HUDSON UP TREND

I knew the Paris lines before they melted

onto models on the catwalk; furs, feathers,

leathers, synthetics, moulded round the tit

and cock. Models walking to me like a cocked

pistol. I was doing sketches of the patterns,

looking for codes on the front row; Anna Wintour

knew the crack, VOGUE! Her Chihuahua 

was a bitch in Louis Vuitton, always biting!

Somewhere among the waiting staff, a spy,

a glass of champagne and cyanide.

I report back on the future of fashion;

buttoned to the left, trousers worn knee-high,

sartorial semaphore, scuffed shoes.

HUDSON DINES ALONE

A luncheon alone. A secret code

of crossed forks and knives, napkins

folded half lengthwise and doubled

back on themselves. Somewhere,

among the waiting staff, a spy

with a plastic gun, bullets hidden

in the cistern. Death on every plate.

The punters suckling meat from bone,

oblivious. I am far from home. Snow

smokes up the windows in mid-June,

out of kilter from the sun.

I wear dark clothes, dine alone

incognito. I am Smith, Jakobsen,

Chavez, Jones. My overcoat steams

on the hooks of various fish joints.

A false identity, bait. Somwhere,

among the waiting staff, a spy,

the prey assigned to catch me

catching them. In the end a menu

whispers clues; Ungai, Saba, Tobiko,

a shiver of gold on green tea,

crossed forks, an unpaid bill.

HUDSON COUGHS IT ALL ON TAPE

It wasn't Nixon on tape in the White House over Watergate, but JFK
doing the voices, and wasn't shot in the Dallas motorcade in '63, Please!
He held two marbles and half a glass of water in his mouthto be Nixon. His impression
of Jack Ruby, who didn't shoot him or his doppelgänger (Ladybird Johnson's
illegitimate brother in prosthesis and wig), was legendary. Some said
he could be him, but I never believed them. Lady B J's brother was shot
by none other than Marilyn Monroe, the bombshell assassin, who overdosed
in Soho, England, seven years later than thought. Judy had been dead donkeys'  
and they couldn't keep up the carousel of drag queens who played her in shows.
They were damaging the brand. Of course they removed bones, the femurs,
to make Monroe fit. A stray Gitanes by the corpse almost gave the game up.
Judy smoked Lucky Strike (DO YOUR HOMEWORK BOYS!). That fag, Ruskee, Deans,
had to be silenced, "retired" to a haunted mansion in Cleveland. Princess Diana?
You mean you haven't figured that out? It was Mohammed Al-Fayed who drove
the white Punto through the Paris drizzle that night. It was jealousy and whiskey
that fuelled him. Nothing to do with me or Prince Philip, whatever you think.
There was no shotgun wielding motorcycle outrider, whatever you say.
Just a man and his grief funded by MI6, who class him as a double agent.
They played him. Which brings us to September 11th and Nixon again, with a beard
in an arid cave, crying for Allah, on videotape, his voice all marbles and water.

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.

HUDSON SMELLS GAS

I couldn't get out of the custard the bastards

had pushed me under a bathtubful of the stuff

thumped my sails flat out of puff glitter

and streamers sailing on a sea of soda–stream

into rum and coke over icebergs that slice

limes along my hull I'm taking on whiskey and air

to the brain seeing dicky birds and dolly birds

dancing round my skull in feather boa ruffs

and crepe paper hats the funhouse reflects

their buttons and bulbs blaring neon burning

me blind (his cologne!) believe me it's gas