London Paddington Love Poem

Lean in and look left.
Can you see the two women on the buttoned-up marshmallow couch?
I can follow the gait of the waiter and the wake of the champagne stream.
Can you taste it in your coffee from this badly catered balcony?
I can burn it on my bitter palate, my scolded tongue.
Can you guess what stopped them, permitted them to celebrate?
I can tap their rhythm: slower than that personal, planet-sized pocket-watch.
Can you sense it in the circling madness of the pervading doves?
I can scratch it, dig it, gouge it from the poisonous crutch of my wings.
Can you believe the petrol-wrapped lady is the elder?
I can shoulder her sunburned toughness, her half-century chicken bones.
Can you tell her golden hairs from her greys?
I can buy her a wig with the rings on her fingers.
Can you call her starched companion her maid?
I can imitate the patronised mouth, the quiet.
Can you count their glasses?
I can drink to them.
Can you believe them?
I can worship them.
Can you write about them?
I can read to you.

I can hear the warm crackle of your chin on my temple.
I can hear your bordering snoring from my dreams.
I can hear the welcome laughter of your return.
From one hundred and thirty four miles away,
From meals and nights and stops away.

On Norway

   I don't usually write blogs like this. So many opinions clutter up the Internet and I don't expect mine to be different or even relevant. I wasn't in Norway this weekend. I am not invested or involved in any big way. I want to write this, though. So here goes.


   On Friday Norway was attacked twice, one man being apparently responsible for both of the tragedies. The number of dead is currently ninety two and they're still searching for bodies in the rubble at Oslo and in the lake at Utøya. 


   I don't know if I have the right to be, all of my Norwegian friends are thankfully safe, but I'm really fucking angry. There's something inexplicably personal about indiscriminate attacks.


   Much has been made of the suspected gunman's beliefs. Every time this kind of atrocity occurs we want to know why. We want to get as close as possible to understanding. It's only human. Before Anders Behring Breivik was arrested many discussing the tragedies on Twitter, and most notably The Sun "newspaper", made the assumption they were orchestrated by Islamic extremists. This no longer appears to be the case as Breivik is a right wing Christian. 


   It doesn't matter what people like Breivik believe. There are plenty of people who fit his profile: people who believe in Jesus, read Nineteen Eighty Four, have a Facebook account and identify as right-wingers. The difference is that Breivik is a murderer. He is a murderer before he is a Christian conservative. He is a maniac. He is a monster. The same argument applies to Islamic extremists. There are millions of Muslims who happen not to be suicide bombers. It doesn't matter if a terrorist is a Christian, a Muslim, a video gamer or whatever group we happen to fear this week. Terrorists often have strong beliefs but most people who share these beliefs express them by writing to local government, composing political songs, arguing with strangers in pubs, whatever. Most people don't go out and shoot dozens of innocent children. To connect the belief to the terrible act is dangerous to the many people who happen to fall into the same group as the monster. It's also an insult to his victims because it serves as an attempt to justify the way in which they died. There is no way to justify this. What a horrible day.

The Real Aunt Lizzie

For a bigger copy click HERE

   'Aunt Lizzy' was the first poem I posted on this blog and also one of the two published in Little Epic. It's a loose, rather morbid and arguably unfair portrayal of a real women: my paternal great great aunt. I always loved hearing my grandmother talk about Lizzie Tait (not, I've since learned, 'Lizzy' as spelled in my poem). From what I understand she was kind, stern and eccentric. She carried a long umbrella to ward off potential attackers and read tea leaves with alarming accuracy.

   I hesitated before giving my grandmother a copy of Little Epic. She's always been remarkably supportive of my writing, my poetry in particular, but I'm often reluctant to inflict my darker scribblings on her warm and summery soul, especially when the scribbling in question concerns a fondly remembered relative.
   I really needn't have worried. Gran was so delighted with the poem that she presented me with two lovely old family photographs and a short pheasant-feather cape. Lizzie used to cook for a very wealthy family who went hunting a lot. During pheasant season she was required to pluck and roast the unfortunate birds. Instead of throwing the colourful feathers away she made the cape. It's still in excellent condition. She was a very talented lady.

