Tag: poet

Speakers

Surround

The rumours, when they began, were

Sound.

Gratuitous in-wall speakers, every room

(Even the bathroom,

So a piss was no respite).

In fact, the architect had seen fit

To affix one device within the

Basin. It’s bass vexed the pool, and

Growled lemony spittle across

My new white jumper.

I’d flip flop back to the hallway

And curse,

Because I had to buy a new white jumper.

A Depressing Thought

I heard a rumour that the proper realms of poetry are Love and Death. Well, I’m only twenty-three, so I won’t be talking about death. And I find myself under an encroaching suspicion that love operates in a similar manner to memory. When you remember an experience you are not remembering an experience. You’re recalling the latest recollection of that experience. Like a photograph of a photograph of a photograph. No matter how good the camera, you’re still haemorrhaging pixels. What if love is the same? You get one shot. And every subsequent love is a sketch of the first. the sketch may have been done in a steady hand, with a Blackwing on paper of 120gsm. But it’s a sketch nonetheless. It’s taken from a model.

Peter

Peter was a funny boy

Who’d masticate raw cabbage;

He’d drop dry leaves into his mouth

And crunch them like a savage.

 

Peter was the kind of boy

For whom the age-old adage,

“Eat your greens and you’ll stay lean”,

Was stooped in excess baggage.

 

Peter was a quirky boy

Who made up his own language,

Codifying leafy greens

As pudding good enough to ravage.

Longevity

I am going to live to 150;

No one believes me, but I will.

I’ll see my great-great-grandkids born

And squeeze the sprites into my will.

I’ll fill with letters an escritoire,

Each signed by the hand that scratches the arse

That sags upon the royal throne

Like a funeral falling into farce.

I’ll visit the deathbeds of all my chums

And bid them fair adieu:

“See you in 70 years my friend,

And sorry about the feeding tube.”

New Year’s Party

Theme: anything for a dollar bill. Setting: south-south London, Uber territory. Two, three jabs of punch and a pastel John Dory. Restless thirty-thirst, seeking mutual thrill. Idea! We know it’s drink talking, but drink tells good stories. Follow our liquid raconteur out on to the grass. Instant blow to seat a weaker man firmly on his arse. I’m sorry but I’m so angry. Recompense, freeze. Feel like sounds have thickened in the drum. Back inside giggling with our paper cash prize, Informing every ear what it missed with its eyes. My own ear, for now, bust like a lip. For another dollar I’ll swallow that tulip.