george best love guide

dear womenfolk
the portion who would like
to be marauded
by menfolk
not by other womenfolk
do not be afraid to ask
it is now ok
to ask for sex we will not
be terrified

once you have seen
a man
one of
the best ways is to
do it like
George Best and
spell his name out in
dead fish
on his front lawn
at night
while naked.
Men like
George Best.

stab murder

everything profound has
already been said
and not recently
at that

a really long time ago
seneca and sappho and so on
any attempt now
to make a serious face
and say
politics is life times
uh, area

hope is like
some trees

don't be mad
for it is wanton

sufi had a thing

i would like to think of something great
but i live in a flat
next to a man who
cleans his walls
with a butter knife
a lot
and i can\t sleep

mark e. smith poem

sometimes
i want to write something
as great as a Fall lyric
then i read
the UK twitter trend
s
and it's just like a 
Fall lyric

• #FavoriteLyricOfAllTime
• #Childhoodmovies
• Douglas Alexander
• Tomorrow is Friday
• Tevez to QPR
• Express Yourself
• Ravel Morrison
• Page 13 of 366
• Paddy Ashdown

are we all in on the joke yet?

bonsoir voulez boire qqc

cannot anylonger feel my face

breakdown

interloper

torture of the caress

morbidly obese

2-pin plug

opposable

this is how barflies gouge out your soul over time

other animals

how will you fare?

kepler-11

for heisenberg

very quietly you are being shredded
hollowed out
you are degrading, unheard,
your cellular synthesis
frees
the oxidants, the radicals
the Nemeses.

That is time. The poking of holes
into things

it is as the stars gobble
hydrogen;
we are with them
we all of us have our doom
we all begin to carry
degenerate matter.

when the stasis comes
you will be there
everything will
here we are with our beds and plates
and our friendly knives
and rough nightshirts
and we know
how the universe feeds
and how it will rest
and that we will be there
also.
sleep tight, mates.

drop breaks loose from
the mildewed shower head.
New spacetime fizzes
for an undying;
the impact with the enamel
is atrocious
among photons
little droplets
hectic electrons
create billions of new time
that would never have been
and no man
could know
when the next drop
will fall

Altered Beasts

Crutches belonging to the last of the tronmatic
beasts who once carved their way
this very
way,
birdfoot and goofy, all the power of piston calves
connected to twiggy femurs a popeye leg
they have one somewhere
cast in plaster, stored in Canada
their tenure was short
.75 of a decade
very unsensorial, buttery fluid leaked
from the battery connection, a common fault
roaring like a band of hoovers
they're not to be preserved
melt them
the newer models have gecko-stick
watch it climb
and they walk humanoid -
this is a selling point
that our concerted efforts
should resemble
the beige chaos of nature
at its most vulnerable

they don't transport us
like the broad pyramid bricks lain by
Henry Ford;
they stay where we ought to go
they work
and work
and
make their way to a boiling shed
where they melt and die.
not in a humanoid way
they got that right, at least,
build it, punish it,
but do not allow it to scream.

Cloak (Philip Larkin)

There had been a time
when teachers had asked what, then?
I don't know.
I knew I was waiting

I was waiting
for Aubade,
oh he understood alright;
read
drunk blank afraid
glare way stay and shape
torn trick drink escape
hold will and grave

the night ticker
shimmers under my skin
the veins must come out
the fingers must dig in
tremble shudder tremors
i feel it in my handbones,
the closing of my shivered throat
i hear the thud of my fall before i
notice it: I hate beautiful Aubade.

cloaks. Larkin wore a cloak
an ugly one
they are all ugly

every dream a delusion,
every romance a danger
to someone else,
how dare they
try to live their
horrid, bristling dreams


in a gaping warehouse,
naked as my erection
lets me be
i know there's nothing
moth-eaten
between dust and i
gravity and i
between swelling and rot
i fear too
and i jam it panicked into my hub
a butter knife
in my thoracic cavity

His solid crane
and condom of skin
kept it all in;

a clang in the warehouse
a gust comes in
sweeps the dust to
power and glory
and it settles
each tick
on the eyes
of dead poem-writers
thickening
like fear.

bees

tortilla flats
vertical council wrecks in a
half-drained sea
in the mud
and road
see
an uncertain load
an uncertain
phone ringing
vibrating
ringing
i pull the veil over you
no answer
i pull a nail out of you
no answer
your flesh is all
buttoned up for winter now
all tucked in

there is a danger in you
eye of a missing child
did you do this
to me?
i shouldn't miss you
it's easy to pass on,
take your little flag down
pass away
like our ill conceived
children
i shouldn't mind me
i'll quietly slip
into the sea
of
the internet

i try not to think
about it
i try to eat
a stale pie
i think there were bees in it
this is
the saddest part

something stuck among
the buildings
callused paint
carcasses
letters
our tiny empire sorely bitten
it was,
obviously,
though we were too daft
to see,
clearly written

there is nothing right,
there is
nothing left

Awkward Swallowing

(first printed in Nth Position magazine)

It's not quiet
like they tell you
in movies
it is loud
it is hidden
behind buttons
do you know how
easy they are to
break open
buttons
break-fast juices spilt
out of your mouth
you cupped your
hand gulped
splashed
laughed all at once
spilt apple
on your chin
it dribbled over the
gore between
your fingers
a tiny silk spit strand
landed in your lap
and your spider tongue
sucked it back.
but later
ah, later, it started
so well, but temper
is the blue
in the beige of chaos
oh well
two sweeps of blue
under your eyes
tired
like dark lipstick
on the rims of two
teacups
a tongue moulded in
one of your chinks
you're less angry now -
like chewing it is
impossible to sink
when swallowing;
it IS very loud
and the same shamed
step when a dog barks
and you jump
how silly
just like
after too much love
you did not mean it.
Listen,
a word in your shell-like,
it is like weapons
it eats like planets
it infests like things
screaming like insects
under your skin like.

Gut Flora

First published in A Tale of Three Cities magazine


I've already turned

England into you

I miss it

I wish it never existed,

that there was just a gap

where it rains

and now and then a boat

drumming shod-shad

by ol' dogger bank

old filthy lampost

with filthy flowers

trinkets of crashes

duck taped together

wet

and

windy

just a gap

the watford gap, and nothing

more

I wish I'd been dropped

into the channel from

the vulva of a mute swan.

To think people have been

shot here

the chink still in the plaster

not for a pearl, a petal,

a prick, a rose,

not for a finger of almond

or for this swollen milk,

or for bruised, bitten necks

or brutal conkers

fancy trousers

magic sweets.

I gave you a country

England

I wanted your little wrists

you smell like tree sap

burnt

beer

talking

and crisps

Why should I be ashamed of lovesongs?

Not everything is honking, giblets,

burgers, ha ha ha,

some things

are sad some, disgusting.

Here it is:

The way you sit on barstools

reminds me of Querelle.

I'd take out your eyes

and pickle them with mine

I want to rub caraway

onto your flanks

stop you from screaming

you are younger than me

and

that is how it will always be.

Sarah

Her face is covered
with fine paramecia
she hates certain things
I am sending her typing.

Trilby

warren ellis no beard

Swim

How big is the
lake of human blood
can you float in it?
Is it magnetic?

What a nice image.
But really it would be
a big pond of AIDS
dried up by the sun
in two or three days

Everything is junk
except the sun
and music