   I don't currently have a picture of the cape but I scanned the oldest family photograph. It shows Lizzie flanked by her two half sisters, Mary sitting down to her right and Georgina in the white dress on her left. I can't say they're eerily similar to anyone in my family still living but I do recognise the shiny dark hair and soft but robust features I share with my father's three sisters.

   Georgina sadly died very young of tuberculosis but Mary and Lizzie lived together in their old age. Mary was by all accounts very sweet and caring. My grandmother remembers her giving my grandfather quinine to cure a cough from which he was suffering. The quinine, unfortunately, made him sick and from that day on he, rather brilliantly, referred to poor Mary as 'Arsenic and Old Lace' after the play by Joseph Kesselring.

   I hope to write a better, more accurate poem about Lizzie Tait. I hope not to have red paint thrown over me when I wear her cape.

Tower Like Monsters

I’d have you undone but you dress backstage
All leather and brass but lacking a sword
Your mammoth hands breathless with gauntlets
Your mouth is hallowed but I’d rather it swore
I always joke when we can’t see each other’s faces
Chasing you, racing you, but tying up your laces.

I’d be soft as lint but your pockets are wet
I’d call you a psycho but you are a scientist
I’d offer you opium but you don’t sleep anyway
I’d dream of a pinch but you are not nearly that gentle
I’d ask you for reason but, again, you are a scientist

Question but forget this, please.
You tower like monsters.
Forget this.

Talking to the Thin Girls

I’m typing to the thin girls through alien dimensions
Their fairy world is all apples and coffee machines.
I picture their bodies winding through cyberspace.
Their sockets, their signals, their wires, their codes.

Their empty, skinny word cafe. Only typing, only byting
And hanging headless photographs in pink and white
You can see them in the shadows of the solar plexus
And hear the churning vinegar complaints of shrinking stomachs.

Smoke curls in and out of those billowing clothes:
Steam and sails never really fuelling these delicate vessels
Only hiding the secret black engines of evaporating flesh.
They admit this once behind their square, shining figureheads.

The operators work calmly, splintering fingernails on keys,
Screeching out dialtones for friends in untouched cities.
You could have seen the pills descending, stretching her.
The hospital door closed. I couldn’t slip between the hinges.

Adventures into the World of Tea

Contrary to appearences I’ve actually been working really hard on this blog. I’ve produced a lot of stuff including comic strips, illustrations and a couple more film essays. It’s exciting, cutting edge, multi-media content, you guys.

Unfortunately I don’t have the hardware with which to upload it or the software with which to edit it into something acceptable. Until I do it looks like I’ll be posting more poems from here on out.

I’d like to write a bit more about my life but nothing very much is going on. My attempt at giving up Diet Coke is currently monopolising most of my time and energy. That empty, carbonated sugar surrogate has become a horrible addiction and I must attempt to replace it with green tea. If I feel thirsty or get an urge for a Diet Coke I simply make myself a green tea. Do I still want a Diet Coke? Yes? Almost certainly yes? I DAMN WELL GO AND GET ANOTHER GREEN TEA. Thankfully there are also fennel and peppermint teas in the house for emergencies.

In lieu of an interesting image let me show you my beautiful new ten sided dice. They arrived in the post this morning.

I chose that colour because it resembles that of my RP character's eyes.

I'm so cool it hurts.

No, really. It hurts.

Hold me.

The Letter O

Artists still starve
We just spend our funding
On shoes and cigars
The new poets
The rock stars
We dress to disclose those arresting letter 'o’s
The fusing of poet and muse
We refuse to be dowdy and murky
Lurking behind our lovelier work
The ‘about the author’ grey
Of the ghostly and obscure
Instead we’re desired
Graceful and starved
On foie gras and pinot noir
Every single piece inspired
By how fucking attractive we are
The bourgeois darkwave, the hipster haze
The language of young women these days