HOTEL

It was a family room with four made beds
and three light bulbs that didn't light, a fuse
that had blown in a silent hairdryer.

It was home for the night. The choice of beds
whispered hints of sex. I'd never refuse
boys on the phone, hot–breathed as hairdryers.

It was a family room with four made beds
and three light bulbs that didn't light, a fuse
that had blown in a silent hairdryer.

LOOKING AT BEDROOMS

for AA

When I was very small,
small enough to have a teddy,
a teddy made by my uncle,
my uncle who went to prison,
I remember the white prison bars 
of my cot, and beyond them 
the orange billowing curtains 
in a very small room
in a very small chalet
in a very small seaside town.

When I was up and walking,
say I was three or four, maybe older, 
I was a very late walker,
I remember I slept in a room
between a bathroom and attic stair
on a bottom bunk beneath my sister,
and the room was so small
that all I remember
was the bathroom was avocado.

When we moved house,
when I was five or six or seven,
I got my own room.
It was a small room
that housed tank engines
and robots and Millenium Falcons.
One day we took the chimney out
and made it a square foot bigger.
Then I moved out.

My bedrooms at university
grew progressively bigger
until I inhabited an entire extension
with its own sink and coffee machine
and a wide blue carpet.

The curve continued 
from doubles to king sized beds,
first, second and third floor attics,
to skylights that stare out over the rooftops
and let the breezes in over the pillows,
cooling the red linen
and all the time getting larger
until it will become a loft conversion apartment.

But when I am older I expect
to open a white door onto a single bed
under a re-inforced glass window.
I expect I'll be helped
the three short shuffled steps
over the beige berber to the bar
that the nurse will lower
before tipping me in.
In the night, I expect I will wake
and feel the high walls closing in
and see the moon cast it's ocean shadows.

*The image is not a bedroom I have ever lived in, but it did inspire the poem. Thanks to Amy Audebert for allowing its use.

IT'S THE WONDERFUL LIFE

for JB

They were throwing snow off the rooftops all down Chippinghouse Road
when you turned the corner in you faux cat fur hat and muff, the one with the ears
stitched into the left hand side, and you were walking with a sunflower umbrella
held high and just a little bit behind your head so that your face caught the flakes
and it made it shine. It was 36 hours until Christmas and here came all the ghosts at once,
stepping along the pavement in foxtrots and quicksteps. Angels were singing
all of my dreams from the chimney stacks and attic windows. Every door on the street stood open 
and people stood in the doorways singing Hosannahs at your coming. At your every step
down the ice polished pavement, I noticed your faux camel skin boots as the streetlights
bent in and formed a halo around us. A crescendo of tin thumped with sticks by children
rolled down the road and one by next but one the houses exploded. Tinsel lit the air.

BEETENSON & GIBBON ACCIDENT CLAIMS CENTRE

for SF

The accident occurred at 9:38 a.m. 
on 19th October 2012,
outside Beetenson & Gibbon
Accident Claims Center.

Whiplash was caused to the driver
of the aqua green Nissan Micra.

A Ford Focus, that sped
from the scene, left a scratch
on the rear left bumper and left
side of the Nissan Micra, flecked
with vermillion clearcoat paint.

The car was later traced
to a teacher from Broughton
who had took the corner too fast,
being late for her next class
after attending a hospital appointment.
She had failed to stop.

She was charged with failure to stop
and fined £200, plus damages
and court costs, but avoided a ban.

A later civil suit, managed by
Beetenson & Gibbon
Accident Claims Centre,
found in favour of the driver
of the aqua green Nissan Micra
and ordered payments for whiplash,
trauma and damage to property

Everything was reduced on appeal.
There were extenuating circumstances.

A man in a white t-shirt,
who witnessed the accident
on his way to Beetenson & Gibbon
Accident Claim Centre,
told the police of another witness,
"behind that bench, over there," who ran.



Now with sound and Jo Whiley spitty mic technique: https://soundcloud.com/gavin-hudson-1/beetenson-and-gibbon-accident

BURRS: A DISAMBIGUATION

for RB

Stuck in its fur,

the cat was covered

in burrs. Chandler

Burr, who said queer

was like being born

left handed. Burrs

in the throat; R's

flipped and turned

in the Nurth–

East or the Norse

Borr, who fathered

Odin, war monger

and chief of Asgard.

Raymond Burr,

Ironside's wheelchair,

Perry Mason, lawyer.

Gore Vidal's Burr

from his Empire

Narratives. Burr,

the village in Nebraska.

Richard Burr, the senator

from North Carolina,

staunch Republicurn

and son of a minister.

Or maybe burrs,

tungsten carbide cutters

used in dentistry that turn

so fast a touching finger's

skin will flex away unhurt.

And lastly Burr,

a relatively young crater

on Callisto, moon of Jupiter.

Disambiguated in its fur

like meteors

bound for fertilizing earth.

POSITIONS

Do not assume the positions 

of tops and bottoms 

based on their physique and age.

You are not the magazine editor.

Don't think twinks are all the same,

that a lithe body naturally bends 

to the pressure and weight

of muscle hammering down.

These are non-tessellating shapes.

Not all bears aggress their otters

in the wood that masks with leaf 

and twig their transformations.

The Muscle Marys can receive

from tall or short or give it raw 

like tenderised steak on a chopping board.

Some men flip-flop. And some,

who once thundered like showers of gold

onto submissive TS's, now retreat

to murky, watery holes in the guise

of lobsters who have lost their claws.