never have you felt so depressed about how happy you are.
You welcome new bacteria like friends or long dead relatives.
You want to move on and you know it.
You worry you might lose your job.
You notice that 8 pm feels more like 6 pm.
Light nights make you want to go running.
You never go running again ever.
You eat more food poached and less fried.
You lack the stamina for post-modernism.
You think about the country India more than the country British Guyana.
Over complicated relationships bore you.
People in overcomplicated relationships bore you.
You have never been more miserable.
You have a sense that someone else is dressed as you.
You work in an office that is too hot.
You forget your lines.
You get your haircut.
You stop spending so much.
You get more energy and become less sociable.
Sex is not something you want to do as often
You only want to sleep with Japanese men.
You refer to yourself in the second person.
Seven years of your life are partially erased.
You feel like your left kidney always has a water infection.
You begin to masterbate more frequently
Never have you felt so depressed about how happy you are.
You welcome new bacteria like friends or long dead relatives.
You want to move on and you know it.
You worry you might lose your job.
You notice that 8 pm feels more like 6 pm.
Light nights make you want to go running.
You never go running again ever.
You eat more food poached and less fried.
You lack the stamina for post-modernism.
You think about the country India more than the country British Guyana.
Over complicated relationships bore you.
People in overcomplicated relationships bore you.
You have never been more miserable.
You have a sense that someone else is dressed as you.
You work in an office that is too hot.
You forget your lines.
THREE LITTLE PIGS
First we lived in a house of bricks
and the wolf was the landlord
and the wolf came
and blew the bricks in.
Then we lived in a house of sticks
and the wolf was the landlord
and the wolf came
and blew the sticks in.
Then we lived in a house of straw
and the wolf was the landlord
and the wolf came
and blew the straw in.
Then we lived in the roads and streets
and the wolf was the landlord
and the wolf came
and blew us all in.
This was partly inspired by part of this interview with Owen Jones: click here to view
Listen to the songified version: here
Listen to the songified version: here
Monday 18 February 2013
WATCHING FLESHBULBS
They do not know she is not coming.
I count: one, two, three, four, five of them.
I know she stutters.
In the hotel room spiders are crawling the corners.
I have seen woodlice in the cooked meats.
Newspapers are mouldering under damp carpets.
The flesh is dangerous.
A thousand news channels haunt the television.
I make a collage of VHS tape.
They do not know she is not coming tonight.
I am a fleshbulb.
I stuttered my way through a bottle of Pinot Noir.
I am a dozen disguises in guestbooks and on CCTV.
This is an exclusive written under damp carpets.
Sunday 17 February 2013
BLOODLINES
What r u into? Do you
do bb?
Only with guys I know.
Not on the first time.
Only with guys who will.
The flesh in the flesh
in the blood
and the blood.
We must not judge.
WE SING!
We sing!
God rest ye merry gentlemen!
We sing!
Better the devil you know!
We sing!
The cow jumped over the moon!
We sing!
Your love is lifting me higher!
We sing!
What's a boy in love supposed to do?
We sing!
There's no business!
We sing!
Hit me baby one more time!
We sing!
In olden days a glimpse of stocking!
We sing!
We sing!
Siyahamba ekukhanyeni kwenkos!
We sing!
Hold thou thy cross!
We sing!
Ashes in the dustbin! Ashes in the sea!
We sing!
Da do ron ron ron! Da do ron ron!
We sing!
I was feeling kind of seasick!
We sing!
I feel it in my toes!
We sing!
The flames rose to her Roman nose!
We sing!
Ocean Rain!
We sing!
We sing!
Everything changes but you!
We sing!
The wheels on the bus go!
We sing!
You've lost that loving feeling!
We sing!
I went to the doctor, guess what he told me?
We sing!
Raise your voice!
We sing!
Roll up for the mystery tour!
We sing!
The unexpected hits you between the eyes!
We sing!
I bet you wonder how I knew!
We sing!
Wednesday 13 February 2013
A MOBILE TELEPHONE MAST AT MIDNIGHT
Beyond the sludge of top field
a mobile telephone mast is
a mobile phone keypad
lit up like a skyscraper
in a hurricane.
