RICE NOODLES :P

for PM and VM

rice noodles
lice poodles
dice roodles
mice doodles
nice toodles
twice strudels
vice scruples
spice boobles

LULLABEATLES

for EMA

1.

Rock-a-bye Lucy,
a boat on a river,
tangerine trees,
marshmallow pies.

Cellophane flowers,
kaleidoscope eyes,
diamonds with Lucy
marmalade skies.

2.

Hush little egg-man
don't you cry,
you'll be a walrus
before you die.

And if those pigs
can't run from guns,
we'll kick Edgar Poe
for fun.

3.

Diddle-diddle Desmond
market trolly
went to bed
with market Molly

Life goes on
and life goes on,
Obla-Desmond
Obla-Molly

4.

Twinkle, twinkle, understand
how I wanna hold your hand.
Such a feeling I can't hide
feeling happiness inside.
Twinkle, twinkle, be your man.
How I wanna hold your hand.

OH WHAT A LUVVERLY WAR!

Oh what a luuverly war we had!
Didn't you go and weren't you glad?
And wasn't it muddy and wasn't it sad?
And wasn't you hungry and hurting bad?

Oh what a luvverly war we made!
All the fun of a hand grenade!
Fetch the shovel. Fetch the spade.
Bury the sacrifice you paid.

Oh what a luvverly war that's gone!
Let's plant poppies for everyone.
Let's build graves til Kingdom come.
Then bomb each other just for fun.

Oh what a luvverly war that's here!
It's been coming a hundred year,
since the silence became the cheer,
and black shirts grin from ear to ear.

DOWN THE BLOOD

red as rain and thick as sludge
we got it coming down the blood
iron sodden northern mud
we got it coming down the blood

you're granda' knew he weren't no good
he got it coming down the blood
knocked dumb thick as wood
he got it coming down the blood

father'd never flinch or budge
he got it coming down the blood
cut a man to see him gut
he got it coming down the blood

I'd tek pussy when I could
I got it coming down the blood
slit my mother throat to cunt
I got it coming down the blood

red as rain and thick as sludge

we got it coming down the blood

iron sodden northern mud

we got it coming down the blood

BONFIRE NIGHT

I'll turn Fawkes under rain slicked leather,
humping the explosive in a waterproof rucksack,
my dimmed torchlight making for the cellar.

My fingers thread the wires, red and black,
round the silver pins on the ignition device.
I've rigged the whole basement; front and back.

Tonight I'll exterminate the filching lice,
in their Armani and ermine supping their scotch.
The bastards above are parasites.

And when the fireworks blow I'll stand and watch
the bursts, the sparks that flame and ember
until Parliament is razed by white-hot scourge.

Every fifth of November I know they'll remember
that lions can bite when kicked from slumber.

BURN DOWN THE JOBCENTRE PLUS

for RB

Burn down the Jobcentre Plus
The Jobcentre has to burn
They've got no jobs for none of us
The Jobcentre has to burn

Burn down the Jobcentre Plus
I'll get the matches and petrol
Burn it quick without a fuss
I'll get the matches and petrol

Burn down the Jobcentre Plus
Burn those bastard machines
They've got no jobs for none of us
Burn those bastard machines

Burn down the Jobcentre Plus

I'll get the matches and petrol

Burn it quick without a fuss

I'll get the matches and petrol

Incited by this article: click here

THE BALLAD OF CAIT REILLY

for IDS

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.

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

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.

GOLDFINGER REDUX

Gert Fröbe. Fingers walking up her thigh
leave silver prints of perspiration, paws
that track his intention. With a hot sigh
her vulva opens for his gilded claw's
inspection. A knuckle duster of rings.
From the gramophone Shirley Bassey sings.

He has the midas touch. Shirley Eaton,
stretched and painted on virgin hotel sheets,
glisters in his afterglow. Half-eaten
plates of oysters, caviar and cold meats
glitter on the nightstand. His vapour clings.
A sparkling cloud of bourbon burns and stings.

From the gramophone Shirley Bassey sings.
From the gramophone Shirley Bassey sings.

