There’s not much better on a Sunday
Five layers of salt smell wafting
Midday activities pleasurably concluded
And a 2ltr cider resting on the table there
Pristine before the implosion, pristine
And then the week comes with the best
Dirt, and the days roll on – cheap fabrics
Cut under an industrial skylight, on and on
No other time will the salt smell so good
No other way to paint the layers in peace
No other space to breathe the dust
Because it brings me dreams of green
Those fillings between hop fields and farm lads
Toiling with their flagons over shoulder and a mean
Wage, hairy youth which sup on apples
The trees in the wind with that summer pollen
Breathing through worms and fruits of the morning
Spurned through til sunset falls atop the crest
The day done the night come
Because it brings me the righteous haze of dripping
Poison, the suckling brown bottle beauty sweating
Cold, the farm hands amid the crops caressing hands,
And beads of milky sweat on the brow, they stream
Salt shaken and mineral and pure to the lips
They press on the tongue their sheep’s eyes
Because it brings me sugar with its continual sipping
And slurping chasing the dream, taking away
Meagre earnings for meatier pleasures,
and the hanging fruit.
Butcher boy you cut it to an act
Some divine spark a mere and disgusting event
In your fearful eyes and me some stunted stag,
The gore of your knife-wielding hunter
Splat on my little horns, mocking us both
Computers do strange things to your art
You can’t rip a file
I mean you can rip it off a cd apparently
But you can’t tear it in half – you have to give it somebody
Once something’s written down you can’t hide from the reality
You either accept it or delete all knowledge of its existence
In one moment
You don’t even get the joy of trashing and burning
Does that help? Is that a good thing for, let’s say, a writer?
Maybe. But I find lots of old material I don’t want to change.
It’s interesting, sure, but I probably won’t use it again.
The ideas are in me, they always were, so why worry about
Them being lost anymore than they might already be?
This way is conducive to selling, or, better, to communication
I guess
Selling is communication’s psychotic half brother,
Probably from a different father
Causing pain with healing and vice
Versa
Well, we know all this don’t we?
(a drunk normally writes too simply for anyone)
It doesn’t matter but you didn’t come
I barely asked you to but you didn’t
You didn’t answer and you didn’t
I sat for two hours with two beers
You would disapprove
I didn’t talk but I got some good reading
Charles Bukowski going mad and Orwell down and out
Every minute you didn’t come I spent more of my soul
Every minute you suddenly arriving got more important
Now I know how Bukowski felt about horses
Big dicks and bad odds
I drowned in my two beers and departed.
i’m talking to you on the phone with the messages, you’re sending me them and I’m sleepy and in the bed and lying next to her and the sheets are up in me, the sun is coming through yellowy; outside the bed is cold inside the bed is warm
you’re talking in my inner ear with your messages and I’m sending you back, the phone is down and on the floor and in my inner eye you’re walking along this sunny afternoon street to me, you’re in her body and I know and you look at me knowingly but you don’t say why. We know it.
you walk over to me on the grass talking normally, her voice not like her, not unlike you, you sit down next to me talking the same message, there is a tree and a house, I don’t register what you’re saying but it is normal and alright
I want to say I can’t look into her eyes with you in them, look a little too long, and see the mouth, nose, brows and in those features your face looking back, I want you to know I went to sleep wet and this is me dreaming
you might be saying, I might be hearing
I’m reaching over to press down on the clit you’re wearing, soft cotton on top and pushing and you moaning, and warm overhanging in the sun, I mount you, feeding you thru her, in the grass, in the heat
in a sharp movement you get up and back into your body, all in one swift motion but not quite, like a few frames of film were missing, and you walk off, and I feel you; behind you and next to me where we shared blood and semen, a red handkerchief lying flat out as if to absorb stains
I wake up wet and look over at her, sleeping in the white sheets in the yellow light, my hair is in my eyes, I reach for the phone and drop it again, I turn over and stretch out on the mattress and on the pillows, and I rub myself in the mattress, and it hurts in my heart but tenderly and I remember how you sometimes wish you are a woman too