Could be an airport landing beacon
guiding planes into Robin Hood
without smashing into the M1.
The weather is darker than the forecast
and the mobile signal is down.
Beyond the sludge of top field
a man is climbing the mobile telephone mast
and he is a mobile phone.
Airplanes give you cancer.
Mobile phones give you cancer.
Laptops give you cancer.
At midnight, the mobile telephone mast
turned into cancer
and the villagers were pitchfork mad
that cancer was all over top field
like muck spreading.
a mobile telephone mast is
a mobile phone keypad
lit up like a skyscraper
in a hurricane.
Could be an airport landing beacon
guiding planes into Robin Hood
without smashing into the M1.
The weather is darker than the forecast
and the mobile signal is down.
Beyond the sludge of top field
a man is climbing the mobile telephone mast
and he is a mobile phone.
Airplanes give you cancer.
Mobile phones give you cancer.
Laptops give you cancer.
At midnight, the mobile telephone mast
turned into cancer
and the villagers were pitchfork mad
that cancer was all over top field
like muck spreading.
Tuesday 12 February 2013
CORRESPONDENCE NOTES
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THE BALLAD OF CAIT REILLY
for IDS
and would only last a day,
but she stacked shelves for two weeks
and didn't get her pay.
She raised it with the JSA
in her fortnightly interview,
but they told her to get off her arse
or they'd cut her benefits too.
So she raised it in the High Court,
with Mr Justice Foskett, judge,
who banged his gavel down and said,
"Get to work you bludge!"
They told her it was training
and would only last a day,
but she stacked shelves for two weeks
and didn't get her pay.
So she raised it in appeal court,
said the government broke laws,
said the ministers were slavers
funding profit with the poor.
Lord Pill, Sir Stanley Burnton
and Lady Justice Black
concurred forced labour's unlawful
and sent the regulations back.
They told her it was training
and would only last a day,
but she stacked shelves for two weeks
and didn't get her pay.
Now Cait Reilly is the victor
but the government won't repent
and to Poundland and to Tesco
the jobseekers are sent.
They'll paint them all as scroungers
in the Torygraph and Mail,
but let's fight them with Cait Reilly
and ensure their workfare fails.
They told her it was training
and would only last a day,
but she stacked shelves for two weeks
and she made the ministers pay.
Read Cait Reilly on today's decision here
in her fortnightly interview,
but they told her to get off her arse
or they'd cut her benefits too.
So she raised it in the High Court,
with Mr Justice Foskett, judge,
who banged his gavel down and said,
"Get to work you bludge!"
They told her it was training
and would only last a day,
but she stacked shelves for two weeks
and didn't get her pay.
So she raised it in appeal court,
said the government broke laws,
said the ministers were slavers
funding profit with the poor.
Lord Pill, Sir Stanley Burnton
and Lady Justice Black
concurred forced labour's unlawful
and sent the regulations back.
They told her it was training
and would only last a day,
but she stacked shelves for two weeks
and didn't get her pay.
Now Cait Reilly is the victor
but the government won't repent
and to Poundland and to Tesco
the jobseekers are sent.
They'll paint them all as scroungers
in the Torygraph and Mail,
but let's fight them with Cait Reilly
and ensure their workfare fails.
They told her it was training
and would only last a day,
but she stacked shelves for two weeks
and she made the ministers pay.
Read Cait Reilly on today's decision here
LOVE POEM
I found this written on the back
of the gent's toilet cubicle door
of The Globe in February, 2003:
for oral here call 07XXX-XX6532
(I'll keep your number private
If you keep calling back).
Our fingers are tender from dialing.
Saturday 9 February 2013
WOODLICE
When I was four
I looked out of the window
of our old house
in Queen Street, England,
and over the fence
poured a thousand million
wooodlice or more.
My family were playing in the yard
and were drowned.
A thousand million woodlice
in their mouths and lungs,
and I was banging on the glass
like Dustin Hoffman
screaming their names.
I looked out of the window
of our old house
in Queen Street, England,
and over the fence
poured a thousand million
wooodlice or more.
My family were playing in the yard
and were drowned.
A thousand million woodlice
in their mouths and lungs,
and I was banging on the glass
like Dustin Hoffman
screaming their names.
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