Notes composed in a Stoke-on-Trent Consultation training course.
John stole a pig, made
it a suit and released it
in a bank. Satire.
‘Mick the Drink’ was a
lollipop man. Freelance. He
worked the M7.
What’s the deal with
sad-eyed old men who never
look you in the eye?
You’re a balloon full
of poo. Surface taught and thin.
When you pop, shit flies.
“I’m the big man of
Nottingham” he screamed, as he
clothes-lined the Mayor.
I didn’t mean to jump your bones
at such a tragic hour,
but I think it was the grief
that led my bee to your flower.
Through tears I looked you up and down,
as the coffin was interred,
and I felt the grief migrating south,
I was well and truly stirred.
Hot sex at the funeral.
What a way to behave!
Rumpy-pumpy at the funeral,
sweet love by the grave.
The mourners sang hymn 2-5-4
to the organ’s plaintive sound,
our organs made their own sweet song
as they began to pound.
I heard the vicar mumbling,
I think he mentioned dust.
But the only sound that I could hear
was the sermon of our lust.
Hot sex at the funeral.
What a way to behave!
A roll-around on holy ground,
sweet love by the grave.
For hours we frotted merrily,
in a blur of shafts and flaps.
In the nave, the chancel, the sanctuary,
I even took you up the apse.
But, perhaps it was a bad idea,
that I gave the eulogy,
in front of the gathered mourners as
you gave head to me.
Hot sex at the funeral.
What a way to behave!
How’s-your-father at the funeral,
beside your father’s grave.
In the beginning, all is simple.
A white walled, sun-dappled room.
Through an open window
breeze-borne birdsong tickles tiny ears.
Doll hands hunt hungry for texture
as you coo and burble with an untutored tongue,
smiling at smiles.
At first the world is knowable.
Great swathes of black on the map –
realms uncharted and unregarded –
shrink down your world to the
happy here and now.
Your purpose is clear, your victories abundant,
your pleasures simple, your griefs few and fleeting.
Existence is it’s own reward.
Existence is enchantment,
the world a playground for your ego.
Curious, cosy, you thrill at the
quiddity of all things,
as the world reveals her many mysteries.
But soon, too soon, yet slow enough,
the seams of your bubble start to fray and loosen.
And the world leaks in.
A steady trickle at first,
like a scene in a film where a
trapped man sees water gushing in to his
impromptu, soon-to-be tomb.
The bubble fills with
expectations and restrictions,
judgements, chores, vices and addictions.
Tasks and tensions, relationships and regrets,
failures and false steps that you cannot forget.
Commitments, decisions, fears tumble in,
crashing and churning, the world dinning in.
Contracts and contacts and emails and bills,
ailments and deadlines and upsets and spills.
Disappointments, disputes and deaths follow on,
too soon your enchanted little bubble is gone.
Little by little, slowly but surely,
like the Mad Hatter poisoned
by the thing he loves,
we succumb.
We are adrift
and struggling to float.
Treading water, exhausted,
drowning, not waving,
a sad thought haunts us.
That all we really want
is the safety and certainty,
the sanctuary of the beginning,
in a white walled, sun-dappled room
of sensation and smiles,
and spoonfed simplicity.
Friday evening. Whiteout.
Snow falls silently,
softly in ghostly murmuration.
A restless earth blanketed,
metamorphosed and miniaturised to a mewling baby,
acquiescing to the serenity of sleep.
Let the sky fall,
the working week is over,
and I hygge at the aphelion
from Monday 9am.
The curse of Adam,
the venue of all my failures,
trapped in the repetition of an Escher,
tiring with the tedium of Sisyphus.
But here, my daughter and I
spin a delicious nonsense of
animals and magic and poo and bum talk
that would make Rabelais smile.
We are safe, and delighted,
we are enchanted, and transported.
And the many tiny tortures
of the working week,
that pursue me in thought –
wild dogs tracking prey to exhaustion –
suddenly fade. Give up the chase.