FOR ALL OF THE BOYS IN YOUR YEAR

For all of the boys in your year,
who you dated or kissed with your
girlfriends at discos or on our
front step before our mother
or father swung open the door
to shower your tipsy selves where 
you stood in hall light, I loved their
expressions of surprise and hairs
downing their lips and chins with beards
that were adolescent, yet far
from the boys in my year who were
still in that acned, awkward, weird
moment, when the pubescent herd
turns to a million hundred
points of the compass and the birds
flock out of the sterile pastures
to search new nests in older hearts
by thudding, vigorous wing beats.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

ON POPPERS

Inhaling molecules of ecstacising death

begins the necrotization of the flesh.

An oxygen thief that paints tell tale signs;

the lips thinned to two navy blue lines,

and the crescents of ash at the base of each nail

where once was white and healthy. All

for a rush of blood from the heart to the head,

thumping in the neck. A cock, soft, lolled

and bouncing in time to each thrust. An arse

that opened easy as a tub of meat paste.

Orgasms that bump up against one another

like fantasies mixing with acts in the ether

of dreams that smoke from these brown bottles.

The final tautening muscle. The screams. The wobbles

that tumble us from sheets onto floors

where we gaze into a gasping air pierced with stars.

OCTOPUS: A FISHY TALE

We never meant to become entangled
in its limbs that tickled, wrapped and strangled
round our arms and necks. I saw the bosun
go in first with his glittering harpoon,
aloft at the end of a sinuous
arm and saw it snapped in eight by strong legs
licking round the blade like eight generous
tongues. It thralled us all, twenty dolly pegs,
each clipped in place along a suckered snake
that slimed and writhed across an ocean floor.

What gave us breath? Who knows? Two hours or more
it raced over reef and bank. In its wake
a haze of bubbles shimmered, powder kegs
of sand exploded where its enormous
tentacles dragged the sand and lifted dregs
of wrecks like ours. Others too, courageous
in their effort, must have drowned. Only one
escaped. My muscle slipped the net, slick-spun
flesh that tightened vices where it angled
strangely hooks and knots and finally dangled.

STRAW

Everybody feels the wind blow — Paul Simon

You knocked the stuffing from my shirt that blew,
a sail, tautened by the wind whistling through,
and my last straw hanging threadbare and loose
from my broompole frame. You gave no excuse,
just staked me alone in a field for crows
to peck holes in my pumpkin, and who knows
when I'll next see a farmer turn this soil
or sow. 'Til then I'll feel the cords uncoil
from out my waist and wrists and I'll throw straw
to wind like drifts of dandelion spore
that, blown, will leave me thin and thinning more,
my heart, my straw, gone lost, blown free yet far.

HUDSON GOES DARK

They gave me my orders over coffee or spritzers
in a cafe or nightclub in Skopje or Sitges.


I took off my shoes at the border of Mexico or Laos,
thought the Feds or the KGB had bugged my penis or mouth,


threw my credit cards or passports in the Po or the Nile,
hid my name or my age under floorboards or tiles


in a Motel or caravan in Skegness or Cape Town,
dyed my hair or my skin scarlet or fox brown.


I was Jones. I was Stetson. I wore pistols or poesies,
meeting women or misters in dark raincoats or false noses.


I shrugged off my past like an accusation or shawl
and I faked every email or meant every call


to the bureau or cops or my wife or my rents,
and I fooled them or proved them as straight or bent.

GOODBYES

for MH

Trains are leaving stations leaving

women waving handkerchiefs from windows

leaving lovers, aching in their braces, on the platform,

standing, leaning in the heat, leaving wives

for others, children, lovers, waving off

the past and turning from their grief and tears

to laughter, leaving wrinkles round their eyes

and mouths, their stockings falling down,

their trousers loose, growing thinner, smaller,

older, turning inwards, turning bone, leaving life

and lives, the quiet in their eyes that says goodbye.

Soundcloud recording of this poem here: http://soundcloud.com/gavin-hudson-1/goodbyes