The secret is not to create mercilessly
But to make what other people thought
They only knew privately –
When you show them something they
Felt inside and quiet and alone
It’s like a magick trick except
Instead of pulling a coin from behind
An ear it’s a heart from a chest or brain
The bloody peace thumping in your fist
That you twist and turn for them stroking
Aortas, cava, trunk with knuckles and finger
Tips so that they can see what they are feeling
So that they have their blood on paper
For eternity –
And if you don’t do this you are merely
Wallowing in your own inarticulate sorrow
I’ve got you bleeding on my heart in miniature/
An action figure temptress/ arm missing
And the paint faded/ go figure that overuse
Would wear and tear your eyes
Still bright/ electric blue sugar tracing
Coronary romance/ your slow thump
Thud/ single-fisted/ thud/ amputee desperation/
Thud/ a Haribo Fuzzbox/ eat out slowly my
Creeping angina/ these sonorific inflections/
Still coming from your fizzled sound cylinder/
I keep Alex Turner in a box in the freezer/
Crystalline watery eye discharge and shut lids/
He’s between life and death now/ when I wake him
I’ll heat slow and careful/ he always opens with
Do I wanna/ and no/ it’s you again feeding
On my heart/ diminutive parasitical love bliss/
How beautiful the worm of an idea wriggling
In that grey matter jar/ demanding pickle juice/
Of red and blood or wine and fine/ spirits or
Caffeine or legal excess heart palpitation/
Explosive thumping and DVT and hours in
Front of the blue-white light softly screaming/
And you’re gnawing something fictional I’ve/
Got to breathe I’ve/ got to get a breath above/
Your erection pushing over my eyelids/ the
Watery discharge of eyes in distressed cold
And bulging/ weary discharge of eyes/ your
Presence up and dagger thru the ribs/ your
People calm dagger up the ribs/ ceremonial sword
In the eye/ your eyes and distant memories
Of perfect protrusions in panties a vision/
I try but I can’t replicate/ I hate the way
I beg your action figure for favours/
It just moans on the string pull and
Alex Turner/ snaps in the freezer box but
I’ve got superglue in the drawer/ danger/
Flammable liquid lighters catch well on bricks
Tho/ harmful vapour may spew affects the brain
Or nervous system/ prolonged paraplegic
Exposure may result in severity/ physical injury
Glue developed for war casualities, used by jilted
Lovers/ I may have thought about you too long/
And the others also feel this that I was burnt/
Before they set me on their eyes/ and that drunken
Prize value was lost on the turn of a lightswitch
Catching fire mechanism broken and glasses
Empty everywhere/ I don’t know your hair some
Silken straw maybe on a pillow or in a hand/
How does your worm still make me want it/
In my salt shaker chilli pot I’m your gusset/
Soaking or flattery aside an accidental art class
Colour mixing stain on something lost to black
Plastic landfill/ still too much I find and Alex
Shivers with me behind the scenery/ Bill Shatner
Shaking hands with a styrofoam dino meanwhile/
A Waitsian wino dribbles on my shoulder fabric/
Reassuring soft skull/ again/ like yours/ again/
Your pop-up platform shoots gyrating sheer
fairy wings/ flying pink papers scuttle what’s
Left of me/ that’s the story I hear recounted after
The dream/ what I wake up to even as I’m culling/
And they see it in the half looks cast away seeds
To salty turf/ they feel women in the fall/
My ratio is 4:7 and the lights are down low on
North London’s streets/Ally Pally apocalyptic market
Stalls lining my liver/ each concrete step the sweetest
Prostate-touching excrement/ and a catalytic mind’s eye over
Hollywood hills/ vest open tie low jeans hanging
Off thighs a belt buckle dangler bouncing/ the night
Propositions through a young creature/ wild whites
Locked about my lumpy indecency and Strongbow-
Scented exhaust fumes/ thanks but you can fuck off/
King’s Cross unfettered stomach adoration
Replacing you/ you lost in the folds of the past’s fat/
I’ll have another pint but they’re shut and it’s three-
if-you-can-get-it-in-the-morning/ Alex-trying-to-change-
My-mind-Turner to agree with the pit of my chest/ but
I’m still getting mined by friends or at least I wish love can’t die
Can only fade/ and yawning to the mobile buzz bright mean
Screen/ I’m alright in the bed spread/ trousers falling down
Stumble through the brain strain down an alley not in the rain
And piss in a cascade.
Scag 