The universe is singing,
and my soul springs to life on a great dancefloor,
galvanised by the lovely electricity of
my daughter’s lambent laugh.
Fear whips through,
a nuclear wind
dissolving resolve
on contact.
Dread seeps in,
rising black water
drowning pleasure
as it sleeps.
I nod, I grin,
I do what I can
to pass muster and time.
I awake, I begin,
cattle-prodding my
body on down the line.
The mechanism creaks as it chews itself up.
The orchestra grates as the conductor fucks up.
I cannot think, I am no fun.
I want to drink, I long to run.
It comes and goes, it’s dull and drear
and I wish I was anywhere but here.
An ending
A tumour excised.
Moon orbiting home planet,
drifts off into space.
CV
‘You list ‘fisting’ as
a hobby?’. His forte was
angling, not proofing.
The one
True love: it is the
instant assent to the sprung
ask: ‘sniff my finger’.
Celebrity
We’re all just over-
engineered apes scanning for
the next hot alpha.
Purpose
Alone, I’m just a
cog. But with you, I help turn
a magic machine.
Nice try
“I guess this is good-
bye then”. She nodded and gave
him his sheath receipt.
Too literal, mate
“What do you see when
you look in my eyes?” she wept.
Easy. “A small me”.
First Date
Pointing at the rough
sleeper “that’s awful”. Thinking
about her nice bum.
Needs must
To get through each day,
Nigel laced his big walrus
moustache with cocaine.
Peter, what is this?
Shit! Mum’s keys in the
door, and the ejaculate
unaccounted for.
Moon
Earth child, scent of
gunpowder. Each year ebbs
four centimetres.
Tightarse
Her face fell. “We don’t
have a sieve” he beamed. Yeah, he
won’t make birthday two.
False alarm
“Was that John?”. He looked
over the side of the bridge.
Yawned. “No, John can swim”.
Three fucking hours of work
The house was still a
tip. Disconsolate, it dawned
that he’d dreamt the clean.
It’s ok
At the last, before
oblivion claimed her, the
terror just…vanished.
Whoops
The pen that signed the
Pogrom order was made by
a pacifist. Ha?
Vending invisible choc
Skipped lunch. 4pm.
Poked 4-4, Mars Bars 4-5.
Empty spring turns. Fuck.
Coming to the crunch
Our love, a snail
under boot in the gloaming.
Crushed by want of care.
Sad bastard
‘I’m shit at my job’
he thought, every day until
he just…really was.
Yahoo
When Claire put ketchup
on Steve’s risotto, he upped
and moved to Denmark.
Everything’s relative
‘Oh yeah’ he snarled back.
‘Well maybe you’ve just got a
massive twat!’ Fair point.
Once upon a moment
We’ve all got a book
in us. If just a short shit
one about writer’s block.
Death of a glamour model
Obituary
short and sweet. Simply read “Thanks
for the mammaries”.
I want to be the home that you return to,
I want to be the coat that keeps you snug,
I want to be the picture at your bedside,
I want to be the cocoa in your mug.
I want to be the music that you dance to,
I want to be the glimmer in your eye,
I want to be the thought that makes you smile,
I want to be the birdsong in your sky.
I want you to be happy when I’m near you,
I want you to be less so when I’m not,
I want you to be hopeful for the future,
I want the past to fade and be forgot.
I want to not now have to want you,
‘cos wanting you means that I am without,
I want to fall into a space-time wormhole,
‘cos someworld else
we’re hand-in-hand
and going out.
Bowels of Hell
He lost respect for
Steve. That stench in the work loo.
Yes, Steve’s shoes alright.
Sofa cushion lucky dip
Eating, she dropped a
bit. Retrieved without looking.
In mouth. Eurgh. Different.
Canine Waste Executive
His job was to put
little warning flags in dog
shit. Three A levels…
Existential Skittles
By the twelfth leisure
centre vending machine lunch,
he just felt nothing.
Prick Dundee
“Call that a penis?”
said the Urologist, in
a shit Oz accent.
mrkingsbo 